Disclaimer: Do not reproduce this guide on any site, anywhere, ever. Especially Sleepywood and BasilMarket.
Why? Because I am a huge troll.
Before we directly get into it however, I must first describe how the new critical works.
Critical
Every character has a natural 5% chance to do Critical damage. The Archer's Critical Shot adds 40% chance on top of this default 5%, resulting in 45% Critical Rate. Critical damage ranges anywhere between 1.2x to 1.5x damage without any other skills involved. Sharp Eyes for example changes this range to between 1.2x to 1.8x inclusive.
Since Criticals multiply your base damage, they will affect every single skill the exact same way. Skills that have more hits over a period of time no longer gain a significant bonus to damage from Criticals. Now, for a skill to be better than another, it must do more base damage. Critical will affect both in the same ratio, so a skill that does 100% vs a skill that does 25%x4 is the same.
As you can clearly see, it is identical. The skill that hit four times merely factored out a four from the base damages. Hitting Criticals on all four shots results in the same damage as hitting a single Critical on the one-hit skill. The only significance in a multihit skill is stability.
Double Shot is bad. It does the same DPS on one target as maxed Arrow Bomb and Arrow Bomb/Iron Arrow. You should be OHKOing everything with Arrow Blow. If anyone tells you to max Double Shot, they're stupid. The largest obstacle in training in 1st job is range. Without range, Arrow Blow can barely hit anything. Arrow Blow adds more damage than Critical Shot. Double Shot is worthless and last.
Arrow Bomb/Iron Arrow is the most important thing immediately since it lets you kill pomegranate fast. Mastery adds more damage than putting points into Arrow Bomb/Iron Arrow. Booster is a 1.125x increase in DPS. Anyone who says to not get booster. If you need the STR to equip a Bow or Crossbow, add points into Physical training to do so earlier. Mastery marginally adds more damage than Physical Training's DEX boost unless you're really bad. If you really give a pomegranate about spending like 10 000 mesos on arrows training from 30~49, you can add points into Soul Arrow. Double Jump is pretty terrible. A single point goes nowhere and just burns MP. No maps really require Double Jump to travel across that early. There's no such thing as dodging this early. Final Attack doesn't add significant improvement to mob skills, but Bow Masters will need it later for Advanced Final Attack. It does add some improvement though, unlike more points into Booster/Soul Arrow. Golden Eagle and Silver Hawk are pretty useless. Everything should die to OHKO or 2HKO of your mob skills. All they would do is stun things or aggro things you're not attacking.
3rd Job
1. +1 Inferno/Blizzard
2. +1 Drain Arrow.
3. Max Attacking Skill
4a. Max Support Skill if you need it
4a. Max Concentrate if you don't need the second attacking skill yet
4c. Max 2nd attacking skill
5. Max Bird
3rd job follows a less organized method. 1st point should always be in Inferno and Blizzard. These completely replace Arrow Bomb and Iron Arrow, except that Iron Arrow can pierce through targets, possibly hitting more than Blizzard's splash allows. Rangers should add one point into Drain Arrow at 71. Snipers don't require Dragon Pulse, as monsters shouldn't survive long enough to need to be pushed yet. Phoenix and Frostprey are up to the user. One point won't hurt since you can always just not summon it if it gets in your way, and it might help you train, unlike Hawk/Eagle.
Next, you can decide if you want to go Arrow Rain/Eruption first, or max Inferno/Blizzard. Arrow Rain/Eruption benefits maps where you don't need to move often. Inferno/Blizzard lets you hit things further away from you, and benefits jump shooting a lot more, especially since it's a faster skill. Either is a good choice. My opinion is Blizzard/Inferno is for training on monsters close to your level, aiming for really low hits to kill, and moving around, and Arrow Rain/Eruption is for training in higher level areas where you're more likely to take many hits to kill and miss a bit more often, allowing you to actually gather a mob at the same time.
After maxing one attacking skill, you can choose to either max the second attacking skill, Concentrate, or the supporting attack skill next. 20 attack is an okay buff and it stacks with potions. A second attacking skill may or may not be useful depending on how weak/strong you are and how useful your first skill is to your style.
If you're finding monsters not dying quickly as a Sniper, you can start getting Dragon Pulse next. Ideally, monsters would die faster than the necessity to push them.
If you want to stop using HP potions as a Ranger, get more points into Drain Arrow.
The rest of the order doesn't actually matter. Phoenix/Frostprey can stun/freeze and do more damage to help train. Evasion Boost provides a small avoid boost. Puppet is worthless in training. Mortal Blow doesn't actually help since things don't die to more than 6 hits.
As a Ranger, max everything except Strafe.
As a Sniper, max everything except Mortal Blow.
Just so I don't make a new thread. JoeTang helped me with this.
Mathematically, this is the order for highest DPS. SE will add more damage than SL if you have +% total damage or +10% critical hit rate, but the HP Boost is important to consider. Marksmanship can be moved up if you fight things with 25%+ PDR a lot. In theory, it should beat Expert/Marksman's Boost for the 10 point increase (Expert from 1~11 vs 0~10 Marksmanship) at 190+ Weapon Attack vs 25%+ PDR.
For Marksmen, you would go
120: +1 Pierce, +1 Ultimate Strafe +1 Marksman's Boost
121: +1 Snipe, +1 Elite Puppet, +1 Spirit Link
If you train on single targets often for whatever reason, Ultimate Strafe > Snipe ~ Marksman's Boost ~ Marksmanship.
In theory, you require 252+ Attack for the damage increase from Pierce to match that of Marksman's Boost on the first monster. This doesn't account for the scaling or the mob increase though, so it's closer to preference for the Marksman since points into Pierce is more about utility than sheer DPS.
The most important aspect of adding points to Snipe is the cooldown decrease. You won't see much returns from it until you hit those breakpoints, and the damage cap makes it less useful if you're that strong.
Marksmanship should provide a stronger per-point bonus than Marksman's Boost (1~11) if you have more than 190watk vs 25%+ DEF Monsters.
In theory, the difference from 1 Snipe and 30 Snipe, with maxed Ultimate Strafe is 1.28x damage, on a 40% DEF monster. According to this, as long as you don't hit the damage cap, you require 182 attack or more for Snipe > Marksman's Boost. Otherwise, Marksman's Boost > Snipe and should be maxed first.
The rest should follow the same as a Bow Master's build, where you have Pierce, Ultimate Strafe, Snipe, Mastery, and likely Marksmanship maxed before putting maxing Spirit Link and SE.
There's the option for Snipers to max Thrust at the expense of max Blizzard. The only reason to get 20 Blizzard instead of 16 is because level 22 Blizzard has a 4 second freeze, but honestly, the only times I can think of where you'd be partying with a Paladin or White Knight is if you're bossing. Bosses can't be frozen and Mages should be the mob control (if you were using Blizzard for that, which is stupid).
The ghetto boys are catcalling me
As I pull my keys from my pocket
I wonder if this method of courtship
Has ever been effective
Has any girl in history said
Sure, you seem so nice, let's get it on
There's the option for Snipers to max Thrust at the expense of max Blizzard. The only reason to get 20 Blizzard instead of 16 is because level 22 Blizzard has a 4 second freeze, but honestly, the only times I can think of where you'd be partying with a Paladin or White Knight is if you're bossing. Bosses can't be frozen and Mages should be the mob control (if you were using Blizzard for that, which is stupid).
plus someone said on the Combat orders thread that CO only raises 4th job skills past max level
There's the option for Snipers to max Thrust at the expense of max Blizzard. The only reason to get 20 Blizzard instead of 16 is because level 22 Blizzard has a 4 second freeze, but honestly, the only times I can think of where you'd be partying with a Paladin or White Knight is if you're bossing. Bosses can't be frozen and Mages should be the mob control (if you were using Blizzard for that, which is stupid).
There are other ways to raise skill levels outside of Combat Orders. Thrust is such a low priority skill since you can easily gain max speed from equipment. Six Thrust is already 18 speed. Add in 10 from a Speed Pill and you're 12 from max. You can get another 10 from your Crossbow since every other stat that comes from those is useless. I'd rather Blizzard do the extra damage every time I attack than move a little faster. If you want the extra speed, go for it. I won't stop you. But the main reason everyone caps Blizzard at 21 for the 3 second freeze is because the extra 9 skill points spent to max it give the exact same damage increase one skill point does in Big Bang.
Originally Posted by MariaColette
Just something I should point out while glancing through this...
Can Blizzard crit now? If so, it'll no longer be this weak piece of pomegranate you never use for anything but freezing. You can actually use it where you'd otherwise use Iron Arrow. Speed is easy to get. Thrust doesn't need to be maxed.
There are other ways to raise skill levels outside of Combat Orders. Thrust is such a low priority skill since you can easily gain max speed from equipment. Six Thrust is already 18 speed. Add in 10 from a Speed Pill and you're 12 from max. You can get another 10 from your Crossbow since every other stat that comes from those is useless. I'd rather Blizzard do the extra damage every time I attack than move a little faster. If you want the extra speed, go for it. I won't stop you. But the main reason everyone caps Blizzard at 21 for the 3 second freeze is because the extra 9 skill points spent to max it give the exact same damage increase one skill point does in Big Bang.
What other ways are they? And Speed Pills have the unfortunate feature of using up Use slots, which could be a problem. Dark Nescheres, Dragon Shiner Crosses and Reverse Black Beauties are far more expensive than Golden or White Nescheres, so there's that, too.
Anyways, I'm just saying there's the option. Either way you aren't losing too much.
Can Blizzard crit now? If so, it'll no longer be this weak piece of pomegranate you never use for anything but freezing. You can actually use it where you'd otherwise use Iron Arrow. Speed is easy to get. Thrust doesn't need to be maxed.
I'm inclined to say no, but I haven't seen it yet. Maybe when I get some more time after Wings of Liberty, I'll reach 70 and confirm. 400% isn't crap damage anymore though, especially since there are ice-weak areas you can go to. And Blizzard can curve. One of the thinks that annoys me every time I see a ramp and switch to Arrow Blow.
Originally Posted by McAwesomesauce
What other ways are they? And Speed Pills have the unfortunate feature of using up Use slots, which could be a problem. Dark Nescheres, Dragon Shiner Crosses and Reverse Black Beauties are far more expensive than Golden or White Nescheres, so there's that, too.
Anyways, I'm just saying there's the option. Either way you aren't losing too much.
You can get them from items, and who needs more Use slots?
Today (Aug 1st) I spent a point into Power Knock-back to see what effectiveness it had. It's changed quite a bit. It has an action delay that prevents you from spamming it, but you can use other attacks immediately afterwards instead. It also pushes monsters almost instantly instead of slowly sliding them, but the distance at level one isn't too useful. You also cannot use it in mid-air, like every other Archer skill, but it is Jump-Shoot-able like every other Archer skill. It does limit its utility for clearing ledges you're attempting to go on, but its 100% Knock-back at level 20 and instant movement shouldn't be bad, especially compared to spending points on an obsolete first job skill. Yes, you should have maxed Focus.
Use slots are useful for those of us who say, collect quest drops, hoard scrolls or use ciders or whatnot.
Anyways, can you stack Dodge with Blind so you can increase your critical rate? If so, it might not be useless. AE to Blind monsters and crit everything as you keep spamming AE.
According to this, Marksmen and Bowmasters get an additional skill, that thing with the bullseye and the purple + mark. What does that do? And I'm guessing the extra skill BMs with the icon similar to that of PKB is some kind of super PKB? That seems useless with PKB and DB.
The skill with bulls-eye is Marksmanship. It bypasses enemies defenses at a set rate and passively adds HP to archers. The BM skill is Vengeance, I'm not too sure about that does.
As for the first job build, I got max Arrow Blow and it's great, really speeds up early training, and you won't really need single target much until around 3rd job at least, I also didn't get focus, since accuracy doesn't seem necessary once you are past the monster level, I put 20 in arrow blow and 16 in double shot in the end. I must mention that no minimal range is a god send.
Use slots are useful for those of us who say, collect quest drops, hoard scrolls or use ciders or whatnot.
Anyways, can you stack Dodge with Blind so you can increase your critical rate? If so, it might not be useless. AE to Blind monsters and crit everything as you keep spamming AE.
According to this, Marksmen and Bowmasters get an additional skill, that thing with the bullseye and the purple + mark. What does that do? And I'm guessing the extra skill BMs with the icon similar to that of PKB is some kind of super PKB? That seems useless with PKB and DB.
I would prioritise Marksmanship earlier if you intend to Horntail or Zakum a lot. I otherwise feel that Sharp Eyes, Hurricane/Pierce take higher priority, and as well as Expertise. I would say it's more useful than Hamstring, though I'm not sure about Blind. The idea for Blind + Dodge is interesting, and I'll definitely check out how that works if I ever get to fourth job. Vengeance I've personally never seen in effect so I have no idea how useful it is, but it basically pushes away any monster that hits you while doing significant damage to them. It's passive.
I would prioritise Marksmanship earlier if you intend to Horntail or Zakum a lot. I otherwise feel that Sharp Eyes, Hurricane/Pierce take higher priority, and as well as Expertise. I would say it's more useful than Hamstring, though I'm not sure about Blind. The idea for Blind + Dodge is interesting, and I'll definitely check out how that works if I ever get to fourth job. Vengeance I've personally never seen in effect so I have no idea how useful it is, but it basically pushes away any monster that hits you while doing significant damage to them. It's passive.
It doesn't necessarily have to be with Blind, you could try it with Focus. Characters that already exist that will have to reapply SP won't have a use for Improved Fundamentals (IFM?) or AB/DS, so I'll probably max Focus.
Vengeance seems pretty useless since literally every other Bowman skill is made to keep monsters from getting near you. It's the No-means-no character of MapleStory.
Would think some skills would be pretty useless later on. Since there's no more x/bow whacking, mortal blow and power knockback would have even more limited uses. The auto-kill from mortal blow doesn't seem all that appetizing to me... but I think at least dragon breath would end up close to replacing power knockback?
Dragon breath is pretty useful for a marksman for collecting mobs together for piercing arrow in training.
I rarely to never use blizzard while training now since frostprey does the job for me, so blizzard isn't all that important? o.o
Mortal Blow no longer has anything to do with close range shooting. It's just a passive ability to instantly kill monsters at low HP. I agree that it's completely useless unless you're training on monsters that take you many hits to kill.
Yeah I know, the stronger you get, the more obsolete mortal blow gets. If it includes the reduced exp part while being passive, that would make it even less appealing to put points into it.
But that's just it. You want to level up to the point where MB is useless, and it's faster getting there with MB. Likewise, adding points into Arrow Blow or Double Shot helps you level up quickly, and get to 3rd Job and replace it with Strafe.
But that's just it. You want to level up to the point where MB is useless, and it's faster getting there with MB. Likewise, adding points into Arrow Blow or Double Shot helps you level up quickly, and get to 3rd Job and replace it with Strafe.
Max MB: 20% chance of 1hkoing a monster with 30% or less HP. What monsters are you training on that take more than 4 hits to kill?
Players that already has a high level or plan on going longterm with an archer, would be better to skip out or avoid putting more points than needed on some skills, especially ones that eventually will become obsolete or never use anymore. Unless you're going to do a build that has no extra points to dump them into?
[Ascension] Archer Skill Builds
Originally Posted by Locked
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