Some thoughts on Ranged Weapons

[eegreen]

Until last night, I hadn't used any ranged weapons. This was mainly because I had heard so many negative things about them. Everyone was saying how expensive ammo was, and how little damage is done when using a ranged weapon.

I created a character last night to check out all these claims. I made a Fyros character and am crafting ranged weapons and ammo.

Just starting out, the only weapon I could make was a q10 pistol. I loaded some q10 ammo into it and went out hunting.

It seemed to work pretty well for me. At level 10 fight I was doing 25 damage per shot consistently. I thought that was pretty decent considering the "increase damage" skills don't apply to ranged weapons so I didn't get them. I could usually fire 2-3 times before the mob got to me and started attacking. Yes, the damage I was dealing was a little less than a q10 sword could do, but I was hitting for 50-75 before I even got hit once. I think it is a different style of play than the standard melee, but is just as effective if used wisely.

Now on to the cost issues. For those that don't know, it takes 4 mats to create a pistol, and 4 mats to create 24x ammo. The pistols I was making and selling seemed to be good in the cost/sell price area. To buy the 4 mats I needed was about 1000dapper, and I could sell the pistols for about 900dapper to the vendors. In my experience crafting other things, this is alot more efficient than some other crafted items.

Selling ammo didn't seem to be as cost effective. It took the same 1000dapper to get the mats, but only sold for 500 dapper to the vendor.

A nice thing about the mats for ammo is that they drop off alot of the low level mobs. In this way I was able to supply myself with as much ammo as I needed without having to return to town.

So here are my conclusions:

1. Ranged Weapons seem to deal a little less damage than melee, but you also get a few more hits in before taking damage. So in my mind thats an okay trade-off.

2. Crafting and selling range weapons is a better idea than crafting and selling ammo if money is your goal.

3. You should craft your own ammo if possible so you can avoid the high prices for ammo at some vendors.

If there are any people out there who have experience with ranged weapons after patch 1 released, let me know if my statements are accurate.

[usinuk]

Interesting post from a newbie perspective. There are still a bunch of longer threads on ranged weaps out there that are worth checking out...strongly suggest you look at several of them before deciding if you want to pursue this borked tree. I haven't posted recently on them...have been meaning to post a long post-patch q70 damage summary for all the weapon types to give newbies a heads up as to what they're heading into. My thesis is the DPS (damage per second) issue is still very, very important and hasn't been addressed.

As far as your points, #1 works for very low level mobs but is a major problem going forward as your rate of attack and range stink, #2 isn't really true - you lose either way as you'd make more money selling the mats for them, and if you want crafting experience ammo uses the equivalent as crafting pistols (although autolaunchers use a slug of mats, so if you want that might be better), and #3 is dead on, as you either will need to craft your ammo or find a friend to do it for you for both quality (max dmg ammo is very important) and cost. You can get away with a buddy making your ranged weapon, however.

[jackmor]

From what I can see from the posts and my own very limited experiance with range weapons the only way to use them is with the support of a guild. The porpose a guild would have for a stock pile of range weapons and the members to use them is unclear for now but, there must be some reason for these weapons and there difficulty.

Just a thought.

[vanderpm]

When you first begin, the ranged tree is not too bad, but when you get to the point of rifles and autolaunchers you will find the same problems that you see everyone complaining about.

The cost of ammo is not nearly as bad as it used to be. It used to take 9 mats for 24 shots, the cost of ammo then was totally insane. Now they changed it to 4 mats, much better, much nicer on the wallets, autolauncher ammo used to take 24 mats (now takes 16) for 6 shots.

The damage for ranged is sub-par. It wouldn't be so bad if you hit every time like you used to, but now I can count on a mob dodging/resisting at least 50% of my shots (usually closer to 75%). Also, with my rifle I get about 18 shots per minute. Not quite on par with any other 2h weapon. And when I do hit I do at best 110 damage (oddly max damage for my ammo is 126).

Add to that the lack of a skill tree for ranged, and ranged combat is unfortunately well below the effectiveness of melee combat.

If you would like more information, look for Tetra's comments on the subject, she has made some very detailed posts.

[josephm]

I craft bowrifles Q50. Ammo Q50 as well. I think that rifles are a bit underpowered damage wise. I'd like to set a priority for my ammo reloading so I don't have to do it manually.

I never though of this...gonna try crystalizing a root on my rifle when I get home.

with Q50 rifle/ammo and damage at 60% craft...fledgling izams go down in two shots. 300 xp. I worked off DP real fast once like this. It was pretty fun mowing down the suckas....but the fun wears. and reloading my ammo every twelve shots is NOT an exciting way to level.

Keep the damage the way it is. Add stanzas. Like rooting, bleeding, stuns etc. Make them hit more often than melee with a 'sharpshoot' stanza. Don't make them as effective as spells though. A happy medium.

example 150 damage melee vs 100 (max ammo) damaged melee. 2/3
spells land 100% of time. So sharp shoot should land 1/3 of time.

of course spells don't land 100% of the time and this in no way accurately represents the math, but you get the idea.

Ammo stacking can be handled by adding stanzas to ranged weapons that can handle larger clips...prolly easier to just make same size clips that are longer and compact ammo better.... 5 SP per extra shot or something.

[bodywand]

I just started with ranged weapons yesterday and gained about 10 levels in 2 hours for 100k. I don't craft any of my own stuff and haven't had a problem yet, but I have some large cash reserves. I found placing an enchantment on the rifle very effective. With cold 6 on my rifle, I could take down stuff for 1200 exp before it touched me. 2 shots and 1 enchant. The hit but do no damage seems totally messed up to me. If you hit it should do damage.

-Fist

[kisedd]

Using a Q50 pistol and Q30 ammo, damage seemed to be quite low on mobs at L30. Mobs do quite a lot of dammage now and using a ranged weapon is a good way to get yourself killed.

In a group, ranged weapons are still fairly useless, but it's easier to get exp.

[bkwrm13]

josephm, interesting suggestions - I wouldn't jump to ranged combat unless options like what you offered were implemented. Of course, good suggestions like these for ranged weapons/ammo have been made repeatedly since the beta stage.

I think root is a link spell, so your first action after casting will probably break the link. That combo was my first thought when I read about the root spell, but assumed it wouldn't work after I read the link details.

[josephm]

I just got home. pretty late, gotta work tomorrow. prolly just going to get an hour of PR harvest in. But I'll keep that in mind bkwrm. Good thinking. I also like Fist's Idea of adding DD spells. I'll try that too.

Baldy

[splatula]

ALSO - note the difference between piercing, slashing, and smashing ammo and which creatures respond to which. This will go a long way towards actually causing damage with every shot.