well, after making two warriors (one of whom has completed the game already), i decided to build an archer. i used the survivor class for a change and to see how i would fare with this class. so far, it's been great! i've had a relatively easier time with the game so far with this archer (lvl 25 now) than with my sword warrior.
here's what i did: as bows require more agility, i picked the survivor who has a higher starting agility. in the early-game, i used a short bow and pumped most of my stat pts into agility. by the time i faced the skeletal guardian guarding slasher, i had 25 agility and was thus able to equip myself with a composite bow. those guardians and skeletal conjurer lords who have given my warriors a hellish time were not much of a problem this time. run and gun, run and gun, and they're gone, with not much damage to my archer except for a scratch in his nails. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />
i also put pts into elven sight whenever it became available. a bow plus elven sight is a very lethal combination. nothing will get near you. you can shoot monsters from afar, and skeletons die (or almost die) in one hit from a composite bow. it's so deadly it's not even funny. add splitting arrows for mass carnage in the last level of the catacombs when things get a bit hairy.
here's the interesting part. i realized in my previous games that the elven merchant (gavanariel) in the dark forest sells very good bows, so i made it my goal to visit him as soon as i have 35 in agi & 25 in str, which i think are the requirements for a hunting bow.as soon as i got out of aleroth, i went straight to rivertown, to gen alix (to get escort for healers) then to gen mitox (to get human teleport scroll, which you will need for the warriors guild teleporter). i didn't do the two orc quests yet; instead i levelled myself doing the trolls quest, thieves quest, cattle thief quest, killed the bandit leader, until i met the str & agi requirements for a hunting bow. took the archers' guild teleporter and headed straight to the dark forest. i just ran until i got the warriors' guild teleporter, and off to the elven village where after several loading, i got a bow of my liking, "savage hunting bow of lightning speed": 59-181 dmg, +10 to offense, + 9 to agility and a bunch of other mods i can't recall now. it cost me a lot, a princely sum of almost 30,000 gold (it helped that i didn't sell any of the axes i found in the catacombs, including slasher, until now).i opted to kill the mountain trolls with the help of my new bow, and i levelled up like crazy on the way to the elven burial grounds teleporter. each mountain troll gave at least 25,000 exp pts.
by the time i did the orc quests (supply train and poison well), i was killing orcs from afar, again with the help of elven sight. so now, my survivor is level 25 and i haven't even gone to the cursed abbey, to verdistis, nor to stormfist castle yet. i don't know how an archer will hold up against a tough-hard-hitting boss, but it's been a whole lot easier than using a sword so far.
so that's it, just an account of a new bow-lover. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />
