Browse Games
Throne And Liberty
All News
Powered By
Home
Getting Started
Build Guides
Tier Lists
Resources
Events
Dungeons
Bosses
Codex
TLPlanner

Longbow / Staff PvP Build Guide

Last Updated:December 8, 2024|Changelog

Welcome to the Liberator Longbow / Staff PvP Build Guide! In PvP, your role is to deal huge AoE damage at long range. Typically, in MMOs, this type of playstyle resembles a "Glass Cannon," where you're extremely squishy, and any mistake in positioning can lead to your doom. In Throne and Liberty, bad positioning definitely gets you killed, but Longbow / Staff users stack a good amount of survivability with Endurance and Distorted Sanctuary. This makes you much more sturdy, even if you do get caught.

Longbow / Staff players build for as much Range as possible to maximize their Passive Buff from Sniper's Sense. With Shadow Harvester Grips, Karnix's Hell Bow, Insightful Ring of Dimension, and 50 Perception, you reach 29% extra Range on your abilities.

In addition to all the AoE abilities you get from Staff, Longbow users have access to Flash Wave and Limit Break, allowing you to do even more AoE damage. This makes Longbow / Staff particularly strong in Castle Sieges.

Offensive Build
End Game Longbow / Staff PvP Build w/ Runes

If you're interested in PvE, check out our Longbow / Staff PvE Build Guide!

Pros
  • Self-Sustain
  • High AoE Burst
  • Long Range DPS
  • High Single Target DPS
Cons
  • Mana Hungry
  • Weak to Melee
  • Limited Escapes

Skill Builds

These skill builds will be updated after experimenting with the new skill changes.

Large Scale PvP
Small Scale PvP / Arena PvP

Riftstone, Boonstone, Conflict Bosses

Non-Level 5 Blitz Version

Level 5 Blitz Version

  • At Level 5 with the Cooldown ▼ Specialization, Limit Break's Cooldown becomes 45 seconds. This matches Flash Wave's Cooldown, so you can always use both skills together.

Castle Siege

  • Swap Inferno Wave or Infernal Meteor with Inner Peace if you're having Mana Problems.
  • Swap Inferno Wave or Infernal Meteor with Frost Smokescreen for mobility.
  • If Limit Break is Level 5, use your discretion to make changes to the build as referenced above.

Active Skills

Damage Skills

  • Chain Lightning and Judgment Lightning are your instant cast AoE abilities.
  • Flash Wave is your staple AoE ability.
  • Focused Fire Bombs and Inferno Wave are great for clumped targets.
  • Ensnaring Arrow, Strafing, and Zephyr's Nock are single target finishers.

Utility Skills

  • Limit Break is a great skill to reset Flash Wave or other high CD skills.
    • Use High Focus to lower the Cooldown of these and all other abilities.
  • Tornado is your team's peel or disruption tool. You aren't using it for damage.
  • Brutal Arrow is another AoE abilitiy.
  • Use Frost Smokescreen preemptively if you need to escape, as it won't break you out of Bind.

Passive Skills

  • Sniper's Sense complements your build well, as you want to be at max Range.
  • Forbidden Sanctuary provides you Skill Damage Boost.
  • Distorted Sanctuary and Devoted Shield are great defensive Passives.
  • Echoic Barrier won't help you on the first CC but helps prevent follow-up CCs.
  • Mana Amp offers more Health.
  • Steady Aim and Rapidfire Stance fill the last 2 slots as there are no better options.

Alternatives

You honestly have a lot of room to customize depending on your playstyle.

Possible Removals

  1. Remove Inferno Wave.
  2. Remove Limit Break from Blitz.
    • The most important benefit is the reset, not the 20% extra damage on Flash Wave.
  3. Remove Cooldown ▼ from Zephyr's Nock.
  4. Remove Consecutive Use from Strafing.
  5. Remove Frost Smokescreen.

Possible Additions

  • Use Nature's Blessing for the extra Movement Speed and sustain for your party.
  • Add Victorious Energy Specialization for High Focus.
  • You can slot in Decisive Bombardment.
    • Consider Collection Time ▼ if taking Nature's Blessing.
  • Bring Ice Spear Bombardment for more single target DPS.
  • Slot in Infernal Meteor.
  • You can keep Frost Smokescreen but spec Use the Designated Location and place it on chokes.

Dominion

  • If Limit Break is Level 5, use your discretion to make changes to the build as referenced in the Large Scale tab.
  • Spec Victorious Energy for High Focus if you built Evasion.

Arena PvP

  • Spec Victorious Energy for High Focus if you built Evasion.

Active Skills

Damage Skills

  • Decisive Sniping is best used after a target is binded.
  • Flash Wave is used only when you see a large group of players.

Utility Skills

  • You have two Binds, Ensnaring Arrow, Ice Spear Bombardment. Always lead with one to proc Steady Aim.
  • Use Icebound Tomb to remove targets from the fight.
  • Using Healing Touch and Nature's Blessing is a great healing combo.
  • If you don't find yourself optimally using all 3 Bind skills, switch one out with Frost Smokescreen.

Skill Prioritization

  • Use Quality Marind Ore to craft Quality Active Skill Growth Book and Quality Passive Skill Growth Book.
  • Use Rare Marind Ore to craft Rare Active Skill Growth Book and Rare Passive 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.

PvP Gameplay and Skill Rotation

Large Scale PvP
Dominion / Arena PvP

Instant Cast AoE Skills

  • Chain Lightning
  • Judgment Lightning
  • Instant cast skills: cast them on enemies CC'd by your team.

Flash Wave Combo

  • High Focus
  • Flash Wave
  • Limit Break
  • Flash Wave

Single Target

  1. Ensnaring Arrow
  2. Strafing 2x
  3. Zephyr's Nock
  4. Strafing
  5. Zephyr's Nock
  • Simple single-target finisher.

Utility Skills

  • Tornado
  • Victorious Energy or High Focus
  • Blitz
  • Tornado can be used to peel off Melee or as an engage tool.
  • If using Victorious Energy, always pre-buff before an engagement. Consider using Blitz for this skill if you expect a prolonged fight.
  • With High Focus, make sure you use your longer Cooldown skills like Blitz before the buff is over.
  • Blitz can reset important AoE skills.

Longbow Single Target

  1. Ensnaring Arrow
  2. Strafing 2x
  3. Zephyr's Nock
  • Always use Ensnaring Arrow with Strafing because they have similar Cooldowns.

Instant Burst Bind

  1. Ice Spear Bombardment
  2. Judgment Lightning
  3. Zephyr's Nock (Optional)
  • You can always swap Binds used and any DPS skills in any combo. You don't need to be super strict about it.

Freeze

  1. Icebound Tomb
  • This is a fantastic skill that lets you take out enemies from the fight in Arena PvP.

Self-Sustain

  1. Healing Touch
  • This skill alone gives you great sustain in the absence of a Healer.

Tips

  • Always have your Longbow as your main hand weapon so that Anti-magic Arts is active.
  • Always use Frost Smokescreen preemptively to escape from incoming Melee.
  • Stay at maximum Range of targets. You have no easy escapes, so your positioning on the battlefield is paramount to your survival.
  • Pre-buff with Victorious Energy for the extra Hit if you specced High Focus for it.

Stat Priorities

Use the following stat priorities when playing a Longbow / Staff build in PvP:

  • Primary Stats
    • Strength 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 our points based on acquiring these bonuses.

Early Game Gear

In PvP, Hit and survivability are incredibly important. So, with full green gear, you want 30 Perception for 100 extra Hit and 30 Strength for 750 extra Max Health.

Mid Game Gear

The same philosophy with Green Gear still holds true. But now you can reach 50 Perception for the extra 5% Buff Duration and the extra 7.5% Range. 50 Strength is an important breakpoint to hit for the extra 100 Heavy Attack Chance. This should be possible as long as you have both recommended Purple weapons below.

End Game Gear

Your End Game goals are hitting the 60 Perception and 50 Strength breakpoints. 60 Perception provides an additional 120 Hit.

PvP Gear Progression

Acquiring Gear pieces and upgrading them is incredibly expensive and time-consuming. If you enjoy both PvE and PvP content, use these sets for PvE.

If you're interested in PvE Gear Progression, check out our Longbow / Staff PvE Build Guide here!

  • The next time these builds will be revamped entirely will be when T2 Epic gear comes out.
    • No more changes will be made to this gear until T2 gear comes in January or earlier.
    • This doesn't mean I won't add gear.
  • With Material Transmutation out, every piece of accessory is accessible. Thus, the "No Field Boss" gear versions will be archived in the archived tab.

Rune Building Philosophy (Click Me!)

Umbramancer, Toublek, or Talus (Click Me!)

Evasion vs Endurance Philosophy (Click Me!)

Early Mid
Game
End Game
Umbra
End Game
Toublek/Talus
End Game
Melee Evasion
End Game
Evasion
End Game
Archboss
Old Archived
End Game Builds

Early Game Longbow / Staff PvP Build

Mid Game Longbow / Staff PvP Build

Trying to PvP with blues at this stage of the game is asking to get farmed. You want to transition as fast as possible to your Mid Game build. This will let you stand somewhat of a chance against other players until you reach End Game gear.

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 can use a trash blue gear piece and fill it up with cheap traits before transferring it to a purple piece in the same slot.

Transition Blues

  • You don't see many blue accessories here in these builds. That's because most of them are not worth using. Before transferring to a Purple piece, you can fully upgrade and trait out any trash blue accessory.
  • If you want to skip directly to purple armor pieces and weapons, fully upgrade and trait out the cheapest blue you can find.

Your Goals

  • 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.
    • Longbow of the Resistance from Long Ranged Nuisance
    • Staff of the Resistance from Archwizard's Lost Staves
    • Elite Sharpshooter's Cloak from Cloaks that Wield Victory
    • Lethal Fortune Ring from Rustic Mother Nature Rings
  • Craft Recipe: Common Trait Unlockstone Bundle to unlock Traits for your gear.
  • Farm accessible gear by doing Open World Dungeons.
  • Trait those accessible gear.
  • Extract traits from gear to sell in the Auction House for Lucent.
  • Turn valuable gear into Lithographs and sell them in the Auction House.
  • Buy gear and traits with the Lucent you earned.

Traits

  • If transitioning to Purple Gear immediately, fill up a blue item with cheap traits before transferring.

Co-Op Dungeon Sources

  1. Death's Abyss
    • Karnix's Hell Bow
      • You can also pity craft Recipe: Karnix's Netherbow using 2 Dimensional Essence: Salvation instead of relying on RNG.
      • You must do each Co-Op Dungeon at least 5 times to acquire enough tokens to craft 2 Dimensional Essence: Salvation.
  2. Sapphire Dimensional Band
    • Precious Epic Accessory Selection Chest
      • Requires Recipe: Dimensional Essence: Salvation to craft.
      • You must do each Co-Op Dungeon at least 3 times to acquire enough tokens to craft it.
  3. Cursed Wasteland
    • Lethal Fortune Ring
    • Feathered Drakeskin Gloves
  4. Cave of Destruction
    • Bracers of the Primal King

Open World Sources

  1. Corrupt Witch's Hat from Worker Ant in Ant Nest
  2. Duskblood Trousers from Dark Wizard in Shadowed Crypt
  3. Guardian Torque from Dark Shaman in Shadowed Crypt
  4. Staff of the Umbramancer from Avolos Geomancer in Sanctum of Desire
  5. Shadow Harvester Tunic from Avolos Tracker in Sanctum of Desire
  6. Shadow Harvester Boots from Avolos Tracker in Sanctum of Desire
  7. Necklace of Cold Strength from Kastleton Arena Merchant for 9 Arena Coin
  • Rune Synergies here give you the option of sticking with Bracers of the Primal King to hit 70 Perception and increasing your base CC Chance to 450 or using Skillful Charging Bracelet for more Attack Speed. They are interchangeable.

Budget High Hit
Longbow / Staff PvP Build w/ Runes

4-Piece Shadow Harvester High Base Damage
Longbow / Staff PvP Build w/ Runes
Alt: Bracers of the Primal King 70 PER

  • The 4-piece harvester set allows high Max Damage, Range, and Attack Speed.
  • Staff of the Umbramancer allows you to hit 60 Strength and 60 Perception extremely easily.
  • See the Gear Alternatives below for more options.

Defensive and Support Runes

You will see that Max Health is taken for most Defensive Runes slotted in these builds. This is interchangeable depending on what you need and your server meta.

  • Use Ranged Endurance Runes if your server is heavy on Longbow users.
  • Use Magic Endurance Runes if your server is heavy on Staff users.
  • Melee Endurance is not as helpful since you don't have a high base already with traits. If you find that there are a lot of greatsword users, use Max Health.

When you get a Rare Chaos Rune: Ring with a good stat, replace the Support Rune in your Rings.

PvP Stats and Traits

  • Hit Chance, Critical Hit Chance, Heavy Attack Chance, Skill Damage Resistance, Skill Damage Boost, and Endurance are your most important traits.
  • For your accessories, choosing either Collision Chance or Buff Duration is down to preference.
    • Collision Chance is taken mainly for Tornado.
    • Buff Duration will extend the duration of buffs, the most important of which is High Focus and Victorious Energy.
  • You have two options for the 3rd trait of your accessories: Collision Resistance and Debuff Duration.
    • Collision Resistance helps against enemy Collision skills.
    • Use Debuff Duration helps against debuffs.
  • 50%+ Buff Duration allows High Focus to last 6+ seconds longer.
  • Your high Endurance with Distorted Sanctuary is enough to mitigate most unbuffed Ranged and Magic attacks from being Crits.
  • Be careful about your low Mana Regen.
  • Unbuffed, you reach ~1000 Hit Chance with full purple gear.
    • If you specced Victorious Energy for Victorious Energy, you will hit 1400+ Hit Chance.
  • Your Critical Hit Chance is compensated by Sniper's Sense.

Gear Alternatives (Click Me!)

Gear Sources (Click Me!)

  • Rune Synergies here give you the option of sticking with Bracers of the Primal King to hit 70 Perception and increasing your base CC Chance to 450 or using Skillful Charging Bracelet for more Attack Speed. They are interchangeable.

advgb/accordion-item

Offensive Max Damage Build
Longbow / Staff PvP Build w/ Runes

Defensive High Hit Build
Longbow / Staff PvP Build w/ Runes

  • Toublek's Shattering Quarterstaff and Talus's Crystalline Staff are interchangeable.
  • Toublek's Shattering Quarterstaff will give you more CDR, whereas Talus's Crystalline Staff is a great defensive option.
  • You should run the high Hit Chance build on servers with extremely high Evasion.
  • The offensive build is for long-range casting with high CDR for uptime.

Defensive and Support Runes

You will see that Max Health is taken for most Defensive Runes slotted in these builds. This is interchangeable depending on what you need and your server meta.

  • Use Ranged Endurance Runes if your server is heavy on Longbow users.
  • Use Magic Endurance Runes if your server is heavy on Staff users.
  • Melee Endurance is not as helpful since you don't have a high base already with traits. If you find that there are a lot of greatsword users, use Max Health.

When you get a Rare Chaos Rune: Ring with a good stat, replace the Support Rune in your Rings.

PvP Stats and Traits

  • Hit Chance, Critical Hit Chance, Heavy Attack Chance, Skill Damage Resistance, Skill Damage Boost, and Endurance are your most important traits.
  • For your accessories, choosing either Collision Chance or Buff Duration is down to preference.
    • Collision Chance is taken mainly for Tornado.
    • Buff Duration will extend the duration of buffs, the most important of which is High Focus and Victorious Energy.
  • You have two options for the 3rd trait of your accessories: Collision Resistance and Debuff Duration.
    • Collision Resistance helps against enemy Collision skills.
    • Use Debuff Duration helps against debuffs.
  • 50%+ Buff Duration allows High Focus to last 6+ seconds longer.
  • Your high Endurance with Distorted Sanctuary is enough to mitigate most unbuffed Ranged and Magic attacks from being Crits.
  • Be careful about your low Mana Regen.
  • Unbuffed, you reach ~1000 Hit Chance with full purple gear.
    • If you specced Victorious Energy for Victorious Energy, you will hit 1400+ Hit Chance.
  • Your Critical Hit Chance is compensated by Sniper's Sense.

Gear Alternatives (Click Me!)

Armor Sources (Click Me!)

Budget Option

Umbra Longbow / Staff PvP Build w/ Runes

Talus Longbow / Staff PvP Build w/ Runes

  • It is incredibly tough to play Longbow/Staff in high MMR arena. You are the first target people focus and if you don't have enough Melee Evasion, you are essentially griefing your other 2 teammates.
  • You reach 2000+ Melee Evasion with Victorious Energy.
  • Then field general pieces are solely for stats and not the set bonus.

Umbra Longbow / Staff PvP Build

Toublek Longbow / Staff PvP Build

Do not run Evasion on Bow/Staff unless you know other players are not geared on your server or you plan on playing multiple weapons. You do not have Shadow Walker to help buff your Ranged and Magic Evasion either.

  • You reach 1800+ Ranged Evasion and 1800+ Magic Evasion with Victorious Energy.

Bell Longbow / Staff PvP Build w/ Runes

Tevent Bell Longbow / Staff PvP Build w/ Runes

  • Spec the Burning Smokescreen and Use the Designated Location Specializations for Frost Smokescreen. You can proc Queen Bellandir's Hivemind Staff Passive effect with it.
  • These were the old End Game builds before 2-Star Dungeons came out. THEY ARE NOT CURRENTLY BIS.
  • The main difference between the new builds and the old builds is the increased Attack Speed.
  • You can still spec out Rune Synergies for this build. Read the Umbra or Talus tab for more details on rune philosophy.

No Field Boss Longbow / Staff PvP Build w/ Runes

No Field Boss Longbow / Staff PvP Build w/ Runes

Umbra Longbow / Staff PvP Build

Umbra 2 Longbow / Staff PvP Build

Umbra Longbow / Staff PvP Build

Talus Longbow / Staff PvP 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 in both PvE and PvP situations.

  • Lady Knight Kamarshea is a useful Guardian for defense.

Summary

  • If you prefer a long-range playstyle that bombards enemies with skills, Longbow / Staff is the weapon combination for you.
  • Depending on the situation, you have multiple options to customize your skill build.
  • With skills like Judgment Lightning and Flash Wave, Longbow / Staff is the king of AoE.
  • At End Game, you can reach 50 Strength, 60 Perception, and close to 1000 Hit.

Credits

Written by Yaen
Reviewed by Tenkiei and Nymphellas

© 2024 Maxroll Media Group, All Rights Reserved