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The Archer/Tamer:

Taming (90)-100
Animal lore (85)- 100
Archery 100
Tactics 100

Options
anatomy
magery (You need at least some magery)
veteranay

On Siege I'm an Archer/Tamer (and a bowcrafter, lumberjack....only 1 character on Siege per account, so you pack the skills in pretty tight lol).

One of the good things about being an Archer/Tamer on is I can send my dragon after multiple targets, and while they attack my 1100 hit point friend, I can pick off the smaller ones while he deals with the "big guys". Smaller monsters like Scorpions and Orc mages are deadly to dragons because of their ability to poison or cast poison. A dragon will cure itself most of the time, but definitely not all the time. A mage can pick off smaller monsters to some degree, but they will have to stop and build up mana several times in a long fight, for an archer its like having a light "corp por" machine gun that almost never runs out.

Also I can "hide" under or near the dragon and zip arrows into the PK groups that are bold enough to attack. lol and believe me on Siege they are! There have been many situations that were infinitely better because I'm an archer/tamer instead of a mage/tamer.


On the flip side there are drawbacks too, I have about 65 points of magery, and 36 Mana. I can put on a "mages hat" (that is bought in the magery shops), and increase my mana by 5 so I will have 41 (at the cost of dropping Str and Int by -5 each). This way I can gate (From scrolls) to where I'm going, and gate back when I'm done. But if I Cast the gate on uneven terrain, or if the pet is distracted the moment before I step into the gate, have a pocket of lag or for any reason "Miss the gate" Its bad, its like missing the last chopper out sometimes, I cant just re-cast gate, I have to wait on my Mana to recharge.


Since the most mana that I'm going to have is 41, I rarely cast g-heal on my pets, and only cast Arch Cure when Its clear the pets are not going to cure themselves. I have a small amount of veterinary skill that is a serious help in healing my tames during prolonged fights, but I cant "fix" 200 points of damage in several seconds the way a mage could mana dumping g-heals.

The main reason that I'm an Archer and a Tamer on Siege tho, is that I don't want to have a dragon/wyrm with me at all times. If I'm out riding, or chopping wood, having one of the Big 4 creatures in tow is a huge pain, I cant be "defenseless". On Siege everyone eventually gets to know everyone, its not a shard of thousands and thousands of people. Characters that have little or no PvP experience, and little or no skills devoted to the combat arts are killed and killed often.

The nice thing about Archery is that it is such a versatile skill, when I'm just out and about and get "jumped" I usually have a heavy crossbow armed, so whoever "jumps me" gets to see a nice fat chunk of his health bar disappear because the character Auto-responds to the attack. I don't have to do anything. Same for being paralyzed, Archery still works.

If your fighting someone with even a little PvP experience that has a melee skill, and all you have is archery you probably are not going to be able to kill them, but it allows you to damage them while you get out of the area, and if they try and chase you too hard (and forget to heal on the way) you very well can kill them, a Heavy Crossbow can do a huge amount of damage to a person, and a bow will keep up a steady stream of fire as you run and pause to get off a shot.

Another of the huge plusses with archery is that it can be used anywhere, you can engage creatures over the rail of a boat, from behind barrels and walls in dungeons (don't build walls tho, the GMs tend to frown on that! lol) or just shooting, running, and shooting again.


I wear very little armor on my archer (a full suit of studded leather), I don't want the dex penalty, but I also don't get hit anywhere near as much as melee fighters do. Things like being poisoned, or environmental damage (Cold damage from Frost elementals, heat damage from the monsters around lava pools etc) I rarely have to worry about those because I can attack, then move and attack again, I'm not really close enough to things to get hit a whole lot. Other things like Cyclops warriors, Wayverns, and even wild dragons are totally killable by single archers, but meleefighters take a serious risk for any of those.

Archery is a very versatile skill on a tamer character, that makes them a viable character even when they don't have their pets with them.

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