Carraway's Guide to the New Archer: 1.18 and Beyond

[Murugan]

I buff my Trifurcate with Raging2, Blindside2, Ferocity2 and Hawk's Eye. This entire buffing process takes no more than 3-4 seconds as I run a macro for it.

Light Shot CD is 4 seconds on a Crab Bow.

I'd prefer to nick off a second or 2 tops from my Light Shot cooldown due to buffing taking so long rather than give myself a forced 15 second window to get my buffs straight by preferring to buff 2x Multishots.

I hit Multishot on cooldown to nock an arrow and I buff it with Raging every other cycle (MS: 15s, Raging: 30s). The other buffs are primarily on a 1 min timer, and thus I save them for Trifurcates.

This way I am firing off single buffed double shots at each available time, as well as fully buffed triple shots as they become available.

From what I understand, Carraway is trying to say most of Archer's DPS comes from Light Shot as opposed to Weaponskills.

Bloodletter is all about the 500 end damage. The DoT is not something to write home about. It's a bonus. 1-2 Light Shots do more damage than it does total. Weaponskills in general, with their cooldowns and TP requirements, will not outdamage keeping Light Shot firing every cooldown.

Let's also not forget you are typically not alone in a team. If there's another Archer, you can't take sole credit for Bloodletter. Bloodletter is a skill that needs to be managed by all Archers in the party either by selecting a designated user or by coordinated use. Skull Sunder II is spammed like no other by DoW DPS in any competent party. Also not something an Archer takes credit for.

Trifurcate has a 2 minute timer, so you are just sitting on those buffs for half of that time?

You should just try buffing a double multishot (3x light shot) when ferocity/etc. is up. You should also try (in my opinion) using Cadence and Murderous Intent as they both are pretty effective as well (Cadence may be removed/rendered useless or changed in 1.19). I think you'll find it makes a considerable difference to get twice as many big bursts as you do currently.

Also wondering if anyone else gets absorb attack transferred onto them by a mage for the bursts. It seems to be a pretty good way to boost damage as well (though granted when I do this we are usually using a full BR).