Ranking each game by classes: Archers/Snipers

[Whisky]

I’ll do Nomads / Bow Knights separately even though there’s some overlap depending on the game. You guys can handle that how you think is fair but I think the classes are separate enough in some games to warrant a separate topic for them. This one should be pretty interesting. Archers are known for being a terrible class in a lot of FE games but have seen a lot of variance throughout the series. In some games they’re actually pretty good. Here’s my order:

Echoes

I might be over them a bit here. I’m not real familiar with Echoes meta but I thought Archers seemed quite good with their long range in this game and I’ve heard that they can be really good with Hunter’s Volley.

Three Houses

Hunter‘s Volley? I am more familiar with it here and it’s a really powerful tool. Increased Bow range from Archers and Snipers is useful for attacking mages out of counter range and for countering enemy Archers. Bows are really good in 3H but the main thing that might hold back the Archer class line here is that you can use Bows in any class including Wyvern. Hunter’s Volley is still a really powerful delete tool though.

Binding Blade

There’s a lot of Wyverns in some chapters and Wyvern are dangerous. Wolt and Dorothy are still bad because they have low stats though they have a few small uses but Klein and Igrein are pretty good later on. This is also more of a player phase focused game than most and enemies are generally harder to 1RKO so ranged chip is more useful.

Radiant Dawn

Shinon is actually good and as a Marksman he gets +1 range which is pretty cool.

Engage

Bows can be useful for taking out fliers in this game, this is even true in the early game. This could arguably be a little higher up, but Warriors can use Bows too so Archers/Snipers are nothing special. And any class can use strong Bows with either Lyn or Lucina.

Shadow Dragon

I’ve said before that I’m not familiar with the meta of this game, but I assume Snipers are more useful than the games below here, particularly on harder difficulties. I don’t know if it could be higher or not.

Sacred Stones

This is mostly an enemy phase focused game and 2 range lock isn’t great, but it does have situational uses. Draco Zombies are weak to all Bows not just the sacred bow, and being able to attack them at range without getting countered is nice. Bows can also be good for taking down Gargoyles and Wyverns though it’s a mostly niche use. Innes also joins early and has good stats for his join time on Erika’s route (he’s quite good in randomizers), though he isn’t nearly as good on Ephraim’s route. Also Gargoyles can be killed without Bows, Gerik and Saleh also join at the same time as Innes and also can 1RKO Gargoyles. It also doesn’t help that in Neimi’s case, Sniper competes with Bow Knight, which is a contest it badly loses. Bows definitely aren’t very good here but I feel that they have a few more niche uses than the games below.

Blazing Sword

For me this is the first game that comes to mind when I think of Bows being bad in FE7. This is one of the most enemy phase heavy games there is. This game has a tendency to spam you with hordes of enemies, so having a limited enemy phase is just no good. There are some niche uses foe Snipers though. Louise can 1RKO Wyvern Lords the chapter after her joining chapter, which is something most other units can’t do. She can also be pretty good against Luna Druids by killing then without getting countered by using a Brave Bow or Long Bow. Like in SS, these things are not unique to Snipers. Harken can 1RKO Wyvern Lords too. And there aren’t many Lords anyway, the Riders are the common type and are able to be 1RKOed by plenty of units, and on enemy phase. The Brave Bow is the earliest Brave weapon you get but not the only one. And Snipers aren’t the best Bow users anyway with Rath and Geitz being better. And yet this game somehow isn’t on the bottom.

Path of Radiance

Bows are really bad in this game for similar reasons. This is also the game that is dominated my mounted units with super canto. The only units in the Archer/Sniper line also join under terrible circumstances. Rolf is underleveled, and Shinon joins late, and is also underleveled by that point in the game. I could be wrong but I can’t really think of situational niches for them in this game either which is way it’s on the bottom below FE7. FE7 and PoR also both only have 2x effectiveness instead of x3, but I don’t even think that makes much of a difference since enemies usually aren’t hard to kill with no effectiveness anyway.

[Alastor15243]

Fates is probably their best showing that didn't make them stupid overpowered. Most notably Conquest. It really says something that the main argument given for why Mozu is a good unit is the fact that she has archer access. Conquest is a game that really validates player-phase combat, and archer is equipped with a bunch of skills that make it the best player-phase class tree in the entire game.

[samthedigital]

1 hour ago, Whisky said:

Bows are really bad in this game for similar reasons. This is also the game that is dominated my mounted units with super canto. The only units in the Archer/Sniper line also join under terrible circumstances. Rolf is underleveled, and Shinon joins late, and is also underleveled by that point in the game. I could be wrong but I can’t really think of situational niches for them in this game either which is way it’s on the bottom below FE7. FE7 and PoR also both only have 2x effectiveness instead of x3, but I don’t even think that makes much of a difference since enemies usually aren’t hard to kill with no effectiveness anyway.

Shinon initially does not join under terrible circumstances; he has like 3 chapters where he has some decent utility before he disappears for most of the game. This should be enough to justify having PoR above Blazing Blade and possibly in a similar ballpark to Sacred Stones depending on what Innes does on Eirika route. Otherwise I agree with the sentiment broadly speaking; I don't think that being underleveled is a death sentence in PoR though. There are a handful of good units that are underleveled and are still good because bexp is such a good catchup tool. It's possible to budget bxp for Rolf/Shinnon; it's just that they're worse than every other unit when given those resources, so the end result is the same.

My own tier list wouldn't look too different otherwise. I'd put Thracia above Sacred Stones, and Conquest around that general ballpark too. I would put Conquest pretty low, but it's more difficult to actually rate that game because it is possible to get something out of training Mozu compared to some of the other games even if it's still not terribly efficient to get her there. Engage is one I'd have to think about more too.

Edited April 3, 2023 by samthedigital

[ping]

• Radiant Dawn - You have Shinon who's a good unit for the Greil Mercs from start to finish, Rolf's far more redeemable than his PoR incarnation, too, and even Leonardo has some specific niches he can fill. Marksman is a perfectly viable engame class, too, which is pretty rare in the series, as far as I've played it.
• Binding Blade - You have a game where being able to use bows is really really good and both Archers still manage to be terrible. It's kinda funny, actually. On the other hand, both prepromoted Snipers are quite decent - not amazing, but it's not too hard to find a spot for them on your team.
• Shadow Dragon / New Mystery - To be honest, I don't remember how the SD meta is. Jeorge is good, I think? Unfortunately, i do remember that the Archer class is quite bad in both these game, which I think is a bigger problem in Shadow Dragon. In New Mystery, Hunter->Sniper is a reasonable promotion path to take, since Horseman has pretty low class bases and only shines as a class for somebody with incredibly good personal bases. In SD, that isn't possible because the two classes are in different class sets, so I would guess that maining Sniper isn't as good. The instant C rank might have some value for chapter-by-chapter reclassing though. Happy to change my mind on these ones, though.
• Sacred Stones - Innes on Eirika's path is fairly good. Otherwise, bad class. Neimi/Colm can be a funny crit battle couple, if you like to set up things like this.
• Path of Radiance - Shinon's earlygame utility puts this above BlaBla. Everything else about the class is bad, though.
• Blazing Sword - Rebecca can be a fun unit to train if you're so inclined, but she's still really weak. Wil is also really weak and not even fun to train. Louise has some use on her own merit (I tend to find her useful on Cog, which is honestly not a bad trait to have), but she's often most useful for the free A support with Pent.

[FREEPISTOLS]

If New mystery was on here, it should be above Shadow Dragon, maybe even above engage imho. The sniper class was given a very high speed cap which is pretty imperative in lunatic/lunatic reverse. Caeda and Catria will actually do super well in this class since they are usually the first units to hit the speed cap. on top of that, the class is given more physical bulk than the other speedy classes. (swordmaster, berserker, falcon knight etc.) sniper is def a good choice when you need a class that can reliably survive dragons w/o being doubled at all.  with enough bulk, they can take 3 hits from most.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Games where Archer/Sniper is an above average classline

1. Three Houses - Archer is a solid enough intermediate class with a pretty good mastery, but Sniper is where this line really shines; Hunter's Volley is a wonderful ranged delete button. Is there any other game in the series where the best physical infantry class is Sniper? Surely not, but the class rather unequivocably has that honour in 3H. Oh yeah and it can also be a magical delete button too if you want.

...

Games where Archer/Sniper is a below average classline

2. Radiant Dawn - Shinon good, Leonardo and Rolf are mediocre but have their uses. Marksman is legitimately useful, but it's a weak class line until then for all the usual reasons (no, crossbows don't help much). This is the game that I'd say the class comes closest to being actually balanced in!

3. Genealogy - Jamke, Brigid, and Faval all have great offence (legendary-powered for the last two). Bow lock sucks and infantry sucks, but... I still think three units who are all some shade of respectable with clear niches is better than everything below...

4. Binding Blade - Klein and Igrene are solid, but Wolt and Dorothy are... not. I'd say this balances out to below average... but that's pretty good for Archer/Sniper still!

5. Fates - Sniper has solid stats and learns good skills, but bow lock is still problematic. On Conquest there are some range 1 bows but they both have their warts and very few units get natural Archer access on that route anyway. Still, it says something good about the class that Mozu would rather be an Archer than lance infantry.

6. Sacred Stones - Now we're getting into the classic "archer bad" games, saved mostly by having one decent unit. Well, okay, Neimi has a bit more upside than other GBA archers... but that's mostly because she can escape being an infantry bow-lock class so I'm not giving any credit for that in this thread. Fortunately Innes is quite solid on Eirika route.

7. Engage - An awkward covert class that has limited enemy phase for utilizing the class's tag. Not sure if Alcryst counts, he's at least okay, but still nothing amazing. Bow lock is still bad, Mini Bow exists but is pretty weak. Outclassed by Warrior or Bow Knight pretty badly for most purposes.

8. Blazing Blade - As usual for the GBA games the unpromoted archers are terrible, and Louise is okay but not as good as some of the snipers in other games, her low stats limit what she can actually one-round.

9t. Awakening - Just bad. There isn't even a useful prepromo Sniper in this game. Virion sucks and I can't imagine anyone else wanting to reclass to Archer/Sniper.

9t. Path of Radiance - Do I think Shinon's 3 chapters of being weird, unreliable utility (can't reliably one-round or reliably NOT one-round...) are better than Louise? Absolutely not. Better than Virion? I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole.

 

Abstain on the DS games as usual. Also abstain on Echoes. Echoes forging is FAQ-bait nonsense so I've never actually used Hunter's Volley, which leaves me unqualified to talk about the class.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Here come the Benched Brigade! Only looking at games I've been playing since 2017. Wasn't sure how I should incorporate Archanea's Hunter/Horsemen classes, but I don't think any of these rankings would change based on their inclusion or exclusion. 

1. Echoes: Like a lot of classlines, it gets way better as the game goes on. The Killer Bow and Hunter's Volley are an absolute menace. Debatable best weapon and certainly best combat art in the game. Echoes maps cater well to an Archer's enhanced range especially on Celica's route. While Alm's route is filled with bulky paladins that typically take multiple attackers to down. You'll find yourself often in a situation where a specific enemy (like a Cantor) must die to make the incoming enemy phase safer, and your sniper has the best chance at making it happen. The Killer Bow is rather expensive to forge in Act 3 (unless you're content with waiting for the game to hand you silver bows in act 4), and besides trade swapping it on player phase, only one person can use it at a time. Even without a killer bow, I think the archer classline stands up fairly well to other options. Safe chip damage, the ability to retaliate, and very high movement in the end game. It's the most well rounded and potent we've ever seen archers.
2. FE3 Book 2: Your first Wyverns show up as early as chapter 2, and I feel like this is the one Fire Emblem game that pretty much forces you to use and field archers in several maps. Linda's Aura tome deals comparable damage to the Steel Bow, but there's only one of her. And she has a great deal more difficulty with flying dragons who possess some Res and nearly kill her between strikes. Deploying Gordin + Ryan (support bonus), Kashima, and finally George is just sensible practice from start to finish in this game. Book 2 introduced the Killer Bow which can cheese some kills on this game's bulkier human classes. George can actually use the damn Parthia at base now, and it will one shot every flying dragon in the game. He should only need 1 strength level up in order to pull the one shot with his Silver bow instead. That'll nail the Chapter 12 flying dragons as easily as the chapter 21 ones. 
3. Three Houses: Since every class in the game can use bows, it's best to remember that Close Counter and Curved Shot are not unique to the archer classline. The Archer class is not particularly potent to be in, but I see a lot of players pick up Hit+20 on a variety of units which therefore gives the class value. However, Snipers are the biggest gateway to viability at very low investment. Like Assassin, there are no bad Snipers. Archery-oriented units typically have low strength, yet Hunters Volley pushes them into ORKO range on a lot of enemy types even on Maddening. Boasting a Grappler's excellent combat while standing at a safe distance - thus not as often needing physic or reposition support to survive an incoming enemy phase. And crit stacking with batallions, Killer Bow+, or the Bow Crit+10 skill lets them knock out monster health bars in one go. Hitting even harder than gauntlet users if it's a flying monster. The Bow Knight is a poor upgrade for Snipers, only standing as a niche side-grade for Cyril and Leonie on Maddening, However, its shortcomings are less pronounced on lower difficulties.
4. FE1: Bowgun Bowgun Bowgun. The "killer bow" is available from the first chapter and is the weapon of choice for all non flier enemies. When you are shooting at a flier, you pick something heavier just to have more weapon MT to triple - but even then the potential bowgun crit is still worth considering. Archers don't have much going for them in stats, but you only need 1 point higher AS to double in this game and the bowgun weighs just 2. Incidentally it's also the most accurate and durable of bows too. Archers have no enemy phase presence, but Marth's universal taunt can allow you the privilege of putting defenseless bow users on the front line and the enemies won't notice. Gordin has just 5 Mov, and therefore has trouble reaching the battle before it's over. Promoting to Sniper early is essential if you want him to stay relevant with 7 Mov. Hunters have 6 Mov, but cannot promote into Horsemen. Archers face stiffer competition from ballisticians who are 2 range locked in this game. Very similar to unpromoted archers but with Massive Def and the generic arrowspate is a statistical match for the Silver Bow. 
5. FE4: This is just looking at the unmounted archer units. Unmounted archers are supposed to be better than the mounted ones by virtue of having Pursuit as a class skill, but then they went and gave Midir, and Lester's substitute Pursuit anyway lol. Jamka's killer bow gives you the impression of a badass unit, but he struggles to make it to the action. Midir gets more mileage out of that killer bow, and what your left with is a source of chip damage that can't canto to a safe location. Bridget's personal bow can very well oneshot enemies and make her worth bringing to a fight. But it's honestly difficult keeping her alive in chapter 3 because, again, the lack of canto to attack and retreat. I don't have experience with Gen 2's Yewfelle inheritor, but he's probably coasting well on that weapon alone. Archers ranked lower than this would love to have a personal weapon that consistently one shots enemies.
6. FE6: This game throws a lot of Wyverns at you, but Wolt and Dorothy simply aren't up to the task by their first encounter in chapter 7. Klein and Igrene are not bad though. The Killer Bow is plentiful and powerful. FE6 has just one Brave Bow, but it's extremely early, and Sue and Shin simply will not have the bow rank to use it by chapter 12. Your snipers should also reach S for Murgleiz without as much difficulty. So picking one of the two is my preference over the nomads.
7. FE7: Most of my GBA archers are just chip damaging enemies in the early game to feed kills to cavaliers. And with FE7 being the land of overtuned pre-promotes, Louise is unsurprisingly usable. Great base stats that should surpass any Wil or Rebecca unless you Arena'd them to level 20/20. Geitz is still my favorite bow user, but she's fun to use, justifies her deployment slot with that Pent support, and can use your best bows at base. FE7 has a remarkably early Brave Bow that's begging to be used. What keeps the class down is really just the poor showing of the two first archers. 2x effective damage does warrant mention, but I don't recall too many fliers in the first place. 
8. Path of Radiance: I think Shinon is very useful, particularly in his join chapter, but not because of his class. Provoke and his innately high Avoid stat let him draw the attention of enemies while Ike and Titania run ahead to rescue Marcia. And every other early game chapter that the game forces him in is a space where his combat can see use in a pinch. The class is awful though. Rofl is an irredeemable unit, even when you pump bonus exp into him. Paladins - with or without access to bows, will always be more versatile on both phases. PoR is just not the sort of game where killing one, very powerful enemy with a crit is the key to victory. The enemy density is too high even on lower difficulty settings. And I think even if effective damage were 3x, all I would do is give more of my cavaliers bows on promotion, rather than fielding archers in response to that change.
9. Sacred Stones: Neimi is a copy of Rebecca that can end up in Rath's promotion instead of Sniper. But neither Sniper nor Ranger is a potent class. Do you want a horse, or do you want the ability to use ballista (which stop appearing after 13A/10B)? The Sniper's True Shot skill almost never makes a difference. I really wish the floating eyeball monsters were classified as flying enemies. Sacred Stones has its fair share of flying enemies to justify the use of bows (and they are 3x effective damage, not 2x like FE7 and 9!), but they're introduced after the route split where Neimi's base stats would no longer be sufficient. Innes in Eirika route is decent, but besides having a nidhogg user for the finale it shouldn't impact your play too much, and bumping up based on Neimi or Gerik's Ranger performance feels like cheating when there's a separate thread for that. Also the Brave Bow is in the third to last map which is outrageously late.
10. The Last Promise: TLP adds a ton of gimmicky bows, but their stats always present some issue, usually a low base hit rate. Even the 1-2 range short bow is packing just 5 MT and is 4x the price of a javelin. The best bow users end up being the promoted Nomads and the endgame Warrior due to having a second weapon type that can gain WTA. Rachel is a contender for worst unit in the game, and that's assuming you even reach her with her Jaffar-esque recruit condition (no Rescue staff in this hack either). Her only purpose is to hand you the S rank bow. As for Zach, his stats aren't awful, but you absolutely must feed him a kill every turn if you want him to contribute on the Wyvern map. Effective damage is still 2x and he struggles to outperform the mages. And then afterward, you almost never fight fliers again, since you ally with the Wyvern and Pegasi kingdoms.
11. FE3 Book 1 Big downgrade from FE1 by removing the Bowgun and not integrating Book 2's Killer Bow in its place. The only buff worth mention here is that Castor can promote into a horseman now. Bows hit a little harder, but are much heavier across the board and with the new attack speed calculation, archers shouldn't ever reach the threshold for doubling enemies. ORKOs just won't happen in this game without some serious stat blessings and stat boosters (or a crit). Book 1 doesn't have many fliers to begin with. Most of its toughest maps are indoors, which I suppose hurts and helps the case for snipers. There are no fliers to shoot indoors, but a Sniper at least maintains his promotion gains while mounted units do not (+5 Spd!). This is also why Castor's promotion does not matter much in the long run and Wolf/Sedgar are hilariously bad in a way that FE11 fell over itself trying to address. Furthermore, Merric's Excalibur tome is much better competition for anti-flier damage, now that it can potentially be Hammerned. The new Shaver spell is also buyable from the chapter 14 secret shop so that Linda can get a weaker version of that move.

 

If I had to put this in a tier list, 1-3 are in A tier, B tier is totally blank, 4-6 are in C tier, while the rest are in a vague border country of C or D tier.

I feel like the common characterization of archers is that the unpromoted ones aren't worth the trouble while the pre-promoted Sniper is sort of worth consideration for this or that reason.

Edit: clarified several entries and added FE6 and The Last Promise

Edited May 26, 2023 by Zapp Branniglenn

[Armchair General]

7 hours ago, Whisky said:

Echoes

I might be over them a bit here. I’m not real familiar with Echoes meta but I thought Archers seemed quite good with their long range in this game and I’ve heard that they can be really good with Hunter’s Volley.

Technically, they're great with the increased range. But the main problem is that there's hardly anything notable that they have an advantage against and that the statline for Leon and Python are kind of underwhelming. Like, it's great for harassing an specific enemy or outright forcing an arcanist to become inactive (I'm fucking serious, they'll just stand there once their hp goes under an certain number and nobody's around to heal them); but outside of Hunter's Volley, Parthia, and an few other combat arts. There really isn't much to say, aside that they're more or less confined to their role as an support unit.

 

7 hours ago, Whisky said:

Engage

Bows can be useful for taking out fliers in this game, this is even true in the early game. This could arguably be a little higher up, but Warriors can use Bows too so Archers/Snipers are nothing special. And any class can use strong Bows with either Lyn or Lucina.

With Engage, at least Alcryst gets Luna and Fogado stays evasive in his promoted custom class. Other than that, I'm not entirely enthusiastic about archery in this game. Sure, they're perfect against fliers and whatnot. But I'd rather just use the Radiant Bow to get around some of the stat issues that I'm going through.

 

7 hours ago, Whisky said:

Three Houses

With this one, archery is more or less of an tool to actually bully the enemy with, provided that you have Close Counter on or don't exclusively use bows on your character. Other than that, the thought of converting Dimitri or Edelgard into an Sniper is kind of hilarious , though

[SnowFire]

1. Echoes if you forge Killer Bows.  This is basically FAQ-bait since the game does not tell you what weapons teach what combat arts nor even what combat arts do until you've learned them, and even if you know it's there, you have to focus all of your gold on this to get it done in Chapter 3.  That said, if you do this...  godlike.  When I did my no promotions run, even basic Archers who got outranged by Snipers were still incredibly potent as Hunter's Volley just flat kills everything from range even if you don't promote.  What a crazy, unbalanced skill.

- Echoes aftergame.  This only matters for the aftergame as if you do a Dread Fighter loop in the maingame, you'll crush it no matter what class you switch to.  That said, the Echoes archer line is balanced by cruddy stats.  If you either use a Villager's Fork or get a DF Lvl. 10, you entirely circumvent the intended drawback, and just have a unit with good stats that also kills units from long range.

2. Three Houses. It's already been said.  3H favors player-phase offense.  Archers teach Hit +20, which is important for some characters, and have Bow Range +1. And you can get Snipers up to killing everything from long range, with the option to go for crit builds to make it so that they take out even entire monster health bars.

(gap)

(2.5) Echoes without Killer Bows. The nature of the game still makes Archers quite handy, even though Python & Leon have very suspect strength.  Most notably, they can damage Cantors who have a whole crowd of summons body-blocking for them.  Lots of terrain to shoot through.  Atlas makes a good Archer, too, with Curved Shot Iron Bow fixing his accuracy issues (and is a solid choice for the other two). Summons are often weak enough to be one-shot by even Archer Strength, so they're fine even if you haven't closed on the Cantor just yet.

3. Radiant Dawn. Yeah, Marksman is good in the lategame, Shinon is a good unit (although amid other good units in C3), Rolf is fine if trained, and while Leonardo is bad objectively, he still fulfills a useful niche for the Dawn Brigade of manning ballistae and chipping from behind chokepoints held by tougher units.  It's amazing they're useful at all given how enemy-phase focused RD is, but super stats and eventual 3 range will do that.

4. Fates.  This is mostly hyping up Takumi as usable enough in BR (although everyone is usable there) and Sniper Mozu becomes a good lategame boss-killer in CQ.  Certain Blow makes some kills reliable that would be chancy otherwise if the boss is sitting on evasion terrain.

5. Engage (incl. Tieur d'Elite).  I'm considering Alcryst an honorary Sniper here, since his class is basically Sniper but with a better skill in Luna.  Sniper / TDE is fine.  Yeah, Bow Knight has more range, and Warrior is an authentically good class of course, but it's usable on its own merits, especially if either you can abuse Covert or give the [Sniper / Alcryst] Emblem Lucina for Warrior-style Backup support.  Enemy fliers are reasonably common and scary, so bow support is appreciated against them.

6. New Mystery of the Emblem.  The main thing that keeps Snipers relevant in this game is that it is overwhelmingly player-phase focused, with quick death coming to trying to survive enemy phase.  This makes the "bad enemy phase" problem not so relevant.  Plus fliers are very good in this game, so shooting down enemy wyverns is quite relevant, and you can even forge bows to ensure they hit KO thresholds.

7. Binding Blade. Despite my avatar, I'm actually not really a FE6 expert.  Igrene has genuinely good stats but I've never used her.  Klein is good specifically on Hard Mode but not worth it on Normal.  And Wolt & Dorothy are...  yeah.  Still, Igrene & HM Klein are worth something.  Bern deploys plenty of Wyverns, so bows are relevant.  The problems with getting archers XP are reduced by growths being less important in FE6 and a reasonably generous catch-up formula.

(gap)

8. Awakening.  Okay, strictly speaking, Virion and Noire are not good.  However, the opportunity cost for deploying them is lower in Awakening than most other games because of how Pair-Up works.  You can take your least accurate character (Tharja?) and have Virion hug them tightly and leech XP and offer a hefty pair up +Hit boost, and pop out occasionally to one-shot archers or longbow-chip a really dangerous unit.  That's a niche, I guess.  (Needless to say, Sniper Virion is downgraded to beneath the GBA/SD crew if you try to make him your main carry, so uh don't do that.)

9t. Blazing Blade / Sacred Stones / Shadow Dragon.  Usual GBA archer problems here; they're okay for chipping but will fall behind in XP then should probably be benched (or, in Neimi's case, promoted to Ranger which we're ignoring).  While the units are better in FE8 than FE7, I'm not sure the class is better?  The infamous Phantom Ship map has Deathgoyles & Mogalls (EDIT: Whoops.) I guess.  But you could argue that FE7 map design favors range shenanigans more, or stuff like avoiding Luna crit rates with a longbow.  I don't really remember SD that well, but I think they have the same basic problems.

(gap)

12. Path of Radiance.  Bows aren't worthless in FE9, just...  let the Paladins shoot them instead, who will be better at it in every way than Rolf & Shinon.  Insultingly, the crit boost added for FE9 US actually makes Shinon worse since now he can screw up chipping enemies to feed to worthier characters for XP.  Even if R&S were hacked to have way better stats FE6 Hard Mode bonus style, they STILL would be questionable to use.

Edited April 4, 2023 by SnowFire

[Shadow Mir]

IMO...

• B tier in Mystery. While archers have to compete with hunters, they ultimately come on top because unlike them, they don't lose any effectiveness in indoors maps, and on top of that, archers have much better promotion bonuses. Also, wyvern riders show up very very early in this game.
• D tier in Blazing Blade. Effectiveness got reduced to double might (in the overseas releases, at least), and it's an enemy phase heavy game. At least Louise has some niches that she can fill.
• D tier in Sacred Stones. Innes is pretty good on Eirika's route, but that's the best I can say of it as far as this game is concerned; in Neimi's case, Sniper is competing with Ranger - a comparison which it loses badly. This being said, bows are better off here than in Blazing or Radiance.
• E tier in Path of Radiance. Not only was effectiveness reduced to double might (again, except this time it's in all versions), the two archers you get are really bad, with Rolf coming underleveled right as the earlygame is ending, and Shinon, while he makes a good first impression early on, being your best ranged fighter at that point, leaves for a massive chunk of the game, and by the time he comes back, he is himself underleveled, and his bases no longer hold up. Oh, and as an extra kick in the nuts, remember how swordmasters and berserkers didn't get boosted crit in the JP version? This is also true of snipers. While they get exclusive access to the longbow and Double Bow, both suck, so that ain't helping their case any. Even if effective might was triple might, that'd only really make bows a more viable weapon for paladins (and make Astrid better).
• B tier in Radiant Dawn. Shinon and Rolf are much better than in Radiance, and Leonardo, while worse than either, still has some things going for him. Marksman is a pretty good class, too. However, crossbow access does not fix their main failing.
• C tier in Fates. Takumi makes a good case for it... but sadly, he's the only particularly standout one. His competition (disregarding seals) is Setsuna, who has shit stats everywhere but speed, and his own son, who requires you have used him a lot to get. With seals factored in, there's Mozu, but... the fact that she needs a seal and a degree of favoritism that is frankly absurd does her no favours whatsoever, even on Conquest where Takumi's mere existence doesn't ruin her day.

Abstain on Engage, SoV, and 3H.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Zapp Branniglenn]

3 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Echoes forging is FAQ-bait nonsense so I've never actually used Hunter's Volley, which leaves me unqualified to talk about the class.

1 hour ago, SnowFire said:

1. Echoes if you forge Killer Bows.  This is basically FAQ-bait since the game does not tell you what weapons teach what combat arts nor even what combat arts do until you've learned them, and even if you know it's there, you have to focus all of your gold on this to get it done in Chapter 3.  That said, if you do this...  godlike. 

It's very true that only a small percentage of Echoes playthroughs got to experience Hunters Volley, and I support anybody thinking about the not-as-optimized spectrum of playthroughs in order to get a broader sense of viability. I just wanna throw it out there that a LOT of things we consider "standard meta stuff" across Fire Emblem games happen to be tips you would be unlikely to discover for yourself across any number of casual, guide-less playthroughs. 95% of Secret Shops which is a big deal for FE6 and all the archanea games especially. Stefan's FE9 recruitment. Lex's Brave Axe. Most potential FE6 Support partners (there was no Support library after beating the game, your translation patch added that in!), The FE7 route split stuff that I never bothered to read up about but you guys seem to think is important, grinding for stat boosters in the Three Houses Greenhouse - and how to reset for them, that Olwen Ring I've been hearing about in Engage.

Compared to all that, a Fire Emblem player getting a guaranteed Silver Bow in both Alm and Celica's Act 4, taking it to the forge and saying "oh, I can forge a killer bow? Yeah I'll turn one of these into that. Killer weapons are always good." is much more likely to happen within a first playthrough. And since the bow is extremely good without its mystery combat art, unlocking HV afterward is just a matter of time. That's how I ended up with it. I only found out later that players were pushing for it early by dumping their cash. If I ever play again, I'll try it.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Zapp Branniglenn

[Eltosian Kadath]

Once again with another handy graphic to show this one off~

S Tier: One of the Best Classes in the Game

Echoes, Shadows of Valentia: This class has so much going for it. Massive range (including up to Bow Range +2), that functions even on enemy phase (unlike the wonky ranges of your mages), that can even hit back at one range is a massive boon to the class. Getting mounted movement thanks to promoting into Bow Knight. Being effective against flying foes is a nice touch as well. Although getting access to the incredibly potent Hunters Volley from an easily forged Killer Bow just pushes this class into the absurdly good range

 

A Tier: A Fairly Good Class

Fates: Fates is a game where neither player phase, nor enemy phasing dominates, which mitigates the issues archer/snipers tends to have with enemy phase focused games. Archer/Sniper is a very player phase focused class that hits like a truck, Bows/Yumi tend to be one of the highest might weapons to begin with in this game, and they get class skills that add +4 damage on player phase, and +5 to all bow damage, with respectable strength and speed to go with that. Attack stance also lets them really capitalize on the maps that let them use the absurd effective damage hits as well. A good class for those that prefer a player phase focused style of play in Fates.

Three Houses: Its like a lesser form of Echoes version, where you have to work your way up to where Echoes Archers start. Admittedly the way arts work in this game gives them some nice early utility as well.

New Mystery of the Emblem: I went back and forth a few on times on whether this should be A or B tier, but here I put it. Admittedly early game Hunter is far superior to Archer, but there are quite a few chapters in early, mid, and late game with Wyvern (either wild dragon versions, or with riders) are the biggest threat on the map, and any bows help in that situation. Admittedly Sniper is the best of the promoted bow classes in New Mystery, and there are still some vital chapters where that effective (potentially forged effective) damage is vital. That is before mentioning that this is one of the games that gets hard enough to be more player phase focused in the higher difficulties, so the potential for free ranged chip can be really useful. It also does hit some key speed threasholds with stat caps to be viable in the late game of the highest difficulty, and even on the last map you can use its effective damage against Dragon Wyverns. You can even cheese some stuff in the very late game with a forged Longbow, even Medeus himself, and Longbow are exclusive to Archer/Sniper in this game.

 

B Tier: An OK Class

Engage: Popping fliers in a nice little niche, but there are generally better bow classes available after promotion (like Warrior). The covert bonus is far better on thieves, but it can help mitigate the lack of enemy phase potential with impossible to overcome avoid, and Sniper does have the notable niche of the 20 range Astra Storm with better bow access.

Binding Blade: On the highest difficulty, safe chip is actually useful, and wyverns become one of the more common dangerous enemy types that the triple effectiveness bonus of bow really helps with. This gets further helped by Klein having some nice Hard Mode bonuses on him. Admittedly the Nomads tend to be better in general, but many like to minimize using them to avoid the terrors of the Sacae maps, which gives archers a stronger niche, being an OK class in the end.

 

C Tier:  A Niche Class

Shadow Dragon: Its not the most common effective damage type in this game, but you can switch to sniper for easy access to effective forged Bow damage. You can get that from generally better classes, but Sniper starts you with the highest Bow rank of the bunch. It does have another amusing niche, if you actually play some of the very late game sacrificial gaiden chapters (17x and 20x specifically) you can get a Long Bow (or two if you do both) that you can heavily forge to cheese some otherwise dangerous late game fights, Medeus included. Note Longbow is Archer/Sniper exclusive in this game.

 

D Tier: A Bad Class

Genealogy of the Holy War: An infantry class that lacks the one range to enemy phase. Even with the Yewfelle I couldn't really describe any of the Archer/Snipers as good...

Sacred Stones: Much as I like Innes, this is a game all about enemy phasing, which is something he can't really do, and the other archer/sniper is even worse than he is.

Blazing Sword: Some of the worst units in the game are stuck in this class. One of the x2 effective game too, which makes the class even useless against fliers.

Path of Radiance: One can argue that Shinon isn't the worst unit you have in his early chapters, but that is the kindest thing you say about any unit stuck in this class.

Thracia 776: Much as I have gone out of my way to use a bow unit every run for funsies, bow units are really bad in this game. The lack of one range is even worse than normal here thanks to it also preventing them from being able to capture enemies.

Awakening: I am slightly tempted to move this up a spot, as on high difficulties the safe chip archery supplies is useful, but despite the high difficulty this game can have early on, you reach a point where you can snap this game in half over your knee with some broken nonsense, and at that point the brief arguable niche archers had goes away entirely, and the archer become definitively one of the worst classes in this game. Admittedly I haven't played Lunatic + where being physically incapable of attacking at 1 range might help more against the more numerous randomly given Counter skill enemies.

Radiant Dawn: Once again you can argue that Shinon isn't one of the worst units in the game, but he isn't great compared to the higher quality of the Greil Mercenaries, and isn't really in contention for the tower either. The other archers are some of the worst units in the game, and I don't know why you would bother trying to use any of the archer/sniper line in this game.

[Alastor15243]

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Awakening: I am slightly tempted to move this up a spot, as on high difficulties the safe chip archery supplies is useful, but despite the high difficulty this game can have early on, you reach a point where you can snap this game in half over your knee with some broken nonsense, and at that point the brief arguable niche archers had goes away entirely, and the archer become definitively one of the worst classes in this game. Admittedly I haven't played Lunatic + where being physically incapable of attacking at 1 range might help more against the more numerous randomly given Counter skill enemies.

I'd argue that this and longbow utility in Apotheosis, making it have viable uses on the two hardest challenges the game has to offer, should at least offer a ticket out of the lowest tier on the list.

[Whisky]

How much do you guys think 2x effectiveness matters? It depends on the game but let’s look at FE7 for example.

Pegasi are some of the easiest enemies in the game to 1RKO. Most units can 1RKO them easily with no effectiveness. The Archers usually can’t 1RKO them at base unless they’re weighed down enough to double and then they can. 3x effectiveness would allow Rebecca and Wil to 1RKO early Pegasi.

Most Wyverns shouldn’t be hard for a trained up Bow user to double (and 1RKO) with a Steel Bow due to weighing themselves down with Steel Lances. Against faster Wyverns you have other options if you need to 1RKO them. (Silver/Killer/Brave). 3x effectiveness would make Wyverns easier to kill with more common weapons, especially the ones with lighter weapons, but may not be particularly helpful, especially if you don’t mind using stronger Bows. Also you have units that can 1RKO Wyverns better on enemy phase.

Wyvern Lords in Ch27 can be 1RKOed by Louise at base with a Silver Bow, however, later Wyvern Lords have higher bulk and are harder to 1RKO. They’re faster too. Rath could probably do it if he’s high enough level. 3x effectiveness would definitely help Bow users kill late game Wyvern Lords. Though even here, Harken would be better at 1RKOing Wyvern Lords on enemy phase.

So 3x effectiveness would definitely help, however, it doesn’t fix the main issues with Archers in FE7. If Rebecca could 1RKO Pegasi at base, would that make her worth using? Not really, no, she’d still be terrible for all the same reasons. It would help to give them a few more niche uses but wouldn’t really improve them much in my opinion. The core problems with them would still be there. You have other units that would still be better against fliers than Archers due to better enemy phase and being able to 1RKO without effective damage.

11 hours ago, SnowFire said:

The infamous Phantom Ship map has Deathgoyles & Mogalls I guess. 

Bows don’t actually deal bonus damage to Mogalls. Just Gargoyles and Draco Zombies. Mogalls are easy to kill anyway though.

Innes might have actually been kind of useful on that map for taking down the Deathgoyle though. It’s too bad he’s not available for that map.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Whisky

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, Whisky said:

Bows don’t actually deal bonus damage to Mogalls. Just Gargoyles and Draco Zombies. Mogalls are easy to kill anyway though.

For what it's worth, Mogalls do count as flying units in SoV. Admittedly, though, they're much more of a pain in the ass there.

3 hours ago, Whisky said:

How much do you guys think 2x effectiveness matters? It depends on the game but let’s look at FE7 for example.

Pegasi are some of the easiest enemies in the game to 1RKO. Most units can 1RKO them easily with no effectiveness. The Archers usually can’t 1RKO them at base unless they’re weighed down enough to double and then they can. 3x effectiveness would allow Rebecca and Wil to 1RKO early Pegasi.

Most Wyverns shouldn’t be hard for a trained up Bow user to double (and 1RKO) with a Steel Bow due to weighing themselves down with Steel Lances. Against faster Wyverns you have other options if you need to 1RKO them. (Silver/Killer/Brave). 3x effectiveness would make Wyverns easier to kill with more common weapons, especially the ones with lighter weapons, but may not be particularly helpful, especially if you don’t mind using stronger Bows. Also you have units that can 1RKO Wyverns better on enemy phase.

Wyvern Lords in Ch27 can be 1RKOed by Louise at base with a Silver Bow, however, later Wyvern Lords have higher bulk and are harder to 1RKO. They’re faster too. Rath could probably do it if he’s high enough level. 3x effectiveness would definitely help Bow users kill late game Wyvern Lords. Though even here, Harken would be better at 1RKOing Wyvern Lords on enemy phase.

So 3x effectiveness would definitely help, however, it doesn’t fix the main issues with Archers in FE7. If Rebecca could 1RKO Pegasi at base, would that make her worth using? Not really, no, she’d still be terrible for all the same reasons. It would help to give them a few more niche uses but wouldn’t really improve them much in my opinion. The core problems with them would still be there. You have other units that would still be better against fliers than Archers due to better enemy phase and being able to 1RKO without effective damage.

I'd say it hurts more in Radiance, but not just for bows. It makes the anti-cavalry and anti-armor weapons nearly useless. Look at the Armorslayer. You first get one in chapter 7, but it's not very good against the armors because it craters Ike and Mia's speed.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Fire Emblem's got this annoying trope of having one or two unpromoted archers, no fliers to shoot at until the midgame, and even a trained archer is insufficient to ORKO them when they show up because they can't double. Then the pre-promoted sniper shows up with a silver bow and the stats to do their job better. And when Wyverns do show up in the early game they're absolute murderers:

• FE6 Chapter 7, Hard Mode. Assuming Dorothy and Sue gain no strength ups in the previous chapter (which is where you recruit them), and Wolt got exactly 1 strength up from chipping enemies up to this point, they all have 5 Str. Your archers are doing 9-13 damage with an iron bow depending on what Defense the wyverns roll. Base level Marcus with Silver Lance does the same damage. 31-37 HP, so two archers are insufficient for this kill. the wyverns have 6-10 AS depending on speed roll. Marcus has 11 AS so it's possible, but Doubling with archers is not feasible. Sue would need two speed ups to double the slowest Spd roll. 80 displayed hit too - not that they're the only FE6 units with accuracy issues. You have one steel bow for an extra 9 damage, but also 15 less hit. You could potentially trade swap that steel bow to fire on the same target in the same turn  - using an intermediary unit that Trades in the space between. But assuming this isn't feasible and it's one steel bow shot two archers remains insufficient unless the wyvern in question has the absolute minimum def and hp roll. 
  • On Normal mode things look a little better. One shot each from a 5 Str Iron Bow and Steel Bow guarantees 31 damage on the highest Def roll. Sue is also more likely to double if you got her 1 or 2 speed ups, but even with a double it's never a kill.
• FE3 Book 2 Chapter 2. 29 HP, 13 Def. Only bows and your silver lance can hurt them. The horseslayer boss wyvern has a bit more and will move to attack you. If you send Arran out to solo one of the regular ones with a silver lance and one of your three vulneraries, He wins after four rounds of combat, doing 8 damage each hit and taking 7 in response. And this is precisely what happens if you're sending him west and up through the forest to cut off the Ladyblade thief. Ryan with an iron bow does 10 damage, Gordon with his steel bow does 21. Together they kill the right wyvern, but a few more points of damage are required for the boss. Thankfully Warren is here too with 12 damage. Trade swapping the steel bow is also feasible. With so much terrain, your units struggle to set up on this map. The archers here are vital to win, they're not taking up deployment slots, Ryan and Gordin have 9 and 12 total crit thanks to their support, and are definitely more accurate than FE6 despite this being a 1RN game. 

Any other examples of early fliers? Those two are both 3x effective damage games. And in my opinion, the first super hard maps of either game too.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Zapp Branniglenn

[Armchair General]

1 hour ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Any other examples of early fliers?

There's Engage, but the first two chapters that they appear in are essentially an non-issue. Then, you won't see an fliers for quite an while; so Etie kind of falls off in terms of utility. The Great Crossing is something that people would realistically struggle with, though. 

Aside from that chapter in Awakening where that Plegian captain puts on an comedy routine and the side chapter with the three villagers; the fliers in that game doesn't exactly pose that much of an threat, early on. Sure, Virion isn't exactly great; but there realistically isn't much of an chance for him to shine until you get past the first 6 or 7 chapters. 

Can't really say much for 3H because by the time you start regularly seeing fliers, you should already have an means of easily dispatching them.

 

With Fates, I really don't remember. Niles and Setsuna never really stood out that much and Takumi basically carried my team. The only problems that I had with fliers was in Cheve in Conquest, the castle garden in Conquest, the sewers in Birthright (but that was mainly the reinforcement spam on Lunatic). Other than that, the extra damage was usually enough to take care of business

Edited April 4, 2023 by Armchair General

[SnowFire]

Yeah, I misremembered exactly what monsters Neimi hit weakness on in Phantom Ship.  It's something for her pre-promotion usability, at least.

Re @Zapp Branniglenn on the "findability" of Hunter's Volley, the thing is that evolving weapons in Echoes causes you to discard all the money you've stuffed into upgrading your previous one.  Additionally, if someone decides they want to learn the Silver Bow arts and see if they're good (they're not), they very well might not have time to get the Killer Bow.  Personally I only grabbed a Killer Bow on my fourth playthrough or something and probably never would have had it not been for the Internet saying to try it out.  (And even then, only in a dopey challenge run that required extra firepower.)  Also, if we're being nitpickers, I wouldn't count Echoes Bow Knight as relevant to this specific topic, so if you're getting your Hunter's Volley online only in late C4/C5, that's a moot point for the Archer/Sniper line.  It's just that you can get Archers/Snipers Hunter's Volley and it's still insanely insanely busted.

As an additional Echoes musing, but to the extent that this is ranking the *class* rather than the characters in that class, I already mentioned that Atlas makes a good archer, but it's a solid choice for Alm's villagers too.  Additionally, if you use a Villager's Fork, Archer is by far the best class to use this for.  When I did my Blitzkrieg playthrough (=mild LTC), I had Grey class change to Mercenary / Myrmidon, then Fork back, then go up the Archer tree - and yeah, with Myrmidon bases, Archer looks REALLY busted.

I'll agree with @Alastor15243that if we're including the Awakening aftergame, Sniper potentially gets interesting again, but only the deep deep Aftergame (plenty of the Aftergame is best dealt with the usual Awakening ways, i.e. Nosferatu / Galeforce / dragon megatanks).  But re @Dark Holy Elfmentioning units never considering class-changing to Archer, oddly enough, aftergame Chrom is a decent candidate for this.  His stats/skills kinda don't keep up compared to OP kids, but you can give him a Longbow and a Pair-up with Sorcerer Robin equipped with Waste or something, and with lategame Pair-Up attack trigger rates being very reliable, that can be some good chip.  It only really matters for wonky situations like Apotheosis having Dragonskin Sorcerers equipped with Nosferatu and Miracle+, of course, but it's there for whatever micro-credit the aftergame is given.

I edited my FE6 comment to note that the game being a bit more about bases rather than growths + a generous catch-up XP formula dulls the impact of classic FE Archers struggling to get XP some.  Often the best ways to use archers is for safe chip, but then you end up with the Wils and Rebeccas of the world falling behind in levels.  Less of a problem for HM Klein & Igrene.

Re  @Eltosian Kadath on why bothering to use Radiant Dawn archers...  I could be convinced I overrated them a tad, but long-range in RD tends to come with big drawbacks: Purge & Meteor have very limited uses, and by the time you hit Tower where they can be blessed to remove that issue, don't sting that hard.  Marksman just gets 3 range flat out, no questions asked, can be used with all their best weapons.  That's a pretty notable niche.  (RD's "[Skill/2]% chance enemies without Nihil TOTALLY DIE" is also a bit more useful for units that can proc it at long range, too, if still unreliable of course.)  Bad enemy phase in a hugely enemy phase game still hurts them a lot, but if you really need to player phase kill a scary opponent without triggering counterattacks, Marksmen are good for the job.

Edited April 5, 2023 by SnowFire

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1. Three Houses. Archer provides the most splashable mastery skill in the game in Hit +20. Whether physical or magical, player-phase or enemy-phase, literally any of your combat units will appreciate this skill. Moreover, the Archer class gives Bowrange +1. Sniper retains this, while adding Bowrange and (eventually) the vaunted Hunter's Volley.

Looking at individual Archers/Snipers, Shamir starts in the class, and she's quite solid. It's probably Ashe's best class too, while Magic Bow builds can work on Hubert and Hanneman. Anyone can work in it, even if some bow users would rather go Bow Knight or Wyvern Lord. And on the enemy side, Archers are among the most obnoxious earlygame foes to face.

2. Echoes. That's right, the other game with Hunter's Volley. Oh, and Archers can fight up close. Oh, and Snipers have 5 range, with no long-range hit loss. Your innate Archers are held back by their stats, but anyone with half-decent stats that gets pitchforked into the line will be a nightmare. Only reason they aren't higher? They're strictly outclassed by their own promotion, Bow Knight.

3. Radiant Dawn. There are quite a few good Bows around (Brave Bow, Silencer, Lughnasadh, the fixed Double Bow), plus Crossbows as an option in general. Sniper and Marksman get Crit boosts, with the latter also enjoying an unspoken Bowrange +1. There's a case that Shinon is a top 10 combat unit, and while Rolf starts out bad, he's a fun growth project. Leo won't be tower-worthy, but he has some free earlygame deployments, and gets a second wind with fun tools in Part III.

4. Fates. Bows are pretty good in this game, offering WTA over the ever-threatening Shurikens. Or you can use the Dual Yumi against opposing Mages. Takumi is great, and Setsuna is... a worse Takumi, but workable in BR at least. Archer Mozu pretty cool too.

5. FE6. There are a ton of Wyverns, and Bows aren't so weak this time. Igrene and Klein are pretty good, or so I've heard. Been a long time since I played this one.

6. Genealogy. Yeah, I'm surprised too. Archers and Snipers have genuinely great combat though, especially with one of the Holy Trinity (Killer Bow, Brave Bow, Yewfelle) in hand. Innate Pursuit is vital, while Jamke (and some Febail variants) get extra combat skills to this end. Plus, they can run through the ranged Arena, which is usually easier. They might be the best physical infantry combat classes in the game... but being physical infantry combat units still sucks in this game. No horse, no higher.

7. Shadow Dragon. Archers have the same movement as your Armor Knights. This is an atrocity. But Gordin still has his rare uses in the earlygame, and Jeorge is decent when he comes. Being able to forge Bows, including the Longbow, can be nice against enemy fliers I guess. Still, not as good as Hunter/Horseman.

8. Sacred Stones. There's a good bunch of flying foes in the lategame, plus tough maps like Phantom Ship, that they can deal with. Innes is pretty legit on Eirika's route, and Neimi... well, her quick support with Colm is pretty nifty. Heavily outclassed, but not useless.

9. FE7. Basically how they are in FE8, but with Wyverns instead of Gargoyles, and 2x effectiveness. Rebecca sucks, Wil is okay at best, and Louise... well, her instant A support with Pent is pretty nifty. Even more outclassed, but not useless.

10. Path of Radiance. Shinon is a nice contributor for, like, three and a half chapters. Then he leaves, and comes back... with no extra experience or stats. Hilariously, though, he's still probably better at that point than Rolf, who's probably the worst unit in the game. 2x effective Bow infantry in an EP-heavy, cavalry-focused game? They never stood a chance.

11. Awakening. They give trash Pair-Up bonuses, and Bows aren't great in a game where you want to 1-2 juggernaut on EP. You don't even get any aside from Virion (bad) and Noire (one of the worst kids). Longbow might enable some interesting stuff? Iunno. Towards the bottom of the list on anyone I want to deploy.

[Jotari]

On 4/4/2023 at 5:40 AM, Alastor15243 said:

Fates is probably their best showing that didn't make them stupid overpowered. Most notably Conquest. It really says something that the main argument given for why Mozu is a good unit is the fact that she has archer access. Conquest is a game that really validates player-phase combat, and archer is equipped with a bunch of skills that make it the best player-phase class tree in the entire game.

And if I'm remembering my weird weapon triangle correctly, the fact that they have wta against shurikens actually makes them a pretty decent enemy phase option for the most annoying enemy type in the game too.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

And if I'm remembering my weird weapon triangle correctly, the fact that they have wta against shurikens actually makes them a pretty decent enemy phase option for the most annoying enemy type in the game too.

I've seen some people suggest that approach to Chapter 17, yes.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

One aspect of bow-locked classes that has frustrated me during the return to GBA era is the accuracy. I think in terms of balance, an iron bow's base hit should at least be on par to an iron sword - because bows don't gain Weapon Triangle Advantage. Most players are always ahead on the accuracy game so long as they play slow enough to assign WTA units to deal with the correct enemy. Since a bow user only gets to shoot at one enemy on one phase, a miss feels like a more serious setback.

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

One aspect of bow-locked classes that has frustrated me during the return to GBA era is the accuracy. I think in terms of balance, an iron bow's base hit should at least be on par to an iron sword - because bows don't gain Weapon Triangle Advantage. Most players are always ahead on the accuracy game so long as they play slow enough to assign WTA units to deal with the correct enemy. Since a bow user only gets to shoot at one enemy on one phase, a miss feels like a more serious setback.

Bow units do tend to be reasonably accurate though. For years I did think bows had higher hit than swords just because I rarely have hit issues with them, except when using longbows in certain games. We all remember Sacred Stone's Sure Hit, aka the most useless skill in the series as it's an accuracy proc on a class that you will never have hit issues with anyway. So the argument should really be about high hit weapons vs skill units to wield them. In which case it's probably fine that bows have moderate to decent hit while Archers and Snipers have high skill that eliminates hit issues. This means bows are less useful on generals and warriors compared to snipers. I know in Shadow Dragon at least I never use Snipers due to other promoted bow users being able to just do more, and that's an issue. Single weapon users are nice classes to have for aesthetic reasons, but if they are to compete with dual weapon classes then they need some sort of edge. Min maxing stats, a skill/crit boost, exclusive class weapons or S rank exclusivity are usually the things they get. Of those options S rank exclusivity is the one I like the least.

Edited May 27, 2023 by Jotari

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

I know in Shadow Dragon at least I never use Snipers due to other promoted bow users being able to just do more, and that's an issue.

What about the fact they get exclusive Longbow use?

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

What about the fact they get exclusive Longbow use?

Very nice in theory, but in practice they are very hard to come by, being either regulated to Gaiden's or expensive buys in secret shops.  And even if you are doing Gaiden's and willing to pay for one (when forging exists and is the prime use for cash), the earliest you can get one is Already Castle, which is pretty late game and passed most of the difficult sections. By then I've already written snipers off and promoted or reclassed to other options.

Edited May 27, 2023 by Jotari