Melee VS Ranged has been a contested topic as old as RPGs themselves and Dragon Age: Inquisition is no exemption. As of patch 2 Inquisition offers no game-breaking advantage between the two so the easy answer to the comparison is that it boils down to player choice. And to help make that choice here’s a quick list of the pros and cons of both styles of play.
Before I go on, let me tell you one thing that you probably already know: archery has been said to be boring in this game. I actually agree with that. Double-dagger skills are flashier and require a lot of involvement to pull off effectively. Archers, naturally, simply shoot arrows. They don’t have the flair that dagger rogues have. With that in mind, here’s the list:
Daggers:
- Flashier combat.
- Melee fighting brings the action up close and personal. You feel more involved.
- In theory, the fast attack rate should allow Hidden Blades to proc more often. Whether it actually does or not is still unconfirmed.
Cons:
- Melee targeting can get funky sometimes. Some of your attacks will fail to land.
- You have to chase your targets. It can get annoying when some of them are jumping or flying around.
- You’re melee. If you can hit them it means they can hit you.
Bows:
- Ranged attacks mean there’s no need to chase targets. You’ll be hitting something 99% of the time. That means virtually no DPS downtime.
- The ability to snipe targets means you can reduce their numbers before they can even react.
- The distance makes your defense stats mostly a non-issue. Targets are dead before they can even get close. This means you can focus your build solely on damage.
Cons:
- “Boring” combat.
- While targeting isn’t as funky as melee, line of sight can still mess you up.
It really boils down to personal preference. Dagger skills have a lot of flair, making combat more visually appealing than archer skills. And since you’re fighting up close, effort has to be made to make sure that first, you stay alive, and second, that you’re actually hitting your opponent. These make combat more engaging, giving it an active and participative feel. On the other hand, shooting with a bow is boring from an animation standpoint, especially when compared to daggers. Heck, even mages have flashier staff auto-attacks. But the ability to one-shot targets makes up for it. The game’s implementation of archery is a perfect example of how “simple but effective” works.