Has anyone else noticed that bows for a mage are severely underpowered? I mean, tech users get the compound bow - high damage, good speed, easy to obtain and can be made into envonomed or pyrotechnic versions. However, for the mage, there is one option - Elven hunters bow. It's not until you get to Qintarra that you can get Ellumyn's bow. And not till much later that you can actually buy an arcane bow from the gypsies. Trouble with all these bows is, they don't do any more than 1-10 damage. Compound bow does 5-18. Ellumyn's is the fastest bow, all other magick bows have a speed of around 15. Even the arcane bow has crappy damage - +8 is the bonus? +8!!! That's absolutely shit! Not to mention the fact that apart from the Elven hunters, Ecclesiates (same damage again, +30 TH and massive range, not a great deal to write home about), the other bows require a minimum of 11 strength to use! There are no schematics for arrows - you have to fork out $3 per arrow, unless you're a thief of sorts. In which case you have to spend a lot of time picking locks and pockets without getting caught...very time consuming and risky. Guns, by comparison, do a lot more damage damage - a fine revolver (second level gun smithy schematic) does 3-12 damage, with about 3-9 fatigue thrown in, slightly less range, speedier than the Elven hunters bow and +15 TH. Bullets for guns are fairly cheap, provided you use a gun that only uses one bullet per shot. I think it comes out to about $35 for 20 bullets - price of saltpeter, you can find the charcoal in trash cans for nothing. Droch's Warbringer is also a brilliant weapon - fast, 20-40 damage, 10 Electrical damage, not sure on the fatigue, it's around 1-10 though, uses one bullet per shot and the requirements aren't too strenuous. Best of all, it's one handed, and doesn't need any more than 9 strength to use - probably less. The drawback is, you don't find it till very late in the game. Until then though, you've got all sorts of guns which are pretty decent, though the Warbringer outclasses them all. When are the issues of low-damage bows for mages going to be addressed? I've finished the game with an archer, and I must say, I was quite disappointed that the Ellumyn bow was the pinnacle (for mages) of bow weapons. The speed of it (25) is great, but the damage on it is absolutely shocking. The only (and I really mean this) good thing about these bows, is that you get more criticals on animals than a beggar has lice. It's wasn't uncommon for me to get 5 criticals in a row - of course, this only happened on animals, and with the crap damage on bows, you need those criticals to finish the game. Your damage sure as hell isn't going to kill things. You rely on criticals to deal the damage, and they don't come quite as frequently as you'd like - unless you want to use 2 fated rings instead of other, more useful rings, you're going to need that Ellumyn bow and 20 dex, just to have a hope of killing or doing decent damage to anything with a respectable amount of hitpoints in one turn. I can recommend one thing for archers - an equipment set up. Get yourself the Shield of Protection spell (level 1 Force college), dragon skin leather, gloves of dexterity, fine stout boots (those reddish/brown ones), a mystic or arcane helmet, that ring of poison resistance from the Forbidden Pit and a charmed ring at least if possible (I found a couple, don't go frantic searching for one though, they're variables). I had 95% fire and poison resistance, 88% damage resistance, 45% electrical resistance and 20% magick or resistance or so - a nice, light, very protective set up. I could take a big hit and only take 3 or 4 damage in hit points, none in fatigue, and deal out my pittance in damage next turn. I know this set-up for a mage tank has been said before, but I thought I'd just post my simpler, cheaper, easier to organise set up that is just as (if not better because of the afore-mentioned reasons) good as the ones described before. This ends my rant. If you're still here reading, I'd appreciate your thoughts on this matter.
useless damn things your right after completing the game with a couple of different char's ie gun expert, pure melee and mage i never found a bow that was worth keeping 5 mins after i had it id'd (i don't know if id'd is right but oh well near enough i suppose)
what did i do? hey... mine's nowhere near as long jarinor's message/manifesto......... oh you were talking to jarinor to start with huh, sorry
1. i resemble nothing at all like a vacuum cleaner 2. my nose is not made out of toffee....(how ever much i may wish!) 3. i don't know what malodorous means 4. i never lie i only tell fibs 5. if i wanted to have a big post count i would of posted all these points individually and responded to every thread possible wether i had anything to contribute or not. :???:
1. Vacuous means empty basically, in this case empty-headed... stupid to put it simply. 2. You're still toffee-nosed. 3. Get a dictionary then... malodorous means stinking in put simply... mal is a root for "bad" and odorous is one with odor... get the idea, 4. fib (n) - An insignificant or childish lie. that makes you an insignificant child. 5. They all say that.
I have not yet had a character that uses the bow, but good old Raven does. My problem is that I can't keep here stocked with arrows. I go from shop to shop picking up a hundred here or there, but she uses them so fast that they are gone in a flash. Is there somewhere you can buy a billion arrows (not that it mattes where I am in the game now).
is it just me or when my companions us bows they always miss the enemy but will somehow shoot me in the back? i dont get it? am i an easier target? i dont bother letting my companions use bows or guns i just give them a strong ax and let them swing away.
