The Archer
Being an Archer blends some of the best and worst parts of being a Melee and a Mage into a style all its own. Without a firm grasp of the basics of the game and a decent supply of cash and material, being an Archer is quite difficult. Once you have your feet on the ground and can readily supply your own ammunition,
How To Start
Choosing which archery skill your character will master is a lot like picking a melee skill. There isn't a huge difference between the skills, but each does have its own strengths and weaknesses. Deciding which fits you best is truly a matter of personal preference. The three skills are Bow, Crossbow, and Thrown Weapons. Bow is the most expensive archery skill to train and specialize and actually has the lowest damage output per shot as compared to Crossbow and Thrown Weapons. However, the animation speed of firing and reloading the bow and the speed modifier of bows themselves makes up for the lower damage per shot and, according to most people, actually gives Bow the greatest damage over time rating of the archery skills. Crossbow is quite a bit cheaper to train and specialize than Bow and is the heaviest-hitting of the archery skills. It is also the slowest to fire. Thrown Weapons is somewhere in the middle, offering moderate damage per shot and reload rates. Thrown Weapon does have major drawback that I will detail later. Bow is by far the most popular of the archery skills, so demand for good weapons and Bow-related armor is high. Crossbow and Thrown Weapons gear, by comparison, is cheap and easy to come by. In the end, you will end up deciding whether you would rather be a slow-firing heavy hitter with extra credits and money to burn, a strong-in-the-long-run fast attacker with fewer credits and less spending cash, or an unorthodox TW expert who falls somewhere in the middle.
Once you have decided which weapon to use, you will need to decide which defense you will use. Your choices are whether to be a Tank, relying on your ability to evade damage, or a magical Hybrid, relying on your magic to reduce the damage you take. Ultimately, it would be nice to be both, but in the short run, you will have to settle for one or the other. In my experience, Hybrids who specialize in Life Magic have an easier time leveling through the low levels, but bog down when they reach the higher levels. Tanks start out more slowly but can hold their ground better in the highest level hunting grounds. Of course, by the time you reach those highest levels, you should be able to be both a Tank and a Hybrid, so the choice is somewhat irrelevant in the long run. Specialize either Life Magic or Melee Defense, and then consider the rest of your credits. Depending on which weapon you chose, you will have either 14 or 16 credits left to spend. You don't have enough creation credits to train everything you will absolutely need, so you will need to decide what's the most important to you. You will need Fletching (4), Healing (6), and Item Magic (8). Training and possibly specializing Arcane Lore (4/2) is also not a bad idea. You should be able to have all of these skills well before the time you reach level 20, so don't worry about order. As you level, you will want to pick up Mana Conversion (6), Creature Magic (8) and whichever defensive skill you didn't learn before (Melee D for 10 or Life for 12). I would recommend taking Life before Creature if you chose the Tank path. Hopefully, you will be able to complete your skillset by the time you reach level 100.
Now that you have set your skills, it's time to consider your attributes. If you chose Bow or Crossbow, your weapon skill and damage bonuses are based on your Coordination, so be sure to raise that all the way to 100. If you chose Thrown Weapons, your weapon skill is still based on your Coordination, but your range and damage modifier are based on your Strength (this is the drawback to Thrown Weapons I mentioned earlier), so you will need to raise your strength fairly high as well. Allocate 90 more points into your defense skill. If you chose Melee D, that means raising your quickness to 100. If you chose Magic, raise your focus to 100. For Bow and Crossbow users, that leaves you with 90 points to spend as you see fit. If you are a Tank, spend enough credits on Strength to make sure you aren't permanently encumbered (raising to 40 should be sufficient) and then split the rest between Focus and Willpower to make sure you can cast spells with some success. If you chose the Hybrid route, you can allocate most of your points into Willpower to raise your starting magic abilities. Do spend some points on strength too, or you won't be able to carry your weapons, ammo, and other supplies (30 points or so should be fine). Now you should be ready.
What You Need
Now that your character is finished, you will need to equip him. Every character in AC needs Armor, a Spellcasting impliment, the appropriate Spellcasting Foci, and spell components, so don't forget those. As an archer, you can't carry a lot of weight, so sticking to lighter armors like Amuli is probably in your best interest. Even if you do have Melee Defense specialized, your lack of a shield will make you more reliant on your armor rating than melee characters. Your casting device doesn't have to be anything fancy, but I would recommend either a Focusing Stone or an Invoker. Both offer stackable buffs to your spellcasting skill, but the Invoker offers a big Mana Conversion bonus too, so that one is preferable. You'll also need Foci in whichever magic schools you have trained. Buy these from Scriveners in all the major towns, but be aware that each one takes up a backpack slot. Having a Foci allows you to simplify your spell component needs down to Prismatic Tapers and Scarabs. I carry 500 Prismatic Tapers, 5 of each scarab from Lead to Gold, and then 20 Pyreals and at least 20 Platinum Scarabs. If you do a lot of casting in the field, you will want to buy more tapers and scarabs, but if you only cast spells to buff yourself, then you should be fine with those numbers.
As an archer, you will need a few more items to be effective. You will need a Weapon, ammunition, Heal Kits, and Stamina fuel.
Missile Weapons are different from melee weapons in a few ways. Most importantly, since missile weapons don't actually strike the enemy, they don't have damage ratings. Instead, they have damage modifiers. Each arrow, bolt, or dart has its own damage rating and by shooting or throwing that projectile, the missile weapon adds a damage bonus to it. Damage modifiers range from zero or even negative penalties to a maximum of 130% on bows to 150% for Atlatls (Thrown weapons) to 155% for Crossbows. Additionally, missile weapons can have a damage bonus in addition to the modifier. When you cast the spell Blood Drinker, the weapon adds a universal bonus to its damage. Higher tiers of missile weapons add a bonus in a similar way, but only to damage of a specific type, such as Fire. If you shoot frosty arrows from a bow with a bonus to fire damage, you get no bonus. As a rule of thumb, one point of bonus damage translates to 4% damage modification. Because missile weapons are quite heavy and archers have low strength, you will only be able to carry one or two weapons with you wherever you go, but you will want to have one resistance-rending weapon for each damage type. I usually keep one weapon on my archer at a time and leave the rest in my chest at home. Knowing what monsters you plan on fighting will allow you to come prepared.
In addition to your weapon, you will need a good supply of ammunition. This is where your fletching skill comes in handy. Alchemists make various oils that may be applied to arrowheads, which in turn may be fletched into more damaging elemental projectiles. If you have Fletching, you can keep a large number of wrapped arrowheads and shafts in a pack and then combine them when you need more ammo. Heads and Shafts weigh a lot less than the finished product, so having fletching makes up for your lack of your strength. Arrowheads themselves are interchangeable between all three archery weapons, but the finshed products are not. Bows can only shoot arrows, crossbows can only shoot quarrels, and Atlatls can only shoot darts. You can make the appropriate ammo by adding the correct shaft to the arrowhead. Darts are made by adding Dart Shafts, Arrows are made with Arrow Shafts, and Quarrels are made with Quarrel Shafts. Once you have your ammunition, equip it and you will be able to fire until you run out. One wrapped bundle of heads and shafts makes 250 projectiles.
There are only three types of kits worth having - Treated, Renegade, and Plentiful. Treated are the easiest and cheapest to find, even dropping in monster loot. Renegade Kits come from a quest that offers 10 kits a week. Plentiful Kits are primarily a reward from the Bobo quest, but you can also earn one for each uncarved Singularity Key you trade in to the collector in Timaru. Renegade and Plentiful Kits are better than Treateds, but the choice between Plentiful and Renegade depends on your play style. Renegade Kits offer a larger bonus to your healing skill than Plentiful Kits, but they heal less health. Plentiful Kits also have twice as many uses as Renegade Kits. If your heal skill is low, stick with Renegade Kits. If you rarely fail a heal, Plentifuls will be your best bet.
Stamina fuel also is a personal choice. If you are really concerned with your burden, then you will want to invest in the food with the best stamina to weight ratio, which is probably Winter Lager from the Nanto barkeeper. If you are less concerned with your burden, you would probably benefit most from the food that has the biggest charge per item, which is the Elaborate Field Ration. These are made by cooks - each pack of rations make 25 edible pieces, so it's very cheap. The best stamina restorer around is the Stamina Philtre, but those are only available in monster loot and from the Enrico's Letters quest. You do have an alterative if you don't want to keep a stash of stamina food on you - use life magic to restore your stamina. It's very cheap and quite effective, but you need to go from archery mode to mage mode, which can be quite dangerous. I only restore stamina with magic when all my enemies are dead. It's also a good idea to eat or drink whatever stamina foods or potions you find on your defeated foes. That will save you from having to restock as often.
Basic Combat
Archer combat is a bit of a hybrid between melee and magical combat. The same rules about limiting the numbers attacking you and restoring your health/stamina apply. However, in general, Archers do better outside in the open than in dungeons, since archers can use the terrain to their advantage. Archers, especially those who have life magic instead of melee defense, survive best by utterly destroying their foes before that foe can damage the archer. Ideally, a Life Archer hybrid will be using a resistance-rending bow and start combat by casting Imperil on the target. The foe will come screaming in toward the archer, who hopefully will have landed several devastating shots on the way in. Instead of choosing attack speed and height, archers have a slider between accuracy and speed. The left end (speed) incurs a penalty to your attack skill while the right end (accuracy) gives you a substantial bonus to your skill. If you are fighting easy-to-hit monsters, use speed and become a chain-firing machine. If you are fighting tough monsters, you will be better off using maximum accuracy so every shot counts.
The Bottom Line
Archers probably aren't the best class for beginners, but they are very powerful when played correctly. Here are the pros and cons:
Pros:
Cons: