Longbow / Staff PvE Build Guide
Last Updated:October 12, 2024|Change Log
Welcome to the Longbow / Staff PvE Build Guide! This weapon combination plays almost like a Glass Cannon in other MMOs, leveraging most of your abilities to deal a tremendous amount of damage at long range.
Longbow / Staff players build for max Range to maximize their Passives from Sniper's Sense and Toublek's Thunderous Soul. With the Heavy Attack Chance bonuses from Asceticism and Flame Condensation, your sustained damage output becomes incredibly high.
You need to manage your Cooldowns effectively to do as much damage as possible. Deadly Marker and High Focus helps you in that regard. If you enjoy a strictly Ranged DPS playstyle, these are the weapons for you.
End Game Longbow / Staff PvE Build
If you're interested in PvP, check out our Longbow/Staff PvP Build Guide!
- Self-Sustain
- Ranged DPS
- High AoE Damage
- High Single Target DPS
- Mana Hungry
Skill Builds
Active Skills
Damage Skills
- Focused Fire Bombs and Decisive Sniping are your biggest DPS skills due those two dealing extra damage to Bosses.
- Judgment Lightning and Fireball Barrage are your other staff skills for DPS.
- Upkeeping Burn stacks is difficult without high Cooldown Speed. Constantly use Focused Fire Bombs off CD and juggle in Hellfire Rain whenever it's up.
- All Hellfire Rain meteors hit bosses that have large hit-boxes, applying high Burn stacks throughout a fight.
- Follow Strafing with Zephyr's Nock for the extra damage proc.
- Ensnaring Arrow is used before charging Decisive Sniping because of its Damage ▲ Specialization.
Utility Skills
- Use Nature's Blessing with Inner Peace to get your Mana back. Inner Peace multiplies the Mana Regen that is added with Nature's Blessing, so you gain a large amount of Mana back.
- Deadly Marker is a great skill for the entire team, reducing Cooldowns for everyone.
- Use High Focus before your important DPS skills for both the Cooldown Speed and increased Damage.
Passive Skills
- Steady Aim is just there to increase your damage for Decisive Sniping.
- Flame Condensation, Forbidden Sanctuary, and Sniper's Sense are 3 Passive skills that increase total damage without relying on special conditions to take effect.
- Rapidfire Stance and Asceticism requires you to stand in place for a time before gaining increased Attack Speed and Heavy Attack Chance, respectively.
- Mana Amp is great for the extra Health.
- There are no remaining Passives that you need to take, so you just slot in Roxie's Arrowhead.
Active Skills
Damage Skills
- Chain Lightning and Judgment Lightning are your main AoE DPS skills.
- Combine Focused Fire Bombs with Inferno Wave to AoE even more mobs down.
- Use Flash Wave when enemies are more spread out.
- Use Decisive Bombardment when you can line up your targets.
- Strafing and Zephyr's Nock cleans up any leftover mobs.
Utility Skills
- Use Healing Touch followed by Nature's Blessing to heal yourself a decent amount. This can be further increased by walking into the wave from Flash Wave.
Passive Skills
- Use Earth's Blessing and Distorted Sanctuary just for the Health Regen.
Alternatives
If you're in a party with a healer and don't need to heal yourself, drop Healing Touch or Nature's Blessing.
You can replace them with Deadly Marker or Ice Spear Bombardment.
Skill Prioritization
- Use Quality Marind Ore to craft Quality Passive Skill Growth Book and Quality Active Skill Growth Book
- Use Rare Marind Ore to craft Rare Passive Skill Growth Book and Rare Active Skill Growth Book.
- Prioritize getting all these skills to blue first before getting them to purple. These are universal skills you always use.
- Upgrade the rest of your skills as you play the game.
PvE Gameplay and Skill Rotation
Opening Rotation
- Inner Peace (Optional)
- Cancel with Overtaker (Optional)
- High Focus
- Hellfire Rain
- Nature's Blessing
- Ensnaring Arrow
- Decisive Sniping
- Deadly Marker
- Focused Fire Bombs
- Fireball Barrage
- Judgment Lightning
- You can start off with Inner Peace and immediately cancel it by using your block. You do this for the Mana Efficiency buff. This step is optional unless you're trying to min-max your opening rotation.
- Hellfire Rain starts you off with multiple Burn stacks to boost your Heavy Attack Chance with Flame Condensation.
- High Focus and Deadly Marker should bring your skills back relatively soon. With 50% Buff Duration, High Focus lasts 18 seconds.
Oppressed Combo
- Nature's Blessing (Optional)
- Ensnaring Arrow
- Decisive Sniping
- Ensnaring Arrow should always be used before Decisive Sniping's because of the Damage ▲ Skill Specialization.
- Nature's Blessing gives you a Whirlpool buff to speed up your cast of Decisive Sniping.
Gale Combo
- Deadly Marker (Optional)
- Strafing 2x
- Zephyr's Nock
- Strafing 1x
- Zephyr's Nock
- With Deadly Marker on the target, each hit of Strafing applies 8 Target stacks and 4 Gale stacks.
- 2 hits get you to 10 Target stacks (10 is the cap) and 8 Gale stacks on the boss. Consume these stacks with Zephyr's Nock for extra damage and cooldown reduction.
- Depending on your Cooldown Speed, Zephyr's Nock comes up just in time after using your 3rd Strafing.
Mana Sustain
- Nature's Blessing
- Inner Peace
- Nature's Blessing gives you a flat bonus to Mana Regen.
- Inner Peace multiples your Mana Regen by a percentage.
- Because of how these two skills work, using Inner Peace right after significantly boosts your Mana Regen, usually giving you full Mana by the end of the cast.
Tips
- Try not to move around too much so that Rapidfire Stance and Asceticism proc.
- Make sure to cast Focused Fire Bombs and Hellfire Rain as much as possible to upkeep Burn stacks.
- Always have Deadly Marker on the boss.
- Use your Gale combo when nothing else is up. All your other skills do more DPS.
Basic Fire Combo
- Focused Fire Bombs
- Inferno Wave
- Combo for mobs clumped within 3 meters of the target.
Lightning Combo
- Chain Thunder
- Judgment Lightning
- Alternative combo with your other combo is down.
Gale Combo
- Strafing 2x
- Zephyr's Nock
- Use it for leftover mobs.
AoE Bow Skills
- Decisive Bombardment
- Flash Wave
- When you cast Flash Wave, you will also receive the Healing effect from it.
Self-Sustain
- Healing Touch
- Nature's Blessing
- With the Vitality Specialization, Nature's Blessing amplifies Healing Touch's healing. No need for a pocket Wand; you're your own Healer!
Stat Priorities
Use the following stat priorities when playing a Longbow / Staff build in PvE:
- Primary Stat
- Dexterity and Strength
- Secondary Stat
- Wisdom and Perception
You have 49 Stat Points you can freely allocate to any of the 4 primary Stats. Once you put 20 points into an individual Stat, it takes 2 points to increase the Stat by 1. Do not put more than 20 points into a Stat unless you are trying to reach a certain breakpoint.
You get bonuses for every 10 Stat Points you invest from 30 to 60. You invest your points based on acquiring these bonuses.
Dexterity not only adds maximum Weapon Damage but also increases your Crit Chance, Evasion, and Attack Speed. Increasing Dexterity is your best method of increasing your damage output. Wisdom is the next best stat for improving your Weapon Damage. Each added point into Wisdom also provides extra Cooldown Speed and Mana Regen.
Mid Game
- You want to try and reach 50 Strength for the extra 100 Heavy Attack Chance as soon as possible.
- 40 Perception will give you 5% extra Buff Duration, which is important for extending High Focus.
- You put the rest of the points into Dexterity.
End Game
- You keep the same stats as you did prior, but you want to just keep stacking Dexterity for more damage.
PvE Gear Progression
If you plan on PvPing in the future, just use the PvP gear shown in our Longbow / Staff PvP Build Guide for PvE. Unless you're going for record clears, you can use the PvP gear to clear all content.
Gear
Game
Shadow Harvester
Solo Self Found
Story Gear Longbow / Staff PvE Build
All these blue armor pieces are from the Story Codex Rewards. If you have completely different gear, don't worry. You're not going to stay in this gear set for too long. You replace many blue armor pieces once you start doing Co-Op Dungeons. So don't trait any of your pieces until you look at the Early-Mid section of this gear progression.
DO NOT UPGRADE Heroic Garb of the Resistance. Leave it at 0.
You should do contracts immediately to acquire Contract Coins so you can buy Quality Lithograph: Weapons, Quality Lithograph: Armor, and Quality Lithograph: Accessories to craft Green Gear to complete Lithograph Book entries for Blue Gear.
- Make sure you have enough materials to craft by taking some contracts that reward you Rare Base Material Selection Chest and Rare Polished Crystal.
- If you happen to Crit craft an item (20%), sell the item on the Auction House for Lucent.
Lithograph Book Entries
- Elite Resistance Staff
- Staves from Archwizard
- Elite Resistance Longbow
- Marksman's Arsenal
- Use Furious Sniper's Longbow instead if you have it.
- Lethal Fortune Ring
- Rustic Mother Nature Rings
- Elite Sharpshooter's Cloak
- Cloaks that Wield Victory
- Dark Assassin in Shadowed Crypt
Longbow / Staff PvE Build
Your Mid Game build is the point from where you can farm Co-Op Dungeons and the early low level Open World Dungeons for gear.
Your Goals
- Farm accessible gear by doing Open World Dungeons.
- Extract traits from gear for Lucent.
- Turn important Purple Gear acquired from Co-Op Dungeons into Lithographs and sell them on the Auction House.
Stats
- Put as many points into Dexterity and Wisdom as possible.
Traits
- Prioritize damage traits.
- Acquire Trait Unlockstone through Recipe: Common Trait Unlockstone Bundle.
Dungeon Farming Priority
Whatever blue armor pieces you wear don't matter for PvE, as they are placeholders until your End Game gear. Use whatever blue pieces you want.
If you're curious, check it out in the End Game tab.
- Death's Abyss
- Karnix's Hell Bow
- Craft Recipe: Karnix's Netherbow using 2 Dimensional Essence: Salvation.
- You must do each Co-Op Dungeon at least 5 times to acquire enough tokens to craft it.
- Plate of the Field General
- Gloom Guard Greaves
- Karnix's Hell Bow
- Insightful Ring of Dimension
- Comes from Precious Epic Accessory Selection Chest.
- Requires Dimensional Essence: Salvation.
- You need 10 Tokens from each Co-Op Dungeon to craft.
- Comes from Precious Epic Accessory Selection Chest.
- Tyrant's Isle
- Toublek's Thunderous Soul
- Specter's Frost Bracers
- Cave of Destruction
- Archpriest's Devotion
- Cursed Wasteland (for Dimensional Essence: Salvation)
- Swirling Essence Shoes
- Lethal Fortune Ring
Open World Dungeon Sources
- Ant's Nest
- Elusive Hexweaver Hat from Worker Ant
- Shadowed Crypt
- Elite Sharpshooter's Cloak from Dark Assassin
- Sanctum of Desire
- Alacritous Invoker Gloves from Avolos Hydromancer
- (Optional Replacement) Alacritous Invoker Pants from Avolos Pyromancer
- Abyss Conqueror's Necklace
- Craft Precious Epic Equipment Chest: Abyss.
Reaper's Pants Longbow / Staff PvE Build
Reaper's Mask Longbow / Staff PvE Build
Always use Transcendent Magic Ring, Queen Bellandir's Domination Wand, or Tevent's Screaming Bow if you get them. If you have Mana Regen problems, switch some Dexterity into Wisdom.
Fully trait your blue gear before transferring over to purple gear. A fully traited blue piece will give you 960 Blessings for you to use.
You transition to using Reaper's Black Mask or Reaper's Interring Pants to complete your Death Set 2-piece bonus. You hit at least 40% Buff Duration at full Traits.
- Tycan's Bloodlust Belt
- Aridus
Mask Build Sources
- Reaper's Black Mask
- Adentus
- Grim Judicator's Pants
- Craft Precious Epic Equipment Chest: Shadow,
Pants Build Sources
- Reaper's Interring Pants
- Junobote
- Heavenly Arbiter Mask
- Butcher's Canyon
Traits
- You focus on DPS Traits like Skill Damage Boost and Heavy Attack Chance.
- You focus on Max Health and Skill Damage Resistance for defensive Traits.
- Mana Regen is also an excellent trait to prioritize if you find yourself lacking Mana. Inner Peace usually takes care of your mana issues.
- Evasion traits are nice if you intend to solo farm Open World Dungeons or Events.
SSF End Game Longbow / Staff PvE Build
- This setup allows you to acquire all the pieces yourself through grinding. You do not need to use the Auction House.
Archboss End Game Longbow / Staff PvE Build
Guardians
Guardians are special transformations that add offensive or defensive buffs or attacks to your character for 30 seconds. These are the recommended Guardians for this class.
- Shade Revenant Stheno is THE DPS Guardian in PvE. Unfortunately, this means you need to get up close to the boss as the projectiles have a max range.
- Lady Knight Kamarshea is a great Guardian to use if you consistently find yourself running out of Mana as the boss is nearing its death. Just pop it so you don't need to use your Mana sustain combo.
Summary
- Longbow / Staff offers incredible single-target damage along with high AoE damage, making Dungeons and Dynamic Events a piece of cake.
- You focus on playing from Range and unleashing high-damage DPS skills.
- You have easy access to extra Critical Hit Damage and Heavy Attack Chance.
- Reaper's Black Mask is the ideal Reaper piece to pair with Reaper's Footsteps for your End Game gear.
Credits
Written by Yaen
Reviewed by Tenkiei and Nymphellas