Bow and DR

[licho]

Hi,
This is a newb question: How to deal with DR of monsters with a bow? What kind of monster with DR could be passed with speccial bow/ammo?

Ok, so im basicly bow user, and sometimes the DR eats almost all me dmg. (especcially bosses)
Now, could smb give me some guild which monsters DR could be tricked with speccial bow or ammo?
Maybe there is some list with "what works on what".

So far im just swiching to melee but its not favorable solucion.

OFF: The new forum organizacion is tricky.
Lol: I just spotted that the name is not "Warriors" but melees, so Kensai Archers should feel little homeless.

[ArloOne]

Metaline and greater bane bows will have the best results!

Holy of Pure Good will wail upon Harry in the Shroud.

Metaline of Smiting would be a pimp bow for constructs.

[Asketes]

this may be better in the specialist category.

upping your strength if you have bow strength will have a direct effect on your damage.

If you can find a *Silver Longbow* that's the name of it, it's a holy bow that has a higher than normal crit range, that will help you out with extra critical hits. then find you some acid or shocking arrows I suppose. Silver Longbow drops from the end chest in the quest "The Church and the Cult" in House P.

[Irongutz2000]

Ok so u should be using a silver long bow, holy pure good or a shroud crafted trip pos or litning 2

put silver arrows for shroud/vod/tod

cold iron arrows for demon queen/ renders

= win

get the arrows from i think 150 house D favor

other dr's thraak hounds which carry a lawful dr, so true law or axiomatic

mind flayers have byshek dr, which u need byshek to by pass...............

hope this helps

[Asketes]

Metaline and greater bane bows will have the best results!

Holy of Pure Good will wail upon Harry in the Shroud. don't forget silver arrows; since he has good and silver dr

Metaline of Smiting would be a pimp bow for constructs. yup.. or anarchic of greater construct bane

my comments are above in red

don't forget:
- If you use holy arrows on a bow that has holy, you don't get double the effect.
- If you have +1 bow and your arrows are +5 they don't stack; you just get the best number of the two.
- House D favor will get you some decent arrows, i'm not familiar w/ them but some are like 50% or 75% returning

[MsEricka]

You are not mainly a bow user. You use melee weapons such as longswords or khopeshes while manyshot is on timer.

If the above is not true then please do not party with anyone or you will quickly learn to solo 99% of the game as you won't be able to find parties.

[FuzzyDuck81]

Enchantments on both the bow & arrows will count for bypassing the appropriate DR. For specific material types, once you have sufficient favour with house D you can buy the appropriate arrows from the house vendor. I believe there's a page on the wiki (or maybe a thread in the guides section) with info on which monsters have what DR.

As a further tip, remember only the highest + present on either bow or arrows will effect your to-hit... assuming you're going the arcane archer route for most standard enemies you can generate your own ammo so you can rely on a simple +1 bow with whatever enchantments and get the same effect which can work out much cheaper to equip Also, to maximise damage potential different enchantments on the bow & arrow will stack & standard & burst versions of a particular element count as different. A lot of the collectables can give elemental, material or bane arrows on turn-in but make sure to check the list on the wiki, as some are quite valuable since they're used in certain stone of change alchemical rituals.

Arguably the best bow you can get for enemies that are vulnerable to crits (apart from greensteel crafted gear or a couple of rare raid/epic items) is the Silver Bow - its a +2 holy longbow with 1d10 base damage, 19-20 crit range (double that of a normal bow & ISNT keen so improved crit will make it better). It comes from the quest The Church & The Cult in house P and has ML6.. the quest itself is level 9 but isn't too hard to get a group with a higher level person to help you through it for the chance at tasty loot

Oh, one other friendly tip about using the bow - learn when to put it away or at least, be considerate of your party members & use a turret approach rather than running them all over the place, as kiting enemies (although effective when soloing) can be very, very annoying for melees & a lot of people subscribe to the idea that "you kite it, you kill it" - meaning that you get in trouble like that, you're on your own.

[Hahnsoo]

I think he is looking for a Damage Reduction guide in general.

There are three main classes of DR:

Material based - This is the Adamantine, Byeshk, Cold Iron, Silver, etc. prefixes that you'll find on melee weapons. The Metalline magical property (which is found on bows) will mimic all of them, but for a bow user, your best bet is to get Deneith favor, enough to access the House Deneith ammo vendor. He sells ammunition of each material type, and you can swap to these when you need them. Adamantine is generally used for Golems or constructs. Byeshk is used for Mind Flayer DR. Cold Iron is used for Eladrin, jarilith, Marilith, Reavers/Renders. Silver is used for Bearded Devils, Orthons, and Vampires. Note that while Flametouched Iron is a material, it is used to deal Good type damage, as listed below.

Alignment based - This is Chaotic, Lawful, and Good damage. Chaotic damage is dealt by Anarchic, Anarchic Burst, True Chaos, Absolute Chaos, etc. Chaos damage is needed to break the DR of Maruts. Lawful damage is dealt by Axiomatic, Axiomatic Burst, True Law, Absolute Law, etc. Lawful damage is needed to break the DR of Thaarak Hounds. Good damage is dealt by Holy, Holy Burst, Flametouched Iron weapons, and Pure Good. It is needed to break the DR of many extraplanar evil enemies (like Reavers, Renders, etc.) and Ghostly Skeletons in Delera's Tomb.

Weapon Damage based - This is Slash, Pierce, and Blunt. You only have Piercing damage when shooting your bow. Skeletons have Blunt DR, so Slashing and Piercing do less damage (switch to a Throwing Hammer or melee blunt weapons). Rakshasas are vulnerable to Piercing damage.

Some monsters have a mix of these DR types and will need BOTH conditions to break DR. For example, Clay Golems require an Adamantine AND Blunt weapon to break their DR. Mariliths require both Cold Iron AND Good damage.

Other monsters have unbreakable DR, like most Elementals. A common misconception is that blunt damage breaks Earth Elemental DR, but it does the same amount of damage as other weapon type sources.

For more information, check out this table on DDO Wiki:
http://ddowiki.com/page/Monster_DR_and_weaknesses

[licho]

Hi,
Thx for all replays, tips and helps. Especcially the wiki table was helpful.

It seems that next step in art of archery should be gaining 75 favor in house D, which is quite possible. And collecting all allowed arrows.

Background:My archer toon is Elven AA Bard lv9, without IC (will be picked at lv12). So far i has bows: Silver; shock PG, Curse PG, Icy Burst PG.
I suppose that i should gain some Flame Burst (for icy monsters), and Paralyzer.

The most problematic are undeads especcially classic skelies and zombies. (ghosty ones behaves good and takes all dmg) So i suppose i should search for some bludgeoring/slashing greater undead bane and swich to S&B.

[NexEverto]

- House D favor will get you some decent arrows, i'm not familiar w/ them but some are like 50% or 75% returning

Perma, as usual I'm here to rain on your parade. You can only get Sturdy Deneith Arrows (75% chance of returning) in either +3 or, +0 (If that makes sense, please feel free to correct the +0 comment. ). For an AA who can imbue 100 +X Arcane Arrows which have a 100% returning chance these aren't particularly useful, however the Deneith Silver Arrows (Or any other metal aligned type) are very useful for breaking DR with a Good aligned bow. Hope my two cents helps you a little.

[Hailia]

You are not mainly a bow user. You use melee weapons such as longswords or khopeshes while manyshot is on timer.

If the above is not true then please do not party with anyone or you will quickly learn to solo 99% of the game as you won't be able to find parties.

Actually this is just an oppinion. I have only met One group out of the whole entire year that I have been playing that didn't like the fact that I was using my bow almost all the time. Remember, with Slayer Arrows and the Lightn 2 bow you still have the Potential to do more damage until you can make some Lightn 2 and/or the 3 tier Postive - Rapier and/or Kukri weapons. I am currently in the process of making a Lightn 2 Rapier and an Earth Grab Kukri. Then I will make two 3 tier Postive melee weapons, probably a Rapier and Kukri.

But to "tell" someone to play with melee weapons while Manyshot is on cool down is just Uncool. Or tell them they cant join because they havent gotten their GS melee weapons made yet. A GS Lightn 2 bow is waaaay better than two Normal melee weapons you can get or buy. Feel free not to let me join your group. I'll be most happy not to as I can create my own groups. lol.

And YES you ARE Mainly a bow user. It's in the Name => RANGER.

[elujin]

i agree, there no need to be condecending to bow users.

though kiteing monster becous you can't handle the aggro is fail (not to mention highly anoying)
not using str to add to your range dmg is fail
not using meele when the monsters are next to you is fail
not using a bow especialy with manyshot fail

also i think the term ranger is in refrence on goin on long patroles (in wild area's) not ranged combat

[Hailia]

i agree, there no need to be condecending to bow users.

though kiteing monster becous you can't handle the aggro is fail (not to mention highly anoying)
not using str to add to your range dmg is fail
not using meele when the monsters are next to you is fail
not using a bow especialy with manyshot fail

also i think the term ranger is in refrence on goin on long patroles (in wild area's) not ranged combat

hmmmmm yea mostly agree with ya. I love to get aggro if the fighters dont mind. My Str is currently at 26 will get higher when I TR. Manyshot is just Awesome. However, still working on my GS melee weapons. Will have two lightn2 weapons and two Positive weapons and One Earthgrab weapon. UNTIL then I use bow ALL the time. The CRIT damage between Slayer arrows and Lightn2 happens about ONCE every 15 shots or so sometimes more. I kid you not! So I will be using my bow almost all the time until my GS melee weapons are ready. Using the range "Round-About" attack when you have agrro is just tooo much **** fun and lessens the damage you take. lol.

[Illiain]

- House D favor will get you some decent arrows, i'm not familiar w/ them but some are like 50% or 75% returning

The House D arrows with adamantine/silver/cold iron/ are just normal non-magical arrows. They don't have the Sturdy tag and don't return. I usually get the House D Thin quiver and carry 1000 of each. The Sturdy arrows have 75% returning and are normal or +3 arrows.

For another option, you can go into Chrono and buy flametouched iron arrows in the back of the tavern. They will break DR/good if you have a Metalline/Greater Evil Outsider Bane bow.

[Sarisa]

House D favour is most important, as mentioned above. The metal arrows combined with a holy/good bow like a Silver Longbow or a Lightning II (in the future) will break most boss DR.

A lot of this DR breaking information is for future reference.
Devil trash: Silver OR Good for most, some only are broken with Good. A Silver Longbow/Lightning II with your best conjured arrows or House D returning arrows.
Devil raid bosses: Silver AND Good. Lightning II bow + Deneith silver arrows is usually the best choice. Silver Longbow and Deneith silver arrows is a good substitute to use until you make the LitII.
Demon raid bosses: Cold Iron AND Good. Use Deneith Cold Iron arrows along with a LitII or Silver Longbow.
Some constructs/golems: Use Deneith Adamantine arrows and your best damage bow. Do not use Lightning on Flesh Golems, fire on Iron Golems, or acid on Clay Golems.

Update 9 will bring in a Xoriat themed quest pack, so the House D Byeshk arrows may become more useful.

Clay Golems: For many, you need Adamantine + Bludgeoning. Here is where you will usually want to put away the bow and pick up a pair of adamantine maces or warhammers. The best low level golem killer is the Mace of Smiting, it just won't smite that often due to the low crit range. If you manage to find some Construct Bane arrows, you can use those with your best bow instead.
Wraiths, Spectres, some Quori, and other incorporeals: Imbue Force Arrows, use with a pure good, holy, or Undead Bane bow. Flaming or Frost can work too, depending on the target.
Skeletons: Unless you have a very good bow with enough damage boosting effects to outdamage their DR, you may want to switch to a pair of warhammers, maces, or morningstars with some form of undead bane, holy, or the like.
Zombies: As above, but switch to a pair of slashing weapons.

Once you reach level 18, and have access to Slaying Arrows, it becomes a tough choice whether to switch to melee at times or remain ranged. It depends on the content, your strength, and the quality of your equipment. Just note that damage over time is more important than damage per hit, and when not using Manyshot, your rate of fire is slower than melee.

For now, I strongly recommend getting a Silver Longbow. It has a higher base damage than randomly generated bows, which is only matched by crafted Greensteel and only surpassed by certain epic bows. It also has a naturally enlarged crit range, 19-20 as opposed to just 20 for normal bows. This bonus (unlike the Keen weapon attribute) gives you 17-20 crit range as opposed to 19-20 crit range with Improved Critical: Ranged. It's also Holy (but not silver like its name says), so it can provide that part in breaking DR.

It drops in The Church and the Cult (level 9, F2P, House Phiarlan, use Silver arrows on the boss). It should also be available on the AH. Depending on your server's economy, I would say it's worth about 50k-100k plat.