Rangers, how much fun is bow kiting?

[Kytross]

It looks like fun. I've never done it. What's your opinion?

[Fiyero]

Seeing as it's largely useless, probably not fun.

[fiveeauxfour]

id rather be condemned to Sisyphus' fate

[Rhambuk]

rabid elaine! great sig

[Thulack]

It looks like fun. I've never done it. What's your opinion?

Not fun or efficient for that matter.

[Daldaen]

The novelty in bow kiting is if a mob is red to you and above your level, you can how kite them if you have sow and snare. Allowing you to solo mobs you wouldn't otherwise be able to.

But it's ungodly slow. I remember reading a guide of a level 20 or so ranger bow kiting a hill giant. Took him like 10 stacks of arrows to down it but he got an uber 30 Platinums.

Bow kiting was useless until they added headshot AAs. Decent DPS once you get Trueshot though I guess.

[zanderklocke]

One time when I was duoing Quillmane by running her pathes while another person killed the triggers, I stumbled upon a level 21 ranger bow kiting Quillmane. He proceeded to kill Quillmane over the course of 20 minutes.

[Rhambuk]

Bow kiting was useless until they added headshot AAs. Decent DPS once you get Trueshot though I guess.

100%

these aa were great, a ranger could buy a bow out of bazaar and do more dps than a raid geared rogue. oh sony love how you kept things balanced over the years

[FindCorpse]

Once they get sow at 39 Rangers can run away at least lol. You get a ranger to 60 and you can tank anything on this server outside dragons. I have MT'd Sebilite Protector on Find. And having 200 tracking skill is fun. If you like roaming around the world looking for random things it's a fun class to explore with.

[Daldaen]

One time when I was duoing Quillmane by running her pathes while another person killed the triggers, I stumbled upon a level 21 ranger bow kiting Quillmane. He proceeded to kill Quillmane over the course of 20 minutes.

This is why you bow kite basically. Rare mob in open zone that you're way too low level to take standing toe to toe.

You will receive the ire of a level 60 farming Quillmane though if you're kiting him for 20 min lol. If I were farming I'd offer to kill it for em and let them take cloak to save the 20mins of it kiting.

[Daywolf]

Bow kiting? not so much. I tend to use root instead. First you need a bow with a high ratio, at least .333 to start imo, not a first strike weapon. Then you want to have a dot memorized (or DoT item at higher levels). Dots do more damage to the mob if the mob is stationary. Now you need to find a mob with a low enough resist that it'll root for a given length of time on avg, pref as long as the DoT lasts. Usually this isn't for red con ;) Arrows, simply the cheapest you can make is all you need, which are really cheap and remain stacked until needed, saving space, and something to craft while you med.

Find your mob, drop your root, drop your dot/s. Let fly your arrows as you back pedal to furthest range, which isn't too far with cheap arrows but far enough to reroot a charging mob. Rinse and repeat until either dead or you bring the mob to a low enough health to melee it down the rest of the way w/o you wasting too much health. If successful, you may have health and mana to keep going for a while, from one mob to the next.

[lecompte]

Not fun at all but there is a bizarro sense of accomplishment killing a red giant at lower levels.

Then I read back and someone else already mentioned this. Ranger just isn't a solo class, sadly. I do remember being to solo quite a bit better on live, with worse gear, for some reason -- course, that was also velious.

[dartaniun]

Bow kiting to kill a mob is largely a waste of time, good idea to lower it's hp to a comfortable percentage so that you can finish it off with melee/spells. Post lv 50 when rangers get 2x dmg bonus on non-rooted/non-moving mobs then it's worth while. Problem for that to work is you have to find somebody else to stand there and take the dmg from the mob.

Rangers get a few more options to solo in velious, main option comes from the fear animal line of spells.

[Whirled]

Get one of these http://wiki.project1999.com/Runed_Oak_Bow
I gave 1 of these^away about a month back while in SK hoping for Quillmane to spawn.
Mix-match some good range fletched arrows with regular vendor ones
One can easily go through hundreds of plat making arrows so find a good dmg/range combo & stick with making those ... or send me a /tell.
Fletching 170

[Daywolf]

Get one of these http://wiki.project1999.com/Runed_Oak_Bow
I gave 1 of these^away about a month back while in SK hoping for Quillmane to spawn.
Mix-match some good range fletched arrows with regular vendor ones
One can easily go through hundreds of plat making arrows so find a good dmg/range combo & stick with making those ... or send me a /tell.
Fletching 170

Or just buy one of my darkwoods :D The ratio is a little lower, but has a little better range. Since there is no auto, a little difference in ratio doesn't matter as much as range. But for like root-n-shoot it works perfectly. Otherwise I'd get my hands on a trueshot longbow and go use it for the rain caller quest if you have your ranger at the level. With a 200 range, works good for kiting. Don't expect them to be easy to find though, there doesn't seem to be many people on this server with high fetching to make good bows including trueshots. Low demand and a lot of time and ton of plats to raise.

[scythic]

Bow kiting is by far the most boring way to kill something. 45 Delay bow, hit for 4. Miss. Miss. Miss. Hit for 17. Miss. Crit for 70 (this is to get your hopes up.) Miss. Miss. Hit for 11. Miss. Miss. Miss.
Times this by a hundred.

[Colgate]

bow kiting was better on live because there wasn't the 0.25 modifier on accuracy that this server has

[Cecily]

Is that something that needs to get looked at? Should it have a modifier at all? It always felt like my accuracy is horrible.

[YendorLootmonkey]

Bow-kiting is as much fun as trying to take down a grizzly bear IRL with a single-shot BB gun and a case of BBs.

[sox7d]

Bow-kiting is as much fun as trying to take down a grizzly bear IRL with a single-shot BB gun and a case of BBs.

That's chained to the floor.

[Cecily]

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44264000/jpg/_44264195_dog_bear416afp.jpg
https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTmN_nuxEj5mkHCHynOU-j14ZuN7qDhq8P9L9N_MdCCIf0HPhNd
http://s.mcstatic.com/thumb/1070107/6008875/4/flash_player/0/1/running_husky.jpg

[williestargell]

Bow kiting is highly useful in specific situations. Hunter/Forager cycles in TT are the prime example of it's usefulness to farm with it. If you can land a snare, or outrun it unsnared with your sow, you can kill it.

[Kich867]

bow kiting was better on live because there wasn't the 0.25 modifier on accuracy that this server has

Are there any actual facts behind this or is this just a guess?

[dartaniun]

Are there any actual facts behind this or is this just a guess?

I am interested in hearing this answer as well

[Kich867]

Someone was also mentioning in some thread that eventually in Velious rangers do double bow damage to stationary, unrooted mobs (IE: mobs being tanked). Is there any truth behind that?

If that's true I'm actually surprised that ranger bow damage isn't quite good in Velious--I suppose they don't have double-attack with it but between the high end velious bows and arrows, they'd have an absolutely insane ratio, almost like hitting with a monster 2 hander. On top Fleeting Quiver free-bow haste.

I mean everything everyone tells me is this just isn't the case, that bow DPS is substantially weaker than melee DPS, so I'm assuming that the double damage to non-moving targets isn't actually true. Otherwise I feel like it should actually be somewhat similar.

Furthermore, does anyone know how to actually calculate crit chance in this game? They lose double attack but gain crits, but I have no idea how often that happens.

[dartaniun]

The 2x dmg to non-moving and non-rooted mobs happens at lv 51. But melee dmg will always be higher unless using trueshot disc. Only way it won't is if you're using rusty daggers and you have a high emd bow such as a wind saber or windstriker

[Kich867]

The 2x dmg to non-moving and non-rooted mobs happens at lv 51. But melee dmg will always be higher unless using trueshot disc. Only way it won't is if you're using rusty daggers and you have a high emd bow such as a wind saber or windstriker

That's interesting, I'm assuming this must be mostly from double attack. With the double damage to non moving targets and good arrows bow ratios smoke 2 hander ratios. Though it's unlikely you could get more crits than double attacks.

[dartaniun]

Not only the double attack but the dmg bonus you get from 2 handed weapons also

[Kich867]

Not only the double attack but the dmg bonus you get from 2 handed weapons also

So what you're saying is, to fix Ranger bow damage, just give bows the same damage bonus 2 handers get and let double attack apply to bows?? =D.

It's a shame that won't happen here haha. I think that'd put rangers right up there around Rogues and Monks, but with the requirement of ammo haha.

[YendorLootmonkey]

Rangers still didn't use archery as primary damage until they received the archery-related AAs in Luclin, except for 2 mins of Trueshot discipline. If anything, here it seems like the miss frequency is too high at max skill, but that's purely subjective.

[dartaniun]

The ranged dmg doesn't need to be fixed (although even with skill maxxed you still miss too often, maybe that could be looked at) ranged dmg has never been the primary choice of dps for rangers. Outside of using TS disc it's always been situational because getting in there and meleeing will always be more dps. Even after archery mastery AA came out which bumped up the dmg on ranged shots, it was still behind melee dmg when the weapons were on equal tiers. Even if you were using high end velious melee weapons and an elemental bow from PoP the melee would still be more dmg

[Daldaen]

Once PoP came out the PoP bows outparsed everything short of time weapons, without Trueshot.

PoP bows were a mistake in some regards. Their power and ease of attainability (in that they were tradeable and the water - 2nd best ratio - was off just trash mobs), compared to EP raid weapons wasn't even a comparison.

The only time our Rangers melee'd in Luclin and PoP fights was when a mob would be corner ranked (meaning the arrows would get lost in the wall and do 0 damage). It forced us to adjust positioning and balance push if Trueshot DPS was required to win the fight. This is why we would often tank Terris Thule (Time) out in the middle of her swampy corner instead of cornered.

[dartaniun]

I'd have to disagree with you on that Dald. Using an elemental bow was never higher dps for me unless using TS disc. That was with max worn haste and fleeting quiver. Melee weaps pre time I was using Stone etched mallet 26/28 1hb and 16/20 1hs from SSRA in Luclin

[YendorLootmonkey]

I'd have to disagree with you on that Dald. Using an elemental bow was never higher dps for me unless using TS disc. That was with max worn haste and fleeting quiver. Melee weaps pre time I was using Stone etched mallet 26/28 1hb and 16/20 1hs from SSRA in Luclin

Depends on how much you crit with the bow, since you can't crit with melee.

Plus, the effective range of archery was outside of AE range and for a while it was very rare to grab aggro from archery damage, even Trueshot disc damage, until the rogues and wizards screamed about it. I think that made it very attractive to use archery via melee in that area if the mob was not clipped into a wall.

[dartaniun]

once AA opens in Luclin, you can crit with melee. The ranged dmg aggro got changed in a patch well into PoP. I remember the wizards and mages complaining to no end about how much dmg we could do with practically 0 aggro. They just didn't like being knocked off the top spot of the parses

[dartaniun]

So now that this thread has been completely derailed. Guess its time to get back on track.

Bow kiting in p99 is very very low dps and situational at best in use

[camdog]

But I do it. I could root+shoot blue gnolls down to 50% in High Hold Pass and then melee them no problem. Tried same tactic on blue mammoths in Everfrost. Those mammoths resist a lot, and root or snare does not last half as long as on the gnolls. And those mammoths hit HARD. But I can do it if I med + heal to full. And it's much easier with SoW and a HP buff.

I don't think archery was thought through thoroughly. I think I miss WAY too much and I get a lot of 2, 4, 7 point hits. I mean, where am I hitting the mob? In the freakin' fingernail? I don't think every arrow should hit for 50 pts, but we should be able to take down a blue mob with let's say, a stack and a half of arrows. Imagine if casters had to PURCHASE mana? Because that's pretty much analogous to what we do as rangers with arrows...

I must be very lucky because about a month or so ago I was given, over a 2 day period or so, by complete strangers,
1) Runed Oak Bow (was in SK - maybe it was the person who posted above :) )
2) trueshot bow
3) raincaller
4) couple ivy etched pieces

I should have written their names down but did not. Thanks if it was you. Makes my life a lot easier and game more enjoyable and I was able to earn plat to buy some additional weapons.

Camneely
24 Ranger

[Kender]

well alot of casters (especially soloing wiz and dru) do purchase mana (in the form of clarity)