The Shadow Archer (And Holy Archer)?
 

So, after getting to 55 with a ranger and archery....I've decided to up things and try out my theorized shadow archer.

The idea is by using the pet + agro + a bow ....the shadow archer would be a kiting king! Even outdamaging and out-pacing a ranger in the soloing category!

It's a pretty obvious advantage when an SK is taking reds at 20 easily (or a sand giant at level 10).

The real question is how it maintains this advantage as it ages. Bow cap is 75 for each of them (ouch) ....but at least SK get a couple things that make up for it a little bit (AC drain and STR drain). I theorize it will be a strong soloer till mid 50's (but since they have fear, perhaps even after 50 against summoning mobs?).

Basically, with a decent bow and large enough mana pool...it seems viable.

...........

The next issue is the holy archer....a paladin archer.

Now, this one I have a harder time with. Against undead, sure their nukes would help supplement damage (and they can root, which makes shooting and medding much more possible).

BUT, without the pet or dots or other DD spells....they just don't seem to match a shadow archers potential.

Perhaps if they were to focus very heavily on mana pool and act as a stronger supplemental healer in groups? They suffer from the same lack low skill as a shadow archer....so trying to rely solely on the bow seems more troublesome (especially into 30s-40s...unless they get a skydarkener, then they can hold out till 50's).

But, overall, it just doesn't seem like they have enough damage potential to really be that strong. The healing is nice....but is it enough to make up for the damage issues?

Anyhow....would be curious if anyone else has been focusing on archery as a knight? Shadow archer or holy archer? So far (20) my experience with a shadow archer with a decent bow is they are the strongest soloers in the game as long as they have room to move.....which is pretty interesting.

? A shadow knight using bow is the strongest soloing class in the game ?
The ranger stuff is pretty cool but not sure if you're serious now.

I don't think this is diablo 2 where you can make up random class builds that dont work.

Till 20 it is. I was mowing through reds in oasis non stop with just a sow and my bow. No other class or twink can do that....not even a fungi tunic warrior or monk would be able to do that.

Bows can be very powerful at low level, but I'm surprised they carried you so far on a shadowknight to be honest.

With pet + dots....I think the bow could carry me to mid 40's at least with just a decent velium bow (sure there is also fear kiting with melee, but I think a bow outshines it in terms of efficiency ....since you are using far less mana and not really sacrificing a ton of damage). Beyond that, if I want to specialize in a bow, I'll probably need an upgrade (and there aren't too many of SKs / Paladins).

I'm a bit unclear as to how one class that can use a bow and bum a sow is able to solo reds in oasis, but the other classes that can use bows and bum sows are not able to solo reds in oasis.

What about twinking a barbarian rogue with a bunch of tink bags and throwing boulders and sow pots? THE BOULDER ROGUE!

They can....but the damage will be a little less and they get into trouble without sow.

It isn't just about till level 20 viability....it is about viability beyond that. Till 50 or even 60!

Whenever I roll a SK, I usually do a little fletching and have him pull mobs with a bow an arrow until lv9. Then the bow goes in the bank because pulling with spells is more fun.

Fear kiting with a 2-hander is pretty darn effective over anything an SK could do with a bow.

You'll run into two and a half problems. First, your accuracy isn't exactly going to be great as you level due to the low Archery skill cap. Second, the mid-level Shadow Knight pets are garbage. The level 30 and especially the level 39 pets are terrible. The half problem is that Shadow Knights can't use the Summon Arrow bracer, so as the miss rate piles up keeping sufficient arrows on you starts to gobble up excessive amounts of bag space.

Long story short, Archery is mainly used to carry the class to 22 when the Shadow Knight gets Engulfing Darkness and fear-kiting becomes truly useful. Using archery past then serves little point except to say you did or possibly to whittle down that rare outdoor named. You can solo most any non-summoning and non-casting creature via that type of method just like most any kiting class can, but it's slow and uses a great many arrows. Ordinary fear-kiting will typically grant you faster experience per hour unless by some odd happenstance you wind up with a godly bow while using some awful melee weapon.

Get Blood Ember gauntlets; they click a snare at level 45. It's a big help when you're kiting something for a long time and don't have time to meditate much. Shadow Knight snare doesn't last terribly long, so even if you happen to wind up with a Skydarkener, trying to quad would mean constantly running from full-speed packs. It's possible, hypothetically, but doesn't strike me as a fun time.

You REAAALLY want to stick with this? Get to 60 then try to solo Ice Burrowers in West Wastes. They're yellow /con to 60 and have a lot of hit points, but they move slow, can be snared, and don't summon or cast--their AE effect is a melee proc. I've duo'd those before with a Monk and it might be possible to solo them (not sure if you'd out-damage their regen or not) but I don't have the patience.

Danth