Making archers better

[shadykid]

+4 SPD and +2 SKL is damn lovely

Theres no bonus that is + High SPD +Mag +SKL anyway

who needs skill in postgame, +mag/+spd like Dark Flier is good enough

[MajorMajora]

I've thought about this and I've come up with some methods.

1-Wind magic no longer is effective against fliers. That should be archer only.

2-Have short bows that are much weaker, have marginally higher accuracy and crit, and have a maximum and minimum range of 1.

3-Have bows gain extra crit upon higher weapon ranks instead of accuracy and might.

4-Have multiple tiers of power in short bows and longbows.

5-Have ballistae deployable after a certain point in the game.

[Carter]

Archer/Snipers having counter only partially solves our problem.

When they say "short bow", they should have a bow of 1-2 range.

[The Void]

Archers/Snipers aren't magic users.

They don't have to get 1-2 range to be better. They didn't have it in Genealogy of the Holy War or New Mystey of the Emblem.

[Jotari]

The short bow idea isn't suggesting you make Archer's magic users. It's to give them a single, weak weapon to fight at close range. Every other class has at least one 1-2 range weapon yet Mages still have the niche of 1-2 range. Archers are loosing out by being the only class completely locked out of 1 range. If they had a weapon similar to a Handaxe it would really help them in the long run.

[shadowofchaos]

So I'm guessing Lunatic+ is the only mode that they get any respect?

[riariadne]

Archers/Snipers aren't magic users.

They don't have to get 1-2 range to be better. They didn't have it in Genealogy of the Holy War or New Mystey of the Emblem.

But they had 1-3/1-5 range in Gaiden, where they were at their best. Also bows weren't particularly good in FE4 so I don't see what the point is there. They don't NEED 1-2 range to be better, but it certainly HELPS.

[Rewjeo]

You don't need to fundamentally change how archers work to make them good. Sniper was a great class in the DS games, and characters like Shinon or Jamka show that archers can be good units. The problem is that archers seem to just have bad stats. When they have good stats, they're good. Even Innes is a pretty good unit, and he exists in a game where great player phase offense isn't exactly rare.

[Jotari]

Giving them a single weapon wouldn't fundamentally change how Archers work. They had several 1-2 range weapons in Radiant Dawn yet they still acted like normal Archers.

[Tables]

Crossbows were laughably weak though. Other classes were ORKOing with their 1-2 range options, Archers were maybe 2-3RHKOing. And Crossbows are more expensive and rarer to buy, and unforgeable. It's not just giving them 1-2 range that'd matter, it's giving them viable 1-2 range. Even if Shortbow has say 70 hit and 1 mt, it'd be better than Crossbows were.

[Shadow Mir]

Crossbows were laughably weak though. Other classes were ORKOing with their 1-2 range options, Archers were maybe 2-3RHKOing. And Crossbows are more expensive and rarer to buy, and unforgeable. It's not just giving them 1-2 range that'd matter, it's giving them viable 1-2 range. Even if Shortbow has say 70 hit and 1 mt, it'd be better than Crossbows were.

It doesn't help that the only crossbows that had enough Mt to really consider using were one-of-a-kind, and (in the case of Arbalest) obtained late.

[Anouleth]

Crossbows were laughably weak though. Other classes were ORKOing with their 1-2 range options, Archers were maybe 2-3RHKOing. And Crossbows are more expensive and rarer to buy, and unforgeable. It's not just giving them 1-2 range that'd matter, it's giving them viable 1-2 range. Even if Shortbow has say 70 hit and 1 mt, it'd be better than Crossbows were.

Only a small handful of units in Radiant Dawn can ORKO with 1-2 range options, however. It's surprisingly difficult and is basically something that you have to be using top tier units like Haar, Sothe, or Titania to see. Other than those three, there's also Ike, Swordmasters with a Tempest Blade, Boyd with transfers, maybe a really good Oscar, and a Jill that you gave everything to. There's no character in the game that consistently 1-rounds at 1-2 range forever.

If a theoretical short bow had 1 mt, it would be weaker than crossbows. The Crossbow you get in Chapter 3-P has 28 mt, so it's not until Shinon is promoted that he would do the same amount of damage with this short bow than he would with a crossbow, and obviously there's no potential whatsoever for Leonardo to OHKO Falcoknights or Nolan to OHKO Tigers in their chapters.

[Tables]

Fair enough. Is that Normal or Hard mode (I presume Hard)? I haven't played RD in a while, but I only played Hard a few times, because of all the fake difficulty it adds, and things seemed fairly reliable on Normal. I guess I also forgot how strong other ranged weapons are in FE10 in general, and forgot it isn't FE:A where things just die.

[The Void]

The short bow idea isn't suggesting you make Archer's magic users. It's to give them a single, weak weapon to fight at close range. Every other class has at least one 1-2 range weapon yet Mages still have the niche of 1-2 range. Archers are loosing out by being the only class completely locked out of 1 range. If they had a weapon similar to a Handaxe it would really help them in the long run.

Archers/Snipers had 1-2 range in RD.

Were most of the playable ones all that good? Not really.

But they had 1-3/1-5 range in Gaiden, where they were at their best. Also bows weren't particularly good in FE4 so I don't see what the point is there. They don't NEED 1-2 range to be better, but it certainly HELPS.

They were better than in New Mystery of the Emblem?

And Jamke, Briggid, and Faval were all decent at worst, all having either higher bases, easy enough access to hard hitting bows, and could do repeat attacks through Pursuit+Continue+Charge. They have the issue of being in a game like GotHW with it's design, but that goes for all of the non-mounted characters.

Giving them a single weapon wouldn't fundamentally change how Archers work. They had several 1-2 range weapons in Radiant Dawn yet they still acted like normal Archers.

But most of them weren't all that good. That's the thing. I'm saying that giving Archers/Snipers 1-2 won't bump them up to a large extent if they still have the other problems they (bases, alternatives such as mounted bow users, etc.) while also tweaking one of the things that set them apart from other characters.

Edited July 16, 2013 by The Void

[Anouleth]

Fair enough. Is that Normal or Hard mode (I presume Hard)? I haven't played RD in a while, but I only played Hard a few times, because of all the fake difficulty it adds, and things seemed fairly reliable on Normal. I guess I also forgot how strong other ranged weapons are in FE10 in general, and forgot it isn't FE:A where things just die.

I'm talking about Hard mode, and "fake difficulty" is preferable to "no difficulty". I have no problem believing that every unit and their mother can ORKO consistently with a 1-2 range weapon on Normal Mode. Well, maybe not Mist.

[fallinangel30]

but virion is the archest of arch

team him up with avatar

and MAKE THE SUPPORT STRONG

AVATAR CAN SUPPORT VIRON

AND HE IS LESS LIKELY TO DIE

[Vashiane]

but virion is the archest of arch

team him up with avatar

and MAKE THE SUPPORT STRONG

AVATAR CAN SUPPORT VIRON

AND HE IS LESS LIKELY TO DIE

That's because Virion's a class-A badass.

Any OTHER archer, on the other hand, is in for a few problems.

[Shadow Mir]

That's because Virion's a class-A badass.

Any OTHER archer, on the other hand, is in for a few problems.

Especially Rolf in FE9.

[PKL]

Virion is one of the worst archers ever.

[Tables]

I'm talking about Hard mode, and "fake difficulty" is preferable to "no difficulty". I have no problem believing that every unit and their mother can ORKO consistently with a 1-2 range weapon on Normal Mode. Well, maybe not Mist.

Well outside of DB chapters RD Hard still has no difficulty, so I'm personally okay with this.

[riariadne]

They were better than in New Mystery of the Emblem?

And Jamke, Briggid, and Faval were all decent at worst, all having either higher bases, easy enough access to hard hitting bows, and could do repeat attacks through Pursuit+Continue+Charge. They have the issue of being in a game like GotHW with it's design, but that goes for all of the non-mounted characters.

Rather easily, yes.

They weren't terrible, but they would certainly have been better if they were the same but with swords. That's the problem.

[The Void]

Explain how they were better, considering the bases, growths, and enemies.

[FEAnon]

Like what most of the people in this thread have said so far, just giving archers 2-3 range or 1-2 range wouldn't magically fix their problems. What kills archers is definitely their natures and the enemy phase focused nature of FE.

Being a skill oriented skill in a series where skill has been a dump stat for a long time isn't doing archers any favors other maybe boasting that they have overkill accuracy.

Some possible fixes for archers are:

Having hit rates over 100% on some enemies allows them to convert the excess hit to crit at some rate like 2 hit = 1 crit.

Better bases.

Bows being superior to all of the other 2 range options.

Better skills in games that give them skills.

Maybe WTA when attacking first with Bows?

[shadykid]

Rofl is one of the worst archers ever.

fixed

(I don't care if Rofl has BEXP, he still sucks)

They were better than in New Mystery of the Emblem?

And Jamke, Briggid, and Faval were all decent at worst, all having either higher bases, easy enough access to hard hitting bows, and could do repeat attacks through Pursuit+Continue+Charge. They have the issue of being in a game like GotHW with it's design, but that goes for all of the non-mounted characters.

lolno

no mount

other holy weapon users were even more broken

[Shadow Mir]

Archers/Snipers had 1-2 range in RD.

Were most of the playable ones all that good? Not really.

Which was largely irrelevant because mostr of their 1-2 range was bad, and the one that WASN'T didn't come along until endgame.

And Jamke, Briggid, and Faval were all decent at worst, all having either higher bases, easy enough access to hard hitting bows, and could do repeat attacks through Pursuit+Continue+Charge. They have the issue of being in a game like GotHW with it's design, but that goes for all of the non-mounted characters.

Never mind the fact that this IS Genealogy of the Holy War we're talking about here, with its wtfmassive bias towards mounts...