Have thought about what I'd put into an archer guide for a long time.
There's a lot of things to start with, but the biggest is using the cross server rankings to find archers you idealize and aim to have their stats and astrals etc, along with your own personal tweaks, it is after all your toon and it's fun to be unique.
There are some things however, that are archer standards. They don't change.
We get a passive HP bonus and passive crit bonuses. Anytime we work on those we see some mammoth increases. Keep that in mind as you build your toon.
Astrals... These too remain archer standard until about level 70.
In this order: PATK, Snipers Edge, Determination, MDEF, PDEF, Goddess Blessing, Block/Charm (jury's still out on those as some prefer one over the other) Same with Illusion, though I haven't noticed it go off as much as Block does, thanks to a friend who has play tested it for me/us.
Something that gets overlooked a LOT is gear refinement. While it's not cost effective to lock stats with balens on every single set of gear you own, there are a few that are worthwhile. You won't wear your 35 set for long, so use free refines to get the stats you want, same with 45. 55 set you'll have until you can farm up what you need for your 60 gear. Also called rage gear or PVE gear. (probably the best set in the game so far) It can be made legendary, and will make you a force to be reckoned with.
Gear stats to refine for: Strength, Armor, Endurance, Crit, and PATK (if you get PDEF or MDEF, it's alright also really, better than getting charisma or block at that point)
It makes a huge difference to your battle rating to refine. Most overlook it.
Gemming: PATK, HP, Crit, and a split between MDEF and PDEF gems. Depends whether you will eventually want into class wars.
Use those crypt keys, they'll get you double the XP and double your gains in gems and luck stones etc from the crypt which can only help you while upgrading them. You'll get most your gem synthesis plans up until level 5. Level 6 needs to be purchased from the shop. (it is worth it and rather cheap considering the gain you'll be getting)
Skills: Most archers end up investing in double skills, it's much easier to manage that way and makes you far more capable in dungeons, and a more desirable teammate to have along.
- The top set is your damage set. It's more for PVP purposes and for your general mobs in dungeons. (lunatic fire is our best and only real AOE damager) Best things to work on there in order, are getting every passive up first, working on single and multi shot, then getting everything else but bloodthirsty done first, since BT doesn't work "particularly" well until you get the level 50 unlocked talent for it, and have both BT to level 3 and the talent upgraded for it as high as you can get it as you level. It can be destructive and a good way to heal in a heated battle. Better to use your points on the other things first and leave that last in any case. Getting your Lunatic talent leveled a bit will help also. (that's all level 50 stuff)
- bottom set is your crowd control set, your team's backup damage dissolver. Your job is to remove the buffs on the bosses so they're not doing destructive amounts of damage (scatter shot) and to place negative buffs onto the bosses so they're not hurting as much with each shot (incendiary shot) and slowing them down so they're not able to cast some that we cannot dispell with scatter (deep freeze) Armor piercer comes in handy, but not until much later, so again, like many other things to leave til last, that'd be the best one to make wait.
Deep freeze and scatter you'll need starting at Badlands forward. Every dungeon thereafter hurts just a little bit more.
Troops: Best (in my experience) to use PATK/PDEF troops like lancer/paladin/gryphon/knight/templars, but there's some who have used high level angels standing behind them to great success also. After about level 55 or so, though some wait until 60, is the best time to work on troop enlightenment. Many players have forced themselves to stop levelling to concentrate on getting legendary gear made, getting astrals upgraded, guild skills finished etc. Troop enlightenment is up to you, you can go for HP percentage increase, or you can go for a PATK increase. The best benefits seem to come from level 60+ templars with over level 5 enlightenment.
**how enlightenment works** It will tell you how much daru it takes to get to the next level. We all start with HP transformation. It works on a pattern, the same things will cycle through as you work toward your next level up with enlightenment. When you see the one you'd rather have, PATK is favoured by a lot of archers, just click swap. You can then continue enlightening without swapping until you get to the end. When the bar is full, you can trade your level 5 PATK enlightenment for a level 6 PATK enlightenment. The one after you get to the end will always be the one you are currently using.
Guild skills. HUGELY important. The only one that is unneccesary to start with really is Charisma, followed a bit by intelligence. You can work on those around level 65 or so, but to do so early wastes gold you should put into something with results you'll see rather instantly.
first: Defense, if you hover over each guild skill it tells you how much of each stat it will give to your own stats when activated. second: power, third: endurance. The most important before any of these, gold. Get it to about 8 or 9, it's cheap and makes sure you always have plenty. Archers are the best class when hitting world bosses in regard to gold and daru gain, so you should never have trouble with getting enough to contribute to up your guild skills enough to see the difference.
Other things to consider: It depends on whether you want to put money into your game or not, but a little good investment will take you a long way.
Mount whips: Some think it is training the horse you have activated, or that they're only active when you're mounted. This isn't true... your mount whips aren't even FOR your horse/s, they're for you. It's just another way to stack stats onto your character, the horses and various other creatures you can ride just make it a bit more fun to play with. Use mount whips on strength, endurance and armor, just as you would with your gear refines and guild skills. You "can" put some into intelligence, but unless you are planning on shooting sparkly bits at your opponents, you don't need 3 MATK and 1 MDEF that badly til a lot later when everything else gets maxxed.
Mount stats: nearly every mount comes with stats you can attribute to your own toon. Most have ten of each category. Those stack on your stats directly. They aren't for the horse, the mount itself again, has nothing to do with it, neither does mount strength. Ignore mount strength, only look at the stats in each category. There are some shop standards you can buy, event mounts usually every month or on holidays, there are mounts you can get from the crypt, from your guild, and from becoming a Crusader from the arena shop. All these mounts have some stats in each category that will help bump your battle rating, so the more mounts the merrier
Soul engraving: there's a ton of places you can get soul crystals. Being in a top guild that wins their finals every friday helps a ton since they get 200 soul crystals and 20 mount whips just for the win... but there's also packs that go on sale in the shop, for both whips and for soul crystals from time to time that are worth getting in on since those go directly into your own stats and are the only thing you can buy directly to do so outside of event mounts.
To beat the Crypt: Deep freeze is a must until you can get through there basically face rolling the last boss at 100, but armor piercer and incendiary shot do help as well.
Last tip: In every map, provided you're not saving your skeleton keys to go farming in a nightmare dungeon for legendary stones, there will be one single player dungeon you can blitz with your skelly keys to get crypt keys from at a pretty decent drop rate. Kinda R2's way of thanking us maybe for paying attention
Last last tip: try to get your Imperial Commander or Lord Divine as quickly as you can, and don't be afraid to slowly level, pack your power in as much as possible, battlegrounds are a nasty place otherwise. Having that IC or LD medallion ups your crit rate chronically while also negating a lot of player damage to you, as well as inflicting extra onto them.
Last last last tip: (haha) your holy seal. There's no perfect level to have it up to, people will still be able to stun you because it seems there's always that one who can get you, the trick is to be able to stand for a three round stun, take it like a champ, and deliver death back anyway. Talents to go for, the incendiary shot cooldown is a nice one, but only for MPD purposes I think... should be last to get. Stealth is great, particularly after you get it to 4 or 5. So is the one for lunatic fire and for bloodthirsty. Arrow strike one, not sure about. Haven't seen it go off enough for my liking but will probably level that past first level last.
If anyone has any further questions, feel free to friend me, ask me via forum mail, or find me within my server. Am always happy to help growing players.
Obviously I'm still working on my archer, but this is at level 68, and still missing two legendary 60 jewels, which am halfway to attaining. It's been a lot of fun.
There's a lot of things to start with, but the biggest is using the cross server rankings to find archers you idealize and aim to have their stats and astrals etc, along with your own personal tweaks, it is after all your toon and it's fun to be unique.
There are some things however, that are archer standards. They don't change.
We get a passive HP bonus and passive crit bonuses. Anytime we work on those we see some mammoth increases. Keep that in mind as you build your toon.
Astrals... These too remain archer standard until about level 70.
In this order: PATK, Snipers Edge, Determination, MDEF, PDEF, Goddess Blessing, Block/Charm (jury's still out on those as some prefer one over the other) Same with Illusion, though I haven't noticed it go off as much as Block does, thanks to a friend who has play tested it for me/us.
Something that gets overlooked a LOT is gear refinement. While it's not cost effective to lock stats with balens on every single set of gear you own, there are a few that are worthwhile. You won't wear your 35 set for long, so use free refines to get the stats you want, same with 45. 55 set you'll have until you can farm up what you need for your 60 gear. Also called rage gear or PVE gear. (probably the best set in the game so far) It can be made legendary, and will make you a force to be reckoned with.
Gear stats to refine for: Strength, Armor, Endurance, Crit, and PATK (if you get PDEF or MDEF, it's alright also really, better than getting charisma or block at that point)
It makes a huge difference to your battle rating to refine. Most overlook it.
Gemming: PATK, HP, Crit, and a split between MDEF and PDEF gems. Depends whether you will eventually want into class wars.
Use those crypt keys, they'll get you double the XP and double your gains in gems and luck stones etc from the crypt which can only help you while upgrading them. You'll get most your gem synthesis plans up until level 5. Level 6 needs to be purchased from the shop. (it is worth it and rather cheap considering the gain you'll be getting)
Skills: Most archers end up investing in double skills, it's much easier to manage that way and makes you far more capable in dungeons, and a more desirable teammate to have along.
- The top set is your damage set. It's more for PVP purposes and for your general mobs in dungeons. (lunatic fire is our best and only real AOE damager) Best things to work on there in order, are getting every passive up first, working on single and multi shot, then getting everything else but bloodthirsty done first, since BT doesn't work "particularly" well until you get the level 50 unlocked talent for it, and have both BT to level 3 and the talent upgraded for it as high as you can get it as you level. It can be destructive and a good way to heal in a heated battle. Better to use your points on the other things first and leave that last in any case. Getting your Lunatic talent leveled a bit will help also. (that's all level 50 stuff)
- bottom set is your crowd control set, your team's backup damage dissolver. Your job is to remove the buffs on the bosses so they're not doing destructive amounts of damage (scatter shot) and to place negative buffs onto the bosses so they're not hurting as much with each shot (incendiary shot) and slowing them down so they're not able to cast some that we cannot dispell with scatter (deep freeze) Armor piercer comes in handy, but not until much later, so again, like many other things to leave til last, that'd be the best one to make wait.
Deep freeze and scatter you'll need starting at Badlands forward. Every dungeon thereafter hurts just a little bit more.
Troops: Best (in my experience) to use PATK/PDEF troops like lancer/paladin/gryphon/knight/templars, but there's some who have used high level angels standing behind them to great success also. After about level 55 or so, though some wait until 60, is the best time to work on troop enlightenment. Many players have forced themselves to stop levelling to concentrate on getting legendary gear made, getting astrals upgraded, guild skills finished etc. Troop enlightenment is up to you, you can go for HP percentage increase, or you can go for a PATK increase. The best benefits seem to come from level 60+ templars with over level 5 enlightenment.
**how enlightenment works** It will tell you how much daru it takes to get to the next level. We all start with HP transformation. It works on a pattern, the same things will cycle through as you work toward your next level up with enlightenment. When you see the one you'd rather have, PATK is favoured by a lot of archers, just click swap. You can then continue enlightening without swapping until you get to the end. When the bar is full, you can trade your level 5 PATK enlightenment for a level 6 PATK enlightenment. The one after you get to the end will always be the one you are currently using.
Guild skills. HUGELY important. The only one that is unneccesary to start with really is Charisma, followed a bit by intelligence. You can work on those around level 65 or so, but to do so early wastes gold you should put into something with results you'll see rather instantly.
first: Defense, if you hover over each guild skill it tells you how much of each stat it will give to your own stats when activated. second: power, third: endurance. The most important before any of these, gold. Get it to about 8 or 9, it's cheap and makes sure you always have plenty. Archers are the best class when hitting world bosses in regard to gold and daru gain, so you should never have trouble with getting enough to contribute to up your guild skills enough to see the difference.
Other things to consider: It depends on whether you want to put money into your game or not, but a little good investment will take you a long way.
Mount whips: Some think it is training the horse you have activated, or that they're only active when you're mounted. This isn't true... your mount whips aren't even FOR your horse/s, they're for you. It's just another way to stack stats onto your character, the horses and various other creatures you can ride just make it a bit more fun to play with. Use mount whips on strength, endurance and armor, just as you would with your gear refines and guild skills. You "can" put some into intelligence, but unless you are planning on shooting sparkly bits at your opponents, you don't need 3 MATK and 1 MDEF that badly til a lot later when everything else gets maxxed.
Mount stats: nearly every mount comes with stats you can attribute to your own toon. Most have ten of each category. Those stack on your stats directly. They aren't for the horse, the mount itself again, has nothing to do with it, neither does mount strength. Ignore mount strength, only look at the stats in each category. There are some shop standards you can buy, event mounts usually every month or on holidays, there are mounts you can get from the crypt, from your guild, and from becoming a Crusader from the arena shop. All these mounts have some stats in each category that will help bump your battle rating, so the more mounts the merrier
Soul engraving: there's a ton of places you can get soul crystals. Being in a top guild that wins their finals every friday helps a ton since they get 200 soul crystals and 20 mount whips just for the win... but there's also packs that go on sale in the shop, for both whips and for soul crystals from time to time that are worth getting in on since those go directly into your own stats and are the only thing you can buy directly to do so outside of event mounts.
To beat the Crypt: Deep freeze is a must until you can get through there basically face rolling the last boss at 100, but armor piercer and incendiary shot do help as well.
Last tip: In every map, provided you're not saving your skeleton keys to go farming in a nightmare dungeon for legendary stones, there will be one single player dungeon you can blitz with your skelly keys to get crypt keys from at a pretty decent drop rate. Kinda R2's way of thanking us maybe for paying attention
Last last tip: try to get your Imperial Commander or Lord Divine as quickly as you can, and don't be afraid to slowly level, pack your power in as much as possible, battlegrounds are a nasty place otherwise. Having that IC or LD medallion ups your crit rate chronically while also negating a lot of player damage to you, as well as inflicting extra onto them.
Last last last tip: (haha) your holy seal. There's no perfect level to have it up to, people will still be able to stun you because it seems there's always that one who can get you, the trick is to be able to stand for a three round stun, take it like a champ, and deliver death back anyway. Talents to go for, the incendiary shot cooldown is a nice one, but only for MPD purposes I think... should be last to get. Stealth is great, particularly after you get it to 4 or 5. So is the one for lunatic fire and for bloodthirsty. Arrow strike one, not sure about. Haven't seen it go off enough for my liking but will probably level that past first level last.
If anyone has any further questions, feel free to friend me, ask me via forum mail, or find me within my server. Am always happy to help growing players.
Obviously I'm still working on my archer, but this is at level 68, and still missing two legendary 60 jewels, which am halfway to attaining. It's been a lot of fun.
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