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The Archer.
Everyone's favourite ranged physical Damage Dealer. Beloved of the weak, played by those of us who enjoy inflicting great amounts of Metal, Fire, Wood, and Water damage on those who would do us harm. If you're reading this you're either curious about the fantastic art of archery and are considering playing one, or you are one and wonder how to make the best of it. Course you may also just want to read my writing for some reason. Anyways, to business. And what a beautiful business it is. Everyone loves a good damage dealer when they're facing off against those nasty wraiths or annoying..real people.
There are two kinds of archers: Straight-up all-Dex. which is PVP or high dmg output archer. And Hybrid Archer
Your All-Dex. Archer is the kind who inflicts the most damage. Our job is to brutalize the wraiths and enemy players alike with devastating skills and high-damage attacks. We fight from a distance and inflict the best damage we can. The shorter the fight, the more fighting you can do..oh and the less likely it is you or your friends will die..
Stat points:
Most of your points are going into your dexterity. It increases your ranged physical damage, accuracy, and evasion. All of these are your best friends, so dex dex dex. Damage is self-explanatory, accuracy is how easily you hit your targets, meaning higher accuracy makes it less likely you'll miss. Evasion is a great thing, it allows high dodge percentage when things find a way to attack you. Considering how little you'll have in vitality, this is a good thing. The all-dex archer is purely for destroying things.
If you're going this way you'll want to make friends with a tank or a healer, preferably both. Since you do optimal damage by being far from your poor target, having someone else taking its attention is to your lasting benefit. Not only will you stay alive, but the fight wont last as long. lesson 1 in PW, staying alive is good.
Aside from dexterity you'll also need to put points into strength in order to wear light armour (and light armour is what you want to wear) and use bow/crossbow/ or slingshot.
Check the required dex and str on your items for your current level and those 5 levels or so above you. that should let you know how you can spend your points and not get trapped. As for vitality and magic, they serve their own purposes. for an archer, being an elf, our natural wings slowly drain our mana when we fly. when you get to 20 points in magic, that drain will stop because the recovery rate will match the drain rate. So, up to you whether or not you want to do this, but it's nice to be able to stay in the air indefinately sometimes. If you want to go PVP, you'd be better off saving for other wings once you hit lvl 30 because a PVP archer needs more dex than one who fights more monsters.
Vitality only really comes into play later on, sometimes it's nice to have a few extra points in there now and then, could keep you alive that extra second someday. Again though, if you're planning on going pvp keep vitality points to a minimum. More dex means more damage.
So, the other kind of archer, the Hybrid. These are the guys who aren't bad at soloing. They have more points in vitality than necessary for archers. However, it means that they can take more hits themselves where all-dex archers may succumb to that darkest of mistresses, death. So long as you keep up with your dex and str requirements, feel free and able to dally in the other two areas. just dont go over 20 in magic..it'd be a huge waste. Consequently having spent more points in vit you wont have the same damage-inflicting capabilities of a regular archer. Both have their merits.
Skills:
As with each race and class there are skills that are paramount to have. some that many prefer over others, and those that most find useless. It is up to the player, but it becomes easy to see at times by what you use more often.
An archers arsenal is no different. Each successive level of skills increases its power in subtle ways. If you hit the 'R' key on your keyboard in-game you can see your skill list, and at the bottom-right corner of that box you'll see an arrow labeled skill tree. Take a look at it for a description of all of your possible skills, what levels/spiritual cultivation you learn them at, and when you can learn successive levels. Note that you need to have learned the prerequisite skill above new skills in over for them to be available.
There are three types of skills: Active Attacks, Active Blessings, and Passive.
We begin with two Innate Active Attack skills: Max Them!
Take Aim- Take aim is a charged shot that inflicts a decent amount of damage as a percentage of your base physical damage, which is great when you do a critical hit. I always used it as my opening shot since the monster in question didn't know what hit it yet. after the initial shot though it's fairly useless because of the time it take to use. Levels up do more damage and take less mana and time. If you have a tank friend it can still be used for its damage capabilities.
Quickshot- Just as its named, this is a shot that's instantly fired. It does decent physical damage. it's good when you're soloing and using the shoot, run, shoot, run technique called 'kiting', or when you draw more monsters than you can handle. Quickshot will keep the mobs attention on you until you get far enough that the other one gets bored and runs off.
At lvl 6 you can learn an Active Blessing:
Blazing Arrow- this adds a percentage of your base physical damage in Fire damage. Very good to have pretty much all the time. Again, Max this one, its always worth it to have some fire damage added to your attacks.
At lvl 9 you can learn 3 new skills, an Active Attack, Active Blessing and two Passive skills respectively:
Frost Arrow- This is NOT an arrow made by our Director. It is the second of our elemental attacks that inflicts water damage and handily slows the enemy for a time.
Winged Shell- I used to not be a fan of this skill but I've come to love it now and then. It forms a shield around you that lasts for 20 seconds and can absorb a certain amount of damage at a time. it doubles as a mana-recharger, allowing you to recover an amount of mana a few times during each casting.
Winged Mastery- This handy skill increases the speed of our Natural Wings only. It would be good to keep up with this skill if you plan to keep your natural wings as I have, but you may feel that it would be a waste to spend coin and spirit points on this if you wont use your wings after level 30.
Winged Blessing- each level of this passive skill adds a metre to your range, range is good!
At lvl 13 you'll be able to learn your first Active Metal Attack:
Lightning Strike- this is where you say, "I've had just about enough of you", and you call down a lightning bolt on top of the enemy's head.
Your next skills are available at lvl 19. Two Active Attacks and the other core Active Blessing:
Vicious Arrow- This is your basic Wood attack. It poisons the enemy dealing Wood damage over time.
Knockback Arrow- This is one of the favourites among archers. It deals physical damage and knocks the target back 12 metres. This is very handy when a mob gets too close and you're not dealing great damage. It gives you time to do better damage while they're trying to get back to you, or can disrupt a ranged units attack to boot.
At lvl 23 you get a handy close-proximity Active Attack and your squad-helping blessing:
Winged Pledge- this attack is good for melee mobs that are right in your face, you blast them with a vertical beam of magical energy. does decent damage.
Wings of Protection- This is the great buff of the archer. It temporarily increases speed and evasion for you or everyone in a squad with you who's close enough.
Lvl 29 is your next set of skills:
Thundershock- This is a really useful skill, it is an Active Attack that deals metal damage and also reduces the targets metal resistance for a time.
Aim Low- this is a particularly strong attack that requires a full spark to use. IT does physical damage and paralyses the target for a few seconds. This is great for when you're getting chased, or follow up from a knockback arrow to keep it away even longer.
Bow Mastery- This passive skill's successive levels increases the percentage of your ranged damage.
At lvl 34 you learn a very useful skill:
Serrated Arrow- This Active Attack fires an shot that causes the target to bleed, taking damage over time.
At lvl 39 your next two skills are available for learning:
Stunning Arrow- This shot has a chance to stun the target (aptly named isn't it?). this can be very useful in pve as well and especially in pvp. Though they aren't stunned for long if at all it's often enough to get an extra shot in(effectively robbing them of a few shots as well)
Wingspan- This is you're first Area of Effect(AOE) Attack. It is very similar to winged pledged only it hits multiple targets in a radius around you and also knocks them back. VERY good when surrounded.
At lvl 44 we can learn the next step in our metal-based attacks:
Thunderous Blast- This very cool attack launches a little lightning storm at your target. It is your first ranged AOE attack. It affects enemies in an area around your target. a good followup on the Thundershock when their resistance to metal is already reduced. Beware of the aoe nature of this attack though, drawing aggro can be unfortunate for archers. On the other hand, it may be exactly what you want in squad as we're often used along with venos to draw mobs to us.
lvl 49! Here are two attacks you'll love for the rest of your destructive career, though your wallet will not be happy with you.
Sharpened Tooth Arrow- This attack, like the Thunderous Blast, can affect multiple enemies near your target. The happy effect of this attack is the lowering of their max hp for 30 seconds.
Deadly Shot- You and your crit rate will love this attack, it replaced Take Aim as my starter because of its timing. It basically does base damage plus an added percentage of weapon dmg plus alot more damage.
lvl 59, gettin' to the end of the tree, the more powerful end. You get three new skills available to you:
Stormrage Eagleon- this is the epitomy of our pure metal damage capabilities. With this attack we release a magical bird at our enemy that causes metal damage over time and reduces the targets movement speed.
Barrage of Arrows- This attack utilizes all of your available vigour to unleash a downpour of arrows into an area encompassing your target and those unfortunate enough to be close to it.
Wings of Grace- an Active Blessing that allows you to move immune to all movement impediments like stun and slow, it also reduces the amount of damage you take.
lvl 79. here is where we can get two new Active Blessings:
Elven Alacrity- This blessing increases you to your maximum speed for a time and makes you immune to movement ailments.
Blessing of the Condor- This is similar to Wings of Protection in that it affects your squad. you summon a falcon of heaven to protect the squad, greatly increases evasion for a short time
Lvl 100!!
Blood Vow- this attack reduces both the caster and target's max HP, and deals metal damage over time to the target. it's a risky attack, leaving you a little vulnerable, but it gives you a great opportunity to inflict major damage.
Awaken- a blessing that instantly recharges spark, very handy when you don't have time to charge chi
As for the cost of this character, there are three major costs. the first and foremost is ammunition. you cant fight without it. there are four levels of ammo for each weapon. successively they come in prices 2, 11, 24, and 58 coin per unit. each successive set of ammo is rated for a higher level set of weapons. 1-16, 4-16, 7-16, and 13-16 respectively. as they get more expensive they also get stronger. the first being +3 phys atk, +20, +45, +110. so you can see how you'll get more powerful in exchange for higher costs. Just make sure you don't buy ammo for a weapon at a higher level than what you're using. after a certain level we're able to carry thousands of units so if you have a good stock you won't have to shell out too often. just keep an eye on you're stock and you'll be fine.
the second cost is mana. each of our skills costs an amount of mana or mana and chi. chi is easy, we can get it by embracing other players (guy-girl only), or lucky for us, our physical attacks give it to us in any case. mana is a larger drain, hovering over the skill icon will tell you how much its cost is to use. potions can get expensive as you level so this is something you'll have to worry about. when you have the time there's no shame and stopping to meditate to recover rather than using pots, it takes longer, but if you're low on coin its worth it.
the last cost is for every class but i thought i should mention it: Repairs. if you get hit, you're armour degenerates, all of the items you wear, weapon included, will degenerate as they takes hits from monsters. the more you get hit, the higher the cost will be to repair it. anytime you go to a sales npc, blacksmith, tailor, craftsman, or apothecary, its worth going into the trade list and hitting 'repair all' as a general rule. you don't want anything breaking on you.
I suppose thats all i can think of..ill take any hints i havent thought of, and answer any questions asap.
Everyone's favourite ranged physical Damage Dealer. Beloved of the weak, played by those of us who enjoy inflicting great amounts of Metal, Fire, Wood, and Water damage on those who would do us harm. If you're reading this you're either curious about the fantastic art of archery and are considering playing one, or you are one and wonder how to make the best of it. Course you may also just want to read my writing for some reason. Anyways, to business. And what a beautiful business it is. Everyone loves a good damage dealer when they're facing off against those nasty wraiths or annoying..real people.
There are two kinds of archers: Straight-up all-Dex. which is PVP or high dmg output archer. And Hybrid Archer
Your All-Dex. Archer is the kind who inflicts the most damage. Our job is to brutalize the wraiths and enemy players alike with devastating skills and high-damage attacks. We fight from a distance and inflict the best damage we can. The shorter the fight, the more fighting you can do..oh and the less likely it is you or your friends will die..
Stat points:
Most of your points are going into your dexterity. It increases your ranged physical damage, accuracy, and evasion. All of these are your best friends, so dex dex dex. Damage is self-explanatory, accuracy is how easily you hit your targets, meaning higher accuracy makes it less likely you'll miss. Evasion is a great thing, it allows high dodge percentage when things find a way to attack you. Considering how little you'll have in vitality, this is a good thing. The all-dex archer is purely for destroying things.
If you're going this way you'll want to make friends with a tank or a healer, preferably both. Since you do optimal damage by being far from your poor target, having someone else taking its attention is to your lasting benefit. Not only will you stay alive, but the fight wont last as long. lesson 1 in PW, staying alive is good.
Aside from dexterity you'll also need to put points into strength in order to wear light armour (and light armour is what you want to wear) and use bow/crossbow/ or slingshot.
Check the required dex and str on your items for your current level and those 5 levels or so above you. that should let you know how you can spend your points and not get trapped. As for vitality and magic, they serve their own purposes. for an archer, being an elf, our natural wings slowly drain our mana when we fly. when you get to 20 points in magic, that drain will stop because the recovery rate will match the drain rate. So, up to you whether or not you want to do this, but it's nice to be able to stay in the air indefinately sometimes. If you want to go PVP, you'd be better off saving for other wings once you hit lvl 30 because a PVP archer needs more dex than one who fights more monsters.
Vitality only really comes into play later on, sometimes it's nice to have a few extra points in there now and then, could keep you alive that extra second someday. Again though, if you're planning on going pvp keep vitality points to a minimum. More dex means more damage.
So, the other kind of archer, the Hybrid. These are the guys who aren't bad at soloing. They have more points in vitality than necessary for archers. However, it means that they can take more hits themselves where all-dex archers may succumb to that darkest of mistresses, death. So long as you keep up with your dex and str requirements, feel free and able to dally in the other two areas. just dont go over 20 in magic..it'd be a huge waste. Consequently having spent more points in vit you wont have the same damage-inflicting capabilities of a regular archer. Both have their merits.
Skills:
As with each race and class there are skills that are paramount to have. some that many prefer over others, and those that most find useless. It is up to the player, but it becomes easy to see at times by what you use more often.
An archers arsenal is no different. Each successive level of skills increases its power in subtle ways. If you hit the 'R' key on your keyboard in-game you can see your skill list, and at the bottom-right corner of that box you'll see an arrow labeled skill tree. Take a look at it for a description of all of your possible skills, what levels/spiritual cultivation you learn them at, and when you can learn successive levels. Note that you need to have learned the prerequisite skill above new skills in over for them to be available.
There are three types of skills: Active Attacks, Active Blessings, and Passive.
We begin with two Innate Active Attack skills: Max Them!
Take Aim- Take aim is a charged shot that inflicts a decent amount of damage as a percentage of your base physical damage, which is great when you do a critical hit. I always used it as my opening shot since the monster in question didn't know what hit it yet. after the initial shot though it's fairly useless because of the time it take to use. Levels up do more damage and take less mana and time. If you have a tank friend it can still be used for its damage capabilities.
Quickshot- Just as its named, this is a shot that's instantly fired. It does decent physical damage. it's good when you're soloing and using the shoot, run, shoot, run technique called 'kiting', or when you draw more monsters than you can handle. Quickshot will keep the mobs attention on you until you get far enough that the other one gets bored and runs off.
At lvl 6 you can learn an Active Blessing:
Blazing Arrow- this adds a percentage of your base physical damage in Fire damage. Very good to have pretty much all the time. Again, Max this one, its always worth it to have some fire damage added to your attacks.
At lvl 9 you can learn 3 new skills, an Active Attack, Active Blessing and two Passive skills respectively:
Frost Arrow- This is NOT an arrow made by our Director. It is the second of our elemental attacks that inflicts water damage and handily slows the enemy for a time.
Winged Shell- I used to not be a fan of this skill but I've come to love it now and then. It forms a shield around you that lasts for 20 seconds and can absorb a certain amount of damage at a time. it doubles as a mana-recharger, allowing you to recover an amount of mana a few times during each casting.
Winged Mastery- This handy skill increases the speed of our Natural Wings only. It would be good to keep up with this skill if you plan to keep your natural wings as I have, but you may feel that it would be a waste to spend coin and spirit points on this if you wont use your wings after level 30.
Winged Blessing- each level of this passive skill adds a metre to your range, range is good!
At lvl 13 you'll be able to learn your first Active Metal Attack:
Lightning Strike- this is where you say, "I've had just about enough of you", and you call down a lightning bolt on top of the enemy's head.
Your next skills are available at lvl 19. Two Active Attacks and the other core Active Blessing:
Vicious Arrow- This is your basic Wood attack. It poisons the enemy dealing Wood damage over time.
Knockback Arrow- This is one of the favourites among archers. It deals physical damage and knocks the target back 12 metres. This is very handy when a mob gets too close and you're not dealing great damage. It gives you time to do better damage while they're trying to get back to you, or can disrupt a ranged units attack to boot.
At lvl 23 you get a handy close-proximity Active Attack and your squad-helping blessing:
Winged Pledge- this attack is good for melee mobs that are right in your face, you blast them with a vertical beam of magical energy. does decent damage.
Wings of Protection- This is the great buff of the archer. It temporarily increases speed and evasion for you or everyone in a squad with you who's close enough.
Lvl 29 is your next set of skills:
Thundershock- This is a really useful skill, it is an Active Attack that deals metal damage and also reduces the targets metal resistance for a time.
Aim Low- this is a particularly strong attack that requires a full spark to use. IT does physical damage and paralyses the target for a few seconds. This is great for when you're getting chased, or follow up from a knockback arrow to keep it away even longer.
Bow Mastery- This passive skill's successive levels increases the percentage of your ranged damage.
At lvl 34 you learn a very useful skill:
Serrated Arrow- This Active Attack fires an shot that causes the target to bleed, taking damage over time.
At lvl 39 your next two skills are available for learning:
Stunning Arrow- This shot has a chance to stun the target (aptly named isn't it?). this can be very useful in pve as well and especially in pvp. Though they aren't stunned for long if at all it's often enough to get an extra shot in(effectively robbing them of a few shots as well)
Wingspan- This is you're first Area of Effect(AOE) Attack. It is very similar to winged pledged only it hits multiple targets in a radius around you and also knocks them back. VERY good when surrounded.
At lvl 44 we can learn the next step in our metal-based attacks:
Thunderous Blast- This very cool attack launches a little lightning storm at your target. It is your first ranged AOE attack. It affects enemies in an area around your target. a good followup on the Thundershock when their resistance to metal is already reduced. Beware of the aoe nature of this attack though, drawing aggro can be unfortunate for archers. On the other hand, it may be exactly what you want in squad as we're often used along with venos to draw mobs to us.
lvl 49! Here are two attacks you'll love for the rest of your destructive career, though your wallet will not be happy with you.
Sharpened Tooth Arrow- This attack, like the Thunderous Blast, can affect multiple enemies near your target. The happy effect of this attack is the lowering of their max hp for 30 seconds.
Deadly Shot- You and your crit rate will love this attack, it replaced Take Aim as my starter because of its timing. It basically does base damage plus an added percentage of weapon dmg plus alot more damage.
lvl 59, gettin' to the end of the tree, the more powerful end. You get three new skills available to you:
Stormrage Eagleon- this is the epitomy of our pure metal damage capabilities. With this attack we release a magical bird at our enemy that causes metal damage over time and reduces the targets movement speed.
Barrage of Arrows- This attack utilizes all of your available vigour to unleash a downpour of arrows into an area encompassing your target and those unfortunate enough to be close to it.
Wings of Grace- an Active Blessing that allows you to move immune to all movement impediments like stun and slow, it also reduces the amount of damage you take.
lvl 79. here is where we can get two new Active Blessings:
Elven Alacrity- This blessing increases you to your maximum speed for a time and makes you immune to movement ailments.
Blessing of the Condor- This is similar to Wings of Protection in that it affects your squad. you summon a falcon of heaven to protect the squad, greatly increases evasion for a short time
Lvl 100!!
Blood Vow- this attack reduces both the caster and target's max HP, and deals metal damage over time to the target. it's a risky attack, leaving you a little vulnerable, but it gives you a great opportunity to inflict major damage.
Awaken- a blessing that instantly recharges spark, very handy when you don't have time to charge chi
As for the cost of this character, there are three major costs. the first and foremost is ammunition. you cant fight without it. there are four levels of ammo for each weapon. successively they come in prices 2, 11, 24, and 58 coin per unit. each successive set of ammo is rated for a higher level set of weapons. 1-16, 4-16, 7-16, and 13-16 respectively. as they get more expensive they also get stronger. the first being +3 phys atk, +20, +45, +110. so you can see how you'll get more powerful in exchange for higher costs. Just make sure you don't buy ammo for a weapon at a higher level than what you're using. after a certain level we're able to carry thousands of units so if you have a good stock you won't have to shell out too often. just keep an eye on you're stock and you'll be fine.
the second cost is mana. each of our skills costs an amount of mana or mana and chi. chi is easy, we can get it by embracing other players (guy-girl only), or lucky for us, our physical attacks give it to us in any case. mana is a larger drain, hovering over the skill icon will tell you how much its cost is to use. potions can get expensive as you level so this is something you'll have to worry about. when you have the time there's no shame and stopping to meditate to recover rather than using pots, it takes longer, but if you're low on coin its worth it.
the last cost is for every class but i thought i should mention it: Repairs. if you get hit, you're armour degenerates, all of the items you wear, weapon included, will degenerate as they takes hits from monsters. the more you get hit, the higher the cost will be to repair it. anytime you go to a sales npc, blacksmith, tailor, craftsman, or apothecary, its worth going into the trade list and hitting 'repair all' as a general rule. you don't want anything breaking on you.
I suppose thats all i can think of..ill take any hints i havent thought of, and answer any questions asap.
Last edited by Syrendel on Fri Feb 06, 2009 8:12 pm; edited 7 times in total
And yay archer guild!
