Crossbow or Bow?

Which is better Crossbow or Bow?

  • Crossbow

    Votes: 13 24.5%
  • Bow

    Votes: 40 75.5%

  • Total voters
    53

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Reiksmarshal

Sergeant Knight at Arms
Now that we have access to the better crossbows which do you guys like better?

I think that I'm kind of liking the crossbow a bit better because of perks and it levels pretty nicely. Also The bound crossbow is pretty sick I just don't like that the heavy bolts or balanced bolts don't add any bonus.

List why you think they are better for those who might be on the fence on deciding which range weapon to use for their next build.
 
Bows don't have the big Power Draw advantage they used to have in Warband. It used to be that crossbows gave you great early game hitting power without having to invest any extra skill points, but the damage didn't scale up into the end game. Bows started off very weak but with enough Power Draw and proficiencies, they'd blow away crossbow damage by the late game.

Now they both work mostly the same way. Bow skill does increase damage by ~35% at max level, while crossbow skill only increases speed and accuracy, but 35% is a far cry from the 140% increase you got from 10 Power Draw. On the other hand, now you have to invest points into crossbow which you didn't have to do in Warband. So the main considerations are whether you want to be able to shoot fast and from horseback or shoot slowly on foot. I think Bows are still better just for the versatility and speed of shooting.
 
Crossbow skill has a good potential at high skill level because of how fast you can reload, but it's a bit too big of an investment, spending attribute points in control is not that good to begin with.

However when it comes to companions, it's a different story, if you have lot's of crossbowmen, then giving them a crossbow sergant companion is pretty good.
 
I have always been a bow person until 1 week ago. I tried crossbow and love it. The skill gains early on blow the bow away. For me though, the crossbow is much better short to mid range, 50m or less, but I feel more accurate long range with a bow, but a cross bow with the right perks can 1 shot, headshot anyone an I am sure later with higher skill and Best crossbow I would think you could 1 shot anyone with just a normal hit. I am still learning it but crossbow for me
 
I have also been checking out xbows. They are so much stronger and more accurate at lower levels and they level quickly because of the higher damage of basic xbows. Especially with the rare fine xbow that does 95 damage and is reloadable mounted. However, I still feel that bows are better at very high skill levels if you can afford a noble bow. Any character without a completely ranged focus is better off with an xbow, I think.
 
I'm an archer in RL and love bows to death but no game so far made them as satisfying to me as the real deal so i tend to prefer crossbows in-game.
 
I like to ride around with my mounted archer troops so I always use a bow. Something about leading mounted archers while wielding a crossbow seems off-putting to me. I've never really tried using the crossbows though, think I'll give it a try.
 
I understand what you're saying. If you try xbows you will probably end up very conflicted as I am now. I want to stay with a bow but I am constantly tempted to go with xbows even though they don't seem to fit my typical character, especially not as a Battanian.
 
Bow for player, you cannot shoot behind you as well with xbow. This may be non-issue for some players though but for me it's constant use of the bow to turn around and pop another mounted unit in the face. Also much easier to sardine ball infantry.

Bow for most clan members unless they have Xbow skill or NO bow FP at all, then light Xbow is good. If you use HA or archers you want clan members with bow perks to be their captains. The starting bows are pretty crappy but once they can equip nordic short bow they improve rapidly.

Xbow for those who can't learn bow very fast, light xbow is an excellent weapon for npc, even with no skill/fp they will still land shots and gain raw exp.
Of course xbow units are good troops so having some clan members take Xbow perks to be their captain is a good idea too.
 
Can't say I tried bow extensively, but I always been more of a crossbow anyway, since in WB there was no need to use skill points.
In BL, I find that Sniper and Hammer Bolt perks the best. Sniper lets you pop hidden soldiers head's pretty much behind merlons and arrowslits from far, and hammer bolts counters incoming charges and cuts the long chases amazingly.
 
Bow for PC

Crossbows for Companions (except already high bow skill ones)

Crossbow and Bow using troops. (Sharpshooters/Hired Crossbows/Fians/Mamlukes/Khan's Guard being the top options)

I don't think any non-noble Archers are worth using currently, even the Aserai Master Archers. Better off with Forest Bandits than anything short of Fians really.
 
Bow for PC

Crossbows for Companions (except already high bow skill ones)

Crossbow and Bow using troops. (Sharpshooters/Hired Crossbows/Fians/Mamlukes/Khan's Guard being the top options)

I don't think any non-noble Archers are worth using currently, even the Aserai Master Archers. Better off with Forest Bandits than anything short of Fians really.
It's true, the ease of loading up on battanion nobles now kinda makes others foot archers obsolete. Even the advantage of the vlandian levey xbow is trumped because the prodo-fian is also an archer out of the box and fast to raise up. Xbow troops are still very good though, but you can easily just fill up on fiann line too if you want.
 
It's true, the ease of loading up on battanion nobles now kinda makes others foot archers obsolete. Even the advantage of the vlandian levey xbow is trumped because the prodo-fian is also an archer out of the box and fast to raise up. Xbow troops are still very good though, but you can easily just fill up on fiann line too if you want.

Plus troop wage differences are nothing compared to the opportunity cost of not being able to win more field battles, or the cost of having to replace many dead troops after closer battles, etc. etc. They matter for garrisons that are just sitting there doing nothing most of the time, but not for the player's parties.

So it's very cost effective to simply use as many top tier units as you can get, oddly enough, rather than mixed party/army composition. If there's a noble unit that does the same job but better, you just want that unit.

So role playing and pretending like this isn't the case is mostly the only reason to bother with most troops currently, which I think is less than ideal.
 
After doing some testing last couple of days got to say a high level bow character with the noble long bow is down right nasty in sieges. I was getting 50-150 kills which is pretty insane. Crossbows are awesome in the early game and level super fast probably because of a bug most likely, but are more accurate and do more damage a lower levels. Even with the best crossbow (bound crossbow) and 275 skill level you can't keep up with the noble longbow rate of fire and the of both can 1 shot most enemies.
 
I think you're right. The issue is that at high levels, the bow gets a big damage bonus from skill but the xbow doesn't. So the noble bow does more damage and has a higher rate of fire - hard to beat that. I don't think there is a bug with xbow leveling, it's the higher damage at low skill levels that makes it level faster. Too bad the xbow loses in both damage and speed because I really like using them.
 
Bow for PC

Crossbows for Companions (except already high bow skill ones)

Crossbow and Bow using troops. (Sharpshooters/Hired Crossbows/Fians/Mamlukes/Khan's Guard being the top options)

I don't think any non-noble Archers are worth using currently, even the Aserai Master Archers. Better off with Forest Bandits than anything short of Fians really.
Imperial are pretty good. They hold their own a lot better in melee than Aserai. Aserai archers might be very slightly better with the bow than Imperial but in melee they melt away. Vlandian crossbowmen are very close in overall performance to Imperial archers too.

Fian Champions are just brokenly OP.
 
When archers aim for headshots, and while crossbowmen are reloading, they miss mostly. And unlike archers, crossbowmen get high precision in the battles and mostly fired bolts eventually find a target. And they are really ahead because of long range. Compared to Fian Champions, they start firing in the beginning of the battles.

And one point I want to emphasize is that, I don't know if you've experienced it but crossbows AI is better imo because they really select the targets in skirmishes.
 
I prefer the higher rate of fire of the bow over the higher base damage of the crossbow. My typical style is to trail slightly behind my mounted vanguard, then put arrows into any opposing troops that are trying to melee my cavalry. First, the momentary stuns to the opponents give my own troops a chance to land melee hits unopposed, then speed off, while my own arrows mostly land as back-shots. The lower rate of fire of a crossbow really doesn't work well for that. My personal kill totals aren't as spectacular that way (a lot more hits, less kills), but it helps keep my cavalry from being tied down in melee. Once the main enemy cluster and initial reinforcements have been broken up and it degenerates into scattered fighting, then I can rack up the personal kill count against the stragglers.
 
Add crossbow to vigor so that there's an actual reason to pick crossbow over bows, having bow and crossbow on the same attribute group means why pick crossbows when you could be using bows
 
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