[921][Guide] A Laymans Guide to Archery

A Layman's Guide To Archery​

In this guide I will cover the basics and go in depth in some places, with a GIF or picture presentation in each spoiler. I have deliberately left out things that are not primarily Archer.
Needless to say, I am not good with archer, and I can't actually find many things out that need explaining with this class, It seems to have many options, along with being the fastest moving class, but It doesn't quite have as much pixel precision possible as the knight in important combat situations, Ironically.
It has plenty of timing reliant things though.


Less than Full Charge Shot
Needless to say at first glance the archer has a whole circle of power to choose from for a shot, or so you think. At a less than full charge, you deal half a heart, and the arrows start coming out at three ticks, its a great tool to use if you are running and someones pursuing trying to melee you, since the small charge time allows you to keep moving backwards at good speed.

A fun fact is, the arrows don't actually change in velocity or distance until the 5th tick mark.
Arrows don't change Until 5th Tick Mark

Spoiler

Right here is proof of this, as you notice the velocity only seems to grow exponentially after the 5th tickmark and the 6th and 7th share nearly the same power.

Full Charge Shot
The primary Firing rate of any archer leisurely shooting arrows. These shots do 1 heart worth of damage, and encompass the full arc of range. This is symbolized by just holding until the circle is full. They deal a stun, and a tiny bit of knockback, upclose; but you'd need three of them to get a sizable amount of either. (See Legolas Shot)

Generally unlike what you imagine, the actual arc of the shot follows a very direct path, so you don't have to compensate that much unless you are aiming at a long range where the dipping end of the arc will have to hit the enemy.

Example of the ARC of a regular Full Charged Shot

Spoiler

This is an example of the arc, as you see the longer the distance you are aiming the more you compensate for the drag at the end of the arrow. This is tied to velocity of the arrow, the more velocity the further it goes before it drags down.

As you noticed in the shot above, the two arrows are not actually in the same place despite the same firing arc, Why is that?

Well arrows don't actually go to the same spot every single shot, even if you haven't changed aim at all. Fun fact isn't it. Below is a example of many shots fired into the sky at the same power (Full Charge) without any aiming movement at all. Along with that the aiming cursor is slightly off from its actual position ingame by about 4 or so pixels, or I am just plain bad.

Aiming cursor off by 4 pixels or so, and inconsistent firing arcs

Spoiler

As you can see the arrows vary that many tiles despite same firing power, and no aim change, It is noticeable over a long distance.

An Archer DoubleCharge (Legolas Shot)
When you charge further than a normal charge, you eventually receive a shing noise, and your arrow's tip begins to glow, that is when you know you have the Legolas Shot. It fires three full charged arrows without any charging time at all after your charge is finished, and it has a few special properties such as knockback, and shield stunning, which breaks the shielding of a knight and stuns them.

Needless to say this option is pretty damn good for an archer, a big improvement over classic, since you can go one step further than the full charge.

The legolas shot charge lasts either 2.5 seconds or two seconds after it is activated, If you do not use it, or cancel it; you get stunned momentarily. Below is an example, there is a timer on the bottom right of the Gif.

Legolas Shot Charge Holding Time

Spoiler

Needless to say the charge only holds for 2 seconds or 2.5 seconds.

Alongside of that, there's another fun fact most people seem to be unaware of, it is not a constant instant stream of arrows, it fires once per click during that window of 2 or so seconds after you charge it.

Firing a Legolas Shot Three different directions slowly during the window instead of a instant stream

Spoiler

As seen in the image above, it is not three instant shots, its three charged shots that can be released in a single click during the window, contrary to common opinion.

Also as I explained earlier the Legolas Shot has special properties too, It can break shield to stun and knockback If done at a close enough range, It deals 2 hearts to knights upclose who are shielding and 3 exact to those who are not. It is a good tool to deal as much damage as you can at a high risk alongside of that.

Legolas Shot Pointblank (A High Risk High reward archer Maneuver)

Spoiler

An example of the Legolas Shot being used pointblank, it is a psuedo melee of the archer and a good tool to get knights to back off or deal high damage at a high risk

Grappling Hook
This is the most unique, and alongside of that the most versatile movement tool possible in KAG, It allows you to move faster than any class, Move in any direction, climb anything possible, along with deal some damage.

To say the least, this replacement to the knife was a godsend, It is unique and quite entertaining at that, It is a tool that literally makes you the fastest moving class in the game bar none.

Grappling the ground over and over allows you to zoom across the landscape at high speeds, as long as you catch the ground tiles at a far distance, ideally your hook may drop a bit since you are hitting the ground with the hook aimed parallel while at a jump's highest point, causing it to drop in and drag you a long distance. The further the hook is the more pull it has.

Grappling super fast across landscapes at high velocity

Spoiler

It only took me 15 seconds to cross the entire map, you cannot say the archer doesn't have the tools to escape any situation thanks to that grappling hook.

Alongside of that grappling actually has a precision offensive use, you can actually grapple and stomp knights and other classes over and over disrupting things and stunning if you can ride them.

A Continual Grapple Stomp

Spoiler

This is a easy example of why grappling is a powerful tool, it can be used to grapple to gain enough velocity to stomp over and over and over If you land every single one

You can also use the stomp to outright stun and escape, and the speed of it to zoom away in the timewindow you have stunned a enemy knight trying to slash and chase you.

A Grapplestomp Escape

Spoiler

As seen here Verrazano grappled onto a tower grappled down onto me to stomp and stun then zoomed out to escape.

A Minimal Covering of Special Arrows
There are a lot of possibilities with Special Arrows, The archer has three of them. Buyable.
They are the bomb arrow, the water arrow, and the fire arrow.
One key thing to note is you cannot legolas different special arrows in a chain, whilas you can legolas shot three of the same arrow.

The Fire Arrow lights wooden blocks on fire and this fire spreads to all wooden blocks around it in conjunction. It deals 1 heart of direct damage from the arrow and an additional .75 during the burning section, resulting in 1.75 hearts total.

It lights siege on fire for a short time, It does about the same damage as a bomb arrow just over a slow duration, and it also lights people in the siege on fire too. I may be incorrect on this its not a common usage.

The Bomb Arrow destroys every tile around it in a diamond, instantly, Its a bit more effective than the regular bomb due to this fact, it also deals extreme damage to catapults, ballistas, longboats, and warboats. It is the Geti's Medieval RPG. It deals 2.5 hearts of damage if landed instantly.

The Water Arrow stuns, Its a great support tool if you wish to help your knights, or simply stun and hurt people at a distance.

Archers can in fact use mines too, although not a special arrow mines deploy and blow up when a corpse or someone walks over them. Its a rare usage and generally unthought of, but you can deploy mines in a enemy base after grappling over a wall or lay them around.

Builders learn lets face it, but they are usually quite lazy, which means theres still plenty of wooden things to light on fire after a initial stone wall, you can't directly shoot into them, but you can spray the entire side of their base.

Spraying blindly with a legolas shot over a wall with fire arrows can yield good results, if you are used to this tactic, Verrazano is not.

Firearrow Aerial Blindfire

Spoiler

An example of blindfire Fire arrow spraying.

Bomb arrows are a VERY VERY useful tool in the archers arsenal, what is better than removing blocks instantly? It destroys all blocks around it and does so instantly as explained, the block type does not matter, this is what truly gives it the edge over a bomb, for 20 more coins you get a better demolition tool as an archer.

For instance, it takes 2 or 3 bombs or more to destroy a stone door, It only takes one bomb arrow to do so. There is your 20 coins worth of utility over the regular bomb.

Bomb Arrow Legolas Shot collapsing a tower entirely

Spoiler

For 50 coins a piece you get a ranged demolitions tool that is nearly instant and easy to aim, what more can you ask for?

 

Really nice guide especially with these gifs

 

Great gifs, great presentation... and I did not even think of grapple-stomping. That is pure genius, and I love you for showing me that.

I did notice two mistakes, however.

First, you wrote about the Legolas shots as if they were the only shots that inflicted stun and knockback, when in reality single fully-charged shots will also inflict stun and knockback, just to a lesser extent, because you're firing fewer arrows (obviously).

Two, fire arrow damage is 1 heart regular arrow damage + 0.75 hearts of fire damage afterward. So, a fully-charged fire arrow will deal a total of 1.75 hearts, assuming the victim doesn't extinguish the fire early.

Other'n that, great guide. I learned something, and I spend most of my time playing Archer.

 

Nighthawk, I may be wrong here, but the stun and knockback might just occur from arrow velocity, someone should crank it up to max and test that, and yeah you are right.

And I wasn't aware of the actual fire arrow damage on players as of these recent versions, I'll edit the guide and fix it.

Also I avoid teaching about some topics in both the archer and knight guides so the game doesn't devolve, so theres still a tiny bit you can figure out ingame.

 

Ha! Didn't even know grapple-stomping was a thing. What suicidal fool gets in close with a knight anyway?!

 

<- This guy.

 

Its risky but its awesome to do it.

 

Thanks, I thought I'd need some tips with archer. Good guide.

 

Nice guide!

 

-Didn't know you can time each arrow of Legolas Shot like that.

-Didn't know you can use Legolas Shot with special arrows.

-Didn't know you can use Grappling Hook for stomping like that.

Valuable stuff! Thanks!

 

You should add tips on the value of a well placed bomb arrow, because Im tired of seeing archers either not buy them, or just fire them at random dirt, because those things can tear pen a pretty nasty gash in someones base if you fire them correctly, and a good Legolas shot with bomb arrows can knock down most towers, at least partially.

 

Does the Continual Grapple Stomp still works? I can't seem to gain enough momentum when I try it.

 

yeah it works, you need to be high enough up, about the pinnacle of jumping straight off of them. but all a knight has to do is shield you or duck and it negates it. also if he's any knight at all he'll have a slash waiting for you. best option is to air stop and flee, or use water arrows to stun them, then move into position for reverse teabagging.

 

Repeatedly stomping someone is only viable against knights if you first hit them with water ammo, as kody said.

This tactic works wonders on builders and really slow-brained archers though.

Single grapple stomps are perfectly viable versus knights however. If you can get above them and time the stomp between their slashes, you can sneak in some damage and stun them long enough to get out of their danger-zone.

(you can be even more mean, by hitting them with a quarter-charged shot as soon as you stomp. )

 

Archers who can stun reliably enough to escape, though grapplestomping rarely enters into it. I HAVE used it to finish a knight scaling my walls after sliding down with a point blank legolas shot form above though.

 

The grapple stomp does not seem effective against veteran knights, that knight in the gif was quite stupid not to jump and see that coming, you'd be dead if it was someone with great average skills.

 

Repeatedly grapple stomping a knight, of course, isn't a valid tactic. Unless they're stunned with water ammo, that is.

Single stomps, with good timing, however, can throw a knight off and sneak in hits. Even good/great/amazing knights can be grapple-stomped.

Archer CQC is all about being as unpredictable as possible. Archers have a wide range of tools and a lot of ways to use them. Mixing up your approach and always keeping knights on their toes is key. Grapple stomping is just another tool in that big, unpredictable kit.

 

i gotta give it to you trumbs it usually takes a bomb to get you now

 

Been meaning to ask, is there a good course of action for archers against bombs?

 

There's generally 4 options when an enemy knight is trying to throw a bomb at you:

• Hiding in a building (obviously)
• Juking out the knight with grapples (sometimes, a knight won't expect you to fling yourself straight at them, and will miss their bomb)
• Arrow stunning or using water ammo to prevent them from throwing the bomb, possibly causing them to kill themselves.
• Shooting a bomb out of the air

That last one, is insanely hard to do. A fullcharge arrow has the potential to stop all of a bomb's momentum, or even send it flying backwards. Even i can't reliably do this, but i do attempt to whenever i get the chance.

Nothing beats the reactions of knights, as they go to throw a bomb, and it gets shot out of their hand, landing behind them and killing them.

This is also fun to do knights who are trying to bomb jump.