19 réponses à ce sujet

[RobotXYZ]

Hi.

I presume since it requires a talent that aim is good??

But I wondered what situations I should use it?  It lowers criticals, but increases rate of fire.  Is this talent any good?  When should I use it?

I tried searching, but there are so many topics where they are asking about aiming with the camera and things like that.  Sorry if I missed an obvious post.

Thanks

[Blazomancer]

I think you confused 'Aim' with 'Rapid Shot'. 'Aim' actually increases aim time and doubles critical chance.

Aim is potentially a very powerful ability while in some cases can also reduce your DPS. Generally speaking, if you have somehow managed to counter the 1.5 seconds increase in aim time due to 'Aim' using equipments and abilities, then it's a no-brainer to have it sustained all the time. Otherwise, it's better to stick with 'Rapid Shot', especially if your equipments and party set up doesn't allow you to have a high critical chance/range.

Aim time can be reduced using equipments with the 'rapid aim' property and Shale's 'Rock Mastery'.

For more info, you might want to explore the DA wiki.

[RobotXYZ]

Thanks! I'll read up on the wiki; I didn't think of that. I just got a bow with 2% crit.

Another question is whether crossbows would be viable for Leliana building cunning. When the game was first out I think crossbows weren't that good.

[Blazomancer]

It wouldn't be viable as crossbows have 'Strength' requirements for equipping.

Crossbows can be handy at lower levels as their damage is fixed, meaning they don't scale with any attribute; they have higher AP and longer range, but are slow to fire. At higher levels, long/shortbows are far better damage dealers. So, unless you are hooked onto the aesthetic aspect, I'd stay away from them.

[cJohnOne]

Once I get a rapid aim bow I shut off rapid shot. I never use aim since it seems to take so long to shoot.

[Bhryaen]

I've been playing a rogue archer for the first time this playthrough and have had Aim on all the time for the first 20 levels, but I might switch over Rapid Shot now (probably should have earlier). Aim was great at lower levels because, although it nominally reduces DPS (it's not a very significant speed reduction), it also increases the attack bonus by a whopping +10 (and also increases crit chance and armor penetration and damage). The bane of low levels is watching your character swing or shoot over and over missing again and again- or at least for me- so Aim increased the number of times actually hitting, thus technically increasing DPS. Firing more often but missing more often isn't so great for DPS. Higher DEX and better equipment bring up attack bonuses to the point that you don't benefit from Aim so much since you'll be hitting nearly all the time anyway (except for Blocked shots).

Actually once you get the Master Archer talent you no longer are prevented from getting critical hits when using Rapid Shot... Harrumph. Could've switched to Rapid Shot way sooner... Maybe Aim might still come in handy when fighting enemies with high defense...

[Blazomancer]

Bhryaen wrote...
I've been playing a rogue archer for the first time this playthrough and
have had Aim on all the time for the first 20 levels, but I might
switch over Rapid Shot now (probably should have earlier). Aim was great
at lower levels because, although it nominally reduces DPS (it's not a
very significant speed reduction), it also increases the attack bonus by
a whopping +10 (and also increases crit chance and armor penetration
and damage). The bane of low levels is watching your character swing or
shoot over and over missing again and again- or at least for me- so Aim
increased the number of times actually hitting, thus technically
increasing DPS. Firing more often but missing more often isn't so great
for DPS. Higher DEX and better equipment bring up attack bonuses to the
point that you don't benefit from Aim so much since you'll be hitting
nearly all the time anyway (except for Blocked shots).

Actually
once you get the Master Archer talent you no longer are prevented from
getting critical hits when using Rapid Shot... Harrumph. Could've
switched to Rapid Shot way sooner... Maybe Aim might still come in handy
when fighting enemies with high defense...

Rather than switching off Aim, you can equip the Repeater Gloves which decreases aim time by 3 seconds; whether that bonus was intentional or a bug is debatable. You can also use the Sorrows of Arlathan that decreases Aim time by 1 second. Shale's Rock Mastery in the PC reduces it by 2 seconds, so that's another option.

Criticals are possible regardless of the Master Archer ability. But it doesn't apply to autoattacks. It only works with ever-crit abilities like Death Hex, Pinpoint Strikes and breaking out of stealth. Even then, the attacks have to go through a reverse critical rate check, meaning that normal hits would be criticals and criticals would be normal hits. Given the small duration of Pinpoint Strikes, I'm not quite sure if it's a good idea to have 'Rapid Shot' sustained at higher levels, especially when there are a few powerful 'Rapid Aim' bows available in the game.

[cJohnOne]

I thought they patched out the repeater gloves?

[Blazomancer]

They didn't, the modding community did.

[cJohnOne]

Hmmm my memory says otherwise but that's okay.

[Blazomancer]

You can verify it yourself if you wish.

Equip a generic longbow and shoot with Rapid Shot (with Master archery) sustained. Now equip the repeater gloves, turn on Aim and shoot. The aim time for both should be same, i.e. 0 or an attack duration of 1.6 s each.

The unofficial patch is available in DAnexus, collected in the Rules Fixpack. It changes the bonus from -3.0 to -0.3 s.

[RobotXYZ]

Thanks so much for all of this info. I have a main character dwarf rogue that uses both momentum at times and ranged so since dex I already hit and won't use aim (any more). I also have Leliana (locks and ranged).

Thanks!

[Bhryaen]

@RobotXYZ
You discovered sooner than I did then that having an extra rogue helps to offset whatever your own rogue skills lack- at least while they still do. I like to pickpocket during combat (requires all four levels in the skill) but as an archer it's sort of ridiculous running from enemy to enemy when your weapon allows you to fire from a distance... so I let Zevran do all the running around. ;-)

Not sure if you want this tip, but arguably the best bow in the game is available only if you don't end up rescuing a certain someone in Redcliffe. Plenty of other great bows without it though.

@Blazomancer
So Rapid Shot and Rapid Aim don't stack? Another presumption out the window... and another couple levels worth of needless stamina reduction... lol... Does one cancel the other then? Or anything "Rapid" does the same thing? My Dalish guy is definitely firing very fast.

The in-game description of Rapid Shot says, "... the archer fires more rapidly, decreasing aim duration by .3 seconds, but without any chance of inflicting regular critical hits. Master Archer allows critical hits in this mode." So if that's true, crits are out during regular auto-attacks while using Rapid Shot until you get Master Archer. I never experimented though.

[Blazomancer]

@Bhryaen - They do stack in theory. But the aim time of any bow can be visibly reduced only to a minimum of 0 s. Hence, in most cases, a bow or a piece of equipment having the 'rapid aim' property is enough to achieve this cap. 'Far Song' for example, will cancel out the 0.3 s aim time for a longbow with it's -0.3 s 'rapid aim' bonus, thereby effectively reducing aim time to 0; Turning on Rapid Shot in this instance would only be detrimental.

However, the 'Rapim Aim' property in different items provide different bonus, such as 1.0 for Sorrows of Arlathan, 0.1 for Scout's Bow, 0.5 for Dragonspite and Warden crossbow, & so on. So, you can do the math and set up as needed. But trying to go below 0 s of aim time by sacrificing other useful gear would only be a waste.

What all this essentially means is that no matter what we do, the game won't allow us to fire more than one arrow every 1.6 seconds which is supposed to be the base duration.

Are you sure about the in-game description of Rapid Shot? Because in my vanilla copy, it's shows up as something like this - "Speed wins out over power while this mode is active, as the archer fires more rapidly but without any chance of inflicting regular critical hits. Master Archer increases the rate of fire further still." I have the detailed tooltips mod enabled, and it says the same thing although gives the exact percentages.

[Bhryaen]

@Blazomancer
Ahhhh.. ha. OK, well, that clarifies much of it. Is there some way to know in-game what the exact "Rapid Aim" bonus is per item, or is this just something modders were able to determine and put in the DAwiki? Thanks for spelling all that out. I've got Far Song now, so at least I know it's maximized for aiming speed. I've yet to do much with the DLC's, so I don't have Sorrows...

The description I get starts like the one you quote, but ends like I quoted above:

"Speed wins out over power while this mode is active, as the archer fires more rapidly, decreasing aim duration by .3 seconds, but without any chance of inflicting regular critical hits. Master Archer allows critical hits in this mode."



I do have mods though only one that affects combat mechanics- Combat Tweaks- and I have to wonder if modders would actually change descriptions as well. It would explain the disparity though.

[Blazomancer]

The bonuses are not shown in-game as far as I'm aware; they can be viewed in the Toolset though.

Just checked the combat tweaks mod. The tweak for Rapid Shot regarding criticals is listed in the readme. Guess the author also changed the tooltips to match the tweaks.

[BlazingSpeed]

Bhryaen wrote...

@Blazomancer
Ahhhh.. ha. OK, well, that clarifies much of it. Is there some way to know in-game what the exact "Rapid Aim" bonus is per item, or is this just something modders were able to determine and put in the DAwiki? Thanks for spelling all that out. I've got Far Song now, so at least I know it's maximized for aiming speed. I've yet to do much with the DLC's, so I don't have Sorrows...

The description I get starts like the one you quote, but ends like I quoted above:

"Speed wins out over power while this mode is active, as the archer fires more rapidly, decreasing aim duration by .3 seconds, but without any chance of inflicting regular critical hits. Master Archer allows critical hits in this mode."



I do have mods though only one that affects combat mechanics- Combat Tweaks- and I have to wonder if modders would actually change descriptions as well. It would explain the disparity though.

Yep, Combat tweaks also allows the player to coat thier arrows with poison and for Rogue to backstab with arrows those two factors alone can make a powerful rogue archer once they stop missing of course.

Back on topic there is an article that explains why aim is no good with out the bugged repeater gloves which requires the Return to Ostagar DLC to obtain.

http://dragonage.wik...m/wiki/Talk:Aim

[Bhryaen]

Well, that'll learn me to go modding aspects of the game I'm not even familiar with yet... particularly as I don't even recall what the mod was supposed to do. Gah, I normally always eschew mods that simply make things easy-cheesy- thought at the time it was more of a game mechanics correction mod. I think I'll uninstall it now, though I know I've been enjoying the 1 sec electrocutions when my Lightning weapons hit. I wasn't even using the backstabbing archer thingy, it seems, usually firing straight on. It would explain the huge crits at times though. *sigh*

[RobotXYZ]

Cool. I missed the bow in Redcliffe.. Oh well.

[Blazomancer]

Have you been to the Brecilian forests yet? You'll find a superb longbow called Falon'Din's Reach during that questline.
If you are not going there any time soon, then in the meantime you can download the DLC bundle if you haven't already, and use the Bregan's bow. It's a very powerful shortbow, especially for archers having a high crit chance.

http://social.biowar...da2/dlc_bundle/