Are bows gimped?

[Idleray]

It seems that with the way DR works by reducing a flat amount of damage from each hit rather than a % that faster ranged weapons are kinda bad options compared to guns and crossbow/arbalests.

 

Is there some kind of party/ability/enchant set-up that allows them to out-perform those weapons?

[b0rsuk]

They kinda are, unless you know what you're doing. Check out my thread:

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/76081-learn-penetrating-shot-never-turn-it-off/

 

Obviously Penetrating Shot is your friend. +5 damage on nearly all enemies is worth the 20% slowdown.

 

Ranger has a high level ability which Stuns enemies on hit if they're engaged by his animal companion. Damage doesn't matter there.

 

Combusting Wound, a cute level2 Wizard spell, deals 5 fire damage to enemies on each hit ! Faster attacks are actually better, so bowmen and monks love this spell. This is the only instance of an ability or spell adding a fixed amount of damage I know. That's good for fast attacks. Marked Prey DOES NOT DO THAT, the tooltip is wrong.

 

The game has a rending hunting bow and rending war bow (-3 DR). Unfortunately, you only get them if you side with the right people.

 

Bows, and even wands are superior for interrupts. I don't think damage matters for interrupts. Just high Perception, enemy concentration and Interrupting Blows talent. DANGER!!! The talent is currently buggy and works against you.

 

Overshooting is a thing. If your arquebus hits for 60 damage, and enemy has 70 endurance, it's a waste to shoot him twice. But if a bow hits for 20, it might be better. I need to do some math about it.

 

Very high damage weapons are unlikely to benefit from Bloody Slaughter talent, because it works on enemies below 25% endurance.

Edited April 23, 2015 by b0rsuk

[rjshae]

Not sure, but my war bow-wielding rogue did max damage in the party. Presumably that's mainly a result of the initial sneak attack.

[Kaigen42]

In terms of damage? I don't think so, except maybe with Cloudpiercer's combination of Rending and Spellbound Jolting Touch. Get your accuracy up enough to crit regularly and those jolts could go a long way.

 

Otherwise, bows are a little better at delivering CC, since with the faster attack rate you have more uptime on stuff like Stunning Shots or Stun on Crit weapons like Borresaine.

[Blovski]

You need Penetrating Shot and debuffs that affect DR or add damage, once you've got those two both Hunting and War Bows hold up pretty well, with less overkill, higher rate of fire and application of debuffs and more interrupting than a gun.

[taek]

War Bow + Penetrating Shot is still as good or better than the heavier ranged weapons all the way up to plate mail.  Creatures tougher than that and yeah, you'll want something specifically built to punch through armor like firearms.

 

Hunting Bow is not ever really worth it, more of an enemy weapon you find and sell.

 

You also have to balance the higher punch of slow ranged weapons vs ability use, they significantly reduce your ability to react quickly with an ability.

 

 

 

 

[Crucis]

They kinda are, unless you know what you're doing. Check out my thread:

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/76081-learn-penetrating-shot-never-turn-it-off/

 

Obviously Penetrating Shot is your friend. +5 damage on nearly all enemies is worth the 20% slowdown.

 

Ranger has a high level ability which Stuns enemies on hit if they're engaged by his animal companion. Damage doesn't matter there.

 

Combusting Wound, a cute level2 Wizard spell, deals 5 fire damage to enemies on each hit ! Faster attacks are actually better, so bowmen and monks love this spell. This is the only instance of an ability or spell adding a fixed amount of damage I know. That's good for fast attacks. Marked Prey DOES NOT DO THAT, the tooltip is wrong.

 

The game has a rending hunting bow and rending war bow (-3 DR). Unfortunately, you only get them if you side with the right people.

 

Bows, and even wands are superior for interrupts. I don't think damage matters for interrupts. Just high Perception, enemy concentration and Interrupting Blows talent. DANGER!!! The talent is currently buggy and works against you.

 

Overshooting is a thing. If your arquebus hits for 60 damage, and enemy has 70 endurance, it's a waste to shoot him twice. But if a bow hits for 20, it might be better. I need to do some math about it.

 

Very high damage weapons are unlikely to benefit from Bloody Slaughter talent, because it works on enemies below 25% endurance.

 

I hesitate to say that bows are gimped.  But then again, I'm picky about the use of language.  Rather I'd say that the DR mechanism hurts faster firing, lower damage weapons more than slower firing, higher damage weapons, simply because each hit gets dinged by DR.  Put into numbers, if a bow hits for four times for 10 damage each against a target with 5 DR, it will lose 20 points of damage to DR, whereas a arqabus that does 40 damage in a single hit against the same target loses only 5 points of damage to DR.  Thus, high damage weapons have a significant advantage in this regard.  Of course, guns come with base accuracy penalties which cause them to lose some damage if you factor this in over a larger number of shots (i.e. more misses means lost damage), though I'm not sure that this is a major penalty if the user of the gun is a ranged specialist like a ranger or a rogue and has taken various talents that offset those penalties.

 

 

And yes, "overshooting" (I prefer overkill.  Overshooting sounds like missing.)  is definitely an issue.  The problem is though that you have no real idea (that I know of) how many actual END any target has left.  An enemy that's "near death" may still have a pretty fair number of END left, so it's probably still well worth shooting it even if there is the potential for overkill.

[iKrivetko]

Very high damage weapons are unlikely to benefit from Bloody Slaughter talent, because it works on enemies below 25% endurance.

Isn't it 10?

[famousringo]

They kinda are, unless you know what you're doing. Check out my thread:

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/76081-learn-penetrating-shot-never-turn-it-off/

 

Obviously Penetrating Shot is your friend. +5 damage on nearly all enemies is worth the 20% slowdown.

 

Ranger has a high level ability which Stuns enemies on hit if they're engaged by his animal companion. Damage doesn't matter there.

 

Combusting Wound, a cute level2 Wizard spell, deals 5 fire damage to enemies on each hit ! Faster attacks are actually better, so bowmen and monks love this spell. This is the only instance of an ability or spell adding a fixed amount of damage I know. That's good for fast attacks. Marked Prey DOES NOT DO THAT, the tooltip is wrong.

 

The game has a rending hunting bow and rending war bow (-3 DR). Unfortunately, you only get them if you side with the right people.

 

Bows, and even wands are superior for interrupts. I don't think damage matters for interrupts. Just high Perception, enemy concentration and Interrupting Blows talent. DANGER!!! The talent is currently buggy and works against you.

 

Overshooting is a thing. If your arquebus hits for 60 damage, and enemy has 70 endurance, it's a waste to shoot him twice. But if a bow hits for 20, it might be better. I need to do some math about it.

 

Very high damage weapons are unlikely to benefit from Bloody Slaughter talent, because it works on enemies below 25% endurance.

Good post, just a couple things to add:

 

Accuracy is also important to interrupt. A graze gets a -25 penalty to interrupt and a crit gets a +25 bonus.

 

I haven't tried this high-level chanter ability, but it describes the bonus as per hit, rather than a lash:

 

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Aefyllath_Ues_Mith_Fyr

 

For whatever it's worth, bows also enjoy better range than guns. I know I get annoyed when I tell my ranged in the back row to initiate and they move up in front.

 

And one last point against bows is that abilities which add bonus damage, like the DoT on Crippling Shot, obviously do far less damage with a bow. For my hunter, I've been opening up with an Arquebus and Crippling shot, then switching to bow for the interrupts.

[Antless]

They work ok on rogues because of their high bonus damage. That said, a pike will generally outpeform both bows and guns by a large margin.

[Idleray]

How does Chanters Aesfyllath myth fyr work with fast weapons? Is it as broken as I think it is? I haven't done a playthru with a chanter yet

[b0rsuk]

It's good to know Accuracy affects interrupt. Guns get -5, -10 to Accuracy.

[Kaigen42]

You could make a case for bows being better against enemies with ~12 DR or less, depending on how many damage bonuses you can stack and how often you crit, except that the Blunderbuss exists, and the Blunderbuss is devastating against low DR targets (though if any weapon suffers from overkill...). Since DR tends to be really low or really high, there aren't many enemies in the middle ground between low DR targets the Blunderbuss will annihilate and high DR targets that Pistols/Arquebuses perform better against. Pistols and Blunderbusses are even on the same Weapon Focus talent (along with two of the best damaging melee weapons).

[sivasdahling]

Another thing to remember is that faster weapons take better advantage of buffs and debuffs than slower weapons, as you get more attacks in the time frame of the spell.

 

I'd say bows aren't gimped, but they are only useable for rangers and rogues.  Rangers use Marked Prey to drastically lower DR (a good Ranger strategy on high health enemies is the combo Marked Prey + Blunderbuss + hunters bow) and of course Rogues use sneak attack.

[Nadrac]

No, Warbow is best up to 10-12ish dr, and much better for crits, which don't happen too much on potd but with few buffs and debuffs flying out easily Warbow is great again, also Warbow is less reliant on upgrades they both provide slight benefits you can easily do without especially if its your backup weapon.

 

Hunting bow is only truly for ranger Stunning Shot build, really no other point to it.

 

Arquebus is a strong alternative to Warbow, better against higher dr and gets more out of the upgrades, preference of many, also starts the fight in a very convincing manner, but if you are willing to put the talents in Blunderbuss feels very strong with the benefit it gets out of penetrating shot, and also have access to pistol.

 

How does Chanters Aesfyllath myth fyr work with fast weapons? Is it as broken as I think it is? I haven't done a playthru with a chanter yet

Was broken last i checked it, also sounds op so it's probably getting reworked before we get it.

[Kaigen42]

Dulcanale (pistol) has Annihilating to make up for the reduced crit modifier and Rending for extra DR bypass, so I wouldn't be surprised if it outperforms Arquebuses anyway.

[Crucis]

No, Warbow is best up to 10-12ish dr, and much better for crits, which don't happen too much on potd but with few buffs and debuffs flying out easily Warbow is great again, also Warbow is less reliant on upgrades they both provide slight benefits you can easily do without especially if its your backup weapon.

 

Hunting bow is only truly for ranger Stunning Shot build, really no other point to it.

 

Arquebus is a strong alternative to Warbow, better against higher dr and gets more out of the upgrades, preference of many, also starts the fight in a very convincing manner, but if you are willing to put the talents in Blunderbuss feels very strong with the benefit it gets out of penetrating shot, and also have access to pistol.

 

Arqabuses can be particularly nasty when used by Rogues.  Think of the Sneak Attack damage.  That said, since they fire much more slowly than bows, you need to be more careful of your timing when casting disabling spells to set up sneak attack coniditions.  There's no point in casting such a spell too soon after a rogue fires an arqabus.  Also, unless the spell's duration is particularly long, the rogue might not get more than 1 or 2 chances to fire while it's active.

[Blovski]

 

They kinda are, unless you know what you're doing. Check out my thread:

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/76081-learn-penetrating-shot-never-turn-it-off/

 

Obviously Penetrating Shot is your friend. +5 damage on nearly all enemies is worth the 20% slowdown.

 

Ranger has a high level ability which Stuns enemies on hit if they're engaged by his animal companion. Damage doesn't matter there.

 

Combusting Wound, a cute level2 Wizard spell, deals 5 fire damage to enemies on each hit ! Faster attacks are actually better, so bowmen and monks love this spell. This is the only instance of an ability or spell adding a fixed amount of damage I know. That's good for fast attacks. Marked Prey DOES NOT DO THAT, the tooltip is wrong.

 

The game has a rending hunting bow and rending war bow (-3 DR). Unfortunately, you only get them if you side with the right people.

 

Bows, and even wands are superior for interrupts. I don't think damage matters for interrupts. Just high Perception, enemy concentration and Interrupting Blows talent. DANGER!!! The talent is currently buggy and works against you.

 

Overshooting is a thing. If your arquebus hits for 60 damage, and enemy has 70 endurance, it's a waste to shoot him twice. But if a bow hits for 20, it might be better. I need to do some math about it.

 

Very high damage weapons are unlikely to benefit from Bloody Slaughter talent, because it works on enemies below 25% endurance.

 

I hesitate to say that bows are gimped.  But then again, I'm picky about the use of language.  Rather I'd say that the DR mechanism hurts faster firing, lower damage weapons more than slower firing, higher damage weapons, simply because each hit gets dinged by DR.  Put into numbers, if a bow hits for four times for 10 damage each against a target with 5 DR, it will lose 20 points of damage to DR, whereas a arqabus that does 40 damage in a single hit against the same target loses only 5 points of damage to DR.  Thus, high damage weapons have a significant advantage in this regard.  Of course, guns come with base accuracy penalties which cause them to lose some damage if you factor this in over a larger number of shots (i.e. more misses means lost damage), though I'm not sure that this is a major penalty if the user of the gun is a ranged specialist like a ranger or a rogue and has taken various talents that offset those penalties.

 

 

And yes, "overshooting" (I prefer overkill.  Overshooting sounds like missing.)  is definitely an issue.  The problem is though that you have no real idea (that I know of) how many actual END any target has left.  An enemy that's "near death" may still have a pretty fair number of END left, so it's probably still well worth shooting it even if there is the potential for overkill.

It's slightly more complicated than that once you add in Penetrating Shot and start asking *who* your ranged character should be shooting at. Also, greater accuracy doesn't just mean more hits as opposed to misses, it means more crits and less grazes as well. There's good reasons to use an Arquebus if you're so inclined but if your archer has penetrating shot (which they really need) and is generally prioritising either the enemy backline of Priests, Wizards etc, who have very low DR or opponents who have very high deflection and usually not exactly stellar resistances that your other characters have trouble hitting, bows are actually pretty good.

[b0rsuk]

On the other hand, many casters and bowmen in the game are skeletons, and piercing damage doesn't even tickle them. A scepter might even be better. Rods are slashing/piercing, both damage types equally bad against skeletons.

[MadDemiurg]

How does Chanters Aesfyllath myth fyr work with fast weapons? Is it as broken as I think it is? I haven't done a playthru with a chanter yet

The tooltip is horribly outdated. The only flat damage modifier that hasn't been patched out yet (and most likely will be in 1.05) is One Stands Alone. Fire weapons chant adds 25% fire damage. Nice thing about it, it works on everything including spells.

[Tvättbjörn]

On the other hand, many casters and bowmen in the game are skeletons, and piercing damage doesn't even tickle them. A scepter might even be better. Rods are slashing/piercing, both damage types equally bad against skeletons.

Only the fighter skeletons seems to have decent DR. Doesn't the wizards have something like 4 standard DR, 7 piercing DR? Not really worth optimizing damage type then imo.

 

 

I like war bows, with good damage boost I believe they have fairly competitive damage against targets with low to medium DR and they require very little micro compared to gun switching or just trying to not overkill too much. Using them with the NPCs can be problematic though because you really want high might.

 

Hunting bows seem kind of meh though because the enemies they are useful against tend to be very easy to kill with AoE.

 

If any ranged weapon is gimped it's probably the regular crossbow. There is probably no situation where it wouldn't be more effective to use a war bow or an arbalest.

[Kilrach]

Actually I'm currently playing a pure ranged rogue and I'm starting to think that the crossbow might possibly the be best ranged weapon (in the reload category anyways). It has the fastest reload speed with very comparable damage to the arbalest because it doesn't suffer any crit damage multiplier or the accuracy penalty from firearms.

[Crucis]

Actually I'm currently playing a pure ranged rogue and I'm starting to think that the crossbow might possibly the be best ranged weapon (in the reload category anyways). It has the fastest reload speed with very comparable damage to the arbalest because it doesn't suffer any crit damage multiplier or the accuracy penalty from firearms.

 

Yes, crossbows do seem to fit into a nice sweet spot.  Slightly faster reload than an arbalest or guns, without their crit damage or accuracy penalties.  I won't say that they're better or worse than arbalests or guns.  Just different.  And they seem like a very viable alternative.

[Crucis]

If any ranged weapon is gimped it's probably the regular crossbow. There is probably no situation where it wouldn't be more effective to use a war bow or an arbalest.

 

 

Actually, I'm not so sure that this is true.  Sure it doesn't hit as hard as an arbalest or guns, or fire as fast as a warbow (or hunting bow).  OTOH, it has higher damage than a warbow, meaning that it gets less hurt by DR.  And it doesn't suffer the crit damage or accuracy penalties of arbalests or guns.  It seems to me that the crossbow is a very viable alternative for a ranged weapon.

[Kilrach]

Not to mention that damage has a range at the end of the day, so that means there are times where the crossbow can out-damage an arbalest - it's just that the arbalest has a higher chance of dealing more damage, albeit not consistently

Edited April 24, 2015 by Kilrach