Archery

[Rei]

Well I've gotten to the point where I am starting to get my augments taken care of.  I am one of the few players, I know of only two others, who is an exclusive bow user.  Now in normal combat bows are good and allow me to sit back and take on the roll of reviver and background DPS monkey (Yes Tempest you can use this term, NO Inara you may not lol).  Well the tricky part comes in when trying to socket to maximize these benefits.  Mages can increase their INT value for maximum spell damage and mana.  Tanks can spike their DEX for maximum bandage healing time, stamina, and carrying capacity.  Well the archer class more or less forces you to take bushido and/or ninjutsu to maximize damage, and even then it can pale in comparison to some other character builds.  What we need is a slight reworking to the system to make archery a viable class.  This can be achieved with either new augments (or tweaks to existing ones. And yes I understand this option will take script work and we are short on scripting talent atm), Adding some new bows with higher base damage or damage increases, or by making crossbows register as one handed to allow for shields to be used to get STR bonuses from shield augmentation. 

I know this sounds like a big order to most, and in the first option it is if there is not an existing script extension for the augments.  However given the talent of our current staff the other options are not only doable, but can be done in inventive ways.  And yes I am aware I could simply just take bushido/ninjutsu and use a Yumi but my skill set does not allow for those skills, I use chivalry for damage bumps and the usual stuff as I am a thief class who relies on the ability to hide and stealth to scout ahead first to find steals and locked chests. And yes I could create a bowyer, and do the quest for the runic kit and make a bow that suited me but I am happy with my bow that has 30% damage increase and requires me NOT to carry a ton of arrows around.

Sorry this is so long but it was a thought that I was thinking on all day and wanted to try and cover all bases with it.

[Jharnul]

I know this thread is starting to get old, but I think it's worth saying I strongly support this idea.

Also it would be great to add new types of wood for bows, and/or quivers to modify the arrows fired and lower the weight of those countless arrows.

[Festus]

YES...I am also a primarily bow user.  And I agree that something along these lines would be nice. 

[Vecchio]

just socket up like you would a tank and then you will be able to sit there and take hits and still be able to shoot your bow i mean you wont be able to shoot distance like a true bow person but hey you will be able to shoot at point blank range and still get  the same effect and not die

[Lucian Darkfire]

Don't ever take shooting point blank for granted, you used to not be able to do that in UO, ,lol. Was a lot of running around!

[Jharnul]

just socket up like you would a tank and then you will be able to sit there and take hits and still be able to shoot your bow i mean you wont be able to shoot distance like a true bow person but hey you will be able to shoot at point blank range and still get  the same effect and not die

That wouldn't make "archer" a really considerable concept for high-end hunting, just a "tank with a bow".

I think what Rei suggests is a way to make an archer build as efficient as druids and tanks when fully socketed. Augmenting like a tank is not optimizing on bow skills.

[Lucian Darkfire]

Well in reality archers are going to be fairly fragile. Only problem i see with this is it would make the archer class stronger than the rest because they will have more powerful weapons. I could see a one handed cross bow or something that you could use a shield with but it would proly either have a slower rate of fire or a lower attack. When a tank chooses a 1 hander over a 2 hander they are always going to loose weapon damage, but usualy gain swing speed and the ability to have a shield.

[Jharnul]

The idea for the druid is to use 2 skills as prerequisite for a set of spells, which makes using the two skills together better than their simple addition (aka synergy). I love this idea.
It could be used with other ability combinations to help promote different templates.
I imagine well a "zen archer" quest, which gives you a headband (blindfold) as an item that you need to use new archery based spells. The skills needed could be archery and meditation, or spirit speak, and could be based on the amount of dex you have, and cost stamina instead of mana.
Ideas of spells that come to mind include a very strong "called shot", a multiple shot type of attack, an attack that is sure not to miss but does less damage, and they would all need to have a bow/crossbow, and the zen archer item, to be equipped.

By basing the spells on dex, it ensures that the player will usually lead towards socketing more dex augs than int or HP, resulting in a more specialized archer template.

[Festus]

Well, it may be because im new and dont fully understand the atributes on weapons yet but, i have yet to find a bow that will deal more than 12 to 17 points in damage.  Giving that and miss rate even at 120 skill points in archery and tactics the damage delt to a high end mob isnt even noticable.  I have actually stood (ran like crazy) while shooting at some middle of the road mobs for over an hour and had dont almost no damage to them relative to thier total hit points.

This makes it impractible to hunt anything that isnt provokable (includes all high end mobs i have ran across) or tougher than a dragon for instance.  My archery against a dragon is "ok".  My  bard is also a gm mage with gm eval but without inscription aparently he is pretty much worthless other than to cast Energy Vortex.  I wonder if i put inscription on him if his damage against high end mobs would be worth the effort.

Dont get me wrong, a bard can make good money farming dragons in destard.  But the drops from destard are pretty basic based on what I see other players using.  Im sure there is other spots to get better armor for instance or better armor.

Its just that as a 120 bard, mage, archer, anatomy, tactics, evaluate int, meditate, music and hiding you would think that ya could reasonably battle something higher end than destard spawn.  like them crazy trees of doom that i see around or even most of the quests evolve into spawn that is impossible to kill.

[Jharnul]

If the mentioned damage is the damage done to the MOB, it is not necessarily that bad, depending on the MOB's resists and the damage type you deal.
If that damage is the printed damage on your stat sheet, then you have a problem.

It may be due to the fact that your strength is not as high as it could be, or that you have very little "Damage increase" properties on your items. For more information on optimizing damage, check this UOguide page to see how you can maximize your eapon damage. Also you could optimize on damage by using one or more of the fighting spellsets, such as bushido or chivalry.
Keep in mind, though, it is expected that a ranged DPS optimized character will do less damage than its melee counterpart, if only for the extra risk of being in melee and taking those hits for the others.

With all that said, archers are still a less desirable character template because of their low optimization with the high-end gear and sockets, while taking as much skill points as other fighting types.

[Lucian Darkfire]

Well you say places that "Drop better" armor. Most people use armor made from runic kits. This armor is crafted by a tailor or some times a smith. Most of the time people wear runic leather armor, thats what i wear even as a mele char. As far as damage output, a high str, high damage increase and sockets can help that, but more importantly chiv spells do the trick, if you can fit 60 chiv into your template some were that will allow you to use enemy of one which gives you a damage increase against a certain monster (Dragons, or Drakes, or trolls) what ever you hit immidiatly after casting the spell. Downside is you take double damage against everything else. You can also use conicrate weapon which makes your weapon do what ever damage type (cold, fire, poison, etc.) your opponent is most weak against. These 2 spells help me alot. You can also increase your Swing Speed Increase this will allow you to damage possibly 2x as fast as a stronger weapon. Just some ideas.