Archer AT Pros & Cons

[Chris24601]

So I’m looking at rolling up an archer concept and was wondering about the pros and cons of...

 

1) Archery/Tactical Arrow Blaster

2) Archery/Trick Arrow Corruptor

3) Trick Arrow/Archery Defender

4) Archery/??? Sentinel

 

Not really looking at pet classes; but if there’s anything notable about Ninja/Trick Arrow Masterminds, that’d be on point (ba dum bum) too.

[Redlynne]

3 hours ago, Chris24601 said:

1) Archery/Tactical Arrow Blaster

This is going to be your best option.  Tactical Arrow is what "Trick" Arrow (who are you tricking? the PLAYERS??!) honestly wishes it was and could be.  You don't lose much (if anything?) out of the debuffing of Trick Arrow and you get MUCH better damage production out of Archery.  Choose this if you're going to play a "pure" archery type of character.

3 hours ago, Chris24601 said:

2) Archery/Trick Arrow Corruptor

3) Trick Arrow/Archery Defender

Trick Arrow, as mentioned above, is just flat out/no questions asked INFERIOR to Tactical Arrow for Blasters.  Don't believe me?  Cross compare the T1 power between the Archetypes.  On top of that, Defenders and Corruptors will output less damage with Archery than a Blaster will ... except in the context of Scourge for Corruptors hitting a $Target that's below 50% HP, but that's functionally an edge case scenario since you won't Scourge on every hit.  In aggregate, a Blaster will do more damage on a consistent basis than a Corruptor will, since the Corruptor damage output is not as consistent due to Scourge.

3 hours ago, Chris24601 said:

4) Archery/??? Sentinel

Can't help you there ... although I'd like to imagine that Archery/Ninjitsu might be an interesting combo.

3 hours ago, Chris24601 said:

Not really looking at pet classes; but if there’s anything notable about Ninja/Trick Arrow Masterminds, that’d be on point (ba dum bum) too.

NO.

Friends do not allow friends to think that Ninja/Trick Arrow will EVER be worth the blood sweat and tears of playing.

 

I speak from experience.  I played a Ninja/Trick Arrow Mastermind to Incarnate levels on Virtue.

NEVER AGAIN.

 

To quote a great philosopher ... "This is wrong tool. No ... no. Never use this."

[Haijinx]

Blaster

Archery/Tactical is the only choice really.

 

Since the choice is good damage+best pure ranged secondary with excellent survival tools.

 

Vs.

 

Meh damage+ a support set that has never been a top performer.

 

 

 

 

[Roderick]

5 hours ago, Redlynne said:

Trick Arrow, as mentioned above, is just flat out/no questions asked INFERIOR to Tactical Arrow for Blasters.  Don't believe me?  Cross compare the T1 power between the Archetypes.  On top of that, Defenders and Corruptors will output less damage with Archery than a Blaster will ... except in the context of Scourge for Corruptors hitting a $Target that's below 50% HP, but that's functionally an edge case scenario since you won't Scourge on every hit.  In aggregate, a Blaster will do more damage on a consistent basis than a Corruptor will, since the Corruptor damage output is not as consistent due to Scourge.

Not to mention that Blasters also get an inherent that boosts their (already superior) damage. Defiance buffs are smaller than Scourge's, but they apply to every attack except the first one (since the buff is applied after the damage is dealt). And the +Damage in the Defender's inherent is about as good as 1-2 stacks of Defiance. When they even have it.

 

Plus they get Build Up, while all the other classes only get Aim (and the Blaster can take Aim too, if they feel it's necessary). AND their Build Up is full strength, even though it has a brief +Recharge effect, when most other Build Ups with extra effects give slightly less +Damage.

 

Its T1 attack is a full strength attack and an immobilize, which admittedly isn't as big of a deal any more; most are like that now, though I remember when you got an immobilize with little or no damage.

 

It gets an AoE hold that stops minions and Lts and (with some work) can be made permanent plus a single target hold that deals (minor) damage and is permanent out of the box, so you can lock down a boss when combined with the AoE hold, or once enhanced can lock down a boss by itself, or be combined with the AoE to lock down multiple bosses.

 

I personally consider the slow and blind skippable on a blaster, but they're still good, and I'm sure there are people that use them.

 

Then add a Quickness clone, Combat Jumping and Acrobatics clones squished into one power (that stack with regular CJ and Acro, if you want), and Targeting Drone baked into their survival toggle, and you have a secondary that is borderline OP.

 

The only drawback is that it causes redraw when you use any of the bow powers. But that doesn't apply when paired with Archery, and actually eliminates the redraw penalty Archery suffers with other secondaries.

 

tldr:

4 hours ago, Haijinx said:

Archery/Tactical is the only choice really.

 

[biostem]

On 12/31/2019 at 5:42 PM, Chris24601 said:

4) Archery/??? Sentinel

Archery/Bio Armor can be very powerful for Sentinels.  Your damage won't be as high as a Blaster's, but your survivability will be greater.  Ninjitsu is also a pretty good secondary, but you trade Bio Armor's extra damage buff for more utility, (stealth, some controls later on, etc).

[Chris24601]

So, a little update on this; I rolled the blaster, but also gave a corruptor a shot just to see how the differences felt.

 

My biggest note is that one reason I didn’t see above that I think really sets Tac Arrow apart from Trick Arrow on an archery build is the way it helps cover up one of archery’s big weaknesses; it’s rather resisted damage type.

 

Trick Arrow has the same early level of control/debuff as Tac Arrow, but doesn’t open up the damage any... you’re still stuck with Archery’s lethal with a bit of smashing in the explosive arrow and a smattering of fire damage in the fire arrow and later by igniting the oil slick.

 

The difference that the significant energy damage in the spammable electro-net, plus some cold damage and some toxic damage cannot be understated.

 

The first particularly helps against foes like undead and robots who traditionally resist lethal pretty hard, but are generally weak to energy.

 

I know in one situation where I faced the Dirge of Chaos the corruptor had no problem locking it down with ice arrow, but it took forever to wear through it’s health and those times where you saw the health tick up just slightly were frustrating.

 

I took the Blaster up against ot and not only did the increased damage in general help, but the stacks of electro-nets made its health drop steadly and much more rapidly (still not as rapidly as something that isn’t so lethal resistant, but enough to not feel completely gimped).

 

So to conclude; it’s not just the “more damage” that helps Tac Arrow shine; It’s the fact that all it’s added damage is of types that aren’t found in Archery and so help against targets Archery is traditionally weakest against.

[Coyote]

As a note, if I ran Trick Arrows (which I plan to do with Robots since the Bot rifle attacks are terrible), I'd always slot Acid Arrow and Ice Arrow with damage procs, to get some different damage types into the attack cycle.

[Talionis]

I’ll point out you can play Trick Arrow on Controllers.  Trick Arrow allows for stacking holds and some decent control elements that supplement a Controller play style well. 

[Coyote]

8 hours ago, Talionis said:

Trick Arrow allows for stacking holds and some decent control elements that supplement a Controller play style well. 

 

I actually like Trick Arrow with a Mind primary. It's probably the only way I'd play a Mind Controller... TA adds in damage by proc-slotting Ice Arrow and Acid Arrow, and later with Oil Slick Arrow, but the main thing is that now you get 3 AoE Holds/Confuses, and single-target versions to stack them. So every spawn you can AoE Hold then stack a ST Hold, and basically roll shutting down spawns. It's hard to manage it with Mind's Hold/Confuse alone since you need to really build up for Recharge if you want to rotate Total Domination/Mass Confuse, but as soon as you add a 3rd AoE mez, it becomes a lot easier. Even the longer recharge of EMP Arrow isn't a big deal when you only need it up every 3 spawns. And if you're willing to consider Oil Slick Arrow as a workable mez, you can go: Total Dom + OSA, Mass Confuse, OSA alone, EMP Arrow, and have 4 openers. Then you really don't have any recharge worries. The character becomes again the old City of Statues that the Devs frowned upon.

[Hardboiled Hero]

I'm starting a Archery/Invulnerability sentinel and it seems okay so far.  Theme-wise the character is based on a medieval Yeoman, similar to robin hood.. and thus carries a longbow and wears chainmail armor.  I decided that actual armor would be best represented by invulnerability.  Although I'm still new, I'm kinda getting into Sentinels over all.  The basic down-side (as far as I'm concerned) is that you only have 1 attack power pool, but I think Archery has a lot of fast attacks, so it helps the sentinel feel like you're always attacking.  The up-shot (get it?) is that you don't die.  I've only done a few TF's, but I've had some instances in which the "tanks" get dropped, and I can save my party by doing enough damage to finish off the bad-guys, while still being able to take a few hits. Granted, I don't think sentinel should be considered a "tank", they are just good survivors.  I'm also not trying to say that invuln is the best defense to pair with archery..  I'm still trying stuff out  I just mentioned the invuln as a way of maybe sparking some creative theme ideas.  Archery/ Reflexes seems like it would be on point, but don't discount a "yeoman" build that uses armor, or perhaps some sort of mystic hunter that uses Archery/regen or archery/bio.  I think there's a lot of viable themes possible with an archery sentinel.. it's just a matter of figuring out which themes really work.