Archery
Description
Archery is used for ranged combat against animals and other players.
Targeting
To enter ranged combat, activate an equipped and strung bow, move within range, then right-click on your target to engage.
Archery works best when standing at optimal range. You will miss more if you are closer than, or farther from, the optimal range.
| Bow | Range (in tiles) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum | Optimal | |
| Short Bow | None | 5 |
| Bow | 5 | 10 |
| Long Bow | 10 | 20 |
As you gain better skill in a bow, you get more targeting options. Right-click your target to select an option.
| Skill | Option |
|---|---|
| 30 | Shoot quickly |
| 35 | Aim at torso |
| 40 | Aim at left/right arm |
| 50 | Aim at head |
| 60 | Aim at face |
| 70 | Aim at legs |
- Archery has a lower hit chance during the night (from 21:00 to 06:00 Wurm time). When firing a bow at night, the message, "The dusk makes it harder to get a clear view of the archery target." will appear each time you shoot.
Notes on Bows
There are three types of bows:
- Bows made with willow have reduced difficulty in hitting your target.
- The higher the QL of the bow, the more damage is inflicted on your target.
- Rare bows increase damage by 5%, supreme bows increase damage by 10%, and fantastic bows increase damage by 15%.
To use a bow in combat, it must be strung with bow string. Bow strings can snap.
- The higher the QL of the bow string, the better chance you have to hit your target.
- The higher the QL of the bow string, the less chance that it snaps.
- The chance of a bow string snapping is 1 in (QL of bow string * 10)
Notes on Arrows
There are three types of arrows:
- Hunting arrows
- War arrows
- arrow shafts can be used as an arrow, without any arrow head affixed
When shooting a bow, the order of arrow selection is:
- Arrows in an equipped quiver
- Arrows in a quiver in your inventory
- Arrows in your inventory not in a quiver
In addition to the order of precedence above, the type of arrow also determines the order of arrow selection:
- War arrows
- Hunting arrows
- Arrow shafts
If you have an empty quiver in your inventory, the bow will not shoot any arrows from any other quiver in your inventory, nor from any arrows in your inventory.
- Arrows made with cedar are easier to improve.
- Arrows made with cedar reduce the difficulty of the shot by 5%
- Arrows made with maple take 20% less damage.
- Arrows made with maple reduce the difficulty of the shot by 3%
- Rare arrows decrease the difficulty of the shot by 5%, supreme arrows by 10%, and fantastic arrows by 15%.
- Rare arrows increase the damage of the shot by 30%, supreme arrows by 60%, and fantastic arrows by 90%
Skillgain Tips
- You may gain up to 30 skill in a bow type by practicing on an archery target. The main archery skill is also limited to 40 while practicing on an archery target. When 40 main skill is hit, you will no longer be able to gain any skill from archery targets. It is possible to to gain 30 skill in one bow type, then begin a new bow type until your main skill reaches 40. The curve does not apply here, you are still able to get 40 archery on Epic with an archery target.
- Although they give less skill than real arrows, it is best to use arrow shafts when practicing in this way as they are far easier to make and won't damage the target too much. Arrows that arent broken can be picked up at the archery target.
- Firing on the target from outside your bow's optimal range will increase the difficulty, and thus increase your skillgain at higher skill levels.
- Practicing at night will similarly increase the difficultly, so if you find the skillgain slowing you may want to practice when it's dark instead.
- Beyond 40 skill the only way to gain further is by using archery on animals or in player vs. player combat. Unlike fighting skill, you gain random archery skill for every shot and optimum archery skill for every successful damage dealt. Fighting skill is also gained after a successful kill.
- Using other players as targets to train is effective at any level. There is a 3 hour cooldown, which begins after the event message "You will not gain skill for attacking #### for a few hours".
- WLers shooting same kingdom will become hunted.
- Skillgain is affected by Sleep bonus.
- You can't gain archery and sub-archery skills from bred animals.
- Priests of Vynora and Fo Can use bows.
Bows
Note: When a bow is unstrung, even if it has not been used and was strung minutes ago, the bowstring will be worse than before strung. Avoid unstringing and re-stringing if you can.
Arrows
Note: You can use arrow shafts as normal arrows, but they have poor accuracy and damage, and will gain you less skill. They are however much easier to replace when broken.
Associated items
Associated skills
Titles
- Archer at 50 skill
- Hawk Eye at 70 skill
- Eagle Eye at 90 skill
Chrysanthy's Archery Test
- The test was conducted on August 28, 2014 to look into the effect of quality of the bow and arrows to damage and accuracy (no other factors were considered). The test was done during daytime wurm time to eliminate the accuracy penalty during night time and on flat surface to eliminate height bonus/penalty.
Chrysanthy has the following skills and the test data is given below:
- Bow Used: Long Bow
- Archery Skill: 40.43
- Long Bow Skill: 30.30
Using 70.01ql longbow
- Arrow Shaft Quality: 40.18
- Archery Target Quality: 36.82
- Damage on the Target: 5.89
- Number of Successful Hits: 20/20
- Arrow Shaft Quality: 13.13
- Archery Target Quality: 36.30
- Damage on the Target: 3.94
- Number of Successful Hits: 19/20
Using 50.25ql longbow
- Arrow Shaft Quality: 40.18
- Archery Target Quality: 35.69
- Damage on the Target: 3.73
- Number of Successful Hits: 18/20
- Arrow Shaft Quality: 13.13
- Archery Target Quality: 34.90
- Damage on the Target: 3.01
- Number of Successful Hits: 14/20
Findings:
- The higher the quality of the bow, the greater the damage it deals.
- The higher the quality of the bow, the higher accuracy rate it has.
- The higher the quality of the arrow, the greater the damage it deals.
- The higher the quality of the arrow, the higher accuracy rate it has.
