Forsaken Archer

[[Empr]Rean]

Rean's Guide to the Forsaken Archer

Hero Description
Forsaken archer is a unique S2 hero. She is very versatile hero and fits in pretty much any lineup. Depending on what your team needs,she can carry,she can push,she can gank. This also gives a big variety in item choice,but we'll talk about this later on.


Pros and Cons

Pros/Strengths:

• AOE root.
• Decent attribute gain.
• Good attack animation.
• Great pushing/DPS abilities (Split Fire, Call of the Damned)
• Can apply modifiers from items on multiply targets at once.
• High damage AOE ultimate
  

Cons/Weaknesses:

• No escape/chase ability.
• Channeling ultimate requires good positioning and timing
• A bit squishy (just like any other Agility hero)
  

Base Stats

Strength: 17 + 1.7 per level
Agility: 22 + 2.5 per level (Main attribute)
Intelligence: 17 + 1.8 per level

Damage: 44 - 50
Armor: 2.08
Movement Speed: 305
Attack Range: 600

Skills

• Crippling Volley
  
  The Forsaken Archer fires a Volley of barbed arrows high into the sky, dispersing them over an area and pinning any enemy caught in their path to the ground.
  
  Type: Magic
  Range: 800
  Radius: 200
  Cast Time: 0.8 Seconds
  Mana Cost: 95 / 110 / 125 / 140
  Cooldown: 10.0 Seconds
  
  Applies Crippling Volley to all enemies in the radius for 1 / 1.5 / 2 / 2.5 seconds.
  Deals 85 / 150 / 215 / 250 Magic damage.
  
  Crippling Volley effect:
  Immobilized
  
  This is your trademark skill. A pretty neat root with a good duration time.
  Not that easy to hit with, but if it does, your enemy will be in a big trouble.
  Possible to do an animation-cancel (described below).
  
  
• Split Fire
  
  By drawing even more from the stolen souls she keeps trapped in her quiver, the Forsaken Archer is able to fire arrows that split into parts, striking multiple targets.
  
  On Attack
  Splits attack into 3 separate attacks. Main target takes 100% damage,while 2 others take 14 / 21 / 28 / 35% damage.
  
  Your farming/pushing skill. Useless early/mid game. With recent buffs SUPER USEFUL in teamfights.
  
  
• Call of the Damned
  
  With the cursed powers bestowed on her by the Hellbourne, the Forsaken Archer is able to bring the soulless bodies of her victims back from the dead to fight by her side as skeletal warriors.
  
  Activation
  Switches Call of the Damned to store up skeletons to be summoned later (when un-toggled), rather than spawning them instantly.
  Switching this ability will kill any active skeletons.
  
  On Kill
  Creates an uncontrollable Skeletal Minion that will follow and assist the Forsaken Archer. Does not propagate to illusions.
  
  Skeletal Minions:
  - Have 20 max health
  - Deal 14 / 20 / 26 / 32 to 20 / 26 / 32 / 38 Physical damage per attack
  
  Skeletal Minions last 30 seconds and only 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 can be alive at a time.
  -Each skeleton gives 5 gold and 5 exp when he is killed by enemy hero
  
  
  
  
• Piercing Arrows
  
  Fueled by the rage in her heart, the Forsaken Archer fires Piercing Arrows that fly straight through her target, striking any other enemies in its path behind them before it finally dissipates.
  
  Type: Magic
  Range: 625
  Radius: 175
  Channeling Time: 4.1 Seconds
  Mana Cost: 100 / 200 / 300
  Cooldown: 120.0 Seconds
  
  Activation
  Shoots a Piercing Arrow every .5 seconds that travels 1300 units at 1150 speed.
  Any enemy hit takes 75 / 150 / 225 Magic damage per arrow.
  Any enemies behind the first have the damage reduced by 10% per target hit.
  
  While channel is active, any skeletal minions will automatically attack enemies within a 600 radius of self.
  
  Devastating ultimate that can turn the game around when used in time. Good timing and positioning are the key to success in a teamfight.

Skill Order:
1. Call of the Damned / Crippling Volley
2. Crippling Volley / Call of the Damned
3. Crippling Volley
4. Call of the Damned
5. Crippling Volley
6. Piercing arrows
7. Crippling Volley
8. Call of the Damned
9. Call of the Damned
10. Split Fire
11. Piercing arrows
12-14. Split Fire
15. Stats
16. Piercing arrows
17-25. Stats

Explanation:

• Crippling Volley is leveled ASAP because it is your only nuke and disable.
• Split Fire is useless early because of big damage reduction when your damage is weak as well. Skip until mid game.
• Call of the damned is your bread and butter skill. Helps staying in lane, has synergy with your volley also helps harassing and pushing if needed.
• Piercing arrows is leveled on chance for damage improvement.

The biggest problem with Forsaken Archer's skills is that she doesn't have any scaling abilities. It means that she will lose to hard carries like Sand Wraith.

Skill usage

• Crippling Volley
  
  This skill has a 0.8 cast animation. If you get stunned during cast time, skill cancels. Also you can cancel it manually as was described in hero overview. While cast range is 800,effective range is 1025. Abuse it to the max,arrows+ultimate out of nowhere result in a kill most of the times during early/mid game.
  
  Animation cancel trick:
  Press Q,left click and fast-hit STOP hotkey (Default hotkey is S). When you do this,animation plays but skill itself doesnt trigger. You can annoy people with this trick since they wont know if its real or fake cast.
  
  
• Split Fire
  First of all,guide to split fire items proc by Norroar.
  
  Its a great skill when you are pushing a lane,creep waves die way faster. But its not the only use for this skill.
  
  In team battles use this skill to apply your attack modifier on multiply targets when you have shieldbreaker or frostwolf/frostburn.
  If there are no creeps around and/or you have a long AOE disable while your ult is on cooldown-this skill just shines.
  
  
  
  It can be used when you are chasing multiply heroes,if you have frostwolf you are able to slow them all with just 1 attack.
  
  
  
• Call of the Damned
  Last hit to summon them from dead bodies/accumulate charges. They copy your actions. You attack-they attack. You hold position-they do too. Useful harassment/killing/pushing tool early/mid game. When you channel your ultimate they automatically attack targets in 600 range in front of hero so they wont stay idle while you pull off your ultimate.
  Landing a volley when u have 4-5 skeletons early game means enemy hero is about to lose near 1/2 hp unless he have a stun.
  
  
• Piercing Arrows
  
  Piercing arrows is a devastating ultimate. It has a pretty wide radius (175) and a damn good range (1300). It can be deadly if you get a lot of enemies in straight line, but if they are spread or moving, ultimate is losing its efficiency because it's a channeling ability so to reach its full potential you need to have an enemy constantly stunned. Your root only holds for 2.5 seconds, while ultimate lasts for 4.
  In team battles cast volley and pull off ultimate immediately without waiting for arrows to land. With doing this trick you are winning another 0.5sec of disable getting guaranteed three seconds of painful damage (+1 wave). This ultimate works well with AoE disables, like Chronosphere, Elemental Void etc.
  On level 6-10 it can be used to clear big creep waves because of rather small cooldown (120 seconds) and small damage. Also team battles doesn't happen often so early.
  
  

Items

Starting Items:

• 1x Duck Boots - 150
• 3x Minor totem - 153
• 2x Runes of Blight - 180
• 2x Mana Potion - 100

Total Cost: 583 Gold

Pretty standard, nothing more to say there. Duck boots+minor totems give you base damage for last-hitting,runes and mana potion provide you both hp and mana regen,so you can play aggressive in lane


Core Items:
+

• 1x Homecoming Stones - 135
• 1x Power Supply - 519
• 1x Boots of your choice - ***

• Power supply will save your life pretty often when you are escaping. Charges give you enough mana for that last life-saving Crippling Volley. Highly Recommended.
• Remember always to carry Homecoming Stones. 135 gold can save your life.

Boots choice:

• :Steamboots: are carry boots. They give you +10 to selected attribute,+25 attack speed and +60 movespeed. Since carry should kill heroes instead of chasing ppl all over the map,its a perfect choice. Forsaken is quite squishy so extra HP is needed (You should ALWAYS have this boots set to STR mode early/mid game because of HP it gives) Attack speed is very helpful aswell. I highly recommend to get this boots.
• :EnhancedMarchers: are ganker boots. They give +24 damage and +70 movespeed. When activated gives you another +12% movespeed bonus. If you want high movespeed then these boots are perfect choice for you. But since they dont provide any survivability you might find yourself being too easy to kill.
• :PostHaste: are pusher boots. They give +95 movespeed and insane mobility. You might want to get them if you are getting really farmed and need more map control/mobility.

Items Afterwards::

Semi-Carry build :
and if there are lots of stuns/disables

Split Frostburn into
+
and finish your build with

• Frostburn is totally awesome for its cost and has synergy with split fire
• Geometers is the best item for ranged AGI heroes,hands down.
• Shrunken head saves your life in a teamfights by making you immune to all magic damage.
• Frostwolf is awesome because of cool looking useful orb and stats it gives. and again,it has synergy with split fire.
• Savage mace is amazing with split fire aswell.

Situational Items:

• Get nullfire as a counter to several heroes such as Hellbringer, Jeraziah, Hammerstorm + it helps chasing and escaping. Also benefits from split fire.
• Get nullstone if you are sick and tired of that painful single target spells.

Rejected items:

• You dont want charged on 800hp hero. No really,you dont.
• Shieldbreaker - Same reason as above.
• While Brutalizer does work with split fire, it has a two sec cooldown, which means if it procs on one arrow, it wont work on others 3.
• Never ever buy shroud. You have 800 range skill and 1300 range ultimate, you don't need stealth.
• Yet again, riftshards is pure dps with 0 survivability. FA cant afford it.
• I've never been a fan of lifesteal on FA.

General Gameplay

Early game (Levels 1-10)
Forsaken Archer can go both mid and side lane. Your task is to last-hit and deny as much as possible,gathering gold for your core items. Set your Call-of-the-Damned on "Gathering souls" and farm. On level 3 you can try to root a careless melee hero. If you do hit him with Crippling Volley spawn skellies asap and watch them killing your opponent. Depending on the situation and your role (ganker or carry) you should either farm like there is no tomorrow or search for an opportunity to gank. Dont forget that you are a great pusher and your skeletons just eat towers for breakfast. Destroy 1st line of towers, gain fast gold/territory advantage over enemy team and proceed to mid game.

Mid game (Levels 11-15)
Mid-late game your task is to gank with team, help them with root and pull off your ultimate on chance. You should be pretty farmed already. Proceed to farm and push lanes. In teamfights always remember to position yourself properly so your ultimate can do the biggest damage possible. Your skellies drop effectivness a bit but they still eat towers. Push and destroy 2nd line of towers.

Late game (Levels 16-25)
Now all your farm pays off. You should have a plenty of hp and damage by now. Time for a final push! Your ultimate is still devastating and can destroy enemy team. Carry your team to the win!

Allies


Long AOE disables are your best friends. They make sure your ultimate will wreck enemy team. What can be better than unloading 1800 magic damage in AOE on level 16?

Enemies

Interrupters and hard carries are your walking nightmares. They will make your ultimate useless and outcarry you late game. Watch out for them.

Replays
LOAD InHouse.26 mins
Another LOAD InHouse, FA goes hard carry build. 58mins long
Another high-lvl game,38mins long

Credits
Thanks to all IRC guys for helping me and providing feedback
Big thanks to pk_thunder for his contributions and support to this guide.

[[AoS]Extreme_Cake]

You aren't being fair to call of the damned, it can really help you dominate a lane.

[Skull4er]

its only usefull to kill engineers gadgets, or to push towers, however, in a lane it is one of the worst skills, cause you do not want to push, but thats exactly the thing that happens if you take this skill.

[Rygus]

somewhat off-topic: what's the name of the mod that shows the casting bar?

[lLOlBO]

somewhat off-topic: what's the name of the mod that shows the casting bar?

it isnt a mod, its in the options :P

[Dataslycer]

The skeleton don't really attack unless you attack-command forsaken archer and can actually help you pull the creep line back by command-attacking a 33% hp creep.

[Hi]

Hack n Slash is also viable in my opinion.

Same skill build but

Power SUpply, 2x soul scream, EM's, hack n slash , then tclaw or sbreaker.

[Lethe]

This isn't actually 2 bad.

Skill build is dead on, but I would recommend getting whispering helm.

Dominate creep, stack ancients, and then blow them away with crippling volley and piercing arrows.

FA is actually probably the best ancient stacker, even if she needs her ult to do it. Doesn't change the idea of her being a mediocre hero, but it's an aspect of her that should be looked at.

[[E]Tripwyr]

Ugh, I don't know where to start. No chasing ability? What do you call your long range blind immobilize? Call of the Damned is outstanding for harassment and lane control.

Frostwolf skull is probably one of the best items for her. This will come as a huge surprise to you, but dealing maximum damage is not always the goal. Forsaken Archer's split arrow gives her the potential to provide so much control to the fight, not utilizing it would be retarded.

I can't imagine what compelled you to post this.

[Lethe]

Ugh, I don't know where to start. No chasing ability? What do you call your long range blind immobilize? Call of the Damned is outstanding for harassment and lane control.

Frostwolf skull is probably one of the best items for her. This will come as a huge surprise to you, but dealing maximum damage is not always the goal. Forsaken Archer's split arrow gives her the potential to provide so much control to the fight, not utilizing it would be retarded.

I can't imagine what compelled you to post this.

Chasing is only viable if you are the victor of a fight. Seeing how FA has piss poor hp, no escape mech, and an ult that is both channeling and almost useless in a team fight, you realistically should be worrying about just surviving a team fight, much less chasing any survivors.

The OP is actually right. CotD is one of the most useless skills I have ever seen. Skeletons do not provide any real meaningful lane control. Split shot should be **** too, thank god for the engine of S2 or this skill would be delayed until level 18.

And finally, her ult with huge damage potential but realistically that rarely ever happens unless you have something like a kraken or a tempest. Not to mention it is channeling. They should just rename the skill to "go stack ancients and use this skill to farm in hopes that you can carry LOL".

Any real carry will shred through FA with ease. SW, Magebane, Zephyr, Madman, tDL, Puppet Master, Maliken, Swiftblade, Chronos and even heroes that aren't typically really recognized as carries like Wretched Hag, Pestilence, Corrupted Disciple and Blood Hunter.

People are really overestimating this hero. She is ****. She can farm an insane amount of gold, but its a shame since she can't actually carry even if she has farmed alot, and I know this from experience from playing against ridiculously farmed FAs with any of the heroes I listed above.

[[Empr]Rean]

Frostwolf skull is probably one of the best items for her. This will come as a huge surprise to you, but dealing maximum damage is not always the goal. Forsaken Archer's split arrow gives her the potential to provide so much control to the fight, not utilizing it would be retarded.

Try both builds in actual game, you would see how superiour is shieldbreaker compared to frostwolf

Volley will never help you to chase a target in 500-600+ range between you. Fly time is 2 seconds, your volley range is 950 (800+150). In this 2 seconds he can move sideway,he can outrun it. You would almost never hit your volley when you are chasing someone

added skill usage section
moved frostwolf to possible items and added Whispering at same category.

[[RUOK]CJ]

Try both builds in actual game, you would see how superiour is shieldbreaker compared to frostwolf

Volley will never help you to chase a target in 500-600+ range between you. Fly time is 2 seconds, your volley range is 950 (800+150). In this 2 seconds he can move sideway,he can outrun it. You would almost never hit your volley when you are chasing someone

added skill usage section
moved frostwolf to possible items and added Whispering at same category.

In practice i've caught a lot of runners right on the edge of arrows after routing a push. When it's level 4 it's surprising what you can hit.

Archer is my current favourite hero. Early game she has a great attack animation and ability to gank with arrows, mid game she is a great pusher and farmer with skeletons and late game she does a crazy amount of dps in teamfights by applying shieldbreaker and savage mace procs across their entire team. She's not as good a carry as magebane or madman but she adds great utility to a team. I'm not that fond of her ult though. Early/mid game you can use it in a team fight to scare them off but in all other cases autoattacking seems to be better.

[Qe]

Ugh, I don't know where to start. No chasing ability? What do you call your long range blind immobilize? Call of the Damned is outstanding for harassment and lane control.

Frostwolf skull is probably one of the best items for her. This will come as a huge surprise to you, but dealing maximum damage is not always the goal. Forsaken Archer's split arrow gives her the potential to provide so much control to the fight, not utilizing it would be retarded.

I can't imagine what compelled you to post this.

Haha moderators here have no mercy eh?

[Artemiye]

Ugh, I don't know where to start. No chasing ability? What do you call your long range blind immobilize? Call of the Damned is outstanding for harassment and lane control.

Frostwolf skull is probably one of the best items for her. This will come as a huge surprise to you, but dealing maximum damage is not always the goal. Forsaken Archer's split arrow gives her the potential to provide so much control to the fight, not utilizing it would be retarded.

I can't imagine what compelled you to post this.

I'm going to quote a previous poster, agree with him, then leave this fail thread alone.

Some people will just...never understand.

[[LC]pk_thunder]

I'm going to quote a previous poster, agree with him, then leave this fail thread alone.

Some people will just...never understand.

I like the fact that that post was around 10 patches ago (aka 6 months)

nice fail

[Woolygimp]

Why are there idiots in this thread saying that Frostburn is better than Frostwolf?

Frostwolf has a -20% attack speed reduction and 30% snare which you can land on the entire enemy team with split arrows, which is a huge help in team fights.

It's basically a -20% to auto attack damage to the entire enemy team.

What does Frostburn give you? More movement speed? Plz.

Bad guide.

[Twiggie]

Why are there idiots in this thread saying that Frostburn is better than Frostwolf?

Frostwolf has a -20% attack speed reduction and 30% snare which you can land on the entire enemy team with split arrows, which is a huge help in team fights.

It's basically a -20% to auto attack damage to the entire enemy team.

What does Frostburn give you? More movement speed? Plz.

Bad guide.

frostburn into geo's and frostwolf. followed by two of charged hammer, rifts and savage mace.

[[LC]pk_thunder]

Why are there idiots in this thread saying that Frostburn is better than Frostwolf?

Frostwolf has a -20% attack speed reduction and 30% snare which you can land on the entire enemy team with split arrows, which is a huge help in team fights.

It's basically a -20% to auto attack damage to the entire enemy team.

What does Frostburn give you? More movement speed? Plz.

Bad guide.

this is outdated... (frostburn nerf was bad)

and idk if u understand this or not but frostwolf require u to farm a 2.1k item and 1.2k item

I mean don't u just love money hoarding?

[crazysheep]

Shieldbreaker synergizes with Split Fire, helping to debuffing every enemy unit hit. But Frostwolf gives HP and slows for you to launch Crippling Volley and ulti. I'd say it's entirely situational in this case, both might work just as well.

[Addfwyn]

I don't think people understand the AI for the skels properly, and assume that they are gonna push your lane early game.

The skels attack what you do, they basically mimic your hero's commands. As a result, you should be treating them as an extension of yourself. They aren't targetted by creeps or towers if there is any other priority, which makes them amazing for harassing melee heros that come in to last hit early game.

Yes they are more situational against enemy ranged heros, but they often can be an effective distraction as well. I've used them to make enemy heros focus more on the skels than last-hitting creeps. They only give 5 gold each, so if you can make them miss even one creep to kill a skel, you'll be a fair bit ahead of them.

You just need to be properly aware of how the skels behave in response to your commands, they do NOT just attack like your team's neutral creeps. They will not push the lane unless you specifically are using them to push the lane.

Her ult is very powerful in the right matchups. With any kind of aoe disable/immobilize it can be very powerful. Conveniently, she has an aoe immobilize that lasts more than half the duration of her ult. Timed properly, you can start the ult before the aoe lands, immobilize them, and finish the entire ult WITHOUT team support. The team support just makes it even easier.

I think FA is really underrated because of the fact that she came out at the same time as a very OP hero. She's one of my favourite new heros to play, cause she handles a lot differently (and just looks totally awesome).

EDIT: That said, I do think the ult's radius needs to be buffed ever so slightly, and maybe scale with a Staff as well.