91 réponses à ce sujet

[Timortis]

Btw, just because I think Rogues make better archers overall, doesn't mean I don't think this would work. I think a Warrior tank archer would do pretty well. He won't get hit outside of auto-hit abilities, and with a party to back him up, you can manage those situations. He can also do what no other tank can, keep attacking distant targets while tanking others.

Modifié par Timortis, 28 janvier 2010 - 03:22 .

[lessthanjake9]

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.

You may be talking about powergaming, but I’m not. People read forums before they play a game like this in order to get insight on how they should make a character. That is what I am mostly aiming this towards. If I were aiming for a powergamer build, I wouldn’t be talking about archers at all.

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).

A good weapon/shield tank will tank better, but the difference won’t be huge. The archer tank will not get hit by anything unless knocked down or stunned or something, and he will have very high physical resistance so this won’t happen too often. It is certainly viable as the party’s tank. And that is valuable EVEN IF it is worse than a weapon/shield character at being the tank. This is because, if you are going to have an archer in the party, giving him the tanking role allows you to replace your weapon/shield tank with something else (maybe a dual wielding rogue, for instance) that will do a lot more damage than the other tank. You can do this while your archer does not do any less damage from taking up a tanking role. Thus, your overall party DPS goes up.

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.

This is all really a side issue. I was saying that I think 32 strength is too low for a weapon/shield tank. It is way lower damage than it could be and its ability to tank is already huge. Taking away 10 points from dexterity and putting it into strength will lose you 10 defense, but gain you 6-7 DPS. I think that is worth it. You may disagree but this is all just a side issue since it is not about archery.

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.

I know you didn’t do stealth + AoS. I mentioned that I knew you used Pinning Shot, so I obviously didn’t think you just did Stealth + AoS. My point was not that you necessarily did that, but that it is possible to do it that way, thus making it an achievement that is not THAT special.



I am rather confused as to why you are saying that my arguments are based on speculation as a result of what I said about the Ogre Alpha’s knockdown attack. I didn’t declare that I knew how the Ogre’s knockdown works, nor was it part of my argument. In fact, I asked how it worked because I wasn’t sure. Without a combat log in the game, I really don’t think you can act like I am lame for not knowing that the knockdown attack is auto-hit. I just haven’t paid huge attention to Ogres (since I really haven’t ever had lots of trouble with them).

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.

Kiting is totally lame IMO. I realize you have to kite to win that Ogre Alpha battle you’re talking about, but in general, if one has to resort to kiting, it is lame (especially if you aren’t soloing). So I really disagree that archery is all about kiting. Kiting is just something that archers are uniquely able to do to sort of lame out a win in a battle that went badly.

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.

Okay, ill use a different example.



Your party might be Alistair (tank), Wynne (healer + CC), Sten (damage dealer), and the Archer



My party will be Archer (tank), Wynne (healer +CC), Sten (damage dealer), and Zevran (dual wielding damage dealer)



My party will do more damage because Zevran will out-damage Alistair, and that is the only difference between the two parties. This happens because an archer does the same damage whether it is built as a tank or not, whereas building a melee character as a tank results in less damage than a melee character built to do damage. Thus, making the archer the tank does not decrease the archer’s damage, while allowing you to have a more damaging party around you. The result is higher DPS than if you had not given the archer the tank role.

He can also do what no other tank can, keep attacking distant targets while tanking others.

This is something I’ve thought of but never explicitly mentioned in this thread. It is a good point. Typically, the most dangerous foes are ranged ones, whether it be mages or archers. You want to take them out as quickly as possible. An archer tank can obviously do this better than a melee tank who cant attack those dangerous targets while tanking the other enemies. It’s not a HUGE deal, and a sword/shield tank is still a better tank, but it is something to keep in mind.

[tetracycloide]

Kiting with an archer is what archers are supposed to do. Why else would pinning shot have a guaranteed slow attached to it if not to kite? What possible use could there be for that slow other than running away from the target and then firing more arrows?

Using taunt to pseudo tank a boss by kiting around the room and just spamming taunt is lame but kiting in general is a wholely different thing. So really it's not kiting that's the problem, it's how absurdly large the threat addition of taunt is such that it requires nothing but spamming it on cooldown to maintain the hate of any given foe.

I don't think attacking a distant target is really a 'feature' of warrior archer/tanks. A sword and board tank can do this as well by simply weapon swapping to a bow. Defensive fire is only a 3 talent investment, master archer another point if desired. 8 class talents + 4 archer + 12 weapon and shield + 8 specilizations is still only 32 talents, well within the limits of a warrior character. Sure, you miss out on arrow of slaying but you also cannot be flanked and have better sustains when they're needed.

Modifié par tetracycloide, 28 janvier 2010 - 06:40 .

[Timortis]

Kiting is not lame at all. It's what makes archers fun. You avoid damage by using your abilities the right way, instead of relying on tanking damage because of gear, attributes, or passive talents. It's also what makes them effective. I'm sure everyone who's played a melee character in this game has found it more frustrating to fight archers who use Dirty Fighting and run away, than mobs who just have more defense or HP.

[Timortis]

Flanking immunity is meaningless if nothing can hit you and auto-hit attacks will hit you regardless. I don't understand this obsession with high-dex Sword and Board tanks. You could tank this game with a cunning Rogue if you have heals.

[tetracycloide]

You could tank it with a wet paper bag if you had enough healing, that's not the point. The point is min/maxing and the build that minimize the unimportant while maximizing the important the most from a tanking perspective is a weapon and shield warrior with high dexterity.

[soteria]

Not to mention, it's a long time before you reach the point where nothing can hit you.

[dkjestrup]

Not to mention, enemies get an attack bonus while flanking (at least the player does, would make sense for the same for enemies.

And TC, how exactly do you gain 6-7 DPS from points in strength? That's rubbish. As a high dex tank, of course you're going to be using daggers, the highest damage weapons in the game. In fact, with party buffs, like haste, Song of Courage and flaming weapons, you could probably do higher DPS as a sns tank than an archer.

Not saying that an Archer is bad, 'cause I'm going to playthrough with a Warrior Archer eventually. Just not the best in the game, by a long shot.

And how is kiting lame? You seem to, again, be making the rules. Kiting is what archery is all about. That's what pinning shot is there for!

Modifié par dkjestrup, 28 janvier 2010 - 08:27 .

[Timortis]

The only advantage a Shield Warrior has is knockdown immunity, which, if you're not solo, doesn't even really matter, since you don't lose aggro when you're down and you're not expected to deal damage. Otherwise, the whole flanking thing is a moot argument, since once you're over 170 defense, nothing hits you, regardless of flanking. At least the archer will deal more damage and be more fun to play than the lame dex Shield Warrior.

As for the argument that it takes a while before you're unhittable, that's true whether you use a shield or not.

Dagger using Shield Warriors are pretty much the most boring characters you could play in this game. All their abilities are passive, and the activated ones all hit with the shield, so they scale off str and barely do anything when you're all dex.

Modifié par Timortis, 28 janvier 2010 - 08:28 .

[soteria]

Yes, but if you're saying "being unflankable doesn't matter if you can't get hit," then being unflankable matters for a significant part of the game. Honestly, I've never min/maxed a warrior enough to get to 170 defense. Besides, all else being equal the sword/shield warrior also has more armor through shield wall and massive armor, which is still important even if you are unhittable.



If we're going to get into subjective arguments like, "sword and shield warriros are boring," then I'll counter by saying getting knocked down is freaking annoying.

[Rrend]

Akimb0 wrote...

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

Yeah, as I was reading this, the whole time I was thinking this is a solo build...and an exciting one at that because I played Lelianna as an archer on my last playthrough and I found that she was pretty gimped due to allocating a lot of stat points to cunning to support rogue and bard skills.  I'm finishing my first nightmare play through right now and thinking about a mage playthrough and just getting bored unless I try to solo it as an arcane warrior/elementalist (or something else equally fun).  By level 12-13 with a full party on nightmare the only fights that were occasional challenges were the prestaged ones where you can't prep the battlefield with a rogue.

Punchline, I'm going to do this and try to solo with it on nightmare.  I also love the approach of Dalish elf for the benefits, gear, even RP factor.  The only thing I'm debating is whether to go warrior or rogue... I suspect that soloing will be harder without the ability to summon pets even though templars and champions do have some crowd control capabilities.

[lessthanjake9]

Kiting with an archer is what archers are supposed to do. Why else would pinning shot have a guaranteed slow attached to it if not to kite? What possible use could there be for that slow other than running away from the target and then firing more arrows?

 
Because slowing an enemy gives you more shots at them before they close in on you.
 
Look, kiting is certainly a feature of archers. It is something that makes them oddly strong against many bosses. And I think it is a good non-lame tactic in some cases. For instance, it doesn’t feel lame to kite an Ogre because they are meant to be stupid and slow. It SHOULD work on them. But in other cases, kiting just FEELS lame to me. Like if it is an animal enemy that should be too fast in reality to get kited by an person in some armor. Or if one tries to kite multiple people. This works, but it shouldn’t because enemies actually would split up and intercept you. For me, I feel lame if I am doing something that would look really stupid if I saw it in a movie. And in a lot of cases, kiting is like that. But that’s my feeling, and I do not claim that it should be anyone else’s.
 

I don't think attacking a distant target is really a 'feature' of warrior archer/tanks. A sword and board tank can do this as well by simply weapon swapping to a bow. Defensive fire is only a 3 talent investment, master archer another point if desired. 8 class talents + 4 archer + 12 weapon and shield + 8 specilizations is still only 32 talents, well within the limits of a warrior character. Sure, you miss out on arrow of slaying but you also cannot be flanked and have better sustains when they're needed.

 
A sword/shield tank could do that too, yes, but they won’t be as good at it due to having less archery talents and lower dexterity. Besides, you have limited resources in the game. You probably can’t really afford to get a good bow and such for a sword/shield character you already have outfitted with other stuff.
 
Regardless though, something you said intrigued me. I think you might have been implying that a sword/shield warrior who was using a bow couldn’t be flanked. I always assumed that Shield Tactics (ie. no flanking strikes) works only if you have a shield equipped. An archer couldn’t get that talent and have it apply while using a bow and arrow, right?
 

Kiting is not lame at all. It's what makes archers fun. You avoid damage by using your abilities the right way, instead of relying on tanking damage because of gear, attributes, or passive talents. It's also what makes them effective. I'm sure everyone who's played a melee character in this game has found it more frustrating to fight archers who use Dirty Fighting and run away, than mobs who just have more defense or HP.

 
Meh, as I said above. Kiting sometimes just feels lame because it feels like you’re just exploiting bad AI. Other times it doesn’t feel lame, and feels like what an archer should be doing. Either way, though, kiting is way less useful in a party than solo. In a party you’ll be doing really low damage since you’ll be running around and your party will get pummeled by everyone else while you’re not doing much of anything. Thus, it is really only effective with a party against powerful bosses. And those happen to be the cases that I don’t feel are lame. For instance, as I said, kiting an ogre alpha doesn’t feel lame because they are supposed to be slow and stupid. Thus, you SHOULD be able to kite them. A lot of bosses are meant to be so overwhelming that you shouldn’t fight them head on. But in this sort of case, having stealth really makes no difference. If you are trying to kite a boss and you have a party, going stealth will just let the aggro go to someone else who can’t kite, which you don’t want. So when using a party, the warrior can kite a boss almost as well anyways (no Dirty Fighting makes it somewhat worse, but Taunt makes initiating the kiting a TON easier), so what’s your point?
 
For a solo run, yes, the rogue archer could kite better. This would be useful. But the warrior archer has other soloing advantages. Namely, the archer’s solo weakness is that it sucks early on and can’t hit anything. But a warrior archer starts with +6.5 attack on a rogue, can get +10 from Precise Striking, and can start with Pinning Shot. So the warrior archer isn’t nearly so weak to start. And the rogue archer NEEDS to kite because it can’t stand up to enemies toe to toe due to weak defense/armor/hp. A warrior archer who gets Defensive Fire quickly and boosts dexterity a lot will be really hard to kill from quite early on to the end of the game, so kiting will only be necessary against enemies like Alpha Ogres with auto knockdowns. But AoS, some item usage, and Pinning Shot kiting can still get the job done.
 

Not to mention, it's a long time before you reach the point where nothing can hit you.

 
Are you saying this based on having started a playthrough with this? I know you said you were going to.
 
Because if you get Master Archer quickly (+30 defense with Defensive Fire) and get Rally pretty soon (+10 defense) and pump dexterity your defense will be pretty high. Using Warcry too (effectively +10 defense) I bet you can be pretty unhittable early on. In fights against one or two enemies, you can replace Rally with Suppressing Fire to heighten the effect. I am not entirely certain how hard to hit you will be because I have not made a warrior archer geared specifically towards becoming unhittable as early as possible. But as I said, I imagine it’s pretty nice. You can get all of that stuff by Level 7 if you really wanted to. More realistically, you’d likely try to get AoS early and probably Precise Striking, but you could still have Master Archer, Rally, Warcry, AoS, and Precise Striking by level 8.
 

And TC, how exactly do you gain 6-7 DPS from points in strength? That's rubbish. As a high dex tank, of course you're going to be using daggers, the highest damage weapons in the game. In fact, with party buffs, like haste, Song of Courage and flaming weapons, you could probably do higher DPS as a sns tank than an archer.

 
…I was talking about a 32 strength sword/shield tank compared to a more traditional 42 strength one. The 10 extra strength translates into 6-7 damage.
 

The only advantage a Shield Warrior has is knockdown immunity, which, if you're not solo, doesn't even really matter, since you don't lose aggro when you're down and you're not expected to deal damage. Otherwise, the whole flanking thing is a moot argument, since once you're over 170 defense, nothing hits you, regardless of flanking. At least the archer will deal more damage and be more fun to play than the lame dex Shield Warrior.

 
Don’t you lose defense when you are knocked down? I am really curious how all of the status effects work. When stunned do you lose all your dex bonus to defense or does it lower defense by a certain amount? Same for when you are knocked down. How much attack does flanking add? Etc etc.

Modifié par lessthanjake9, 28 janvier 2010 - 09:39 .

[dkjestrup]

No it doesn't translate into 6-7 damage, dex gives you as much damage as strength does for daggers.



And Titimortis, I like my Dex SnS Tanks thank you very much!

[soteria]

Are you saying this based on having started a playthrough with this? I know you said you were going to.



Because if you get Master Archer quickly (+30 defense with Defensive Fire) and get Rally pretty soon (+10 defense) and pump dexterity your defense will be pretty high. Using Warcry too (effectively +10 defense) I bet you can be pretty unhittable early on. In fights against one or two enemies, you can replace Rally with Suppressing Fire to heighten the effect. I am not entirely certain how hard to hit you will be because I have not made a warrior archer geared specifically towards becoming unhittable as early as possible. But as I said, I imagine it’s pretty nice. You can get all of that stuff by Level 7 if you really wanted to. More realistically, you’d likely try to get AoS early and probably Precise Striking, but you could still have Master Archer, Rally, Warcry, AoS, and Precise Striking by level 8.

No, I'm still finishing up my current run. Just have Denerim to do and then I'll move into prepping for the Landsmeet. I wasn't really thinking of an archer when I said that, which would be the exception in that you start with really high defense and then I imagine stuff will catch up in the mid-game and then you'll outpace them again at the end. That's my expectation; we'll see.

[lessthanjake9]

dkjestrup wrote...

No it doesn't translate into 6-7 damage, dex gives you as much damage as strength does for daggers.

And Titimortis, I like my Dex SnS Tanks thank you very much!

Oh yeah, you're right; I wasn't thinking about using daggers. I will edit my statement then haha. On xbox, it is definitely not worth it to only have 32 strength as a sword/shield tank.

[dkjestrup]

I think it still is, I play on PS3, so I don't have the dex fix either. I use full sized weapons, so I get at least some bonus. If I wanted to do damage, I would only put the minimum in dex. But with exponential returns, why put points anywhere else?

[tetracycloide]

When I said 'when they're needed' I meant 'when you have a shield on.' The structure of the sentence didn't clearly communicate that both benefits are conditional, not just the sustains but that's what I mean. When you need them flanking immunity and better sustains are a weapon swap away. At least as far as I know it requires a shield, I haven't actually tested this though...