sleeper/poison arrows not working?

[Ichthyic]

I made a huge stack (about 300) of sleeper and poison arrows, then went out to test them on the oxen outside the city.

I never got a single sleep trigger in 30 shots when I equipped the sleeper arrows, nor did it seem like any oxen were poisoned when I tried the poison arrows.

any idea why?

did they nerf the chances to be very very low or something?

similarly, tried with a group of nearby bandits, and none of them got the sleep trigger either.

[notfonts]

Are you using any mods?

[Ichthyic]

yes, one mod that increases carryweight.

[Karathrax]

The way debilitations work in this game, you have a better chance of the debilitation proccing if you use a skill with a multiple strike rather than a single shot. This is independent of strength, I believe. For a Ranger, the best skills to use would be Tenfold Flurry and/or Spiral/Corkscrew Arrow. A Strider or Assassin would have better chances using Fracture Dart or Cloudburst/Hailstorm Volley, then Fivefold Flurry.

However, Oxen have no specific resistances or weaknesses. No clue what's going on there.

[wh1sper_123]

sleep resistance can vary per enemy based on their resistance. it works the same for all debilitation specialty arrows in the game

ogre will fall with 4 arrows
elder ogre with 5
garm with 10
cyclops with 10-30 depending which part you hit
gorecyclops with 5-10
gore/chimera with 10 into lions head

the way it is applied is pretty much straight forward. each arrow that hits stays in effect for certain time after hit and then it is nullified. if you shot 5 single arrows they get out of effect 1 by one in same intervals as they were shot, while if you hit 5fold, all 5 stop their effect at the same time

you can boost the effect with morbidity which reduces needed specialty arrows by 30% or so

if you plan on using specialty arrows, corkscrew/ranger is your best bet as this attack not only uses 1 arrow only, effect is stronger per hit. 10 hits in single corkscrew are far more effective than 10 arrows with 5/10fold. to petrify garm with 5/10fold you need around 45 arrows or 2 with corkscrew (or 30 arrows and only 1 with morbidity). same thing with rusted longbow. if you use morbidity, 3 star rusted longbow already has 1 shot 100% effect. with other attacks upgrading that bow would show improvements, corkscrew is at max at 3 stars already

Originally posted by Karathrax:

The way debilitations work in this game, you have a better chance of the debilitation proccing if you use a skill with a multiple strike rather than a single shot. This is independent of strength, I believe. For a Ranger, the best skills to use would be Tenfold Flurry and/or Spiral/Corkscrew Arrow. A Strider or Assassin would have better chances using Fracture Dart or Cloudburst/Hailstorm Volley, then Fivefold Flurry.

However, Oxen have no specific resistances or weaknesses. No clue what's going on there.

fracture does not debilitate.

1 arrow only for slow attack which has to miss in order to get as much damage as possible so you get manual trigger and splinter explosions don't carry the debilitation effects. if that arrow hits enemy, only auto double voley is triggered and this reduces damage to <1/2

hailstorm is extremely useful with rusted bow on the other hand uses too many arrows (20) to be useful with specialty arrows unless target is really big as arrow usage gets too high. hailstorm in this respect loses effectivity compared to cloudburst.

[Ichthyic]

Originally posted by wh1sper_123:

sleep resistance can vary per enemy based on their resistance. it works the same for all debilitation specialty arrows in the game

...

Great info there! Thanks muchly. Just started this game this week, and it gets a bit confusing at times.

[Ichthyic]

it also looks like regular mobs simply die if you use that much firepower to begin with, so most of this applies to "special" monsters or late game/BBI mobs.

pretty much gonna stick with blast arrows for regular mobs, and try out these suggestions for things like Chimera/cyclops/etc.

thanks again.

[wh1sper_123]

Originally posted by Ichthyic:

it also looks like regular mobs simply die if you use that much firepower to begin with, so most of this applies to "special" monsters or late game/BBI mobs.

pretty much gonna stick with blast arrows for regular mobs, and try out these suggestions for things like Chimera/cyclops/etc.

thanks again.

pretty much as you say. don't bother on small enemies and more or less only petrifying and sleeper arrows are of any use.

only specialty arrow that is usable is blinder if you play as strider with master thief as not everything can be put to sleep. for any other vocation they just don't work well

and one thing i forgot to mention about sleeper arrows. for short time when enemy is put to sleep damage you do is preemption multiplied. few examples
- shot garm with 10 and climb his head. he will die pretty much in seconds of hitting depending how well you're hitting his snout. same bonus is on other enemies as well
- shot ogre with corkscrew to do insane damage. after 2 strikes he already falls down and all next hits (8) in same corkscrew do just insane damage

also, not all enemies act the same way. chimera and some other are put to sleep for specific time, where some other enemies are not. gorecyclops or garm will start waking up on first hits which makes sleeper arrows really good crowd control with put to sleep and ignore tactic. this plays especially well in lure fight with 5 garms as you can just down them all and focus on them one by one with complete safety

and i forgot one thing about petrifying arrows. saurians are really weak to it which can make enemies like saurian sages in BBI at lower level complete walk in the park

[Ichthyic]

again, more great info! thanks.

will have to bookmark this for future reference.

[Ichthyic]

... a week later, now at level 60, and this advice was golden.

blast arrows on regular mobs is a perfect way to if not outright kill them, totally disrupt their attacks for about 10 seconds, as well as set them on fire. also great for any beastie that flies (does extra damage as well, I'd guess about 30-50% more damage than a standard arrow).

putting ogres to sleep has come in use many times.

avoided using petrification arrows too much, as it destroys loot as well as the monster. great when you no longer need the items the monsters drop though.

this works fine with assassin, did not need morbidity since using the arrow-flurry attack anyway.

oh, also? blast arrows work great on dragons. 3-4 flurry blast arrows to general-chest area (don't need to aim strictly for heart) will usually take down a drake without them ever being able to act.

[wh1sper_123]

Originally posted by Ichthyic:

... a week later, now at level 60, and this advice was golden.

blast arrows on regular mobs is a perfect way to if not outright kill them, totally disrupt their attacks for about 10 seconds, as well as set them on fire. also great for any beastie that flies (does extra damage as well, I'd guess about 30-50% more damage than a standard arrow).

putting ogres to sleep has come in use many times.

avoided using petrification arrows too much, as it destroys loot as well as the monster. great when you no longer need the items the monsters drop though.

this works fine with assassin, did not need morbidity since using the arrow-flurry attack anyway.

oh, also? blast arrows work great on dragons. 3-4 flurry blast arrows to general-chest area (don't need to aim strictly for heart) will usually take down a drake without them ever being able to act.

at least in BBI pertrification arrows don't destroy loot. didn't use them in gransys

problem with blast arrows is that they are too heavy to carry. with assassin dragons can be knocked down with band or lyncean in one shot provided you have enough knockback