Hello All,
First thank you for including me in the Beta test, really enjoying the game so far, here is my feedback.
I’ve played the Archer class as my main, playing with the stats, skill setup and grinding methods.
I’ve also engaged in pvp for a large amount of time during my play and I will give a full rundown of my experience.
Highest Level Achieved: 127
Class Combination: Archer->Archer->Archer->Scout->Rogue
Weapon Gear: Always bought the highest damage bow from the market and upgraded to +5
Archer PvE:
The Archer’s strength is in single-target DPS, shinning mostly with maxed multi-arrow against bosses, this skill can be used in dungeon runs as a DPS skill against the mobs. Unfortunately archer weakness is the rest.
For grinding sustainable DPS you have a few options, none of them are that good. First, kneeling shot with a dex focused build will allow you to become a turret and gain some attack speed (don’t believe it is as big of a bonus as the skill notes after testing the attack speed extensively) Also you will crit a lot which will subsidize your damage and you will dodge a lot of attacks which is always nice to mitigate damage. You also won’t need SP pots with this builds, so it saves you cost on the mana pots.
The second-more mobile option is going with oblique shot and or heavy shot, this option is very mana-hungry and even with considerate investment in SP in highest levels with STR or DEX focus, these skills will do very small amount of damage in comparison to other class skills and cost so much SP that it is just not economically viable to sustain such a grind. To give an example at level 112 with 30 SP and 150 STR, around 50 DEX, i used HALF of my mana to kill a Drake, which required 8-10 shots of heavy shot or oblique shot, and regular auto-attacks would require more than double that many hits. Needless to say using a potion or having to rest after every single mob is not my idea of fun especially in a game that requires you to kill thousands of enemies in order to advance.
Third of course is auto-attacking while moving, without kneeling shot, also tested this method with STR as well as DEX focused build, and I compared it to Auto-attacks of other classes. Archer auto-attacks even thou single-target only, unlike other classes who are able to hit multiple enemies constantly with their auto-attacks, lack damage. whether you are a STR user or a DEX one, you will most often require 5 hits or more on an enemy, especially in higher levels and double-so in dungeons, while a swordsman will easily 2-3-shot majority of enemies around him if he uses same tier gear with same tier upgrades.
Result:
Grind Potential: 1/10 I’ve never felt more frustrated while grinding than with an archer in this game, and I’ve played darkages (old nexon game) some time ago. Hard to find good location for grinding, hard to figure out build, and even max efficiency is slow compared to other classes.
Economic Potential: 1/10 Because you grind so slow you will also not get as many drops/silver and therefore this is one of the weakest “earners” in the game, not to mention all the SP potions you will have to buy to sustain yourself.
All money I’ve made was buying/selling items on the market! Archer tree also has no real money mule like other class trees (pardoner for cleric, alchemist for wizard, or squire for warrior) so the potential for alternative revenue generation is also limited.
Bosses and Group Dungeons: 6/10 Good damage mainly because you can use multi-shot and also sparking arrow if you are a scout on mobs that are hitting another targets, You kill bosses reasonably fast, and with relative ease if you kite even at an below average level. As a scout you also get conceal which is an amazing panic button if aggro is drawn on you. Downside is if you do conceal in a solo boss fight, the boss will REGAIN health, hope this gets fixed.
You are also relatively wanted for group runs and kneeling shot shines well in this setting because you can use it behind the front line and just get to work.
PvE Bugs:
While using conceal in boss fights, the Boss will regenerate their health back if you are the only player in the room.
While using kneeling shot, my target would not switch even if running out of range of my auto-attacks without target lock being on,
While mobs used teleport (in map leading up to the aqueduct) my auto-attacks would stop and/or get canceled mid-animation and no arrows would be fired until about 1-2 seconds after.
Kneeling shot does not auto-attack at the rates it claims to???
PvE Suggestions:
I believe that single-target auto attack for archers should be buffed considerably as it is rather lack-luster in that there are almost no options of different type of damage unlike all the other classes have access to a variety of elements (wizard/clerics) or type of damage (pierce/slash/strike) currently the archer auto-attack is totally useless and forces constant SP skill spam. A viable option would be to considerably lower the SP of archer skills and buff their damage.
There are also a few skills I was confused about while reading their description and testing them, mainly Flu Flu shot, which could use a much better description.
Archer PvP:
Archer is single-handily one of the best PvP classes, because it can eat casters alive with twin arrow and heavy shot, no caster should be able to 1 on 1 you unless its a cryo-mancer and he manages to get his stun off on you before the barrage of heavy shots hits him. If you are DEX built, you will be able to stand your own against most melee champions as well as theres a good chance you will be able to dodge their stuns and some of their heavy hits.
Unfortunately DEX/evasion is not end-all be all, because even with relatively low DEX a melee can land a significant amount of hits. (tested against high-accuracy gloves melee with only 36 dex, against my high-dex build dex over 170) he was still hitting about half of all shots, which seemed a little unreasonable but that’s the way it works.
Beware of hoplites and some/or damage based spear wielding peltast in PvP they are the toughest opponent for an archer, as their swordsman skill allows them to mitigate knock-back of heavy shot and their spear has long-reach and is able to do damage even while jumping, unlike your bow. Rangers tend to be much better vs melee classes than pure archers, but archers tend to have a slight edge on rangers due mostly to heavy shot. DEX built archer and ranger are usually going to be pretty evenly matched overall however.
PvP Bugs:
While using scout’s conceal in a PvP in which someone has you auto-locked with CTRL, their auto-lock will track you even while hidden so that they can still shoot you even thou they can not see you,
While using Full Draw, it says that the skill will pin the enemy to the terrain for a few seconds, this stun does not apply in PvP making that skill effectively useless while barbarian stun and other melee slows all work just fine.
PvP Suggestions:
Let’s take a look at evasion again and see the ratio that DEX actually adds between it and accuracy, as it only requires half of the DEX of the defender, for the attacked to mitigate his evasion completely with his accuracy. (evasion increases at half the rate accuracy does or is calculated as? I am unsure of this one but please look at it) With accuracy gloves and etc, it means that even less DEX is required and this is why 36 dex hoplite was landing 50% hits on my fully leather armor +5 mastery, and 170+Dex rogue.
This may be a little far fetched, but I would like to see public pvp ranks, arenas, damage/play-by-play reports with numbers your stats and opponents stats, and publicly shown items/build.
Hope the devs find this helpful, thank you!