Going back to Inquisition

It's also been ages since I played and even longer since my archer run, but I'll try to remember some things. I was a Tempest because I found it useful and fun. My build was simple (because of the stupid 8-slot limit): All 4 standard bow skills, then Stealth, Flasks of Frost and Fire, and the remaining ability I swapped a fair bit. I had Mark of the Rift first, since it was free, but decided not to bother with Focus abilities since you can only use them occasionally and liked Throwing Blades for decent close-range defense/damage.

The fade-touched materials I generally used were Guard-building ones and enemy-explode-on-death ones.

- It's nice to have Guard on a class that typically has no defenses and avoids a lot of the tedium of healing and managing potions if you don't take much damage, like falling from a ledge. If you have spare slots, I'd put a heal-on-kill/hit material on to lessen that factor even more and build an oddly tank-y rogue that still has good damage. Something to remember with Guard is that it's a portion of your total health, so the higher your HP, the more Guard you can generate. When it comes to the fade-touched materials, any "hit" will generate Guard, which means any time damage numbers appear in combat. This is very useful to keep in mind with things like Explosive shot, since if you hit a group of enemies, it will generate Guard for all of them, not just once. Same with Leaping Shot of Longshot if you have Archer's Lance and it penetrates multiple targets. This ups survivability quite a bit. Finally, you can't stack multiples of the same kind of fade-touched material (like 2x gain 5% Guard on hit), but you can stack similar variants, like 1x gain 3% Guard and 1x gain 5%, which is very useful.

- Enemies exploding when they die isn't just hilarious, it's also extremely good at making chains of explosions if used correctly. If you manage to kill an enemy with the explosion of another enemy dying, the second enemy will also explode, etc. There is a room in the Descent DLC with about 15 deepstalkers in it, and one Explosive Shot was enough for all of them to explode at once... and lower the framerate of my Xbox One This is also great when combined with Guard-on-hit, since all of the times an explosion hits another enemy will build Guard. Lastly, the damage of the explosion is based on the damage of whatever caused it. If you make an enemy explode with a normal arrow shot, it won't be very powerful, but if you do it with Full Draw at full power, it'll do a lot, so try to time things accordingly.

- Explosive Shot: A useful general-purpose ability. Against a single enemy, it's only slightly better than firing normally since it takes longer to fire, but it does stagger, which can be quite good in a pinch. It's obviously better when used against groups, especially to build Guard and explosion chains as mentioned above.

If you have Trespasser, its upgrade to send the main target flying is good, but the bonus damage for each target hit has more synergy with exploding enemies. If you're looking for another ability, I'd consider this on the most expendable in the Archer tree.

- Leaping Shot: A very useful and versatile skill. Depending on the size of the target, it's best used at close range and is a good defensive "shotgun" ability that also moves you farther from your attacker. Just be careful not to fall off cliffs when using it It's even better for defense with Guard-on-hit since it fires 12 arrows. This will mean 12 times the Guard generation if you hit them all, like on the side of a dragon.

The upgrade that puts you into stealth is okay, but I find I'm usually in the middle of a fight when I use this and would rather keep attacking. In that case, the upgrade that knocks an enemy down with your next normal attack is quite useful, and has a helpful icon by your abilities when active so you can plan.

- Longshot: You'll definitely want to keep this one. It's more effective at long range, suiting the playstyle, but it's also useful up close as a way to do slightly more damage than standard shots (like Explosive Shot), but more importantly, it's the only combo detonator in the Archer tree (for some reason). This makes it a must-have. It fires quickly, so setting off combos is easy. Lower level enemies will eventually die in one long-range hit of this, making it nice for on-death explosions.

The upgrade to do even more damage at very long range is good, but overall I prefer the standard Archer's Lance, which lets it rip through multiple targets who are roughly in line with each other, doing more damage for each hit (the shot will actually zig-zag to hit enemies who aren't directly in line, don't worry). This way, it can give Guard for all enemies hit and set off chain explosions. Sensing a pattern, here?

- Full Draw: Very useful for starting a fight, since it does more damage if an enemy is at full health. I believe its bonuses are multiplicative, so its base 800% weapon damage will then get multiplied by another 800% if a target is at full health, meaning a shot from a bow that does 100 damage will not do 1600 damage, but 6400. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong. You'll easily be able to take out small to medium threats in one hit if they have full health, which will result in the most powerful on-death explosions you can make. Often, when I played, I could take out an entire group of enemies with a single Full Draw and ensuing chain of explosions It'll do a number on high-health enemies as well even if it doesn't kill them.

Since the upgrades for it are essentially the same otherwise (sleep for Stunning Shot or immobilizing for Pinning Shot), I'd take Stunning Shot since you can make combos with Sleep. After putting an enemy to sleep with Full Draw, detonating them with a Longshot should be able to finish them off.

- Stealth: A Rogue's bread and butter, but not absolutely essential. Stealth is good for obvious reasons like being able to set up an ambush, and also gives you a damage bonus if you break it to attack, which can make abilities like Longshot even more powerful. I'd take the upgrade that makes activating Stealth instant (which means you don't have to stop moving and get hit and is less tedious) and has it remove debilitating effects, such as damage-over-time (burning damage) or debuffs (like slowing you down).

Flask of Frost: Very useful for defense given its 85% damage reduction, and possible offense since it can prime a Shatter combo. It's overall tricky to use since it only lasts for 5 seconds and the freeze effect from enemies who attack you only lasts 1, but I like it. 1 second is enough to immediately follow-up with Longshot to detonate, and 5 seconds of nigh-invulnerability is great when you're anticipating a large attack. Low Stamina cost, as well.

Either upgrade is good; Taunting nearby enemies to attack means they'll freeze themselves and do little to you, and doing more damage to nearby enemies when you shatter them is also good.

Flask of Fire: Probably the best Tempest skill. While active, your abilities have no Stamina cost, and with the Unquenchable upgrade, no cooldown either. Holy crap, right? That's five seconds of as many abilities as you can fit. The ones I find the most useful are Longshot (you can fire 4 or 5 of these, each either killing an enemy or doing massive damage at range), Throwing Blades (just because there are so many) and Leaping Shot (if you spam the button you'll actually use it more than should be possible and backflip very far away from your target - especially useful against Dragons). You can only get 2 Full Draws out of it, but it's still good. Plus, you're on fire and look awesome!

The other upgrade it pretty useless compared to having no cooldown times.

- Throwing Blades: Useful as general damage-dealing ability or for close-range defense, since it can target groups or single enemies. I find the upgrade to do more damage to a single target for each consecutive blade more useful than throwing them in an arc like Leaping Shot, since I find most of those miss and don't do as much damage as Leaping Shot. As mentioned, you can do quite a bit of damage if you spam this with Flask of Fire active. Plus I like the look of the animation

Passives: Remember that you can invest in passives from the Dual Dagger tree and still get their bonuses even without daggers. Strafing Shots in the Archer tree is essential as it allows for faster movement while firing arrows. Another must-have is Ride the Storm in the Tempest tree. It makes Flasks last longer (8 seconds instead of 5) if used in short succession, so if I'm in a long fight, I'll use Flask of Frost, then as soon as it expires, Flask of Fire. Now I have 8 seconds of unlimited ability use instead of 5, which makes a huge difference.

Other than that, it's pretty straightforward to choose the ones you want. Just remember that if you have spare points, investing in passives will give you the attribute bonuses (constitution, dexterity etc.) even if the main effect of it doesn't help you.

When upgrading equipment to complement this style, I generally give myself as much Attack value as possible. Attack basically ups your global damage. Having 50% Attack means most of your attacks will do 50% more damage. Dexterity ups Attack value for Rogues if you can't get it directly.

That ended up being more in-depth than planned, but hopefully it helps

Tl;DR: Tempest + Guard-on-hit, enemy-explode-on-death fade-touched materials = craziness and win!

Edit: I'm glad PapaCharlie covered a lot of the stuff I didn't I forgot how good Hidden Blades was, as well, as basic damage and for building Guard on my build.