[Ivory]

Originally Posted by Wiley [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Said axe isn't in the least high end for velious, and was affordable in the 20s after a high amount of bandit sash questing. Acquiring a comparable bow wouldn't be even close to possible until I was raiding.

That isn't true. There are velium bows you can buy also (if you find someone selling them). A light velium bow (the lowest kind) is 30/40.

Or, if you were really a dedicated archer, you could snag the bow of the huntsman MUCH sooner than normal if you buy some help killing vluudeen (and really, there are so many high levels passing near there or sitting in thurgadin, that if you find vluudeen up you can easily find free help to come). It is a 3 day spawn though (I think? That or 7), so getting it takes a little more dedication.

If I were starting again, I would probably make that a priority MUCH MUCH sooner....even if it took a while to get. Maybe by making a 2nd ranger and running it out there over the spawn to log in and out of to check it on track now and then?

Baby druid dots aren't about the damage :P

As an archer they help.

Flame lick is 3 damage a tick, for 8 ticks. So 24 damage for 10 mana (along with a minor lowing of AC).

At level 30 you get stinging swarm for 65 mana. 13 damage per tick for 9 ticks (so 117 damage)

So, basically, added together you have an extra 16 damage a tick happening for very little mana. Used with root-shooting a mob....it is welcome damage (basically you just about get a free hit every tick).

At 49 we get an upgraded flame lick too. More AC lowering (18 ac) and does 24 damage a tick for 10 ticks (240 damage)...for 120 mana (better than a call of flame).

Combine it with stinging swarm, and you have an extra 37 damage a tick happening to a rooted mob you are shooting. I'll take that any day!

Otherwise throw in your nukes between shots to speed things up.

Level 15 you get a 15 damage nuke. Might not sound like a lot, but think of it more as a 2nd attack you use between shots. Our nukes tend to stay in step with us...always handy, just less mana efficient than using dots ((And the damage of the nukes gets a lot stronger as you level.....at 52, I have a 206 nuke and a 304 nuke)).

As an archer, you gotta use your spells between shots to help supplement damage.

So if you take bows + dots + nukes ....you are actually dealing damage fast enough to make soloing more than worth it (and since you can balance it with medding...). In the end, we become much more efficient at soloing, since recovery between fights is so low or even non existent.

That is how I've always outclass so many people who were soloing near me. I remember around level 30 I was soloing tizmaks....and would outpace the shadowknight fear kiting next to me with his pet (and back then I only had the Rain Caller).

Don't get me wrong, being an archer isn't easy! There are only a handful of bows realistic to get for the lone archer after the trueshot. Getting them takes a lot more work than showing up to the commons casually and grabbing an upgrade with 100pp.

But I really enjoy it [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] Every step and every upgrade [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] And it eventually paid off big-time when I got the skydarkener! Now I can go quad kite wyverns in CS....or quad kite sentient armors in wakening lands.....or earlier today, someone trained 5 giants to the entrance of kael....they all ran inside, while I got up and shouted "let's do this!!!" as I ran out and kited them all around till they died (while the level 60 enchanter kept telling me to zone because one of them was too hard :3 ).

I've also started parsing my damage in more raid situations....and I've been kind of shocked by the numbers! Against a deep red giant, my melee was only 2 or 3 dps higher than my bow (and I couldn't land my spells or procs). I really wonder how I will do if I could get a bow of the silver fang to keep up in terms of non-proc bow DPS.

But just getting the bow is another fun challenge!! I hear they rot sometimes and figure that is gonna be the key! I've been trying to hang around there more lately, and find out when people fight the drakes that have the bow....so....that is just part of archering. Being in the right place at the right time!

Like I said before, very very few people really care about bows or archery. Other than SOME rangers thinking they are fun to play with now and then....everyone else just sees them as a pulling item (so they only care about range or stats on the bow). That is a huge advantage to archers really trying to get these better bows.