Till now ive played into the bias that Archers arent good in groups untill yesterday when i grouped with a Daywalker spec Scout in my 8 man. His skill proved very useful being able to swich from Bow to melee and still be decent is a nice add on. its like a Wizard who can defend himself. But after the group ended i just didnt see why they arent wanted in groups. With the necro aF debuff these guys are downright demonic.


This goes for Rangers and Hunters aswell. I can see a multitude of uses for Daywalking Scouts, rangers, and Hunters.


1. Each of these 3 classes if speced into melee instead of stealth have a form of self defense heck Hunters actully deal a good amount of dammage with that spear. they have a huge DPS factor from their archery skill set. So i want to know is placing Daywalking Archers in your group just a Bias or is it actully a bad idea?


Thanks for reading,


Kamlauaut-ywain2 ( Albion necromancer )

Just a bad idea. Used to be somewhat viable 8 years ago. Archers, at least, are better than assassins since they can go sojourner. There just isn't a real good role for stealthers in groups, especially hybrid or melee groups. I can see them working in caster groups, possible peel role and ranged DPS. But they don't bring any utility like other casters. And archery DPS is gimp compared to caster DPS. Not to mention you can't really debuff archery dmg. The specialized shots can be elemental based, but are too slow to be using in combat.

Archers would be very situational or fit into a zerger type group of 8.

 

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Too low dps, too squishy and offers nothing that another class can't do better (well, except MoS 5 to pop stealthers in a coastguard grp maybe).
It would basically be a bad thane.


That said, I remember some grp back when classic servers were new that ran a melee/BC hunter

 

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In a group with a necro, this would be a great idea.


Toss in a friar and a heretic while you're ruining a group.

 

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Fixed that for you.

Most good grps run a friar as their main healer.

 

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To be honest bigseph i think u are still hanging out in the darkages with your knowlage on necromancers. i lead and join all sorts of groups that are more sucsessful than not. i dont think heretics, friars, even scouts ruin groups aswell.


i understand where you are coming from its all about comfort zones and you are scard to come out of yours with your basic groups.


forinstance my premade group runs paladin, necro, necro, clericx2, mini, 2 tanks and we ALWAYS clear 50-70k in 2-4 hours and usually we have arms mercs or reavers but someimtes we use tics frairs. and newly added daywalker scouts.


i will always urge anyplayer to play what they will and be the best at it you can be if you want to be a group infltratior and you can make it work then good for you.

I understand your point but for now i only see daywalker scouts usefully in groups with tanks they offer things that casters cant offer for instance they can defend themselfs if they get assisted on where as a wizard is uselss. heck if needed and im not saying from experiance but they could use MoC 3 more effectively than a wizard would.


though for now its all theory, but on a another note i see hunters as very group effective players. they offer a pet they can summon instantly once the already presummoned pet dies. and these pets proc deiseses and snares often. which could prove effective. on top of that they have dammage that is on par with melee with their spear and archery which is on par with magic.


this is somting im still working on but i would like to welcome all daywalker spec scouts to Pm me and we can talk more.

Archers make an okay substitute if there are no dps casters around. What they're missing is all the little extras casters have like nearsight, debuffs, cc, disease, etc. Plus some have an annoying tendency to wander off from a group to do their own thing or use stealth to wilson from a fight gone bad.

 

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In combination with an AF debuffing Necro I could see that they start to approach Nuker DPS to the point where you might be able to call them a DPS class without blowing your soft-drink of choice through your nose, but otherwise the only thing remotely useful I can see about'em in a FG would be long range interrupts. Long Shot fires fast and out to 2500-2750 range, toss in Remorseless for snare procs and you can be a pretty good PITA.

I can see a Scout doing fairly well in that scenario because you do have Slam, but when you factor in BT & a BG, Casters actually tend to have better survivability then Archers. Not even that Salad Plate is going to help you survive any actual melee train attack, and certain classes like Zerkers, Savages, or Champs will roll over you solo in 3-4 rounds about the same as they do on a Caster.


I really think the Necro was the key element to make this work well at all. Basically if the Necro debuffs the target, the Archer is going to be a long range pain train all by himself.


I also wouldn't recommend "Day Walker" spec for a Scout, because a Scout can spec 42 Shield and 50 Bow w/o gimping his Stealth, and any points he puts into melee are wasted anyway. It's just not going to be worthwhile for him to swing his weapon outside interrupting someone whilst being hit themselves. You need the Stealth for the biggest front-load DPS shot anyway.


A Hunter is a different matter, but even a Sword Hunter would be 50 Sword & 50BC, and you'd still have 28 Stealth. The Hunters pets of course will spend most fights being CCed, so they'll largely be a non-factor IMO. I'd greatly favor the Scouts Shield here for Slams/peeling over the pet, but of course the Hunters superior melee puts them about on par overall.

A Ranger might be interesting for his RR5, but he has to be too close to use it generally and ends up being disarmed himself for 15s...it's nice though for resetting stun immunity and thus could lead to a 14s stun on someone. Otherwise the Ranger would be by far the least desirable visi group Archer I imagine.


I think it's great when you can get a dedicated group of friends to let you play what ever class you want, or at least let you try to play any class to see if you can make it work. If not though, obviously you're hurting your team if you're not playing the most optimal class you have available to you. (Of course odd-ball teams can be fun, and when you have a Necro in there you're already down a different path that opens entirely different options, so yeah other classes may suddenly fit in better then they normally do. That AF debuff is such an ability that simply is otherwise not available, is very powerful, and nothing in the game synergizes quite as well with it as Archery does, since Archery is basically a powerful ranged melee-damage attack.)


If Theurgs didn't exist, and Amnesia & NS weren't 2300+ range, I think we'd probably see more Archers in RvR as long-range interrupters that would force support to move further back and thus probably cause more overextending headaches for the enemy.

 

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I never liked playing my Scout as a stealther after NF came out but i'd respec to daywalker to get groups on him. Archers are alot of fun in a group setting.


-Drak

 

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