Headshot kills give more XP Buzzer. More speed and more damage gives more XP Buzzer. Make the bad man fly. Ding Correct. Hello Everyone and welcome back to another Strat Gaming video guide. In today’s video we are going to be looking at how XP and leveling work for ranged weapons. By the end of the video, you will have a firm grasp of how XP is earned with all ranged weapons and how to efficiently level bow, crossbow and throwing skills. And if you stick around until the end of the video, I’ll show you my favorite gear loadouts for each skill as well as the brand new keep battles using the throwing skill loadout.
I’ve broken this video up into several chapters so if you’re following along you’ll be able to easily navigate through relevant segments. Check down in the description below for the time stamps. With all that being said, I hope you enjoy this guide and let’s get started!
First we will look at how you gain XP with ranged weapons. There are 3 categories: bow, crossbow and throwing. For the most part, you earn the same amount of XP in the same way by doing each of following: damaging an enemy with your projectile, having your shot blocked by a shield and getting a killing blow. The main factor determining how much XP you get is the distance to the hit, with longer shots giving more XP. Even after nearly 200 test runs, it’s difficult to say exactly what the formula is for XP gain, but I’ve been able to simplify things by lumping everything into 3 groups: short range (25M or less), medium range (between 25 – 75M) and long range (anything over 75M). Rather than putting everyone to sleep with a spreadsheet read-along of the data, let’s quickly look at each way XP is earned and the range of XP values awarded for each.
- Landing a hit on an enemy without a kill will net you anywhere from 18 – 62XP. Landing a hit on an enemy shield will net you the same 18 – 62XP. Landing the killing blow on an enemy will give anywhere from 120 – 330XP.
- Aside from the standard weapons you bring into combat, you can also earn XP with siege weapons and boulders. Ballista kills grant XP toward the bow skill and can net you from 200 – 500XP. Catapult kills grant XP toward the throwing skill and can net you around 500XP per kill. And finally boulder kills grant XP toward throwing and can net you from 120 – 250XP per kill.
- Some interesting miscellaneous items: Headshots had no effect on XP gain, your speed and damage done had no effect on XP gain, the calculation for riding XP gain is bugged – but you’ll have to wait until the next episode when we cover Riding and Athletics to learn more! Sorry, but we gotta stay focused.
While you do earn XP for every action, it’s pretty clear that some actions are significantly more efficient than others. Let’s look at some of the most efficient ways to level up our ranged skills.
While I did cringe a little when I decided to add looter farming in this guide, it would be irresponsible not to include it. When it comes to bow skill, it’s hard to beat the efficiency of shooting looters from horse back. There are two ways to do this: fast with minimum XP or slowly with triple the XP. Let’s look at an example of each using a level 1 character with 10 control and 5 focus points into bow:
- We start off with a level 1 character, any horse, any bow capable of firing from horse back and 3 stacks of any arrow type. Move up to the looter line and turn the horse around so we can retreat easily when they get too close. Proceed to shoot, kill and move until they lose morale and flee. Ride with them, killing every last one. There were 22 looters in this pack which resulted in a total XP gain of 54,646, 58 levels gain and about 68% of the way to level 59. Not bad for less than 5 minutes of combat.
- Let’s fight that same pack of 22 looters, but this time we make sure our shots are greater than 75M away. Use the Alt key to display the distance to the center of the looter pack. Ride out to about 150M away and begin raining arrows. We don’t expect to hit much at this range, but you’ll be able to zero in on them by the time they get to 75 – 100M. Continue to shoot at the pack, targeting the rear once the front has come closer than 75M. When they get too close, back up to 150M again and start over. A few tips to help speed this up: target looter groups of 20 or more, or get several smaller groups to chase you until you get about 20, then fight them all at once. The larger the looter group, the easier it is to hit from distance. As they run towards you, they will try to spread out in a horizontal line. If you move to their left or right, they start to bunch up making it much easier to land shots. I was a little pressed for time when doing this, so I killed half of the group from distance and half up close, but you can see this same pack of 22 looters gave us 96,578XP, 72 levels and 98% of the way to 73. With a better bow and more bow skill, this would have been a cake walk.
Siege assaults can be a decent way to level up bow and crossbow. It’s not very fast, but it is consistent and fighting in offensive sieges is common. I recommend staying about 50M away from the enemy walls and take up shelter behind the wooden siege barricades. There isn’t a whole lot to it, just keep shooting until you run out of arrow. You can then look for a fallen archer to scavenge their arrows, or you can retreat to replenish. You can expect about as many kills as you have arrows since the enemy will generally stand still making for easy headshot kills. In this run, we picked up 27 ranged kills for 4725XP. With a 10x multiplier, we would have gained 67 levels starting from level 1, 7 levels starting from level 100, 3 levels starting from level 150 and 1 level starting from level 270.
On siege defense, it’s basically the same thing except you will often times have access to an arrow barrel which allows you to replenish your arrows infinitely so try to stay near one. Arrow barrels also replenish crossbow bolts, but not throwing spears, axes or knives.
Now let’s get into the good stuff. On a siege defense, your town or castle will build either ballista or catapults. Catapults are better, but if you’re looking to level up bow then you need a ballista. Before the siege starts, you can see where the siege engines are being placed and move them around if need be. Make your way up to one and start using it.
The ballista isn’t too hard to use once you get used to the aiming. The hit point for the first 75M or so will be a little bit above the tip of the ballista bolt. Hitting targets beyond that is difficult unless there is a large group tightly packed. You want to aim for a large mass of troops and take a shot that will pass through as many troops as possible: think cannon ball bouncing through a line of troops. You will hit more shooting from the side on than you will straight on. There is no ammo limit with the ballista, so they can be amazing in a long siege. By the end of this siege, we picked up 78 ballista kills for 19500. With a 10x multiplier, we would have gained 94 levels starting from level 1, 24 levels starting from level 100, 13 levels starting from level 150 and 4 level starting from level 270.
The catapult is probably the coolest weapon in the game. It’s difficult to use, but once you get the hang of it it’s not hard to mow down 5 or more troops with a single shot and you get over 20 shots per catapult. It’s also the best way to level throwing in the game and it’s not even close. All we need to do it target any mass of troops and keep firing. In this defense, we picked up 226 catapult kills for 113000XP. With a 10x multiplier, we would have gained 178 levels starting from level 1, 90 levels starting from level 100, 60 levels starting from level 150 and 25 level starting from level 270.
If you’re taking too much damage while on a ballista, the catapult is out of stones then you can look for boulder piles to throw at the attackers. Boulders can take out troops in places that siege engines cannot, especially the main gate area. From the murder hole above, you can easily take out 3 – 5 enemies with a single boulder. In order to maximize the damage, be sure to walk forward as you release the boulder, which will give it more speed and a slightly flatter projectile. If the boulder comes straight down vertically from the top, at most you will hit a couple people and at worse only one. Once the enemy breaches the first gate, your allied AI troops will swarm the boulder pile and waste boulders, so be sure to snag as many kills as you can before they are depleted. Also keep clear of the murder hole when your allies are near with boulders as there is friendly fire and they can easily take you out in a single hit. I found this out the hard way in an important siege during an Ironman game – thanks TaleWorlds!
We are nearing the end of the video and as promised, I will be sharing with you my favorite gear loadouts for each skill as well as trying out the new keep battle system!
I absolutely love the Noble Long Bow – it has the highest damage of all the bow weapons and is extremely accurate even at range. For the arrows I go with 2 sets of stacked bodkin arrows which total 64 shots. For the melee weapon, we will use the two handed Falx blade. For more info on the Falx, check out the previous guide on melee XP and leveling where I show how to make the best Falx in the game. For the armor, I’ll show off the armor set we are currently using on the Robin Hood Bandit play through. The armor sucks, but the movement speed is amazing and it’s historically accurate for an archer.
For the crossbow, I switch over to a one handed falx and pick up a heavy heater shield to boot. The bound crossbow is the king with max damage and accuracy which we pair with the standard bolts. There are several types of bolts in the game right now, but the only differences between them are stack size and weight so we stick to the 20 stack standard bolts. For armor, we go with best in class: Warlord helmet, heavy warlord pauldrons, Highborn mail armor, scale warlord bracers and scaled boots.
I generally use throwing weapons as a secondary, so the melee gear is critical. It’s the same setup as the cross bow, but we take 2 stacks Jereed spears which have 5 spears per stack. You can craft even better than these if you have the parts unlocked. Now let’s put this throwing build to the test and try out the new keep battle system! Once you win an offensive siege, whatever enemy was able to flee will be present inside the keep. Let’s do this!
I want to thank you all for watching another Strat Gaming video guide. If you like this video please give it a like and subscribe down below. The likes really help out the video with the YouTube algorithm. Let me know in the comment section below what kind of guide you would like to see next. The next video guide will highlight the Endurance skills, so be sure to hit the bell notifications so you don’t miss it! Also we are currently underway with the Ultra-realistic, hardcore historical Let’s Play series based on the life of Robin Hood, click the link in the top right or check the link in the description below to check it out. Thanks again for watching and as always… I’ll see you… on the next one.
