Category:Archers

ARCHERS are skilled hunters and scouts, as well as being masters with their chosen weapon, the bow. Their skills represent their ability to survive in the wild, track down their foes, and their self-sufficiency in building and repairing the tools of their trade. Achieving real skill in archery takes such a lengthy commitment that master archers are generally reluctant to teach those who have already started down a different path. Tall, agile races with good eyesight make the best archers, notably ELVES and CENTAURs. Clumsy, bulky or non-humanoid races such as OGREs and GRIFFONs will not fare so well. The PRIME REQUISITE of archers is DEXterity.

Abbreviation: Arc.

Prime Requisite: Dexterity.

Archers in General

Hard hitting sponges usually. The basic archer is one of the best hitters in the game capable of doing large amounts of damage with one hit. Many of an archer's skills will go unused but when you are in a bind, they can help you survive. Their tracking skills are an example. Most people have no use for the track skills but those people who enjoy exploring new areas or who are looking for a hard to find mob will find it useful. At higher levels they can become incredibly powerful. They get a good mix of hp and mana and can be a very versitile character, able to easily collect gear, spell people, and do hard corpse retrievals.

Archer Creation

Race is very important for an archer. The most common choices are elf, orc, centaur, human, drow, and lizard man. Some of the remortable classes can also be fantastic archers such as high elves. Races such as giant, ogre, and griffon are not good. As with all characters, max your stats early. At early levels, it is convenient to use melee weapons instead of bows. This is because at the lower levels, arrows/bolts are scarce, and accuracy with bows is rather poor. Key skills that make using bows more effective are Fletch (level 9), which allows one to make an ample supply of ammunition, and Target Leading (level 15), which greatly improves accuracy with bows.
Once you get a decent amount of hitroll, you can begin grouping. Your job is easy, hit hard! Use the held shot skill carefully. Archers care about hitroll, not damage roll, when using a bow. DR is completely inconsequential; damage is based off of HR for archers.

Archers at Lowmort Tier

Training

Practicing

Worshipping

Worship Roixa. You will do a LOT more damage. Werredan is also a good option. Slightly less damage but you get that nice Werredan exp boost.

Fighting

Soloing: If using a missile weapon, you'll want a light crossbow for either soloing or tanking. Other missile weapons (bows specifically) suffer a penalty when the user is being attacked.

Tanking: For weapon choice, see soloing above.

Hitting:

Archer Prestige Options

Archers at Hero Tier

Training

Practicing

Devoting

Fighting

For a long time, you will be a basic hitter in a group. Get a complete hero gear set asap. Groups are easy to get! Some archers find a rogue partner tanking with backstab makes for some good duo exp. Later on, when you get enough hp and mana, you will be able to solo, but grouping is always better. After 101 you will spend very little time on who group. Held shot is good to use if you're sure the mob is going to be alive long enough for your held shot to execute. If there's 2 or more mobs in the room, trying using scattershot 5.

Soloing:

Soloing is hard until you can get enough HP to cover the hits you will take. Find a good match of ac and hit gear.

At lowhero, soloing is difficult, but possible. Try soloing House Of Beasts, or North Of Ofcol for lowxp runs. As you get beefier (especially after 101) - try and find areas with bow-wielding mobs. It's amazing how useful arrow dodge can be.

Assuming you can get full non-roix spells (Kra preferred, otherwise Tul-Sith), you might not need ac gear, or only 1-2 pieces. Carry quaffs (2x heal preferred)

Tanking:

Arcs can certainly tank, and can even do well - but you'll need excellent AC and a good light crossbow (unless you want to tank with wield/shield - which probably won't be worth it).

Hitting:

Archers are the best hitters after 101 overall - don't let anyone convince you otherwise. After defeating the Ultimate Dragon, you'll hit even harder. It's not unheard of to rarely hit below MASSAC against unsanc'd mobs.

Held Shot is nice, but generally not worth it at hero unless running small groups against large mobs or if going for HDL. Against larger sanc mobs - held is OK. It's always nice to see DEMO against a sanc'd mob at hero

Archers at Lord Tier

Archer is incredibly weak at lord even with full T1 gear. In general, players will be ridiculed. I would STRONGLY recommend running 100/200 levels of Archer for ASN, Rogue would be faster (since you could do small group xp effectively). The archer's damage is near the bottom, beating out only Fus and War/Bod. Once again, archer is a terrible choice for running 200 levels on, you do terrible damage, and no one wants you. Archers are needed for a couple of runs for skinning, but other than that, they're not very popular.

Archer Remort Options