Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) General why use melee when i can bow 'em??

let me preface all this by saying i've just now started into act II, so things may not hold as they are presently.
but.....
i currently use my deathknight as a sword and shield wielding tank. the only bad thing is he seldom gets to 'play'!
he (the deathknight) is my 'lead' character so that i may set my 'hero' to aggressive mode and fire away with arrows. she's so efficient that the DK hardly hits anything (not that he can't, he's just too late!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />).
here are 2 sequences showing why i use a bow - sequence 1
7 pic: characters turned away, bow shot, second shot, melee rushing with 2nd earth elemental appearing, still closing, finally trying to engage, 1st EE dead - turn toward 2nd, all dead. no sword hits.
sequence 2
6 pics: firing off screen, damage off screen, more arrow damage, melee rush (notice EE is 3/4 dead already), raising to strike, finally hitting.
between the two sequences we see 3 dead EE and a grand total of 1(!!) melee weapon strike.

Interesting. I've found that I usually die when I try using bows.

Just for reference, I'm in the Act I Battlefield. I have the Hero as a melee tank and the Deathknight as a mage.

Because the Giant Spiders poison has a habit of taking all of my Deathknight's health with one bite, I've given him a bow so I can keep him on Agressive mode and not get hurt. This works fine with the Hero running around melee style.

I tried giving the Hero a bow as well. Dead in seconds. The bows just didn't do enough damage fast enough and I was shikababed by the Ranged Skeletons. Perhaps if I'd designed an archer character from the start they might work better.

The best combo I found that works for me is Death Knight melee tank -with
2-handed weapon of course, sharpened up to the max to deal insane damage....

And the Hero with his little bow, picking away at the enemies health enough that when the DK runs up to it, he kills it in one shot!

Plus, all the different arrow types make using a bow fun, especially the splitting arrows!

I never liked magic in games...so I rarely use it.

Yeah, the thing with magic (at least attacks) is that they don't always do that much more damage, but in the mean time they suck mana like a monkey with a vacuum cleaner <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ouch.gif" alt="" />

And even having said that, magic is still pretty useful in this game. I have a hero who can cast an air spell that spreads over multiple enemies. If I didn't have this, I probably wouldn't have been able to get through the Act2 forest with all the earth elementals. (Unless ofcourse I'd complete the battlefields, but I didn't feel like that)

Even if a spell doesn't do enough damage, while an enemy is hit by a spell, it can't do anything for a second or so. And that can make all the difference.

I don't use bows, because I never liked them in RPG's...

I am playing with a mage/archer as dk and a warrior as hero. And indeed the archer rulez. When my acher can't cut it any more I jusqt use the hammer (level 4) skill to even the odds a bit. killed 15-20 shadow monsters with one hammer <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badsmile2.gif" alt="" />

Is it a bird? Is it a plane. No it's a hammer that falls from the sky killing everything on the ground.

who needs the warrior hero anyway. I'm rooting for my DK.