Monsters’ Den: Godfall – The Archery Tree Guide

by Falagar / Articles, Misc. Guides / 13 Jul 2017

A look at all of the skills in the archery tree. Explains the fundamental ideas of the archery tree, what it offers, and an explanation of the uses of all of the skills in the tree.

Introduction

As you would probably expect, the archery tree focuses solely on the use of bows and crossbows. It excels at dealing long-range single target damage, long-range AoE damage, and disabling single enemies. The archery tree has a huge array of options for dealing damage at range. However, it offers no utility outside of a single target stun. The archery tree allows the use of bows, crossbows, quivers, and medium armor. Characters with the archery tree can subclass to become marksmen.

Active Skills

Razor Arrow

An attack that applies a bleed effect to the target deals damage over two turns and reduces the effectiveness of healing on the target. The damage of the initial strike scales with weapon damage; however, the bleed damage scales with level. This means that the attack becomes less effective the better the user’s gear than other skills like a straight shot. Regardless, this is a solid option for dealing damage to a single target and suppressing healing on important targets.

Envenomed Arrow

An attack that inflicts the target with a poison condition deals damage over three turns. The initial damage scales with weapon damage; however, the damage over time component scales with intellect. This is the only skill in the tree that scales with intellect. However, the scaling is extreme because it deals damage over three turns. This skill will be discussed in more detail in both the Ranger and Nemesis sections.

Flaming Arrow

An attack that sets the target aflame, reducing their evasion, increasing their speed, and dealing moderate damage at the start of their next turn. Like razor arrow, the initial hit scales with your weapon, whereas the flame damage scales with level. The speed buff is normally a downside; however, we can use it to our advantage due to the tree’s mechanics. This skill will be discussed further when we look at the counter snipe fighting style.

Pierce

An attack that hits one target and the enemy standing directly in front of or behind it. A fairly simple ability that doesn’t need much explanation. Offers efficient damage at a reasonable cost.

An attack that deals light damage as well as stunning the target. This is the simplest, most straightforward stun available. Use it to stun targets that you can’t allow to take a turn and can’t deal with effectively in another way, such as neophytes and acolytes. Keep in mind that some enemies can resist the stun. This skill will be discussed further when we look at the coup de grace ability.

Hail of Arrows

Deals reduced damage to every enemy unit at highly reduced accuracy. The hit chance of this ability cannot surpass 75%. A solid AoE ability that is very strong when combined with damage buffs. When you use this, you’ll want to use the careful aim fighting style to hit the 75% max hit the chance to mark.

Eagle Eye

A very niche ability that you’ll probably rarely use. It has a net power cost if used on the next turn. It acts as a fairly underwhelming damage buff and should only be used with a hail of arrows or other AoE skills. Normally, you can get more damage by attacking an enemy rather than wasting a turn on the eagle eye unless the skill you plan to use it with will deal hefty damage.

Point Blank

Deals increased damage with +50% crit chance and removed 0.2 actions from the target. It never misses and can only be used at the melee range. This is the only real justification for having an archer in the front rank; however, I don’t believe it’s a big enough justification for doing so. Unfortunately, it doesn’t provide enough damage, and the other benefits are too minor to justify the massive downside.

Straight Shot

Deals heavy damage, however, can only target enemies in the same row as the user—AA solid way of dealing good single target damage with a fair stipulation. Whether you use this razor or flaming arrow is generally situational and should be determined by your best judgment.

Passive Skills

Special Ammunition

Reduces the cost of razor arrow, envenomed arrow, and flaming arrow by 10 power as long as a quiver is equipped. This skill makes these abilities dirt cheap allowing them to be spammed fairly easily. Unfortunately, this skill pinholes you into using a quiver, so if you’re a scout, you can’t use a bandolier without losing out on it it it this skill.

Concentration

Begin combat with a buff that gives +8 power regen. This buff is lost upon taking damage or getting stunned. Very strong until, obviously, you take a hit. Using this in conjunction with special ammunition allows you to cast ammo skills pretty much indefinitely without losing significant power.

Patient Hunter

After waiting, the damage of the next attack is slightly increased. This skill has the same problem as the eagle eye; however, it’s even worse. If you’re looking for this kind of effect, the eagle eye is almost always going to be the better option. Additionally, this skill has NO SCALING. The damage bonus it provides is always +20. This means that the stronger your character gets, the worse this skill becomes. This is quite tragic because the skills are already pretty terrible, to begin with; in fact, I don’t think it’s even worth the skill point. Upgrades to any of your skills are probably gonna be a lot more useful.

Focused Fire

Attacking an enemy multiple turns in a row causes each attack to have a +10% crit chance and +10 accuracy after the first. A decent skill that’s mostly useful against bosses and other durable enemies. Not a huge buff but definitely worth picking up. This doesn’t work with AoE skills; the attack has to be a single target to apply or benefit from the buff. Any attacks made to other targets or AoE attacks cause the buff to drop off.

Fighting Styles

Steady Aim

Increases damage dealt by 10% and accuracy by 25%; however, it reduces speed by 5. A decent style that should be used mostly in specific circumstances and not as a go-to style. Best used either with a hail of arrows, to finish off enemies that need to be dealt just slightly more damage, or to deal with high evasion enemies. It would help if you never used this as your default fighting style because the speed penalty is a huge liability.

Hunter’s Focus

Grants 100% resist mental, +8 power regen, and -10% skill energy cost. Very good for conserving energy, but oftentimes this won’t be necessary because of other skills (special ammunition, concentration). Usually, unless you’re really strapped for energy, or you need the mental resistance, you’ll want to be using something else. Mental resistance is generally most useful against enemies such as doom callers and gorgons.

Countersnipe

Whenever an enemy uses a missile attack, gain full action. This is a powerful passive under the right circumstances. When faced with a few enemies that use missile attacks, this style can sometimes go as far as tripling the number of turns you take. Using this to full effect comes with a bit of practice, but it’s definitely worth learning to use effectively. To evaluate this, I’ll be looking at a few situations and how you can use counter snipes effectively in them.
The first situation I’ll look at is one enemy archer. If your character has decent speed, you will usually want to use something other than counter snipe as a default stance. When dealing with one archer, if you’re slower than the archer, keep the counter snipe up at all times unless the difference is very negligible. If you’re faster than the archer, use a style other than counter snipe on turns where you’ll act normally before the enemy acts, and then switch to countersniper for turns where the enemy will act first. If the enemy is something like an acolyte and often uses non-missile attack skills, try to gauge whether or not they’ll use a missile attack. If you’re not sure, it’s usually best to bank on them doing so and use counter snipes anyway. Even just a chance at a free turn is usually much better than what other styles offer.
The second situation assumes two enemies with different speeds. In this case, you need to judge whether you have enough speed to go again before either one of the enemies has the chance to attack. Use counter snipe only when one of them is gonna go before you. In this case, you’ll almost always want to be using counter snipe.

The final case, and probably the trickiest case I’ll look at, is when two identical enemy archers have the same speed, causing them to act simultaneously. When this occurs, because of how turn order works, you’ll gain full action when the first archer attacks; however, the second archer will still go before you, meaning that you lose out on one whole turn. There are ways to work around this, however. The most convenient way to do this is to use the flaming arrow. When you hit one of the archers with a flaming arrow, they now have +5 speed. This means that they’ll act slightly earlier than the other archer, and thus you get both turns. You’ll only need to do this once because once the archers are staggered, they’ll stay staggered. There are ways other than a flaming arrow to achieve this, such as Time’s Arrow, but a flaming arrow is the most easily available.

The Marksman

Marksman Subclass Abilities

This is a strange skill that gives all other party members instant retreat and +50 accuracy. The instant retreat is pretty meaningless, so you’ll be using this for the accuracy boost. Generally, this isn’t worth using unless many enemies are all highly evasive. Outside of this situation, there are usually much better options than this. It’s nice to have, but it’s not really a huge draw to picking the marksman subclass.

This ability is the main reason for picking the marksman subclass. It’s very similar to pierce; however, it has more damage potential and doesn’t require two enemies standing in the correct places. The random factor is a downside. Still, this skill has a very high damage output, comparable to the hail of arrows and more effective against fewer targets while equally damaging against more targets. Very good for when you need damage, and you’re not too concerned about where it ends up—definitely a good reason to pick the marksman subclass.

This is another strange skill for the marksman. It’s very situational, and you’ll normally only use it if you end up in the front rank when fighting enemies like ghouls or the minotaur. The decoy you create doesn’t take turns and sticks around until it takes damage. This is better than the basic movement skill, but you’ll rarely be in situations where it’s useful.

Falagar

He is the founder and editor of Magic Game World. He loved gaming from the moment he got a PlayStation 1 with Gran Turismo on his 7th birthday.

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