Archer build?

Fleuri - Sanctuary

Elenacostel - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I should also point out that it is easy for Pure Dex archer to find equipment with bonuses to HP, but it is hard for a Hybrid archer to find equipment that gives bonuses to Damage (or overall damage output).

I think you can easily find gear which boosts your damage, but most pure dex archers will also be wearing damage boosting gear and they get higher benefits from this kind of gear than hybrids do.

Likewise, you can easily find gear which boosts your dexterity. Hybrids probably get greater benefits from dexterity boosting gear than pure dex, but they will be behind on dexterity and pure dex will also be wearing this kind of gear (and perhaps placing higher priority on dexterity than hybrids would).

On the other hand, hybrids can also wear health increasing gear and pure dex will never catch with them up on health.

For PvE, I think hybrids will have an advantage in places like TT where staying alive and not pulling aggro from your tanks are so important, but pure dex will have an advantage in grinding and in low level FBs where health is pretty much irrelevant.

For PvP, this gets complicated... I think Pure Dex will have an advantage against axe blademasters (because of their natural evasion) and against robes (because of criticals and one-shots), but hybrid will have an advantage against anything that can easily kill a Pure Dex. (Because your damage drops to nothing, or almost nothing, when you die.)

Legerity - Sanctuary

Fleuri - Sanctuary wrote: »

I think you can easily find gear which boosts your damage, but most pure dex archers will also be wearing damage boosting gear and they get higher benefits from this kind of gear than hybrids do.

Likewise, you can easily find gear which boosts your dexterity. Hybrids probably get greater benefits from dexterity boosting gear than pure dex, but they will be behind on dexterity and pure dex will also be wearing this kind of gear (and perhaps placing higher priority on dexterity than hybrids would).

On the other hand, hybrids can also wear health increasing gear and pure dex will never catch with them up on health.

For PvE, I think hybrids will have an advantage in places like TT where staying alive and not pulling aggro from your tanks are so important, but pure dex will have an advantage in grinding and in low level FBs where health is pretty much irrelevant.

For PvP, this gets complicated... I think Pure Dex will have an advantage against axe blademasters (because of their natural evasion) and against robes (because of criticals and one-shots), but hybrid will have an advantage against anything that can easily kill a Pure Dex. (Because your damage drops to nothing, or almost nothing, when you die.)

But the thing is, refines don't give dex or damage and neither do shards (minus weapon slots).

I think Elena's summary was pretty good in that she highlighted that coins will cover the HP shortcomings of the DEX build.

It will be extremely difficult for a hybrid to match the damage of the DEX build even with considerable amount of coins (this of course is limited to weapons of similar grade...because a very very rich archer might be able to buy mats to make bows of higher grade to compensate the damage department (CV/Frost)...but let's not go there), because a vit build will end up being limited by the shards and refines... which only builds up MORE HP and not damage.

As always, I have problems expressing myself so this might be a little confusing =p

edit:
it also gets to a point where the hp from say 100vit is only 1300hp and you lose out on quite a lot of damage.

truekossy

Assuming two same level archers with the same equips/gears/etc, Pure dex will always have greater damage/crit and hybrid will always have greater HP/defense.

However, it's far easier to compensate for low HP than for damage/crit/accuracy/evasion. After all, if the pure dex got some equip that added HP+130, that's 10 vit worth of HP right there. Compared to the hybrid having to actively seek out higher p.atk boosts as time goes on to try and compensate... and that's before bringing up the crit, accuracy, or evasion. Though the accuracy and evasion won't matter too much (both builds will have plenty of both to toss around), the crit adds up and the p.atk gap will only rise as time goes on.


Still, hybrid is quite handy for places where you need to survive more than worry about dealing damage, or to help you slow down on how easily you can steal aggro. For general grinding (monsters shouldn't be getting close) or PvP (If you can't beat the charm, you can't win and we don't like stuff getting close to us anyway) pure dex is better.

Elenacostel - Heavens Tear

Fleuri - Sanctuary wrote: »

Likewise, you can easily find gear which boosts your dexterity. Hybrids probably get greater benefits from dexterity boosting gear than pure dex, but they will be behind on dexterity and pure dex will also be wearing this kind of gear (and perhaps placing higher priority on dexterity than hybrids would).

Actually...

To make up for his/her shortcomings, a Pure Dex archer can find non-weapon equipment that gives:
1) Vitality
2) +HP

To make up for his/her shortcomings, a Hybrid archer can find non-weapon equipment that gives:
1) +Dexterity

The Pure Dex Archer gets two choices of stats to have on gear. The Hybrid Archer only gets one.

truekossy wrote: »

Still, hybrid is quite handy for places where you need to survive more than worry about dealing damage, or to help you slow down on how easily you can steal aggro. For general grinding (monsters shouldn't be getting close) or PvP (If you can't beat the charm, you can't win and we don't like stuff getting close to us anyway) pure dex is better.

This should never be an issue.

Making a build to deal less damage so that you do not steal aggro is unreasonable. If you deal too much damage, then just stop attacking for a while.

Going hybrid because you want more HP? Fine.
Going hybrid because you do not want to steal aggro? No, thanx.

Valirah - Sanctuary

Elenacostel - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Making a build to deal less damage so that you do not steal aggro is unreasonable. If you deal too much damage, then just stop attacking for a while.

So in a TT, you'd rather putz around idle 20% of the time not attacking to avoid stealing aggro, and hence getting creamed, over being able to attack 100% of the time and even take a few hits if you do manage to get aggro? Sorry, not me.

The other day while I was doing a 2-2 run, our barb DC'd half way through the fight against Consumer. Naturally, being the next in line aggro wise, the boss lines up on me. I was able to switch to melee and tank him until he was almost dead, at which point the barb came back and was able to resume.

While my heavy build isn't technicaly a hybrid, it is aimed at survivability which is the point of going hybrid. I like using 100% of my build while in a dungeon rather than having to self-nerf myself to avoid catastrophe.

Elenacostel - Heavens Tear

Valirah - Sanctuary wrote: »

So in a TT, you'd rather putz around idle 20% of the time not attacking to avoid stealing aggro, and hence getting creamed, over being able to attack 100% of the time and even take a few hits if you do manage to get aggro? Sorry, not me.

I am having trouble making the logical leap from:

"you'd rather putz around idle 20% of the time"

to:

"and hence getting creamed"

I think it is perfectly fine to be able to tank a boss temporarily, to be less squishy, etc. I think that it is unreasonable to specifically stat your build so that you deal less damage.

If you want to subtract points from Dexterity to put into Vitality or Strength, that's great But if you want to subtract points from Dexterity because you steal aggro too much, I'd disagree with you there.

For example, I could put points into Magic. My reasoning is that I do not want to deal too much damage as I might steal aggro. So I put points into Magic. That's a bad idea.

Moranine - Lost City

Go Hybrid until a later level like 60, 70 or even 80. I was hybrid until i was 79 most of the game. I stopped adding Vit when i had about 49 or close to it. After that i started adding 1 Str and 4 Dex Every level. A Restat at 70 sounds nice, but I would wait until 80. Thats just my opinion.

Fleuri - Sanctuary

Elenacostel - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I am having trouble making the logical leap from:

"you'd rather putz around idle 20% of the time"

to:

"and hence getting creamed"

...

For example, I could put points into Magic. My reasoning is that I do not want to deal too much damage as I might steal aggro. So I put points into Magic. That's a bad idea.

I think we were talking about build priorities?

In my experience... in difficult (gear gathering) combats... health and damage both matter, and in lots of high level instances, not having enough health will sometimes get you killed where having slightly less damage will be almost irrelevant.

Once you have good enough gear, I can see going full dex, but until then... sacrificing a few percent damage so you do not pull monsters off tanks so quickly and putting them into your health so you can do some minor tanking of your own... seems... well, I can see some advantages for some people in this approach...

Arrow_Dancer - Heavens Tear

OWNAGE BUILD b:victory

Near-Full DEX 4 dex per level 1 str per level

Dex gives range damage. The str is for equipment requirements.

DO NOT ADD INTO VIT. NOT WORTH IT.

DO NOT ADD INTO INT. YOU GET POTIONS AND YOU HAVE NO MAGICAL POWER.
Frost arrow gives physical damage, but it is NOT WATER BASED. It just has freezing ability. b:laugh

Thunderous arrow skills, yes, they DO give metal damage, BUT, It uses BASE PHYSICAL ATTACK damage, and also Slaps on extra damage that is coupled with the skill, and transforms it into a metal attack. b:victory Adding INT makes you WEAK FOR ARCHER. b:thanks

Elenacostel - Heavens Tear

Fleuri - Sanctuary wrote: »

I think we were talking about build priorities?

Yes, I think so. I do not seem to have communicated well, so I apologize for that.

Basically, I think that lowering your Dexterity for the *sole* purpose of not stealing aggro is a dumb idea. There are other reasonable causes to lower your dexterity. Not-stealing aggro is not one of them.

Arrow_Dancer wrote:

Thunderous arrow skills, yes, they DO give metal damage, BUT, It uses BASE PHYSICAL ATTACK damage, and also Slaps on extra damage that is coupled with the skill, and transforms it into a metal attack. Adding INT makes you WEAK FOR ARCHER.

I would like to THANK YOU for establishing your PERSONALITY on this forum. It is GOOD to know your COMMUNICATION STYLE, so that I can, IN THE FUTURE, take it INTO ACCOUNT when I EVALUATE your OPINION.

Legerity - Sanctuary

Elenacostel - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I would like to THANK YOU for establishing your PERSONALITY on this forum. It is GOOD to know your COMMUNICATION STYLE, so that I can, IN THE FUTURE, take it INTO ACCOUNT when I EVALUTATE your OPINION.

BeAtS tYpInG Lyk diZ d0eSnT iT?????? b:chuckle

Fleuri - Sanctuary

Elenacostel - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Yes, I think so. I do not seem to have communicated well, so I apologize for that.

is ok! talking with people -- back and forth -- can be a handy way of understanding them?

Elenacostel - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Basically, I think that lowering your Dexterity for the *sole* purpose of not stealing aggro is a dumb idea. There are other reasonable causes to lower your dexterity. Not-stealing aggro is not one of them.

I can understand this being a dumb idea for you and how you play, and I can also understand this being just one of several different ideas and not being the top priority reason. However, if you consistently play with a tank, (your level, maxed skills), and you consistently have to reduce your damage output to avoid pulling aggro, you would be doing the same overall damage if you reduced your damage enough so you only rarely pulled aggro, correct?

Of course, pulling aggro does not matter in regular PvE -- in regular PvE you should pull aggro and kill whatever before it gets any attacks on you. But this does not work so well against tougher monsters (twilight temple's squad mode, for example, or fb 89, or whatever...)

Arrow_Dancer - Heavens Tear

4 dex 1 str Don't be different it's not worth dying. Archers are dex why add in anything else?

Elyiawatson - Sanctuary

Dare to be different, but dont be a fool about it. If you want to start off a new breed of archers, go ahead, but don't expect it to be easy. There's a reason why you're standing alone in that field wearing heavy armour, or arcane.

But if you do branch out, wait till in your later levels, you'll have more of your skills levelled up to assist you as well as more money to get proper equipments, for your stats or special breed. People will say you're a failure of an archer, and maybe you will be, but you can be good at your own thing and that'll be something you have to except.

I'm a heavy archer, I can tank as Val well knows, we can take on fb89 bosses (yes val we can if you haven't tried) with one good cleric and a good TT90 HA. But become stunted in other aspects, like delivering high AoE in Delta. Point is, you'll always have a flaw.

Robe archers would be interesting for me to see, or an archer with 10k+ hp. Learn to play your way, or adopt a way from someone else that works for you. Love high damage? Add the dex, but dont expect a bm or barb to hold aggro. Be smart about your flaws and learn control.