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I've just started an all-archers team, and I'm really excited about it's prospects.

In RPG's and fantasy novels, I always love archer/ranger classes much more than thief or warrior or *gag* magic users.... so I just figured it was time to make a tribute team for my own wierd bow and arrow fetish.

What I'm looking for here is any tips on setup as far as abilities, equipment, and tactics with an all-archer team. When I did the FFIV tribute team, Rosa had white magic as her secondary, with short charge for support to help with the arrow charge attacks and spells.... as well as blade grasp for defense. She had sucky damage potential, which is pretty much par for the course for all archers after Chapter 3 of the game, but she rocked as a support character and sniper to finish off critical foes.

If any of you have some ideas for a rocking archer setup, or better yet a setup for a team of archers, let me know.



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Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people - and kill them.

~Pacifist Badge, 1978

Equip Gun (better than arrows in some cases), Concentrate (arrows never miss), Ignore Height (you can gain ground), Dragon Spirit (your archers can't die), Arrow Guard (your archers are protected from other arches), Punch Art (your archers can heal themselves), Knight Skill (destroy weapons/armor from afar, and with concentrate, you'll be deadly)

Just a few thoughs--I'm more of a Knight/Monk/Lancer/Samurai guy.

This post has been edited by Dan on 2nd August 2004 18:24

Those are some good thoughts. Im thinking a few will have Monk abilities for their secondary skillset, and a few will have Knight abilities for the breaks.

I'm going to keep the weapons restricted to bows, though, since guns kindof blow the whole feel of it for me.

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Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people - and kill them.

~Pacifist Badge, 1978

Try to optimize your equipment set ups. Bow damage is Speed and PA based while Crossbow damage is strictly PA based. So for Archers with Crossbows, raise their PA with stuff like Twist Headbands, Bracers, and A Save (if it's a female though Males are better archers). Also the Wind Bow and Lit Bow can have it's damage increased elementally by equipping 108 Gems. Concentrate, Speed Save, and Teleport and good abilities for Archers.

heh heh... seems like a pretty fun idea, hamedo. gotta warn u though, its damn hard at the beginning, when all uve got is a bunch of low hp archers armed with weak crossbows and youre trying to repel a stampede of chocobos at mandalia plains... but hey, if an all lancer party works, maybe an all archer will too...

I spent a few hours last night leveling them on Mandalia Plains in different jobs to get the skillsets that I want... Right now I'm working on getting them all Move +2 and then I'll work on Blade Grasp.

I've never realized how the very first crossbow in the game, the bowgun, sucks so much. =)

Overrated- Thanks for the input. I've never heard the part about crossbows being dependant on PA, while bows used PA and SP. Good to know.

So what I'm thinking now for Ramza is this:

Archer Skillset
Knight skillset -or- White Magic
Blade Grasp
Short Charge
Move +3 or Teleport

The magic would go good as a second skillset due to the addition of Short Charge, primarily for the bow attacks...... but oh, how it would be fun to break armor and swords with a bow.... *drools*

This post has been edited by Hamedo on 3rd August 2004 12:18

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Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people - and kill them.

~Pacifist Badge, 1978

Someone started a thread about how to make a "perfect archer" : I'm bringing the link here, since it's somewhat relevant to this subject.
http://www.cavesofnarshe.com/forums/ipb/in...?showtopic=2739

Yeah, I looked that up for reference, because I remembered reading it a while back. The guy never posted his "500+ damage archer", though, so I'm assuming he never made it.

Last night I took my most powerful party on my memorycard and made them all archers, to see if I could beat the game with them. I had Cid, Ramza, Beowulf, Agrias, and Reis. I had the Perseus Bow, two Yoichi Bows, and three Ultimus Bows. I gave Cid a twist headband (PA+2), power sleeve (PA+2), and bracer (PA+3). He had the Perseus Bow equipped, and did a max damage of 336 to a black chocobo.

I started the endgame at Orbonne Monastary and got as far as the fight with Balk. The Tiamat and Hydra destroyed my uber-archers. *sigh*

This does not bode well.....

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Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people - and kill them.

~Pacifist Badge, 1978

Sorry for the double post.... this is just a quick update and then it's closed.

Archers blow. Verily, I say unto you, they blow majorly.

Early on, as in Chapter One only, they are fun to use, but not terribly effective.

Beyond Ch.1, Archers as a team are damn near useless. You can still go through the game, but every battle is a last-ditch effort, bloodbath, battle royale, tooth and nail scrap to the finish, and there is always a very good chance of getting at least one crystallized.

Using one archer on a good, balanced team for support would be ok, but a team of Archers? Meh. Like I said earlier, I turned my best overall team into archers, and with all the SP and PA modifiers I could get on him, Cid maxed out damage at a piddly 336.

I am officially declaring the Hawkeye Squad defunct. Next up, the Samurai Squad. I think this one will be much easier.

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Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people - and kill them.

~Pacifist Badge, 1978