107 réponses à ce sujet

[fchopin]

Both my archer rogue and dw rogue use more dex and less cun.

I also put a few points in to willpower as it is very important to have momentum and dual striking on all the time for dw rogues + duelling.



I tried the cun road for dw and archer rogues and was not happy with the results, i need my character to be able to take punishment and also be able to take anyone on whatever the situation and a dex character does a very good job.

[fantasypisces]

I'm feeling similar to you fchopin (how can you not like Chopin!!?!? hehe) I currently have 40 Dex, and 40 Cunning at 13. I would say 80% of the rest of my points are going into Dex, and 20% into willpower because (like I said before) with sustainables up, one AoS and I am out of stamina.

[chessnut0]

My PC is an archer with ranger/bard specializations. She is at level 24 and can certainly contribute her fair share to party damage. I raised her strength to 20 so she can wear dragonskin armor and all remaining points were split evenly between dex for the bow/defence and cunning for the bard, which are each about 60 now. She has a dragonbone longbow with rapid aim, so she can fire off arrows at almost the same speed that the fighters can hit. And her Arrow of Slaying can do more damage than any talent or spell of any other party member. Sometimes she can kill a distant enemy before the warriors can get to it. I have also noticed that while singing Song of Courage the other party members make critical hits noticeably more often.



IMHO this character build is great. I summon a pet then sing a tune (in that order so the song affects the pet), and stand back and pelt enemies with arrows. If I know there is a boss around I will save Arrow of Slaying for him, otherwise I use it on a mage.



For my next playthorough I intend to be a mage, but I will have Liliana with me and make her into the same archer/bard/ranger build.

[sinosleep]

Sledge454 wrote...

Does rapid aim on the equipment prevent crits like the talent?

No it doesn't, which is why it's so crucial to pick up a rapid aim bow, essentially it's like getting the rapid shot talent for free, and on top of that it DOESN'T prevent crits.

bas273 wrote...
And you should always have Rapid Aim active of course [smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/wink.png[/smilie]

I have to disagree there.

Amioran wrote...

Instead of taking seconds that just
makes for silly testings it's much better to see the toolset for judge
how mechanics of Rapid Shot and Rapid Aim works:

Crossbows have a default aim of 0.8
Longbows have a defaul aim of 0.3
Shortbows have a default aim of 0.2

Rapid Aim reduces the time to aim of 0.3
Rapid Shot reduces the time to aim of -0.05 for every point of dexterity after 10, to a max of -1 (-2 with Master Archer).

To
summarize: the ranged weapon that benefits the most for rapid aim/rapid
shot is the crossbow, since aim cannot go lower than 0.0. This mean
that for example a Longbow with Rapid Aim doesn't get any benefit at
all from Rapid Shot.

There is a cap on weapon speed, so on any bow that already has rapid aim, rapid shot is a useless talent. I don't use aim OR rapid shot because in my opinion neither of them are worth it. Aim takes so long to shoot that the crit benefit is outdone by a bow with rapid aim on that doesn't crit as often but shoots twice as fast. Rapid shot prevents crits and provides no benefit on a bow that already has rapid aim on it any way. The only sustainable I use on archers is song of courage. I don't think the pet is worth the stamina cost, and I don't think any of the archer specific sustainables are worth it either. I'd rather have the stamina available to get off an AoS and a few other talents per fight than any of the other benefits sustainables can provide.

Modifié par sinosleep, 02 janvier 2010 - 09:16 .

[DragonRageGT]

Moment of truth for me. All 3 chars right at Sloth's Sanct. The Rogue/Archer didn't have that much trouble getting there as I antecipated specially because I got him on lvl 3 Stealth and with the available morphs there, it went quite easy.



Now, one thing is making my head itching... Pinning Shot. When it's on me it lasts a long time. When I call the shot on a target, it's over before my next shot! Is it a NM thing or what?

[sinosleep]

RageGT wrote...

Moment of truth for me. All 3 chars right at Sloth's Sanct. The Rogue/Archer didn't have that much trouble getting there as I antecipated specially because I got him on lvl 3 Stealth and with the available morphs there, it went quite easy.

Now, one thing is making my head itching... Pinning Shot. When it's on me it lasts a long time. When I call the shot on a target, it's over before my next shot! Is it a NM thing or what?

This confused me a bit when I first started my archer as well, then I realized that you lose the effect on the next hit. So the way to use it is to switch targets as soon as you use pinning shot. It will then hold the pinned target for the same amount of time as you get held. You just have to make sure everyone stays off of that target since the holding effect goes away on the next hit.

[fantasypisces]

sinosleep wrote...

RageGT wrote...

Moment of truth for me. All 3 chars right at Sloth's Sanct. The Rogue/Archer didn't have that much trouble getting there as I antecipated specially because I got him on lvl 3 Stealth and with the available morphs there, it went quite easy.

Now, one thing is making my head itching... Pinning Shot. When it's on me it lasts a long time. When I call the shot on a target, it's over before my next shot! Is it a NM thing or what?

This confused me a bit when I first started my archer as well, then I realized that you lose the effect on the next hit. So the way to use it is to switch targets as soon as you use pinning shot. It will then hold the pinned target for the same amount of time as you get held. You just have to make sure everyone stays off of that target since the holding effect goes away on the next hit.

Yeah, another gripe of mine about archery, one of our CC's break on damage. If something is pinned to the ground, they cease being pinned if I put a shot through their chest?

Anyway, usually what happens to me is you do the shot, then when it is 'casting' you have to switch targets. I have found if I pause right after the shot fires, my archer will shoot again at that target before switching to another.

The tactic for pinning shot is then worthless as well, because if you don't have control of the character, then they will pinning shot the target and keep shooting at it. So you can never have it as a tactic.

[fantasypisces]

Alrighty, new numbers. This is on hard difficulty (stupid emmisarries saw I was casting arrow of slaying and ran around a corner, making me move, lose stamina because I started the shot, but never fired it -- crazy smart AI).



Anyway, fighting deepstalkers.



My Archer has 42 Dex and 48 Cunning (with bonuses) using lethality. Equipped Far Song bow (11.60 damage, 8.8 armor penetration) and is hitting for 38-41 damage a shot.



Alistair has 39 Str equipped with Aodh axe (9.0 damage +1 fire, 3.5 ap) and is hitting for 46 damage (+1 fire is included in that).



Mabari has 42 str and has 2 armor penetration and +4 damage to beasts from his gear. He was hitting for 45-50.



With a total score of 90 (42 dex, 48 cunning) my average modifier would then be 45, which is higher than the modifiers for the other two, and using a higher damage weapon, with more armor penetration and the damage is anywhere from 7-4 less per hit (and everything is attacking at relatively the same speed).



That seems off.



The last gripe is I having to split dex and str(cun) for longbow damage, which makes it harder to get a good modifier as opposed to a class that will just pump str.

[NinjaWJ]

but i thought people usually pump everyhting into cunning for bards or everything into dex for everything else

[sinosleep]

delete

Modifié par sinosleep, 03 janvier 2010 - 04:51 .

[sinosleep]

NinjaWJ wrote...

but i thought people usually pump everyhting into cunning for bards or everything into dex for everything else

I'm of the opinion that a mix is better.

At lvl 17 my last rogue archer was wearing Felon's coat, silverhammer's tackmasters, red jenny's seekers, the long sight, keys to the city, festival ring, using the farsong bow. She had 80 dex and 40 cun with the attribute bonuses from all the equipment taken into account. Regular hits did around 45 damage, but I crit early and often for somewhere in the range of 70-80. Arrow of slaying varied from 250-500. I had done 40% of party damage, and had an 81% hitrate.

I chose to go with a dex build because from what I gathered from the big archery thread the difference between say a 30 point boost to dex and a 30 point boost to cun was far more beneficial if you put it into the dex. The cun modifier on song of courage is so small that it's easily out done by the attack rating provided by dex (keep in mind I still run the song cause the boost from 40 cunning is still nice) and with a dex build you also don't have to rely on other party member's buffs (which I have ALWAYS loathed doing). The other reason I went with dex is that a lot of people say that an advantage of a cunning build is all the points you save from lock picking and coercion. Well, if you don't put any points into cunning or coersion, even if you put every last point into cunning you ARE going to fail some early persuasion checks that I don't like missing. For instance, everything in lothering and redcliffe if you do those early.

Here's the post from the how's and why of archery thread I mentioned....

Siven80 wrote...

Song of Courage: gains 3 attack (+ 10% of cunning modifier ) , 2 Damage(+5% cunning modifier), Crit chance 3% (+10% cunning modifier).

So remember a modifer is the stat -10.  So 70 cunning Song of Courage would give you 9 Attack, 5 Damage and 9% Crit.  40 Cunning would give you 6 Attack, 3.5 Damage and 6%Crit.

IMO 30 cunning differnce isnt a huge increase, whereas putting those 30 into Dex will give an extra 15 attack (0.5attack per point) while only losing 1.5 damage from the song only, 3% crit from the song and ArPen fom cunning loss.

p.s. I still used lethality because 40 cunning is still higher than 20 str no matter how you slice it.

Modifié par sinosleep, 03 janvier 2010 - 04:58 .

[fantasypisces]

sinosleep wrote...

NinjaWJ wrote...

but i thought people usually pump everyhting into cunning for bards or everything into dex for everything else

I'm of the opinion that a mix is better.

At lvl 17 my last rogue archer was wearing Felon's coat, silverhammer's tackmasters, red jenny's seekers, the long sight, keys to the city, festival ring, using the farsong bow. She had 80 dex and 40 cun with the attribute bonuses from all the equipment taken into account. Regular hits did around 45 damage, but I crit early and often for somewhere in the range of 70-80. Arrow of slaying varied from 250-500. I had done 40% of party damage, and had an 81% hitrate.

I chose to go with a dex build because from what I gathered from the big archery thread the difference between say a 30 point boost to dex and a 30 point boost to cun was far more beneficial if you put it into the dex. The cun modifier on song of courage is so small that it's easily out done by the attack rating provided by dex (keep in mind I still run the song cause the boost from 40 cunning is still nice) and with a dex build you also don't have to rely on other party member's buffs (which I have ALWAYS loathed doing). The other reason I went with dex is that a lot of people say that an advantage of a cunning build is all the points you save from lock picking and coercion. Well, if you don't put any points into cunning or coersion, even if you put every last point into cunning you ARE going to fail some early persuasion checks that I don't like missing. For instance, everything in lothering and redcliffe if you do those early.

Here's the post from the how's and why of archery thread I mentioned....

Siven80 wrote...

Song of Courage: gains 3 attack (+ 10% of cunning modifier ) , 2 Damage(+5% cunning modifier), Crit chance 3% (+10% cunning modifier).

So remember a modifer is the stat -10.  So 70 cunning Song of Courage would give you 9 Attack, 5 Damage and 9% Crit.  40 Cunning would give you 6 Attack, 3.5 Damage and 6%Crit.

IMO 30 cunning differnce isnt a huge increase, whereas putting those 30 into Dex will give an extra 15 attack (0.5attack per point) while only losing 1.5 damage from the song only, 3% crit from the song and ArPen fom cunning loss.

p.s. I still used lethality because 40 cunning is still higher than 20 str no matter how you slice it.

This was my idea for building my archer as well. I wanted 40 cunning for my songs/lockpicking/persuasion combined with lethality so I wouldn't have to rely on 20 strength. The rest is going into Dex (with a small amount, maybe, into Willpower) to improve hit-rate, armor pen. and damage.

[shree420]

fantasypisces wrote...

This was my idea for building my archer as well. I wanted 40 cunning for my songs/lockpicking/persuasion combined with lethality so I wouldn't have to rely on 20 strength. The rest is going into Dex (with a small amount, maybe, into Willpower) to improve hit-rate, armor pen. and damage.

IMO the best 'pure' archer build ( at least for the unpatched game, 1.02 brings some changes) is the dex+shortbow build. With Cunning & Longbow, your party will benefit more from the Song of Courage buff, but your archer will miss more and do less damage.

If you want an effective DPS archer, Dex+Shortbow is the way to go. It also gives you a good defense that can prolong your survivability if you draw fire. That way you don't need Lethality, and can spend talent points on the Device Mastery line that you wouldn't as a Cunning build(because of your lower cunning). Leliana has items that give her a +16 boost to cunning, but most of her points are in Dex, and she does good damage, often pulling in enemies from my tank, which then has to Taunt.

[sinosleep]

From what I saw in the big archery thread without the dex hotfix, longbows beat out shortbows for dps. When the dex hotfix was released it included some changes to archery, including making shortbows 100% dex based, which WEREN'T included in the final 1.02 patch. So from launch, until now shortbows are 50% strength 50% dex just like longbows are, which really limits their usefulness.



I've heard some people say that it's different on xbox than on PC but it seems to all be unconfirmed.

[bas273]

sinosleep wrote...

Sledge454 wrote...

Does rapid aim on the equipment prevent crits like the talent?

No it doesn't, which is why it's so crucial to pick up a rapid aim bow, essentially it's like getting the rapid shot talent for free, and on top of that it DOESN'T prevent crits.

bas273 wrote...
And you should always have Rapid Aim active of course [smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/wink.png[/smilie]

I have to disagree there.

Amioran wrote...

Instead of taking seconds that just
makes for silly testings it's much better to see the toolset for judge
how mechanics of Rapid Shot and Rapid Aim works:

Crossbows have a default aim of 0.8
Longbows have a defaul aim of 0.3
Shortbows have a default aim of 0.2

Rapid Aim reduces the time to aim of 0.3
Rapid Shot reduces the time to aim of -0.05 for every point of dexterity after 10, to a max of -1 (-2 with Master Archer).

To
summarize: the ranged weapon that benefits the most for rapid aim/rapid
shot is the crossbow, since aim cannot go lower than 0.0. This mean
that for example a Longbow with Rapid Aim doesn't get any benefit at
all from Rapid Shot.

There is a cap on weapon speed, so on any bow that already has rapid aim, rapid shot is a useless talent. I don't use aim OR rapid shot because in my opinion neither of them are worth it. Aim takes so long to shoot that the crit benefit is outdone by a bow with rapid aim on that doesn't crit as often but shoots twice as fast. Rapid shot prevents crits and provides no benefit on a bow that already has rapid aim on it any way. The only sustainable I use on archers is song of courage. I don't think the pet is worth the stamina cost, and I don't think any of the archer specific sustainables are worth it either. I'd rather have the stamina available to get off an AoS and a few other talents per fight than any of the other benefits sustainables can provide.

Hm that's weird. From my experience Rapid Aim was a noticable effect and increased the damage done by my rogue archer. Might do a little experiment now...

[DragonRageGT]

I'm a bit confused here... I know there are bows with "Rapid Aim" .. but there is no Talent for it. It is either "Rapid shot" for no critical faster fire rate or "Aim" for slower fire rate and accuracy.

Anyway, I'm still going to take my archer to the end after all. I love archers and just hope an official fix for archery is included in next patch and it is released soon too.

[sinosleep]

The stuff I quoted in relation to rapid shot, and whether or not it's worth investing in. From what the game mechanics show, a bow that has rapid aim on it, essentially provides what the rapid shot talent does for free. Not only that, but it allows or crits, so it's basically better in every way fathomable. That's why many recommend not using rapid shot, or aim, simply get a bow that has rapid aim on it and fire away.

[DragonRageGT]

sinosleep wrote...

The stuff I quoted in relation to rapid shot, and whether or not it's worth investing in. From what the game mechanics show, a bow that has rapid aim on it, essentially provides what the rapid shot talent does for free. Not only that, but it allows or crits, so it's basically better in every way fathomable. That's why many recommend not using rapid shot, or aim, simply get a bow that has rapid aim on it and fire away.

Hmm.. what about Rapid Aim bow with Aim talent? Negates or work together? =)

[sinosleep]

Nah, aim is still slow as dirt.

[shree420]

sinosleep wrote...

From what I saw in the big archery thread without the dex hotfix, longbows beat out shortbows for dps. When the dex hotfix was released it included some changes to archery, including making shortbows 100% dex based, which WEREN'T included in the final 1.02 patch. So from launch, until now shortbows are 50% strength 50% dex just like longbows are, which really limits their usefulness.

I've heard some people say that it's different on xbox than on PC but it seems to all be unconfirmed.

I checked back, and you're right - this means that on the 360 or launch PC version, a 100%-Str based longbow does more damage than a shortbow that draws its damage from 50% Str and 50% Dex, or 50% Cunning and 50% Dex with Lethality. Crap, I just respecced Leliana to a Dex based archer without Lethality; I'll need to get that hotfix then.

Of course, Dex contributes heavily to attack, which Cunning doesn't, so she does hit more often  now, if not for as much damage. She was Miss Central before her respec.

[NinjaWJ]

shree420 wrote...

sinosleep wrote...

From what I saw in the big archery thread without the dex hotfix, longbows beat out shortbows for dps. When the dex hotfix was released it included some changes to archery, including making shortbows 100% dex based, which WEREN'T included in the final 1.02 patch. So from launch, until now shortbows are 50% strength 50% dex just like longbows are, which really limits their usefulness.

I've heard some people say that it's different on xbox than on PC but it seems to all be unconfirmed.

I checked back, and you're right - this means that on the 360 or launch PC version, a 100%-Str based longbow does more damage than a shortbow that draws its damage from 50% Str and 50% Dex, or 50% Cunning and 50% Dex with Lethality. Crap, I just respecced Leliana to a Dex based archer without Lethality; I'll need to get that hotfix then.

Of course, Dex contributes heavily to attack, which Cunning doesn't, so she does hit more often  now, if not for as much damage. She was Miss Central before her respec.

The console versions don't get the hotfix. On my next playthrough i think im going for a dex based archer but im going to make Leilana   a cunning based build to utilizie song of courage and im going to compare their damage output

[sinosleep]

Most PC users aren't using the hot fix any way. The hotfix was being billed as something that would be included with patch 1.02. Since it wasn't included then most people are taking that as a statement by Bioware that they think archery is fine as is.

Modifié par sinosleep, 04 janvier 2010 - 12:24 .

[shree420]

sinosleep wrote...

Most PC users aren't using the hot fix any way. The hotfix was being billed as something that would be included with patch 1.02. Since it wasn't included then most people are taking that as a statement by Bioware that they think archery is fine as is.

Didn't Georg Zoller make the hotfix? Anyway, I would think the dex hotfix makes sense in a "real world" sense; a shortbow wouldn't need much strength, relying solely on how dexterous you were. A longbow would need both dexterity of aiming and strength for its huge draw.

[sethroskull79]

So what is it then? I am about to start a Dalish Elf Rogue Archer. I guess using a longbow. Is this based on 100% str or a 50/50 str/dex? I read every post in this thread and the Bigger Thread as well and I still don't fully understand Archery and how damage is derived. I play on 360 and I would like to know before I start to spec my Character.

[sethroskull79]

Come on anybody??? Archer Experts.