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1: Whole lotta yap for something that not only depends from game to game, but also depends on the archers themselves. Some archers are bad by default (not alone due to their weapon type) thanks to their lackluster stats.
The situation of cavaliers being better is both thank to their higher mobility (as movement is both great in offensive and defensive situations) and their often great weapon rank splits.
Archers in comparison are locked to 2-range weapons and often reduced to chip bots.
Now, consider the following.
This not only is very dependant on map design, but ranged units on mountains/peaks often lead to enemies that don’t approach them because they can’t be attacked.
This also is pretty kinda… not that much of a reward and heavily depends on your map design, and as such isn’t a case to case answer.
Mulagir for starters. It’s the dragonslayer bow.
Forests aren’t made in large enough clusters for this to matter.
And if you made large enough clusters for this to matter the problem would be gimping accuracy, not cavaliers not having a harsher penalty to movement.
3/10 yaps, would not let cook again
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The one thing intelligent systems refuses to understand is all they need to make archers good is not god awful stats. Seriously every archer with half decent stats gets placed decently well on tier lists. Takumi is a perfect example but even etie and alcryst make good examples too but thats largely due to the abundance of late game wyverns. Dont make archers absolutely garbage in every stat not named skill and they will probably be at lowest d tier
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2-3 range bows are a nice addition but not necessary to make bow users solid. Mounted bow users benefit from mobility while infantry bow users need solid stats to be viable. Bonus points if other physical 1-2 range options are nerfed so bows actually stick out as a reliable long-range physical weapon.
I’ve personally never understood why there’s hate against 2-3 range bows or 1-2 range shortbows. The changes are made more to make bows as a weapon type stand out from other 2-range options rather than to fix archers. It works well when enemy bow fighters aren’t as dirt common as vanilla FE.
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Play Fates.
Umm, no? It depends on Execution and design.
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Just make bows good. Give them a buff to their MT and Hitrate. They are known for its precision and hitting them between the eyes for a reason.
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I gave them low movement and mediocre speed. It worked.
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This comment is mostly for kicks, not really with an eye towards the OP. But all you need for good archers is to be Full Plate and Packing Steel like my boy Radu! I was tempted to write an effortpost about the joys of pulling enemies out of formation with DEF-king Radu
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No, snipers in fe11 are actually quite solid due to their high base stats. Some characters even want to reclass into sniper. What makes your archers so bad is the absolutely horrible bases on the archer class combined with middling personal bases
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I heavily agree the issue with Archers is all because of their statlines, but having extra range on fortresses, buildings, and castles sounds awesome. They could act as a 2-5 range stationary Ballistician.
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I’ve had an idea to pad range similar to your terrain suggestion, except more general: bake in a range extension that only triggers when you don’t move and go straight to the Attack command. 2-range bows go up to 2-3 range, longbows go from 2-3 to 2-5. Certain bows could have a “limited range” property so you can selectively filter it off stuff like the Killer Bow.
Penalties are -30% to in-combat Dmg/Hit, i.e. 10 Dmg/70 Hit drops to 7 Dmg/49 Hit. Probably something to dampen crit rates too, idk a specific.
Bowrange+ skills or arts would enable extended range on the move up to the maximum stationary range. The bow specialist class (Sniper probably) could get natural +1 range at all times and ignore the aforementioned penalties while shooting stationary.
It’s kind of slow in practice and the basic premise benefits enemies more than players, but it has to be when increasing ranges constrains map design. I think FE can handle 3-range being more common, anything past that gets dangerous when it’s not bolted to the floor.
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I think all that Archers need is some better stats. Player archers infamously suck because of their bad stats. I think Archers marely need some additionall bulk, more base strength, and maybe some extra skill to have good hitrates. Although, Archers tend to have high skill already.
Another thing is inherent class abilities. Cavaliers have Canto, for example. And personally, I don’t think Tier 1 Archers SHOULD have any skill, why not give one to Snipers? Snipers, being a foot-locked mono-weapon class, should, by all means, get the Crit Boost skill like Swordmasters and Berserkers have. It’s something I have seen done a few times here and there.
Another direction to take Snipers would be to emphasize more their long-range utility, and give them an inheret Bow Range +1 buff, much like Marksman in Radiant Dawn. And since most games don’t have Tier 3 classes, I thonk it’d be OK to give this to Snipers, even if you don’t have an actual Skill System in your hack.
Now, with this in mind, I think all Standard Bows should remain 2 range only. We don’t want Echoes archers up in here. BUT, another thing beneficial to Archers would be to have more Bow variety. Instead of making Bows effective against cavalry too, there should just e the one Hunting Bow, with Cavalry AND Flyer effectiveness. I always say, more weapon variety never hurts.
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Interesting ideas, my fav would be to try and give them the 2x Horse Effectiveness while keeping the 3x Flier Bonus. Thing is, while FE is getting more and more complex, I do like the simplicity of the system which is why I’m drawn less towards the extra rules on certain terrain. Though we do have ballistaes for example to give them these kind of things which I think is a bit simpler though thematically it fits and could give archers a specific role in defense maps for example. But I’d prefer to have height playing a role for that again in general. The psuedo-support system could actually be a gameplay element for multiple different classes in a game, similar to the triangle attack of Peg Knights and would encourage you to bring more units of the same type for certain jobs and different strategies.
My personal fav is to give archers multiple weapons for multiple jobs (one for cavalry, one for armored, etc.) while always maintaining the Flier effectiveness. That way they stay useful even if Fliers only get 2x instead of 3x damage.
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Thats because they suck. The archer class has horrible bases to the point where nobody actually wants to be in that class. Sniper on the other hand actually has incredible bases so a few characters want to change into sniper for a map or two just to one shot bulky wyverns. If the devs had simply given gordin and norne better stats and made archer not suck so much they would actually be decent units
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Usually, the answer to “how do I fix X class” is “give them stats.” Then give the enemies stats for good measure so that attacking them from 2 Range is a relevant niche (important for classes with no 1 Range), and there you go.
damn you got the freaky patch of dow if they’re taking that many units, remember 'em being pretty slow and thus easy orko lol
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There is no way to fix the archer. I consulted my romhack team Sivian and Tivian. They said the same thing.
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Bows. Oh, bows. It’s funny how nobody wants to start with bows when they begin (Archers, Outlaws), but then they do like bows later (Warriors, Bow Knights). As much as we want archers and bows to have better stats, that’s really only a distraction from bigger issues.
-Poor enemy balance. Bows have made their name on being able to attack without fear of counterattacks. Theoretically, having someone who can pelt at a high-threat foe without retribution can be very useful. The problem is that’s not always the case. Sometimes you’ll go into maps without dangerous flying enemies. Sometimes you’ll find formations where there are too many flying enemies. Sometimes flying enemies like Wyvern Lords have such high defenses that you might as well just use magic instead. Why chip out a foe when you can just nuke them out of existence?
FE8 had considerably weaker enemies, and Neimi is arguably the best early archer in the GBA era. Innes is also a fairly decent Sniper with good combat abilities. So clearly, archers could have a better chance at killing things, right? The problem was that enemies were weak enough that you would arguably do better just waiting for enemy phase to kill them faster. Even then, it only creates more pressure to go for one-hit kills rather than deaths by a thousand cuts. Heck, most people prefer promoting Gerik to Hero rather than Ranger even though the latter has more movement. After all, why bother having more movement if you can’t actually kill anything with it? But even if you buff Neimi to become an absolute combat tank, she would still be unviable. You could buff Nomadic Troopers (Horseback units unhindered by terrain and weather? Golly gee!), and they would still be unviable. Why? They can’t fight back at close range. This leads to the next point:
-Too many, too good multi-range weapons. Uh oh! There’s a scary enemy formation, and we’re too far away to attack! Whatever could we do? Let’s be real: most of us would just end the turn in enemy range while equipping javelins and handaxes. It’s not an invalid playstyle, but it’s definitely one that disparages archers. Why bother bringing units with 2-range weapons when you can bring units with weapons that have 1 and 2 range? The point of bows is that they are meant to be high-accuracy and fairly light, but that becomes less relevant as you progress and your units get stronger. Just get Duessel, Haar, Ryoma, or whatever, and starting cleaning house.
So what solutions could we possibly implement? And what do I think about them?
-2-3 range bows. While Longbows have existed for quite a while now, the idea of most bows having 2-3 range as a standard has some merit. After all, what’s better than hitting 2 range without fear of retribution? Hitting 3 range! How about 5 range! It goes on. In practice, however, this often tends to result in Bows becoming just 3-range weapons. If you have a 1-2 range weapon like magic or daggers, just get up close, and we’ll have the same problem again where archers can’t fight back. Alternatively, just end your turn in enemy range, and watch your enemies run towards you; it’ll feel like nothing changed at all. Gaiden/Echoes saw this issue and decided to correct it by increasing range by a heck ton and slapping on Close Counter. Project Ember had it so that basic bows were 2-3 range while longbows were portable ballistae. These approaches, of course, have their detractors. While people certainly like being able to snipe at their opponents from far away, what with combat arts like Curved Shot and Hunter’s Volley, no one wants to do a hell run through a hallway filled with protected archers. So just tweak the stats, and everything will be fine, right? Well, not really. Make the bows too high-accuracy, and you’ll get annoyed by your archer enemies. Make them too low-accuracy, and you’ll complain that they’re basically useless. At that rate, why not just implement Firesweep weapons into the game?
-Punish distant weapons that are not bows. While we already have things like heavy javelins, this usually isn’t enough. Fates made it so that stronger weapons have some form of drawback, and this applies for distant melee weapons. For example, the B-rank Spear prevents follow-up attacks and only has 2 range like a bow. But it also made enemy-exclusive weapons that deliberately break the rules and force you to reckon with this unfair disadvantage. Heroes forced people to take bows even more seriously by making all daggers, magic, and staves 2 range, just like bows. This is arguably my favorite approach, as it maintains a sense of weapon type identity while also making sure players who want to use distant weapons know and accept the cost.
-Make bows actually good against something besides flying units. The weapon triangle in Fates was quite a remix. Bows were weak to magic but strong against daggers. The fact that daggers were so dangerous in enemy hands meant that having something that could beat them is obviously a good thing. And why bring a low-accuracy axe when you can use a highly accurate bow? But that’s not all; bows were also weak to swords and strong against lances. This triangle was very interesting in that it forces almost every weapon to step into the ring when it comes to composing a team, but it also meant that some weapons got it better than others in terms of representation. Ever notice that in terms of base classes, only the Oni Savage uses clubs? Everything else is just bows: Archers, Apothecaries. Only one class gains clubs upon promotion: Masters of Arms. It doesn’t help that Rinkah is the only native Oni Savage. It becomes even more bewildering when you realize that you get only 1 Apothecary in the form of Midori, a child unit (assuming you don’t capture Senno). So in reality, you only get 3 “green” units early on: Rinkah, Setsuna, and Takumi. Nohr, on the other hand, grants 4: Arthur, Niles, Beruka, and Camilla; and yet, it’s the other way around, as there is 1 bow and 3 axes. It’s really a pick-your-poison schtick.
-Replace them with gunpowder weapons. Fire in the hole! Engage introduced Mage Cannoneers, who play differently compared to Ballisticians. Like their wheeled predecessors, Mage Cannoneers have a much wider range, and in exchange, they have 4 movement like other non-promoted units, can’t make follow-ups, and possess a niche command that permanently discards the equipped cannonball. What makes them different is that the accuracy of cannonballs depends on the distance between the attacker and defender. Thus, one would have to use judgment calls when carefully positioning Cannoneers, who already have low movement. Not only that, cannonballs use Dexterity instead of Strength to calculate damage, and their accuracy depends on not just Dexterity but also Strength and Build. This is a class that prioritizes min-maxing multiple stats at once. Now, since Cannonballs are a DLC weapon, they aren’t really balanced around most gameplay except for Fell Xenologue.
But what would happen if all bows worked this way? Well…it’s rough. In fact, cannonballs might actually be worse than bows. Like bows, cannonballs suck in the early game. While some archers may be slick enough to double some foes with some good accuracy, cannonballs have mediocre accuracy and can’t double at all. Just like in other games, chipping doesn’t matter as much as killing, especially when EXP is involved.
-Well…read it for yourself. I wondered if there were any other ideas proposed, so I took a quick dive in the FE subreddit.
https://old.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/vdqv6z/fire_emblem_movement_vs_range_is_badly_designed/
This idea has 0 net upvotes, so you know it’s pretty controversial. In this thread, OP complained that Fire Emblem in general doesn’t feel realistic, especially since archers have poor range. People can ride horses and pegasi and what not at high speeds, but apparently an archer can’t shoot an arrow fast enough to save their own hides. The same applies for mages, who look like their spells can cause explosions but in reality have almost no AOE options. If movement is king, of course attackers will be able to easily close the gap between themselves and archers. There’s nothing stopping cavalry units or even footlocked units from just walking up to an archer and slapping them in the face. OP also noted that this problem is compounded by the fact that everyone can usually fight back on opposing phases, often in the exact same way with no drawback, leaving archers in an even more awkward state. Movement is king because most units have the same range and tend to have as much movement as their range. So OP decided to propose something that will definitely get people’s eyebrows raised: increase bow range to be higher than any movement value (while still being unable to counter at 1 range). After all, what’s the point of a chip-damage player-phase class when you have kill-damage duo-phase classes with the same movement, if not better? To counter long range trench wars and boss sniping, OP proposed a line of sight system: archers can only target foes in the wide open, meaning that Defense tanks like Generals and Barons have an actual niche. It’s definitely controversial, especially since OP really likes SOV and based their system on Dofus.
An extra:
One lone archer…how bad could it be? When making a private FE8 rebalance for my friends, one of the issues was Distant Blade. Distant Blade is a fairly liked chapter in Eirika Mode due to having several side objectives: Amelia and the villages besiged by pirates. But there’s just one issue: the lone Sniper in the first 3rd of the map. It’s the first generic promoted enemy in Eirika Mode, and it serves as a tough wakeup miniboss. In Vanilla FE8, most enemies have around 9-12 Str, but the Sniper can have up to 17 Str, which is the same as the boss! The Sniper also has 12 speed, which is fairly faster than most enemies in the map. And of course, it moves. Despite the Sniper clearly requiring an aggressive strategy to take it down, in reality, it often caused the flow of the chapter to slow to an unnecessary crawl. Most units aren’t promoted by that time, and you only have 1 Knight Crest before this chapter. You pretty much have to make a team composed out of people that may have Defense, Speed, or Movement, but not more than one option. You can’t tank with Gilliam, you can’t kill with cavaliers, and you can’t reach with anyone else. Even if you send Seth, he’ll likely die to the surrounding reinforcements after suffering one, if not two hits from the Sniper. Several test runs forced me to abandon Amelia because I had to slowly crawl towards the Sniper while also sending Vanessa, Tana, and Ross to deal with the villagers. Even after nerfing the Sniper’s Str, I still found myself struggling to beat the map efficiently without grinding at the Tower of Valni. I suppose some may retort that FE8 is designed around Valni in some way, but it does make you think…how bad can one bow be?
3 Likes
They realized this over a decade ago
Actually a lot of FE games have bows as a good weapon type. The perception of bows being bad comes from a gba-centric view of the series. That and the fact that bow’s lack of utility is very front loaded. Kaga was not good at balancing weapons, bows were often bad in his games but even then.
FE 2, 4, 6, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 all have arguments for bows being good weapon types. Hell I didn’t even mention RD bc I don’t know anything about it and Awakening since mentioning the fact that Virion is an incredibly useful unit in earlygame lunatic mode would get me quoted to death.
IS learned how to make bows good years ago, just give them stats, make fliers prevalent, and make enemies strong.
Anyway OP, you’re falling down the road I did when I first joined where I thought clogging the forum with tons of community posts was a good thing. Trust me, if you want discussion we’ve got plenty of other community posts to occupy you.
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I mean, apart from getting a might boost, maybe if archers were more balanced on the str side by having str and spd be balanced, so skill would still be their main stat, they normally suffer from not being able to kill things unless its a flier or they just have better stats from being a prepromo, more utility bows might also be helpful while also be fun to play with
1 Like