New at Archers have 2 quick questions...

[Espi]

1. Which of the jobs at level 30 does the most damage endgame?
2. If I want to go statless, which stat do I only put my points in? What does this effect? Pros and cons? I want to pick the hardest hitting archer job for endgame, and also adjust my AP so that I do even more damage.

Thanks :)

Also, if you'd like to tell me which job you went with and how you like it I would love to hear different opinions. :)

[Omar Ranger]

1. There are Hunters and Crossbowmen. Hunters end up as Bowmasters which are usually meant to be bossers, usually solo bossers. They do a good amount of DPS and have the right skills to deal with area bosses like Anego pretty easily. With Hurricane they can dish out enormous amounts of damage to a single target. Crossbowmen end up as Marksmen which are also good single target damagers but not quite as good as the Bowmaster. Their skills are more around mobbing where they can hit large amounts on a large amount of monsters especially with Piercing Arrow.
2. The main stat for archers is dex and their secondary stat is str. I've seen archers go strless but those archers don't last to endgame. It's good to cap your str at a certain point where you will be able to cover the rest of the required str to wield your endgame bow with the rest of your equips because there aren't a lot of statless bows unless you're going for the visitor weapons.

I went Bowmaster and it was my very first character so I didn't really know much. Either way it was a tough journey through leveling but in the end I think it paid off nicely. Archers are actually not easy characters to raise.

[Tesiqurasa]

I also went with Bowmaster, although I did do a quick Sniper (3rd job crossbow) a while back. With the recent changes, you should reach 3rd job with no problems, but it will take quite a bit of effort to get well into 4th job (140+).

You can go statless early on, but it's not as important for Bowmen/Crossbowmen. A reasonable base str cap will be 60-80, depending on your gear. The most total str you'll ever need is 125 for the Reverse Bow, and no other gear requires str. You can get pretty far with a Metus (lvl 90, 95 str req), but the release of the Visitor bows will make going statless a bit easier. They are, however, very expensive. A clean 3rd Unwelcome Visitor Bow (lvl 87, no str req) can run you well over 30m clean and will be difficult to find. A Metus, on the other hand, will be closer to 300k clean and you can probably just hunt for a potential one yourself.

[Espi]

I don't understand. Just tell me what does the most damage lol at endgame. IDC about anything else.

What are XBowman? I hear about those. And I also hear that snipers do the most damage endgame? What comes from being a sniper?

[Tesiqurasa]

Bowman line:
Archer (1st job) Hunter (2nd job) Ranger (3rd job) Bowmaster (4th job)

Crossbow line:
Archer (1st job) Crossbowman (2nd job) Sniper (3rd job) Marksman (4th job)

They both do about the same damage end-game, but Bowmasters are slightly stronger.

[blub212212]

Archer Tree

Archer-------->Hunter------------------------------>Ranger------>Bowmaster (BM)
Archer-------->Crossbowman(AKA Xbowman)-->Sniper-------->Marksman (MM)


Bowmasters have a better DPS than Marksmen while bossing, but Marksmen have better mobbing capabilities

EDIT: ninja'd

[emailbox]

BMs are probably the hardest characters to have as a first character.

[Espi]

THANKS EVERYONE for your replies :) Now I know how to look up skill builds and equipment etc, but one last question I have not been able to find:

Are there any skills I shouldn't put SP into, either because I will get a better skill later that replaces that one or because it's worthless? Thanks :) I'm going Crossbowmen.

---------- Post added at 12:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:42 AM ----------

Also does having more DEX at an earlier level effect anything? For instance, I just got the Amdusias Hat which adds 12 to DEX, but I only had like 2 points away from leveling and I forgot to put it on so I put it on after I leveled. What I mean is, for mages, the more INT you have, the more MP you gain every time you level. (every ten int is 1 extra mp) Is there something like that for dex/archers? or does it even matter?

[blub212212]

There are skills that become worthless later on (like doubleshot) but you should probably get them or you might have a hard time leveling for a while

Dex increases accuracy which is pretty much worthless. Missing dex won't do much except prevent damage

[Espi]

There are skills that become worthless later on (like doubleshot) but you should probably get them or you might have a hard time leveling for a while

Dex increases accuracy which is pretty much worthless. Missing dex won't do much except prevent damage

Okay but how does wearing equips with +DEX effect accuracy upon leveling up?