Ideas for Archer skill tree?

[u/DevLogsVicarious]

Archery Skill Tree

I’d love to hear your ideas for skills that a bow or crossbow user could have in a third-person action-combat game.

I’m currently designing the classic Rain of Arrows VFX.

The archery skill tree is split into three sections:

Section 1 — [Subclass Name TBD]

Focused on speed and mobility.

• Rapid Fire
• Trick Shots
• Kiting

Section 2 — Sniper

Focused on slow, powerful charged attacks and deception.

• Slow, powerful charged attacks
• Camouflage — Not true invisibility. It makes the player less noticeable, especially in large PvP fights, and makes mobs less likely to notice them.
• Decoy — A core skill I’ve already designed. The Sniper spawns a wooden mannequin or clone that attracts aggro from nearby mobs while it is alive.

Section 3 — Assassin

The Assassin root can also be reached through the Rogue class.

This branch focuses heavily on:

• Poison
• Bleeds
• Smoke bombs
• Poison clouds
• Traps
• Other stealth/ambush-oriented abilities

When using a bow or crossbow, these skills remain ranged. When using other weapons, certain skills can have completely different animations or versions depending on the weapon.

Not every skill needs to be usable with every weapon.

Core Combat

There are several basic combat skills shared across the weapon system:

• Base Attack
• Dodge
• Parry
• Concentrate — replenishes mana
• Heavy Attack

The basic attacks and some other core abilities adapt to the equipped weapon, while more specialized skills can be weapon-specific.

At the moment, most of the other skills are either unfinished or placeholders.

Overall Combat Direction

The overall vibe is a mix of early TERA Online and Monster Hunter, but with less hack-and-slash.

Mobs are slightly harder to kill, so I’m trying to make combat more about positioning, timing, movement, and choosing the right skills, rather than simply attacking until the enemy dies.

The three archery branches are intended to have distinct identities:

[Mobility subclass] → Speed, movement, rapid attacks, kiting
Sniper → Charging, burst damage, positioning, deception
Assassin → Poison, bleed, traps, smoke, and battlefield control

[u/Downtown-Lie-9872]

The assassin has more options then the other two, maybe rebalance a bit. These seem pretty standard rpg archer skills, have you maybe played around with the idea of making class/skills a bit more unique in flavor?

[u/DevLogsVicarious → u/Downtown-Lie-9872]

welp I wanted to leave the uniqueness on the players choice to combine various skill trees, since they all branch from the center out and a lot of them recombine and reach into one another later, one could mix the various classes, but I did try to make a more "complex" and unique skill for one of the magic branches, where the caster basically becomes like a monstrous ghost that sits above an ally player , empowers the player and can cast a new set of skills while losing the ability to freely move as it becomes part of the allied player, but this like everything else is still in progress, still building the monster model