archer stuck

[FaelynRose]

I was born with 50 archery two weeks ago. Since that day I have shot no less than 700 arrows or bolts with newb bow, gm bow, magic bow, crossbow and heavy crossbow. I have hunted everything from mongbats to water e's and to date my archery is 52.2.

Is this normal? Is archery nerfed?

Any words of wisdom which you might offer would be greatly appreciated.

Faelyn Rose

[MatronDeWinter]

700 arrows should have probably got you to 60. I would guess that you are shooting the wrong things. For all combat skills, the idea is to spar with something (that is an npc, not a player) with a weapons skill similar to your own. You can shoot a bladespirit from 50-gm for about 6-10k arrows depending on how lucky you get with your gains, but a more cost-effective method would be to get a npc fighter and shoot at him (because they start with around 60 skill I believe) while keeping him alive. If you stand next to him so he hits you back, he will gain skill around the same rate you do, and you will continue to gain from him until GM. However, suppose you both get to around 75 and then the fighter dies. If you now get a new fighter you won't gain for a while because the new one will have a skill of around 50 again. In this case, get one of the Paladins from Delucia et al. They have something in the order of 75-85 weapons skills and will take you to from 75 much faster than a fighter will.

[Pirul]

Matron is right, however, I'd also mention you can GM off a polar bear with around 10-12k arrows without the need of him hitting you. That's what I did.

[FaelynRose]

Thank you both. I will try npc and polar bear before hanging up my bow in frustration. I appreciate your input.

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

All the advice preceding mine is good advice. I must confess, however, that I remain a little stymied by the extremity of your lack of skillgain; at 50ish you should be able to shoot almost anything and expect greater gains ...

So, I'm wondering if you might be skillcapped ... I can't supply any documentation, but it has always seemed to me that skillgain slows down significantly once I hit the cap and require other skills to drop; or, maybe you don't have any skills set to drop at all ...

I am fishing here, I admit.

SS

[FaelynRose]

All the advice preceding mine is good advice. I must confess, however, that I remain a little stymied by the extremity of your lack of skillgain; at 50ish you should be able to shoot almost anything and expect greater gains ...

So, I'm wondering if you might be skillcapped ... I can't supply any documentation, but it has always seemed to me that skillgain slows down significantly once I hit the cap and require other skills to drop; or, maybe you don't have any skills set to drop at all ...

I am fishing here, I admit.

SS

I agree that at that level I should be able to gain during normal play. My skill cap was in the mid 400's when archery slowed to a crawl. I was using a low level magic bow, just because I was gettting slaughtered while trying to hunt with my archer. I thought that might be it. Actually I have never had to macro or do anything unusual to gain skill before ...except music..which I have always macroed on a ship.. before coming here. Is a little frustrating.

But everytime I see the hordes of ppl around the west bank of brit and how lively and active this shard is, I feel that it is worth the extra effort to be part of this world. Helpful ppl like you and the others who have tried to assist are what really make this shard a cut above the norm.