How to Play Archer - a guide by BulgarianMenace

[BulgarianMenace]

Offense

Section 1: Specials

Summary: Ah, archer specials. These will be your bread and butter. Easy to use, super powerful - enjoy them. Using the power of specials even the worst archer can beat a master of the bow.

- Zoom + Multishot. All day. With this move alone you are on equal footing with the best archers out there (at close and medium ranges). It also auto-kills (auto-crit really, but kills anyone except full health warriors) if you shoot it while someone is jumping down from an elevated area (ex. bridge on isengard) or if you yourself are up high and shoot it down on someone walking below (ex. anywhere on Weathertop) . Oh, and did you know that it recharges about as fast as an axe does?* Just aim in the general direction of your enemy, or any direction at all for that matter, and it will almost always hit someone. You'll be getting kills you never even expected. There's no reason not to spam it!

- In case you get bored of using multishot to get easy kills, or just need something to do in the 5 seconds before it recharges, use poison and fire (in either order). Especially useful in slowing down those pesky warriors so you can them kill them with multishot. While not quite as easy to use as multishot, so long as you aim somwhat close to your enemy you'll hit them, so don't worry about it if you have a nerve disorder that causes your index finger to twitch involuntary, you can still hit people. Just don't forget, in the time it took you to shoot your fire and poison your multishot probably recharged so go ahead and let that baby rip!

- Everybody knows about fire->poison->multi, but don't be afraid to mix things up - fire->multi can be just as effective and it saves your poison, while multi->fire->poison lets you get that up close multi while giving you time to escape after. Mix and match and find your favorite combination!


Section 2: Headshots

Summary: Headshots. They are what separate the really good archers from the slightly more really good archers. Actually they only really matter at long range, and if you don't feel like learning them it's ok because you can just hide behind cover and force a close range encounter. However, they are useful as a secondary option inbetween multishots if your fire and poison are both spent.

- Line up you crosshair at head level using the right analog stick and then zoom in. Once you have accomplished this only make minimal adjustments as necessary to maintain the cursor at head level on the y axis (vertical line).

- Move left and right with the left analog stick while shooting once an opponent is in the area of your crosshair.

- Repeat as necessary. Bear in mind that I'm pretty bad at headshots so my method might not be so great. If you're a headshot specialist and you're reading this guide feel free to post how you line up headshots and I will add it to the guide (crediting you of course).



Defense

Summary: Getting hit is bad because you will die.

- Run away. After multishot, this is the most important thing to being a great archer. You have infinite range, no one else does (well, except other archers, but that's where cover comes in - more on that later I need bake these potatos**). The only way you will die is if you let people get close enough to hit you. Pay attention to your radar so you don't get surprised. If someone does get close knock them down with fire or slow them with poison or both, and then for goodness' sake DON'T stay - take the opportunity to create separation so you can get your shot off at a safe distance. If you can, it is preferable to run back to your allies, that way they can actually fight people while you sit back and shoot away without a worry or care in the world.

- Cover: Get behind it. Whether it be a wall, a mage's shield, or some other obstruction (dead oliphant). Stay behind it until you feel safe, then peek out (and multishot) to make sure no one is aiming at you. If someone is aiming at you, go back into cover and repeat. If they're not, have fun shooting at people who are busy fighting someone else.

- Keep moving (slightly different from running away). If you stay in one spot too long someone will respawn and kill you because they know where you are. Also strafing is good to make you harder to hit, but only if there is no cover available to hide behind.



Final Thoughts/Miscellaneous

So to recap - run away, hide, multishot, and you will be a great archer in no time! Or at least you'll have really nice positive k/d ratios, and we all know that's what really matter and is the best indicator of skill anyway.

I hope you enjoyed my guide and found it helpful. If I missed anything please post mentioning it and I will happily add your input and credit you for it.



*not tested
**gamefaqs

[Joppi]

Nah, the proper way to get headshots is just waiting with R2 held until someone properly aligns their head with your reticule, then fire. Works 100% of the time.

And that "mix-and-match" special arrow thing made me think of something really badass. Fire>Multi, then poison if they try to jump away, since it'll knock them down again.



Or for mindgames, Fire, poison on jump, then Multi on get-up.

[BulgarianMenace]

Oh well go get conquest for pc and play against us ps3 players on tunngle and either earn the right to talk shit or stfu right now.

Also, I guess that means chub chub and mayhem aren't representative of xbox archers since they play exactly like that.

[Pookz]

[BulgarianMenace]

Here's the thing though, since there is a way to play against ps3 players now you don't have to "wish" you could do it. And if you choose not to put the time into it (not even money since you could do it without spending a dime), that's your choice, but it also means you need to stfu. What did or who you WERE on xbox is irrelevant to the current conversation.

[Onde Aander]

lol, BM.

I used to hate archers but I they have grown on me.

I guess I play quite an aggressive archer.. mostly for sport. I like to run in close range for the challenge. There's no slap in the face quite like getting kicked to death . Unless I'm in trouble (or am playing for kills), I don't use my multi except for shotguns and often go for straight headshots even if I have specials available. That said I have been trying to learn some cowardly tactics specifically for the purpose of beating Mayhem . Normally he gets outscores like 2:1 in a 1v1 duel, but weirdly I can regularly beat him on the DLC maps (where you get full health after every kill). Different styles I guess. I prefer maps with no cover.. don't like playing peek-a-boo but you don't have much choice sometimes, do you? As for getting headshots, I almost always fire shots with the cursor in motion (I don't line it up ahead of time) and I zoom out after every shot. If I'm out of specials, I will run straight towards you and go for a melee (get my specials back + almost guaranteed kill). It's fun taking an archer up against scouts and warriors on their own turf; mages I prefer to dispose of as quickly as possible. They're boring to fight.

If I were to change one thing about the archer, I would take away the the multi-shot's auto-aim. I mean really, these skinny little bastards can barely deliver one arrow on course - how on (middle-)EARTH are they supposed to get 3 to hit at once?

The PS3 version of the game was a partial-birth abortion compared to the other platforms due to the low frame-rate, sub-HD resolution and poor colouration (sorry but it's true). PC version has messed up hit-detection (you can basically WALK out of a warrior's combo wtf?) but I'm hoping that improves with faster servers. But you know, I may be biased. Xbox seems to have the edge on archers, PS3 were more advanced with scouts; I've run into some fine PC players so far but don't know what to say yet.

[xi Uk H3nry ix]

burzum youve allways been agressive lol your so predictable but thats what i like if your losing a warrior fight you dont run off to your team mates. you would allways solo charge the team its allways abit of fun :Pdepending on who your chargin but from what ive herd its kind of all the best joining the pc conquest so i wont exspect anythin easy plus getting used to pc controls not much of a pc gamer never tryed ive played games such as world of warcraft where you just have to click

[Onde Aander]

I use an xbox controller to play on PC, h3nry. I think most of the ps3 and xbox crossovers do, too. I couldn't do keyboard and mouse! Crazy.

[Istari]

That's a nice guide... but only for new players imo.
Train a lot too !

[BulgarianMenace]

lol u took it seriously istari?

[Istari]

Lmao I don't remember when and why the hell I said it...