Archer damage calculations
DrewRobi
Member Posts: 8
I have seen people post about the feasibility of the Archer kit in BG2 due to immunities and lack of +4 to hit long bows. I wanted to see what the best bows there were for damage and see what they would be. So I did some calculations and thought I would share in case others are curious.
Link to google spreadsheet
Explanation:
Damage per round with the best damaging missiles:
* - The Teleomortis bow is a +4 bow that you can get with the Item Upgrade Mod Pack
Link to google spreadsheet
Explanation:
- Missile Dmg – The normal average missile damage (arrow is 1d6 or 3.5)
- Best Missile Dmg – Arrow of piercing, Lightning Bolt, +4 bullet
- + Dmg – Damage added by the launcher
- Extra Dmg – Damage added by the launcher, like elemental damage
- + Attacks – How many extra attacks beyond 1
- 19 Str Bonus – Slings get a strength bonus, at 19 str, this is +7
- Prof/Lvl + Attacks - At a high level (+1 ranged attack) and with max proficiencies (either +1 or +.5 for 5 and 3 pips)
- Archer prof bonus – At level 31 the bonus for archer damage
- Normal Dmg – Damage at level 31 with a normal missile
- Max Dmg – Damage at level 31 with the best missile
| Light Crossbow | 37.5 |
| Heavy Crossbow | 40.5 |
| Dart | 45 |
| Shortbow | 46 |
| Longbow | 46 |
| Sling | 48.75 |
| Composite Longbow | 50 |
| Strong Arm +2 | 54 |
| The Army Scythe +1 | 54 |
| Firetooth +4 | 55.5 |
| Errine Sling +4 | 56.25 |
| Firetooth +5 | 58.5 |
| Crimson Dart | 58.5 |
| Errine Sling +5 | 58.75 |
| Teleomortis +4* | 62 |
| Tuigan +1 | 62.5 |
| Shortbow of Gesen | 72 |
Damage per round with the best damaging missiles:
| Dart | 45 |
| Crimson Dart | 58.5 |
| Sling | 61.25 |
| Light Crossbow | 67.5 |
| Errine Sling +4 | 68.75 |
| Shortbow | 70 |
| Longbow | 70 |
| Heavy Crossbow | 70.5 |
| Errine Sling +5 | 71.25 |
| Composite Longbow | 74 |
| Strong Arm +2 | 78 |
| Firetooth +4 | 85.5 |
| Teleomortis +4* | 86 |
| Firetooth +5 | 88.5 |
| Tuigan +1 | 92.5 |
| The Army Scythe +1 | 94 |
| Shortbow of Gesen | 96 |
So with normal missiles, the Errine sling actual does the most damage at 62.5 and the Gesen bow with piercing arrows does the best damage with the Army Scythe with lightning bolts (assuming no lightning resistance and a failed save) right behind.
Last edit to add new numbers and added the spreadsheet to show the calculations. Also added slings, darts and the Teleomortis mod bow.
Post edited by DrewRobi on
7
Comments
The Sling of Everard combined with the Girdle of Frost Giant Strength does more damage than the Gesen Bow at level 18, but only just barely. Gesen is still better, but the Sling of Everard is available earlier. Azuredge is probably the only throwing axe you need to know about.
The Darts +5 from the Cloak of Stars are another good option. They normally don't last more than 24 hours, but you can make them permanent by tossing them in the Ammo Belt. That gives you 5 APR with +5 weapons and rather respectable damage. I would view them as the superior choice for an Archer for most of the game, as the extra APR works well with Called Shot. Being able to use Darts of Stunning and Darts of Wounding is also extremely useful. I just completed a no-reload run of SoA with SCS using an Archer specializing in darts, and they are not to underestimated.
In fact, if we're talking about the absolute latest game maximum potential, the darts +5 do as much damage as the Gesen Bow:
Base damage: 1d3
Enchantment: 5
Proficiency: 2 (Archers can't get more than two pips in Darts)
Archer kit bonus: 8
Called Shot: 2
APR: 5
Darts +5: 1d3+5+2+8+2=92 average damage per round
They have the advantage of higher APR, which means Called Shot works better, and the disadvantage of a lack of elemental damage.
Sling of Everard: not roleplay for an archer.
Firetooth: just come handy when you need to pierce through PFMW and stoneskin, as it has already been said.
Shortbow of Gesen: tends to be the one single decent bow that you can use against most enemies.
The archer kit is not weak in itself, it's just that his options are mostly weak, except for two weapons which are complementary to each other, meaning there is but one way to play archer in ToB.
However, more realistically it will probably be level 21 or 24 before you GM Crossbow as you'll want one or two melee weapons.
Shortbow and Crossbow is a great combination as Firetooth is an incredibly powerful weapon that is available early on and has some unique applications due to it's nonmagical, fire dealing ammunition.
However you might want at least one point in two handed weapons, just for speedfactor and crit on 19 roll
Consequently, you'll ideally want to choose a weapon type that fits both bills without impacting on other characters weapon choices.
Staff qualifies in most cases. Mace or another single handed blunt weapon may work depending on other characters weapon choices.
Still, there is no need for this in my opinion, archer still have a one great advantage which is that they can choose in a wide selection of ammo, and they almost always have the one arrow type that will hurt enemy badly enough. Going melee with archer feels so counterproductive and against roleplay
There are plenty of examples of enemies resistant or outright immune to piercing damage in BG2 and there hasn't been an archer in history that didn't switch to a melee weapon if enemy units managed to close with them.
If I m not mistaken I believe archers have in the end 16 proficiency points.
Which means 2 GM, 2 points in two handed weapon style, then you can indeed put some points in melee weapon, I would take Halberd because Ravager is super strong, maybe quarterstaves for Staff of the Ram, but both come very late into the game which is why I wouldn't take points in melee weapon before having GM in shortbow and crossbow
Here is what it reports for the firetooth +5 at level 31:
11-18 damage:
Firetooth +5: 1d8+5
Proficiencies: +5
Missile Adjustment: +8
Number of Attacks: +3
Obviously +5+5+8+3, 21 is not going to result in 11-18 damage. So I pulled out the xbow and hit a tavern drunk and I did 21 damage. Then I hit Salvanas and did 14+2 damage. To Lord Jierdan it was 21+2. So it would seem there is a bug in the damage shown in the inventory screen for this bow. But the damage is not 1d8+21 though as 21 damage should not be possible. Thought I should try it out.
Anyway, the data is not surprising to me. I've always said that Tuigan, Gesen, and Firetooth are basically the best things you can go for. Strong Arm is good, too, but unfortunately in the wrong weapon proficiency. Considering how trivial it is to get Tuigan and Firetooth (and LXBoS), it's probably not optimal to go for Long Bows.
As for melee weapons, that should probably only ever be a consideration in solo play. There are certainly some enemies immune or resistant to piercing/missile, and they can be annoying - whether you want to sacrifice proficiency points just to cover that is a question left to party composition. But even solo, I think it's enough to just put 1 pip into Flails and use FoA to deal with the few pesky mobs. There's not THAT many of them anyway. I guess high level Golems could be annoying, but those aren't actually immune, just highly resistant - and they also hit like a freight train, so going into melee is not a good idea anyway...
As for melee weapons, Archers can still dual-wield and achieve a decent APR with Belm. But sometimes, it will actually be perfectly effective to just use ranged weapons in melee combat, since the Archer's THAC0 is low enough to compensate for the tremendous penalties.
For one thing, you can deal more damage if you use DUHM to boost your STR, as those damage bonuses can surpass those of the Archer Kit. For another, there are many enemies resistant to missile damage, and you might deal a lot more damage using a melee weapon.
Finally, melee weapons have properties that ranged weapons sometimes just don't. If I'm fighting an enemy that might stun or paralyze me, then I'll need Arbane's Sword. If I need to interrupt spells through Stoneskin, the Flail of Ages is a better bet. If I'm fighting an SCS2 Cornugon with a fear aura, I'll have to equip Dragonslayer for the fear immunity. If I'm fighting Myconids and don't yet have the Shield of Harmony, then I should probably use Lilarcor.
Playing an Archer is much more complicated than just plucking away on a bow from afar. They can and should use a wide variety of weapons, ranged and melee, in order to function at their best. I merely wished to stress that.
Using wide variety of weapon to fit best every fight.
IMO, it looks like you use bow as any weapon, which doesn't really fit archer kit. I know I am mixing gameplay and roleplay but BG2 is both at a time. I mean, if you wanna play ranger in the best possible way, meaning you focus on gameplay, archer certainly isn't the best kit, I would say either stalker or unkitted ranger is. And both would better fit the gameplay you described as well. On the other hand, if you focus on roleplay, IMO it doesn't feel right to use bow as if it was just another weapon, another compromise between damage and special properties.
Well, that's a personnal point of view of course and you might or might not share it.
TL;DR: My position: Soloing game= metagaming. Archer is unoptimized for metagaming.
Thank you
@DrewRobi : sorry for the off topic. That's my last off-topic post, just to answer the question I was asked. By the way, on topic this time, you might want to add slings to your damage table, as they do deal a great amount of damage with DuHM, and I believe the sling of Everard gives infinite +5 bullet which makes it a viable alternative to Gesen if it can match its damage (though none of its damage would bypass stoneskin)
0d6 + 2 + 5
With arrows, the Gesen bow shows: 1d6(arrow) + 5(prof) + 2(gesen), and only displays 8-13.
So, it is not showing the archer bonus for some reason. At level 31, there should be +10 damage (or is it 11), but only +8 is actually applied (not sure if this is because of EEKeeper or it stops adding the benefits at 8?). So if the bonus is 8, then it makes sense that the damage from the Gesen bow is 2(bow)+8(archer)+5(proficiencies). So yes, proficiency damage is included. But what I am seeing is that when I bumped my Level up via EEKeeper, somehow the kit bonus is not included correctly. Does anyone have an archer that was not modified of that level to confirm if level 31 does get a +10 bonus?
Even if I use the console to go up one level at a time, I'm not seeing a bonus of +1/3 levels. I went from 3mil to 4.2mil and stayed at a +6 archer bonus. Perhaps the HLA somehow interferes with the kit bonus? Anyone know why this may be?
Does the Archer bonus work with other ranged weapons? Because the Gesen Bow, with 0d6 damage, might not process the Archer bonuses the same. I once tested a high level Archer with the Scorcher Ammunition and found that it dealt 13 damage every time, instead of 1d12 plus whatever bonuses.
The same does not apply to Kensai bonuses.