Archers are at a serious disadvantage now with regards to defense

Is good to know i'm playing it as is intended!

I've been thinking about it... knowing how dex is also relevant in the hit/miss thing (my main concern atm) i was wondering why all the critical results on all gear results in an additional strength bonus. I suppose that's a placeholder, but my question is... could it be much trouble to make dex gear to give dex on crit crafting? (mainly leather and bows). Don't know if we'll be able to choose between the stat we want to apply, but for now it's a pain looking at characters with 90str and then me, with almost 40 in str and in dex . Same goes for cloth/wands.

I'd say making each kind of gear giving bonuses on it's "main" stat could be better to test builds at the same level of stats close range fighters have.

 

Hmm...thanks for chiming in Chris I have not found Disabling shot to be very helpful at all (Does not appear to be slowing my foes down, as far as I can tell...) I don't use the ice or air magic skill trees (instead relying primarily on fire and death - tie into my character's back story - which are considerably weaker nowadays). Good to hear that Dodge actually works well now since I have not been using it for quite a few releases (when it was ineffective) I will add it to my deck and see if it helps...

...and I can't stand free attack BTW, who is going to be take the time to charge up each arrow while they are being chased by a mob of bears or wolves? (Seems to happen to me most of the time...) When I actually tried that, I got torn to shreds by the mob every single time Nope, I'm sticking with auto attack (and yes, these arrows are costing me a fortune...)

I also prefer to hunt solo most of the time, so indicating that an archer works as a support ciass is not very encouraging...

 

I definitely exclusively use Free Attack, (as pelting something for 4-6 dmg doesn't sound appealing to me). Once the mob is low, I'll charge up maybe only 2-3 ticks to finish him off.

Once "chance to hit" actually makes sense to me, I will go after some elves again... it seems like I can take out any wolf/spider/skeleton/bear/zombie, etc. with some effort. But if I try to shoot an elf, I end up hitting him once for 67 Crit Aimedshot. . . then I spend about 40 more arrows, fully charged, and missing every single damn one while kiting all over the place...that's just frustrating as hell.

I guess I'm not adept enough to shoot them, even though they're in the adjoining scenes to where I was before, back to farming 1-2 shot skeletons in the beginner scene I guess

 

My ranged combat skill is taking forever to increase, so hitting my foes is still a major problem for me It just reached 57 last night (despite killing a ton of wolves and bears since the start of last release... ) and my individual shots are all in the low 60s now

 

Will the Helm Boots and Glove resists be fixed as well? Currently they are identical as a base item from cloth to chain which makes chain and leather in those slots useless due to incrementally increasing fizzle chance.

 

No wonder I can't hit elves most of the time My dex is only 32 I guess I need to find some ways to boost it a lot more

Nope, no tamed creatures for me - unless it's a dragon

 

I'd really appreciate similar advice for playing a Mage, this information looks pretty priceless for anyone playing an archer...

 

There are some of us who prefer to play without a pet. Just sayin'

I have been using magery attacks when the enemy gets too close, but I know that it's holding me back as far as how tough a monster I can fight.

And with that being said, I do appreciate the advances that have been made with archery.

But we need to be able to CRAFT the special arrows! [I know, not your department - please nudge the others and thank them, too.] While no one has yet to discover that I am selling arrows on my vendor in Ardoris for half of what they cost from NPCs, it is now viable to craft standard arrows.

 

That's exactly what I thought was going on, silly high dexterity elves... I guess I might have to dabble in magic (even though I wanted a pure archer build) if I want to try and best them. Maybe since arrows are different than melee their defense from dexterity shouldn't apply equally depending on the type of attack getting thrown at them? (although that might create a balance nightmare) heheh

Anyone know of any potions or other items that increase dex outside of magic? (haven't looked at it yet at all...)

 

Trust me, magic spells are not going to cause them significant damage unless you have them at a high level Most of mine are in the 30's and 40's and they usually do less damage than my arrows

Yup, you definitely need magic to supplement archery in order to survive...

 

I'd say the only buff for dex is air's embrace. I join you in the expectation of more information!

Getting to the dex levels equivalent to the ones achieved by str players is currently impossible... so if some enemies have up to 100 dex... i'd say i'm stuck in the missing well for now I'm going to block everything but ranged and dex. Time to get priorities settled.

 

What I meant was magic to increase my dexterity. When I CAN hit the elf with an arrow, it does decent damage. But apparently they're so much more agile than I am right now that they just sidestep 99% of my arrows (just to be clear, I am definitely not advocating for nerfing elves)

 

Please let us know if both go up dramatically after you do that Yeah, too bad I don't use the Air magic skill tree

 

/slow clap

 

Given the miss rate I'm seeing charging up seems like a waste of time I find I'm better off just clicking and using up arrows to deal damage.

 

Fire the nukes already ;-)


(I'm the ONLY tester looking forward to a wipe?)

 

@Chris

You make a lot of misguided assumptions when you state what is a "viable" archery character. While I do believe that the current design is getting to the right place as far as Archers go, there are a couple of things you stated that actually hit a nerve of many archers. You know I respect you, and i know you guys are trying your best doing everything you can do to make this game amazing. There are some things that do need to be said here.

• You stated that it was easier when you have a pet with you to tank. Not everyone wants to be a tamer, not everyone wants to be a pet user. Do not confuse those that want to be ARCHERS for those that want to be RANGERS, those are two very different things. Some wish to play pure archers.
• Speaking on pets in general, its great that taming is in - but currently, taming is ridiculously expensive and also extremely convoluted system well to the point of it just not being worth it for some. That combined with the confusion and frustrations with the archery system... you're asking people who are already suffering using one currently semi-expensive and troubled skill, to rely on an equally troubled and exponentially more expensive skill.
• You made mention of roots, you made mention of ice arrows. Again, magic skills - different trees, youre talking mixing magic with Archery thats an arcane archer or ranger but NOT an archer.
• The free attack you speak of is nice, but it is still highly disconnected from the free attacks melee users have. If I wanted to go melee, i can go into mouse look, click my mouse and swing my weapon around and the game KNOWS the enemy is in front of me and is picking that up... Fun! HOWEVER, archers, wand and staff users all have to tab target to target something. I could point my bow right at the enemy it doesnt matter. Melee users have a nice, fresh and free flow of combat just walk up to the enemy and click. We dont have that, we have the added frustration of having to click or tab target. To at least a few this makes free attack undesirable, especially when you include the long charge up times involved.
• Lets also not forget melee can do aoe strikes just by sitting and swinging their weapon in front of them - no special attacks at all needed. Archery has NOTHING like this, no aoe capability, limited numbers of attacks to choose from, and has to also rely on OTHER skills outSIDE of archery that are related to magery or taming to even BEGIN to be viable. This is on TOP of the costs incurred with arrows and such.
• NONE of the critically crafted armor, and ALMOST none of the normal crafted armor is useful whatsoever as an archer. As a matter of fact, the CLOTH i am wearing right now is more viable for an archer than leather because there are extremely limited choices in dexterity boosting craftables (or craftables of any nature with regards to wearables).
• And then theres the problem with combos. Right now there is ONE other skill line that can be combo'd with archery and only a single skill in archery to tie in to either. So we're limited with base level attack types, were limited with crowd control possibilities, were limited with damage output options, were limited in area of effect options AND were limited in combos.

I would very much love to get an impression of what your stats were on the character you were playing. Elves having 50-100 dex for an example. That means that on average theyll have double or even triple the dex of many if not most players. Yes, archery can be fun. I would not play an archer if this was not the case. It is also extremely frustrating and difficult to build. Yes, there are a lot of cool archery builds that can be done by mixing trees but you should not have to.

I will close this by saying i am not saying this to nitpick at you or berate you guys. These are serious issues to archery players. And your suggestions at how to "resolve" some of those issues fly in the fact of many archer builds. Asking people who are having frustrations in one tree to fix it by taking up one or two other trees is not solving the problem we are seeing - its highlighting the problem.

 

Also, being a support class. How does that work in single player online and offline?

@WrathPhoenix brings up many good points.

Why need the water tree to slow mobs down if disabling shot exists?

*I actually like the water tree for the shield and douse but I quit using the arrow as it takes up too much time for little effect.

 

I think WrathPhoenix summed things up pretty well Personally, I just want to add that my skill points are already stretched pretty thin between the specific skills I have selected in fire, death, earth, and life schools of magic (arrangement of skills in those trees is another thing I have an issue with since I am wasting points on certain skills I will NEVER use in order to get the ones I need...). Asking me to invest points in another two schools of magic (Air and Water) in order to come up with a "viable" build seems rather unreasonable...