Please fix bows

[bushranger]

I would normaly put this on the official forums but since it's down i will put it here.

At the moment bows are pretty much broken.They dont lead there shots and cant hit moving targets which makes them nearly useless against rush armys.I'm sure this was a balance decision as other units like arty shoots in front of moving targets.Really running your army at a 500 man skirmish line should hurt but at the moment most of the arrows just fly straight overhead giving the bows very few kills before contact from the charge.

I did some testing with a bow hero once against a katana hero wanting to see how many kills it could get but as the katana ran forwad every arrow sailed far over head,even when the katana was right in front of it the bow hero shot in the air instead of shooting arrows right at there heads.

cav based archers seem to work better as they can hit targets running at them its just the foot ones where something went wrong when they were programed.This is one of the bigger problems i have with balance at the moment and would rather them fix this before trying to make some crappy ladder work.

[Blee]

Tested classic Chosokabe v. Shimazu with 2 units of katana sam in spread formation rushing 2 units of various bows

v. Bow Ashigaru - lost ~3/4 of one unit
v. Bow Samurai - one unit routed, another lost ~30 men. Engaged, and lost to the bow Samurai
v. Bow Monks - one unit routed, another took ~50 casualties before engaging

The first volley doesn't lead, but the following ones do.

[Krazy_Welsh_Lad]

It is extremely annoying when this happens

[AlfonsoVIII]

thanks blee, good to know that archers are working as intended, the better the unit, the better the kills.

[bushranger]

i dont know in a lot of games i have had non of the arrows hit.I had one game where i was able to rout a katana sam with a bow sam but i got 2 volleys on it before it started charging me,then had another game the other night where i trained a vet5 bow ashi on a no dachi and did not get 1 kill from about 5 volleys while it ran at me,some thing is up with it because i have never been able to get the results you posted blee.

[GfmHellmann]

I don`t know, never had problems with the performance of my bows...perhaps you skilled them in a wrong way or you are just doing it wrong. So absolutely no probs with the bows atm imo.

[bushranger]

I don`t know, never had problems with the performance of my bows...perhaps you skilled them in a wrong way or you are just doing it wrong. So absolutely no probs with the bows atm imo.

skilled them in the wrong way?what do you mean,did you think they had speed upgrades instead of reload and accuracy.Any way we are talking about classic not that silly avatar mode with the super monk snipers and all that.

I just done about 40 or 50 tests with them mostly 1 unit vs 1 unit no gen but also a fair few battles with mixed units and using stand and fight.I didnt do any of double teaming on one unit as my concerns them against rush builds and you just dont have the time to do any of that when you fending off cav and trying to block meat shields.

First off terrain changes things heaps,even a 3ft bump in the way makes accuracy change,most of the time for the worse.So unless the map is flat archers become less effective from the start.It was just to hard to get a good idea of how effective they were against a rush on terrain as the results just changed all the time,so most of what i found out was on ricefields.

Against a no dachi bow actualy did a pretty good job,the Ai would only ever attack 4 ranks deep and would not use banzai untill contact was made.Banzai speeds them up alot saving them from 1 or 2 volleys.Both bow ash and bow sams were able to get them down 40 or 50 men before conatact was made,monks routed them.So good result against them and archers wouldnt be to bad against some one using date and a rush build.

Katana sams were a very differant story,that armor makes a huge differance.Bow ashi got 10 to 15 kills before contact was made,bow sams 10-20,30 with stand and fight.Bow monks did alot better getting 50-60 but were routed after contact.Bows are not very cost effective against a katana heavy rush build.

Naginata monks were a bit strange,even though they have the same armor as no dachi they were able to close the gap with alot less deaths then them.Maybe because they are a bit faster.So once again bows are not that great against a nag monk rush.

Now you might say well bow can still shoot once contact is made from behind the lines.I tested for this also and once contact is made they are not able to get many kills at all.although the under missile fire morale hit was nice.Not only was the kill count very low they got about as many friendly fire kills as enemy kills.

After all the testing done i just cant see them been cost effective against rush builds at all,to many arrows miss the mark before contact is made and once the fight is underway the only thing they are probably good for is gen sniping.This opinion is just for rush builds because against another balanced build they are cost effective.
I stick by my OP they need to be able to hit moving targets better,even more because of the fast speed of units in the game.

Also dont use fire arrows against rush builds,it doesnt get many more kills and you lose 1 or 2 volleys before contact.

[SuicideNooch]

They have more benefits then just killing people. To use them effectively you need to be specific with target selection during the infantry battle to increase your enemies moral penalties. Bows are fine imho.

[bushranger]

They have more benefits then just killing people. To use them effectively you need to be specific with target selection during the infantry battle to increase your enemies moral penalties. Bows are fine imho.

ughh not against rush.Just chuck a gun ashi behind your lines you will give more units the under missile morale hit and get twice as many kills.Thats why nearly all rush builds have 1 or 2 guns in them.All i want is for archers to get as many kills against a unit rushing forwad at them as it would against a unit standing still.That would do alot to help the rush vs defensive formation balance.I have a classic rush build that beats any balanced build.
If anyone would like to try a balanced build against it and show me how archers are effective against it i would be more then happy to give you a game.

[bushranger]

They have more benefits then just killing people. To use them effectively you need to be specific with target selection during the infantry battle to increase your enemies moral penalties. Bows are fine imho.

Just found something else out,you give your own men the under missile morale hit if you fire into a melee brawl.
not sure if matchlocks do the same but now im not sure if its a good idea to fire at inf at all once engaged as they get just as many friendly fire as enemy kills and give both your and the enemys men a morale hit.

[Emperor Arcturus Mengsk]

I think that the main problem is infantry running speed, it's way too fast, it's not the bows lacking in accuracy and damage but units can just reach them way too fast.

This makes archers more useful for killing enemy skirmishers or important units like monks or generals than killing units that are on melee, still the morale penalty is good.

Also they are great for baiting enemy cavalry while your own cavalry hits more important targets like his infantry backs P