Arbalest or War Bow?

[EtherIord]

Hello everyone! It's my first post on Steam forum, so sorry if I'm doing anything wrong.

So because of the DR mechanic, I've quickly drown a conclusion, that it's benefitious to use high damage weapons, even if they are slow. I taught my ranger the soldier specialization, and got impressed by the ability to one-shot enemies. However later in the game I got really dissappointed by average results and loaded an old save before my decision of condemning the war bow. I would end at it, but my friend, RPG player with big experience in ADnD told me arbalest is actually better.

So I started to count.

War bow is three times faster than arbalest
Actually, arbalest speed is:

• 42% of war bow on viscious aim modal effect (+/- 1.68%)
  
• 44.6% of war bow without a modal effect (+/- 1.59%)

(values in parentheses show possible measurement error)

So I'd expect arbalests to have 3 2.24 (2.38 on viscious aim) times higher damage in order to have higher DPS.
how average damage depends on accuracy and deflection on DR 7[i.imgur.com]
how average dmg depends on DR when ACC = DEF[i.imgur.com]
how average dmg depends on DR when ACC = DEF +30[i.imgur.com]

How these values were counted?
Most values were counted in Excel. Here's the main spreadsheet: download[www.speedyshare.com]
I took MIN/MAX damage values from my ranger as well as her ACC, and I took DEF value from a real NPC. Then I calculated chances to graze, hit, crit, based on ACC and DEF, calculated damage for graze (av. dmg/50% - DR), hit (av. dmg - DR), crit, and multiplied these damage values by their chances to occur.

I'm not sure if I calculated critical damage correctly. For war bow it's easy:

average damage * 1.5

, but I had to guess how "-0.3 crit damage multiplayer" works - my guess was:

av_dmg + av_dmg*0.5*(1-0.3) = av_dmg + av_dmg*0.5*0.7

In cases where DR was high enough, I considered the mechanic that limits Damage reduction to 80%, by creating a simple table with all possible damage outcomes, damage reduced by DR completely and damage reduced by 80% and taking the highest value from these two, and taking an average of the highest values as you can see here: arbalest grazes against DR 16[i.imgur.com]

I didn't consider any other bonuses / penalties.I also didn't consider how the game rounds values

Do I miss something? If not, here are my conclusions:

• because crit damage is a percentage boost, faster or higher damage weapon will not benefit from it more, unless DR is so high, that in some cases not only base, but also crit bonus of a damage will be absorbed by DR (not the case in my tests, the DR would need to be much higher than 16)
  
• because arbalest has a penalty to crits, war bow benefits more from higher accuracy
  
• because DR is a flat value, war bow benefits more from higher accuracy, as it decreases chances of grazes and criticals (so increases damage)
  
• war bow has higher dps in any case except DR higher than 16 - in that case you probably want to switch to a wand or rod for their alternative damage type
  
• while dps of war bow is higher, you must be aware, that arbalest deals its damage sooner; this way you can possibly kill a target quickly enough, to deny some damage for the enemy; also in case of your ranger's quick death, his total damage may be higher with arbalest, than with war bow
  
• if you use a loading spell a lot, arbalest crits will be a decent way to start any encounter.
  
• keep in mind that because arbalest will overkill enemies by higher amounts of damage, it means it will waste more damage and so it's real DPS decreases.

Final conclusions:

• weapons seem very balanced in Pillars of Eternity; if you see two weapons of same quality and think one of them is better in all situations - you probably don't understand all game mechanics
  
• weapons like arbalest, crossbow and firearms are designed with melee fighers in mind - the purpose of these weapons is to make a single strong attack at the start of the battle and then switch to another weapon, not wasting time to reload it
  
• similarily to above, your ranged characters could have one of these weapons to start a fight and then switch to a bow or a wand.

If you find it interesting, I may also write about my experience with pistols and blunderbusses.

[yusupov]

interesting point about using the powerful range weapons then switching i have thought about that but ive been too lazy...i got a blunderbuss w/ my last quest i cant tell from the descrpition why its better than kana's gun but i armed him w/ it any way, i usually just look @ value bc the math is too much for me, is that a bad idea?

i also realize now, maybe he is trained foro the rifle but not the blunderbuss, as i think its 2 diff training

[ArchAnge1LT]

Check this post in obsidian forums.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/72272-combat-mechanics-attack-speed-recovery/

Basically, best ranged weapons are Arquebus, Pistol, Arbalest, Blunderbuss and Hunting bow depending what your enemies have for DR.

Arquebus nets most damage against high DR. Blunderbuss nets most damage against low to average DR. Hunting bow nets most damage vs very low DRs. Everything else mentioned here is in between.


However, these are not final facts, depending how you spec you character, which difficulty you play, and what is your party composition. For example penetrating shot modal talent makes faster ranged weapons much better, etc.

[EtherIord]

Originally posted by yusupov:

I usually just look @ value bc the math is too much for me, is that a bad idea?

It's a very good idea, however what I loved in older RPG games and what I love here is the shopping process. I can't just spend 7500 copper on a gun if I'm not sure this is the best gun.

But everyone plays how he likes - you can play on easy to make batles quick and enjoy story, or normal to have challenging battles but not so much to spend time on calculations, or hard to actually force yourself to think a lot about game mechanics. :)

Originally posted by ArchAnge1LT:

Basically, best ranged weapons are Arquebus, Pistol, Arbalest, Blunderbuss and Hunting bow depending what your enemies have for DR.

Arquebus nets most damage against high DR.

This is not what I calculated - in any case except extremely high DR (above 16 for sure) war bow beats arquebus as it goes for DPS. I didn't even consider overkills, that is damage wasted because of slow attack speed and high damage.

Maybe I'll repost my calculations on Obsidian forum, thanks for the link.

[ArchAnge1LT]

There is elaborate spread sheet done already with all frames, attacks speeds and stuff in the obsidian forums. Link

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vDm5MOrCK6S95h5u0EzZbGTv_u_rYqjuO0-zupqk0_A/edit?pli=1#gid=1264774515

Actually now looking at this, hunters bow is terrible. Warbow is better than hunters bow. But all other mentioned weapons are still better.

Yes overkill damage is wasted. But on the other hand, killing with initial shot removes the enemy and his dps from the fight, which you cant do with fast weapons.

Edit:
Anyway, all these stats are just guidelines. There are too many additional variables that impact the fights and yes every ranged weapon can be better than others in certain situations.

[EtherIord]

Interesting. Either I've done something terribly wrong somewhere, or the difference between calculations are caused by assumptions made in the spreadsheet you linked.
For example I see graze chance 35% everywhere, while for a ranger it's clearly not the case. I don't even have a good weapon and other items yet, and still I have an accuracy of 70. Against an enemy with 40 deflection it completely removes the chance to miss and decreases the chance to graze by 15% !

I reposted my thoughts on Obsidian forum and wonder what their criticism will be.

Also, I added two things I forgot to add initially: the info about overkill and that I didn't take rounding into consideration (I don't know how game rounds things)

Originally posted by ArchAnge1LT:

killing with initial shot removes the enemy and his dps from the fight, which you cant do with fast weapons.

Yea, I wrote about that in my initial post. However if you have a tank or two, you completely don't care about that and in hard encounters DPS is much more important.

[Flip]

Very interesting thread. Generally I use Arbalast for my fighters to open up with. Most of my ranged team using hunting bows not because I want to but because AI gave them Peasant talent by the time I found em. Wondering now if using another weapon is a good idea even if it gives a -6 accuracy hit.

[EtherIord]

Originally posted by Nevan:

Very interesting thread. Generally I use Arbalast for my fighters to open up with. Most of my ranged team using hunting bows not because I want to but because AI gave them Peasant talent by the time I found em. Wondering now if using another weapon is a good idea even if it gives a -6 accuracy hit.

I use a warbow for a ranger created by myself, so that's why I compared this weapon to arbalest.

In the end, if my calculations are right, then hunting bow is also by far better than arbalest for a ranger. Reloading-type-of-gun opening is still the best though, as you noticed.

[Flip]

Yup but I am a weirdo so refuse to use guns :D. You you make a good point about strong opener for ranged. Just got Grieving mother so will stick her with a Warbow and give her an arbalast for opener.

[EtherIord]

Originally posted by Nevan:

Wondering now if using another weapon is a good idea even if it gives a -6 accuracy hit.

Consider every 1 point of accuracy less as 1 % chance for crit traded into 1 % chance to miss.

6% to crit into 6% to miss is a lot!

[Flip]

Agreed, doesn't seem worth it.

Incidently that is why I am liking my 1h Only paladin, lvl 8 and has like 95 Accuracy. Lots of crits :D

[EtherIord]

Originally posted by Nevan:

Agreed, doesn't seem worth it.

Incidently that is why I am liking my 1h Only paladin, lvl 8 and has like 95 Accuracy. Lots of crits :D

Is this the paladin thing? I haven't played this class yet, 95 accuracy is INSANE.

[Flip]

Well it is a combination of things.
Paladins start with medium accuracy = 25.
Using 1h weapons only (no shield etc) gives + 16 accuracy.
Weapon Focus gives + 6
Zelous Focus gives + 6 Accuracy + 5% crit (with talent)
Weapon is + 8 Accuracy (+additional 5 vs kith)
+ 3 per lvl
Total: 82. I have to check when I get back home in an hour or so, it could have been a buff that got it up to 90+ or a talent I forgot. Will post again when I am home to confirm.

[vinzi]

Isn't the main difference between the spreadsheet and this post the assumption that you get 3 warbow shots for one aqueabus and the spreadsheet states that its more like 2.5 times. Maybe this is due to sloppy testing.

[Sol]

Interesting research.

I made the same discovery about melee weapons, with using flails especially. I like having multiple weapon sets to take advantage of.

[EtherIord]

Originally posted by vinzi:

Isn't the main difference between the spreadsheet and this post the assumption that you get 3 warbow shots for one aqueabus and the spreadsheet states that its more like 2.5 times. Maybe this is due to sloppy testing.

This is definetely the weakest point of my measurements - I made it when I didn't yet plan so detailed calculations.

I will repeat the test. Still, arbalist has rarely 2.5 times the damage of the bow - only at very high DR where you should rather switch weapon from pierce to other type. Plus overkill. Plus my ranger is on low level, so the war bow will only get stronger and stronger compared to arbalest.