Ranged(-only) fighters

[lifecoder]

How good is the ranged weapon? There are mostly talks about melee stuff or spell blasters, but hardly ever something depending heavily on a ranged option (except for Trolls/Ogres with large rocks). Earlier a HaHu^Ok was a perfect option, clearing everything with a mere sling and a shield (do they apply penalty to the slings nowadays?). Is a ranged skill without melee backup good enough to pull basic and extended game? Any drawbacks, except for low ammo for bows/xbows in early game? What should be taken in account when rolling this type of character?

[le_nerd]

Halfings are perfectly viable, and have less ammo problems. Most other chars will need a backup melee weapon, and also gifting god support... I dislike playing ranged because of ammo restriction/tedious swapping/conserving ammo, but its fine to do, really.

Why not use a ranged weapon? Well slings/bows are a bit weaker than the strongest melee weapons; and you miss out on auxillary attack damage. This is irrelevant if playing humans.

[Sar]

Throwing is OP and doesn't require swapping if you want to melee. Try it before it's nerfed!Something like a TrHu of Dith, maybe.

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

I haven't played a ranged-only char ever, because melee is usually stronger and never runs out. Same can be said about conjurations.

IMO, ranged-only is a challenge game, and inferior to melee first, ranged as a backup or tactical choice. To get full benefit of ranged, go Dith.

[nago]

Ranged actually is actually much stronger than melee, and it has always been. Throwing is currently overpowered, a lot.
A longbow\xbow of holy wrath is probably the best weapon for clearing extended. Certainly, if paired with portal projectiles
In any case by the time you enter depths you should also have melee - getting some shit to 14 skill is cheap, and help to save time, mental stress and little ammo against the tons of popcorn you have to fight nevertheless. Earlier, a dagger\whip of elec unskilled is good as well. In extended you can train whatever you want so getting a bigger weapon to min delay it's not a problem.

Don't know how halfling have less ammo problems, unless considering very early game as stones are more abundant than other kind of projectiles - later it's plenty of ammo, for both xbow and bow users so...
The main (and perhaps only one) drawback of ranged is that the higher tier weapon appears much later than melee counterparts, so it's often true to find Lair before getting an arbalest\longbow - which involve either to clear it with a "suboptimal" weapon (still decent enough to do so) and waste ton of patience, or diving a bit deeper D to find a yaktaur\centaur warrior

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

nago: Throwing surely looks strong in fsim, but who gets enough throwables? Having Shoals in the game surely helps, but aren't you still running a risk of running out compared to melee with a good weapon that never runs out?

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

I'd argue, that a great two-hander + Spectral Weapon is more powerful than any form of ranged attack, and you're not limited in your choice of god either.

[Bart]

Nago nicely explained current situation, but he didn't stress properly that if you do not find a decent launcher soon enough, you will have also ammunition problems (poor weapons will waste more of it, because you need more shots to kill a single enemy). If you aim at ranged combat from the beginning, Okawaru is always a preferable choice for throwers (big ammunition issues unless you play ogre/troll; also javelins of penetration are otherwise rare) and very helpful for bowmen/xbowmen (mediocre ammunition issues before valuts/depths).

Don't know how halfling have less ammo problems

Avoid slingers at all costs. It is possible to run out of STONES as a slinger with melee backup, not to mention hassle of firing thousands of times throughout 3-rune game.

The main (and perhaps only one) drawback (...)

I'd say the main drawback is running back and forth to gather ammunition!

EDIT: clarified as requested

[MainiacJoe]

Nago nicely explained current situation, but he didn't stress properly that if you do not find a decent launcher soon enough, you will have also ammunition problems (as poor weapons will waste more of it).

I was not aware of launcher adjustment to mulch rate, please do expand on this and thank you.

[jejorda2]

Presumably, weaker weapons have to shoot more to defeat the same enemies. With the same mulch rate, more shots means more mulched ammunition.

[njvack]

Throwing surely looks strong in fsim, but who gets enough throwables?

In Orc, you're apt to find a ton of tomahawks. With high Throwing, tomahawks are also surprisingly strong. In another post here, someone explains why that is.

I don't think I'd do a throwing-only game (even if you had enough ammo, it would be tedious to pick it up all the time), but "Throwing is my most important method of dealing damage to dangerous monsters" is totally viable. If you find Portal Projectile or penetration javs, it's goddamn insane.

[archaeo]

"Throwing is my most important method of dealing damage to dangerous monsters" is totally viable.

For that matter, even a modest investment in ranged skills is likely to pay off for a melee bro, since it lets you take advantage of all those turns you'd otherwise be spending not doing damage. Throwing is only preferable because it doesn't require finding and switching to a launcher. You don't have to do this in the early game, since 0 skill blowguns are still brokenly good, but it's a good option for melee characters who don't have good evocable items by the midgame. Being able to damage enemies without being in melee range with them is pretty important in several branches.

[njvack]

Yeah: even after positioning, in a lot of cases, you have a choice: you could spend a turn damaging a monster, or not damaging it. In many of those cases, the better choice is to damage it.

The main counterexample is when that monster can damage you more, and you'd rather be out of LOS or forcing it to move. There aren't a lot of cases where I'd spend turns hucking tomahawks at Rupert, for example.

Fucking Rupert.

[MainiacJoe]

I have never had the opportunity to test this, but I have always thought that for Halflings a good plan would be to leverage Slings/Throwing crosstraining and absurd aptitudes by starting with slings when ammo and launchers are plentiful and then transitioning to throwing after Orc when sufficient tomahawks become available. Is this feasible?

[Sprucery]

I have never had the opportunity to test this, but I have always thought that for Halflings a good plan would be to leverage Slings/Throwing crosstraining and absurd aptitudes by starting with slings when ammo and launchers are plentiful and then transitioning to throwing after Orc when sufficient tomahawks become available. Is this feasible?

It most certainly is. For example, my HaWr used both slings and tomahawks for the entire game. Started with tomahawks but picked up the first sling.

[tasonir]

Slings are an incredibly powerful weapon for the early game, and have plenty of ammo. Their only downside is they scale poorly into the late game; but especially on a halfling it's really cheap to use them for a little while and then switch into anything else. Throwing works well, but you could switch into just about anything you want, really. It'll depend on the circumstances, but I'd say try to start training plan B around mid-late lair, and then once lair/orc is done, plan B should be your primary plan.

I've done this on a naga: I wanted to go unarmed, but unarmed is weak early on, and being a naga, I can't really run away. So I wanted something strong early on to keep me safe, and then I could switch to unarmed once I was past the early game. Action table:

  Code:

Action                   |  1- 3 |  4- 6 |  7- 9 | 10-12 | 13-15 | 16-18 | 19-21 | 22-24 | 25-27 || total
-------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------++-------
Melee: Short sword       |    17 |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |       ||    17
       Spear             |       |       |       |    69 |       |       |       |       |       ||    69
       Flail             |       |       |       |       |     2 |       |       |       |       ||     2
       Unarmed           |       |       |       |       |   249 |  1375 |  1403 |  2380 |  2549 ||  7956
 Fire: Hunting sling     |   130 |   156 |   457 |   994 |  1431 |   246 |   382 |    81 |    51 ||  3928
       Blowgun           |       |       |       |       |     5 |       |       |       |       ||     5

From http://dobrazupa.org/morgue/tasonir/mor ... 191717.txt

[nago]

nago: Throwing surely looks strong in fsim, but who gets enough throwables? Having Shoals in the game surely helps, but aren't you still running a risk of running out compared to melee with a good weapon that never runs out?

If you want "enough" throwable to kill anything in the game with missiles, then no, you won't get ever enough, even being a Tr\Og of Oka\Trog.
If you want to kill anything actual dangerous with missiles and dispatch the tons of meat fodder the game is full with anything else, including melee\magic\running away\evok or whatever then:
- a Tr\Og Hu perhaps can do it, even without worshipping Oka or Trog from turn 1, but likely he will need a little luck early on to find some tomahaks\javelinlarge rocks because 5 large rocks last looong but can be all lost before ciclops start spawning.
- a normal size Hu will need Oka\Trog for mid-game and even then it couldn't be enough, depending on floor loot, what god gift you actually get (they could be only needles) and so on
- if you get Shoal (and to lesser degree, tomahaks or returning baileys) any other char could get enough tomahaks and javelis to clear the rest of the game with throwing.

For the rest, Bart has rightfully pointed out Lair tend be a black hole for ammunitions if trying to kill things like elephants or hydra or other monsters with bloated hp\ac with shortbow\hand xbow, and most often it's wiser to get a bit deeper to face a centaur warrior\yaktaur and get a top tier weapon or just melee in lair.
On the other hand, I'd strongly suggest Trog as missiles god over Oka, because berserk make every shitty melee weapon suddenly good, which helps to kill things faster and easier, making also faster to get to ***... piety.
Furthermore, Trog piety is much easier to raise, which means good gift much earlier and often...

[Siegurt]

nago: Throwing surely looks strong in fsim, but who gets enough throwables? Having Shoals in the game surely helps, but aren't you still running a risk of running out compared to melee with a good weapon that never runs out?

If you want "enough" throwable to kill anything in the game with missiles, then no, you won't get ever enough, even being a Tr\Og of Oka\Trog.

If you consider (small) stones part of the "throwable" stacks, you'll probably have enough as a Tr/Og of Trog/Oka, you just have to use stones on wimpy stuff.

[greedo]

Well, keep in mind throwing crosstrains with slings, so you could totally be a primary thrower with a sling for trash monsters and wear a shield, allowing you to be a 24/7 ranged with only one skill actually invested in and have all the defensive benefits.

The only issue would be the inventory hassle you would get with 20 different branded ammo from oka, which is honestly why I've never done it myself, but I guess it could be done if you limit the brands you carry and then backtrack and pickup the brands you don't want to carry.