A Bow perk question.

[James the Blue]

I'm made an Archer for the first time, and I have a question about the first perk selection.

Would you guys recommend the extra headshot damage perk, or the less movement accuracy penalty?

My thinking is that at a high bow skill, I'll one shot anyone to the head anyway, making the headshot perk a wasted choice.

[RJboxer]

Movement. You will eventually get high enough skill, all your shots are headshots. and then get better bows and arrows. and they are all "1 shot 1 kill". Movement never gets outdated

Just my 2 cents

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by RJboxer:

Movement. You will eventually get high enough skill, all your shots are headshots. and then get better bows and arrows. and they are all "1 shot 1 kill". Movement never gets outdated

Just my 2 cents

^--- This.

Movement effect will happen anytime you move. Headshots won't happen every time you fire.

You can, of course, call your character "Headshot Harry" and take that perk for roleplaying, if you want. :) Otherwise, stick with the Movement help as it's always going to be useful.

PS: IF the perk made headshots more likely, I might reconsider. But, it doesn't, so...

[LonesomeSparrow]

I didn't really care all that much about the personal bonus with this one tbh and instead looked at the bonuses for my troops.
5% damage increase vs 20 archery skill for everyone.
I first thought about going for the 5% damage increase but later decided to go for the 20 skill instead. damage numbers aren't all that high for a % increase to matter that much. let's say an arrow does 100 damage, then you only get 5 points of extra damage. not sure if it really matters all that much at that point.
20 extra archery skill does increase both damage and, imo more importantly, accuracy.
the 5% extra damage doesn't matter at all when the arrows don't hit so I thought increasing the chance of having my troops hitting their target probably results in more damage overall compared to the 5% increase of damage.

[James the Blue]

Thanks for the advice guys.

[RJboxer]

Originally posted by LonesomeSparrow:

I didn't really care all that much about the personal bonus with this one tbh and instead looked at the bonuses for my troops.
5% damage increase vs 20 archery skill for everyone.
I first thought about going for the 5% damage increase but later decided to got for the 20 skill instead. damage numbers aren't all that high for a % increase to matter that much. let's say an arrow does 100 damage, then you only get 5 points of extra damage. not sure if it really matters all that much at that point.
20 extra archery skill does increase both damage and, imo more importantly, accuracy.
the 5% extra damage doesn't matter at all when the arrows don't hit so I thought increasing the chance of having my troops hitting their target probably results in more damage overall compared to the 5% increase of damage.

All valid points. and if the game was in Release I'd say, certainly focus on these.

But in EA, they change the values quite a lot. Here is a Fake Example of why I wouldn't focus on the points you list, just yet.

You like Empire. You love the Imperial Palatine Guard. (bow 50) but heard the Fian champion is better (bow 50) it isn't based on Bow skill. So perhaps other stats affect it.

Well If i take the perk based on "boosting" my bow skill, I will have an extra 20..... So my palatine guards SHOULD be better (they won't). Because of other factors.

Even worse. Is every patch, they tend to tweak troops. So unless you are really into that stuff, and memorize/ rememorize it for each patch. Picking the Bow +20 perk might have benefitted your Aserai archers, but in the new patch it benefits them much less... etc


I dunno, I guess you could just re calculate every scenario when you decide which perk to pick... and then understand all the other stats (I certainly don't ... I have an IDEA what they do, but have no idea all the behind the scenes mechanics that affect things.. like how armor doesn't seem to do anything to blunt damage etc... That's not stated). All in all. I think you are probably better off focusing on your character more often than not, over your troops. Especially since you will probably have a combined army. and 5% of 50 is ok, 5% of 10 isn't... so maybe you pick a 5% bonus perk for a troop (because you have fian champions.. with a bow of 50. but all your current troops now have 10 in that skill. not very valuable IMO)

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by LonesomeSparrow:

I didn't really care all that much about the personal bonus with this one tbh and instead looked at the bonuses for my troops. ...

I'd go for the damage bonus, anyway.

A good archer should already have a good bow/crossbow skill level.

But, that dude in heavy armor is going to shrug off crappy arrows from unskilled archer troops no matter if they hit or not.

That tiny bit of +damage applies to everyone and "could be" a meaningful difference when it comes down to exactly the sort of troops you want to be hit.

Granted, having archers hit more often is good. Neither bonus "sucks." If I was considering it, I'd take for granted my archers are going to eventually be as skilled as necessary for top-tier and go for that extra damage to clear out the field a bit quicker.

At that point, it's probably more about individual ability and whether or not your character will use a bow frequently. /shrug (IOW - I can't really argue "against" any particular choice when considering all situations.)

A note: We don't yet have, AFAIK, "weather effects" in-game. We have weather, but IIRC the devs said they haven't apllied "weather effects" yet for ranged units. In Warband, there was some soft application of that if I'm not mistaken. (Could be confusing it with some TW effect, tbh.) That raises the issue a bit higher in that if we have Weather Effects, then it's likely going to modify Skill and not Damage. If you're fighting often in bad weather, like in Sturgia or in frequent sandstorms as an Aserai Lord, you may want to choose the +Skill bonus to offset Weather Effects. Just a thought for later. :)