Understanding Marksmanship

[Moogie]

I'm trying to hunt with a sling. It is Q13. My marksmanship is currently 18. I'm not going for some outlandish prey, I'm just trying to hit anything at all. Ants, chickens, whatever. But I can't.

I have a few questions, as I still don't fully understand the combat system in this situation:

Firstly, should I be expecting anything at all with 18 Marksmanship? Is there a lower limit where nothing will hit? I've heard lots of conflicting opinions about this, but no definitive answers.
Am I supposed to wait each time for the energy to refill before shooting again, or does spamming rocks work?
Is there no way to use moves like "Jump" or "Dash" with Marksmanship? To clarify, when I try these, my character moves into melee range, which defeats the purpose of archery. I just want to refill energy between shots, which is ungodly slow by itself.
Also, is there anything special about that graphic that appears when you first click a mob? It doesn't seem to do anything, but I'm suspicious. I've heard the term "archery minigame" somewhere and feel like I'm missing something, but I've tried waiting, and clicking various parts of that graphic, but have not noticed any difference.

Thanks :3

[ricky]

poor kid... tsk tsk..

[stickman]

im guessing u most likely dont have the correct skills to even attack creatures. do u have archery and hunting? do u have an arrow icon when your clicking on animals?

[Moogie]

Ah, I guess I didn't explain very well, sorry about that. Yes, I have all of the necessary skills and am able to attack with my slingshot. The problem is that I never seem to hit the creature. I don't know if it should take 10, 50, or 100 rocks to make 1 successful hit at my current stats, and I'm not experienced enough with the game yet to know how high stats go, and how they scale-- is 18 below the recommended minimum for hunting? Should I be aiming for 20? 50? 200? Even a ballpark figure would be extremely helpful at this point. Also, whether the archery target graphic I mentioned has any bearing on anything.

There seems to be little actual info on the mechanics of archery; the wiki instead focuses on methods of trapping creatures and assumes the player knows how much skill they need, how much time it will take, etc.

[stickman]

There should be a meter that goes up on your screen the loger you wait. if you wait until it reaches the top you will hit 100% of the time. If you fire right away you will miss 100% of the time.

[Moogie]

Aha! That absolutely sounds like the problem, then. I originally thought that would be the case, but I have waited at that graphic and never saw it rise. And since there was no mention of it on the wiki, I figured it just didn't do anything.

Does it take seconds, or minutes to rise? I think I waited about 10 seconds, but didn't see anything happening. And I assume you are talking about the graphic, and not the 'attack'/energy meter in the combat info.

Still, thank you very much. I'll go play around with it again and see what happens.


Edit: Yeah, still nothing happening here. I'm trying this with ants at the moment, but I'll go find something else, just in case. I've tried clicking & waiting, and also clicking & holding the button, but in both cases the bar remains solid black. Maybe it's a bug?

Edit2: Hey! It works. Tried on a fox and finally saw the bar rise. I guess ants are too quick and skittery to squish with rocks, or something. Glad to know, and I think I'll go add this info to the wiki myself. Thanks again for the assistance, stickman!

[sabinati]

it won't rise, and in fact, will lower, if the target moves.

[Flocke]

read the first post please. Archery

i'm sure 18 in MMS is not high enough to hunt efficient with a sling.
actually you can raise your MMS up to 26 and if hunting is not fast enough then, try to get a better sling and raise your MMS again.

[Moogie]

read the first post please. Archery

i'm sure 18 in MMS is not high enough to hunt efficient with a sling.
actually you can raise your MMS up to 26 and if hunting is not fast enough then, try to get a better sling and raise your MMS again.

'Doh, that post sure would have been helpful, lol. Thanks for the link. I suppose I didn't think of searching for "archery" under such an unrelated thread title, and in the wrong area. I must spend more LP on my Search-Fu!