So I was planning a Duelist archer build, then looked at the Ascendancy subclasses...

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

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suszterpatt wrote:

...and realized that the ones for the Duelist all completely suck for archery.

I thought the whole idea behind the Duelist was that it can be made to excel with any kind of weapon, that's why they have a cluster for projectile damage in their section of the tree (not to mention the bow clusters on the border with Ranger).

Meanwhile the Shadow, which is ostensibly designed for daggers/claws, gets 3 subclasses that all work great with bows.

Heck, the Elementalist, Occultist, and Inquisitor are all better for archery than any of the Duelist subclasses. These are on the opposite side of the tree, and they're all better for an elemental/chaos bow user than any of the Duelist subclasses!

What the heck, GGG?

Slayer can use ANY two-handed weapon well. Bow IS two-handed weapon too.

Can it? Or is it another case of mislabelled skill descriptions?

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Mark_GGG wrote:

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Sairony wrote:

As there's a specific stat which says 2h melee weapons I presume 2h untyped mods apply to bows?

I have updated the stat descriptions to make it clear they apply only to melee weapons - I thought that had already happened, but evidently not.

Technically, within the game bows are considered two-handed weapons, but it never matters because we don't have any bonuses which apply to all two handed weapons, only to two-handed melee weapons. The descriptions of those stats now reflect this.
The only actual consequence at the moment of them being two-handed is you can't dual-wield bows (and I'm pretty sure that if we do end up implementing dual-wielding of two handed weapons, that will be limited to melee as well) or use bow+shield. Quivers are a special exception which can be used with a bow but not other two-handed weapons.

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suszterpatt wrote:

...and realized that the ones for the Duelist all completely suck for archery.

I thought the whole idea behind the Duelist was that it can be made to excel with any kind of weapon, that's why they have a cluster for projectile damage in their section of the tree (not to mention the bow clusters on the border with Ranger).

Meanwhile the Shadow, which is ostensibly designed for daggers/claws, gets 3 subclasses that all work great with bows.

Heck, the Elementalist, Occultist, and Inquisitor are all better for archery than any of the Duelist subclasses. These are on the opposite side of the tree, and they're all better for an elemental/chaos bow user than any of the Duelist subclasses!

What the heck, GGG?

Same here lol .

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tryhardgg wrote:

Same here lol .

So, getting extra +26% damage reduction as Champion, in addition to nice other bonuses, isnt worth it for you?

Just take it - all Duelist's subclasses are tanks. They arent supposed to beat clearspeed records.

Yup, everyone take champion bros, and if you are crit build then instead take assassin, just do it!

/thread

Ahahaha!

Well, I'm playing a point blank, shrapnel shot duellist. The champion will help me to be more tanky. The evasion + armor nodes are nice (for now I'm not using Iron Reflexes...Snorkle_UK says it should be more tanky, I'm trusting him, :P), then there is fortify and the effects on low life and the movement speed bonus.

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TheAnuhart wrote:

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No offence sir, but you are totally unaware of what his abilities offer, you should double check before posting things like that.

Sure his subclasses might not offer crit or chain or other things you consider good for an archer build but every single Duelist subclass can (and will) be used for bow builds.

Slayer's nodes work with bows, ALL OF THEM
Champion's nodes work with bows, ALL OF THEM

Even Gladiator's bottom right path works with bows and its rather strong, though only 4 nodes instead of 6.

EDIT : If GGG could change the wording on the block path of Cladiator, to global block even those nodes could work with Rearguard quiver. (they do as they are now but they are not very effective)

It's not a case of 'can be used' it's a case of 'are really shit compared to the other dex classes' for bows.

And no, really, they won't be used.

Well, admittedly this is very hipster of me, but I am planning on going that Gladiator route when the expansion hits, and crafting myself up a nice Tora's bow. Those explosions are based off 20% of monster max life; that seems crazy to me.

I don't think it'd be the best build, just one of the funnest.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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TheAnuhart wrote:

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No offence sir, but you are totally unaware of what his abilities offer, you should double check before posting things like that.

Sure his subclasses might not offer crit or chain or other things you consider good for an archer build but every single Duelist subclass can (and will) be used for bow builds.

Slayer's nodes work with bows, ALL OF THEM
Champion's nodes work with bows, ALL OF THEM

Even Gladiator's bottom right path works with bows and its rather strong, though only 4 nodes instead of 6.

EDIT : If GGG could change the wording on the block path of Cladiator, to global block even those nodes could work with Rearguard quiver. (they do as they are now but they are not very effective)

It's not a case of 'can be used' it's a case of 'are really shit compared to the other dex classes' for bows.

And no, really, they won't be used.

Well, admittedly this is very hipster of me, but I am planning on going that Gladiator route when the expansion hits, and crafting myself up a nice Tora's bow. Those explosions are based off 20% of monster max life; that seems crazy to me.

I don't think it'd be the best build, just one of the funnest.

Yeh, those nodes are quite tasty and invite creativity! (even the corpse explosion one, could definitely be fun!) Overall duelist for archers (or even spellcasters) seem better for giving specific defence bonuses that are otherwise difficult/impossible to get (like fortify, this is amazing for making archers more viable in hc) but for dps either ranger or assassin are probably better or at least 'easier' to build around.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Well, admittedly this is very hipster of me, but I am planning on going that Gladiator route when the expansion hits, and crafting myself up a nice Tora's bow. Those explosions are based off 20% of monster max life; that seems crazy to me.

I don't think it'd be the best build, just one of the funnest.

Well, I'll be enjoying the bleed explosions too, but as a melee using Jack the Axe in my main hand (til i can get a Rigwald axe, provided they're reasonably accessible in the next league) with ice crash. Planning on remaking my eponymous character as a Gladiator once Ascendency hits.

As for Duelist bow characters? Generally speaking, yes, at best most will be gimmicky more so than powerful. As far as bow-users go, nothing will really compare to Deadeye or Assassin with how heavily overtuned some of their nodes are (30% more damage for offscreening, the safest thing you can do in this game? Are you out of your mind? And it only takes 2 points to reach... ridiculous) Gladiator and Slayer have some niche, gimmicky uses when it comes to some notables, but get next to nothing from the regular nodes and don't benefit *that* much from most notables.

Champion has the obvious perma-fortify route and defensive regular nodes, but when it comes down to it bow-users are the last characters that would need fortify. It might come in handy for some extremely-safe HC builds, but most will realize it's wasted potential for overkill-levels of safety. I've got an armor/ev non-crit bow character already in talisman, a perfect candidate for a duelist bow build (although i made it as a scion), and i still wouldn't consider using Champion, because it's a ludicrously safe playstyle already and has zero need to waste potential on perma-fortify when it could get so much better offense and utility elsewhere.

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Shppy wrote:

Champion has the obvious perma-fortify route and defensive regular nodes, but when it comes down to it bow-users are the last characters that would need fortify. It might come in handy for some extremely-safe HC builds, but most will realize it's wasted potential for overkill-levels of safety. I've got an armor/ev non-crit bow character already in talisman, a perfect candidate for a duelist bow build (although i made it as a scion), and i still wouldn't consider using Champion, because it's a ludicrously safe playstyle already and has zero need to waste potential on perma-fortify when it could get so much better offense and utility elsewhere.

How did you build your archer duelist? (specifically the defenses) Do you have any guide? I'm doing the same, I wanted to compare.

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Shppy wrote:

Champion has the obvious perma-fortify route and defensive regular nodes, but when it comes down to it bow-users are the last characters that would need fortify.

I would LOVE that perma-fortify on my bow build. Honestly, I deal enough damage most of the time, really not the problem. The problem is that I die too often (which is painful at lvl >90). So I could go for more damage with a ranger (which I will do, cause I am a ranger) or I could get perma-fortify with 24% (if you include the other nodes) and die less. I removed the PPAD gem from my bow recently and switched to LGOH cause I kept dying to reflect. Clear speed hardly went down.

24% fortify equals 31.6% more life. Currently at 4724 life, that would be as if I had 6216 life (actually more, since my life flasks recharge faster in comparison then). That is a huge difference.

It won't make for clear speed records, but it by no means will be a bad build.