A Guide To Archers

Steve · **Posted:** Fri Jan 02, 2009 3:58 pm

This is a guide for those of you who want to become archers and have no idea what to do. Since Iâ€™m writing this guide, I wonâ€™t explain in detail the archer characteristics during game. I have done that quite a lot of times already and it gets pretty exhausting. If you see a player who is looking for advice on archery and theres no GMH/GM online, kindly refer him to this thread.

First thing people always ask is how to place stat points correctly. Bare in mind that stat points are used accordingly to the items you have. That is why I suggest to fresh starters to get the following stats:

700 dexterity (with the first bows you find, youâ€™ll learn that you canâ€™t hit that often unless you have lots of dex and accuracy neck.)
65 strength (this amount enables you to full swing all bows except Dark Elfâ€™s.)
550-700 agility (Remember that scale ranger hoods add 50 agility. So getting 600 agility seems enough. When you get decent bows, you can lower this value so you add more vitality.)
38-56 intelligence (Enough to paralyze or even spike field when paralyzed. Your choice to get more or less.)
Around 110 vitality (This is really low. But you have no choice than to stick with this till you get decent bows.)

Unicorns, Demons and Gargoyles drop marksman bows. This is currently the best bow type in server. I suggest getting one of those real fast. You can hunt for them or buy them from other players who are done being archers or just by chance found one and donâ€™t need them.

What are the differences between the different classes of bows?

Short bows: My favourite by far. This class of bow has higher hitting probability than any kind of bow. I use these for PvP against warriors. Short range (5 tiles)
Recurve bows: These are the â€œpowerfulâ€ bows. They deliver massive damage. I suggest using these against mages/bmages and monsters. (Short range (5 tiles)
Flat bows: These bows have the longest range, together with long bows, but have reduced damage. Standard hitting probability. To be honest, I donâ€™t use them. But if you do find a good one, you will have a huge advantage over warriors since they fly all the time and cant get to hit you that often. Long ranged (8 tiles)
Long bows: These have reduced hitting probability and standard damage. They have the same range as Flat Bows. Good against mages since you donâ€™t need high hitting probability to hit them. You can just fly them all over your screen doing decent damage and still hit almost every arrow.

What about arrows?

- Bronze Arrows: Mediocre type. Require 0 agility and adds 50 dmg

- Iron Arrows: Hunting type. Require 25 agility and adds 100dmg.Â

- Steel Arrows: Hunting type. Require 50 agility and adds 150 dmg.

- Silver Arrows: Hunting and fighting type. Require 100 agility and adds 200 dmg

- Golden Arrows: Fighting type. Require 200 agility and add 250 dmg

- Platinum Arrows: Fighting type. Require 300 agility and adds 300 dmg.

- Platinum Aarows of the wasp: Fighting type Require 300 agility and Poisons opponent (Poison damage 200). also adds 300 dmg.Â

Potion of the Wasp

This potion enables you to poison arrows of any kind. It adds PD200 dmg.

To do so, buy a potion from shop, double click it in your bag and then click on the arrows you want to poison. You can only poison 250 arrows per potion. (take note Poison heals people with -5000 rep)

This comes in handy if you couldnâ€™t get hold of any platinum arrows and you only got golden or others which donâ€™t poison normally.

This is a sample archer. I used this after a week I started:

500 dexterity
700 agility
38 intelligence
52 strength (enough to full swing short and recurve bows)
192 vitality

Armors:

Dragon hide dr196-224
Master hoses dr224
Master hauberk dr196
Scale Ranger Hood dr196
Cape dr224

This gives a total of 1064 defense ratio, without considering the base dr on armors and my dexterity.

Bows:

Ancient marksman short bow hp84 +15 (upgraded with majestics)
Sharp master short bow hp168 +15 (upgraded with majestics)

Rings, necklaces and angels:

Demon ring of Power. (+50 dmg)
Accuracy necklace (+100 hitting probability)
Angel: (Didnâ€™t use since it wasnâ€™t implemented yet.)

I used to pawn warriors with this archer. I had massive hitting probability and my 700 agility gave me high damage. I was also very hard to hit physically since my defense ratio was just mad (Ask NelTu if you ever find him).
Although this archer seemed pretty sweet, it had a major disadvantage: Mages. I was just useless against them and never faced them. They would just apfa and I had nothing to do but hit them with my wand.

That is why I tried a few other things and got to this second archer:

- 65 strength
- 550 agility
- 500 dexterity
- 56 intelligence
- 311 vitality

Armors:

(For warriors)
PA21 Dragon hide
PA21 Master Hoses
PA18 Master Hauberk
DR224 Cape
HP56 Scale Ranger Hood.

(For mages)
HP56 Scale Ranger Hood
HP42 Master Hauberk
HP56 Master Hoses
Same DR224 Cape (Couldnâ€™t find a HP one.)
HP63 Dragon Hide

Weapons:

Ancient master short bow hp84 +15(Warriors)
Ancient master long bow hp112 +15 (Mages)
Xelima Rapier +15 (Mages and Warriors)

Rings, necks and angels:

Ring of Xelima (+70 dmg)
Necklace of accuracy (+100 hp)
DM50 Necklace (+50 dmg)
Precision angel+15 (+150hp)

This archer could stand against Mages far easier than the previous one. Since I was now using higher vitality and a HP set, I could still chase around the globe while eating some fish and regaining health. Xelima Rapier came in quite handy. Usually I landed a couple of hits before mages could get to APFA. Then I would get my x rapier, activate it and land the final blows.
I suffered some downs against warriors since I had less dexterity and was no longer using my DR Set. I chose to do this because I felt that a PA set would reduce damage in such a way that I could still draw an advantage over them. Even if I had chosen to wear the DR set, it wouldnâ€™t have been the same since my dexterity was lower and my defence ratio was therefore compromised. Anyway, I did kill many warriors with this build. I just had problems when trying to face stronger players.

I had some victories with this build, and had defeats as well. I share these builds with you in order to see what a archer can be with a couple of items and how stats can be adjusted according to the items you use. I'm not saying that you should copy me exactly.

A few pointers:

Use traps as often as you can. If you get called a â€œnoobâ€, ignore them. If you called a â€œchickenâ€, ignore them. Traps were added to this server to spice things up with a little more strategy. He who chooses not to use traps must be really confident in his skills/items or just plain stupid and ignorant.

Always wear Hoses and Hides. If you donâ€™t, your hitting probability will be reduced. Hides and Hoses have higher DR than plates and leggings accordingly, although they have less PA. ALWAYS use hide and hoses.

Avoid using platinum and golden arrows for hunting. Keep those for a something extra when fighting a strong opponent.

Archers are EXTREMELY good hunters. Their high DR and range make them suitable for almost every type of monsters. However, you will discover that Battle Mages might be more suitable for mid-sized monsters such as Ettins, Mountain Giants, Master-Mage Orcs, Stalkers, Ice-Golems, Dire-Boars, Beholders, Liches, Frosts, Unicorns and more. I suggest creating a Battle Mage, for hunting at least, with the opposite gender of your archer. Use those spare armors you canâ€™t use on archer, get an ice/air/fire staff and hunt hunt hunt until your archer is geared the way you like.

Zems are only 10k each. Use them for Christâ€™s sake.

Feel free to comment with critics, suggestions and your own experiences while working with archers. Add anything you can to help people to get to know this new class. I will keep adding things to this guide when I get a brainwave and some time.

Tips on combining Armor, Bows and One-handed weapons.

After a few tries I got a few things clear about this archer class. I will happily share it with you.

To squeeze every single stat point and make the most out of the items and skill you posses, you have to be very meticulous. Forget about just "chilling" and throwing your stat points over some strength because you want to show off your hero armor... That wont work.

Imagine the following items:

- PA21 Dragon Hide.
- PA18 Master Berk
- PA18 Master Hoses
- HP 56 Scale Ranger Hood
- HP63 Cape.
- HP56 Dragon Hide
- HP49 Master Hoses
- HP 56 Master Berk
- Sharp marksman recurve bow ap7 +15
- Sharp marksman short bow hp280 +15
- Xelima Rapier +15
- PA24 Tower shield
- Ms.Shield Wand

The first thing we notice is that we have some HP and PA armor. This means that to maximize the use of those armors we are going to need high vitality and high max hp. We can achieve this by balancing agility with vitality (Remember that agility works like strength, which adds 1 point of HP per stat. Or we can just go mad vitality, which will give us high regens using our HP set and high max hp as well.

You can also see that we have 3 different weapons. Based on those weapons we can agree that we dont need more than 52 strength (Full swing with all). Therefore we can save those extra stat points to add vitality and maximize our hp regens.

Sharp marksman recurve bow armor piercing 7% will not allow us to have low dexterity since its hitting probability is reduced. If we had low dexterity, warriors would pawn us since we wouldnt hit that often and they would. However, we have a sharp marksman SHORT bow hp280 (I made it a bit extreme so the example is quite clear). This bow will give us high hitting probability against warriors. Hence we can lower our dexterity since we wont need THAT much.

Since both bows are sharp marksman, damage is pretty high already. We wont need to add too much agility to put up a fight. Around 400 is fine, asuming we get 50 more for using the scale ranger hood (+50 agility).

In this case we will use the recurve bow ap7 against mages and bmages, since they dont have much defense ratio (Usually). Mages/BMages tend to wear high PA sets to lower the damage they take. Consequently, we use our armor piercing bow to break through that armor and increase our maximum damage. Remember to wear your HP set since PA is as useful as a stool sample against magical attacks.

Obviously, the Sharp Short Marksman works for Warriors and Archers. Wear the PA armor and this bow and they will have quite a hard time with this build. Against warriors you can also switch and mix your set while fighting. Learn how to identify what your opponent is using and wearing while you fight him. You will be able to draw an advantage if you counter-attack with the best set you have against his weakness. (Example: He has low dexterity and hitting probability; Wear mad defense ratio and balance damage and hitting probability).

Well then, arguments made, this is the archer you have built:

- 52 strength
- 56 intelligence
- 500 dexterity
- 400 agility
- 474 vitality.

Max hp and regens will be mad. Tho remember damage and defense ratio are compromised. Ways to compensate that is using a good PA gem to lower the damage you take. Add a accuracy necklace + the hp280 bow so you can hit frequently and fly away the warriors. Make sure you carry a ring of xelima at the very least. Try getting dragon rings for special PvPs (Watch out for the endurance)

This is a sample archer with a few items. Similars can be created with not so good items. Bare in mind that these type of builds can only be effective when you already have pretty decent items. Otherwise it will result in a catastrophic failure, which leads to you losing some zems, wasting gold in unnecessary stat resets and throwing your cool out of the window... Been there.

A Guide To Archers

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