I am new, playing mostly an Orc fighter, and I am currently level 16. I plan mostly to fight with sword-type waepons, but the idea of using a bow at times has a little bit of appeal to me. Is there any use in me getting a bow? If there is, how do I initiate a long-range attack with a bow? I've only used swords up till now. And, I've picked up a recipe for a bow. I've never used recipes before. Can I use this recipe to get a bow, instead of buying one?
In theory, you could give the recipe to a dwarf and craft it that way. That is the only way to craft anything other than common crafts (those are green recipes). But no one crafts anything below D grade, because it's cheaper to buy direcrtly from shop. It's a waste of materials. (Don't judge the value of the materials from buy shops in noob town. They're way off. Don't sell to them.)
I think below level 20, anyone can use a bow with equal success, since nobody has bow masteries before 20.
To initiate attack with bow, you just double click, or target themob, and press the attack key (the white sword with blue background), and you'll start fireing arrows at the mob untill it's dead. You need wooden arrows for non grade bow.
You might get a nongrade weapon as drop or buy it from shop. Later it will be very expensive to upgrade more than one weapon while leveling. Also weapon drops of dgrade or above are rare.
Thanks to both of you. OK, I guess I'll get a basic bow from a shop and leave it at that. I've already picked up dozens of arrows, mostly from Grizzly Bears. As far as selling stuff, I've only seen the shops in base towns, but I guess I'll see others later on.
as a general rule, bows require high accuracy to be efficient in killing anything. you dont want to be wasting arrows and running around just gatehring more mobs and aggro. accuracy is something an orc with a bow does not have too much of.
an orc with a blunt or sword has more accuracy by nature of the inherent accuracy bonuses in blunts and swords.
im not saying its not good for orcs to use bow, just impractical at best.
if however you were willing to -5con and +5 dex, i would be comfortable to say Fire Away.
another thing: SS comsumption of bows is Crazy. if you cant afford the Soulshots for PVPing with your bow, i wouldnt suggest using one.
Does that matter if that was on 1st attempt or on the 5th? Unless the Destro is fighting against a nuker(by which time he'll be dead by the 3rd attemp) he'll drop most everyone and not like he'll suffer too much HP loss.
As a melee, you can 'use' a bow two ways; to weaken a mob and then kill it with melee weapons, or to kill it by 'kiting' it.
Set both the bow and your melee weapon in a hotkey (F1-F12) so you can switch quickly. (The arrows equip automatically when you equip the bow.)
To use the bow to weaken, target the mob while standing a ways away from it. Hit your 'attack' hotkey, and you will fire an arrow at it. Usually you can get off two arrows before it gets within melee range and starts hitting you. At that time, use your hotkey to switch to your melee weapon, and then attack. Since you are now meleeing weakened mobs, you kill them without as much damage to you, and you can go longer before resting.
To kill it using only the bow, you need to 'kite' the mob. Start as before, but after you shoot retreat while the red (reshoot timer) bar counts down. When it is gone, you can shoot another arrow. Hit the 'attack' hotkey to do so, then retreat again while the reshoot bar goes down. Repeat until the mob is dead. Be careful you do not run into more aggro mobs, and do not run past social mobs to the one being 'twanged' by your bow.