Force Archers - What to do

Subject: Force Archers - What to do Tue Feb 02, 2010 12:52 pm

All credit here goes to Toxotis for writing this elaborate guide for Force Archers, from level 1 to level 170. My archer's been following it since it was written.

I was asked by a certain higher up to write a little thing about force archers so I'll do my best to let you know what I've learned through 138 levels of play.

Force archers are a bit of a hybrid class. We are mainly used to save everyone's asses in dungeons cause we have some of the better heals in the game, BUT we can also deal our fair share of damage. At level 138 right now I can crit over 4.5k with GD lev 9 and my gear is not even that 1337. I could solo EoD1 before most classes and have been soloing VC with no problem from about level 130. My point is you don't have to just focus on being a healer/cleric/priest, etc. You can do good damage and hold your own. As for PvP I don't really mess with it too much, but I will occasionally stop and fight if someone asks and I rarely lose. FA are the shiz. Ok so enough about all that. I'm just gonna start from the beginning and try and help you through your journey.

If you don't know, one of the main aspects of cabal besides leveling is skilling up. There are 10 skill levels which will unlock different skills as you level up. I'll go over what you need and what you don't need as a FA.

NOVICE: You start out as a novice. There are a lot of different 'arrows' to choose from, but as a rule you want to choose the ones that are high in amp and low in cool down time. The other thing to keep in mind is that you will not have these skills for long because you will get rid of them as you skill up. For that reason you do NOT want to level these past level 9 otherwise you are just wasting money. Why level 9? Because ALL skills have the fastest cooldown time at level 9 which allows you to combo with them easier. Generally when starting out you want to combo with 3 skills or so. I suggest magic arrow, fire arrow, and another of your choice...like I said at this point it doesn't matter as you will shortly drop it. Ther other magic skill you need to have is regeneration...get this and increase it whenever you can. You should have this buff on yourself at all times when fighting. There are also other skills to consider at this point called upgrade skills and sword skills. For upgrade skills you MUST get vitality mastery to start out. This will make your life much easier by giving you more HP and you will keep this and level this til trans so there really is no choice here. Sword skills are kinda up to you...they are cheap so you can get them to use when your sword skilling but they are of no real use to you so you may not want to waste the cash until you have some to burn. One thing I will say about sword skill is that you do need to get to apprentice sword as quickly as you can so that you can get dash. It just makes traveling around easier. I'll discuss skilling later on to let you know how to do this.

Combo suggestion: fire arrow lev 9, magic arrow lev 9, power shot (or aqua arrow or whatever you choose) lev 9

APPRENTICE: At apprentice you have a lot of blasts to choose from...Don't get any of them. They are useless and a waste of money. Stick with your arrows til your next skill up and then go for the lances. There are some skills you want here though. The first is Critical Shot. This is perhaps one of your best skills and one I use in my primary combo at lev 138. At first you just want get this to level 9 so that you can combo it with fire arrow and magic arrow. Later you can choose to level it to 20 or 18 depending on how many skills you want in your combo. Drop whatever skill you shose to take besides fire/magic arrow. You also get your first end game buff skill here called repulsive armor. This is a nice little buff which ups your def. Again, you should max this to 20 as fast as you can and have this up at all times. Precision is a buff that is up to you. Since you can never miss when you combo precision is useless unless you are attacking without comboing (which you should almost never do), but there are times when you do and I actually do use this buff even now. So it's up to you, but if you do get this it's another you want to level to 20 ASAP. Upgrade skill reflex or you can choose to not get a skill until regular as you will replace it soon.

Combo suggestion: critical shot lev 9, fire arrow lev 9, magic arrow lev 9

REGULAR: By this time your probably getting into the game a bit and it's time to be rewarded with some new skills! Lances are great because they can hit multiple enemies and they are the best skill an FA has as far as damage per second (dps) is concerned. Many FAs use these as their main pvp skills even at high levels because they fire very fast and do good damage. First off, get fire lance and tera lance to lev 9 asap (Again, keep them at 9 or 12 until later when you can raise them up for pvp purposes). After that drop your remaining arrow skills. You can get explosion shot if you want. It's a good skill and does damage to multiple mobs that are grouped up, but you will replace it. So it's up to you if you want to save the money or get the cool new skill and pay to replace it later. Eagle eye and blind are both skills you probably eventually want to have, but they are useless at a low level so I wouldn't really suggest getting them unless you have money and skill pts to burn. Eagle eye is a good buff, but it can't stack with the best buff you have (vital force) so it's no good until after level 140 when you can stack it. Upgrade skill: drop reflex and get defensive stance.

Combo suggestion: critical shot lev 9, tera lance lev 9, fire lance lev 9 (explosion shot lev 9 if you got it)

EXPERT: Cannons are nice because they do great damage and have knockback as well. I suggest getting tera, lightning, and fire cannons, but do NOT drop your lances as you will use them for pvp. You get another buff here called lower defense. I use this quite a bit, especially on bosses in the various high level dungeons. It lowers their def and thus makes you hit harder. you want to get this to 20 asap. It is also good for pulling mobs to you as well. For instance, if you're not quite strong enough to take on a group of 4 mobs standing together, pick the closest one and hit with lower defense and cause it to run at you thus pulling it away so that you can solo kill it. Poison arrow is useless in my opinion. It poisons the target and does damage over time, but it does not give you skill pts for the damage and at high levels it does so little that you barely notice it, but if is up to you if you want it. Upgrade skill: Force control...more magic means more damage.

Combo suggestion: CS12, SC12, FC12, TL12 (LC12), FL12 (ES9 if you got it)
By this point you should be attempting to combo with more than 3 skills so you get used to it. I use 5 currently so I would suggest trying to get used to that.

A. EXPERT: Another end game skill becomes available...Shadow Shot. I use this one constantly cause it does aoe type damage and hits pretty hard. Get this and make it lev 20 ASAP. If you got explosion shot this is what replaces it so drop it. You also get 2 end game buffs here, Vital Force and Mana Condense. Get these to 20 ASAP as well. Sharpness is useless as sword characters have their own buffs, but after 140 it will stack so you may want to get if your 140+.

Combo suggestion: CS15, SC15, FC15, FL15 (LC15), SS15

MASTER: You finally get a heal skill here. Greater heal is really nice to have as it can save you some money on healing pots and also save your ass. Get it 20 asap. Vital blessing is a Heal over time (HOT) skill like regeneration. Unfortunately it can't stack with vital force, but I still got it and use it occasionally when I'm out grinding easy mobs just so I don't have to waste a pot or a heal cause I'm constantly healing. But if you want to wait til after 140, it'll stack with vital force. Resist intention is useless in my mind, but get it if you like to duel...it may help you a bit there. I suggest NOT getting an upgrade skill here as you will delete when you hit G. master, but if you must have one go for reflex.

Combo suggestion: Same as Above (inc all to 20 if possible)

A. MASTER: Only real skill worth anything here is thrusting arrow. It'll take the place of precision if you got that. Get it to 20 asap. Only thing to keep in mind with TA is it only works with skills that cause knockback. It doesn't add knockback, just increases likelihood with existing knockback skills.

Combo suggestion: Same as Above (inc all to 20 if possible)

G. MASTER: Finally, you get Gravity Distortion. This skill is your bread and butter. It hits multiple mobs and causes them to stun and it hits like a mack truck so you want to use this as often as you can. It does have a long casting time and a minimum distance, but none the less it is worth casting as often as possible because of it's stun effect. Only level this to 9 or if you really want to 12, but do not go beyond this because the cooldown time becomes ridiculous. Mine is still at 9 so that I can spam it if I ever get in a pinch. The other skill you want here is Art of Healing. This increases the healing of your heal skills and should be up whenever your fighting something big and bad so that you can really give yourself a big heal when you need it. Upgrade skills: Ruling Force and Damage Absorb. Drop reflex if you got it.

Combo suggestion: GD9, CS20, FC20, SC20, SS20

COMPLETER: This is where you get one of the cooler looking skills for the FA. You should get Shooting Star to lev 9 or 12 depending on how long you want the cooldown to be. I personally leave it at 9 so that I can spam GD and SS when I'm in a bind, but it will work perfectly fine at 12 with pretty much any combo you can think up. The other skill you want is Mass heal. This can only be used in a party and heals all party members simultaneously. This is your main heal skill when your in dungeons with your buddies. Get it 20 asap.

Combo suggestion: GD9, ShootingS9, CS20, LC20 (FC20 or TC20), ShadowS20

This is my main combo...I use it for everything. It has good stun lock and I can solo any dungeon within reason for my level. I highly recommend it or some derivation thereof. What you really want is something that will do max damage while keeping the mob locked down as much as possible.

TRANSCENDER: Get Art of Sniping to lev 20. Remeber you can't move when you cast AoS so make sure you have a combo that allows for the GD to have increased cooltime (the above one works fine). Upgrade: What I did here was get Change force skill so that I could skill up my sword. Why skill your sword? Well, for one it's about half as many points as skilling your magic so it'll go quick. For 2, every rank up gives you HP, MP and well as str and dex pts which give you more magic, def, def rate, etc. I'll explain this later. After you get sword to trans I suggest going for 6th sense as your last upgrade.

Combo suggestion: same as above

Tips/Tricks/Suggestions:
A lot of people are into skilling up at an early level. There is nothing wrong with this and it will certainly make you stronger and the game a lot easier for you, BUT in my mind it's kinda stupid. First off it is boring as hell! I mean who wants to sit there and watch your toon punch an ape for 200hrs. The game was made to skill up with you as you level up so why not just play the game and level up and let the skill ups come when they come. This is my personal opinion, but the only skilling I did was to get my sword to apprentice so I could dash and I hit trans around 100 and dual trans around 115. That is with absolutely NO skilling. My point is, you will be perfectly fine if you are not duel trans by level 75 or 100 or whatever some tool tells you. Now I should tell you, I wore adept for everything! I wore adept for every mission, every dungeon everything, until I hit magic trans. Then I switched over to osm crafts, etc. My suggestion is to get an aramid adept set skill +3/+4 as soon as you hit level 40 and upgrade it with any low cores you got hanging around. You should also get adept crystals/orbs along with rings and amulet and just wear that for everything. You'll skill up in no time. I also suggest wearing the aramid until you can switch over to titanium adept and upgrade all your jewelery, orbs, etc as necessary. You can totally skip bluestin altogether as it's kind of a waste of money being as you'll replace it soon with titanium and aramid is more than enough for most mobs you'll encounter. When you get your titanium adept set the key is upgrading it. you want to get every piece to +6 if you can. You need Upgrade Core Mediums (UCM) for this which come in droves when you start soloing LID. With a tit adept +6 set you should be able to do anything a player in crap osm can do. I soloed LiD and EoD1 in full adept prob over 50 times each. It's a piece of cake. Just make sure you upgrade it. Also if you feel you're not doing enough dam just get some good orbs (that aren't adept) and that should help. Your gear does nothing for your damage so there is no need to change it unless you feel you're just being pummelled.

Well...there is probably more I want to say, but I will leave it at this for now and prob write more some other time. If you have any questions feel free to pm me in game.

Good luck and may all your hits be crits,
Toxotis