Hagis' Archery Guide Version 1.1 (Issue 6)
By
AztecArrow,
Posted on: 2006-03-28 18:31 in Player Guides
Nice informative guide, I'm thinking of making an Archery blaster, I just like the idea.
BTW, Vahzilok are WEAK to Lethal damage, hehe.
A quick tip with archery: People say that the archery attacks are too slow to use, but that's only if you have to take out your bow every time. Try to chain your attacks similar to how you would in a fighting game and you will find archery can put out a lot of hurt.
Also, if you have no attack to do, but your bow isn't out, cycle an archery attack anyways and you will take out the bow *before* you are ready to fire.
The truth is the solution from an equation of lies. ~Maileah Kirel
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I don't know if this is fire or lethal damage, although I suspect it's fire.
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Blazing Arrow is lethal damage with a couple dot ticks of fire damage. The fire damage doesn't amount to much though.
Also, I'd add that because of the weapon redraw times being a problem that I wouldn't use archery in a "blapper" build. Switching back and forth from primary to secondary would only give you headaches over the time wasted drawing your weapon.
I love archery and it's a very fun set to play, it takes a bit of time to get used to its quirks but it's not as gimp as some would argue. I7 will only make it even better.
Thanks for the good info. I'm thinking of making a TA/A Defender (yea I know) or a Archery/Dev Blaster. So this guide is helpful either way. The concept of archers is just too good to pass up...
BTW, look forward to any updates once you hit lvl 32.
From this post by Arc_Salvo, in I7 we are getting reduced endurance for some powers, animation bug corrected for Ranged Shot and Rain of Arrows will be buffable by BU/AIM for Archery.
I have a current lvl20 Archery/Nrg Blaster that's been shelved until Archery gets some help, which it looks like it might in issue 7. I've respec'd him twice and have found the following:
- DPS "feels" the same with using the cone/AoE attacks than with using an attack chain comprised of only single target attacks. I'm not a number cruncher, but in 20 levels, this is how "it felt."
- Blazing Arrow is your heavy hitter by far. Slot it with 1 Acc, 3 Dmg, 1 RchRdx and 1 EndRdx to have it available often.
- Having an Energy secondary for "blapping" helps a ton with those Smash/Lethal resistance foes like Clockwork and Council robots, along with Trolls, etc. Going in and out of blapping mode isn't too bad even with the redraw times on your bow.
- Fistful of Arrows and Explosive Arrow are quite underwhelming, as far as AoE powers go. I respec'd out of Explosive Arrow, but kept Fistful. Fistful has a nice animation time, has "decent" damage (as far as the Archery set goes) and can be easily fired off mid-battle. It has an amazingly large cone to it, so you can easily nab several baddies with one shot.
Just my 2 cents from experience with the set.
Main Character: Ice/Storm/Ice Controller (Justice, 1340 badges)
*Ahh, dead thread. Well, not quite dead yet...*
I found Fistful to be lackluster when it came to damage output, instead doing the opposite of what you did. But come i7 I'll probably take FoA again, because AoEs sure are a blast to watch. 
Here's a combination I found to be very useful: Rain of Arrows + Explosive Arrow on a group of +1 LTs or +2 Min = All gone
When RoA can become buffable... *drool*
Just started an Archery/Fire blaster - thanks for the guide ^_^
I have a level 37 Archery/Devices blaster and I love playing him.
As to the acc bonus, when Targetting Drone goes down I can still comfortably hit +2's without any acc slotted into my attacks. With Targetting Drone, I can hit +4's without too many whiffs. This allows me to slot 3 damage and 3 recharge. Makes for a pretty good chain.
Rain Of Arrows ROCKS! The thing is, you can't think of it as a "nuke". You'll be very disappointed. If you think of it as just another AoE, you'll drool. Slotted with 3 damage and 3 recharge, it's up at the beginning of just about every spawn and does great damage - for an AoE. I repeat, it's not a nuke. Cool thing is (as it's a location AoE) you can cast it around corners and from behind walls.
And by the way, the pause after Ranged Shot is gone and it does more damage than Blazing Arrow - despite what some Hero Planners say. They also reduced the endurance costs on the Archery powers.
After going 50 levels with my fire/fire blaster, with all his PBAoE's and strong melee and short range attacks, Archery plays very differently. I can sit back in relative safety next to the team healer and have the complete ranged attack chain many other blasters complain they don't have.
I have an Archer/ electric blaster now at lvl 41. She is my 1st blaster and I love playing her. At 1st she was destined for the delete key but when I join my sg with her ppl encouraged me to play her more and give it a chance. Rain of arrows is great AoE power slot ing more recharge enh and it be good. Also I pvp with her too and don't do too bad, any toon can be pvp'd, hell some underestimate me there anyway.
Arrow-Girl lvl 41 archer/ electric on Protector server
Credit given to Blueeyed for pointing out some glaring errors.
I've seen a few people here and there asking for an Archery guide, so here it is.
What This Guide Is NOT:
-A comprehensive, tell-all guide that tells you which powers to skip and which to avoid. Power A can be useless in Situation X but can save your team's hides in Situation Y. Only you can decide what types of scenarios you'll likely run into.
-A guide that puts rose-tinted glasses on the whole thing. Hagis is your friend; I won't lie to you. Likewise, I'm not going to condemn the entire set because of its known flaws-in spite of them, I find Archery works well for me.
-Complete. I haven't worked to level 32 yet with my Archer, so I don't know all the powers. (Hey, at least I'm honest!)
What This Guide IS:
-A basic no-set of impressions based on "yardsticks" from other better-known powersets. Where possible, I try to compare specific powers to other powers to give fellow players an idea as to what to expect.
So: Here's The Fine Print
A) I don't do PvP. All I can say is if you choose to go this route, consider being a dedicated squishy killer. Archery has some good range, and with practice and enhancements you might even be able to keep out of the range of controllers/dominators/defenders/corruptors/masterminds. But...I've never tried it, so......
B) Most of my time with my archery blaster is spent in a team with a Stone/Ice tanker and an Empathy/Radiation defender. I don't solo much with Brigid, but if someone were to try a solo archer, I'd tell them to adopt a hunter mindset. Choose your prey. Learn how to snipe so that you don't pull the entire mob on you. Where other sets blast, explode, scream, ignite, freeze, and generally explode, the arrow whispers. Learn to use the range, accuracy, and rate of recharge that archery offers to your advantage. Slot the holds and immobilizations in your secondary well. Be prepared to spend a fair amount of time at the hospital. There are players far better than I who can solo a blaster effectively, but they learned their craft the hard way. As for me, I consider myself lucky if I get to play alongside one of them.
Archery: The Good News
-You've got an inherent accuracy bonus. From what I've seen from postings, it's about 10%. Add in the 5% bonus for having a drawn weapon, and you start out with about an 87% chance to hit an even con minion. (75% base accuracy times 1.16 from Geko.) So what this means down the road is that you can get away with only slotting one accuracy SO (maybe even none if you choose Devices as a secondary and pick up Targetting Drone). Assuming you choose to go 1 accuracy and 3 damage SOs, that leaves two slots for you to adapt to your needs. Want a high dps rate? Toss in a couple of recharge reducers. Want to be super efficient? Tack on an endurance reducer or two. Want to really have some range? Go hog wild with the range enhancements. Put an interrupt reducer in Ranged Shot if you take that power. Get funky and throw a knockback enhancer into Exploding Arrow. Or put those slots into your secondary or power pools if you want...I won't stop you! One of archery's perks as a result of its accuracy bonus is that you can deviate a lot from the standard formula for adding in enhancements.
-Archery has a pretty good recharge rate. Chances are decent once you reach a certain level that you'll never be without an attack to use. This means that enemies who use Slow powers on you are just that much less fearsome.
-Archery has range. In tactical terms, this is equivalent to having a larger "field of fire" and having multiple chances to attack an opponent before it can close with you. Its best single target attack (other than the snipe) is Blazing Arrow, which has a range in excess of 50 feet. I think it's more than that, but I can't remember if I have a range enhancment in it or not. Compare that to some other blaster sets where their heavy hitter is closer to 30 feet. The snipe (Ranged Shot) competes with Psionic Lance and Moonbeam for the longest ranged attack in the game. The cone attack (Fistful of Arrows) is in the ballpark with Psychic Scream, one of the largest cone AoEs in the game.
-Archery has a good amount of versatility. It really doesn't lack in single target attacks or area of effect attacks, making it well balanced.
-The level 32 nuke, Rain of Arrows, is ranged and does not consume all of your endurance or leave you disoriented.
The Bad News:
-Just about all of Archery's damage is Lethal. In this respect, it's similar to Claws. Lethal damage is commonly resisted to varying degrees even starting from the lower levels (Vahzilok/Clockwork/Trolls?).
-Archery has an animation bug in the Ranged Shot, meaning that there is a short period of "dead time" after the attack goes off where you can not activate another power. (Note: a fix for this is supposed to be released soon, perhaps with Issue 7?)
-Archery attacks (at least the lower ones) gulp endurance. It wasn't until I was able to slot DOs for endurance reduction in the first four attacks that I was able to last through a good fight. I still ran out of gas taking on Dr. Vahzilok at lvl 19 though. (Note: the endurance costs are supposed to be looked at and perhaps reduced a bit come Issue 7.)
-Archery has some longish animation times. Sometimes you want to reach through the screen and flick your toon's elbow to make it fire already.
-The level 32 "nuke" power, as it stands, can not be buffed damage-wise with powers like Aim or Build-Up. This results in a nuke that does low damage for its position in the power tier, especially against enemies with Lethal resistance. (Note: this is set to be adjusted with Issue 7.)
Choosing A Secondary
-There are two schools of thought on this. A, you can pick a secondary that will add a good amount of damage to the primary. I chose to make up for Archery's damage deficiency against robots and picked up the Electricity secondary. Others might try Fire or Energy for the same reason. B, you might want to try to slow the pace of the fight down by choosing Ice with its controls or Devices with its tricks and stealth capability. Be warned, though that none of the secondaries really feels "synergistic" with Archery. Every time you use a secondary or pool power that is a "click" power, you'll have to redraw your bow to attack. Brawl is an exception. Toggle powers will generally not cause you to redraw your bow, although there may of course be exceptions.
The Powers:
-Snap Shot (Single Target): Good range, fast recharge, Low damage. Reminds me a lot of Neutrino Bolt from the Radiation Blast set. Falls on the lower end of the scale as far as damage goes for first-tier blaster attacks.
-Aimed Shot (Single Target): Better damage (Moderate) than Snap Shot (although not THAT much better), slower recharge, about the same range. Recharges faster than most second-tier blaster attacks.
-Fistful of Arrow (Cone): Starts off with a nice cone and good range, but shines with one or two range enhancers in it. Really covers a big chunk of territory once you learn to position yourself. Does Moderate damage. Recharges about the same as other early blaster cone attacks.
-Blazing Arrow (Single Target)- This is a fun one. Has a good punch to it (High damage), the second hardest hitting power in the set next to your snipe. Also does not have the same accuracy bonus that most of your other powers do, so you need to account for that when slotting. Also has an annoyingly long animation that makes me cringe when I miss. I don't know if this is fire or lethal damage, although I suspect it's fire. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong.
-Aim (Self Buff): Standard, no difference from other blaster Aim powers. Boosts accuracy by 100% and damage by 65% for blasters. If for no other reason than the damage bonus, this is a good power to take. I tend to get good use out of it when peppering mobs with Fistful of Arrows and Exploding Arrow.
-Exploding Arrow (Ranged AoE): Woohoo, this is another fun power. Results in a big blast (good-sized AoE), the screen shakes, and most of the time bad guys get flung. Does a Moderate combination of Lethal and Smashing damage. Has a fair recharge rate, but balances out with another rather long animation. I will use this to disrupt mobs that are refusing to be drawn in to the tank or scrapper.
-Ranged Shot (Single Target, Snipe)- This competes with some of the Defender snipes for longest player character attack of the game. It has an average animation/interruption time for a snipe, and does very nice (High to Superior) damage. The big problem is the delay at the end of the animation where you can't activate any other powers. Irritating at best, a sure path to debt at worst.
-Stunning Shot (Ranged Mez Attack, Single Target): * I don't have this power yet, so I can't comment. Hopefully someone else can jump in or I'll update it when I get that far.
[From Blueeyed-Single target attack power, does similar damage to Aimed Shot but with five times the recharge and a high chance to stun. I'd say it successful three out of four times against minions or LTs. Decent duration when it actually works. ]
-Rain of Arrows (Ranged AoE): *I don't have this power yet, so I can't comment. Hopefully someone else can jump in or I'll update it when I get that far.
[From Blueeyed- Think Blizzard without the slow, but with a little more damage, a much shorter recharge, and no endurance crash. Very nice power, but can't be buffed by Aim/Build Up/Enrages/Siphon Power until i7. ]
Good luck. If you have any questions, send me a PM and I'll try to help you out.
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Chekmate PI- FF/Psy defender, Virtue
Hagis- Inv/War Mace tanker, Freeeeeedom
Brigid Huntress- Arch/Elec blaster, Freedom
And you never get hit
When your back's to the wall
Gonna fight to the end
And you're taking it all!!
-TF:TM, "The Touch"
Chekmate PI- FF/Psy defender, Virtue
(lvl 50 12/18/07)
Hagis- Inv/War Mace tanker, Freedom
(lvl 50 12/19/08)
Brigid Huntress- Arch/Elec blaster, Freedom
And you never get hit
When your back's to the wall
Gonna fight to the end
And you're taking it all!!
-TF:TM, "The Touch"