Poll: Bring back the Buckler

[Gaja 1311]

 

Poll: Bring back the Buckler

Hello LOTC!

As some of you may be aware, the PVP plugin we have on the server has seen some changes since the move from Aevos to Azuras, with the most notable being the removal of the buckler and berserker axe. While the latter was an interesting item that was popular with a lot of people, its removal is far less felt than the removal of the former which served as the balancing point for essentially the entire surge pvp system.

Included in this post will be a poll where you may vote on the hypothetical re-adding of the item to gauge player opinion. I would beg that you read my argument first before making your mind up, and to understand the position from which I am arguing. I hope that a pretty genuine and earnest debate can compel my desired outcome, which would be the reintroduction of the buckler.

I. A Brief Primer on Surge PVP

A little context for those unfamiliar with the pvp system in place, first:

Presently, LOTC uses the Surge plugin which turns the smithing table into the main crafting screen for the pvp-related items. There are two sets of armour, four ranged options, weapons with various effects and differences which make them effective in different situations as well as a couple of offhand items. Up until Azuras, one of these offhand items was the buckler.

Two of the ranged weapons, those being the longbow and crossbow, both deal a lot of damage compared to melee weapons and the regular shortbow, in exchange for giving you slowness and disabling your ability to melee for a few seconds after firing. Specifically, a person in iron armor takes four and a half hearts of damage from a fully charged longbow or crossbow shot, meaning it’d only take five shots to down you.

In counter to this, the buckler would upon activation give you six seconds of projectile immunity, with a ten second cooldown upon effect expiration before you can reactivate it.

This presented the fundamental push and pull of the system and allowed for a variety of applications to this one simple item–it was the main counter to the powerful ranged tools we have access to while allowing you to use it in a variety of situations. It was the minigame within the pvp system which most fights ended up revolving around.

II. How unbalanced is the longbow really?

Since the buckler has been removed, the balance of the system has been disrupted and now longbowing has become by far the most dominant strategy, presenting a low-risk high-reward tool which trumps most others in damage potential and safety in execution.

Hypothetically, one could present the shield as a viable alternative to the buckler–it blocks longbow arrows just fine. But the notion falls apart when you realise that the buckler presents a far superior tool to counter this which will be made clear in the subsequent section–for now let’s keep the focus on the longbow and how it stacks up compared to the most effective melee weapons available.

Now, for the purposes of this post, I went ahead and tested the TTK (time-to-kill) of three weapons: the longsword, the great axe and the longbow. The test was done in the most favourable possible circumstance for the melee weapons where I did not move or hit back, and the person striking me was able to land as many crits as they wished.

Despite this, the TTK results displayed quite clearly that the longbow’s DPS is simply astronomical compared to the melee options. The results are as follows:

Longbow vs Iron Armour: 4.66 seconds.
Longbow vs Netherite Armour: 7.31 seconds.
Great Axe vs Netherite Armour: 7.63 seconds.
Longsword vs Netherite Armour: 8.23 seconds.

Spoiler

 

Understanding that the TTK of longsword and great axe is not something that could be replicated or topped in a teamfight while the longbow’s most certainly could, paints a very clear picture of imbalance.

So seven shots in netherite, five in iron. All things considered, that doesn’t sound too bad, does it? At least, until you consider the fact that multiple people could shoot the same person. While it takes one person somewhere upwards of six seconds to fire off the necessary shots, the potential time goes exponentially lower when you factor in multiple people firing towards the same person.

Plenty of people can attest to the effectiveness of longbow fire supporting your friend who is in melee, where the bow shots simply do more damage than jumping in and offering melee peel. If you are accurate you can swing fights your teammate is losing while not placing yourself in harm’s way at all.

III. How does the buckler change this at all?

As I said earlier, the buckler offers a brief window of complete invulnerability to all ranged weapons which while at first glance may seem useful if limited, upon further application reveals itself an incredibly varied tool applicable for multiple gameplans which sufficiently balances out the strength of ranged weapons.

The removal of the buckler is most felt by all of us who continue to run pvp frequently on the /beta server, where teamfights have shifted drastically in favour of longbowing. Already it was an invaluable tool at range and offered a threat to careless pushing and poor use of cover, but without the threat of someone popping buckler and running you down it now serves as the ultimate weapon in pretty much all situations.

The threat of being longbowed when you enter melee has completely changed the concept of pushing and pulling, as well as kiting. While still perfectly viable as strategies, the difference lies in how you execute them–it’s simply always better to implement the longbow into the gameplan in place of melee. Fights of any scale–from 2v2 all the way up to 9v9 have begun to consist more and more of bowing whereas before there was a substantial amount of both bowing and melee.

Another effect of the buckler’s removal is the complete lack of counterplay present for the crossbow, which goes straight through shields aside from hilariously, the longbow–cementing itself further as an all-purpose weapon.

The buckler can be employed at long range to allow you to heal and kite, punishing players who are unwilling to try and finish you off in melee and wish to rely solely on their ranged tools.

It can be employed at mid range to take favourable trades by firing off javelin and shortbow shots and to set up an advantageous attack, punishing players who attempt to stand their ground and shoot at you mindlessly while you get closer.

It can be employed in melee to negate quick javelin shots or turns as well as supporting fire, opening up those players as potential targets and forcing them to put themselves at risk while peeling their teammates.
 

IV. Conclusion

I believe the buckler added a lot of variety in how different players chose to use it, while punishing those who mistimed their bucklers and rewarding the ones who put it to good use. I firmly believe that its reimplementation would be supremely beneficial and well received by all the people who actively engage in PVP, whether they are considered ‘pvpers’ or not.

Hopefully you all enjoyed reading this somewhat deep dive into the efficacy of the longbow and the reasoning I present for why the buckler is such an effective counterbalance to the strength of ranged weapons.

 

 

Gaja

[Random 1690]

I voted no because I'm an opp

[KBR 2046]

Reserved for more clips and my opinion when I return from Krugsmas party

[pkdon 1977]

bring back buckler i miss using my melee weapon

[MailC3p 2403]

I much prefer my crossbow work 100% of the time

[VoidDimensions 280]

I WANT BOTH BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

on a serious note,
I fully agree buckler was great for balance, the longbow is strong, it should be you get weakness for it but the buckler ALLOWED you to PUSH while they had the weakness, normal shields DO NOT ALLOW any sort of push, they slow you down 

also why did the staff remove /pvp, it was great for hosting team fights and /beta is a mess and pretty sucky terrain for team fight training 

Edited December 20, 2025 by VoidDimensions

[truelarper 593]

bring it back, it was fun

[LobsterLarry 1514]

i like the buckler but it would just be better to nerf the longbow.

[Gaja 1311]

1 minute ago, LobsterLarry said:

i like the buckler but it would just be better to nerf the longbow.

 

these are not mutually exclusive!

[Cheezboi9 618]

So remove the longbow?
 

Spoiler

This is ragebait. Take a deep breath and enjoy your holidays :)

 

[monkeypoacher 8055]

nah bows being OP is good. gives noobs with bad apm something to do in PVP

[Gaja 1311]

Just now, monkeypoacher said:

nah bows being OP is good. gives noobs with bad apm something to do in PVP

bows are still very good with buckler in. the time spent bowing and meleeing is just far more evened out compared to now!

[Kardika 1057]

buckler is too op and unrealistic, keep it gone!

[sam33497 7356]

7 minutes ago, Cheezboi9 said:

So remove the longbow?

To mitigate the problems described in this post you would need to remove longbow, crossbow, and probably javelin, reinstating a tool that allows counterplay but keeps ranged strong (which is pretty good indeed so that melee clickers dont completely dominate) is the best choice in my opinion. I think buckler was one of the best parts of the surge kit.

 

For those who desire the longbow spam, see this as a way to avoid an overreaction nerf in the future...

 

the main problem is that the tradeoff the longbow is supposed to have by giving you weakness doesn't exist because you aren't actually at a disadvantage in melee once you've peppered your enemy on approach, so the buckler letting you safely close distance makes the tradeoff/balance of it real

[wolfdwg 2677]

-1 lemme kill u nubs from horse back and shortbow spam