Dragon Age Archers Suck.

[Xiorell]

At least they seem to for me...

I have Leliana as my "archer" in the game as well as a utility type char (lockpick etc).
I can go into her tactics page, change everything so that she should only ever use ranged, nothing AT ALL set to melee skills.
Put her right out of range of the battle, either trusting the tactics to command her to fire the bow, or manually selecting target and ability etc.
Yet the stupid fuck still runs up and draws blade. Note that I say SHE always comes into close quarters... nobody has gone to attack her while I wasn't looking and forced her to engage in melee.
No she decides rather than stay 40miles away haling down doom upon the target, she should run up to the darkspawn that's 10times her size, in her mashed-potatoe armor, and begin tickling it with a dagger that's about as much use as a fucking tooth-pick. Oh sorry I forgot, she's singing a song all the while too, clearly now she's a musical version of terminator.

AM I missing something or what? Why won't this silly ***** JUST shoot things?

 

[The3rdEye]

AM I missing something or what? Why won't this silly ***** JUST shoot things?

Just unequip her melee weapons. Problem solved.

 

[Ralen-Sharr]

there is a general behavior setting that you can set to "ranged" make sure that's not set to anything else. I had the same issue until I figured that out

 

[WaywardHaymaker]

I noticed that, too. Did you try not giving her a melee weapon, and have her learn Melee Archer? That worked for me.

But Archers actually are terrible in Origins, anyway. DW Rogues are worse for AI, though. They never back stab... Archers get some great damage dealing talents in Awakening, though.

But in Origins, Mages are better at range, Warriors are better up close. But what is so fucking ass-ful is that you NEED a rogue to open doors and whatnot. Why not make that tied to Stealing, which is a cross-class skill?

 

[Cody211282]

AM I missing something or what? Why won't this silly ***** JUST shoot things?

Just unequip her melee weapons. Problem solved.

You have to do this or they turn into gimped dual wielders, But really for long range I like using mages.

 

[lacktheknack]

Huh. Leliana does exactly what I want her to.

For the record, I make her "Equip Ranged" when "Enemy at Medium to Long Range" and "Equip Melee" when "Enemy at Short Range". Maybe that will work.

 

[SyphonX]

Change their behavior to range-only, or range-preferred. I forget the actual descriptions. But if you simply remove their melee weapons, you are effectively gimping them even more. You're removing their defensive abilities like parrying. Or putting their ass in the wind when they get rooted.

Change their behaviors, it's your fault they're not working properly.

 

[kennripper]

In my experience if you thoroughly set up their tactics, archers are rather good for cc with pinning and scattering shot. I also really like suppressing fire, nothing wrong with lowering an enemies defense.

Other then that I'd say just make sure shes programed to focus fire whatever your main character is targeting, helps put down the targets you really want dead, like mages, that much faster.

 

[Eisenfaust]

if it'd that big a problem for you (NEVER has been for me), just don't give her a melee weapon... give her 2 bows and there's no way she can go melee

 

[Meggiepants]

I think archers in most games suck to be honest. :/

Actually, I had an Archer build in Oblivion that wasn't too bad. Pretty cool in fact. If I remember correctly - this was a while ago - I had a stealthy archer, and enchanted my bow and my arrows. I could kill people with one shot and no one would notice I was there.

But you're right, for the most part they do suck.

OT: If I play a rogue, I always duel wield in DA. I didn't use Leliana for ranged attacks, I used Wynn or Morrigan.

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

I just made a rogue I intend to take down the archer skill set and while I can get a few shots off right now it is just easier to run in there and backstab the guys. Hopefully after I level a bit I'll have enough abilities to make strictly playing as an archer worth it.

 

[CloudKiller]

Archer's can be quite effective in dragon age. If you use the rapid shot and surpressing fire abilities you can quickly debuff an enemy boss or elite to the point where they cause tiny damage.

An archer can easily stun an entire room full of enemies with scattering shot, crack a bosses armour with shattering shot and cause good spike damage with critical shot and arrow of slaying. And it only gets better with the talents added in awakenings.

The only down side is that the aren't many good bows in the game and you can't enchant them you do have special arrows but those are limited.

 

[The3rdEye]

Change their behavior to range-only, or range-preferred. I forget the actual descriptions. But if you simply remove their melee weapons, you are effectively gimping them even more. You're removing their defensive abilities like parrying. Or putting their ass in the wind when they get rooted.

Blocking is out of the question and they still have dodge. As to the rooted thing (and defense of archers in general), if your archer getting pummeled is a routine occurrence then there are other issues afoot.

More OT: What REALLY pissed me off was having a ranger specced archer. Going through the nightmare realm with your specialization locked out was not fun, not to mention having to sit and re-summon every time you changed zones anywhere else or your pet got irretrievably stuck on something. And since your cooldown timer doesn't reset when zoning, you have to sit and wait for it if you had to summon mid-battle before changing zones.

Other than that, stacking +crit bonuses then +ranged damage and keeping a good reserve of stamina to dish out the direct damage and debuff shots (many of which knocked enemies down, which was a huge bonus) tended to yield a pretty deadly archer.

 

[Xiorell]

Maybe I should clarify... I've tried several tactics in various plays of the game, set her to ranged behaviour etc, tried differing "specs"... but everytime I turn around I find the women has run away from where she's been told to shoot from and plouged headlong into fight.

I don't wanna completely take the melee weapon from her incase she really did get approached by the enemy.

AND she never seems to do much damage it's as if "Leliana, shoot that squirrel and tonight we shall not go hungry".... it's fucking morning by the time she's managed to kill it (Not literally a Squirrel but you get what I mean), I've already had my wheatabix and packed up camp.

Everyone else seems to do pretty much what I want... my tank types tank well and keep agro etc, my assualt types assualt and do damage, my healers and debuffers do as I intend 99% of the time, just this one silly arse'ole is never on the same page.

 

[The Amazing Tea Alligator]

I think that the trick is to play Neverwinter Nights instead...

 

[JWW]

If you think archers suck in all games, check out the archers in this game. [http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/]

 

[KimberlyGoreHound]

clearly now she's a musical version of terminator.

I've never even played Dragon Age, but I just sputtered laughing. That's awesome.