Archer Builds

Archers are the damage dealers of any squad, be it Rebirth, AoE Zhenning, Twilight Temple, or FBs. They lack variability in their builds because they have practically set skills, weapons, and armor that refrain them from varying too much from the norms. Archers mainly go with light armor and use bows, crossbows, and slingshots. Having a build that supports either heavy or arcane armor destroys their crit percent thus defeating the purpose of being an archer. Because archers rely heavily on crits, they need to invest practically all of their points into dexterity. Also, because of low mana consumption by most archer skills, depositing points into Mag is inadvisable as those points could have gone to better use (survivability or critical rate).

Below are stat distributions the four basic builds for archers, and their pros and cons.

Full Dex/Accuracy Build
"Point Distribution (Per Level)"
 * 4 Dexterity
 * 1 Strength

"The Good Side"
 * Really low chance of missing a hit.
 * High crit rate = high damage.

"The Bad Side"
 * Low Survivability.

Vitality/Hybrid Build #1
"Point Distribution (Per Level)"
 * 3 Dexterity
 * 1 Strength
 * 1 Vitality

"The Good Side"
 * You will live longer and therefore can take more hits in a fight.

"The Bad Side"
 * You are sacrificing damage for survivability.

Vitality/Hybrid Build #2
"Point Distribution (Every 2 levels)"
 * 7 Dexterity
 * 2 Strength
 * 1 Vitality

"The Good Side"
 * You will live longer and therefore can take more hits in a fight.

"The Bad Side"
 * You are sacrificing damage for survivability. Can't have everything in a perfect world ;).

Hybrid Build #3
"Point Distribution (every 2 levels)"
 * 8 Dexterity
 * 1 Strength (+1 more from gear)
 * 1 Vitality

"The Good Side"
 * You will have a good chance to survive, but still hit high.

"The Bad Side"
 * You will be unable to wear the light armor for your level due to lack of strength, unless equipped with gear that makes up for the missing strength, such as a tome and ornaments with +X Str bonuses.
 * Getting one extra strength per two levels from gear can make this a very expensive build.

Melee/Fist and Claw Build
"Point Distribution (every 2 levels)"
 * 7 Dexterity
 * 3 Strength

"The Good Side"
 * More defense
 * Fist/claws are useable with this build
 * Bow/Crossbow/Slingshot are useable too
 * Light gears are available to use
 * More melee attack when equipped with a fist/claw
 * Aggro is rarely on you when you use a fist/claw in a squad
 * In squad, more survivability when you use a fist/claw

"The Bad Side"
 * Less evasion,accuracy, critical attack rate and ranged attack than other builds
 * Lower HP than all of the other Hybrid Build.

In Short
Are you willing to sacrifice some of your damage to live longer, or are you confident that you will be able to wipe the floor with anything that comes your way to need any such survivability? If you can answer this question, your build is chosen and your path is clear. Good luck to all archers in training!