Archery

[SSSchah]

How does sharpshooting compare to melee at higher levels? is it weaker?

[Randomizer]

Archery is never is strong as the best melee weapons. The advantage of range attacks is to hit and weaken monsters before they close. Near the middle of the game there is the bow of decay with an acid attack. A few shots is as good as acid spray.

 

There are times to use it and sharpshooter ups the damage. It's also useful when you can use a human or summoned shield to block attacks and shoot over at the enemy, especially pylons and turrets.

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by Randomizer:
Archery is never is strong as the best melee weapons.

This is false on at least two counts:

1) Missile attacks are much harder to parry than melee attacks, and a lot of enemies have high Parry.

2) The best bow in the game, which can be found at the very end of the game if your party meets certain conditions, is ridiculously powerful.

[SevenMass]

Melee has a bigger damage potential , but...

 

The damage from a well build bow-character is enough to make it a very viable way to go. And there are other advantages to boot. Thuryl mentioned 2, a 3th is that you don't have to fear riposte, or those effects that curse/poisen your character when your character hits an enemy.

 

And when I say "very viable" I mean on Torment difficulty, with lower difficulty levels, it is even less of an issue!

[Alorael at Large]

As has been pointed out, there are times when melee is a very bad idea. Enemies with high Parry and Riposte, for example, and enemies who charm attackers. You can always use bows, and you can always use a shield with a bow, which is better than waving around a useless halberd.

 

—Alorael, who can add a little bit more generally. The formulas for weapon damage are no different for melee and ranged. The only difference is in the weapons that are available. You'll certainly find more powerful swords and spears than bows.

[SevenMass]

Quote:

Originally written by Z(n) - 1:
—Alorael, who can add a little bit more generally. The formulas for weapon damage are no different for melee and ranged. The only difference is in the weapons that are available. You'll certainly find more powerful swords and spears than bows.

Not exactly, melee has the chance of a double hit with quick action, bow don't.

But at the end of the game I think I still did more total damage with bows than with melee. Lots of misses from parry, and of course, I arrowed down the pylons.

The message is clear though, making ranged characters in A4 is not a bad idea.

[Nioca]

Bows are more powerful when it comes to unique abilities. I killed many a giant by consistantly pelting them with submission arrows. Acid arrows didn't hurt either. Well, actually, they hurt quite a bit, but they helped me.

 

EDIT: Vows may be powerful, but bows are the point of this subject.

[Slawbug]

Also, since no one else has pointed it out, never having to move to use your attack is really significant in an AP system. This isn't usually a big deal when you have 8 AP, but if you equip two AP boosting items, you can *always* get two strikes with a bow, or three with Haste, whereas melee fighters will only get as many attacks if they are always standing next to the enemy they want to strike -- which may often be the case, but certainly not all the time.

[D Pliss]

you can't shoot down pylons though, because they recharge if you arent close enough to shoot at you.

[Nioca]

All considered, though, melee is far from useless. In fact I wouldn't have defeated [Master Villan] without having a character with ten parry absorbing [Master Villan's] attacks. He only took two or three points of damage per turn, and also distracted [Master Villan's] henchmen. Of course, having the [sword that does a lot of damage to the Master Villan] helped, as did having the Heartstriker Bow.

 

In fact, I'm considering playing again, but modifying the scripts so I recieve four Heartstriker Bows from the beginning. I think I'll call them the Heartstriker Team. Or something to that effect.

[Ephesos]

I always found that archery never quite measured up to a well-struck halberd blow, damage-wise. Increasing archery skills to that level would've required obsessive-compulsive skill monitoring, relative to my gaming style. And Parry seems to foil archery on occasion as well... which I have a hard time visualizing, much like Riposte.

[Slawbug]

Parry works at 5% per point against melee and -- is it 2% per point against archery? Shoot, it's been a while. Either 2% or 1% per point.

[Nioca]

It's one percent. Not much, but it stacks up fast.

[Alorael at Large]

Enemies who aren't able to attack you regenerate quickly, but it's possible to deal damage faster than they regenerate.

 

—Alorael, who took out pylons by spells and not by archery. This required far more trips to town to regain energy, but it was ever so satisfying.

[Nioca]

There are a few which regenerate all damage done every turn, if your characters are out of range. Now, if you have an invulnerable character within range, and everyone else staying back... Lets just say things generally won't turn out well for said enemy.

[SevenMass]

Quote:

Originally written by Small Fry:
you can't shoot down pylons though, because they recharge if you arent close enough to shoot at you.

I disagree.

You need (a) character(s) with well enough developed bow skills to do enough damage to counter most of its recharge.

I bowed down all hostile pylons with my first party I took through A4 (normal difficulty though) And I will soon try it with my 2th party Torment difficulty. They are about to hit the first forrest of pylons.

Quote:

Originally written by Nioca:
There are a few which regenerate all damage done every turn

The only ones I know of are the ones in the Darkside base in the scree caves. You can solve that problem by disabling some power supply in the back of their base.

[Nioca]

Quote:

Quote:

Originally written by Nioca:
There are a few which regenerate all damage done every turn

Originally written by SevenMass:
The only ones I know of are the ones in the Darkside base in the scree caves. You can solve that problem by disabling some power supply in the back of their base.

You took that out of context. Whether or not the power supply is working, if you are out of range, the pylons will regenerate all damage per turn.

And yes, I am talking about the Darkside Loyalist base.

[Alorael at Large]

Are you sure? I don't think they regenerated completely for me even with the power supply on. They come back to full health in a few turns, but it's not especially difficult to knock them out.

 

—Alorael, who didn't spend much time fighting them. He mostly hid around corners to kill the mobile enemies and then dashed to the generator.

[SevenMass]

Quote:

Originally written by Nioca:
You took that out of context. Whether or not the power supply is working, if you are out of range, the pylons will regenerate all damage per turn.

And yes, I am talking about the Darkside Loyalist base.

I don't know what exactly you mean with "out of range", but I place my characters (all 4) so that the pylons can not hit them, but they can hit the pylons with a bow without moving.
And I have no trouble at all taking down those pylons. (After disabling them. I did that the same way Alorael did, via the upper floor to avoid most of them while getting to the controls)

[Nioca]

Positive. I think there was only one instance where it didn't heal back to full, and even then, it was healed to 1 point under full.

 

Quote:

—Alorael, who didn't spend much time fighting them. He mostly hid around corners to kill the mobile enemies and then dashed to the generator.

Great minds think alike.

[SevenMass]

Quote:

Originally written by Nioca:
Positive.

And I'm 100% Positive I took them all down with bows (after disabling the generator)

[Alorael at Large]

Nioca, what you're saying is that you couldn't do enough damage to prevent them from healing, not that it's impossible to do enough damage to prevent them from fully healing.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't have enough patience to spend fifteen rounds killing a gadget with sparkly lights. Maybe he's been spoiled by the ease with which the blinkenlighten of a computer can be seriously ruined.

[Nioca]

Quote:

Originally written by Alorael:
Nioca, what you're saying is that you couldn't do enough damage to prevent them from healing, not that it's impossible to do enough damage to prevent them from fully healing.

You mean I have to do 180 damage every turn just to kill the thing?!?

[Slawbug]

I think it's been pretty well established by now that pylons are a neat enemy and a good addition to a game when used sparingly. When they dot the landscape, things get boring and annoying.

[Randomizer]

I liked the pylon field beyond Fort Remote because of all the money you make selling the crystals they leave behind. Since Jeff restricted the amount of money you could get between loot and rewards you need every coin unless you want to steal every NY (not yours) item.

 

Archery is helpful for the non-spellcasters for a range attack. Missle weapon weigh too much to use except for special cases like Nodicuas. Archery means that the fighters can do something when fighting pylons and turrets.