Tree of Savior Forum

Are Archers weak?

Class and Rank
#62

except cata shines at later ranks. Highlanders, barbs, hoplites, fencer, corsair, even doppel, all of them are great! Peltasta isn’t great for solo leveling but is very welcome is parties.

Then you play archer classes, and with very few exceptions you feel pretty bad. Horrible damage, lack of aoe, bad scalings, most utility skills are crap, and people prefer other classes for their groups.

About the topic itself, the general feedback points to this. Archers have the weakest class tree in the game, probably the most expensive too.

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#63

Archers have good trees too. One of my friend played sapper and while we were partying he was wrecking stuff with that propeller trap skill. I was like wow. In mage tower, I was playing my Barb…running for dear life (hate magic damage) he just sets ups his traps and lure mobs into them and watch them go poof.

#64

While I can’t say Archers are the weakest class, this class suffers a lot during class progression as you are pigeonholed into a few “popular” choices like archer C2/3 > X > Y. There is simply no other better alternative to progressing an archer until at least rank 4 where builds open up a bit but not that much.

I tried Archer -> Ranger during my first job change thinking it will help me in the mobbing department and bossing. And boy was that a very bad decision. For my third job change I went back to Archer C2 to get my multishot to 10 and that made everything a whole LOT easier.

It’s the size penalty that is harming archers really. They should just make bow damage to be consistent to all types of enemies.

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#65

I agree, sapper brings good aoe, being exactly an exception to this. A bit expensive, but I like it.

When I talk about “weakest class” tree, I intend to say the lowest number of viable builds.

#66

broom trap got 1 minute cooldown, needs items ( even if they are cheap ) and cant hit flying monsters. but, its a decent skill. got any more examples ?

#67

And I think that is the problem, you have to money sink just to be as op as barbs or other classes.

#68

krivis is god agaist boss, i tried all classes and he’s one of the best, faster than my barb, good as my cryo.

#69

It’s not that archer sucks overall it’s that archer is currently getting shafted a lot in damage types and leveling areas.

Missile: 0% bonus damage to small
-25% damage to medium
-50% damage to Large/XL
This means we not only can only LOSE damage, we’re one of the only damage types that can lost 50%.

Slash/Stab/Blunt
+50% to one type
-25% to other two types
They don’t get a -50% to any type despite what it says, they only get a 25% damage penalty

Magic is similar, clerics getting the obvious high end as games like this face you against a lot of demon/dark and holy does +100% to them with no downside.

Past damage types because I know you’ll say “But surely they’ll scale elsewhere?!”
Nope.
When you get enough dex to crit the majority of the time (Lvl 120-150+ depending on how much dex you put in) you will see nice returns but again in niche areas, has to be small/medium preferably small, has to be flying to see the nice damage (If two handed bow).

Maybe you don’t need CON cause you’re ranged at least?
Swift Step is garbage, every class moves faster while attacking/jumping and we can’t jump attack, two of them even get to AoE autoattack!
Ranger? Barrage requires melee to do the big dps.
Sapper? Even if lag doesn’t kill you, broom trap, collar bomb, stakes, to get good dps out of them you need to play very risky and get close enough or waste several revolutions of DPS(BroomTrap), several stacks of dps (Stake), no damage (Collar)
QS? Pavise requires melee if you want that nice dps, though you know, let’s not even mention QS yet.

The classes that don’t have this risk are generally lacking a bit more damage it feels like (other than Hunter/Falconer?)

Look at all of the good leveling spots the ‘field dungeons’ if you will. Medium/Large mobs. Plate/Leather. Others might be feeling a -25% damage you’re feeling potentially -50%, this is very very terrible.

B-But you can +10 your item to mitigate the difference.
Why do people even say this, jesus christ, you think other classes can’t +10? You think it’s cheap if you’re unfunded? You think other characters aren’t getting more dps for that buck in attributes or equips?

The bottom line is this, in a game of flat damage it is very difficult to overcome a deficit multiplier and archers have a higher one than others, and run into it at almost every leveling spot.

Now, is archer weak? It has a lot of faults, but if you play to it’s benefits you can play very well, just expect a lot of soloing as you aren’t as strong in the areas people would level, you’ll have to seek out alternate areas like Starving Demon’s Way, Main Chamber, Penitence ,Dina Bee Farm.
If you’re prepared to solo through most or your team is prepared to take you despite the deficit dps you offer, no problem you can party through most problems and have an ‘okay’ time when you get that near max/max crit.

Perhaps at one point there will be a near endgame area where archers can finally be a benefit, maybe some flying small dungeon will be released later on that will make archers fun to have as the main dps source in the party, but then again, maybe not.

All of the things I’ve listed can be mitigated several ways, but they all point to archer being the class you make after you’re funded, or they would be if that -50% XL damage didn’t apply to bosses, but who knows

E: Oh and archers don’t have as many great interactions between skills it seems, you rely on Oblique/Multishot a lot even later, Fletcher isn’t an actual production class thus has almost no money making power, Crossfire sucks so if you didn’t take sapper for some aoe, good luck buddy.

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#70

This is one of my biggest problems. All of those areas have awful density. Look at the high density maps, usually dungeons: Tenet Chapel, Mage Tower 5, Demon Prison, the most common places of long grinding. Now tell me what of those maps have flying monsters. Not to mention most of them are med/lg sizes.

Starving way was great in the sense of having basically only small flying monsters. However, medium density and very crowded because a lot of people pass by it atacking everything, not to mention those pyros leaving fireballs in spawn spots. Chamber is less crowded but monsters are a bit worse too. Med size flying monsters, the small ones hurt bad because of magic and freeze. Cathedral is great for the burialers, flying rocks with 20k hp. Dina bee is the worst of all these, the density is terrible. Even if I can explode things there (+7 double slotted skull bow / 70% attribute oblique shot) it gives less exp/h than demon prison, and both gives much less exp than both starving’s way and cathedral.

This is a big problem. We have some good places (flying monsters) but the density isn’t enough. We have only one excelent place (full of small/flying monsters) in 170 levels. Meanwhile my highlander shits at chapel, mage tower, demon prison, every single map. I have pretty good strike and slash aoe’s, I don’t remember a level range where I had no good places to grind. Ah, and a Highlander c3 explodes bosses like nothing.

All this is only talking about archers in general. I’m not talking about how I feel doing 1.2k damage on rush dog getting to rank 6. No other offensive skill except archers one, or more precisely, spamming oblique for 5 entire ranks.

1 Like
#71

Where is this place you speak of?

#72

Fletcher, one hit everything with Barbed Arrow + Spiral Arrow + Barrage :3

#73

People say +10 because that very same 25 and 50% missile damage penalty is reduced by +10’ing a weapon to 5 and 10%.

It’s completely accurate for someone to tell an archer to +10 a weapon because if they don’t they’re doing 25 and 50% penalties instead of 5 and 10%.

Sure the question is “Why do you need to upgrade a weapon to remove the penalty and why past +5 to reap full benefit?” I don’t know but it is what it is and not telling an archer to upgrade their weapon is allowing them to suffer full penalty when they don’t have to.

#74

I am a Hunter and I have a Pvp on a Barbarian same lvl as mine. he is a full geared barb. I had 2 wins in a row of 2 rounds. do you know the secret?.. If you are a Hunter, dont spend your silver on your weapon… spend it on your pet… Cause pet is your biggest asset on your class. the barb cant hit a hard skill on me cause I have an OP skill called Retrieve :smiley: and my pet always auto rush dog him.

#75

only thing i hate about being archer is lack of aoe and sapper with his long cooldowns doesn’t help much

#76

So you’re saying that at +10 the weapon it suddenly removes or changes that 50% less damage to Large/XL?
I haven’t heard of this, only that upgrading is required to mitigate it because you’re doing more damage, so you need it to stay relevant.

I’d have to find a weapon with little to no change in min to max damage to test if the formula actually changes, but I have a feeling that when people are talking about +10 they just mean it’s required to do relevant damage, however I could be wrong and haven’t tested this personally, so I’ll try to soon.

#77

You remove 2% Of the missile penalty for each upgrade up to +10 on Medium targets and 4% of the penalty for each upgrade up to +10 on Large targets. That leaves 5% and 10% respectively at +10.
Its been in the game since what September?

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#78

Thanks, well noted. Hard to pull up information like that directly since most wikis have part of the picture but not all of it.

#79

Early maybe. Endgame they should be one of the strongest single target damage. Multihit skills are super OP in terms of scaling and you have tons of options with Multishot/Scatter Caltrops/Barrage/Spike Shooter/Flare Shot/Magic Arrow/Concentrated Fire.

My personal favorite is http://www.tosbase.com/tools/skill-simulator/build/4941x12vmx/

Multishot/Flareshot/Magic Arrow, any of these can do insane damage at high levels, full str build with bonus crit from swift step is insane too.

Just remember we can’t really judge balance in a 600 level game at level 100-200 lol

#80

Says somewhere in the game that it removes a part of the % reduction. Something like 3% per upgrade.

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#81

bows do pierce damage?