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.

[Nightslaver]

Originally posted by BretonFou35:

You don't pierce plate armor with a bow or crossbow, you don't pierce it with a sword, you don't pierce it with a hammer. Getting through a solid steel plate with anything other than gunpowder is basically impossible, Hollywood has ruined the world's brain.

No ♥♥♥♥ sherlock, do you thinking that everyone about you are stupid and didnt know that the chance to truly penetrate an well forged plate armor in reallity was near by zero?
The decison that Bows and crossbows can penetrate plate armor in game easly has nothing to do with hollywood, as with fun to use and play with ranged weapons.
Noone woud use a ranged weapon (bows and crossbows) in KcD2 if they cant do 70% plus time any effective dmg.

[SvarogX]

Originally posted by Nightslaver:

Originally posted by BretonFou35:

You don't pierce plate armor with a bow or crossbow, you don't pierce it with a sword, you don't pierce it with a hammer. Getting through a solid steel plate with anything other than gunpowder is basically impossible, Hollywood has ruined the world's brain.

No ♥♥♥♥ sherlock, do you thinking that everyone about you are stupid and didnt know that the chance to truly penetrate an well forged plate armor in reallity was near by zero?
The decison that Bows and crossbows can penetrate plate armor in game easly has nothing to do with hollywood, as with fun to use and play with ranged weapons.
Noone woud use a ranged weapon (bows and crossbows) in KcD2 if they cant do 70% plus time any effective dmg.

I mean, heavy crossbows were designed to penetrate plate armour even, at certain distances.

[Nightslaver]

Originally posted by Neo92:

I mean, heavy crossbows were designed to penetrate plate armour even, at certain distances.

A 1000 Ib plus (heavy) crossbows with bodkin bolts can penetrate good plate armor, yes, but they was ofside of sieges normaly to impractical.
The normal used corssbow with so maximum 450 to 600 Ib was primary desigend to be used from people with a low training level, not to penetrate primary good armored knights in plates.
A bow needs a much more well trained user, to be fire effective as a crossbow.

[SvarogX]

Originally posted by Nightslaver:

Originally posted by Neo92:

I mean, heavy crossbows were designed to penetrate plate armour even, at certain distances.

A 1000 Ib plus (heavy) crossbows with bodkin bolts can penetrate good plate armor, yes, but they was ofside of sieges to impractable.
The normal used corssbow with so maximum 450 to 600 Ib was primary desigend to be used from people with a low training level, not to penetrate primary good armored knights in plates.
A bow needs a much more well trained user, to be fire effective as a crossbow.

I am not denying that a bow needs more training and skill than a crossbow, lol.

[Darth Revan]

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.

i dont know, the strongest bow i found had 230 power which of course is a lot less than some of the crossbows but since the bow reloads a hell of a lot faster than those really hight power crossbows i think its just balanced out

[Humpenstilzchen]

This might be interesting for some regarding the hot topic of could arrows or bolts penetrate medievil armor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBxdTkddHaE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds-Ev5msyzo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf7KCqQLw78

[tetsu_maru]

I've been using long bow a lot. I am lvl 26 and I drop people with headshots from stealth like it's no one's business. Sure crossbows do more damage but that reload time. I can take out 3+ people with a longbow before having to melee while with a crossbow I get 1 maybe 2 before they on me.

[Mordegar]

You can still kill 2 guys in a group with a crossbow before they manage to get close to you, as long as you use goat foot loaded one's.
Bow's start to shine once you get them close to 200 power with improved arrows, that's when you start to one tap head shot with them.
Early game hunting it's either poison or crossbow.

Stay away from winch loaded siege crossbow's, they were used with a pavese tower shield rammed into the ground as cover to reload in a combat situation or behind walls. You can use them to open combat to get a 100 percent first shot kill on the heaviest opponent of a camp but that's it.

Btw, arrows need a short time after release to stabilize themself for max penetration.
We did penetration tests on several things like car doors and breast plates ourselfes in the past and as long as you don't use something like that 160lbs bow in the video (which btw. only a handful of people can even draw with precision today) penetration in up to 25 meters or 35+ yards on a moving target is almost impossible to the point that the arrow will actually manage to pierce a vital spot. You may penetrate, but you won't get any deeper than a couple of cm through the gambeson. Either you hit the chain linked intersectons on the armor which count as weak spots or you won't get a lethal or at least crucially weakening shot out.

Btw, that video about arrow penetration doesn't test the fact that ballistic archery was primarily done with english longbows on the battle field and direct aiming was practiced only in target shooting or if the sh**t hit the fan. Most stronger bows were also drawn to the upper breast instead to the chin.
The fearsome power of the english longbow came through it's heavier arrows and the speed the arrows buiild up while coming down in a ballistic curve on the battlefield. Raining down arrows will come in mind here.
Gravity play's a huge factor in this and there aren't many serious tests with ballistic archery verus armor up to find unless you have the books for them.

[Mr.Gold]

The problem for me is that I don't know what "power" is. If it is poundage then a 110 power longbow should match a 400 or 500 power crossbow. To be honest the developers seemed to have followed the often incorrectly quoted Canon 29 of the second Lateran Council (1139) where the pope called for the abolition of bows AND crossbows. Not just crossbows. But the truth is crossbows were fairly inneficient. Still are tbh. And I also don't know what quality does to a crossbow. Currently using a bronze 350 power field crossbow to great success. Definitely more powerful than a silver 300 power one or a gold 200 power one.

[Leto]

there is a good mod on nexus, which increases the damage of arrows and bolts, there are several versions of it, with different damage values, i have for example a 50% version with it ranged combat is well stronger but not yet TOO strong

[wesm91]

Bows aren't underpowered or unnecessary, I 1 shot everything except plated armour wearers with a headshot

[TerraRazor]

I can take a whole group of bandits with high tier armour with just the bow.

[SvarogX]

Originally posted by TerraRazor:

I can take a whole group of bandits with high tier armour with just the bow.

Can you make a video of it and show it to us ?

[Alasdair]

if you poison your arrows with a strong bane poison you can shoot multiple targets faster I suppose, bane's poison is pretty op. there aren't many times you can get off multiple shots before an enemy is on top of you and you might as well engage in melee combat with a blade to inflict poison on them if you can distract them with mutt, or master strike them the bow does seem to not really fit anywhere compared to the cross bow or gun which intiate combat with a high damage attack far better imo, very few places where you can set up a safe firing line. my build was basically running a long sword and 3 loaded guns end game with shot shell ammo for point blank kills, it was pretty fun. I'm not sure how or if you can even run a bow build at all.

[Vanzann]

That's realistic. Someone once said comparing bow to crossbow is like comparing light machine pistol to sniper rifle. Skilled archer could shoot 10 -12 arrows before crossbowman reloaded once.