Character creation

[Toxic Toast]

hey guys,

Im thinking of using a shortbow/ unarmed combat build, Im thinking that the unarmed attack will help keep unwelcome company at a distance (palm strike) do you guys think that these synergize well or am I better off just going all bow?

Thanks

[wendigo211]

As long as you're diligent about training both of them you should be okay. Normally your weapon skill takes care of itself through use. If you're using two weapons, then you will need to train them so they keep up. However that will mean no Lore or magic, so fewer dialog options and buffs.

The game is pretty easy once you get through Act I, so really you can play anything as long as you remember that the game rewards specialists (i.e. having 2 or 3 really high skills is better than having a bunch of skills at middling values).

[Toxic Toast]

I havent completed the game yet...or gotten out of act one with a charter yet either so thanks for the help, think I will just go ahead a specilize with the bow

[Echo913]

The matter of synergy depends on your appetite for the small details.

I've done an all bow character and I can tell you from experience that the bow playstyle takes quite a hit from the annoyances of recovery time. As recovery isn't affected by quickness at all (which I find is odd as quickness is a factor for bow damage) you won't be able to rely on your skills (no matter how high) to address this.I realized it was more effective to focus on more crits and your abilities (i.e. heartshot, fan of blades, darken sky, etc) to deal tons of damage along with buffs from spells. DPS is not (at least from what i've experienced) the name of the archer game.

Unarmed is tough because you won't have as much damage without some seriously linear considerations. Nerd Commando has great videos on youtube that cover this. He covers it in way more detail although he focuses more on auto-attack based progression. There are a lot of abilities in the power and agility tree if you want to be more ability focused.

the magic tree is also a good consideration for a hybrid build as it supplements your survivability and your damage (if you go deep into the tree) quite well. I'd also recommend you get the 'Mighty' stance as this just adds more armor penetration which goes a long way regardless of what weapon you use!

Hope that helps.

[OnlyOffensive]

Originally posted by Toxic Toast:

hey guys,

Im thinking of using a shortbow/ unarmed combat build, Im thinking that the unarmed attack will help keep unwelcome company at a distance (palm strike) do you guys think that these synergize well or am I better off just going all bow?

Thanks

I don't think it gona synergize well. Im playing archer character, you can shoot even with enemies in melee and there are alot of good illusion spells protection, you can definately get value from almost any range of spells while unarmed will do nothing at archer especially after couple levels. Ranged talent tree doesnt synergize with power or agility tree well and you definetely won't be able to mix even half decent unarmed talents with ranged.

You most likely want several talents in leadership tree, 2 spell slots for all party is incredible, and archer is really devastating when he get bottom of his talents, you wouldn't need to use anything except your ranged abilities. Even that i have 150 lore on my archer i use only pre-combat spells like mirror image and other buffs, dont need any damage spells in fight, archer abilities and crazy autoattack are better anyway. You gonna crit almost every shot, get extra shots from talent ( i like how they did special animation for archer bonus attack ) and when you get your hands on vulcanic weapon sigil buff your archer with it and use darken the sky and blade cone aoe and enjoy oneshots on path of damned difficulty.

If you gona play Disfavored path you will get crazy legendary bow kinda early act 2, i think you will get it with other paths aswell but with disfavored you get it faster ( probably )