At that level, I wore heavy full time. Your evasion doesn't kick in that much, it will let you solo and you can get the HP bonus along with the P.Def bonus.
Only downside is you can't carry as many dshots, arrows, and pots.
I take 'affordable' to mean that you are excluding the sets, Reinforced Leather and Manticore. Both give extra MP, which you need as an archer. Both require very expensive boots to complete the set and get this bonus however.
As an archer, your inherent bonuses (evasion primarily) require you to be wearing light armor. There is a one-piece D-grade light armor (Salamander Skin) that will cost about 1 million adena. The two-piece D-grade armor starts with Puma Skin (which I wore, but it is ugly,) then Lion Skin, and Mithril Banded Mail.
However, you should upgrade your weapon before your armor. This also allows for another approach to the MP-problem; wearing robes. I have seen archers in robes, to get the MP boost of the robes. As long as their weapon allows them to kill the mob without it getting more than one hit, the reduced Pdef isn't a problem. It requires skillful kiting however, and you will die if the mob gets a good melee attack on you (like if you lag.)
Yes I'm getting my weapon first I've got 500,000 saved up already for a DG weapon and I've currently level 16 I just want affordable armour that will do a decent job and not cost an arm or a leg since most of the set's (boots or gloves) are about 1 million or more and to pay out at least 800,000 for a weapon I wont be able to afford that good of armour right away!
If you adapt your play style you can hunt without recieving damage, which will mean armour isnt so important for you. Go with what ever the best you can afford is, as you get higher p def you wont need to be as carefull and will be able to stand in fight instead of kite.
Just wear Manticore. Its the archer / dagger general issue kit for 20-40. If you get rich buy the boots but 70 mp from the set bonus wont make much of a difference in your leveling. Will do just as well with Boots of Power.
I agree, armor isnt that terribly important for an archer. After all you dont want to get hit and usually your mp will be empty before your hp.
Get yourself a good bow first and keep whatever armor you currently have until you can afford that manticore (and yes, you'll need the boots, the rest can be bought in the shop in giran). For an archer, the point about armor will never be the pdef, just the boni. If you need pdef, you're doing something wrong - and i'm saying that as a human who cant kite as well as an elf.
Btw, i'm still running around in quite a few d-grade items (helmet, jewelry) and with -11 con on lvl 53 and I dont see much reason in upgrading those things, because an archer is really all about damage.
Back to Topic:
I prefered the Elven Mithril Set with my PR in D-Grade.
(Extra Run Speed, High MP) and when I was feeling lazy
I switched to Brigandine (or any other Heavy) so I can be
a lazy "tank-archer"...
The Mithril Sets Bonus was the only bonus I think is really
nice in D-Grade. In C-Grade, nothing beats a Plated Leather...
I'm aiming for a good DG bow first but then I probably need to up grade my armour I am currently wearing the ng fighting set that gives 41 to HP. After I pay for my bow I'll have little money left should i keep that current set or even up grade somehow to leather armour or something? Till I can afford the manticore set!
And what is cheaper to aim for to get between these two sets the manticore set complete or the reinforced leather set? b/c I think it's the boots from both sets that cost the most!
the game is designed so you can't have top d grade at entry lvl, (example lvl 24 mage shouldn't be able to afford top d grade mage gear) unless you have a high lvl alt or main. just grind it out and sell what drops you find, I got lucky and found a couple of cursed manigouches in one of the catacombs and sold for a mil each. so that helped, also I might suggest to join a clan, they may be able to loan you some gear to get you started, such as boots and gloves so you can concentrate on saving your money for a good armor set. GL
Thanks that a good idea the only problem is I've joined a clan but they are a low new clan with not a lot of members and I've found that most of the clans recuiting are low clans and they are just getting started and all the clans higher up are looking for members who are in there high 30+ so I've found it hard to find a clan member who could help me out well still trying to help himself heh
And in B-Grade still nothing beats Plated Leather. ;)
Elven Mithril Robe is a very good alternative to Manticore I forgot about.
The thing about Reinforced Leather is that it is probably harder to get and definitely harder to sell. Most people on low levels play twinks, so they will just buy the best items available, so it will probably be rather easy to sell a manticore set when you dont need it anymore whereas the reinforced leather will likely be hard to find at all. Elven Mithril is equal to Manticore in that respect.
Still trying to sell my tempered mithril set - same problem in c-grade...
I know that the elven mithril set gives a MP increase when you have just the stockings & robe without the gloves but doesn't give set bonus! Does the Manticore armour & gaiters give any kind of mp increase with out having the full set to get the bonus as well?
I'm now a level 18 1/2 and I've got exactly 600,000 and I can probably get another 100,000-150,000 for my MG Forest Bow so that will bring me to around 750,000 at the most is it worth saving up for another 100,000-150,000 and try and buy the DE Bow at level 20 or better yet people are selling the strength Bow for 500,000 and buy that and use the rest of the money to try and save up a bit more for the manticore armour & gaiters?
I'm now a level 18 1/2 and I've got exactly 600,000 and I can probably get another 100,000-150,000 for my MG Forest Bow so that will bring me to around 750,000 at the most is it worth saving up for another 100,000-150,000 and try and buy the DE Bow at level 20 or better yet people are selling the strength Bow for 500,000 and buy that and use the rest of the money to try and save up a bit more for the manticore armour & gaiters?
I'm going to help you out here.
first do not use a bow from lvl 20 to lvl 40, use a dagger, you will save alot of money. I used a LightXbow and a mithril dagger on my PR from 20-40. and mithril set barrowed from friends.
now that I experaniced it, I'm tell you, only use heavey and a dagger, unless you want to be very very poor.
Dss alone is expencive. add in HP pots, haste pots, and anything else that consummible.
when you get to 52, at that point you need to have BoP o/e and PL set, once you get to 61, you need to get mejestic armor, keep the bow till you can afford a carnage or a soul bow.
at 52 you could upgrade to doom light set, but PL is somewhat better. (hit harder) tho with doom you will have +3 to dex.
This is what I did with my HE on PTS... +5 dex - 5 con, removed the +3 srt I had, but that isn't too bad for PvE, is really bad for PvP. verious bows, but best ones was +12 carnage with crt bleed, and +8 or better soul bow with QR.
and +6/+5 mejestic armor set.
I found the +5 dex was better then the +3 srt I had, + dex addds to your atk speed, acc, eva, run speed, crt %,crt rate.
and the unseled mejestic give +1dex -1 con +8% to bow atk, which is = to +2 srt or about 200 more p atk.
I have one more player on the same realm so I don't qualify for the free weapons :( But I have enough money to probably either go decent DG Bow or Dagger so basically I should go dagger and shield or just dagger? and save my current ng bow just for first shot just to drain a bit of health before I use my dagger?
first do not use a bow from lvl 20 to lvl 40, use a dagger, you will save alot of money. I used a LightXbow and a mithril dagger on my PR from 20-40. and mithril set barrowed from friends.
now that I experaniced it, I'm tell you, only use heavey and a dagger, unless you want to be very very poor.
Dss alone is expencive. add in HP pots, haste pots, and anything else that consummible.
at 52 you could upgrade to doom light set, but PL is somewhat better. (hit harder) tho with doom you will have +3 to dex.
This is what I did with my HE on PTS... +5 dex - 5 con, removed the +3 srt I had, but that isn't too bad for PvE, is really bad for PvP. verious bows, but best ones was +12 carnage with crt bleed, and +8 or better soul bow with QR.
and +6/+5 mejestic armor set.
I found the +5 dex was better then the +3 srt I had, + dex addds to your atk speed, acc, eva, run speed, crt %,crt rate.
and the unseled mejestic give +1dex -1 con +8% to bow atk, which is = to +2 srt or about 200 more p atk.
again I would find it highly unlikely you'd be able to afford a BoP at 52...but who knows you may be able to, but I doubt you'd be able to afford all the stuff mentioned above...before 65...again, I'd like to reiterate this is just my opinion, I could be wrong