Ballista

Ballista

Location

World versus World

Type

Siege weapon

Interact

Yes

Destructible

Yes

A ballista is a World vs World siege weapon that fires large bolts to pierce a target with a maximum range of 3,000 units and an AoE target cap of 10. It is highly effective against individual players, small groups and siege weapons, but less so against larger groups and other siege targets.

Ballistae have two primary uses. The high area damage to players of Shattering Bolt and Spread Shot makes them excellent for controlling choke points such as the entrance to the lord's room in Hills, and the high damage to siege weapons of Reinforced Shot makes them useful for destroying defensive siege on structures, or for quickly taking down an attacking enemy's siege.

Ballistae require line of sight, and can easily be blocked by the ground or by parapets on the edge of structure walls, depending on the elevation of the target. As such they will often be built on the very edge of walls, making them vulnerable to attacks from enemy players.

Usage

See also: Blueprint

• Building a ballista requires a Ballista Blueprint or an Infinite Ballista Blueprint and consumes 30  to complete.

Skills

#	Skill			Description
1	Fire		2	Fire a ballista arrow through approaching foes. Does double damage to siege weapons.
1	Improved Ballista Shot		2	Does increased damage and double damage to siege weapons. (Replaces Fire for players with rank 2 in Ballista Mastery)
1	Swift Bolt		2	Fire a faster bolt. (Replaces Fire for players with rank 3 in Ballista Mastery)
1	Sniper Bolt		2	Fire a fast bolt farther and do more damage. (Replaces Fire for players with at least rank 4 in Ballista Mastery)
2	Fire Shattering Bolt		10	Fire a ballista arrow that splinters on contact, bleeding nearby targets
2	Improved Shattering Bolt		10	Fire a ballista arrow that splinters on contact, bleeding nearby targets (Replaces Fire Shattering Bolt for players with at least rank 2 in Ballista Mastery)
2	Greater Shattering Bolt		10	Fire a bolt that splinters on contact, bleeding nearby targets. Increased damage and range. (Replaces Fire Shattering Bolt for players with rank 4 in Ballista Mastery)
2	Devastating Shattering Shot		10	Fire a bolt that splinters on contact, bleeding nearby targets. Increased range, damage, and radius. (Replaces Fire Shattering Bolt for players with rank 5 in Ballista Mastery)
3	Fire Reinforced Shot		32	Pierces. Fire a reinforced ballista bolt. Does extra damage to siege equipment.
3	Improved Reinforced Shot		40	Pierces. Does extra damage to siege equipment. Increased damage overall. (Replaces Fire Reinforced Shot for players with at least rank 2 in Ballista Mastery)
3	Greater Reinforced Shot		40	Pierces. Increased damage and range. Does extra damage to siege equipment. (Replaces Fire Reinforced Shot for players with at least rank 4 in Ballista Mastery)
4	Antiair Bolt		30	Fire an electric bouncy net at your enemy that will knock them out of the air and immobilize them temporarily. Dismounts enemies. (Available to players with at least rank 1 in Ballista Mastery)
4	Antiair Bolt		30	Fire a powerful electric bouncy net at your enemy to knock them out of the air and temporarily immobilize them. Dismounts enemies. (Replaces Antiair Bolt for players with at least rank 2 in Ballista Mastery)
4	Swift Antiair Bolt		30	Fire an electric bouncy net at your enemy that will knock them out of the air and immobilize them temporarily. Increased damage and range. (Replaces Antiair Bolt for players with at least rank 4 in Ballista Mastery)

Related world abilities

See also: Siege weapon#Related world abilities

Ballista Mastery

Upgrade	Rank	Ability	Cost
Ballista Mastery Total Cost: 60  Improve ballista skills	1	Skill: Antiair Bolt — Fires a projectile that knocks enemies out of the air and immobilizes	3
	2	Increases ballista damage by 25%	7
	3	Fires faster bolts	10
	4	Increases ballista range	15
	5	Increases Shatter Shot radius	25

• Rank 1 adds the skill Antiair Bolt which knocks enemies out of the air and immobilizes them.
• Rank 2 increases damage on all ballista skills by 25%.
• Rank 3 bolts fired by ballista skill 1 now travel faster.
• Rank 4 increases range on all ballista skills by 500.
• Rank 5 increases Shattering Bolt radius by 60.

Gallery

• 

  Basic Ballista (retired)

• 

  Superior Ballista (retired)

• 

  Ballista during Lunar New Year

• 

  Concept art of a Ballista

Version history

Patch	Changes
November 19, 2024	The siege equipment blueprint system has been simplified. Guild siege blueprints have been renamed to siege blueprints. Basic and superior siege blueprints are no longer usable. Guild ballistae became ballistae; Basic ballistae and Superior ballistae have been retired.
July 16, 2024	Alacrity can no longer be applied to players using siege equipment and will be removed from players when activating siege equipment.
January 31, 2023	Increased the health pool of all ballista variants by 33%. Increased the range of the non-upgraded version of the ballista's Reinforced Shot from 3,000 to 3,500 to make it more reliable compared to other ballista skills. The upgraded version from the rank 4 Ballista Mastery now extends the range to 4,000.
July 07, 2020	Reduced power damage to players of all skills by 20%. Damage to siege weapons is unchanged for skills 1 and 3.
August 08, 2017	Path of Fire pre-patch: Ballista's damage to siege has been increased. Ballista's Spread Shot skill has been replaced with an Antiair Bolt that shoots people out of the air and immobilizes them.
November 04, 2014	Reduced the overall size of arrow cart and ballista build sites.
May 20, 2014	Fixed a bug in which Ballista Mastery V wasn't working while operating a superior ballista.
June 25, 2013	Ballista skills now show the correct skill facts when upgraded via Ballista Mastery.
March 26, 2013	Ballista bonus damage to siege no longer has the chance to apply to players.

Notes

• The bolt has a flight time and can miss if the target moves, especially if strafing perpendicular to the shot. If other foes are in the path of the bolt, they will be hit.
• A viable strategy for defenders who expect a breach in their wall or gate is to build a ballista that is set up to fire through the expected breach. When they make their breach, they don't know what will be on the other side, and they will be grouped together. One or two bolts into the mass of them may break the charge.

Bug:

Skills 3 and 4 recharge on both a per-ballista and per-player basis. When a player uses a ballista where the skill is recharging, the player's version of the skill is set to the current recharge of the ballista's

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Siege weapons, traps, and tricks