Top tier bow = 2nd teir xbow?

[Paul]

PD 10 would be too much for a horse/foot hybrid archer. the PD rating of the strong bow(strongest HA choice) is 5, that means it doesnt profit from pd higher than 5+4 = 9.

[Diomedes]

I've only observed this in my own limited experiences but I believe xbows are more accurate than bows even when their reticle isn't.  When using a 130 wpf strongbow I shoot every which way inside the reticle, whereas with 90 wpf my heavy crossbow shoots straight every time.  Other people have observed this too but it may just be some sort of mass hallucination or buyer's remorse.  Do any developers have some solid information on this?  I think it's relevant to the discussion if this thread is fundamentally about reticle sizes.

[Cheap_Shot]

Somedays I get weak when I'm feeling the pain of the throwing nerf, so I bought a regular crossbow and some bolts and traded the two slots for half my throwing spears. (From 8 to 4, *sigh*) I used it for a few rounds, and while I didn't get the same enjoyment from it, it was more accurate at 0 wpf then every single throwing weapon I owned at 130 wpf. It also did pretty nice damage too. Comparable to the damage my throwing spears were doing at 6-7 PT

I guess my point is, for the love of god fix throwing.  And I guess make crossbow wpf actually mean something. I mean if you have time after throwing.

[Loki]

Longbow's run and gun ability is completely useless as I could leave the room, take a 20 minute shit and come back before it fires one arrow.  The thing is garbage, even with pierce damage.  Lets not forget it's 2 slot, so the maximum amount of bodkin arrows you can take is 34, IF you don't take a melee weapon. (and don't say "take a 0 slot weapon" those are trash too)

Xbow users can take all those skills and wpf that they would otherwise have to put into PD and make a good melee character, while a bow user has to dedicate themselves to bow for sub-par performance as well as having to wear light armor.

The archery wpf doesn't do enough to improve accuracy and the bows simply don't do enough damage.  Any bow below a strong bow and you're just praying that you get a headshot, otherwise it'll take an entire quiver to kill a decently armored infantry, or won't do any damage at all to a plate user.  Then the war bow and the long bow are both 2 slots so they suck ass because you only get 15 arrows if you want to take a melee weapon, and even if you hit someone, unless it's really close up, you're only putting a tincan down in 4-5 shots (unless you have 13pd, in which case you made a shit build).

Don't even get me started on the fact that 1/3 of your arrows will go right through the person.

Right now the optimal archer build (in my opinion) is: strong bow, and 3 stacks of basic arrows (81 arrows if heirloomed).


also, what was wrong with hybrid characters?  I thought that's what made c-rpg cooler than native.  But unless you're a two-handed tincan you get nerfed into the ground because people cry that they don't have a shield.

[Damug]

Longbow's run and gun ability is completely useless as I could leave the room, take a 20 minute shit and come back before it fires one arrow.

The arbalest is the same way at least.  It's got some weird delay between releasing the trigger and actually firing.  I don't know how anyone can use it with that.  Not to mention it takes half a round to reload the thing.

[Native_ATS]

Longbow's run and gun ability is completely useless as I could leave the room, take a 20 minute shit and come back before it fires one arrow.  The thing is garbage, even with pierce damage.  Lets not forget it's 2 slot, so the maximum amount of bodkin arrows you can take is 34, IF you don't take a melee weapon. (and don't say "take a 0 slot weapon" those are trash too)

Xbow users can take all those skills and wpf that they would otherwise have to put into PD and make a good melee character, while a bow user has to dedicate themselves to bow for sub-par performance as well as having to wear light armor.

The archery wpf doesn't do enough to improve accuracy and the bows simply don't do enough damage.  Any bow below a strong bow and you're just praying that you get a headshot, otherwise it'll take an entire quiver to kill a decently armored infantry, or won't do any damage at all to a plate user.  Then the war bow and the long bow are both 2 slots so they suck ass because you only get 15 arrows if you want to take a melee weapon, and even if you hit someone, unless it's really close up, you're only putting a tincan down in 4-5 shots (unless you have 13pd, in which case you made a shit build).

Don't even get me started on the fact that 1/3 of your arrows will go right through the person.

Right now the optimal archer build (in my opinion) is: strong bow, and 3 stacks of basic arrows (81 arrows if heirloomed).


also, what was wrong with hybrid characters?  I thought that's what made c-rpg cooler than native.  But unless you're a two-handed tincan you get nerfed into the ground because people cry that they don't have a shield.

give this man a cookie, he speaks the truth!

[Keshian]

Mostly it just annoys me that I regularly have to take 3-4 arrows to kill an unarmored horse (not even talking about the rider) with MW strong bow/MW bodkin arrows/6 pwrdrw and all they have to do is notice me shooting them, I get 1 more arrow hit and they can cross the half the map in the time I shoot one arrow and lance me to death (90% of cav in NA is lancers usually coursers not arabian warhorses).  When 30% of the server is cav (usually the case on the NA 100), being an archer doesn't help much as you can shoot 5 different horses multiple times and all it takes is one guy with a 180 length lance to wave it in your direction while riding a white ferrari and its a one-hit kill.

[Cheap_Shot]

All I know is throwin, which makes horse murdering an art, so forgive my ignorance. I thought generally bow and xbow users as a rule of thumb strictly aim for the rider instead of the horse because the horse can take more of a beating? It's just what I've heard and I'm not trying to be disagreeable. I know you've been archer'n for ages.

[Keshian]

All I know is throwin, which makes horse murdering an art, so forgive my ignorance. I thought generally bow and xbow users as a rule of thumb strictly aim for the rider instead of the horse because the horse can take more of a beating? It's just what I've heard and I'm not trying to be disagreeable. I know you've been archer'n for ages.

Horses travelling at high speed or dodging and weaving are easy misses on the rider, I also can shoot for the rider, but thats like saying aim for an infantryman''s head.  Yes a head shot is great but you are not going to make every shot a head shot (i have yet to see an archer who has over 50% headshots).  The main time you aim for the rider is at close ranges, but even then 1 shot doesn't kill so if they are not wounded or you don't geta  head shot they often will lance you after the hit.

[Kong Ming]

You raise an interesting point Kesh. 

Damage, damage, damage.  Why is everyone talking about increasing bow damage when the screens in the OP indicate an imbalance with respect to ACCURACY?  What I'd like to see is a further tweaking of how bow accuracy has been determined ever since they changed the way PD works two patches ago.  I've watched the "accuracy" rating of bows climb ever slightly higher to the point that my masterwork warbow now has 100.  However, this seems to be only one small variable in a large, mysterious equation. 

Before the major change to PD (back when you pretty much wanted as little PD as you could get away with), I was getting about 40% headshot kills with my khergit bow, 4 PD, and about 170 WPF, according to EU4 server stats.  My damage was lousy, but I relied on excellent accuracy to aim for heads or under-armored feet, even at longer ranges, and did quite well as an archer and had a LOT more fun doing it.  Ever since that patch, it has proved impossible to get a bow's reticule anywhere near as precise, even with a higher "accuracy" rating for the bow. 

At least throw us archers a bone Urist and give us some indication of how PD, WPF, and the bow's base accuracy rating come together to affect the reticule.  I feel like I don't know how to build my archer character to get what I want anymore.  (Oh, and thank you for your previous posts. Very helpful.)

[Keshian]

Yeh, i would actually agree with this.  I had an archer alt at level 30 pre-january and an archer at level 30 after the patch and it is amazing how inaccurate bows have gotten and mid to long ranges.  One of the most obvious examples is the crossbowman who stands still and can probably hit you halfway across the map, but at medium distance a non-moving target you have dead in your reticule and the arrow will go just left of them, next arrow just right of them, next arrow might hit, but then they don't move and your next two arrows go one left and one right (all with you not changing your aimed reticule).  Decreasing shoot speed was bad enough for archers, fine, I cand eal with having to lead and predict shots more, delayed draw speed, fine its annoying but bearable, cut damage, okay, but then to add random factors in targeting just took a lot of the love out of archery.  Especially when a guy with 0 wpf in xbow will shoot dead center of his reticule more often than you will with 140 wpf in archery.

 This last patch actually brought it temporarily back to the way it was (probably not intentional, next hotfix returned it to post-January standards), would be nice to go somewhere in-between the 2 extremes.  Archery really has become an almost entirely mid to short range weapon (shoot speed decrease so minimal damage at longer ranges and accuracy nerf really becomes noticeable at longer ranges), which means you usually only get to shoot (not necessarily hit, but shoot) at cav once or maybe twice before they can lance you down with ease.  Considering how little damage arrows do now it seems strange they should also be less accurate than the far more damaging xbows.

[Kong Ming]

It feels like somewhere among all the thousands of arguments, patches, nerfs, buffs, and tweaks that have revolved around archery and crossbows, the aspect that used to define and distinguish them has been lost.  Archery was about significantly less damage that rewarded you for excellent skill in aiming, timing, and leading a moving target.  Crossbows were about hard-hitting, high-projectile speed, make your single shot count strategies that rewarded you for judicious choosing of your shot.  Although I feel crossbow philosophy is still quite similar, people have gotten so absorbed on archery damage, that the whole point of archery has been lost.  It's much like arguing about whether a German Greatsword does 26 pierce instead of 28 rather than addressing the issue of the thrust animation.  If archery has an issue, address archery, not bows.