Bows are completely useless.

[SvarogX]

I am carrying a crossbow most of the time, one hit, one kill. For deers, rabbits, wolves, humans, whatever.

The bow required me to shoot a beggar 4 times in order to kill him. Making it an unrealistic and unecessary weapons.

Or am I doing something wrong here? So far bows seem to be toys in comparison to a proper crossbow.

[Scratchie]

I feel like in the beta testing stages people must have abused the mess out of ranged weaponry because they have so many layers as to why they are bad that go beyond how much damage they deal.

With a bow and the right perks you can land a few arrows before you have to sprint away and try to pull out your sword. Crossbow is fine for sneaking in and stealth arching a bit before you eventually get found. Guns are basically a low key quick time event as to whether or not you drop someone in one hit or if you get stun locked in a combo that can consists of 3-15 hits (yea I literally got stuck locked in a 15 hit combo once, could not move or do anything).

Other than that you're pretty much forced to abuse master strike with swords or abuse feints with heavy/polearm. They really need to rebalance weaponry in this game.

[LArc7thHeaven]

Bows are easier to aim compared to crossbow also you can shoot faster with bows, basically one shot high damage vs flurry of lower damage

[Gustuv Wynd]

Bows do less damage, but shoot faster. You probably can shoot 4 arrows in the time it takes to shoot one bolt.

As you get archery perks...you can put more debuffs on targets. I carry a bow and a crossbow. If there is one enemy, I will pull out the crossbow and get a bolt into him. If it is a bunch of weak enemies, I will fire a few arrows before pulling out my sword. Gets a few bleeding and debuffed that way...some will even die from one arrow as well.

[Humpenstilzchen]

Henries bane poison on arrows and you can kill four times as fast as any crossbow. By the time you are reloading your second shot for the crossbow you have already poisoned and a few seconds later killed 4-5 guards/bandits.

[Finkle and Einhorn]

Early on the bow is superior just because you can fire it faster (with a debuff or poison) and survive long enough to pull out another weapon. Trying to use the crossbow early game can be a death sentence, the load/reload time takes aaaages.

[Kjoris2]

use bows with poisoned arrows and you can have 6-7 arrows out before anyone can get close. And with the affect that they can no longer run, it is just a shoot them free for all XD

taken out some of the biggest bandit camps without even drawing a sword.

[Scratchie]

Originally posted by Finkle and Einhorn:

Early on the bow is superior just because you can fire it faster (with a debuff or poison) and survive long enough to pull out another weapon. Trying to use the crossbow early game can be a death sentence, the load/reload time takes aaaages.

Yerp, just like firearms. You get stuck in animations while a guy full sprints at you, and by the time you get blackpowder handcannons almost all bandits you fight are well trained deserters who can combo off on you endlessly.

They really need to give you the ability to dodge with ranged weapons or give you the ability to treat them as really really bad maces when you press a button. Getting caught on an animation mid to late game is pretty much a death penalty.

[Decay]

Originally posted by Neo92:

I am carrying a crossbow most of the time, one hit, one kill. For deers, rabbits, wolves, humans, whatever.

The bow required me to shoot a beggar 4 times in order to kill him. Making it an unrealistic and unecessary weapons.

Or am I doing something wrong here? So far bows seem to be toys in comparison to a proper crossbow.

poison your arrows with henry tier bane poison, they all drop dead in seconds from a single arrow, factoring in the insane perks for faster reload on bows, and you can drop an entire pack of bandits before even having to turn around

[The Konrad]

The problem for me was that the basic bows have unreasonably low impact.
Low Archery Skill makes shooting tedious,
Low player skill forced me to reload.

Lowlevel Farmer Bandits needed several headshots before Henry was able to kill them.

Now, as Nostradamus of Bohemia my Marmelade recipes and Arrow Poison are so magical than any arrow hitting flesh will kill the target in a couple of seconds.
Archery 30 also helps.
But I still think the bows lack impact.

[zhern.the.vulture]

Dollmaker poison 100% - enemies are way less dangerous as they slowly hobble toward you, while speculating about food poisoning, rather than looking down at the arrow covered in green muck sticking out of their torso...

[Humpenstilzchen]

Originally posted by The Konrad:

The problem for me was that the basic bows have unreasonably low impact.
Low Archery Skill makes shooting tedious,
Low player skill forced me to reload.

Lowlevel Farmer Bandits needed several headshots before Henry was able to kill them.

Now, as Nostradamus of Bohemia my Marmelade recipes and Arrow Poison are so magical than any arrow hitting flesh will kill the target in a couple of seconds.
Archery 30 also helps.
But I still think the bows lack impact.

I agree. Without poison bows are a joke. I prefer how they balanced bows in the first game which felt much more realistic.

[The Konrad]

Case in point:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3429884917

[Stevie Lee]

I agree, bows are not portrayed realistically. I'd like to see someone with two arrows fired from even an 60 lb recurve come sprinting after me a for a mile. One arrow is going to slow anyone down, two arrows are going to stop them from moving and fighting. I've put as many as seven arrows in heavily armored opponents, and again armor may protect some areas, but if the arrows penetrate it is going to have an impact on how fast you move and whether you can fight at all.

[Nightslaver]

Originally posted by Scratchie:

With a bow and the right perks you can land a few arrows before you have to sprint away and try to pull out your sword.

Use the quick firing rate of bows, use arrows with puppet poisson, distribution such arrows of all enemies, they cant sprint any longer, now you can kite and kill them with bow easily and needs no weapon swap.

Overall that makes bows to the most versatile range weapon in KcD 2 and more or less the only one that can realistically used for a primary ranged playstyle.

Originally posted by Scratchie:

Crossbow is fine for sneaking in and stealth arching a bit before you eventually get found.

Yes, crossbows primary good stealth weapons, where reload time isnt so nessasary and for sieges and as fight opener, to kill the one neasty guy with heavy armor and blunt weapon, before you fight in melee.

Originally posted by Scratchie:

Guns are basically a low key quick time event as to whether or not you drop someone in one hit or if you get stun locked in a combo that can consists of 3-15 hits (yea I literally got stuck locked in a 15 hit combo once, could not move or do anything).

Powderweapons more or less only fight openers, to kill the enemy wie heaviest armor., before you fight his "friends" in melee.

Originally posted by Scratchie:

Other than that you're pretty much forced to abuse master strike with swords or abuse feints with heavy/polearm. They really need to rebalance weaponry in this game.

You dont "must use" master strike, you can use him, but you don't need him to fight successful. Dodge attack and land multiple hits in side of enmies most time works much better and kill them faster as wait for opurtunities to use master strike.

[BigBootyBethany]

Bows can be quite powerful with the right perks. For instance they're very good when you want to ambush enemies. They're also very good for killing enemies out of the dark. For exmaple if it's night and you're hidding within a bush enemies simply won't see you while they can hear the crossbow and will find you way easier. However without perks they're pretty useless, yea.