So how bad are bows really?

[ClLoulD]

Bold: Oxymoron. If we're talking about FE9, "Rolf" and "useful" cancel each other out.

On a more serious note, I don't have much to say about the topic that hasn't already been said.

given he is SEVERELY under leveled and doesn't make much impact until he promotes, I'm not saying that he's worth it I'm just talking about the class and the bow as a weapon and I've found him to actually be quite useful in some instances.

[Sasori]

Perhaps they could just improve longbows. In most games they are pretty awfull, in the gba games longbows had crappy mt, while in radiant dawn they had awfull hit rates. Making them less rare might also help.

I like to have an archer in my team and since I dislike Shinnon I often ended up with Rolf. He has an horrible start and from an efficiancy viewpoint he's god awfull, but he isn't all the bad in a casual playtrough when you get him out of his sucky phase.

[shadykid]

Be less incompetent at the game.

I didn't realize dondon was considered incompetant at Fire Emblem.

[eclipse]

I didn't realize dondon was considered incompetant at Fire Emblem.

PROTIP: That is a can of worms I refuse to touch in this thread.

Back on-topic, if I was that desperate for a bow user in FE9, I'd wait for Astrid. She can snipe something and GTFO, all on the same turn. If I wanted to make archers stronger, I'd hit all the other 1-2 range weapons instead.

[Shadow Mir]

given he is SEVERELY under leveled and doesn't make much impact until he promotes, I'm not saying that he's worth it I'm just talking about the class and the bow as a weapon and I've found him to actually be quite useful in some instances.

I like to have an archer in my team and since I dislike Shinnon I often ended up with Rolf. He has an horrible start and from an efficiancy viewpoint he's god awfull, but he isn't all the bad in a casual playtrough when you get him out of his sucky phase.

Personally, as far as FE9 is concerned, I'd rather just wait for Astrid to have a bow user.

Edited September 29, 2012 by Golden Cucco

[RJWalker]

Bows are nearly as horrible as everyone here makes them seem though training a Bow User is a serious pain.

[dondon151]

Less area than a mount with a Javelin would.

what's your point? these guys are not common and after a certain point are not dangerous because javelins are weak. furthermore, javelins don't have effective damage on fliers.

Be less incompetent at the game.

hello unprovoked personal attack

Seriously, if your units can't handle the heat, don't let them in the kitchen. It's not difficult to find a formation that will protect squishy units from 3-range attacks.

actually it kind of is if you're playing with any semblance of speed, but it's not just squishy units; a somewhat restrictive formation will have a unit vulnerable to a 1-range attack plus 1-2 2-range attacks; throw in 3-range archers and you can still get attacked from many positions even in a defensive formation.

Instead of having to X HKO bow units, I have to X+1 HKO them? Nooooooooooooooooooooooo.

actually kind of a big deal

Alternatively, use your archers to counter enemy archers. If there are a mix of melee units and archers, then no one class can counter every attack from the squad. Balance!

this is already what you have to decide on for EP; would you rather have a silver lance to ORKO the melee units or a javelin to damage everything? using archers to counter enemy archers is almost never the best idea unless where the only enemies are archers. if your objective is to get from point A to point B, you can sometimes ignore enemy archers altogether because weaker units can just box them in and make them useless. the melee enemies take priority.

Also, hard-coding in a lack of double attacks on 1-2 range weapons murders their usage. You won't kill ANYTHING with them that wasn't previously weakened or very weak to begin with. So I don't think that's a good idea.

uh that is the point of those weapons. that's why they have terrible accuracy in FE6 and terrible MT in FE12 and FE13. overall this is actually a better idea than making them super weak because in FE12, you could still have very strong player units like MU and palla trivialize everything with 3 MT javelins, but if they had say 7 MT but no potential to double at range, then they are perfectly balanced.

So it sounds like the best choice is letting bow users get 2-3 range for now... Which I REALLY like. I thought it was a wonderful choice in FE10 and thought it would be a series mainstay after its original appearance (I don't have the DS FE's).

hey guess why enemy FE10 snipers never got 3 range

Edited September 29, 2012 by dondon151

[Snowy_One]

I, personally, do not see Rolf as a bad unit.

I DO see him as being at the junction of two horrible axis's though. Rolf comes at level 1 near the end of the early-game (I consider 9 to be the end of the EG). Getting him leveled requires a lot of EXP/BEXP. That might be worth it if he were a good unit but...

He's not a good unit. Don't get me wrong, he's not a BAD unit. On the player phase he's certainly on par at least with the swordmasters, if not slightly better (no counters, extra range, and effective against fliers always), but the PP is only 50-60% of the phase. On the EP he's going to be unable to fight back, and I think that's why he's considered so low. If Rolf could counter he'd probably be about mid-tier to upper-mid tier.

Course, I also don't follow LTC/'efficiency' standards for my tiering, so it might not be worth it to listen to me.

[-Cynthia-]

I, personally, do not see Rolf as a bad unit.

I DO see him as being at the junction of two horrible axis's though. Rolf comes at level 1 near the end of the early-game (I consider 9 to be the end of the EG). Getting him leveled requires a lot of EXP/BEXP. That might be worth it if he were a good unit but...

He's not a good unit. Don't get me wrong, he's not a BAD unit. On the player phase he's certainly on par at least with the swordmasters, if not slightly better (no counters, extra range, and effective against fliers always), but the PP is only 50-60% of the phase. On the EP he's going to be unable to fight back, and I think that's why he's considered so low. If Rolf could counter he'd probably be about mid-tier to upper-mid tier.

Course, I also don't follow LTC/'efficiency' standards for my tiering, so it might not be worth it to listen to me.

Do you think any units are bad units? He's not on par with the swordmasters for PP without a significant BEXP dump since he can't double much at base and his growths are unspectacular. Flier effectiveness isn't that great in PoR since it's only 2x and many flying units are easy to ORKO anyway.

If Rolf were say sword-locked, he wouldn't be much higher as he'd essentially be a later joining Mia with worse bases, similar growths and no Vantage. That would still be a Low tier unit most likely, with only good availability to his name.

[arvilino]

I, personally, do not see Rolf as a bad unit.

I DO see him as being at the junction of two horrible axis's though. Rolf comes at level 1 near the end of the early-game (I consider 9 to be the end of the EG). Getting him leveled requires a lot of EXP/BEXP. That might be worth it if he were a good unit but...

He's not a good unit. Don't get me wrong, he's not a BAD unit. On the player phase he's certainly on par at least with the swordmasters, if not slightly better (no counters, extra range, and effective against fliers always), but the PP is only 50-60% of the phase. On the EP he's going to be unable to fight back, and I think that's why he's considered so low. If Rolf could counter he'd probably be about mid-tier to upper-mid tier.

Course, I also don't follow LTC/'efficiency' standards for my tiering, so it might not be worth it to listen to me.

I think Rolf would still be a little lower than mid-tier upper-mid even if he could counter back. Starting at level 1 at chapter 9 as an Archer wouldn't make much of a difference than if he was a Fighter because while as an Archer he can only reliably have 1 round of combat per full turn beyond specific circumstance.

As a Fighter he'd still be too weak that he may only survive only 1 or possibly 2 rounds of combat using a handaxe per turn while just slightly damaging enemies anyway, whereas stronger units will be able to take on more enemies per turn which they can defeat.

For FE9 Rolf being an Archer exasperates his already poor situation as opposed to it being the cause of his low rating.

[Baldrick]

I didn't realize dondon was considered incompetant at Fire Emblem.

He's not. But he's pretending to be in order to suggest 2-3 range bows would break the balance of the game.

what's your point? these guys are not common and after a certain point are not dangerous because javelins are weak.

My point is you were saying that 2-3 range bows cover a large area. It is a smaller area than what mounts cover. Frequency is irrelevant to the discussion, if there are more armoured knights with iron lances than 2-3 archers, does that mean the knights can cover more ground? Why aren't archers considered non-dangerous as well?

furthermore, javelins don't have effective damage on fliers.

Fliers could use a nerf. They have unrivalled utility on maps with certain terrain. If you can't keep fliers out of bow range, that's poor strategy, not poor balance. Furthermore, most fliers are not meant to be tanks anyway, and the ones that are should be able to take at least one hit.

hello unprovoked personal attack

I'm not saying you're incompetent. I'm saying anyone who can't change their strategy to account for 2-3 range bows, and thinks they would make archers overpowered, is incompetent. I mean, if you can beat H5 with 0% growths, surely dealing with 2-3 range archers is a doddle?

actually it kind of is if you're playing with any semblance of speed,

Unless you go at ltc speeds, you're turtling? Is that what you're trying to say?

but it's not just squishy units; a somewhat restrictive formation will have a unit vulnerable to a 1-range attack plus 1-2 2-range attacks; throw in 3-range archers and you can still get attacked from many positions even in a defensive formation.

Don't expose units to more hits than they can take. It's not rocket science. If that means you're going to have to use armour knights, then deal with it, or go slower so that you don't have to survive 9000 attacks every EP.

Sometimes it's not possible to go at the speed of light 100% of the time. This is not a bad thing.

actually kind of a big deal

It's not unless you're dealing with super-restrictive ltc. Even then, even if it costs a turn, all it means is the absolute lowest turn count possible is one higher. How is this a big deal?

this is already what you have to decide on for EP; would you rather have a silver lance to ORKO the melee units or a javelin to damage everything?

Good in theory, but in some games, a javelin will ORKO everything anyway. In others, like FE6 and the DS games, this happens less, so your point stands, but those games are not in the majority.

using archers to counter enemy archers is almost never the best idea unless where the only enemies are archers. if your objective is to get from point A to point B, you can sometimes ignore enemy archers altogether because weaker units can just box them in and make them useless. the melee enemies take priority.

That's not my point.

If you need to damage the archers, counter with archers. If there are melee units mixed in, then you're just going to have to choose whether you counter the melee units or the archers. You implied earlier that having a choice between OHKO'ing some or damaging all adds a layer of strategy; all 2-3 range bows do is add another layer.

[MacLovin]

Personally, I'd wait for Boyd to promote or just use Astrid for an fe9 bow-user.

[ClLoulD]

The whole Rolf or astrid or shinon point doesn't mean anything I was just using rolf as an EXAMPLE in FE9. Bow-Competant units just seem very useful to me in dealing increased damage against fliers or dealing that little bit of damage that helps another unit kill an enemy.

[Snowy_One]

Do you think any units are bad units? He's not on par with the swordmasters for PP without a significant BEXP dump since he can't double much at base and his growths are unspectacular. Flier effectiveness isn't that great in PoR since it's only 2x and many flying units are easy to ORKO anyway.

If Rolf were say sword-locked, he wouldn't be much higher as he'd essentially be a later joining Mia with worse bases, similar growths and no Vantage. That would still be a Low tier unit most likely, with only good availability to his name.

Yes.

Ena (late joining, EXP drain, almost no use).

Bastion (late joining, knives, several other mages, not really good at all)

Haar (late and slow)

Lucia (late and weak)

And no, it's not just because they're late since, as you'll note, other late-joiners aren't there (Elincia and Nasir). It's being late AND weak. In my eyes that's the ultimate no-no.

Rolf may be meh, but he joins early and isn't horri-bad if leveled. Even if he's below average he's still around for at least most of the game. Those other units are not.

[Shadow Mir]

The whole Rolf or astrid or shinon point doesn't mean anything I was just using rolf as an EXAMPLE in FE9. Bow-Competant units just seem very useful to me in dealing increased damage against fliers or dealing that little bit of damage that helps another unit kill an enemy.

Okay. However, I think you could've used a better example, because FE9 Rolf practically epitomizes what's wrong with bow users, in my humble opinion.

[arvilino]

The whole Rolf or astrid or shinon point doesn't mean anything I was just using rolf as an EXAMPLE in FE9. Bow-Competant units just seem very useful to me in dealing increased damage against fliers or dealing that little bit of damage that helps another unit kill an enemy.

The thing is that any Mounted Axe or Lance user can do the same with a Javelin/Hand Axe and then Canto away to make space for another mounted character to do the same. The Archers/Snipers are usable but they are comparitively less useful at their own niche of ranged combat compared to units that can perform alot more duties and can attack at both ranges, the only thing they'd have in FE9 is effectivenes bonus against Flying units.

If a class is limited to a certain type of combat, like Bow locked units, they should in general have significantly better at 2 ranged combat compared to other units that have a 1-2 ranged combat option. Even having "Similar" or equal combat to say a Hand Axe wielding Paladin at 2 range means the Bow User is still less useful because the Paladin has several other factors ontop of ranged combat which the Bow Users doesn't have.

[Snowy_One]

Bow users DO have better 2-range combat... Barely. IIRC their bows are about as effective as the thrown axes, but can be forged and re-bought while the more advanced axes can't.

But considering hand axes get a constant WTA, can counter at 1-range, and can be forged as well it's not even worth trying to fit into that narrow niche of buyability and minor flexibility that bows are actually superior in.

[Anouleth]

Long range bows really don't work when it's possible, in fact, common for squishy backliners like Clerics and Dancers to get 2HKOed by them. And flying midliners like Pegasus Knights and Wyverns also take a lot of damage from them. I think that having decently strong longbows is a good thing to have for Archers and Snipers, but for all bows to be 2-3 range? No.

Edited September 30, 2012 by Anouleth

[Shadow Mir]

Long range bows really don't work when it's possible, in fact, common for squishy backliners like Clerics and Dancers to get 2HKOed by them. And flying midliners like Pegasus Knights and Wyverns also take a lot of damage from them. I think that having decently strong longbows is a good thing to have for Archers and Snipers, but for all bows to be 2-3 range? No.

I agree that decent Mt longbows would help archers and snipers' viability (assuming they don't wind up like RD's, which, admittedly, did have them, but they lost practicality due to losing a hefty amount of accuracy at 3 range) .

[Snowy_One]

So why not up archers/snipers range to 2-3 with longbows giving +1 range. For their normal range the archer/sniper gets no accuracy penalty while the +1 range reduces accuracy by 30%? That's not a small amount by any means, but it's not crippling either and CAN be worked with.

Edit: By that I mean long-range weapons have 30 less hit than their normal counterparts. So if a 'normal' iron bow has 100 hit, a 'normal' iron longbow would have 70 hit.

Edited September 30, 2012 by Snowy_One

[PKL]

2-3 range bows dont work as dondon pointed out. My first build of my FE8 hack was extremely annoying due to 2-3 range archers in bad positions. Like, you couldn't lure one of the enemies without the other attacking you too no matter what you did. The attack zone of 2-3 range archers is much more of a big deal than some of you seem to think. Let's say there's a bandit with a silver axe. And 2 archers with a Steel Bow/.Silver bow with 2-3 range. You try to lure the bandit, one of the archers will 2 range your unit. If it's still alive, the other will also attack from 3 range. I think FE12 had the right idea about bows. They sure are useful to prevent counters and there were also lots of threatening flier enemies and 1-2 range was extremely nerfed (even though some units like Palla and My Unit could still ORKO for a while with them). Dondon's idea of 1-2 range not being able to double is pretty good. As it keeps them from trivializing range completely, while still being unique and useful.

Edited September 30, 2012 by PKL

[Parrhesia]

Guys, it's perfectly simple. Don't overload your enemy with archers, and have a broader selection (maybe four? I'm settling for four) of shortbows that they will in most cases be equipped with.

[Baldrick]

2-3 range bows dont work as dondon pointed out. My first build of my FE8 hack was extremely annoying due to 2-3 range archers in bad positions. Like, you couldn't lure one of the enemies without the other attacking you too no matter what you did.

1) Take the attacks with a high def unit

2) Rush the enemies with mounts (target the archer, ofc)

The attack zone of 2-3 range archers is much more of a big deal than some of you seem to think. Let's say there's a bandit with a silver axe. And 2 archers with a Steel Bow/.Silver bow with 2-3 range. You try to lure the bandit, one of the archers will 2 range your unit. If it's still alive, the other will also attack from 3 range.

I assume the formation is such: (Archer, Bandit, Lurer) and that L can survive 2 rounds only.

AAB.....L

I would take one of your archers, R, who can survive one A round and place them like:

AAB......RLO (Other attacker(s))

The second archer will attack R, the others will not move.

A.B...A..RLO

On the next round, you move like this.

A.B..L.O.R..

O kills A, L moves in. Next turn, clean up the rest of the enemies.

This is a vastly simplified example, assuming a straight corridor, but it shows how you can deal with 2-3 archers.

tl;dr: Lure the archer first, he can move

I think FE12 had the right idea about bows. They sure are useful to prevent counters and there were also lots of threatening flier enemies and 1-2 range was extremely nerfed (even though some units like Palla and My Unit could still ORKO for a while with them). Dondon's idea of 1-2 range not being able to double is pretty good. As it keeps them from trivializing range completely, while still being unique and useful.

Sure, that idea is proven to work. It was implemented in FE3 (you could double with a Hand Axe, but axe users were weak and didn't exist in the non-remake part of the game). But keep in mind, sometimes an archer weakened with one attack will still take the same amount of rounds to kill as a full-health archer, which is "a big deal".

EDIT: Furetchen's idea is good too.

Edited September 30, 2012 by Minor Baldo

[Samven]

My issue is not with bows themselves but rather with units who start with bows and have nothing else. I find Archers and Nomads a right royal pain in the posterior to train up. Dawn's Shinon has somehow been the only exception and I'm still not completely sure why... Eh. For the most part, if I want to use an S-ranked bow in the endgame, I tend pick someone who will get bow proficiency after promoting and have them develop it after they class change.

[Anouleth]

My issue is not with bows themselves but rather with units who start with bows and have nothing else. I find Archers and Nomads a right royal pain in the posterior to train up. Dawn's Shinon has somehow been the only exception and I'm still not completely sure why...

Probably because he joins at a high level with competitive base stats.