I mentioned elsewhere that bow weapons are overpowered, but it's probably worth mentioning here too to make it more official. :) I just finished a game, playing as a Sorcerer, where I used a bow as my primary weapon and had a heck of an easier time than when I was using the Sorcerer's staff and natural magic abilities.
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DiabloRL v 0.5.0 roguelike postmortem character dump
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Tormuse, level 14 Sorcerer, killed by a stalker in Catacombs, level 6.
He scored 102963.88 points, killing 0 hellspawn.
He advanced to level 14 gaining 196388 experience.
He amassed 677 gold coins.
He purified the town water supply.
He was patient with Gharbad the Weak.
He retrieved Ogden's tavern sign.
-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
Strength 37/35
Magic 53/46
Dexterity 53/51
Vitality 26/24
Life 66/-4 Mana 149/149
Armor 12 ToHit 76
-- Spells ----------------------------------------------------
Firebolt level 9
Holy Bolt level 4
Healing level 5
Town Portal level 2
Flash level 2
Phasing level 3
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[ Head ] Harlequin Crest [-3]
[ Neck ] nothing
[ Body ] Wisdom's Wrap [15]
[ Wpn ] Gold short battle bow (3-7)
[ Shld ] nothing
[ RRng ] Steel ring
[ LRng ] Ring of Truth
-- Quickslots ------------------------------------------------
[ Slot1 ] potion of mana
[ Slot2 ] potion of mana
[ Slot3 ] potion of healing
[ Slot4 ] potion of mana
[ Slot5 ] scroll of phasing
[ Slot6 ] scroll of identify
[ Slot7 ] scroll of infravision
[ Slot8 ] scroll of town portal
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
scroll of healing
scroll of identify
scroll of mana shield
book of Holy Bolt
scroll of phasing
book of Holy Bolt
677 gold coins
small axe (2-10)
small shield [5]
potion of mana
spiked club of Zest (3-6)
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
Rotfeast the Hungry
Soulpus
Rotcarnage
Bonehead Keenaxe
Brokenhead Bangshield
Moonbender
Warpskull
Snotspill
Gharbad
87 * zombie
44 * ghoul
62 * rotting carcass
15 * black death
19 * skeleton
38 * corpse axe
102 * horror
25 * skeleton captain
38 * corpse captain
71 * horror captain
26 * skeleton archer
82 * burning dead archer
132 * scavenger
62 * shadow beast
16 * fallen one
38 * fallen one
59 * carver
39 * dark one
6 * dark one
47 * blink
39 * familiar
3 * flesh clan
31 * stone clan
1 * flesh clan archer
59 * hidden
35 * stalker
4 * overlord
28 * winged demon
-- Messages --------------------------------------------------
You hit the horror captain.
You hit the horror captain.
You hit the horror captain. The horror captain dies. You gain 242 experience.
A spiked club (3-6) is lying here.
You put the spiked club (3-6) into your backpack.
You hit the familiar.
You hit the familiar. The familiar dies. You gain 403 experience.
You hit the familiar.
You hit the familiar. The familiar hits you.
You hit the familiar. The familiar dies. You gain 403 experience.
Suicide? Too easy for you...
You hit the familiar.
You miss the familiar.
You hit the familiar. The familiar misses you.
You hit the familiar. The familiar dies. You gain 403 experience.
The stalker appears.
You hit the stalker.
You miss the familiar. You hit the stalker. The stalker dies. You gain 315 experience. The stalker appears.
You miss the familiar. The familiar hits you. The familiar hits you.
You hit the familiar. The stalker appears. The stalker hits you. You die... Press < Enter >...
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The only reason I died was a result of boredom making me careless, since battles consisted of me holding my finger on the F key until everything was dead, with few enemies able to get close enough to do anything to me. (And if they did, then I would back away and resume firing again)
DiabloRL Past messages viewer 100%
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Use arrows, PgUp, PgDown to scroll, Escape or Enter to exit.
The bow fires fast, has infinite ammo, and almost never misses. In the above screenshot, 100% of shots hit; even the shots that missed hit something! :P Compare that to the melee weapons that frequently miss, (you can see in my Sorcerer video that I posted that there were a couple of times that I got five consecutive misses; something that would never happen with the bow) and it's bad for your health to be missing so frequently when something is pounding on you. Factor in the fact that a vast majority of the enemies use only melee attacks and the whole thing becomes quite ridiculous!
I'd still like to know how the timing of actions in the game works. My memory of the original Diablo is that each class is best at using its own weapons. Like Rogues fire bows faster than other classes, Warriors use melee weapons faster, and Sorcerers use staves and cast spells faster. In DiabloRL, that doesn't seem to be the case. I didn't notice any difference in the timing between using a bow as the Sorcerer and using spells or staves. The enemies shouldn't be getting double moves on the sorcerer when he's using a staff; if anything, he should be getting double moves on them. Right now, it really feels like the Sorcerer is the "hard mode" character since he really, really struggles to use abilities he's supposed to be good at. (It might also help his character to have other spells like Charged Bolt, Inferno, and Lightning available in the game, though that might be another issue altogether)