Archer Bard Template

Sorry if this has been posted before.

I, Like many others, I am struggling to find the ideal formula for an archer bard. I have narrowed my options down to 3 templates but cannot seem to decide on the ultimate one. I currently am 100% decided on Archery, Magery, Med, Music, Provo, Tactics, with Peacemaking currently at GM but I am siding more on dropping this. However, I am split on the final 2 skills. See below:

Archery
Magery
Med
Music
Peace
Provo
Tactics

--

Archery
Magery
Med
Music
Provo
Resist
Tactics

--

Archery
Eval
Magery
Med
Music
Provo
Tactics


What are everyone's thoughts on the above templates?

I personally feel it's an absolute necessity to include Meditation in there if Magery is a core skill (which I think it is unless you're only having 50 for recalling/heal/cure with Heal/Anat for survival) otherwise it just feels that you aren't maximising magery to its full capacity since you have to wait a while to utilise mana again after a full dump.

Please, let me know your thoughts on what I should be going for, with the reasons why. Many thanks!

My Archer:

Archery
Anatomy
Tactics
Healing

Musi
Provo

Magery 70 medi 30

90str 95dex 40int

I would got with #3,having eval just makes magery and med much more useful.

This is an interesting one - do you get more damage from having anatomy too?

With the 30 med, does this aid in passive mana regen? What's the benefit of having 30?

Cheers

Yeah, at least I'll be able to ebolt the remaining monster. I think I am leaning towards this

Thanks

Yes, you do more damage with Anatomy. I think 20% at GM.

70 magery is enough to have 100% success rate at recall. Mediation grants a passive mana regen. 30 is better than nothing.

Have you thought about stats for your templates? When you only have 25 dexterity you shoot a lot less, making Archery absolete. On the other hand when you have 100 dex you cannot have much intelligence. With only a few mana what is the benefit from having e.g. GM Eval GM Magery and GM Medi. You should think about stats!

Archer Provo does really well during Halloween event. Get a nice silver archery weapon and rake in the goods!

I saw them lure mobs to the GY fence then provo the mobs onto each other and fire arrows/bolts into the pack of mobs. Looked super effective.

The best build for the Archer class is simply choose archery and tactics and grind them up to 100 each. Now buy 10,000 arrows and a couple of good bows. Lastly, and this is the key... never play them again.

This is my current build I rarely play:

Archery
Tactics
Healing
Anatomy
Resist
Music
Provo

I had Peace instead of Resist until the last Resist Event..
I keep him around for events.. good character to run around and feel like you are contributing with a slightly longer life expectancy above a foot solider.

I agree with you on both points.

Currently I have

Str: 90
Dex: 60
Int: 75

Which I am happy with and get a decent amount of shots in on creatures. I may switch dex and int stat totals though.

Well currently the only reason I have this char is to make around 500k so I can buy a small house and enough supplies for a few months for events and pvp.

mage/med/evalint/resist/wrestling/musicianship/provocation

Farm spawns, learn the LOS places to put your character, form safe/intelligent farming habits, transition to pvp.

Make that money, pvp a little bit as well. 500k is a drop in the bucket to ^ template.

I am sorry but, I cannot advocate archery to make quick money with as a first choice.

I think you've convinced me enough to be honest. I guess it makes sense to kill 2 birds with one stone and be able to transition from farming to pvp in a flash.

This is pretty much my first time playing a bard since I started in 2001 so you can see why I am having a hard time getting the right temp

Thank you for your input

My archer was a Peace Archer before the Resist event. He did really good at it. Make them stand there and die. However, it kind of defeated the only reason to use archery on mobs.. and that is not having to chase them around for the kill shot. For this reason I switched to Provoke on him. Now he can make 2 fight and then when one kills other and retreats he can finish, usually while looting others corpse.

Yeah, I had to be convinced myself by a few vets that I needed anatomy and that archery wasant aa very good starting skill for money making. Also for a provo bard hiding can be helpful and resist at 50 is almost as bad as having 0 (keep reflect up). Here is my template.

Gm Swords
Tactics
Anatomy
Provo
Music
80 healing
70 hiding (80+ shown)
50.1 magery

Nearly anything can work though, good luck.

The ultimate Archer build (for RP or fun...):

100 Archery
100 Tactics
100 Anatomy
80 Healing (so you can reliably cure)
60 Bow/Fletch (for making exceptional bows)
45 Lumberjack
45 Tinkering (for making, hatchets, tinker and bowyer kits, pick axe/shovel, mortar/pestle, scissors, and knives)
45 Mining
50 Alchemy or 50 magery (Alchemy and/or magery are for Night sight, quick cures.. or recall for magery)
74 Hiding (a must have for the AFK adventurer)
1 Musicianship... since this thread is about Bard Archers...


If you start with Tinker as one of starting skills and only use newbie tinker kit for making a tinker kit when you die, you are completely self sustaining. Even if you don't have newbie tinker kit all you have to do is bum one off someone, have a miner make you one, or gulp.. run into town.. and you can completely re-outfit in the woods, Very cool.

If you want to make money do this:

Start a provo mage with 50 mage 50 provo. 60str, 10 dex and 10 int

get GM musi and GM provo and GM Meditation first. You can do this completly afk in 1-2 days. After that GM hiding Another 2 days. This costs you maybe 300-400 gp for the music instruments and a magical hat.

You are now at:

GM Music
GM Provo
GM Meditation
GM Hiding
50 Magery
00 Eval
00 Whatever (Resist, Wrestling maybe)

With this you make your first 10k gold. With this gold fix your stats. 100/25/100. Then make some more money to buy regs to get to 80-90 magery. You could afk makro Eval to GM if you want. You are now at

GM Music
GM Provo
GM Meditation
GM Hiding
80-90 Magery
50-100 Eval
00 Whatever (Resist, Wrestling maybe)

With this you can do Artic Ogre Lords (or similar). You can do there your first 100-150k easily! With this money place a house in the desert. Why? Because now you create your second char on your second account: 50 Magery 50 Taming and start taming scorpions to 71.1. After that afk taming bulls in Jholmn to GM... Add in Magery/Medi/Disco/Music and Vet. If you finish your tamer you make 100k gold an hour at bloods in shame.

Love that! Sounds like a plan to me

I personally did:

Anatomy 100
Provocation 100
Tactics 100
Musicianship 100
Archery 100
Magery 80
Healing 60
Meditation 60


100/100/25 stats.

Not a huge spell caster, but enough to throw out a BS and Regen the Mana decently. Plus, the ability to heal between shots is nice.

Thanks Blendax - that looks like a strong template for PVM only. I think I will make a separate char like that in a few days.

I've noticed that people seldom choose peacemaking though. I find it quite useful when I have a monster left over or I'm waiting for the second to spawn with the other aggro'd on me. I guess paralyse works as an alternative, though.

Yeah, Peacemaking isn't super popular. Tougher mobs tend to only stay 'frozen' for really short periods of time, and every time you hit a 'frozen' mob, it has a chance to unfreeze. So, archery could be good in that case, since it's good damage at a slower rate.