Archers: do they really suck?

[Alastor15243]

Archers, and bows in general, have a massive reputation for sucking in fire emblem because their lack of an ability to attack in melee, but ever since I started playing the harder difficulties of Fire Emblem games I've started to suspect that's actually not true and that this is just a misconception among more casual players of the games. The main complaint about them is that they can't counterattack on the enemy phase against nearly all enemies, but relying on the enemy phase is, I eventually learned as I grew up with this series, the single least strategic strategy imaginable in the game. It only works on the easier difficulties or with broken characters. On higher difficulties, where player phase actions take increasingly higher importance, it seems like the usefulness gap between archers and other units closes rapidly.

When enemies are stronger or have skills that make more strategy required and thus player phase actions matter more, archers fill a useful niche of doing ranged physical damage with high accuracy to minimize player phase damage taken, as well as being less physically fragile than the other units that can attack at range without a damage or accuracy penalty, mages, and thus being safer to put in range of enemies with 2-range weapons.

Am I correct in thinking this, or am I alone among people who play the harder difficulties and find archers to be useful?

[Jedi]

It really depends on the game, Bows and archers are good in FE2, FE4 has some really powerful people who use bows, FE6 has really good nomads and Snipers, FE7 has good bows but only one really good user same with 8. Etc etc etc.

FE12 has really good bow use and such too, but generally Snipers and Nomads are good, the class that mainly suffers are the basic first class archer, because IS doesn't stat them correctly.

[Loki Laufeyson]

The Problem usually doesnt come from the class as much as the bases for those in the class. Sure, people dont like no EP, but like, i think most could deal with it if the archer's stats werent like poop across the board with mediocre growths. Like Wil in fe7 wouldnt suck half as much as he does, if he simply just didnt have shitty growths and could actually do his job. Thats why Shinon in FE10 is gr9. He has great bases and can actually function, despite difficulty. In Easy, you really dont need to use Shinon's bamfness, but you will want to because of those bases. Looks like Takumi from FE14 is also really good.

This is also why nomad/bow knights are better because they have mobility, on top of workable bases.

[Refa]

Yeah, they really do suck (not counting FE14 seeing as I haven't played it and hear that they're pretty good in that game).

[Nobody]

The biggest problem with them, at least IMO, is that most archers have terrible bases. In enemy-phase centered games, they'd suck even with decent bases, but in the games in which player phase is more important, I don't see why they wouldn't be decent as long as their bases are good. IIRC snipers are considered quite good in FE12, and I know for sure that FE6's nomads are also good, at least Shin (Dorothy and Wolt have terrible bases, tho).

[Jedi]

The biggest problem with them, at least IMO, is that most archers have terrible bases. In enemy-phase centered games, they'd suck even with decent bases, but in the games in which player phase is more important, I don't see why they wouldn't be decent as long as their bases are good. IIRC snipers are considered quite good in FE12, and I know for sure that FE6's nomads are also good, at least Shin (Dorothy and Wolt have terrible bases, tho).

This is why I said Snipers in particular for most of the games and 6, because like Klein and Igrene are great, Wolt does have a little use early game poking but yeah... No go unless super blessed.

[eclipse]

It really, REALLY depends on the game. Usually, your melee units can clean up. For FE12, they're great for getting rid of certain 12-move flying enemies, and in FE13, they completely bypass Counter (which is A Thing on higher difficulties, and it sucks).

Archers as a class tend to have horrible bases, but once promoted. . .watch out. . .

[Ein]

Base stats are everything. Growths mean nothing.

Archers aren't good unless they can just kill this one guy you want dead yesterday.

[Alastor15243]

Base stats are everything. Growths mean nothing.

Excluding Jeigans and characters like Sedgar and Wolf who have patently absurd growth rates in the low and high range respectively.

[Shadow Mir]

I'd have to agree that it's largely dependent on the game. They don't really get much of a chance to shine in say, FE7 or FE8 because enemy units are weak. They're better in games like FE6, though.

[Baldrick]

Archers are usually designed to have good offence, but bad defence. IS remember to do the latter, bows having weak melee options if any at all, but often forget the former.

[Radiant Dragon]

I've noticed that Bow users tend to get more useful the stronger the enemies are in comparison to your units. When the enemies are weak enough that you can put a Hero on a fort with a couple Hand Axes and have him murder everything on the enemy phase, there's not much point to using Archers/Snipers to pick off those enemies one by one. However, if the enemies are strong enough to not be ORKO'd by Hand Axe/Javelin assaults, then Bows become much more useful to both soften up dangerous enemies at range and avoid damaging counterattacks.

This is probably why you noticed Bows becoming more useful when moving up in difficulty. In the GBA games (where enemies sucked), or the Tellius games (where forged Hand Axes were almost as strong as Tomahawks), Archers/Snipers just can't compare to other units being able to kill everything on the enemy phase with ranged weaponry. Honestly, Shinon is probably one of the most overrated units in Radiant Dawn for this reason; after the first half of Part 3, the rest of your units are able to generally ORKO on their own and the maps become more focused around routing enemies in wide-open areas.

In more recent installments however, the enemies become so dangerous on higher difficulties that the advantages that Bows have over other ranged weapons become much more useful. Still, having Archers that join you with good base stats would be very welcome.

Also, what do people think of Snipers getting Galeforce instead? I feel that it would make sense given they're mostly regulated to player-phase combat, so doubling up on that would help give them a boost in usefulness.

[Ardan]

Base stats are everything. Growths mean nothing.

dondon151 is this you

[Loki Laufeyson]

It really, REALLY depends on the game. Usually, your melee units can clean up. For FE12, they're great for getting rid of certain 12-move flying enemies, and in FE13, they completely bypass Counter (which is A Thing on higher difficulties, and it sucks).

Archers as a class tend to have horrible bases, but once promoted. . .watch out. . .

Mmhm. I just never got Wil to be good though. :( But I have had a decent Rebecca once and Rath is always good. Virion struggles hard early game in fe13, but the payoff is decent in higher difficulties. This is also why Chrom has an archer reclass option...cuz Loony Plus. :O

Yeah, the higher the difficulty, the more useful the bow classes become.

[DarkDestr0yer61]

Do bow users suck? No.
Do archers suck? Eh. They could be better. Their base stats aren't usually good. The best example of good archers I can think of are FE2 archers and Jamke from FE4.
I do believe for the most part that archers can be good when they promote.... But that can really be said about any class.

[Kylo Drumman]

Archers are Awesome

Edited January 19, 2016 by Ryu Hayabusa

[EricaofRenais]

There is always one in each FE game that I use, but what the others have said is true their growth rates tend to be very bad.

[Parrhesia]

IS seems to like giving archers terrible strength and defence to accompany their mediocre speed. If they were beefier, they'd have a place. Just look at Snipers, who tend to be good in pretty much every game (FE9's the exception I can think of). Bows having 2-3 range is mooted every once in a while, but the main problem IIRC is they become really annoying to deal with as enemies.

[Shadow Mir]

I've noticed that Bow users tend to get more useful the stronger the enemies are in comparison to your units. When the enemies are weak enough that you can put a Hero on a fort with a couple Hand Axes and have him murder everything on the enemy phase, there's not much point to using Archers/Snipers to pick off those enemies one by one. However, if the enemies are strong enough to not be ORKO'd by Hand Axe/Javelin assaults, then Bows become much more useful to both soften up dangerous enemies at range and avoid damaging counterattacks.

This is probably why you noticed Bows becoming more useful when moving up in difficulty. In the GBA games (where enemies sucked), or the Tellius games (where forged Hand Axes were almost as strong as Tomahawks), Archers/Snipers just can't compare to other units being able to kill everything on the enemy phase with ranged weaponry. Honestly, Shinon is probably one of the most overrated units in Radiant Dawn for this reason; after the first half of Part 3, the rest of your units are able to generally ORKO on their own and the maps become more focused around routing enemies in wide-open areas.

In more recent installments however, the enemies become so dangerous on higher difficulties that the advantages that Bows have over other ranged weapons become much more useful. Still, having Archers that join you with good base stats would be very welcome.

Also, what do people think of Snipers getting Galeforce instead? I feel that it would make sense given they're mostly regulated to player-phase combat, so doubling up on that would help give them a boost in usefulness.

I'm not sure why you're lumping FE6 in with the other GBA games when its enemies are actually competent and hand axes and javelins aren't very accurate. Anyways, I've heard stuff about bows being good in Fates, largely because 1-2 range got noifed. Galeforce also got noifed in that game.

Edited January 19, 2016 by Levant Colthearts

[alatartheblue42]

Bows are for wimps. Real people use magic.

Unfortunately, bow users generally have relatively bad bases, so it's hard to level them early on. If you are lucky, then they can get good, but then you reach that mid-game obsession with armored units and they once again have trouble killing things. And then you start to get Tomahawks, Spears, Warriors, and op mages. Thus, unless you can get them good early on and keep them there, they have trouble all game.

This is all in my personal experience and is therefore opinionated.

[solrocknroll]

I'm of the camp where I love archers but think they do really poorly.

Just look at Shadow Dragon: Gordin and Tomas can be handwaved by being FE1 units, but Norne is just as awful when Athena or Horace can be put to work. Of course, Shadow Dragon is Cain-Abel-Caeda Emblem so naturally they make the best Snipers.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

The best archers are the enemy archers in FE10, who can oneshot people like Micaiah or Leonardo.

[Elieson]

I just make Bartre my archer. Who needs anything else?

[wumples]

I love archers, they are my favorite class. Gordin is my absolute favorite.

[Radiant Dragon]

I'm not sure why you're lumping FE6 in with the other GBA games when its enemies are actually competent and hand axes and javelins aren't very accurate. Anyways, I've heard stuff about bows being good in Fates, largely because 1-2 range got noifed. Galeforce also got noifed in that game.

Yeah, enemies might be slightly stronger in FE6 but you still have units like Alance, Dieck, Miledy, Percival etc. who can still use Hand Axes and/or Javelins to ORKO all of the unpromoted mooks that FE6 throws at you, even in the game's final chapters. On the other hand, unpromoted enemies disappear completely as soon as Chapter 17 in Awakening.

Still, due to lower accuracy across the board, being lousy with Wyvern Riders and having actual competent bow-users, Bows are a bit better in FE6 than FE7 or 8.

The best archers are the enemy archers in FE10, who can oneshot people like Micaiah or Leonardo.

That's hardly an accomplishment.

Edited January 19, 2016 by Radiant Dragon