Bow Conduit, any advice?

[ElvishMiner]

Title. I'd prefer if they were good or at least neutral, if that matters at all? Using magic is also okay, though I'm already overwhelmed looking at skills without having to worry about magic, haha!

Thanks in advance!

-EM

[Sweedee]

Okay. Conduits.

As you may already understand, Conduits are meant for support. While they deal very little damage compared to their start as a Mortal, they are meant to make life convenient for others. They enchant weapons for themselves and other players to add a lot of damage and/or change their damage element.

This is just a little warning - if you're looking to be some mystical archer who is even better at straight-up combat and can teleport (yourself), the Nexus Champion remains an option.
_________________
"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
Albert Einstein

[Sweedee]

If you're still looking at Conduit, here's a few options. I'll try to keep it brief - I won't explain everything, just stuff related to shooting better.

- Strength increases your damage with Archery weapons by +1. It also increases Thrown Weapons damage by +2, so Sling is an option.
Long Bow will deal 9 Piercing damage, and Sling will deal 9 Impact.
Strength also increases your inventory space. You can carry more crafting ingredients!

-Repair Item > Bowyer > Master Bowyer allows the easy crafting of bows, arrows, and slings. Conduit gets lots of convenient options later down the line for repairing and crafting items.

- Go for Advanced Archery. (Or, Advanced Thrown Weapons if you decide to use Energy Flare instead of Brightbow.) Just... don't do both.

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As a Sorcerer, you want to focus on skills that enable options when you finally become a Conduit. If you are just looking at the combat options from later, it won't matter too much what you pick up here.

If you want to be an effective enchanter, picking up damaging energy spells (not Impact) permanently unlocks the option to imprint that damage type on a weapon. You do not need to buy any particularly expensive spell or even buy any extra spells - if you just pick up the cheapest Death spell for example, you can overwrite a Sword's Slashing damage into Death damage.
The spells Corrosive Glance, Firestrike, Frostbite, Necrotic Ray, and Shocking Grasp will suit you just fine. You never need to use them in battle (you can simply enchant a bow or sling for +5 damage and these elements), and they cost the least.

Buying Spell Combat provides the Accuracy enchantment. When placed on a weapon, it provides a higher chance to hit enemies. When placed on armor, it provides a higher chance for the wearing player to avoid an enemy attack.
Generally, weapon enchantment for this is not considered but armor enchantment is a viable option.
Do not buy Battle Magic. It is intended for attacking with offensive spells, and will provide no further benefit to enchantment.

Deep Spellcraft enables enchantment for the Arcane damage type. While it costs you 40 CP, you may find this is a worthy offensive type to give to yourself and your teammates.

If you need MP in a hurry, Sorcerer's Might will sacrifice 6 HP and 1 AP for an immediate 5 MP. You won't be able to be healed some minutes right after it's been used, increasing 5 minutes for each time you use it. If you're in your faction stronghold, you should always announce how long your Sorcerer's Might lasts when you're finished converting - if people try to heal you, they'll only reduce the cooldown and waste their resources.

Alchemy, should you choose to hunt down the ingredients, gives you a great source of experience points and many powerful potions to provide for your team. They are also required for enchantment.
Of course, hunting for ingredients all over the game map is incredibly difficult. You may as well get Alchemical Transmutation.

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Finally, with becoming a Conduit, you have a lot of utility.
If you've been repairing, crafting, and searching all of this time, the energy costs of moving and fixing can all be alleviated hard.
If you're interested in that utility, the wiki page is plenty informative: Wisp Form is a great travel method (especially fueled with Sorcerer's Might).


As for offense, archers have Brightbow. This is a weightless weapon that uses no arrows and cannot be dropped or destroyed. It deals 9 Arcane damage (or 10 after Strength gives its bonus). The downside is that it cannot be enchanted at all, and each shot costs 1 MP whether it hits or not.

If you chose to go with Thrown Weapons, you should instead go with Energy Flare.
This weapon has +10% more accuracy than Brightbow, deals a base 9 damage, or 11 after Strength (somehow) (it's a ki blast, how does this use strength) (whatever).
It also reduces enemy accuracy by 10% temporarily if it hits. Brightbow has no such debuff.
It costs 2 MP each use.

Unlike Brightbow, Energy Flare has further upgrade options.
Nexal Sapping makes the flare subtract up to 3 MP from the struck target, granting that amount to you. If you keep hitting, you gain 1 MP instead of lose 2.
Nexal Debilitation lowers enemy damage by -2, in case they go active and decide to attack. If they are killed first, this isn't as useful. If they do wake up, you might appreciate the weakness.
Bursting Flare is an AoE attack completely separate from Energy Flare. Be wary.

Arcane Trail, you might see as extra. It's meant to give a raid force immediate, meteoric offensive strength. Before you invest in this tree, it is recommended you look into the rest of the class.
When you attack with a bow or a thrown weapon, buffs the accuracy of the next attack your factionmates in the area - not you - each make. If you make lots of attacks, your buddies get more chances at an empowered attack.
It does not matter if you hit with your attack or not.
Channeling Trail instead debuffs anyone not in your faction for each attack you make in their presence.
* Bear in mind that if you were part of some multi-faction venture (such as teaming up with allied factions to raid the same enemy, or to fight a wandering boss monster), Channeling Trail is the point when you start hurting your temporary allies.
Focused Trail adds a damage buff/debuff. +1 soak and +2 damage for your friends, -1 soak and -2 damage for everyone else. Suddenly, your teammates are all dealing 3 more damage than usual because you're here. (And +1 for you after the initial attack, I suppose.)
Combined with Nexal Debilitation (if you actually go for that), and active enemies you strike directly are dealing -5 their normal damage to your allies or -4 to you. It's an expensive combat combination, costing you at least 270 CP to build, but powerful.
Just... remember the example with Channeled Trail. If you're in some boss venture with 30 or so characters, and only five of them are getting bonus damage from you, everyone else is going to suffer.
_________________
"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
Albert Einstein

[ElvishMiner]

Wow! That's a lot of info! Thank you!

So Conduit is more of a support class? I may need to rethink my class then, unless they can do enough damage with just the brightbow and the target shot skill? Nexus Champion is something I can look as well, because what drew me to the Conduit was the portal skills.

[UsernamePending]

[Lychwood]

Well, the Nexus Champ doesn't have any portal skills per se, but they *can* teleport to a specified location within their skill's range (the teleport skill can be upgraded to a larger radius).

If it's specifically portals and combat you're interested in, you might want to try the Void Walker, assassin extraordinaire. They can walk through walls, and can set portal markers around the map for themselves, as well as become invisible without using a potion. Other players cannot use Void Walker portals. Void Walkers also do not fare very will with bow combat. They excel with firearms or hand-to-hand combat.

[ElvishMiner]

I might end up looking into a void walker as well. I've already managed to drop down to evil morality in a single day, so I could just take the plunge.

[ElvishMiner]

After taking a look, the Void Walker looks a lot less complicated skill wise than the Conduit, so I think I will go with that option. Thank you for the help and advice everyone!

[invisime]

A word of advice: you can make a perfectly satisfying Void Walker that uses bows and arrows. However, they have a great number of skills that only work with hand to hand or firearms.

[ElvishMiner]

Is there anything wrong with taking bows and then something like hand to hand?

Also, Sweedee, I used my third character slot to make a support Conduit. The bow character I wanted was going to be a bit too Agressive for that

[UsernamePending]

[Teksura]

[invisime]

Plus 1 for Average Joe. Love it.

[UsernamePending]