Is it just me or are Archers EXTREMELY underpowered?

[My Name is ĐEEZ]

Like the title says, I feel like Archers are EXTREMELY underpowered. All they have is the range advantage, the triple shot, and a grappling hook (things you start with, does not include buyable items). They only have 2 hearts and no CQC or enviornment destroying abilities (AGAIN, without having to BUY it.) They get easily 1 or 2 hit by Knights and can barely damage knights due to long charge time and their shields. Also the grappling hook is barely useful seeing how annoying it is to use or people can easily stop you while grappling. I only played this game for 2 hours I believe, so there might be some things I may have missed or don't know about yet. If so, let me know. Also let me hear your opinion on the Archer class or just any other class. I would like to hear from both veterans and other newbies who just picked up this game.

[Harmonica]

They're situationally very powerful (just as knights are good at being front line attackers or defenders). Find a good position and lock down your opponents from extreme range. Archers absolutely butcher builders, and a group of them should be enough to stop would be attackers from coming close to the castle walls. If you get up close to the enemy, yeah, you're probably going to do less well, but that's why you have the grappling hook, to go places others can't.

Tell your builders to build a nice archery position.

If you haven't already, make sure you go into options>misc and disable fixed camera - this is necessary so that you can aim at things in the distance (it's generally useful for every class, anyway).

[Xieberion]

Not sure if this is well known (or if it was removed which I doubt), if you shoot an arrow fully charged at a Knight in close-range it stuns them and pushes them back, allowing you to shoot more arrows or flee.

[Monsteri]

Actually, archers are MOST powerful in cqc right now. Don't sit at the tower all day and plink at your enemies, you'll be useless. You need to learn the usage of special arrows, grappling hook and arrow timings before you can excel at archer; It may not look like it, but archer has actually a much higher skill requirement - and cap - than knight.

[L1]

Originally posted by Monsteri:

Actually, archers are MOST powerful in cqc right now. Don't sit at the tower all day and plink at your enemies, you'll be useless. You need to learn the usage of special arrows, grappling hook and arrow timings before you can excel at archer; It may not look like it, but archer has actually a much higher skill requirement - and cap - than knight.

without massive amounts of skill archer is just useless at combat. put in other words, in knight vs archer knight always win if both players are equally skilled (unless archer is behind a well-designed fortification)

archer's true power comes out in CTF, because of their mobility they are really good at capping

[Harmonica]

The knight seems pretty useless at combat if the archer is at the top of a very tall tower shooting at them... They're situational. The only thing is that the knight probably has more situations that it can fight in, and can just go around destroying constructions, but is less powerful and more easily countered by the entire team (or just two other knights). The archer relies more on the environment or builders to build places for them to stand, but when in position they have way more control over the battlefield.

You used to be able to try out different health on the classes, not sure if you still can (had a look but can't find the config for it if it exists) - I tended to up the health of all the classes, it was a good way to balance things. I gave the archer 3.5 hp, 1 armour, the knight 3 and 2 armour, and the builder 3 hp, but no armour. I think the default is 1/1.5/1.5 respectively.

[feevinitup]

Archers are not underpowered, I'll try to hit a few quick points (Most of these are purely referencing combat, for CTF the Archer's mobility is OP in some cases).

Their charge shot (which you can delay each shot by quite a bit of time) is amazing for the three consecutive shots and the knockback - If you've ever been hit by an arrow while fighting anything, you are probably all too familiar with the short period of being stunned and then being dead since someone was able to land that last hit on you.

Archers are not made to kill Knights. I get that we look at classes by comparing them to each other, but you can't do that here - The Archer passed his job interview to pester people from a distance, he aced his tests to shoot bombs and kegs out of the air, this guy set the gold standard for mobility and grappling. If you are on the ground as an Archer, you better be ready to run, or you better accept that a Knight will kill you. LET ME SAY THIS THOUGH, if there is a class that can make anyone mad... it is the one that can lob 3 arrows from a distance and take your health down to 1 or kill you without even knowing they were firing at you... all before you reach the front line.

I get the frustration of the Archer class if you are newer to the game, just like any other game you have to really learn the ins and outs to efficiently play the classes.

Try this: Play Archer but keep the mindset of staying out of reach. Position yourself somewhere difficult to reach as a Knight and zoom out (Mouse wheel) and try to lob arrows (Charged 3 shots) at the enemy. Every Knight you hit pretty much turns into a 1 hit kill for your Knights on a full swing... Every Archer you hit pretty much reduces his health down to nothing... Every Miner you hit saves your team tons of grief by scaring him back or denying him the option to build defenses....... if that’s boring, go balls out. Jump around on the flatlands and shoot charged shots at everyone, just be aware of places you can grapple to quickly leave a sticky situation.

TL;DR

Archers are made to pester everyone and stay out of reach. Archers have less health because their mobility is INCREDIBLY powerful once you practice grappling a bit. Getting hit by an Archer during a Knight fight means you will die.

[The Faceless Man]

Originally posted by Harmonica:

Tell your builders to build a nice archery position.

I tried building something similar to the archer nest in this guide: https://forum.kag2d.com/threads/749-guide-joshs-beta-builder-guide-for-noobs.13501/

However, after building it, archers would just either jump through the little hole or just volley over the wall entirely. :\

Perhaps the guide is bad?

[Harmonica]

If you experiment you will find some setups that you like to build for archers. Also take inspiration from real life castles/forts! A good murder hole never goes amiss! Even better if it's above a long passage that looks really inviting.. and that passage is lined with traps...and all your knights are hiding in the trap pits.. :)

[Xieberion]

Originally posted by ;666825524887608139:

Originally posted by Harmonica:

Tell your builders to build a nice archery position.

I tried building something similar to the archer nest in this guide: https://forum.kag2d.com/threads/749-guide-joshs-beta-builder-guide-for-noobs.13501/

However, after building it, archers would just either jump through the little hole or just volley over the wall entirely. :\

Perhaps the guide is bad?

Keep in mind that it's an old guide. Build 749. We're over build 930 right now.

[The Faceless Man]

Originally posted by Lieber:

Keep in mind that it's an old guide. Build 749. We're over build 930 right now.

That's the newest builder guide I could find. :\ Figured it was still relevant material.

[Xieberion]

Originally posted by Galamantyl:

Originally posted by Lieber:

Keep in mind that it's an old guide. Build 749. We're over build 930 right now.

That's the newest builder guide I could find. :\ Figured it was still relevant material.

If I recall correctly there weren't any grappling hooks, so at the times buildings were built differently.

[L1]

murder hole made with rotated platforms is still effective, its just new players don't know they can shoot through it, and can't be shot back

[Hyborian]

Archer is pretty powerful but fragile for a reason, the best option to start is by assisting your knights during fights that way you can earn coins if it's CTF, then you can go and buy special arrows, bomb arrows are very good against structures, enemy archers or even builders and it's pretty much 1 hit kill, having three bomb arrows is very powerful, once you become good you can figure out the weak points in enemy defences for example you can stay on the hill or suspend yourself from a cliff and if enemy base has wooden roof then fire arrows are very lethal, best way is to fire normal arrows to figure out the trajectory then keep cursor in the same place switch arrow type by tapping F, then fire a volley of fire arrows down on it, if you have bomb arrows and wall is 1 block thick it's a very easy job for you as you can destroy them or create passage. The most important aspect of archer is to assist knights, counter enemy archers and take down builders at all cost, remember that enemy archers will also put you on their priority, you should only attack when you see fit, distance is your greatest friend, if you get chased by knight you can overcharge your bow to fire triple arrows, it stuns upclose and when knight is hit it will lower his shield and two other arrows cause damage and it also buys you some time to run away, the more advanced way to play archer is by using water arrows and stomping, if you have height advantage, stun enemy player below then as you jump down use grapple hook below him that way you apply more force due to momentum and the stomp is very lethal. I hope that helps.