Bows best weapon?

[wulfster42]

Since base speed of a weapon has no effect on special attacks (Stunning blows, fire attack etc) AND bows can attack from anywhere (to anywhere), which means you can attack enemies behind others, could bows end up being the best weapons over all?

This would be especially true for Arcane Soldiers, since they can get both stunning blow, and use bows, allowing them to both hit, and stun, enemies in the back row. Add in the broken fire/ice attacks (1 point for full effect), and the fact that the damage of the weapon affects the power (xbows have some of the slowest base attack speeds and highest damage because of that) and you have a broken system.

Meanwhile you can run a bow with your bard (he can't use stunning blow, but he has stunning song which can stun the whole party....getting the stun train going). A bow on Gaulen, and just have a cleric (or paladin...but probably cleric) as your only non-bow user.

You get wounding from bows (not as much as from axes but still good, and you can hit ANY target), and when using skill attacks, base weapon speed has no effect (although quick strike would make theives even better with this setup). Your thief can still also use shuriken if you want for high bleed damage vs enemies that are able to be bled.

So a party of Gaulen + thief + cleric in front with As/bard/as in back, would have 5 bow attacks possible per round, 3 of which could be stuns, and of course song of stun from bard to get the stun train going (give all your bonus speed eq/bonuses to your bard so he's more likely to go first and get everything stunned already for the bow attacks).

Vs stun immune enemies you still have 2 As's that can use flame or frost strikes + theif with shuriken (if not bleed immune). Song of rage hits all your attacking characters except gaulen (since cleric won't be attacking probably).

You have theif + gaulen + bard to split up utility abilities, allowing all 3 to max bows along the way easily.

Might be a bit weaker vs some bosses, compared to melee weapons, but...since you'll be using special attacks most of the time anyway vs the bosses, it won't be that noticable (and if you can actually stun the boss/enemy it's pretty much game over).

There is no real penalty to using a bow in the front row, and the damage difference (Especially when you factor in str boosts) isn't large enough to make any of the other weapons superior. You can still overwhelm most fights with stuns with this setup (even without using maces primarily), but also have HUGE wound potential. Since you can pile on bleeding with shuriken, you actually have a good amount of all 3 status effects available...without any mages.

Arcane soldiers can handle the long term elemental removal spells, so a mage isn't really needed, and you have plenty of CC abilities between your bard and stunning blows.

Seems like a good/over powered party to me.

[wulfster42]

I still say blizzard is good for Arc Soldiers, you get it later, but it's still relevant vs full groups at that point. I don't get lightning (or meteor) with AS though, but that is a personal choice.

Aura of healing I would only get if I didn't have a cleric (since mass healing and regen are both waaay better). To be honest I just don't have the points to spend on it without giving up Aura of protection...which I find VERY useful throughout the game. Perhaps if I ever did run a multi-paladin party I would have 1 healing and 1 protection, although it would be hard to have both organized so they could affect everyone (you could always move them first I guess, but that takes up a turn).

Does AoH work on everyone outside of combat....I think it does..but I'm not sure to be honest. Only ever used it at lower levels to top up chars (or when arena fighting etc...before the battle).

No matter what, you can't get a high enough attack rating (from what I have seen) early enough for some enemies so you do full damage with melee attacks. Spells like stone arrow/meteor etc though seem to bypass that penalty and do full damage. That makes enemies with high defense MUCH easier/faster, and is worth having such characters. I really have not found mages as THAT weak even late game as far as damage output, but instead the biggest problem is power point cost on higher spells.

I have read in other posts that mages blow long term for damage and are only good for CC, but honestly that has never really been what I have found, especially versus battles with more then one enemy. They are GREAT vs high evasion enemies as well (bee's etc), and the aoe ability of even 1 mage can take out a full group of bees instantly (early on 1 blizzard and your done).

I have other setups I want to play first, but I would like to try a FULL mage part eventually (and gaulen of course, although I guess I could make a mod where he is a mage as well (has all mage spells/skills for the same cost as them). An all mage party would be a blast hehe, although I don't think I would have much of a chance at going with low to little rests/inn uses. Still in general I find the more mages you have, the less power points each need to spend per battle, so if you had 6 of them...you might be able to get quite far without resting.

Gaulen would need to cover your lockpicking and disarm skills though...and i'd probably need to make it a no knowledge of hebs run again, just to be able to keep his offensive skills up to par, but it could be fun!!

[Celerity, Executor of Impunity]

Aura of Healing does work outside of combat.

Earth elemental spells ARE reduced by defense.

You can max weapon skills at level 30, and again earth elemental spells are reduced by defense so that doesn't necessarily help you even then. Particularly when those spells only do as much as 1-2 Flame Strike ticks but cost 10x the mana.

As someone who has witnessed firsthand how large of a buff the vast majority of Mage spells need before they become relevant I really can't see them as effective without those changes and they certainly aren't if you wait over twice as long before getting them. Especially since AS does not learn the mana steal spell. At least Mage can get their mana back after spamming Inferno and do kind of sort of damage.

[wulfster42]

Hmmm, well the meteor spell tears up some enemies that take almost no (or very little) physical damage because of defense. That one enemy blocking the desert area (the one you use the hammer on), for instance. He's immune to all elemental damage (so front/flame is pointsless), and he takes almost no damage from melee (Even after using the hammer it's like 1/2 normal damage). Meteor though (usualy around level 3 by that time, seems to do full damage (60 or so a pop), which considering your melee attacks are doing around 10 a pop at that point (without using a skill to boost it or something), is significant. Having 3 mages pound him with meteors can make that fight last 2 rounds (all chars getting 1 attack), versus something like 15 rounds. Admitingly the first time I fought him I didn't have all my characters even able to hurt him (didn't have meteor or stone arrow on my mage, so couldn't do any damage to him at all, and my bard was pathetic that time as well.

So perhaps certain enemies reduce melee attacks by other ways besides defense? I have noticed that meteor and the multi hit meteor spell seems to do more damage vs high defense enemies even when the melee attacks at that point should normally be hitting harder.

[Celerity, Executor of Impunity]

The stone golem has high defense and ignores everything except physical, but even then you should be doing a lot more than 10 damage with melee. Try 40, a lot more with Powerful Strike and/or Soldier/Barbarian.

[Scathe]

somewhat inspired by this thread, I decided to try getting a new game going using a party similar to yours, except swapping the bard for a soldier since I wanted a beefier front line, and since I had tried the bard very briefly in the past in a game where I decided I didnt like the party and quit playing it at like level 6. in the beginning bards only have enough mana to play 2 songs, so they need rest too often like mages.

now my party is mostly level 8 with the thief level 9 and I'm doing well clearing nengorth's soldiers from the nabros roads. those fights still rate "difficult" and are taking about 1shuriken, 2healing salves, and 1 scroll: song of courage 4. plus I'm using the speed and defense/evasion blessings.

here is my current setup:
front line - cleric(mace+shield) - gaulen (axe+shield) - soldier (battle hammer) - empty
back line - arcane soldier (bow) - thief (bow) - arcane soldier (bow) - empty

I had been planning to give gaulen a bow, but he started with an axe and I didnt have any bows in the shop at level 1 and there was an axe upgrade, so I bought that and started putting points in axes, worried that I would have trouble finding enough good bows for 3 party members and 4 would be even harder. I have found some good bows since then.

anyhow, I'm starting to wonder what I'm going to do if I run into something immune to flame and frost strikes. I'm leaning twards trying to find room in my builds for wounding strike, and maybe multiple ranks of it. I'm wondering if there is anything immune to wounds, fire, and ice? and if so is that something that might give me serious trouble with this party? also for the soldier does wounding strike even work with a hammer? I'm pretty clueless wether to keep getting 1 rank of new strikes since they're cheaper and the soldier has so low mana or level up one strike like powerful stike a few times.

my theif is very desperate for skill points, trying to level up learning, mercantilism, disarm traps, pick locks, bows, and shurikens. will I lose out on too much money if I skip taking object evaluation and object identification on any character?

[Celerity, Executor of Impunity]

The only enemies that are both fire and ice immune are the small and large stone golems. The small golems have 50% resist wounds, the large has 100% resist wounds. Just use Powerful Strike against those or use basic attacks.

Wounding Strike works with a hammer.

[wulfster42]

Yep, wounding strike works with a hammer and with a bow!:)

Thief is hard but there are a few shortcuts. You don't need object evaluation at all (though 1 point doesn't hurt), and you don't need to max disarm traps. You don't even really need to max pick locks if you don't mind blowing money on lock picks. A trick with them is to always buy out all the lock picks at the store, and the price will never go up:)

Merc is great, although you can get matter into gold for arcane soldiers (not till like lvl 42 though), but that jsut gives you more gold for selling (it doesn't reduce the gold cost).

The selling is really the big advantage since eventually you really don't get that much great stuff from the store, I don't think long term you really save a ton by reducing bying price. Object into gold can pretty much cover merc skill....for less over all skill points consumed...and on another character (and later on..when you have more extra skill points (main weapon skill maxed etc at that point). You do have the disadvantage of having to wait so long, but.......honestly you probably won't miss it THAT much.

Learning is great but I think it's at 19 points..that you hit 50% total bonus (Somewhere around there), which is where I usually stop boosting it. You should (By then) have plenty of prophecy eq also boosting your exp, and of course golot blessing, so you'll probably be at 75% increase or so....and it's a good time to start having skill points for other stuff.

3 bow users is really enough (especially since two have frost strike), to deal with dangerous enemies in the back row. With only 3 in the front you can probably have all of them hit any enemies anyway (although it's nice if the end guy on the left is a thief with shuriken so you can hit the enemies on the right as well in a pinch). Axe is a bit more efficient then bow anyway, and causes greater wounds (Base), at the loss of being able to hit any enemy. Since you already have 3 able to do that, going axe instead of bow won't be a big deal.

Finally, it may be too late now, but you can use gaulen to relieve the stress on your thief a bit. That is especially effective if you have the amulet of golot and use it to give +1 skill point to everyone. Gaulen (sadly) without a mod at least, is annoying sparse on useful places to use skill points later on (other then utility skills). That is not that much of a problem before level 30, but becomes more of one later on. One idea would be to have gaulen focus on disarm traps and your thief on pick locks (would also split the exp bonus...which does add up over the game), also make sure someone else has perception (more split skill points...and more exp on a different character).

Consider having one arc soldier focus on perception and the other save up for matter into gold and the elemental removal spells (for fire/gass, ice etc).

Then have gualen handle disarm traps (not nearly as important to max anyway).

That will free your thief up a ton:)...and almost all of that can be handled just with bonus skill points (From gold/herbs/amulet of golot etc).

If it's too late for all that (cause you already specced your thief in everything), you could just use most of your bonus skill points from pools/herbs etc on him (you could even get 2 skill points per golot ammy for him instead of 1 for all..though it's less efficient).

I personally suggest using the skill points on your cleric though, as the cleric is only held back from being pretty insane by skill points (paladin is slightly better at some things, but cleric has way better spells, way faster, and more mana). Either pally or cleric are in my opinion the best "champions" to specialize your bonus points on (every stat helps them a ton, making them awesome at clearing the arena...if you focus on em).

Anyway, sounds like a good party to me, hope you have a blast!:)

[wulfster42]

Oh, btw, quick strike is very worth it for a bow thief, especially if your using a slower bow on him (since it's base is 10 before being reduced...ending up at by far the fastest (lowest action cost), skill at 4-5.

Tis another reason to try and save skill points on him. Shuriken can also be stocked up on in two ways, by buying out all of them from the stores (never by only a few), and by farming the thieves in many of the maps (I think theives may always drop them). You can get quite a stockpile that way, but beware, they do have weight that adds up quickly if you stockpile too many.

[Scathe]

thanks for the advice :) so far my reasoning for putting gaulen and the theif in the middle is that they are both falling slightly behind in weapon skill(not too far behind, they have like 5 ranks out of 8 possible) and they dont have very good special attacks yet for their mana, so they are slightly weaker links offensively. so from the center they can reach the whole party with healing salves and bard buff scrolls, and they are the preferable characters for using consumables with their actions. hopefully eventualy they catch up in weapon skill and hopefully quick strike and envenomed strike make them more useful offensively when they get that.

I did give one of the arcane soldiers perception but the other has dropped extra points into wounding strike and armor. hopefully I still have time to save points for end of flames and incinerate air, and gold making. although I may buy a couple ranks of powerful strike first too.

it is too late to give gaulen one of the theif skills, so I may sink some of my extra skill points into my theif. I had been thinking I'd use the soldier in the arena, my cleric only has 3 ranks of weapon skill. also being in the front with an empty space next to him, I'd expect my soldier to take the most damage usualy, so having him a level or two higher might help some.

[wulfster42]

Cleric has some big advantages in the arena, especially later on. You can self buff (if you have buff spells...which you will if you give him all the bonus skill points, and alot of the herb/pool stat boosts), and you have divine prayer (refills your power points while healing you).

Soldier can be decent, but you'll use resources each fight and may need to rest often later on, and more importantly have to use potions/eggs etc to get rid of bleeding/wounding during longer fights (no way to win with 30 bleed on him and needing to hit the enemy 20+ times to kill it for instance).

Cleric will easily need the most skill points especially long term AND you get by far the most out of having him be ahigher level then the rest. If you equip him up with +exp gear, make sure you have blessing of golot, and have at least a few points in learning, you can pretty much get him to level 30 or so, by doing the arena at level 20. A higher level cleric makes everything cake pretty much.

Soldier can be very strong as well if you focus on him, but...he'll only affect himself in combat (not your whole team), and you never really need a ton of skill points on him. Energy and power points are nice, but not a huge difference, and he already gets enough hp.

Even early on, cleric can cast regen on himself (mitigating long term damage in arena), protection spells, can cure wounds/bleeding if they build up too much, and has free heal/pp regen from divine prayer. The paladin might be slightly better over all in the Arena (more base hp, divine protection as another buff etc), but the cleric is a close second and is far more useful early on for the whole party (getting better AoE buffs earlier, stronger individual healing etc).

Clerics biggest downside is a HUGE need for skill points making it hard to max maces early on (or get armor up etc). This goes away pretty fast once you hit 30 and max knowledge of herbs (if you use the herbs on him of course), but it helps to pretty much give your cleric all the pools along the way as well. You could even consider giving the cleric 2 skill points from amulet of golot instead of 1 to everyone (although it's more efficient over all to give 1 point to everyone).

Another way to make things go a bit easier/smoother is to have a divine summoner with herald of golot....since that can get you tons of money (even by mid game), and allow you to purchase many more skill points. Not possible for you right now, but it's something for future runs maybe (over all still not that impressed with summoner though...you do get a TON of money naturally end game, and you stop needing it for buying equipment that much (not that it's ever a major source of spending money).

I wouldn't waste too much time with wounding strike unless your going to stack it on multiple characters. It is effective, and your bows already cause wonds, but honest flame strike/ice strike will probably get you further in most fights, and you have better places to spend your skill points.You don't NEED the elementer removal spells, but they sure are nice. The itemtogold spell is also very nice (Basically doubles your gold from selling items, and you don't have to worry about being over weight in the field), and there are a few other spells it's nice to have points for.

I'd prioratize your mace skill on your cleric though, even though it's expensive. Give bonus skill points to him if you can, to try and get spells etc you need, but there are not that many spells you need to level up early on for the cleric. Armor is nice to get at least a few points in, but if your boosting his strength (which you probably should), he will not need it that much long term.

Even if you don't focus on him, eventually you get stat bonuses to all characters that will give you enough agility, con is always great, but again, if you are giving him stat bonuses he'll have plenty of max hp, energy is just not efficient to increase as you level up, so in my opinion it's good to primarily focus on speed and strength for any characters that are going to be using weapons (as long term they become the most important stats by far).

Armor is nice early on, to at least ensure you can have equipment in every slot (hopefully +5% exp eq), but you don't need to max it every level or even close.

Maxing your weapon skill will speed things up though both early on, and it's still very useful late game.

Contrary to most, even speed isn't THAT important on a primary (hero) character as you end up with so much speed that it seems to stop making a difference. That means you can sacrifice a bit of speed early on for more con (since you get a decent # of hp per con). It's really less important for clerics/paladins though as it takes quite awhile before enemies start doing more damage then you can heal just from divine prayer (let alone divine prayer and regeneration. By that time you probably will have mass regeneration already, which pretty much makes you (and everyone else) invulnerable.

I generally go speed/con on mages or anyone not using a weapon, and speed/strength on any weapon users. Agility gets there all by itself and adds so little to your attack bonus (compared to weapon skill etc), that a few less points won't make a huge difference (and you hit weapon reqs just fine from +stats along the way. I do tent to take the +4 agility vs the +3 strength to start though (helps get you to those initial agility requirement levels for early weapons.

[Celerity, Executor of Impunity]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQWV930Py7g

[wulfster42]

lol that is awesome, never thought of just moving around while the enemy burns/bleeds etc when going one on one. That is actually useful even without alot of DoT's (as long as youhave speed....which any arena champion probably will), since you can use it to move and heal etc as needed (or use divine prayer for more pp etc).

Cool Tip!!

[Celerity, Executor of Impunity]

The main reason that worked is I buffed Daggers and made them speed 7. Otherwise I wouldn't have been fast enough. There's a reason I only used Flame Strike after he used a buff.