Larian Studios Forums Divine Divinity (English) Help/Tips/Tricks archery skills questions

So, I haven't played with archery extensively before, and I'm unsure how to judge certain skills.

Does the damage in the description of skills like Splitting Arrows, Poison Arrows etc. add to the base damage or is it inflicted instead of normal bow damage? Also, does recuperation time of the weapon even factor in with these skills?

I didn't use any of them, but I'd guess the active archery skills replace the normal damage. To check that you could save before attacking an opponents just with the bow, then reload (if it is not tough enough to take a few shots) and use the skill.

I didn't test the rate of fire using arrows and skills in order to compare, but I would think the recuperation time is used.


Archery as a warrior - my thoughts

Note: in the disk version of the game True Shot and the damage portion of Crossbow Expertise are broken; they are fixed in the download version.
The weapon expertise skills were also changed to all give a percentage damage bonus, which may make a difference with some of the comments in the topic above.

thx oh inexhaustible source of DivDiv wisdom


From my observations I'd say the skill damage replaces bow damage, can't really comment on recuperation time since I'm at the beginning of the game. Still, I'm going to try an Int based mage archer that goes with skills instead of better equipment/ stats so I'll probably be using a mundane short bow to the very end. Should be fun

I'm playing the download version btw

There are a couple small places in the game where you can not use magic, though in the first you don't really need to get involved in the combat, and in the second you can avoid it (there are shadow potions nearby, along with some other potions to loot, you can use to bypass a group of hostile creatures).

At least with swords the expertise skill eventually drops your recuperation time down to zero, anyway, so the minor differences between swords become irrelevant. I don't know if that is the case with bows; level 5 Bow Expertise drops recuperation by 15, while Crossbow Expertise drops it by 5. You can also get a Speed bonus on weapons, which also reduces the recuperation time (though the net value can not get less than zero).

I'm learning some mace skill on the side, as I've found magic unsatisfactory in close quarters.

Btw, not sure if this is known, but Splitting Arrows is bugged - any stray projectile that hits friendly creatures will be counted as an attack. Usually, friendly fire is nicely avoided in this game, but this skill is an exception.

I believe that all bows have a maximum recuperation of 15, so maxing out Bow Mastery drops that down to zero.

A bow is a good default weapon for a mage. I chose a dagger and one-handed sword myself so I could have a shield (which meant more magical enchantments).

The best bow in the game requires 15 strength and 30 agility, so you might want to invest at least that much so that you can equip it. Don't worry, there are TONS of stat points, at the end I had 30 Agility, 70 strength, 25 Constitution and like 177 into Intelligence.