Vengeance

http://vnboards.ign.com/Albion_Rogue_Professions/b20906/67414338/?25

This guy hits for cap almost all the time - what is causing this? His high dex? I guess he has ~ 400 dex - I have 379 and don't come close to this.

Explanations?

(Edited by Siddhartha at 2:58 pm on April 16, 2004)

I can't imagine 20 dex will do that... honestly don't know, he didn't say what RA's he has. Maybe that's it?

yea, look at his weaponskill - 2100 to 2200...very nice. 400+ dex is helpfull i guess hehe. mine is 1907 with 45+14 and 378 dex. also look at his cap: 1120. he's prolly 50+15 (rr5l7) bow. my cap is curently 1029. im not sure which bow he's using but its probably a slow one if his cap is so high.

the real reason his damage is so high probably has to do with ald/bors' 20% relic bonus. add in 10% toa bow damage and your gunna hit cap a lot. i know i did when we had the str relics.

...wish i was wearing a set of uber TOA stuff and had a couple strength relics backing me too.

(Edited by Lifesbane at 3:30 pm on April 16, 2004)

Factors that effect bow damage:
Arrow type: I'm not sure if the arrows the Braggart's Bow produce are better than standard arrows
Dex: Take a look at +dex cap items
Relics: Str relics effect bow damage
TOA Bonuses: Max +Archery damage %
Opponents armor type
Your RR: He's probably RR5, which is the equivalent to being level 51 for combat calcs
Opponent's Level/RR: even level 40-somethings con yellow in RvR
Bow Spec
Bow Qual%, Speed

...anything else?

apponents melee resists

speaking of which, look at the (-damage) he gets...some of the people have fairly good resists, but most of the time it looks like 1120(-70), i even saw (-13)...

all this movie really shows me is:
uber gear + relics = win

From his original post on the VN boards (not using /quote so it's readable):

I'm really kind of new to scouting, and even to daoc, but it seems to be working out pretty well.

I'm not sure if this will help, but here's an outline of what i'm using, roughly. Let me know if you have any tips or suggestions:

50 bow
42 shield
36 stealth
16 thrust

with +15 to each of those.
somebody mentioned 50+15 shield.. yeah I tried that once, but with only 29+15 stealth, it was hard to solo, so i had to go back to only 42 shield. Brutalize was hard to land on shadowblades anyway.

I would never, EVER, for any reason, drop below 50 bow.

True Sight
Dex3
fe2
archery3
blocking2
con1
toughness1
avoidmagic1
longwind2
tireless1

these RAs are focused on sniping and escaping; I try to avoid fights with shadowblades and nightshades, and if they purge slam usually try and either kite with my permasprint, or just run away outright.
I found that IP and purge were OK, but not very fun, and didn't contribute many RPs. I also don't enjoy TS very much, but it does contribute RPs and also is a good way to help out the realm and wreak revenge.
I used to have volley, but dropped it when i noticed how quickly it was destroying my bow.

For equipment, I have

Braggart's bow
Ring of Dances
Golden Scarab Vest
Mariasha's Sharkskin Gloves

krojer's dex ring (for the +6 dex and the self-buff, which is handy)
naxos mother-of-pearl medallion

head, arms, legs, boots, rapier, and shield are all MP 5 pt overcharge

and nothing else too exciting; some quest or ROG jewelry with no ToA bonuses

The thinking on choosing braggart's bow is its extreme range: those 5% arrows it summons increase my range greatly and give a very tangible advantage. It also is much slower than the fool's bow and therefore reduces the need to carry a second bow for sniping. (although the immolated bow would critical shot for somewhat more, its much reduced range and dps make it less desirable to me)

I think that the high utility of the golden scarab vest and mariasha's gloves, combined with their excellent archery bonuses, makes them my best items. The 4% damage on the vest, in particular, makes a great difference. While both items were very annoying to level, and the GSV in particular, they made a great difference.

All of my resists are at 25 or 26, with +3 to the melee ones from GSV and +3 to the magic ones from avoidance of magic.
My dex is 87 from items, but my quickness is not capped. I did some testing and it seems that having qui over 250 doesn't increase bow speed, so i left it there. str is capped when i have my shield out, although that doesn't help much, and hits and con are just capped normally, with no bonuses from ToA, unfortunately.

my spirit and matter resists are both 6%.

Before 1.68, I had 20% speed, and a 2 second critical shot.
Now, I have 10% range
7% speed
7% damage

As far as capping as often as I do.. I don't cap on every shot; I saved the best shots over a few nights and put them in the video. Before we got str relics, I capped on about 50% of my shots (cap being 1120 or 560), but since we got the relics a couple weeks ago it's about 90% of the time that I cap, which makes things more fun.

I think it helps that I have 400 dex. Even that high, a few extra points do make a tangible difference.. if my friend's bot buffs me and my dex drops to 385, I notice my damage drop. Try to get your dex as high as you can. Before 1.68, my dex was at 418, and due to that my WS was at 2149, but now it's only at 400/2105..which is still pretty great I guess. If I make a new template, it's going to get my dex back up on the 410-415 range, and try to squeeze a few more hits out too (I'd like to break 2,000 hits).

I don't know if I can give any tactical advice; really, anyone can do what I was doing in the video! The technique of double critting, whereby you draw a critical, wait for it to ready, then fire and immediately critical again, works best when you have a lot of range and a short firing time, so that you can almost get the second arrow into the air before the first one hits (it helps immensely when firing downhill too; some of those shots at AMG were pressing 3,000 units which is one of the reasons I like that camping spot so much. Although I do move around more than the video would suggest).

The only reason I posted all of that is bacause I received a wave of responses to my video (i'm still sorting through them) complimenting me and asking for information about my spec, my equipment, and my tactics.

However, as you can see, there's nothing very incredible going on here (other than a few hard-earned level 10 artifacts, and relics, which help me hit my cap more often). It's nothing anyone with a buffbot can't accomplish. If you think I'm doing well, you should see some of the other scouts on my server. I'm just up-and-coming but I have a lot to learn compared to those guys.

the number one bit of advice that Ithink I can actually offer to any scout is this: SPEC 50 BOW. I can't imagine playing with anything less; the vast majority of my kills rely on penetrating arrow 3. In addition, your weaponskill will rise, reducing their chance to evade. I really never have a problem with my arrows being evaded, only happens around 15% of the time, and healing classes rarely if ever block me. There's also the advantage of having +4 damage per modified skill over 50, which means my cap will be 60 points higher than someone with only 35+15 bow. I still do around 150 damage styled with my rapier (3.9), when i'm forced to use it, which is enough to occasionally finish someone off or get them below 25% so I can run away.

Most of the scouts on my server are either 50 bow or 45, but I would encourage everyone to at least give 50 a try.. it's your signature skill, the most powerful ranged attack.. or in some cases the single most powerful attack in the game, and with the longest range to boot! (2530 range on level ground)

Also note that he admits the video is heavily edited, and that he died in about 1/3rd or those encounters.

Also, I like the Longwind 2 + endo potion trick for permasprint.

Stupid video, I may have to level up Zaius' scout next...

wow, good to see someone who isnt ub3rj33t for once (you suuure he posted on the vn boards??;))
archers are soo going to be FOTM again with frontiers. between physical defence (up to 28% reduction in all melee damage) and new TS (point blank up to 1000 radius, and most importantly(read: overpowered) its passive) all the j33t d00ds will be rolling one. we also get det!

sign up now and we'll also throw in free volley with bow spec!

(Edited by Lifesbane at 4:29 pm on April 16, 2004)

How the hell do these guys get > 400 dex? He says he doesn't have any toa gear. Mine is 374 and i have some +dex cap and I dumped literally all but one point in creation into dex.

He must be using dex cap items - Aug dex 3 only gives him 6 more points than my aug dex 2

he says when his friend's bot buffs him his dex drops to 385, so his bot probably caps buffs. he probably has a bunch of +dex cap gear too

  +80  80 creation
  +75 155 gear
+155 310 buffs (93 spec 62 base)
 +45  355 levelling to 50
 +18  374 aug dex 3
 +25  398 ToA dex cap increase

That's the highest I can get it, maybe he had > 80 dex at creation.

I like that longwind 2 + end potion thing. I think I might try that on my sorc until I get enough points for MoC.