Archer Derrick's rambling guide to late game Archers

-In progress

The short:
Read this if you're interested in the late game of an archer.

Forewarning and Introduction

Spoiler

Figured I'd write something like this now with the explosion of the population of the server, with many new archers (crossbowmen and bowmen alike).

I'm currently a level 173 Marksmen and one of the active 4th archers in this server. Writing this guide in short due to the difficulty of the class after a certain level, and how to overcome these problems.
Multiple sections to deal with this include HP washing, general bossing routes, and picking between marksmen or bowmaster to suit your needs.

Warning note that this is NOT a general guide to archers, or a early game training guide, or a leveling guide from 1-120. There are already decent guides to those, and I shall link them here:
Marksmen guide: https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/samuss-guide-to-marksman.7250/
Bowmaster guide: https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/comprehensive-guide-from-archer-to-bowmaster.2749/

This guide is for archers who plan to play well into late 3rd job at the very least, and plan to eventually do some or all of the bosses that currently exist in MapleLegends.

This guide is also largely irrelevant if you are a casual player and do not plan to stay long, or do not particularly care about optimization of your class in late levels (120+).

Why would you want to pick an archer? What kind of archer should I pick?

Spoiler

Pros

• High bossing damage (one of the top classes in this version)
• Sharp eyes is a great party skill that gives your party members extra crit damage and crit chance (essential to NightLords)
• Can solo many bosses for great exp gain with the use of puppet (a third job archer skill)

Cons

• Low base health pool
• No survivability skills
• Vulnerable to getting mobbed
• Has trouble leveling in a specific range of levels (100-130)
• Levels slowly from grinding compared to some other classes (Bowmaster suffers more from this)

Pick Marksmen if:

You want freezing abilities (Blizzard and Frostprey).
You want higher 1v1 bossing dpm in the earlier stages of 4th job (if you have access to the Snipe 30) .
You want a 4th job mobbing skill.
​

Pick Bowmaster if:

You want higher 1v1 bossing dpm in the later stages of 4th job.
You want to pin bosses easily (Hurricane fires at an incredibly fast speed).
You don't have access to Snipe 30 (Large portion of marksmen damage).
You want SCALING on your attack gear and potions (Bowmasters scale better with weapon attack than marksmen. The higher the weapon attack, the more damage increase there is in comparison).​

HP washing

Spoiler

HP washing is the process of gaining more hp from bonus mp. You can gain bonus MP by leveling up with INT. For every 10 int you have, you gain 1 bonus mp than normal.
For example, if you level up with 20 int, instead of gaining 14 mp, you will gain 16.

Archers excel in bossing, and do not do as well grinding mobs. Due to the cons listed above, you pretty much HAVE to hp wash unless you want to get destroyed in the late part of the game. As an archer with a mediocre hp pool and no defensive skills, many archers that hit 120+ get demotivated when they don't hp wash.

Many important bosses hit for around 5k damage.

Here is a short list (if you have high magic/weapon defense, you will require less):
Anego: 5.3~k (Gun attack), 11~k (Touch damage)
Zakum: 3.3~k (Magic attack), 6-8~k (Touch damage from body 1, 2, 3)
Papalatus: 3~k (1st body touch damage), 5~k (2nd body touch damage)
Horntail: 5.6~k (Magic damage after tail is dead), 7.7~k (Magic damage from tail)
Bigfoot: 11-12k (Touch damage)
Big Crow: 8-9k (Touch damage)
Pianus: 5~k (Right side magic damage, touch damage), 3~k (Left side magic damage, touch damage)

Therefore, we will aim for at least 5k+ hp by a certain level.
By level 150, both marksmen and bowmasters will have maxed their important "damage" skills. Therefore we will do calculations for level 150.

The following are calculations provided by fryber:

Spoiler

Assumption being you are starting from scratch

From a sample of 12 crossbowman and 7 hunters, the average hp by level 30 is 1112.
Let's assume you want to horntail at level 150, requiring 5600 hp.

An archer gains 20-24 hp a level. At level 150, this means you'll have:
1112 + 120*22 =
3752 (+/-240) hp

Assume you'll have a deputy star by then which gives you 100 HP.

You'll have 3852 HP by level 150. This means you still require 1748 HP.
We will gain this from washes.

An archer gains 16-20 HP for every AP point put into HP. Using 18 as the average gain,
1748/18 = 97.111… "wash". Rounded up, you will require 98 "washes".

Each "wash" requires 12 MP
98 x 12 = 1176 MP needed to perform said washes.

1176 MP/120 levels = 9.8 MP/LEVEL. Meaning, one needs to level with 100 INT (10 mp a level) from level 30 to 150 in order to reach the HT HP threshold by 150.

If you start putting points into base int earlier (level 1-30), you will need less total int to level from 30-150.

Bossing section

Spoiler

PUPPET

Spoiler

Let me take this time to talk about Puppet , one of your important 3rd job abilities essential to bossing.
Puppet's description:
Summons a puppet (your other self) for a certain amount of time. While the puppet is around, the monsters will attack the puppet, not you.

This is how puppet works:

• Monsters will attack puppet instead of you when you place down a puppet
• They will ONLY act this way once you have "aggroed" them (attack them at least once)
• When your puppet dies. all monsters attacking your puppet will "deaggro"
• You must attack the monster to "aggro" them, and THEN puppet

This is an essential skill to many bosses.
Placing the puppet out of range (placing it a platform above the monster out of range (magic attack) will make the monster run back and forth endlessly
Be warned that puppet aggro does not work properly when other people aside from you are attacking the same monster (this is just how version 62 works), do not expect the same results unless you are soloing
.
Another warning:
It is recommended you fight bosses when you are at least within five levels of the boss.
Bosses have a damage reduction if you're lower level than them (i.e if you are level 95 and fighting Captain Lat with a level of 100, you will have a damage reduction of 5%).
Other reason is that unless you are within 5 levels of the boss or within 5 levels of your party members, you do NOT get shared exp from party members.

Most common/best bosses fought:

Spoiler

Capt. Latanica

Spoiler

level: 100
hp: 2,000,000
exp: 420,000
​

Headless Horseman

Spoiler

level: 101
hp: 3,500,000
exp: 600,000
​

Papalatus

Spoiler

Papulatus Clock

level: 125
hp: 23,000,000
exp: 1,192,000​

Papulatus

level: 125
hp: 1,590,000
exp: 1,940,000
​

Pianus

Spoiler

Right Side

level: 110
hp: 30,000,000
exp: 2,600,000​

Left Side

level: 110
hp: 24,000,000
exp: ???? (somewhere below 2,600,000)
​

Bigfoot

Spoiler

level: 110
hp: 32,000,000
exp: 5,320,000
​

Black Crow

Spoiler

level: 115
hp: 35,000,000
exp: 3,560,000
​

Female Boss (Anego)

Spoiler

level: 130
hp: 75,000,000
exp: 7,800,000
​

Zakum

Spoiler

Zakum's Arm 1

level: 140
hp: 33,000,000
exp: 2,688,000​

Zakum's Arm 2

level: 140
hp: 33,000,000
exp: 2,688,000​

Zakum's Arm 3

level: 140
hp: 22,000,000
exp: 1,692,000​

Zakum's Arm 4

level: 140
hp: 22,000,000
exp: 1,692,000​

Zakum's Arm 5

level: 140
hp: 27,500,000
exp: 2,240,000​

Zakum's Arm 6

level: 140
hp: 30,000,000
exp: 2,240,000​

Zakum's Arm 7

level: 140
hp: 25,300,000
exp: 2,060,800​

Zakum's Arm 8

level: 140
hp: 25,300,000
exp: 2,060,800​

Zakum1

level: 140
hp: 66,000,000
exp: 0​

Zakum2

level: 140
hp: 88
exp: 0​

Zakum3

level: 140
hp: 110,000,000
exp: 14,000,000
​

The Boss

Spoiler

BodyGuard A

level: 152
hp: 400,000,000
exp: 27,600,000​

BodyGuard B

level: 155
hp: 500,000,000
exp: 21,000,000​

The Boss

level: 175
hp: 150,000,000
exp: 35,000,000
​

Horntail

Spoiler

Horntail's Left Head (Prehead A)

level: 160
hp: 330,000,000
exp: ??? (Some undisclosed amount of exp)​

Horntail's Right Head (Prehead B)

level: 160
hp: 330,000,000
exp: ??? (Some undisclosed amount of exp)​

Horntail's Head A

level: 175
hp:
exp:​

Horntail's Head B

level: 175
hp:
exp:​

Horntail's Left Hand

level: 175
hp:
exp:​

Horntail's Right Hand

level: 175
hp:
exp:​

Horntail's Wings

level: 175
hp:
exp:​

Horntail's Legs

level: 175
hp:
exp:​

Horntail's Tail

level: 160
hp: 80,000,000
exp:
​

​

Your best friends (who to party with)

Spoiler

Spoiler

The explanation for each will be done class by class.
TIER S

Bishop

Spoiler

Bishops are MapleLegend's quintessential support class. They carry MANY spells useful to an archer for both bossing and grinding.

For both bossing and grinding:

Holy symbol boosts exp to 150% normal rate.​

For bossing:

Dispel rids you of debuffs.
Resurrection revives party members in cast zone.
Holy Shield prevents debuffs for x amount of time.
Heal heals party members in cast zone.
Bless gives you avoid, acc, weapon/magic def.​

For grinding:

Genesis hits 15 mobs with a holy spell.
​

For "big" end-game bosses (Horntail, Zakum, the Boss), Bishops are a must have. Since all of these tend to cast debuffs, stuns, and seduce, bishops are a godsend to prevent parties from dying. Even for smaller bosses, having holy symbol boosts exp greatly for you, so you should at least take one with you whenever you can. At Zakum specifically, Bishops also can cast Genesis during the arms, making the run faster as well.
For grinding, Bishops are also the "all in one" package for grinding. Packing holy symbol and a map wide attacking skill (which ALSO coincidentally is the best spell for skeles, the end game grinding map), there's no reason not to put Bishops in Tier S.

Dark Knight

Spoiler

Dark Knights are the most sought after supporting/attacking class, since they do decent damage and have an essential party skill.

For both bossing and grinding:

Hyper Body boosts health and mana to 160% normal rate.​

Since archers have such a dogshit base health pool, hyper body is a godsend. Boosting health by 60% really helps survivability, and in some cases (depending on how hard you hp wash) a necessity to even survive a single hit from a boss. They also have decent damage at most bosses, even very good damage with apples and/or speed infusion.
Dark Knights are not very useful at bosses that can/should be pinned, as they won't be able to add damage without the risk of unpinning. (This includes Anego, Bigfoot, Crow).
They are decent grinding partners because of their mobbing damage and mobility. All in all, with decent bossing damage and hyper body, Dark Knights also belong in Tier S.

Night Lord

Spoiler

Due to Sharp Eyes, Night Lords are by far the strongest class on MapleLegends. They have high survivability AND high damage output.

For both bossing and grinding:

Haste boosts speed by 40, and jump by 20 (note that this DOES cap at 140/123 regardless).​

For grinding:

Meso Up boosts mesos gained by 150% (nothing special, but it's nice).
​

Partying with a Night Lord is pretty much essential to killing any boss quickly. Due to the way critical chance works (every crit ADDS damage instead of multiplying), classes with multiple lines and base crit benefit 100x more with Sharp Eyes. Partying them means reducing the time taken to kill any boss, meaning you have MORE time to do other things (like other bosses )
Night Lords have the ability to facecheck into portals with Dark Sight, making scouting for area bosses that can kill you with touch damage incredibly safe.
Grinding wise, they are decent partners, with the ability to use Haste and Meso Up. Both are quality of life buffs to make grinding a little more enjoyable.

TLDR:
Tier S: Bishop, DK, Nightlord
Tier A: Bowmaster/Marksmen, Corsair, Buccaneer, Shadower
Tier B: Paladin, Hero
Tier F: Archmage

TLDR:
Archers are squishy characters with high damage late game, with an insane necessary party buff.
100 INT on average from 1-150 will get you enough health.
Bosses hit hard. You love bosses. HP wash for bosses.
[rant is not completed. fucking archers]

advice, comments are appreciated, leave them below