Best 1h weapons for archer?

[Damightypizza]

Does it matter which 1h weapons I'm using? I'm currently using club/dagger. I just figured that the club might give me some survivability if I ever wanted to play ranger. I've been playing ebonsong lately so the club hasn't been that useful. Is there any reason a club would hinder me? Does dagger/dagger affect the attack speed of archer attacks or just melee attacks?

I've gotten the club to epic brilliant hiram and before I invest gems into it and awaken to glorious I'm curious if I'm going down the wrong path. I've got a backup dagger at radiant with the same stats just incase.

[Marakk]

Neither DPS nor attack speed of melee weapons affect our Archery skills in any way, so short answer is: it doesn't matter at all.

Long answer:

- If you might want to use Vitalism at some point for survivability, use a club as you already do.

- If you use damaging skills that scale off Magic Attack (for example Occultism or Songcraft) and want those to do a wee bit more damage, use a scepter. That's what I do. It's not a huge difference though.

- If your third tree is Swiftblade for the additional movement-skills use a dagger for the attack speed. Haven't tried that myself, so that's only hearsay.

Other than that it really doesn't matter. Remember, though, that club and scepter can't be wielded in the off-hand, so you can't for example go club/dagger and swap around at will.

The off-hand itself doesn't affect anything we do, you can just go for the style you like most there. But do dual-wield for the attack speed buff, that one does affect our bow skills. So no two-handed weapon, and no shield either (unless you want to go Stone Arrow of course).

[gnmmarechaal]

Neither DPS nor attack speed of melee weapons affect our Archery skills in any way, so short answer is: it doesn't matter at all.

Long answer:

- If you might want to use Vitalism at some point for survivability, use a club as you already do.

- If you use damaging skills that scale off Magic Attack (for example Occultism or Songcraft) and want those to do a wee bit more damage, use a scepter. That's what I do. It's not a huge difference though.

- If your third tree is Swiftblade for the additional movement-skills use a dagger for the attack speed. Haven't tried that myself, so that's only hearsay.

Other than that it really doesn't matter. Remember, though, that club and scepter can't be wielded in the off-hand, so you can't for example go club/dagger and swap around at will.

The off-hand itself doesn't affect anything we do, you can just go for the style you like most there. But do dual-wield for the attack speed buff, that one does affect our bow skills. So no two-handed weapon, and no shield either (unless you want to go Stone Arrow of course).

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it being a dagger or not makes no difference at all, you just need to be dual wield-

[Trusivraj]

Pew here, back and ready to break more metas!
2h got a huge buff for archery classes, namely ones that involve magic skills like occultism. You always got the extra range in certain skills, BUT NOW bows aren't restricted by the 5% dmg bonus. On top of that, they buffed shield defense pen to be one stat, and a very accessible one with hiram gear.

In other words, if you plan on going a pure defense pen spec, you can take full advantage of the free 50% shield pen you get + another 35% from underwear and hiram, totalling 85% shield pen... That's over 5400 defense on a 6500+ defense end game shield!

Even if you aren't facing a shield, youll still sit comfortably at 10k+ base defense pen unboofed.

Throw in concussive bleed combo and you can pop any leather or cloth user whether they have a shield or not! Plate will still take ALOT of dmg from you as well, since a shieldless plate user is hardly much better off than a shielded leather wearer, and if a dps is using a shield in plate these days theyre just hurting themselves everywhere else and you probably shouldn't waste your time on them... But YOU CAN KILL THEM!

DISCLAIMER: THIS BUILD IS STRICLY FOR PURE DEFENSE PEN, INVESTING ATK SPEED OVER CRIT DMG WHERE POSSIBLE, NAMELY YOUR HIRAM 2H AND BOW, TO SIT AT 400-430 ATK SPEED TO QUICKLY REACH THE 477 ATK SPEED THRESHHOLD FOR FASTEST NON-SONGCRAFT ATK RATE THROUGH 1-2 PROCS OF FERAL MARK PASSIVE! (My build will have more atk speed than your typical DW archer ever could want, but are restricted by the nature of using a dw setup > crit dmg)

I welcome all skeptical thoughts on this matter to come forward if you feel I'm wrong.
And just like the good old days, I WILL be posting videos soon, once I've perfected my character.
~Pew