Archer bard

[Gusten]

Hi,

I've asked for advice on bard templates on the bard forum, but I realized that I might be better of asking here on one particular template. It's a bard, but instead of going with magery, I'm toying with the idea to get archery instead. Here's what I had in mind:

120 Music
120 Disco
120 Provo
120 Archery
100 Tactics
80 Chivalry
50 Bushido
710 Total

I'd rely on chivalry for healing, with no meditation. Sounds rough, doesn't it? I'd also, however, hope to benefit from damage mitigation from discordance (they hit for less), provocation (they hit someone else) and keeping my distance as archer.

Reason I'm thinking archery instead of magery is damage output. A good bow, some DI and HCI gear, coupled with 100 tactics and bushido should beat 120 magery/eval int any day. Or am I wrong?

50 bushido is mainly for the ability to honor my opponents. I only have one other bushido char, and I didn't start honoring until bush was around 90-100 or so, so I'm not sure how much good it'd do at skill level 50. Is there any penalty to Perfection from having so low bushido?

And also, is there a skill I've completely forgotten in the template? And lastly, even if this might be a biased crowd to ask - would I do better with magery, eval int and some med instead of archery and the melee-oriented items?

All input is much appreciated!

 

[Barry Gibb]

You might be able to drop Provoke completely out of that build. With Discord, Enemy of One, Consecrate, and a good slayer you will be able to kill things very fast. As an archer, you should not let monsters get too close to hit you anyways. It does not matter if the monster is hitting something else, because you are going to kill it with your bow. This will free up some skill points for higher Bushido and some Meditation.

Stayin Alive,

BG

 

[Taylor]

Yeah, you could drop provo, as Barry said. However, I kinda like the idea of keeping it on. This is a template I've always wanted to try, but I never have (raising provo/disco to 120 once was enough for me).

If I were building this template, I might make it a bit simpler: drop bush, drop chiv to 70, bring tactics to 120, and bring med to 40.

One thing I will say, BE SURE YOU'RE 4/6 casting. This will make you much more viable with chiv heals.

Good luck.

 

[pgcd]

I have a rather similar template, but I take advantage of KR/EC insta-equip. In standard conditions the template is currently as follows:

115 Archery
65 Anatomy
80 Healing
50 Bushido
56 + 7 Chivalry
92 Musicianship
93 Discordance
70 Tactics
99 Necromancy

I travel with three sets of jewelry that when equipped bring me to:
- Disco set: Music 115/Disco 120
- Chiv set: Chiv 82
- Healing set: Anat 80, Healing 94

What I do is very simple: I wear the disco set and disco the enemy, then (if required) I wear the chiv set and cast EOO and finally I go back to my usual jewels for the HCI, DI and increased chiv they provide (to cast Cons Weap and divine fury with a reasonable chance of success).
So far I have tried this new build (I used to have lower necro, higher tactics and a bit more in the other skills) on swoop, since it allows me to perfect the key sequence with little or no danger, and it's amazingly effective: I can usually disco and kill it in roughly a minute, pretty much like it was before the mega-buff.
Before the change to Vamp Embrace (when you didn't need 99 skill to keep the form) I used to go to doom and it was rather effective there as well, especially on the other monster - the DF requires too much button-mashing on the spawn to really allow me to swap stuff around, so I usually just discoed and then wore the standard set.

Bushido is useful to spam LS, of course - you really wanna hit as much as you can with a template like that; healing is relegated to a strict support role - an enhanced bandie every once in a while just to be on the safe side, especially when poisoned above the vamp's form ability, and the chance to resurrect other players as soon as I can raise anat to 66.

 

[Taylor]

Definitely wanna bring archery to 120, if you can afford the scroll.

 

[pgcd]

Definitely wanna bring archery to 120, if you can afford the scroll.

I most certainly want to (I can easily drop 5 from healing with no real disadvantage), but I can't even find the scroll - so I doubt I'll be able to afford it when I finally do find one =)
Still, that 30% lower defense I get from disco kinda makes up for it - I hit swoop pretty much every time when discoed.

 

[Taylor]

Ah, true. Those scrolls are often hard to find.