Review - MC as a SC Arcane Archer

[crdvis16]

Note: I had the community patch and balance polish mod installed (in case that affects some of the interactions of abilities)

Just finished another playthrough and wanted to give my thoughts on some of the builds I used.  First up is my main character that went single class Arcane Archer.  The basic way that I used him was primarily an AoE CC + AoE damager via Imbue Eora, Web, and Fireball/Death.  You group them up with Eora, Debuff their reflex and immobilize them with Web, and then unleash damage with either Fireball or Death, depending on their resistances and if your own teammates are too near to Fireball's damage radius.  You can also just chain Imbue:Missiles for single target damage, especially when empowered (with the way empower works, Minoletta's Missiles gets a huge power increase relative to many other spells).

Probably the most important ability to grab is the passive Driving Flight which will enable your Imbues to hit two targets, effectively doubling the damage of Fireball/Death.  One nice thing about this subclass is that you get the Imbue abilities for free and really don't need most of the other Ranger active abilities (wounding shot, etc) because you'd usually prefer to save your resources for the Imbues.  This means you can pick up lots of empower enhancing abilities at high levels and/or grab some of the pet-centric abilities along the way.

I used Spearcaster as my main weapon because it just fit my character RP wise the best (scientist background and high arcana giving extra accuracy).  Weapons with natural bounce effects would have been even better potentially as the Imbues bounce along with your attack.

Overall this was a fun build.  The AoE damage can be really strong, single handedly wiping out packs of enemies or killing a squishy target right off the bat with empowered Missiles.  However, now that I know more about it I'd probably choose to multiclass Arcane Archer.  Arcane Archer really doesn't need too many skill points spent in it to make it effective since the Imbues are auto-grant.  I've read interesting synergies with Helwalker or Barbarian multiclasses in particular that sound fun.  The main thing you'd lose if you multiclassed is access to Imbue:Death or quicker access to Imbue:Eora but I think the synergies you'd gain would make up for that, not to mention it probably being a more fun build overall.

[dgray62]

Thanks for the report. I've never played a SC AA, so it is interesting to read about your experience. If I remember correctly, either CP or BPM fixed the problem with the imbue talents not scaling, right? 

[crdvis16]

I didn't know there had been an issue with their scaling.  I do know that they seemed to feel powerful throughout my playthrough which would suggest they are scaling properly (but that's my subjective impression). 

[dgray62]

I believe that they do not scale in the vanilla game, and that this bug was never patched. But I am 99% certain that this was fixed in one of the mods you are using, which is why their power did not diminish notably in your play through.

Edited November 8, 2021 by dgray62
Error Correction

[Boeroer]

They also somewhat scale without mods, but one thing that doesn't scale is the penetration. Community Patch adds a fix that scales the imbue penetration with the Arcana Skill. So more Arcana not only leads to bonus ACC but also bonus PEN. Then that whole thing scales kind of like normal spells would. 

Edited November 8, 2021 by Boeroer

[thelee]

5 hours ago, crdvis16 said:

However, now that I know more about it I'd probably choose to multiclass Arcane Archer.  Arcane Archer really doesn't need too many skill points spent in it to make it effective since the Imbues are auto-grant. 

thanks for this report - i've been tossing the idea of an AA around and it's interesting to hear this feedback about preferring MC over SC. You don't think that Death Cloud is worth it for SC?

 

5 hours ago, crdvis16 said:

One nice thing about this subclass is that you get the Imbue abilities for free and really don't need most of the other Ranger active abilities (wounding shot, etc) because you'd usually prefer to save your resources for the Imbues.

what about marked prey? do you find you need it much? i've been worried about resource limits between a couple of marked preys eating up so much of what could be another imbue.

 

28 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

They also somewhat scale without mods, but one thing that doesn't scale is the penetration

i think they only scale with extra projectiles for the missile imbue, no? i don't think theres any additional damage or accuracy or anything. if i hadn't read otherwise, i'd say that the high accuracy from arcana is meant to be there instead of normal scaling and missiles get the extra projectiles because they auto hit anyway, but i think we do have dev confirm that it's a bug.

curiously, if you empower an imbue, they scale as if they were a martial ability (some very specific rules) versus a spell (+5 PL).

[NotDumbEnough]

I'm personally thinking of doing an Arcane Archer variant of thelee's Disruptor Theurge build. I already beat all 4 megabosses with a Lifegiver variant, and it was quite good between perma-interrupts and 500+ healing from a single spell cast. That said, it was not particularly great at dealing damage esp. versus single targets, and some of the druid abilities had very short ranges and were prone to friendly fire. Arcane Archer on the other hand has double Binding Web/Pull of Eora at relatively long range while also being capable of decent damage output thanks to the Nocked Her Arrows With Speed and Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr chants.

All this is just theorycraft though, so I'm looking forward to trying it out. 

[dgray62]

Interesting idea. Would you go with AA/chanter or AA/druid? Maybe the former would be best so you'd always have the essential chants up. Also, regarding Marked Prey, maybe it's worth getting if you upgrade to Marked for the Hunt? The problem with that ability though is the random nature of the transfer of the mark. Too bad you just don't get the bond point back when the foe dies, like the paladin's sworn rival ability.

[NotDumbEnough]

The point of going Chanter is for the Energized inspiration which lets you interrupt whenever you crit. Certain abilities like Venombloom have lots and lots of hit rolls (3 hit rolls per 3 sec) which translates into lots of crits. So many crits, in fact, that your enemies get permanently interrupted and can't move.

It has its issues though. Venombloom is a poison effect so lots of vessels are completely immune. Wicked Briars is a ground effect so anything that floats or flies is likewise immune. Binding Web is a ground effect, but at least Pull of Eora is not, so AA is better than druid in that regard.

[crdvis16]

2 hours ago, thelee said:

thanks for this report - i've been tossing the idea of an AA around and it's interesting to hear this feedback about preferring MC over SC. You don't think that Death Cloud is worth it for SC?

 

what about marked prey? do you find you need it much? i've been worried about resource limits between a couple of marked preys eating up so much of what could be another imbue.

 

i think they only scale with extra projectiles for the missile imbue, no? i don't think theres any additional damage or accuracy or anything. if i hadn't read otherwise, i'd say that the high accuracy from arcana is meant to be there instead of normal scaling and missiles get the extra projectiles because they auto hit anyway, but i think we do have dev confirm that it's a bug.

curiously, if you empower an imbue, they scale as if they were a martial ability (some very specific rules) versus a spell (+5 PL).

Imbue:Death is really nice in order to have another AoE damage type aside from fire.  And in cases where corrode or fire were viable I usually chose Death to not have to worry about friendly fire.  But in most situations you'd still be able to AoE with Fireball.

I'm not 100% sure that multiclassing would be stronger than SC but having played SC Arcane Archer I think there's a good chance multiclassing would be more fun. 

I did take marked prey but often found myself not using it.  I like it if you're single target attacking but if you're doing the Eora/Web/AoE combo there doesn't seem to be much of a reason to use Marked Prey, especially if doing so means you end up with 2 bond instead of 3 and miss out on one last Fireball or Death.

[Boeroer]

2 hours ago, thelee said:

You don't think that Death Cloud is worth it for SC?

I think Death Ring is very powerful with 3 jumps. Not only is it foe only and has a big base AoE (5m radius) but also the destroy-on-near-death part happens a lot when you trigger three of them at once.

Still... when I have to decide how to spend my Bond I almost always prefer Imbue:Eora since three long-lasting "implosion spheres" with very high ACC just do have more impact for me - at least if you can open the fight with them and trap all enemies in them. Since Imbue:Eora is obtainable as multiclass I think it's no a bad idea to multiclass Arcane Archers.

I did AA/Helwalker with dual mortars, AA/Paladin with Spearcaster and SC Arcane Archer with Watershaper's Focus and they were all pretty great.

Edited November 8, 2021 by Boeroer

[crdvis16]

I wonder if another benefit of using Watershaper's Focus over Spearcaster is the faster recovery.  It takes a while to reload Spearcaster whereas Watershaper's Focus would more quickly dish out the AoE after Eora, not to mention the extra bounce.  I noticed occassionally that enemies would manage to get out of Eora's grasp eventually so getting the AoE off quicker has advantages. 

[Boeroer]

Watershaper's Focus with Blast (the modal) should have slower recovery than Spearcaster (especially with Gunner).

And I would use Blast because Ondra's Wrath also procs off of Blast hits. 

If you cast Imbue:Work from stealth as opener (as I most often did) you can follow up with another shot almost immediately (because Stealth grants -80% recovery time). 

Edited November 10, 2021 by Boeroer

[crdvis16]

Ah, right.  The modal probably makes them about equal.  The extra jump probably just trumps anything else anyway, though.  An extra Eora, Death, or Fireball is huge.

Except spearcaster feels much cooler rp-wise to me than stealing Watershaper from Tekehu .

[Boeroer]

Spearcaster also has extremely high accuracy - if your Arcana is high. And the modal of arbalests is underrated. With enough reloading speed you can pin easily keep a single enemy down with Spearcaster. 

Watershaper's Focus pays its additional jump with base damage: compared to other rods it has low base damage. But yes, the jump is very nice for Arcane Archers.