It seems like archers don't benefit from any of the rogue classes, I haven't seen many good bows in the game, they don't get any cool death animations.
has anyone made an archer and beat the game with that they really enjoyed? It doesn't seem like a practical or stylistic choice.
Opinions?
Do archers suck?
Débuté par
Madax132
, juil. 28 2010 08:22
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#2
Posté 28 juillet 2010 - 08:40
DWSmiley
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I like them in the beginning, when a pinning or shattering shot can make a difference. But dual weapon rogues become a lot of fun with stuns and backstabs. Archers just keep plinking away...And no death animations definitely sucks.
#3
Posté 28 juillet 2010 - 08:43
Madax132
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DWSmiley wrote...
I like them in the beginning, when a pinning or shattering shot can make a difference. But dual weapon rogues become a lot of fun with stuns and backstabs. Archers just keep plinking away...And no death animations definitely sucks.
Yeah I'm fond of two handed myself, nothing like seeing one guy swing a sword and have a whole mob of guys go flying back at the same time or seeing a guy get knocked into the air by a death animation.
Sword and shield has some nice ones two like the one where you stab the guy then smack him off your sword with the shield.
#4
Posté 28 juillet 2010 - 09:03
RobRam10
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Well archers only get powerful when they have Far Song and Arrow of Slaying.
In Awakening they're really OP.
In Awakening they're really OP.
Modifié par RobRam10, 28 juillet 2010 - 09:04 .
#5
Posté 28 juillet 2010 - 09:18
Madax132
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RobRam10 wrote...
Well archers only get powerful when they have Far Song and Arrow of Slaying.
In Awakening they're really OP.
I don't know about that. Each weapon class seems to have it;s own OP things
sword and shield has juggernaut
dual weild now has some really insane one vs one poential with enending flurry
two handed's crowd control now rivals a mages
as for archer accuracy is definently a nice bonus especially if your a dex archer but many people pump cunning and get lethality so I dunno.
arrow time is also very good as long as the tank keeps the elites attention and just further benefits the archers ability of not being hit.
if you have no friendly fire both activated atacks are very nice and if you do rain of arrows seems pretty wicked against archer cluster being that they will be about the only enemies able to hit you if you're far back enough
the way I see it all of these weapon choices have gotten some wicked stuff.
#6
Posté 28 juillet 2010 - 09:26
soteria
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I'm not a fan of cunning archers. The minor benefits you get from Song of Courage don't outweigh the low attack rating--and archers already miss enough at low levels. None of the other talents that make cunning good for backstabbing apply to bows.
#7
Guest_follis2_*
Posté 28 juillet 2010 - 10:02
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I've done a couple of archer playthroughs. As I've mentioned in a couple of other threads I've also tried an all archer party. My experiences are a bit mixed.
Since I'm on console I've made my rogues into cunning archers since dex is bugged. They get high armor penetration, but without Aim the hit rate sucks. (Note however that this also goes for warriors with longbows. They have a hit rate just above 70 % and a lot less armor penetration.) With Aim my PC rogue has a hit rate of 87 % on level 16, which is not that bad. However, I have a helm and a bow that has rapid aim so that the speed of fire is acceptable. Leliana and Zevran ,however, struggle to get above 60 % without any sustainables (Rapid fire, Aim). Therefore, since their hit rate is pretty low anyway, I let them use Rapid fire and anything else that gives Rapid aim (like Dalish longbows). This gives them a decent dps after all, but not anything very impressive.
After a while archers do get some very useful skills like Scattershot and Arrow of Slaying, so they can be decisive in some battles. In battles where my party can avoid too much close combat and where it's possible to concentrate fire, it is amazing and great fun to see how a team of archers can keep enemies at bay and take them down pretty fast. An orange ogre can be taken down within 10-15 secs, for instance. A revenant can go down pretty fast too with constant fire from 4 archers..
The biggest problem however is that it is difficult to raise Ranged Critical Chance. Even with two cun based rogues using Song of Courage at the same time at level 16, the Ranged Critical Chance is not higher than 15 %. As I can recall, Rose's Thorn alone has 30 % melee critical chance (if I'm not totally wrong). So for me that's where the real huge difference in dps is between a dw rogue and an archer rogue.
Another downside is of course that there are no enchantable bows and few bows with special abilities. My favourite is Falon's Din, but I haven't tried Far Song since I always rescue Owen's daughter.. And arrows with special abilities are relatively scarce and pretty useless. Fire arrows give a bonus of +1 damage...
So to use a metaphor from soccer/football, an archer is not a striker who scores the goals and gets all the praise. An archer is more like a defensive midfielder who does the dirty work so that others can shine. But sometimes I actually prefer letting my PC have a bit more withdrawn role in the party.
Since I'm on console I've made my rogues into cunning archers since dex is bugged. They get high armor penetration, but without Aim the hit rate sucks. (Note however that this also goes for warriors with longbows. They have a hit rate just above 70 % and a lot less armor penetration.) With Aim my PC rogue has a hit rate of 87 % on level 16, which is not that bad. However, I have a helm and a bow that has rapid aim so that the speed of fire is acceptable. Leliana and Zevran ,however, struggle to get above 60 % without any sustainables (Rapid fire, Aim). Therefore, since their hit rate is pretty low anyway, I let them use Rapid fire and anything else that gives Rapid aim (like Dalish longbows). This gives them a decent dps after all, but not anything very impressive.
After a while archers do get some very useful skills like Scattershot and Arrow of Slaying, so they can be decisive in some battles. In battles where my party can avoid too much close combat and where it's possible to concentrate fire, it is amazing and great fun to see how a team of archers can keep enemies at bay and take them down pretty fast. An orange ogre can be taken down within 10-15 secs, for instance. A revenant can go down pretty fast too with constant fire from 4 archers..
The biggest problem however is that it is difficult to raise Ranged Critical Chance. Even with two cun based rogues using Song of Courage at the same time at level 16, the Ranged Critical Chance is not higher than 15 %. As I can recall, Rose's Thorn alone has 30 % melee critical chance (if I'm not totally wrong). So for me that's where the real huge difference in dps is between a dw rogue and an archer rogue.
Another downside is of course that there are no enchantable bows and few bows with special abilities. My favourite is Falon's Din, but I haven't tried Far Song since I always rescue Owen's daughter.. And arrows with special abilities are relatively scarce and pretty useless. Fire arrows give a bonus of +1 damage...
So to use a metaphor from soccer/football, an archer is not a striker who scores the goals and gets all the praise. An archer is more like a defensive midfielder who does the dirty work so that others can shine. But sometimes I actually prefer letting my PC have a bit more withdrawn role in the party.
#8
Posté 29 juillet 2010 - 12:40
DWSmiley
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Swap one of your archers for Shale and rock mastery. Added bonus - earthen grasp is fantastic crowd control.follis2 wrote...
The biggest problem however is that it is difficult to raise Ranged Critical Chance. Even with two cun based rogues using Song of Courage at the same time at level 16, the Ranged Critical Chance is not higher than 15 %.
#9
Posté 29 juillet 2010 - 01:05
balmung03
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It may be due to the fact that I'm running the vanilla game on 360, but whenever I activate rock mastery on Shale, I see my archer PC pull back the bowstring, and then wait about 5-7 seconds before letting the arrow go. Talents work normally though, no extra 'aim' required. I'm using Far Song for the rapid aim, but I doubt that plus rock mastery would cause attack speed to hit the glitch and go down. I've hit this in my first archer rogue playthough, and as a result have been using Shale as a semi-tank with stoneheart instead, even though his rock mastery skills are so much better.
#10
Guest_follis2_*
Posté 29 juillet 2010 - 05:48
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Yes, I've actually experienced the same with using Shale as an archer buffer. It seems to slow the archer down. I was wondering if it was the same effect as in rock salve.
@DWsmiley: Yes, my all archer party is by no means a wise tactical choice. Dropping one of them and have a tank would have been much better. Trying an all archer party was purely for the experiment and fun.
@DWsmiley: Yes, my all archer party is by no means a wise tactical choice. Dropping one of them and have a tank would have been much better. Trying an all archer party was purely for the experiment and fun.
#11
Posté 29 juillet 2010 - 06:56
Elhanan
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I have played a few Rogue archers, and most if not all of them have 38+ STR, wear heavy armor, skip Lethality tier, and still gain frequent 3 digit dmg numbers; some even 500+. Generally a single Rapid Aim item is in the mix, and I discovered Stealth can augment this class more than expected. Maybe because I like to lead the party from the rear guard position anyway makes this one a bit more comfortable anyway.
#12
Posté 29 juillet 2010 - 11:17
DWSmiley
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Reason #73 why I'm glad I'm playing the pc version.balmung03 wrote...
It may be due to the fact that I'm running the vanilla game on 360, but whenever I activate rock mastery on Shale, I see my archer PC pull back the bowstring, and then wait about 5-7 seconds before letting the arrow go.
@follis - Yes, I like to mix up my groups, too. I was just suggesting Shale to boost critical chance. I've toyed with the idea of 3 ranger archers + Dog. The four animals charge in while the bipeds pincushion the enemy...
#13
Posté 29 juillet 2010 - 01:24
Siven80
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Early game as a rogue its better to dual wield imo. Simply because of backstabs and flanking bonus to attack.
Archers only come good in the game at levels 12+ imo. Then you should have a good enough attack rating to not miss much.
I prefer Dex to cunning for my rogue archers too. Why? Attack rating from Dex is much better than what you'd get from cunning and Song of courage. Yes Cunning will do SLIGHTLY more dmg, but if you keep missing what good is it?
The main problem with archer though is it has very few good abilities too use, and they take 1.5secs to aim and shoot them. With a few rapid aim items they are good autoshot charcters tho with situational use of Slaying arrow and shattering shot.
Most of the ime i dont even take melee archer for a rogue archer as i find dirty fighting ability and backstabs to be preferable to archery at close range.
Though in DAA its archery all the way with Accuracy.
Archers only come good in the game at levels 12+ imo. Then you should have a good enough attack rating to not miss much.
I prefer Dex to cunning for my rogue archers too. Why? Attack rating from Dex is much better than what you'd get from cunning and Song of courage. Yes Cunning will do SLIGHTLY more dmg, but if you keep missing what good is it?
The main problem with archer though is it has very few good abilities too use, and they take 1.5secs to aim and shoot them. With a few rapid aim items they are good autoshot charcters tho with situational use of Slaying arrow and shattering shot.
Most of the ime i dont even take melee archer for a rogue archer as i find dirty fighting ability and backstabs to be preferable to archery at close range.
Though in DAA its archery all the way with Accuracy.
#14
Posté 29 juillet 2010 - 05:10
beancounter501
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^ I kind of like using archery more in the lower levels. Especially for Rogues, since they are extremely squishy. Plus, you normally do not have Coup or Riptose or a ton of high dmg runes so the difference in dmg is a lot lower.
Late game, backstab Rogues blows in Archer Rogue out of the water.
But if you are going Archer Rogue, you should be picking up Melee Archer and Aim. Once you get some Rapid shot gear to offset the Aim penality. Aim doubles your crit rate, which is the only real way to boost dmg as an archer.
Late game, backstab Rogues blows in Archer Rogue out of the water.
But if you are going Archer Rogue, you should be picking up Melee Archer and Aim. Once you get some Rapid shot gear to offset the Aim penality. Aim doubles your crit rate, which is the only real way to boost dmg as an archer.
#15
Posté 30 juillet 2010 - 02:50
TentacoolKing
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Playing on my Dwarven Noble save I tend to use archery as a supplement, let your big hitters rush in (Sten+Alistair for me) whilst you stay back with your mage and get off a couple of good hits, using Pinning Shot is effect early on. Then switch weapon sets and rush in to aid the attack. However, archery can be effective in situations where large amounts of enemies are in the next room/area, I find that by carefully positioning your party by the doorway and hitting the hold command whilst firing on a single enemy can draw them out for an easy kill, this works well if you can get each enemy to come out in single file thus avoiding a major clash or even better, laying traps and firing with archery to get an enemy's attention has worked well for me in the past. Back to my original point, archery for the most part is a nice supplement for dealing early damage but as soon as you've fired two shots switch to your melee weapons and get stuck in!
#16
Posté 30 juillet 2010 - 03:32
balmung03
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archer + mage = set up storm of the century and then scattershot them to keep them in the storm longer.
Archer seems more like a "backup and support" role, but it works very well.
Archer seems more like a "backup and support" role, but it works very well.
#17
Guest_follis2_*
Posté 30 juillet 2010 - 05:15
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I've noticed something strange about ranged critical chance. I have a suspicion that the indicator might be bugged (on xbox at least). Sometimes when I check, the number suddenly spikes and then later goes down again for no reason.
#18
Posté 31 juillet 2010 - 08:47
Matroska
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Can someone go into more detail about this, please?follis2 wrote...
Since I'm on console I've made my rogues into cunning archers since dex is bugged.
#19
Guest_follis2_*
Posté 31 juillet 2010 - 08:59
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Damage from bows and daggers are supposed to be based 50 % on strength and 50 % on dexterity. However, on console it is only based on strength. To be an effective rogue you therefoer have to get Lethality which replaces strength with cunning and pump cunning. You could of course be a strength based rogue, but with cunning you get extra bonus since cunning also increases talents like Deft hands, Coercion, Song of Courage and Stealing.
Modifié par follis2, 31 juillet 2010 - 09:03 .
#20
Posté 31 juillet 2010 - 02:55
balmung03
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Just curious, the DA wiki says that on consoles the breakdown is 30% from each of strength and dexterity, instead of the 50% each that PC users get. When exactly was it changed to purely strength, or is the wiki wrong and even the vanilla game is pure strength archery?
#21
Guest_follis2_*
Posté 31 juillet 2010 - 03:46
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hmm... That's what people usually say. When I calculate my stats right now: 44 dex + 75 cunning (I have Lethality) = 54.8 damage, it doesn't add up with either 0.5 + 05 or 0.3 + 0.3. (I am no mathematical genius, though, so correct me if I am wrong).
#22
Guest_follis2_*
Posté 31 juillet 2010 - 03:52
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Btw, I am using Mage's Eye which has 9.60 as base damage and "strength modifier: 1".
#23
Guest_follis2_*
Posté 31 juillet 2010 - 04:07
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Sorry for all the new posts, but the site won't let me write when I try to edit the post. But I noticed now that if I add Harvest Festival Ring which has +2 dex the damage rises to 55.5. It seems that the 0.3 is correct since damage rises by 0.7 points and a third of 2 is 0.666.
#24
Posté 31 juillet 2010 - 07:02
soteria
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The "damage" stat is adjusted for attack speed. The changes you're seeing aren't per shot... I'm not a math whiz, either, but I think that means you can't calculate the modifier based off the damage displayed.
#25
Guest_follis2_*
Posté 31 juillet 2010 - 07:45
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Ok, but I checked with daggers and removing and putting on Harvest Festival ring. the damage number did not change, so that means dex does not add to daggers.
