Question about archer crit factor

Cezzare · June 2016

@TheGreyWolf Don't worry, I consider standard consumables exaclty the ones you mentioned: nostrum, crit power scroll and the charm trio, using anything above those would be an overkill unless you're farming tier 3 bams to sell the goddess tears or something like that.

My archer is what I would call my "2nd main", it's the second char I gear up in each patch because it's incredibly fun to play -currently it's missing the chest piece only, I just need moar MWA- feels really dynamic for a ranged class. Anyways, for all intends an purposes I'm a casual archer, I just asked about times because I've never timed any of my fights on IoD either... and I don't need to do so, fighting some of those BAMs with my archer is entertaining enough, I don't feel the need to break a world record or something.

@Nopi The available tools actually allow you to build any class for a front-crit setup, I remember some people discussing it in the old forums. However, despite the existance of solo content the game gives you a lot more tools for a back crit build, weapons for DPS classes have flat damage and damage from behind rolls available, but none have a frontal damage roll line (the closest would be increased damage against to the monster with the highest aggro towards you) and there are no equivalents for savage and forceful crystals. On solo gameplay the time it takes you to get behind the monster should ideally be the same time you spend waiting for your skills to come off cooldown and we gotta remember that back crits still count as such while the BAM is in the process of turning around, archers and sorcerers should take advantage of this.

Nopi · June 2016

As I said before. I know I'm doing it wrong. I'm just being lazy because I hardly ever use this archer. My current main dps has a full back crit setup and everything rolled and fixed for back attacking. Also, I would NEVER bring a front crit dps into a party nor a dungeon. I mean, I even called this setup an abomination, right? So I know I won't get kicked. Because in a dungeon I behave.

Thing with IoD bams is that this is the case of trying to fit a square box into a round hole. Bams were never meant to be solo content. Ever. Their whole design, ability to turn around, size, damage(well, old Tera bam damage at least) goes around being fought as a party. So the whole solo thing, if you analyze it as I do, is also an abomination.

I just mentioned this setup just to tell people with lazy alts or who are simply slow at the whole getting to the back of a solo bam, that at least front crit, while it misses on some damage, isn't as bad. Worse would be to go full equipped in back crit but never be able to see the back of a bam. That would be the lowest damage you could ever do to these things.

But as everyone else agrees, it's simply unwise to use anything that is not back crit setups as a dps on a dungeon. AND if you are good at the whole getting behind a bam in solo play, then back crit will always yield more damage.

As for wrathful, yeah. I tested around and indeed, side crits work for that crystal. No idea why they made it like this, but they work.

TheGreyWolf · June 2016

@sestina LOL don't worry, I always try for back crits. And I'm not even talking about dungeon groups. Only dungeons I've ever done are the leveling dungeons, and I solo those. I was talking about front crits for solo play. Obviously if I was going to attempt a group dungeon... well first I'd have to upgrade my toaster just to be able to handle a raid, and second, I know how dungeon groups are supposed to work - tank in the front, dps in the back. Back crits would be much easier if I had a tank with me to hold aggro. Specifically talking about solo play here, when you have 100% aggro, and you're playing a class like archer which isn't exactly super mobile (at least not as mobile as the BAM you're trying to kill, making it hard to stay behind them)..

@Cezzare yeah I never really time my archer runs. I just enjoy the gameplay. And for what it's worth, my main archer tends to clear content quicker than my main reaper, even when similarly geared. This I have tested and proven, on both Ghillie and the solo alliance BAM; my archer clears both MUCH quicker than my reaper. Though I chalk that up to the fact that I know how to play archer better than reaper.

@Nopi I know that originally BAMs were meant to be group content, but I've been playing for just over a year, and most BAMs are very viable for a decently geared dps class to solo. BHS probably nerfed them for exactly that reason, to make TERA more casual friendly. Especially since most BAMs, at endgame at least, don't drop much of anything worthwhile (the occasional CCB, SES, and a small handful of gold - better than nothing, but definitely not worth an epic 30 minute battle).

Good to know that wrathful works for side crits, though I think I'll still try to focus on my back crit build and getting better at maximizing back time. Archer doesn't really make for an ideal lazy alt anyway. I have spacebar reapers for that.

Nopi · June 2016

Oh, you do keep on back crit if it works for you. As for bams, I started Tera soon after it released here in NA, just after beta. Bams back there were simply epic. Sure, pretty much all of them were soloable back then. I soloed my fair share of those pre-nerf bams. But still, I knew I was soloing what was at the time full party content. Fights lasted long. Upwards to 20-30 minutes, depending on the bam. At higher levels you could be fighting one of those things upwards to an hour if you were stuck in +6 rare(blue) gear, which was often the case for forever alones like me who didn't dungeon much.

Anyway. I've said my piece in here and won't derail with old tales of unsung derpies.

TheGreyWolf · June 2016

@Nopi yeah I never got to experience those epic BAM fights. But I did one time, when leveling my first character, attempt to take on a BAM that was like 10-15 levels above me... that fight was "epic" I guess? If by "epic" you mean long and fruitless... spending 5 minutes to knock off like 2% of his hp... LOL. I thought it might pay off in the end, with like 10 billion xp and a whole boatload of loot.. luckily I ended up backing out of the fight about 20 minutes in (realized I was burning through too many heal pots to keep it up for much longer). Found out later that killing higher level monsters doesn't automatically give you 100 gold and level you up 5 times like I thought it would.

I also learned early on that you're not "helping" other players by jumping in to help them fight something... I apologize, random player, I was new and ignorant and I honestly thought I was doing you a favor... I realize now that I basically "stole" your kill and neither one of us got credit for it... noob mistake on my part, my bad... though calling me a "[filtered] idiot" was maybe a little uncalled for, since I was only trying to help..? Speaking of old tales of unsung derpies.

Nopi · June 2016

Relating to archer to try to stay on topic, I did have some epic fights as archer back then, though my 'main' then was zerker (which right now I can't play properly because I pretty much desynced from the class). Had a friend who had an archer main and when I played zerker, his archer was doing almost double the damage I was doing, noting also that back then zerker was around the worst on the dps tables because it was lacking almost half of what a zerker has now, including glyphs, secondary effects and plain damage. We used to farm sloths at balders refuge while chatting for hours. None of us had +9 because that enchant level back then was reserved for tryhards and the epic players. gear also had no set bonuses and most people anyway ran with mis matches of drops from common mobs or whatever they could get from end game, which back then was Ebon Tower and Kelsaik.

Looking back, comparing zerker and archer at those times, or zerker with with slayer, was almost like comparing archer with ninja nowadays.... So the total lack of class balance existed in Tera since the very start.

TheGreyWolf · June 2016

@Nopi I'm not surprised. I've only been playing for about 14 months, but this game never seemed balanced to me. Zerker is another class that I enjoy so far, though my zerk is only level 30 or so. People say archer is basically a ranged zerker, so I figured I'd probably like zerk, and so far I'm not disappointed. It's a little slow perhaps (much slower than ninja at least), but I hear they get faster at 65; and regardless, I'm already used to archer which is based on hitting hard, but less often. Axes are actually my favorite weapon anyway (bows being second, knives third). I just went with archer as a main because zerkers are more like frontline tanks, and I'm more of a sneak / support / solo ranger type.

Nopi · June 2016

I took my zerker for an IoD farm run today and was surprised that I was well able to use a full back crit setup on it. I'm completely out of practice with the class, but I'm getting faster kills than my archer (front or back crit archer) and my sorc. And pretty much on par with my slayer.. Thing is my slayer has slaughter weapon and my zerker has only DN. Dash is pretty much key for back hitting in this case, also, attack speed helps a lot with charged skills.

Back to archer, I assume but have not tested that tossing two atk speed rolls on archer weapon will also help charging PA and RA on that class. My archer weapon is currently rolled 2 CDR. I use two and not one and one because the big differences are seen when rolling two of the same.

TheGreyWolf · June 2016

I'm not surprised about your zerker results, zerk seems to be pretty legit.

I'm sure both attack speed and CDR would make a noticeable difference for my archer, though the general school of thought seems to be double enrage, and that's what I went with. It's working decently enough so far I guess.

Arlist · August 2016

First, I'm kinda sick to see all teh debates about the PVE, especially when the topic is GENERIC. Then, since it is generic, aside the crits, I'll add a bunch of things not mentioned yet.

Archers first of of, still sucks hardcore in current status. A little less in PVE, but quite a crap in PVP. And then this in where i'm goign to argue, since the topic is already filled of PVE comments.

1) Crit factor, currently appear to be worth only in PVE builds. And you may say, "what shoudl I go to power? My crit chance is still a crap, even after the 15% buff!" So I reroll power and crit no more?". Exactly, you figured out how broken the Archer currently is.

2) Archers are still behind many other classes in term of survivability and DPS. So, thanks for the little love you showed for archers Bluehole, pity it applies only to PVE, making the archer just a little bit less crap than it was before! The problem is, is true a crap in PVP currently!...

3) That archer is extremely crit reliant class (if not the one) for how it si designed, is not a news to anyone, but if you considering also your rotation, and how slow archer your rotation is compared to other classes, this is another crit chance reduced. Why?

4) Atk SPEED - Slow rotation is also equal to less chance to crit. For example, If Archer rotation was as quick as Ninja, Reaper or Brawler, your chance to crit is increased as well.

Maybe not a big problem in PVE, but in PVP... the archer is very underpower with big nefr he received and the new classes added. Those who played Archer in Argons era, Sniper Eye was its PVP stance, with PVP bonus dmg, which now only applies to PVE (bosses, uh?).

To sum it up, With the Nerf to PVP stance, with all the Crit Resist Bonus, and Low crit chance, enjoy your white festival of embarrassing dmg.

Especially In PVP, is where you end to quit your Archer sooner or later. if you also consider that Archer has a very small HIT BOX ( the Gunner has it as big as a truck ), the chance to miss your target, which is likely to happen vs high mobility classes ( all excluded the Zerker), also your chance to Crit is reduced.

Then? Is Crit Factor worth? I'll conclude saying, you better play some other classes more rewarding in terms of fun untill they decided to give back to Archers a FACTOR ROLE.

Nopi · August 2016

This is a kinda old thread but I'll fall for it. Yes. I can only talk about pve because I'm only interested in pve. Current pvp archers can answer your questions about the class performance against other players because there's always people who are dedicated to their class and won't give it up through nerfs and buffs. As for me. I've changed my archer rolls when I gave it a Slaughter weapon. Now I run the usual 2x enrage/flat/behind as others, because at least for back crit pve, it does more crits than white damage. It's not 100%, but enough to not embarrass myself with it. I'm also currently pulling more damage as my archer than as my slayer, when before the buff and my wrong rolls of before it was doing less damage. I also changed my habits a bit on what I use, and now use RF a lot more.

So, it shouldn't be like this, but it seems some classes do much better at pve than at pvp and other are the opposite.

Cezzare · August 2016

Arlist wrote: »

First, I'm kinda sick to see all teh debates about the PVE, especially when the topic is GENERIC. Then, since it is generic, aside the crits, I'll add a bunch of things not mentioned yet.

Archers first of of, still sucks hardcore in current status. A little less in PVE, but quite a crap in PVP. And then this in where i'm goign to argue, since the topic is already filled of PVE comments.

1) Crit factor, currently appear to be worth only in PVE builds. And you may say, "what shoudl I go to power? My crit chance is still a crap, even after the 15% buff!" So I reroll power and crit no more?". Exactly, you figured out how broken the Archer currently is.

2) Archers are still behind many other classes in term of survivability and DPS. So, thanks for the little love you showed for archers Bluehole, pity it applies only to PVE, making the archer just a little bit less crap than it was before! The problem is, is true a crap in PVP currently!...

3) That archer is extremely crit reliant class (if not the one) for how it si designed, is not a news to anyone, but if you considering also your rotation, and how slow archer your rotation is compared to other classes, this is another crit chance reduced. Why?

4) Atk SPEED - Slow rotation is also equal to less chance to crit. For example, If Archer rotation was as quick as Ninja, Reaper or Brawler, your chance to crit is increased as well.

Maybe not a big problem in PVE, but in PVP... the archer is very underpower with big nefr he received and the new classes added. Those who played Archer in Argons era, Sniper Eye was its PVP stance, with PVP bonus dmg, which now only applies to PVE (bosses, uh?).

To sum it up, With the Nerf to PVP stance, with all the Crit Resist Bonus, and Low crit chance, enjoy your white festival of embarrassing dmg.

Especially In PVP, is where you end to quit your Archer sooner or later. if you also consider that Archer has a very small HIT BOX ( the Gunner has it as big as a truck ), the chance to miss your target, which is likely to happen vs high mobility classes ( all excluded the Zerker), also your chance to Crit is reduced.

Then? Is Crit Factor worth? I'll conclude saying, you better play some other classes more rewarding in terms of fun untill they decided to give back to Archers a FACTOR ROLE.

But dis the PvE section, bruh.

Xaioli · August 2016

Arlist wrote: »

First, I'm kinda sick to see all teh debates about the PVE, especially when the topic is GENERIC. Then, since it is generic, aside the crits, I'll add a bunch of things not mentioned yet.

Archers first of of, still sucks hardcore in current status. A little less in PVE, but quite a crap in PVP. And then this in where i'm goign to argue, since the topic is already filled of PVE comments.

1) Crit factor, currently appear to be worth only in PVE builds. And you may say, "what shoudl I go to power? My crit chance is still a crap, even after the 15% buff!" So I reroll power and crit no more?". Exactly, you figured out how broken the Archer currently is.

2) Archers are still behind many other classes in term of survivability and DPS. So, thanks for the little love you showed for archers Bluehole, pity it applies only to PVE, making the archer just a little bit less crap than it was before! The problem is, is true a crap in PVP currently!...

3) That archer is extremely crit reliant class (if not the one) for how it si designed, is not a news to anyone, but if you considering also your rotation, and how slow archer your rotation is compared to other classes, this is another crit chance reduced. Why?

4) Atk SPEED - Slow rotation is also equal to less chance to crit. For example, If Archer rotation was as quick as Ninja, Reaper or Brawler, your chance to crit is increased as well.

Maybe not a big problem in PVE, but in PVP... the archer is very underpower with big nefr he received and the new classes added. Those who played Archer in Argons era, Sniper Eye was its PVP stance, with PVP bonus dmg, which now only applies to PVE (bosses, uh?).

To sum it up, With the Nerf to PVP stance, with all the Crit Resist Bonus, and Low crit chance, enjoy your white festival of embarrassing dmg.

Especially In PVP, is where you end to quit your Archer sooner or later. if you also consider that Archer has a very small HIT BOX ( the Gunner has it as big as a truck ), the chance to miss your target, which is likely to happen vs high mobility classes ( all excluded the Zerker), also your chance to Crit is reduced.

Then? Is Crit Factor worth? I'll conclude saying, you better play some other classes more rewarding in terms of fun untill they decided to give back to Archers a FACTOR ROLE.

1. You're in the PvE section, dunno why you're ranting about PvP
2. With the removal of a lot of second lives (reapers, gunners, etc), Archers aren't that behind in survivalbility. Two i-frames with a good amount of cc/burst is pretty good for a class in terms of PvP balancing.
3. Every class is crit reliant. That's why you see a lot of people stacking just pure Power for more reliable whites when added up, does much more than rng chancing crits. Crit Resist is much easier to get in the current Tera than in previous patches.
4. Attack Speed is mandatory for archer in PvP and you don't really have a rotation in PvP outside of the basic kick combo. If you're actually following a rotation, you're not playing it right. It's all about situational fillers and know how to set up and follow up on cc's.

If you were trolling, 10/10 you got me

TheGreyWolf · August 2016

Arlist wrote: »

First, I'm kinda sick to see all teh debates about the PVE, especially when the topic is GENERIC. Then, since it is generic, aside the crits, I'll add a bunch of things not mentioned yet.

Archers first of of, still sucks hardcore in current status. A little less in PVE, but quite a crap in PVP. And then this in where i'm goign to argue, since the topic is already filled of PVE comments.

1) Crit factor, currently appear to be worth only in PVE builds. And you may say, "what shoudl I go to power? My crit chance is still a crap, even after the 15% buff!" So I reroll power and crit no more?". Exactly, you figured out how broken the Archer currently is.

2) Archers are still behind many other classes in term of survivability and DPS. So, thanks for the little love you showed for archers Bluehole, pity it applies only to PVE, making the archer just a little bit less crap than it was before! The problem is, is true a crap in PVP currently!...

3) That archer is extremely crit reliant class (if not the one) for how it si designed, is not a news to anyone, but if you considering also your rotation, and how slow archer your rotation is compared to other classes, this is another crit chance reduced. Why?

4) Atk SPEED - Slow rotation is also equal to less chance to crit. For example, If Archer rotation was as quick as Ninja, Reaper or Brawler, your chance to crit is increased as well.

Maybe not a big problem in PVE, but in PVP... the archer is very underpower with big nefr he received and the new classes added. Those who played Archer in Argons era, Sniper Eye was its PVP stance, with PVP bonus dmg, which now only applies to PVE (bosses, uh?).

To sum it up, With the Nerf to PVP stance, with all the Crit Resist Bonus, and Low crit chance, enjoy your white festival of embarrassing dmg.

Especially In PVP, is where you end to quit your Archer sooner or later. if you also consider that Archer has a very small HIT BOX ( the Gunner has it as big as a truck ), the chance to miss your target, which is likely to happen vs high mobility classes ( all excluded the Zerker), also your chance to Crit is reduced.

Then? Is Crit Factor worth? I'll conclude saying, you better play some other classes more rewarding in terms of fun untill they decided to give back to Archers a FACTOR ROLE.

Thanks for the input on my 2+ months old thread... and while I agree with your basic premise that archer could still use more love, particularly maybe for PVP, I posted this thread in the PVE section. Which is why this is a PVE debate, not a generic one.

I find this forum very strange. Every time I ask a question about apples, some people still feel the need to tell me all about oranges.

Arlist · August 2016

Most ppl, I guess, arrives to this forum while googling as I did. I did not notice this was PVE section. What you can fidn on google about archer is most PVE, the few topic on Archer PVP are outdated.

Question about archer crit factor

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