What makes the bow your preferred ranged weapon (or not)?

[TheAnyKey]

If you alleviate the issue with the low stack size of throwing weapons via TweakMb throwing weapons seem preferable to archery in many respects. At high proficiency levels (400+) throwing becomes very accurate. The only advantages of the bow seem to be the range and speed. A 60 pt "Great Gaflak" seems to do enough damage and you've got that nice shield.

Of course you'd need to decide for yourself whether you want to cheat in that respect, that you increase the stack size with TweakMb.

Why do you prefer the bow to other ranged options or not?

Thanks.

 

[Cornelius Sula]

I dont tweak my games i play it as dev designed it. And i do prefer bow's especialy that runed one  when you train your char in  bow you are on  killing spree from that point, and it comes in hand in elvish tournaments to be trained in bow

To answer your question why do i like bows, they are just way to cool to me, when i say it image from movie come to my mind when mister R. Hood shoots flaming arrowe at slow motion.... as i have said bows are just cool to me.

 

[Cornelius Constantine]

Well, just read the "Grail Quest" series by Bernard Cornwell, or the novell "Azincourt". You'll know why. 

 

[Apolo]

Well, just read the "Grail Quest" series by Bernard Cornwell, or the novell "Azincourt". You'll know why. 

The Grail Quest made me despise the crossbow too

 

[Cornelius Constantine]

Unless they fight for the French... then the problem might solve itself... 

 

[Apolo]

Cornwell has led me to believe that a deaf and blind child, without an arm is completely able to defeat a french army

 

[Bravado]

unless the deaf and blind child is also French... then no

 

[Rpground]

The bow is my preferred ranged weapon because **** slings...you know who you are,Mr.Specialized Master Slinger with a +5 sling....yeah, screw you! I despise you for doing that...for even thinking it was a good idea in the first place! Who the hell would even waste the reagents to even enchant a bloody sling, anyway!?


...That and you can use bows on horses, Xbows you cannot do this...also I cannot use them worth a damned anyway because of their fixed accuracy, and if you look at history it just got stupid with the Xbow...turned into a weird race to see who had the bigger Xbow at the end of the day, sometimes needing 4-5 people to reload the damned thing! I say that's a waste of man power...but then again you cannot argue the results. >.>


Also when ever I touch an Xbow it immediately becomes a cursed weapon...no fooling, even if it's a game of dice I will almost NEVER hit with the thing, and when I do hit I just scratch it...even if I have a decent skill in them, and if someone else uses that crossbow the curse passes to that Xbow so if they use it they're just as bad as me...I'm also just as bad with throwing weapons, thankfully the curse does not spread with those...strangely...


So in the end either give me a bow or a gun...either way at least I can kill things that way...

 

[Alavaria]

Range is handy, being further away can play with the AI, it makes them face your army, so you can shoot them in the back of the head. Also makes it easier to avoid missiles.

The shield point is a decent one though, being able to just raise your shield comes in handy. And it can occasionally block missiles coming from the left that you didn't notice.

 

[DarkTemplar]

i love crossbows
sure bows are faster and sometimes hit harder but require skill points, which i need elsewhere
in real combat crossbows were doing better against heavy armored knights
the medieval shotguns

2nd are throwing weapons which are used by my order and some of the companions, shield+ranged ability is great

 

[noosers]

I greatly dislike bows because the way MnB incorporated bows is totally rotten and overpowered.

 

[Draenor]

Like Long Bow most.
Looks great.
And i wouldnt say archers are op-
Every archer line that gets hit by twenty knights will break in an instanc.
And most great Dukes field 40-50 Order Knights+ a variety of other horsemen.

 

[Bravado]

I greatly dislike bows because the way MnB incorporated bows is totally rotten and overpowered.

I don't think bows are rotten, but I think they should make all the stronger (strongest) bows infantry only.  Bows that are usable on horseback should be weaker... that will balance archery a little.

 

[Alavaria]

I greatly dislike bows because the way MnB incorporated bows is totally rotten and overpowered.

I don't think bows are rotten, but I think they should make all the stronger (strongest) bows infantry only.  Bows that are usable on horseback should be weaker... that will balance archery a little.

It's great that PoP has some really powerful bows, like the XX Runed Bow, the Duskfall, etc, which we can add to the general overpoweredness of bows in general.

And then the Noldor bow, which is not too hard to pick up.

 

[noosers]

Keep in mind that PoP handles archery differently than native WB or MnB, and I took some deliberate part for achieving a better feeling of archery in PoP both on horseback and boots.

So if you read my post again, you´ll realize I said I dislike bows because of rotten way it was originally implemented in both WB and MnB - because in vanilla, archery is the only viable option for ranged combat because it´s ridiculously overpowered - horsearcher is the cheapest way to actually play the game. But that´s mainly for the insane Power Draw damage modifier (which, as I´ve explained a couple of times before, should have better been an accuracy and drawing speed modifier)

PoP´s a tad better balanced in that way - in order to use the high end bows you need to play dedicated archer (=spending a ton of points into it) which makes the cheap alternatives, throwing weapons and crossbows, a viable option.

Yeah, as you may have guessed, I´m a great fan of PC using a crossbow and the Mettenheim Arbalest is a product of that preference something nice to own. Because there are few things as amazingly satisfying as a sound and regular thummp. 

 

[Bravado]

Yeah, PD is too sick.  My Ediz and Freddy (lol) can put out probably three times as much dps as the best xbow

Min-maxing is ingrained into me.  That's what happens when you raid for two years in WOW.  You'll spend tons of gold and put up with a miserable spec to put out 2% more dps

 

[Bravado]

Archery costs a lot of points, but it's never a choice between ranged or melee because power strike is so cheap.  Instead it's a question of - do you want party skills or do you want to be a top archer?  My main character got all the party skills, so my companions mostly become archers.

M&B Archers, contrary to real life or human history, can always wear the strongest, heaviest plate armor and the wield the best melee weapons.  Infantry (and even cavalry) simply don't have a chance against [horse] archers.

Perhaps make weight give a severe accuracy and damage penalty to archery?  On top of making the strongest bows infantry-only and introducing weaker noldor and runed bows for horse archers.

 

[brzi]

Perhaps make weight give a severe accuracy and damage penalty to archery?  On top of making the strongest bows infantry-only and introducing weaker noldor and runed bows for horse archers.

This. I've always been a heavy hose archer even if it made no sense to shoot a longbow from horseback in heavy plate. When i started playing PoP and saw that bigger bows can't be used on horse i was actually glad that my favorite playing style had been nerfed, i figured i would use one bow for field battles and another (bigger/stronger) for sieges. Now i see that the strongest, most precise bows CAN be used off horseback and I'm a little disappointed.

Anyway, I read Cornwell's Azincourt and i despise the crossbow 
I once played old Native Expansion (M&B 1.011) with a heavy crossbowman build and exclusively arbalestier army just to experience the damage. It was fun but the lack of mobility was irritating, especially when the enemy routed and i had to chase 'em.