Crossbows - Any reason to use over bows?

[Zaal]

heh. i know it can be done using ranged but the unreliability of range make vod tanking extremely delicate. the generation of damage is lower than that of melee and thus more build up time is need. should a trigger happy player starts attacking, agro will be lost quite easily. and when that happens it also means the party behind suulo gets smack. with melee that is less likely to happen. this is what i'm try to show here to Zaal but unfortunately he is stuck in his little cave even when presented with hard numbers

Should a melee took get slash happy is not the outcome the same? Anyone can screw it up but since a HRC build doesn't do enough damage to pull the agro, why is this even an issue?

But on the other side , where are the hard number that supporting my HRC Rogue's ablity to pull agro?

[Zaal]

this is an area where your understanding of game mechanics is lacking

agro does not simply mean who is putting out more damage but rather who is putting out more damage over time, or the use of skills and enhancements. when the melee is tanking suulo, there are a few things he would have done

1. he might switch to SnB instead of thf or twf
2. he might switch to CE instead of PA
3. he might be using intimidate

SnB is an even worse dps rating that HRC, switching to CE means at least 5 damage lesser. this means the damage output of the tank falls to a great extent. and as a rogue with suulo's agro on the tank, you get plently of SA which will pull him away from the tank

with intimitanking, there is a very small gap between the intimidate expiring and hitting the next intiimidate. if you manage to get a good shot in during this window, you can easily snatch agro

last but not least is the agro establishment. the output of a rogue just based on SA is huge, if you manage to get in a few lucky crits with SA before the tank establishes firm agro, you can bet that you will tear suulo away

next is the rogue abilities. have you ever asked what the melee rogues are using? if these rogues know what they are doing, they would have APs invested in subtle backstacking as well as tharnes set which can reduce the hate by a huge %

SA has a huge disadvantage. test it in PvP and check out the stats of suulomades and arraetrikos and you would know why

Omg, schooling 101 here - are you sure you got everyting??

[Creeper]

No disrespect but you are talking from a "Ranged Ranger" aspect and I'm not pushing that line.

So you agree that rangers do more dps with melee than ranged?

What line are you pushing? That a repeater rogue can do more/equal damage than a melee rogue?

[Zaal]

So you agree that rangers do more dps with melee than ranged?

A dual weilding melee Ranger compared to a Ranged Ranger? Sure. Haven't looked at how the 25% Ranged Ranger Capstone bonus plays in but I suspect the statement still to be true. Then again the lvl 20 Ranged Ranger Capstone makes makes for an interesting build option. My daughter has a lvl 16 Elven Ranged Ranger and I'm interested to see where it goes - especially when while using her Mineral II bow.

What line are you pushing? That a repeater rogue can do more/equal damage than a melee rogue?

Brother Creeper, that's a hard question to answer . What I suppose ultimately I'm trying to push , or more importantly dispell the notion that a repeater Rogue build is gimped.

Thank you kindly , for asking

[Creeper]

Brother Creeper, that's a hard question to answer . What I suppose ultimately I'm trying to push , or more importantly dispell the notion that a repeater Rogue build is gimped.

Thank you kindly , for asking

You're welcome.

This all depends on your definition of gimped. What benefits does a repeater rogue have over a rogue who dual wields rapiers? Do these benefits make up the dps difference in your mind?

Mathematically, of course, melee does more damage. That aside; how many anecdotal situations can you imagine that a ranged rogue is superior?

Are there situations when you drop the repeater and use melee? Why?

[Korvek]

In VOD I'm jamming bolts up his... backside without any adverse effect

You know that meleeing his backside has no adverse effects either, right?

[Talon_Moonshadow]

A repeating crossbow is a whole different story than a regular crossbow.

I have yet to lvl up a char that uses one. Or acquire a very nice one to try out at higher lvls.

I have no idea how a repeater measures up against a bow at high lvls.

At low lvls the rate of fire is way superior. Making it a better weapon than a bow IMO.

It probably remains better with the exception of manyshot for awhile.

Repeaters seem rarer to me than bows in treasure drops.
Which if true would make a bow a better choice at higher lvls IMO.
As my archer chars usually carry several bows for several situations. And it seems to me a repeater specced char would find that more difficult to do.

Then there is bow Str.
By higher lvls, you usually have more Str and more Str buffs to take advantage of this.

But I have seen some good repeater builds.


The op did not ask if ranged combat was worthwhile or not.
Lots of forums posts to argue that in.

And I will never convince the statisticians that ranged is not gimped.

In your perfect world where players have equal access to the perfect weapons and get to stand side by side and swing away with no interferance or the monster fighting back.....yes. YES YES YES!!! Ranged is gimped! I admit it!

But the real(virtual) world has a lot more variables in it IMO.

Ranged combat is not as gimped as many people think, and is only as gimped as the players (ranged guy AND party) let it be.

[Creeper]

A repeating crossbow is a whole different story than a regular crossbow.

I have yet to lvl up a char that uses one. Or acquire a very nice one to try out at higher lvls.

I have no idea how a repeater measures up against a bow at high lvls.

At low lvls the rate of fire is way superior. Making it a better weapon than a bow IMO.

It probably remains better with the exception of manyshot for awhile.

Repeaters seem rarer to me than bows in treasure drops.
Which if true would make a bow a better choice at higher lvls IMO.
As my archer chars usually carry several bows for several situations. And it seems to me a repeater specced char would find that more difficult to do.

Then there is bow Str.
By higher lvls, you usually have more Str and more Str buffs to take advantage of this.

But I have seen some good repeater builds.


The op did not ask if ranged combat was worthwhile or not.
Lots of forums posts to argue that in.

And I will never convince the statisticians that ranged is not gimped.

In your perfect world where players have equal access to the perfect weapons and get to stand side by side and swing away with no interferance or the monster fighting back.....yes. YES YES YES!!! Ranged is gimped! I admit it!

But the real(virtual) world has a lot more variables in it IMO.

Ranged combat is not as gimped as many people think, and is only as gimped as the players (ranged guy AND party) let it be.

Forgive me Talon, but this post is fraught with contradictions.

If “statisticians” are wrong, then what is right? Personal experience? If that is the case then having said that you have “yet to lvl up a char that uses one (repeater). Or acquire a very nice one to try out at higher lvls.” what point of reference do you have to make the above statements about repeater vs. bow?

Then, tongue-in-cheek, you suggest that “In your perfect world where players have equal access to the perfect weapons” meaning, I assume, that you believe perfect melee weapons are harder to acquire than perfect ranged. If that is so then why do you, prior to this, make the observation that repeaters are so hard to come by? Do you believe that perfect ranged weapons are easier to acquire than melee?

Lastly you say “The op did not ask if ranged combat was worthwhile or not.
Lots of forums posts to argue that in.” Then you go on in the last few lines to do just that. Argue that ranged IS worthwhile.

Aside from all this I agree with you about repeating crossbows potentially being better at low levels.

I feel like I should also point out that YES there are some good repeater builds out there. So I agree with you here too. The thing about this; it is comparing it to other repeater builds. So, essentially, there are good repeater builds and bad repeater builds comparatively. It’s only when you compare the good repeater build with an equally good melee build that you start to see where ranged falls short.

In video games based on already established mathematics even variables are just 0’s and 1’s. In reality (The real world.) some things cannot be predicted. That is only because the math for these real world variants has yet to be accurately established.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Forgive me Talon, but this post is fraught with contradictions.

If “statisticians” are wrong, then what is right? Personal experience? If that is the case then having said that you have “yet to lvl up a char that uses one (repeater). Or acquire a very nice one to try out at higher lvls.” what point of reference do you have to make the above statements about repeater vs. bow?

Then, tongue-in-cheek, you suggest that “In your perfect world where players have equal access to the perfect weapons” meaning, I assume, that you believe perfect melee weapons are harder to acquire than perfect ranged. If that is so then why do you, prior to this, make the observation that repeaters are so hard to come by? Do you believe that perfect ranged weapons are easier to acquire than melee?

Lastly you say “The op did not ask if ranged combat was worthwhile or not.
Lots of forums posts to argue that in.” Then you go on in the last few lines to do just that. Argue that ranged IS worthwhile.

Aside from all this I agree with you about repeating crossbows potentially being better at low levels.

I feel like I should also point out that YES there are some good repeater builds out there. So I agree with you here too. The thing about this; it is comparing it to other repeater builds. So, essentially, there are good repeater builds and bad repeater builds comparatively. It’s only when you compare the good repeater build with an equally good melee build that you start to see where ranged falls short.

In video games based on already established mathematics even variables are just 0’s and 1’s. In reality (The real world.) some things cannot be predicted. That is only because the math for these real world variants has yet to be accurately established.

Sry was talking about two different things.
I have several chars who use bows regulary, and one who uses Great Crossbows.

Some of thew later posts seemed to be arguing against ranged use.

The one advantage that a ranged user might have in acquiring good weapons over good melee weapons is the ability to buy Silver, Cold Iron, and Adamantine arrows in House D.
Combined with certain bows can bypass DR of some creatures more easily.

Also adding special arrows to special bows allows a bow to do more dmage per hit than a melee weapon. (bane arrows and bane bows roll bane damage seperately)

Also Rangers get a lot of nice bows as end rewards. Where the Khopesh user has harder time getting his desired weapons.

My arguement against statistics is that the anti-ranged crowd always overlook the tactical advantages of ranged combat.
And the ability to place more arrows in more targets, either from far away while the melee guy is running to melee range, or by simply tabbing to the next target, while the melee guy has to run around to get within range of the next target.

Then there is Improved Precise shot.

Statistics cannot account for things like this.
And the simple matter of being able to damage something that cannot damage you back is very nice.

Add 3+ ranged guys in one group shooting from 3 different directions and you get some amazing synergy...and the party takes very little damage at all.
(it works, it's right and no one has to get nailed to anything!)

Anyway, I was talking about repeaters and ranged combat in general.
Sry if I wasn't clear.

One of my favorite props for ranged combat is turning in Icons of Khyber and getting a Lesser Reptillian Bane Bow and Reptillian Bane arrows...and then doing Kobald Assault.
My kill count beats out any melee guys by a huge margin. Yet statically we know melee does much higher DPS.

So just what is the definition of gimped?
Inferior DPS does not = gimped.

British Red Coats with muskets.
The Musket is a horrible weapon by so many standards.
Yet stand in a group and fire in unison and you dominate the world.

[Zaal]

You're welcome.

This all depends on your definition of gimped. What benefits does a repeater rogue have over a rogue who dual wields rapiers? Do these benefits make up the dps difference in your mind?

I don't suppose you caught:

repeaters. I have this HOLY BURST of EVIL OUTSIDER BANE hrc that tears our shroud pit fiend to bitz. All my damage is RED and I can continue to do gamage when the clerics are out of mana.

Uh, maybe if you had a higher DPS in the first place, the Pit Fiend would die before their spellpoints ran out.

or

As I explained, the role that ranged combat should be performing is to be a viable choice for a combat character to use for most battles in a regular dungeon with a regular party. But what happens right now is that the guy walking around with a longbow or repeater is putting up a sign that he'll be only moderately more useful than being AFK.

My toon is moderately more useful than being AFK? There are so many things one can read into the poster statements as they relate to one of my builds that my vile had no choice but to erupt.

Mathematically, of course, melee does more damage.

A melee what?

That aside; how many anecdotal situations can you imagine that a ranged rogue is superior?

Superior to what?

Sorry that I'm not more forthright with answers but, would like to be clear on your questions before I reply.

Are there situations when you drop the repeater and use melee? Why?

Certainly, when the situation calls for wOp (don't have that repeater yet) I switch to a rapier, or Vorpaling is in order I switch to a sickle, or perhaps when I can serve the party better in backup healing/reparing, work scrolls wands. Or perhaps to "hold" an item that might enhance my skills.

[Zaal]

You know that meleeing his backside has no adverse effects either, right?

Yes - it was in comparison to the damage one takes in shroud in the same "sneak attack" radius.

[Aranticus]

Yes - it was in comparison to the damage one takes in shroud in the same "sneak attack" radius.

even in shroud, if you are able to position youself, it is very possible to not take alot of damage at all

[UltraMonk2]

If “statisticians” are wrong, then what is right?

It’s only when you compare the good repeater build with an equally good melee build that you start to see where ranged falls short.

I have a character that is a L16 Fighter whose primary weapon is a HRC, so I'm just wondering when the people sat down and worked out the stats on DPS and the effectiveness of ranged vs melee did they include things into their calculations such as outlined below:

Bearded Devils, they tend to port a lot when people are meleeing them. Which means the meleers have to run around and chase after the target to be able to hit it again, this may be a split second or a few seconds. During this time they are not doing any DPS to the target whatsoever, however a ranged combatant can do DPS during this time as they do not need to move around running after the target.

Are things like this taken into account when working out all these stats?

I'm only asking because I seem to do very well my with HRC and I see the melee people spending most of their time running around chasing after their targets than actually keeping a sustained rate of DPS up.

[Zaal]

even in shroud, if you are able to position youself, it is very possible to not take alot of damage at all

Really, how do you know for sure if you don't range? and in this spot do you get sneak damage?

[Angelus_dead]

The op did not ask if ranged combat was worthwhile or not.

Here, see:

In what way is the ranged combat broken?

[Korvek]

Yes - it was in comparison to the damage one takes in shroud in the same "sneak attack" radius.

There's practically no benefit whatsoever in ranging Suulomades in VoD. That was my point. As for Shroud, in part 5, Harry will be able to hit you if you stay within Sneak Attack range (Keep in mind that attempting to be far from him and still get sneak attack causes you to require more healing than a melee). In Part 4, yes, you can sneak attack him outside of his hit range, but in part 4 it is ridiculously easy to avoid damage from him anyway without DPS lag (Assuming you can stay on his backside).

[Angelus_dead]

Bearded Devils, they tend to port a lot when people are meleeing them. Which means the meleers have to run around and chase after the target to be able to hit it again, this may be a split second or a few seconds. During this time they are not doing any DPS to the target whatsoever, however a ranged combatant can do DPS during this time as they do not need to move around running after the target.

Lol, that's backwards from reality. It's people trying to range who lose effectiveness against Bearded Devils, because they can't be kited and you need to spin to keep them in the aiming cone.

Bearded Devils destroy the so-called advantage of ranged, because they don't hold aggro normally and can always reach you for melee.

[Angelus_dead]

A melee what?

Obviously he means compared to a character with the same class levels and general noncombat abilities, but with melee feats, items, and enhancements instead of ranged.

Superior to what?

Obviously he means compared to a non-repeater rogue with a similar number of feats invested in combat, which means TWF.

Certainly, when the situation calls for wOp (don't have that repeater yet) I switch to a rapier, or Vorpaling is in order I switch to a sickle

And if you had GTWF you'd be more useful in those scenarios.

[Zaal]

Here, see:

In what way is the ranged combat broken?

/E

Yeah, he asked that on page two - after your assault began.

[UltraMonk2]

Lol, that's backwards from reality. It's people trying to range who lose effectiveness against Bearded Devils, because they can't be kited and you need to spin to keep them in the aiming cone.

Bearded Devils destroy the so-called advantage of ranged, because they don't hold aggro normally and can always reach you for melee.

Sorry you've gotten me confused, why do I need to spin if the meleer's are chasing after the Bearded Devil in front of me?

Granted there are times when the Bearded Devil goes for me and I have to spin. However I'm more specifically asking about those occasions when the meleers are in my aiming cone taking on the Bearded Devil who is porting around them so they have to run around to be able to hit him again. I don't have to run around, I never stop hitting him even for a second.

Do the statisticians take such things into account?