Archery as a Shadow Knight

[eddrick]

Seems redundant. Can cast spells.

What am I missing and why should my SK have an archery skill above 0.

[jolanar]

I don't think you are missing anything.

Some arrows can have very high range. Doesn't require mana or a spell slot when pulling. Probably not worth worrying about outside of some niche situations.

[Toxigen]

no

just no

[Troxx]

If you’re a troll/ogre you can equip a:

https://wiki.project1999.com/Weighted_Axe

At level 51 each arrow that hits adds 56 bonus damage

At level 55 it’s 78 damage

At level 60 it’s 110 bonus dmg

So if you’re soloing, with cheap vendor arrows (pennies) you could score a few hundred damage to the mob before it actually gets to you even with an archery skill of 75. Also if fear kiting you can back up and plunk away between fear fade and the next casts for some more easy damage.

If you’re any other race, I can’t think of any reason to ever train it. You can tag pull just as easy with 0 skill as you can with 75.

[Troxx]

Actually you can start milking that damage bonus as low as level 28 apparently. At 28 it’s still a whopping 40 points of bonus damage.

When I get around to making a SK it will be troll. I plan on abusing this mechanic.

[Kable]

All of you who said no are 1000% wrong.

Level up Archery on a SK, ESPECIALLY a large race.

Loot a Sarnak War Bow.

Equip a Weighted Axe or Gromloks Basher or Earthshaker or even a Mroon's toy, depending on race.

Acquire Haste + Quiver.

Unless you're into Fletching, just use flight arrows...Surefall Glade is the easiest place to purchase them.


2h DMG bonus applies to bows. You will hit for a minimum of 111 damage on your weakest bow shot. Faster the bow the better. Everyone in this thread that told you no would get absolutely destroyed by your bow :)

[Sweeper41]

It's not worth it. No matter what people say here. Max it out if you just want all weapon skills maxed but you will never use it for anything other than wanting people to laugh at you.

[Videri]

Useful for pulling if you don’t want to use a spell.
• Some bow/arrow combos have longer range than spells
• Arrows have a flight time, giving you a head start on fast mobs or casters
• Save mana I guess if you think you need to

[Jimjam]

Arrows have flight time so you can get round of corner before the enemy aggroes, preventing them from immediately beginning to cast on you. Something particularly useful for a class which can FD.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

As Jimjam and videri said:

Useful for pulling if you don’t want to use a spell.
• Some bow/arrow combos have longer range than spells
• Arrows have a flight time, giving you a head start on fast mobs or casters
• Save mana I guess if you think you need to

Arrows have flight time so you can get round of corner before the enemy aggroes, preventing them from immediately beginning to cast on you. Something particularly useful for a class which can FD.

Bows do indeed have utility for pulling.

I use https://wiki.project1999.com/Blazing_Bracer_of_Fennin_Ro for this kind of pulling. It doesn't require me to use inventory space on arrows, and the range of this specific clickie spell is much longer than the typical spell range. The clickie spell also has flight time. This means it basically mimics a bow.

Bows still have an advantage over blazing bracer in that they fire immediately, which can be useful if every second counts when doing the pull. I am not 100% sure, but there may be a few bow/arrow combinations that have a longer range too.

SK's typically don't need to bow kite. They can fear kite instead. Their archery skill caps at 75 too, which is pretty low.

That being said, mobs above level 55 cannot be feared, so an SK could bow kite something like an Ice Burrower or Tantor if they really wanted to lol. If you had Bio Orb you could probably even bow kite summoning mobs. just alternate between spamming Bio Orb and Archery. It would take forever, but it could be done.

[skulldudes]

if you're soloing someplace sprawling like OT or something a good bow and high range fletched arrows will save you a lot of time pulling mobs, big range diff between bow pulls and spells

beyond that i never found much use with such a low cap

[Keebz]

Generally I just use it for pulling. Because of the arrow flight time you can shoot an arrow and get out of LoS before you engage which is nice for casters. The range is also better than most spells, so it can speed up the pulls or make you competitive for certain FTE races.

As for bow kiting, it's a legit strategy. You can kill shit outdoors way above your level for minimal mana. Send pet, DoT it up and weave in bow shots. The weighted axe makes the bow shots very reasonable.

[Keebz]

Also, I haven't tried it, but since bow procs go off melee weapon delay, you might be able to quad at 35 with Skydarkener and a Weighted Axe.

[Botten]

While bowquest is very real in PvP it isn't so much in PvE.

SKs get Double attack with melee weapons not exactly archery.
While the WA is a gimmick it only increases archery damage for SK Ogres and Trolls.
SKs get an archery skill cap of 75

Those on the Red Server abusing bowquest in PvE are most likely Barbs, Ogres and Trolls Warriors. With a much higher archery skill cap and often their utilizing Precision Discipline. And I would argue that a 60 Warrior in melee in most fights is doing more damage than a Warrior using this gimmick.