39 réponses à ce sujet

[lessthanjake9]

Death Blow works now, as of patch 1.02. As far as I know, it replenishes stamina by 20% of the dispatched foe's total HP. The result is interesting when applied to Arrow of Slaying.

Arrow of Slaying has a base stamina usage of 80. An archer will wear light armor and if it is a warrior (which it needs to be to get death blow obviously), the character will have Powerful. This means that stamina will be around 0, making 80 about how much Arrow of Slaying would actually cost. Arrow of Slaying pretty much instantly kills a non-boss enemy when you use it, frequently doing ridiculous damage anywhere from 500-1200. It is usually overkill. The best way to use it, then, is to use it against a yellow colored enemy. These enemies typically have around 400 hp. If they DO have 400 HP, an Arrow of Slaying would kill it and you would gain 20% of its health back in stamina. 20% of 400 is 80, which is the cost of Arrow of Slaying. Thus Arrow of Slaying has replenished its own stamina, allowing you to instantly spam Scattershot, Critical Shot, Shattering Shot etc etc, which is normally hard to do after an Arrow of Slaying because archers typically have low willpower and many times take up a lot of their limited stamina with sustainables.

Thus an archer with Death Blow can make a much greater use of his/her abilities. This is especially true as well because an archer can easily steal kills when they see an enemy is low on health. This would be more useful if the non-Arrow of Slaying abilities were better, but Scattershot, Critical Shot, and Shattering Shot are still pretty good. Thus a Warrior Archer will be able to use his activated talents A LOT more than a Rogue Archer.

The downside to all of this is that Death Blow requires 25 strength. This is a bit of a drag in certain situations. It is okay if you plan on using longbows and want heavier armor anyways, OR if you dont have a dex hotfix, because strength and dexterity will both affect bow damage. I suspect this would include most prospective bow users. However, a post-hotfix dex based shortbow character would be putting an otherwise useless 5 points into strength, which would mean less damage, attack, and defense from dexterity. This tradeoff may or may not be worth it.

Still though, I think a working Death Blow makes a Warrior Archer quite a viable alternative to a Rogue Archer, especially if one is a fan of longbows or doesnt have a mod that makes shortbows entirely dependent on dexterity.

[Investorguy]

Is this theorycraft or have you done this?

[lessthanjake9]

Investorguy wrote...

Is this theorycraft or have you done this?

I have done this. It works.

Modifié par lessthanjake9, 19 janvier 2010 - 07:54 .

[Haplose]

It's still 1 minute cooldown = use once per fight or less.

For other skills only Scattershot is really noteworthy. And if you make an archer main, there is plenty of Stamina and Stamina regeneration boosting equipment. Not to mention buffs like Rejuvenate/Mass, Song of Valor.

So I don't see enough gain here to make Warrior archers a viable alternative to Rogue archers. Myabe if it also reduced the cooldown on Arrow on Slaying...

[Jack-Nader]

I use arrow of slaying to kill mages. It is almost a guaranteed kill. Adding deathblow practically makes this talent a free 1 hit kill and a very good battle opener.

[lessthanjake9]

Haplose wrote...

It's still 1 minute cooldown = use once per fight or less.
For other skills only Scattershot is really noteworthy. And if you make an archer main, there is plenty of Stamina and Stamina regeneration boosting equipment. Not to mention buffs like Rejuvenate/Mass, Song of Valor.
So I don't see enough gain here to make Warrior archers a viable alternative to Rogue archers. Myabe if it also reduced the cooldown on Arrow on Slaying...

I realize it is a 1 minute cooldown, but the point is that it doesnt drain you of stamina, not that youll be using it again. You can lay down a Scattershot and maybe a Critical/Shattering Shot right away with the stamina you get back. This is useful. One of the big problems I have with archers is that they just run out of stamina so quickly, and so you can't use their talents very often. A Warrior Archer would have Arrow of Slaying basically for free, and then be able to steal kills A LOT if you simply set a tactic to attack the enemy with the lowest health (which is fairly smart for an archer character anyways). Taking kills will result in plenty of stamina to use a lot of Critical Shots, Shattering Shots, Pinning Shots, and a second Scattershot or Arrow of Slaying in a longer battle. Unfortunately, as you said, these abilities are not particularly fantastic, but it is still worth something. It is also worth something to be able to fill up with sustainables without having Arrow of Slaying eat up all your remaining stamina.

And yeah, eventually a fully equipped archer main character will have +4 combat regen from The Felon's Coat and Andruil's Blessing. And that is basically enough to use Critical Shot whenever it cools down. However, a warrior archer will be better able to do a few things. First off, they will be able to spam a few things at the beginning of a battle (ie. Arrow of Slaying + Scattershot + Critical Shot) to start a battle. A rogue archer who relies on combat regen will have to either wait a while for some regen in order to unload after Arrow of Slaying, or wait to activate sustainables until mid battle. Either way, there is an effectiveness gap. Furthermore, Death Blow simply permits a more active use of abilities. +4 combat regen is enough to use Critical Shot whenever it cools down.  In a longer battle, though, regen doesnt always cut it. If the battle is long enough that Arrow of Slaying and Scattershot go off cooldown, a warrior archer will likely be able to use them again right away, whereas a rogue archer would probably not be able to. There is significant value in this.

Modifié par lessthanjake9, 19 janvier 2010 - 10:41 .

[lessthanjake9]

Even if you don't buy into that though, you seem to have an odd attitude that a rogue archer is ahead of a warrior archer before this. Where does that come from? There seems to be very little IMO too support that. Lets compare:

ROGUE PROS
- They can go stealth if being swarmed.
- High cunning means higher armor penetration.
- Duelist provides two good passive bonuses, as well as Dueling for a +10 to attack and defense.
- People use Pinpoint Strike for Duelists, but the fact that you need to activate it with a melee weapons first and then switch to your bow makes it clear that it is not meant for archery and that its simply an exploit, so we can't really consider it.
- Bard increases cunning, (ie. damage) by 1.
- Importantly, the Bard will increase the parties attack, damage, and critical chance with Song of Courage.
- Lots of skills are always useful, though this doesnt make them a better archer persay.
- Start with 5 more defense

WARRIOR PROS
- They can disengage if being swarmed, which is almost as effective as stealthing anyways.
- Rally provides the same bonus as Dueling, except to the entire party. It costs more stamina than Dueling, but this is made up for by the slightly extra stamina a warrior has in general.
- The warrior will have a reasonably higher amount of hp than the rogue.
- Precise Striking is a nice sustainable for an archer, especially a shortbow user, for whom Rapid Aim/Shot + Precise Striking still equals zero aim time.
- Perfect Striking will work some wonders on tough to hit bosses
- Holy Smite or Warcry disables dangerous mages/archers before you pick them off
- Bravery adds more damage and more critical chance
- Death Blow will make stamina roll in
- Start with 5 more attack

The most important difference, though, is this. A rogue archer needs high cunning in order to make use of its biggest advantage, which is Song of Courage, as well as to maximize skills and armor penetration. However, a rogue with points in cunning will be significantly lacking in attack rating as well as defense. On the the other hand, a warrior can focus entirely on dexterity, yielding a character with very high attack and defense ratings.

Modifié par lessthanjake9, 19 janvier 2010 - 10:57 .

[lessthanjake9]

As a sidenote, dexterity based warrior archers can make reasonably effective tanks. Pump up dexterity in lieu of everything else (except either to get 20 strength or 25 if you want Death Blow). Turn on Defensive Fire and Rally and Taunt enemies. Use Warcry to lower their attack even more, to hold aggro, and to keep them off of you too much. Use Holy Smite and Scattershot in a similar way. Suppressing Fire will basically neutralize whoever you choose to be attacking.

[tetracycloide]

Considering the crit from Song of Courage is doubled by activating Aim I'd say rogue archers make up for less frequent use of active abliities with their much higher auto-attack damage. Honestly arrow of slaying is the only archer ability that's worth the time it takes to use it in my opinion. All the others dramatically increase the drawtime for one shot that's rarely more damage than a normal auto-attack. Scattershot is situationally useful but the stun is far to short to really be worth 2 or 3 arrows worth of damage. If the rapid aim mod on gear decreased the aim time for active abilities more or at all they might be worth using but since they're so slow I prefer to auto-attack on my archer. With a 70%+ crit chance, possible even to hit 100%, why use actives?

[lessthanjake9]

tetracycloide wrote...

Considering the crit from Song of Courage is doubled by activating Aim I'd say rogue archers make up for less frequent use of active abliities with their much higher auto-attack damage. Honestly arrow of slaying is the only archer ability that's worth the time it takes to use it in my opinion. All the others dramatically increase the drawtime for one shot that's rarely more damage than a normal auto-attack. Scattershot is situationally useful but the stun is far to short to really be worth 2 or 3 arrows worth of damage. If the rapid aim mod on gear decreased the aim time for active abilities more or at all they might be worth using but since they're so slow I prefer to auto-attack on my archer. With a 70%+ crit chance, possible even to hit 100%, why use actives?

Song of Courage might have its crit effect doubled by Aim, but all that does is make aim remotely useful. Otherwise the decrease in rate of fire makes it basically a wash in terms of damage, but gives you upkeep and fatigue. It is useless otherwise, and even with an extra 7% or so crit chance due to the interaction with Song of Courage, it is still arguably not worth it.

And it is CERTAINLY not worth pumping up cunning that much to get that effect. Let me illustrate. With Aim and Song of Courage on, 10 cunning increases your damage by 5, party damage by 0.5, party attack by 0.5, party crit chance by 1%, your crit chance by 2%, and slightly increase your armor penetration. Putting 10 points in dexterity instead when using a shortbow (which is what a dex based archer should do), increases your attack by 5, your damage by 5, and your defense by 10. And let's be honest. What it comes down to is that +5 attack and +10 defense is better than 0.5 party attack/damage, marginal increases in crit chance, and a bit of armor penetration.

So then, even for a rogue, it is not worth pumping cunning for an archer. Thus, the point you made is moot.

Modifié par lessthanjake9, 19 janvier 2010 - 10:37 .

[tetracycloide]

It would be difficult, if not impossible, to back up the claim that an ability that effectively doubles your crit rate is 'a wash in damage.'



Furthermore attack has a cap, once you can hit a target it is no longer useful, so stacking it in perpetuity is silly. If you have 30 dex for arrow of slaying how much more attack do you need to hit things? Remember that there are tons of abilities that increase attack or decrease enemy defense in game but very few that increase crit or damage on a bow.

[beancounter501]

tetracycloide wrote...

It would be difficult, if not impossible, to back up the claim that an ability that effectively doubles your crit rate is 'a wash in damage.'

Furthermore attack has a cap, once you can hit a target it is no longer useful, so stacking it in perpetuity is silly. If you have 30 dex for arrow of slaying how much more attack do you need to hit things? Remember that there are tons of abilities that increase attack or decrease enemy defense in game but very few that increase crit or damage on a bow.

Keep in mind that the attack roll is on a 100 point basis.  Until your to hit is over a 100 points higher then the targets defense + to hit matters.  One thing this board is obsessed with is damage.  To Hit > Dmg.  Crits are nice and all, but hitting is more important.

[beancounter501]

One other point, I have seen tons of posts where people complain about archery missing. I really think it is due to the high cunning rogue builds. Not a high dex build.

I really think using perfect striking with a warrior archer is a golden idea. Even better with death blow. 

Also, Berserk does work with archery, just switch weapons to a melee and then back.  Instant 8 damage which is a big deal for archery.  Since most normal attacks at the higher levels are only hitting for 40-50 pts of dmg.

Modifié par beancounter501, 20 janvier 2010 - 01:46 .

[tetracycloide]

To hit > Damage when the to hit adds more damage, yes. At 40 dex after gear, ranger/bard, max cunning Leliana with very little in the way of attack buffs or defensive debuffs easily averages 70% hit in a playthrough. You're never going to increase that number by more than 30% i.e. 30% more damage. Song of Courage + armor penetration is more than 30% more damage. The armor penetration bonus is more than 30% greater than a smaller armor penetration bonus that applies 30% more often. The portion of the damage that can crit is improved by 20% or more after aim via song of courage crit addition, the attack portion adds 10 or more attack end game so that's another 10% which must all count since hit is so much lower on cunning, and then there's the damage portion of the song. Still, even if all these bonuses come out to be significantly smaller than 30% hit with the right party makeup 10% party crit, with rogues or warriors in party, is worth at least double what it would be worth on an archer who only crits for 70-85. Party wide, even if it's not best for the rogue themselves, there'd have to be very little physical DPS for the crit and attack bonuses not to make up the difference.

[beancounter501]

A 70% to hit ratio is bad. Especially since no one in this game really has a high defense. Even worse that to hit ratio is factored over the entire game. Who gives a rats **** if you hit some genlock grunt. It is the hard encounters/bosses that matter. You can hit that genlock turd all you want too boost your average to hit ratio.



Going from a 70% to hit to a 90% to hit is much more then a 20% dmg increase. If each hit is for 50 points of dmg then over 10 attacks a to hit rate of 70% gives you 350 dmg. A to hit of 90% gives you 450 dmg over 10 attacks. Which is about a 33% damage increase. Criticals or song of courage will not cover a 100 point difference over 7 attacks. And I think a 90% to hit ratio is low once you get perfect stiking. +100 to hit is just amazing for 50% of the time is just awesome!

[Timortis]

beancounter501 wrote...

A 70% to hit ratio is bad. Especially since no one in this game really has a high defense. Even worse that to hit ratio is factored over the entire game. Who gives a rats **** if you hit some genlock grunt. It is the hard encounters/bosses that matter. You can hit that genlock turd all you want too boost your average to hit ratio.

70% is not bad, it's pathetic. And the character sheet seems to round up, since with a character with decent hit rate it ends up showing 100% atfer a while even though you still get misses.

[beancounter501]

Also, I really think you are over rating +crit chance. A critical hit will add 50% of your base damage. Base damage is solely attribute dmg and weapon damage. It does not include things like song of courage or other damage bonuses from gear/talents/spells. So if your average base damage is 50 points a critical will do 75 + damage from gear/spells/talents. That is only 25 points of damage.



Now if you increase your crit rate by 10% you will do an extra 25 points of damage every ten hits. That equals to an extra 2.5 points of damage every hit on average. But wait, your to hit is extremely bad (70%) meaning you will have to make 14 attacks to land 10 hits and score in extra 25 points of damage. If on the other hand your hit rate is around 90% then you will land around 13 hits over 14 attacks. Three extra hits is 150 points of damage. I think 150 > 25. And lets not even consider when your Arrow of Slaying misses due to your low attack rating.

[tetracycloide]

It's a party memeber in a group setup to support a mage. I chose her stats specifically because it was the lowest hit rate I could find on an archer, even among party members.

Critical hits on an archer IS roughly everything. There are very few bonus damages from gear/talents/spells. There's the +2 on far song, the +3 from aim, and maybe 7 from the song. No spells affect it, no buffs affect it other than more bards, so that's it it's just 12ish damage. The same end game leliana with the far song, aim, and song of courage had regular hits from 35-50 critical hits from 65-88. That's more than 25 damage a crit even with a rather small 1.75 crit multiplier. Now, granted, with a 70% hit rate adding 30 damage a crit means song of courage's ~20% crit contribution is only adding 6 damge a hit. 10 hits at 70% to hit for ~46 (normal hit average) + 6 damage is only 364 damage while 10 hits at 90% to hit for ~46 damage is 414 but again, this was an unsupported party archer with no defense debuffs on targets, no dueling, and no party attack buffs. Honestly she's just there to stack crit to shatter frozen targets. On a PC archer, with the entire party there to support the PC, it's not difficult to overcome this ~14% disparity in damage (we could run the numbers again with the damage and armor penetration added in, for example). If you can start with a dual wield cunning rogue, stack cunning to 90+ and still end the game with a 100% hit rate then it stands to reason you can stack the same stats on an archer and end with at least a 90% hit rate. Leliana here is an absolute worst case example and she's still less than 14% behind, with the two-hand warrior and the tank in the party Song of Courage alone added more than 14% of her damage to their combined damage.

Has anyone proved this is a two roll system yet?

Modifié par tetracycloide, 20 janvier 2010 - 03:25 .

[Timortis]

The problem with this math is that the 100% hit character will also have Song of Courage, just with a smaller buff. At 30 Cun, SoC gives 5% crit, with Aim that's 10%. Because SoC adds a +3 crit base, the difference between a high Cun build and a base Cun build is not as great as people make it to be.

And he won't miss his AoS.

I know how Leliana performs as an archer when you dump all her points into Cun. I've used her that way too. She misses a lot, A LOT, when it matters.

Modifié par Timortis, 20 janvier 2010 - 03:31 .

[tetracycloide]

That's not math for a high cunning SoC that's math for Leliana's SoC. A high cunning PC is going to have more than 70 cunning, over 100 is pretty easy with gear. That's a 12% crit bonus vs 5%, 24% after aim vs 10%, that's a 14% difference in crit plus the damage bonus, plus the armor penetration bonus, plus the party wide damage bonus. Furthermore it's the math for Leliana's pathetic hit rate which no party supported archer PC will suffer even in a cunning build. 

Arrow of Slaying adds 15 attack, I've never seen her miss an AoS much less a PC archer.

Modifié par tetracycloide, 20 janvier 2010 - 03:38 .

[Timortis]

I've seen her miss plenty. My own solo archer with over 80% hit according to his character sheet misses AoS's all the time. Frustrates the hell out of me. I'm hoping that it'll get better by level 20. I won't be putting any points into Cun.

Modifié par Timortis, 20 janvier 2010 - 03:42 .

[tetracycloide]

I wouldn't recommend you put points there for a solo build. Cunning is all about party utility. It only ends up being better personal damage very late in the game and even then it's very much predicated on party members providing attack buffs and defense debuffs.



What targets are you missing? Normal white mobs? Do you have master archer?

[Timortis]

Of course I have Master Archer, and I keep Duelist up at all times. This is with a character that's been maxing Dex since level 1, I have 16 base Str for armor and 22 Cun for Stealth, everything else is Dex. Sure, I don't miss AoS against white mobs, but I don't need AoS to kill white mobs, it's the orange and yellow ones that matter.



Before I got Duelist, my hit rate was under 80%.

[tetracycloide]

I'm sorry. Those questions sounded less condescending in my head, my mistake. Would it be to obvious to ask if you're opening with crippling shot before AoS?



C'est la vie as a solo I guess. Party buffs/debuffs made a huge difference on my cunning rogue I imagine it's the same for all physical damage characters.

[Timortis]

That's hard to answer because it depends on the situation, sometimes you can't afford to waste your out of stealth move on Crippling Shot. Anyway, it's playstyle I guess, I just don't like characters that miss, one miss is one miss too many for me.