91 réponses à ce sujet

[beancounter501]

Ahh, I loved Kotor! One of the first mods I ever released was for Kotor. Good times indeed.



I would agree 100% about the combat log. That combined with the HORRIBLE talent/skill/spell descriptions really leaves you in the dark. Unless you come to the internet and spend hours shifting through data or worse try to figure out the combat scripts. I have spent a lot of time looking through the scripts, (I am a programmer in real life and it is a whole lot funner then looking at some boring work logic) and still I could not tell you what the max monster defense is in the game.



What do you mean on auto attacks? There is defintely only one roll involved. In a nut shell the calculation is: if (Random Decimal Number * 100) < (Attack Score + 54) - Defense = Hit. The random number is between 0 and .99999. Unlike other RPG's the lower your attack roll the better.



You are completly unhittable once your defense is 55 points over their attack. And you will always hit once you attack rating is 47 points higher then their defense. Unlike D&D and other games there is no automatic hit roll or automatic miss roll.



About Berserk, you have to make the switch in the quick slots. As soon as you open the inventory screen berserk will drop off with a ranged weapon.

[tetracycloide]

In a one roll system a single die is cast for each auto attack that determines both hit and crit. In such a system a 85% hit rate and a 40% crit rate would mean that, on a 100 sided die, rolls 1-40 would be a crit, 41-85 would be a hit, and 86+ would be a miss.

In a two roll system two die are cast, one to determine hit and the other to determin crit. In such a system an 85% hit rate and a 40% crit rate would mean that, on a 100 sided die, the first roll of 85 or below would result in a hit. Another die would then be cast and a 40 or below would be a crit.

The implication being that if crit rate is greater than hit rate in a one roll system then it effectively becomes this hit rate and a 100% crit chance would mean 100% chance to hit and crit on every attack, not just to crit on every hit.

I noticed that on berserk while playing with Sten. Every time I went into the char screen to check his buffed damage stats berserk would turn off. Most irritating.

Before someone points it out I'm not considering death hex or pinpoint striking as being definitive either way.  Pinpoint striking doesn't set the crit chance to 100% on the character screen and death hex could really work the same way in reverse.  The best way to be sure is to attack with 100% crit and see if any misses pop up.

Modifié par tetracycloide, 26 janvier 2010 - 03:17 .

[dkjestrup]

^ You haven't actually done that have you? You can only have one pet at a time, including Animate dead. EDIT: Not you, person who posted about having a 7 man party with 3 pets.

TC. You keep brushing off our arguments like they aren't important. Stealth is THE ability. It's awesome.

I'd say that Precise striking SHOULD work with bows. Why would you design 4 specializations for a rogue, only to have one of the two specs able to use them? Nonsense.

The fact is that Rogues have more utility, with Stealth, lockpicking, pets. So what if your Warrior can max out their archery skills by x level. So can the rogue, if they wish. Rogues just have other, BETTER, options.

And using +Str items to equip good armor is NOT an exploit, just using your brains. Just fyi, here is how to get +10:

+2 Andruils Belt
+2 Helm of Honleath
+2 Ring of the Warrior
+2 Key to the City (or Harvest festival ring)
+1 Barbarian Mace or +3 Vanguard
+1 Eartheart's Portable Bulwark
+1 Effort's Gloves
+2 Shadow of the Empire

Probably missed some.

Modifié par dkjestrup, 26 janvier 2010 - 03:21 .

[beancounter501]

tetracycloide wrote...

In a one roll system a single die is cast for each auto attack that determines both hit and crit. In such a system a 85% hit rate and a 40% crit rate would mean that, on a 100 sided die, rolls 1-40 would be a crit, 41-85 would be a hit, and 86+ would be a miss.

In a two roll system two die are cast, one to determine hit and the other to determin crit. In such a system an 85% hit rate and a 40% crit rate would mean that, on a 100 sided die, the first roll of 85 or below would result in a hit. Another die would then be cast and a 40 or below would be a crit.

The implication being that if crit rate is greater than hit rate in a one roll system then it effectively becomes this hit rate and a 100% crit chance would mean 100% chance to hit and crit on every attack, not just to crit on every hit.

The rolls are speperate.  One for crit rate one for too hit.  You actually roll the critical threaten then roll the to hit.  Kind of weird.

From the source code:
Crit Hits:  int bThreatenCritical = (RandomFloat()*100.0f   < fCriticalHitModifier  );
To hit:  if (RandomFloat()*100.0f <  fAttack - fDefenseRating)

fAttack is basically your attack rating + 54 + flanking bonsus.

Modifié par beancounter501, 26 janvier 2010 - 03:25 .

[tetracycloide]

This is going to sound odd but just because they're separate rolls doesn't mean it's a two roll system. Can you post the rest of the logic because from that I can't tell that rolling a crit doesn't automatically result in a hit.

[soteria]

I don't mean to say that the discussion thus far has been unpleasant or even unproductive, just that it's sucked up a lot of time and I have a hard time forseeing the rogue/warrior dex/cun debate covering new ground, from my side at least. I'm not much of a theorycrafter, so without having played his build, I honestly don't feel qualified to carry this any further. Besides, I hate repeating myself, and I feel that's where it's headed.



And yes, definitely want a combat log. Theorycraft and number crunching aside, I can't tell you how many times I died or took heavy damage and was left scratching my head as to how/why.

[meho12]

i have tank with my rogue archer many times. all you do is go in defenisve fire and they cant hit you for nothing. with decent physical and mental res you ignore the stun and knockback affect. with high def bosses simiply just miss you and with archer debuff rogue stand a fair chance. rogue is better simiply is that we get higher def and critcal shot rating. are attack going be just a high because its dex base.

http://social.biowar...na_id=223249418 thats my archer. highest damage dealt was 813

Modifié par meho12, 26 janvier 2010 - 08:16 .

[ownedbywitt]

look at my cun archer.

http://social.biowar...e=dragonage1_pc



As the time pass, my hit rate is increasing, since lvl 15 more or less its doing 100% hit result, with taninted blood it reach 74 damage, more than 30% critical chance 23 armor penetration, is awesome! just 2 points spend on deaft hands and he can unlook everything thanks to the cunning.



Also, i don't have to mention the great advantage that my party is getting with song of courage.

[ertrader]

ownedbywitt wrote...

look at my cun archer.
http://social.biowar...e=dragonage1_pc

As the time pass, my hit rate is increasing, since lvl 15 more or less its doing 100% hit result, with taninted blood it reach 74 damage, more than 30% critical chance 23 armor penetration, is awesome! just 2 points spend on deaft hands and he can unlook everything thanks to the cunning.

Also, i don't have to mention the great advantage that my party is getting with song of courage.

Nice. Can you tell me what your attack rating is? I just don't understand the mechanics I guess, I don't see how you can get 100% to hit without pumping dex higher. Is there a point where attack gets so high that boosting it further doesn't do any good? Or is your attack rating getting boosted by another party member (Heroic Offense, Rally)?

[ownedbywitt]

My attack is near 150 (I'm not at home, so can't check it now), I got the next buffs and sustained skills:

Duelist

Aim

Song of courage

Rally



More or less, I noticed after lvl 15 that he rarely fails, so, since then I had been looking closer to my overall hit rate, and it has incresed from 74% to 85%, I hope that when I end this playthrough it will be near 90%.

[Timortis]

That character sheet shows 85% hit rate and that seems to be veeeery generously rounded up somehow anyway. I'm currently soloing with a cun Rogue with higher attack score than that character would have and my character sheet shows 100%, and I can tell you it isn't even close, I miss all the time, sometimes several times in a row.

Modifié par Timortis, 26 janvier 2010 - 03:55 .

[ownedbywitt]

Your character sheet is bugged xD



If I could make a video, it would show how my archer rarely miss at my current lvl and stats.

[tetracycloide]

I had a dual wield cunning rogue at 95% before the siege of denierium, just as it was starting actually, that ended the game at 100%. I suspect the character sheet 'hit%' isn't a lifetime stat, that new attacks push old attacks out of the calculations and it's actualy an 'over the last x attacks' stat. It's hard to say one way or the other but that's certainly what it looks and feels like to me.  Hell, it could even be an 'against last attacked foe' stat for all we know.

Modifié par tetracycloide, 26 janvier 2010 - 04:31 .

[Timortis]

If it was against last attacked foe, it would go down after fighting bosses for example. It doesn't. It seems to always go up, and between 2 characters with similar attack scores at the same level, the one with faster attack speed always shows higher hit rate, if they haven't both already reached 100%.

[lessthanjake9]

[quote] YOU won't. I sell the blood dragon armor, do some sidequests, and can have paralyze runes by the time I leave Redcliffe.[/quote]



Fair enough, but you won’t have everything you talked about. It’s almost irrelevant though because this is part of why I think it’s a silly argument for you to make. MOST players won’t do that. Your skill and knowledge of the game may make every encounter pretty easy, but that is not the case for most players, especially new ones, who need defense and attack on every character.



[quote] Eh. No. Point is, low attack can be compensated for by leveraging the abilities of your entire group. There's very few group buffs that increase damage, and this is all ignoring the other benefits of having cunning above 50, such as easy persuade checks, stealthing in combat, and disabling traps and locks without having to bring another rogue. If I focused more on attack and defense, I probably wouldn't be able to kill the hard enemies as fast. And to be honest, it's true that you can't really lock down dragons for an entire fight, either.[/quote]



You’ll have a tough time leveraging abilities enough in tougher battles, as you admitted about dragons. Besides though, this is going back to the point I have been making. YOU may know how to leverage abilities to make low attack and defense somehow okay. But most people are not going to manage that. So for most people, a cunning based rogue archer is going to end up lame. And really, I find this to be the most important gauge of a build. It is more relevant how strong a build is in the hands of an average player than it is how strong a build is in the hands of a power gamer who knows the game inside out. A power gamer can just cover up glaring weaknesses. But those weaknesses are still weaknesses, and if a warrior archer is going to be better in the hands of non-power gamer, then I consider it a better build.



[quote] You say it was an oversight that it gives a bonus to ranged attacks. I say it was an oversight that it requires a melee weapon. Why don't they fix it if they think it's an exploit? If they do, then I'll agree with you, but otherwise all you have is your opinion.[/quote]



I think that’s highly unlikely. There are plenty of abilities that work for ranged and melee. The ones that don’t work for both do not work for an obvious reason. This is true of Pinpoint Strike as well. The Duelist is meant to be like a fencer in any RPG you look at. Not coincidently, both abilities that do not work with ranged (pinpoint strike and upset balance) have pictures of a person who looks like they are fencing on them. They are pretty clearly not meant for ranged.



And the argument that they would’ve fixed it if it were an exploit is silly. First off, there’s no reason to fix it since it doesn’t hurt anyone. More importantly, though, the problem is that sustains and equipment do not check to see if prereqs are met after you activate them. This is a design flaw that would be complicated to fix, I assume, because they would have to implement a check.



[quote] Cherry-picking because I really don't have anything to say about the other battles. Defense is irrelevant for Broodmother--stand on the rocks and the tentacles can't hit you. You'll still get hit by spit. A warrior tank or Shale can just as eaily taunt/warcry the darkspawn as your archer, letting your archer save stamina for useful abilities.[/quote]



First off, I didn’t even know about standing on the rocks, so I assume most players won’t either. Secondly, why use a tank for that stuff when my archer can do it and still have plenty of stamina to use his abilities?



[quote] Most of the ones that are tough involve mages or drakes that overwhelm/roar, or both. Defense wouldn't help mitigate that.[/quote]



No but mages aren’t exactly the bane of my champion/templar warrior archer anyways. Also, do drakes really overwhelm? I believe you, but I’ve never seen it. I like to go to the Urn around Level 10-12 because killing the High Dragon gets you absurd gear for that level, and the challenge is super high and intense. Drakes can’t overwhelm at that level I guess. This just goes to show that the relevance of the archer’s weaknesses to abilities is much lower until a good way through the game when opponents start using them. Either way, though, some healing will help you survive those drakes, and otherwise they won’t hit you. I am convinced it would still be a viable tank there.



[quote] Well, just have a templar tank him in spell resist gear--at that point you won't take much damage from his revenant form anyway. I guess you could do that with an archer as well, if you don't mind taking the penalty for massive armor. Seems more efficient to let Alistair do it, but whatever.[/quote]



What if I don’t want Alistair in the party? Or more importantly, what if I want my player character to be the most important member of the party? I typically feel that way. I hate it when I feel like another character is the most important character in an engagement. Having Alistair be the key to beating Gaxkang is therefore much less alluring than having my character be the key.



[quote] I'm not arguing that a character with high dexterity can't tank stuff. I'm saying the warrior with high dexterity and a shield will do better for the majority of the game, and the rogue archer with a pet, bard song, and good dex and cunning will end up doing more damage. My bear does like 40-50 damage and I don't even have master ranger yet. And he can shatter stuff.[/quote]



Of course a warrior will do better. But that’s cause archery is sub-par in this game. But the ability to be the tank is a plus. It is a plus the rogue archer does not have. If you are a power gamer, maybe you see no point because another character, like Alistair, might be a better tank anyways, so why use the archer for it? But this all goes back to my previous point. For most Dragon Age players, the importance of their player character to the party is important. They want to feel like their character is indispensable in battle and awesome.



Without a role as the tank, an archer really has no indispensable place. Their CC is minimal, they won’t be totally outdoing other party members in damage, and the cunning archer will die easily. Sure, a cunning rogue archer will be indispensible in opening locks and disarming traps, but this hardly makes the player feel like their character is great in battle. And yes they have Song of Courage, but that’s not a party buff that is so powerful that you notice it a great deal. A cunning rogue archer will simply feel lame in battle compared to his or her comrades. The warrior archer who is used as a tank will FEEL indispensable. For me, and I am sure for others, this is a big deal.



[quote] To be honest, I'm not sure a good player *could* cover the flaws in ANY build. In my current game, I'm doing just fine with no potions or healer, but only because I built the entire group around that concept. If I tried to do the same with someone else's group, or even one of my own from a different playthrough, I'd get annihilated. Heck, I struggle even if I just swap out a single character. The build is very important, but having a backup tank is not. If I chose to build someone like that, I would probably end up having to use them in that capacity because I would be weaker in other ways.[/quote]



I mean, im sure no one could cover the flaws in a shapeshifter who pumps cunning. But within reason, you can cover virtually any flaw. Low HP, defense, and armor do not matter because a good player can keep aggro away. Low attack doesn’t matter because a good player can leverage abilities to make low attack okay. Low damage doesn’t matter that much because a good player can keep everything disabled almost indefinetly anyways, AND can easily get lots of damage from NPCs AND will be able to keep their tank alive indefinetly. Low resistances do not matter because a character can be kept away from aggro and because a good player will disable mages before they can get anything off. The point is, a good player can succeed with any decent build despite its flaws. The flaws are still flaws though, and will manifest themselves if lesser players play the game with the same build.



[quote] Because you can equip +strength items, put your massive armor on, and take them off. I'm just guessing you're going to call it an exploit. It's too tedius for my taste, but there you have it.[/quote]



Yes I do consider that an exploit. It exploits the fact that Dragon Age does not have equipment and abilities check for the prereqs after you’ve put them on. This is the same problem that allows you to use Pinpoint Strike with a bow. If you do not have the strength to put on armor without items, you shouldn’t have the strength to keep it on without those items. It’s a single player game, so I don’t care how others play, but this sorta thing cannot IMO be used to justify one builds superiority over another. And yes, I feel the same way about its tedium since I tend to be a lazy gamer. But I also would feel like winning a fight wasn’t legit if I used this.



[quote] Summons: Ok, I'll give you Gaxxkang. As for the rest, I haven't seen any issues that couldn't be chalked up to size. I've noticed the bear has a hard time getting around stuff. Having used both, though, I'd definitely take ranger over templar. For Champion it would depend on what the rest of my group looked like.[/quote]



I would take ranger over templar too. Templar is a rather weak spec for an archer, but it is probably the 2nd best one (unless you wanna use the berserk exploit for ranged weapons, in which case, Berserker becomes awesome). Champion is REALLY good though. And so combined, I think Champion/Templar doesn’t lose much on the spec options for a cunning rogue. On its face, one may think that Ranger and either Bard or Duelist is better, but you must realize that the lack of both Song of Courage and Duelist will leave the cunning archer with VERY low attack. So you pay a price for taking ranger.



[quote] I wouldn't do it either. As I said, easier and faster to just reload. I wasn't actually saying to just stay stealthed while pets win the day, but that you can wait for your pet to come back for a second summon, and let it tank for you.[/quote]



Is that not an imperfect solution though? Pets have no reliable way of drawing aggro. They can’t really tank, and if youre rolling a cunning archer, you can’t really afford to risk having a ton of aggro coming your way. You will die quite quickly. So yes, a ranger pet helps the chances of survival in this case (the chances are basically 0 without the pet), even without doing the auto-win Pet + Stealth strategy, but the rogue is still quite weak. This is especially true when you realize that with other characters down, you wont be benefitting from the party buffs that the cunning archer will likely rely upon to keep attack okay.



[quote] I'll admit this isn't really an amazing argument for rogue vs warrior (more against archery in general), but taking all the archer talents doesn't really make you much better as an archer. Most of the specials take so long to fire the benefit seems marginal. Most of the time you're better off just autoshooting. AoS and Scattershot are nice, but Critical Shot is a bit of a wash. Take 1.5x as long to fire to do 1.5x more damage? Erm. Of course, the rogue can just activate stealth every 10s for a free critical.[/quote]



Yeah I somewhat agree with this. It limits the value of Death Blow. Personally, I have a mod on that make archer talents take much less time to fire off. They are therefore all very useful. But in the unmodded game, archer activated talents are sorta gimped due to this, you are right.



But that doesn’t mean it is not HUGELY useful to get through the whole archery tree. Getting to Master Archer early gives you a possible early +30 defense bonus. At a relatively low level, that amount of defense is absolutely ridiculous. I think the value of getting Arrow of Slaying as early as possible goes without saying. Critical Shot may not be normally THAT useful for damage, but certainly having it early is great for shattering. Having Suppressing Fire, Shattering Shot, and Crippling Shot can make many boss battles quite easy, as the boss will suddenly have -20 armor, -25 attack, and -10 defense. Lastly, the value of Scattershot pretty much goes without saying as well. And of course having Melee Archer is basically obligatory. I could go on, but basically, archery does low damage on auto-attack. Not having Arrow of Slaying, Scattershot, an ability to easily shatter or the ability to massively debuff bosses will just keep you being a very weak member of the party in combat.



[quote] As for talent point investment, I am making two separate and mutually exclusive arguments, and you're mixing them. You said that it takes a long time for rogues to get all that utility. I pointed out that I can get it by level 9 or so, and still have points in the archery tree, which could certainly include defensive fire.[/quote]



How are you going to do that? By level 9, you will have gotten 11 talents plus one from the Joining. That is 12 talents. A cunning archer must have Lethality by level 9. You said you’d want Combat Stealth and 2 ranks in the Deft Hands tree. You start with Dirty Fighting. That is a total of 9 talents. You only will have 3 more at that point. You can get Defensive Fire, but you won’t have Master Archer to make it +30 defense instead of +15. You wont have Arrow of Slaying. You won’t have Scattershot. You won’t be able to have made much of any investment in your level 7 spec (and this is bad, especially if you go for Bard then because that needs 3 ranks to be great). You will be very very weak in combat. That is a fact. It won’t rectify itself for a while. You won’t even be close to getting AoS, which an archer really needs to close the combat effectiveness gap.



Meanwhile, by level 9, my character could have EVERY single archery talent. This means, at level 9, I can be running around with +30 defense, start every battle with Arrow of Slaying and Scattershot, shatter Cone of Colded enemies with Critical Shot, debuff the hell out of bosses with Suppressing Fire, Shattering Shot, and Crippling Shot etc etc. At level 9, the ability to do all of that will make me one of the most powerful members of my party in combat, instead of one of the weakest.



[quote] You also said rogues don't have any other options but to go with the utility because their talents aren't as combat-oriented. I pointed out that they don't have to spend points in utility--they can spend them in specializations, combat stealth, and lethality. 6 in rogue talents, 8 in specializations, 12 in archery. A warrior at the same level is spending 8 in warrior talents, 12 in archery, and 6 in specializations. You don't come out ahead.[/quote]



I didn’t use the word utility. I said that they can’t use talents to directly increase their combat effectiveness. Instead they must use their talents on abilities that only add to your character in any way if you put a significant early investment in them. Stealth has a combat application but it doesn’t really help your combat effectiveness, but rather stops you from dying. Deft Hands has no combat application. Lethality only puts you back at a level playing field in combat; it doesn’t make you better in any way. Putting ranks in these early on will leave you as a terrible combatant for quite some time. However, if you don’t get them, you are equally screwed. No combat stealth early on is suicide for a cunning build that is easy to kill. No lethality early is just not an option for a cunning build. No Deft Hands early is just squandering your rogue’s unique ability for a lot of the game. So yeah, you can ignore the rogue talents early on and just fill out your archery tree like a warrior might do. But what is the point of being a rogue without getting stealth and deft hands until much later? You will just be a worse version of the warrior archer for most of the game. So it comes down to this. Either the rogue must be gimped in combat for most of the game or not have their rogue abilities for most of the game. Either way, they spend most of the game behind the warrior archer even if you think they are equal or better once they have everything.



And that moves me to my next point, which is that you KEEP mentioning how many talents the rogue will use. And I keep saying that that is not my point at all. Both builds will have plenty of talent points by the end. I think the warrior archer will be better at the end too, but the point I am making about talents is that rogue archers take a really long time to come together. Whether you think they are better at the end or not, they are MUCH further away from their potential than the warrior archer is throughout most of the game.

[lessthanjake9]

And if warrior archers is not better than dex rogue archers because of atk and def bonus, how are they better? their combat versatility comparing to ranger's pets? Or their utility versus rogue utility? If you are arguing the later, then you can say warriors in general have more "utility" than rogues. Most people would have problem with that.

I listed all the reasons in my original post. They can taunt to utilize the high defense, they can use their abilities much more, they can start with an archery talent for free etc etc. The result of everything is just a more effective archer in combat. The only thing that can possibly swing it the other way is ranger, but ranger pets sort of tip the scales towards any build since they have huge DPS. However, they have huge issues associated with them and IMO it feels much lamer to have a ranger pet doing a ton of damage while your actual character really isn’t that useful in combat. That is not a powergamer perspective, but just the perspective of someone who wants my ACTUAL character to be awesome. In that regard, the warrior archer is better than a dex based rogue archer.

Why does Deathblow really matter? Do your fights typically last 60+ seconds so you can use two Arrow of Slayings? Critical Shot is crap. Lose out on 2-4 autoshots for one 1.5x damage critical? No thanks. Crippling shot? Not worth the time either. I guess Pinning Shot is occasionally useful early on before you have a tank or a mage. Shattering Shot is ok for the armor debuff if you have two other physical damage maybe. But as a general rule, outside of AoS, archer abilities aren't worth the stamina to cast. They take too long, for too little damage or debuff. Now, you'll argue scattershot does 50 times the number of enemies hit. I'll then argue that single target focus fire is better time spent than doing a small amount of damage to lots of enemies, unless you're running an aoe group. Then I'd say that another mage is much better in that spot. Or a dual wielder using dual weapon sweep and whirlwind and you're just throwing a pebble into the pool and feeling like you're useful. The reason for this view is simply that killing an enemy is more important than damage a bunch of them some, especially given your concern about your tanks' survival.

Most fights don’t last 60+ seconds, but SOME do. The ones that do are some of the tougher battles, and having an extra auto-kill is REALLY nice in a tough battle.



I have my game modded so that the archery talents take less time to use, since it DOES limit their use. But even unmodded, the abilities are better than you admit. Critical Shot is great for shattering. Crippling Shot is a great ability against bosses. It has an attack and armor penetration bonus and deals a significant debuff. On most enemies, its not worth the effort to debuff them like that, but with tougher enemies, it’s great. Pinning Shot allows you to disable a mage from afar before he can do anything. Party mages can’t always do this as well as a Pinning Shot, because they might not have one of the spells that has a similar effect from decent range. Pinning Shot has a 60m range. Thus, you can frequently use it without your party drawing aggro, which a mage can’t do. Shattering Shot is quite nice on heavily armored enemies; -20 armor is HUGE. And obviously AoS is epic, while Scattershot is top notch. The abilities ARE good and useful; you just have to know when to use some of them, because just using them constantly is not a recipe for success.



As for your point about scattershot, it is true that focused damage is better than dispersed damage, but huge damage and a 2 second aoe stun is awesome anyways.



BTW, you will never lose out on 2-4 autoshots for Critical Shot. An archer will always have a 1.65 second time for an attack at the least. Aim time is added to this. Critical Shot adds 1 second. It also adds a massive attack bonus and armor penetration bonus. Thus, if you aren’t shattering, Critical Shot is pretty much a wash in damage, UNLESS against a heavily armored opponent, in which case it will be very much worth it.

A question, do you really keep your archer so close to the melee that they always get rally? I find the short range of rally to not be very useful for the group on my archer. Same goes with war cry. Why play an archer if you're going to spend all your time 10 feet from your group? If you don't spend time that close to the group, then rally really is worse than duelist, since it costs 15 more stamina to upkeep. And if you do stay that close, why are you playing an archer? That is what I find to be the big advantage for a rogue archer. He can supply Song of Courage to everyone regardless of range.

Why not keep an archer close to the melee? Having them close enough to melee makes sure that they aren’t shooting anything from out of range (which kills an archer’s effectiveness). Besides, there is no downside to having an archer close to combat. The advantage of ranged weapons in this game is not the range of the weapon, but rather than you can choose who you want to attack at any time, allowing easier focus fire and allowing you to quickly dispatch dangerous mages and archers. You can do this from close to the melee group or further away. It doesn’t matter.

Now, to the warrior archer being able to tank. So what? Fine, you want to create an archer/tank. That's a perfectly valid reason. But to say it is the best build, because you need a second tank is not a compelling reason, especially not when many people do just fine with one or zero warriors as tanks. In the end, an archer is a damage dealer. Both the rogue and warrior variants can do about the same damage. You'll argue that because you get all the archer talents earlier, you're superior. I'll argue that the archer talents outside of AoS suck and aren't so important to being a good archer as gear is. Thus for me, a second tank is useless, the extra talents to pick up scattershot and master archer by level 9 aren't worth the time, thus I find I have plenty of talents to pick up some deft hands and more importantly stealth 3 by level 8.

The archer being able to tank IS important. This is because archers really have no role in combat otherwise. They do less damage than other characters. They do not have significant crowd control. A cunning rogue archer is easier to kill than almost any other character. Song of Courage is not significant enough a buff that you can say an archer’s role in combat is as a buffer. The archer really has no good combat role. It is just a crappy damage dealer who dies easily and can buff a little. Who wants that as their player character? No one. You want your player character to have an indispensible role. Building an archer as a tank gives your archer a useful role in battle. I find this to be important when making a player character because normally a PC archer feels like the odd man out in the party.

Now, if you really want to say a warrior archer is better, your best bets are to use precise striking and perfect striking. Those are the two abilities a rogue does not an equivalent for that directly impact archery. Of course, I'm not sure you can really use perfect striking a lot on a boss, simply because without deathblow fueling stamina, you're going to be short, and if you're hitting things that you can kill quickly, you really don't need perfect striking anyways, but it is still a good ability. And precise striking's 2.5-14.5% crit bonus is nice in addition to the 10 attack. Too bad aim sucks for autoshots, that would be a nice sustained combo.

I’ve talked about those. A warrior archer ends up being a really great boss killer. Throw down an Arrow of Slaying for huge damage. Shattering Shot, Crippling Shot, and Suppressing Fire combine to debuff a ton. Perfect Striking allows you to do some great damage. You’ll have enough stamina for all of this around Level 12.



Precise Striking IS nice too, especially for the +10 attack at the beginning of the game. If you get Precise Striking early and use it, the warrior archer can have 16.5 higher attack than a rogue archer early on (10 from Precise Striking, 5 from being warrior, and 1.5 from starting with better attack stats). That is HUGE early on in the game, especially for archers who typically can’t hit anything at the start.

Which game are you playing? Pretty much every fight in the game has one or more of those abilities being used and the only ones that don't are against beasts, where Overwhelm also ignores defense, or against demons, where spells also ignore defense.

This is not true until a certain point in the game. At low-mid levels, archers aren’t using Scattershot, warriors aren’t using shield bash/pummel, animals aren’t using overwhelm etc etc. Once they ARE, the warrior archer will have such high defense already that he will be rarely getting hit normally. As a tank, all he will really have to worry about at that point is being hit by these abilities that bypass defense. Those abilities will result in damage being done to him, but very very rarely will they be chained together in such a way that the archer won’t be able to easily just heal up a bit after it.

No you don't, 32 is enough to wear any item in the game given a few +strength items. There's absolutely no reason to get to 42 strength unless you need it for attack or damage. Which brings me to my next point, warrior tanks should be using a dagger, not a sword/axe/mace. With all the points in dex that would otherwise go to waste to pump defense it's only natural to equip a weapon that can gain damage from dexterity, daggers are perfect. 40-60 damage at the speed of a dagger is plenty of damage for a tank IMO.

Using +strength items like that really is exploiting the game. If you don’t have enough strength without items to put on armor, you don’t have enough strength to keep it on without those items. This is just an exploit of the fact that Bioware didn’t incorporate checks on equipment prereqs when you change other equipment.



And yeah, you are right, warrior tanks should be using a dagger on PC, especially if they are going with 32 strength. On xbox, that is obviously a bad idea. BUT if the warrior uses a dagger, they are relegating themselves to doing the slightly lower base damage than an archer (without the advantage of AoS or the ability to target anyone you want due to range). That is sort of lame IMO.

No one makes tank to deal damage so the argument that the archer will do more is absurd. Granted the argument of what archer, widely required as the lowest DPS of any weapon style and with good reason, would do the most damage is equally absurd. Archers are there for utility, if a rogue or a warrior were to priorities DPS they'd be dual wield for sure.

…just because you don’t make a tank to deal lots of damage doesn’t mean they aren’t better the more damage they do…More damage is more damage wherever it comes from. You ALWAYS want more damage from ANY character you can get it from. The idea that damage is irrelevant to a tank is just silly.



And yes, archery has low DPS; my point is that building a warrior with 32 strength will make the warrior do EVEN LESS damage. If they go for a non-dagger weapon, they will only have a +22 modifier on damage. At the same time, the archer, despite doing less damage because of crappy 0.5x multipliers, will have about a +50 modifier by the end game. Since each +1 modifier translates to about 0.67 damage, that means the archer will do about 19 more damage per second. That is a lot. A dagger (only on the computer) fixes this slightly. They will have the same modifier, but the bow will do more base damage (albeit with a lower crit chance).

[lessthanjake9]

First, you said that u have played a lot of games of this kind, but, why do u want your archer to be the tank?? (except for solo play)

Because there is NO other combat role for an archer. Archers do crap damage. They do not have significant CC. They do not heal. When cunning-based, they are easy to kill. Song of Courage is a nice buff, but it is not significant enough to really say the archer fills a buffing role in the party in combat. Without being a tank, the archer is just lame in combat in every way.



If you make the archer a dex-based warrior, they can be a tank and therefore actually have a role in the party that isn’t to sit around and be worse than everyone else at everything. Will they be the best tank ever made? No, because they are weak against things that stun and knock down, but they will be sufficient as a tank. And, in combat, they will do everything a cunning archer does, but also free you up to take another damage dealer or mage instead of a tank. A tank + mage + damage dealer + archer party is worse in combat than an archer tank + 2 mages + damage dealer or an archer tank + mage + 2 damage dealer party.

With my cun archer, with buffs, song, rally, i could get the same or more attack that u have, make more damage and with a lot of more criticals, and i don't wan huge defense, because i don't need it... check my City elf character, just dies one time and it was when u are on the brecilian forest and see an abandond camp, u check it, and unless your pc chararcter is mage, u died.

You can’t get the same or more attack than me. I will have like 30 extra attack from dexterity and 5 extra attack from being a warrior. My Rally offsets your Dueling, leaving you with only Song of Courage as an extra buff. You can say that you’ll have a party member with Rally, but then I can say I’ll have a party member with Song of Courage. I can also put on Precise Striking. No matter what, you aren’t going to gain anywhere close to 35 attack back. In fact, you probably won’t gain any of it back.



You really won’t do more damage. You’ll have less overall points in your damage dealing stats. Why is this? Well you must put 6 points into strength to get to 20 for equipment. Since you are cunning based, this won’t affect your damage. You get 5 cunning in the Fade and 8 points in your damage stats instead of 7 at start up, so this makes back two of those points, BUT the result = 1.5 more DPS for the warrior. Bravery = 1 more DPS for the warrior. And I believe a warrior gets a higher damage bonus from stats than a rogue. Put that together with the aforementioned combined 2.5 extra damage, and the damage bonus from Song of Courage is covered. And you won’t have Song of Courage that soon anyways, while my bonuses will be mounting prior.



You also will not get a lot more criticals. Song of Courage will likely raise your crit chance by about 10%. Precise Striking would likely more than make up for that crit chance. And on top of that, I will start getting sky high crit chances due to Bravery if I decide to tank.



And that’s all well and good that you don’t want the defense, but think about what I just said above. If you HAVE to have an archer, you are better off having that archer fill the tank role so that you are free to add another damage dealer or mage to your party.

Normal defense archer with high attack and a awesome party > Huge defense archer with huge attack with a poor party.

That’s not the choice though.



Your party might be something like this: Alistair (Tank), Wynne (Healer + CC), Sten (Damage Dealer), and Archer.



My party could be something like this: Archer (Tank), Wynne (Healer +CC), Sten (Damage Dealer), and Morrigan (CC + Damage)



My party is better. By using the archer as a tank, I am free to take an extra damage dealing NPC (in this case Morrigan) instead of relegating one of my NPCs to a tank role in which he won’t have the stats to do high damage. The overall effect is higher party damage (and this case, more CC).

I don't see using berserking or pinpoint strike with archery as an exploit mostly because I think archery is weak enough that it can use some loving. Bioware screwed the pooch when they designed 2/3 warrior and rogue specializations with a heavy melee bias.

That is a fair attitude to have. Obviously, using this exploit isn’t going to create an overpowered character so there isn’t really any harm in it, but my point is that you can’t really say a build is better than another build because of this because it IS an exploit. Besides, though, it is not like my view on this is convenient to my argument because Berskerk > Pinpoint Strike overall.

Soloing an Ogre Alpha without taking a single point of damage. Do this with a Warrior archer, then we'll talk...

Haha that is clearly not the measure of a build. All you needed to do was Stealth + Arrow of Slaying + Kite + Stealth + Arrow of Slaying etc etc. I’m not certain though that a warrior archer couldn’t do this. If his defense was high enough, an Alpha Ogre might not be able to hit him. I know an Alpha Ogre can knock down, but does the knockdown work if the attack doesn’t hit? If not, then a warrior archer could do that. Otherwise, they could still easily solo an Alpha Ogre at high levels anyways.



Looking at your picture DID bring up one thing that must be said for cunning archers. I noticed that you had Pinning Shot on cooldown, so you obviously used it to do this, and I assume it worked (though you might’ve just used it for the automatic 50% slowing). Pinning Shot’s resistance check is based on cunning. This means that the cunning archer will probably be able to use Pinning Shot successfully against yellow and maybe orange enemies, whereas the warrior archer will have to settle for using it against white enemies only (for whom there is no resistance check). This IS something in favor of the cunning archer, but Pinning Shot isn’t a GREAT ability anyways, the cunning archer will frequently not have the stamina to spare on it, and it is most useful early on when the warrior archer will be able to use it pretty effectively anyways.

This is a minor point I'm sure but Dalish elves get a point in Archery to start the game as a warrior OR a rogue...

Nooo, they get Dirty Fighting. They start with a bow either way, but not an archer talent.

I'd say that Precise striking SHOULD work with bows. Why would you design 4 specializations for a rogue, only to have one of the two specs able to use them? Nonsense.

It sucks that the specs aren’t designed for bows at all, but the fact is that despite what you think SHOULD be, Pinpoint Strike is clearly not meant to be used with bows.

The fact is that Rogues have more utility, with Stealth, lockpicking, pets. So what if your Warrior can max out their archery skills by x level. So can the rogue, if they wish. Rogues just have other, BETTER, options.

No, the rogue just would be silly to max out their archery skills right away because if they wanted to do that, they might as well be a warrior because they would be ignoring their unique abilities to go all out combat when a warrior will always be better at that. Also, a cunning archer CANT max out their archery skills as fast since they need Lethality. Combine that with the fact that they cant start with an archery talent, and a warrior archer can max out archery 4 levels before a cunning rogue possibly can.



The fact is that rogues go for stealth and lockpicking early not because they are better but because those abilities are why one chooses to be a rogue. If you didn’t wanna get those early and make use out of them, you would just be a warrior because they will do everything a non-stealthing/lockpicking rogue does, except better. This thinking makes a rogue archer take those talents, which results in being considerably weaker in combat until much later when they can fill out the archery tree. So yes, in a way, someone who is playing as a rogue chooses stealth and lockpicking over the archery talents, but that is only because they are wanting to play as a rogue, and therefore have a particular desire to use stealth and lockpicking, not because those abilities are objectively better than what the warrior would take.

And using +Str items to equip good armor is NOT an exploit, just using your brains. Just fyi, here is how to get +10:

If you don’t have the strength to put an item on with the strength you have, why do you have the strength to keep it on at that same strength? It is CLEARLY an exploit

i have tank with my rogue archer many times. all you do is go in defenisve fire and they cant hit you for nothing. with decent physical and mental res you ignore the stun and knockback affect. with high def bosses simiply just miss you and with archer debuff rogue stand a fair chance. rogue is better simiply is that we get higher def and critcal shot rating. are attack going be just a high because its dex base.

Rogue DOES get slightly higher defense if they go dex-based, but they have no way to draw aggro. They can’t wear high armor because their strength won’t be high enough, so they will naturally get low aggro. The warrior has sky high defense as well (even if its slightly lower) and has taunt to get aggro in order to make use of that high defense.



You brought up something else I would like to mention that I haven’t talked about much. A warrior archer will have MUCH higher physical resistance than a cunning archer. My build will put all its points in strength and dexterity. Also, the warrior starts with a bonus to all the physical resistance stats. This will combine for a VERY high physical resistance. This should do a decent job at negating the problem the warrior archer would have of getting knocked down while trying to tank (and thus temporarily losing defense). It will also significantly limit stuns (though Dirty Fighting and Scattershot do not have a check), paralysis and freezing. All of this is just a huge help generally, but particularly to a tank who relies on defense. The cunning archer will have higher mental resistance, but that is WAY less useful. Furthermore, the warrior archer will have solid mental resistance anyways if it goes Templar.

[soteria]

Yes, Drakes have overwhelm. They don't seem to do it as often as mabari and wolves and spiders do it, but they can. And it sucks when the big ones do it... one overwhelms, and another roars, stunning your whole party...

[dkjestrup]

To be fair, TC is making the rules up to suit him/her.



Also, just because you don't know something, doesn't mean that most people don't.



Secondly, we're talking about the "Best". Not the simplest, the easiest to use or "For Beginners!!!!1111". Min/maxing is where it's at, and we're talking about powergamers.



Also, daggers are the best weapons in the game, simply because rune/poison/spell damage doesn't scale with weapon speed.



And a Weapon/Shield tank will tank twice as well, if not more, than an archer tank, because of flanking immunity, knockdown immunity, and 3 great interrupts (one of which also shattering).

[tetracycloide]

lessthanjake9 wrote...
…just because you don’t make a tank to deal lots of damage doesn’t mean they aren’t better the more damage they do…More damage is more damage wherever it comes from. You ALWAYS want more damage from ANY character you can get it from. The idea that damage is irrelevant to a tank is just silly.

No, making a tank to deal damage at the expense of their ability to tank is lame.  More points than you need in strength takes away points that could be used on dexterity.  With Helm of Honnleath, Key to the City, and Andruil's blessing being best in slot for a warrior for their bonuses alone, the best spell resist armor requiring only 39 strength and the best melee armor requiring only 38, there's never ever a reason to spend more than 33 points even if you don't want to 'cheat.'  Furthermore a dagger wielding tank is going to deal more damage than a bow wielding tank because, even though the bow has the higher base damage, the dagger attacks faster.  The archer can make up the difference with special attacks and usually come out ahead but, again, this is at the expense of superior armor and damage protection i.e. the ability to actually do a tank's job.  If a group is tailored for physical damage bonuses, flame weapons, haste, multiple songs of courage, and the like then there's a decent chance the tank with a dagger will even outstrip the archer tank's damage after counting abilities since all of these buffs stack better on a dagger than they do on a bow.

[Timortis]

lessthanjake9 wrote...

Haha that is clearly not the measure of a build. All you needed to do was Stealth + Arrow of Slaying + Kite + Stealth + Arrow of Slaying etc etc. I’m not certain though that a warrior archer couldn’t do this. If his defense was high enough, an Alpha Ogre might not be able to hit him. I know an Alpha Ogre can knock down, but does the knockdown work if the attack doesn’t hit? If not, then a warrior archer could do that. Otherwise, they could still easily solo an Alpha Ogre at high levels anyways.

Looking at your picture DID bring up one thing that must be said for cunning archers. I noticed that you had Pinning Shot on cooldown, so you obviously used it to do this, and I assume it worked (though you might’ve just used it for the automatic 50% slowing). Pinning Shot’s resistance check is based on cunning. This means that the cunning archer will probably be able to use Pinning Shot successfully against yellow and maybe orange enemies, whereas the warrior archer will have to settle for using it against white enemies only (for whom there is no resistance check). This IS something in favor of the cunning archer, but Pinning Shot isn’t a GREAT ability anyways, the cunning archer will frequently not have the stamina to spare on it, and it is most useful early on when the warrior archer will be able to use it pretty effectively anyways.

I didn't just do Stealth + AoS ad infinitum, that would take forever, AoS doesn't do that much damage to boss level mobs and has a pretty long cd. What I did, was to use all of the archer's abilities to kite, and Stealth gives another tool to kite, which Warriors don't have. And the knockdown attacks the ogres do are auto-hit. If you try to tank it, an Ogre Alpha will chain Ram your Warrior and you'll be dead before you ever have control of your character. A lot of your arguments seem to be based on speculation rather than actual gameplay experience, like this one.

Pinning Shot is an awesome ability, because it still works on things that are immune to stuns. Not only that, the fact that it acts as a slow when it's resisted means you can count on it to work, always, even against bosses, as a kiting tool, which is what I was doing. I used Dirty Fighting, Pinning Shot, Stealth and Scatter Shot to kite the Ogre around, so he could never Ram or Grab me or Massive Attack me, none of which your defense will help against, no matter how high it is.

Archery is all about kiting and Rogues have better kiting tools. That's what makes them better archers.

[dkjestrup]

Yay, Timortis with the epic ownage of gameplay knowledge! Lol.

[ownedbywitt]

dkjestrup wrote...

Yay, Timortis with the epic ownage of gameplay knowledge! Lol.

Your party might be something like this: Alistair (Tank), Wynne (Healer + CC), Sten (Damage Dealer), and Archer.



My party could be something like this: Archer (Tank), Wynne (Healer +CC), Sten (Damage Dealer), and Morrigan (CC + Damage)

Off course your party is better, but just because u have 2 mages, and in that party, it doesn't matter what kind or the role your PC character has. It could be alistair instead your archer-tank, and the party will be the same.

2 mages in party > 1 mage in party.

Btw, just look here:
http://social.biowar...e=dragonage1_pc

I don't need 20 str, with 18 is enough and also it could be enough with 16 (key of the city + andruis blessing + helm of honnelath) = 22 str, so i can wear Cadash stompers boots.

U said, that cunning archer are so weak, they die easy. Im my case thats wrong, I manage my team properly so he keeps the agro, thats why my character never has die during battle. It shows 2 injuries, one is on brecilian forest when your team get caught by a spirit that sleep yout party (the tent near the oak tree), and my second injury was the first time vs ser cautherin, I wanted to die so i could escape from prision.

I would like to see some screenshot of your character and compare with mine character.

Last question, how many time does your archer spent aiming with precise striking + aim on?

[soteria]

After careful, thought, I'm going to test this. My party will be a dalish elf warrior with a focus on dexterity and archery skills, maybe some shield abilities as backup (we'll see). Leliana as a cunning rogue, bard/ranger. Dog, because he's awesome. The last slot will either be Zevran or Alistair or Sten. Even if I bring Alistair the archer will still be tanking. I'll ditch Morrigan at Lothering, and kill Wynne in the Circle. It's going to be interesting.

Edit:  and of course no potions.

Modifié par soteria, 28 janvier 2010 - 11:10 .

[beancounter501]

@soteria - let us know how it works out. It would be nice to get some feedback on how the Archer Warrior plays out vs theorycraft. I posted a build in the classes forum for a warrior archer called Champion of the woods. Heavy Armor + high defense is just a great combo. I respecced my two hand warrior it to this for a bit and he was very strong. And suppressing fire really is the best sustain for an archer. No penalties to it at all.

Nothing like opening a fight with AoS & scattershot. Then cripple shot and suppressing fire at the big boss. You can really neutralize a big melee boss with that combo! And death blow lets you regen stamina to keep crippling the boss. Just target some half dead critter for a couple of seconds and instant +40 stamina.

@tetracycolid: it is a two roll system. I just misunderstood what you meant. You can threaten a critical and still miss. The two rolls are completly independent.

Edit: One downside to this tactic is you are stealing stamina from your two hand warrior.  With my two hand character I would often pull the party off half dead monsters so I could get the regen.  Stamina regen is much better for a two hander then an archer!

Modifié par beancounter501, 28 janvier 2010 - 03:18 .