Thoughts on arcane archer for solo honour

[Fang]

I like doing solo honour runs with martial classes.
With patch 8 I went for an arcane archer run. I went pure AA until 11 and finished the game before 12. I would probably have gone war cleric for last level to use that bonus action.

Action economy :
terrible compared to a stealth archer or a swords bard until level 11, for that third attack.

Damage :
the boost from arcane arrows was OKish, but nothing compared to the overall damage potential of other OP archers.
I did most of the game with titanstring and STR elixirs, switching elixirs at the very end with STR gaunts from house of hope.
Lack of burst damage made Raphael fight a bit rough with a lot of kiting around.
I'm not sure the psychic damage boost from resonance stone applied consistently (bug?).

Utility :
Some control, esp with arcane acuity helm from mason guild, but impractical with the action economy, unless hasted.
Solo archers usually rely on durge invis cloak to reset fights, so we need to kill a target every turn. If we use one of our 2 attacks to banish a target, that leaves only one attack to kill another target and pop invis from cloak. That led me to overuse consumables and use arcane synergy for damage instead of acuity.

Initiative :
Decent with gear.

Survivability :
That was the good part. HP and AC were high throughout, but AC goes down with bhaalist armour. A pure eldritch knight is still better with shield spell as reaction.

Out of combat :
Abysmal rolls on pretty much everything. Bad stealth, bad SoH, bad dialogue checks. It makes sense focusing on Dex and Int, though I expected rogue stuff would be easier at 20 Dex.


Overall, it didn't feel like a good class for solo honour mode, but could be good in a group, providing reliable controls.

I'm not sure patch 8 provides a subclass that can improve previous archer builds.
I also played around a bit with ranger swarmkeeper but gave up because of horrible damage and tiny range on that teleport.

[Señor Brown]

Build? Stat spread? Gear?

EDIT: nvm, that info is partly described throughout the post

[Fang]

Nothing fancy, I mentioned the build being pure arcane archer.
Stats were 17 dex, 14 con, 16 int.
+1 dex from Ethel, +2 dex from feat, +2 int from feat.
End stats were 20 dex, con is irrelevant with amulet from Raphael, 18 int.
You need high int to land the debuff from arcane arrows.
STR comes from elixirs.
I take sharpshooter at 4, dex at 6 (fighter extra feat), int at 8.

Gear is standard archer stuff which allows comparison with other builds.
- Titanstring bow
- Gloves of archery early on, swapped with +damage or gloves of STR later on.
- Heavy armour early on, medium for some sneaky stuff if fight can be started at max range. Obviously bhaalist armour for final fights.
- Boots of speed to kite most of the time, swapped with stormy clamour or Nere's for a misty step on specific fights.
- Risky ring + free action so I don't get paralyzed / held (crazy drow lady in Moonrise).
- Amulet is mostly irrelevant, apart from the paralyze on crit (gith merchant) for some fights. Raphael amulet for massive con at the very end.
- Helm is either arcane acuity or arcane synergy (chest in mason guild / mage during inquisitor fight in creche).
- Invis cloak from durge.
- Knife for higher crit chance, shield that gives +3 initiative and adv on perception.

[Kamuizin]

“ You need high int to land the debuff from arcane arrows.”

Damn, i was planning in doing a hexblade 2, bard 3, arcane archer 7 charisma focused.

You mentioned general archer builds, any tips on them?

Also, will have respec after each level up to keep charisma as main caster attribute, apparently arcane archer change it to int and that will screw arcane synergy combo.