What happened to my bow damage?!

[Zeke & Sil]

I was getting really good results earlier, like 70-ish a shot. Then I fired a greatbow at the necromancer in chapter 1 and dealt... 12. 12 on a crit.

I quit the game in disgust and decided to train some more, and now EVERY bow shot is dealing absolute meme damage. My Archer with a great bow tried to finish off a knight with a sliver of HP and dealt 1 damage. ONE DAMAGE. HOW? She has 300+ Attack stat on her card!

[Dr. Spendlove]

I think it has something to do with the piercing armor resist statistic. The stat isn't explained anywhere that I can see which is irritating!

Archers are much humbler compared to the SNES version where they were OP. I hear they were gently nerfed in the PSP version to be balanced but strong. Now they seem to be reserved for sniping mages/healers and, later on, applying status ailments with special bows.

[Whirblewind]

They kneecapped physical ranged damage on melee targets. You're meant to focus on the backline squishies, now.

[Zeke & Sil]

I tested some more, and the balance is frakked.
Canopus? 100 damage with a short bow on a backline unit
Proper Archer? 80 damage on a crit. Same weapon, same target. Both were at the level cap.

[Super Ourico]

Go into training and take some screenshots. I'd be interested to see the predicted damage and weapon skill level of each unit.

Oh and it's worth noting that Canopus has about 110 extra total stat points than your generic units.

[Dr. Spendlove]

Canopus with a bow is particularly strong, true. But then again Canopus has always been an overwhelmingly powerful unit.

[Kacamata]

I dropped my archer Sara early on chapter 3, its better to use wiz/ench for range dps

Bow is only useful for status effect from shortbow +1 or baldur bow +1
If u really want range physical damage its better to use crossbow (on canopus)

[REhorror]

I don't remember bow being weak against Nybeth, I had level 6 at that fight, then again, my archers were focusing on sniping the darkness.

[Zeke & Sil]

For some reason I didn't snag the shot of Canopus hitting the backline unit, so you'll have to trust me on that one.

EDIT- For reference, the backline Archer I targeted fired back on their turn and hit Maddy for 130. I wish I had the pic.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2889363955

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2889364111

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2889364175

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2889364249

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2889364292

[Super Ourico]

Originally posted by Firebirb:

pics

I won't pretend to know how damage is calculated, but you can see that Canopus has some very stacked stats, and much more ranged damage than Maddy.

[Zeke & Sil]

30 points more attack when they both have 300+ should not make that big a difference.

[REhorror]

That feels about normal to me, Canopus is a Vartan with unique stats, and you guys are targeting a knight in full armor.

[Zeke & Sil]

And their Archer dealing 130 to the unit that did 80 to them on a crit is okay? Seriously?

[the_atolm]

While damage calculations have changed from the PSP version, one can infer that the system in place is at least similar. Bow damage scales more off DEX in those versions than STR; also, the weapon attack value (minus enemy's armor value) are applied after the initial base damage calculation (based on the attacker's stats minus the enemy's stats) has been modified by any other multipliers. We probably won't know for a while exactly how the new formulae work, but the damage calculator spreadsheet (especially the manual and breakdowns on pages two and three) might be helpful in understanding the sort of factors that go into how damage calculations are likely made.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1T7TupkvrKhnH0HtmU2O_-csqQuYQrjHf

[zombie2nd]

Canopus's Air elemental strong against Earth elemental units. Canopus has much higher range attack then the archer.

[Zeke & Sil]

I've done some more testing. I went back to story battles and the damage values were more reasonable (Also Canopus got a 100 damage crit on a Knight, the same ones that I was barely dealing double digit damage on before). I'm not sure what's causing it right now.