Archer: Poison tree and the archer excellence tree

[Knight Owl]

Hi I have a question about these two archer trees.

First, with poisons applied to my bows will the poisons spread with AoE attacks such as scatter shot and hail of arrows or just normal attacks?

Second, I'm not sure what to consider with the archery excellence tree nor know the ideal talent investment for it, I can't find anything about this would any archer experts know?

[PureQuestion]

Poisons apply to all standard archery talents, afaik.

[Xandor Tik'Roth]

The new Archer tree is new enough to not be included in any of the guides. If you want a more detailed set of information, I would have you ask in the appropriate spoilers forum.

[grobblewobble]

Second, I'm not sure what to consider with the archery excellence tree nor know the ideal talent investment for it, I can't find anything about this would any archer experts know?

I was wondering about this, too. It seems a sling archer is the way to go if you want to play with poison because you need high cunning.. but idk.

[kyuubee]

It seems a sling archer is the way to go if you want to play with poison because you need high cunning.. but idk.

there is no reason to play bow archer anyway though

[grobblewobble]

Could you please explain? I don't really know the pros and cons of bow vs slings. Afaik bow damage is based on str / dex and sling damage on dex / cun.. not sure what else is really different.

[kyuubee]

cun means more critical hits, slings have higher ammo stacks than bows (and if you use rapid fire it matters a lot as well as more critical hits), you can use off hand with slings and cannot with bows i.e. you can hold a shield or some artifact dagger etc for its buffs

[bpat]

It seems a sling archer is the way to go if you want to play with poison because you need high cunning.. but idk.

there is no reason to play bow archer anyway though

I disagree for just one reason: bow and quiver artifacts outclass sling and shot artifacts by a huge margin. Bow Archers get access to items like Void Quiver, Quiver of the Sun, Titan's Quiver, Merkul's Second Eye, and Storm's Fury, while the most notable artifact for sling Archers is Nithan's Force which is only interesting if you like to abuse Pulverizing Augur. I might be missing a few, but it seems like bow users get much better artifacts overall.

Edit: I also like the bow talents a lot better. I don't want to knock enemies back and I don't need another blind since I already get Flare, while a piecing shot and a double shot are much more useful. Also bows sound cooler than slings.

[HousePet]

Also, strength increases all weapon damage via physical power.
So comparing bows+poison and slings+poison is still str/dex/cun vs str/dex/cun.

[grobblewobble]

Tbh I have a hard time starting a sling archer at all. First thing I do is take out the point in bow mastery.. but then I have not even a basic white sling or bullets and need to survive somehow with a bow until I find those. Which I proceed to fail at.

[Doctornull]

Tbh I have a hard time starting a sling archer at all. First thing I do is take out the point in bow mastery.. but then I have not even a basic white sling or bullets and need to survive somehow with a bow until I find those. Which I proceed to fail at.

You do.

Hit 'q'.

[kyuubee]

Tbh I have a hard time starting a sling archer at all. First thing I do is take out the point in bow mastery.. but then I have not even a basic white sling or bullets and need to survive somehow with a bow until I find those. Which I proceed to fail at.

archers start with a sling and sling bullets in off-set
you can buy ammo, especially zigur sells amazing ammo and slings which you will not get as drops for a while

also i would suggest to have slings in both main and off-set to be able to shoot twice as longer

[grobblewobble]

archers start with a sling and sling bullets in off-set

.. okay thanks, that helped me heaps!

So a new dumb question, then. Is siding with the Assassin Lord supposed to improve your poison tree in any way if you're an archer? I just sided with the assassin lord and got absolutely no improvement. But I didn't have the tree unlocked yet. Maybe if you unlock it first?

[kyuubee]

well, siding with assassin lord is supposed to unlock poison tree for rogues, to unlock in a sense that if you start a new rogue he will have that tree available now. archers got poison tree quite recently and they probably have it without any unlocks (poor rogues)

i'm not sure about shadowblades and marauders if they have it by default or it's unlocked for them like for rogues

the tree is still locked in a sense that you need to spend a category point :3 assassin lord won't help there