Currently I am level 106~ Archer C2/Hunter C1/Wugushi C1 Planning on going for Wugushi C3
A lot of people are complaining that Archer and Hunter sucks, this is not really true Archers can be very strong depending where they are fighting and how they are geared/ stats allocated.
I have seen a lot of talk about running pure SPR build, which is ok for early game if you enjoy sitting next to a bonfire to regen but it starts to fall off as the later game progresses and your base damage/weapon damage increases.
After a couple resets I settled on a Strength/Dex build of 3:1 which gives me pretty good results making sure to find the highest base damage bow I could for my level, currently using a Savage Bow+6.
Archer
Two-handed Bow Mastery: Anti-Air: This is the #1 Attribute that Archers should all max ASAP. doubling the amount of damage you do to flying enemies. The primary enemies I farm are Flying because of this allowing you to 1-2 shot them and even get Overhits on equal level mobs.
Oblique Shot: For all Archers this will be your #1 dmg and most spammed skill since it has 0 Cooldown.
It is important to keep this skill at level 1 if you are going a non SPR build as you will primarily use it for base damage +attribute modifier not the bonus attack dmg from the skill itself. Keeping at level 1 allows you to easily spam it and chug level1 sp pots. Do not skill the Attribute that makes it proc a slow, as the slow is useless and it will increase the SP cost.
Swift Step: Is almost 100% useless except when you get to Circle 2 and can learn the Swift Step: Critical attribute. It is important to note that this skill ONLY increases your current crit rate state by 25% it does not give you a flat +25% crit chance. Only use this skill if you already have a decent base crit rate.
Multishot: Very good boss killing skill, 2 charges stored and moderate cooldown. Downside is you have to stand still to use it and any damage interrupts. I max this to 10/10. Make sure to get the attribute that reduces the cast time by 50%
Heavy Shot: Got 1 point in this skill as it does 50% bonus damage to heavy armor type monsters.Still not very useful as once you get some damage increase Attribute in Oblique it better to use Oblique even on heavy targets.
Kneeling Shot: Pretty useless, you are rooted in place and can not use any skills. I used it in one grind spot while waiting for sp to regen on really weak mobs, might become a lot better late game when you do a lot of auto attack damage and the attack speed really helps.
Full Drawn/ Twin Arrows: Did not Test seems fairly useless when you can just use Oblique instead.
Hunter
Hunter suffers from really bad PET AI/Control but is still useful when you get it although the damage begins to falloff at later ranks.
When you go hunter you get a free Companion rather than having to spend 100k to buy one which is nice.
The pet AI is really wonky, for best results you need to be very close to the mobs and the pet or it will sometimes ignore your commands. The pet has difficulty hitting moving targets, it has a stamina bar which does not seem to do much, and when it runs out of hp it will become stunned when taking damage. The pet regains all HP but not stamina when zoning or changing channel making food irrelevant.
You can level up your pet’s stats at the companion trainer, each point in a skill costs more, the only stat that seemed to give a tangible benefit was crit rate increase resulting in more Rush Dog Crits.
Rush Dog: Max ASAP, Hunter’s best skill. The great thing about this skill is the hunter pet has a built in chance to use it automatically costing you no SP. It can hit for around 600 dmg or so and can also crit. Also has the unique property to seemingly ignore all physical defense. Because of this you can 1 shot all traps/quest objectives/objects where you would normally only do 1 dmg. I tested the attribute that lets this ability have a chance to stun mobs but did not see very good results.
Coursing: 30% crit chance sounds nice but it does not work on bosses, so pretty much useless as you should be 2-4 shotting monsters anyways.
Praise: Seems ok, inceased stats on your pet make it hit/crit with rush dog more often.
Pointing: I sometimes use this against bosses, makes them miss their attacks more against you but really odd skill, put the pet in a Pointing AI mode which I think makes him keep trying to use it. The pet AI is really bad though so not sure how often it is up on the target.
Snatching: Useless, you do so much damage against flying targets already.
Wugushi
Very high damage single target skills but with a long cooldown, requires you to make poison in your “poison pot” and each skill uses a portion of it. Goal is to get to Circle 2 so that you can use Throw Gu Pot which seems to be an amazingly strong AOE from vidoes shown.
Detoxify: Useless, at least so far, no poison from mobs does enough damage at the moment.
Needle Blow: Your strongest single target skill, I have seen ticks as high as 1800 dmg a tick on flying/earth monsters with 4/5 skilled. Very good against bosses, although some monsters are resistant to the damage and it will deal a lot less.
Bewitch: Have not tried yet.
Wugong Gu A weaker version of Needle Blow, but also can “infect” enemies in an aoe around the target with the poison dot. Hard to use on normal mobs as the target dies before you can spread the poison, very useful against Dungeon mobs though.
Zhendu: Gives your entire party a poison dot proc on next attack, Not sure if poison stacks on the same target, hard to test. Does a decent amount of damage, not nearly as powerful as Needle Blow.
I really look forward to getting Wugushi C2 and trying out Throw Gu Pot. Archer has some problem but if you focus on flying enemies you will kill faster than most other classes, I can easily dominate an entire spawn of flying enemies. I may respec to a con/spr build as it looks like poison damage is not affected by Str or Dex if Gu Pot becomes my primary source of farming.
