YAVP: 2 bowmen won (and some ranged tedium reduction tips)

[cerebovssquire]

Today I decided to give ranged combat a shot and as a result, I won HEHu of Cheibriados and DrGl of Okawaru with Bows 27 and long bows as their primary and exclusive weapon respectively (the HE still used his long blade, the Dr just shot everything and used a long blade only against jellies and fungi).
Neither used spells much. The Dr had two spells and pretty much only cast RMsl a couple times, the HE picked up tloc during the Slime Pits. The elf was in plate, screw conventions.

Longbow of velocity with good arrows is OP as hell. Triple swords, bardiches, demon weapons, executioner's axes, Blade Hands and all of that pale in comparison (I'm completely serious).

HEHu of Cheibriados: http://crawl.develz.org/morgues/trunk/E ... 122618.txt
DrGl of Okawaru: http://crawl.develz.org/morgues/trunk/E ... 213842.txt

First of all some gameplay tips (tedium reduction tips below):
At the beginning, both were melee-focussed and picked up ranged later - during Lair it was about 50/50 melee ranged, after Lair the Dr switched to exclusive ranged and the HE used his bow a lot more after clearing Elf for arrows.v
Clearing Elf for arrows sort of works but I can't really recommend it. You will find both a long bow and tons of arrows in D 14-20 and V 1-7, where centaurs are all over the place, so you will have your 500 soon after lair. st_orc_ranged (the orc:4 vault with centaurs) is also sufficient in this regard.
Enchant a stack of 500+ arrows in order to have enough for the rest of the game. +6 or more is good to prevent mulching and increase damage.
Vorpal gives +30% damage making it the best brand for bows, xbows, slings.
If you must you can kite. Don't shoot at monsters 1 space away if your attack speed is below 10 though, if you don't want to get hit.
Ranged is OP, Finesse+ranged is doubly OP.

Here are some tips to have fun with ranged. I have noticed that two common positions regarding ranged are "inferior to melee" (which is simply wrong) and "very strong but very tedious" (which is true in a way but nothing that can't be cured). Using all of these I found my archers to be totally enjoyable and not just "OP but ouch".

-autopickup_exception = <arrow, <arrows will autopickup all arrows you find.
I think that a main part of the ranged combat tedium is ^fing for arrows, travelling to them, picking them up etc. all the time. So before you have your stack of 500+ good arrows, you will have a good selection of arrows to pick from. After you have this stack I strongly recommend turning it off - these arrows are all you will ever need, and manually dropping the crap you will pick up with this option on even though you have your endgame arrows is unnecessarily tedious. This is the main source of ranged combat tedium and removing it doubles the fun.
This works with <bolt, <bolts, <sling bullet, <sling bullets &c too, of course.
-Autofight is extremely good with ranged.
Melee autofight can't just be mashed because your character might run out into the open while fighting. Ranged chars have it a little easier because they stand in one place and unleash the fury of their overpowered weapon.
-You want high STR.
Inventory management sucks with 12 STR on an archer. If you must you can go chei to compensate this, like I did on my HEHu - however, picking STR on levelups or even better, starting as Fi or Gl if you just want to use a bow (xbows are rare so don't do it with xbows) or sling, like I did on my DrGl, is a much much better idea. Perhaps it's not strictly optimal to pick STR, but ranged is so OP you can save yourself constantly dropping arrows and travelling back when you run out by a little suboptimality.
In addition, I find less than 100-150 arrows to be problematic. I had 180 on V:8, let about 50 lie around in one quadrant, and still ran out three times. I went to Zot with 300 as a result.
-Two types of arrows are enough.
Rarely will you have significant use of anything besides dispersal and your big stack of great arrows. You don't need Okawaru's 5 million arrow gifts. Just leave them on the ground. Perhaps carry flaming/frost for vulnerable enemies but that's it. Don't enchant anything else than your big stack.

Melee weapon on a.
Ranged weapon on b.
macro on any key (I like ,):

wb=ba(<tab>)

Switches melee/ranged weapon with one keypress, and only needs one key instead of two to accomplish this because of the =ba part (and also attacks if you have <tab> in there).

tl;dr: lol easy wins just do it

[Grimm]

-autopickup_exception = <arrow, <arrows

I find -autopickup_exception = <arrow alone works - no need for the plural.

[mageykun]

Congrats on your latest crushing victory over the game. Really, the rng doesn't stand a change.

Interesting. Staking str for massive ammo stores and armor over casting versatility. Well, it works for overpowering melee, why not overpowering ranged? I think I will have to give this a try. Thanks for the pointers. Anything you would change in this build if you were going endgame? Taking a bow of holy wrath to town's been on my wish list for a while.

One last thing-

  Code:

Nay target in view!
Nay target in view!
Nay target in view!
q - 215 +7 arrows
A goblin comes inta view. It be wieldin' an orcish dagger.
Tha goblin shouts!
Firin' (i - inventory. (,) - cycle): q - 215 +7 arrows (quiv'red)
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f - goblin
Aim: a goblin, wieldin' an orcish dagger
Ye shoot a +7 arrow. Tha +7 arrow hits tha goblin.
Ye kill tha goblin!
Cheibriados thoroughly appreciates tha change o' pace.
Nay target in view!
Thar be an op'n door 'ere.
Thin's tha be 'ere:
an orcish dagger; a goblin corpse
Thar be an op'n door 'ere.
Thar be a staircase leadin' outta tha dungeon 'ere.
Be ye sure ye want ta win?
Ye haf 'scaped!

Wha haf ye don ta ya speech?

[Hydralisk]

Thank you!

I always tried to play Hunters from the start as ranged characters and was extremely frustrated with all the ammo micromanagement in the early game. Switching to ranged post-lair works just great.

Wha haf ye don ta ya speech?

I'd like to know that too.

[SchwaWarrior]

Question: are Shields totally out of the question if you're using a bow? In my last game I screwed up trying to use a Bow and a Buckler together, it said "your shield significantly slows your rate of fire", but I had already trained Bows skill up to 9, stupidly. Can this be offset with high enough skills in Shields and Bows like it can be for spellcasting? Or must you tough it out without the extra protection?

Oh, I guess with Chei you don't have to worry about that, but maybe there's an accuracy penalty too... x_x ergh

Anyway this is a very inspiring victory post. PROPS. I got just as frustrated with a bowman (I had wanted to try a Warper using a bow and Blink to stay away from enemies once! It worked fine until like D:7 or 8 I think.), but still really wanted to do well with one.

Another question: are Crossbows legit instead? Or do they pale in comparison to Longbows? The only thing I know that's different is that Crossbows use different damage calculation of some kind, and Bolt ammo types are different (they can be Steel and Silver, for example). What races would work well with them? Is the Kobold too "tiny" to be effective even with his good aptitude in it?

[Hydralisk]

When I reached 6 delay with bows (around 18 skill), equipping buckler increased delay to 9, that's like eating 1/3 of your attacks. I believe you can reach 6-7 delay, but you will probably need both bows/shields in high 20's and use bucklers only, no medium shields, unless you are fine with trading 8-9 delay for extra protection.

Crossbows reach 7 delay, I think they're fine too without shields, much worse with. Silver and Penetration owns.

[cerebovssquire]

You will take less damage without a shield because you will deal significantly more damage to everyone (a dead enemy usually won't hurt you), and "melee" enemies won't even be touching you in most cases. Extra protection yes, less overall damage taken definitely not.

Okawaru >>>> Chei for this though. Double damage is a lot better than haste prevention and some stats.

Demigods are like Chei without the bad things, anyway.

[rchandra]

Another question: are Crossbows legit instead? Or do they pale in comparison to Longbows? The only thing I know that's different is that Crossbows use different damage calculation of some kind, and Bolt ammo types are different (they can be Steel and Silver, for example). What races would work well with them? Is the Kobold too "tiny" to be effective even with his good aptitude in it?

I haven't tried the mono-ranged character, but I used crossbows a lot on my recent MiBe(splat in Dis). Penetration is a fantastic brand, it basically gives you a smite targeted attack to hit that priest/tormentor who's hiding, and also hit more stuff while you're at it. I didn't really try steel enough as I didn't have the spare enchant scrolls to merge that stack as well as my main stack. Silver has limited uses.

I don't think Kobold's size will affect the crossbow - I used them a little on a KoBe, but I also wanted shields and they don't work together at all, so didn't really train crossbows very high. Size will prevent you from using a giant two-handed weapon as a melee backup, since you aren't using a shield that would be nice. Perhaps a quarterstaff and then lajatang for the relatively lower skill?

[magistern]

Thanks for the tips! Using them I got the CeGl highscore (and a personal best for me):

http://crawl.develz.org/morgues/0.10/magistern/morgue-magistern-20120419-042232.txt

Ranged combat really is as great as you were saying (and not tedious at all really!) No near misses I can remember. This run I also discovered that a +18 Wyrmbane is insane for a spear (lance, whatever), but that might just have been my 17 slaying.

Oh and for the record:

-autopickup_exception = <arrow, <arrows will autopickup all arrows you find.

You want

autopickup_exceptions = <arrow

instead. Had some trouble getting it to work!

[thevogonpoet]

Can I ask a stupid question?

I play trunk on CDO, and I can't work out where I put that autopickup line. In the o)ptions someplace?

Also, my CeGl just found its first stack of any arrows at all on D6. Great. Already has 2 bardings though, so I guess it all evens out...

[tasonir]

It should go into your RC file - I tried to do it myself but it didn't seem to work. Rather than try to fix it I just ended up picking up ammo manually again

After winning my naga, I wanted to try to get a streak so I picked the super easy DDBe path...end of orc:4 was the crossbow orc knights/centaurs ending...ended up getting about 500 bolts from that level alone, and have also picked up a crossbow of frost...I'm thinking I will follow this build now just to make the character less boring Enchanted the bolts up to +4 so far, we'll see how it goes

[rchandra]

I put such lines into autopickup_exceptions.txt for offline mode and they work fine. Perhaps if in the main rcfile they need to be after certain (lua?) files are imported? try at the bottom of the rcfile, or look for the appropriate sections.

[cerebovssquire]

Some severe thread necromancy here, but I found another thing that helps against the few remaining traces of tedium:

Melee weapon on a.
Ranged weapon on b.
macro on any key (I like ,):

wb=ba(<tab>)

Switches melee/ranged weapon with one keypress, and only needs one key instead of two to accomplish this because of the =ba part (and also attacks if you have <tab> in there).

[crate]

By default pressing ' will equip the weapon in slot a, unless it is already equipped, in which case it will equip b.

[cerebovssquire]

By default pressing ' will equip the weapon in slot a, unless it is already equipped, in which case it will equip b.

it sucks when you play a game for 18 months and don't know half the interface

[BlackSheep]

From options_guide.txt:

  Code:

auto_switch
        If you've got a melee weapon in slot a and a ranged weapon in
        slot b (or the opposite), this option will allow you to
        automatically switch to the appropriate weapon when firing or
        attacking in melee

[Southpaw]

BlackSheep, does that mean if I have a melee weapon in a and a ranged weapon in b and the melee weapon equipped, if i hit tab when an enemy is 4 tiles away will it switch to the ranged weapon and shoot him or move towards him?

[BlackSheep]

In practice, it doesn't seem like the option actually works both ways. If you have your melee weapon equipped and press 'f', it switches your bow, but if you attempt to hit something in melee with your bow, it only asks if you really want to attack while wielding a bow. Also, if you have something you can throw quivered, pressing 'f' just throws whatever is quivered.

Auto-fight will move toward an enemy if you have a melee weapon equipped. There's an option you can enable that will let auto-fight throw quivered items when they're available, but I don't think it will switch to ranged weapons for you automatically.

[nago]

By default pressing ' will equip the weapon in slot a, unless it is already equipped, in which case it will equip b.

it sucks when you play a game for 18 months and don't know half the interface

And yet you can win this game in about 1 hour. May God helps the devs to balance the game for you, when you'll know all of it.

[Konedar]

What about the trunk were it's not possible to enchant ammo? At least it mulch less. Do you think it's still "op"?
And what about xbows? According to my simple calculation based on the learndb even with finesse and steel bolts (assuming okawuru gifts enough of them) the dps is still 10% less than longbow with vanilla arrows.
Penetration is a nice option to have (better to engage enemy 1by1 but it's not always the case for me).
I just found in the learndb that silver has bonus only vs chaos and mutations... i always thought it works against undead too

[cerebovssquire]

What about the trunk were it's not possible to enchant ammo? At least it mulch less. Do you think it's still "op"?
And what about xbows? According to my simple calculation based on the learndb even with finesse and steel bolts (assuming okawuru gifts enough of them) the dps is still 10% less than longbow with vanilla arrows.
Penetration is a nice option to have (better to engage enemy 1by1 but it's not always the case for me).
I just found in the learndb that silver has bonus only vs chaos and mutations... i always thought it works against undead too

1) yes, it's still basically melee from all the way across LoS
2) yes, but 10% less so
3) yes
4) no, that was removed some time ago

[Owen]

Some more thread necromancy =)

After reading this thread I've started a pure ranged hunter. Now I've managed to have my CeHu to clear Vaults; didn't enchant the whole stack (about 1500+ arrows laying in Lair) more than to +4 because of lack of EWII. Got a lot of EWI, EWIII, spent them on the longbow.
No magic (full plate). Some melee (polearms, no nice weapons). Slaying about +14 totally. Bow skill 23. Now want to switch to my enchanted arrows but I'm so greedy, so I use Oka gifted branded arrows mostly.

There are two things I want to ask.
1. How can I kill TRJ?
2. Which god is better for extended, Okawaru or TSO? I've got Crypt saved for TSO piety and one more longbow (instead of velocity) to become holy. Remember, I'm a Zig fan, if I survive in Pan long enough to find an entrance, I'll surely will give a try.

[KoboldLord]

There are two things I want to ask.
1. How can I kill TRJ?

Try hitting it with a stick.

No, really. If you're playing an archer, you only need that one skill at high levels to kill most things, plus the general defenses (fighting and armor for you) that everybody gets. Probably some other skills to middling levels, but that's cheaper. That means you have loads of xp to spend on something else. Loads of xp, in fact, that you MUST spend on something else. So use the otherwise useless xp from Pan and Hell or whatever to train up something that will kill The Royal Jelly.

Melee weapons work great for this purpose. Just lure The Royal Jelly into the middle area. If you position yourself right, you can limit yourself to being attacked by only three enemies at once, which is totally manageable if you have highly-enchanted heavy armor and high armor skill. Spawned jellies will stack up in the halls, but there will be fewer of them than if you had tried to fight in an open area.

2. Which god is better for extended, Okawaru or TSO? I've got Crypt saved for TSO piety and one more longbow (instead of velocity) to become holy. Remember, I'm a Zig fan, if I survive in Pan long enough to find an entrance, I'll surely will give a try.

If you're talking about just straight damage, Okawaru's Finesse is a bigger boost to damage than TSO's longbow of holy wrath, even against targets vulnerable to holy. You probably shouldn't talk about straight damage, though; TSO also provides powerful angel summons and an AoE that deals heavy damage to all nearby demons and undead. In the relevant branches, these abilities are much more valuable than the exact degree to which your longbow overkills any target that you draw on. TSO's conducts are much more annoying than Okawaru's conducts if you're in a Ziggurat, though.

[cerebovssquire]

TSO is much better than Okawaru in a zig though, having done two 27-level zigs with a no-spells melee char under TSO I have experience with how necessary TSO abilities are for a non-blasty build.
He primarily grants the following:
-the extremely dangerous holy level threat is gone
-zombies on DD or orc levels provide healing even on these normally living levels
-27 invo cleansing flame blasts through nearly all demonic levels, and combined with healing that is great
I was using Cleansing Flame so much that I believe I could never have managed the zig without them. I recommend bringing at least 3 holy word scrolls though, preferably more.
Bow+Makhleb might also work but I am convinced that TSO is easier.

[Owen]

Hmm, Wiki says enchanting arrows only affects their accuracy. So having a hybrid build (found holy triple sword, so training long swords now) it's preferrable to increase melee damage output instead of slight increase in ranged accuracy?

One more question. I have now a +8,+8 longbow of velocity, +X,+4 longbow of frost and 7 EWII scrolls. I can either convert my velocity bow into holy one thus having +9 holy bow with a nice probability or convert my frost bow and have approx +X, +6-7 holy bow along with a +8 bow of velocity. In Zig there are quite a lot of floors where holiness isn't that worthy (orcish, elven, spriggan, spider, slime etc.); velocity is always useful. So which bow do I have to convert?

[rchandra]

I'd convert the frost one, for the reason you give. The Shining One also applies either enchant weapon 1+2 or ew3, I forget, so you will probably have +8 holy anyway and the extra velocity option probably beats the extra +1 on your holy longbow.

[BlackSheep]

I'd convert the frost one, for the reason you give. The Shining One also applies either enchant weapon 1+2 or ew3, I forget, so you will probably have +8 holy anyway and the extra velocity option probably beats the extra +1 on your holy longbow.

TSO's blessing acts as a scroll of enchant weapon III in addition to applying the holy brand.

Also, I agree with rchandra's assessment about the choice of bows.

[Owen]

Oh, I've found one more tedium-reduction tip for a ranged character.

How to beat TRJ with a bowman? Melee to the death? Taking sling? No! Take your stack of dispersal and kite-shoot it to the death! Easy and safe option as it will overrun everything it spawns but it can't overrun you being thrown here and there.

[cerebovssquire]

reducing tedium does not involve kiting sorry

[Blakmane]

  Code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.12-a0-603-g38374f5 (tiles) character file.

1455152 Blakmane the Crack Shot (level 27, 228/228 HPs)
             Began as a High Elf Wanderer on Sept 24, 2012.
             Was the Champion of Okawaru.
             Escaped with the Orb
             ... and 3 runes on Sept 26, 2012!
             
             The game lasted 07:39:15 (106824 turns).

Blakmane the Crack Shot (High Elf Wanderer)       Turns: 106824, Time: 07:39:15

HP 228/228       AC 29     Str 15      XL: 27
MP  47/47        EV 35     Int 23      God: Okawaru [******]
Gold 8748        SH  0     Dex 26      Spells: 10 memorised, 27 levels left

Res.Fire  : . . .   See Invis. : .   q - +8,+9 elf longbow (velocity) {god gift}
Res.Cold  : . . .   Warding    : .   S - +6 mottled dragon armour
Life Prot.: . . .   Conserve   : +   (no shield)
Res.Poison: .       Res.Corr.  : +   d - +2 wizard hat
Res.Elec. : .       Clarity    : +   W - +2 elf cloak {rCorr, Cons}
Sust.Abil.: . .     Spirit.Shd : .   G - +2 pair of gloves {Str+3} {god gift}
Res.Mut.  : +       Stasis     : .   X - +2 pair of boots of Tufafe {Str-1 Dex+3}
Res.Rott. : .       Ctrl.Telep.: x   f - amulet of resist mutation
Saprovore : . . .   Levitation : .   N - +0,+8 ring of slaying
                    Ctrl.Flight: .   A - ring of Vitality {Regen HP+15}

@: very resistant to hostile enchantments, unstealthy
A: horns 1, clarity, slow metabolism 1, spit poison 1, Int +1
a: Spit Poison, Heroism, Finesse, Renounce Religion
}: 3/15 runes: barnacled, silver, gossamer


You escaped.
You worshipped Okawaru.
Okawaru was exalted by your worship.
You were full.

You visited 10 branches of the dungeon, and saw 64 of its levels.
You visited the Abyss 2 times.
You also visited: Labyrinth, Trove, Sewer, Ossuary, Bailey and Ice Cave.

You collected 9308 gold pieces.
You spent 610 gold pieces at shops.

Inventory:

Hand weapons
 q - a +8,+9 elven longbow of velocity (weapon) {god gift}
 w - a +2,+9 elven quick blade of stabbing {god gift}
Missiles
 t - 77 arrows (quivered)
 F - 41 arrows of dispersal
Armour
 d - a +2 wizard hat (worn)
 G - a +2 pair of gloves of strength (worn) {god gift}
 S - a +6 mottled dragon armour (worn)
 W - a +2 elven cloak of preservation (worn)
 X - the +2 pair of boots of Tufafe (worn) {Str-1 Dex+3}
   (You found it on level 19 of the Dungeon)   
   
   It affects your strength (-1).
   It affects your dexterity (+3).
Magical devices
 I - a wand of digging (4)
Comestibles
 a - 2 pieces of ambrosia
 m - a bread ration
 L - 3 meat rations
Scrolls
 b - a scroll of recharging
 k - 3 scrolls of fear
 n - 2 scrolls of enchant armour
 p - 2 scrolls of teleportation
 s - 7 scrolls of identify
 P - 2 scrolls of silence
 Q - 3 scrolls of fog
Jewellery
 f - an amulet of resist mutation (around neck)
 h - the ring of Contentment {cTele Str+2 Int+1}
   (You found it in a labyrinth)   
   
   [ring of teleport control]
   
   It affects your strength (+2).
   It affects your intelligence (+1).
 j - an uncursed ring of sustain abilities
 A - the ring of Vitality (left hand) {Regen HP+15}
   (You found it on level 5 of the Vaults)   
   
   [ring of regeneration]
   
   It affects your health (+15).
 C - an uncursed ring of see invisible
 N - a +0,+8 ring of slaying (right hand)
 R - the ring "Teuck" {rF+ Str+3 Dex+2}
   (You took it off a deep elf demonologist on level 3 of the Elven Halls)   
   
   [ring of protection from fire]
   
   It affects your strength (+3).
   It affects your dexterity (+2).
Potions
 c - 2 potions of magic
 g - 2 potions of speed
 o - a potion of agility
 v - 6 potions of restore abilities
 J - 5 potions of heal wounds
 K - 9 potions of curing
 T - 2 potions of invisibility
 U - 4 potions of brilliance
Orbs of Power
 e - the Orb of Zot


   Skills:
 + Level 23.9 Fighting
 - Level 10.0 Short Blades
   Level 14.2 Long Blades
 - Level 24.0 Bows
 - Level 2.1 Throwing
 - Level 15.2 Armour
 + Level 22.2 Dodging
 - Level 10.0 Traps
 + Level 18.9 Spellcasting
 - Level 16.0 Charms
 - Level 19.0 Translocations
 - Level 18.0 Air Magic
   Level 2.4 Earth Magic
 - Level 13.0 Invocations


You had 27 spell levels left.
You knew the following spells:

 Your Spells              Type           Power        Failure   Level  Hunger
a - Apportation           Tloc           ########..   0%          1    None
b - Repel Missiles        Chrm/Air       ########..   0%          2    None
c - Regeneration          Chrm/Necr      #######...   1%          3    None
d - Haste                 Chrm           ########.    1%          6    ###....
q - Airstrike             Air            ########..   0%          4    None
s - Controlled Blink      Tloc           N/A          1%          7    #####..
v - Flight                Chrm/Air       ########..   0%          3    None
w - Blink                 Tloc           N/A          0%          2    None
x - Deflect Missiles      Chrm/Air       ########..   1%          6    ###....
z - Swiftness             Chrm/Air       ########..   0%          2    None


Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations

Branches:
Dungeon (27/27)            Temple (1/1) D:4             Orc (4/4) D:7
    Elf (3/3) Orc:4          Lair (8/8) D:13         Shoals (5/5) Lair:5
 Spider (5/5) Lair:3        Slime (0/6) Lair:6       Vaults (5/5) D:18
  Blade (0/1) Vaults:3      Crypt (0/5) Vaults:3        Dis (0/7) Hell
    Geh (0/7) Hell            Coc (0/7) Hell            Tar (0/7) Hell
    Zot (5/5) D:27       

Altars:
Ashenzari
Cheibriados
Elyvilon
Fedhas
Kikubaaqudgha
Makhleb
Nemelex Xobeh
Okawaru
Sif Muna
Trog
Vehumet
Xom
Yredelemnul
Zin
the Shining One
Jiyva

Shops:
D:4: *  D:11: +  D:20: %!/  D:24: [  Orc:1: (  Orc:4: [++(  Shoals:3: %  Abyss: ((((

Portals:
Dungeon: Abyss*
Hell: D:21 D:22 D:23 D:24 D:25 D:26 D:27
Abyss: D:24 D:25
Pandemonium: D:24

Annotations
D:26 Boris


Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations

You have a pair of small horns on your head.
You possess an exceptional clarity of mind.
Your mind is acute (Int +1).
You have a slow metabolism.
You can spit poison.


Message History

Aim: a rotting devil (lightly wounded)
You shoot an arrow. The arrow hits the rotting devil.
The rotting devil is almost dead.
The rotting devil completely misses you.
Firing (i - inventory. (,) - cycle): t - 76 arrows (quivered)
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f/p - rotting devil
Aim: a rotting devil (almost dead)
You shoot an arrow. The arrow hits the rotting devil.
You kill the rotting devil!
Okawaru accepts your kill.
t - 77 arrows (gained 2)
There is a staircase leading out of the dungeon here.
There is a staircase leading out of the dungeon here.
Eat which item? (? for menu, Esc to quit)
Okay, then.
Eat which item? (? for menu, Esc to quit)
You continue eating.
You finish eating. That bread ration really hit the spot!
Are you sure you want to win?
You have escaped!

Here is another ranged win - I think I agree with cere that ranged characters are pretty easy. I tabbed through almost every encounter. However, by lategame I found my power began to wane. I think if i'd gone for 15 runes with this character it would've been tough. I definitely don't think ranged combat is more powerful than lategame magic, for example --- it just has an easier time at the beginning.

I don't think ranged combat needs a nerf, but I definitely think it is somewhat tedious. A big part of this is inventory and ammo management... maybe ammunition should swap to autopickup whenever you have a ranged weapon equipped? A reverse of how food is excluded when you are in lich form. The other part I think is just that ranged combat has only a single tactic: tab until they close and then move/blink away. I don't have any good ideas on how to fix that.

[cerebovssquire]

Holy longbow is the best weapon in extended and using it to kill everyone in extended is very easy. It has drawbacks compared to high-level spells, but advantages too, such as reduced noise, functionally infinite usage without pause, full LoS range (which Tornado and most single-target conjurations do not have). Also, shooting an arrow is a faster action than casting any spell (discharging Delayed Fireball is the only exception here).
You can now edit your autopickup options in the recognised items screen. That solves the problem and the need of the autopickup_exclusion option I explained in my first post in this thread.

[danr]

This may be one of my new favourites and might liberate me from my long string of Spriggans.

Of course, it helps when you find things like a +3,+7 ring of slaying on D1, and a centaur warrior with a longbow of frost on D10!

I was going exclusively ranged by beginning of Lair already, with a stack of 200 regular arrows and an assortment of branded ones as well. But I don't use them much because it's already a longbow of Frost.

So I've just cleared Lair and I think I'll do Orc next, I think this is a good build for Orc since you don't really need choke points and you can run away if things get tough.

[cerebovssquire]

In addition, there is one Orc ending with hundreds of arrows (st_orc_ranged or something), and the first two levels of the Elven Halls are really useful for ranged chars too.

[Owen]

I'm in a Zig with a holy bow, bow of speed, about 400 +9 arrows and holy triple sword. The question is how to manage on slime levels because I don't want to get out of ammo. Only hand-to-hand in the corner? All my gear is either randart or highly enchanted (oh my, except for a cloak of preservation! But I can take it off). I've got AC of 68 (with stoneskin) and SH 17 (condensation shield), so they slime level creatures won't hit me hard.

BTW, mummy levels aren't such a big threat having portal projectile and 3-4 (preferrably more) divine supporters. I'm shooting down only nasties (summoners, greater ones) and all non-mummies and let those holy beings do the job. After a few kills they get immunity to abjuration so it's even easier than with a Summon Dragon-oriented character.

As to me, Zig is easier on average for my CeHu than it was for a MiFi.

[Ossuary]

Has anybody tried that with crossbows? Is there enough crossbow ammo at all for the whole game unless you worship Okawaru? I'd like to try a demigod with crossbows, as ranged combat seems to profit nicely from high stats, and there's only one species with +2 aptitude for crossbows (kobolds) and a couple with +1 anyway.

[palin]

Has anybody tried that with crossbows? Is there enough crossbow ammo at all for the whole game unless you worship Okawaru? I'd like to try a demigod with crossbows, as ranged combat seems to profit nicely from high stats, and there's only one species with +2 aptitude for crossbows (kobolds) and a couple with +1 anyway.

From a certain point onwards, yaktaurs are almost omni-present... before that you must rely on dungeon spawns.

[crate]

Bows (and slings, for that matter) care about stats much more about stats than crossbows do, since crossbows don't get bonus damage from str.

[Ossuary]

You mean bows get _two_ bonuses, one from Dex and one from Str?

[crate]

For bows/slings you get a damage bonus based on your str. This reaches a maximum at some amount of str that depends on your weapon and its enchantment.

For bows/slings/crossbows str and dex affect your attack delay (mostly dex for slings, mostly str for crossbows, bows are slightly more dex than str).

[Ossuary]

In other words: crossbows are really inferior to bows in all respects. I wonder why there's a crossbow skill and that weapon at all if using it is a mistake. It's not even a weapon _class_.

[Ossuary]

Okay, the beginning is an important part of the game, but what good are crossbows for if you run out of ammo on D:3? And if the're only good for getting started and at low skill levels, what is the point on training the crossbow skill?

[crate]

You are seeing this wrong, at least in part. At str 1, bows are unbelievably bad while crossbows are still very nearly as good as they are at str 15. At str 15, bows will do a bit more single-target damage than crossbows. So it is not the case that bows and crossbows start from the same place but bows benefit from str for damage and crossbows don't ... instead it is that bows are much worse with bad stats but somewhat better (single-target) at high stats.

In addition crossbows have generally better brands, since penetration is probably the best ranged combat brand in the game and steel ammo is overall better than flame/frost (but bows do get dispersal which is very good, but extremely limited without oka/trog gifts).

[Ossuary]

Aha.

Still I'm confused about what you need to minimize attack delay with slings/bows/crossbows. You said it depends on stats (slings=dex, crossbows=str, bows=both). So skill plays no role it it, or how does that come into play? How much Str do you need for a crossbow in order to reach min delay?