My archer experiment 90pach/ice 50 light 70 fire

[foudre]

So i'm messing around on an ice archer and i really kinda like it, i've been wondering how this plays out its kinda the reverse of what Fudge suggested between fire and ice, except i'm taking the fire to 70 for the next phy increase buff.

90 pach/ice
50 light
70 fire

So i'm curious if any one has thought of this kinda build or has done it already

i'm pure str

only concern is i won't have enough mp for a higher lvl snow sheild, and the 4 % less physical dmg then if i had 90 fire from buff/ passive, but only about half of people are actually ice immune, and most my dmg comes from my str anyways

658 ~ 1097 (100%) fire imbue at 89
537 ~ 806 (100%) ice imbue at 89

so only about half the people are immune and i'm not crippled against those who are i still hit fairly hard and with good bow it won't be overly noticable lower dmg, i'll have the lvl 50 light for magic dmg increase and a good phantom/ grass walk

idk a mate of mine is wanting to do pach/ice/force 90, which would definatly help alot with the low mp on a higher snow sheild, but if i make sure to add int and mp on all my gear would i be fine with that or will a snow sheild past lvl 40 be too much for pure str to handle, except for a max snow sheild when i'm running like hell and mp isn't important


but not only that this would give me the high lvl phys passive and buff, as well as a still fairly good magic def buff, and a good parry


edit

i'll be in garments of course cause the lower magic defense buff and the fact i'm already str, and to help with speed/ mp consumption which with snow shield i'll need

but 264 physical defense buff/passive and being str, and and if a cleric wants to give me a body diety/bless (179 highest bodey diety this cap) i still got the 132 extra passive increase plus their buff. 91 extra magic defense so the garments will make up for it.

[caseyd4]

Id say you'd be better off going Hyb with Ice and use Force aswell.

If I where playing that build I would be going for a 70:70 build possibly as you have all the great defense of the Snow Shield, using the mp bonus from Force.

I dislike the Idea of force for Bows usually as using the debuffs means your not taking advantage of your distance, unless stunned.

[foudre]

don't know if i want to go force though, debuffs take longer, and just because have snow sheild i dont' want to have to rely on it need to be able to take a hit with out it, and if i tried to go 70:70 i couldn't achieve the balance until i'm in my 60's now

though going hybrid would mean i'd have the mp to snow sheild

[caseyd4]

Thing is if you plan to use max Snow Shield Im pretty sure your going to have to go a Hyb, While adding the force mp bonus im not really sure how much it is as (I never use the tree) would lessen the amount of Int Hyb you would have to be. Plus because your crits arent going to be as high as a Fire Imbue crit you are relying on hitting more than the other person esp while froze. Going Hyb will give you bigger hits when not critting. IMHO.

[foudre]

Thing is if you plan to use max Snow Shield Im pretty sure your going to have to go a Hyb, While adding the force mp bonus im not really sure how much it is as (I never use the tree) would lessen the amount of Int Hyb you would have to be. Plus because your crits arent going to be as high as a Fire Imbue crit you are relying on hitting more than the other person esp while froze. Going Hyb will give you bigger hits when not critting. IMHO.

the crit will only be increased equally even if there was no imbue cause its only physical, and the difference in the imbues would be constant crit or no crit

i'm mainly just asking how high of a snow shield can a pure str actually use, considering i plan on blueing all my gear to have extra mp bonuses and int bonuses, will give me about 12k mp i've seen from what others have done at 90 (if i even go that far with it) (and force at 90 gives 2826 mp) and if i do go force i'll loose my higher magic defense and my speed cause if you don't max force there is no point.

[BloodyBlade]

Well, I think this build can tank a lot, but I dont really think thats what archers are meant to do. =p

But you can test it out, but I dont recommend a str build without getting fire to cap ^^

[tedtwilliger]

Sounds alright to me. 50 light still gives a decent speed rating and the cold helps out a lot against rouges. With a bard in your FW party you could use a maxed snow shield (60%?) with no difficulty. Considering your str your imbue makes up only a small amount of damage but alas the cold imbue effect makes up for it ( for solo pvp anyway, kinda useless in group pvp ). I say go for it.