So I’ve gone into this beta with the aim of testing out game play and mechanics and have stopped a week or so ago after reaching level 130 on an archer/quarrel shooter/sapper/scout/rogue. I usually play tanky mages so I expected archer to be fast attacking squishy dpsers, turns out not so much haha…
Here’s some stuff you should consider while going into archer, some of them are my opinions.
Archer:
- Crossbows, Bows, and most ranged abilities are classified as Missiles.
Which means you will do significantly less damage against most monsters.
Suffers a 25% damage penalty against M size enemies.
Suffers a 50% damage penalty against L size enemies.
Suffers a 50% damage penalty against XL size enemies.
-
Full Draw can be released after half a second for quick knockbacks.
Its damage divided between two threaded enemies are not 50/50, but more like 40/40. (You do less damage overall.)
It’s defense reduction is only applied on threaded enemies.
However, it can snare an enemy down without threading to another enemy. -
Swift Step in Circle 2 adds critical rate.
Critical Chance = (Critical Rate - Critical Resistance) + Some Math
If you are not going for a significant amount of Dex (Str/Spr Build), it’s not worth it. -
One-handed Bow Mastery: Ignore Defense adds a chance to apply an ignore defense debuff on attacked enemies.
-
Two-handed Bow Mastery: Anti-Air is probably your best tool against air as an archer, there are surprisingly many good archer abilities that doesn’t hit air.
Quarrel Shooter:
-
Deploy Pavise can be really effective in certain scenarios.
It is an aoe knockback which can knock a group of enemies into stakes.
It also blocks melee hits while you are behind it, creating a pseudo safety zone. -
Scatter Caltrops looked really good on paper until I started using it.
Aside from not being able to hit air at all, including bosses, the hit box is just horrible in conjunction with how randomly spread they are.
On the other hand, they can effectively help you attract a bunch of mobs since some mobs like to aim for summoned units.
As such, they have health, can be destroyed by aoe, and can be linked by enemy linkers which may get you killed. -
Stone Shot scales fairly well with physical damage plus their 50% bonus to plate armor.
Stone Shot Level 1 Damage at Lv.128
Stone Shot Level 1 + Cloaking + Sneak Hit
It has a further cast range than regular attacks.
The second shot deals slightly more damage but does not stun or knockback.
I consider them the most annoying ability to spam in pvp.
Sapper:
-
Stake Stockades has really impressive damage, most sapper consider them their bread and butter and, at level 130, they still are for me even at circle 1.
As a STR archer, I was one-shotting groups of Black Drakes in Mage Tower 5F around level 118 with the bonus pierce damage and some attribute upgrades.
It does not hit air, but it can hit floating bosses.
It can also be detonated.
Its animation after setup can be cancelled by jumping (but jumping while Cloaking will remove cloaking before damage is done). -
Claymore actually hits twice when you activate it. Once around your character, probably the effects of Detonate, then it’s animated aoe explosion.
You can setup a Claymore while under Cloaking but have to make sure nothing is around you when you activate it or the first hit around your character will use up the bonus damage.
Scout:
-
Camouflage reduces the movespeed penalty as you level it instead of increasing it.
-
Flu Flu basically causes a bunch of enemies to attack your target and is great for mobbing.
The damage is not so impressive otherwise.
Cannot target players in pvp. -
Flare Shot does slightly less than your basic attack every half a second for its duration.
Its aoe is quite small and is actually a bit lower than its animation, perhaps due to the isometric view.
It does not hit air, but it can hit floating bosses.
It can also be detonated as a ground spell. -
Cloaking does what I wished Swift Step did, increase regular movement speed.
Its duration is a second less than stated so at level 5 there’s a 1.5s blank time between uses.
You can sit and regenerate while invisible but you cannot get bonfire bonus.
You are invisible until you do damage, jump, or get damaged so you may set traps, gather stones, cast buffs, talk to npcs, gather quest objectives… etc. while invisible.
The 50% bonus physical damage only works on the first hit, so if your ability hits multiple times, only the first hit will work.
Rogue:
-
Sneak Hit
Just a general feedback that I find Sneak Hit somewhat situational and only really useful while killing bosses and mostly in party play, cloaking away from mobs to set a Claymore from behind.
It does apply Critical Chance instead of Critical Rate so a low Dex archer can benefit quite a bit from it. -
Vendetta has a really long cast time for what it does and makes it harder to activate.
Might be worth it at level 10 or further with how much physical damage a STR archer might have at those levels.
At level 130, my archer has roughly 650 max physical attack split between STR and CON, 35~45% of that is a decent chunk. -
Capture against some enemy spells removes a whole casting of ground spells.
For example, enemy casts three blocks of healing squares at once, my level 1 Capture removes the whole thing even though it only held 1 square when I recast it.
It can also steal all overlapping ground spells which is kind of quirky. -
Secondary Weapon: Dagger
Its damage is only applied when you use your secondary attack, unless you use arde dagger and other similar daggers which applies a bonus fire damage to all your damage.
You can use it to cancel some attack animations.
Here are some random game play videos:
Level 90 Uncontrollable Necroventer
Level 90 Chapparition
Level 98 Entrance to Kateen Pt.1
Level 98 Entrance to Kateen Pt.2
Level 100 Mineloader
Level 112 Ironbaum