Archery
Archery is a combat skill used when firing bows and arrows. It can be a
very powerful combat skill, although it has drawbacks. Archery allows
you to attack monsters from a distance, stopping melee fighters damaging
you, and shooting arrows can stop magic casting animals from casting on
you (if you hit and damage them). However, using archery requires you
to stand in one place in order to shoot, which can leave you vulnerable
to attack when fighting several monsters at once, or when fighting fast
moving monsters.
Bow types
There are three different types of archery weapon: bow; Crossbow; and
Heavy Crossbow. The ammunition for the weapon types differ. Bows require
arrows whilst crossbows and heavy crossbows require bolts. Both can be
purchased from fletcher NPCs or crafted by fletcher players. The firing
rate and damage between the three types of weapon differs greatly. Bows
are the fastest but hit for the least damage, whilst Heavy Crossbows are
the slowest but hit for the most. The level of archery skill you have
determines what bow types you can equip.
There is also a range of different wood types from which bows can be
crafted. Each wood type is a different colour, you may see the colours
of woods on the lumberjacking
page. Rarer woods make bows that shoot faster, and so are more
powerful for an archer.
Weapon Speeds and Requirements
Lower speed is better, shooting arrows more often.
| Wood Type |
Normal |
Birch |
OldOak |
Walnut |
Cedar |
Cypress |
Yew |
| Bow (30%) |
12 |
11 |
10 |
9 |
8 |
7 |
6 |
| Crossbow (50%) |
17 |
16 |
15 |
14 |
13 |
12 |
11 |
| HXbow (70%) |
22 |
21 |
20 |
19 |
18 |
17 |
16 |
Composite Bows
With an advanced bowcraft toolkit, which can be crafted by tinkers,
fletchers may create composite bows. Composite bows are bows
which have been imbued with a metal, which makes them do more damage.
- Composite bows do more damage, proportional to the tier of the
ingot. The higher ores in the game will add more damage to your bows, up
to 50% extra damage for Dark Deus.
- Composite bows require more archery skill to equip
The Skill Requirement for equipping composite bows, crossbows, and
heavy cross bows is determined by 50% + ( Skill required to Smith
Ingot / 2 ). The skill required to Smith Ingots can be found on the Blacksmithing
page.
Taking Dark Deus, Stinger and BronzeAlloy as examples:
DarkDeus: 50% + ( 100% / 2 ) = 100%
Stinger: 50% + ( 80% / 2 ) = 90%
BronzeAlloy: 50% + ( 60% / 2 ) = 80%
Archery damage
The damage done with archery is determined by your dexterity (DEX),
and for composite bows the metal the bow is imbued with. Above 100 dex
you get bonus damage, upto 35% extra at 125 dexterity. For instance, a
125 Dexer with a DarkDeus composite bow will do 203% damage
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