Viability of Leather Wearing Archers

Discussion in 'New Player Welcome' started by cikken, Jul 9, 2021.

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  1. cikken

    cikken Avatar

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    I started playing Shroud of the Avatar about 2 years ago but I have only played about a couple of months during that time. My Adventure Level is 100. I currently play an archer spec'd in Ranged and Fire. I have about 30 GMs spread across Ranged, Fire, Air, and Taming with a few others such as basic healing thrown in there for good measure. Some of these GM skills I do not currently use as they did not meet my expectations. I pretty much solo because that is what I enjoy doing. I have been grinding in the Kobold Expeditionary camp which is a tier 5+ zone. I use a pet to tank areas where I know I cannot single pull. Otherwise I just kill singles with archery. I use leather so that I can cast some support magic as Ignite Weapon and Immolate without too bad of fizzles. I use Gust to fend off adds. The immolate is so that I can do some passive damage when I get mobbed. Up until recently when I added a tamed pet, Gust and immolate where my only CC skills. I use the bard health and focus regens to help survive when things start getting tough. I have noticed that as my offensive capabilities have increased my defensive capabilities have not. My character wearing just bone leather (for resists and avoidance) is fairly fragile. If I get more than 1 yellow ranged attacking me at once, my health plummets and I have to run and hope I make it. I can definitely see that I am going to have problems advancing into higher tier zones.

    So what am I missing? I am starting to feel like a glass cannon . I can pretty much kill a mob with 750 health that I attack max range before it reaches me. I use the ranged slow as my opening shot. I have read about using the air shield to help. But I don't see how that is sustainable. I cannot replenish focus fast enough to deal with hard hitting ranged mobs. Plus an air shield would knock out my immolate and its passive damage. I have about 700 health and 400 focus when using a pet.

    Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciate.

    Thanks,
    Cikken

    P.S. - I am sorry if I rambled too much. I probably tried to pack in too much background information. But I felt some background information was necessary to understand where I currently am at.
     
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  2. Cora Cuz'avich

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    If you get your air shield focus transfer rate low enough, you'll be able to take a lot of damage. So at .6, every 100 health damage would result in losing 60 focus, not 100. With focus potions (and the potion innate that increases potion strength) you can take quite a beating an come out fine.

    Alternatively, go with earth skills and get your health really high. You'll kill stuff a bit slower, but you can take a lot of damage.
     
  3. Duke Gréagóir

    Duke Gréagóir Legend of the Hearth

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    Welcome two year veteran! :)

    try bone armor. It is still light armor but from what I remember seeing a bit more defensive

    remember, eat mor chiken ;)
     
  4. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Also, take a look at this. Violet put together a series of videos doing pretty high level content with light armor.
     
  5. Cora Cuz'avich

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  6. Duke Gréagóir

    Duke Gréagóir Legend of the Hearth

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    Doh!

    I should of read all the words. Cora is rubbing off on me...
     
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  7. Barugon

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    [​IMG]
     
  8. Barugon

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    Without Shield of Air:
    • Get the bard skill Melody of Mending.
    • Put 5 greater health potions and 5 imbued health potions in an unlocked slot on your deck.
    • Use a shield spell other than Immolation. Death Shield is great against archers.

    With Shield of Air:
    • Get the bard skill Rhapsody of Recovery.
    • Put 5 greater focus potions and 5 imbued focus potions in an unlocked slot on your deck.

    [edit] If you don't want to have unlocked slots on your deck then you can put all varieties of potions on your utility bar. Let's say that you have potion of health, greater potion of health and imbued potion of health all on your utility bar then you can use each type before the others cool down.
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2021
  9. Violet Ronso

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    The first 2 things I would generally look into are your gear and your decks.

    Gear :

    You want crafted gear, any armor in the 10-20k per piece range should be good enough at your level, and you've reached the power level to actually work on getting that amount of cash for yourself by mining and selling silver in Elysium mines. Gear is about one 5th of the power you can get, so it's not to be ignored. Leather armor benefits from strength enchants and Dex & skill masterworks (dodge power, Evasion power at the very least, I like flurry too).

    Decks :

    Decks are 2/5ths of your power : 1/5 having the right skills, 1/5 using the best system for your slots and using them to your advantage.

    I would for sure get rid of immolation and fire spec, and only maintain Ignite weapon from the fire tree. Trade immolation for Shield of Air, Shield of Crystal (earth) or Death Shield, and then learn to use a dual dynamic spam slot, which will reduce your focus usage by a ton. Alternatively, as an archer, you can look into 6 stacking 3 slots and using charged attacks, both work very well (both techniques can be viewed I'm the videos linked by Cora).

    These 2 things will ensure that you can survive better but also kill things much better. I am a light armor blades user, and I just sit in things faces letting them hit me, I use 0 sources of crowd control, and I don't kite them, so light armor can tank very well, it's simply that you need to learn to use the techniques, which isn't easy.
     
  10. Ysold

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    I have one (melee) character too that is in leather armour and has been struggling a lot, but is slowly coming together. My tips are:
    - listen to Violet
    - don't forget to eat! I'm using mostly some good general purpose food (pumpkin pie/pumpkin soup) to regenerate health and focus
    - visit devotional shrines before you set out on a hunt. I usually go for the +Str and +Dex buffs. if you can find attunement shrines, then use one too (for your chosen magic school, to strengthen your shield)
    - listen to Violet :D

    Ysold.
     
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  11. the Lacedaemonian

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    The entire time I have been adventuring, I have been neglecting Damage Avoidance and Damage Resistance. While these are very important, at high level, you simply need to be able to mitigate damage taken and replace lost health and focus with a multitude of methods. Running healing spells along with bard spells and potions, you can really sustain and replace quickly. Putting potions on an unlocked combat bar slot enables you to drink many in rapid succession. I recommend carrying 50 of each for extended adventure sessions. Imbued for when you take big hits all at once, Greater, Regular, and Lessers come in to play once you get used to drinking them quickly and only when necessary. Also, using Air Shield you can rely on just focus potions MOST of the time.

    I also recommend taking the devotionals that increase combat health regeneration and combat focus regeneration. There are a couple foods that their main effect is those two skills also.
     
  12. Ysold

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    Two more cents....
    Actually I have another character in leather: a tamer/archer. She is probably less comparable to your archer as my melee character, since she invested heavily in Taming. Her pet (ferociuos razorback) is an incredible tank and has a vicious bite too, so when I play my archer it feels more like being an assistant to the pet. Her main task then is to keep out of the fireline, heal the pet and assist in the killing, in that order. She runs circles around the pet to get rid of aggro or hides behind rocks or trees until the mobs have safely settled on the pet. Once the pet has aggro, only bard skills can take aggro away again, so she isn't using them.
    To survive the first stages of a fight she invested in the light armour skills, earth tree (for extra health and to buff herself and the pet with Strength), moon tree for magical resistence (another buff for the pet) and fireflies, and Subterfuge for Dexterity.
    She has to make sure she always has enough focus to heal the pet, so often she simply uses the automatic attack. With high Strength that gives reasonably good damage.
    And of course she also uses regeneration food for the pet and herself and uses the devotionals.

    Now this might not be a play style that you like, but it's pretty effective. At adventure level 104 she's soloing Tenebris Harbour spawn waves and she's been able to solo Crags Foothills since level 102.
     
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  13. cikken

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    Ysold wrote:
    Two more cents....
    Actually I have another character in leather: a tamer/archer. She is probably less comparable to your archer as my melee character, since she invested heavily in Taming. Her pet (ferociuos razorback) is an incredible tank and has a vicious bite too, so when I play my archer it feels more like being an assistant to the pet. Her main task then is to keep out of the fireline, heal the pet and assist in the killing, in that order. She runs circles around the pet to get rid of aggro or hides behind rocks or trees until the mobs have safely settled on the pet. Once the pet has aggro, only bard skills can take aggro away again, so she isn't using them.
    To survive the first stages of a fight she invested in the light armour skills, earth tree (for extra health and to buff herself and the pet with Strength), moon tree for magical resistence (another buff for the pet) and fireflies, and Subterfuge for Dexterity.
    She has to make sure she always has enough focus to heal the pet, so often she simply uses the automatic attack. With high Strength that gives reasonably good damage.
    And of course she also uses regeneration food for the pet and herself and uses the devotionals.

    Now this might not be a play style that you like, but it's pretty effective. At adventure level 104 she's soloing Tenebris Harbour spawn waves and she's been able to solo Crags Foothills since level 102.
    Ysold, Today at 3:19 PM


    My archer is currently using taming. I have a razorback destroyer. I have 5 GMs in taming and everything else except taming, pet resurrection, and collar recovery are above 90. I am not sure if that counts as "invested heavily" by your definition. I am currently grinding at Kobold Expeditionary Camp (a tier 5+ zone). I discovered that my offensive power is way greater than the pets but its defensive power is way greater than mine. I can kill 5 of the mobs in the time it takes the pet to kill 1. But the pet can flat out tank 6 of them simultaneously with some healing from me. But I cannot tank even one. I have to fend them off with Gust if they get too close. I have 650 health and my pet almost 1100. I am planning on GMing all of the taming skills except taming, resurrection, and collar recovery. I am not interested at this time in taming my own pets. Right now, if I get aggro, the pet cannot take it from me unless I stop shooting. And even then I still keep the aggro a lot of the time. I am not sure whether increasing the pet taunting skill above 100 will help or not. I am hoping with the pet I can handle some tier 6 or 8 zones to boost my xp per hour. When there is no xp boost, I can do about 1 million xp in a little over an hour. I would love to be able to double that. I plan on eventually spec'ing in air to replace the fire spec (although I will not reduce any fire skills other than the specialization skill). I have noticed that as my dex goes up so does the number of crits. I now do a lot of my damage with crits. I would like to keep increasing that. But it will take time. How well does the pet tanking/damage scale up? Can it tank in a tier 10 zone?
     
  14. cikken

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    Violet wrote:
    I would for sure get rid of immolation and fire spec, and only maintain Ignite weapon from the fire tree. Trade immolation for Shield of Air, Shield of Crystal (earth) or Death Shield, and then learn to use a dual dynamic spam slot, which will reduce your focus usage by a ton.

    I had already considered using the air shield. Even with it charged and at GM skill, my transfer rate is still above 1. I wanted to get that down to around .6 or lower. I also wanted to get a much larger focus pool. When my pet is out, it is around 400. Otherwise, it is around 650. I also wanted to come up with an effective way of recovering focus. I use Melody of Mending and Rhapsody of Recovery at least once a fight or sometimes 2 if I get over pulls. I will look into the Crystal shield and the Death shield. I did some training in the Death shield. But I did not get it high enough where I could use it in a fight.

    I get the feeling that these shields need to be 120+ skill to be effective at all. Is that true? My air shield at 100 does not look like it would do much more than take 2 big hits and then I am out of focus. Barugon suggested that I use focus potions in unlocked slots. With someone who has a lot of gold, this seems like it might be considered over powered. With a good focus pool and a good air shield, you would effectively be invincible. Do you think this will be nerfed sometime in the future?
     
  15. Ysold

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    My tamer is logged in now, and I see that my pet actually is a Razorback Destroyer too. Oops!

    Here we have a major difference. My "naked" health is 640. After dressing in my gear, my health is 803, after devotionals & food 891, and after Strength of the Earth 944. This really helps surviving a few hits.
    "Naked" focus after summoning is 427, After dressing in gear 671, after devotionals & food
    726.
    My pet's health through this all is 1826. My pet's skills are between 105-107; but I think the main difference is made by Taming Specialization (59 currently). Having this large health pool really makes a difference, since criticals of the higher level mobs really hit hard.
    But with this setup I can easily handle the first part of Ulfheim and all of Tanglemire, so I plan to move to Spindleskog soon.

    My gear is actually nothing special, I made it myself (2x masterworked, 2x enchanted, added earth gems) and one artefact (uncommon Slipshot Shooter's Sash) so I guess there's room for improvement there :)

    Edit: the Spindleskog T12 shadow mobs are still beyond me, since they can one-hit my pet. Some work to do there.
     
    Last edited: Jul 10, 2021
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  16. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Attunement is really important with shields, and especially air shield, that's what gets the transfer rate up. (Or down, depending on how you want to look at it.) Combined with focus regen foods, you can withstand a lot, and use focus pots when things start getting tricky.
     
  17. Violet Ronso

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    Are you sure on this aspect? With most shields I've tested, attunement only had an impact on duration, but it might be different for shield of Air.

    I know that for shield of Air, Dexterity and skill level play a huge factor, and getting that 6th glyph from specialization can help a bit as well. 0.6 transfer rate might only be possible in the lv130+ range since they nerfed Dexterity benefits, but I am not sure as I don't use Shield of Air much.

    With the recent change to cast time modifiers not affecting potions and the recent air shield nerfs, no, you can no longer be invincible I think, but before it was very possible, many had their transfer rate down to 0.4 or lower, and could spam drink focus pots.
     
  18. Cora Cuz'avich

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    I'm probably wrong on other shields. And possibly on the air shield as well, but I seem to reclal it didn't really get good until I started getting a pretty high attunement. But maybe that was due to other factors.
     
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  19. Barugon

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    Attunement only affects duration for SoA. Attunement affects the amount of Dex you get from Air's Embrace though, which affects SoA's transfer rate in turn.
     
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  20. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Ah, okay. That explains why I could see a difference.
     
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