Erandunor

3. General Gameplay Strategy

3.1. Key Binds

What follows is my personal use, you can customize your binds as much as you want.
First of all, turn off 'Attack in camera direction' this limits your ability to move around the battlefield
Second, I would advise you to put Ricochet Shot to your first quickslot and Eagle Eye Assault to you fith so the correspond to the bindings of the pop up skill menu. I personally hate this menu. I only use it for the skills 2-4 which I rarely use and therefore didnt earn a slot in my quickslot bar.
Additionally I have my dodge key binded to spacebar. Many people have done this because it makes dodging easier. On Shift I got my artifact and jump is binded to my 4th mouse key (thumb button). Rest I got on Default. There is not much more you need.


3.2. Moving faster and mode switching
Every class has an option to pass through the landscape faster than normal running. For Bow, this combo is very simple. Just spam dodge+Twister Kick in rapid succession. Bow Kai is not the fastest moving class but is not the slowest as well.
When you switch Bow Mode there are quite a few options to switch it. My preferred way to do so is during Twister Kick. You press Tab for Mode Switching and the right klick 2 times for using twister kick 2x in rapid succession. He will switch the mode while performing the first kick and will have a shortened animation time, thus making the second kick to be performed faster.
The other option consist of activating Arrow Storm + Tab for mode switching at the same time and cancelling the Arrow Storm after. If done correctly, Kai will switch modes without any animation. I personally have no use for this way, since normally i do not switch modes during fights. I always enter the combat the mode needed beforehand.


3.3. Damage rotation vs bosses
While fighting bosses, you will always use the Long Bow. Even if you fight small bosses like Iset, Short Bow is never an option. Long Bow is far superior fighting a single boss. It hurts if you miss a few shots, but even with a few shots missed long bow is still stronger than short bow. Especially since long bow's normal attack benefits from speed, while short bow's rapid fire does not. For your main SP gain you will use Fixed Shot. Playing Bow Kai vs Bosses feels like constantly playing Whack-a-Mole. The key skill is not any of your dps skills, as you might expected. It is Hunter's Arrow. This skill is not only important since it increases your damage dealt if hit, it replenishes your stamina as well. Especially with high speed this stamina gain is very important since you easily run out of stamina otherwise. The other important skill is Headshot. The damage increase of headshot is lower than that of Hunter's Eye, but the difference is not that significant. Headshot does not have stamina regeneration, which makes Hunter's Eye superior. The damage skill rotation is not really strict like other classes. Basically, Bow Kai narrows down to 3 skills you use. Fixed Shot, Ricochet Shot and Magnum. Fixed shot is your normal attack, you will always use it when there is no Magnum option available and Ricochet Shot is on cooldown. Ricochet Shot should always be used before Magnum since its execution time and damage gives it the best sp/time/damage ration avaible. Executing your Magnum Shots is a bit difficult. Timing and positioning is the key here. While all 3 mentioned skills benefit from both, Hunter's Eye and Headshot, hitting your marks on Magnums is the key to high dps. Magnum hits up to 4 times, dealing 100%, 50%, 25%, 25% damage. Each of these hits can be multiplied by your passives (Hunter's Eye and Headshot) individually. To showcase the importance of you passives, a magnum's first hit deals 6k damage on average, while this can be boosted by passives and crit to a whopping 36k. I even go this far and consider a Magnum Shot where not at least one multiplier applies, a waste of SP. Sometimes even when perfectly aimed, you will miss the mark, due to unexpected boss movements or flinches. Missshot will always happen! There is no Kai that hits 100% of his arrows on the spot they are aiming for. Magnum also has the option to chain an additional Ricochet Shot, which is independant to Ricochets cooldown increasing Magnum's damage output but increasing its sp costs at the same time. Make sure you always use directional keys together with Fixed Shot, since its moving variant is better than the standing variant.
Additionally I want to say a few words to Arrow Storm, while many consider this a valid DPS-skill I do not. It is unable to trigger you passives and only deals mediocre damage so in any case a Magnum Shot or Ricochet is more useful. There are some special cases where it is useful. Everytime you can hit 2 enemies or 2 parts of the same enemy (Placing it between Kraken head and tentacles for example will hit both or even triple if 2 tents are hit) giving it a really really good option to charge up your sp gauge fast.(It hits 5 times on every enemy, regains 75sp per hit. Sp cost: 500 Regain on single enemy: 375 Regain on double hit: 750 Regain on triple hit: 1025)

3.4. Damage rotation vs normal enemies
Against normal enemies, you will mostly use the Short Bow. Ricochet shot have different effects in Short Bow and Long Bow mode. Long Bow mode is single target orientated, while Short Bow is multiple target orientated. Spam normal arrows + kicks here. Use Ricochet and Arrow Storm to finish off larger groups of enemies





4. Gameplay Advice

4.1. Raids
Dont be a chicken, dont run away too much. Try to have a healthy distance to be able to aim, but dont stand on the other side of the map. Your teammates will appreciate this. Use Prey Drive and Fatal Arrow to stun the enemy, otherwise just focus on DPS.

4.2. Farm Runs
You can help your team with stuns here as well. Kai's skills are awesome to do break offs, so make sure you know which boss has one and where you need to aim to do these.

4.3. Artifacts

Cat Statue:
Grants a solid amount of SP, use this if you have low speed

Werewolf Paw:
Since the revamp it is a must have in my eyes. With sufficient speed, this outweights the Cat Statue by a lot. The effect of the Paw increases, the more speed you got, so its potential is rather unlimited

Succubus Fang:
Good for soloplay to recover hp



Conclusion:
Bow got a pretty straight forward gameplay since the last patch. Due to our XE server he is still lacking, but once we switch out to Pre server, he will become one of the top classes

Note:
Update(16.02.2017): Moved to new Forum and reworked some info, corrected some spelling mistakes. More reworks soon for PRE update
Update(04.07.2016): Since I returned for the revamp, Im still playing occasionally, but by far not that often that I used to, still I thought about updating this guide. Updated notes:
-Rewritten Information to match revamp
-Updated with screenshots
Update(09.12.2015): Starting today I start taking a break from playing Vindictus. The planned (and already being worked on) rework of this guide has been cancelled. Also the post revamp update scheduled for the current Kai revamp has been canceled. As soon as the revamp goes online in EU most info here will be outdated.
Update(11.11.2015): I have some reworks on my todo-list, mainly small stuff and improving visualisation(Adding vids+pics etc) but I havent found time yet. I might do this on my christmas break, still all info written down here is uptodate

Introduction:
I have been thinking about writing a guide about Bow Kai for some time, but I never had the time to spare. For those who dont know me, I want to leave some words about my self. I started Vindictus in 2011 with Evie and moved to Kai due to his release. I had several breaks throughout my time in Vindictus but I pretty much know Kai since the start. His strengths and his weaknesses became well known for me. So I decided to share my expierence to fellow Kais who are trying to learn this class. So lets get started

Table of Contents:

1. Gameplay Basics
- Gameplay Focus
- Important Stats

2. Skills Guide
2.1 Leveling Up/Investing AP
-Important Skills
-Useful Skills
-Skills you should leave at Rank F
2.2 Skill Awakening Guide

3. General Gameplay Strategy
3.1. Keybinds
3.2. Moving faster and mode switching
3.3. Damage rotation vs bosses
3.4. Damage rotation vs normal enemies

4. Gameplay Advice
4.1. Raids
4.2. Farm Runs
4.3. Artifacts



1. Gameplay Basics

Gameplay Focus:
Kai is built all around SP. To manage your SP correctly determines how much damage you deal. He has some great utility skills as well for break offs(BO) and crowd control, giving him the ability to focus on single target dps or cleaning multiple weaker enemies at the same time faster than most meele classes.

Important Stats:
Due to the fact that he is ranged, Kai has to dodge less attacks than other classes in general. This gives you as a player the ability to focus on offensive gear rather than stacking loads of Def. You should find an amount of Def that suits your gameplay. Kai highly relies on crits since all his important attacks have the ability to crit. So for stacking stats of course Attack is the most important one. Vindictus has an Attack cap though, so if you exceed a certain point of Attack your extra Attack becomes useless. In S3 a healthy endgame attack is ruthly around 22k but anything in between 20-23k is fine. In S2 except Kraken Head the cap is at 21k while some raids + all Farm runs are capped at 18k.
Once you reach a sufficient amount of Attack (22k in my opinion) to increase you damage output further you should focus on the side stats being critical(crit), balance(bal) and speed (spd). I have listed them in their order of importance. Some of you reading this probably heard or do have the opinion that speed doesnt matter. I highly disagree here, but we will come to that later on.
As stated earlier, Kai depends on his critical hits, so there is no excuse for a Kai to not have his crit capped or close to capped. Same as Attack, crit has a cap which is at the moment at 130 crit for S3 Raids. I will not go in depth about what boss has how much crit cap, but you should aim for capping crit when you finished your desired gear. This comes right in second after capping Attack.
The next important stat is bal. Since Bows have a high base bal you should aim to keep your bal around 80. In no case a bal under 70 is acceptable. Once you capped crit you can aim for capping bal(90 in any case).
If you finally advanced with your gear as capping Attack, crit and bal and found an amount of Def thats suits you, you can focus on raising your speed. There are a few attacks that do not benefit from attackspeed but you can safely ignore those. But never sacrifice any attack, crit or bal for speed. For example do not use a fast enchant if you would not reach 90 or close to 90 bal.




2. Skills Guide

2.1. Leveling up/Investing AP

Note: Point 2.1. is for beginners, if you are high level already and youre reading this guide continue at 2.2.

Important skills:
When you start this game and look the first time into your skill window, you will probably be overwhelmed where to start.
First, you need to increase you basic stats.

-Strengh Mastery to Rank A

Until rank A this skill is fairly cheap compared to then gain you have from it. After Rank A it becomes very expensive so other skills get a better cost/gain ratio

-Critical Hit keep as high as possible

I stated before why crit is important. Even if the higher ranks seem rather expensive, it still have a fair cost/gain ratio. It increases your crit damage you deal as well. (crit damage is capped at 195% which is reached with 2000str + this skill maxed)

-Combat Mastery keep as high as possible

When you start off playing Kai, in the beginning you will be using a lot of normal attacks rather than smashes, so this skill has more priority over Smash Mastery
-Battle Respiration to Rank C

Battle Respiration gives you the ability to shoot infinte arrows while never running out of stamina. Rank C should be enough for the beginning, if you have stamina problems, raise this skill until they are gone.

-Smash Mastery keep as high as possible

Combat Mastery has a higher priority, but this skill comes close in behind

-Fixed Shot every time you have Sp to spare rank it until A

This skill will become your basic attack against bosses

-Active: Ricochet Shot spend left over AP until Rank A

Whenever you have SP to spare you will be using this

-Magnum Shot spend left over AP until Rank A

Whenever you have Ricochet Shot on Cooldown and SP to spare you will be using this


Ranking the bow specific skills past Rank A makes no sense at start because the cost/gain ratio gets too low


Useful Skills:
These Skills are important too, but have a lesser priority than the ones listed above

-Willpower Mastery until Rank A

Wilpower raises your crit, but the gain is too low. Critical Hit is better in any case

-Headshot until Rank A

Make sure that regardless what you do, always aim for the head.

-Meditation maxed out

If you plan on playing Kai for longer this skill will always pay off. The AP you invest here you will gain back rather soon and from that point on its free AP

-Hunter's Eye until Rank A

Hunter's Eye gives you marks on your Enemy that increases your damage, if you hit the mark. Aiming for the head is far more reliable, but if the head is out of reach, make sure you try to go for these marks.

-Standing Endurance until Rank 9

At Rank 9 you can get up instantly while downed. After that this skill has no more to offer

-Life Flare just rank with spare SP

You totally messed up. All went wrong. This is a survival skill that keeps you alive with 1HP when you should be dead

-Strafe Shot until Rank A

You will be using short bow mode while fighting normal enemies, so increasing you attack speed while spamming arrows is nice

-Twister Kick until Rank A

It can be a useful addition to your dodge, you wont use it a lot, though

-Bow Mastery + Armor Masteries rank as needed (Armor Advise)

I shouldnt need to tell you why Bow Mastery is important. About Armors. I would adwise you to rank plate +light armor. Before lvl60 it doesnt really matter what you wear. At lvl60 I would advise you to go for Exquisite Black Hammer +Swift Combo (Swift Boots + Gloves, rest EBH) at lvl70 you switch out the swift parts for apocryphal. You can also consider switching the tunic to apocryphal as well. This provides you decent stats+def while saving AP using only plate armor.
If you think you do not need Def, you can combine Raider's Armor(light armor) into your set, but need use more than 2 armor sets as once because you will loose the set bonus otherwise. On lvl80 you should switch out the Exquisite Black Hammer parts for any lvl80 armor you like, you will switch out your armor at level90 anyway so do not put much effort in your lvl80 set. A scrolled Master es on your tunic is a must have though. Its quite cheap, doesnt bind, can be scrolled without using a rune and gives really good stats. At lvl90 there are quite a few options you can go for. In my opinion, using Terminus Sentinel Head+Tunic+Pants is a must have. You can start off buying pink gear and later on exchange the materials in your armor for orange parts without the need to buy entirely new armor parts. Important here is to check for the max echant level on the pink main part, since some even allow you to scroll Rank 8 scrolls without the need to get orange parts. For rank 7 scrolls a orange main part is mandatory. For the beginning, scrolling well-balanced/enthu (enthu can be replaced with deadly, depending on your needs) on your Head+Pants is the way to go. For the tunic, well-balanced master is the way to go. This wont even change later on, while youre open to replace the well-balanced on your head+pants with an enlightment es later on. For the shoes and gloves its important that those armor parts match up with your weapon. It doesnt matter which set you choose, but all three parts(Weapon+Shoes+Gloves) should be the same set.


Skills you should leave at Rank F unless you already maxed out everything above
-Gale Kick

Only use of this skill is to pick up enemies. Handy, but no reason to rank it with priority

-Rapid Fire

There is not a single instance, where you should be using this skill

-Prey Drive

Prolonging a stun is awesome, but its not a skill meant to deal damage, so ranking it is waste of AP

-Active: Arrow Storm

It has its uses against large groups of enemies or multiple bosses, but still not a main dps skill. so its wasted AP

-Active: Dodge Grapple

While this is very useful as your panic button, spending AP here is a complete waste. It cost 1600AP from Rank F to Rank 6 but increases its range by routhly 2meters. This AP is better spent elsewhere

-Active: Chain Link

In my opinion this skill is basically useless. Too high SP cost for too short duration. Doesnt get better if you rank it.

-Active Eagle Eye Assault

This skill was good in the past, the revamp rendered it useless. Waste of SP

-Non-Stinger

This skill hurts more that it helps, better is just to release the charging magnum and to dodge manually.

-Active: Fatal Arrow

Nicknamed 'Baby Arrow' this holding skill doesnt deal decent damage. Ranking doesnt help, better spend your AP elsewhere

-All Crossgun related skills
Nothing hurts going hybrid. But only once you finished maxing out one class completely



2.2. Awakening Guide
In my opinion, for regular runs and raids awakening is a waste of time and money. Neamhain is the only boss in the game where I would recommend to awken skills. I will list both my advices and personal choices here.
I will only list skills that have the option to be awakened

Rapid Fire:
Useful Options: Damage Increase
Only other option is knockdown, so you dont have much choice here, better not use awakening here at all

Fixed Shot:
Useful Options: Damage Increase
Main Normal Attack. No more explanations needed

Gale Kick:
Useful Options: Damage Increase
Same as Rapid Fire

Twister Kick:
Useful Options: Damage Increase
Better not awken this skill at all, you will be using it for moving, so its awakening gauge will eat up like no tomorrow

Active: Ricochet Shot:
Useful Options: Damage Increase
Main Damage Rotation skill.

Magnum Shot:
Useful Options: all
Personal Choice: Damage Increase
Main Damage Rotation skill. SP reduction allows you to non-stop spam it, making it a tempting option, I was using it quite some time, but the constant blowback started to annoy me, so you are somewhat rendered immobile and since positioning is important, you will end up doing lower dps. Magnum has a high knockdown rate, so if you like, you can increase knockdown rate to increase its utility.

Prey Drive:
Useful Options: Damage Increase
Can only be used on a downed boss making Knockdown Rate completly useless

Active: Arrow Storm:
Useful Options: all
Personal Choice: SP consumption
I only use this skill to quickly fill up my sp gauge. To do this, you need at least 2 targets in its area. So I chose SP Reduction for the ability to have more sp for other uses at hand. It has a high knockdown rate, so increasing it, can prove a viable option as well

Active: Chain Link:
Useful Options: all
Personal Choice: SP consumption
While reducing its rather long cooldown is a viable option, I choose to reduce the SP costs for the same reason as Arrow Storm

Active: Eagle Eye Assault:
Useful Options: all
Personal Choice: SP consumption
After the last revamp this skill is useless.

Active: Fatal Arrow:
Useful Options: Damage Increase
Same reason as Prey Drive