The point of this guide is to help archer players to be better than just attempting to feel their way through things, as I did until doing some research. That and to contribute to internet pollution. Feel free to ignore portions or all of this treatise, as you are the one playing the character, not me.
Role of Archers in Wartune:
The role of this class is more or less straightforward, damage and multiple negative effects on enemies. If you wish to take a beating as tank or if you want to throw spells, this is not the class for you, although you can with time and effort work towards being a tank as an archer. Your team mates will look to you to inflict rapid, heavy damage to enemies, to boost the damage output of the group in general, and with time, to remove pesky buffs your enemies use. Expect to be placed in the rear row often in multiplayer parties, especially if one or more knights are present.
Starting out:
In the beginning levels (more or less until level 20) expect that gear will be whatever you are lucky enough to obtain as drops from defeated enemies. During this time, attempt to clear all quests and campaign stages regardless of if you have stamina left to open things for your first several days of play. Do not use socketing rods that you receive, as you'll want them for later equipment (usually level 40/50 legendary or level 55 sets for left side, ring and jewelry level 50 sets and higher). As you have until level 24 to reset your skills, play around with them a bit, see what you like, but have as many unlocked as you can, or plan for future development. Upgrade your city and troops often.
Early career:
This point is where the player has to decide whether to rush up to level 45/50 or take it slow. Personally I more or less rushed, and took a while to develop later after reading Ginger's excellent slow levelling guide here:
http://forum.r2games.com/showthread....Slow-leveling)
Ideally from level 20 and onwards, an archer should be looking for opportunities to obtain full equipment sets, either from grinding catacombs or through the arena shop. The level 35 arena set is relatively easy to obtain, and adds an additional 30 starting rage when 3 of the 4 pieces are equipped.
The middle levels:
From level 50 to 70 is where the biggest variety of archer builds can be found, from those focused on Player vs Player (PvP), World Boss (WB), and those concentrated on the environment and multiplayer dungeons (PvE). Talents open to further allow slowing of level gain so the player can catch up on various aspects ( building and research upgrades, for example), which is better dealt with by Ginger's guide. Expect your party mates in Garden of Death and Moonevil Den to want you to use Scatter Shot frequently to avoid party wipes against the bosses, so make sure you have at least one point in that skill. These two dungeons will likely be where the archer will need to grind to obtain the items to synthesize level 50/60 equipment and legendary stones.
The home stretch:
By this point, the archer should be closing in on all skills, and likely able to tank dungeons 10 or more levels lower than their own in Nightmare difficulty. Should I reach level 70, will continue this section.....
Archers and astrals:
As of level 25, the astral panel unlocks and adds another way for players to boost their statistics. For archers, PATK and Crit are the primary stats, so make sure to have these two constantly equipped. DO NOT EQUIP ANY VERSION OF WILL DESTROYER! To do so will weaken the character so much as to be almost unplayable. Archers depend on critical hits to generate extra rage to use skills, and Will Destroyers of all kinds disable critical hits. This is what my standard astrals are at level 60: PATK, Crit, PDEF, MDEF, Determination and Goddess Blessing (purple or higher versions of all), though the critical astrals are always PATK, Crit and Determination. Expect a lot of your gold to go to upgrading and obtaining astrals, so save up your exchange points for things like Holy Force (PATK) and Enhanced Determination should you need either while playing.
Archers and skills:
These are my skills at level 67, which seem to serve me rather well. The four passive skills were raised to the maximum relatively early, where the actual attack skills were merely unlocked. Acumen, Focused Attack, Eye of the Eagle and Battle Prowress are all important, from direct stat increases, to combat buffs for friendly party members. As I mentioned at the start of this guide, up to each player how they want to progress, and skills is where the widest variations can be found, especially early on. Deep Freeze and Bloodthirsty Strike are quite useful in catacombs, so remember to have them unlocked early on, Scatter Shot by level 40 as buffs become very common in campaign and dungeons.
Guilds, and what they can do for you:
Unless you are on a new server with close friends, try and apply to the top 8 guilds should your playing times allow for Guild Battles (GBs), as this allows for a more rapid gain of honor, insignias and other rewards. Investing in Guild Skills can be expensive to start, however with the Gold Production skill at level 5 or higher adds quite a punch to your income. Beyond Gold Production, Strength, Defense and Endurance skills are all very useful and important to an archer, where Charisma and Intellect are less so. The Hurricane Steed is also only available from a level 10 Guild Shop, at a whopping 50 million gold price tag for the shards alone, so it is a long-term investment.
Archers and Mount training:
When the mounts become unlocked at level 40, while it is possible (though unlikely) to have the Netherwing Dragon, most will gain the default, Stable level 1 horse. Use training whips to increase the stat boost from your mount. "Love Thy Mount" events are ideal for when to use whips in large amounts, often providing more whips or soul crystals. Generally, your Strength training should be much higher than the Intellect training, with Endurance and Armor falling somewhere between. The stats gained from training are always active, mounted or not, only movement speed is affected. It is important to seek out as many mounts as possible, each raises the maximum training level and provide more stats, therefore, Battle Rating (BR).
Soul Engraving and Archers:
While Soul Engraving does not add to your stats directly, it does boost the bonuses received from your socketed gems. At first the boost is small, but it will grow as you play and synthesize higher level gems. It seems that Soul Engraving's boost to gems increase more than 2% per level after a level 50 Soul Engraving, so spend those soul crystals you can receive as treasure drops from level 25 and beyond during the "Soul Engraving" events that you personally feel worth the effort.
Archers and Stats:
One does not need to be a Lord Divine rank to have an extremely high Crit stat, as you can see from my current (as of posting) stats. Gems should be in general PATK and Crit, rest to shoring up any weaknesses you feel the character has. Athough some may feel the need to rotate gems for various events (WB for example), I persoally use 8 PATK, 8 Crit, 7 PDEF, 7 MDEF, and 1 Block gem, though again, the choice is yours. PATK and Crit are the "bread and butter" of all archers, so raising those two should be top priority for improving, where MATK is dead last for attributes to raise, since it adds BR but no difference when in combat.
Archers and Troops:
From early on, pick between the choices you are given and focus on one type to get as high as you can. Level 20 Lancers, Level 25 Paladins and level 35 Gryphons should get an archer through most campaign levels. At level 40 some choose to invest in Angels, personally, I found the Knights to be longer lived, and Angels' healing abilities to be too inconsistent for my tastes, though on occasion I do see some in Battle Grounds (BGs). When choosing between Templar and Warlocks, I'd suggest Templars, being more resistant to the majority of attacks (physical), as the Dark Pulse ability may help with damage, I found the Warlocks, unless built up to high levels, die too easily. Enlightenment is definitely an option after an archer reaches level 55, if not higher, make sure to enlighten using either Warlocks or Templar, as these two give the largest benefits. Expect to spend millions of daru in this, as enlightenment can give additional HP or stats ( usually PATK or one of the two DEFs) which can make a noticeable difference at that point.
Archers and Sylphs:
As of level 50 sylphs unlock and at level 55 after completing a quest chain, you may participate in Sylph Arena. If an archer intends to acquire a sylph as early as possible without spending, my recommendation is that by level 50, an archer needs at least a 20k BR, if not higher. Sylphs do add to the archer's stats, but unless one is spending money for the Apollo or Hades, the two most useful sylphs are Iris and Gaia. Investing in sylph skills is very helpful, Iris with the Raindance ability makes for a secondary healing option, where a Gaia with several skills can make for a nasty customer in BGs. Where possible try to spend the extra balens to open an active skill, you can overwrite a random skill it has (which can be problematic), and should you wish to add a second (beyond the first one you purchase) passive. Use Mahras to increase the statistics and growth of your sylph, where speleculums are used to increase the affinity for a given stat. Mahras are usually availible through events, and speleculums can be earned daily (with a large payoff on Sundays) by having Sylph Arena unlocked.
Archers and Clothing:
While wings are a definite plus, unless you spend immediately, it is my opinion that getting the starting rage increasing helm, armor and weapon cloaking first, as you save for wings. In this way, especially beyond level 46, you can best make use of Fashion cores obtained through the Spire event. It requires 1 Fashion core to upgrade clothes, and 5 Fashion cores to upgrade wings. Be aware that beyond level 2 clothes that there is a chance for failure, so be careful.
Archers and Runes:
Where possible participate in the daily Tanks event when it unlocks at level 35. It is possible to win the Heal or Blood runes from victory chests (though rather rare these days...), however Tanks is the way to gain the most runestones, and there are special events where one can trade runestones or runes in to try and get some of the rarer ones, such as Chaos and Amnesia runes. Brutality should be your focus when upgrading runes, as it adds damage with more being assigned to player opponents (perfect for solo duels where many wear medallions that reduce damage - the Tenacity stat).
Archers and Fate Auras:
As of level 55, characters get access to the offensive and defensive auras (with likely a third aura under development somewhere), what I would suggest to most archers is focus mostly on the offensive one, unless you feel your defense is too low, then work on the defensive one.
Offensive Aura: +1000 HP, +100 ATK, and ignore 250 of target's PDEF (20% chance, does not improve) per level.
Defensive Aura: +1000 HP, +100 PDEF/MDEF per level (base bonus is 150, and increases at 100 per level, ie. 150 at lvl 1, 250 at lvl 2, etc)
The easiest way to obtain Fate Stones is through the fate wheel (unlocks at level 55) or through Jewel Hunt.
Spending balens, or not:
For those wishing to spend money on their toons, invest in clothing and mounts, followed by gem transposers level 6 and higher. VIP has many benefits as well, however I feel that the Spirit Covenant is far more valuable when gaining experience points, as bounty quests and stamina cultivation are virtually automatically complete.
For those who do not wish to spend money on their toons, then make sure to log in every day, as days 17 and 26 of every month provide free bound balens. Make absolutely sure of the usefulness of the items you purchase this way, nothing is more frustrating than buying a level 7 Crit gem transposer just to be missing the level 6 one. You will not be able to purchase "Hot" items with bound balens, so do not even your waste time trying. Bound balens can be obtained through Guild Blessing Wheel (up to 8), and solo duels (so far 2, anyone seen more?)
Archers and Refining:
The best stat boosts come from many refining attempts and legendary status, which increases the boosts. Strength, Crit, PATK, Armor/Defense (depending on item), and Endurance are the most desirable, with Charisma being the least. Refining is VERY treasure and time consuming, as often only key runs in Nightmare difficulty provide the blue or better gear to recycle with any amount of consistency. The following are the dungeons where key runs may be performed (summoner present): Void (level 40), Garden of Death (level 50) and Demon Temple (level 65). Refining Locks can be obtained relatively often in Jewel Hunt, so good luck with all level 10 (or star) stat boosts you like!
Role of Archers in Wartune:
The role of this class is more or less straightforward, damage and multiple negative effects on enemies. If you wish to take a beating as tank or if you want to throw spells, this is not the class for you, although you can with time and effort work towards being a tank as an archer. Your team mates will look to you to inflict rapid, heavy damage to enemies, to boost the damage output of the group in general, and with time, to remove pesky buffs your enemies use. Expect to be placed in the rear row often in multiplayer parties, especially if one or more knights are present.
Starting out:
In the beginning levels (more or less until level 20) expect that gear will be whatever you are lucky enough to obtain as drops from defeated enemies. During this time, attempt to clear all quests and campaign stages regardless of if you have stamina left to open things for your first several days of play. Do not use socketing rods that you receive, as you'll want them for later equipment (usually level 40/50 legendary or level 55 sets for left side, ring and jewelry level 50 sets and higher). As you have until level 24 to reset your skills, play around with them a bit, see what you like, but have as many unlocked as you can, or plan for future development. Upgrade your city and troops often.
Early career:
This point is where the player has to decide whether to rush up to level 45/50 or take it slow. Personally I more or less rushed, and took a while to develop later after reading Ginger's excellent slow levelling guide here:
http://forum.r2games.com/showthread....Slow-leveling)
Ideally from level 20 and onwards, an archer should be looking for opportunities to obtain full equipment sets, either from grinding catacombs or through the arena shop. The level 35 arena set is relatively easy to obtain, and adds an additional 30 starting rage when 3 of the 4 pieces are equipped.
The middle levels:
From level 50 to 70 is where the biggest variety of archer builds can be found, from those focused on Player vs Player (PvP), World Boss (WB), and those concentrated on the environment and multiplayer dungeons (PvE). Talents open to further allow slowing of level gain so the player can catch up on various aspects ( building and research upgrades, for example), which is better dealt with by Ginger's guide. Expect your party mates in Garden of Death and Moonevil Den to want you to use Scatter Shot frequently to avoid party wipes against the bosses, so make sure you have at least one point in that skill. These two dungeons will likely be where the archer will need to grind to obtain the items to synthesize level 50/60 equipment and legendary stones.
The home stretch:
By this point, the archer should be closing in on all skills, and likely able to tank dungeons 10 or more levels lower than their own in Nightmare difficulty. Should I reach level 70, will continue this section.....
Archers and astrals:
As of level 25, the astral panel unlocks and adds another way for players to boost their statistics. For archers, PATK and Crit are the primary stats, so make sure to have these two constantly equipped. DO NOT EQUIP ANY VERSION OF WILL DESTROYER! To do so will weaken the character so much as to be almost unplayable. Archers depend on critical hits to generate extra rage to use skills, and Will Destroyers of all kinds disable critical hits. This is what my standard astrals are at level 60: PATK, Crit, PDEF, MDEF, Determination and Goddess Blessing (purple or higher versions of all), though the critical astrals are always PATK, Crit and Determination. Expect a lot of your gold to go to upgrading and obtaining astrals, so save up your exchange points for things like Holy Force (PATK) and Enhanced Determination should you need either while playing.
Archers and skills:
These are my skills at level 67, which seem to serve me rather well. The four passive skills were raised to the maximum relatively early, where the actual attack skills were merely unlocked. Acumen, Focused Attack, Eye of the Eagle and Battle Prowress are all important, from direct stat increases, to combat buffs for friendly party members. As I mentioned at the start of this guide, up to each player how they want to progress, and skills is where the widest variations can be found, especially early on. Deep Freeze and Bloodthirsty Strike are quite useful in catacombs, so remember to have them unlocked early on, Scatter Shot by level 40 as buffs become very common in campaign and dungeons.
Guilds, and what they can do for you:
Unless you are on a new server with close friends, try and apply to the top 8 guilds should your playing times allow for Guild Battles (GBs), as this allows for a more rapid gain of honor, insignias and other rewards. Investing in Guild Skills can be expensive to start, however with the Gold Production skill at level 5 or higher adds quite a punch to your income. Beyond Gold Production, Strength, Defense and Endurance skills are all very useful and important to an archer, where Charisma and Intellect are less so. The Hurricane Steed is also only available from a level 10 Guild Shop, at a whopping 50 million gold price tag for the shards alone, so it is a long-term investment.
Archers and Mount training:
When the mounts become unlocked at level 40, while it is possible (though unlikely) to have the Netherwing Dragon, most will gain the default, Stable level 1 horse. Use training whips to increase the stat boost from your mount. "Love Thy Mount" events are ideal for when to use whips in large amounts, often providing more whips or soul crystals. Generally, your Strength training should be much higher than the Intellect training, with Endurance and Armor falling somewhere between. The stats gained from training are always active, mounted or not, only movement speed is affected. It is important to seek out as many mounts as possible, each raises the maximum training level and provide more stats, therefore, Battle Rating (BR).
Soul Engraving and Archers:
While Soul Engraving does not add to your stats directly, it does boost the bonuses received from your socketed gems. At first the boost is small, but it will grow as you play and synthesize higher level gems. It seems that Soul Engraving's boost to gems increase more than 2% per level after a level 50 Soul Engraving, so spend those soul crystals you can receive as treasure drops from level 25 and beyond during the "Soul Engraving" events that you personally feel worth the effort.
Archers and Stats:
One does not need to be a Lord Divine rank to have an extremely high Crit stat, as you can see from my current (as of posting) stats. Gems should be in general PATK and Crit, rest to shoring up any weaknesses you feel the character has. Athough some may feel the need to rotate gems for various events (WB for example), I persoally use 8 PATK, 8 Crit, 7 PDEF, 7 MDEF, and 1 Block gem, though again, the choice is yours. PATK and Crit are the "bread and butter" of all archers, so raising those two should be top priority for improving, where MATK is dead last for attributes to raise, since it adds BR but no difference when in combat.
Archers and Troops:
From early on, pick between the choices you are given and focus on one type to get as high as you can. Level 20 Lancers, Level 25 Paladins and level 35 Gryphons should get an archer through most campaign levels. At level 40 some choose to invest in Angels, personally, I found the Knights to be longer lived, and Angels' healing abilities to be too inconsistent for my tastes, though on occasion I do see some in Battle Grounds (BGs). When choosing between Templar and Warlocks, I'd suggest Templars, being more resistant to the majority of attacks (physical), as the Dark Pulse ability may help with damage, I found the Warlocks, unless built up to high levels, die too easily. Enlightenment is definitely an option after an archer reaches level 55, if not higher, make sure to enlighten using either Warlocks or Templar, as these two give the largest benefits. Expect to spend millions of daru in this, as enlightenment can give additional HP or stats ( usually PATK or one of the two DEFs) which can make a noticeable difference at that point.
Archers and Sylphs:
As of level 50 sylphs unlock and at level 55 after completing a quest chain, you may participate in Sylph Arena. If an archer intends to acquire a sylph as early as possible without spending, my recommendation is that by level 50, an archer needs at least a 20k BR, if not higher. Sylphs do add to the archer's stats, but unless one is spending money for the Apollo or Hades, the two most useful sylphs are Iris and Gaia. Investing in sylph skills is very helpful, Iris with the Raindance ability makes for a secondary healing option, where a Gaia with several skills can make for a nasty customer in BGs. Where possible try to spend the extra balens to open an active skill, you can overwrite a random skill it has (which can be problematic), and should you wish to add a second (beyond the first one you purchase) passive. Use Mahras to increase the statistics and growth of your sylph, where speleculums are used to increase the affinity for a given stat. Mahras are usually availible through events, and speleculums can be earned daily (with a large payoff on Sundays) by having Sylph Arena unlocked.
Archers and Clothing:
While wings are a definite plus, unless you spend immediately, it is my opinion that getting the starting rage increasing helm, armor and weapon cloaking first, as you save for wings. In this way, especially beyond level 46, you can best make use of Fashion cores obtained through the Spire event. It requires 1 Fashion core to upgrade clothes, and 5 Fashion cores to upgrade wings. Be aware that beyond level 2 clothes that there is a chance for failure, so be careful.
Archers and Runes:
Where possible participate in the daily Tanks event when it unlocks at level 35. It is possible to win the Heal or Blood runes from victory chests (though rather rare these days...), however Tanks is the way to gain the most runestones, and there are special events where one can trade runestones or runes in to try and get some of the rarer ones, such as Chaos and Amnesia runes. Brutality should be your focus when upgrading runes, as it adds damage with more being assigned to player opponents (perfect for solo duels where many wear medallions that reduce damage - the Tenacity stat).
Archers and Fate Auras:
As of level 55, characters get access to the offensive and defensive auras (with likely a third aura under development somewhere), what I would suggest to most archers is focus mostly on the offensive one, unless you feel your defense is too low, then work on the defensive one.
Offensive Aura: +1000 HP, +100 ATK, and ignore 250 of target's PDEF (20% chance, does not improve) per level.
Defensive Aura: +1000 HP, +100 PDEF/MDEF per level (base bonus is 150, and increases at 100 per level, ie. 150 at lvl 1, 250 at lvl 2, etc)
The easiest way to obtain Fate Stones is through the fate wheel (unlocks at level 55) or through Jewel Hunt.
Spending balens, or not:
For those wishing to spend money on their toons, invest in clothing and mounts, followed by gem transposers level 6 and higher. VIP has many benefits as well, however I feel that the Spirit Covenant is far more valuable when gaining experience points, as bounty quests and stamina cultivation are virtually automatically complete.
For those who do not wish to spend money on their toons, then make sure to log in every day, as days 17 and 26 of every month provide free bound balens. Make absolutely sure of the usefulness of the items you purchase this way, nothing is more frustrating than buying a level 7 Crit gem transposer just to be missing the level 6 one. You will not be able to purchase "Hot" items with bound balens, so do not even your waste time trying. Bound balens can be obtained through Guild Blessing Wheel (up to 8), and solo duels (so far 2, anyone seen more?)
Archers and Refining:
The best stat boosts come from many refining attempts and legendary status, which increases the boosts. Strength, Crit, PATK, Armor/Defense (depending on item), and Endurance are the most desirable, with Charisma being the least. Refining is VERY treasure and time consuming, as often only key runs in Nightmare difficulty provide the blue or better gear to recycle with any amount of consistency. The following are the dungeons where key runs may be performed (summoner present): Void (level 40), Garden of Death (level 50) and Demon Temple (level 65). Refining Locks can be obtained relatively often in Jewel Hunt, so good luck with all level 10 (or star) stat boosts you like!
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