Why I'm Liking My Bird Less and Less

[KingFu]

Actually... I have a sneaking suspicion int bird may actually be LESS squishy now then a pure dex bird considering neither has very much dodge anymore, int bird has slightly less armor (5 points less at most). But... It makes up for it by awesome regen

Meh, idc, they look stupid with arrows on their back whle carrying a staff

[Zeus]

Meh, idc, they look stupid with arrows on their back whle carrying a staff

Actually... I believe it's just a quiver . An empty one at that too.

[Palyna]

Meh, idc, they look stupid with arrows on their back whle carrying a staff

hahaha! i saw one before. bird carrying staff is quite cute.

[Royce]

Meh, idc, they look stupid with arrows on their back whle carrying a staff

But they need that quiver The shot skills still use an arrow, so we are forced to assume archers always carry a pocket bow of some sort. You can see the arrows fly no matter what weapon they are using, and it's the only way ranged damage skills make sense for a Str bird.

[adwin]

Well, I have a similar problem to the OP.
I'm a lvl 39, 80% dex 20% str bird (have to respec), and it's nearly useless in AO/higher.
I'm wearing the best gear I could get for that level, but it's not really helping. Any tips would be appreciated.
Here's my gear:
Sniper's Scorpion Helm [pink]
Shivering Frozen Bow [pink]
Scorpion Leather of Finesse [purple]

btw, does ATTACK stat influence damage?

Here are my stats:

[Physiologic]

Are you having problems with survivability? You may want to switch to a Swamp talon and wing if you are. AO will always be hard to any bird less than lv 45-50 because armor will always be a problem.

Not sure what you mean by ATTACK stat, elaborate?

[adwin]

Are you having problems with survivability? You may want to switch to a Swamp talon and wing if you are. AO will always be hard to any bird less than lv 45-50 because armor will always be a problem.

Not sure what you mean by ATTACK stat, elaborate?

1: I was thinking about switching to a talon, damage or even DPS would go down, but I could equip a shield to boost survivability as well as reduce pot usage.
2: I apologise, I was thinking about 2 things at the same time lol.
What I meant was this: Most ppl are making archers pure-dex, but does upping the STR stat (points from levelling up) also affect overall damage?

[Physiologic]

1: I was thinking about switching to a talon, damage or even DPS would go down, but I could equip a shield to boost survivability as well as reduce pot usage.
2: I apologise, I was thinking about 2 things at the same time lol.
What I meant was this: Most ppl are making archers pure-dex, but does upping the STR stat (points from levelling up) also affect overall damage?

It's perfectly fine switching to a talon/wing at that point; I've done it plenty of times too in the past despite the lower damage.

You can look here for a more detailed explanation of how attributes work in PL. With more STR you'll have more armor but you won't do nearly as much skill damage than a full DEX bird will do. STR will increase your base damage but it will be detrimental to your skill damage. I for one am an advocate of being a full DEX bird because you do what you do best as an archer, which is dealing out damage.

[WhoIsThis]

+1

I wouldn't recommend making warbird. You are trading quite a bit of damage for what is a slightly durable character. Best effective damage output is best done with pure dex at this point.

Upping the strength does indeed improve weapon DPS (as does upping int), but not as much as upping dex would.

[adwin]

@Physiologic: I read your FAQs. Excellent work (are you working in any department responsible for documentation?)

I guess I have all the info I need at this point, and I guess it all comes down to personal preference.
Another reason I posted was because quite often, I'm the one who gets aggro'd; everybody is waiting for someone else to make a move (especially for bosses), which should be a bear's job (which is also a problem if you're in a party without a bear in it).
What I also noticed was a lot of ppl playing PL, who are not really familiar with role management.
You're a mage, fulfill your role. Instead of that, most of the time everybody's rushing just to show how much damage they can deal.
This tendency sometimes gets better, but more and more players get powerlevelled and thus don't get the experience to fulfill their role while being at a higher level... Sad but true.

[Physiologic]

There's a lot of players that don't know what they're doing, but there's a lot of players that do - it takes time to figure out which players are the ones that know exactly what to do as a bird/mage/bear and those players usually end up on my friendlist

And no, I don't do any of this sort of in my job, but when I was an intern back in college I've had experience in data collecting, critically analyzing, and presenting information to a large group of peers (namely scary physicians, pharmacists, and nurses). So I try to be as meticulous as possible with such results, even beyond the scope of my practice.

[adwin]

And no, I don't do any of this sort of in my job, but when I was an intern back in college I've had experience in data collecting, critically analyzing, and presenting information to a large group of peers (namely scary physicians, pharmacists, and nurses). So I try to be as meticulous as possible with such results, even beyond the scope of my practice.

You're doing an excellent job.
When I was in Uni., my assignments were at least mini-theses and since I'm a science graduate, this had to have a particular structure, presentation etc.
I didn't escape this when I started working, lol.
"it takes one to know one" - I'm always reading a FAQ or tutorial, but your posts showed particular characteristics, which is why I decided to ask.

In any case, sorry guys for the OT. ;]

[jakbat]

why can't they just give us some higher damage weapons for us archers?

[Moogerfooger]

why can't they just give us some higher damage weapons for us archers?

You're joking, right?

[davidis57]

henchman gives high attack but no critical, drainers gives you Dodge and armor, bagman is high critical but low armor, underling gives good critical and m/s regen . Trapps and gutters not sure about those. My point is mix and match and use till you can afford sewer king or get to drop. I mix underling and drainers so I don't have waste pots.

[Frenzyn]

I don't even like to play PvE that much on my bird anymore due to the amount of potions I use. My gear has little to no regen on it, and I'm constantly restocking my pots. At first I didn't mind, but now its starting to wear on me. Then I get on my mage and I use practically no potions because I have over 20 M/S and H/S. Now I'm thinking to myself, why play the bird in PvE at all? I save so much more money playing my mage.

Also, in PvP, if I kill 3-4 people in a row with my bird then I'm completely oom (out of mana); and even if I have full hp from regen or heals, I'm a sitting duck with no mana.
With my mage this wouldn't be a problem because of his great health AND mana regen.
From my experience, mages can kill just as well as birds (mages seem much harder to kill now than pre 1.7 but maybe that's just me), but they also have muuch more longevity through regen.

Haven't played my bear in a while so I'm not sure how they play into all
this.

Thoughts? Comments?

Just wondering - If mana is your big problem, you should probly max out your mana restore to 6.
It gives you +32 m/s for 3 seconds. it takes 30 seconds to respawn tho, but mana isn't a huge concern at lvl 50+ because ive seen body pieces with 8h/s and 8m/s.
Else, you probly button smash and don't know how to use evenly and combo right, so you end up using more mana because you arn't using combos for less mana with more damage.
Hope this helped.

[Ciphor]

Or just go warbird. They custom tailored fury set for birds and mages. 30 mana regen baby.