[InsainArcaneBirdbrain]

Alright, I don't make these too often, but something that's been bugging me for a bit is that range attacks don't benefit from flank/smite whatsoever outside of melee range. I'm almost certain this wasn't the case in the past, and personally, I think it kind of removes a large selling point of gui for primarily range attackers. To give some screenshots of what I mean (In order of rear attack at range, side attack from range, rear attack + ally at range, and finally rear attack + ally at melee):

While this isn't as big of a problem for guns, as they can operate just fine in melee (and often have high gui from scaling to back it up), bows suffer especially from this. Being STR scaling means that farshot is a pretty serious problem, even with the hit mods archer/ranger provides unless you build around 40-50 gui. Just from stats alone, this is problematic as you have to sacrifice a lot in other stats to accommodate. This combined with the fact that bows even with max closeshot talent still can't use flank at all in an advantageous way (The last image is with the full 60 flank bonus and max closeshot talent, aka, it'd be even more problematic for a non-60 scaled gui build). 

Now while I think this was a change in order to put a damper on range kiting with flank bonuses, I think it's rather unfair to just disable the bonus altogether, and only encourages the range attacker to kite even harder out of range in order to compensate. Before, I'd be encouraged to play aggressively around opponents by repositioning into flank angles, but now, I have 0 reason to not just move max distance away and take pot-shots if I'm gonna only have 20% hit odds regardless.

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My proposed change to this is to change flank so it allows range attacks to benefit from the bonuses again, but at a reduced value based on number of tiles away the person is out of one range. To throw an example number out, you could lose 10% of the flank bonus per tile outside one. What this does is encourage range attackers to be more aggressive around dodgies and reward smart positioning by giving them at least a decent amount of the bonus. 

If such a change is out of the question though, may I ask at least bows get the ability to flank? They don't scale primarily gui without mutations (which means losing enchant) unlike guns, so the amount they'd benefit is on a much smaller scale, but it'd help the awkwardness of STR bows in the current system who suffer from lack of flank, and the existence of close and farshot.

[Autumn]

I am almost certain this used to be a thing myself too, I'm interested in at least why its not working anymore.

[sadbot]

I'm all for this as well, not so much for the sake of bow users but just because a lot of the time even melee attackers that stand to benefit from flanking don't attack from the tile directly behind. I think this should apply in similar fashion to chivalry talents for the same reason.

[Snake]

Agreed, it just makes sense.

[Balor]

It was changed during the nerfs to guile requirements. Since guile was applied via position. Bows STILL technically apply guile when you are DIRECTLY behind someone, which negates the whole point as was shown before.

Allow bows and guns to benefit from guile again, even if it's at the pre GR2 values. I think it'd make the stat tax of guile for bows especially more manageable and rewarding.