Archery is a stand put playstyle no matter the game. An archer build in Grounded 2 feels rather familiar, except with a few extra effect to throw in due to the enemy weakspot and weakness design. We;ll give you the lowdown on how to make a Stealth Archer builds in Grounded 2 for those sweet stealthy takedowns against powerful foes.

Stealth Archer Build¶

The general idea of the archer build in Grounded 2 is to use Charged shots to enhance your damage, then aim for a Weakpoint on a creature, all the while using stealth. The damage modifications for stealth critical hits, followed by charged shot enhancements via gear sets and items, along with other modifiers makes for some very safe and powerful damage.

When stealth is not an option, you can still do some nasty damage. You also retain your Charged Shot modifiers and weak points (if the enemy has any), which makes the build still rather effective.

Mutations:¶

• Sharpshooter: Increases your critical hit chance with charged bow shot by 5/10/15%, depending on tier of the mutation. Final tier also gives you Perfectly charged bow show damage increase by 10%
• Ambush: You’re after it for the Ambush gear perk, which gives you crits against enemies unaware of your presence, the other perks are for rogue dagger builds.
• Trapper PEEP.R: If you can get lucky and get 25 gold cards by peeping at creatures, you can take this mutation as it gives you 20% more crit damage. Take this as a third active mutation via the Milk Molar upgrades.

The general idea is that with the mutation, you want to modify your charged shot to deal better critical hit chance and the Perfect draw charged hits to deal more damage. It essentially is about increasing your base damage, and making your critical hits even beefier.

Then Ambush helps to land those critical hits while stealthing around, ensuring your Sharpshooter crit damage applies. A weakspot Charged shot hit while guaranteed to crit is a very powerful burst damage hit.

Trapper is a nice third mutation for players who can unlock it with a lot of Peep luck on their side. You cannot knock the 20% bonus crit damage from the tier 1 effect of it. But again, its a desirable end game bonus, and not exactly needed early on.

Weapons¶

When it comes to weapons, you’re largely taking whatever you can get your hands on. In Tier 2, craft a Weaver bow, but use the basic tier 1 for the time being.

But when you get to Pine Hill, there’s a unique findable bow called the Bushwacker. This gives a special perk called Cheap Shot that increases your damage by 15% on the first hit against a target. You can see where this is going with those juicy stealth crit, charged shot and weak spot damage modifiers coming into play.

To get the Bushwacker, you need to take your buggy to the right side of the Frisby in the southwest of the Pine Hill area.

1. You should see the branch to direct east of the Frisby, visible on the map. Go there.
   Crunch through the dead root, then follow the branch up and left into the bushes.
2. From there, follow the branches to the left, till you see a butterfly, turn left again and follow the branch out and then back into the hedge further north.
3. From the hedge branches, continue to where you can see a web, where there’s raw science along it.
4. Cross the web bridge into a new, secluded area.
5. Now follow the branches up. You should be able to see a yellow leaf towards the upper area. The yellow leaf has a chest on it with the item inside.
6. Now simply follow the branches, avoiding the Orb Weavers around the area to then fall down onto the yellow leaf and loot the chest.
7. With the bow acquired, you can now follow the branches back out and escape through the same branch you crossed in step 2.

As for arrows, it largely depends what you’re fighting:

• Feather Arrows are the best critical hit modifier arrows. These should be your default so you can still get some of the crit modifier synergy from other parts of your build.
• You can also turn some Feather Arrows into elemental damage, which is handy for anything enemies are weak against. These are ideal if there’s
  • No weak point to hit
  • You’re guaranteed to crit from the Ambush effect and you can use a weakness arrow to deal more damage.

Other than those situations, you typically want to use Feather Arrows for the crit modifier as your general use arrows.

Gear¶

In the early game it is a no-brainer to use the Grub and Thrifty Needle trinket. Get them and you’re on track.

When you get to Tier 2, you need the Bee armor set, which you get from farming bees. This gives you the better Perfect Charged Shot windows, allowing you to easily precisely aim for that weak spot on the foe. You also get the Apex Pollinator perk, which puts a slowing effect around the target after landing a Perfect Charged Shot.

From there, there is no tier 3 archer armor in the game just yet. The game will get more sets and creatures, which will give you more room to expand your build towards full release and deeper into the Early Access game. But, for now, this concludes the Stealth Archer build in Grounded 2.