My first ever toon i made was a human, and my first thoguht was to make a hawk eye. However after playing the game for a bit, ive noticed huge changes in the race you play.
I have been lvling up my human to 20 with daggers, mainly because they rip though stuff very quickly. I started a dark elf fighter last night, and cant beleve how better they are over humans. Both are now lvl 16, with the exact gear and spells. My dark elf hits normal hits for about 90 with an SS. My human hits from 55-60 on the same mob.
My dark elf hits harder, crits more, hits more and generally deals an insane ammount of damage more than the human equivalant.
Anyway back to my hawkeye wannabe human. I tryed bows, and infact got to 15 with a bow. But he misses so much, and 3 misses in a row with a bow is like 10 seconds withouot any damage. I also feel that a dagger hits harder than a bow, and 3 times faster. I wanted to get to 20 on my human to try out the rogue skills, but its SO HARD to lvl as a human, knowing your DE buddy can kill things twice as fast. Im guessing that if daggers have anything to go by, a DE with a bow would be silly damage. Is phantom ranger on par with hawkeye? Am i right in saying about the damage? Will this continue?
I dont see much balance to be honest. Apart from the fact that my human has more health (a lot more) his damage is almost half.
ok ive never played a dagger or a archer but ill take a stab at this
one class hits hard the other has hp
i remember ppl saying that you shouldnt really use a bow till 40+ since daggers output more damage
you will love archers affter lvl 40. Before this i used dagger, as top D bow is biggest MP eater. Affter lvl 40 you will have some good bow skills and you can make some serious damage from distans.
If you only consider the goal of 'faster leveling' I have the same experience that you do.
A dark elf, all things being equal, will seem to level easier and faster than a human melee.
The dark elf has a higher base strength--and in the low levels particularly, killing low mobs fast equals faster levels.
Sure the human melee have a few more hit points--but then again they NEED those since they get hit back by the mob more!
My 'feeling' (I didn't actually measure) is that after leveling a couple human melees and a couple dark elf melees (and about 3 dwarves, an orc, and even 2 light elf melees on various servers) is that they fall into the following impressions:
Easiest---->Hardest (to level--melee 1-20)
1) Dark elf
2) Orc
3) light elf
4) human
5) dwarf
The last two are kind of interchangeable depending upon what day you ask.
Overall, my experience is the same as your own when you are talking about melee lvling for DE vs Human. I would say there is no comparison, no matter what gear you give the human toon. The DE is absurdly simple compared to any human melee.
As for archers--I've only played a light elf archer once and I leveled him through 20 with a dagger because it was faster.
Do not judge by first 20 levels. DElves have highh STR, that's why they hit harder. Later you will see difference, humans get critical chance and critical damage, DElves only crit damage. Have highest con, and all nicest skills from both elven races.
Level your HE, and you can always use your DE assassin for farming or ganking purposes on lower lvels, they are excellent at this.
The Humans higher CON means they can last longer in PvP, which really is needed. DE's tend to get stunned 75% of the time (when NOT in A-Grade Majestic) but make up for it by dealing alot of dmg. Just get them a weapon with a Focus SA to make up for the lack of critical chance passivs. I worked my PW on the reverse, getting a critical dmg SA on my wep because he doesnt deal alot of dmg, but crits a dam lot.
The Humans higher CON means they can last longer in PvP, which really is needed. DE's tend to get stunned 75% of the time (when NOT in A-Grade Majestic) but make up for it by dealing alot of dmg. Just get them a weapon with a Focus SA to make up for the lack of critical chance passivs. I worked my PW on the reverse, getting a critical dmg SA on my wep because he doesnt deal alot of dmg, but crits a dam lot.
thats the big difference between the daggers.
crt dmg is best for a PW, cause they crt alot more and have crt passives but not crt dmg passives, while focus is better for DE's cause they have no crt chance passives but they got crt dmg.
Yet PW has lowest str(36) of the 3 and PR(43) has highest P atk, and TH(40) is in the middle.
while TH gets crt chance up to lvl 3, and crt power up to lvl 6.
on the other hand you can't compair HE to PR in the comapirison of lvl 1-20. cause they just aren't the same.
HE > PR at later lvls. DE CON 32, HE CON 43. thats a huge difference in how often you get stuned.
while I will admite that PR can out dmg a HE, with PR's low con your just going to die even faster.(-CON for + atk or dex)
while at later lvls when you get a nice ++ bow and +4 str HE can hit really hard.
seriously there is more to this but after 52 specailly after 60 HE > PR by far...IMHO & experiance.
And mentioning about +STR/DEX tats. Thats why i think Humans are more popular, you have room to lower their CON and increase STR/DEX, but still have better CON then a PW/SR or AW/PR. Though ive met a TH with -11 CON, and hes needs alot of Healing =P.
Its all apples and oranges here. Id personally make a class on which you like the most, not because of its stat benifits, but because of their looks/race history etc.
I know my PW isnt the best Dagger class out there. (in most peoples opinions, and i do agree that a TH works better in ALOT of situations) I picked a PW becuase Elves are my fave Race, always have been in any game with them in. Its better if you pick something you LIKE. Its great if you chose a TH (i love them, even though theres alot, they are normally nice people), just as its great if you chose an AW =)
Guys, once again you have blown me away, thanks so much for the responce. I guess i will have to grin and bear the lowbie human lvls. From about the second day playing i wanted to play HE, but was soooooo hard to lvl up as as human.
I want to focus on end game, and a fair ammount into pvp. I have always played the highest damage class for melee. im not huge fan of casters, as they have cast times. Well 3 second cast in pvp can mean your *** on the floor, or on the winners list.