In Exile wrote...
This is a numerical game. 20 dmg consistent over 4 seconds is not as much as 100 dmg at once after 4 seconds.
And considering that there is nothing which would prevent the warrior from switching to melee once enemy reaches them and deliver the same 100 dmg at once after the same 4 seconds, i still don't see why that extra damage is worse than lack of it. You're presenting a false choice here.
The damage values you present are either intentionally or out of ignorance downplaying the effect of archery btw. Out of curiosity i gave Alistair plain tier 6 longbow. He has no archery talents whatsoever, and deals ~40 damage per shot to a target. For comparison, with equally plain tier 6 sword + shield setup he deals 30-odd damage per swing to the same target and around 80 using Overpower ability (but that ability takes an equivalent of ~2 regular attacks to animate)
If we are talking about the utility of something, I think we have to talk about an optimal build. Even the most useless abilities can be fun for a player, but that doesn't mean they aren't useless. We need some standard that isn't the highly subjective 'it's fun for me!'.
Well, if the standard on the other hand is supposed to be "if it's not the best possible then it's useless" then we can pretty much end it right here -- this sort of min-maxing black and white approach has simply too different definition of "useful" (compared to normal language) to allow an agreement.
Kiting? Never occured to me. That sounds like a functional tactic.
Yeah, i found this out very much out of necessity after an attempt to tackle things the standard way with Alistair acting like brave knight went pear shaped
But it's surprisingly decent and it allows the mage to focus on the damage more since there's rarely need to heal anyone. The bit more hectic nature also makes it more fun to me than the typical tank and spank thing, but i'll accept the mileage may vary regarding this aspect.
No, I'm not. In the Zevran encounter, the enemies on the hill (held off by traps) are archers. They are always dealing damage to you. So you can get into an archery duel with them, or you can fireball them and close. If you get hit by the trap you're incapacitated and take damage, but even if for whatever reason you aren't just paralyzing those archers with your mages or AoE knockbacks, you will steal deal more damage without range unless you've optimized range DPS, in which case you are dealing damage to each other, negating your 'taking no damage' argument.
Hmm maybe i'm just fail to explain it properly, seeing how your interpretation again misses the point i'm trying to make regarding the trapped areas. Let me try again.
* ranged approach: moderate damage dealt, moderate damage taken (from enemy archers if there actually is any)
* melee approach: high damage dealt, high damage taken (from enemy archers if there is any,
and traps)
do you see what i'm getting at now? Being able to deal more damage in melee in trap-filled area is offset by taking extra damage from these traps. In such situation, choosing ranged approach nets you comparable utility overall (with less risk the rate of incoming damage will overwhelm your ability to maintain your health) or a net gain if at least some of the enemies in the area in question actually aren't able to hit you from range themselves and have to shuffle to you, taking damage along the way.
As such, i view archery in such situation to be as useful as melee, which is in response to the original claim how there's no use for archery in DAO whatsoever. Of course, if you insist to look at it from viewpoint of "if it's not better than melee then it's useless" but then oh well, it's horses for courses.
If your enemies close in, you argued that you can get free hits on them. I pointed out that fireball knockback, as well as any other sort of AoE knockback, can prevent these enemies from moving and allow you to get superior dmg by using melee.
And to that i answered that in order to deal damage to the enemies who suffer from knockback your melee characters have to be in melee range. Since the battle begins with both parties at certain distance from each other your argument (still) fails to account for that period where your warriors are unable to damage things which are out of their reach. And which is the very period i'm talking about. Preventing the enemies from moving doesn't after all bring them right under your nose where your melee would want them.
In other words -- if you let enemy come to you while you shoot them,
then as they approach close enough deliver your knockback and unleash your melee on them, that's more damage dealt overall than in the scenario where you're (as i'm taking it) running to the enemy yourself and then doing the same knockback + damage routine.
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