164 réponses à ce sujet

[mosspit]

DWSmiley wrote...

I certainly wouldn't say archery is awesome but I wonder if it is undervalued.  An archer spends a lot less time getting into position to attack which I suspect makes the DPS calculations better than is usually taken into account.  It also helps to realize that the oft-praised arrow of slaying is a fun talent rather than an optimal attack, especially for a warrior who can't stealth.  It is better to maximize critcal hit chance.

The general consenus of archery being weak (in DAO) is not without reason. Archery is fun? Why not? It is subjective anyway.

Performance-wise for DAO, there are some issues. They take ~2secs to charge up talents so that pretty much balance out the maneuvering time. Their high tier dmg talents are stam-intensive and high cd. Scattershot is great. AoS is a showy talent where big numbers are limited to white enemies. In fact, I value archery duffs/debuffs like defensive firing and shattering shot more.

[Meliorist13]

AOS is in there so the big numbers fans can have there fetish.



My favorites are Suppressing/Defensive Fire, Critical Shot, Crippling/Shattering, and Scattershot (stun is kinda short, it seems, but I still love it)

[OneBadAssMother]

An all WARRIOR party is actually quite doable - at least in certain parts of the game. My wife on her HN playthrough for fun played as a 2hander (since I told her 2handers suck - and she wanted to prove me wrong - and has), with Sten as a 2hander, Oghren as well and Alistair... and all got spec as berserker. Was rather cute, whenever she went into battle the whole party went berserk heh. She used the party at the deep roads.

[beancounter501]

Some people like archery, but I just can not bring myself to play as an Archery character.  Just not as fun.  The slow special move is really painful.  I have tried to play an archery character several times, but I could never get into it.
So, I think I am going to go 2 Two Hands and 2 Dual welders.  Mix in Dog and Shale a couple of times to mix it up.  And who knows, I may respec a character to try out archery in the latter levels.

OneBadAssMother wrote...

An all WARRIOR party is actually quite doable - at least in certain parts of the game. My wife on her HN playthrough for fun played as a 2hander (since I told her 2handers suck - and she wanted to prove me wrong - and has), with Sten as a 2hander, Oghren as well and Alistair... and all got spec as berserker. Was rather cute, whenever she went into battle the whole party went berserk heh. She used the party at the deep roads.

That sounds like something my wife would do.   It must have been funny to see everyone go Berserker at the start of the fight!

[soteria]

mosspit wrote...

DWSmiley wrote...

I certainly wouldn't say archery is awesome but I wonder if it is undervalued.  An archer spends a lot less time getting into position to attack which I suspect makes the DPS calculations better than is usually taken into account.  It also helps to realize that the oft-praised arrow of slaying is a fun talent rather than an optimal attack, especially for a warrior who can't stealth.  It is better to maximize critcal hit chance.

The general consenus of archery being weak (in DAO) is not without reason. Archery is fun? Why not? It is subjective anyway.

Performance-wise for DAO, there are some issues. They take ~2secs to charge up talents so that pretty much balance out the maneuvering time. Their high tier dmg talents are stam-intensive and high cd. Scattershot is great. AoS is a showy talent where big numbers are limited to white enemies. In fact, I value archery duffs/debuffs like defensive firing and shattering shot more.

I agree with this.  And, you didn't even mention consumable arrows vs runes, and no poisons.

Beancounter, you could try using one of the mods that improves archery.  Proponents claim that since it enhances enemy archers as well, you're not really making the game easier.  I can't entirely agree, but if it makes archery fun for you, it's worth a shot.

[mosspit]

^ Yup i missed those out.

Another reason I can think off that makes archery *not fun* is that they have very limited animations. I mean minus sound effects and talent scrolling text appearing, one probably cant tell the difference between a AoS and an auto-atk. Melee normally have a variety of animations, even for auto-atks.

[TBastian]

How about in practice? Archery is the only type of weapon style that allows you to start attacking at the beginning of combat up until the end unless you draw aggro (which means you were actually outdamaging your melee counterparts). The problem with melee is that in major battles there will be a lot of fireworks going on around at that range (knockback/knockdown moves, random spells/disables, grabs, overwhelms, boss running around, etc). In minor battles archery works fine, allowing you to snipe annoyances that could become threats when left alone.

With a few points in willpower archery is not all that stamina-intensive since each of its skills is built for a specific purpose (knockback + armor loss, -attack penalty, slow/hold disable, etc). Arrow of Slaying, when used as a preemptive skill, does not drain much of your stamina in practice. The out-of-combat stamina regen restores almost all your stamina before the battle actually begins.

Modifié par TBastian, 13 avril 2010 - 04:32 .

[soteria]

Well, since DA lacks a multiplayer option for us to take two player-controlled characters through the whole game and compare their damage output, it's kinda hard to tell. I personally lack the discipline to make two identical playthroughs, one with an archer and one with something else, so it's hard to get exact.

[TBastian]

I'm only basing these on observations, although I'm assuming that the reason for the aggro-switching is because your archer is doing the most DPS. It happens a lot to me during boss fights (who have AoE skills to knock back melees, so the melees are often running around/repositioning).
I use Arrow of Slaying as a preemptive skill a lot though, and you do regenerate most of your stamina before the battle begins.

Modifié par TBastian, 13 avril 2010 - 05:32 .

[DWSmiley]

I pretty much stopped using special attacks and stuck with Aim + Master Archery + Repeater Gloves (and Far Song, of course), with various boosts to dex, critical and atk. So no stamina or cooldown issues. IIRC I was getting about 60 damage per hit at a quick pace. It does get a bit repetitive (no pun intended) but it was nice to be able to immediately switch to the next target or whatever seemed the biggest threat.

[mosspit]

@TBastian: In practice? Why not? Although for me I won't justify using archers because they are positioned out of harms way. Not to say it is not valid.

If its what you are saying, a few points in willpower and archery becomes not stam-intensive? Well I will say this doesn't apply solely to archery.

Modifié par mosspit, 13 avril 2010 - 05:44 .

[TBastian]

True. But they can be positioned out of harms way, free to attack while everyone else is running around. Not in battles like the random encounter with wolves, but it works against most other things.

[beancounter501]

Wow, lots of comments here about archery!  Where to begin/

@DWSmiley: 60 damage a hit is decent, and with the right gear you do have a decent attack rate.  But any warrior archer who takes two feats - Melee Archer + Aim & uses the same gear will be almost as good as your full dedicated archer for auto attacks.  So he does 50 points vs your 60. 

Plus my mage was auto attacking with his staff late game for 70 to 80 points.  Through in some hexes and he was hitting over a 100.  A mages auto attack beats an archer.  Not good.

@tbastion:  I have noticed that whoever damages a target first seems to hold the most threat.  It takes a lot of damage to have the monster switch targets.  Probably what you are seeing since the archer will usually get the first shot in.  Noticed this a lot when playing a mage and started opening with a fireball.

@soteria:  There are easier ways to compare rather then playing a full game.  Simply save the game before a zone and then play it out as one sub-class.  Then reload and respec into a different subclass and play the zone again.  I am a chronic restarter and I did that a lot in the begining.  LOL, probably why it took me so long to beat the game.  But anyways, I defintely noticed that the Warrior Archer sub class was a lot more difficult then any other warrior spec.  It was REALLY noticable in the low levels, in the areas post Lothering.  Looking at total party damage is a poor indicator because AoS adds heaps of damage to the totals against some scrub with 100 health.

@mosspit: What can I say, I hardly every disagree with you and this time is no different!

Why Archery sucks to me:
1.  Draw DMG from the average of two stats - Dex and Str.  Since the stats are average your damage will always be 1/2  of a character using a sword.  They tried to fix this with the dex hotfix, but it made the game really hard and they scrapped it
2.  SLLLOOWWW animations on special attacks.  Auto attack = boring in my book
3.  No runes/poisons or really good bows:  Really you can get Farsong right out of Lothering and that is it.  best weapon in the game for you
4.  No deathblows: Come on - add some cool animations where your archer shots three or four arrows into an Orges head.  Make it interesting.  Instead I want anyone BUT my archer to make the final kill

[mosspit]

Again I believe the ~2sec charge time possibly serve to balance out not needing for maneuvering (and thus more or less consistent dmg output). Plus to a small degree, the high cd on tier4 talents.

[mosspit]

beancounter501 wrote...
@mosspit: What can I say, I hardly every disagree with you and this time is no different!

LOL I think we disagree more often than you think but not without good reason. But as soteria has mentioned this its a pleasure agreeing and disagreeing with you. Thanks for making my day

Modifié par mosspit, 14 avril 2010 - 12:54 .

[Random70]

As long as this thread has gotten derailed, I might as well throw in my $.02 on Archery...

beancounter501 wrote...
Why Archery sucks to me:
1.  Draw DMG from the average of two stats - Dex and Str.  Since the stats are average your damage will always be 1/2  of a character using a sword.  They tried to fix this with the dex hotfix, but it made the game really hard and they scrapped it
2.  SLLLOOWWW animations on special attacks.  Auto attack = boring in my book
3.  No runes/poisons or really good bows:  Really you can get Farsong right out of Lothering and that is it.  best weapon in the game for you
4.  No deathblows: Come on - add some cool animations where your archer shots three or four arrows into an Orges head.  Make it interesting.  Instead I want anyone BUT my archer to make the final kill

All very valid points, but IMO not the most damning. In 99% of encounters the most efficient tactics for your Archer are:
1) AoS
2) Stealth button for free crit
3) Auto Attack

*ANY* high DEX or STR character can do #3 every bit as effectively as your dedicated Archer and your Rogue has #2 covered as well. RP reasons aside, there's no real point to investing all those talents in Archery.

Caveat: Repeater Gloves _do_ make the top line of Archery talents more interesting, but that really only serves to make your auto-attack stronger...

[Loc'n'lol]

Hey, Scatterspam is a great combat opener. Huge aoe damage, no FF, and a stun (albeit very short) on top ? Yes, I'll take that. It works even better if you have more than one archer in the party.

[DWSmiley]

beancounter501 wrote...

Why Archery sucks to me:
1.  Draw DMG from the average of two stats - Dex and Str.  Since the stats are average your damage will always be 1/2  of a character using a sword.  They tried to fix this with the dex hotfix, but it made the game really hard and they scrapped it
2.  SLLLOOWWW animations on special attacks.  Auto attack = boring in my book
3.  No runes/poisons or really good bows:  Really you can get Farsong right out of Lothering and that is it.  best weapon in the game for you
4.  No deathblows: Come on - add some cool animations where your archer shots three or four arrows into an Orges head.  Make it interesting.  Instead I want anyone BUT my archer to make the final kill

All true and I couldn't agree more with #4. 

I was just saying an archer would be a decent enough part of the party damage-wise but boring trumps stats anytime.  Though being weaker can be more interesting.  For instance, the Proving Grounds were more challenging for my archer warden than any other class.

[beancounter501]

How about a party of four warrior archers! 

[DWSmiley]

beancounter501 wrote...

How about a party of four warrior archers! 

Gak!

But a party of three stealthed rogue archers might be fun, with dog  + pets waiting around the corner to run in and overwhelm beasties once the arrows start flying.

[beancounter501]

DWSmiley wrote...

But a party of three stealthed rogue archers might be fun, with dog  + pets waiting around the corner to run in and overwhelm beasties once the arrows start flying.

Three ranger archers would be pretty strong.  Go zerg the Darkspawn with a 7 man party.  I have pretty much come to the conclusion that Rogue/Ranger Archer beats a Warrior Archer.

Even though I think I once argued with Soteria that the Warrior Archer was stronger. 

[soteria]

Hah! I wasn't going to say anything... the tanking was better than expected, I'll say that.

[Random70]

beancounter501 wrote...

How about a party of four warrior archers! 

Could be quite strong -  if one of them is Shale w/ Rock Mastery. Rogues would still be better w/ Stealth and 3x SoC running...

[MadDjinn]

I still try to have an archer around. I set them to always attack the lowest health enemy to ensure they pick off the last health points faster. Even a 1 health annoyance can do big damage to your stunned warrior.



Stamina is an issue, especially if rogue and Dex/Cun is your main stats being pumped. A few points into willpower cleans that up though.



One Q though: Poisons don't work on bows? Never thought it didn't so I might have been wasting a few...

[beancounter501]

For those people playing on the PC I did find this mod that makes the archery talents much more useful:

http://social.biowar...m/project/1300/

I could not find the better archery mod, either here or on the nexus.  But the above mod just simply increases the aim rate when you are using the activated talents.  It is a huge improvement, and it was actually FUN to spam talents.  Especially shatter and scatter shot!  Now I just need to modify bows to have runes and poisons.