So.
I’ve played icbt and managed to peak top1 journal rank with my archer and felt like I should give back to the community my experience.
When you first start the game, you suck. You can’t dps (or maybe swordies, Highlanders and Barbarians are broken in comparison, idk), you can’t take a hit from anything (damn bats), you can’t even grind because Multishot takes so long to charge that any Earthquake gonna ks your mobs. Of course it gets better with time, and I see you being really powerful in endgame. You really start playing when you get your Seeker bow, dropped from Zignuts in Srautas Canyon (a nice grinding spot btw, prob better than Tenet Garden).
I feel like Kneeling Shot is actually toxic to the game. You can get something to press your Z button like a pile of coins, a macro whatever and you effectively “bot” your way up. The skill isn’t even powerful as well since you can’t cast any skills while at it. Maybe you want it only if you plan on getting Ranger and Steady Aim, which you shouldn’t. Seriously, I see no point in getting anything that is not Archer c2 on rank 2.
Ranger has only one good skill in Critical Shot. Steady Aim would be awesome if not for the attack speed penalty. I mean you are a class meant to dps and to dish out crits, so you need proccs. Also AS is a stat that you can’t really get more, so its valuable.
Quarrel Shooter can… Throw Stones. Yeah.
In rank 3 I got Archer once again, but now I had a choice. They say Hunter is allright cause the pet can tank for you (tho any class can have a pet) and I feel its viable since it can make flying mobs vulnerable to ground skills such as traps, but you can’t really be a Hunter > Sapper… Sapper btw seems really good, as good as Archer c3. The choice is really single target in Twin Arrow or AoE traps. You take a bit to learn how to properly use the traps, but they seem to do nice damage overall. Oh, and you can detonate the random traps spawned from bosses. I thought I could spam Twin Arrow ad aeternum effectively doubling my dps, but even with only three charges, the skill is fair enough.
About stats, Im really bad with those. I got to 100 Str and never missed any mobs, only those pesky Evasion / Block users, but Ive been told that ~40 dex still miss those so if you get more dex is because crit rate.
About the skills, Multishot is both good and bad. Its an AoE that dishes single target damage in random enemies in the area. It takes forever to cast but deal way too much damage. The only problem with it is the clunkyness. You have to stand still during the whole casting + animation, else you lose some shots, and since you get aggro when you hit the mob once, they often dont take full damage. Now for bosses, this is the best skill for any class rank1 and maybe even trumps Pyro for rank2, no idea about rank3 but if you take c3, must still be king. But it is a really bad grinding skill since you end up either getting it cancelled or having too use a lower level of it, that fails to clean up mobs.
Swift Step is awesome, not because of what it gives, but because the atribute. You can buy it five times, getting yourself a neat 50% crit rate (not sure if it bumps 50% of YOUR crit rate or if you crit 50% of the time tho) buff that you can keep always up. I feel that only because of this skill, Archer c2 is a must. The only scenery where you don’t get this is if in endgame there is a build with near 100% crit rate that makes it redundant, but even then this must be one of the best early game skills to get there.
Fulldraw seems weak but I didnt even see anyone using it.
Kneeling Shot needs some more power and need to have a max duration. It can be high, but can’t be infinite as is right now because of botting.
Oblique Shot is awesome. It hits for some damage even mobs more than 50lvs higher than you, where your other skills deal 1 dmg, so I assume it deals magic damage and has no cooldown or cast time. The downsides are 1) you often end up hitting a Tree Root Crystal (the secondary target acquiring is really bugged. Sometimes it “hits” mobs that are already dead, sometimes they hit targets that it shouldn’t…) and 2) you end up pulling more aggro than planned.
Twin Shot is good for bosses and blues, I wonder if this is god tier to use with Scouts Cloaking in PvP as it seems to be. But then again, maybe Multishot is just superior in that department.
Heavy Shot has no cooldown as well, deals ~double your base damage on level 1 and has some utility in the knockback (tho it is way less than what expected from Ragnarok players). Idk if it is any viable, but looks like it is not. Swordies have Pain Barrier and you dont want to choo away Mages, and it kind of is useless for PvE.
Usefull items are Seeker bow, Nepenthes Gloves (lv15), Gulyle bow, Archon Hands and the storyline armor (lv40). I feel like xbows are useless. The only reason to use them is to get a shield enchanted with crit rate gems, but even then idk about the dps.
I wish I could play the last day and test Scout.
My intended build was http://www.tosbase.com/tools/skill-simulator/build/uxu3ohejuv/
Oh well, this is it I guess. Shout outs to everyone who played with me during the week, this has been awesome and I look forward to the game’s release (:
Cheers, Cyanide Dante
