Archers aren't very useful in CTF - Ideas to make them more useful? (or do you disagree?)

sideway stomping is already possible, you just need to hit the target at the right angle. full horizontal stomping is realy wierd combined with water arrows and a couple of kamikaze archers is just wrong.

 

Never seen this before, and I disagree entirely. A 'pro' archer is only slightly more useful than a noob one. In some cases, they're worse because they take more risks and die stupidly whereas a noob archer would sit behind their team shooting arrows into the crowd.

I consider my strongest class to be archer and it is definitely my favourite class, but I always find a switch from archer to builder/knight almost always turns the game in our favour.

How are they useful?

Sure archers are better in 1v1 but that's because they can kite. Kiting isn't a good idea in CTF because the idea is to push the enemy line towards their flag, not kill the enemy.

 

But thats not the point. If you can consistently hit the enemy knights or even builders that are further behind a pro can cause more pressure than even two or three bad archers.
And if you can find the enemy base's weakness it becomes even more useful like 5+ times I either burned down the enemy's selection of shops or vital support beams on their structures and allowed us to clutch.
Also, on the moving forward frontline, of course not; in what game do you see 5-10 archers advancing forward in a swarm like knights? I never have in maybe 200-300 CTF games since early beta once. And they aren't designed to; archers can't (and shouldn't in my opinion) directly protect themselves and walk up to the towers. That's for knights.

Think 10 knights vs. 5 knights and 5 archers on flat ground. if the archers just continue shooting while knights go sawing, they should win under equal skill.

 

They should but generally they don't. One bomb can take out all 5 archers and then its 10v5.

 

Archers are very powerful because they can force shield. In any even numbers engagement of a side with an archer vs a side with no archers (lets say 2 knights and 1 archer vs 3 knights) the side with the archers should win. You can't consistently hide behind one guy's shield, archers can jump or arc arrows over and regardless this has the effect of forcing shield in at least one knight. Most knights are going to be holding shield the moment they see an archer at mid range, to avoid taking chip damage, and this gives the archer's team's knights a very easy time winning the engagement. Every shield drop should be punished with a heart. Lots of knights movement options involve dropping shield so it also limits their movement. With good archer timing if an ally single slashes the shield walling knight (hard to punish by shield wall's ally, unlike a double slash) even the shield wall starts taking chip damage. Having an archer basically forces a timer on your enemies. They have to win the engagement soon or else the archer wears them all down too much. The option of spacing slashes until the enemy makes a mistake is removed. They have to approach. If they all hold shield then the archer's team's knights can just charge double slashes. Under time pressure people make mistakes.

Also archers are most effective at mid range. A good archer can dodge bombs (literally just grapple). From this range they don't have to fully charge. Archer's are only ineffective in ctf when they camp. Get out into the fight and suddenly your knights are 10x stronger.

 

There are a few more ways archers are useful.

In some maps, archers have great advantage because they can use their grapples and can go places knights can't which then allows them to shoot since they are ranged. An example of a map like this that you would find in a normal CTF game is the community map in the KAG Folder (Base/ Maps/ Community) and the map is called 8x_Fest_Pass. It's one of the first ones in the folder. It's got dirt blocks for a sky, which archers can use at full zoom out to shoot down on enemies (specifically builders) and camping up there will most likely make no one see you. You could also drop down into the mid, as it has usually water there from players adding the water. Personally, I usually don't shoot down and camp there, instead, I go to the enemy base with my grapple and I shoot bomb arrows or fire arrows at their wall (if they have one). If they don't have a wall then I just go into their base and archer.

The downside of this is that an archer can get killed pretty easily at the base of the enemy by a knight or archer, so I recommend the camping tactic if you don't think you can handle 5 knights brutally murdering you at their base, and i recommend a wall built so you can prevent getting raided yourself. You also might fall while grappling, which can kill you unless you perfectly stomp someone, which usually is hilarious.

Another recommendation is how archers are pretty useful against builders, if the archer is actually good at being that class. Seeing as the Archer is a ranged class, it can wipe out builders pretty easily if they are trying to take mid (regardless of whether it's at the start or in the middle of the game). Going close up to a builder and attempting a good stomp can also stun them and give you time to shoot an extra arrow. Missing the stomp can get your health lowered and can stun you, making the builder kill you pretty easily. I prefer the close range builder-archer fight since stomping is easy to do with a grapple and a brain. Getting killed is easier though, and most of the time builders might have backup knights to shield them from long-ranged archer arrows and to kill closeup archers.

This last suggestion is for enemy base archers. I vaguely mentioned how you can use this in the 8x_Fest_Map, but rushing to the enemy base at the start, hidden in trees as archer, or just rushing straight really quickly, can give you an advantage and quite some money. I have never successfully done this but at the start of the game the base is usually still being improved, so good archers have an advantage of getting to the enemy base and shooting builders, possibly gathering materials if they can, avoiding enemy knights and archers. Sometimes at the start of a game some bases lack the stone so they use wood, seeing as at the start of the game a regular player would have enough money for a fire arrow from all the building, this can be pretty easily executed but ONLY if the enemy has some wooden structures that are large. I don't recommend it on tree farms because that is retarded, they are one of the easiest things to replace. What I do recommend using fire arrows on are shops. Sometimes the shops will be defended by stone blocks, or a mix of stone and wood, so you can shoot the wood blocks, or if it's stone blocks, the wood doors. You can also easily achieve this from a far distance as archer, by first shooting a regular arrow until you reach the wood block with your regular arrow, then you can switch, keeping the same aim, and shoot the fire arrow. This can be risky in plain sight at the start of a match considering the troops might bombard you.

At the start of the match there is usually a rush as you said too, Blue_Tiger, which leaves the base with only usually builders in it, which is good for this strategy, if you can get past the rushing troops.

I hope you find my ideas fine and I hope you can see how they make an archer in CTF slightly more useful. Although I agree with you, knights are generally better in CTF.

 

ARCHERS AREN'T VERY USEFUL IN CTF?

huh.. news to me. I guess i've been living a lie.