Archery is arguably the best AOE set and about middle of the pack on ST.
I liked it because it was possible to get reasonable performance from the combo with just SOs. It has the same problem that every blaster combination I can think of has, if you want to build in survivability it costs a mint and you don't get very much for what you spend
What exactly are you looking for in performance ?
Farming, its amongst the best and you can get performance with just SOs.
General content not using picked enemies. Needs a tank to hold aggro, or lots of inf spent on def and then will fail spectacularly.
AV soloing, you have drain psyche to up your effective damage but you have to spend like crazy to get that near permanent and then you need the av doing damage you can survive.
Thanks.
I was more interested in any "deal killers" with Archery, and it looks like there are none. I didn't want to invest the time and inf in something that had a know major goof or something.
I am kind of looking for just general content, so you answered that.
With blasters in general, and Arch/MM in particular, does it add value to get your def up even if its not capped, and can you do so w/o hurting your dps?
I found the extremely long cast time of RoA to be a bit of an annoyance. I wouldn't necessarily call it a deal killer.
Adding defense is valuable even if you're not shooting for the cap, and you don't have to gimp your build to do it.
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I would. I had an Archery/MM blaster that was fully kitted out with softcapped S/L defence and almost perma drain psyche (I used the recharge base buff to hit perma DP when I wanted to). Sure, he did a ton of damage with Rain of Arrows and Psychic Shockwave. But the 4+ second casting time of Rain of Arrows eventually totally wore me out, annoyed me, and just eventually made me fully strip and delete the toon because I just couldn't stand it any longer. On teams it's next to useless since by the time you're done animating the mob will be done either ways. Unless you stray away from the rest of the team so you can deal with your own mobs. But that would sorta defeat the point of teaming in the first place.|
Originally Posted by EJI
I found the extremely long cast time of RoA to be a bit of an annoyance. I wouldn't necessarily call it a deal killer.
Adding defense is valuable even if you're not shooting for the cap, and you don't have to gimp your build to do it. |
But then again, I have a friend who absolutely adores his Arch/MM and uses it as his main toon. So it's kind of personal taste I suppose. If you can deal with the excessively long animation of RoA then it's a real good combo with potential.
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If you're waiting to fire off Rain of Arrows when the entire mob is engaged by your teammates, that's the only time its animation should be an issue. If you know RoA is up, disengage from the previous mob sooner and line up on the next one: they'll be getting filled with arrows when your teammates get there, or as they are engaging them.
Pretty much the same for any big AOE, if you need your damage to be what is dropping mobs, you have to fire it off first. Planning can do that. Not liking the animation is one thing from an aesthetic perspective. Not liking it because you couldn't get it to land fast enough is a tactical issue, and easily remedied. I'd also quibble with four seconds being excessively long, but then people say that Ionic takes too long to animate compared to Pyronic, so people obviously have an odd take on animation times (Ionic is two seconds to animate, and chains much more quickly than most Electric chains).
At any rate, Archery is one of the strongest Blast sets... good for lots of AOE or ST damage, and it's even better if you like the idea of Archery in the first place.
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Archery's a decent set; it offers good AOE and decent ST damage with relatively quick attacks and extremely low endurance use... I took my Archery/EM blaster to 50 without fitness back in issue 12 and never had any real end problems.
It's a bit behind Fire for AOE and ST damage but it burns FAR less endurance and it's more accurate with the inherent tohit bonus. I played mine as an exclusively ranged character and didn't have any issues with durability... I never built for defense either. Of course I also didn't solo him much; for a solo archer I'd try and get good ranged defense.
My typical opener was to let the team aggro the spawn, fire Fistful at the spawn followed by RoA and queue up Fistful again followed by Exploding. After that I'd finish with Blazing on any surviving boss... everything else should be dead. Without the team to take the aggro I'd modify that to lead with RoA and queue Fistful followed by Exploding.
I've never played /Mental so I can't really speak from that side but looking at the powers and what friends of mine have accomplished I have no reason to doubt it's effectiveness.
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Not sure about the gripe on RoA time, as usually you're waiting for someone to bunch 20+ dudes into a bunch before hitting the build-ups and firing it. And the set-up for the slaughter takes longer than the cast time.
Rolled an archery/EM hero a while back and whilst it was initially quite difficult to adapt to the long activation time of RoA (especially in teams) I came to the conclusion that Archery is a pretty decent primary set. It's an accurate, powerful and end light set if you slot right (mind you, most powersets can be) and if you can get used to having to act quick in teams to set off RoA then you've got yourself a fun character.
I have started up an Archery / MM, and am curious how Archery does when you are 50 and putting some money into it. I am not talking about the greatest build ever, but if you were just doing normal player investment, where Archery falls relative to the other sets.
Thanks.