Its too bad there's still no archer lord

[Anouleth]

In my opinion, an archer lord would, if executed poorly, result in the worst lord in the series. Being locked to 2-range is just way too much of a drawback.

Now if it was a lord that could use (insert weapon type here) and bows from the start, then it would probably work out just fine.

Not really. Micaiah was effectively locked to 2-range due to being too frail to ever do anything at 1-range, and she was a decent enough unit. Moreover, there have been numerous characters who perform well despite being locked to bows: Jamka, Midayle, Klein, Shin, and Shinon. That's not even counting the value of Bows in FE12. So I think that while a 2-range lock is a drawback, if they can bring other assets such as a mount or good offensive stats, they can still be pretty good, and if the game is well designed (like FE12 was), bow lock won't be a drawback in the first place.

The discussion was ignoring reality without that element.

Let's look at FE12's weapons, since those are supposed to be the best balanced. A Javelin has 3 Mt and 70 Hit. A Steel Bow has 8 Mt and 80 Hit. So at range 2, the Steel Bow has +5 Mt and +10 Hit to make up for its lack of melee. Sounds good, right? It's very plausible that that could make a difference in how long it takes to kill an enemy.

Now let's say the Javelin user has ~5 more Str than the Steel Bow user, for whatever reason. That's not too strange of a situation; there are plenty of ways it can happen. In that case, the Javelin user won't often take longer to kill things than the Steel Bow user at all. As a result, the bow's advantage is largely gone, unless the bow user upgrades all the way to Silver Bows. These small statistical differences can matter sometimes, but they can disappear so easily; a level lead or luck with stat gains can eclipse the relevance of other factors.

Silver Bows are buyable in Chapter 9, which is very early.

And it's true that a level lead will eclipse the relevance of other factors, but that's true of practically any RPG. I think it's absurd to complain that overlevelled characters are too powerful. The only "solution" would be to make stat gains from levelling extremely slow.

Edited January 28, 2012 by Anouleth

[CrashGordon94]

And it's true that a level lead will eclipse the relevance of other factors, but that's true of practically any RPG. I think it's absurd to complain that overlevelled characters are too powerful. The only "solution" would be to make stat gains from levelling extremely slow.

This as well. That wasn't exactly a fair comparison really.

[Othin]

Silver Bows are buyable in Chapter 9, which is very early.

And it's true that a level lead will eclipse the relevance of other factors, but that's true of practically any RPG. I think it's absurd to complain that overlevelled characters are too powerful. The only "solution" would be to make stat gains from levelling extremely slow.

They can be bought, but that doesn't mean they can be used by every bow user and all the time.

A level lead only eclipses the relevance of factors that change with level. This is the point I have been trying to make; it's why small statistical differences don't matter. Making bows the only physical range 2 weapon? That can't be changed by just gaining more levels. Hell, making it impossible to double attack with thrown weapons, whether through a simple restriction against it or through a 20 AS penalty like in the earlier games, would work to establish bows as having a role other weapons couldn't match.

However much you level up Franz, he can do a lot of things, but he can never use healing spells. Moulder, on the other hand, can never match Franz's movement, at least not on his own. (And never the Canto part.) Neither one can steal or open locks without keys. There are many more possibilities, but not so many exist in recent FE games. Franz can do many things Joshua can never do, but what can Joshua do that Franz cannot? Not a whole lot.

Tactical skills add more possibilities. Delmudd and Nanna grant bonuses to nearby characters in FE4/5; other characters may give the bonus to one or two characters, but most cannot get more than that without hogging a unique item. Lachesis can learn to use Lex's axes, but she cannot learn Ambush to attack first on the enemy phase. But FE4/5 only scratched the surface of the possibilities.

Edited January 28, 2012 by Othin

[Anouleth]

They can be bought, but that doesn't mean they can be used by every bow user and all the time.

A level lead only eclipses the relevance of factors that change with level. This is the point I have been trying to make; it's why small statistical differences don't matter. Making bows the only physical range 2 weapon? That can't be changed by just gaining more levels. Hell, making it impossible to double attack with thrown weapons, whether through a simple restriction against it or through a 20 AS penalty like in the earlier games, would work to establish bows as having a role other weapons couldn't match.

However much you level up Franz, he can do a lot of things, but he can never use healing spells. Moulder, on the other hand, can never match Franz's movement, at least not on his own. (And never the Canto part.) Neither one can steal or open locks without keys. There are many more possibilities, but not so many exist in recent FE games. Franz can do many things Joshua can never do, but what can Joshua do that Franz cannot? Not a whole lot.

Tactical skills add more possibilities. Delmudd and Nanna grant bonuses to nearby characters in FE4/5; other characters may give the bonus to one or two characters, but most cannot get more than that without hogging a unique item. Lachesis can learn to use Lex's axes, but she cannot learn Ambush to attack first on the enemy phase. But FE4/5 only scratched the surface of the possibilities.

I don't have any problem with characters being different. However, I don't think it necessarily follows that Javelins need to be nerfed beyond their FE6 or FE12 status because otherwise bows won't be "unique" enough.

[Dark Sage]

The discussion was ignoring reality without that element.

Let's look at FE12's weapons, since those are supposed to be the best balanced. A Javelin has 3 Mt and 70 Hit. A Steel Bow has 8 Mt and 80 Hit. So at range 2, the Steel Bow has +5 Mt and +10 Hit to make up for its lack of melee. Sounds good, right? It's very plausible that that could make a difference in how long it takes to kill an enemy.

Now let's say the Javelin user has ~5 more Str than the Steel Bow user, for whatever reason. That's not too strange of a situation; there are plenty of ways it can happen. In that case, the Javelin user won't often take longer to kill things than the Steel Bow user at all. As a result, the bow's advantage is largely gone, unless the bow user upgrades all the way to Silver Bows. These small statistical differences can matter sometimes, but they can disappear so easily; a level lead or luck with stat gains can eclipse the relevance of other factors.

Well it's not just the fact that bows have better stats than throwing weapons that makes them good in FE12. There's also the large amount of flying enemies throughout the game, the fact that most of the bow using classes have good stats and on the harder difficulties, the ability to possibly ORKO an enemy or do a lot of damage to one without taking a counter in return. FE6 made bows pretty useful because they had pretty good hit, there were a fair amount of flying enemies (not as much as in FE12) and if you go to Sacae, most of the enemies are 2-range, so bow users there actually have better enemy phases than units with 1 range or 1-2 range. In your example with the Javelin user having 5 more strength than the Steel Bow user, they may tie in damage output against most enemy types, but the Javelin user can't OHKO flying enemies the way the Steel Bow user can.

So basically to make bows good, you don't need to make throwing weapons even worse than in FE6/FE12, you basically just need to give more opportunities for them to useful. It is more challenging to do but it also makes the game more interesting. It's also a far better solution than Crash's suggestion of simply giving bows 1-2 range (which is really lazy design).

[CrashGordon94]

Actually, I was merely suggesting that IN ADDITION to other things.

[arvilino]

The discussion was ignoring reality without that element.

Let's look at FE12's weapons, since those are supposed to be the best balanced. A Javelin has 3 Mt and 70 Hit. A Steel Bow has 8 Mt and 80 Hit. So at range 2, the Steel Bow has +5 Mt and +10 Hit to make up for its lack of melee. Sounds good, right? It's very plausible that that could make a difference in how long it takes to kill an enemy.

Now let's say the Javelin user has ~5 more Str than the Steel Bow user, for whatever reason. That's not too strange of a situation; there are plenty of ways it can happen. In that case, the Javelin user won't often take longer to kill things than the Steel Bow user at all. As a result, the bow's advantage is largely gone, unless the bow user upgrades all the way to Silver Bows. These small statistical differences can matter sometimes, but they can disappear so easily; a level lead or luck with stat gains can eclipse the relevance of other factors.

I think that situation is only really going to come up in terms of extremes(such as Palla or MU being a Lance user with 5 more Str than a Steel Bow user) but even then you'll only have one or two units that are equalling the ranged combat of a Bow user, but this doesn't remove the bow users advantage. Since there are many deployment slots and they'll still have their 5 might ranged advantage over the majority of the cast. You'd take Palla and MU with Javelins(or MU with Hand Axes) but you're still going to bring a couple Hunters/Archers or Horsemen/Snipers since strong ranged combat is still quite desirable.

There's also the Killer Bow as a significant advantage for ranged combat as well on the merit a Bow user can avoid having to take a counter if they don't critical.

Edited January 28, 2012 by arvilino

[Anouleth]

I think that situation is only really going to come up in terms of extremes(such as Palla or MU being a Lance user with 5 more Str than a Steel Bow user) but even then you'll only have one or two units that are equalling the ranged combat of a Bow user, but this doesn't remove the bow users advantage. Since there are many deployment slots and they'll still have their 5 might ranged advantage over the majority of the cast. You'd take Palla and MU with Javelins(or MU with Hand Axes) but you're still going to bring a couple Hunters/Archers or Horsemen/Snipers since strong ranged combat is still quite desirable.

There's also the Killer Bow as a significant advantage for ranged combat as well on the merit a Bow user can avoid having to take a counter if they don't critical.

Well, the most obvious advantage is effective damage against fliers. But there's also anti-mage utility with Longbows.

[Esme]

Personally, I'd rather have a Dark Magic-wielding Lord but Bows are alright.

[Byte2222]

Not really. Micaiah was effectively locked to 2-range due to being too frail to ever do anything at 1-range, and she was a decent enough unit. Moreover, there have been numerous characters who perform well despite being locked to bows: Jamka, Midayle, Klein, Shin, and Shinon. That's not even counting the value of Bows in FE12. So I think that while a 2-range lock is a drawback, if they can bring other assets such as a mount or good offensive stats, they can still be pretty good, and if the game is well designed (like FE12 was), bow lock won't be a drawback in the first place.

This is basically my stance in this argument: bows (and their 2-range lock) aren't the problem, rubbish archers are the problem (particularly as a lot of them are "growth units" with poor bases).

[Griffen78]

Just give the bow lord a special bow only he/she can use with 1-2 range. Crisis averted.

[bottlegnomes]

Just give the bow lord a special bow only he/she can use with 1-2 range. Crisis averted.

We've been through this like 5 times.

IMO, just make the lord really good, like Hector's earlygame, but without the shit promotion time and move upon promotion, and make player phase actually matter, a la FE12.

[IGdood]

I just want a lord who doesn't wield swords/lances/axes,

Edited January 29, 2012 by skitarii

[Griffen78]

I just want a lord who doesn't wield swords/lances/axes,

....dog launcher lord?

in all seriousness, if the lord has some skill or something that sets him/her apart from others instead of just being a great sword fighter, I'd be okay with a sword lord.

[CrashGordon94]

Or if they're a Sword user who isn't an unmounted speedy type (Sword Armor, Sword Knight, Pegasus variant... There are quite a few possiblities!), wouldn't that still be interesting? Not to say I advocate it, just a thought.

[Titamon]

What about a Lord that can use Swords and Magic?

[CrashGordon94]

That could be neat. Cellica already kinda did that so it's not completely implausible.

[Griffen78]

That could be neat. Cellica already kinda did that so it's not completely implausible.

only if he/she can use both competently.

Honestly I'd be alright with any kind of lord if they can give us Interesting classes and characters that can use them. Like mage knights that can actually easily switch between the two types of weapons without boosters or rng blessing.

[Celice]

Celica raped pretty much everything whenever I've used her. I suppose that's "competent" enough :p

Then again, the only real difference between her sword and magic was that magic was ranged, less accurate (depending on the spell), and took away her health.

[Griffen78]

Celica raped pretty much everything whenever I've used her. I suppose that's "competent" enough :p

Then again, the only real difference between her sword and magic was that magic was ranged, less accurate (depending on the spell), and took away her health.

That doesn't mean this lord will be as well off on both ends.

[Celice]

I wasn't talking about "this" lord, I was talking about Celica. Your words

only if he/she can use both competently.

were ambiguous to me, as to whether you were talking about Celica or not. I was clarifying that she could. It wasn't clear that your he/she was because you didn't know who Celica was, or you were talking about a lord in theory.

[Griffen78]

I wasn't talking about "this" lord, I was talking about Celica. Your words

were ambiguous to me, as to whether you were talking about Celica or not. I was clarifying that she could. It wasn't clear that your he/she was because you didn't know who Celica was, or you were talking about a lord in theory.

I know who she is.....and next time assume I know a past FE character that is being talked about, to lessen future confusion, alright?

[Rothene]

Must the lord actually be an awesome unit in the first place? Slap on stats to make the lord have powerful Player phase and enough survivability to not be 2HKOed should make the lord decent enough to make the slot he/she permanently takes up useful.

Also bow Prf weapon to take down the big baddie at the end means we can safely park the lord at 2 range from the target, and place a healer behind him/her without fear of the healer being 1RKOed by the final boss(assuming 1~2 range bosses) and then slowly whittle down that massive HP pool.

[Sunwoo]

A bow lord sounds interesting, but I'd rather see another mage lord. Preferably male, without all the "special powers" like Micaiah had, and an anima magic user.

... Actually, just give me a mage lord who doesn't have all those "mystical powers" that Micaiah had. And good characterization.

[CrashGordon94]

And competent combat too... Really, as long as the hypothetical mage lord is good at fighting I'm not particularly concerned at their gender or magic type (I'd also MUCH prefer it if they aren't a mounted healer either but heh).