UO Second Age

Hi, i'd like to ask the guys who have archer chars. Without magery.. What are you doing? Today i had to fight with a dragon for about 20 mins to kill it.. GM arch, tactics and anatomy.. Exeptional Heavy x-bow. Do i miss something or archers just can't fight anything like that.. Or is it in the weapon?

You're better off using a regular bow, rather than a crossbow or heavy crossbow. The damage output is much much much faster, because the crossbows are so darn slow.

Of course, regular bows are not repairable, and since they fire more shots per minute, they break down quicker than a crossbow or heavy crossbow.

I'd suggest farming as an archer at Terathan Keep. Lots of ledges to hide behind, the AR of those monsters isn't as high as dragons (nor is the HPs) so your bow can punch through well, etc. Of course, it's ideal to have magery to recall there and teleport onto certain ledges, so if you're hellbent against magery you might be in trouble. But that's my suggestion.

i Have 55 magery.. enough to cast anything i need. But since all dmg i deal is via archery i have that problem.. I took Heavy x-bow because despite the LARGE pause between shots it can deal a nice dmg with 1 shot so it could pierce trough their armor.. I'll try with bow.. One more thing, what do you use in PvP..
Obviously i can't 1v1 with anyone with such a low magery, but i use heavy x-bow there too.. Sometimes manage to take 60% with single shot but then a greater heal is followed.. or 2 greater heals.. or 3.. How do you pvp..

pure archer isn't really going to win in solo pvp. really gotta use a regular bow to stand any chance, or just be pvp support. not enough front-loaded damage, not enough speed, and not enough gimmicks (sta drain, poison) to be effective by yourself.

OK cool, if you have 55 Magery, I'd suggest Terathan Keep (the surface portion). Low PK presence, plenty of ledges to shoot from or shoot behind, etc.

For pvp, a bow is just too slow to really be effective. If you manage to get someone low on health, they're just going to recall between arrow shots. At least with a fast weapon, you can at least get one swing off when they stop to recall, so at least you have a 50% chance of disrupting them. With a bow, they could easily recall between shots, and there's nothing you can do. What's the delay on a bow firing, 4 seconds at 100 dex? Way way way too slow. Unless you had 120 stamina and were absolutely amazing at timing purple potions to precisely split the time between arrow shots (i.e. explosion potions take 4 seconds to throw and do damage, and arrows take 4 seconds, so if you offset them perfectly you can have *something* trying to do damage every 2 seconds). But even then, 2 seconds is still enough to get a recall off.

Best way to use archery in pvp is to just use a nice heavy crossbow with archery mods to increase your chance to hit (I think supremely accurate ends up getting you from a 50% chance to hit to a 57% chance to hit) and just use the heavy xbow for one bolt and then switch to magery to do the rest of your damage. A template like:

magery
meditation
eval int
wrestling
archery
tactics
anatomy

Or drop anatomy for resist, since anatomy really only adds 3-4 dmg to your shots, and you're only taking 1 shot per fight for the most part.

I also had the following template:

magery
eval int
wrestling
archery
tactics
hiding
stealth

I would stealth up to people fighting monsters and wait for their health to go down a bit. Then I would attack them with my heavy xbow (revealing myself) and try to get a couple spells off before they got out of range. Often 1 heavy xbow bolt and one energy bolt was enough to finish them off.

Also, look for my Tips & Tricks post. There's a nasty Earthquake macro in there which I used with the above template. It's especially useful because you can make it look like you're casting heal or greater heal on someone who's damaged and fighting a lich/gazer/whatever, but you're truly casting Earthquake (to take half their remaining life), Explosion, and throwing an Explosion potion on them. That one can take people from about 90 hps to 0 in about 3 seconds from the moment at which you reveal yourself and start casting.

Mikel123 wrote: It's especially useful because you can make it look like you're casting heal or greater heal on someone who's damaged and fighting a lich/gazer/whatever

You shouldnt bother casting EQ if they don't have alot of life left anyway. It takes 50 mana to do 1/2 damage. Flamestrike takes 40 mana, and will do comparable damage if they are under 85 hits or w/e.

Last night been to terathan keep.. Since when we have to go by foot in Lost lands..?
You really hunt there? I mean i met 3 guys at the entrance of the zone - ophidian enforcers, pulled one.. Took about 85 arrows (exeptional bow) and 10 mins to shoot him down after i go him stuck (damn when i'm on foot these things are damn fast).. for 500-600 gp.. Did you hunt there? Or it's only for party hunting.. I got my self a tank but the enforcer wiped her in 10 secs..

either don't use the Papua entrance or have a horse stabled there, but no, you don't have to hunt on foot (and it's basically impossible at TKeep w/the mob speed there).

@QniDopi: Do you know much HP a dragon has? Don't expect to bring them down quick... Even with a melee skill and high DMG per sec weapon, it would be quite long.

Best things, in my opinion, to fight with archery are lich/lich lords with silver bows/xbows. The terathan keep mentioned above is also a good place. I use a GM bow and it does not take 10 minutes to bring one of the Ophidian enforcers/avengers down. More like 1 minute. I have 100 dex mind you. You also get most of your arrows in the corpse... they probably have poor weapon skill because I never miss a shot. To give you a general idea how long it takes one to drop: I start pulling one from the "narrow" pathway in the jungles, and they usually are near death by the time they reach the large, tiled court. Are you sure you weren't attacking a Knight-Errant? Those are tough. 500-600gp loot sounds like a Knight Errant. Enforcers and Avengers only give around 150 gp and gems. Also, I'm convinced it was a Knight Errant since it took you 85 arrows and 10 minutes to kill.

PVP with archery? That's a bit more complicated. It's effective if your playstyle fits being an archer. Do not try and be the tough guy and solo 1v1 while standing still "like a man", etc. That is the type of player that will not make a good archer. You need to employ the element of surprise and "cunning" tactics.

But for the most part, an archer with no tricks up his sleeve VS a melee dexxer toe-to-toe usually means loss for the archer. I like playing an archer in chaotic field battles. You mentioned a heavy x-bow taking 60% life in one shot--yes, you can pick off unsuspecting opponents who think they're safe at 50% life. I prefer a bow though, much faster and longer range. Just target those with a bit lower life. Test archery pvp out at CTF or something... it's really fun.

someone should point out that the magic weapon bonus for archers, applies to the archery skill and not tactics. It reduces the chance of getting hit ect.

It might have some uses as a thief dexer because it would give you an advantage of getting hit less often.

Wrestle
Magery
Archery
Steal
Snoop
Meditation
Hide/Resist ect

For the record i have 100 str and 93 dex, 100 archery, 100 anatomy and 96 tactics.. So the maxed values wouldn't make any noticeable diffrence.. Probably i just can't get used to the GM fighter tamplates in pre-AoS.. With their limited capabilities in PvM compared to the mages.

About LL entrances.. Is there an entrance that allows you to go in mounted? I tried the recdu one.. still dismounts and the one that is south of the titans spot.. (leads to white building on an island) - there i noticed a sign too, mentioning something about "no pet will survive the teleportation" or something like that so that one is probably the same..

ice dungeon entrance or temple island do not dismount.