What the hell am I supposed to do against archers?

Dimental - Harshlands

I've fought against my brothers archer a LOT and I mean every time I see him be it a duel, me seeing him out hunting somewhere and running to attack him or what ever.

How I win as a wizzy? Well it is a hard battle, if the archer sees you first/knows you're coming you're certain to fail. Archers attack way faster than we can, if their stun lands (which it usually does) prepare to die or if you're lucky have enough time to escape.

I'm going to go through some of the tactics I've tried against my brothers archer (hes level 72). Please note my current genie is pretty gimped and am starting a new one ASAP so I don't really have skills that are useful with my genie right now. I think a good genie is vital to make up for the Wizzies shorfalls but finding the right set of skills is really annoying!

At first I always thought, cut his range, cut his damage. BIG mistake! Any archer whos fought against a Wizard before will know he has a low HP pool and usually lower than average physical defence. His first reaction is to shell up so that he is immune to any damage I'm about to do. His normal hits will still do 300++ damage, not a lot? Well it is when at level 70 my HP pool is only just over 2k. Couple this with his with his AoE attack, this itself does around 1700 damage to me. Getting close to an archer isn't your saving grace, a good archer will be able to react and beat you.

So next up is range, I find this risky as he will always have a higher range than me. That doesn't equate to an instant win for the archer though. His range advantage means that 99% of the time he will have you stunned followed by a deadly shot which is an instant game over. I always hear people say spark and be immune, this doesnt always work and the two second window that you're immune for is a very short time to work within, get it a fraction out and their stun will land before the spark works.
The only tactic I've found that offers a chance here is using tree of protection straight away to increase your HP, tick your charm and start it rolling round to tick again. I've only had this work twice where I've survived the initial stun + deadly shot combo unfortunatly after surviving this theirs not much you can do in terms of taking the archer down, gush is nice but wont kill him sand storm takes way too long to cast. I've tried distance shrinking closer to him so that I can try and get a force of will off but its difficult, distance shrinking doesnt stop him from being able to target you and by the time you can get force of will to channel you're cutting it close to being wiped.

So as you can see archers are a difficult one. My best chances have always been at mid range. This keeps me in range to cast force of will which is vital to surviving the archer. The hard part here is you must have two sparks and trigger them at exactly the right time to avoid his stun, if this works and you resist his stun you're 1/2 way to winning this battle, by now the archer is usually channeling a deadly shot, force of will, force of will, force of will, this will stop him channeling and attacking, got to act fast here as force of will wont last long, it will give you enough time to get off one sand storm which should cause some serious damage, some archers will start to panic at their health being so low if they have a charm however and it ticks its game over.

I've never beaten my brothers archer in a duel or fight without seeing him and me getting the fist hit before he knows I'm there. Every other situation has never gone in my favour.

After reading a lot of PvP threads for wizzies recently I've come to the conclusion that its not worth bothering with PvP unless 1 hitting noobs is your type of thing. This may change at higher levels but at 70 an arcane wizzy just doesnt have the ability to be able to perform in PvP like other classes can.

Ursa - Dreamweaver

You're right there with the mid-range, no matter how crazy it sounds.
You have to be in range for a FoW and/or Soporific Whisper to be able to defeat an archer.
I've been successfull against archers in both PvP and duels and I could be even more successful with Soporific Whisper and Undine. I must admit though, they have the upper hand on duels against robes. I had more deaths than kills, but the margin wasn't big. Having a char that would win all fight would make me stop playing this game the next day.
Biggest problem for a wizz is not being able to control the opponent properly at low lvl (under 80) and at high lvl that control is limited.
Now, a good genie can change all that. Mine is still crappy, but I will have to put some effort into rasing it, because there are some skills that are a must have for a wizz.
We will never be as good as an archer or BM in PvP, but while we have problems with archers, BMs are just a toy if you keep the distance. An archer purpose is to kill a robe/caster. Against BMs and Barbs they have problems too. Langer HP pool and an array of stuns is pretty much a nightmare when you have something like Will of the Bodhisatva that nulifies the stun arrow, archer's most important skill in PvP.
It's not only wizzards that have problems with archers, clerics will fall as easily if they get stunned. True, if they can land a sleep they have a better chance to win, but let's not forget the sleep is of after the first landed hit. And if the archer is awake, we're at square 1 againb:victory

Dimental - Harshlands

Ursa - Dreamweaver wrote: »

You're right there with the mid-range, no matter how crazy it sounds.
You have to be in range for a FoW and/or Soporific Whisper to be able to defeat an archer.
I've been successfull against archers in both PvP and duels and I could be even more successful with Soporific Whisper and Undine. I must admit though, they have the upper hand on duels against robes. I had more deaths than kills, but the margin wasn't big.
Biggest problem for a wizz is not being able to control the opponent properly at low lvl (under 80) and at high lvl that control is limited.
Now, a good genie can change all that. Mine is still crappy, but I will have to put some effort into rasing it, because there are some skills that are almost a must have for a wizz.
We will never be as good as an archer or BM in PvP, but while we have problems with archers, BMs are just a toy if you keep the distance.
It's not only wizzards that have problems with archers, clerics will fall as easily if they get stunned. True, if they can land a sleep they have a better chance to win, but let's not forget the sleep is of after the first landed hit. And if the archer is awake, we're at square 1 againb:victory

Couldn't agree more on the genie front, I'll hopefully be going with extreme poison, wind shield, holy path and something to prevent/break stuns (what genie skill can do this?)

Ursa - Dreamweaver

http://www.ecatomb.net/genieskill.php

look at the second column on the left, there are at least 2 skills that protect against stun/sleep.

King_Solomon - Heavens Tear

Ursa - Dreamweaver wrote: »

You're right there with the mid-range, no matter how crazy it sounds.
You have to be in range for a FoW and/or Soporific Whisper to be able to defeat an archer.
I've been successfull against archers in both PvP and duels and I could be even more successful with Soporific Whisper and Undine. I must admit though, they have the upper hand on duels against robes. I had more deaths than kills, but the margin wasn't big. Having a char that would win all fight would make me stop playing this game the next day.
Biggest problem for a wizz is not being able to control the opponent properly at low lvl (under 80) and at high lvl that control is limited.
Now, a good genie can change all that. Mine is still crappy, but I will have to put some effort into rasing it, because there are some skills that are a must have for a wizz.
We will never be as good as an archer or BM in PvP, but while we have problems with archers, BMs are just a toy if you keep the distance. An archer purpose is to kill a robe/caster. Against BMs and Barbs they have problems too. Langer HP pool and an array of stuns is pretty much a nightmare when you have something like Will of the Bodhisatva that nulifies the stun arrow, archer's most important skill in PvP.
It's not only wizzards that have problems with archers, clerics will fall as easily if they get stunned. True, if they can land a sleep they have a better chance to win, but let's not forget the sleep is of after the first landed hit. And if the archer is awake, we're at square 1 againb:victory

good point. i think sneaky archers are much more a problem to robe clerics and venos than wizards due to their range. also it's very possible to 2-hit lvl matching archers without a crit unless charm ticks.

my highest pvp hit was on a 9X heavy BM: 5k.

Amour - Lost City

Get undine, get soporific whisper.
Blink next to them, force of will, undine, tempest or dragon whilst amping.

Bye bye archers

Miss_Tika - Lost City

Archers die pretty fast to Wizards in my opinion, and also the other way around. Depends on gear and who hits who first.

Force of Will and Blinking away when your about to die is key for any sort of PK.

get archers to 60ish% health and and use an ulti or just try and kill with sutra

And learn to kite , cuz archers kite too -.-;;

Mizuoni - Dreamweaver

Blinding Sand + sandstorm works really good for archers and rushing barbs in TW. Normally against archers i will.
FoW > blinding sand (genie skill) > sutra > SS > doesnt matter archer is gonna miss you quite a bit for the next 10 seconds. It still works with just Blinding Sand but not as well........

Ursa - Dreamweaver

U don't have to waste sutra there, just land the Fow-BlindSand(while SS is channeling) and then a SR. Archer should be dead unless he's 80+ and refined.He will miss you 90% of the cases after the SS so landing the SR makes sense.
And what I realized after the last PK fest in DT is: Note to me:Don't go with SS after FOW cause you're just gonna tick the archer's charm. FoW-SR(Stun protect from genie)-SS is the way to go.. SR doesnt' tick the charm, SS will finish the archer. I can tank now 2 normal hits and a crit from a <85 archer so that's good enough to land the SS.

All the above in the ideal sittuation when I'm not getting interrupted while channeling by the archer I'm fighting or someone else.

Randoms - Dreamweaver

Sounds like wishful thinking there, its all from wizard skills there, archers have skills too, they can actually respond b:shocked
, any archer that can response here and have exp in it?

Mizuoni - Dreamweaver

Blinding Sand = -70% accuracy
SS max = -50% accuracy

they should be missing at least 90% of the times

Forp - Heavens Tear

50 + 70 = 90?

Amour - Lost City

Diminishing returns.
You guys are making it more difficult than it has to be.

Another easy way to take out archers is 60% hp -> undine sandstorm.

I was LA till 90 with a +2 sword and 90% of the archers I fought under 90 did not have the HP to survive an undined sandstorm at 60%. Not to mention the fact that you have amp now.