91 réponses à ce sujet

[lessthanjake9]

I think that a warrior archer is better than a rogue archer. This goes against conventional wisdom, but let me explain my reasoning.
 
It is based on a two premises:
1.       A dexterity build is better than a cunning build for a rogue.
2.       A dexterity based warrior archer is better than a dexterity based rogue archer.
 
I will first explain why a dexterity build is better than a cunning build for a rogue. There are a few big reasons for this:
1.       A dexterity build will have about 60 higher defense than a cunning build. This is the difference between being able to tank and being a total weakling who you must constantly make sure isn’t being attacked. It also means you can solo with a dex build and not a cunning build. This is a BIG deal.

2.       The cunning build will do moderately higher damage per hit due to the fact that they can get higher damage and crit % from Song of Courage. However, cunning does not increase attack. This will leave a cunning build with VERY low attack. Low attack is especially bad for archers since many enemies have shields as well as shield wall/cover/defense that will increase missile deflection above normal defense. Furthermore, I believe archers cannot flank, meaning they lose that attack bonus that really helps melee characters. Archers need high attack to hit a lot. Cunning based archers will not have it. Dexterity based archers will have 25-30 higher attack by endgame. That is HUGE.

3.       Both characters should go Duelist for the Dueling talent. The cunning based build needs Bard as well to maximize its stats. Overall, the far higher attack from dexterity will likely lead the dex-build to have higher damage anyways, despite Song of Courage (and higher armor penetration from high cunning). However, Song of Courage also buffs allies which is something proponents point out. First off, this has no effect on mages, and you should have one or two of them in your party at all times. More importantly though, the dex based archer rogue does not need to go Bard at all. They are free to go Ranger, which opens up ranger pets. While these are not really related to the strength of the archer himself, they certainly help the party just as much or more than the Song of Courage buff does. So if anything, specializations leave the dex based build even further ahead.
 
A cunning based archer will make better use of their skills, but I am talking strictly about power as an archer. And in that vein, the dexterity build is clearly better. Cunning based archery builds suffer from huge problems hitting opponents a lot, especially the yellow and orange ones (the ones you need to be worrying about anyways). On the other hand, the dex-based archer has a virtually maximized attack rating, leaving them with no problems at hitting any opponent. Cunning based archery builds also suffer from being easy to kill. They have low defense, cannot equip things with high armor, and have low hp. One can use a tank to minimize this problem, but when it comes down to it, this is a big issue. With a cunning based build, your PC will likely be as the easiest non-mage in your entire party to kill. The dexterity based character will have the highest defense in your entire party and basically be virtually impossible to hit by endgame, making him probably the hardest character in your entire party to kill. The only advantages cunning based builds have are Song of Courage and Armor Penetration. However, higher attack easily makes up for the damage a dex build personally loses from that, and a ranger pet helps the party’s power more than Song of Courage does anyways.
 
So we have established that the dexterity based rogue archer is better than the cunning based rogue archer. Now we must establish that the dexterity based warrior archer is better than the dexterity based rogue archer. This is a little less clear cut than the last comparison, but at the very least it merits discussion beyond the dismissal of warrior archers entirely.
 
Here is an in depth list of the reasons to take a warrior archer above a rogue archer. You don't have to read all of this, obviously. Skimming is fine:
 
1.       I believe warriors get a higher damage progression than rogues. This means that with equal stats, a warrior will do higher damage than a rogue. They also have Bravery, which will give them further higher damage and critical chance. Lastly, Precise Striking is another source of extra damage.

2.       Warriors get 5 higher attack to start the game. This is important, especially early in the game when characters, ESPECIALLY archers, will have a really tough time hitting opponents. You won’t have boosted up dexterity early on enough to stop this, so the 5 attack really helps. Yes, rogues get 5 defense instead, but that helps less early on IMO. This is because early on, you will need to use a normal tank anyways and try not to get hit, until you can boost up your defense uber high. Later on, both help, though I personally prefer the attack because I find that it still helps a lot in getting in hits against tough shielded enemies, whereas defense starts bordering on overkill by the end because virtually nothing will hit you with regular attacks anyways.

3.       This leads me to possibly the MOST IMPORTANT issue here. The main strength of a dexterity based archer is the defense. It will be OBSCENELY high. No melee tank is nearly as hard to hit because they must boost up strength a lot for damage/armor/talents. This means less dexterity and thus less defense. As such, a dexterity based archer makes the hardest to hit character in the game, giving it great potential as a tank. This is especially true in Defensive Fire mode for +30 defense. Rogues may have 5 higher starting defense, but their potential to use this advantage and tank is actually much less. This is because a warrior has taunt and threaten to draw aggro. They also deal more damage when surrounded due to Bravery. On the other hand, a rogue archer has no reliable way to draw aggro, and thus no reliable way to use the fact that their defense is so high. The advantage is therefore partially wasted. It isn’t wasted on warriors.

4.       Warriors get more health per level. They start with more constitution, and they get health from Powerful. Health matters less in this game than most rpgs, but certainly it is nice to have about 15-25% extra hp throughout the game, especially if you are wanting to tank some.

5.       Warriors are the only type of character that can start with an archery talent for free. This is, of course, by being a Dalish Elf Warrior. Dalish Elves are mildly less min/maxed at endgame due to not starting with strength or dexterity bonuses, BUT they are still a natural choice for archers due to their starting equipment and culture. A Dalish Elf Warrior will be a talent ahead of any Rogue archer all game. That is a pretty nice bonus IMO.

6.       A Warrior archer can get Death Blow. This is a pretty powerful ability for an archer to have. It makes Arrow of Slaying basically free in terms of stamina. It also allows the archer to just be drowned in stamina points by simply setting a tactic to target the enemy with the lowest health. They’ll get a ton of killing blows, and have tons of stamina. This stamina is very valuable for a few reasons. First, it’ll likely allow the archer to use Critical Shot virtually whenever it cools down. This counteracts the rogue tactic of getting a free critical through stealth every 10 seconds. Secondly, it will allow an Arrow of Slaying + Scattershot combo to start a battle, something most rogue archers won’t be able to do until late game (more on that later). Possibly the most important effect, though, is the fact that long battles sometimes result in Arrow of Slaying or Scattershot cooling down. A rogue archer will almost certainly be without the stamina to use either of them again. A warrior archer will probably have enough due to Death Blow. This is a BIG boost in long (ie. tough) battles, as Arrow of Slaying is essentially a free kill on any yellow or white enemy.

Yes, the downside is that Death Blow takes 25 strength to get. However, this is not a huge deal. Both characters need 20 strength for equipment anyways. The Warrior starts with 4 higher strength, so will be able to get to 24 strength at the same cost as the rogue takes to get to 20. So Death Blow only really diverts one extra point from dexterity (losing you 1 defense). Not a big deal.


7.       In the same vein, the warrior also has more stamina. They start with 10 more, get 1 more per level, and Powerful makes their fatigue lower. This is just generally nice to have, but these bonuses are important in a distinct scenario. The rogue archer can be plagued by a problem involving Arrow of Slaying. Many rogue archers may want to have Dueling, a Summon, Aim/Rapid Fire/Defensive Fire, and maybe even Suppressing Fire on. Dueling is 30 stamina; summons are 50 stamina, the archery talents are 35 and 40 stamina, and Suppressing Fire is 60 stamina. A Rogue archer at level 20 will have only 180 stamina. Dueling, Aim, and a Summon will take 115 stamina, leaving you without the stamina to start a battle with Arrow of Slaying. You’d have to spend valuable time putting a sustainable on after the battle started, which is annoying, wastes time, and also obviously would need to wait until you regened enough stamina for it. Furthermore, at an earlier level, this is an even bigger issue. At level 14, a rogue archer will have 156 stamina. You therefore will not be able to use a Summon + Dueling + Arrow of Slaying. At level 8, a rogue archer would have 132 stamina. That’s not enough to have a pet and use Arrow of Slaying even if your gear has no fatigue! This is not as much of an issue at endgame, but for rogue archers it WILL come into play and be annoying for parts of the game. Warrior archers, with their slightly higher stamina, largely are able to barely avert the problem of not being able to get off Arrow of Slaying due to sustainables. Once they avert that problem, they will get the stamina back due to Death Blow and be able to further throw out a Scattershot or something right afterwards.

8.       A Warrior Archer can get Warcry. This is a really nice ability for any player who wants to tank some, which a dex-based archer can do. It is also just nice as a debuff/knock down. Rogues have their own nice little abilities like Dirty Fighting, but Warcry is a really really nice ability with a low cost and fast cool down. It can keep enemies at a constant -10 attack as it lasts as long as its cooldown. Warrior archers can easily afford this due to Death Blow.

9.       Rally is a really great ability. First off, for the player, it equals Dueling for the rogue. Importantly, of course, it also affects allies, making it a really great buff (+10 attack and +10 defense is a big deal). Obviously a rogue archer could be a ranger, which increases DPS massively, but I find Rally/Warcry to be equal or better overall as a help to the party because ranger pets have issues (they steal xp, cant be controlled on xbox, cant really be given tactics, and disappear when you change areas).  A Rally/Warcry combo turns the tides of a battle just as well as a pet.

10.   Warrior Archers can get Perfect Striking. Because of Death Blow they can afford to use this, and it is a very powerful ability, especially in tough boss battles. You essentially hit everything for 15 seconds. Against hard-to-hit bosses, this can be a huge increase in damage, that a rogue would be left without.

11.   Unfortunately for the warrior, the non-champion specializations don’t appear to be geared towards using archery. However, there are a couple options that are actually good when you think about it. If you are willing to exploit a bit and equip a melee weapon, then turn on Berserk, Berserkers can make crazy good archers. They get +8 damage,+10 mental resistance, and 1.5 health regen. The archer could also be a templar. Holy Smite is just generally good (Scattershot + Warcry + Holy Smite locks down enemies for a while), but just as importantly, you can get 20% Spell Resistance against mages if you go Templar and wear the Templar Armor (only 27 strength required; you can get that) in those fights. Combined with higher mental resistance from being a templar, the fact that you can dispel things like Misdirection Hexes, Curses of Mortality, and Crushing Prisons, and that Holy Smite can quickly stun a mage, and knock down others, you are actually pretty good in fights against mages. This is important IMO because rogue archers are weak vs. mage attacks. They will have low resists, no immunity to stuns or knockdowns, and no extra spell resistance. A Templar Warrior Archer can easily get 50% spell resistance in fights against mages as well as high mental resistance, higher physical resistance due to higher strength, and the ability to stun mages and to dispel things they manage to get off. This leaves them comparatively FAR more effective against mages than a rogue archer.  Reaver is probably the worst spec choice, but Frightening Appearance does make an already good tanking character into a master of aggro.
 
CONCLUSION
 
Warrior archers are good. Go dex based. Make them into high defense tanks. Use Death Blow in order to be able to use talents as much as possible. Go Champion for buffs/debuffs and either Berserker for damage or Templar for anti-mage abilities.
 
Your warrior archer will have higher attack than a rogue. They will be able to use talents, including arrow of slaying, a lot more. They will do more damage. They will actually be very effective tanks. They will buff and debuff better than a rogue. They can have an extra talent.
 
In comparison to a dex-based rogue archer, they lose a few things. First, they will end up with lower defense. However, defense will be uber high regardless, and the warrior is really better able to use this high defense anyways due to taunt, even if the defense is slightly lower. Second, they can stealth for free crits. I find this sort of cheap, but regardless, Death Blow will give you essentially free Critical Shots just about as often anyways. Third, they can use ranger pets. While ranger pets add significant DPS (to the point where ANY ranger build will provide more DPS than any non-ranger build), the Warrior’s Rally and Warcry are actually similarly effective to a party and don’t present the problems of xp loss, de-summoning, etc etc.
 
In my opinion all of this leaves a dex based warrior archer ahead of a dex based rogue archer. And since a dex based rogue archer is better than a cunning based rogue archer due to massively higher defense and attack, this leaves the dex-based warrior archer as the best archer option in my opinion.

Modifié par lessthanjake9, 23 janvier 2010 - 10:35 .

[soteria]

Hmm... I'm not sure having higher defense, stamina, and health is really a compelling reason for me to pick warrior over rogue in a party. I mean, why not equip a shield, if that's what I wanted? I've never noticed Leliana getting attacked very much, so I'm not sure why high defense should be necessary.

[SusanStoHelit]

My cunning rogue archer - Leliana + my pc rogue archer - is rarely attacked, doesn't need the defense, almost never dies (a couple times early, where I was weak and still learning), supplies me with the buffs and debuffs I want, does very good damage, and has utility as well. I don't see what a dex build can offer that will improve on that - more dex to avoid attacks that are rare and aren't a problem anyway (stealth) and for extra attack instead of all the rest of that? Nope.



As for the warrior archer - as I posted in another thread, I have one planned for when I get home to my pc and can play again. Although I'll probably finish some other characters runs off first.

[BlackVader]

For both, DPS and tanking there are much better routes to take for a warrior than archery.
Yes, it's the same for rogue. A melee rogue is superior to an archer one. But unlike a warrior, a rogue is also useful for more than his own combat performance. A rogue has utility (locks, traps, scouting), can buff the whole party (bard songs) or even increase the party size with a pet.
Also, you compare only pure-cun and pure-dex rogues. But what's keeping you from increasing both? You said yourself that defence will be over the top anyway so why go full dex? I'd balance cun and dex for damage, attack, defence, armor penetration, utility and decent bard songs.

If you look at nothing but pure archery, then yes, a warrior might in fact be better than a rogue. Still, in terms of overall usefulness, a rogue archer is way better in my oppinion.

[Akimb0]

Are we only talking solo here? It seems to be that way in a lot of these threads.

I could go warrior archer then have a rogue/bard who can buff me with his/her song and also deal with all the locks and traps for me. Why settle for one when you can have both? then you may say...."but two ranged characters limits you to one mage and a tank as the other characters." Well as we've seen, that's not exactly true, because my dex based warrior and the partially dex based rogue will have a high natural defense as it is.

I'm thinking of trying a party consisting of:

Me: Ranged Dex Warrior/Berserker/Champion
Leliana: Ranged Dex/Cun Rogue/Bard
Morrigan: Haste + CC/Nuke
Wynne: Haste + Heal/Single target attacks.

Modifié par Akimb0, 23 janvier 2010 - 01:25 .

[TimelessConqueror]

Rogue archer is better to me for one reason. She was the only consistently durable char who was the last to die when I fought the high dragon. She has high dex and very little cunning. Her shots never miss. I took shale and alistair along with my mage that had the first 3 healing spells. Shale held the dragon. Alistair was his lunch and i nuked and healed and leilana pounded the dragon. 3 hours of dying(normal, not easy) assessing, restarting and basic trial and error. But i was the most happy camper ever when she fell!

That is how i learned to use all characters instead of just relying on their tactics. Battles now are rotation time, constantly swiching and choosing the best skill available for that char and the situation. I didn't have wynn at that time. Now I do. Now nobody dies! I'm free to nuke which means total destruction. I bought that $35 hard cover strategy book from best buy. Best money ever spent. but bought it after killing the dragon. I learned that wynn is an unstoppable healer if you make her arcane warrior so that she can wear heavy armor. Guess what. They were right! They are the programmers after all eh?
Wynn is wearing my commander armor picked up in soldiers peak which gives 50 extra stamina which arcane warrior status turns to mana. This is massive armor. In battle i dont see her health move at all. I put her on cautios status so she avoids fights and she keeps us all flowing with health and stam/mana. Life is good. Finished all but orzammar and landsmeet. started orzammar last nigfht and going back in when i finish this.

Rogue warrior with high dex is incredible! I only wish i wasn't such a hack and slash afficianado. I didnt dream of dropping any skill points in archery for any char until that high dragon. I tanked everything, more like full melee cause i didnt really control others, just my mage, who is also now arcane warrior wearing dragone bone armor made from high dragon's hide-roflmao. Best armor in the game so far, and i have juggenaut, red dragon, drake scale. leilana has the "superior drakescale" which gave her 75% fire resist which is probably why she was almost invincible against the fire breathing high dragon. Alistair now has the Juggernaut armor, Sten has the Red dragon. Wynn has the commander armor(soldiers peak-you have to download the addon) shale now has clear fire crystals. He is really the best tank. I'm basing it on the high dragon. Sten and Alistair were her toothpicks but shale stood toe to toe and kept her immobile so i could nuke and leilana could pound with arrows.

ok-wife just left. The ps3 and the 65 inch flatscreen are calling me. Orzammar here i come!

Modifié par TimelessConqueror, 23 janvier 2010 - 01:56 .

[TimelessConqueror]

leilana has superior drakeskin armor which gives 75% fire resistance. Probably why she stood so well against the fire breathing high dragon.

[Aezeal]

Ehm rogues have stealth.



After that major point which was conviently forgotten (and important for a solo run)



For me leliana for killed asap in most fights btw unlike what has been said here.



I'd not get archery skill just for the high dragon, just riddle him with arrows without using skills.. he'll die fast too.



Shale with brilliant small nature crystals is REALLY the thing you want as tank

[beancounter501]

Well in my opinion the best Rogue archer build would take strength to 20, cunning to 30 and pour the rest into dexterity. No matter how you slice it dexterity is the best stat for an archer giving attack, defense and damage. Next best is strength and dead last is cunning.



With a cunning of 30 + device mastery you can open any lock or disarm any trap. However, I am not really sure the bard talents are worth pursing with such a low cunning.



A warrior archer is going to have a to hit that is 10 to 20 points higher then a high dex, moderate cunning rogue. He is going to have higher hit points (about 70), stamina (30) and armor if you put some points into strength for medium/heavy armor. The damage and defense for both a warrior and rogue should be fairly close. Ability usage wise the warrior will blow the rogue out of the water since he can pick up Death Blow. He can also get Perfect Striking for that +100 to hit which is pretty good no matter how you slice it.



Talent wise the warrior is going to have a much easier time since he really only needs powerful and can then just focus on the archery line. The rogue has almost too many good talents to pick from. The archery line, stealth line and deft hands line. Some really tough choices for the rogue in the early levels. Forcing you to pick specializations much latter on since the archery/stealth/deft hands takes up 20 talents. I would not bother with lethality at all.



The biggest downside to a rogue archer is giving up backstabs. That is huge IMO.

[wby87]

On second premise:

Ranger's pet dmg outweighs the bonus dmg scaling the Warrior has, and Bard songs brings comparable, if not more, utilities for self and party.

Dex builds already has sky-high attack and defense bonuses. And minor difference, if it matters at all, can be acquired from party bonuses. In solo setting rogues has more utilities.

Combat stealth takes care of survivability differences.

Talent allocation does not matter for warriors who has so few class talents, nor does it matter for rogue archers who will find the first two rogue trees near useless.


Archers focuses on its bread and butter abilities Scattershot and Arrow of Slaying, not dmg scaling with attributes and gears. It doesn't matter how well geared the archer is, you do not top party-contribution chart, given comparable party members of other classes and builds. So "best" should not be defined as how combat competent they are.

Instead, Archers are the most noted solo classes due to rogue's versatile utilities.

Modifié par wby87, 23 janvier 2010 - 10:07 .

[LarryFine]

Its a good thing I like to read because that was a very long post. The first thing I would like to know is are you making an educated guess about this or have you actually successfully built a tank archer like this? On my first playthrough I read that a dex rogue archer was perhaps the deadliest class in the game and I attempted to turn Leliana into such a character. I was very disappointed as Leliana had the lowest damage output on my team. In her defense I didn't get AoS nearly as early as I should have. I came to the boards and posted my stats and asked what I did that was wrong. I was told to get lethality asap, AoS, and stop putting points into dex and start pumping cunning. Her percentage of the party damage never increased although she did have the single highest hit for 350+ damage. I believe my sns warrior on that playthrough almost tripled her dmg output.



My sns warrior still had problems tanking because he was only able to fight 1 target at a time. Taunt was able to get everyones attention but without the ability to inflict damage on more than 1 target at a time the mobs left me and went and jumped the squishies anyway. An archer warrior is going to face the same problem because the only aoe talent that I see is scattershot which has a 40 second refresh



This playthrough I've switched to a full sized weapon dual wielding warrior as a change of pace. I opted for a city elf because they come with dual weapon sweep. Prior to the urn of ashes he accounted for over 60% of my parties damage. At the present he still accounts for over 55% of my parties damage. The only thing that has slowed him down has been his stunnability. Precise striking + momentum + haste + berserk = nasty. Taunt + dual weapon sweep + whirlwind = aoe tauntability. The dual wielding warrior is able to keep the mobs on him once he gets them to surround him with taunt. My warrior with berserk active does almost 40 damage per hand *at level 20 with a legion of the dead set my sns warrior did 60* I believe my highest crit on this guy so far has been for 90 dmg. Right now this guy is using a red steel saw sword and the aodh axe.



The best tank to be in this game is a dex based dual dagger tank. I can't say how high the damage numbers will be I know prior to level 12 my tank was getting at least around 20-30 damage out of the dagger in his offhand. For whatever reason the developers opted not to give the shield talent tree any aoe abilities to help the sns do its job. My 4th playthrough I intend to try the dex monkey dual dagger warrior. Third playthrough is going to be a warrior with a 2 hander. After those two I'll jump into the mages.

[tetracycloide]

Point 3 is pretty weak. Defensive fire adds 30 defense, there are only two bows that add defense, one with 3 dex that's a crossbow and another that adds 10 defense against missiles but is also a tier 6 shortbow, massive armor reduces attack speed with bows no matter what talents are taken. Total defense from bows: 33 or 30 with 10 missile



Meanwhile the best shield for defense adds 18 defense and 9 missile defense, the best sword for defense adds 3 dex, and the sustain shield wall adds 10. Total defense from weapon and shield: 31 with 9 missile



Given the shield wall is not the best +defense sustain and also adds 5 armor plus the ability for a true tank to wear massive armor and no penalty I'd say the myth that a high dex archer makes the best melee tank has been throughly debunked. Even in a straight defense to defense comparison the warrior could always switch to their own +defense sustain that adds 15 defense on its own, easily besting the archer's 33 defense with a combined total of 36. Shields with defense as high as 15 defense appear very very early in the game to boot. Just about the only time an archer will enjoy higher defense is the tower of ishal.



To say that other melee tanks waste attribute points for strength just to wear armor is absurd. Armor and flanking immunity matters, even on a high defense tank. Defense from dex doesn't do anything if the tank is stunned, for example. One shield slam and a rogue would backstab the archer tank to death rather rapidly.

[lessthanjake9]

Hmm... I'm not sure having higher defense, stamina, and health is really a compelling reason for me to pick warrior over rogue in a party. I mean, why not equip a shield, if that's what I wanted? I've never noticed Leliana getting attacked very much, so I'm not sure why high defense should be necessary.

 
High defense is great because you can actually use your archer as a tank whenever you want it for that. It is also somewhat silly to say that Leliana doesn’t get attacked very much. This might be true, but Leliana will also do less damage than a PC archer, drawing less aggro. Secondly, Scattershot is very useful, but draws huge aggro from every enemy.
 
Most importantly, even if you DO use a tank to divert attention away from your archer, the hardest situations in the game will bypass this tanking mechanic. Boss battles like the Broodmother fight has enemies attack you no matter what. The High Dragon tends to attack the highest armored character, but in my experience, it sometimes just attacks randomly, killing easy to kill characters extremely quickly. Most obviously, though, the tough battles are when your tank actually dies. That’s when things start to get really hard. A dexterity archer would not have to worry in this case. A cunning archer would be pretty screwed. Does this happen a lot? No. But if you are playing on an adequate difficulty level for yourself, then it WILL happen in the tough battles, and it is success in tough battles that really defines the quality of a build. In this case, a dexterity based archer will be more successful.
 

My cunning rogue archer - Leliana + my pc rogue archer - is rarely attacked, doesn't need the defense, almost never dies (a couple times early, where I was weak and still learning), supplies me with the buffs and debuffs I want, does very good damage, and has utility as well. I don't see what a dex build can offer that will improve on that - more dex to avoid attacks that are rare and aren't a problem anyway (stealth) and for extra attack instead of all the rest of that? Nope.

 
Maybe you are just a really good player, but I consider myself experienced with this type of game (played a lot of KOTOR, KOTOR 2, NWN 2 + Expansions, and DAO) and this game is hard on the PC for me. You can’t just rely on your tank to stay alive while the rest of your characters destroy everything. That mechanic works in easier fights as well as later on when your party is very powerful, but in the hard fights in the game (of which there are many, assuming you have difficulty set appropriately to your skill), your sword/shield tank WILL go down despite healing if it is drawing all the enemy fire. And at that point, the cunning archer will be exposed. Can they use combat stealth to get out of tough situations? Yes, they can, as long as it’s not so early that they don’t have combat/master stealth yet. However, that is not really an escape of a situation that has gone bad like that. Stealth can’t make you win a fight after your tank is dead; it can only stop an enemy from attacking you so that it goes back to your living tank. When your tank goes down, you will need to stand and fight to win. A cunning archer cannot do that well. It IS a weakness. My only explanation for how you don’t see this is that you do not have the difficulty set high enough for your skill, such that you don’t really experience battles where characters go down. If that is the case, then any build with utility would be best for you because the battles will be easy no matter what, so you might as well get utility from your character too.
 
As for party buffs and debuffs, the warrior archer is best with Rally and Warcry. A typical rogue archer will have Song of Courage only. The warrior archer is better in this regard.
 
Yes, the cunning archer will have utility, and if you like that sort of thing a lot then you should do a cunning archer. However, I find it rather overrated. You can use any character for crafting/stealing whenever you want. And a warrior archer can easily bring around Zevran or Leliana to open locks and disarm traps, while also scouting stealthily. In fact, if they are tanking, they will probably get optimal party DPS by making either Zevran or Leliana into a DW rogue and bringing them along anyways. So where’s the need for that from your PC?
 

For both, DPS and tanking there are much better routes to take for a warrior than archery.
Yes, it's the same for rogue. A melee rogue is superior to an archer one. But unlike a warrior, a rogue is also useful for more than his own combat performance. A rogue has utility (locks, traps, scouting), can buff the whole party (bard songs) or even increase the party size with a pet.
Also, you compare only pure-cun and pure-dex rogues. But what's keeping you from increasing both? You said yourself that defence will be over the top anyway so why go full dex? I'd balance cun and dex for damage, attack, defence, armor penetration, utility and decent bard songs.

If you look at nothing but pure archery, then yes, a warrior might in fact be better than a rogue. Still, in terms of overall usefulness, a rogue archer is way better in my opinion.

 
Archery is relatively weak in this game, yes. So warriors and rogues both have better options. Your arguments seems to be that if you are making an archery, you are accepting combat weakness, so you should get some utility out of it on the side. I do not accept this logic, as I think it is still worth it to maximize the combat ability of an archer, even if it won’t be the best character ever made. Leave utility to party members.
 
And yes, you CAN go for builds that increase both dex and cunning/strength. However, to me this runs into a few problems. First off, defense is still useful, especially if you don’t want to use Defensive Fire. I just meant that IMO attack is MORE useful at end game. You’d lose some of this defense. Balancing dex and cunning would run into a couple other problems as well. First, it would take away much needed attack. Second, without going full cunning, you make it hard to get the most out of cunning. You’d need to get 3 or 4 of the Deft Hands talents pretty early on if you wanted to be able to open/disarm stuff for anything more than the end of the game. That precludes you from getting combat talents early which is lame. And your Song of Courage would be just okay, and probably not worth taking over Ranger. So the balanced character would find it hard to get much out of the cunning, so what is the point?
 

Ehm rogues have stealth.



After that major point which was conviently forgotten (and important for a solo run)

 
I did not AT ALL forget about stealth. Stealth has a few applications:
 
1.       You can use it to scout
2.       You can use it to get in position for quick kills against mages
3.       You can use it to get free critical hits
4.       You can use it to get aggro off of you in battles
 
I addressed the free critical hits from stealth, by pointing out that death blow will give the warrior archer free crits similarly often by allowing them to use Critical Shot virtually whenever it cools down.
 
Archer don’t need to get in position for quick kills against mages, since they can shoot from range.
 
Warrior archers don’t really need stealth to lose aggro. First off, they have Disengage, which works almost as well for the same purpose. Secondly, they don’t need to get aggro off much, because they will have such high defense that they will typically WANT the aggro.
 
As for scouting, use Zevran, Leliana, or just a party member with survival for that. There’s no reason that you need the PC for this.
 

For me leliana for killed asap in most fights btw unlike what has been said here.

 
Same here. Either that or she wouldn’t draw aggro, but if it was a hard fight, my tank might die, at which point Leliana wouldn’t last long.

[lessthanjake9]

Well in my opinion the best Rogue archer build would take strength to 20, cunning to 30 and pour the rest into dexterity. No matter how you slice it dexterity is the best stat for an archer giving attack, defense and damage. Next best is strength and dead last is cunning.







With a cunning of 30 + device mastery you can open any lock or disarm any trap. However, I am not really sure the bard talents are worth pursing with such a low cunning.

This would lead to a perfectly good archer, but I have a problem with this idea. Getting Device Mastery is a bit of a drag on combat ability. It is 4 talent points that you aren’t using on combat talents. Late in the game, this won’t matter as you will eventually get everything you want still, but before that time, getting Device Mastery will leave a character well behind in combat talents, which I wouldn’t like. You COULD get up to Device Mastery late in the game once you have most/all combat talents. But at that point, its usefulness is limited because you will have passed by pretty much all locked chests and traps in the game already.

A warrior archer is going to have a to hit that is 10 to 20 points higher then a high dex, moderate cunning rogue. He is going to have higher hit points (about 70), stamina (30) and armor if you put some points into strength for medium/heavy armor. The damage and defense for both a warrior and rogue should be fairly close. Ability usage wise the warrior will blow the rogue out of the water since he can pick up Death Blow. He can also get Perfect Striking for that +100 to hit which is pretty good no matter how you slice it.







Talent wise the warrior is going to have a much easier time since he really only needs powerful and can then just focus on the archery line. The rogue has almost too many good talents to pick from. The archery line, stealth line and deft hands line. Some really tough choices for the rogue in the early levels. Forcing you to pick specializations much latter on since the archery/stealth/deft hands takes up 20 talents. I would not bother with lethality at all.

You make great points there, and you sort of echoed what I just said, which is that getting the Deft Hands line (and stealth for that matter) makes early talent choices tough for a rogue. It will take a long time to fulfill all the roles that proponents of rogue archers want their characters to have, whereas a warrior archer can do its thing from the beginning.

On second premise:



Ranger's pet dmg outweighs the bonus dmg scaling the Warrior has, and Bard songs brings comparable, if not more, utilities for self and party.

Yes, but as I said, Ranger builds will ALWAYS out-damage non-ranger builds. They do almost as much damage as an entire extra party member. When evaluating the Ranger, you must take into consideration the issues with them. They lose you xp every time they get a kill. They must be resummoned upon area change, and can thus disappear right before boss battles. On xbox, you can’t control them. Either way, you can’t really give them tactics. They also take 50 stamina, which a rogue archer can’t always afford. For instance, Song of Courage + Summon + Aim/Defensive Fire/Rapid Shot = Can’t use Arrow of Slaying. Thus, your effectiveness is frequently lessened somewhat significantly. So yes, if you want pure DPS, then go for a ranger. But if you want the maximize the effectiveness of your actual PC, then go warrior.

Dex builds already has sky-high attack and defense bonuses. And minor difference, if it matters at all, can be acquired from party bonuses. In solo setting rogues has more utilities.

Archers need all the attack they can get. The difference between dex archers and cunning archers in this regard is NOT trivial, nor is the difference between warrior archers and rogue archers.



Yes, if you solo, the rogue will be able to open locks and disarm traps. But again, this comes at a cost. Either you take Deft Hands talents early and lose combat effectiveness for a long time, or you take them late and do not have the ability to open most chests and disarm traps unless you waste your time trudging back everywhere you have already gone. I find it almost not worth it anyways. And certainly if you aren’t soloing, you really don’t need to open locks or disarm traps yourself.

Combat stealth takes care of survivability differences.

No it doesn’t. You still have to fight. Combat Stealth can only save you if you are being attacked and are about to die and want to lose aggro quickly. Disengage does the same thing if you have a party. Either way, you DO have to fight eventually. And a cunning rogue will die quickly if actually attacked. Yes, in a party, you can typically stop your weak rogue from being hit. But this isn’t always an option in tough battles.

Talent allocation does not matter for warriors who has so few class talents, nor does it matter for rogue archers who will find the first two rogue trees near useless.

Talent allocation DOES matter for both, but more for rogues, which is another downside. Cunning rogues will need Lethality. Dexterity rogues will need the Deft Hands line if they want to make use of that. Both of them need to max stealth, and the specializations will need 3 or 4 points in them. A rogue will really need to end up with about 28 talents, depending on what your exact build is. You will get this by the end, but talent allocation is hardly irrelevant. This is especially true when you realize that some points in Deft Hands are needed if you want to open many locks early on, while at least 3 points in stealth are needed if you want to use that effectively, 3 points for Lethality are needed ASAP for a cunning build, and obviously you want to max out the archery tree as quickly as possible. You can’t do all this at once, and the result is that the rogue archer will not be able to do even close t everything it is capable of until pretty far into the game.



On the other hand, the warrior archer can live to its potential right away. You want to get archery talents quickly obviously. You can do this because you do not need warrior talents right away. You will want to get Death Blow around Level 12, which isn’t that bad, especially since Powerful and Bravery help your combat effectiveness anyways. Once your defense is quite high, you will want to get taunt, but you don’t need it right away. Once you get Champion at Level 7, you will want to start investing in that. Obviously, you can’t have everything at once, but the Warrior archer has a lot more of an orderly talent progression possible. You can get things right as you want them to a much larger extent than rogue archers can. This is an advantage.

Archers focuses on its bread and butter abilities Scattershot and Arrow of Slaying, not dmg scaling with attributes and gears. It doesn't matter how well geared the archer is, you do not top party-contribution chart, given comparable party members of other classes and builds. So "best" should not be defined as how combat competent they are.



Instead, Archers are the most noted solo classes due to rogue's versatile utilities.

Again, archers are not the best damage dealers, but that doesn’t mean you should abandon any attempt to get as much combat effectiveness out of them as possible.

[lessthanjake9]

Its a good thing I like to read because that was a very long post. The first thing I would like to know is are you making an educated guess about this or have you actually successfully built a tank archer like this? On my first playthrough I read that a dex rogue archer was perhaps the deadliest class in the game and I attempted to turn Leliana into such a character. I was very disappointed as Leliana had the lowest damage output on my team. In her defense I didn't get AoS nearly as early as I should have. I came to the boards and posted my stats and asked what I did that was wrong. I was told to get lethality asap, AoS, and stop putting points into dex and start pumping cunning. Her percentage of the party damage never increased although she did have the single highest hit for 350+ damage. I believe my sns warrior on that playthrough almost tripled her dmg output.

Switching from dexterity to cunning will not increase your damage. They both contribute equally to damage. I think the problem you ran into is the fact that archers are weak early on. They find it very hard to hit early, especially on opponents with shields. A dex build gets away from this problem as early as possible, but it is likely that your Leliana suffered from this issue early and then you switched her, and she never got an adequate to hit.



Also, as you said, I suspect you didn’t get the archery talents early enough. In any case, no archer is going to be uber powerful. Archery is not that great in this game; it is why a Bioware employee created his own fix to make it better. But just cause archery is less effective doesn’t mean that there aren’t more and less effective ways to make one.

My sns warrior still had problems tanking because he was only able to fight 1 target at a time. Taunt was able to get everyones attention but without the ability to inflict damage on more than 1 target at a time the mobs left me and went and jumped the squishies anyway. An archer warrior is going to face the same problem because the only aoe talent that I see is scattershot which has a 40 second refresh

A Warrior archer can have Warcry and Holy Smite (or even Aura of Pain if you really like Reavers) to keep aoe aggro. It shouldn’t be too much of an issue. He will have Taunt, Scattershot, Warcry, and Holy Smite to keep aggro.

Point 3 is pretty weak. Defensive fire adds 30 defense, there are only two bows that add defense, one with 3 dex that's a crossbow and another that adds 10 defense against missiles but is also a tier 6 shortbow, massive armor reduces attack speed with bows no matter what talents are taken. Total defense from bows: 33 or 30 with 10 missile







Meanwhile the best shield for defense adds 18 defense and 9 missile defense, the best sword for defense adds 3 dex, and the sustain shield wall adds 10. Total defense from weapon and shield: 31 with 9 missile

You are missing a HUGE point here.



Any Sword/Shield tank build will still get up to at least 42 strength for items and in order to do some decent damage. My warrior archer will only need 25 strength. That allows him to pump dexterity at least 17 points higher than the sword/shield tank. He also gets +30 defense from Defensive Fire. That’s +47 defense. Even with the equipment you mentioned, the sword and shield tank will not match my warrior archer’s defense. This is especially true when you realize that realistically, a warrior archer will wear The Felon’s Coat which provides an extra 15 defense. A sword/shield warrior COULD do this too, but they rarely do. The reason is partially that they can never really get their defense up to ‘almost impossible to hit’ territory, so they need high armor. My warrior archer CAN get to impossible to hit territory.



Let’s just think about this. Starting Defense is 45. At level 24, a human noble warrior archer can get up to 89 base dexterity, while still having Death Blow. This provides 79 extra defense. Defensive Fire provides 30 defense. Rally provides 10 defense. Felon’s Coat provides 15 defense. That is a 189 defense without even factoring in other possible items, which could likely get one up to about 200 defense. That’s ridiculously high. A sword/shield tank can get pretty high too, but will always be 10-15 points behind, even when maxed out.

Given the shield wall is not the best +defense sustain and also adds 5 armor plus the ability for a true tank to wear massive armor and no penalty I'd say the myth that a high dex archer makes the best melee tank has been throughly debunked.

…

To say that other melee tanks waste attribute points for strength just to wear armor is absurd. Armor and flanking immunity matters, even on a high defense tank. Defense from dex doesn't do anything if the tank is stunned, for example. One shield slam and a rogue would backstab the archer tank to death rather rapidly.

I NEVER said that a high dex archer made the best tank. I said that they got the highest defense in the game, making them the hardest to hit. This is true. It is not true that they make the best tanks, as they are not immune to stuns or knockdowns, nor can they pump up spell resistance quite as high as another warrior tank, even if they go Templar. And if an enemy has the ridiculous attack needed to hit them, they don’t have the armor or hp to last that long.



The point is not that this is the optimal tank build in the entire game. I am not comparing these archer builds to anything else, because archers will always come out behind if that is done. I am simply saying that a dex based warrior archer CAN be a very good tank, even if it’s not the best one. This is still true.

[soteria]

You're exaggerating the difference between cunning and dexterity. At the point in the game I'm at, I usually run with a warrior with rally up and a mage with miasma up. That's the equivalent of +20 attack AND +20 defense for myself, or 20 points of dexterity. So assuming I did something like 60 cunning and 30 dexterity (not too far from my current rogue's stats), it would be like having 50 dex. My attack rating would be 120. Not amazing, but good enough to hit when I need to. For a boss, add weakness, growl, and below the belt, and I just added another +30 attack.

High defense is great because you can actually use your archer as a tank whenever you want it for that. It is also somewhat silly to say that Leliana doesn’t get attacked very much. This might be true, but Leliana will also do less damage than a PC archer, drawing less aggro. Secondly, Scattershot is very useful, but draws huge aggro from every enemy.

I can't think of a situation where I'm using Scattershot with an archer and I'm not also mixing in other more powerful CC's in with my mage. I'm also having a really hard time seeing a PC rogue pull aggro off Alistair or Shale with combat stealth and high cunning, which lets you stealth in front of elite bosses like Flemeth--you can't do that with a low cunning build.

Most importantly, even if you DO use a tank to divert attention away from your archer, the hardest situations in the game will bypass this tanking mechanic. Boss battles like the Broodmother fight has enemies attack you no matter what. The High Dragon tends to attack the highest armored character, but in my experience, it sometimes just attacks randomly, killing easy to kill characters extremely quickly. Most obviously, though, the tough battles are when your tank actually dies. That’s when things start to get really hard. A dexterity archer would not have to worry in this case. A cunning archer would be pretty screwed. Does this happen a lot? No. But if you are playing on an adequate difficulty level for yourself, then it WILL happen in the tough battles, and it is success in tough battles that really defines the quality of a build. In this case, a dexterity based archer will be more successful.

There is nothing in the http://www.youtube.c...?v=vNwoo7BuWVo' class='bbc_url' title='External link' rel='nofollow external'>Broodmother fight that seriously threatens a ranged character. You can tell from how often Leliana misses that she's mostly invested in cunning--she's there to pick locks, not do damage--but she still does fine, even when attacked by a couple darkspawn.

The only time the High Dragon will kill a ranged character quickly is if you are tanking her facing the group and she breathes fire. The rest of the time she should be attacking the tank. I can't see any archer pulling aggro off a tank that's using taunt, even from outside melee range. ...and if she's breathing fire on an archer and killing them, high defense wouldn't help much, would it? Same for if she's coming up and grabbing someone. Player fail, but again, defense wouldn't help.

If my tank dies, the next person to die will be the mage. At that point I'm probably looking at soloing the fight, and I'll just reload because victory would take too long. Easier and faster to just start over and avoid whatever mistake got me in a pickle in the first place.

Spoiler

The only possible time I can think of when a max dexterity warrior archer would really be superior is killing Caridin after Shale turns against you, and that's just because they can taunt.

Modifié par soteria, 24 janvier 2010 - 11:37 .

[wby87]

You should be defensive about your argument, but caps makes it sound angry, or worse.

On ranger pet: If you want to tank, you can get a tank pet; If you want to save Scattershot's stamina, you can get a CC pet. Solo rangers thrives on handling messy combat situations effectively. Sure the pet is not a "physical" part of you. But isn't it better when it, instead of you, gets chewed by a dragon or waste stamina?

On attack/defense: These numbers suffers diminishing return (e.g. why get extra 20 attack when you can hit everything already). That's why stacking them into unrealistic numbers does not improve the archer. A few party buff gets you to what you need easily. And no, Shale really doesn't have anything better to do besides sustaining her aura.

If you are concerned about rogue's health and durability, there is evasion, distraction, dirty fighting, stealth, and yes, a hungry blight wolf ready to overwhelm whoever he finds delicious.

On talents allocation: you get 32 talents in game for warriors and rogues. Neither class are talent starved, so it comes down to progression. Both stealth and deft hands trees are meant to follow plot progression. You don't throw 8 talents right away into these trees and be 8 level behind on combat. When warriors takes filler talents, rogues takes utility talents.

Also note that they provide bonus, not mandatory utilities. If the warrior can bring Leliana, so can the rogue. I'm sure she wouldn't mind another bard singing songs with her. But if Leliana doesn't want either's company, the rogue can do the job himself, so to speak.

The stamina difference is a matter of a couple Willpower. Key to the City alone makes up warrior's initial bonus. Now the rogue gets the stamina needed to pull off that combo he was just short earlier. Spellward is nice too, right? If there are still stamina problems, well, chew some shrooms.

Your replies are now leaning toward why the warrior is more versatile; that's like walking right into a rogue's trap.

OK that was lame.

Modifié par wby87, 24 janvier 2010 - 02:06 .

[beancounter501]

soteria wrote...
You're exaggerating the difference between cunning and dexterity. At the point in the game I'm at, I usually run with a warrior with rally up and a mage with miasma up. That's the equivalent of +20 attack AND +20 defense for myself, or 20 points of dexterity. So assuming I did something like 60 cunning and 30 dexterity (not too far from my current rogue's stats), it would be like having 50 dex. My attack rating would be 120. Not amazing, but good enough to hit when I need to. For a boss, add weakness, growl, and below the belt, and I just added another +30 attack.

I see that argument all the time on the boards.  The same bonsus can be applied to any character.  So if they turn your high cun hit rate from pathetic to good enough they can also turn a high hit rate character into just plan awesome. 

soteria wrote...
I can't think of a situation where I'm using Scattershot with an archer and I'm not also mixing in other more powerful CC's in with my mage. I'm also having a really hard time seeing a PC rogue pull aggro off Alistair or Shale with combat stealth and high cunning, which lets you stealth in front of elite bosses like Flemeth--you can't do that with a low cunning build.

Why not use scattershot every fight?  If you have a high defense you do not have to worry if you draw aggro.  Not using scattershot because you are afraid to draw aggro seems like a very big drawback.

soteria wrote...
If my tank dies, the next person to die will be the mage. At that point I'm probably looking at soloing the fight, and I'll just reload because victory would take too long. Easier and faster to just start over and avoid whatever mistake got me in a pickle in the first place.

Well if you playstyle is to just reload when the tank dies I can understand why you don't value defense on any character but the tank.  But some of us like to tough it out.  But play however you like.

[wby87]

I see that argument all the time on the boards.  The same bonsus can be applied to any character.  So if they turn your high cun hit rate from pathetic to good enough they can also turn a high hit rate character into just plan awesome. 

Not when plain awesome is exactly the same as good enough.

Why not use scattershot every fight?  If you have a high defense you do not have to worry if you draw aggro.  Not using scattershot because you are afraid to draw aggro seems like a very big drawback.

Because CC is not needed and more shooting is.

Well if you playstyle is to just reload when the tank dies I can understand why you don't value defense on any character but the tank.  But some of us like to tough it out.  But play however you like.

Rogue do have the utilities to tough it out, like you said, he may simply choose not to.

Modifié par wby87, 24 janvier 2010 - 02:15 .

[beancounter501]

wby87 wrote...
Not when plain awesome is exactly the same as good enough.

Nonsense, the to hit is on a 100 point role.  Until your to hit is 100 points over the defense every bit of + attack helps. 

Why not use scattershot every fight?  If you have a high defense you do not have to worry if you draw aggro.  Not using scattershot because you are afraid to draw aggro seems like a very big drawback.

Scatter shot is Aoe.  The stun effect is too short off a duration in my opinion for CC.

]
Rogue do have the utilities to tough it out, like you said, he may simply choose not to.

I never said Rogue could not be durable with a high defense.  I just they would be a lot better off going for +attack + def versus the minor bonus from a high cunning.

[soteria]

I see that argument all the time on the boards. The same bonsus can be applied to any character. So if they turn your high cun hit rate from pathetic to good enough they can also turn a high hit rate character into just plan awesome.

I very strongly disagree. I'll kill "trash" faster with a high cunning build and the mentioned debuffs than you will with 99% hit rate already and redundant debuffs. If I need a higher chance to hit something tough, I can paralyze, stun, or otherwise disable it to increase my chance to hit even further, also negating the need for extra defense. In other words, on easy stuff the extra attack is not needed. On hard stuff, I can use abilities to close the gap that just become useless on your toolbar.

Why not use scattershot every fight? If you have a high defense you do not have to worry if you draw aggro. Not using scattershot because you are afraid to draw aggro seems like a very big drawback.

It's also possible that since the CC is so short and the damage is not tremendous, I rarely think to bother with it. It's only on the hard fights that I take the time. I can't think of a time I didn't use an ability because I was afraid of drawing aggro. Well, I take that back. In my current playthrough, I'm not using a healer or potions, so sometimes I don't taunt.

Well if you playstyle is to just reload when the tank dies I can understand why you don't value defense on any character but the tank. But some of us like to tough it out. But play however you like.

As I think about it, I think I got in the habit of reloading when my tank died because I was going for the "Big Deal" achievement. And I guess I let Alistair die a fair bit these days, but that's more because Morrigan and Dog are so awesome at CC than anyone else having good defense.

[wby87]

Nonsense, the to hit is on a 100 point role.  Until your to hit is 100 points over the defense every bit of + attack helps.

Every bit of + attack helps, on a diminishing return. It is plain awesome when you jumps from 10% to 20% chance to hit. From 80% to 90%, not as awesome. Dumping attributes into Dex already pushes toward the limit.

Now I'm curious at where did OP's extra attack and defense come from.
Lets say the rogue is a Dex Duelist/Ranger, and the warrior is Dex Champion/Berserker, then:

5 Atk for Warrior, 5 Def for rogue.
Rally offsets Dueling
Warcry offsets Deadly Strike
Ranger's pet offset whatever dmg bonus there is.

And we are left with Precise Striking, I guess losing 10% speed is offset by Rapid Aim after enough Dex. But aren't we using Defensive fire and Haste?

So that's 10 situational attack differences, and the original 5 Atk vs 5 Def trade-off. Based on that, I don't think the rogue would be afraid to draw aggro any more than the warrior. I hope there are more to saying Warrior is better than the 5 attack and 10 situational attack.

Sure perfect striking is nice, but abusing pinpoint strike is even nicer.

Modifié par wby87, 24 janvier 2010 - 04:34 .

[tetracycloide]

lessthanjake9 wrote...

The point is not that this is the optimal tank build in the entire game. I am not comparing these archer builds to anything else, because archers will always come out behind if that is done. I am simply saying that a dex based warrior archer CAN be a very good tank, even if it’s not the best one. This is still true.

No, they cannot.  There are far to many abilities that they are not immune to, that defense does nothing against, that would kill them very quickly without even counting the fact that after one stun there defense means nothing.  Against normal mobs they last longer than a normal DPS would but that's it.  As such the defensive merits of a Dex archer are irrelevant because they'd still need a real tank or massive CC anyway and once you've got that the utility of defense drops to 0 or very nearly 0.

As a side note no warrior tank would ever need more than 32 strength at the absolute most.

[Nathas]

Nah, Rogues is the best archers in the game than Warrior. The reason because, rogues have more deter-- "agility" (However you spelt it...) in the beginning of the orgins story. Warrior is start with higher cunning than "agility"... That's how it works

[tristaneben]

Personally I rarely have an issue with my archer pulling threat. Especially with Leliana, who if she happens to pull threat uses Song of Distraction, or stuns them while I get another character to pull them off her (sometimes its not even worth doing this, she really doesnt get hurt that much by one enemy, even on higher difficulties).



I have recently started an archer, and have progressed through Redcliffe and am onto the mage tower. As yet my main character RARELY pulls threat as my Tank (alistair) very easily keeps threat with Taunt and Threaten activated. Even scattershot is not an issue in large groups with Alistair soaking up everyones damage.



All in all, I can see what you are saying in this thread. However I cannot agree that as a rule, Warriors are better archers than Rogues, purely for the defensive angle. In the end if your tank is doing its job, and your Rogue Archer has the appropriate skills to avoid any offchance threat pull, there really isnt an issue.