BL - what's up with this? (in General)

I haven't played CB2 in a while but I remember when evasion and archery were first introduced. I used to be able to do a lot of damage with an ELB in ranged combat, not anymore. Even with evasion trained I hit much more often in ranged combat. I don't want to use archery (mostly since the picture in my mind of a guy with a big sword and a bow is cooler than the one with just a bow and arrow.) besides in a real battle you have to have both.. right? Think Aragorn not Legola. But I would LIKE more than a 20% chance to hit ratio. 50 percent would be OK. But having an archer hit twice per round and I get to hit once or twice in 5 rounds seems way too unbalanced. Please make BL fun again!! And why is evasion so much better in ranged? Being a monk seems not so cool either. I know this is a strategy game but it seems to me that multiple strategies should be viable, not just the ones that seem to be the favorite flavors of the day.

Well I see there are no takers yet -- how about this angle ...

I'd like to run an ETME straegy with 2 Enchanters and a light Tank and a Mage. I try to give them as much armor as I can afford without huge penalties and without exceeding encumbrance (-- which is really hard to do.. especially for my Light tank even though I have a ToA.) Is there a way?

BTW I do have pretty high DX which should allow double hits but it doesn't.

Try a sling of death if you don't like training archery.

ok well if my character were named Daniel - perhaps, but it seems a bow should be a lot stronger and more accurate than a sling. They don't have the exploding ammo anymore for those do they? it was overpowered IMO - but it was cool.
My bow is hitting a little better now - but against mages it seems it should hit more often.

SoD is equipped with infinite explosive shots.
On the subject of a bow and sword, archery has no penalty on melee weapons.

The Sling of death automatically loads exploding ammo.

Since you're starting out with a completely new character, I'd recommend an NCB.

You won't be able to buy BA, but you'll still grow much faster than you are now.

far as armor, ignore it for a little while. A light tank should focus solely on stat-boosting gears which would in time make encumbrance into a non-issue. AC means very little when in low numbers (not sure there are many places where 70 AC is much more beneficial than 20).

In the early game, outlasting opponents is really tough, due to the massive damage that can be done at that level relative to the meager HP/damage reduction possibility. You should try to use this to the best of your advantage by focusing on ranged combat early on. Down the line, when your AS/AMF/GA/killslots are drawing battles out longer and longer is when you want to start worrying about builiding up a decent melee weapon.

As an added note, try renting one of the base named weapons in rentals for a nice little boost in damage with no worry of encumbrance for the first 100-150k MPR or so ^_^

Thanks, y'all. I am experimenting with the new rules to determine my strategy before a NCB. (not for the top but at least to get up somewhere where I can do a couple million damage per swing or bow shot - that's fun. I am not doing well so far so I'm sure these suggestions will help.

Thanks again.

Maybe someday BL will not be nerfed at low levels. it's my dream. :)