A few questions for higher level archers

Just wondering...

1.) Do you still use most of your skills? I find myself only really using Rapid Fire and sometimes Aimed Shot...
2.) Does anyone use Multi Shot? It seems useless...
3.) The De-buffs Disabling Shot and Blinding Shot seem useful for PVP, but I don't use these skills anymore also do you?

Thanks

 

Yup, I find Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire to be most useful in PvE, Disabling and Blinding Shot much less so. (Great in PvP, though...) Multi Shot is utterly useless. Removed it from my deck a long time ago.

 

I use Aimed Shot, Rapid Fire and Blinding Shot. Blinding Shot significantly reduces your target's dexterity, making it harder for them to hit you and easier for you to hit them.

Right now, Rapid Fire has a bug (at least on the Linux client) where my avatar gets rooted in-place when I use it. Using any other ability breaks that and allows me to move again but it still limits it's usefulness for now.

 

True, I find Blinding Shot very effective against high dexterity foes, like Elves (Elven archers can be quite deadly if they get the drop on you - especially when they attack in pairs... )

 

Thanks for the insight guys, I notice Piercing Shot isn't getting much love also, my observation is that the damage seems low...

 

Yes I agree that Piercing shot has no love !

 

Can you do decent damage in PVP vs someone that has the defences buffed well?

With medium level bow and no gear from what I tested the damage is not significant...in PVE is decent but single target...

 

Against a heavily armored opponent in PvP equipped with shield or other buffed up defenses, ranged damage still pales in comparison to that inflicted by bludgeon and other melee weapons (Shield is VERY effective at blocking arrows...even Rapid Fire ) You still need to supplement your ranged skills with offensive magic spells...

 

I'm assuming you're referring to Piercing Shot in PVP vs. a buffed opponent, I haven't the PVP experience (or high level Piercing shot skills) to make an informed comment, but the current go-to strategy\play-style seems to revolve around on landing multiple criticals using Rapid Shot.

 

I don't think this is a bad thing, we can't have range, speed and huge damage vs heavies... On an open PVP battle field I don't think a heavy armor user could ever catch a light wearing archer, they could kite forever.

On the other hand, arrows should rip soft targets apart (cloth wearers), this damage needs to be increased a bit IMHO.

I have no problem with this, in fact I think it adds good balance. (exception shield wielding mages)

This seems to be the real problem...you can make a pure warrior, or mage but not a pure archer (IMHO).

 

Part of the issue too is that a mage can wield a bow for use with auto-attack between spell casts, leading to the archer-mage build. But an archer cannot wield a bow that uses free attack, with a sword that auto-attacks if the bow is unused, making a ranger type build more difficult. Therefore, spell casting will prevail as the damage augment for the archers. Its a bit of a flaw, I think, that an archer can easily use spells to augment damage but not a melee weapon without swapping to an alternative deck.

 

Unfortunately, I tend to compete in arena PvP, and that melee opponent always catches you sooner or later

 

You can switch weapons at any time during combat, instantly. Just drag the weapon from your inventory to the paperdoll.

 

True, but auto attack is not as effective as leveled up melee combat skills in terms of damage You would still need to switch over to the second deck

 

No doubt. But I think that is different than the auto-attack feature doing augmented damage between skill use. Should an archer mage be able to use ranged autoattacks between spell casting, while an archer-melee has to constantly drag weapons from inventory to achieve something similar if they wanted to use an attack other the ranged in the mix? Should certain levels of magic require a focus item be in the Avatar's weapon slot to even this out? I agree that that archer-mage builds will be prevalent if the current approach remains.

 

Sure, you can put as many different attacks as you wish in your deck at once. Possible? Sure. Wise? Debatable.
My comment was to point out that you can switch weapons without switching decks. That's it.
Today, and for many many releases, you can use the bow to attack/pull/auto-attack then switch to a halberd and do exactly the same.
What the design goals are? Who the hell knows. This game is being pulled in so many different directions I have no idea what "should be able to" even means for the dev team.

As far as it goes for me, I pull with a ranged glyph and I want the target to reach me as quickly as possible. Delaying combat & the death of my target, to me, is working against my goals, in a resource collection game like Shroud. My point? I'm not sure it's worth switching to a melee weapon unless you're fighting multiple targets 100% of the time. Pulling with Fire Arrow, for example, while using a halberd seems to work. Pulling with Aimed Shot and then switching to the halberd also seems to work. Afaik, there's no difference in the damage output of a bow if the target is 20m or 1m away from the player. YMMV!

 

Very true, unfortunately PVP arena combat is not a fair test for archers (and sadly this is where most of all the data points are coming from) speed and range, the Rangers\Archer's two greatest assets are completely negated in fenced in PVP arena combat.

I would bet in open world PVP, high level Warrior vs high level Archer, Warrior will have a hard time connecting.

 

I would agree that a high level archer would have the advantage in open world PvP, provided, of course, that the melee opponent doesn't have a way of closing the distance quickly (i.e. Blink, Sprint, etc.)

 

1. Yes, except, of course, Multi Shot. Preferably as stacked as possible - very deep stacking is often not possible against large groups, but..preferably. Piercing Shot still seems to be a bit neglected, the effect against armored opponents should be made more prominent somehow - either make other attacks less effective against armor or...well, I don't know really. Not exactly my favorite so far, but still have Piercing Shot in my decks.
   
   
2. The very existence of Multi Shot just leaves me stumped. I would imagine that it would be useful for a PvE tank, if you needed to annoy a very large group of mobs and let them all come after you, a kind of super-taunt, now how common a need is that for an archer? Generally speaking, relying on Multi Shot is guaranteed to get you killed. I don't plan on even learning it after the final wipe, unless profound changes are made to it.
   
   
3. Both are useful / very useful. Contrary to some other comments, I also find Disabling Shot very useful - even a kind of staple (I like to keep my distance). Against blinkers and suchalike - well, we'll see.