I was sick with strep for 10 days and I come back to see my next two topics already covered (this and the hearthfire alchemy!), it's fantastic to see people posting in this section again!
I was working on a more focused guide to the archery perk tree (rather than these techniques) so most of it doesn't really fit in this thread but there are a few things I can add to this discussion that may be of interest:
HUNTER'S DISCIPLINE:
I could never find any information about what this perk actually did so others may also be interested. When you hit an NPC with an arrow it has a 33% chance of being added to their inventory which can subsequently be looted if you kill them (this is why enemies will sometimes equip the arrows you're shooting at them if they are stronger than theirs). With this perk taken this chance is modified to a 66% chance. I see people saying this perk is worthless all the time, I don't understand this mentality.
POWER SHOT:
There are two parts to this perk that need to be mentioned, regular bows and crossbows. Stagger can be thought of as an animation that takes 'X' number of seconds to complete from start to finish, if your enemy is only being affected by a stagger magnitude of 0.5 then the animation will be half as long as it's full length. It sounds more complicated than it really is.
Basically when you take this perk every time you attack an NPC with your bow the game will do a dice roll, if it lands on positive you will also shoot out a spell that staggers the enemy. Crossbows come pre-enchanted with this perk so if you take Powershot and use a crossbow you get two seperate dice rolls. This is a very important difference to note. Crossbows with Powershot DO NOT have a 100% chance to stagger (I see people posting this all the time), they have two individual 50% chances...and if both dice rolls happen to land at the same time you will hit the enemy with a 0.5 stagger magnitude rather than the base 0.25. Skyrim math is fun!
These aren't really tricks for using archery but they are things that are, for the most part, not understood very well by the community as a whole. There's little point in posting the guide I was going to do since this is much better, hopefully someone else here will find these two things of some interest!
I was sick with strep for 10 days and I come back to see my next two topics already covered (this and the hearthfire alchemy!), it's fantastic to see people posting in this section again!
I was working on a more focused guide to the archery perk tree (rather than these techniques) so most of it doesn't really fit in this thread but there are a few things I can add to this discussion that may be of interest:
HUNTER'S DISCIPLINE:
I could never find any information about what this perk actually did so others may also be interested. When you hit an NPC with an arrow it has a 33% chance of being added to their inventory which can subsequently be looted if you kill them (this is why enemies will sometimes equip the arrows you're shooting at them if they are stronger than theirs). With this perk taken this chance is modified to a 66% chance. I see people saying this perk is worthless all the time, I don't understand this mentality.
POWER SHOT:
There are two parts to this perk that need to be mentioned, regular bows and crossbows. Stagger can be thought of as an animation that takes 'X' number of seconds to complete from start to finish, if your enemy is only being affected by a stagger magnitude of 0.5 then the animation will be half as long as it's full length. It sounds more complicated than it really is.
Basically when you take this perk every time you attack an NPC with your bow the game will do a dice roll, if it lands on positive you will also shoot out a spell that staggers the enemy. Crossbows come pre-enchanted with this perk so if you take Powershot and use a crossbow you get two seperate dice rolls. This is a very important difference to note. Crossbows with Powershot DO NOT have a 100% chance to stagger (I see people posting this all the time), they have two individual 50% chances...and if both dice rolls happen to land at the same time you will hit the enemy with a 0.5 stagger magnitude rather than the base 0.25. Skyrim math is fun!
These aren't really tricks for using archery but they are things that are, for the most part, not understood very well by the community as a whole. There's little point in posting the guide I was going to do since this is much better, hopefully someone else here will find these two things of some interest!
I'm sure many pure archers probably know this, but a great trick for archers who use poisons. When you apply a poison, it technically is applied to the bow, not the arrow. Therefore, if you apply a poison and use bash on a closing opponent, the poison will be used and your target will be poisoned. This is a great escape technique with paralysis or slow poisons and close quarters combat.
I'm sure many pure archers probably know this, but a great trick for archers who use poisons. When you apply a poison, it technically is applied to the bow, not the arrow. Therefore, if you apply a poison and use bash on a closing opponent, the poison will be used and your target will be poisoned. This is a great escape technique with paralysis or slow poisons and close quarters combat.