RandomNPC – Video Game RPG Reviews, Editorials, and Features

This week, we’ll be taking a look at the fastest class available on Dragonica Online; the Archer. The Archer is a bit of an odd bird, combining high movement speed and agility with extremely long cooldown for their most powerful attacks. Archers split off into the mechanically-inclined Ranger and the Hunter, which focuses more on animal-based area of effect attacks. Rangers tend to have more raw power and pack some unusual attacks, but Hunters, who are better able to deal with large groups of foes, tend to be more popular.

In the early areas of the game, Archers have it pretty much all their own way. High movement speed and a stable full of powerful long-range attacks make Archers hard to take down and able to take on both basic enemies and bosses with equal aplomb, although fighting bosses will require the constant use of skills, which will drain the Archer’s MP extremely quickly. The most critical skill for Archers, though, is the Anti-Air Shot. A fairly basic skill that can be acquired very early on, Anti-Air Shot fires a constant stream of homing arrows upwards at a foe that has been launched into the air. Since each shot provides almost enough bounce to keep the enemy airborne, Archers can deal some serious damage with this skill. Its only real fault is that it doesn’t affect very many foes and has a relatively small area of effect in the air, so it can leave the player vulnerable if there are large groups of foes to be dealt with.

The Hunter tends to be a rather narrowly-defined class, basically acting as an Archer with more damaging skills. The Hunter can, with the right build, be set up to focus on poison damage, using skills like Bleed, Acid Arrow, and Net Disruption, but more often Hunters opt for the faster and more damaging Arrow Shower, Rocket Launcher, and Wolf Rush skills. Hunters tend to be more damage focused than Rangers, piling on skills that increase their offense with a Bow.

Rangers, on the other hand, tend to be harder to pin down. They pack just as many area of effect skills as the Hunter, but due to the lack of supporting skills, end up dealing less damage. Furthermore, the cooldown on their best skills tends to be rather brutal; For example, Gatling Gun, a fast, highly damaging attack and one of the Ranger’s finest, has a cooldown of almost fifteen seconds. Surprisingly, the most widely useful move the Ranger has access to is Homing Missile. A powerful single shot version of Anti-Air Shot, Homing Missile has the added bonus of a larger bounce. By combining Homing Missile with Anti-Air Shot, you can keep an enemy airborne for much longer, causing a great deal more damage.

Overall, Archers are an interesting, though not terribly consistent class. Being a fast, powerful long-range class, they make a solid choice for beginners, and with the right fine-tuning, can be some of the most damaging characters in the entire game.