Archer Build

[Sam1313]

Hello All. I am need of a good viable Archer build. I left just as U45 was being launched. I returned on 03/30/23 to find that my Archer Ranger is, uhm, NOT GOOD. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you All.

[cadaverash]

Hello All. I am need of a good viable Archer build. I left just as U45 was being launched. I returned on 03/30/23 to find that my Archer Ranger is, uhm, NOT GOOD. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you All.

2020 they nerfed IPS.

Then in 2021 (U50) they did some serious archer and bow nerfs, only to sell us back half of what they took in the form of the horizon walker tree.

I was playing an archer for almost ten years, and after U50, I switched to offensive caster with that toon. (Also I find the silly walk that archers have after U50 disturbs me)

Many classes for archer were nerf/killed, but they left fighter and ranger in a good spot.

Pali got some archery things, but I don't see many Pali-archers out there.

If your build is monk-archer, I don't think anything will help but a TR.

Any Archer right now is heavy dependant on the Horizon Walker tree, so get that if you don't have.

Horizon walker works well with at least 6 LVL's of ranger, so that is not a bad investment to play around with for a new start.

Fury of the wild ED doesn't work with ranged anymore either, I think the cool kids are using Shiradi these days with hunters end epic strike.

I miss playing archer a lot and wish you luck with your build.

[Tilomere]

Hello All. I am need of a good viable Archer build. I left just as U45 was being launched. I returned on 03/30/23 to find that my Archer Ranger is, uhm, NOT GOOD. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you All.

20 Dragonborn Sorc
Pick any savant, 6 ap in Ek for imbue
Rotation in heroics is spell pew pew. Rotation in epics is Mass Hold, then Spell + pew pew while waiting for cooldowns.
Take all spell casting feats.

20 Alc Elf
41 Bombardier, rotation is multivial SLA + Multivial + pew pew while waiting for cooldowns.
6 Vile chemist (imbues)
Some AA more imbues
Take all spell casting feats.

20 Druid or blightcaster druid
Rotation is CC, then spell + pew pew while waiting on spell cooldowns.
Take all spell casting feats.

In epics Draconic gives imbue die and energy burst, primal avatar gives more aoe nuking and healing, and shadow dancer rounds both out with some evasion and CDR.

Notable mentions goes to:
20 Wizard, 20 FvS, and 20 Cleric.
All do the same as above, but with fewer bonus caster levels and no immunity strip.

[archest]

multiclassing a ranger , rogue , eldritch knight.
1st life at level 30 now.
use horizon walker tree.
I've done fighter instead of EK but I like having access to wizard buffs.
however its disappointing the buffs from spells only still last 5min at 6th level
in retrospect id rather have more rogue levels for more sneak attack dice.
but still have access to the ek tree shield and mage armor sla's

it is using sneak attack for ranged shots for the most part.
with the lag its disappointing shooting stuff and hitting it and the damage ignored by the system.
both ranger and rogue offer sneak attack dice in the trees which stack.
not much in the way of imbue die at all.
but sword and board for melee range works well in heroics with a good sword.
I use the Luck Blade with fire and acid and Eye of the Glacier.
with a named shield for more damage and shock ruby
seemed to work fine for heroics.
epics not so good doesn't effect damage protection as much will have to find a better one to raise defense.
not a lot of spell power for damages so limited to shield and mage armor sla's.
helps with UMD as Chr was a dup stat for me.

normal arrow damage in the range of 400 a hit now.
I've seen a few at 3k and 1 recently with the Barovian's Longbow at 7.5k. with epic buffs and such.
Shiradi Champion, Shadowdancer and
Unyielding Sentinel with Unyielding Sentinel being a limited tree and Shiradi Champion the main with 30 + points.

with this lag its hard to defend with a bow at melee range, but dex is high and can run away faster to avoid getting hit.
just got the legendary key lock ring +20 which does wonders for rogue skills at epic level with out having to do the +6 action boost.

is elf so I dont have to search for trap boxes with keen eye from the elf tree ( only have 1 point in it been keeping up with rogue skills when taking wizard levels)

That's my take on your question.

note: could get (2) additional sneak attack die from the human race tree. maybe next life...

have 26d6 now.
Mark the target
Hunt's End ( is not a shot it sets the damage for the next shot you make): Epic Strike: +75% damage, and increases your Critical Threat Range by 16.
+ Fey Force: Increases Hunt's End damage bonus by 75%.
+Overwhelming Force: Increases your Hunt's End effect by 75%.
Opening Shot: +[3][W] Bow Attack. Adds [3]d6 Force damage on hit. This damage scales with Ranged Power. is 115% now
+ in my crafted bow.. 6d6 fire and 6d6 acid rubies.
its setup for incorporeal 4 and light 4 and wounding rated at 68.27 Bavarians is rated at 78.11 or something to that effect and I threw in a good ruby bought them on sale thinking at was good (holy) damage but i dont know what the heck it is.

26 + 225% + 3d6 force + 6d6 fire +6d6 acid + 115% ranged power + 3w damage + X4 multiplier + 4d6 light and if your incorporeal (reaper) +4d6 +epic tree Ghost Touch.
for 1 sneak attack shot.

It was kind of cool having the high hide skill and sneaking around old bone grinder with inv on (wiz spell) and finding the corpse and ghost without having to fight anything.

[MagicalDad]

Hello All. I am need of a good viable Archer build. I left just as U45 was being launched. I returned on 03/30/23 to find that my Archer Ranger is, uhm, NOT GOOD. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you All.

I used to *love* playing archers. Around 2010-2012 or so. These past two weeks, while filling in some missing heroic lives on the TR train, I though - hey, why not. So I build a Tabaxi 1-20 ranger for the heroic life on one main, and a PDK 18 Fighter / 2 Rogue Horizon Walker on another (can you still call them mains if you have 4? anyhow). Neither had the best equipment - no Abbot bow at 14, no Greensteel Lit 2 bows, etc. but +8 tomes, quite a few PLs, around 40 RP.

The experience was miserable. Sometimes the numbers are huge, and when you crit several times in a row, that feels pretty good. But
* The attack speed on bows is horrendous. Most of the time, if I am in the party, the target is dead before my first arrow lands. And that's if it doesn't just vanish
* the 'new' Manyshot is such a shadow of its former self, it's just frustrating. There is very little burst, even Haste Boost + Power Surge + Reaper boost feels weak
* Horizon Walker helps, but having to remember to Misty Step all the time just to keep up RP seems silly

On the iconic, around level 19 I ended just rebuilding into a INT inquisitor. Even though all my points were in DEX - the game immediately felt better. Yes, the crits are smaller, but the constant, steady damage output can't even be compared. The free 6 imbue dice you pick up along the way help as well, and don't depend on sneak attack. And having 9 'No Holds Barred' (due to Kensei) just feels awesome, with iPS entire rooms just melt.

I know some people have great success with archers - but that has not been my experience.

[magaiti]

1st life archer (No Horizon Walker, 80 AP, 60 destiny AP, assuming you have Harper Agent unlocked account-wide)
Ranger 20
main stat: dex
trance stat: int

42 Deepwood Stalker (T5, capstone)
11 Vistani (FE:undead, haste boost, 5% doubleshot)
2 falconry (FE: animal)
12 Harper (KtA, extra FE)
13 Arcane Archer (Elemental Arrows imbue, conjure arrows)

Destinies:
34 Shiradi
3 Primal Avatar
23 Shadowdancer

Feats:
Heroic: Point Blank Shot, Precision, Dodge, Mobility, Shot on the Run, Improved Critical: Ranged
Epic: Combat Archery, Overwhelming Critical
Destiny: Holy Strike, Doubleshot, Harbinger of Chaos (have to be Chaotic to get full benefit), Legendary Aim.
Legendary: Scion of Ethereal Plane

[unbongwah]

Hello All. I am need of a good viable Archer build. I left just as U45 was being launched. I returned on 03/30/23 to find that my Archer Ranger is, uhm, NOT GOOD. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you All.

So the biggest changes in the last three years which affect archers are:

• Manyshot's functionality was changed. Ten Thousand Stars no longer works with bows, effectively killing monkchers. I think the Improved Precise Shot nerf (-20% damage penalty) happened in U45.
• The Horizon Walker Universal tree was added. By decoupling your archer enhancements from your classes, it gives more flexibility with build options.
• Epic Destinies were revamped and modeled after heroic Enhancements. Instead of having a primary ED supplemented by Twists of Fate, you can access up to three ED trees at once. Also ED enhancements are level-gated so the power curve while leveling epics is more gradual.
• The Imbue system was reworked to be more streamlined(?). Instead of multiple independent systems, the idea being you can have one Imbue active at a time, with bonus dice available from multiple sources, depending on your build.

This thread is about a year old, so it doesn't include the latest changes (namely the Imbue rework), but I'm not aware of a more comprehensive comparison of ranged DPS options. At the time, rogue 12 / ranger 6 Horizon Walker builds focused on sneak attacks were the best option for single-target archer DPS (excluding other considerations like self-healing etc.); I haven't seen anything to suggest that's really changed with the new Imbue system.

[Sam1313]

To everyone who replied to this thread Thank You. I'm still reading the threads posted as I have the time.

[Oliphant]

Hunt End (HE) Epic Strike from the Shiradi Epic Destiny tree has one of the most lag friendly mechanics in the game because clicking it puts you in a state that powers up your next hit, but doesn't dissipate if you miss, so almost no dry firing and lost HE charges. This same mechanic means you can pre-load your epic destiny shot before encounters which kind of decreases the effective cool down at the start of encounters. And HE shots HIT HARD!

[Tilomere]

no Abbot bow at 14, no Greensteel Lit 2 bows, etc.

Cannith crafting now makes the best heroic weapons:


The only named heroic weapon worth attacking with over a crafted weapon is a sentient bonecrusher. Abbot bow was outdated before they nerfed it. Cannith even outperforms SoS, especially since heroic reapers can have 160%+ fortification.

[Soulfurnace]

Cannith even outperforms SoS, especially since heroic reapers can have 160%+ fortification.

Not even close, but sure, whatever. SOS is still king. And then esos.
Even if you couldn't crit reapers in heroics (you can, even on a barb) they aren't the majority of enemies you have to get through - and sos hits that much harder and more often.

[Tilomere]

Not even close, but sure, whatever. SOS is still king. And then esos.
Even if you couldn't crit reapers in heroics (you can, even on a barb) they aren't the majority of enemies you have to get through - and sos hits that much harder and more often.

100 damage 30 power barb, 130 base damage/hit. SoS is jut a falchion with 6 extra multiplier every 20 swings worth 30% more base damage, or 39 damage/hit against targets you can crit, 0 against targets you can't crit.

Cannith augmented proc damage above is 65/hit. Plus vampirism. Against everything.

It's funny you bring up ESoS. Sentience actually nerfs weapon users because in general named weapons, especially bows at 20, are inferior to cannith crafting. So you get a sentience bonus, but are penalized damage to use it. ESoS penalizes you less than other named items, but if you take sentience away or have limited sentience even ESoS really isn't that good of a weapon if you really look at it.

Plus you can't crit all reapers, especially plague reapers, even on a 72% fort bypass paladin, which is far more bypass than a heroic barb will ever hit:


Reapers are the the majority of the enemies you have to get through, because your sorc/alc/druid/wiz/clr/fvs/arti AoE burst will clear out most of the weaker trash.

The reason for all the bad ranged build reviews is that people are using bad weapons with a bad rotation on a bad class setup. For example, a level 12 ranged build rotation shouldn't be Aimed Shot, Sniper Shot, Head Shot, Leg Shot, Executioner's Shot Multishot Auto with a Lit 2 GS Bow. That's a bad rotation, a bad class split, and a bad weapon, on top of a lot of buttons, and results in poor dungeon clear and general complaints about ranged. It should be Chain Lightning auto auto Chain Lightning auto auto with a cannith crafted weapon.

20 DPS Caster + Cannith makes very strong ranged builds for leveling. I'm doing past life grind, so I can't make 20 dps casters, but even multiclassed DPS Caster + Ranged makes very strong ranged builds for leveling. It is so strong I usually skip all epic dungeons and go directly into legendary midskull reaper at 20.

Which required melting a lot of raid weapons since starting at 15 and skipping heroic and epic House K limits space, but once you realize the items you are hoarding like SoS/Abbot bow are inferior to items you can craft, it all falls into place and makes sense, and you don't feel so bad feeding them to your kobold gem.

This is the way.

[yfernbottom]

* The attack speed on bows is horrendous.

* Horizon Walker helps, but having to remember to Misty Step all the time just to keep up RP seems silly

I am playing up a 20 DH archer right now, and these are my biggest gripes. Most of my points are going into HW and DWS, with enough in DH to et the bleed imbue and make the dog decent (13 points total).

The build has potential very high single target burst when manyshot is up.

I like that you can turn manyshot into a dual function ability that gives you burst damage and displacement, expanding the range of situations in which manyshot is useful. ...but . . .

The attack speed is horrible. Misses really hurt. In some situations I am still switching back over to dual wielding because of it, even though the only stat to damage I have in melee is from the dex trance in HW.

Horizon walker is also an odd tree:


1. You have to have mark on a foe to get more than half of the damage potential of the tree going, but the cooldown on mark means that you can only hope to tag every other mob. Plus it adds an extra button to spam constantly, which does not feel as fluid as most ranged builds.

2. Spamming misty step would make things even worse, but I don't have that because the tier 5s in HW don't really seem like they compete well with DWS tier fives. Maybe on a HW Kensai I would be using them.

3. The trance is pretty deep in the tree, so you will be getting some abilities that do very little for you if you just want the trance on a melee build. The trance also only regens on vorpal hits, so sometimes you have to shrine just to get your charges back.

4. The hast buff for 0 mana is really nice. However even extended you are spamming it constantly at low levels. Between that, marking foes, and the dex trance it makes the tree feel very spammy, where you are constantly hitting buttons just to keep your baseline DPS up where it needs to be to compete with most ranged builds.

[Soulfurnace]

100 damage 30 power barb, 130 base damage/hit. SoS is jut a falchion with 6 extra multiplier every 20 swings worth 30% more base damage, or 39 damage/hit against targets you can crit, 0 against targets you can't crit.

Cannith augmented proc damage above is 65/hit. Plus vampirism. Against everything.

It's funny you bring up ESoS. Sentience actually nerfs weapon users because in general named weapons, especially bows at 20, are inferior to cannith crafting. So you get a sentience bonus, but are penalized damage to use it. ESoS penalizes you less than other named items, but if you take sentience away or have limited sentience even ESoS really isn't that good of a weapon if you really look at it.


Reapers are the the majority of the enemies you have to get through, because your sorc/alc/druid/wiz/clr/fvs/arti AoE burst will clear out most of the weaker trash.

Wow, that's a lot of words to continue being wrong. I guess the big take-away is that sos/esos only provide when you have good stats. When you have bad stats, yeah they don't do much.
The fact you're talking about hitting for 100 base damage is really concerning. That's super low.

But wait, it's worse! You provided your own screenshot. You're running both tensers and divine might - in heroics, no less - and we see base hits of 80, plus crits of 383. If this isn't r10, and you honestly go through heroics like this, I'm sorry to hear that. I can't imagine levelling without having the ability to mow through trash.

First of all, +100 base damage, 5[w], +2 mult. That's the barbarian considerations for low gearing, without factoring in race. Ignoring the 3[w] barb gets is a solid way to make it worse. 30 melee power also seems super low for a geared barbarian, but I'm not about to TR just to prove you wrong. Alas.

"SoS is jut a falchion with 6 extra multiplier every 20 swings worth 30% more base damage, or 39 damage/hit against targets you can crit"
Let's address that though. It's a 30% chance of x5 damage. That's a big number after all. An easy way to look at it is critical units. That's 24 critical units. Effectively, that's double your base damage - and some. Unfortunately, you run into the minor issue of every crit kills any target in heroics, so a bit of that is wasted. Oh well. On a standard, say, paladin - you're looking at 35% chance of x4 damage. Or 21 critical units. Close, but not quite. Nevermind the base damage paladin lacks, unless you're pretending you have max stacks for +75 melee power, which you don't in the majority of quests.
But of course, you don't have that - you said a crafted option. So 25% chance of x3 damage. Or 10 critical units.

Easiest way to think of a critical unit - though it can differ, due to seeker - is your base damage of 20 attacks is 19 hits. So 19 critical units -> 19 hits -> your average from 20 attacks. With a crafted sword you're looking at 29 units, with sos you're looking at 40, or 44 for barb. So it's a third more damage OR 8d6 elemental. If 8d6 elemental damage is worth more, well, that sounds like a slow and painful life to get through. I try to avoid those.

Finally, let's address the most confusing part of what you said. "Because your sorc/alch/druid/whatever cleared the weaker trash".
A good nuker will clear the entire room, including the reaper. Why would there be reapers left? Maybe it survived the DFB or the firestorm, but you sprint past, turn around, throw of a second one and keep sprint boosting. Not like bluebar is meaningful these days.
Why do you assume that I'm levelling with one?
And finally, why do you assume any degree of competency on their end? For all the people soloing r10 on a sorc, or carrying it, there's a dozen that are struggling to make r1 heroic sorc work somehow.

[magaiti]

Easiest way to think of a critical unit - though it can differ, due to seeker - is your base damage of 20 attacks is 19 hits. So 19 critical units -> 19 hits -> your average from 20 attacks. With a crafted sword you're looking at 29 units, with sos you're looking at 40, or 44 for barb. So it's a third more damage OR 8d6 elemental. If 8d6 elemental damage is worth more, well, that sounds like a slow and painful life to get through. I try to avoid those.

The point is that FB has 19 + 18 damage units on a falchion, and sos only has 6 more, which is only 16% increase. The overkill only makes it worse.
SoS has better weapon die than falchion (2d6 vs 2d4), and that should be taken into account. But Cannith-crafted falchion can have 4 damage procs (2 crafted, 2 slotted).
I would not bet on SoS coming on top. Though I'm too lazy to test it rigorously myself.

[Scrag]

After extensive playtest and getting advice from various class forums on dark apostates and rangers and ranged all the things, I came up with this oddness:

14 dark apostate (war domain, holy sword)
4 dark hunter (precise shot, 2h weapons rapid shot, traps)
2 rogue (traps, imbue dice)

9 assassin (3 imbue dice)
41 inquisitive (7 imbue dice)
30 dark apostate (lots of stuff, + 4 imbue dice)

(total 14 + the base damage die)

d6 evil (scales with align spell power)
d4/d8 lawful/unlawful (scales with ranged power)
d8 poison damage (scales with ranged power)

I have an imbue attack for pretty much anything out there.

It is built for self buff/self sustain (inflict mass wounds, trapping, buffs, dark judgement, return to dusk + incap). Dd, locks, search are all max'd at level 20. I am running a supreme 8, so there is that. I am unsure if this would work without that tome, but it might.

Class level pick I am still looking at to see how I can further maximize skill points. (edit, seems I can only gain 1 more skill point pushing, so no real point)

I can bow till I have enough AP to reset everything and dive deep into inquis ~level 10.

[magaiti]

After extensive playtest and getting advice from various class forums on dark apostates and rangers and ranged all the things, I came up with this oddness:

14 dark apostate (war domain, holy sword)
4 dark hunter (precise shot, 2h weapons rapid shot, traps)
2 rogue (traps, imbue dice)

9 assassin (3 imbue dice)
41 inquisitive (7 imbue dice)
30 dark apostate (lots of stuff, + 4 imbue dice)

(total 14 + the base damage die)

Why DH over regular ranger, you already have traps from rogue, and missing on AA imbue dice. You probably can shave some AP from apostate.

[Scrag]

Why DH over regular ranger, you already have traps from rogue, and missing on AA imbue dice. You probably can shave some AP from apostate.

I will be honest, I was thinking about plain ranger of dh. I just REALLY hate traps. Rogue stuff are all class skill for dh, which means less points for all the rogue bits.

According to ddobuilder, at 20 I have (no gear included) a base disable device of 50. Going plain ranger nets me a loss of (29?) base rogue-ish skill points, since it would all end up being cross class.

Thats a lot of rogue skills to lose.

[Fauxknight]

Any Archer right now is heavy dependant on the Horizon Walker tree, so get that if you don't have.

Honest question: How so?


I've been under the impression that Deepwood Stalker is a significantly better tree, outside of non-Rangers who obviously don't have access to DS.

[magaiti]

DW has better DPs, say spreadsheet warriors.
When you stand still and shoot at marked target for minutes.
That scenario usually doesn't work out in quests.