Archers are at a serious disadvantage now with regards to defense

Yeah. I mean, people know me, I have many in game come to me to learn about archery and how to be an archer. Some of those players have stopped playing as an archer because it was either difficult or frustrating. I can understand that @Chris as the system designer and developer is looking at these systems and thinking "oh yes this checks out with the math and seems fine" but that is NOT the opinion or mindset of the average player and definately not the new players. When I try to explain the needs for all these different skills, or when they see the tooltips, the idea of these special arrows acting as "Reagents" and thus the tooltips confusing players to think they needed all these other special arrows. When I try to explain the tie in to dexterity, then I try to get people to wear either chain or cloth because the stats currently are better for that game play style when they want to wear leather... they just blink at me and put down their bow to walk away 50% of the time.

Even DUKE VIOLATION who is one of the LONGEST term players in the ENTIRE community was confused about some things with archery, and learned today he'd been doing certain things wrong for two months now - and that was just this morning. https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...ls-so-much-rage-not-really.38417/#post-434437

So yeah, there's some work to be done here yet

 

wrath stated that there's only the one combo available....well, here's a few ideas.

light tree + archery = light up a darkened area,
water tree + archery = dousing shot... shoot at lanterns and torches, turns them off.
ice tree + archery = slick shot... turns puddles (created from the dousing shot, or just puddles) into ice.. mobs walking ovver it are disabled till they slide, slowly, off the ice.
ice tree + archery = freezing shot... just that, freezes them till timer runs out or more damage is done to the mob.
death tree + archery = low aoe life tap that moves around with the mob, stackable.
chaos tree + archery = strong aoe of different types, does damage to both npc's and pc's. capable of friendly fire.


btw, i'm not being specific with skill names, just tree combos, because i bet other people can come up with some really good ones.

 

@WrathPhoenix

Most of your post I (and several archer friends) would completely agree with ...

Like:

Agree.

Agree.

Agree.

Agree.

Agree.

Whoa... Disagree.

We melee guys can tell you that auto attack does NOT hit any enemy that is NOT within an attack cone of about 20 degrees each side... We may not have to tab target it, but we do have to turn to face it.
(Whereas a mage can be facing 180 degrees from the target and hit it every time.)
Watch me (using auto attack) completely ignore a bear attacking me, until I turn myself to face it.
Being within range is meaningless for us melee chars. A mage just has to hit tab, while we must turn our chars to face (almost dead on) the enemy. When that enemy is a mob on top of you, it gets very difficult to tell which one is dead on. But I digress ...

^^^^ This... nuff said.

 

Edit to clarify two things: I was talking about free attack melee, not auto attack for number one. For number two - I know you need to target and face the enemy too, i am merely saying there is yet another added step to that with archery and id like to see the two rectified.

And your point is my point as well, even if archers turn to face it, we can not target it just because. IT wasnt a dig at melee btw, i think the way melee works is great (i work swords up as an off skill and love it) just saying, there is a disconnect there because we still have tab targetting involved. I personally (and again this one is a personal opinion and not to be mistaken for the view of the masses) hate tab targetting. If melee have a way that they can engage and target without having to use it, all i am saying is thats a huge disconnect when we are unable to do the same.

Even when we ARE facing it and ARE in range, it WONT simply target the creature just by charge. It REQUIRES me to tab target or click the enemy. That is a disconnect between the free attack process of melee and archery. That's the only point I am making. I actually find the attacking for melee to be really fun, i am just sorely disappointed that the archery's "Version' of this is so different.

 

Hey I agree with all of the above. I was just trying to get some pain points out.

 

I agree. I would rather play an archer without a pet too.

This is one reason I thought LOTRO was a strong archery game - it did not require a pet for the fun factor to work. In fact, it was designed without one.

I can see design-wise why a pet helps. Tanking 101. However, another school of thought is this - how good can an archer be at ranged combat if he needs a ranging pet to be good at it? I takes two ranged 'characters' (PC + NPC) to solo at range?

 

Best... dream... ever...

Seriously, this made my day and hopefully it'll be close to reality in a month's time. Thanks @Chris.

 

In R22 I created a new character who started out as an archer. It was my very first experience and it is rather fun, however I agree with all the criticism in this thread

Like many archers, I prefer to play without a pet. But even if I wanted one, the suggestion to use a pet is unrealistic. Even if I wanted one, to get a taming collar you need to either buy one at a VERY high price (and I need that money for arrows), or you need to craft it yourself. For crafting you need silver, and my avatar can't survive anywhere where there are silver nodes.

Can you tell me where I can find the vendor?

 

I didn't make it into the game last night, so I'm not certain if they are still there or not. But.... If you go to the Queen's Castle, it is the last row house on the left, right before the bridge to her castle.

See, I discovered I could craft them for less than the vendors are selling them for - even with having to buy the feathers. Of course, it does take your farmed wood and ore to do it. And I did factor in the price of the coal to make the arrow heads, the chemicals to process the wood, and the nominal cost of replacing the arrowhead molds and such. This was the first time in the game that I've seen anything craftable that I felt I could sell for cheaper than the NPC vendors.

But we need recipes for those special arrows!

 

Yea for me too..... don't think they like ARCHERS ..... they seem to not know how to balance us. They seem to keep making it harder for us to compete .... in PVE, i don't pvp so I don't care about that, I just want my dang Archer be good at it in PVE, and it ISN"T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Well Said ..... I don't want to go through the hassles of making the stuff you need just to be able to tame .... I want to be able to SOLO play an ARCHER with out having to have a pet to do it .....

 

Hey I feel you, i play as a Ranger and arcane archer, so i actually do play the way Chris stated. HOWEVER I fully recognize the archers who want to play something else and not need to mix the spell schools and skills that i do into it.

 

I use to be an adventurer, till I took an arrow to the knee.

 

I found your house and bought the arrows
I do wonder how it can be worth your while to sell them, seeing as you need arrows yourself. I crafted some the other day and it was very time-consuming!

Thanks!

 

Yea I played an Archer in LOTR, and I loved it......

 

It was mostly an experiment - I wanted to price out what it would cost to craft them. Now that I know I can craft them for significantly less than what the vendors charge for them, I will craft all of my plain arrows. IMO, this is the way *all* such things should be in the game. (btw, it cost about 48 gold per 100 arrows to craft) If I get time, I will craft more, but I've got some travel engagements coming up, so I might not get too many more crafted before our wipe. I always play with an eye toward what is it going to be like when the game goes live. There will always be those who would prefer to buy the arrows than craft them - but at least I can offer them for less than an NPC would.

 

Today I went to two beginner areas (South Valeway and Solace Bridge) and tried the free attack.

The fully charged free attack is indeed more powerful than the auto-attack and saves arrows. I spent most of my time running backwards, however, trying to charge up the attack. One needs to be more dexterous than I am to run away forwards, then quickly turn 180 degrees to shoot. Running backwards has its own drawbacks, however. In Solace Bridge I kept backing into those nasty spiders.

Zombies were easy prey because of their relatively slow lumbering gait. The skeletons and wolves all outran me, so it was very difficult to keep them at a distance in order to shoot. I used Gust a lot, but I couldn't charge a free attack in the few seconds the mobs were blown away.

As soon as I was attacked by more than one wolf/spider/skeleton at a time, it became very challenging. I didn't die, though, saved more than once by the mobs zipping back to their starting point when I led them too far away.

I need some magic to supplement the bow - otherwise I will never be able to leave these beginner areas.