R. Nergigante Archer Champion Spotlight

With the rise of the Monster Hunter champions in Raid: Shadow Legends, a new hero rises from the ranks of the barbarians seeking to dethrone Teleria’s best champions from the top of the meta. R. Nergigante Archer is an absolute powerhouse of a champion with multiple sources of crowd control, substantial healing and incredible turn meter control.

Whether you are early in your account progression or right at the peak of the end game, there is always a team that this champion will take over and become the best champion in that team. Let’s take a deep dive into this champion.

There are a lot of nuances to Nergigante Archer’s abilities that can fundamentally change the way you utilise her. Let’s summarise her abilities so we know what we are dealing with:

1. Hex Debuff – Rapid Shot (A3) sends out a wave of Hex on all enemies for 2 turns but it is extended to 3 turns against bosses. Hex is incredibly powerful against multiple enemies on wave content and in Boss content such as Hydra. The longer the fight, the better Hex performs taking 10% of all single target and applying it to all targets under Hex (2% for Area of Effect skills).
2. AoE Provoke – Rapid Shot (A3) also applies a provoke ability, the first of her control effects. Considering she is a defence based champion with the ability to also scale her own defence when she is attacked by Hex targets, this makes her an incredibly powerful control tank for wave or boss content. This is especially so in places like Spider or Hydra. The provoke also applies for 2 turns on a booked 3 turn cooldown – making this one of the most reliable provoke abilities in the entire game.
3. Decrease Speed Debuff – Spinning Shot (A2) will apply an AoE decrease speed on bosses which is very powerful in controlling bosses from taking turns. She will also boost turn meter for each enemy she places a decrease speed by 10%. This is per target placement leading to a powerful turn meter boost when there are many boss opponents such as Hydra.
4. AoE Stun – Spinning Shot (A2) will apply her second control debuff, Stun, to all non-boss opponents for 1 turn. Additional she drops their turn meter by 20% increasing the time the enemies remained stunned. This is exceptionally good for places where you need enemies not to take a turn such as Agreth Spidering or spiderlings found in the Spider”s Lair
5. Healing – When Nergigante Archer attacks any Hex target, she will produce a 10% heal (Target Health) for each damaging effect. This means war master can also apply a heal. When she uses either of her AoE abilities this often leads to your entire team fully healing.

Now to maximise her abilities you need to be aware of a few factors. Your healing is dependent on the target you are healing so whilst it’s a consistent percentage (10% per damage) it will show different numbers of your allies have different levels of Health.

Her Spinning Shot (A2) is capable of applying both decreased speed to bosses and stun to non-bosses in one usage but keep in mind you cannot have both on a single target.

Also, the turn meter boost will only apply if she replaces the pre-existing speed debuff or places a new one. This means if speed debuffs currently on the target match or exceeds the duration of her decreased speed then you will not receive any Turn Meter Boost.

Overall these abilities position her as the best crowd control champion you could choose for any team. The healing paired with double control and the bonus damage from Hex makes her a top choice when building your team.

Naturally, you will wonder how best to build her but let’s first look at her best content areas.

Nergigante Archer could take a spot in any team whether it is specialised and speed-tuned for content or whether it is for a general purpose. Such is the power of her abilities and the general utility she brings, you will rarely want to leave your Bastion without her but below are the areas she dominates the most.

When you build a hydra team, you are facing a boss that carries the most amount of mechanics in a single encounter that you must deal with in one team. Whilst you get an extra champion, this is still a tough prospect to cover all of the challenges posed by the six hydra heads. Nergigante Archer is one of those unique champions who can cover a huge amount of problems in one set of skills.

With a 2-turn provoke on a 3-turn cooldown - you will never be at risk of having the Head of Decay taking a turn and removing all debuffs on the hydra heads. She doesn't need books to make this happen either because she is applying the Provoke with a 100% chance unbooked. Alongside this, you also get Hex, the best way to push your damage in your hydra teams to the next level. This is applied with 100% uptime, you will never lose the hex beyond a hydra head becoming decapitated. With this active, all of your damage will constantly be multiplied by the shared damage.

The other essential part of hydra is maximising the windows in which a hydra head is decapitated, or giving yourself the most amount of time to deal damage to remove the consumption effect. Decrease Speed debuff is therefore essential in any Hydra clan boss team you build. Nergigante Archer brings this on a guaranteed chance (when booked) on a 3-turn cooldown for 2 2-turn duration. This makes it incredibly reliable and also will give your team a further turn meter boost up to a potential of 40% if she places all 4 debuffs.

Finally, she self-buffs with an Increase Accuracy on her Charged Shot (A1) ability. This is not a common buff such as Increase Defence or Shield that you would bring to your team making it possible to set her up with more buffs than the rest of your teams. If you then build her with resistance she is perfectly capable of being the Head of Mischief target (who targets the ally with the most buffs and attempts to steal them).

She's an all-in-one solution for 60% of the mechanics of Hydra but beware of her affinity matchups when you build your teams - she will not apply her debuffs should she weak hit.

Control and Healing are the most important aspects of Spider's Lair when you are climbing the stages early or when you need to speed-tune. With a 2-turn provoke, spiderlings will attack your high defence Nergigante Archer and each attack will further increase her own defence up by 30% due to her Passive effects. Then when she has taken enough of a beating, she can follow up with her A2, stunning all spiderlings, placing decreased speed on the boss, dropping the turn meter of stunned spiderlings and boosting your allies' turn meter by 10%. She does this whilst also fully restoring her HP after taking damage from all the spiderlings.

She is likely the best Spidering tank in the game when you build your team as she will never die when built correctly and will be able to control and sustain your team at the same time.

If you have ventured into the realm of the Doom Tower, you will likely have faced some considerably difficult waves with enemy pairings that make your team suffer. Unless you bring multiple reset champions and one-shot the waves with Seer, you will likely need to look towards a control-based team. We normally look towards champions with Stun abilities such as Scyl of the Drakes or Astralon or perhaps we consider freeze champions such as Yakarl the Scourge. Nergigante Archer is a perfect option, bringing provoke effects, hex effects (that help beat down the waves with bonus damage) and stun effects all whilst capable of healing your entire team as you pass through the waves.

She is likely a strong candidate in any team that simply needs to stay alive longer. She is also great with many of the bosses you will find along the way. She can stun the Agreth spiderlings, stopping them from counter-attacking with their poisons and healing the Agreth. She can stun and slow down the Iragoth Allies who apply decreased defence to you. There is no end to her usefulness as you face various changes as you climb.

Nergigante Archer is a rare case for a champion where your cooldowns are good even without books. As you progress you will want to invest books, especially into the A2 ability to guarantee the debuffs but building your champion for content will be significantly easier than most other champions.

In the early game and as you progress through the dungeon stages and doom tower levels, you will be struggling to find many stats. This is because you will be depending on Rank 4-5 gear and fewer sub-stats rolls. The key to this stage of gearing is to hit the accuracy needs you require, prioritise speed and then focus on some base level of defensive stats without focusing on damage. You want your Archer to be staying alive, rotating abilities and keeping your team healthy.

Ideal stat breakpoints for this stage of progression should be:

1. 2,200 - 2,500 Defense
2. 160-180 Speed
3. Accuracy as needed
4. Any bonus stats focussed into HP

You can find your accuracy needs by using our Raid Stages Tool, which contains the details of every content piece in Raid: Shadow Legends including accuracy and resistance requirements. The number in Yellow next to Resistance is the amount of accuracy required to beat that stage.

You will also want to avoid focussing on Artifact Sets at this point and make sure you hit your stat breakpoints.

At this point in progression, you are facing much more challenging content with higher stat requirements. You will be specialising or prioritising your Archer into specific teams and content areas. Additionally, you will have collected a number of artifact sets that you may now consider specific sets to place on your Archer instead of focussing purely on stats. You will want to be prioritising Rank 6 artefacts and accessories and you will want to start pushing higher speeds. You may also consider adding some damage in the form of Critical Rate or Critical Damage stats but only if it doesn't sacrifice her core role of applying her Provokes, Hex and Decrease Speed debuffs.

Ideal stat breakpoints for this stage of progression should be:

1. 4,500 - 6000 Defense
2. 230+ Speed
3. Accuracy as needed
4. Resistance if you require
5. Critical Rate and Critical Damage if your gear can support

In your late-game builds, you may need to avoid enemy effects. The primary example of this is setting up your Archer to be a Mischief Target in Hydra. In this instance you will need to build significantly more resistance. As with accuracy, you can find this in the Raid Stages Tool (it is the Yellow Number next to Accuracy).

In these builds, you will also want to prioritise the following artefact sets:

1. Relentless: Ideal when not using Archer as Mischief Target to rotate back around to her abilities
2. Merciless (6 Pieces): Ideal if you want damage with some skill reduction when you cannot support Extra Turns
3. Guardian: Ideal if you are not building any damage and want to further assist your team
4. Righteous: Ideal for fast builds with Resistance requirements
5. Rathalos (4 pieces with another set): Utilise the 4 set bonus of the Rathalos set to boost her Turn Meter when she performs AoE. With 2 Rathalos Accessories, you can pair with another 4 piece Artifact set such as Relentless or Guardian for maximum effect.

There are few champions with the immense power of R. Nergigante Archer, a champion capable of fully healing your team whilst provoking and stunning your enemies and providing good damage through the Hex Debuff. She will certainly carry every team in any content piece you might face up until the point where you need to start dedicating speed tunes and specific teams for dungeon farming. After this she is probably your best champion in Hydra Clan Boss.

At HH Gaming we have rated Nergigante Archer at 5/5 stars despite her low ratings in Clan Boss, Fire-Knight and the Artifact Ascension dungeons. We believe that such is her power in carrying you through waves, the power of her healing paired and the significant value of a 2 turn provoke in Hydra Clan boss and the Hex debuff, it warrants her a higher overall rating.