Quote from Justified;83512:
I never use Defense or Counter. Melee combos including Smash can be indefinite thanks to pets, walls, and/or chaining combos through a magic bolt.
Also, there's Final Hit and Windmill spam which are by nature pretty infinite, while some weapons like Broadswords and Dragon Blades are very easy on repair costs, without the need for ammo.
Final Hit, like AR, isn't all that useful in harder missions. You take too long to kill one thing and generally have to deal with multi aggro while being in melee range. AR is essentially final hit without a cooldown and from a safe range...though you're doing less damage per hit to compensate.
Saying you can get infinite combos using pets is a moot pet. If you teach a pet to firebolt the monster you're targeting if it gets close you could solo anything in the game safely given the time. With Barrier spikes you can forget the pet and just set yourself to auto if your damage is low. The point is you're super safe~
Broadswords and Dragon blades are still as expensive or more expensive than bows to repair. Bow's also lose dura slower especially if you just chain magnum which isn't hard to do with barrier spikes and/or a pet. Mentioning ammo is also rather pointless as arrows are super cheap and don't take up much room since they stack so high.
Quote from Kaeporo;83623:
1. Crash shot fails. The range is awesome but the maximum damage modifier ranges from 150% to 260%.
2. Range deals awful damage. While dexterity is common, ranged weapon damage maxes at around 120. Melee weapon damage maxes at around 260 (160+100).
3. Who cares about safety? We miss and we die.
4. All common melee and magic attacks are high damage, single blows. Arrow revolver can stun (1) enemy if passive defense doesn't activate. Since all we can do is spam, it activates all the time.
5. We have fail aoe attacks. Melée/magic can one-shot a whole room, we have to target each enemy.
Do us a favor and use ranged attacks outside of pvp to form a better understanding instead of just bashing it. Come g13 range has the least masteries and skills of any class.
Melée (4) Combat, sword, axe, blunt
Magic (6) Magic, bolt, bolt composer, fire, ice, lightning
Alchemy (5) Alchemy, fire, water, wind, earth
Range: (1) Range
-.-
Crash Shot doesn't draw aggro. With the cooldown removed in g13 you can spam it from max range without even being noticed. It doesn't matter if your damage is less than a melee, you have all the time in the world to get it done.
If you're dying when you miss, it's your own fault. If you had no pet/barrier/mana shield/hp then oh well. If you don't die in one combo you can just AR spam the thing till it's at the end of your range.
Magnum is a high damage single blow...from 2k+ range. Natural shield activates 100% of the time but it's not exactly common and no where near as devastating as heavy stander. It doesn't do anything against a magnum and often doesn't prevent a target from being locked down with AR.
Crash Shot is not a fail AoE. If melee could ohko the room you can 2hko in relative safety and without using expensive magic.
My human is an archer and has been since Dunbarton was released. I'm well aware of range's capabilities outside of pvp but I know better than to expect to have the safest skillset also provide me the best of everything else too.
Oh, and while bows lack in damage they have loads of critical which synergizes with their spammy attacks. It's one reason why they're less awesome in HM and other places mobs have very high prot but if you build for crit instead of damage you'll get some good results. 110% critical is plenty for most places.