[203] Lack of skilled archers

Is it me or is it seriously so that there are basically no skilled archers on the field? I mean I do see some really skilled ones from time to time, but mostly they will not use structures specifically build for them, will not help teammates out (CQC and they just charge up their arrow like nobodies buisness) and generally I see less archers than anything else (except sometimes they do sort of an "archer" rush where everyone suddenly takes archer and the sky is filled with arrows). I often find myself crying out for some archers to come and man my structures (as knights can't utilize safe spots as well as archers do -> arrow spam of death downwards and anyone will have a hard time getting in with 0% danger for the archer). So yeah generally archers are minding their own buisness and don't seem to like to integrate themselves into teamfights as much (obviously from a distance, not like jumping in and suiciding). Its just kinda distressing to see that while we get butchered the archer directly above us with clear shot on the ongoing battle is ignoring us so carelessly.

Or is this just happening to me?

 

Yeah, I guess people don't know how to play. They think to always charge full and not care about themself/teamates. I agree 100% on this. This is why I switched to archer not too long ago.

 

They don't help you because they won't get the kill. Or they are having a sissy cover fight with enemy archers.
Oh yeah and no one likes to go front, because playing as an archer is very boring, knights don't often protect you, it is very easy to die to teh CoD grenades, and you get easily cornered because knights are more mobile than the archers.

 

This is what really gets me... they don't even care about THEMSELVES how is that possible? I mean I could kinda undertsand if they don't wanna put their life on the line but thats not even it... their actions seem totally random to me, to the point of it being silly.

 

"Caring about themselves"
They want just to have fun, but having fun as an archer isn't effective so they die.

 

Most archers that I see are just "one-minute" archers. They get killed a few times and they switch to knight. This way you'll never learn how to aim and how to teamplay with this class

 

I do find archers caring only about themselves more than builders and other knights. I'm trying to help an archer by shielding him and he keeps jumping around, ignoring the fact i'm helping him, then i'm the one who gets in danger once the other knight or archer sees me. Take my help god dammit.

Also today, dunno whether it's ignorance or selfishness, had one archer just shooting arrows near an open drawbridge. Needed to get back up the drawbridge to defend against incoming knights but the archer wouldn't move out of the way to reset the drawbridge. The knights got over and killed me, and that was during no units as well. God some people need to pay attention to their surroundings.

Oh, yeah, and I hate that particular thing even if it's off-topic. Why do drawbridges stay open even when there are no enemies around? You have to move out of the way of them just to get them to close again. This has killed me so many times now, and there's no reason for it.

 

I think part of the problem is that teaching good archery is really hard. How do you really show someone where to shoot... or how to shoot... since archers are the only ones who can shoot, you can not mimic the shooting in any way - meaning showing them HOW you want them to shoot is extremely difficult. Think builders and knights, they both work relatively the same. Dig somewhere and a knight might try to help you, etc. but if you are yourself not an archer its like you speak a different (body) language, you simply CANNOT show them that they can shoot through that gap over there... Makes it a lot harder to get them to learn anything or get better at it, they are simply disconnected from the other two classes.

 

I was a good archer and helped my team but swicthed to knight so that i could be better all around when you know archers arent needed i could go knight.

 

All I ask for is that archers take out enemy catapults. Some teams are very lazy about this.

One recent match the other team had two catas constantly firing on us that were wide open, my team did nothing so I shot them both down solo.

 

I think i'm a relatively good archer, I do tend to stay around half, to a full screen away from the fight, picking off people (archers first, builders second, then knight) and catas that's fortified on top of enemy towers or sky bridges, +15 gold for each hit is easy money, which converts to more arrows, my favourite targets.

[I play on Aus kag server, but now the VirtuaTI one]

The problem I usually come upon with some towers is the lack of proper murder holes. They need the right angles to cover available points where enemies can travel. The most effective murder holes are the ones that has line of sight of our front door.

For example, the one door/slit murder holes [facing left/right, not the down ones] are quite useless, as they lack the angle of fire while on the defensive. Or towers with no murder holes at all, just 3 layers of solid rock (which is fine if you don't have archers on your team).

I've came upon a few good door covers, but the most efficient one in current version is actually hiding behind door cover + team bridge stack, as fog of war is quite OP. Keeping you alive and allow you to snipe.

Having arrow shop at a relatively close position to the front/top of tower is also good way to keep a constant supply of arrows.

On the offensive, I find my self hiding behind knight's shield as much as possible, giving them support by firing full charged arrows majority of the time. It's hard to survive without a knight in the front, and most of them die off too fast, like blindly jumping into spikes. Foxodi is a good example of the ideal knight I'll go on the offensive with, but he's a little OP in that regards. It just doesn't feel as safe when knights blindly charge into things.

Archers feel more effective in tunnel fights when they have a knight supporting, but in the open, they're too vulnerable and lack ability to defend from stray arrows or melee

But the most irritating thing I find with archers is that, when you die, you usually end up with 0 to 15 gold, arrows takes Foreverr to obtain, while knight can just charge off again. And also, a lot of bases end up with having 0 or 3 trees in base after building phase in big servers, and you end up having to fight builders for them.

That's how I feel about archers. Vulnerable without proper melee or cover support, painfully slow arrow gathering speed, and caring too much about K/D (curse you, score board).

I do sometimes feel that having the charge go alll the way to 0 instead of say 25%-50% delays and misses quite a lot of windows of opportunities against knights. I've been doing force cancel/redraw to kill the process of down charging.

Double charged arrows in tunnel is awesome too~ hard to find good archers for that =\

From what I've observed in the last few games... good archers are usually on your enemy's team xD
Most archers do seem to lack the accuracy for the first shot though. The drop off does need some time to get used to.

 

Yea arrows can be really painful to obtain. Quite often I see maps where trees are scarce, leaving the expensive-but-convenient workshops the only way.

 

I don't play as an archer very often because I find it rather boring. However, from what I learned I can say it is difficult (at least for me) to keep aware of the surroundings as easily as with the other classes. Mainly because all you attention is focused on a single enemy and how to get an accurate shot to him, often near the edge of the screen where you can't scroll any more sidewards. I often found myself confused when a knight killed me without trouble while I was busy minding the battle 100 blocks away.
It is true that that few archers make use of intelligently placed firing spots. Most of them have an excellent strategic position along with good defense from enemy arrows. On the other hand, however, the battle is constatly moving and many times you have to enter and leave the tower intermittently, so you may end up prefering a simple wall just for the mobility.
And definitely archers should realise they can take down enemy outposts and catapults from safety.

 

I also run into that same issue, Drok. It's quite hard to keep aware of what's around you. I play on the most zoomed out camera, which does lessen that probability of getting killed by a knight without me knowing.

It's rather hard to keep a cover on while in the middle of the map, as those stones from catapults can easily kill us in one hit, supported by enemy arrow. It comes down to builders having to build a higher tower [sky-bridge] than enemy to counter theirs.

Which in turn ruins ground combat experience with catapults being placed too out of reach of regular tower's arrow range. Consequently, builders tunnel through to avoid all the silly cata fire safely.

 

Need to add another tip for archers: zooming out not only allows you to shoot from a safer distance (Auri), but also it allows ease of judging of distances and therefore easier to visualise where the arrow will land [increasing accuracy of first and subsequent shots].

For tunnel fighting, you get range advantage [in straight tunnels, usually man made], by making an one block deep dip and standing in that dip, which should give you a few extra block of range, also works if you're a few blocks deeper. Easy to snipe off people, even if its one block slits.
If you have a friendly archer in tunnels, try and time your shots to be in sync as much as possible, first charge arrow should break knight's defence, second one will hit.

When behind a 2 block cover, or covered while standing on ladder, fully charge the bow, jump and release arrow. Good way to 'abuse' the cover.

 

Hey cykalu, can you check these archer slits out: http://kagforum.com/index.php?threads/203-modular-hill-castle.2097/
(the lower "fixed" ones) and tell me what you think about them. I found them to be a good middle ground between security and function, still leaving a bit room especially when shooting down (normally you can still climb up the roof to shoot more freely or lob shots) I would be interested what a good archer has to say about it.
(Please answer in the hill castle thread not here if you wish to give some input!)

Added both. Good hints.

But lets not derail from the topic too much, where is the lack of skilled archers comming from?
Feel free to discuss other things in seperate threads or the archer discussion thread if you don't think that the issue you want to talk about warrants its own thread ;)

 

Sorry about that, got a little ahead of myself~

I just want to expand on Salted's point a little.
When I first played archer, it felt.. 'dry' and slow, it didn't seem as rewarding than the other two classes; the running around from the frontal assault, getting sniped, to gathering arrows or regening health back in base because of one fully charged arrow, reduces the amount of action you get. It was overall less satisfying. edit: Less.. 'user-friendly' to begin with?

There are quite a number of tricks and things that new archers should be aware and take note of [and not everyone gets on the forums to check for tips]. Though I feel that new players are deterred to playing as archer further, before learning the tricks to become a better archer.

When I got into archer, it felt -overwhelming- because of the number of potential targets within your range, with knights rushing and clashing, while catapults swinging and arrows flying, it takes practice to learn prioritization of targets, acquiring specific threats and drawing against them. It was challenging to accurately shoot distance targets, particularly when not playing all the way zoomed out, but also dangerous engage on close quarter combat with the lack of defensive abilities like shield or placing stone blocks in the path, with only 2 hearts of life.

It may seem like archers don't care about others or having no sense of awareness, but when I play, I find it rather difficult to be aware of what's happening next to my character as I'm fixated on targets on the very edge of my screen, unless it's engaging in tunnel visioned areas such as tunnels or low ceiling zones. It's like learning how to drive in the beginning, constantly having to keep mirrors in check, it takes time to develop the habit. The tunnel vision, or long sightedness of archers in Kag (less severe in 3D environment games, as enemies are usually within a cone of vision, regardless of distance) does present a different set of challenges for newer archers to overcome. Knights and builders do not suffer as much as archers because their focus range is usually melee.

 

Archer fun got severely nerfed a while back. Not surprised people don't want to play the damn class anymore.

 

Not many of the new people know how to properly play archer. It was the hardest to learn just because getting the arrow velocity, aiming, and physics down was pretty tough... everything kept on changing. And know it just feels faster to rush as a knight. The satisfaction of the archer was being able to send a bunch of arrows and kill people with relative ease... nowadays the loading time for firing is so long that the satisfaction is waned...