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

[carraway]

Can someone please answer me this question, and feel free to explain in exact detail here:

Why does every Archer I see use the Alpine War Jacket. And when I talk to all my R50 Archer friends and LS mates, they all say its the best piece of gear in the game. And they say its the best Archer Body.

I know it has good Defense/evade/resists and all that, but as long as you don't pull hate, getting hit shouldn't matter. Shouldn't it be all about the Brigand's Acton or Eternal Shade?

If I'm wrong and the Alpine War really is the best, that's fine, but I can't find much evidence to support that, other than EVERY ARCHER I KNOW SAYING SO.

Eternal Shade and Brigand's Acton are both far better than Alpine War Jacket right now due to the proportional effect of raw attack and accuracy versus actual stats. This is going to change in 1.19; Bowman's Tunic, especially slotted with materia, will likely become best-in-slot.

Also I am being generous as I don't think everyone, including myself is hitting every single light shot anyways at exactly its refresh 100% of the time (especially when buffs are involved), and I'm also not counting all the damage you are missing in your example above by only buffing with Raging Strike and neglecting Ferocity/Murderous Intent/Cadence/Keen Flurry/Blind Side II for 1:15 of every Trifurcate refresh.

My example was definitely sloppy but I did note Ferocity II usage and I do personally advocate Murderous Intent usage. That being said, I'm willing to try your method next time we go in, but, as Peng noted, we have done some testing in the past with a higher focus on throwing every single buff possible on 3-arrow shots and holding buffs for that purpose, and it didn't match up. Of course, over the course of time we've also made our prioritizations far tighter, so that may account for the change in damage output.

To clarify, what you're suggesting is only holding Light Shots for 3-arrow Multishots when buffs are available? Your delineated example misses a Multishot cooldown and slips on Raging Strike II cooldown unnecessarily (unless you're assuming its inclusion along with your mass of other buffs), so I want to make sure I'm interpreting you clearly.

And I know for a fact that Peng wants to go all-out with BRs at least once before 1.19 hits, so we might do some further testing with those as well, just to see how high our numbers can get.

[Murugan]

To clarify, what you're suggesting is only holding Light Shots for 3-arrow Multishots when buffs are available? Your delineated example misses a Multishot cooldown and slips on Raging Strike II cooldown unnecessarily (unless you're assuming its inclusion along with your mass of other buffs), so I want to make sure I'm interpreting you clearly.

Yes, I'd be glad to post a parse/attempt to manually calculate my DPS next time we run through.



I just forgot to add one in at the 45 second mark, but when playing I never slip on my raging strike/multishot cooldown as that is my main focus. I use Raging Strike 2-1 with the other buffs for a sole multishot most of the time, and for trifurcate when it is available (trifurcate I don't always keep on cooldown but rather wait the extra 10 seconds for raging strikes since I generally don't have time to do it 3 times in a fight anyways since fights rarely last 6:40+).

Also yes only hold multishot 6 seconds before Ferocity/Cadence/Murderous Intent/Keen Flurry (Keen Flurry is by far the better accuracy buff from my testing)/Blindside II are all available, during that 6 seconds I burn TP skills and Heavy Shot, once I start buffing I hold for the remaining 9 seconds (or more like 3-4 seconds taking into account the time to buff). When doing BR's of course I time my BR call to take all this into account so I am not waiting any longer, and no one is hopefully waiting for me (of course nothing you can do about Ogre stuns, that I know of at least).

I see the confusion you thought I was always holding multi shots like Archers did pre-1.18? No, it is just to make most use of full bursts.

[carraway]

since fights rarely last 6:40+

Wait, are you talking about all fights in general, like Batraal, or just ogre?

[Rentahamster]

we might do some further testing with those as well, just to see how high our numbers can get.

They will go really high.