Archer

"Death from afar."

The Archer is a lightly armored class which specializes in a bow with long ranged offensive damage-dealing capabilities.

While attacking from the distance, their bow allows them to shoot a devastating blow toward the enemy from where the enemy can't reach them. As they also have high speeds, they can dodge and move quickly across the battlefield whilst still maintaining distance to shoot. When necessary, they can also lure enemies into fatal traps in order to change the outcome of the battle.

Official description
"If you like having a tool for every job, the archer is the class for you...especially if you like tools that explode, penetrate armor, trap enemies in magical spider webs, or transform into radiant energy. Archers leave behind a trail of victims that look like pincushions—many dead before they knew what hit them. The archer rewards the use of clever tactics and thinking two steps ahead of your enemy. Adventuring archers use remarkable bows. Instead of a string of gut and leather, their bowstrings are of arcane energy. In place of wooden arrows, they fire arrows of pure willpower. An archer's arrows effortlessly punch through enemy armor, consume foes in fiery energy, and trap them so they can't even flee! Archers deal death from afar. They excel at firing from beyond a foe's retaliation range, and using their escape moves to stay there. They can take the high ground for a better view of the overall battle, pick off foes that flee for help, and deal out damage without pulling aggro from the tanks."

General
Archers are capable of launching multiple long ranged attacks using their bow to create deadly shots. Archer doesn't have fixed combos or clear rotation, but higher damage skills should be prioritized and used when off cooldown. "Themes" of the class are charged attacks and using their dodge capabilities (Breakaway Bolt, RE) for damage boost. Most attacks have long animation locks that should be cancelled by chaining to other skills (Sequential Fire, Windwalk).

Archer in one of the oldest classes in TERA, one of the original two ranged DPS classes. Originally archer was low-damage DPS class, specialized in debuffing enemies with Trap Arrows. Also its mobility was lackluster compared to how it's today.

Archer had quite big changes in the class rework. Previously as fast and agile as brick, archer is now quite opposite. Rework also got rid of some old skills, notably infamous Velik's Mark. Previously archer had to "mark" one target for extra damage. This mark was not shared among multiple archers, and only one player could mark a target. This lead to DPS loss when there was more than one archer in one party.

Formerly popular in PVP, class has fallen into disuse simply because it does not have powerful enough combo to quickly finish opponents.

One notable thing is archer's dependent on ping. High ping leads to DPS less. Main culprit was skill Rapid Fire, that did 7 attacks with high cadence. Each shot requires round-trip to server. This was partially remedied in patch v108 when number of attacks was cut to 3.

Equipment


Although low on health, the archer is equipped with leather armor for increased defense for when the enemy does manage to catch up with the archer. Equipped with a strong and sharply crafted weapon, the bow proven to be the favored weapon of the archer for its long ranged capacity.

Skills


Main archer attack skill is. It is charge skill that is charged increasing damage, and shoots when button is released. Shot has significant recoil. Popori archer even falls to his back, doing back flip. This animation lock can be eliminated with skill that shoots one arrow and cancels recoil. After that archer should continue with that shoots maximum of 7 arrows. Each hit with these skills add Focus, which when stacked 10 times speeds up charging skills.

Other hard-hitting skill archer has is. It also has triple crit change and it hits really hard. Skill also has long cooldown. Recoil from Thunderbolt can also be cancelled with Sequential Fire.

Other skill that should always be used when off cooldown is. It shoots multiple arrows 15m in front of archer that damage multiple enemies in form of AOE attack.

While waiting the Radiant Arrow to became available again archer has to use multiple skills that are more of less fillers. Main filler is, that does less damage than Radiant Arrow, charges more slowly and has lower crit change, although 2&times; with apex glyph. As name implies, it penetrates enemies and can hit many with one shot.

Other useful filler are, and. All cast very fast, although skills do minimal damage. Their main use in in PVP where they inflict poison damage or slow down enemies or their attack speed.

Archer also has number of traps that are place on ground of launched to distance. does reasonable damage even in PVE and can be launched from distance. and are used to stun opponents.

Although the archer's greatest weakness is enemies getting up close, the archer has a few ways to handle such situations, with the help of the archer can stun the enemy, giving self enough time to load a deadly shot, or escape with  or  to gain distance.

It should be noted that archer had quite big changes in class rework. Chase is similar charge skill like some other classes get and moves archer fast forward quite long distance. Find Weakness is other new skill from archer rework. It allows archer to get backcrits for next attack they use, even if they can't hit boss into back.

Apex changes


Apex has significant changes to how archer is played.

Main new skill is Wind Walk. This is combo skill that buffs next Radiant Arrow, Penetrating Arrow and Thunderbolt by 10%. This skill cancels all other skills, so it can replace Sequential Fire as animation cancel.

In addition, it moves archer forward or any other direction they are walking when cast. This allows fast movement across battlefield, but requires some learning. This skill consumes archer Resolve, that is used for dodges like Backstep. Also archer focus generating skills now restore Resolve.

Also archer finally gets real boost skill called Windsong. It works pretty much like skills any other classes get. Increases attack speed, resets skill cooldowns when activated and gives them reduced cooldowns.

Gust Arrow is "big attack" with 3 min cooldown. This is easy use since it requires no combos or setup. Just wait dragon proc and hit brooch and blast it.

Racial traits
Being able to pick between one of the seven races proves to be a tough choice. Each race has their own unique racial traits that can effectively improve the gameplay of the archer, depending on race choice:
 * Amani have a lot of defensive capabilities coming from, and  which can increase the survivability of the archer and the archer's main weakness, defense.
 * Baraka have, a healing ability that can fully recover all health, for more mobility, and  which gives them more health than any others, only when they constantly die.
 * Castanics have which increases their running speed during combat for more distance, and  which gives them a higher chance to shoot a critical hit from the back.
 * High Elf have which completely recovers their mana, and  which restores an amount of mana upon revival to get back into combat quickly.
 * Humans have and  which greatly increases their defense when facing enemy players. Aside from that, they have, which restores an amount of health upon revival to get them back into combat quickly.
 * Poporis and Elins have nothing that could assist an Archer in combat. Instead, they get multiple abilities for non-combat situations such as swimming and movement speed outside of combat. (Not Useless)

Popori has been long time favoured race for PVP archer due their faster animation on, key skill in PVP.

Gearing and Attributes
For gear with enigmatic rolls you can pick, recommended weapon rolls are Damage vs. enraged monster; Damage vs. enraged monsters; +6.9% damage from behind and Flat 6% damage, and Cooldown reduction. With low gear that has only 4 enigmatic lines pick Cooldown reduction as first roll. Recommended chest line is Radiant Arrow damage.

With new level 70 patch Exodor gear archer uses gear with physical amplification: Dauntless Azart or Annihilation gear. (Crystals, rollable weapon lines incl. double cooldown and chest line are not available on level 68/69 Exodor gear or on new level 65 Exodor Scout gear or any gear released after that.)

Archer differs from other classes since they have passive skill to give 5% more chance to do critical damage (nerfed from 10% with awakening patch). Also some of the most important archer skills have 3&times; crit chance while others have 2&times;, like Apex Wind Walk skill, which is now one on the most important skills. Just hitting Radiant Arrow and Thunderbold (3&times;) crit cap is not enough.

Old guides (pre-Exodor) recommends crit factor 220–230 over base which should be crit cap and give Radiant Arrow and Thunderbolt 100% crit chance for level 65 content. Therefore archer doesn't have to use all crit accessories, but part can be switched to power.

For post-Exodor content Essential Mana's Aluka recommended 200–220 total crit. (this is early Exodor patch guide from 2019.) By the late stage level 70 endgame bosses are level 73, which means they similar crit like 65 vs. 68 is needed.

Generally all classes use full power set of Warlord rings, earrings and necklace for endgame and superior (yellow) Relic and/or Halidom for crit factor if needed.

With patch 93 new passives some archer skills scale with physical amplification value and some with physical crit power. Both are desired stats.

Crystals
Archer uses standard ranged Weapon Crystals: Spiteful, Savage, Focused and Pounding. If crit rate is low, Pounding can be switched to Carving.

Glyphs
Specializing in glyphs like all classes means a great deal to customization. Notable glyphs are:


 * Carving Radiant Arrow: Triples the chance to crit.
 * Slick Radiant Arrow: Eliminates slowed movement restriction.
 * Energetic Rain of Arrows: Decreases cooldown by 25%
 * Hastened Rain of Arrows: Speeds casting by 40%
 * Empowered Rain of Arrows: Increases skill damage by 25%
 * Carving Thunderbolt: Triples the chance to crit.
 * Hastened Thunderbolt: Speeds casting by 30%
 * Empowered Thunderbolt: Increases skill damage by 20%
 * Persistent Rapid Fire: 15% chance to eliminate cooldown
 * Empowered Rapid Fire: Increases skill damage by 20%
 * Carving Penetrating Arrow: Doubles the chance to crit. (Apex superior glyph)
 * Empowered Penetrating Arrow: Increases skill damage by 25%
 * Blazing Sequential Fire: Speeds up charging of Penetrating Arrow by 30% for few seconds.
 * Energetic Sequential Fire: Decreases cooldown by 35%
 * Persistent Sequential Fire: 50% chance to eliminate cooldown

These are your main damage skills. This is for the last of bit of DPS.
 * Powerlinked Breakaway Bolt: Increases skill damage of Penetrating Arrow by 25% for few seconds.
 * Energetic Backstep: Decreases RE cost 30
 * Regenerating Feign Death: Heals 3% of HP for 10 seconds.

Enhancement Points
Strengthen Offence:
 * Mighty Attack, always max this first
 * Rapid Fire Pummel Stack, gives free extra crit, note that you need to put points to EP damage to activate this.

EP Damage:
 * Rapid Fire Strengthen, just to unlock Pummel Stack

Speed Increase:
 * Rain of Arrows Velocity
 * Retaliate Speed Skating: Traps, good in PVP
 * Close Quarters Speed Skating: Traps, good in PVP

Resource Recovery:
 * Radiant Arrow Combo Drive, give basic damage skill chance to reset, good
 * Backstep Reload
 * Feign Death Reload
 * Thunderbolt Reload, very good when handling groups of mobs
 * Penetrating Arrow Reload, similar like Thunderbolt EP, just worse
 * Retaliate Turning Tables, good in PVP

Defense/Special:
 * Mighty Defense, max this
 * Feign Death Glorious, second longest iframe in game, can't be bad
 * Mighty Phoenix, spend 1 point here
 * Rain of Arrows Indomitable, good
 * Rain of Arrows Sprit of Iron, good
 * Lethal Lesson, usually used in PVP

Skill Advancementment
Rain of Arrow: (fill in)

Windsong: Gale is generally most useful.

Card Collection
Generally first max physical crit power, then max physical amplification.

See August 2021 card builds.