Eventually, I’m going to write a full guide, but for the time being, I’m just going to leave some comments about how I feel about archers/the archer classes.
To start, I’ve done quite a bit of testing on archers this CBT and at first, I was with the rest of the crowd with considering them weak, but I soon realized that isn’t really the case.
Level 80 C2 Archer, C2 Sapper
Level 44 C2 Archer, C1 Quarrel
Level 49 C1 Archer, C2 Ranger
First off:
Q. Do I go Full STR or Full DEX or 2:1 / 1:2 as an archer?
A. Go Full SPR. Why? It’s a matter of how the stats work this game and the general simplicity of the system. These are what each of the stats do, for reference:
STR (Strength)
Increases min physical attack by 1.
Increases max physical attack by 1.
Increases critical attack by 1.
Increases weight limit by 5.
100 points in strength is really only 100 min, 100 max and 100 critical attack. While that sounds pretty high, it really, really isn’t. Weight limit is pretty negligible at the moment also.
SPR (Spirit)
Increases max SP pool by 13.
Increases SP recovery rate by 1.
Increases block penetration by 1.
Increases magic defense by 0.2.
100 points in SPR is 1300 SP, a huge SP recovery rate, huge block penetration and 20 magic defense. Considering magic does a ton of damage, cannot be dodged and is used very often at higher levels, all of these stats are high priority.
DEX (Dexterity)
Increases accuracy by 1.
Increases critical hit chance by 1.
Increases evasion by 1.
100 points of Dex is 100 accuracy, 100 evasion and 100 critical hit chance. Critical chance by itself doesn’t add much to your damage and your normal attacks simply are not viable as an archer, which means you will very often be relying on skills for your damage. If you don’t have the SP to use these skills, you will overall lower your DPS for a chance at some burst.
Q: What is the stat priority for archers?
A: Don’t limit yourself to just main stats. Gearing is actually VERY important in this game. Think of it like Diablo III actually. You can have a total level 1200 character, but if you remove their gear, they are useless. For stat priority, I would say: SPR > SP, Crit Attack, Crit Rate, CON > HP, Magic Defense, Physical Defense, Evasion
Any stats that I didn’t mention here are low priority or can be easily compensated for in other ways.
Q: How does a full SPR build do damage?
A. I started Full SPR after seeing a post about it on Reddit and instead of just resetting my stat points, I started a brand new archer from level 1 to test the leveling process with Full SPR. A majority of your damage comes from your weapon and your skills, not your stats. Having SPR allows you to cast your zero CD skills reliably and farm quicker and boss quicker. Your damage difference is negligible because of how poorly both DEX and STR scale compared to defensive stats like SPR and CON. Putting all stat points into SPR and gearing around CON will make you extremely tanky, recover quickly at bonfires and do high amounts of sustained damage.
Q. How do you make archers strong?
This is a two part answer.
A1. GEAR.
THIS GAME IS GEAR. IF YOUR GEAR IS POOR, YOU ARE POOR. Archers perhaps may be the most gear reliant class set. This is because of poor scaling in general in this game and the fact that their basic attacks no longer have a damage-type (refer to KCBT3 patch changes). To mitigate the damage reduction that archers receive for not having a damage type (because it would be TRUE DAMAGE otherwise, which as we know from other games, is OP), you have to upgrade their weapon. Damage reduction is capped out at 20%/40% at upgrade level 10. Find a weapon you want to stick with, upgrade it religiously and your damage will be visibly different.
A2: ATTRIBUTES.
Attributes provide the only really important source of scaling in this game, as of now. If your attributes are low, you are never going to reach your potential. Attributes are what takes this game and adds a farm component to it, so you can afford to train and make yourself stronger (Shenmue anyone?). Choose attributes based on what kind of build you want, but I definitely suggest 2H Bow mastery for anyone.
These are some questions I asked of myself to answer some of the general buzz I’ve been hearing around global chat/the forums, but if there are any specific questions you guys have, I can answer them and add them to the post. Once I get to where I want to be in the beta, expect an extremely detailed leveling/general info guide on Archers as far as the current beta state goes.
