Does Archery Damage get better?

[Era]

So I made a Paladin/Warrior type character and I'm not having that much fun.

The shield arrow block seems useless as it's really hard to tell where the arrow is going so the block never really works.

I've been wanting to play a Thief/Archer but was wondering if archery/bow damage gets better?

On my paladin I shot a highwayman in the face from about 50 yards away ( I seen the arrow in his head when he made his way up to me) while in stealth and it barely took an inch of his health...

Granted my archery is only about 20 and I've no skill points in that line.

All in all, does Archery Damage get better once you delve into the skills?

There's something super gratifying about pegging a bandit in the head from afar and not alerting other bandits because he's dead haha.

[Vitolan]

Having maxed out everything related to archery I found that unless you're sneaking and are able to stay hidden the damage is probably subpar to melee. I say this because there are moments where you literally cannot sneak and get the damage multiplier. When this happens you have to peg harder enemies 10-15 times and it just doesn't feel "good". With that being said though, you will notice a difference in your damage as you put more memory points into it or do enchanting. This is on the default difficulty setting by the way.

[Nerevar]

archery works fine especially when youre using an enchanted bow.

bow base damage is lower than 1handed weapons as the arrow damage is added to it. so you need good arrows aswell. ebony arrows can be bought from the start. i dont think the best arrows (aeterna) are sold until higher level at all.

[Nomnom Victory]

Early on archery is quite reliant on its talent 'Fire Arrows' as this does much more damage than regular arrows do.
Lategame Archery can be good if you Max out enchanting with +% bow damage, this is mostly because enchanting is so overpowered. Enchanting should be the first craft you put points into.

If you want to play as an archer my advice would be to buy a Master Ondusi scroll from the golden sickle in the southeast corner of Ark marketplace and then steal Shadowdance from the Museum(as soon as you get to Ark).

One of the perks you also want to get early on is 'heart shot' in the infiltrator tree as this will boost your stealth damage with a bow from 1.5x up to 2.5x.

[Nerevar]

Originally posted by Nomnom Victory:

Early on archery is quite reliant on its talent 'Fire Arrows' as this does much more damage than regular arrows do.
Lategame Archery can be good if you Max out enchanting with +% bow damage, this is mostly because enchanting is so overpowered. Enchanting should be the first craft you put points into.

If you want to play as an archer my advice would be to buy a Master Ondusi scroll from the golden sickle in the southeast corner of Ark marketplace and then steal Shadowdance from the Museum(as soon as you get to Ark).

One of the perks you also want to get early on is 'heart shot' in the infiltrator tree as this will boost your stealth damage with a bow from 1.5x up to 2.5x.

dont steal shadowdance. get an enchanted ebony bow from fortress springwatch (right next the myrad tower requires no fitghting if youre fast it has frost damage super good on a bow as it slows enemies down) or go right for bow of the mad hermit early on thats a bit more difficult tough and fire damage instead but higher.

or go grab the free aeterna bow from the desert corpse (requires zero fighting and is super easy to reach even early on as its in the open and not inside a dungeon) also only requires myrad tower. shadowdance is worse than this. and its not stolen on top.

[Era]

But..

Thief..

Stealing that bow sounds like some pretty awesome Robin Hood ♥♥♥♥ right thur.

[Era]

Also. Do you guys recommend any mods?

Was looking into it a bit, I think I might grab better jumping and combat mods.

The vanilla game is wonderful, but the combat is a little bland. But that's from the Skyrim base game.

[Jouchebag]

Originally posted by Nerevar:

archery works fine especially when youre using an enchanted bow.

Every strategy works fine when boosted with enchantment, but many people don't use it.

Now that I've gotten my Archery to 90+ at level 30 using a Skaragg bow (so basically everything as good as you can get without enchanting or handicraft) I can say, no, it never seems to scale it's damage right--UNLESS--you're sneak attacking or spamming fire arrow and running away.

It has ALWAYS taken 5-8 shots (depending on critical procs) without fire arrow or sneak attacks to kill an enemy around my level.

It is very easy to cheese Archery builds with kiting and breaking an enemy's path and I suppose that's the trade off.

[Nerevar]

i said ENCHANTED bow. not self enchanted bow or enchanting skill. many bows come with an enchantment already and are early game just a way better choice due to that.

enchanting needs to be leveled to atleast 50 before you can make equal stuff yourself. will see how that changes after the nerf they talked about on reddit.

[Bomjus]

Originally posted by Nerevar:

i said ENCHANTED bow. not self enchanted bow or enchanting skill. many bows come with an enchantment already and are early game just a way better choice due to that.

enchanting needs to be leveled to atleast 50 before you can make equal stuff yourself. will see how that changes after the nerf they talked about on reddit.

patch notes just came out for that nerf. it's pretty brutal. they cut wise enchanter by 30%, and cut arcane interference to 10%

so overall i think that's a 50% reduction from before? 30% from wise enchanter and 20% from arcane interference?

important edit: so just did some testing. pre patch i had been enchanting iron gloves with sneak to sell them. pre patch they had 7% sneak and had a value of 682 gold. post patch they have 5% sneak but the important part is that they still sell for 682 gold. so for people like me who were using enchanting as a means to make money, the nerfs don't appear to affect us. this was with common soul gems if it matters

[Nerevar]

Originally posted by Bomjus:

Originally posted by Nerevar:

i said ENCHANTED bow. not self enchanted bow or enchanting skill. many bows come with an enchantment already and are early game just a way better choice due to that.

enchanting needs to be leveled to atleast 50 before you can make equal stuff yourself. will see how that changes after the nerf they talked about on reddit.

patch notes just came out for that nerf. it's pretty brutal. they cut wise enchanter by 30%, and cut arcane interference to 10%

so overall i think that's a 50% reduction from before? 30% from wise enchanter and 20% from arcane interference?

important edit: so just did some testing. pre patch i had been enchanting iron gloves with sneak to sell them. pre patch they had 7% sneak and had a value of 682 gold. post patch they have 5% sneak but the important part is that they still sell for 682 gold. so for people like me who were using enchanting as a means to make money, the nerfs don't appear to affect us. this was with common soul gems if it matters

the german notes say its 10/5/5 for arcane enchanter perk now. so its more than 50% on that one. the other perk was reduced by 66%. from 30 to 10.

i am not sure that will fix anything sadly. will run a new test this evening to check. they didnt remove the potion yet.

will see how it is. aslong as the potion exists this nerf is probaly useless by itself. will check and report back.

[Ishan451]

Honestly... based on my experience Archery is probably the strongest form of combat.