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[TheCoolSideofthePIllow]

I was out in the woods tossing rocks to improve the skill and it was going good, got up to Professional Thrower before I decided to make a macro for it.

After running the macro a bit, I check again to see I am legendary yet (I wasn't) and I noticed that I was a Great Thrower as well as a Great Archer. The last time I looked (at Professional), Archer wasn't even in the list.

Is this a bug? Or does throwing improve archery after a certain skill level?

[MrWillsauce]

Archer acts like fighting does, allowing you to do all ranged attacks better just like fighter allows you to be a better melee-fighter regardless of what weapon you use. So no, it's not a bug. It will level when you throw things, use crossbows, or regular bows. I'm pretty sure that fighter and archer don't really effect combat much, but I don't know.

[NineFourEightSeven]

It probably just represents your ability to aim.

[TheZoomZoll]

Archer counts as the aim rate (Example:a dabbling archer misses a lot but a legendary one hits a lot)
Throwing counts as the damage rate of the throw (example:a dabbling thrower is not lethal quickly  but a legendary one breaks bones with a simple rock)

[Snake_Eyes]

Living targets triple increase rate.

Snake_Eyes

[Dyret]

Yeah, the skill should probably be changed into something more generic like ranged or something... I always confused it with my bowman-skill when I first started playing.

[laularukyrumo]

Ahhh.

So Archer needs to be legendary and that's why I can't ever hit someone with a thrown rock. Got it.

[Eric Blank]

Actually, both archery and [weapon/throwing] skill affect accuracy, and damage is calculated based on material properties and object properties, and velocity of the object thrown. Skill probably has some effect, but bows and crossbows for certain involve the projectile and weapon's raw information to calculate penetration and damage.

For example, either a skilled thrower OR archer, but not skilled in BOTH thrower and archery, has a good chance to hit something with a coin, but the attack will always "pass right through" because... Apparently coins needed to be nerfed so badly the only way it made sense was to make them ghosts or something. They used to be absolutely freaking murderous. Throwing a large animal's corpse, however, has a pretty good chance of smashing them up badly. As for attributes that affect this; Spatial sense, kinesthetic sense, focus, and agility for archery. The wiki doesn't list thrower in the table on the attributes page, but it's probably a very similar group of attributes. Strength might affect the maximum velocity (and thus damage and potentially penetration power) of thrown projectiles, I'd guess. It may be worth testing.

[Orange Wizard]

Actually, both archery and [weapon/throwing] skill affect accuracy, and damage is calculated based on material properties and object properties, and velocity of the object thrown. Skill probably has some effect, but bows and crossbows for certain involve the projectile and weapon's raw information to calculate penetration and damage.

For example, either a skilled thrower OR archer, but not skilled in BOTH thrower and archery, has a good chance to hit something with a coin, but the attack will always "pass right through" because... Apparently coins needed to be nerfed so badly the only way it made sense was to make them ghosts or something. They used to be absolutely freaking murderous. Throwing a large animal's corpse, however, has a pretty good chance of smashing them up badly. As for attributes that affect this; Spatial sense, kinesthetic sense, focus, and agility for archery. The wiki doesn't list thrower in the table on the attributes page, but it's probably a very similar group of attributes. Strength might affect the maximum velocity (and thus damage and potentially penetration power) of thrown projectiles, I'd guess. It may be worth testing.

It's ‼SCIENCE‼ time!

[Quietust]

For example, either a skilled thrower OR archer, but not skilled in BOTH thrower and archery, has a good chance to hit something with a coin, but the attack will always "pass right through" because...

Stacks of less than 16 coins actually have zero mass - you can insert an infinite number of them into any container, and you can even insert them into things that aren't containers at all. This may possibly be related to why they can't hit anything when thrown.

[Pirate Bob]

Archer counts as the aim rate (Example:a dabbling archer misses a lot but a legendary one hits a lot)
Throwing counts as the damage rate of the throw (example:a dabbling thrower is not lethal quickly  but a legendary one breaks bones with a simple rock)

The results of careful science by Zivilin show that archer does almost nothing for improving the rate at which dwarves hit targets with crossbows, so it seems unlikely that archer does very much for the accuracy of thrown object either.  If you have science showing otherwise I'd be very interested.  I have not tested it, but I strongly suspect that thrower skill largely determines the accuracy of thrown projectiles. 

Urist Da Vinci found that thrown items are given a velocity of 100 regardless of item mass, so if you want to kill something, throw larger items.  As far as I can tell, his results did not indicate that any skills or attributes impact thrown object velocity (and hence damage). 

The same thread gives lots of details about how projectiles do damage and penetrate armor, which was found to mostly depend on the momentum of the projectiles.  Again, bigger mass is better.  If the target is armored, then the projectile material needs to have IMPACT_YIELD high enough that it isn't shattered/squashed by the force of the impact, but this probably won't happen for most objects (as noted above corpses work fine).  In archery only wooden bolts striking metal armor can be deflected in this manner.  Throw corpses.  You'll like it.  Rocks, blood, and water are also good choices due to infinite supply.

[Urist Da Vinci]

For example, either a skilled thrower OR archer, but not skilled in BOTH thrower and archery, has a good chance to hit something with a coin, but the attack will always "pass right through" because...

Stacks of less than 16 coins actually have zero mass - you can insert an infinite number of them into any container, and you can even insert them into things that aren't containers at all. This may possibly be related to why they can't hit anything when thrown.

Testing suggests that an item that has a contact area of zero (either a weapon with defined contact area of zero, or a non-weapon that has a volume of zero) will produce the "but the attack passes right through!" message.

When a dwarf collides with a stationary minecart after falling one z-level (possible by stacking minecarts in the arena), you can get the message "but the attack has no force!". A massless projectile that still has a contact area should produce such a message. I haven't been able to create such an object, so the game might be assigning a minimum weight. In the minecart's case, it was a zero speed collision.

[TheCoolSideofthePIllow]

For example, either a skilled thrower OR archer, but not skilled in BOTH thrower and archery, has a good chance to hit something with a coin, but the attack will always "pass right through" because...

Stacks of less than 16 coins actually have zero mass - you can insert an infinite number of them into any container, and you can even insert them into things that aren't containers at all. This may possibly be related to why they can't hit anything when thrown.

I thought this was just because they were small... I always keep my coins in a sock, and sometimes I take off the sock and hit people with it, thinking it would be harder than a sock (a sock full of coins hurts IRL).

[Orange Wizard]

For example, either a skilled thrower OR archer, but not skilled in BOTH thrower and archery, has a good chance to hit something with a coin, but the attack will always "pass right through" because...

Stacks of less than 16 coins actually have zero mass - you can insert an infinite number of them into any container, and you can even insert them into things that aren't containers at all. This may possibly be related to why they can't hit anything when thrown.

I thought this was just because they were small... I always keep my coins in a sock, and sometimes I take off the sock and hit people with it, thinking it would be harder than a sock (a sock full of coins hurts IRL).

Socks are valuable enough, you don't need to fill them with coins.