[Archery] Composite Bow 1.25s worth it in PVM?

[Lord Taliesin]

I'm considering updating my ABC archer suit and wondering if it's worth it to push for 211 stam and 55ssi to swing a composite bow at cap in PVM. It's a heck of a lot easier to get 180+ stam and 45 ssi for 1.5s which would allow for higher mana, a stamina buffer and the use of a legendary bow with lots of goodies on it. On the one hand it would be great to swing at cap however getting cursed/clumsied or taking any stam loss from spells puts me at 1.5s anyway and if I'm kiting I won't often have an opportunity to just stand there and machine gun arrows at 1.25s. Thoughts?

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

I took my Thrower (which thanks to the stupid devs is now identical to Archery minus needing ammo) to 210+ 55 SSI and am pleased with the results. Unless you only ever solo things you're not always going to be the target so there's plenty of times when you will just be standing there machine gunning at 1.25s. You can remove curses at any time with Remove Curse and Enchanted Apples.

 

[Tabin]

Going from 1.5sec swing to 1.25sec swing is more game changing on a template that tanks and requires HLL or VE to leech life. If you don't use either HLL or VE, then the only thing you'll notice is killing stuff marginally faster. Since I'm on Atl, I'd personally go for 210 stam and 55 SSI because it isn't that hard to reach when you can vendor search specific items (i.e. 10ssi ring/bracelet, ozy obi) Regarding your stam buffer, there are a few ways around that. Lord GOD pointed out enchanted apples. You can also overcap dex via items or drink a greater agility so you still sit at 150 dex after curses. HSL/Greater Refresh/Devine Fury to bring stam back up to max when needed.

 

[Lord Taliesin]

Thanks for the feedback. The character is plenty effective now at 1.5s but I'm always looking to take advantage of accumulated loot and new artifacts.
I looted a comp bow with max hll/hml/hsl/fatigue/mana drain/ssi. It has no di so I'm trying to decide if swinging at 1.5 with that bow is worth it to put all of my di on the suit and have 100+ mana or to use a crafted bow and 1.25 suit with about 80 mana.
This character is mostly for solo'ing high end mobs and I'm thinking he'd be decent for attempting solo shadowguard runs.

 

[CorwinXX]

1.25s means +20% to damage - the same as 120 Anatomy.
And you can get 220+ stamina to have some buffer.

 

[Tabin]

Thanks for the feedback. The character is plenty effective now at 1.5s but I'm always looking to take advantage of accumulated loot and new artifacts.
I looted a comp bow with max hll/hml/hsl/fatigue/mana drain/ssi. It has no di so I'm trying to decide if swinging at 1.5 with that bow is worth it to put all of my di on the suit and have 100+ mana or to use a crafted bow and 1.25 suit with about 80 mana.
This character is mostly for solo'ing high end mobs and I'm thinking he'd be decent for attempting solo shadowguard runs.

Can you get +50% DI on rings+bracelet, then 20% from cameo/conjurer's trinket, then keep Divine Fury up? That puts you at 95% DI. If you already have a suit with 210+ stam, you should be able to keep your exact suit, just swap the ring/bracelet if needed.

How much SSI is on your legendary comp bow?

 

[CorwinXX]

You can have 40 SSI and 48 HML on a Composite Bow. This gives you 55 SSI with DF. You will need 55 DI from jewels (you can craft a ring with 30 DI). (if you are elf you can get 10 DI from one wooden armor piece).
You can have 30 SSI and 50 HML and 10 DI (from enhancing). This gives you 55 SSI with DF, City bonus and Cameo. And this gives you 100 DI with 45 on jewels.
In both cases you needn't SSI on your jewels so you can choose ones with tons of skills/stats.

 

[Lord Taliesin]

So I finished the suit and managed to stuff almost everything I wanted on there. Figured I'd report back.
The bow is a comp bow with:
34 hll
34 hml
70 hsl
50 hit fatigue
50 hit mana drain
40 ssi
4 dex
4 stam

I used two legendary jewels, two legendary metal armor pieces, two reforged/imbued hide pieces, a woodland piece with 10 di and VvV mace and shield, primer on arms, ozy obi, shanty boots, despicable quiver corgul sash, shroud of condemned.

100 di
60 ssi
45 hci
30 hld
48 lmc
150 str/145 hp
150 dex/211 stam
110 mana

75/75/75/75/80

120 Archery
120 Tactics
120 Anat
80 Healing
120 Bushido
120 Chiv
GM Resist

On a test run I mowed down a paragon balron beautifully.
I couldn't quite squeeze in the last few hp but that's not a big deal. 55 lmc would have been nice but 48 should get the job done. The lack of dci is the only problem but hopefully I'll be able to stay out of melee range. I can always craft a bow with dci for spawning since I can whetstone off the di. One of the nice side effects of 60 ssi instead of 55 is that I'll swing at 1.5 all the way down to 150 stam. With 70 hsl on the bow and two metal pieces of armor I should be ok on stam even fighting heavy stam damage critters like boss level fire-breathers.

 

[CorwinXX]

Looks cool.
How much MR do you have?

p.s. I'd slightly dropped Bushido to get more Healing.

 

[Lord Taliesin]

6 mana regen, 4 stam regen, 2 hp regen, not great. I'm counting on the leeches which is ok in pvm, I don't plan on doing a lot of pvp with this toon, especially without dci but in a group spawn raid situation I'd be able to help out. Mana becomes an issue if I go a few hits rolling low mana leech.
I'm counting on the life leech from the bow plus 120 anat to make up the difference in having lower healing. Would you go 110 bushido 90 healing? It seems like the few points healed wouldn't be worth it against honor bonus/evasion/confidence from higher bushido.

 

[CorwinXX]

Evasion doesn't work without Parrying so you can use honor bonus/confidence. With Healing don't rely so much on Confidence and with 120 Chivalry (EOO) you will usually have max damage bonus with 100 and even 80 Bushido.
With higher Healing you have more chance to cure and heal by the same bandage.

I don't know "the best ratio". I believe any ratio from 80/120 to 120/80 has its arguments. I myself would preferred "Healing > Bushido" part of this range.

There are situations when you have low mana => can't AI => can't do large damage (against high resists) => can't leach mana. MR allows you to break this circle. 6 MR is not bad.

 

[Tuan]

You've got 780 skill points. So it would be possible to simply swap some jewlry around if you really needed a heal with 120 (ok 110...) healing vs 80 or something.

 

[Lord Taliesin]

Just noticed I failed to include the +5 archery from the quiver so I can bring healing up at least 5 more points.
Did the belfrey tonight, not as fast as a sampire but it was doable. I honored the dragon and then swapped EoO between the dragon and drakes.

 

[Tabin]

Just noticed I failed to include the +5 archery from the quiver so I can bring healing up at least 5 more points.
Did the belfrey tonight, not as fast as a sampire but it was doable. I honored the dragon and then swapped EoO between the dragon and drakes.

Nice! Were you able to solo belfry without running off the platform as an archer? I wonder if it is semi possible to kite up there.

On my sampire, I always end up getting hit with a fireball + regular hit and that brings me down to 60 or less. I typically gotta run off or risk dying to the next hit. When I solo, I typically have to run off 2-3 times to kill it.

 

[Lord Taliesin]

Had to run off/got pushed off a bunch, there really isn't enough room to kite. Sampire is quicker but I'm hoping this build will be better once I'm on the roof with room to move around.

 

[Garrisons Rage]

Hey Lord Taliesin,

I've been revamping a bunch of my Characters lately .... one of them was my Archer. I've been looking around allot .... trying to figure out what road to take and this thread caught my eye ..... I have all of the Arties that you talk about .... and plenty of Soul Stoned skills to move around ....

So I'm faced with the 2 pieces of jewelry and 5 pieces of armor ..... any chance you could post what you have on each of those pieces? A screen shot would give me some insight about what's forged, imbued, bought as is .... whatever you have time for would be appreciated.

Also what are your "base stats" (nothing added)?

Thanks either way ...... GR