The new revision will be centered mostly on CRIT/SPD stats since it is impossible to function well without high value in these two at the current game situation.
What Is a Warbow?
Warbow is a class that relies on a new mechanic unseen previously in Aura Kingdom, namely charging of skills. This involves holding the skill button in order to unleash a more lethal version of the attacks, with added effects on full charging bars. It is a versatile class, capable of taking many roles depending on what the party needs.
Why Pick a Warbow?
-Extremely high burst damage and AoE capabilities enough to rival classes such as Wizard or Ravager
-Able to take on a lot of roles, including but not limited to : ranged damage dealer, off-tank, debuffer and many more
-One of the most mobile classes in the game if built correctly
-Has the best accuracy in the game due to full charged shots giving high accuracy, and Overdraw envoy
Warbow's Weaknesses?
-Lack of disables such as stun, the root skill takes time to charge
-Fairly low to mediocre survivability due to HP constraint
-Better as a main class than a sub, since the center tile envoy and other envoy passives are too good to pass up
-Hard to chain skills due to increased Global Cooldown of full charge, as of recent patch
-Small delay between releasing charged shot and the shot actually arriving on the target, it used to be instant (no time lag between release and arrival)
Why Pick Bard As Subclass?
Pros :
-Bard subclass provides heal, you can utilize it for solo action and you can even heal others/your eidolon
-It gives a crowd control skill in the form of AoE stun, bow needs it desperately
-Harp generally gives max hp/movement speed bonus on the passive, both attributes are what a warbow needs
-You can gain extra dmg from bard by casting 3 healing skills
-Provides ultimate combos which are useful for gaining invulnerability frame in a pinch
Cons :
-You lose out other potential instant movement skills such as Wizard's instant thunder
-No reliable single target stun, the bard stun is subject to poor accuracy and range
Skills, Skills, Skills!
Your low cooldown, spammable main damage skill. It has an inherently low base damage so the full charge is needed for it to hit hard. As of recent patch, this skill hits three times but for lower damage (before patch it hits one big damage). This is the longest shot in the game if you use the +8m secret stone.
Your only root skills when charged fully. It is useful for keeping your distance away from enemies. Note that some mobs do not gain immunity to root so you can permanently root them from faraway. Note that in PvP recently immobilized player gains 20s immunity to it, so use sparingly.
A very useful skill which hits anything between you and the target in a straight line manner. The hitbox is that of a very thin, long rectangle. This will not hit the target if there's any object obstructing the path (ex: fence, trees, corner of walls) however any target before the object will still get hit. The DoT damage it provides is not the highest, but it is mainly useful since you can always crit with it on full charge.
Your all-purpose buff skills. It confers a somewhat small amount of damage. However the 30% chance to double hit will increase your dps greatly. The added bonus for being a ranger allows you to move faster and resist damage better, note that this has a long cooldown and should be used strategically. Assuming your SPD is 50%, this skill will have around 30s cooldowns (which means only 5s downtime). Overall one of the best self-buff in the game.
The only ranged skills in the game that has multiple useful debuffs on full charge. Do note that it will also debuff the P-healing of the target aside from the Heal of the target (both output and input heal gets penalized) unlike what the description states. The defense debuffs can be stacked 3x, which makes it great on boss fights. Also this stacked with Yarnaros debuff and Orange version of expose weakness will pretty much reduce enemy bards heal to very low amount.
Your hardest hitting skill. Similar like Dimensional Shot, it is also blockable by objects. However the hitbox is a large, rectangular shape between you and the target. Upon release there's a fast-travelling invisible arrow. Note that the skill will hit nothing if the target moves and is no longer in the hitbox of said invisible arrow. Here's a screenshot to demonstrate the hitbox :
This is an AoE skill which splashes in circular motion around the target. How LARGE is the larger area? Here is the normal AoE splash range :
While this is the larger, fully-charged shot area :
A very useful healing skill from your Bard sub. This will heal plenty of HP if it crits. It is not spammable due to 2-3s cooldown and the casting of it. Great when you are helpless from Root for instance.
An excellent crowd control skill. It provides the stun that warbow sorely needs, and it's AoE on top of it. Fairly long cooldowns due to sub skills getting 3x longer cooldown compared to main. The damage is very low and the accuracy is poor since it does not benefit from 20% full charge accuracy, also mediocre range. Use it wisely.
Great skills overall for solo action, it will heal more than displayed if you have higher Heal %. When combined with 4% dmg mastery it can provide +24% dmg (12% from 3 stacks ballad, another 12% from 3x red note on bard tone table).
In my opinion it is the best skill a bow can get from bard sub. The heal is instant, which means a difference between life and death in most situations. The cooldown is fairly long so strategic use is mandatory. This does not heal much if it doesn't crit.
Bard's party buff. Useful if your team has higher skill level warbow buff already. Otherwise usually the bow buff is a better choice.
Omit the other bard skills as they are way inferior to bow skills in term of DPS.
Envoy Path
Highly Recommended/Must Have Envoy
Location : 4 tile south from center tile.
Reason for Recommendation : This envoy provides a huge 15% accuracy and damage after full stack, this makes even non-charged shots hit reliably on enemies.
Advanced Mechanic : The stack accumulates every time you fully charge a skill on a target not when you release the skill, therefore you can gain 5 stacks without hitting anything just by charging and cancelling the charge 5x on an enemy. Useful for pre-boss preparation.
Location : 4 tiles north then 1 tile east from center tile.
Reason for Recommendation : Warbow relies on charging heavily, nothing is worst than charging and finding out the enemy is out of the range. Not only does this envoy gives you more room to start your charge, it also allows more distance between you and your enemy.
Advanced Mechanic : Together with the Triple shot secret stone bonus range, it gives a total of whooping +11 meters. It is definitely one of the longest skill in the game range-wise.
Recommended Envoy
Location : 4 tiles south then 2 tiles west from center tile.
Reason of Recommendation : Arrow of Light is your strongest attack on bow, it is not the Triple Arrow as many believed. This is due to the potential holy element which can be boosted by your bow elemental property. Also it has the highest base damage out of all bow attacks. This envoy allows more spamming of it which boosts your damage greatly. Note that the this skill can miss if the target moves away from the hitbox shortly after execution.
Advanced Mechanic : This envoy will help you to permanently apply the -15% damage debuff from full charge on boss. This is indispensable on harder bosses that can potentially one hit you.
Location : 3 tiles to the west then 1 tile south from center tile.
Reason of Recommendation : It boosts the overall damage your party deals. Note that you should stand nearby your teammates so that they may benefit from this.
Advanced Mechanic : This envoy will activate just by any attack, even a right click normal attack will activate this.
Situational Envoy
Location : 3 tiles south then 3 tiles east from center tile.
Reason for Consideration : You don't have enough envoy points to spend in most cases, and getting this means getting the -15% critdmg received which is fairly useless without Yimis or any other -critdmg addition.
Advanced Mechanic : Let's suppose we have 10000 SPD points from buffs and other sources including offensive status points. 25% of 10000 translated to 2500 HP, which is a not so great boost overall.
Location : 2 tiles north then 3 tiles west from center tile.
Reason for Consideration : Your Frost Arrow skills does not have good base damage to begin with, so boosting it won't make noticeable difference. It mainly functions as a utility skill, not damaging one. Stick to Arrow of Light and Triple Arrow for main attacks.
Advanced Mechanic : Interestingly if you stack it with Doniland, Bayin and Senka accessories from Whirlpool Abyss and Nazrudin Bow, you get a total of 64% damage boost to your Frost Arrow (30% from bow, 8% from each piece of accessory times three, 10% from this envoy). It still wouldn't surpass Arrow of Light damage wise. Also the accessories slots are better reserved for Hel/Flokja set.
Normal Envoys Worth Taking
The order from the most useful to the least useful is as follows =
1. Fleet-footed (5% mspd bonus per tile)
2. Critical damage boost when equipping bow
3. Critical rate boost when equipping bow/normal critical rate boost
4. Damage boost when equipping bow/normal damage boost
5. Normal attack speed/Bow skills cooldown reduction
As of recently, ultimate combos from envoy grant invulnerability frame even in PvP. Therefore you may take them if you favor PvP a lot. Note that by taking them you are 3 envoy points weaker compared to investing them to other places.
Here is a sample envoy for starting level (1-60)
The first envoy you should aim for is the Overdraw, 4 tiles south from center tile. Then you can expand to Longbow, 4 tiles north and 1 tile east from center tile following the path outlined in the picture. After this you can either target the Inherent Purity or Battlefield Motivator, if you are more of a team player the Battlefield Motivator will help you more. The critical damage envoy is another alternative, but at lvl 60 you should have all of these.
Advanced envoy (lvl 75)
By now we have a lot of points to fiddle around with. Instead of taking the first two tiles directly south of the center tile, we go around it in order to get the better version of it (situated on lower left corner). The 2 points left are left free for your use. You can use it to get the Blessing of Winds mastery (total 6 seconds duration boost) or Dimensional Shot mastery (+2m range, 10% damage boost). Or you can get 2 combo skills if you really want it.
Masteries/Ultimates
There are six categories of Ultimates. They are General skills, Attack Spec, Advanced Skills, Defense Spec, Tactical Spec, and Special Skills.
1. General Skills
Your main general skill. Unlike what the text suggests, this mastery does not give 7% damage to your Triple Shot. It gives you a flat 7% damage addition to your status bar AFTER you use triple shot. However the triple shot has to not kill the enemy for you to gain the buff. A particularly useful trick is to use uncharged triple shot just to gain the buff, then proceed to charging other skills. The orange version is 9% which is even better.
A very underrated general skill. This, combined with the Arrow of Light full charge debuff, offer -23% damage. This is a staple for hard boss fights that can potentially one hit you to death. Green version is -10% damage. There is currently no orange version of this yet.
This general skill shines when you coordinate with your other team member. Other classes such as katar have -accuracy debuff as well, when you stack this on top of their debuff, enemies will be hitting air. Of course this only works well when the main aggro holder has high evasion. Overall a very situational skill. This might work if the main tank have high evasion and you can coordinate enough to debuff the boss' accuracy.
2. Attack Spec
Undoubtedly one of the best attack spec for warbow. Combined with our natural multi-hits from Blessing of Winds buff and Triple Shot, this attack spec packs a punch. There is no need to consider Divine Power, Zeal is much better for some reason.
3. Advanced Skills
Fortifies your main damaging skill by a lot. Needless to say, this is the way to go for most situations.
Ever finding yourself in a tough situation where you need to kite someone/something? This skill might be the answer to your plight. It provides ample amount of movement bonus to allow you to outrun whatever is chasing after you. Same like Triple Trouble, it only activates when your target DOESN'T die by the skill.
Include this because given 3 stacks of ballad, you can get 9% damage boost to practically all your skills. This is great when you are soloing and using ballad a lot. Alternatively the defense ballad can also be used, although you probably wouldn't need much defense when soloing. Orange version boosts 12% damage total which is always a handy buff to have.
4. Defense Spec
Definitely the most useful defense spec. The hefty price tag attached to it speaks for its usefulness. This allows you to get a better positioning for your skills, and it gives better chasing/escaping potential. Oh just ignore the EVA it does not do anything much.
5. Tactical Spec
Now this is where you can fill your role nicely. If the team is in need of a solid ranged dps, Break Defense is a safe choice. When you need to fight hard-hitting bosses, Organized Sabotage is a great tactical to use (you can debuff -43% damage by combining it with Arrow of Light and Triple Shot attack spec, use a Protector prefixed weapon for total of whooping -58% damage). Expose weakness is a good choice for those interested in PvP, this will seal the target's received healing stats greatly. Combine it with Corrosive Shot and they will heal zilch. Oh did I forget to mention that pesky dragon at Sky Tower 10th floor? Go school him with this tactical spec.
6. Special Skill
Truly the best (pun intended), this special skill is so useful that I don't dare to replace it. Just this alone potentially give you about 7%ish def based on how high your damage is. It is fairly possible to reach 150k damage without any DMG point in offensive stat, as such the orange version of this will grant 4500 defense in such cases. Note that the orange version can only be obtained from DC book and costs 71k dc coins (and 60 Vulture Plateau medals).
Stats Recommendation
To start with, you need to balance CRIT and SPD well. Ideally you want around 55% crit and 50% SPD for end-game situations. For starting levels, I highly suggest you put all your points into Critical until about 55% critical value. The reason why make 55% as a benchmark is because your full charge gives you extra 20% critical on full charge, and Dimensional Shot offers another 30% critical on full charge as well, totaling 105%. So anymore than 55% will cause your Dimensional Shot to go past 100% mark by a lot. The 5% extra is for accommodating higher level enemies, in which you will need higher critical rate to reliably crit against. Afterwards you can start working on your SPD. Keep raising it while maintaining your crit to be around 55%.
For defensive points, do not put any points in EVA at all, warbow is not built for evasion (the envoy speaks for itself, fairly limited evasion tiles). You're better off getting HP or DEF defensive points. Mix both but it really depends on your preference. A 1:2 ratio of HP to DEF is recommended, so for 33 points into HP you put in 66 points of DEF. Assuming your gears are high % defense and all +20s, you might be able to cap 75% defense with 0 points on defense, in this case just add everything to HP.
Gear Recommendation
Generally you want equipment that focuses on Speed, Critical, Damage and HP. Avoid anything with EVA in it. The only exception is the Otto/Galen set since this set is really good.
1. Armors
For level 1-60 : Just wear green colour equipment. Aria set is a good one if you manage to craft it.
For level 60+ : Now the equipment selection widens. To start with the hat and armor, try to get Revelation set as these two are the direct upgrades to Aria set. For waist, gauntlets, and boots there are two main options at lvl 65: Critical set (Kalna, Stingey, Tania set) and Critical damage set (Dullas, Perihelion, Leon set). Both of these sets don't differ much in dps, but generally Critical damage set costs more due to the HP given. Adjust your budget and pick wisely.
This is Kalna set bonus. Note that it works similarly like Zeal, but only when critting. Good when your critical rate is high (above 70%).
This is Dullas set bonus. The 50% attack speed is NORMAL attack speed, it will not benefit you in any way unless you right click your enemies. So if your SPD is 30%, it will remain 30% after equipping this. It also does not improve the bow skills charging time. The best way to utilize this set is by using it in tandem with +25% aspd eidolon such as Yarnaros/Zaahir. You will shoot rapidly with normal attack which may even dps better compared to charging skills.
For level 65 top set. You can either pick Otto set or Bapho set. If you fancy pve more than pvp go bapho set since it gives crit damage on +20 which warbow sorely needs. Otherwise, go otto for the accuracy.
2. Weapons
For level 1-60 : Any bow will do, you will still one or two hit map mobs with this setup by full charge. A particularly excellent bow is the level 60 green bow from the Special box, not only does this one gives damage proc, it also gives 5% movement speed.
For ease when levelling, go gamble your money on lvl 8 harp sold in Helonia Coast weapon store, try to find a Nocturnal prefix harp. Alternatively you can also buy from Auction House. Nocturnal prefix will help you practically in everything you do.
For level 60+ : There are a large selections of weapons, you can either craft the orange bow from Analisa or the orange bow recipe from Sky Tower 4th/8th floor chest. If you want to use yellow bow lvl 65, you can either use the Psionic Bow (random rare drops from Otherworld Alabastren Temple) or Nazrudin Bow (craftable from 50 Sea of Thoughts, 1 Nazrudin's Horn of Power, 1 Deep Sea Tuna Scale).
For level 70+ : Use the orange lvl 70 bow and harp. You might want to stack on dmg % to boss. It is possible to reach very high dps nowadays (you should have more than 250k dmg) with the orange weapon 5 starred.
2x Orange weapon = 20% boss damage
3x Bard red notes = 12% boss damage
Costume hat titanus card = 10% boss damage
Sniper full set = 20% boss damage
Heraldy = 6% boss damage
Orange spangler fang = 11% boss damage
7x 2% dmg ss = 14% boss damage
This brings you a total of 93% boss damage. This is fairly feasible and it will kill boss very fast. If you are lazy in maintaining red notes, make that 81%.
This is the effect of Nazrudin Bow and its glow.
While this is the Psionic Bow effects and its glow. Note that crit damage is hard-capped at 300% so if your critdamage already reaches that value, your Hail of Arrows 30% critdamage might not be useful. The bonus damage proc acts like double damage. Don't favor this bow since 5% proc is fairly small.
The lvl 60 orange harp from Analisa (Zither of the Moon) is recommended in general. Not only it reduces damage from boss by 5%, it also gives nifty heals and movement speed. Nazrudin's Harp is great for fighting against fire enemies, particularly in IA.
Zither of the Holy Moon. The stats and procs are pretty useful. This is highly recommended.
Nazrudin harp. Fairly similar stats to zither, however it boosts a lot to Healing Harmony. Great for IA.
3. Accessories
The accessories set selection for lvl 50-ish range includes Comets set which gives you good amount of critical attributes. When you have time, try to make/find the Talamund cape, Gekasso necklace and Saint Hale ring. These three accessories will be your main accessory set until you can find Flokja/Hel set.
At 65, Flokja set is very useful in order for you to cap SPD easily. Note that you should adjust your SPD in order to hit 50% by using SPD food, Warbow buff and Eidolon summons. Assuming you have a good gunslinger buff in your party, you may swap Flokja set with Hel set so that you can convert the SPD into CRIT.
4. Trophies
For trophy, the yellow Toto trophy which gives you 15% critical damage is an excellent choice for DPS. Accompanied by a green malodnak claw/orange malodnak claw, it will dish out good amount of damage. Note that malodnak is a unique trophy in a sense that the green is potentially better than the orange version, use whichever you find to be more useful.
5. Secret Stones
For secret stone, here's my way-to-go hierarchy from best to worst :
Range > Maximum HP > Cooldown reduction > Critical Rate > Critical Damage > Damage
Warbow can get accuracy by Overdraw and full charge, so don't use any Godly prefix secret stones (3% acc). Instead, use the Destroying secret stones (6% critical damage), totaling 42% critical damage boost for all 7 parts. Provided you have a lot of money, you can invest in perfect secret stones which have 6% critical damage as primary status, and 3% acc/2% dmg/1% crit as secondary status. I suggest mixing and matching them according to your needs.
6. Costume
For costume stats you can either use the 2% dmg (not available on Head Costume, use 2% max. hp instead on Head) or 1% crit. Personally I fancy the 2% dmg more! Use +5 skill level cards on skills that you like a lot, for Back part always go Ramgram for extra movement speed.
7. Chisel
As a finishing touch, you can chisel your equipment with yellow chisel (not orange since they add less but penalize more). For bow, it is recommended the +dmg -eva chisel since we don't want eva at all. For the armors generally the best chisel is the +dmg -def one, since 5-7 times 6 def penalty per chisel is fairly small (even a +0 and +1 difference in armor gives more defense).
Eidolon Recommendations
Use Bel-chandra. Not only she provides critical and critical damage on her skills, she also gives a good Buff I and II.
Here is what a reasonably maxed Bel-chandra looks like (you can use the stats as a benchmark to other eidolon at lvl 70).
However, after the 3 stars eidolon patch the better eidolon would be Yarnaros for offensive purpose. Yarnaros is better than Zaahir because the 15% crit rate that zaahir gives is only worth 21% dmg (15% crit = 60 offensive pts, 60 pts on dmg is 21%). So the 24% dmg Yarnaros give is better than zaahir's.
Some good defensive eidolons include Serena/Quelkulan. They can give you defense buff (albeit for short time only) and has a good Buff I and II. Since we can heal ourselves, don't go with eidolon such as Tsubaki/Kotonoha, they're better used by classes that cannot heal themselves. You are in luck if you have Serif as main eidolon since it is currently the best defensive eidolon.
Credits: Special thanks to Myanya for sharing his experiences and making a very informative guide on Aura Kingdom's Warbow.