For PvE and PvP is archery viable? If so what attributes should I be using? Also what is the best gear?
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Yea archery is fine, just make sure you dont go over 39 points in accuracy as it seems broken. The damage is really nice with a good bow and good arrows right up until you unlock the perk with the 40th point. From there the damage drop off is huge. Iāve asked about that in Bugs but never got a response so Iām assuming itās working as intended since no community reps said anything.
Archery is okay for softening up your enemies before they get close, but is less than optimal as your sole combat option. If you have to fight against three NPCs you may be able to kill one and wound another before they reach you. āKitingā them properly (ie. keeping your distance and shooting" is difficult (especially now that if the NPC canāt reach you, or thinks it canāt reach you, it goes back home and heals), and at point-blank range, the bow isnāt the best weapon, so switching to melee is preferable.
Against big creatures such as rhinos or boss monsters, youāre not going to kill them with a bow. Not easily, at least.
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Itās also no good for thrall taking, until blunt arrows are fixed, so you will end up switching to melee if you find a thrall worth knocking out.
I have damage set to 2.0, And Bows are Okā¦ They need major buffs for PVEā¦
If your playing Single Player, few work arounds to make it a nice main weapon.
Online? Mehā¦ great to start a fight with, or just heal/light arrows for ulilty. You need a good bow early on, or good arrows to really pick up there crappy starting stats.
Offline, Love them as a main weapon,
Onlineā¦ its not really worth trying to over use it. (give or take server settings) better of melee in most cases.
After the update, it seems much harder to share aggro with a thrall against the bosses. If I engage, boss target locks onto me and I must either be the tank, or must run around in circles hoping my thrall can get a few lucky hits. It feels a lot different than before the update. I donāt envy archers for this situation.
Not to mention the issue of arrows not firing randomly throughout the use of the bow. Even from the beginning of CE it has been an issue for me. Needs to be fixed to make them a viable primary. Dry firing a bow even if you have ammo and its equipped. Then, the deflecting arrows and phase arrows issue is also something that need to be cleared up. As mentioned before the accuracy tree seems bugged after 40 points plus most enemies donāt care about point 50 bonus. The arrows are slow especially the power shots, and they seem to be random on the amount of damage they do averaging below light headshots. Been playing bow since release
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Seems they junked Archery after the Followers II-patch. As for me, I switched from bow on a previous character to one-handed sword on the current one. Using commands at thralls on mobs seems the best option. I remapped the āBā-key onto the Attack-command, so I can always divert the attention of bosses from my thrall and visa versa with pincer-attacks etc.
Well put! I think archery has one of the oldest bugs in this game, bows that simply stop firing arrows for no reason. This issue has been going on since beta and they have not fixed it yet! It really needs to be fixed
@Wak4863, this is tottaly yours, you and your friend Firespark81 are the best situation for our friend here, donāt you think?
Iāll keep it simple:
Answer: "Yes, it is viable if you always keep a good distance and have good shooter skills.
Weapon: the best bow (be sure is a flawless one created by a masther thrall) and the best arrows (starmetal, endured steel, etc.)
Armor: Stygian flawless espic armor (it will grant you a decent armor and a +9 on Accuracy)
Character config:
*Acc: raise accuracy till you just need the flawles armor to rise it to maximum.
*Str: Keep you strength as higher as possible (depends on how many do you want on health and othersā¦) Because it does affect the damage (or maybe is my perception)
*Sta: Youāll need at least 10-20 on stamina to be able to do burst.
With this settings I complicated the life of some lvl 60 warriors on PVP.
Good luck,
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The only think i will add to this is not on consoles. Controller is not aiming so good like the mouse. So if you play pc ok, but if you play console, not so good.
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I have my mouse sensitivity turned up high, so even on PC I canāt aim good. Lol
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Imagine the controller? To be able to make a head shot i have to fix the position of my player 
, i cannot play archer on ps4, no way.
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On controller, you mostly use left stick, after right stick to get last adjustment. XD
less touchy.
Part of it is also 20-30fpsā¦ and spikes up and down. If it wasnāt for 2.0 damage setting, bows would be pretty useless to meā¦=/
I know arrow not firing, is sorta related to how inventory/radial works and crafting.
You canāt craft arrows and fire them, even if not same type. Donāt have issue to much now.
Mostly frustrated when on horse back, I can only ever seem to fire from left side and you canāt swap arrows on horse back. xD
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I play on consoles, for the record 
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I saw your post, it was before this one. Iām not exactly sure why there were no responses. I understood it just fine but perhaps it wouldāve been better to be more descriptive, like reproducing steps.
Either way, itās not working as intended. Itās definitely a bug. When you put points into strength and accuracy, they increase the damage. Accuracy has a damage perk at level 50, youād think you should be able to pick thatā¦ Charged shots are generally 2x the damage, but like we said, after 39ā¦ itās super bad. Clearly they did not test out Flattening Shot. It also sucks.
Iād say itās viable, depending on what youāre doing.
It used to be like this in PVP:
Iāve personally fought against him and damn it was annoying to not being able to heal because of the poison explosions and bleed arrows.
Just a comment here: A number of us are finding that bow damage since the update (and change to the 40 point talent) has dropped considerably. Taking anything over 39 points lowers your damage by about 25-40%, depending on the gear youāre using.
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Seems like in PVE as long as you donāt get on high ground, stay just outside melee range, donāt bother kiting. Basically do everything you would if you were using a melee weapon and you may not drop agro and reset the boss or mob. Pvp its move viable as long as no one notices you or you drop them before they can reach you.