I prefer a magical shortbow on some bosses depending on the mods on it. Concussion blow does less damage than a normal hit for some reason in pvm. But when I use my mana/velocity/lightning magical I can spam lightning strike & the lightning strike special move like crazy & actually out damage my XBows. But it all depends on how I fight em (Wraith form, on mount etc).
Bless don't help my archer as he's 190 stamina (150dex) & 150str/hp. One less spell
. Bugged pots make it so my stats never drop unless cursed or death.
I actually purchased most of my bows for this. Right now I'm running all magical shortbows for working the spawn which narrows me down to only using bulk arrows (Cheaper) except bolts on some bosses depending on my bow/mood). All my shortbows are 30+SSI, 40+DI & balanced w/ an appropriate slayer. I haven't done testing but I was told if you cast a mage spell to make your weapon leave your hand & then equip your next weapon thus fizzling the spell that you don't suffer the swing penalty of switching weapons like normally. I could incorporate that into a script incredibly easy and if it works it would make a hell of a difference switching between something like XBows. Right now I set up a test script that switches my bows around depending what I fight. You prebuild a "table" w/ your bows in it (It's actually a list). From there you add the ID's of the creatures that bow will slay.
I'm still debating on how to handle the talismans. I suppose each spawn type will have its own rules to cover em. It wouldn't be really profitable to keep changing talismans like crazy as it hinders swings by dragging items I believe. But I suppose I could code it to follow the rules & equip the correct protection/slaying talisman depending on the level of the spawn. That would really just require some time invested to figure out the best protectors (Dread Spider or Terathan Matriarchs... Which does more damage?). But then again it could really pay off in the long run, especially for the necro pulling ago.
Oh well. This will be a long project. I have 3 players in my guild who plan to try this setup to spawn with (Including myself). Hopefully soon I can start posting up how it goes.
