cRPG
cRPG => Beginner's Help and Guides => Guides => Topic started by: Rumblood on May 21, 2011, 06:59:22 am
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Re: Archer/hybrid
If you are set on trying a archer/2h or polearm, be aware that you will be making hard decisions every map for your equipment. I suggest you go 1hander, but here's some builds:
When building my hybrid archers, I distribute my skill points to Power Strike, Power Draw, Athletics, and Weapon Mastery. Briefly, on those items so that you understand why certain builds are gimp:
Power Strike - The lowest I would go with this skill is a 5. Even then, it can be frustrating as melee to have to hit someone as many times as you do to bring them down. My latest opinion is that 7 is the best compromise in damage, while retaining points for other skills.
Power Draw - This is the pre-requisite for your bows. As a result, if you want to be able to use any bow, you must get a minimum of 6 PD. However, a build that goes for the Strong Bow as its best bow is viable. Just remember that PD affects how much damage you do. While you will be faster shooting, it will take 1-3 or 4 more arrows per target.
Athletics - I used to think that the higher the athletics the better. Helps to "run and gun" with the bow, and helps you dance with melee. With the recent patches, however, it doesn't give you the pronounced advantage that it once did. Now I believe that 3 athletics is adequate, while 6 is probably where the cost/benefit peaks.
Weapon Mastery - Its difficult to say where you should be on WM. You could go as low as 4 WM, but that would leave you with around 135-140 wpf in archery and 1 wpf in melee, but that wouldnt really make you a hybrid, just an archer who takes up space where arrows could be with a large weapon. More on wpf needs in a bit, but I recommend you go at least 6 in WM.
Archery WPF - How much you need depends upon the bow. Lower tier bows need less for accuracy, but as a general rule, my opinion is that you should have a minimum of 125 wpf for any bow. You will have minimal accuracy, meaning that it will take several arrows and some luck to hit reliably at the bows max range -10%. I would only go that low if you are needing the wpf for your weapon due to low Weapon Mastery. Bear in mind that pure archers and even archery slanted hybrids will own you. 135 wpf gets better, but I recommend 145-150 wpf even if a hybrid. Make up for melee wpf with WM.
Melee WPF - Unless you plan to gimp yourself as an archer, you won't be getting above around 85-100 wpf in melee. The good news is, that is adequate except vs a pure melee build and vs those guys you should already have put a few arrows into them to even the playing field. Minimum is 50 wpf to qualify as a hybrid (and notice a difference in your ability to melee). Because of this, you will be slower than most. To compensate, I suggest going with the faster weapons, rather than slower higher damage ones. You can only damage someone if you hit them, and with some weapons you will be slow that a decent blocking melee will just block your feeble attempts at an attack and then spam you down.
Okay, so with those baselines, we can begin to see how our build options begin to play out. Briefly on Attributes:
Strength - You need 3 strength per skill point in Power Draw and Power Strike. It also adds hitpoints, which increases your survivability.
Agility - You need 3 agility per skill point in Athletics and Weapon Mastery
As you can see from above, you will want your build to be in increments of 3. Following my guidelines above, you will see that you should have a minimum of 15 strength and a minimum of 12 agility. So for the extreme builds, you can go with a 15 str/24 agi build, or the opposite 27 str/12 agi. (You'll notice that you can only get these numbers by converting skill point into attributes, don't forget and spend them somewhere else!) This results in a 5PD 5PS 8 Ath 8 WM build, or a 9PD 9PS 4Ath 4WM.
My suggestion to you is to start with the 18/21 or 21/18 builds. In addition, with your choice of 2h/polearm, balanced also makes more sense. Slots is the reason why the extreme builds will likely cause you grief.
So on to your weapons and armor. Armor is easy. Wear as light as you can. Sarranid Leather Armor and Sarranid Leather boots is a good baseline. The worse your archery wpf, the lighter you will want to go. If you get 150 wpf, you can wear something as heavy as Sarranid Guard armor, but you will fell like you are down to 120-125 wpf accuracy. Not a bad tradeoff on short maps where you know you will have to melee. You won't wear plate.
Weapons are more complicated due to the restricted number of slots.
If you are going 2 hander, you will be using 2 slots. Yes the spiked mace takes 1 slot, but if you are going use that, you may as well just go 1 hander for better weapons and choices.
Polearms give you more options. Based on that alone, if you are sold on going other than 1 hander, I would choose polearms.
As you only have 4 slots, here are the extremes that you can have:
Strongbow or below
Stack of arrows x3
Warbow/Longbow
Stack of arrow x2
0 slot 1 hander
Strong bow or below
Stack of arrows x2
1 slot polearm
Warbow/Longbow
Stack of arrows x1
1 slot polearm (weak melee)
Strongbow or below
Stack of arrows x1
2 slot polearm
As you can see, only the bottom 3 loadouts make sense as a hybrid player. Notice that you can't use the strongest bows with a 2 slot polearm. This is an issue if you decide (for instance) to masterwork a warbow and a bec de corbin. You will never be able to use them together. In fact, the Archer/Polearm build means that you will either sacrifice certain loadouts for heirloom choice, or only use your heirlooms on a situational basis. To be fair, the Archer/1h hybrid has a similiar issue, but can at least use an heirloomed warbow/longbow at the same time as their heirloomed 1 hander.
Anyhow, hope this has given you enough information to choose a build and be happy with it. Lots of choices, and these recommendations are based upon my own experience with both extremes as well as the middle roads as far as attributes go.
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1. Epic wall of text :p
2. This looks a lot like a guide, not general discussion... so it should of gone in the guide section, not general discussion.
3. "To Pie" has nothing to do with anything.... change the name of the thread
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Saw wall of text... scrolled down... read like 4 words and didn't give a shit
wrong section, you are less credible than my dead dog. L2Awesomebar
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Haha thanks rum for the great and detailed information. Really cleared up a lot for me. Good readable guide.
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erm... ok.... so im going to assume this was intented as a personal message?.... use the PM feature then :|
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So Many flamers against a good read coming from a good source.
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Thanks Goretooth. :wink:
Let me know how you like your build Pie (and which one you go with). I'd be interested in the difficulties you encounter and how you overcome them :idea:
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So far my biggest problem with my polearm hybrid is that the polearm literally is in the crosshairs... Its annoying and I have to use first person
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So what's with WPF requirements for bows? I am level 24 with 5 PD and 130 WPF, I find if I wear the heaviest armor I get a message saying my WPF isn't high enough. I heard that each level of PD adds 17 WPF requirement, is this true? I plan to raise my PD to 7, and my WM to 6 for a WPF of 148. Is there any way for me to tell how much armor I can wear?
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Rumor on the street says 14wpf per PD. Keep in mind that anything above 5lbs is going to drastically cut down on your wpf, and things like heraldric mail are a significant hit.
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Yeah I'm currently wearing an heirloomed kuyak which is 13lbs, so I'm sure that's part of the problem. I noticed the problem when my wpf was 117 and I increased my helmet weight from 2.0 to 2.5 so I'm guessing my 21/15 build is just barely gonna squeak by. Will my accuracy be bad if I'm just barely over the wpf requirement for my bow? I plan to have 7 PD and 148 WPF.
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Yeah I'm currently wearing an heirloomed kuyak which is 13lbs, so I'm sure that's part of the problem. I noticed the problem when my wpf was 117 and I increased my helmet weight from 2.0 to 2.5 so I'm guessing my 21/15 build is just barely gonna squeak by. Will my accuracy be bad if I'm just barely over the wpf requirement for my bow? I plan to have 7 PD and 148 WPF.
Hmm, keep in mind that (According to Aldryk and the rest of Chaos/RS, you specifically are going to hang if I am wrong on this) some items count as more weight then they are for determining wpf penalties. Gloves for example count as X2, and something else as X3 (helmets I think).
7PD works very well with that high of wpf (I have 153 wpf myself but that is close enough) and use a Felt Cap, Wrapped Leggings (used to be nomad boots), Tribal Warriors outfit and Red Wisby Gauntlets and my accuracy is just fine.
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PieParadox
So far my biggest problem with my polearm hybrid is that the polearm literally is in the crosshairs... Its annoying and I have to use first person
Which polearm do you use?
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I know you can find it in the old forums and i've never seen patch notes that it changed... gloves and helm count a lot more on the weight penalty
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I know you can find it in the old forums and i've never seen patch notes that it changed... gloves and helm count a lot more on the weight penalty
It does, its like 2x and 3x. As a result, I never wear either one of them. Better off wearing heavier chest or legs than using helm or gloves. Not like you will survive a headshot from the majority of weapons anyhow.
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PieParadox
Which polearm do you use?
Well I discontinued my build and retired at level 15 because archery didn't pertain to me.
I used the military scythe, which is a rather small polearm and it gets in the way when you pull back on the bow. He shifts his back so that the top of the polearm juts into the crosshairs.
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Sorry to hear that Pie. Archery is probably the most frustrating class to play as the only measure for how well you do is kills (and whether your team wins or not, which is a poor metric for an individual). If horse kills were tracked, or assists, it would likely be more rewarding. As is, you have feast or famine. I've landed 5 arrows for 5 kills, and I've landed 20 arrows and killed 5 horses for a 0 score. You just have to learn to live with it :wink:
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Would a hybrid 1h archer use a shield? Or is that more of a situational kind of thing? Get enough shield rating for a minimally efficient shield, but not bank a lot of work into it, since come longbow or warbow you'd be looking at 2 slot bow, 1 slot 1h, and then arrows.
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I play my Archer like this:
Strength 18
Agility 19 (going to be 21, but im only lvl 28 right now)
PS 3
Ath 6 (going to be 7)
PD 6
WM 6 (going to be 7)
with atm 146 (will be 159) in archery and 54 (will be 57) in pole.
I use Strong Bow 2x Bodkin and a Quarter Staff for backup.
Strong Bow with PD 6 does quite good dmg, and the Quarter Staff is fast and has a nice range to keep your enemy at distance + the chance to knock down your enemy which can save your ass many times. I figured out for me that athletics 6 is a bit to slow, i think with athl 7 you are fast enough for most enemys.
This is not very Hybrid, the Staff is just the backup, but most of the times the enemy underestimate an archer with a stick in his hands so they go into the fight very offensive.
I got more kills with my stick than you might think.
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My soon to be archer hybrid
Strength: 21
Agility: 15
Hit points: 66
Skills to attributes: 2
Ironflesh: 5
Power Strike: 7
Athletics: 5
Power Draw: 7
Weapon Master: 5
One Handed: 60
Archery: 140
Frankly, I have one hand prof more for stylistic reasons then to actually defend myself. However, high ps and a fast (98+ speed) one hander makes up for the low wpf. Against good, high armoured targets I'll likely die in melee unless they've been damaged previously,
Archery prof is on the low end, I'll be using mainly a khergit bow (loomed) though so it shouldn't be a problem speedwise or for my intended range (short-medium).
Alternatively I could convert all of the IF and possibly some ps/ath for either 18 agi so I could get another WM point (leads to 90 onehander or 148 archery) or 24 str for 8 pd.
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That looks like a good build ShinySpoons. That IF can help you take an extra arrow or strike, which is enough for you to win an archer duel or get in another blow on that heavy chain wearing xbow user or plated 2h spammer. Let me know how it goes 8-)
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Okay, this may be my ultimate hybrid archer build. It gives you riding, ground archer, and melee skills. Basically the minimum in all 3, so you will have to compensate in each area with skill. You won't be a master in anything, but you shouldn't find yourself gimped because of the map or dehorsing.
It's a lvl 31 build. Uses Strong Bow. I prefer a long 1 hander because of slot restrictions, and 1 wpf in polearm is not undoable if you find the need to lance on some open maps.
Recommended path is to first get to 15 strength so that you can wield your primary weapons, getting PD and PS up first so you are at least effective when you do hit. Put all WPF into Archery until at least 140, though really should try to wait until 150 before putting into melee.
EDIT: Building this way, the build became viable as a HA at level 19. From there it just gets better every level :D
Level 31
Strength: 15
Agility: 21
Hit points: 50
Skills to attributes: 0
Ironflesh: 0
Power Strike: 5
Shield: 0
Athletics: 4
Riding: 7
Horse Archery: 3
Power Draw: 5
Power Throw: 0
Weapon Master: 7
One Handed: 55
Two Handed: 1
Polearm: 1
Archery: 150
Crossbow: 1
Throwing: 1
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bump...
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Putting this in a handy place to find again:
open item_kinds1.txt in your cRPG folder with notepad and replace these
barbed_arrows_flying_h1
bodkin_arrows_flying_h1
tatar_arrows_flying_h1
arrows_flying_h1
with
flying_missile
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What is best set for archer?
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For Friendly.
There is no best set IMO.