Overview Maple Story Bowmen Class  Bowmen mostly utilize dexterity to take down a foe with arrows, which are quite different from Warriors. In the beginning of the game, their damage is quite low and their skills make up for it with probability and statistics. Critical shots can raise damage by 100% but it does not work all the time since it is only a 40% success rate. Archers have the third lowest weapon-defensive equipments of all the classes, whereby the lowest would be mages, though they have very high magic defense and the second lowest is the thief class
   In the game, Archers have the most unstable damage due to this until they learn Bow Mastery in their second job advancements. However, they will be one of the most stable damage classes in fourth job.
   Lack of mobility and low HP are the Archer's greatest weaknesses. They have long range, even longer than any class around but their average speed and the fact that they can not move while attacking, are problematic. What is more, they can not jump and shoot at the same time unlike their counterpart, the assassin. Although they do not specialize in melee attacks and their weapons allow them to knock an enemy away to a safer distance, this would be a good help in lower levels during large mob spawns. Likewise they have moderately high avoid-ability, second to Assassin. But the gap is rather small, probably only a few avoid-ability points.
   They are required to buy, make or find arrows until the skill Soul Arrow which lets the Archer shoot without using physical arrows is other weaknesses. However, remember that Soul Arrow does not retain the stat boosts that come with special arrows although the damage difference of special arrow is Soul Star until "Soul Stars" until their fourth job advancement. Archers have the highest accuracy in the game, because they add dexterity for their attack and it is the stat used to determine accuracy. Luck also adds a small amount of accuracy, so assassins get less accuracy. This means an archer could hit monsters much higher leveled than them before other classes can hit it.
   Archers have the ability to hunt monster with this ability that are at a level much higher than they are. Probably they are the only class that can hit certain monsters before actually being able to deal damage
   Archers can split between Hunters and Crossbowmen with the later job advancements, using regular bows or crossbows is the main difference. Unlike Assassins and Bandits split, they are remarkably similar with the skills that have easily noted similarities. In general, the consensus is that while Crossbowmen do more damage every individual hit, Hunters can fire more arrows in a period of time than Crossbowmen. Both classes get a ranged Area of Effect skill at second job and fantastic Area of Effect skills at third job.
   Keep in mind that the Archer class tends to lean more towards individual players or soloing as compared to the group mentality. While other classes have "Party Skills", the Archer has no skills until fourth job, though that skill is arguably one of the best, allowing all jobs to make critical hits. Generally speaking, parties will select other classes besides Archers because of this.

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