Hobbit Ranger

[Grotug]

Oh yeah, I forgot about rune, but still, he was blasting me with spells every other turn. Maybe I was just unlucky how many spells he was hitting me with; usually it's not quite that bad when I'm fighting Sauron. I probably shoulda just kept drinking health potions. I did have him below half health. But I had used half my !healing stack of 10 and 1 !*Healing*.I did have 4 more !*Healing* at home and 1 !Life and 1 !Life on me. Oh well. Gonna try High Elf Rogue next.

I really wasn't finding any good arrows. Best arrows I found were the lightning ones but I used them up on Dracoliches figuring I'd find more ammo. If I save my ammo, I end up with too much good ammo and having the painful decision of picking which one I think is least useful (which is a total crapshoot). If I use my good ammo, I end up not finding anymore good ammo. Story of my life.

The other thing about gaining extra shots is it's only good if you are carrying with you 200 arrows. It's not really realistic for me to carry 200 arrows. My best arrows did 400 a round. That's 133 per arrow. 10,500/133 = 79 arrows. But I only had like 15 of those.

[luneya]

Yeah, your best arrows are limited, but IIRC you have access to spell versions of enchant weapon, plus elemental brand. You can buy an unlimited supply of plain arrows from the general store, and enchant them up to the point where they are acceptably good ways to kill things that aren't the big uniques, allowing you to save the few really good arrows you find for the important fights while still using archery as your main weapon.

[Sky]

depending on how much you accept it's ok to rest before it's considered scumming, you can buy standard arrows in the market and enchant them to +12 to +13 (the spell starts to fail around +12, but it could in theory go all the way up to +15) plus a random brand (fire / cold / poison / lightning .. no acid, sorry).
this makes market arrows almost identical in damage to dungeon arrows, except that:
1) dungeon arrows can be of acid
2) dungeon arrows can be of wounding, +20 to +24, meaning you can do the same damage as a brand, to enemies which resist all 5 brands
3) of slay evil or holy might

the other slays you find in the dungeon are irrelevant, because a slay dragon is no better than a brand, and most are susceptible to at least 1 brand. but these arrows are useless against non-slays.

seeker arrows and mithril don't add that much damage when you got a +12 brand, and while they are preferrable, the standard arrows are fine.

(not sure why the game insists that mithril arrows are *better* than seekers)

[Grotug]

You know I never even tried the enchant weapon spell. Very silly of me. Yes, I should have enchanted my ammo to around +10-+12 and then branded it. I could have probably found something to leave at home and bring an extra 40 arrows and at least softend up Sauron a good bit and then runed to finish him off in melee. Or foregone DW completely and tried to take him out solely by ranged attack.

I'm still torn as to whether wielding DW was a good move. I had 793HP when I entered the fight with Sauron. Surely that should be enough for the type of character I was playing?

[Grotug]

Geez, mage spells sure are a helluva alot cheaper than Ranger's. Trying my luck as a Hobbit Ranger again. Will enchant my arrows before branding them (if I make it that far) and won't forget to use Runes!

[Pete Mack]

Enchant after branding. Brand takes you straight to (+5,+5) which is enough for most purposes. Don't waste enchantment on a stack of what turns out to be poison brand when you really want more fire brand ammo.

[Oraticus]

Enchant after branding. Brand takes you straight to (+5,+5) which is enough for most purposes. Don't waste enchantment on a stack of what turns out to be poison brand when you really want more fire brand ammo.

I'm running a HE Ranger right now (yes, High Elf is OP, but I've yet to get a win, so it's my noob crutch), and the past few stacks of store arrows I've branded with Tenser's have only given me (+2, +2). If it ever was, I don't think it is a guarantee anymore to get (+5, +5) on branding.

you can buy standard arrows in the market and enchant them to +12 to +13 (the spell starts to fail around +12, but it could in theory go all the way up to +15) plus a random brand (fire / cold / poison / lightning .. no acid, sorry).

Actually, no lightning or acid. Tenser's only brands fire / ice / poison. Don't know if that's a recent change either. Sucks when you want to kill undead and Tenser's is refusing to give you fire brands.

[Grotug]

All my arrows branded from worst (+4, +4) to best (+6, +6).

I got lots of fire branded arrows. Oddly, though I would only get fire and cold with one launcher, and when I switched to the other I started getting other brands (I don't remember what they were, maybe acid or poison).

I think I would still brand first and enchant second for maximum overall damage on the arrows. Most brands find a use somewhere.

[Pete Mack]

(+5,+5) is an average, not exact. The brand you get is random, so there will be long streaks without a particular type coming up.