Category:Archers

ARCHERS are skilled hunters and scouts, as well as being masters with their chosen weapon, the bow. Their skills represent their ability to survive in the wild, track down their foes, and their self-sufficiency in building and repairing the tools of their trade. Achieving real skill in archery takes such a lengthy commitment that master archers are generally reluctant to teach those who have already started down a different path. Tall, agile races with good eyesight make the best archers, notably ELVES and CENTAURs. Clumsy, bulky or non-humanoid races such as OGREs and GRIFFONs will not fare so well. The PRIME REQUISITE of archers is DEXterity.

Abbreviation: Arc.

Prime Requisite: Dexterity.

Archers in General

Hard hitting sponges usually. The basic archer is one of the best hitters in the game capable of doing large amounts of damage with one hit. Many of an archer's skills will go unused but when you are in a bind, they can help you survive. Their tracking skills are an example. Most people have no use for the track skills but those people who enjoy exploring new areas or who are looking for a hard to find mob will find it useful. At higher levels they can become incredibly powerful. They get a good mix of hp and mana and can be a very versatile character, able to easily collect gear, spell people, and do hard corpse retrievals.

Once you get a decent amount of hitroll, you can begin grouping. Your job is easy, hit hard! Use the held shot skill carefully. Archers care about hitroll, not damage roll (DR is completely inconsequential; damage is based on HR for archers), when using a bow. There is also gear (for arms, hands, wrists) that have archer mods (damage, accuracy, skills), these can be positive and negative. In general gear with positive archer mods and hitroll are the best, note the higher the level of the piece of gear the better the mod. Hence most hero archers enchant the hand, wrist, arm slots to level 54 to maximise the boost. There is also a train of thought that archer mods are better than hitroll hence some people use archer mod gear, black leather gloves, rather than hitroll gear, killing gloves. The Ultimate Archer's Gauntlet has archer mods as well as more HR, thus is the best for that slot.

Archer Creation

Race is very important for an archer. The most common choices are elf, orc, centaur, human, drow, and lizard man. Some of the remortable classes can also be fantastic archers such as high elves. Races such as giant, ogre, and griffon are not good. As with all characters, max your stats early. At early levels, it is convenient to use melee weapons instead of bows. This is because at the lower levels, arrows/bolts are scarce, and accuracy with bows is rather poor.

Archers at Lowmort Tier

Training

Similar to most classes, train wis to max first, then con and int to max. Then train the rest as and when you have pracs.

Practicing

Key skills that make using bows more effective are Fletch (level 9), which allows one to make an ample supply of ammunition, and Target Leading (level 15) and Improved Aim (level 31), which greatly improve accuracy with bows. Dodge is also useful. The rest are utility skills which can be deferred till later if needed.

Worshipping

Worship Roixa. You will do a LOT more damage. Werredan is also a good option. Slightly less damage but you get that nice Werredan exp boost.

Fighting

Soloing: If using a missile weapon, you'll want a light crossbow for either soloing or tanking. Other missile weapons (bows specifically) suffer a penalty when the user is being attacked.

Tanking: For weapon choice, see soloing above.

Hitting: Long bows are used when hitting in a group, since they typically have more HR and do more damage.

Archer Prestige Options

Archers can prestige to fusiliers at lvl 50 to hero lvl 100.

Archers at Hero Tier

For a long time, you will be a basic hitter in a group. Get a complete hero gear set asap. Groups are easy to get! Some archers find a rogue partner tanking with backstab makes for some good duo exp. Later on, when you get enough hp and mana, you will be able to solo, but grouping is always better. After 101 you will spend very little time on who group. Held shot is good to use if you're sure the mob is going to be alive long enough for your held shot to execute.

Even though archers hit very well normally, with scattershot, they can hit even harder. Use scattershot 5 (the max at hero). Even if you're fighting one mob, the total scattershot damage will be more than if you hit the mob normally. However, this needs to be used with care (just like area spells) since it may cause other mobs in the room to start fighting you. And since long bows have a hefty penalty in direct combat, you may miss most of your shots if directly fighting the mob. The other point to note is that scattershot will use up ammunition very fast, so you may need to spend more time fletching. To see all of the shots you need to config +battleself.

Archers get a fair amount of mana at hero and are occasionally asked to sanc/frenzy/portal etc. for the group.

Ammunition

Archers usually either use piercing or splinter arrows. Splinter arrows do more damage (about one * difference) against unarmored mobs but are weak against mobs with armor. Since the difference is not that large, some people just prefer to use piercing arrows against all mobs and save themselves the hassle of changing ammunition.

Training

Practicing

Devoting

Archers usually devote to whoever they're worshipping.

Fighting

Soloing:

Soloing is hard until you can get enough HP to cover the hits you will take. Find a good match of ac and hit gear.

At lowhero, soloing is difficult, but possible. Try soloing House Of Beasts, or North Of Ofcol for lowxp runs. As you get beefier (especially after 101) - try and find areas with bow-wielding mobs. It's amazing how useful arrow dodge can be.

Assuming you can get full non-roix spells (Kra preferred, otherwise Tul-Sith), you might not need ac gear, or only 1-2 pieces. Carry quaffs (2x heal preferred)

Tanking:

Arcs can certainly tank, and can even do well - but you'll need excellent AC and a good light crossbow (unless you want to tank with wield/shield - which probably won't be worth it).

Hitting:

Archers are the best hitters after 101 overall - don't let anyone convince you otherwise. After defeating the Ultimate Dragon, you'll hit even harder. It's not unheard of to rarely hit below MASSAC against unsanc'd mobs.

Held Shot is nice, but generally not worth it at hero unless running small groups against large mobs or if going for HDL. Against larger sanc mobs - held is OK. It's always nice to see DEMO against a sanc'd mob at hero

Archers at Lord Tier

Normally, Archer is weak at lord even with full T1 gear (however, see the comments on scattershot below). The archer's damage is near the bottom, beating out only Fus and War/Bod. Therefore archers are not as popular in lord groups like they are in hero groups. Archers at lord tier use in general either ice arrows or lightning arrows, fletching these does cost mana. Occasionally on gear runs an archer might be placed near the end of a tank chain and to quote someone else, "there is absolutely nothing wrong with an arc being in tank chain, even naked, or wearing all Arcgear. Buying the casters more time to kill the mobs is a GOOD thing". An archer at lord might be asked to cast spells on group members, usually sanctuary for those without it or regeneration on tanks. Occasionally an archer may even be asked to bash for the group. Archers are needed for a couple of runs for skinning. Due to the death exp penalty Rxa can be a very bad choice of worship at lord as lord exp is harder to come by therefore a lot of archers worship Wer or Dur at lord.

In general hero is relatively easy for an archer and there is a big chance to sponge, at lord this is harder to do and usually frowned upon by your fellow group members. AFK archers have been known to be ungrouped in dangerous places.

The above needs to be qualified by saying that with scattershot, archers can do pretty decent damage. This is especially true when the mob is bashed. Use scattershot with the maximum number of arrows (7 at lord). Even against single mobs, you'll hit about 3-4 times on average and the total damage is about twice that of normal or of held shot. However, note that this uses up arrows very fast, so it's necessary to have fletched a lot of them in advance. To see all of your damage, config +battleself.

Archer Remort Options

Archers can remort into assassins.