Astarian As an Archer would it work?

[General Malaise]

Just got to Level 6, using Astarian, a Paladin as main character, Shadowheart and Gale.

This is my first playthrough, and it seems to have got a bit easier now on normal. I find I use Astarian mostly as an Archer. His dagger hand seems better in melee than main hand, but maybe I'm doing something wrong. He's not a great archer though, so thought I'd try and improve that. Apart from right at the start, I've not seen much point in thievery. i seem to have plenty of gold, and can't buy much stuff that's better than what i have.

I'd like a decent archer, but unless I do it as main character, then it's Astarian.

My main character seems the only one with 2 full attacks now, but I'd like to get 2 for Astarian. Can I do this? I don't really know what Momentum is, nor a great many other thngs.

Just wanting some advice on this.

I fancied having a go as a Bard sometime. Maybe I could get a decent Archer that way - I just don't know.

[Midas]

No idea how he's not a great archer when he can backstab with a longbow. My archer astarion wrecks stuff just fine.

[MartFassage]

He's pretty decent with a crossbow, remember elixirs and buffs though, he's not the best archer, and is more suited for throwing potions. He's really good at dex though, and can pick chests really good

[LadyAhiru]

Im using him as a Rogue/Ranger get the three Attacks with Sneak (once) yeah^^

[Recjawjind]

Rogues, fighters and rangers make good archers. The other classes, not quite so much.

The best "raw DPR" archers are definitely fighters though.

[Lacoste]

He has high agulity and can attack from shadows with great bonus, what more you need about good archer ?

[Texas_Jake]

You can use him as melee? I kid, but in my party his bread and butter is moving in the back line just spamming ranged SA and is working very well. Especially with the hood that has invis on it.

[deadsanta]

Asterion with double hand xbows with coatings just wrecks stuff, either assassin for the nova round or rogue for the extra offhand shot (especially with the grymforge area xbow that adds 1-4 to burning targets: light one up with shot 1, followup with 2 offhand shots.)

It's fun, but not as broken as the broken smiter/throwing damage builds. I personally don't care to min/max and exploit, all it does is reduce the fun for me, but YMMV.

[General Malaise]

Damn, this place is busy.

Thanks for the replies.

To get him more turns, do I put a hand bow in both hands - and what's my best picks? Happy to respec if need be.

Probably missing much. So far my best damage has come from Paladin Smite attacks, and Gale with AOE Fireball, and Dagger Cloud(I think it is).

There's just so many options, so guess I'm just using the obvious. Maybe I'm just trying to Play Dragon Age over again.

[RasaNova]

Assassin Astarion is fun. Get off a (hopefully) 1-shot kill from a distance, poof into the shadows, repeat. I cleared a significant portion of the goblins that way.

[Lur Nen Rue]

for hand crosbow i suggest for hellfire and firestoker
both synergizes very well
6 levels swordbard is good with ranged because ranged flourish let you hit twice
for coating i tend to use combustion since any fire my teammate trigger will chain the execute from illithid passive
dex can only hit 22 with mirror and ethel hair (you still want sharphooter)
elixir go for bloodlust or colosus
paladin vengeance can buff your damage, so does cleric aoe damage buff
i would say damage would increase tremendously as soon you find headgear that give you arcane synergy buff,

with the bow that give lightning buff, dip 1 level warlock at level 7 is also great for hex + flourish

[Syynx]

Originally posted by FriendhausTTV:

He's pretty decent with a crossbow, remember elixirs and buffs though, he's not the best archer, and is more suited for throwing potions. He's really good at dex though, and can pick chests really good

Crossbows just seem all around superior to bows from my experience

[Woldy]

Yea, rogues are good as archers.

[identity]

Rogue is very much about having other party members set up attacks for them, and it would work just as well with melee or ranged. Since Astarion wasn't very tanky, I often found myself using him as an archer, loaded with various types of arrows for every occasion. So, yeah, archer Astarion will work just fine, and a lot better if you use spells to set up his sneak attacks.

[BeautifulFlowerField]

Originally posted by id:

Rogue is very much about having other party members set up attacks for them, and it would work just as well with melee or ranged. Since Astarion wasn't very tanky, I often found myself using him as an archer, loaded with various types of arrows for every occasion. So, yeah, archer Astarion will work just fine, and a lot better if you use spells to set up his sneak attacks.

once you get a ways into act 2 items are so op you can basically have advantage on every attack no matter what

[Midas]

Originally posted by id:

Rogue is very much about having other party members set up attacks for them, and it would work just as well with melee or ranged. Since Astarion wasn't very tanky, I often found myself using him as an archer, loaded with various types of arrows for every occasion. So, yeah, archer Astarion will work just fine, and a lot better if you use spells to set up his sneak attacks.

He can set up his own sneak attacks. That's why rogues get hide as a bonus action. You can hold shift to see where the LoS cones for enemies are, step just outside of their LoS, hide, then sneak attack every round. If your sneak is good enough, you can even hide while in their LoS so long as you are obscured.