Archer Class Feedback, Progress and Build(s)

So far, I have played a lot of Archer, and little bit of Assassin and Warrior. Haven't touched Mage at all.

Character progress, my experience, feedback

Level 1 - early skills

When I started with Archer from level 1 again, it felt pretty bad. Low damage and no damage protection. This is to be expected from level 1 though. But i think there is a way to make it more exciting.

• Give 1 skill point at level 1 already.

I don't think there is much benefit in not doing that. And it will make future build planning better since you won't have to keep remembering that at any level, you are always one skill point "short". So at level 20 you have access to 19 skill points etc. Not intuitive.

Another reason is that you can get excited and pick a skill right from the start, but ...

... those skills need to be interesting.

Shoot - Thorn Tips

Right now there are only 2 out of 5 skills that actually "do" anything for you at this level.

In fact I would argue there is only one skill, because 4% bonus damage from the Mark Prey is worse than just shooting again. So you have illusion of a choice, but there is none.

The other skills might make sense the deeper you go into the skill tree and having them can support different play styles, but these abilities come at the wrong time.

At level 1-20, I do not have problems with how much Focus I am spending or recovering because I do not have ways to spend enough for that to be a problem. Especially not at level 1. Nor can I for example trigger the condition reliably enough (Dodge) yet.

• So I would love to see early skills, and especially level 1, to be "build setters".

Thorn Tips absolutely is that. Your "basic attack" getting a Poison debuff attached to it which other skills will trigger off of is definitely something I would expect to work from and build upon it.

And the added damage "over time" is something that helps you in early levels as well. So a skill like this is hitting all the right marks.

Mark Prey - Open Season

Open Season is the only other option for early levels, it does "something" but it feels really bad choosing it, and without this skill, Mark Prey does literally nothing until you pickup or get other skills that synergize with it. Doesnt feel good at all.

I think Mark Prey could have the "-10% Dodge chance" from Tracker baked into itself by default.

It would be something not significant enough, but still relevant for early levels and for me to want to use it, and still relevant for late game too. You never want to miss, so having that extra bonus to hit through negating some Dodge would be nice. Or just give "+10% hit chance (not rating)" instead.

Open Season itself also feels extremely insignificant overall, but especially in early levels. 4% of 10 damage I am dealing is virtually 0. So I am supposed to spend a turn to mark a target to basically get no benefit at all. Why am I doing this?

What I would propose is to change it like this:

• "+4/8/12 damage or +4/8/12% damage (whichever is higher)"

Actually i would round it out as +5/10/15.

So you can feel immediate and significant enough power gain for each level of Open Season in early levels, and it continues to scale with you into late game.

Other Level 1 skills

Rest of the Level 1 skills all focus on giving you more Focus to fuel the use of your other abilities. But at this point in time, you don't even have other abilities to use that Focus on. These do not make sense to put as early as this. One could argue that they are also "build arounds" but they provide me virtually no benefit until a build comes together. I don't like a design where picking early ability gives no benefit until 10, 20 levels later.

Create other level 1 perks in similar fashion to my suggestion for Open Season tweak, that can rival and be interesting to pick in comparison. You could go as boring as +5/10/15 crit rate and +5/10/15 dodge. It would offer better choice than existing ones, and i dont hate it, but like i said, i would love some "build setters". Which these could be too, if follow up skills done properly.

Level 5 - We are getting somewhere for the first time

At level 5 is when you unlock second row of skills and it feels like new paths open in front of you and you can further choose in which direction you wan to go.

Yes and no.

Same problem as with first row skills - there aren't really any varied options when it comes to build paths, only options are for one build basically (right now). More on that further below.

Snare Trap - doesnt achieve anything right now

Snare Trap when you first pick it up seems absolutely useless. You spend a turn to stun opponent for 1 turn. So you just progress the fight by one turn. But wait! You need to get hit first! And it needs to happen within 2 turns from when you cast it. Technically you are dealing delayed 0.5x damage for free, but that is all. This early, that means like maybe 15 damage. Not going to make a difference.

The upgrade to Snare Trap that comes at level 25 (Spring Snare) is what I would expect from the base skill.

It sets up damage over time on the enemy and gives a debuff trigger in Bleed that can be an early build around for different type of builds.

I would honestly swap the Snare Trap and Spring Snare skills completely. And the new level 25 skill could then have an upgrade to stun for 1 and 2 turns - so it is a meaningful upgrade, and can again serve as a trigger for other synergies.

And could make you think if you want to run Snare Trap or Tumble as your protective measure (more on Tumble later).

Bramble Shot - ok, but...

I honestly do not like that you have to spend skill points to simply unlock some skills, but other skills get for free. Assassin feels even worse in this regard btw.

I think unlocking skills for free as you level up is the way to go, and in the skill tree you should have bonuses and synergies that will make those skills more proficient and let player choose how they use them.

Bramble Shot is a great example of this. As a skill it seems perfectly fine on it's own, but i have to invest skill point to unlock it. Why would I do that if i can just use Shoot with poison and achieve nearly the same result? And i am building up my poison synergies in the process. Counter point, but Bramble Shot gives you bleed synergies! There arent any, and even if there were, why do i have to spend extra point just to unlock it?

But Bramble Shot feels like it should be a part of bleed build for an archer. That would make it distinct enough to be used, and Snare Trap being a different kind of trigger for Bleed would be good too, have options. But wasting skill point just to unlock base skills doesnt feel good.

Full Draw and supporting skills

This is the first instance where I feel like i actually have a meaningful choice. Lingering Mark will let you re-apply "marked" status so you don't have to always spend a turn to cast Mark Prey again if you care only about "marked" status.

Delay by 15% doesn't seem to work right now, but it did initially. And when it did work, it didn't seem impactful enough to amount to anything, not on its own. Which might be fine if the entire idea of initiative, delays and haste would work better. But as it stands now it is a waste of skill point (but the cost of refresh stops me from taking that skill point back - I will get to that later).

Kill Zone is an interesting idea, and I have used it for a while until I refunded it, but in practice that execute threshold is way too low.

If you have enemy at 25% health, you likely do not need the extra damage to finish them off. It does work well on bosses if it should be a niche for them, where they will be under 25% for a longer period of time, so that is something to keep in mind. If you can increase the execute threshold to at least 40% that would be a better solution - and you can lower the damage bonus in exchange.

• So something like: 30/35/40% execute threshold and 30/35/40% bonus dmg.

I will say thought that it does not feel like "right now" Full Draw needs this bonus damage.

Actually, i think this skill could be a really good fit for a bleed archer. Maybe it could have a base execute threshold of 25%, but it would have an increased threshold if the target was bleeding. Or if it has X amount of bleed stacks on it and each stack would increase it by 10% or something. First Bleeding would have to stack (which it should, feels boring now).

Bleed archer is not a thing right now, and having a skill like Full Draw be able to support multiple playstyles feels like a real good idea. I will talk about three different builds i think archer could go into, and all three Full Draw skills could actually support one of them if the bleed change was added (plus more support for bleed stuff ofc).

Hunter's Rhytm is honestly one of my favorite skills because it "completes" the combo with Full Draw now.

This is what allows you to create your first real "loop" where you can alternate between Shoot and Full Draw and they both feed into each other.

All three of these skills is what I would be looking for as choices for a build path I would like to take.

Level 10 - Continue on your chosen path

There are some skills that are a must have for a specific build (poison), but that is ok, that is expected from certain skills to further follow synergies. But then there are some skills that just seem random and do not build upon anything.

Venom Arrows, pretty basic skill, exactly what I would expect at this stage of the skill tree, perfectly fine to strengthen synergies for poison builds.

Tracker, a good enhancement of Mark Prey, but has some holes in it.

I dont know if by design or by mistake, but it only prolongs the Mark Prey itself to 7 turns, but the damage increase from Open Season stays at 5. It creates this incredibly annoying situation where you don't really want to spend a turn to reapply the mark just for the mere 12% dmg increase alone when the enemy is still marked. So then Tracker kinda loses its point. The Dodge decrease is nice, but it doesnt feel significant enough to warrant a skill point. I already suggested moving this part to base Mark Prey instead.

• You could leave Tracker as a single skill point skill, simply prolonging Mark Prey (and all associated buffs/debufs from adjacent skills) to 7 turns.

It would then serve as a very nice utility get if you wanted.

Twin Knock and supporting skills

This ability seems like it had some design choices behind it, but they are not apparent yet with what is in the game at the moment. It feels like it is designed as a kind of either multi-triggers from multiple shots or a kind of aoe.

Say it had skill you can invest into that would add a bleed stack to the enemy for each hit - supporting bleed stacking and associated synergies for example.

I was using it for few levels as a budget Full Draw when i didnt have more skills that increase damage to Full Draw yet.

I would have experimented more with it if respec wasn't so expensive.

Level 15 - Finally some safety

With level 15 Archer gets Tumble and FINALLY some real damage protection.

But the problem with the base skill is the same as with Snare Trap - it basically just moves the turn order by 1 turn, very lackluster.

It is only when you get the additional skill bonuses that Tumble becomes really awesome to use.

Evasive Footwork allows you to dodge two attacks, meaning the attack that is coming on the turn you play it AND one extra turn.

So you can actually fight and meaningfully defend yourself at the same time from level 17 for the first time.

Is it too long to wait to get to this point? Hard to say. If max perceived level right now is 20 then absolutely. I was face-tanking every fight since then. When max level changes to 50, or possibly more in the future maybe it wont feel as bad.

But i would love if the base skill did something more than to just "move the turn 1 forward". I want to have a reason to use it and not to just let the enemy run one more turn of dot damage on them.

Something like what Tumble Shot provides.

It makes using Tumble not a complete waste of a turn even if it protected from just one attack.

I'll go back to Snare Trap again - it protects for a turn and with an upgrade deals 0.5x damage under specific conditions. That doesnt feel good enough. But if Tumble gave you one turn protection AND did 0.5x damage at the same time by default, no extra conditions required, that would feel good enough.

And Tumble Shot could then become an extension to 1x damage. Similarly as I suggested with Tracker, Tumble Shot could be a one point skill investment that would increase the base 0.5x damage to 1x. And it wouldnt feel like you need to pick this skill, but it would certainly be a welcome addition.

Rain of Thorns seems like an ok skill for what it does, but at this state of the game there is no reason to use it because we cannot fight more than one enemy. When time comes, it might become a tool in poison build arsenal.

But again, i do not like having to spend skill point to unlock it, instead i would like to invest into enhancing it.

I love using random seemingly weak or off-build abilities in super specific situations in games that can actually compliment a completely different build. If we have skills unlocked via level up, such situations can happen, but if we have to invest skills to simply unlock them first, then it wont. Just another argument for having base skills unlock via level ups :)

Arrowhail is in the same boat, untill we are fighting more enemies at once, it doesnt make sense to use it.

Level 20 - final step for now

I can see building blocks for different archer path adding up, where maybe the level 1 skills would start to make sense. If all that turn order manipulation archer has in its arsenal worked correctly, then you might be using a lot more skills more often, so a hefty Focus recovery would likely be a core for such build. But as it stands out, that is not a thing right now.

All skills in level 20 feel perfectly fine for what they should be doing, but because we can only pick one now, that isn't enough for it to make any kind of impact on current state of archer builds.

Possible Archer Builds with the current skill tree?

#1 Poison Archer

You get a nice, tight loop with Tumble, Mark Prey, Shoot and Full Draw.

The supporting skills make this whole thing work, you dodge two attacks and deal some damage (Tumble), you setup extra dmg and mark the target (Mark Prey), you deal damage and poison the target (Shoot), and then you deal your big booma (Full Draw), re-apply "marked" for itself and charge your next Shoot to deal more damage and re-apply poison for Full Draw again and cycle continues.

Depending on misses or stuns from the enemy, you might have to adjust your loop, but this feels good. Really good.

I sometimes use Hunter's Verdict as my last-hit (for which i think the skill was intended) instead of Full Draw because if i am in the execute area, it does deal more damage even with all the bonus damage Full Draw has.

I used the lvl20 skill point to raise the execute threshold from 30% hp to 35%. I honestly cannot say if it is significant enough that it allows me to get under that threshold often enough to be worth it, but at 40% it would likely be.

Does this build feel too strong? I dont know. Yes, but?

I have played Warrior, but haven't figured it out yet. He does seem to struggle to deal burst damage but has SO MUCH MORE sustainability, he can walk away from a fight where he was at half HP with full no problem with shields and life steal.

I have played Assassin and there seems to be possibility for similar loop as for Archer. It comes sooner, can be more consistent, but with less damage (until you get more support skills, im only level 12 now).

So is archer too strong overall, or is it too strong in comparison to other characters?

Yes and no.

If i was to nerf something, and i dont think it is completely entirely necessary (this relates to "Clean fight" mechanic I talk about in last paragraph), then maybe lower Full Draw to 1.5x power from 1.65x (but it does take two turns to use (heavy skill), so it cannot go too low otherwise i will just Shoot twice instead).

Or increase the cooldown on Tumble. When it is at 3 turn cd, you can have 2 safe turns then 1 turn where you get damaged and then 2 safe turns. Maybe 2 and 2 would be more in line. Maybe you could even have base 5 turn cd (if the change to add 0.5x dmg to base was added) and the Evasive Footwork would take it from 5 to 4 then. I dont know if it was too much or not.

But I dont think if the change was to only negate one attack that it would be as good of a skill. And i guess right now we are in a realm of 1 attack per turn enemies, when they will be able to do more, then Tumble will feel weaker by default already.

But in reality, i feel like archer needs change in other areas so something different than poison Full Draw feels good too.

Other builds - do they exist right now?

Not really.

Delay and skill spam build?

I can see makings of skill spam build with all the different delay options on various skills and lot of Focus recovery supportive options. You could be able to attack more than once a turn before your opponent can act - that in on itself would serve as kind of a protective measure since if they cannot attack or are dead they wont damage you.

But initiative, Haste and turn manipulation would have to work correctly first. And stats from gear would have to give relevant amounts of Haste, among other things.

Maybe this kind of spammy and Focus hungry build could also become the predominant "aoe" build whenever that becomes relevant, or be a variation of the build described here.

Bleed build? Nonexistent.

Sadly, the tools for bleed build are not there. There are few bleed triggers, but bleed (nor poison) can stack and so the bleed is just a 3 damage dot every turn that gets refreshed. It is supposed to provide a trigger for something else, but that something else doesnt exist.

I talked about potential direction of Full Draw and Kill Zone with better execute options on a bleeding target, or target with more bleed stacks.

That could honestly be an interesting direction. Bleed build could be about building up bleed stacks from various skills and then one-shot executing the target in one turn. Compared to continuous consistent damage from Poison build for example.

What is next for Archer?

Until we see more of what the game has in store for us, dungeons, multi-layered fights or fights with more enemies, I dont think I can comment on the future of the class yet.

One thing I can say is it feels really good to play Archer right now, at least the Poison build i wrote about.

And part of this is a completely different aspect of combat - the monster loot.

Clean Fight mechanic is great!

I love there is a mechanic such as "Clean fight", where you are awarded extra loot if you kill the enemy fast enough.

Archer excels at this task right now, and the fact that "Clean fight" mechanic exists in a first place is a good reason to min-max your class!

It also allows the farming of lower tier mobs for their specific mats because you can more easily kill them faster, so the bonus loot offsets the level penalty.

And it feels good when you get better gear or figure out a skill combo to take down monsters fast enough to get a clean fight reward. But it is not always possible, misses, stuns or simple RNG on damage spread might make it that you wont be always fast enough, and that is ok.

But playing archer right now feels good because you are able to do these things.

I have had similar success with Assassin in this regard, not so much with Warrior, they are more about sustain than burst damage, tho i can see some potential there maybe as well. Have to still figure it out. Haven't touched Mage at all so cannot comment on their capabilities.

Well, this turned into a much larger piece of text than I imagined. I guess i had lot to say. Hope it will be coherent enough for it to make sense anyone reading.

If others who play the Archer can share their experience with the class, i would be more than happy to hear it.