Archer Best Builds, Teams & Relics

Character Explanation

Archer's Gameplay is focused around his Skill Caladbolg II: Fake Spiral Sword. Archer can use his Skill up to five times in a single turn, each time costing 2 Skill Points and dealing very high Single Target damage.

Archer gains a stacking Skill DMG % boost after each Skill to boost the damage of additional casts (maximum of 2 stacks, 3 with Eidolon 6). This DMG buff incentivises spending as many Skill Points in a single turn as you can to maximise the effect of this buff.

Archer will often use his Basic ATK if the team will not overcap Skill Points before his next turn to funnel them into a stronger burst turn resulting in more damage overall.

Archer will recover a Skill Point for every Follow-up ATK launched by his talent Mind's Eye (True) and he will gain 2 Charge from his Ultimate Unlimited Blade Works. He will also gain one stack of Charge upon entering combat from his A4 Trace Hero of Justice and one from his Technique.

Build Advice

The most important thing to do while building Archer is to cap his CRIT Rate. Archer receives a significant boost to CRIT DMG from his A6 Trace Guardian making CRIT Rate by far his most efficient stat.

After capping your CRIT Rate you should try to acquire as many CRIT DMG substats as possible but do not ignore ATK % substats. A decent rule of thumb when gearing is that each ATK % roll is worth approximately 0.8 CRIT DMG roll.

Archer does not invest in SPD as the value of his turns is lower compared to other characters. Archer prefers to increase the quality of his turns over increasing the quantity. If Archer is slower he will have more Skill Points available per turn on average because other characters on the team will continue to generate them at the same rate. Archer will also be able to invest in other offensive stats in place of SPD further increasing the quality of his turns. By running ATK % boots Archer gains an additional 43.2 ATK % which is a very big damage gain.

An Energy Regeneration Rate rope is not ideal for Archer because it loses too much ATK % to be efficient. The Energy Regeneration Rope does not provide enough extra damage from the Ultimates and their Follow-up ATKs to be worth it.

Sparkle Teams

Sparkle increases the maximum available Skill Points for the team which makes it possible to store more Skill Points between Archer's turns letting him do bigger and more efficient bursts. Do not use Sparkle's Ultimate The Hero with a Thousand Faces if it will overcap Skill Points when cast or before you get to Archer's turn. The easiest way to avoid wasting Skill Points is to use it just before Archer's Turn if you have less than 5 SP or during his turn between his Skills.

When playing Sparkle alongside another Action Advance unit like Sunday we suggest having the other Action Advance unit out SPD Sparkle and using your Basic ATK on Archer after the first Action Advance, then using the your Skill Burst combo after Sparkle's advance while you have all of the buffs from both units.

Advance Teams without Sparkle

Archer teams without Sparkle are completely viable and are not much weaker than Sparkle Teams although you lose significant Quality of Life by having a lower Skill Point Cap. We suggest using either Sunday or Robin as the replacement for Sparkle as these units provide the best buffs and do not use Skill Points for their Action Advances.

Without Sparkle you will often only get two Skills in a single turn instead of three because if you had used your Basic ATK you would have overcapped Skill Points before Archer's next turn which would cost more damage than having worse turns. This is especially noticeable if you use Bronya as she uses a Skill Point for her Action Advance making it even less likely you will have the Skill Points for 3 total skills without careful play.

No Action Advance Teams

Teams with no Action Advance units at all are also viable. When playing without an Action Advance unit you still do not want to intentionally build SPD on Archer as it does not provide a significant damage increase to the team per point.

The best supports for no advance teams are units that boost Archers damage with buffs or debuffs without using a significant amount of skill points like Remembrance Trailblazer or Tribbie. Other units that are powerful are units that provide debuff based amplification like Cipher or Silver Wolf as Archer's kit provides him with significant amounts of DMG % making more traditional supports worse.
Remembrance Trailblazer has been included in this category despite having an Action Advance because it is not as consistent as supports who have one as a direct Skill or Ultimate.