Hey guys. Can someone give me a quick rundown on the archer classes? I'm looking for comparisons like who hits hardest, who hits fastest, who crits more, etc. Gimme all the information you have!
I'll try to fill in a bit of the other things from my own experience and from reading the boards a lot.
Hawkeyes seem to be the FotM archers, especially since they're going to hold their advantage even in C5 according to the patch notes. They have the least kiting ability. One of their best abilities, Sniping, requires them to stand still. As they're a human class they're very specialized and get both critical chance and critical damage boosts, while other archers get one or the other. Having the highest Con, they're also the most durable archers out there but their accuracy and evasion are both lacking.
Silver Rangers are the speedy archers. They have the highest accuracy, evasion, run speed, attack speed, and crit rate. Since elves get a self speed buff their kiting ability is unmatched, which comes in handy while soloing especially in the early levels before mobs become too fast. The increased crit chance passive combined with their high dex puts them well above everyone else in crit rate. They're the middle road as far as durability goes, being somewhat resistant to stun attacks as well. Having the highest evasion also comes in handy when soloing, especially after boosting dex.
Phantom Ranger was my personal choice, we have the highest damage per hit but the lowest chance to critical. PRs are a good soloing class since they have a decent kiting ability and are very mp efficient. The Drain Health ability that all dark elf fighters get aids in soling until you can afford carrying healing potions. We only get the critical damage passive, which means at the end of the line we're the archers with the lowest crit rate. When we do crit, however, you can bet the enemy is going to feel it. I've always found the dark elf fighter magic to be more useful than our light elf counterparts, as we get the ability to drain our enemies as well as debuff, poison, and bleed them. The biggest flaw with the PR is our low Con, especially when reduced further to increase soloing efficiency. We're very susceptible to stun and a Stun Shot landing from another archer can cause a loss for us immediately.
>>Having the highest Con, they're also the most durable archers out there but their accuracy and evasion are both lacking.
No comments, please. Jokes. Do you know what hawk eye self buff is? Do you understand HE has better accuracy than blunt user? Crit power passive is so little to speak about (and not effected by soulshots) - it adds plain attack (70, iirc). Crit chance is decent, though. So is boost attack speed passive.
Same for highest accuracy on SR. Crit chance is almost the same on HE w/o the snipe.
PR and drain health - kidding again. You need mp to shoot. There are potions for a reason.
Solo w/o critical buffs (DW at least) is a joke as well, at least you can self buff focus.
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To original poster - go HE and never look back. That's all.
We only get the critical damage passive, which means at the end of the line we're the archers with the lowest crit rate. When we do crit, however, you can bet the enemy is going to feel it.
Lowest crit chance or not, I still hate you(Phantom Rangers)! :p
Most of what silviera said is correct. Except hawk eye has the highest accuracy of them al when he activates the "hawk eye" skill. It adds a lot of accuracy but decreases pdef.
7 more martial stats is a ton. Hawk eye self buff. Look at the str, con, dex.
Again read: passive boost attack speed almost negates the bonus of of dex for SR.
HE has way better accuracy w/ hawk eye, way better. So the only effect of better dex is slightly better critical rate.
HE can have 45str/38con and that's over 20% more plain raw damage still w/ more HP than a SR (w/ basic stats).So it SR goes +5Str would have terrible HP/CP and still less dmg than a HE.
Needless to say CON means more shots/arrows per load.
Morealso HE gets similar to body2mind skill in C5 and even better carry capacity.
Only good point SR has over HE: 187run speed w/ sprint2 vs 170 (ww2, that's the same) no +- dex for both.
SR has selfbuffs like might/shield2, ww2, magic barrier - but it doesnt cut since you will have better might/shield give in late game where action actually goes.
SR can heal dots too.
With introduction of tats all human specialized classes clearly outshine respective counterparts: HE - most overpower archer, TH - best dagger user, Necro - best nuker (not true 100% nuker but hell good at nuking)
yes, that's what he's saying, but i think it's a load of crap. elves are supposed to be "the archer class", they are in every book, and every game and story, hainvg humans being better with a bow is just a load of BS....
Great, and this post now means that I'll be having to deal with a lot of Hawkeyes now. Thanks for advertising them as the best Archer in the game! Although I find it amusing that only 2 were in the last Olympiad match. Whereas the SR and PR had like, 5 and 4 or so.
Anyway, on the Silver Rangers defense they do have increased magic resistance, and they are faster than the other Archers, plus they can heal themselves. So they may not cause as much damage, but they do have their uses.
On the Phantom Rangers side, they can suck the health out of the enemy, so they get a definite bonus there. :P
People, please dont all go HE just because someone thinks they are the best. I'd rather not have the Human area bogged down by Archers running everywhere.
For the record, I wasn't asking because I want to roll an archer. I wanted to know their strengths and weaknesses in PvP. So I really don't care which one he or anyone else thinks is *the best*.
Also, the PR life drain is nothing to write home about. It has a slow cast time and long recharge time, and it is weak. I've never played and Elf fighter class, so I don't know about their common abilities.
Ill tell you why there are so few HE in the game, this is my first post because mostly i wait for the Vets to answer the questions that have already been posted and relate to my inquiry. But this thread was screaming to be answered, by me. For one HE is the most difficult and expensive **** class to play, there slow and at times seem to level like that of a turtle crossing a desert road.
Heres the reason the Human classes eventually always become the uber characters. Humans start out like naked kittens or pups, humans are the slowest most vulnarable race. Thus the reason there are so many Elven Archers, Fast and Easy. Since this game is for the most part played my younger people under 25, they have been raised thinking that "Get it fast and Own!" is the only way to go. Well I got news for ya, if its fast it will own. But ultimatly the humans will overtake and rule. As ive leveled my HE it has taken alota time. Making one of the first clans of the Beta server was dumb I admit, Then going further at a low level and Creating an alliance wasnt such a bright idea either. If you go HE I suggest you stay clear of forming a clan, it will detract from the critical job of Party hunting and doing cooperative play i.e.:Duo's/Trio's. Get hooked up with a Prophet and level together. I have spent most of my time leveling on my own with the exception of periods of my clan or alliance members joining up for Duos and Trios.
Since you stated that your interested in knowing this info for PvP. Ill tell you this, once a human reaches their 70s as a HE, be wary. There durable and if they snipe they may not be able to move but there Patk will exceed 4k and getting critted by that just once will drop nearly all players.
I hope this gives you an idea as to the humans potential, Ive done a bit of PvP and it normally doesnt last long. With the exception of going against some of the gank masters ive lost relitively few surface field matches in a fair 1vs1.
Okay, not the best for PVP, but the skill is good against Mobs though. The other PR bonuses are obvious though. Most damage per shot, and highest power criticals.
And for the record, I never said YOU were rolling an Archer. It was a general comment to all players out there to please not all use HE's if you DO roll an archer. Its annoying when you pick a class and everyone decides to be that class all of the sudden.
It is nice to see though that since the C5 info has been released that suddenly alota bows are comming on the market at a much cheaper rate. => Joy! It looks as though Orc Tyrants wont be the ultimate archer anymore, Gee from what I recall reading, Tyrants ARENT archers.
Great post, especially the comment, "Get it fast and Own!" It is this very thinking that is ruining the game, not just in term of class choice, but also the economy. Hard work, persistence and patience are rarely espoused in-game.
Also, the PR life drain is nothing to write home about. It has a slow cast time and long recharge time, and it is weak.
You'll of course be using bsps whenever you cast this, it does more damage than a SS arrow on my PR. The cast time isn't bad at all if you use it while you're preparing for the next arrow. Overenchanting your weapon will increase the usefulness of this spell immensely. In PvP it's basically a one shot deal, you know from the first cast if it's worth using again. Sometimes you get lucky and find someone with weak jewelry and it absolutely tears them apart.
It's nothing to rely on, but it's not worthless either.
Ah, so you're saying that the extra CON on HE allows you to get more +str or +dex and still have a decent amount of CON left over, right?
That's what makes humans better overall. If you add str,con,dex of all races, humans are higher as far as fighters go. With tattoos they can lower something and still be higher than other races.
Example:
Sr has base stats of STR 36, CON 36, DEX 35
Human has base stats of STR 40, CON 43, DEX 30
Human gets +3STR,-3CON,+4DEX,-4CON, he/she is left with stats STR 43, CON 36, DEX 34
So now SR has STR 36, CON 36, DEX 35
Hawkeye has STR 43, CON 36, DEX 34
If you look at it, it has only 1 less DEX, but 7 more STR. Whos better off :p?
Ok, I suppose that leads me to another question. I'm really just curious about this one. Do archers tend to pump dex in favor of strength, or do they max both at the expense of con?
PvE wise: str over dex any time.
But, heck, you can go -9 con. Stuff dies before comes to you.
PvP wise, well. -9 str probably (i mean olympiad mostly here though).
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Again 7 more stats is a ton, i mean a ton...
To answer the why FoTM: b/c of that.
For PvE I dumped 9 Con in favor of 5 str and 4 dex, by the time you can afford tattoos you can also afford to guzzle healing potions. Not that you need them all that often with the killing power that kind of boost provides.
For PvP you want to boost Con, especially if you're a PR. Any extra hp and stun resistance goes a long way, especially in large scale PvP.
Even though I say that, I still keep -9 Con for my own PvPing purposes. I die if someone so much as looks at me but my damage output is up there. I'm not big on 1 on 1 arena style PvP which influences my build a lot.
i have +4 str -4 con, and maj light, (+1dex-1con) and i'm doing fine, gonna up grade my dex to +4-4con, i know that in PvP i'll drop fast, but if i can hit a mage 2-3times before i do, he's dead. and as Silvera mentioned, it depends on what you are doing. 1vs1 PvP (alot of it) you don't really wanna take down your con, group PvP ( 5vs5 or more) your con can really take a hit because you have a healer and 3 other members that will be taking hits, so you may get shots off before you're even targted. PvE...-xcon you don't need it, you can kite, but with the bouns the mob is dead before it reaches you anyway, and if not you're evasion (being a LE) will keep you alive anyway
PR does nt crit much, has very low hp/cp, SR hits like a lady has better hp, HE hits almost as hard as PR but crits more, has more attack speed, extremly high accuracy with he, and have same con stats as a DA...
Fighting an archer in pvp is about crits attackspeed and the amount of HP your opponent has.
PR is the funniest overall class and easiest to play if you don t have a personal buffer, I'd say it's better than SR in pvp, as sr hits are very weak even if they crit more often.
Those magical skills are helpfull in many pve situations, they let you xp where a HE could nt xp. Hex happens to be usefull in pvp from time to time. Powerbreak too. Poison and drain are nt worth a lot but i still use them from time to time for the fun of it :p
Out of curiosity, has anyone noticed if the new Kameal class has any comparison charts visa vie, against the other archer classes anywere? Been looking havent found any anywere and would like to see some stats. Please Message me the info if any of you are still monitoring this thread. Thanks ;-]
Won 2/3 against a HE same lvl as me
Won 2/2 against Arby 75
Won 2/3 against PR 77
Day before:
Won 1/5 against that same HE79
Won 2/3 against that same PR77
Day Before that:
Lost every fight cept one where I landed lethal on the PR.
Day before that one:
4/5 with 77PR
1/3 against the HE79
You know what I notice? It's who gets chain stunned and who gets critted. All chance. In the end, it's who got lucky and who catches an arrow in the eye.
Out of curiosity, has anyone noticed if the new Kameal class has any comparison charts visa vie, against the other archer classes anywere? Been looking havent found any anywere and would like to see some stats. Please Message me the info if any of you are still monitoring this thread. Thanks ;-]
Having played both now and even partying with archers and dueling archers: Arbys will get totally destroyed. However, that's not to say it isn't a valuable class. Arbys will be great to have in a archer party as a targetter.