Any advice/tips for a beginning archer?

[MikaRose]

So, a few days ago, I started a character and I decided to pick arcanist. But right now I'm not really feeling it, so I wanted to pick a new class, so I decided to pick the archer instead.

And what I'm wondering is how could I become a decent/good archer. I'm also wondering if archer/bard will become more complicated throughout the game.

Thank you~! ;w;

[Frizze]

First of all, welcome to the game. Im not an archer/bard expert(only played up to level 32), i can give you a bit of advice from my own experience and from observing and listening to others. And im sure people who know more then me will chime in too.

So to answer your second question first, every class starts out simple and becomes more complex as you level. As for improving your archery, high level bard play is primarily devoted to 3 things from what ive heard. Theres buff management, DoT management, and proc management. You actually get to start practicing those skills fairly early. By level 8 you have a buff(straight shot's crit buff and raging strikes' damage buff), a DoT(venemous bite) and a proc(your trait that lets heavy shot generate guaranteed crits for straight shot some of the time) to work with, and you get more as you level. So how do you put those together? You use straight shot to give yourself a crit buff and put your DoTs up(spreading them around to multiple targets is a good thing). When any of the timers is running low, reapply. Judge when the best time to use your limited buffs is(raging being the first, but you get more later), and put them up when the time is right. And when you dont have an ability to refresh, figure out whether to use either single target or AoE moves to do more damage(this is heavy shot on bosses/big targets or something like quick nock on mob packs). As you generate procs, you figure out when to deploy them(some you want to use right away, some are best used with specific timing) and then do so. As you learn more tricks(like some of the bard songs) learn how they interact with everything else and with your party, and use them when the time is right. If it sounds like this is a lot of thinking, it can be. But its also a lot of action, as you want to be pressing an attack more or less every 2 seconds(rule number one of DPS is to waste as few GCDs as possible). And a practiced player does what i just described more or less on auto-pilot, and they instead think about things like which attacks the boss will use next or whether to snapshot their DoTs(in short: the damage for an attack is calculated when the attack is made, so for a DoT that might last half a minute or longer when you make the attack it basically saves the info of what buffs were on you when you applied it - even if those buffs would wear off before the DoT does - so that attack gets to continue benefiting from any boosts you had until you reapply the attack or its timer runs out).

If that all sounds like a lot, dont worry about it. You learn the abilities one at a time and have time to work with them before you need to know how they all fit together. Also, a lot of fc houses(or player houses) and some outdoor zones have training dummies. You can use those to practice putting all your moves together without worrying about the enemy hitting back or having to run around a ton. And if in the end bard doesnt end up being a good fit, the game doesnt punish you for switching classes so you can try again with something else new. Best of luck!

[Dualgunner]

From my experience, endgame bard is very intuitive. It's very easy to pick up, and has a unique and interesting gameplay loop. For now, the most important things to remember with archer/bard though is to make sure that the enemy has both of your DoT (Damage over Time) skills on it at all times (you get both by Level 15 I believe?) and keep your straight shot buff up at all times.

Welcome to the game!

[Ilyrian]

Point the bow at the enemies, never your head.

[theLoser]

This is all based on my experience leveling bard to 70.

I'm not sure how familiar you are with the class, so I'll tackle this as if you know nothing to try to cover as wide a base as possible.

Off global cooldown weaving is super important. In FFXIV almost all weaponskills share the same cooldown called the global cooldown (its 2.5 seconds base). Those that don't will say so in their description. Abilities don't use the global cooldown.

With bard, you always want to be using a global cooldown weaponskill if available. In the time between is when you want to activate your off cooldown abilities.

... Which sounds complicated but it really boils down to Global Cooldown -> off Global Cooldown (If you have one up that you want to use.) -> repeat


tl;dr: skip to the bottom "In Conclusion" part.


Pre-Bard: (Pre Lvl 30)
Always make sure you have Venomous Bite up.
Always make sure you weave in Bloodletter its up.
Always open with Straight Shot to increase your chance of critically striking.
Fish for Straighter Shot procs using Heavy Shot and then use them if you get one.
Always make sure you have Straight Shot's buff active. This will mean using it even if you didn't get a Heavy Shot proc if you need to refresh the buff.

You should have the role action Second Wind. Slot it. Its the only emergency self heal that you'll have for the entire game.

My preferred opener was - Straight Shot -> (Raging Strikes) -> Venomous Bite -> Heavy Shot

Bard:
You get Stormbite, your second damage over time weaponskill. Your weaponskill's damage over time remembers the buffs you had when the weaponskill was used.
You get songs. These give you and your nearby allies 2% higher chance to crit and have additional effects if Venomous Bite or Stormbite crit.
You'll be getting the role actions Tactician and Refresh. These are good for boss fights since they gradually restore party tp and mp.

You always want to use a song if it's available:
Mage's Ballad
Wanderer's Minuet (Lvl 52)
Army's Paeon (Lvl 40)

Each song lasts 30 seconds and has a recast time of 80 seconds so when you hit level 52 you'll be able to always have a song up.

You'll add:
Always have a song up
Always use available off global cooldown damaging abilities and weaponskills

At level 30 my opening changes to - Straight Shot -> (Bloodletter) -> Windbite -> Venomous Bite -> (Mage's Ballad) -> Heavy Shot -> (Raging Strikes)

My opening also changes at levels 54 and 68.

In conclusion: (There are more, but these are the core.)

Always have both damage over time effects running.
Always have a song active and take advantage of when it procs.
Always be using your off global cooldowns when available.

If you have small hands like I do, it'll help to bind keys close to WASD so you don't have to reach far. I bind q-e-r-t, f, and z-x-c.

If you have questions feel free message me or peruse Reddit, its actually somewhat informative.