Why does Archery Blows?!

[RedXIII]

Ok, its slow, and etc... but cmom, why no Insta Hits like Hally/War hammer, etc. (When u equip).

The dmg is not that OMGZORS, and u have to wait the thing to cast the shoot everytime, no insta hits when u equip?! u sure this is era accurate?!

Id like some feeedback before i put my archer/mage to raise mace or swords....

so sad... archery used to be a nice skill.

[Wulver]

I have an archer in the works but haven't tried it yet. I loved archery but that was UO:R... I'm a little worried now. THat would suck to have a gimp skill in the game, era accurate or not.

[the bazookas]

I remember pre-T2A when archery was king; but I also remember very clearly when archery suddenly paled in comparison with melee weapons, and everybody dropped it like a rock. I'm quite sure that archery remained terrible throughout almost all T2A era. Aside from what I remember, however, I'm sure that UOSA staff and other players have carefully researched this.

My personal opinion boils down to this: Archery on a mage is a terrible. Archery on a dexxer can work, but mostly if you run in a group.

[Faust]

Archery was horrible when insta hit was implemented in February of '99.

The skill still had it's standard one second plant and shoot feature followed by the one second damage delay for when the arrow was shot and the time it took to hit the target.

The major problem with archery is the arm/equip delay due to it's very long delay for each weapon. This is a very well documented feature that you can read upon in the patch notes and endless discussion from the google ultima online groups from the era.

The archery skill was not tweaked until the UOR patch when the arm/equip delay for the skill went through a major over haul. Unfortunately, archery was horrible during this entire era and only was great during the pre-t2a and early days of the t2a era.

[Daemonne]

I will be adding archery to my Drunken Sailing Fisherman. Is the skill good enough to take care of Sea Serpents and Deep Sea Serpents?

[Faust]

Archery is mainly horrible in 1v1 dueling situations for pvp.

[chumbucket]

Archery PWNS.

[DarkWing]

I will be adding archery to my Drunken Sailing Fisherman. Is the skill good enough to take care of Sea Serpents and Deep Sea Serpents?

Archery does quite well for a fisherman

[Daemonne]

I will be adding archery to my Drunken Sailing Fisherman. Is the skill good enough to take care of Sea Serpents and Deep Sea Serpents?

Archery does quite well for a fisherman

Sweet ty for the response!

My rum swillin fisherman will be pleased that he will be able to slay the sea monsters! (If his aim is true.)

[BloodyBandage]

Unfortunately I tried to make a comeback with my archer and it was an epic fail. Faust, I know you said it's bad for 1 v 1 but I did it in group fights of 3 vs 3, 5 vs 5, etc and it is insanely ineffective. Everyone outruns the arrows (heavy is even worse - less range). No one is going to stay on screen long enough to synch a dump let alone get off a meaningful arrow (one targeting the dumped char). I tried to force it to work. I normally don't care about game mechanics and go with the flow, but it was so bad people were offering me their Vanq Xboxs just because it was something different in the field. All the stratics, information, etc aside, it's unplayable in any PvP capacity (unless in a small 11x11 event setting); it's not even viable as a support pvp class.

I thought the same thing as Faust and other positive thinkers, "it's going to get better in large groups" I told myself, but it gets worse, as groups run together on and offscreen, and when you do get a shot off, they can usually just outrun it anyway.

Alas, I tucked my archer away and started making a hally mage so hope to be pvping on that vs just pking . The arrow was never meant to be outran this easily, and connection and mounts aside, I think it's slightly off. I was active in the field a couple weeks ago before TG gave me a dirtnap on Eggroll (well played!) , and I can say I was the only one pvping with it, and it was laughable as people were commenting on it during a fight. Even as a pure archer Dexer you just don't hit enough between stopping, firing, and hoping they don't outrun it...then maybe it misses due to that 50% chance. Archery for pvp isn't viable in it's current state, whether mage or dexer, but we all know hally mages ruled the era, but I did play a dexer archer that was more useful than this in late 99. You have to severely outnumber someone if you are going to tag along for the ride and shoot phantoms at people , otherwise get use to saying "he outran my arrow" in vent /rant

On a positive note the shard is growing more active and Derrick and staff have done an amazing job. It is still fun to play a hally mage, so hope to be on more with TW with my new shiny halberd.

[RedXIII]

Very sad to read all this... =(
sometimes i feel like this "era accurate" thing isnt that nice in some aspects... everyone useing hallys, etc... kinda boring.

oh well... ty i guess.... droping my 100 archery.

[Arienne]

I run an archer and it's a waste of time in solo PvP unless your opponent really doesn't know what they're doing.

Although, I do recall almost killing a PK who attacked me at the Terathan keep named RedXIII with my archer

On the very rare occasions when I do stand and fight, I only use hxbow as an opener, then go right to the spear...

[Wulver]

I was there on my bard and it was kind of funny watching you two.

[Faust]

Was just talking about dueling situations bloody. I have seen groups of archers do well in GvG duels. I would not even dare an attempt of using archery in the field. The missiles are just too easy to dodge by getting out of range. That is not possible in a GvG duel.

[oliVeR]

Simply put broadband internet killed archery. Archery was only effective when people were on dialup and you could easily gun them down because they didn't just run away.