Longbow / Dagger PvE Build Guide

Last Updated:October 13, 2024|Changelog

Welcome to the Longbow / Dagger PvE Build Guide! This weapon combination resembles an archer rogue playstyle from other MMOs.

Longbow provides access to high single-target DPS skills including Strafing and Decisive Sniping. Your damage is boosted further with your Dagger passives: Assassin's Instincts, Destructive Fang, and Wrathful Edge.

Coupled with high single-target DPS, you have access to some AoE skills. Flash Wave is a great mass AoE skill to use for clearing mobs. You can reset this skill with Limit Break for even more AoE clearing potential.

End Game Longbow / Dagger PvE Build

If you're interested in PvP, check out our Longbow Dagger PvP Build Guide!

Pros

Self-Sustain
High Single-Target DPS

Cons

Cooldown Speed Reliant

Skill Builds

Bossing

PvE Mobbing

Bossing Longbow / Dagger PvE Build

Active Skills

Damage Skills

Ensnaring Arrow and Decisive Sniping are used together for big DPS.
Strafing applies Gale and Target stacks, then you consume those stacks with Zephyr's Nock for extra damage.
Thunderclouds Bombing is your highest Dagger DPS skill, consuming 20 Thundercloud stacks to do huge damage.
Ankle Strike with the Off-Hand Weapon Activation Specialization is used before Thunderclouds Bombing to boost your off-hand proc chance.

Utility Skills

Lightning Infusion is used to stack Thunderclouds. Cooldown ▼ is slotted in to make sure it's up before you do your damage combo.
Shadow Escape gets you into Melee Range to cast Thunderclouds Bombing before going back to 15 m Range.
Deadly Marker is a mandatory skill to help reduce the Cooldowns of your skills and your team's skills.
Use Blitz to reset Decisive Sniping.
Use Nature's Blessing to speed up the cast of Decisive Sniping and boost your party's Mana Regen.
Camouflage Cloak guarantees your next attack is a Crit. Use it before using Decisive Sniping.
- Be aware that charging skills break you out of stealth. The Crit buff is only active for a short time and will not guarantee a Crit if the charging takes too long.
- Consider replacing with Knife Throwing.or Brutal Arrow.

Passive Skills

Rapidfire Stance, Steady Aim, Sniper's Sense are your Longbow flat damage boosts.
Assassin's Instincts, Destructive Fang, Wrathful Edge are your Dagger flat damage boosts.
Roxie's Arrowhead is the last damage-oriented Passive you can add to your bar.
Murderous Energy ensures it's easier to upkeep 20 Thundercloud stacks.

Fatal Stigma Alternative

Support Alternative

This build uses Flash Wave to help support your team and do damage.

Mobbing Longbow / Dagger PvE Build

Active Skills

Damage Skills

Flash Wave is used as a mass AoE clear. Use Blitz right after for another AoE clear if mobs are still not dead.
Decisive Bombardment is used to clear mobs in a line.

Utility Skills

Healing Touch and Nature's Blessing are your self sustain skills when grinding solo.

Passives

Assassin's Step is a great Passive for moving from mob to mob.

Alternatives

If you're grinding in a group and you have sufficient healing, replace Healing Touch with Brutal Arrow or Tornado.

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

Boss/Elite Openers

PvE Mobbing

Oppressed Combo

Nature's Blessing (Optional)
Ensnaring Arrow
Camouflage Cloak (Optional)
Decisive Sniping
- Blitz
- Decisive Sniping

Ensnaring Arrow should always be used before Decisive Sniping because of the Damage ▲ Skill Specialization.
Camouflage Cloak guarantees your next attack is a Crit, even if it's a charging skill that breaks you out of Stealth. The Crit buff is only available for a short time out of stealth break, though, so make sure you cast your next skill quickly.
Nature's Blessing gives you a Whirlpool buff to speed up your cast of Decisive Sniping.
Use Blitz so that you can cast Decisive Sniping again.

Thunderclouds Combo

Lightning Infusion
Deadly Marker (Optional)
Strafing x2
Zephyr's Nock
Strafing x1
Shadow Escape
Lightning Infusion (2nd cast)
Ankle Strike (Optional)
Thunderclouds Bombing
Shadow Escape (2nd cast back to location)
Zephyr's Nock

Most of these skills line up to around the same Cooldown with the correct Specializations.
Your initial Strafing combo with Zephyr's Nock should get you 13 additional Thundercloud stacks.
Use the optional skills in your combo to reach 20 Thundercloud stacks if you aren't already at the maximum before using Thunderclouds Bombing.
Use Shadow Escape afterward to return to your original position.
With high Attack Speed, your Gale and Target stacks last long enough so that you can use Zephyr's Nock again after you've returned back to your original position.
Cooldown ▼ for Lightning Infusion is incredibly important as it makes sure it's off Cooldown before the next Strafing use.

Tips

You can't stay at maximum range due to you having to use Shadow Escape to cast Thunderclouds Bombing, but it should still be decently far.
Shadow Escape won't break your Attack Speed buff from Rapidfire Stance.
After using Shadow Escape, you have some downtime to walk further back for more damage from Sniper's Sense.
Shadow Escape also procs Lequirus's Thorny Edge Passive.
Deadly Marker should always be used whenever it's off cooldown because it reduces the cooldown of all your party's skills.
Certain boss mechanics disrupts your Thunderclouds combo so you have to improvise the times at which you cast skills.

AoE Skills

Flash Wave
Decisive Bombardment

Use Nature's Blessing before Decisive Bombardment to speed the cast up.
Use Blitz to reset either skill.
Use Ensnaring Arrow to proc Steady Aim on any target before your skills.

Single Target Combo

Strafing 2x
Zephyr's Nock
Strafing 1x
Zephyr's Nock

Low HP targets are cleared with Strafing 2x and some more damage elsewhere.
You need to use this combo for higher HP mobs.

Melee Combo

Shadow Strike
Cleaving Moonlight
Thunderclouds Bombing

This is your quick Melee combo clear for mobs.
Cleaving Moonlight can be used without the rest of these skills.

Self-Sustain

Healing Touch
Nature's Blessing

This is your self healing combo if you're solo grinding.

Stat Priorities

Use the following stat priorities when playing a Longbow / Dagger build in PvE:

Primary Stat
- Wisdom and Strength
Secondary Stat
- Perception and Dexterity

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.

Wisdom boosts your maximum Weapon Damage, Cooldown Speed, and Mana Regen. At 50 Wisdom, you gain an extra 5% Cooldown Speed. Strength similarly boosts your maximum Weapon Damage, and at 50 Strength, you gain 100 Heavy Attack Chance.

Mid Game

For PvE, you care mainly about maximum damage output, so put points into Dexterity and Wisdom. 40 Perception is important for the extra 5% Buff Duration. 50 Strength grants you a 100 Heavy Attack Chance bonus.

End Game

With enough Purple Gear, you want as much Dexterity as possible for extra Attack Speed and Weapon Damage.

PvE Gear Progression

If you plan on PvPing in the future, just use the PvP gear shown in our Longbow/Dagger PvP Build Guide for PvE. Unless you're going for record clears, you can use the PvP gear to clear all content.

Story
Gear

Mid
Game

End Game
Shadow Harvester

End Game
Solo Self Found

Archboss

Story Gear Longbow / Dagger PvE Build

If you've been following the leveling guide, transfer over your greens to the story quest blues if you haven't done so already. Make sure to upgrade them before doing these Dungeons for items.

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.

The following gear are all acquired from the completion of Lithograph Book.

Elite Resistance Longbow
- Marksman's Arsenal
Elite Resistance Knife
- Sharp Blades that Cut Through Darkness
Lethal Fortune Ring
- Rustic Mother Nature Rings
Elite Sharpshooter's Cloak
- Cloaks that Wield Victory
- Dark Assassin in Shadowed Crypt
Elite Tracker's Belt
- Sources of Abdominal Strength!

Longbow / Dagger 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
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.
Cave of Destruction
- Lequirus's Thorny Edge
- Archpriest's Devotion
Tyrant's Isle
- Specter's Frost Bracers

Open World Dungeon Sources

Ant's Nest
- Elusive Hexweaver Hat from Worker Ant
Sanctum of Desire
- Alacritous Invoker Gloves from Avolos Hydromancer
Saurodoma Island
- Boots of the Infernal Herald
- Precious Epic Equipment Chest: Tyrant
Abyss Conqueror's Necklace
- Craft Precious Epic Equipment Chest: Abyss.

Reaper's Mask Longbow / Dagger PvE Build

Reaper's Pants Longbow / Dagger PvE Build

Use Tevent's Screaming Bow if you get it. It's your BiS weapon.

You transition to using Reaper's Black Mask or Reaper's Interring Pants to complete your Death Set 2 piece bonus. The mask build is stronger.

Common Sources

Tycan's Bloodlust Belt
- Aridus

Mask Build Gear Sources

Reaper's Black Mask from Adentus
Grim Judicator's Pants
- Precious Epic Equipment Chest: Shadow

Pants Build Gear Sources

Reaper's Interring Pants from Junobote
Swirling Essence Hat
- Avolos Hydromancer in Sanctum of Desire
- Precious Epic Equipment Selection Chest: Abyss

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.
Evasion traits are nice if you intend to solo farm Open World Dungeons or Events.

SSF End Game Longbow / Dagger PvE Build

This setup allows you to acquire all the pieces yourself through grinding. You do not need to use the Auction House.

Archboss Longbow / Dagger 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. No other explanation is required.
Lady Knight Kamarshea is a useful Guardian while you learn new dungeons. It helps in dangerous situations as an emergency button to survive mechanics that deal a significant amount of damage. Not many other situations arise where this is necessary.

Summary

Longbow provides high single-target DPS at range, while Dagger provides amazing Passives.
Decisive Sniping is your highest DPS skill in your arsenal.
Stay at range until you need to use Shadow Escape and Thunderclouds Bombing.

Credits

Written by Yaen
Reviewed by Tenkiei and Bloo