Help countering Archers (in General)

Okay, so I've noticed that one of the greatest weaknesses of my team is a set of Archers that can dish out a ton of damage before the ranged rounds end. Anyone know if there is a way that I can counter these archers without recruiting a new minion? Or is a new minion necessary to counter. (Or is it even possible at all? xD)

Either switch characters to have the evasion from the RoBF up front or give the enchanter the db's

Yeah, waiting till the end of the NUB before hiring sounds like a good idea. =D And well, guess I will have to just endure it. xD Cause I don't have high AC, and my RoBF and DBs aren't high enough to give super evasion yet. xD

AS/GA with a RoS
high AC and RoBF
high DBs
use the abusive exbow
junction a jkf for its evasion

Hmm, I completely forgot about the RoS. I might have to put that on a minion when I recruit a new one. =D Thanks guys!

Odds are, as a NUB, none of the counters to archer based teams are viable (too expensive) if you stick to a RoBF team. Honestly, your only options are to switch to a ranged damage source(SF, Hal, FF) or accept defeat as far as I can tell.

Also forgot to mention, this really only works if you have a PR advantage and a huge tattoo, It's useless otherwise.

That is certainly a false statement.

I can give you one example of this being wrong.

Guernica, with a 201M NW ELB loses to Black Mesa.

Guernica has 6M MPR, Black Mesa 5.1M MPR.

If the RoS character is setup properly, it is easily possibly to beat archers of higher NW and tattoo size.

I'd imagine that's more because Guernica went the DM route instead of AMF leaving himself weak to Decay abuse combined with the fact Horseguy's RoS is large enough to nullify his DM almost completely.

Guernica's Archer is actualy capable of surviving all of ranged against my GA alone, the 10M damage done from MM is the only reason it goes down. Your example is more a case of strat specialization allowing someone to fight above their level.

Actually almost all archers go the DM route. I have seen very very few successful ones go with AMF.


Well the RoS does not entirely depend on the AS/GA axis of damage.

This post was for archers, who almost always use DM. MM with the RoS as your strategy is works exceptionally well vs archers.

You cannot comment on the RoS without including the other factors, such as the damage dealer in the RoS character.

Also, Guernica is not a "pure" archer in the Z sense. He uses a Steel Familiar which helps with AS/GA/RoS characters in that he has more hp to deliver damage.

Vs Archers, as was stated in the OP, the RoS/GA/AS/damage dealer character works exceptionally well.

So well it allows RoS characters to fight well above their PR for most of the game. Getting that crucial challenge bonus to help grow especially during the N*B time.

Also the OP is using a RBF.

However, one needs some form of defense with the RBF to last into melee.

If you look at the top RBF characters, they use one or more of the following:

Very high AC with SS
Evasion/DB/UC
HP/PL/TSA minion

The OP is using none of these.

Yeah, since I don't have the cash to afford high AC, SS is kind of a wast of exp right now.. Also, I was told by Novice (I think) that training Evasion (Without DX) would be a waste, and that DB's and the RoBF could usually pull the weight.

As for UC, it would make GA own me.. I don't to take the extra damage.

And I could eventually get a new HP/PL/TSA minion (My old strat was based on that) but I redid it, since I couldn't afford the necessary equipment at the time.

My advice for anyone playing a NUB is to quickly decide on how many minions they want.

But the best character for optimal growth IMO of course, is the 4 minion RoS character mimicking King's character.

It requires a very low NW, and is able to fight very high for very long.

If you want to be a 4 minion character, hire 2 minions right now and switch to a RoS. Otherwise with a 2 minion character, there are plenty of strategies to choose from.

However a 2 minion RBF strategy with low NW is not one of them, sorry to break the bad news to you.

This is were the huge tattoo argument in my original statement comes in, smaller RoS - say due to being a nub run (Like the OP's poster) makes you an easy target (example arioch)

And as I previously stated.


High AC - going to cost you upwards for 30-50M, not bank breaking but still an investment.

PL/TSA battery - plausible, Odds are you'll want an MGS on that minion too, unless you have a separate wall - total cost on base equips 10M+

DBS - Upwards of 40M for a decently working pair.

Yeah, I was looking towards getting more minions.. (For RoS, EC and GA.) But I currently have to pay 14 mil to AK for a 4 mil tattoo I bought. (Gotta prepare for the future.) So, until I pay that, I cant really spend too much money hiring minions. =P

And I know for this to work, I'd really need to spend a lot on forging/blacksmithing my gear. And getting a few other items, such as a MgS.

He will be fighting people his own MPR/PR for a while. I doubt his tattoo will be that much smaller than others he will face.

But equal tattoos, the RoS beats an archer hands down. Unless that archer has excessive DM or a 2nd and possibly a 3rd damage source. Such as a RBF.

All the ways to properly use the RBF cost cb which equals raising your PR.

For the NUB you want to keep your PR as low as possibly and fight as high as you can. For this, the RoS beats all other tattoos for a 4 minion character.

For a 2 minion character, look at Shade's character for a nice low NW high potency build.

Yeah, Thanks for the help Ranger and King. I'll keep looking into theses things and make sure that I make a decision quick!!

(And P.S. I'm not fighting people in my MPR.. a good deal of them are double my MPR) =P

Shade strat is much better for NUB that what king have. With shade strat you need 1 corn 1 boF 1 FF 1 HoC 1 AoJ 2 SB 1 BoE 1 AG

100% in AS 100% in DD.

And are you talking about his 8 mil score character..?

GA based teams haven't ever been on my list of high fighting teams... and only the ToE bests the RoS for challenge bonus stealing uselessness.

You cannot counter meh!!!!!


Except with the things that beat me (<.<) (>.>)

Haha, not trying to counter YOU Zenai. Just the thousands of archer based characters at my level.. xD

Take it from me, avoid characters who can beat you at lower levels ie: search everyone, if they are attacking you don't worry about it till you have the ability to do something about it, be it by adding more minions upping gear changing strats whatever it is. Keep your PR low, and your CB% high and only focus on growth till your nub ends.

I ran at 100% challenge bonus for 3 months straight continually switching tats to whatever suited me best at the time, my main focus was always on growing and getting to the highest MPR I could and worrying about the rest later.

That also sounds like a good idea. =P I've already changed my strat once.. So I guess it wouldn't hurt to adjust to what will counter what you're currently facing, and then right before the NUB ends, transition into what you plan to use long term.

Just keep it to changing tats and maybe tiny retrains if absolutely necessary (wouldn't recommend it based on personal experience). Then yes if you wish for a total retrain by the time your nub ends then you can do that, though what I did was only retrain two stats on two minions and hired my fourth leaving one of them alone completely to minimize losses.

Personally I would suggest just switching tats if you can and it helps, as you don't lose a thing just by playing around with different tat options for growth. Just grow towards the basic strat you want to be, you nit pick on the finer details after you've finished growing and decide then whether you want to take hits in levels or not then.

Trust me if I didn't retrain the amount of times I did during my ncb (3-4 near total retrains) I probably would have finished right between 5.5-6m mpr. So I'm suggesting you don't make the exact same mistakes I did.

Gotcha. So looks like I'll have to be buying some base tattoos so that I can try them out!! xD And as far as hiring minions.. Would you suggest doing it ASAP or near the end of the NUB? (From what I've heard it would be ASAP.)

Hiring minions is very costly so usually people would say do it ASAP especially if you want to have relatively close total levels across each minion. However if you don't mind the cost some teams can benefit from late hires.

My team for example was 3 minion up until about mid month 4 I think, and I got the cheap minion for 11m (expensive minion was 40m) just to hold my tat and train decay and be 1 extra kill slot. That was more beneficial for me then say if another team tried to do the same thing.

So I cant really say when its best to hire, its a judgement call you have to make based on your team and what you plan to do with it, as late hires will throw off the xp training ratio you normally have going on.

Hiring minions is a universally bad idea, even taking the top MPR is a lousy reason to hire.

I would generally agree with novice with 1 huge caveat.

If you are a single minion like novice or Z, then a 2nd minion can be extremely helpful, even more than for just the extra MPR.

If you look at Z or novice's character, you can see they have an EO trained without a corn. A new minion would let them concentrate all their new xp on the EO and get the maximum benefit from a corn and other mage armors.

It would dilute the xp in the future, but the extra kill slot and a possibly holder for the tattoo and aloowing the large minion to wear body armor/cloak can possibly outweigh the xp dilution.

But once you are past a certain point, perhaps 2M MPR, buying minions to go from 2 to 3 or 3 to 4 is not generally advised as that money could likely be used for better armors/weapons or upgrades on your tattoo if one is available.

Gotcha.. So I might hire now.. who knows... /=
But this brings me to another problem... I bought I 4 mil tattoo from AK, and not thinking at all, I kinda transformed my small RoBF into the 4 mil one... Now this thing adds 130k to my power, explaining why I can't get a 100% bonus (I can kill ton's of 800k characters, which would be giving me very high bonuses without the 4 mil tat.) So I was wondering if any of you had a smaller RoBF, like lvl 550k or below, that I could borrow to decrease my PR.

I tried a few diffrent tats before the RoS. This one seems to let me fight stronger people but with a high score I become a big target. Just play a lot and make good use of your NUB. Great game.

Don't worry about your bonus as much as fighting as high as possible. As I learned way too late into my NCB, your base rewards are based on your oppenents PR. The higher the better, even if it means taking a hit in your bonus.

Yeah, that definitely explains why a 60% will give me the same as an 80%... Odd isn't it? xD