There’s a bug that if you attack with a bow at its near max range, its outside the agro range of the mobs, you can just sit there and plink away until they die. They just sit there and don’t move.
He’s not actively being engaged. Its literally impossible to do enough damage in that case. Best case scenario, bow damage is like 123 assuming headshots (Splinter with Obsidian arrows). It would take 4-5 each hits on Fighter/Archer 2-3’s to kill. 6-7 with body shots.
Around 25-30 shots before 4 mobs reach melee range? Yeah I don’t think so. He’s using the bug where they don’t move.
In PVP he’d be wrecked. A guy in full flawless exile epic heavy armor would only take 24 damage a shot. Or 37 to the head. Assuming one can even hit a jittering dodging target, something NPCs don’t give decent practice with.
I decided to run a bit more testing. And I’ve found bows can somewhat be useful.
I started off with a Splinter/Obsidian arrows with 50 Accuracy. Its like 82 dmg a shot and its quite entertaining actually. And then I wanted to test something more realistic.
So I went 30 Accuracy with an Ancient Bow and Razor arrows. Stuff you’d be using in the 40 range. Used Vanir Settler armor for the grit. So total I had about 25 grit, 30 acc. I was able to reliably clear out New Asagath. But even with perfect hits, I wasn’t killing 3-4 people before melee range. Maybe closer to 2.
But… I will say this. The difficulty of such was about the same as it was on my current MP character who has 0 STR and uses a Cimmerian War Axe.
Same tier weapons, 30 Accuracy is equal to 0 STR.
Don’t get me wrong. That’s 32 damage on the axe vs 37 with the bow with that setup, the bow does more damage. But due to the speed of shots and more so with the stamina cost of shooting, it feels like I’m better off pulling out a melee weapon in most cases.
I will say this though. Killing archers is easy once you figure out how to move and shoot. The CoF only happens when the shot is released, so if you stop moving once the arrow is about to fire off, you can reliably hit on the move to avoid being hit in melee or by ranged.
But as it stands now, that’s the only advantage given. Its not much of one. And like I said, Accuracy is not equal to Strength, Grit, Vitiality, or even Encumbrance as an Attribute. And that’s a problem.
I’ve noticed that too, but I’m pretty sure it’s not intended and just a result of poorly implementing the “anti-move & shoot” restriction. Similar to how you can cancel attack animations by sheathing your weapons instead of dodge rolling. Not intended, but possible once you see the weaknesses in how the system is implemented.
Wow, I stand corrected. Seems counter-intuitive to the whole “can’t move and shoot” restriction if you can avoid the mechanic entirely. Couldn’t they just make it lock you in place when you shoot and let the shot go off as normal?
When the combat update first rolled to testlive, archers were just holding S and firing, melee couldn’t get close long enough to get a single hit in. So they added a cone of fire to force them to stop for a split second to fire. This allows persuers to get a hit in, or throw a javelin/axe for a chance to cripple.
Negative, Taemien, I AM on my own PVP single player server, I have argo the enemy, it would be unfair NOT to have them notice me so I am in their range. The melee equiped NPC will usually run toward me. I shoot for a head shot but usually hit the body, No admin commands active, just practice and watcing the arrow arc. I can kill three attacking NPC carefully watching my stamina and concentrating on one at a time. I do sometimes get killed before I can finish off the last one though. I would definitely have trouble with more than three at a time.
I only take on one archer at a time and do take damage, but will usually kill them before the kill me. Oh and BTW, the third enemy usually gets a few good hits in before I bring him down.
Bows need a stacking bleed effect to make them even close to competitive with melee. They’re crappy toys compared to melee weapons of the same tier.
I don’t think a 4 shot bow combo should do as much damage as a two-hander, but it still needs to be able to kill if you can land a few shots. Bleed damage is not only appropriate for what bows were designed to inflict (shoot a deer, track down where it dies), but is quite appropriate for a weapon that you’re going to be spending most of your time dodging with in 99% of the situations you’re in, rather than shooting.
This is fine compared to daggers, which have multi-hit attacks & charges that are substantially faster and easier to land, and deal more effective base damage than bows because of it. Even hunting, you’re 95% likely to kill a ‘prey animal’ by walking right up to it and giving it a mace facial, while odds are much poorer of hitting the ant-sized ‘insta kill’ hitbox with a bow that doesn’t functionally exist on any other animal other than passive deer type enemies. Even kudu’s can honey badger a dozen arrows, and the only difference is that they’re aggressive.
My biggest gripe is a combinations of things but it boils down to, bows do crap for damage which means you need to carry lots of arrows to make up for it which means lots of resources burned for arrows which leads to lots of weight you have to haul around…
if they want to keep bow damage s^$@^ at least lower arrow weight and resource cost so you can spam it -_-
It focuses more on the PVP application. Most mods that fix archery boost the damage too much that you start two shotting peeps in light armor and NPCs. But I’ve boosted the damage enough to balance it against such unarmored targets and increased armor pen to ensure viability against even Silent Legion builds.
So while PVP is the focus, its still balanced for PVE. And this is all tiers. From Hunting Bow and Bone Arrows to Legendaries and Dragonbone arrows. In addition Javelins and Throwing Axes stack.