More interest in playing Archer.

(ilvl 100) After playing as an Archer for the past couple of days, I'm not really sure why Jobbing into Bard is the standard.

I get it. I'm not being the best "team member" by not bringing the bonuses that come with the songs. But, in most content now, people are overgeared and I never need to sing one. So what's the point?

Ok, ok, there's the +20 atk pwr. But thats worth like 10-15 points per heavy shot (tested on dummy). And I actually average out a bit better when keeping Fracture up. Also, Internal Release helps burst average higher when AOEing groups.

200hp? 300mp? I didn't miss them.

Furthermore, since doing this, Ive:
- Swiftcasted a Stoneskin to save a wipe on a mini-boss.
- Bloodbathed myself to health when pulling aggro during an AOE spamm. No healer required.
- Provoked the coincounter off a healer (and kite tanked, saved a wipe) when the real tank didnt dodge.

Dont get me wrong. I love the bard. Love it, and use it effectively. But archer seems so much more useful for all that daily/weekly/roulette stuff.

Jus sayin.

I mean I guess if you're just doing dungeons then it doesn't really matter but stepping foot into coil or any ex primal as an archer is just kind of laughable tbh

In raids, your songs (that you get as BRD) are crucial to battle. Your melee need TP, healers need MP, caster DPS need Requiem.

Imagine if your PLD died and the MRD had to tank with no access to Defiance.

At that ilevel it really doesn't matter what you do.

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Originally Posted by Slappah

I mean I guess if you're just doing dungeons then it doesn't really matter but stepping foot into coil or any ex primal as an archer is just kind of laughable tbh

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No argument on that coil stuff. But justabout every place else, Archer ftw. Not only is it as good (better?), but it's more interesting to play, IMO.

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Originally Posted by trinka

At that ilevel it really doesn't matter what you do.

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Actually, as your ILVL goes up, the +20 atk pwr seems more trivial.

Started doing this at I lvl 82, when that +20 atk pwr pushed me from 392 to 412. Gear/oils/sands and 18 ilvls later that +20 atk pwr pushes 518 to 538.

It's only a loss when your not buffing someone with song. Pushing a mage's 500 spell power to 600 is huge, but temporary. But when was the last time you got into a razor-thin dps check in a roulette?

NOTE: I'm not trying to convince anyone the bard isnt a valid class, even in daily grindy stuff. It just seems to me that Archer is just as useful.

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Originally Posted by Jim_Berry

Imagine if your PLD died and the MRD had to tank with no access to Defiance.

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Fun story, MRD can do some really crazy things with all those cross class abilities. Put out a ton of DPS with your enmity generating moves and you don't even need Defiance. Defiance is more useful for the damage reduction tbh. When we pony farm one of my buddies usually OT's on MRD no problem.

Don't underestimate that extra attack power. It effects every damage you do. It's not just +15 heavy shots it's a + to everything including your dots and that starts to add up.

On top of this archer gets access to no damage increasing cross class skills that bard does not (BFB, IR, invigorate etc.) so as archer you're just getting a few utilities which you shouldn't need if everyone's doing their job.

I enjoy playing the archer as well. Sure it's a damages/dps loss but I like all the extra skills. I wish they'd allow all the jobs to use any skills as they please like the archer or at-least make the classes viable for end game content. I know if the classes were viable for end-game, it'd make the jobs pretty much pointless but I guess SE knows what they're doing but one can only dream/wish.

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Originally Posted by radioactive_lego

Actually, as your ILVL goes up, the +20 atk pwr seems more trivial.
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Atk power is based on DEX (at a 1:1 ratio). Going up +20 is like going from the i80 body to the i120 body (ignoring boosts to secondary stat caps and VIT). Let's assume that that boost does increase your Heavy Shot damage by 20 (point for point). But that boost also affects the damage of every other ability; Bloodletter, DoTs, Barrage - all of these making up a major part of your damage. And sure, that damage is overkill for any decent group who can also deal with the dungeons in general. But if you could kill things faster by doing more damage (which you can't as an Archer because that +20 is impossible to make up for), you wouldn't have to rely on strange crutches like Swiftcast + Stoneskin or Provoking enemies.

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Originally Posted by radioactive_lego

Furthermore, since doing this, Ive:
- Swiftcasted a Stoneskin to save a wipe on a mini-boss.
- Bloodbathed myself to health when pulling aggro during an AOE spamm. No healer required.
- Provoked the coincounter off a healer (and kite tanked, saved a wipe) when the real tank didnt dodge.

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All of those circumstances shouldn't be happening in the first place to justify you giving up the extra attack power from the soul crystal. IE: It could've been avoided if you had the extra damage or the fight wasn't prolonged.

- Theres no need to heal yourself during AoE unless you're standing in incidental aoe damage
- Coin counter resets his aggro occasionally. There should never be a point in time that a healer out aggros a dps in a 4-man in Aurum Vale (unless you weren't dealing enough damage, which is possible without a soul crystal boost)

Also, you have Internal Release as a bard anyway. To me, I really don't see "how" it makes playing an archer more interesting than a bard, considering you have access to the same baseline abilties. If you're going out of your way to force scenarios to happen where you use clutch abilties to save your party, maybe those incidents wouldn't have occurred or isn't necessary to begin with if you had your soul crystal (in the case of coin counter or AoE healing yourself). You're sorta just intentionally holding back your party at this point, which is against my principle when it comes to roulettes.

And to add onto that, it really depends on what you get out of the roulette... I think I have to word it out. As a baseline, you should at least be crossing invigorate, B4B, and IR for dps. Skipping out on any of those is just lowering oyur overall damage output and burdening your party indirectly.

>Anything pre-haukke manor you wouldn't have access to bard skills anyway, and you'd have 5 cross skills at lvl 28 (the sync for toto-i-hate-that-place) as an archer.
> Pre level 20 dungeons (Three dungeons) would only give you three or less cross skills. But honesstly these dungeons are so low and trivialzied I really don't care at that point if you didn't have dps cooldowns.
> Sunken Temple of Corn and beyond you have access to Foe Reqium. The damage loss from not having that for your party (and a healer dps) is so much more than what you can gain from crossing skills to clutch those scenarios (which again, ideally shouldn't be happening if all is well, including dps keeping up)
>The Above would apply to heroic, expert and trial roulette since it's set to level 50.

You also wouldn't be able to use your relic weapon for those who only have that on their bard.

It's sort of fun to mess around on occasionally just for a change of pace, but, in the end, it's not actually practical. The utility is kinda nice. I've found myself wishing I had a couple of the other cross class abilities on brd from time to time, but what you gain just can't make up for what you lose.

Thx to those of you who get it.

As for the critics and know-it-alls; um... good for you!

inside dungeon: why should bother your self for doing support skill on dungeon when you already have healer to do that for you ? +20 atk power is a huge difference for long-term dps, while in 1 boss let's assume you can contribute 100 % with BRD soulstone, and only 70 or 75 % without it. I don't think being an archer has an advantage since we already get all buff for + dmg (B4B, IR) even we equipped the BRD soulstone. plus, you can support caster boost their dmg with foe's requiem + BV. :)

outside dungeon: maybe yes, for doing maps, or doing beastmen stuff. but still, +20 atk power is like having upgrade on piece of your equipment.

Maybe there won't be huge differences for short-term dps like battle for less than 2 mins.
But for dungeon, even if you say that. I can't agree for unequipping BRD soulstone will give you any advantage but -20 atk power, and some useless-abilities-that-you-will-actually-use.

And yes, +20 atk power will affect all of your output dmg, from EVERY SINGLE SKILL, and also your AUTO ATTACK. so it will lowering your dmg A LOT, for sure.

Personally, I think the time I use for casting cure or stoneskin might be better for dealing dmg.
I also don't think Provoke is necessary, cuz if you are provoking that mobs means it will atk you and I Don't really think healer will prepare for that.. you also don't have ability and enough HP to tank mobs (maybe able to tank casual mob, but not boss)..

It is really pretty simple:

1) For coil and ex primals: BRD>ARC
This is really summed up in the fact that your extra utility really can't make up for the added DPS loss, and the fact that if someone dies, it is much more serious in this content. Plus your songs are absolutely invaluable in any fight that lasts longer than 4 minutes.

2) For ALL OTHER CONTENT: BRD ??? ARC
For all of this content, gear is so ludicrously overpowered that the content is trivial. It really doesn't matter what you do here because the content is so simple that it doesn't end up making a significant difference anyways. If you like playing archer, then go for it. Casual content is meant for fun anyways, not serious play.

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Originally Posted by Tex_Mex

2) For ALL OTHER CONTENT: BRD ??? ARC
For all of this content, gear is so ludicrously overpowered that the content is trivial. It really doesn't matter what you do here because the content is so simple that it doesn't end up making a significant difference anyways. If you like playing archer, then go for it. Casual content is meant for fun anyways, not serious play.

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This second part is up for debate when it comes to heroic and expert level dungeons, sometimes even heroic mode primals. There's always the off chance that you will get people who are relevantly geared for the dungeon, and places like AK-HM is pretty overtuned for ilvl 90 to meet the dps check on demon wall. An expert run that would've taken 25 minutes took me 35 minutes because the other bard in my party used one piece of tanking accessories for hp; just to give you an idea on just how much it can potentially slow down a run with that 20 attack power/dex difference. I mean he was acceptable on his uptime, kept his dots up and all, but factor in trying to be useful and adding swift-casting skinstone or cures (which would've happened, because the healer eventually died either due to faling asleep with how long the boss fights took, or the extra cerelum tank explosions) and it'd be a little bit less of his real damage because all of that takes time away from it.

If the end goal is to play for fun, then sure. I won't argue against that, it's just that some people have explicated supported playing poorly on purpose, trolling 24-man raids or doing things like putting parry on a WHM novus and justified it with that reasoning.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

If the end goal is to play for fun, then sure. I won't argue against that, it's just that some people have explicated supported playing poorly on purpose, trolling 24-man raids or doing things like putting parry on a WHM novus and justified it with that reasoning.

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Trolls are out there. They are everywhere, and there is basically nothing that can be done about them but to ignore them. As far as the expert dungeons/HM primals, I will still argue that the content is trivial. Even with demon wall, do you know what happens if you fail to kill the enemies in time? You die, you take the shortcut, you click the orb, you get a full timer again, and you get to start on the enemy pack that you left off on. This effectively removes the DPS check all together. SE specifically designs casual content to be so easy that it can be cleared by 99% of people. The only content that is really too difficult for this is extreme primals and coil.

With this in mind, I will never give anyone a hard time for derping around in casual content. It really doesn't make that big of a difference. 10 minutes is not the end of the world. On the extremely rare occasion, you will find parties that are unable of completing content for whatever reason, but that's what the abandon button is for. If it is fun for you to play a little archer in casual content, go for it. I certainly don't mind. Hell it might even be good for a laugh or two depending on the situation.

Not really sure how an ARC becomes a BRD anyway. Since when was Robin Hood a good musician.

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Originally Posted by radioactive_lego

Thx to those of you who get it.

As for the critics and know-it-alls; um... good for you!

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Resposes like that make me wonder why you even made a thread.

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Originally Posted by Tex_Mex

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Right here is where we'd differ then. I'm more annoyed than anything if we don't meet dps check for demon walls, in the same manner I die a little bit inside if we can't keep up with the mobs in T4 even with 20% echo. I don't mind if a run takes 10+ minutes longer because they're because they don't know any better, but it's straight up trolling if they're doing it on purpose and manage to slow the pacing of the party. Sure abandon is an option, but I've already had at least 3 incidents of this where they queued with 2 or more players that I'm pretty much held hostage (as the GM tickets define this...) and would be forced to take a 30 minute penalty.

Archer off tank is friggin next level. Dont forget you can provoke perfect dodge a lot of mechanics for the tank!

Final Coil Turn 1, Critical Rip? more like noobical rip! provoke perfectdodge and laugh buahahaha.

Final Coil Turn 2, Secondary head? Get out of here warrior! this is archer's time to shine.

Final Coil Turn 3, revelation?!?!?!?

Savage turn 6, double swarm? YOU CAN PERFECT DODGE THAT? YUP! archer says SINGLE SWARM SAY WHAT

Binding Coil Turn 5, Death Sentence? More like fail sentence.

You're doing god's work radioactive_lego, show the world that archer is a truer support than bard ever could be, fuck songs!

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Originally Posted by MrYaah

Archer off tank is friggin next level. Dont forget you can provoke perfect dodge a lot of mechanics for the tank!

Final Coil Turn 1, Critical Rip? more like noobical rip! provoke perfectdodge and laugh buahahaha.

Final Coil Turn 2, Secondary head? Get out of here warrior! this is archer's time to shine.

Final Coil Turn 3, revelation?!?!?!?

Savage turn 6, double swarm? YOU CAN PERFECT DODGE THAT? YUP! archer says SINGLE SWARM SAY WHAT

Binding Coil Turn 5, Death Sentence? More like fail sentence.

You're doing god's work radioactive_lego, show the world that archer is a truer support than bard ever could be, fuck songs!

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hehe I loved the read :) didn't agree with any of it! but it was fun as hell to read! congrats to you sir!

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Originally Posted by rhazchan

+20 atk power is a huge difference for long-term dp.

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The loss of this +20 atk by removing the job crystal actually is countered by the many extra-skills you get in return. Invalid argument.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

Right here is where we'd differ then. I'm more annoyed than anything if we don't meet dps check for demon walls, in the same manner I die a little bit inside if we can't keep up with the mobs in T4 even with 20% echo. I don't mind if a run takes 10+ minutes longer because they're because they don't know any better, but it's straight up trolling if they're doing it on purpose and manage to slow the pacing of the party. Sure abandon is an option, but I've already had at least 3 incidents of this where they queued with 2 or more players that I'm pretty much held hostage (as the GM tickets define this...) and would be forced to take a 30 minute penalty.

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To each their own :) and sometimes a 30 min penalty is a great option. I get one or two penalties per month typically from fail groups. Then I take that 30 minutes and do something productive like go spend time with my wife or call my grandma. I take it as a sign that I need a break. Life is too short to be stressed out while playing a video game. Stuff just is not that serious. :D

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Originally Posted by Tex_Mex

To each their own :) and sometimes a 30 min penalty is a great option. I get one or two penalties per month typically from fail groups. Then I take that 30 minutes and do something productive like go spend time with my wife or call my grandma. I take it as a sign that I need a break. Life is too short to be stressed out while playing a video game. Stuff just is not that serious. :D

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Well there is the matter of getting stressed out by playing the game itself (grinds, RNG, ffuu), and getting stressed by the players in the game...

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Originally Posted by cgbspender

The loss of this +20 atk by removing the job crystal actually is countered by the many extra-skills you get in return. Invalid argument.

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I'll bite. How do these extra skills make up for the loss in dps, when you can pretty much grab all the dps skills as a bard anyway, minus fracture?

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

I'll bite. How do these extra skills make up for the loss in dps, when you can pretty much grab all the dps skills as a bard anyway, minus fracture?

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I don't think he actually checked what new crossclasses become available when you switch to archer. The only new dps skill you get is mercy stroke, which is fun in its own right but definitely doesn't offset a loss of 20dex. Pretty much all of the abilities you get are utility spells not dps spells. The dps spells you get are all from lancer and pugilist, which, as others have pointed out, are already available to bard.

Archer has less base stats then Bard does. You lose like 20 dex and some vit or something.

If you wanna play without the extra dexterity and no rain of death or foes, be my guest.

BTW fracture works on Archer and it's hilarious to use.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

Archer has less base stats then Bard does. You lose like 20 dex and some vit or something.

If you wanna play without the extra dexterity and no rain of death or foes, be my guest.

BTW fracture works on Archer and it's hilarious to use.

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I'll concede to this. That fracture sound effect is misfittingly hilarious for a bow.

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Originally Posted by Myrhn

Resposes like that make me wonder why you even made a thread.

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Well, obviously to get showered with praise. Who gives a damn about a constructive discussion.

Including fracture in any of your rotations will only lower your numbers once you notice how fast you run short on tp at anything that isn't a casual dungeon.

Do whatever you want Lego. Archer can be used in endgame stuff. I've beaten all ex primals and up to turn 11 as archer. Do what your heart says. Its your game pay it your way. Check my blog for photos of me as ARCHER in endgame.

ps: I love blacklisting!!

/sigh I love reading the bard discussions...

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Originally Posted by HeavensSword

/sigh I love reading the bard discussions...

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Get out. This isn't bard discussion, this is ARCHER discussion.

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Originally Posted by MrYaah

Get out. This isn't bard discussion, this is ARCHER discussion.

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ARC 101
Voke the boss, pop all cooldowns and macro an annoying "I'M HELPINGGGGggggggg <se.1><se.2>" to all your abilities while running in circles.

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Originally Posted by MrYaah

Get out. This isn't bard discussion, this is ARCHER discussion.

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Oh, my mistake! I haven't reached Archer transcendence yet! orz