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Archer build in Dark Souls. DS2 or DS3?

F

Ferr986

Member
So I completed all of the Souls games a lot of times, including different weapos, all kind of magic... but I barely used bows. And I want to change that and make a Ranger build, basically bow only with a dagger for when I'm trapped.

Thing is, I don't know which of these 2 games are better for a bow run, considering both had different changes in bows. Basically want to know what game is more viable in terms of damage or controls for a bow run.

Anyone with experience with bows know what DS game is more suited for it?
Please no "DS2 sucks" or "DS3 sucks even more", I love both games and I just care about viability of said build.
 
DS2. DS3 is faster, so a bow is less viable. I tried playing with one and had way too hard a time on boss fights.
 
Ds3 would be easier with the special moves available to bows. I haven't beaten 2 yet though so maybe more bows later pop up. Consider the rappid cross bow too in ds3
 
Bows just always seemed bad vs bosses, so I never used them. You don't really have any sort of range advantage in DS boss arenas.
 
Ds2 is much more viable with a bow. Although you will likely struggle until you can get your hands on the dragonrider bow.
 
hydrophilic attack said:
dragon's dogma
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I have that game two times on 360 and one in PC and I played Strider/Ranger/Assassin on all of them lol

Trogdor1123 said:
Ds3 would be easier with the special moves available to bows. I haven't beaten 2 yet though so maybe more bows later pop up. Consider the rappid cross bow too in ds3
Click to expand...

Yeah I feel WA could be a plus for DS3, although the faster pace of the game can make it hard to play with bows.

GHG said:
Ds2 is much more viable with a bow. Although you will likely struggle until you can get your hands on the dragonrider bow.
Click to expand...

Hmm....Straid is not that far thankfully.
 
Archery is really just a way to get over on the AI in Dark Souls. Building a class around it would probably suck although you're essentially just building a dex or hybrid dex build anyway.
 
DS2 by far, although none of the souls game have really nailed bows so far. Freelook aim is clunky in all of them, and lock-on lacks the range.
 
Bows are the least fun in DS3 I thought, but as ever with this series the ability to ranged pull, dd, and inflict status like poison is extremely useful.
 
DS2.

In DS3 the bows kind of suck and can't be enhanced. The Dragonrider at least can't. In DS2 the Dragonrider Bow is awesome. Some areas that are very annoying to get through actually become trivial with a bow.

Or how about Dragon Age Inquisition? I think I had a broken as fuck archer build with a masterwork bow.
 
hydrophilic attack said:
dragon's dogma
Click to expand...

Oh fuck yes this is the right answer. Spread shots, burst shots, guided missile arrows, ricochet magick arrows, exploding mine arrows, mortar shots that rain arrows from above, goddamn being a bow class in Dogma was fun.

And that's not even getting into the melee skills like lighting yourself on fire to do damage while you climb on a big badguy!
 
Ozigizo said:
If you haven't, you should try 2h sword. Really gives you the Berserk feeling.
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I don't like Berserk but still, I also did that :)

Relaxed Muscle said:
None.

The answer is BB with the BowBlade
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Done with my Bloodtinge build :P awesome for farming some bosses in Chalices.

SkylineRKR said:
DS2.

In DS3 the bows kind of suck and can't be enhanced. The Dragonrider at least can't. In DS2 the Dragonrider Bow is awesome. Some areas that are very annoying to get through actually become trivial with a bow.

Or how about Dragon Age Inquisition? I think I had a broken as fuck archer build with a masterwork bow.
Click to expand...

Naah I'm not going to buy a game for that.

But I think I'll try DS2, it's been longer since I played that game compared to 3 so I guess it's a good excuse to dive back.

Thanks guys!
 
Rookhelm said:
is Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen the only version of DD?
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Right now yeah. You don't want vanilla version anyways, Dark Arisen includes vanilla game with some improvements (better roll, for example) + the DLC dungeon. Dark Arisen was the version sold on PC and the one coming on PS4.
 
Dark Souls 3 is fully viable with archery. I don't know what some of these people are talking about in this thread, it's more than viable in PvE and it's not even a cheese strat.

You can lock-on roll shoot in DS3, which immediately makes it useful, especially in 1v1 scenarios. For ganks, you need to be further back and kite, which again, is easy to do with a quick bow eg) Pharis/Composite.

You can carry enough arrows - you can carry multiple varieties of arrows (standard are strong enough) and they're replenished automatically at bonfires if you have a large stash of them stored. They're incredibly cheap too. Also, using a bow as a secondary weapon in a quality build is doable and gives you a diverse moveset for PvE - you can always switch to melee in a pinch if you get overwhelmed. Not to mention that DEX is always a good stat and there's plenty of fantastic weapons that scale with it, especially with Sharp/Refined gems.

It is true that some of the larger/heavier bows remain a pain to use and are highly situational, but archery as a whole is a lot of fun in DS3 and I'd recommend it if you are willing to get over that initial hump at the start where you don't have a lot of options.

Although yes, Dragon's Dogma remains much much better.
 
galv said:
Dark Souls 3 is fully viable with archery. I don't know what some of these people are talking about in this thread, it's more than viable in PvE and it's not even a cheese strat.

You can lock-on roll shoot in DS3, which immediately makes it useful, especially in 1v1 scenarios. For ganks, you need to be further back and kite, which again, is easy to do with a quick bow eg) Pharis/Composite.

You can carry enough arrows - you can carry multiple varieties of arrows (standard are strong enough) and they're replenished automatically at bonfires if you have a large stash of them stored. They're incredibly cheap too. Also, using a bow as a secondary weapon in a quality build is doable and gives you a diverse moveset for PvE - you can always switch to melee in a pinch if you get overwhelmed. Not to mention that DEX is always a good stat and there's plenty of fantastic weapons that scale with it, especially with Sharp/Refined gems.

It is true that some of the larger/heavier bows remain a pain to use and are highly situational, but archery as a whole is a lot of fun in DS3 and I'd recommend it if you are willing to get over that initial hump at the start where you don't have a lot of options.

Although yes, Dragon's Dogma remains much much better.
Click to expand...

Hmmm.... I'm gonna have to try both?lol
 
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