MiBe - evocations vs bows

[stickmanbob]

Hey guys!

For a minotaur berserker, would it be better to use bows or wands/rods as a ranged option? Right now I have a few longbows of fire but also many wands and a rod of ignition. The rod is nice but can only be used 3 times before needing to recharge, but on the other hand evocations grants access to lots more tools that skilling bows would not allow.

Thoughts?

[Blink]

Are you going to use a shield? Seriously, .15 shields don't suck. And with trog, you can get that rare one hander. So think about it. Obviously, if you choose to go shields, then you go Evoc since you can't shoot a bow with a shield. That's my normal route with a troggie.

But when I go two hander, then I might go 20 bows or xbows. It depends on what other evocs I find. Just wands alone and one igniter rod wouldn't be enough to tempt me.

[and into]

I generally wouldn't plan to go one-handed weapon + shield on a MiBe. Of course if you get a really great eveningstar or demon <foo> or whatever, then sure. But even with Trog you can't guarantee you will get that, at least, not on a short time line. Just keep using the best weapon you have at any given point, if that is a one-handed weapon and a shield is available, use them both. For a MiBe, I'd probably not put more than 8 or so skill levels into shields, at most, unless I already had a very solid one-handed weapon.

Anyway, to answer your main question OP, it really depends on what you want to do with the character. If you like how ranged combat works in Crawl and you want to be able to dish out good damage at range constantly, then sure use a longbow. Trog will eventually give you a good one and will give you ammo for it as well. But if you don't like ranged combat but you still want to be able to do some stuff at range, then get some evocations. With MiBe your skills are very focused and you have extremely good aptitudes, so you can even do both eventually if you really wanted to. Just don't stretch yourself too thin early on, and don't neglect your core skills (fighting, armour, dodging, weapon).

[Bloax]

For the record then crossbows are god damn amazing at the moment, go try them out. (0.15 trunk stuff!!)

they also work ~reasonably well~ with twohanders of whatever weapon type, although this is somewhat pointless (and it'll drain your precious Crossbows experience) due to how utterly devastating your crossbow will be