06-29-2004, 08:49 PM
A few points come to mind here. The first is that your on-screen to hit% value is totally meaningless when using a bow. It's only useful for melee calculations, and even then it is only a starting point. But for bows, it is not even a starting point. You can't even say that a higher on-screen to hit% is better, because in some cases it will be worse (if you got a higher number by using a to hit prefix but lowered your dexterity in the meantime). You have to do the calculations yourself using the formula in Jarulf's Guide, or better yet, just try using your bow and see whether it is hitting everything or not.
The key to making sure your rogue always hits with a bow is to spend nearly all of your level up points on dexterity, adding to strength and magic only sparingly to meet item or book requirements and saving vitality for last. If you have been mostly adding to dexterity, you shouldn't need to worry about your chance to hit with a bow. With a melee weapon, the dexterity only counts at half-weight, so you may need something with a chance to hit prefix to hit consistently even as a rogue.
Fast attack is primarily a way to increase your damage output. But until you get to a higher level and have maxed stats, the actual damage of the bow itself is far more important. That is because your base damage is not yet high enough to do the job by itself. Not only do you need more damage to increase the damage/time ratio, but you need a certain amount of damage in order to stun a given monster. The Needler does very little to increase your raw damage, and is nearly the worst possible bow you could use at your level (other than cursed bows).
The key to making sure your rogue always hits with a bow is to spend nearly all of your level up points on dexterity, adding to strength and magic only sparingly to meet item or book requirements and saving vitality for last. If you have been mostly adding to dexterity, you shouldn't need to worry about your chance to hit with a bow. With a melee weapon, the dexterity only counts at half-weight, so you may need something with a chance to hit prefix to hit consistently even as a rogue.
Fast attack is primarily a way to increase your damage output. But until you get to a higher level and have maxed stats, the actual damage of the bow itself is far more important. That is because your base damage is not yet high enough to do the job by itself. Not only do you need more damage to increase the damage/time ratio, but you need a certain amount of damage in order to stun a given monster. The Needler does very little to increase your raw damage, and is nearly the worst possible bow you could use at your level (other than cursed bows).