What would be teh idela equipment set up for my PC archer?

Right now she has a long bow +2 that i just paid out the nose for. The +5 leather armor from the Umar Hills mayor, bracers of archery, Baldur's helmet, the ring of regeneration and the ring of charisma, that cloak that makes you blurry and effects missle hits, the +2 sword of Baldorasan (?) that gives haste once a day and a +2 flail.

I have some biting arrows, ice arrows, acid arrows, and some +2.

Her profs are highest in long bow, short sword, and flail.

Thanks
Great forum!

Assuming SoA only, this is roughly the Archer's dream equipment.

Armour: Shadow Dragon Armour
Gloves: Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise( not for your range skills, but to increase your melee skills, the +2 THACO bonus from the Bracers of Archery is rather insignificant later on)
Helmet: Helm of Balduran( Helmet of Defence if you want elemental resistances)
Amulet: Amulet of Power( or the amulet that protects against Poison)
Rings: Ring of Gaxx, Ring of Earth Control
Cloak: Cloak of Mirroring
Boots: Boots of Speed
Belt: Belt of Inertial Barrier( Girdle of ~~ Strength if you want to improve your melee skills)

Weapon: Heartseeker, Flail of Ages

My suggestion would be to get the Shadow Dragon scales ( kill the shadow dragon [img]smile.gif[/img] ) and have Cromwell turn them into one of the best leather amours in the game! :D

Damn! Dundee beat me by seconds! :D

Having played the archer, I can say that for me it was: (subject to avaliability, though I wonder how you got the leather +5 on)

Heartseeker +3
Boots of speed
No shield or the shield of Harmony kept in your backpack
Ring of Gaxx (ring of regeneration will do fine as well)
Ring of free action (this may give you some problems using the bots of speed. I usually keep the boots in my backpack until I need them)
Cloak of Non-detection
any girdle
Bracers of Archery, Gauntlets of Ogre Power or Gauntlets of weapon's expertise, depending on your strenghts and weaknesses. If you need the bracers of dexterity you should probably have focussed more on dexterity during character creation
Shadow Dragon armour is the best you can get, though Aegar's hide will do fine too.
As for the helm, I usually don't take one as I don't like the way it looks [img]smile.gif[/img] But the helmet of defence or the helmet of charm protection will help a lot
...'s proof against poison is a useful amulet
and I think in your case the flail of ages will do nicely as your second weapon (to be used with the shield)
A halberd (like dragon's breath) will also be useful

Other options include:
Arbalane's short sword (possibly dual-wielded) in stead of the ring of free action, boots of avoisdane or grounding while you are not using the boots of speed, the ring of earth control or the non-elemental ring that protects you from fire, the Elven Court Bow and other nice trinkets.

Thanks all.

Legolas,

yeah, I noticed you popping up in other archer related posts.

I do have the sword of arthalbane. I misnamed it abve. I have more prof in dual weilding than sword and shield, so I have been using the sword and the flail.

What is the best long bow, iyo? With more prof slots, will I expand to other weapons? Cross bow seems cool for the bolts you can get.

Also, I am level 10 now and the thought of taking on the dragon make my blood turn cold. Only Aerie has breach and I don't know if that will lower its magic resistance. Lowering its defenses seems essential.

The armor is the Night's Gift, +5. I had no problem putting it on. It is leather armor.

Thanks again.

Jordi,

I just completed an elven archer thru SoA and ToB.

The +5 leather armor that you got the the mayor will be the best armor that you'll find until you can kill the shadow dragon have Cromwell create the Shadow Dragon armor for you.

I kept the Bracers of Archery for my archer and gave the Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise to one of my tanks. I just wasn't that concerned with my melee skills. If my archer was in a melee, then he probably did something wrong.

I actually didn't give my PC the Boots of Speed until either late in SoA or ToB. I didn't want to have my archer PC to be at the front of my party's formation. That's where my tanks belong.

I also gave my main tank, Keldorn, the cloak of mirroring. I had my archer use the cloak of non-detection and the boots of stealth. Since my archer was always behind a line of tanks, it was rare that he needed the cloak of mirroring. I prefered to make my archer the sneakiest darned ranger possible. It's great to be able to sneak up on a eney mage and turn him into a pin cushion!!!

The Heartseeker longbow is the best longbow in SoA and IMHO it remains the best in ToB as well. I never worried too much about what melee weapon my archer used. I made certain that my other party members got their best weapons. My archer took the best of what was left. (Hey, when you can only get 1 * in any melee weapon type, you end up with a LOT of melee weapon types with 1 *.) I actually ended up having my archer use some of the 2 handed halberds, staves, or spears that I would give to my shield-using tanks. The +4 staff of Rynn (which can be bought at the Adventure Mart) works great here.

Tell me about the heartseeker...

Oh- Heartseeker is a long bow. I didn't see that earlier.

Duh.

At your level I'd ignore the dragon for a while. That's the smart thing to do. As for your proficiancy slots, you can put five in longbow (heartseeker, elven court bow) so there's no need to look much further [img]smile.gif[/img]
The archer's main strenght is in peppering the enemy, not close combat, so that is where you'll have to make most use of. Most of the items won't be availiable until later in the game but you don't really need them. Any bow will make the archer deadly, the other equipment is there to make it eaven easier for you.
You could go for the crossbow archer, but in that case it would have been best to focus on the x-bow from the start. I also think the longbow is more archer-like [img]smile.gif[/img]
You could expand your proficiency to other weapons, but misslie weapons are simply the most powerful in the archer's hands. You don't even need tanks (I thought of soloing the game with an archer, but I decided I'd be having trouble with traps and the big fights in the small rooms... otherwise the archer can do anything)

And about the leather armour, I was thinking of te armour +5 made from human skin, which you could also get in that area. But that's supposed to be evil characters only and all rangers are good. Got me confused...

And the sword & flail combo? That's exactly what Minsc used in my party throughout almost the entire game [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img]