Looking for sling Archer tips

[SrsBznz]

First time playing this class and doing fairly well but I've just been building on complete gut feeling and could use the help of some outside eyes.

Don't know if this is the correct character sheet link, the one I get from in-game just leads to an 'Unknown Character', so this is from my account character list.
https://te4.org/characters/240742/tome/07989806-710f-48ae-8b99-cf26a8e59657


Biggest issues
Physical debuffs, mainly disarm and frozen. Even with the 'Spine of the World' prodigy and a wild infusion that removes a phys debuff it can be hard to deal with if.
Been gathering some gear with these immunities on the side but they've otherwise not had amazing stats.

Durability & DPS
Survivability feels solid, think more DPS is needed. I should maybe focus on lvling up steady & head shot, one issue is running out of stamina during very prolonged fights but more DPS would solve that in a roundabout way by making encounters shorter. Trueshot might also be worth spending more points in, has decent return per point value (until rank 3 or 4 at least).

My AoE capabilities could be better though with Volatile Poison, Volley and Fragmentation Shot and Scatter Shot things tend to be manageable. Something of note but not top priority.

Generic Talents
My options feel kind of trash, now at lvl 33 I've got 4 to spare, might save for if I unlock a new tree.

Survival just feels like every skill is a value point, nothing more nothing less
Mobility has a decent 1st and 4th talent worth putting a few points in but start to get a diminishing return at 3-4
Antimagic's first talent Resolve is really nice at 3/5 but the DR after that is heavy. Got 2 in Antimagic Shield and it's not terrible but not the most impressive thing either. Stacks well with my other defenses if nothing else. Casual Mana Clash might be good to limit spell casters but spells are kind of bad on this build when I sit at below 50% attack speed 95% of the time.

Gearing
I'm still somewhat of a beginner but it feels as if resistances and immunities are very high up on the priority list, stats mostly seem like consolation prices and getting crit chance/multiplier/power for increased DPS or increased saves/defense/health better for durability.

Prodigies
These are hard to choose, Vital Shot and Spine of the World seemed like solid options, as for a third one I'm leaning towards Windtouched Speed, spending 4 more points in Antimagic doesn't provide me with anything amazing but neither do any other of my generic talent trees.

Category Points
Soon lvl 36 and not sure what to do with it, as a Cornac I've spent 3, Agility & Poison class trees and an extra inscription slot. Out of my current options (Sniper, Trapping, Conditioning and Harmony) none seem very appealing. Will probably save the category for a while for something else.

[SrsBznz]

Originally posted by んargo:

called shots is good. has silence, disarm, and movement slow. I'd put more points into it.

you went anti magic, try getting fungus tree
then put at least 1 point in mana clash because iirc that would turn off up to 4 of an enemy mage's sustains. once you finish that one zigur quest

Oh I didn't realize that Mana Clash could do that, I see that it's an addition after I finished the zigur quest. I've bumped up Called Shots to 4/5.
Just got the fungus tree available to me, is it worth going for despite not having much Mindpower and Willpower? I guess Wild Growth and Sudden Growth are solid regardless of my stats.

[IdealPoint]

Archer in general is really bad now. Don't waste your time with poison, it's really really bad. Very low scaling, doesn't happen on every hit, weak effects, very class point intensive. Sling/shield is really strong damage reduction, but your damage is pitiful and you will end up dying to burst magic or some monster with very high armor that you can't kill on any difficulty past normal. Nightmare could be done with a lot of annoyance.

To solve your damage problem I would recommend not taking antimagic and instead taking arcane might as a prodigy. But that's not available on your current playthrough. I'd concentrate on crit mult as much as possible and save the merchant so you can hopefully get some decent ammo.

Vital shot is ok, but pretty bad against bosses because of the long cooldown. The temporal rift shield is really good with its high block and projectile slow.

If you are going to insist on antimagic you would invest in will instead of magic as your third maxed attribute and take the will scaling prodigy.

Looking at your build, getting more range on vault is really nice. Quick recovery isn't really worth putting points in, but it's ok to float points in.
For the prides and bosses/dreadmasters it is usually worth putting a couple points in combat training to get perfect strikes to last for a few turns so you can kill invis/stealthed enemies without missing all the time.
Volley is your late game room clear tool, not scatter shot/frag shot. Get the skill that lets you shoot without consuming arrows, flare the room, and volley for a giant AOE of about 190% weapon damage.

You will always be very item dependent and your damage is low without prodigies boosting it.

[IdealPoint]

Oh, one other thing. Don't take the bleeding effect from rogue escorts. The bleed will override your first blood bleed, not stack with it. Misdirect is very good, though.

[voronin_mike]

I am not in agreement with IdealPoint about Archer being "very" bad now, but he was nerfed after the last version. Which is understandable as I remember a class tier list where he was rated as a specific "tier Archer" - immediately above S-tier. ;) On the other hand, I do agree about Archer being quite item dependent - and this is precisely the reason that I also wouldn't recommend to play as antimagic Archer. You will have to drop many good ammo and many good shields which could otherwise be perfect for you. But it's your game - you may want to set some challenge for yourself, etc.
For more specific advice you may want to look up a guide for "heavy armored Archer" at ToME forums site. I tried its recommendations, and they were quite sound. But keep in mind that it was made for the previous game version, so some elements won't be applicable (Munitions, e.g.)

[IdealPoint]

Archer basically does about 60% of the damage it did in 1.5.10, and can't remove sustains like you could with munitions.

I personally think people exaggerated how good archer was because of how annoying archer enemies were. IMO paradox mage, anorthil, and temporal warden were all better than archer in 1.5.10. Now I'd say archer is pretty much C class. Good enough for normal/nightmare, but that's just because anything can be on those difficulties. But archer is fun, so it's still worth playing sometimes.

[SrsBznz]

Originally posted by IdealPoint:

Don't waste your time with poison, it's really really bad. Very low scaling, doesn't happen on every hit, weak effects, very class point intensive.

I found them to be nice utility/debuffs to switch between. The damage reduction of Numbing goes a long way and the 23% global CD increase of the strike is nice when I end up getting 4 turns for every 1 of theirs. Healing reduction and crippling are both nice situationally and the lifesteal one has a bad effect but with the strike it's a good heal.

Originally posted by IdealPoint:

To solve your damage problem I would recommend not taking antimagic and instead taking arcane might as a prodigy. But that's not available on your current playthrough.
If you are going to insist on antimagic you would invest in will instead of magic as your third maxed attribute and take the will scaling prodigy.

I didn't go for a Zigur playthrough out of any specific gameplay reason, it's just that I'm still new to the game and this is one of the first classes I'm playing that had the option so I wanted to check it out.
In the future I'll make my choice based on what build I'm going for.

Which prodigy are you referring to with that? Windtouched Speed seems like the best prodigy for more dps.

Originally posted by IdealPoint:

The temporal rift shield is really good with its high block and projectile slow.

An unique shield that drops in the temporal rift? Not finding anything by googling or on the wiki, chances are I either didn't get it or sold it. I did save the vendor though so there's that for gearing purposes.

Originally posted by IdealPoint:

Looking at your build, getting more range on vault is really nice. Quick recovery isn't really worth putting points in, but it's ok to float points in.
For the prides and bosses/dreadmasters it is usually worth putting a couple points in combat training to get perfect strikes to last for a few turns so you can kill invis/stealthed enemies without missing all the time.
Volley is your late game room clear tool, not scatter shot/frag shot. Get the skill that lets you shoot without consuming arrows, flare the room, and volley for a giant AOE of about 190% weapon damage.

You will always be very item dependent and your damage is low without prodigies boosting it.

With flare and high dexterity I've not had issues with stealth in a long time but maybe that'll change later, especially now that my dex is capped.
Volley is effective even now so I'll definitely follow your advice and beef it up a bit more.

Would you agree with んargo that Fungus is my best option for generic talents, considering that I'll end up investing in Willpower due to my antimagic choice?

Originally posted by voronin_mike:

For more specific advice you may want to look up a guide for "heavy armored Archer" at ToME forums site. I tried its recommendations, and they were quite sound.

Is heavy armor really worth it if you have the mobility tree and a dex focused build? Trained Reactions feels really good for survivability.

[IdealPoint]

Here's the shield: https://te4.org/wiki/Temporal_rift_(shield)
If you are level 36 then it is a droppable for you now.

Heavy armor is definitely recommended just because enemies can literally one shot you with a bad roll if you don't have enough armor. But, you can probably scale your defense high enough on normal so that you won't ever get hit. And some of the unique heavy armors are very good late game. But you have 5 points in light, so I wouldn't use more on heavy at this point. You can get enough defense on Nightmare as well if you build around it, but just putting max points into dex won't cut it any more.

Poisons just don't work against a lot of enemies late game, but you'll see that when you get there.

I was talking about the Superpowered prodigy, not Windtouched. Superpowered makes each hit more powerful, so you have a bigger gap between damage and armor. Windtouched is good, but usually you want damage scaling on physical damage classes.

For your generics, yes, fungus is very nice. People used to go antimagic because of fungus, not antimagic, in 1.5.10. But antimagic's a little better now than then as well.

[SrsBznz]

Originally posted by IdealPoint:

Here's the shield: https://te4.org/wiki/Temporal_rift_(shield)
If you are level 36 then it is a droppable for you now.

Oh, sadly I wont be able to use that shield due to going for antimagic and it being arcane, don't know why it didn't show up when I searched for it.

Originally posted by IdealPoint:

Heavy armor is definitely recommended just because enemies can literally one shot you with a bad roll if you don't have enough armor. But, you can probably scale your defense high enough on normal so that you won't ever get hit. And some of the unique heavy armors are very good late game. But you have 5 points in light, so I wouldn't use more on heavy at this point. You can get enough defense on Nightmare as well if you build around it, but just putting max points into dex won't cut it any more.

Poisons just don't work against a lot of enemies late game, but you'll see that when you get there

Fair enough, I'll adjust on future characters as I get more familiar with the game.

Originally posted by IdealPoint:

I was talking about the Superpowered prodigy, not Windtouched. Superpowered makes each hit more powerful, so you have a bigger gap between damage and armor. Windtouched is good, but usually you want damage scaling on physical damage classes.

For your generics, yes, fungus is very nice. People used to go antimagic because of fungus, not antimagic, in 1.5.10. But antimagic's a little better now than then as well.

Just meant that Windtouched looked the best to me but must have skimmed past the bottom part of Superpowered, with my already high attack speed it does seem better to leverage it with increased damage. And I'll go with fungus since it has already been suggested twice now.

Thanks for the help everyone.