Archer build

[Christo]

Longbow will get Pierce damage buff, I've read it somewhere in the board from Paul.

[Pilois]

Trying to use a warbow to get max body shot damage.

At 30 gonna do 24/18 with 8 pd/6 wpf or 21/21 7pd/7wpf.

Thoughts?

[Jarold]

what would the longbow be like with 8 pd and 156 archery wpf? crippling slow speed? is the extra dmg noticeable compared to the strong/war bow?

[AzureSkys]

I've tried to find out, but can't seem to or am blind. Does PD or WPF help with draw speed? Or is it entirely dependent on which bow you choose?

Edit:
OK I was blind... and after another review, it was mentioned on the first page:

My observations since the patch is that 1 point in PD makes a significant difference in your reticule's precision.  More so than the wpf you would get from a point in WM.  For this reason it seems to me that archery builds are now about a different trade-off than before.  If you want really good accuracy and damage, get extra points in PD.  If you want more draw speed and a more stable reticule once drawn, get WPF.  Haven't yet determined what makes the best balance of the two.  Still experimenting.   Thoughts?

[Diomedes]

What about 42/3 with 14 PD and 115 wpf?

Does PD stop affecting accuracy after a certain point?

[Beauchamp]

What about 42/3 with 14 PD and 115 wpf?

Does PD stop affecting accuracy after a certain point?

i think it might work, you could shoot down a barn or two with a longbow and bodkin arrows...

[kongxinga]

Thank you EliteDragon for the fast reply!
Although new problems come to mind. Im actually wondering if the trade-off from a 8 PowerDraw build to a 8 WeaponMaster build are actually worth it. My goal is to be both a battle archer; to aid my team mates when the are in combat, and a good medium to long range shooter.

The main goal of this build is to kick ars when Strategus is back online!

Im considering one of the following builds: (Level 31 builds)
Balanced Build:
Strength: 21
Agility: 21

Converted: 12
Athletics: 6
Power Draw: 7
Weapon Master: 7

Archery: 160
Two handed: 63
-------------------------------------------------------

WPF Build

Strength: 18
Agility: 24

Converted: 12
Athletics: 6
Power Draw: 6
Weapon Master: 8

Archery: 170
Two handed: 51

Stopped reading the whole thread to reply to this. If you want to be good in strategus, if chadz has not fixed the old drz exploit/ bug they nicely uncovered (cough*), you should change your build to have lower pd and higher wm. Back in the old days when pd reduced accuracy, drz made 0 pd archers with 200+ wpf. In strategus they can use the warbows that are issued, but they thot them like laser guided munitions because of 0 pd and high wpf. If you were there during those times, you can recall huscarl/ board shields being shot to bits by 20 people tracking you with their bows that fired that machine guns on tripods. After buttoning up everyone, their cavalry arm comes in to sweep away any archer+bodyguard teams we managed to place in good forward firing positions.

Now PD does not reduce accuracy, but it still might be a good idea to keep pd low to stack a bit more on wpf for this bit, as you should be able to use warbows on strategus even if you cannot wield it in battle mode. Out few cav could not even get out of cover without being immediately dismounted.

DRZ has shown that the clan with the best led archer and cavalry arm will win. Who needs hotshot 2 hander duelists with 0 ping when you have organized decent players with badish ping who can pull off combined arms. I saw many greats, ie great and famous duelists with impeccable ping looking silly as they became pin cushions and kebabs. Very eye opening. These same 2 hander hotshots would thrive in the chaotic pub games, but became rightful fodder in organized matches.

[Segd]

Stopped reading the whole thread to reply to this. If you want to be good in strategus, if chadz has not fixed the old drz exploit/ bug they nicely uncovered (cough*), you should change your build to have lower pd and higher wm. Back in the old days when pd reduced accuracy, drz made 0 pd archers with 200+ wpf. In strategus they can use the warbows that are issued, but they thot them like laser guided munitions because of 0 pd and high wpf. If you were there during those times, you can recall huscarl/ board shields being shot to bits by 20 people tracking you with their bows that fired that machine guns on tripods. After buttoning up everyone, their cavalry arm comes in to sweep away any archer+bodyguard teams we managed to place in good forward firing positions.

Now PD does not reduce accuracy, but it still might be a good idea to keep pd low to stack a bit more on wpf for this bit, as you should be able to use warbows on strategus even if you cannot wield it in battle mode. Out few cav could not even get out of cover without being immediately dismounted.

DRZ has shown that the clan with the best led archer and cavalry arm will win. Who needs hotshot 2 hander duelists with 0 ping when you have organized decent players with badish ping who can pull off combined arms. I saw many greats, ie great and famous duelists with impeccable ping looking silly as they became pin cushions and kebabs. Very eye opening. These same 2 hander hotshots would thrive in the chaotic pub games, but became rightful fodder in organized matches.

True story about superior warriors 
+ 1 to your awesomeness from DRZ

[Diomedes]

I heard PD increases accuracy.  If this is true, does wpf only affect speed now?

[Segd]

& damage too.

[Hirlok]

I heard PD increases accuracy.  If this is true, does wpf only affect speed now?

Really? I don't think so. Having a PD higher than required by the bow helps you to HOLD your aim longer (i.e. the reticule stays at the smallest size a bit longer). But it does not improve accuracy in any noticable way. Its main point is POWER, it gives more damage (recently I had a generation with 11PD, was shit slow, and could not hit much in a distance, but armored guys went down with 1-3 Sharp Bodkins at medium range...

Accuracy (or whatever that guesswork is supposed to be... ) comes from WPF.
And from my experiments so far I would guess that you need MORE WPF for higher PD to achieve the same accuracy. (Another factor for accuracy is the bow - look at the accuracy number, the closer to 100 it gets, the better - heirlooming helps)
 
The build I mentioned above was fairly accurate with around 100 WPF at PD 7/8, but could not hit distant targets with around 120 WPF at PD10/11

I have not yet tried the extreme PD12-14 builds, I like to put some points into powerstrike, for some surprise melee kills, they are not used to be one-hit-killed with a claymore by an archer... ;-) (well, usually they one-hit me first, just to frickn slow, lol)

[Halevolm]

DRZ has shown that the clan with the best led archer and cavalry arm will win. Who needs hotshot 2 hander duelists with 0 ping when you have organized decent players with badish ping who can pull off combined arms. I saw many greats, ie great and famous duelists with impeccable ping looking silly as they became pin cushions and kebabs. Very eye opening. These same 2 hander hotshots would thrive in the chaotic pub games, but became rightful fodder in organized matches.

Indeed very eye opening that cheating wins, how about that. I would never guessed that right. And btw. If that bow thing ain't fixed then strategus is fubar already.
Btw. I'm starting to notice that you need at least 150 wpf to be somehow effective medium-long range. At least with strong bow and pd7.

[Segd]

Only 3 guys from DRZ used builds with 0PD(including myself). Others just fucked everyone with their skill
See ya in Strategus battle!

[Nebun]

Before patch most of DRZ archers had PD7 - and could use warbows. Only few had pd0 and it wasn't as effective as having pd7. Because before patch at about level 43 you could have 245 wp in bow and pd7, and i think after 235 aim didn't get any better. And advantages of PD was a lot more then from few more WP's.
So you can say that this wasn't cheating, but more of a down side.

The only thing I've considered as cheating in archery is Retirement, which given +5% bonus to WPF each time. At some point there was archers that had too much PD and too much WPS. Far beyond what you could achive without Retirement. For example at my level 43, some archers could shoot 2x while I'm doing only one shoot - and we both used war bow.
I'm glad archers got nerfed and retirement too.

[Murchad]

I made a 9str 30agi archer last gen using a once heirloomed shortbow,
next gen it will be masterwork and i'm going to try 12/27 with it.
9str
30agi
3pd
10wm - 189wpf archery
10ath
with 3pd 189wpf it was really fast and accurate but extremly weak.
when i had good ping i could headshot pretty good at short-med range.
it was also accurate at long range but with the slower speed of arrows only enemies moving in a straight line or standing still were ok.

heavy armored enemies i learned to ignore for the most part.
With 10athletics i could pick my battles pretty well.
archer vs archer duels i thought would be really easy with the fast speed of the shortbow but archers are pretty good at dancing in the duels and the slow arrow speed hurt in duels as well.

so next build it will be
12str
27agi
4pd
1ps
9wm - 180wm
9ath
gear: Masterwork shortbow 20cut dmg 71speed, large bag of sharp bodkins

I think i will keep trying higher and higher pd builds until i reach the max of 6pd for shortbow and see which works best.    I can always fall back on my khergit now that i am up to the 4pd point, i also now have more weapons to choose from for melee