Ranged weapons worth it?

[turtur]

I need some advice from you veterans.

I have tried 8 to 10 characters and my ranged ones always seem to perform worse than the melee ones. It is probably due to my lack of skill, so I need your help. These are my usual problems:

- Rate of fire is really low. The melee characters seem to deal many more blows per second.

- With the same attack bonus, I miss more times with the ranged weapons.


Could you please give me some hint about what I may be doing wrong?

Is there any useful tip to play ranged characters?

[diamabel]

A general advice. You should be flexible when it comes to the weapons and fighting styles you use. Sometimes it's better to take some melee weapons and sometimes it's more useful to use ranged weapons.

If the foe isn't that easily reachable or if it's safer to range it, then range it.

Certain feats (e.g. precision, rapid shot, manyshot, bow strength) and enhancements (arcane archer) may help a little. If you want to kite monsters, then it would be useful to take dodge, mobility and the "shot on the run" feat as this will remove the -4 attack penalty when using bows while running. A few ranger levels won't hurt to get some free bow feats.

[Dylos_Moon]

Ranged combat favors tactics, not pure damage output.

This is due to several factors, including the slow rate of fire.

Here's a few tips, try to use weapons with special abilities not linked to damage, this will benefit your group. Such abilities include paralyzing, disruption, smiting (rarely), banishing (rarely), cursespewing, improved cursespewing, shattermantle, and improved shattermantle. These weapons allow you to take advantage of the bows strengths, putting something on a target (or in some cases killing a target) before it reaches the party, without manyshot, this is all you should be doing with ranged weapons.

Now, if you have manyshot, for 20 seconds at a time, you have decent damage output with a bow, allowing you to take out targets before they reach you, stationary targets, and enemy archers.

One last word of advice, a primarily ranged character should not neglect melee combat, as you really have 3 options if a mob reaches you and you have aggro, 1. run/kite, 2. point blank range, 3. switch to melee. The best choice here is typically 3, unless you are soloing the mob in question (either due to soloing the quest, or because the rest of the party is handling other mobs) in which case 1 becomes a viable option, however kiting is inefficient if other members of your party are trying to engage the mob you are kiting in melee combat.

[turtur]

Thanks for the tips. I will try to be more flexible with my next character, and not focus only in ranged combat.

Following your advice, it seems there are a few things I can try to be more effective with my bow:

- Take a few Ranger levels.
- Take some feats to shot while running.
- Take some feats to improve the attack rate, bonus and damage.
- With Ranger or Elf, take some enhancements to improve my bow attack.
- Switch to melee combat when mobs get closer.