Build Recommendation_Gather / Archer

I have a lot of casual players in my group who are overwhelmed with the information found here on the forums and on the various spreadsheets and player created tool. I have sent them the links I have created at:
Reference_New Player Resourcesand I also emailed them the excellent Basic Guide to Budgeting Exp in PFO to get them started.

I would appreciate some recommendations for casual players trying to create the following "build" ideas:

Gather/Archer (non combat role focusing on the gathering skills, avoiding combat, and being a supporting role with long ranged fire when in a group)

Thanks in advance for any help, as I am just starting to learn how to play Alpha myself and I honestly don't know what to recommend yet.

Edit; Starting with 1000 XP.

haha. BE WHAT MY CHAR IS. Depends on what you need to gather. You need almost nothing for long bow spec. Let me log in to make sure...

as of now, I'd spec fighter, get ranger armor, get bow mastery.

Spec fighter as high as you want to continue to get "archer" armor. Get bow specialization. Wing the rest. heh. You can probably just go archer 1, bow spec 1, base attack. I got fort 2, archer 2, base 1, great fort 1, bow spec 1.

I have a bunch of other crap I bought while trying to raise my con. HP/Power are good but non necessary for pve at the moment. Like I said in another thread, if you use exploit on opportunity you can dps an ogre or a medium power player.

Update: This character received a longbow, and automatically received a Basic Longbow Attack and Basic Longbow Exploit (I think). What other feats should be added/trained for a "support" archer for a casual player?

@Celestialiar, thanks for recommendations above. :)

You could just do this:
Start at the Skirmisher Trainer.
Train: Bow Proficiency, Hit points 1 & 2, Ranged Attack Bonus 1, Reflex bonus 1, Halfdraw 1, Overdraw 1
Next go to the Dreadnaught Trainer and Train: Medium Armor Proficiency, Fortitude Bonus 1
Next go to the Fighter College and Train: Archer 1 & 2, Trophy Charm Proficiency, Power 1 & 2, Bow Specialization 1
You should have 239 exp left, 1st train in a craft is 229
Dexterity Crafts are Bowyer Leatherworker, Tailor

To feed those crafts or otherwise get abilities:

Dexterity Refines: Weaver Gemcutter
Constitution Refines: Tanner, Sawyer
Constitution Gather: Miner
Wisdom Gather: Scavenger

GEt some knowledges to help drops.

Have fun !

You could just do this:

Start at the Skirmisher Trainer.
Train: Bow Proficiency, Hit points 1 & 2, Ranged Attack Bonus 1, Reflex bonus 1, Halfdraw 1, Overdraw 1
Next go to the Dreadnaught Trainer and Train: Medium Armor Proficiency, Fortitude Bonus 1
Next go to the Fighter College and Train: Archer 1 & 2, Trophy Charm Proficiency, Power 1 & 2, Bow Specialization 1
You should have 239 exp left, 1st train in a craft is 229
Dexterity Crafts are Bowyer Leatherworker, Tailor

To feed those crafts or otherwise get abilities:

Dexterity Refines: Weaver Gemcutter
Constitution Refines: Tanner, Sawyer
Constitution Gather: Miner
Wisdom Gather: Scavenger

GEt some knowledges to help drops.

Have fun !

Shouldn't Archer 2 wait until after the character finds or buys a suit of +1 armor?

TEO Pino wrote:

You could just do this:

Start at the Skirmisher Trainer.
Train: Bow Proficiency, Hit points 1 & 2, Ranged Attack Bonus 1, Reflex bonus 1, Halfdraw 1, Overdraw 1
Next go to the Dreadnaught Trainer and Train: Medium Armor Proficiency, Fortitude Bonus 1
Next go to the Fighter College and Train: Archer 1 & 2, Trophy Charm Proficiency, Power 1 & 2, Bow Specialization 1
You should have 239 exp left, 1st train in a craft is 229
Dexterity Crafts are Bowyer Leatherworker, Tailor

To feed those crafts or otherwise get abilities:

Dexterity Refines: Weaver Gemcutter
Constitution Refines: Tanner, Sawyer
Constitution Gather: Miner
Wisdom Gather: Scavenger

GEt some knowledges to help drops.

Have fun !

Shouldn't Archer 2 wait until after the character finds or buys a suit of +1 armor?

I prefer to wait for that armor with 55 more hit points on me. YMMV.

KarlBob wrote:

TEO Pino wrote:

You could just do this:

Start at the Skirmisher Trainer.
Train: Bow Proficiency, Hit points 1 & 2, Ranged Attack Bonus 1, Reflex bonus 1, Halfdraw 1, Overdraw 1
Next go to the Dreadnaught Trainer and Train: Medium Armor Proficiency, Fortitude Bonus 1
Next go to the Fighter College and Train: Archer 1 & 2, Trophy Charm Proficiency, Power 1 & 2, Bow Specialization 1
You should have 239 exp left, 1st train in a craft is 229
Dexterity Crafts are Bowyer Leatherworker, Tailor

To feed those crafts or otherwise get abilities:

Dexterity Refines: Weaver Gemcutter
Constitution Refines: Tanner, Sawyer
Constitution Gather: Miner
Wisdom Gather: Scavenger

GEt some knowledges to help drops.

Have fun !

Shouldn't Archer 2 wait until after the character finds or buys a suit of +1 armor?

I prefer to wait for that armor with 55 more hit points on me. YMMV.

Pretty convincing argument. Do the 55hp come with Archer 2, or is that a side benefit because Archer 2 helps the character reach 11 Con?

Do the 55hp come with Archer 2, or is that a side benefit because Archer 2 helps the character reach 11 Con?

There are no direct benefits (like extra Hit Points) to raising Constitution (or any other Ability Score).

All of the Armor Feats give you a Hit Point bonus Per Keyword. Archer gives +55 Hit Points per matched Keyword.

But I'm not real sure what Pino means; you won't get the +55 HPs from Archer 2 until you're wearing Armor with the Military Keyword.

As with the other builds I have posted, I am also struggling to understand weapon combos/rotations, feats and keywords for Archery related matters, and I think I may be making progress.

My PC is equipped with:

Hunter's Longbow: Piercing (+0), Precise (+1), Balanced (+2), Penetrating (+3)

As per Longbow Attack Feats:

Longbows have these attacks:

Primary:(Free-Basic Longbow Strike),Overdraw, Pinpoint Targeting, Half-Draw, Bullseye Shot, Sorrows Release

Secondary:(Free-Basic Longbow Exploit),Parting Shot, Patient Armor, Impaling Shot, Impact Critical Shot, Follow-through Foresight

I currently have all trained to level 1. As you can not slot all of them, here is my first draft in trying to get some of those archery feats to work together (staring with lowest cooldown/damage to highest cooldown/damage)

(1) Half-Draw
(2) Pin-Point Targeting
(3) Overdraw
(4) Parting Shot
(5) Impact Critical Shot
(6) Follow-through Foresight

Overdraw grants Flat-Footed, which Parting Shot can trigger on.

Opportunity state (which a lot of feats/features/situation creates) can trigger the extra damage/effects of Impact Critical Shot and Follow-Through Foresight.

Is this a good combo/rotation? Any suggestions?

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PFO Wiki

The General Reactive feats are:
Deafening Critical General Oblivious on Critical Hit
Exhausting Critical General Exhausted on Critical Hit
Sickening Critical General Afflicted on Critical Hit
Staggering Critical General Slowed on Critical Hit
Stunning Critical General Stun on Critical Hit
Tiring Critical General ?

For the gather (spear & support archer) PC, there are no reactive feats slotted. Using the following Longbow feats (I need to learn the players spear feats):

(1) Half-Draw
(2) Pin-Point Targeting
(3) Overdraw
(4) Parting Shot
(5) Impact Critical Shot
(6) Follow-through Foresight

Are there any 2 reactive feats that work with the above and the base spear feats?

KarlBob wrote:

Do the 55hp come with Archer 2, or is that a side benefit because Archer 2 helps the character reach 11 Con?

There are no direct benefits (like extra Hit Points) to raising Constitution (or any other Ability Score).

All of the Armor Feats give you a Hit Point bonus Per Keyword. Archer gives +55 Hit Points per matched Keyword.

But I'm not real sure what Pino means; you won't get the +55 HPs from Archer 2 until you're wearing Armor with the Military Keyword.

Yer right, it is not needed until you get better armor. (But if you are getting Longbow skills maybe you know some crafters ; )

As with the other builds I have posted, I am also struggling to understand weapon combos/rotations, feats and keywords for Archery related matters, and I think I may be making progress.

My PC is equipped with:

Hunter's Longbow: Piercing (+0), Precise (+1), Balanced (+2), Penetrating (+3)

As per Longbow Attack Feats:

Longbows have these attacks:

Primary:(Free-Basic Longbow Strike),Overdraw, Pinpoint Targeting, Half-Draw, Bullseye Shot, Sorrows Release

Secondary:(Free-Basic Longbow Exploit),Parting Shot, Patient Armor, Impaling Shot, Impact Critical Shot, Follow-through Foresight

I currently have all trained to level 1. As you can not slot all of them, here is my first draft in trying to get some of those archery feats to work together (staring with lowest cooldown/damage to highest cooldown/damage)

(1) Half-Draw
(2) Pin-Point Targeting
(3) Overdraw
(4) Parting Shot
(5) Impact Critical Shot
(6) Follow-through Foresight

Overdraw grants Flat-Footed, which Parting Shot can trigger on.

Opportunity state (which a lot of feats/features/situation creates) can trigger the extra damage/effects of Impact Critical Shot and Follow-Through Foresight.

Is this a good combo/rotation? Any suggestions?

Longbow Exploit is your best shot when they have opportunity. 2500 kills and still waiting to see any shot do more damage than exploit + Opportunity.

I exclusively use Longbow Exploit in combination with Basic Longbow Strike for everything currently. Once you have figured out the timing, and when mobs offer Opportunity, you can start being efficient with your Stamina.

Ogre Warrior: Strike, wait half a second for Opportunity icon to appear, Exploit, Strike (they still have opportunity but will likely lose it just before you get off a second Exploit which will then starve your Stamina so a wasted shot), Ogre will stop and do some shout, offering Opportunity again so Exploit -> dead before he reaches you.

Same for a mix of Scouts and meleetype bandits and gobbies: Exploit on a mob with Opportunity will one-shot it, so mix it up. And so forth.

I *want* to use all those other attacks, but the +50 base damage with Opportunity is just too good to pass on.

The longbow exploit is indeed incredibly powerful. But two comments:

1) when you get to masterwork/T2, basic exploit is no longer so relevant since it doesn't upgrade. With T2+2 weapon and level 4 attacks, you have +30 base attack on everything except basic strike & exploit.

2) ranged + opportunity überness is being looked at and may well be changed. (Especially when you combine it with rogue features Daredevil or Opportunist that make them even better).

@All,

I did not included Longbow exploit because:

1- It does not upgrade.

2- It can be replace by a better feat that opens up additional conditions for the non-archers to take advantage of in group play.

3- Base on Dev. comments, it might get nerfed.

@Tyncale:
"I *want* to use all those other attacks, but the +50 base damage with Opportunity is just too good to pass on."

Exactly, it is such a "no-brainer" choice, that it invalidates other choices automatically, thus a good candidate for nerfing. :)

1- Any archers out there that can comment on the archery attack feats above? Need some feedback as to what works (ignore the 2 default longbow feats please as they don't scale).

2- For the gatherer-archer (support) build in the OP, the melee weapon of choice is the spear. There are 4 primary and 4 secondary Piercing Polearms attack feats, and I want to use this as a secondary weapon attack (as longbow is the primary attack), to be used as a last line of defense. Thoughts?

(1) Spike
(2) Stab
(3) Puncture
(4) Skewer
(5) Transfix
(6) Impale

Are there any 2 reactive feats that work with the above spear feats?

1- Any archers out there that can comment on the archery attack feats above? Need some feedback as to what works (ignore the 2 default longbow feats please as they don't scale).

2- For the gatherer-archer (support) build in the OP, the melee weapon of choice is the spear. There are 4 primary and 4 secondary Piercing Polearms attack feats, and I want to use this as a secondary weapon attack (as longbow is the primary attack), to be used as a last line of defense. Thoughts?

(1) Spike
(2) Stab
(3) Puncture
(4) Skewer
(5) Transfix
(6) Impale

Are there any 2 reactive feats that work with the above spear feats?

I don't want to give away allll my secrets, but I use Gore instead of Transfix.

The primaries are good. You'll mostly just be spamming Stab.

(1) Half-Draw
(2) Pin-Point Targeting
(3) Overdraw
(4) Parting Shot
(5) Impact Critical Shot
(6) Follow-through Foresight

Per my thread on the Alpha forums, Impact Critical Shot is not worth your while right now.

Parting shot will be great once it's evasion is working again. I wouldn't invest in it until that happens, however.

I like Impaling Shot now since its extra effects are no longer conditional.

Patient Anchor is worth slotting, but not worth using until we can use Lesser Tokens of Striking without being in melee.

Pretty much all of your Primary attacks will be split between Half-Draw and Overdraw. Overdraw does the damage and gives flat-footed (which is potentially huge support boon to your party) while Half-draw is just terminally annoying to be on the receiving end of. Terminally.

Bullseye Shot, Pinpoint-Targeting and Sorrow's Release are all great attacks for your 3rd Primary. It just depends on what you want to do more: Stacks of Slow, Stacks of Bleed, or apply Flat-footed. They are all 25 Stamina with a 2.3 second attack time, so you will be getting 2 off per round.

Shortbow: Don't use it. Just stick with Long bow so you can keep your achievements concentrated around being a Fighter role with the spear and what not.

But if you did use it...

(1) Distant Shot
(2) Point-Blank Shot
(3) Quick Shot
(4) Clustered Shots
(5) Deadly Aim
(6) Distracting Shot

Why Quickshot? It only costs 6 stamina and has an attack speed of 0.9 seconds, so you can spam it AND accumulate stamina at the same time. To top it off, the attack applies Bleed 5 with each hit, which adds up to about Bleed 30 after the first round, then Bleed 50 on the second, and so forth. If you are able to safely stand back and do support, this can be wonderfully effective as a means to tear down even heavily armored opponents. These extra bleed stacks also complement Clustered Shot and Deadly aim nicely, if you are able to use them.

Distracting Shot complements Distant Shot nicely, or any party where someone is doling out lots of flat-footed. It is also cheap and fast.

Snap Shot, like Parting Shot, should be avoided until it is fixed. When Snap Shot is working, either pair it with Running Shot or use a Lesser Token of Dodging to get the full benefit of Snap Shot.

Multishot is dangerous unless you plan carefully to use it before your party members get in the way and use it in conjunction with a Wizard that likes to use an AoE that applies Flat-Footed (e.g. Explosive Runes).