[Bushido] ABC Archer question

[James [W^H]]

Does Bushido's Confidence work on an Archer with no Parrying?

 

[Anon McDougle]

I found bushido to not work well with throwing or archery..

 

[Akiho]

Does Bushido's Confidence work on an Archer with no Parrying?

The active, instant part of confidence works without parry just fine. The reactive part which has the potential to restore health and stamina upon parrying an attack will not work without parry and goes against the basic Archer playstyle.

The reactive part of confidence restores such a small amount of health/stamina that it really only works optimally if you are surrounded by mobs and parrying multiple attacks.
With GM Bushido and confidence active a successful parry will heal 1-8 HP and restore 1-20 Stam, for an Archer this is pretty insignificant.

Main reasons for having 50+ Bushido is Honor (perfection) to achieve max damage for mobs with no slayer vulnerabilities. The ability to use Yumi special moves, Armor Pierce and Double Shot. And finally there is some small utility with Lightning Strike as a low mana ability which can also override HCI debuffs and can also potentially critically strike (Double Damage?).

 

[James [W^H]]

@Akiho Thanks for the detailed explanation on how Confidence works!

 

[Obsidian]

Bushido is the bomb with ranged characters. Use it for perfection, momentum strike, the mana cost reduction for specials, etc. I do use confidence too, but I also have other forms of healing, but confidence is my initial triage while I backoff into a defensive state.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

And finally there is some small utility with Lightning Strike as a low mana ability which can also override HCI debuffs and can also potentially critically strike (Double Damage?).

Critical Strikes with LS deal 100% of full damage (ignoring all Resists) for that attack. It's a slightly more powerful AI (which deals 90% of full damage) basically. Problem is, even with 120 Bushido, Lightning Strike only has a 20% Critical Chance, so on average you'd have to deliver 5 Lightning Strikes to deliver 1 Critical. That's 50 Mana (excluding LMC) worth, when 1 AI is 30 Mana (25 with 120 Archery/80+ Bushido, excluding LMC). Even a chained AI that has it's Mana Cost doubled, ends up being 50. Non-Critical Lightning Strikes deal no more damage than regular attacks, and if you're already capped at 45% HCI, then the +50% HCI from LS is useless (asides from when HCI is debuffed). 80% of the time, you're spending Mana for no benefit, even worse if you have less than 120 Bushido (only 13% Critical Chance at GM Bushido). They really gutted the usefulness of Lightning Strike when they doubled it's base Mana Cost from 5 to 10. Especially nowadays when it's easy enough to get enough HML on the bow and deliver enough damage that you can endlessly chain AIs all day. For melee, who have even more Mana Leech capability, Lightning Strike is completely pointless.
If you run low on Mana and can't AI, then you're basically better off just saving the Mana and auto attacking once or twice then continuing AIs, than using Mana on a Lightning Strike.