10 réponses à ce sujet

[Phoenix_Fyre]

 I finally got around to rolling my dalish archer rogue, and I keep debating longbow or short. Is there really that big of a difference?

Also, you can't poison arrows can you? You can only buy the flame or freeze ones?

[OMGsideboob]

Go to the Dalish camp (dont have to start the Dalish recruitment, just get one from clan craftsmen across from Zathrian) and buy a rapid fire bow. Itll make archery pretty easy...

Also, i havent been able to find how you buy arrows of filth or andraste's arrows. I only found them randomly. Look up the Dragon Age wikia. They could help too.

Modifié par OMGsideboob, 11 janvier 2014 - 06:05 .

[dainbramage]

The best bows are longbows, and the difference in aim time is only 0.1s (and the best bows have a big enough rapid aim to bring them to the cap). Shortbows aren't bad as a switch for low dex characters though.

[Phoenix_Fyre]

Ahhh. I decided to go for a cunn archer.... I'm tempted to take the bard class....but isn't a cunn rogue glitchy on a 360?

I'm just miffed there's no special bows really.... I can't poison arrows, frost and flame weapons don't work with bows............I had a blast with my dagger rogue

[OMGsideboob]

Archery isnt really glitchy and i have the game downloaded to my 360. Dual daggers can be a pain sometimes.

[NekkidNones]

If you have "return to ostagar" dlc, get the repeater gloves there as soon as you can. Apparently the rapid aim on them is the cats meow for archers.
Arrows of andraste are found during the quest for the urn of sacred ashes, and I think  sandal/bodahn have some for sale when they're at recliff or final tower.

Elf flight arrows are pretty good to use as are arrows of filth. Arrows of andraste can really help you when there are troublesome mage's around. To be honest, might be best to just sell all the other arrows for coin to buy super items. Only arrows/bolts I'd buy are andraste, flight, filth, explosion bolts, sure shot bolts and knock back bolts. Save most filth arrows for final fight since nature defence is the weakest.

I just did an archer run, and hated it. The class is pretty bad and excessively expensive IMO for the main character. I would like make zevran an archer, if not for his assassination specialisation. His constitution is pretty garbage and stat wise he's the most suited to be an archer. But yea, as an assassin he has to get in close.

I find crossbows work better. You can still do the archer thing with them, AND get to use higher class weapons/armour, because you'll be investing in strength more so than dexterity.

My archer ended up being an archer ranger that had all the rouge and dual weapon passive talents. The bloody summon was almost more useful than the character itself >.<

/end rant

Modifié par MoonSpot, 23 janvier 2014 - 03:50 .

[DarthGizka]

MoonSpot wrote...

If you have "return to ostagar" dlc, get the repeater gloves there as soon as you can. Apparently the rapid aim on them is the cats meow for archers.

Indeed. They are bugged; their aim time reduction is 3.0s instead of 0.3s, and this is what makes them the Holy Grail of archery. They are strong enough to eliminate the aim time increases caused by all kinds of bugs, which would otherwise require Rapid Shot plus some serious dexterity.

I just did an archer run, and hated it. The class is pretty bad and excessively expensive IMO for the main character.

Archery does have some issues, and archers are certainly more difficult to use successfully than, say, a sword & board warrior. However, that can hardly be the cause of a bad experience such as the one you've had. I wonder what it could have been...

I find crossbows work better.

There it is. They don't. They suck boulders through straws, and there's your problem.

Crossbows do pitiful damage because you don't get a damage bonus from the strength you need to equip them, they have shorter range than longbows (despite what it says on the tin) and their firing rate is lower as well unless you have the bugged Repeater Gloves or Rapid Shot with some nontrivial dexterity.

The only characters who would have the strength for a crossbow but no dexterity would be two-hander DPS warriors. Everyone else would normally either have the dexterity to use a better longbow instead (rogue, sword & board warrior), or have better means of ranged combat (Arcane Warrior).

As regards the higher base damage and armour penetration: with the strength that you need to equip a crossbow you get an extra damage bonus from a longbow that is greater than the difference in damage and penetration combined. That's why longbows are always better if you have at least some dexterity, and an archer definitely has to have some.

With the 28 base DEX that you need for Master Archer you can use tier 5 longbows. Add some +2 items like the stuff you get in Honnleath and you can easily meet the 34 DEX requirement for tier 7.

[NekkidNones]

Darth, I don't disagree. However the plus in going with crossbows that I was eluding to, is not specifically archery oriented. It basically means go duel wielder, that can equip massive armour. Eventually enemies do get into range, hostile mages start messing you up, or your fighting in close quarters. In which case having better armour and dual one handed longswords, just work better(IMO)
The specialty bolts (explosion, sureshot), I find make for a decent opening salvo for a cloaked rogue. Usually get 2 shots off before switching to dual swords.

Of course I can still do the same tactic with a longbow, but then I can't use explosive rounds .
Anyways, I'll stop before I completely highjack the thread into an "archers suck, mages FTW" rant.

[DarthGizka]

Well, if your combat tactic calls for things like explosive bolts then crossbows are the only game in town, no contest. Also, if you are looking through your loot collection in order to give all your melees a ranged weapon as alternate, then crossbows are often a good choice. Especially when you are preparing to get the raw materials for Wade's superior plate armour, because it seems that crossbows have a greater range on auto-attack than longbows.

In situations like these, weapon characteristics like damage per shot, firing rate and overall damage output are secondary or irrelevant. However, these characteristics happen to be the focus of this thread.

Moreover, it seems that an accurate assessment of the characteristics of shortbows, longbows and crossbows is a necessity, since the in-game descriptions tend to be useless or wrong, and the damage display on the character/inventory screen is usually wrong as well. The game makes it pretty much impossible to make an informed decision in choosing between the different types of weapons.

Not to mention that shortbows fetch a much higher price than longbows of the same quality, which could be seen as an indicator that they are that much better. They aren't, of course. It might be that shortbows could have an insignificant advantage over longbows in some rare, oddball circumstances but on the whole they are strictly inferior to longbows. Same for crossbows.

Last but not least, I think it would be interesting to look at the whole archery thing in a seperate topic. My reaction to playing an archer through the tutorial (from the Dalish camp to Lothering) for the first time was pretty much the same as yours, and I agree that archers need a second weapon specialty much more urgently than any other class. Until they get pets, at least. However, things may not be as universally bleak as they may seem at first.

P.S.: Did the math on the crossbow just for kicks. Let's assume you want to pick a ranged weapon for a low-DEX warrior like Sten or Oghren; your choices are a tier 7 dragonthorn crossbow (30 STR, 12.8+11.0 damage+penetration) and a tier 2 ash longbow (18 DEX, 6.6+4.8).

The attribute damage bonus is 50% of 62.5% of the combined DEX/STR mod, or 0.3125 * (DEX + STR - 20); this means that even the lowly tier 2 longbow wins if sum of DEX and STR is 60 or higher, which should be around level 10 or so (long before you can get your hands on tier 7 gear). This is assuming the same firing rate - i.e. standing next to Shale with Rock Mastery active - against heavily armoured foes. In all other cases the longbow wins even more easily.

Note: I pulled the math from the wiki; I haven't been able to verify in-game yet.

Modifié par DarthGizka, 24 janvier 2014 - 12:07 .

[dainbramage]

DarthGizka wrote...

I find crossbows work better.

There it is. They don't. They suck boulders through straws, and there's your problem.

Crossbows do pitiful damage because you don't get a damage bonus from the strength you need to equip them, they have shorter range than longbows (despite what it says on the tin) and their firing rate is lower as well unless you have the bugged Repeater Gloves or Rapid Shot with some nontrivial dexterity.

The only characters who would have the strength for a crossbow but no dexterity would be two-hander DPS warriors. Everyone else would normally either have the dexterity to use a better longbow instead (rogue, sword & board warrior), or have better means of ranged combat (Arcane Warrior).

As regards the higher base damage and armour penetration: with the strength that you need to equip a crossbow you get an extra damage bonus from a longbow that is greater than the difference in damage and penetration combined. That's why longbows are always better if you have at least some dexterity, and an archer definitely has to have some.

With the 28 base DEX that you need for Master Archer you can use tier 5 longbows. Add some +2 items like the stuff you get in Honnleath and you can easily meet the 34 DEX requirement for tier 7.

Crossbows do pitiful damage because they don't get any bonus at all. Str gives nothing, dex gives nothing. The most a crossbow will ever do is 12.8 plus whatever +damage boosts you have. So any character, str or dex based, will do much more damage with a bow than a crossbow (even if it's a tier 3 shortbow because they have no dex).

There is one point where crossbows are decent. That's because at lothering you can pickpocket a tier 7 one from the shady merchant. There its base damage is high enough (compared to the tier 2 or 3 bows you'd otherwise be using) and your attributes low enough that it'll do more. If you have enough strength for it, anyway.

[NekkidNones]

Okay I get that the delta between crossbows and longbows damage is a big one. Also, I should disclose that during the awakening portion of the run, Nate the archer somehow managed to get the highest damage I've recall dealing in the game. 1080 damage against the arcane tevinter mage, from the statues of war and peace side quest.

No idea how it happened or what I had equipped arrow wise. The dainty archers never got close to anything like that again that I saw. Then again, the only reason I know it, is b/c of the loading screen info...so could've been an error.

....I still hate the archer class, they just suck >.<! It's too much like back seat driving.