Gentlemen

[Renall]

Because I was literally saying that "the way it worked in fe13 lunatic is the way it should always be." Yeah.

Well what exactly were you saying? Because "this class is really useful... on the absolute hardest difficulty" is nice and all, but doesn't address the fundamental problem with the class. And quite honestly if it takes that much melee punishing to make Archer chip preferable, I think there is indeed a problem.

Now if your point is "if melee has significant downsides and wears units down fairly quickly, forcing you to either roll with several healers or use bow units for counter-free damage, then Archers don't necessarily need to be changed much," I suppose I agree. However, I'd be curious as to how they could make that work on Normal/Hard Mode, as insane things like the enemy-only Lunatic+ skills in 13 are clearly not the way to go on those difficulties.

[CT075]

and once again it comes down to...

make enemies threatening enough that the chip is legitimately useful

[Othin]

Virion is a really extreme case, having such poor starting stats yet still being one of the best units. A character with more typical stats shooting for a more typical effectiveness would have a much easier time being balanced - as some Archers indeed show.

[Integrity]

Well what exactly were you saying? Because "this class is really useful... on the absolute hardest difficulty" is nice and all, but doesn't address the fundamental problem with the class. And quite honestly if it takes that much melee punishing to make Archer chip preferable, I think there is indeed a problem.

Now if your point is "if melee has significant downsides and wears units down fairly quickly, forcing you to either roll with several healers or use bow units for counter-free damage, then Archers don't necessarily need to be changed much," I suppose I agree. However, I'd be curious as to how they could make that work on Normal/Hard Mode, as insane things like the enemy-only Lunatic+ skills in 13 are clearly not the way to go on those difficulties.

Okay,

Anyway, they do need an experience increase and/or 2-3 range.

This is precisely the part of the precise post that my post was targeted at. Nothing more. Hell, the post was more meant as a cheeky jab at the ABSOLUTE DEFINITIVE language of the thing I was replying to that anything.

I do think melee should be fairly swift and brutal for both parties, not just for the enemy (a la fe11 nm/most of fe8) or just for the player (a la fe11 h5/fe13 loony), which would necessitate free chip damage being useful to avoid counters.