Table of Contents ↓
Please note that there are several sections in this guide, such as a Skill Info section and a Gameplay/Skill Explanation section. Click on the tabs at the top of the guide to switch sections.
↑ Why Bowmaster? ↓
Bowmaster is a ranged, utility-based and varied class. Whether you like it or not depends on what sort of playstyle you prefer. If you're on the fence of playing Bowmaster, I'd recommend you just try playing it because the best way to know that you like (or dislike) a class is by simply playing it!
The general pros and cons of Bowmaster are listed below:
Pros
Cons
- Best HP recovery skill in the game - yeah, for some reason...see Gameplay -> Skill Explanations -> 2nd Job section for an explanation.
- High mobility - has left, right, upwards, and downwards flash jump, along with Hookshot to latch onto mobs and also has a backwards leap/hover skill.
- Highest constant Status Resistance in the game - 120 Status Resistance from Focused Fury while attacking monsters.
- Scales well to high PDR mobs - Armor Break gives more final damage based on monster PDR (up to 100% of the monster's PDR, so 300% PDR = +300% Final Damage).
- Mobile attacking - while using Hurricane, you can jump and move, albeit with 100% movement speed.
- Strong summons - utilizing Arrow Blaster, Fury of the Wild, Guided Arrow, and Storm of Arrows can allow you to attack effectively for half a minute while not pressing a single button.
- Sharp Eyes - good for buffing parties, and no need for Decent Sharp Eyes. Additionally, does not require Decent Speed Infusion either.
- Low amount of buffs - toss three skills onto pets and you just need to manually buff Maple Warrior and one other skill. Buffs last 5 minutes at minimum.
- Great mobbing - Arrow Blaster can take a platform and Arrow Stream provides nice vertical mobbing. Storm of Arrows and Fury of the Wild can be rotated in 5th Job for very excellent post-5th mobbing.
- Relatively simplistic Nodes - Bowmaster's nodes are relatively easy to understand and it's relatively easy to obtain perfect trios.
So there you --- "wait, what about the damage!" ...oh.
- Squishy at lower levels - when you're training at lower levels you may find yourself low on HP, but this won't be a factor when you get some good armors and against bosses that do %HP damage.
- Skill rotation-heavy - you need to keep your skills up for optimal damage; Bowmaster is NOT a single-button class, BUT it's NOT one where you need to press stuff every 3 seconds like Kinesis or Evan. (in KMS, BM is somewhat known as the "30-second Master")
- Underplayed class - not many people play Bowmaster, so you may have difficulty finding a bow or secondary to purchase.
- No innate stance - well, except for the 150 Hyper Skill, but no passive stance. I don't find this much of an issue though - it can be supplemented by Knight's Watch (Mihile's Link Skill) anyways if really needed.
Bowmaster's damage is pretty middle to upper-ground, I guess? It's neither phenomenal (e.g. Demon Avenger) nor terrible (e.g. Kanna). But this changes by the patch and should not be a big factor in what you choose to main. Choose a class that you have fun with, not a class that does good damage. But as of the Black update, it's #7 DPM if you really, really want to know. But that can change in the next patch. And the next patch. And the next.
↑ Nodes ↓
Bowmaster's Node setup is pretty straightforward to set up.
Must-have Skill Nodes
Other Skill Nodes
Storm of Arrows (for bossing and grinding)
Inhuman Speed (for bossing and funded grinding)
Quiver Barrage (for bossing)
Silhouette Mirage (for bossing)
Vicious Shot (all-purpose)
Boost Node Priorities
Fury of the Wild (for grinding)
Guided Arrow (all-purpose)
Maple Goddess's Blessing (all-purpose)
True Arachnid Reflection (Lv. 235+ node from Esfera, all-purpose)
Erda Nova (for bossing)
Decent Holy Symbol (for grinding)
Sample Node Setup (for Lv. 250)
Hurricane
Quiver Cartridge
Advanced Final Attack
Arrow Blaster
Arrow Stream
Phoenix or
Gritty Gust - whichever you choose doesn't matter much. If you prefer bossing, choose Phoenix. For grinding, choose Gritty Gust.
[Brackets] signify the main skill of the Boost Node. I've highlighted the combinations of Boost Nodes together.
Storm of Arrows (slot enhanced)
Inhuman Speed (slot enhanced)
Quiver Barrage (slot enhanced)
Silhouette Mirage (slot enhanced)
Vicious Shot (slot enhanced)
Maple Goddess's Blessing (slot enhanced)
Guided Arrow
True Arachnid Reflection
Erda Nova
Decent Holy Symbol
Fury of the Wild
- [
] Hurricane +
Quiver Cartridge +
Advanced Final Attack (slot enhanced)
- [
] Quiver Cartridge +
Hurricane +
Advanced Final Attack (slot enhanced)
- [
] Arrow Blaster +
Phoenix +
Arrow Stream (slot enhanced)
- [
] Arrow Stream +
Phoenix +
Arrow Blaster (slot enhanced)
Matrix Points
See the Skill Build section on where to allocate your Matrix Points to enhance node slots.
↑ Link Skills ↓
Bowmaster's Link Skill (same as Marksman and Pathfinder. Stacks up to level 6 by sharing them into one character.):
Adventurer's Curiosity [Master Level: 6]: Your curiosity and attention to detail grants you bonuses to Critical Rate and the chance of adding monsters to your Monster Collection. This bonus is multiplicative rather than additive.
This Link Skill can be stacked up to 3 times, once for each unique Explorer Bowman job character you have on this world.
This skill can also be used by one character you have in this world.
Chance to add monsters to Monster Collection: +35%, Critical Rate: +10%
Bowmaster has a standard set ofLink Skills. Perhaps you could exchange one for
Knight's Watch (Mihile Link Skill), but I don't see it as too necessary. Others might have a different view though. Priorities that I personally would have from highest to lowest for bossing:
Fury Unleashed (Demon Slayer)
Wild Rage (Demon Avenger)
Elementalism (Kanna)
Solus (Ark)
Judgment (Kinesis)
Focus Spirit (Beast Tamer)
Empirical Knowledge (Explorer Magicians)
Hybrid Logic (Xenon)
Tide of Battle (Illium) (jump in place with Hurricane to activate)
Thief's Cunning (Explorer Thieves) (Phoenix/Binding Shot/Gritty Gust/Poison Arrows activates this)
Terms and Conditions (Angelic Buster)
Spirit of Freedom (Resistance)
↑ Legion ↓
Bowmaster has a standard Legion setup; nothing can be specialized for Bowmaster in terms of Legion. If you have your board expanded, prioritize Critical Damage and Boss Damage first, then Ignore Defense.
For a more in-depth guide on Legion and how it works and what Legion effects there are, see Jushiro's Legion Guide.
DEX Legion Effects
Sample Legion Board Setup
- Bowmaster (DEX)
- Pathfinder (DEX)
- Wind Archer (DEX)
- Xenon (STR/DEX/LUK)
- Angelic Buster (DEX)
↑ Inner Ability ↓
Bowmaster doesn't need +1 Attack Speed as it's a primarily key-down skill class. It also doesn't really need buff duration, but it's a nice thing to have to extend Enchanted Quiver's duration, as well as having 8+ minute buffs!
If you have Legendary Ability, the first Ability line is always Legendary, but the other two may end up being Unique/Epic. Consult the guide here for more information.
- Boss Damage - up to +20% Boss Damage on Legendary line.
- Attack - up to +21 Attack on Unique line.
- Buff Duration - up to +38% Buff Duration on Unique line.
↑ Hyper Stats ↓
I'd recommend getting most of the following list of Hyper Stats to level 7 first for efficiency purposes before you push any Hyper Stat to level 10 or beyond.
General priority list:
- Boss Damage
- Critical Damage
- Ignore Defense
- Damage (worse scaling than Boss Damage)
- Attack
- DEX
- Critical Rate (going beyond 100% still helps the 5th Job Skill
Vicious Shot slightly)
↑ 200+ Training Areas
After level 200, a little variety can be kicked in if you're feeling it. I've bolded recommended areas. This isn't a huge change from where most leveling guides will tell you to go to.
Refer to the Training Guides page here on Dexless for other more in-depth guides regarding leveling. Training areas is not a main focus of this guide by any means.
200-215
210-225
- Forsaken Excavation Site 2 (up to 210 at most)
- Fire Zone
- Below the Cave
- Cave Depths
220-224
- Slurpy Forest Depths
- Below the Falls
225-250
- Chicken Festival 2
- Nightmare Clocktower 1F
- Revelation Place 3
235-250
- Between Frost and Thunder 2
- Deep in the Cavern - Upper Path 1
- Deep in the Cavern - Lower Path 1
- Cavern Lower Path (with Frenzy Totem, this is pretty much the hands-down the best map 225-255 for most classes, and most certainly for Bowmaster. Install Arrow Blaster at the bottom row, and key-down Arrow Blaster on the middle row and just move the angle up and down. If you don't have Frenzy Totem, consider training in another map.)
- Path to the Coral Forest 4
- That Day in Truffet 4
- Living Spring 4
- Radiant Temple (the Radiant Temple maps are pretty good maps to train in if you don't have Fury or Frenzy Totem.)
- Mirror-touched Sea 2 (nice with Kishin or Fury Totem.)
Bowmaster In-Depth Job Guide
Guide in 'Archer' published by Sky, Nov 24, 2020.
This is an in-depth guide about the Bowmaster job branch. Includes pros/cons, skill builds, in-depth skill explanations, Nodes setup, Link Skills, Legion, preferred Inner Abilities, Hyper Stats, and more.
-
-
Guide Author Sky, Find all guides by Sky
-
-
Build
Table of Contents ↓
I won't go too far in-depth on this section since leveling is fast enough nowadays to not really matter, especially if you burn your character.
↑ 1st Job ↓
I recommend putting a point into Arrow Blow, Double Jump, and Archery Mastery first when you advance. From there, max out Double Jump for mobility and the rest as you feel like. All 1st Job skills will be maxed.
Arrow Blow (20/20)
Double Jump (10/10)
Critical Shot (20/20)
Archery Mastery (15/15)
Result: all maxed.
↑ 2nd Job ↓
I recommend putting a point into Arrow Bomb, Soul Arrow: Bow, and Bow Mastery when you first advance. When you level afterwards, get Bow Mastery to at least level 5 so you can use Bow Booster. From there, do as you like. All 2nd Job skills will be maxed.
Arrow Bomb (20/20)
Covering Fire (9/9)
Bow Booster (10/10)
Soul Arrow: Bow (20/20)
Quiver Cartridge (1/1) - automatically allocated
Bow Mastery (10/10)
Final Attack: Bow (20/20)
Physical Training (5/5)
Result: all maxed. (Note: as of GMS v209, you can max all skills. If you're missing SP, you may have to use a SP reset scroll.)
↑ 3rd Job ↓
I recommend putting a point into Arrow Blaster, Flame Surge, and Marksmanship when you first advance. When you level afterwards, I'd recommend putting SP into Reckless Hunt: Bow, Phoenix, and Evasion Boost. Level as you like from there. All 3rd Job skills will be maxed.
Arrow Blaster (20/20)
Flame Surge (20/20)
Phoenix (10/10)
Hookshot (10/10)
Reckless Hunt: Bow (10/10)
Mortal Blow (10/10)
Focused Fury (20/20)
Evasion Boost (4/4)
Marksmanship (20/20)
Result: all maxed. (Note: as of GMS v209, you can max all skills. If you're missing SP, you may have to use a SP reset scroll.)
↑ 4th Job ↓
I recommend putting a point into Hurricane, Arrow Stream, and Bow Expert when you first advance. From there, put some points into Enchanted Quiver, Illusion Step, and Sharp Eyes. Binding Shot's active effect isn't useful, but its passive effect of boosting Arrow Blaster is really nice. Don't prioritize leveling Armor Break at all, as that's a very specific skill for endgame bosses. All 4th Job skills will be maxed.
Hurricane (30/30)
Binding Shot (10/10)
Arrow Stream (30/30)
Sharp Eyes (30/30)
Illusion Step (30/30)
Hero's Will (5/5)
Maple Warrior (30/30)
Enchanted Quiver (10/10)
Bow Expert (30/30)
Advanced Final Attack (30/30)
Armor Break (20/20)
Result: all maxed.
↑ Hyper Skills ↓
Bowmaster has a pretty straightforward Hyper Skill build:
Level 140: add intoConcentration
Level 150: add intoHurricane - Reinforce and
Sharp Eyes - Guardbreak
Level 160: add intoGritty Gust
Level 165: add intoHurricane - Boss Rush
Level 180: add intoArrow Stream - Extra Strike
Level 190: add intoHurricane - Split Attack and
Epic Adventure
Result: all Hurricane Hypers, Arrow Stream - Extra Strike, and Sharp Eyes - Guardbreak are all allocated into. All active Hyper Skills are all allocated into.
↑ 5th Job (Matrix Points)
Every level after Level 200, you get one Matrix Point that can be used to level up your nodes, even past the Rank 25 limit (up to Rank 30).
Level 201 - 205: add intoStorm of Arrows
Level 206 - 210: add intoInhuman Speed
Level 211 - 230: add intoBoost Nodes
Level 231 - 235: add intoVicious Shot
Level 236 - 240: add intoQuiver Barrage
Level 241 - 245: add intoMaple Goddess's Blessing
Level 246 - 250: add intoSilhouette Mirage
Level 251 - 255: add intoFury of the Wild
Level 256 - 260: add intoGuided Arrow
Result: Storm of Arrows, Inhuman Speed, Boost Nodes, Vicious Shot, Quiver Barrage, Silhouette Mirage, Fury of the Wild, and Guided Arrow all are fully allocated into as of Level 260. -
Skill Info
Table of Contents ↓
- Beginner Skills
- 1st Job
- 2nd Job
- 3rd Job
- 4th Job
- Hyper Skills (Passive)
- Hyper Skills (Active)
- 5th Job
↑ Beginner Skills ↓
↑ 1st Job ↓
↑ 2nd Job ↓
↑ 3rd Job ↓
↑ 4th Job ↓
↑ Hyper Skills (Passive) ↓
↑ Hyper Skills (Active) ↓
↑ 5th Job
-
Gameplay
Table of Contents ↓
This section contains gameplay-related explanations.
↑ Final Damage ↓
Final Damage, huh? What is this Damage that is now Final? Well, it's literally just the final multiplier on your damage!
Final Damage formula: (1 + sourceA) * (1 + sourceB) * (1 + sourceC) and so on, if you got more sources.
Regular (Boss) Damage formula: (1 + sourceA + sourceB + sourceC) and so on, if you got more sources.
Try to calculate the difference between Final Damage and Damage! Here's an example:
+70% Boss Damage from equips
+40% Boss Damage from skills
+12% Damage from equips
+30% Damage from skills
+20% Final Damage from nodes
Now Nexon wants to buff you by doing one of two things:
A) Give +40% Damage.
B) Give +30% Final Damage.
What would be the difference?
We are assuming that you do 8m on a line of a skill attack without any damage boost.
Scenario A: +40% Damage
(1 + 0.7 + 0.4 + 0.12 + 0.3) * (1 + 0.2) = 3x improvement from the equips/skills/nodes before Nexon hands out any buff.
So (8m * 3) = 24m per line regularly.
Now...Nexon gives out +40% Damage.
(1 + 0.7 + 0.4 + 0.12 + 0.3 + 0.4) * (1 + 0.2) = 3.5x improvement from the equips/skills/nodes after Nexon gives a +40% Damage boost. Note that we add the 0.4 (40%) Damage boost.
So (8m * 3.5) = 28m per line after the buff.
24 -> 28m is a 4m increase per line...a 16% overall increase. Not bad, but...
What if it was Final Damage...? And even a lower number to boot?
Scenario B: +30% Final Damage
(1 + 0.7 + 0.4 + 0.12 + 0.3) * (1 + 0.2) = 3x improvement from the equips/skills/nodes before Nexon hands out any buff.
So (8m * 3) = 24m per line regularly.
Now...Nexon gives out +30% Final Damage.
(1 + 0.7 + 0.4 + 0.12 + 0.3) * (1 + 0.2) * (1 + 0.3) = about a 4x improvement from the equips/skills/nodes after Nexon gives a +30% Final Damage boost. Note the difference in calculating Final Damage.
So (8m * 4) = 32m per line after the buff.
24 -> 32m is a 8m increase per line! Nice! About a 30% overall increase. Sound familiar?
There are no diminishing returns with Final Damage.
You'll need to know this to appreciate how well Nodes and Armor Break go together, which I explain in the Armor Break section under 4th Job.
↑ Skill Explanations ↓
This section attempts to explain some practical uses and quirks of some skills that may not be obvious at first glance.
↑ 1st Job ↓
Arrow Blow
Nothing to note. A standard first job mobbing skill.
Double Jump
This one is a bit special. You can flash jump left, right, and up, but in addition to that, you can also flash jump downwards! It doesn't have many practical uses, other than if you get used to using it to simply descend faster from a platform. The only real practical use for it that I found is in Phase 2 and 3 of Lotus where he shoots players upwards - you can nullify the upwards momentum by using Double Jump downwards.
Critical Shot
Nothing to note. Gives a great amount of Critical Rate.
Archery Mastery
Nothing to note. Increases attack range and speed.
History lesson: after the RED update, this used to give a passive effect that made you not consume arrows. It was however changed later to make Soul Arrow once again useful.
↑ 2nd Job ↓
Arrow Bomb
History lesson: when the damage cap was still a commonly hittable thing, Arrow Bomb could actually break it by 5.75x! Yes, pre-V, you could hit up to 287.5m with Arrow Bomb. Not sure if that quirk still applies, but it's not exactly easy to hit the 10b damage cap...or beyond it.
Covering Fire
A backwards jump skill! It's not really any faster than Double Jump, but...hey...there is one practical use for it, again in Lotus. When he uses the electrical floor move in Phase 2 and 3, if you time it properly, you can hold it down long enough to where you'll be in the air just long enough to avoid all of it. It does technically give more jump height than if you were to normally Double Jump left/right, but not by much.
History lesson: after the Illium patch, there was a bug where you could use Covering Fire in jump quests, such as Flag Race and Tower of Oz. That was fun for a week...
Bow Booster
Nothing to note. Increases attack speed.
Soul Arrow: Bow
Nothing particularly interesting to note. Gives attack and makes you not consume the arrows in your inventory. With Soul Arrow active, attack from your arrows will not have any effect, and since there's not an arrow that's above 30 Attack Power, don't waste your time or mesos on getting any sort of arrow other than the cheap standard ones.
Quiver Cartridge
Bowmaster's Specialized Skill! With this, you can infuse your arrows with magical quiver arrowhead powers. Choose from the Blood Arrows, Poison Arrows, or the Magic Arrows. Here's details on each:
Blood Arrowhead (after being enhanced by Enchanted Quiver) - recover 5% of max HP at a 70% rate per each hit done to a monster. You can lock into this mode with no downtime, making it the best HP drain skill in the game thanks to Bowmaster's high hits per second. You lose ~13% of your DPS, but you can't do damage if you're dead!
Poison Arrowhead - increases your Critical Damage by 8% when attacking an enemy with the Poison Arrows DoT debuff active. The DoT damage itself is not very useful, unfortunately.
Magic Arrowhead - essentially an Advanced Final Attack 2.0. History lesson: it used to be actually counted as a magical attack until they decided that Magic Arrows weren't magic...
At the end of the day, just lock in Magic Arrows for maximum damage.
History lesson: Quiver Cartridge, for some reason, prior to GMS v214, if you didn't have it active yet (e.g. after login or death), it will give you 10 of each arrowhead if you press the skill button even if you have the Enchanted Quiver quantity increase.
Bow Mastery
Nothing to note. Standard Mastery skill.
Final Attack: Bow
Nothing to note. One of Bowmaster's key passive skills.
Physical Training
Nothing to note. Standard Training skill.
↑ 3rd Job ↓
Arrow Blaster
Arrow Blaster was once a pretty large part of Bowmaster's damage, but now it's more or less 5-10% of the total DPS. It is however an extremely good mobbing skill and a stable bossing skill thanks to it having a 30 second summon duration with only a 5 sec re-installation cooldown.
Arrow Blaster has some an odd properties, though. First off, it's technically NOT a summon skill. It's an installation skill, which initially made it activate damage reflect (but was patched later to not). It, unlike summon skills, can gather Soul Weapon energy. Secondly, it will not activate any of Quiver Cartridge's Arrowheads or Advanced Final Attack. And lastly, it can instantly hit and kill monsters in its path before a ton of other skills in the game, making it the ultimate KS skill. Cool!
Arrow Blaster used to be bugged, sporadically failing to install starting from GMS v177 and until the GMS v193 patch. Those were really annoying times.
Arrow Blaster's Installation is slower than the keydown version. Installation Attack Speed: ~200ms (~5 hits per second)
Flame Surge
Nothing to note. Standard mobbing skill.
History lesson: this was Bowmaster's original 4th Job mobbing skill, and was worse than Hurricane at mobbing until Hyper Skills came along. It was also initially once "Inferno" and "Ultimate Inferno" until it suddenly became "Roasting Shot" and "Broiler Shot" then "Flame Surge" as it is now.
Phoenix
Phoenix is not much of a contributor to damage. One thing to note though that doesn't really matter, but is a random fun tidbit: for some reason if you have a Mortal Blow stack at 9, Phoenix gets enhanced by it and doesn't consume the stack.
Hookshot
Hookshot is a rather good mobility skill. It has a decent vertical and great horizontal grapple area. Anyways, it does give invincibility frames to mobs, but not to stuff like Lotus's laser...except for like a fraction of a second. Sadly no use there. It does however, for some reason, make pretty much all bosses flinch for a second when you use it. Hookshot, back when Hard Magnus loved to freeze up and glitch, could actually make Hard Magnus unfreeze. What a savior. Speaking of savior, it's nice in Spirit Savior.
Reckless Hunt: Bow
Nothing to note, other than that it's a toggle skill, so you should always remember to toggle it on when you login or die.
Mortal Blow
Hitting an enemy stacks it up to 9, then afterwards the next skill receives +80% Damage. Pretty nice. These are this skills that can't increase Mortal Blow stacks: Arrow Blaster installation, Inhuman Speed, Advanced Final Attack, Magic Arrows, Phoenix, and Quiver Barrage.
This means Hurricane, Guided Arrow, and Storm of Arrows can increase the stacks. These are incidentally same set of skills that are the only ones that can activate Magic Arrows. I personally call them "direct impact" skills.
Focused Fury
Every hit you do with Focused Fury, you get +5 Status Resistance, stackable up to 100. Thanks to Bowmaster's high hits per second, it stacks pretty quickly. Status Resistance is pretty much useless, yeah, but it's something. Bowmaster has the highest innate Status Resistance in the game.
Evasion Boost
Nothing to note. Standard evasion skill.
Marksmanship
Bowmaster's Marksmanship skill is +25% Attack Power, while Marksman's Marksmanship skill is +15% Damage. Apparently Bowmaster is better at being a Marksman than Marksman is...
↑ 4th Job ↓
Hurricane
In the Nova patch, the delay for starting up Hurricane has thankfully been significantly reduced. While it was more useful before the reduction in the delay, you can still do a jump attack (press Hurricane and jump) and move forward to essentially cancel the delay. You can easily stack Illium's Link Skill by jumping with Hurricane.
Attack Speed: 120ms (8.33 hits per second)
Binding Shot
Reduces the debuffed target's HP recovery (useful for...Hard Hilla and Empress...and Blackheart in DIPQ...) and the target's movement speed (useful!). The movement speed reduction seems to work pretty well, especially for Queen, Pierre, and Magnus, the latter being rather significantly impacted by it for some reason. Additionally, this skill does in fact count as a debuff for Cadena's link skill, which is nice.
Arrow Stream
Nothing to note. Rather vertical mobbing skill, and pierces monsters, as well as hits on all layers (foreground and background) of a map.
Sharp Eyes
Nothing, uh, critical to note. Great party skill.
Illusion Step
Bowmaster's Illusion Step gives +80 DEX while Marksman's Illusion Step gives +40 DEX. Hooray!
Hero's Will
Nothing to note.
Maple Warrior
Nothing to note.
Enchanted Quiver
For some reason, Enchanted Quiver isn't maintained after death with buff freezers :(
If you use this with Blood Arrows, as long as you don't receive severe damage repeatedly or get one-shot, you can pretty much always live as long as you're hitting something consistently enough. Almost like the Breath of Divinity skill...hmm...
History lesson: pre-Reboot, this skill had one heck of a skill delay, but the delay was entirely removed in the Reboot patch, which was awesome. Also, when you used to use Enchanted Quiver without the Quiver Cartridge active, it would act like it's not locked at all and still consume arrowheads.
Bow Expert
Nothing in particular to note. Standard 4th Job Mastery skill. But it does additionally give a passive effect that allows you to instantly install Arrow Blaster at the topmost and lowest angles if you pressed up or down respectively while pressing the install key. Pretty handy in select situations, such as Chaos Vellum, as the lowest angle can't hit him, but if you instantly install Arrow Blaster to the up position, it hits!
Advanced Final Attack
Nothing to note. Simply enhances Final Attack: Bow and gives some Attack Power.
Armor Break
Armor Break increases your final damage in proportion to the boss's PDR. Basically, if the boss has 300% PDR, you will do an extra +300% Final Damage to it when Armor Break activates.
It has a 9 second cooldown, but attacking an enemy will reduce the cooldown by 1 sec each hit, though it has a minimum cooldown of 1 second no matter what. The skills that can reduce Armor Break's cooldown and what can use Armor Break's final damage increase are limited to direct impact skills (see: Mortal Blow section).
So, on Chaos Vellum, (+300% Final Damage), your damage will look like this every 1 second, using the Final Damage formula from the Final Damage section at the top:
(1 + 3) = 4x Final Damage. So if you hit 100m regularly with Hurricane you'll burst to like 400m every 1 second due to Armor Break.
Source by source breakdown:
Regular Hurricane damage (+0% Final Damage) so (1 + 0) = 1x = 50m without nodes
Max nodes (+100% Final Damage) so (1 + 1) = 2x = 100m regularly with max nodes
Armor Break (+300% Final Damage) so (1 + 3) = 4x = 400m bursting with Armor Break
History lesson: before they made Armor Break cater to Hurricane more, Arrow Stream in addition to max 5th Job nodes was actually quite a bit more powerful than Hurricane due to the higher skill percentage of Arrow Stream.
↑ Hyper Skills ↓
Concentration
Nothing to note. Nice Hyper Skill that gives Knockback Resistance and a pretty good amount of Boss Damage and Attack Power.
Gritty Gust
Nothing to note. A nice vertical mobbing skill, but has no real use in bosses damage-wise.
Epic Adventure
Storm of Arrows and Epic Adventure have the same cooldowns, so I'd recommend using them together (cast Storm of Arrows -> Epic Adventure).
↑ 5th Job ↓
Storm of Arrows (KMS: Arrow Rain)
Storm of Arrows is skill that scales better the more monsters are in its spawned zones. When you directly hit a monster, it takes the direction that your character is facing, scans a certain distance from the hit mob in your character's direction, and spawns an Arrow Rain zone for each monster in that range, but the zones cannot overlap. If there are more than 1 monster within a single zone, up to 6 additional lines can be added to the Arrow Rain zone for a maximum for a 14 line Arrow Rain, each monster adding 2 lines.
In content such as Dream Defender, Storm of Arrows can do great damage due to the amount of mobs bundled close together.
Guided Arrow
Combine Guided Arrow with Storm of Arrows to keep Storm of Arrows always firing on a boss, such as Lucid Phase 2. It also can consume Quiver Cartridge and activates all of its arrowheads, including Magic Arrows.
Inhuman Speed (KMS: Afterimage Shot)
This used to be a severely weak skill in KMST and the first KMS patch that it was in, but now it makes up 15% of Bowmaster's damage. The only thing to note right now is that, for some reason, it has one heck of a downwards range area (still good upwards but not as good) and that it can also be casted on ladders/ropes. So I guess it's technically a buff-type skill?
Fury of the Wild (KMS: Evolve)
Your evolved Phoenix will attack when you attack (even if there's no target nearby) or if a skill hits a monster (e.g. Guided Arrow). Phoenix is re-summoned at its full duration once this skill expires.
Generally speaking, if you attack, Fury of the Wild will fire off even if there's no monster in range, but for some reason key-down Arrow Blaster doesn't make it fire until you actually impact a monster - so here's a Dojo strategy with floors 21-29 with that in mind: just use only Arrow Blaster and Fury of the Wild to wipe the map quickly! The moment Arrow Blaster hits a mob, Fury of the Wild will clear the floor.
Phoenix Boost Nodes do not affect Fury of the Wild's damage.
Vicious Shot (KMS: Critical Reinforce)
Nothing special to note, other than it isn't really worth trying to sacrifice anything else for Critical Rate to make this skill better.
Quiver Barrage (KMS: Quiver Full Burst)
This skill does a great amount of damage, despite its short duration. During its 30 second duration, it has DPS contribution of around greater than Hurricane's (~30%), and after its cooldown is over, it has a DPS contribution of around Inhuman Speed's (~12%). My only complaint is that you need to make sure to use Enchanted Quiver right as it's over, or you'll burn arrowheads out.
Flaming Arrows fire out every 2 seconds. You can switch arrowheads while using Quiver Barrage unlike during Enchanted Quiver, though it obviously doesn't impact anything. You can use it to unlock your Quiver Cartridge I guess though. Additionally, you can also use it without Quiver Cartridge active (e.g. when first logging in).
Flaming Arrows are fired out only when you directly impact a monster (see: Mortal Blow section), and only if you're in a certain horizontal range, unlike Magic Arrows. The vertical range for the Flaming Arrows is practically infinite (it can go between the two rooms in Will!). Horizontally, it's actually a little shorter than Hurricane's range.
Also, Quiver Barrage's Flaming Arrows doesn't fire out when you're sitting on a chair. Just a random tidbit.
A tip during Damien (can be applied to any boss, but using Damien as an example) is that when Damien is midair shooting out his Magnus meteors-like skill, you can use Guided Arrow and hit him with Gritty Gust to lock Guided Arrow on him. Since Guided Arrow is a direct impact skill, Flaming Arrows will fire upwards and damage him as long as Guided Arrow is attacking. Be wary of the limited horizontal range that you have to be in to fire out Flaming Arrows, though.
Silhouette Mirage
Surprisingly, this is a skill that has not been renamed for GMS!
So Bowmaster finally has a skill that can allow Bowmaster to survive one shot skills. This skill's "defensive" feature, when activated, can take any attack (including %HP attacks) that does 50% or more damage or leads to death (e.g. you have 10% HP and an attack that does 20% hits you, that will protect you as well) and reduce the damage you take by 90% at level 30. This skill stacks twice for two consecutive (or non-consecutive) preventions of certain death.
The skills is currently slightly bugged in GMS as of the initial Awake patch, in the sense that if an illusory double is consumed while you only have 1 stack, the recreation time is reset to 45 sec. This will be fixed in a future patch from KMS.
As for the "offensive" feature, it's not really that powerful at all. It accounts for around 3% of DPS during a 40 sec burst. Any attack, even normal attack, or skill will activate the illusory attack. It has pretty good horizontal range (longer than Hurricane), but poor (but not bad) vertical range.
99% of this skill is meant for increasing your survivability - do not get this skill thinking it'll boost your DPS by any good amount.
↑ Skill Rotation
Bowmaster's skill rotation is actually not too bad. Please note that the DPS contributions are estimated, and tested in a 60 sec Battle Analysis with max nodes. This does not account for increases in damage from buffs (such as Quiver Barrage's +20% Attack Power buff). Storm of Arrows does not activate on Dojo Scarecrows for some reason, so Balrog is used instead. Note that Storm of Arrows only spawns one time in Balrog (it normally spawns twice on most bosses, and in certain boss battles such as Damien, Lucid, and Will, it may spawn the maximum of 6 times for significantly higher contribution), so Storm of Arrows's DPS contribution in realistic scenarios may be higher than listed here.
It may look like a lot to keep up with, but when it comes down to it, many of the cooldowns align with each other for simplicity. Every 30 seconds, use Arrow Blaster, Enchanted Quiver, and Inhuman Speed. Every 2 minutes, use Storm of Arrows, Epic Adventure, Fury of the Wild (you can wait the extra 12 seconds to use Fury of the Wild with everything else, it's not too much of a contributor to damage), and Quiver Barrage. Guided Arrow's kinda on its own though, but essentially doesn't have a cooldown. Maple Goddess's Blessing is definitely an odd one though on its own.
Concentration can be paired up with
Terms and Conditions (Angelic Buster Link Skill) if you opt to get that Link Skill.
I've highlighted the groups of skills you can just use pretty sequentially thanks to their same cooldowns. -
Guide Version
2.7Game Version
218Changelog
v1.0 (2018-02-03)
- Initial write-up
v1.1 (2018-02-04)
- Fixed formatting errors
- Added a bunch of images
- Fixed table of contents anchor links to not reload the page
v1.2 (2018-02-04)
- Fixed table of contents anchor links to refer to the published guide
- Added Skill Info tab
v1.3 (2018-02-04)
- Split some parts of the guide into different tabs
- Added Hyper Skills into Skill Info section
- Added horizontal rules to break up sections
- Significant cleanup of the internal BB code
v1.4 (2018-02-06)
- Added up/down navigation to tops of each section
v1.5 (2018-02-09)
- Fixed some formatting errors
- Added GMS v193 changes
v1.6 (2018-04-16)
- Improved Changelog section
- Added DPM rank details
- Added reference links for stuff that goes too outside of the guide's scope
- Added KMS ver. 1.2.294 Reckless Hunt: Bow change in Skill Info section
- Added Final Damage section under Gameplay tab
- Improved Armor Break section
- Added various images
- Other miscellaneous improvements
v1.7 (2018-04-19)
- Added anchor links to headers of each section so you can click on them to focus onto the section
v1.8 (2018-06-20)
- Added Matrix points allocation to Skill Build section
- Updated 5th job skill damage amounts
- Added Master Levels to skill info list
- Added passive Hyper Skills info
- Other miscellaneous improvements
v1.9 (2018-07-18)
- Added Esfera training areas
- Other miscellaneous improvements
v2.0 (2018-10-05)
- Updated for GMS v199
- Updated DPS contributions
v2.1 (2018-12-16)
- Updated for GMS v201 (added Quiver Barrage)
- Added additional tips to the Gameplay section
- Other miscellaneous improvements
v2.2 (2018-12-19)
- Corrected Hyper Skills build
- Added missing sentence in Storm of Arrows's skill description
v2.3 (2019-06-14)
- Updated for GMS v205
v2.4 (2019-10-03)
- Updated for GMS v208
- Corrected skill info for Fury of the Wild
- Added some more info to the Nodes section
- Updated Hyper Stats section
- Updated Training section
- Updated skill DPS contribution table
v2.5 (2019-11-21)
- Updated node section
- Updated link skills section for GMS v209
- Updated skill build for GMS v209
v2.6 (2020-06-10)
- Updated Hyper Stats section
- Updated Poison Arrows explanation
- Updated Quiver Cartridge explanation
- Updated Arrow Blaster explanation
v2.7 (2020-11-22)
- Updated for GMS v218/LIST]
- Loading...