New stuff and Archers Cultivation

darkonome

So I was having a discussion with several archers on faction vent about this, would like to hear what other archers think about it.

Considering the new defense charms you get from the Invite a Friend feature, reducing damage on 2 consecutive hits, also the charm cooldown debuff passive with the ability to debuff your targets guardian charm to a 18seconds tick;

This to me makes DPS more beneficial, maximising the amount of hits you land before the defense charm reapplies, and also before the charm cooldown ticks.

Especially looking at a TW perspective gives Demon archers the advantage with demon quickshot proc getting in more hits and also demon BOA getting in more hits, than the Sage equivalents.

I was considering going Sage for the longest time but now I'm not so sure it's worth it, what do you guys think.

chary

Recently played demon archer again after playing sage for so long and I just felt so completely chi starved. Probably due to lack of Cloud Eruption on genie.

In theory, demon should be better, but I think it's still ultimately up to the person playing the char.​​

keihan007#7641

And sages longer stun is also more beneficial due def charms. You cant equip them while stunned and as such that extra stun is extremely beneficial.

Still it really comes down to what you want to do with your archer, sage supports better but demon offers more DPS and kill potential.

I personally was sage pre NH update, went demon after we got the crit passives and never looked back. Demon has more dps and aps, which results in more purges, which is the main thing archers are good for.

krian090590

Not an archer so basing my reply off of archer forums. DPS should be work just fine, until you come across a Duskblade or someone with the Duskblade buff that reduces damage from ranged attacks. stack that with damage reducing charms, and other defensive buffs, you might find it harder than you think.
But like i said. i'm not an archer, just giving my input based on the other archer threads

keihan007#7641

krian090590 said:

Not an archer so basing my reply off of archer forums. DPS should be work just fine, until you come across a Duskblade or someone with the Duskblade buff that reduces damage from ranged attacks. stack that with damage reducing charms, and other defensive buffs, you might find it harder than you think.
But like i said. i'm not an archer, just giving my input based on the other archer threads

That ranged attack reducing thing is passive/selfbuff, you cant cast it to others. Their buff reduces critical damage taken and as such affects archers a fair bit as we are pretty close to crit cap at endgame unlike most other classes. As for def charms, as gamebreaking as they are, being dps class it should be minor buff to archers compared to other classes. Granted they kill any ability to kill anybody in 1vs1 with this class but meh.

bhaven

I've been thinking about rerolling demon pretty much only for quickshot since that's the only real benefit, but im concerned about it's proc rate along with the proc rate of purge. It's far too rare to rely on and since it works on independent probability - can you really argue that a demon archer purges more often? It's like saying someone who buys 3 million packs is definitely going to get CoM when in reality someone can buy 1 and it'll drop. The fact that you dont purge on one shot does not make it more likely that you will purge on the next one unfortunately and too many people believe this to be the case. The maths just doesnt work like that.

Is purge really all an archer is useful for now that purge has been nerfed so hard with buff pots and now even more unpurgable passives like HP?

Since we're talking about aps, is physical dps all an archer is useful for too? Sage magic dps must be better surely.

People say the range passive of sage is negligible because it takes less than a second to cover that distance while running. I have never found this to be the case.

What about all the cases where quickshot does not proc and you're busy channeling a crit buff skill like STA or Stunning arrow? Sage must do more damage in these cases since they'd already be auto attacking in this case with wind shield and probably crit buff which is basically perma. (although +crit % increase buff is pretty much negligible also when it's this high at endgame + passives).

Archer is notoriously chi heavy/deficient (probably because the majority are demon). All CC skills except stunning arrow costs chi (you decide which stunning arrow is better). All debuffs that matter cost chi (metal, BV, arrow inferno etc.), anti CC also costs chi. Sage is simply better for chi unless you're being dumb and casting spamming stormrage everytime its off cooldown lol. Some lol-worthy arguments i've heard against are: "but demon quickshot means you have higher aps and that means you generate chi faster from autoattacks." - No.

Right now it doesn't make sense for me to switch and like you said in vent, archers cant front line and just stand there shooting arrows. TW-wise more chi for me means i can play more defensively, wog/E.A and retreat more, stand further back and still deal damage over longer sustained periods.

Being brutally honest, archers deal such little damage anyway I dont think it's worth switching culti and changing playstyle for anyone regardless demon or sage since the difference is pretty small in TW. Coin is simply better spent elsewhere.

chary

Strictly speaking, most targets anymore will not die without a purge.​​

asterelle

I think demon is still a bit better due to better purging under quickshot but there isn't as much difference between the cultivations as you see with other classes.​​

keihan007#7641

bhaven said:

I've been thinking about rerolling demon pretty much only for quickshot since that's the only real benefit, but im concerned about it's proc rate along with the proc rate of purge. It's far too rare to rely on and since it works on independent probability - can you really argue that a demon archer purges more often? It's like saying someone who buys 3 million packs is definitely going to get CoM when in reality someone can buy 1 and it'll drop. The fact that you dont purge on one shot does not make it more likely that you will purge on the next one unfortunately and too many people believe this to be the case. The maths just doesnt work like that.

Is purge really all an archer is useful for now that purge has been nerfed so hard with buff pots and now even more unpurgable passives like HP?

Since we're talking about aps, is physical dps all an archer is useful for too? Sage magic dps must be better surely.

People say the range passive of sage is negligible because it takes less than a second to cover that distance while running. I have never found this to be the case.

What about all the cases where quickshot does not proc and you're busy channeling a crit buff skill like STA or Stunning arrow? Sage must do more damage in these cases since they'd already be auto attacking in this case with wind shield and probably crit buff which is basically perma. (although +crit % increase buff is pretty much negligible also when it's this high at endgame + passives).

Archer is notoriously chi heavy/deficient (probably because the majority are demon). All CC skills except stunning arrow costs chi (you decide which stunning arrow is better). All debuffs that matter cost chi (metal, BV, arrow inferno etc.), anti CC also costs chi. Sage is simply better for chi unless you're being dumb and casting spamming stormrage everytime its off cooldown lol. Some lol-worthy arguments i've heard against are: "but demon quickshot means you have higher aps and that means you generate chi faster from autoattacks." - No.

Right now it doesn't make sense for me to switch and like you said in vent, archers cant front line and just stand there shooting arrows. TW-wise more chi for me means i can play more defensively, wog/E.A and retreat more, stand further back and still deal damage over longer sustained periods.

Being brutally honest, archers deal such little damage anyway I dont think it's worth switching culti and changing playstyle for anyone regardless demon or sage since the difference is pretty small in TW. Coin is simply better spent elsewhere.

I could pull 5 CoMs from 5 packs but chances of that are fairly well stacked against me. More attempts generally results in more purges, which should be what you want to aim for. And really, if you fail to proc QS, the CD isnt all that long to try again. The potential of purging on QS proc is simply so much killing potential you simply have to experience to realize. Obviously odds for that are relatively small but you will be spamming QS so much fairly large portion or your purge procs are from QS or first few hits after it. Killing evenly geared robes will still be bit painful but oh so much easier than its on sage.

I personally die for 2 different things. 1) Purge + CC chain. 2) CC chain and getting ganked to hell. And I am still mostly +11 w/o endgame shards, I should get fair bit tankier still unless I go deities, which have been extremely tempting option for TW purposes. Granted I would pay for it on PK setting but I dont really PK too much. But when basically every catacleric you go against is jades you kinda want that damage increase to take them down more effectively. Lucky me got still got least till summer to think bout what I want my sharding to be, doubt I can generate enough income to fully shard w/o killing my merch funds till that.

But back to why I brought up my normal reasons of dying, its purge. Its still very much deadly. Specially in well coordinated squads where you call your purges and you get several assists in matter of seconds. Generally if you dont have a genie/apoth to pop, purge proc from archer is a death sentence if you are going against coordinated squad(s).

Lastly bout archers metal damage. I hit barb for 10k crit, trough cleric buffs iirc. Too bad it was catabarb with 80k hp. I am more useful QSing trying to proc purge and let mages handle dropping the barb afterwards.The magic damage archer can deal is just generally irrelevant, even if we got some of it. Our time is better spent doing other things than using our slow af metal skills for gush level damage.

darkonome

Thanks for the comments.

I agree there isn't a huge deal of a difference between cultivations.

As my gear isn't super OP comparatively like it used to be I can't frontline like in the past, so makes more sense to stay slightly behind frontline/deep flank, which I'm still slowly getting used to. So I switched to full deity build and also pdef neck and wings of ascension cape, which has made a noticeable difference to my survivability but I do so much more damage compared to jades. The TWs I'm facing atm contains more phys DD than magic and the new def charms really negate a lot of the magic damage as it's generally slower to cast unless of course you get ganked/cc locked and in that situation no gear should save you.

My cards aren't that great anymore I have a 3 card S set and loose S cards, with both my spirit cards rb1, so marginally lower than a fully leveled 2nd rb EU set, which means coin wise it's not really worth getting EU set but rather go for better S sets, either a 4 card set RB or a Nuema Portal set which will take quite a while.

As I was pretty inactive when the expansion hit I'm behind on spirit and Star chart, I have a lvl 16 star chart and Shifting Sky 6, whereas most people have around 20+ star chart and Shifting sky 9+.

Metal skills are still situational, i.e. still does considerable damage on a purged seeker, but generally better to call an assist.

I think I'll stay demon for now I have a different genie set up, faith isn't as good as it was when I was tankier, opted for Cloud Eruption AD Expel will surge fortify HP. Demon BOA is just too good to pass on, as in a TW situation your BOA isn't going to be up for long and better to get those extra ticks in, the extra chi from sage would be nice but playing more defensively CE should suffice, with lots of insta take aim for better chi gain.