Archery Skilling

[Mila]

haha!

after a long day of skillups(+ one morning of almost being late for 1st day of class >_>) I have sidewinder! :D I'm really suprised how reliably we can hit VT and even IT mobs as rdm/rng with racc equips. Sidewinder has yet to miss for me w/ sharpshot + <150% tp.

I'm glad I have it.. it will be useful for farming and messing around... :D Plus... just being a Galka RDM/RNG popping off a sidewinder for 1k dmg and making people go omgwtf is worth it lol.

[Macht]

Originally posted by WishMaster3K
I talked a quick sec to Grendal and It makes sense WHY we hunt worms, like RNG. RNG hunt worms because they dont move, giving them the ability to attack, pull back and repeat. Also, this tactic works for any class able to shoot post-24 when they have access to Utsusemi from NIN sub.

Any Job will do well against worms as long as they use ranged attacks. With worms it's really not even required to use NIN sub if you are careful enough. Even then with just a WHM or RDM to duo with you can fight worms a lot more consistent. The nicest part of this is with duo you can do the ITs with little difficulty from them.

On top of all that too any job that can do Ranged Attacks can duo worms from lv. 1 all the way to 75. Yes the levels of the worms range that far as long as you know were to go for them.

[Xyphere]

Re: haha!

Originally posted by Mila
after a long day of skillups(+ one morning of almost being late for 1st day of class >_>) I have sidewinder! :D I'm really suprised how reliably we can hit VT and even IT mobs as rdm/rng with racc equips. Sidewinder has yet to miss for me w/ sharpshot + <150% tp.

I'm glad I have it.. it will be useful for farming and messing around... :D Plus... just being a Galka RDM/RNG popping off a sidewinder for 1k dmg and making people go omgwtf is worth it lol.

lol nice you got it

[WishMaster3K]

Re: haha!

Originally posted by Mila
I'm glad I have it.. it will be useful for farming and messing around... :D Plus... just being a Galka RDM/RNG popping off a sidewinder for 1k dmg and making people go omgwtf is worth it lol.

W00t! [Congradulations!] Now just go nuts in Ballista. This gives RDM's offense and Defense. oohhhh, I cant wait ><

[Silverquick]

I have to agree, this is very good information,

And it even looks like we'd able to do decent damage with it. I am going to have to look at this myself. I don't think it would have much application in EXP groups per se just because of all the equipment swapping removing your TP, but Balista would make this really interesting.

That said, at 300% TP Sidewinder would be deadly.

[DrowII]

Well I got back to leveling and figured I would try some worms because the elementals that come after Onzozo are beasts and would certainly make leveling archery much less relaxing.

So I packed my bags and headed to kuftal to kill cave worms(which occasionally drop gold ore) they are level 60 - 63. I went to the area where Amamet spawns because the crabs are pulled quickly and only a few spawn.

This is somewhat of a pain until you get a good spawn rythm where only one worm is spawned at a time. to open the areas up you have to kill one while silencing two.

I was easily able to get from 175 to 186 on 6 worms (no gold ore though I used a macro for sidewinder and equipped Demon arrows just for weaponskills and it worked great. I was able to hit the worms for around 460 - 700(sidewinder is all over the place in damage for me).

My Equips:Equips

with the exception of the ogre mask because Allakazam does not have the Torama mask in it's data base. Torama Mask

None of these equips were expensive or hard to obtain but they were more than enough to ensure that I hit 8 out of ten shots.

And because Demon arrows are so costly I made this macro for weaponskills:

/equip ammo "Demon Arrow"
/ja "Sharpshot" <p0>
/wait 1
/ws "Sidewinder" <bt>
/wait 2
/equip ammo "Scorion Arrow"

This worked great and gave me some extra power.

[Gman]

Were the worms hard to silence? I guess at that level they must be able to cast some pretty deady spells if you let them.

My archery is at about 110 right now... wheres my best option to level it? I'm thinking I can go right to Kuftal, but I may miss a lot. I can also try the worms in Quicksands I guess... they should get me good skillups.

[DrowII]

Wearing my archery skillup gear I was not resisted at all with silence. As for spells they cast rasp + every stone spell except stone IV which all hit fairly high but with stoneskin and barstone it is all very manageable.

The biggest pain in the ass spell they have access to is stoneskin which they like to cast the second they are unsilenced, dispel this immediately because they will start to get their life back at an enormous rate(had a few go from half dead to full in the time it took me to finish firing an arrow and cast dispel).

I would not suggest going to Kuftal at 110. As to my advice on where to skill up I would suggest doing elementals: Elementals

And fighting them until you bow skill coincides with what it would cap at if you were the same level as them.

Use this:
Weapon skill caps to determine what level you should be at.

So for instance you are at 110 and a red mages bow skill caps at 109 at level 40 so I would suggest finding a level 45 to 50 elemental to fight.

These are your options:

Demon's Elemental 45 - 53 Castle Zvahl Keep
Thunder Elemental 45 - 47 Oldton Movalpolos
Water Elemental 47 - 49 Davoi
Thunder Elemental 47 - 49 Davoi
Earth Elemental 47 - 49 Castle Oztroja
Fire Elemental 47 - 49 Castle Oztroja
Water Elemental 47 - 49 Beadeaux
Thunder Elemental 47 - 49 Beadeaux
Earth Elemental 47 - 49 Altepa Eastern Desert
Fire Elemental 47 - 49 Altepa Eastern Desert
Thunder Elemental 48 - 50 Behemoth's Dominion
Light Elemental 48 - 50 Behemoth's Dominion
Ice Elemental 48 - 50 Xarcabard
Dark Elemental 48 - 50 Xarcabard
Ice Elemental 48 - 49 Castle Zvahl Baileys
Dark Elemental 48 - 49 Castle Zvahl Baileys
Water Elemental 48 - 50 Yuhtunga Jungle
Fire Elemental 48 - 50 Yuhtunga Jungle
Thunder Elemental 48 - 49 Sanctuary of Zi'Tah
Water Elemental 48 - 49 Sanctuary of Zi'Tah

Or if you prefer worms:Worms


Desert Worm 43 - 47 Altepa Western Desert
Flayer Franz [NM] 45 - 45 Waughroon Shrine
Sand Eater 51 - 59 Quicksand Caves
Tomb Worm 58 - 60 King Ranperre's Tomb

[Apple Pie]

Were the worms hard to silence?

No, not at all because they're weak on Air. Even though Silence is resisted by accident, you just step back and stay out of their spell range when you see them casting some deadly spells.

[Prefect]

Originally posted by DrowII
Or if you prefer worms:Worms


Desert Worm 43 - 47 Altepa Western Desert
Flayer Franz [NM] 45 - 45 Waughroon Shrine
Sand Eater 51 - 59 Quicksand Caves
Tomb Worm 58 - 60 King Ranperre's Tomb

Flayer Franz, being the boss of a BCNM40, would be a bad skillup choice for a number of reasons.

[Tomoh]

Thank you DrowII and Apple Pie for great info . Following you two's advice, I was able to get my archery skill to 141 in relatively short time. It is really fun to see skill go up fairly quickly. Once I reach 175, I will upgrade my bow and arrows. I may even raise RNG now or at least solo to 10

Update: 179 and counting

[WishMaster3K]

[Congradulations] Tomoh-san!!!!!

As soon as my parents go to sleep, and i see Full Metal Alchemist, i'll be playing myself. But who knows. dad was sleeping all evening cause he's sick, and he may be awake after midnight, which would suck ass ^^

In any case, I'm at skill 90, but Piercing Arrow is the only decent WS until Sidewinder. =P I might get to 45 so i can equip those rings that raise RACC by 6 or 7.

Oh, there are some rings at lvl 55 that totally put Sniper rings to shame if your an archer. Forgot the name, but they kick ass. i think the increase is 7 and they only cost 10-13k each on Gilgamesh. Look them up!

[Tomoh]

Thanks!

It does make it easier when you're RDM75 to skill up.

My +Range accuracy equipment (+29) from the start were:

- 2 Coral Ring, LV70, Accuracy-9 Range Accuracy+9 Magic damage taken-3%
- Coral Gorget, LV56,, Accuracy+3 Ranged Accuracy+3
- Short Bow +1, LV1, Ranged Accuracy+3
- Beetle Arrow, LV17, Ranged Accuracy+5
- Squid sushi (These helped a lot)

Compared to SMN (Worst skill-up in the game) skill up, Archery is fun. Boredom and drwosiness is your enemy.

Thanks again to Apple Pie and DrowII

One more thing, I did the Strange Appratus trade hoping that Rune Bow would drop. I did this 3 times spending 80K or so, all I got was 2 clusters and 8 Summit chips T T The best reasonably priced bow in the AH was Rapid Bow+1, which I purchased.

[truenoir]

Figured I'd mention for higher level RDMs...if you do the Operation Desert Swarm BCNM (and perhaps others) there's a good skillup bow that drops there.
Expunger, level 72, Damage 26 (Latent 39) with +9 Ranged Accuracy. Rare/EX.

I posted asking about the latent on the main forums, but of course if anyone knows what triggers it, feel free to say :sweat:

From doing a round of these, it seems like a Rare/EX weapon drops every time, and 3 of 6 runs we got this bow (and 1 of 6 a V. Claw ) so it seems like a likely bonus for those levelling archery high level.

[Prefect]

If that bow is like all the other level 72-73 weapons from the new BCNMs, I believe the latent effect triggers while using a weapon skill.