cRPG

cRPG => Beginner's Help and Guides => Topic started by: Gontanius on July 19, 2014, 04:26:40 am

Title: The big bow dilemma.
Post by: Gontanius on July 19, 2014, 04:26:40 am
Hello.

I have made a archer and doing the 18/21 build. 6PD 7WM and 7Atl. And now I have been trying to figure out what bow to use.

Longbow. I played some whit it but I expirence it's way to slow and have way to high upkeep.
Rus. Nothing wrong whit it realy... but then
Bow. Same dmg as rus, higher speed then rus, higher missle speed BUT a bit lower aim then rus.

Why would I want to use Rus instead of just bow? are there any pros to Rus that I dont see?
Title: Re: The big bow dilemma.
Post by: Killer on July 19, 2014, 04:40:47 am
If you like fast and accurate bows try the nomad or the horn bow and I've been using the yumi bow on my archer and i see nothing wrong with it but i can't say anything about the bow longbow or rus bow as i never tried them, also I'm mostly using the yumi as japenese archer roleplay
Title: Re: The big bow dilemma.
Post by: Rico on July 19, 2014, 05:06:42 am
Hello!

I strongly recommend to change class, because archery is a vain project for new players. Carrying a bow makes you target of other ranged players, and 95% of these are better than you, to a marginal extent in personal skill, and to a significant extent because their characters are 4-6 levels higher than yours. You could of course argue that you are gifted and you will fast be at least as good as other archers at aiming, footwork, awareness and tactics. But the level and loom advantages other archers have still make you easy prey. Traditionally and game mechanics wise, archery is a high-level choice.

My observation is that archery becomes playable at 18/24. It is a somewhat reserved statement, because I am aware that every build has to fulfill the needs of the individual player in the first place, and in some cases, people might perform better with different builds. However, since 18/24 is the preferred choice of most of the veteran archers you will encounter in this mod, it is applicable. Using the 18/24 build, if you are level 30, it means you will max out WM and PD, and put the residual 3 skill points into ATHL. You will be terribly slow instead of slow (LVL 31 - 6 ATHL) or quite slow (LVL 32 - 8 ATHL) because quivers are heavy and you usually spawn 2 of them. But at least you have decent accuracy due to 8 WM which you fully put into Archery WPF and decent damage due to 6 PD, provided that you have a MW bow (+2 damage, multiplied by 6*0.14+1, and additional accuracy).

If you have 18/21, you aren't accurate enough with high-tier bows. If you have no MW bow, you can screw most fights against other archers and trying to kill people in MW armor sets will be a pain in the ass. You are probably playing from level 1 to level 31 and then retiring, so you will never hit the level range where archery becomes competitive. As long as you only collect looms instead of going high level, I would not recommend to play archery at all. If you still think that archery is your class of choice, it is probably best to reach generation 16 for full exp bonus and a nice amount of LPs with any class but archery, and after the last retirement you level up your archer.

Understanding the different bows is not really relevant before you have a high level archer, because at low level, archers are pretty unplayable in general, no matter which equipment they pick. The benefits of the Rus Bow become obvious when you have about 185 wpf in archery: The crosshair will be significantly tighter compared to the Bow. But since your archer is low level, has a build that gives you less accuracy than the community's favorite choice of 18/24, and you haven't loomed your bow yet, this and other differences will be obfuscated by the beginners' illusion that archery is a strong and fun class to play. Archery will be fun and competitive when you reached higher levels than 30 and use MW bows, if you accept that you will never be really fast because of the quiver weight. But before that, it is probably the worst class you could choose unless you want to become very frustrated.

You will probably wonder what to do now since you already played till level 30 and don't want to respec. My recommendations are
1) Use a Longbow and play DTV, slaughter bots until you level up. OR
2) Play Siege and hunt other ranged players with a Nomad Bow or Tatar Bow. These bows have better accuracy even unloomed at low level, so you can get some nice headshots against players who have light or no helmets.

If you live in NA, playing Siege will be no option because NA2 is dead and EU2 has a high ping. In that case, just join EU7 (because NA7 is pretty much dead too), because high ping with a Longbow against bots doesn't make much of a difference. If you live in EU, do the EU2 Nomad Bow or the EU7 Longbow trick.

I hope it helped a bit.

Have fun and good games
Title: Re: The big bow dilemma.
Post by: Gontanius on July 19, 2014, 05:52:51 am
Thank you for that pat on the head. I used to play this mod alot for some time back. I been back a week now and mostly been playing whit my 2hander and wanted to change the type of playstyle so I wouldent get bored. But what my criteria in this mod is was not the topic.

So basicly what you are saying is that the aim is superior to speed? So what I should do is to evolve rus instead of a bow becuase of the goal in the end? 
Title: Re: The big bow dilemma.
Post by: Rico on July 19, 2014, 06:09:54 am
Quote
So basicly what you are saying is that the aim is superior to speed?
Yes, because shooting 30 arrows per round with 20 hitting is better than shooting 35 with 15 hitting.

Quote
So what I should do is to evolve rus instead of a bow becuase of the goal in the end?
The decision of playing archery or not is about going high level with at least one loomed bow or not. If you are planning to reach level 32, 33, 34, 35, and finally 36 for a well-rounded archer build, you should wait until you have 2 loompoints and trade them with some gold (~50k) for a Rus Bow +3, because if you are a min-maxer and end up with a build of 18/24 (hybrid with melee and IF) or 21/24 (dedicated or hybrid with melee without IF), the Rus Bow is the objectively better choice in almost all situations. If you end up with 18/27 (dedicated or hybrid with melee without IF), some previous testing is in order. But when you go that high, you can probably afford having more than one bow on +3 anyways. If your approach about cRPG is "yolo, fuck tomorrow", there is no need to give you any advice at all. Due to the market, looming anything except really rare items or hand armor to +1 is wasted anyways, so you might as well loom stones or another troll item if you plan to spend your loompoint on your bow.
Title: Re: The big bow dilemma.
Post by: WITCHCRAFT on July 19, 2014, 06:37:45 am
Try them all out at +0, and find the one that feels "right" to you. If you change your mind after getting a +3 bow, it is easy to trade them for other +3 bows. As long as you are trading the same type of item (bow for bow, head armor for head armor, etc.) and you don't ask for a ton of gold with the trade someone will take your offer and then you can try out a different +3 bow.
Title: Re: The big bow dilemma.
Post by: Switchtense on July 19, 2014, 12:32:02 pm
I am in the middle of an archery generation right now.
Reached level 31 now.

Playing an archer below level 30 definitely is quite boring. Because you have no melee capabilities, neither can you accurately shoot really.
So basically you are just a hump of meat waiting to be killed.

But I must say that level30+ is quite fun. I cannot play for 3 hours straight but it is pretty enjoyable.

So if you wanna retire at level31 I think it is not worth playing an archer, since you are far from having reached your potential skill-points wise. My build is aimed at lvl34 (Gen 1 on that character, so no exp bonus)

Anyway, as for bows.
As Witchcraft said, try them all out. See which one you like best, then try to get it MW'ed. Just make sure to have the max amount of wpf in archery before making a decision. Because lower tier bows have better accuracy in the lower wpf ranges, while in the high wpf ranges the high tier bows are a whole lot more accurate.


But I disagree with Panaru slightly. You do not necessarily need MW bows and arrows to be able to compete.
I am using a MW Rus bow and MW Bodkins, but they are only from the armoury. So whenever they are taken I use both +0 and it works perfectly fine as well.
There is a slight difference but I do not feel like it impaires me to the extent of not being able to get the same amount of points/kills/whatever. (Well fewer arrows so fewer hits, but you get my point)


Steevee posted an archery guide in the Guides section, definitely worth having a read :)
Title: Re: The big bow dilemma.
Post by: Hirlok on July 19, 2014, 03:03:46 pm
I have seen archers do amazing things with ALL bows currently available. And under other aspects all bows and archery in general suck, a lot.

There is actually no dilemma, just a long hard way to find what fits your personal playstyle and your roleplay.

Do you want to engage in melee a lot and so do more or less of a hybrid?
Sniping from afar with no ATH to run away? or kiting my old friendcher doing headshots from close range?
Going for precision/headshots or need more fump for bodyshots?
Favorite targets (horses, heavy infantry, or go for peasants and other ranged like most spineless archers do)

All that matters.

For your bow and your build.

And while I know some really good archers are rocking the longbow with just wm 7, I never felt comfortable with it with less than wm 8, better 9 (18/27 is my fav build so far). The draw speed is quite ok then and you can do amazing shots across the map, still dealing some damage.

Personally, I can't stomach the smaller bows, I use an alt for my agi archer, aptly named "Bitch".

For me it is longbow, or no bow.

Title: Re: The big bow dilemma.
Post by: jtobiasm on July 19, 2014, 05:22:03 pm
Quote from: Panuru on July 19, 2014, 05:06:42 am
If you have 18/21, you aren't accurate enough with high-tier bows.
Incorrect, you  mean only bad archers aren't accurate enough.
Title: Re: The big bow dilemma.
Post by: Little Lord Lollipop on July 20, 2014, 12:28:36 am
Each bow has a unique feel ingame, so the key is finding the one that fits your playstyle best. Archers don't really start to become effective until the mid twenties level wise. However you don't need to be level 34 or have fully masterworked weapons to be effective. I never played past 31 (until this gen) and my build was always 18/20 at level 30 (I'm bad at min-maxing apparently). I'd recommend saving your first 2 loompoints and then trading 2lp and gold for a +3 bow of your choosing. Many clans will have several +3 bows and arrows in their armory that you can borrow free of charge.
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