Comments on the Bow

[Celebrindal]

For many cases I think the bow is strong, but as the game progresses in levels, I think various factors begin to add up and make the bow too weak. For example, I noticed that level 1 axe does 15 damage and equivalent bow and arrow does 44 (~3x). It makes sense that the bow shoots far less often it should do more damage to compensate. By comparison, the Root Fang and charred arrows do 164 damage, versus the berserker axes do 140. It would appear that the bow has not scaled well, including across other levels. I might consider increasing the total damage of the bow and arrow to something more akin to double other weapons such as 300 damage (math would say 410.662 but by this point in the game you should have decreased draw time). Also noteworthy are that the majority of enemies in the game are resistant to pierce damage (meaning that Ash fang's 164 becomes 82 to the Axe's 140), as well as the fact that the majority of enemies utilize evasive maneuvers that most strongly effect the bow. In addition to this, the bow is not good at managing AoE (which most other weapons can).
Because of these I might consider the following.
The bow has no secondary attack, perhaps create a quiver to hold a second set of arrows, and allow the secondary attack button to toggle between main and "quiver" arrows.
I might consider adding more special arrows for example
A new level of fire arrow that would be viable for Deep North
If obsidian does not respawn, perhaps it should like flint (given that it is needed for poison/frost arrows)
Adding arrows capable of dealing blunt or slash damage (a melee fighter can easily change weapon type to bypass this issue, so the bow should too)
Adding an arrow crafting station, which can be improved with the Ashlands gems to enchant a small number of arrows (with a cool down) with gem abilities. One weakness of the bow with regards to the gems is that its low rate of fire triggers these abilities less than all other weapons. Having that proc chance increased when desired by using the bow and "enchanted" arrows could be interesting.
Given that the bow and arrow will not likely ever have AoE damage, (and evasive enemies are prevalent) I think these are more than reasonable. Worst case scenario, I might consider removing the bow's ability to parry (and maybe the staff) to compensate if all of these changes are too powerful compared to melee.

[blprice61]

Have you ever used bow as your main weapon on a deathless playthrough? Have you ever made the Stormfang bow and used it with a bow skill in the 80's or higher? Have you used fire arrows with the Fire Hazard switch on?

From what you've written, I'd have to think no to all of those questions.

[Tom]

Originally posted by blprice61:

Have you ever used bow as your main weapon on a deathless playthrough? Have you ever made the Stormfang bow and used it with a bow skill in the 80's or higher? Have you used fire arrows with the Fire Hazard switch on?

From what you've written, I'd have to think no to all of those questions.

Its true that the bow is strong late game and I dont think it needs a damage buff. But the rest of OPs suggestions? I like those very much.

[Quineloe]

The bow is always super strong because of AI pathing and the fact you don't need to be in melee range to hit with it. I'd love to see anyone complaining about how weak the bow is to actually try to win a few later biome fights using melee weapons without bonemass buff.

Arguing "DPS" as if this was a logged mmorpg raid encounter is wrong.

[blprice61]

The better measure for bow is damage per stamina. Also, the draw time for bow decreases with skill level, there is no such speedup with melee weapons.

As far as AoE goes, that comes in Ashlands if desired. In addition, the Fire Hazard switch, when on, gives some AoE capability to fire arrows.

[Quineloe]

Only if you factor in all the stamina use that melee players have by avoiding damage.

[Celebrindal]

Pardon, If I may reply to all of your comments
Biprice: To answer your question, I mained bow 3 playthroughs (highest skill ~70) and various melee options in others. I believe I can compare melee vs ranged, and find ranged weaker as I described. I have no desire to ever play a deathless playthrough, (I want to enjoy the game, not go crazy). You are clearly more skilled (kudos!) at the game and higher skill in the bow, so I looked at some videos of people WAY better than me, which I point to at the end. Soo cool, I'm Jelly. This being said, Thanks!! I had not considered the exponential nature of the bow skill. I might suggest a change balance its skill progression, as I do not think the bow should only be viable to the top% pf players as you appear to be. Please copy and paste my formulae in desmos graphing calculator it will help to understand my suggestion. X is the PC's bow skill and Y is the dps it can do (due to its being made faster). If draw time decreases linearly up to "-80%" this then makes dps exponential based on skill as you point out \frac{1+1.41\frac{x}{100}}{1-.8\frac{x}{100}}=y I would suggest changing this progression to be more linear and balanced by skill by using something similar to this formula. \frac{1+1.41\left(\frac{x}{100}\right)}{1-.8\sqrt{\sqrt{\frac{x}{100}}}}=y The main change is that the draw time is buffed earlier on. please compare 1-.8\frac{x}{\left(100\right)}=y with 1-.8\sqrt{\sqrt{\frac{x}{100}}}=y here X is skill and Y is relative draw times. You might have to zoom in on the Y axis and out on the x to see the relation.
Yes I have turned on the fire hazard with my bow while using fire arrows. I had not considered its use for AoE and tested it. 0.8 damage per pulse (equals 4 total) on a twitcher (or 0.6 on a greyling). I am sad to say this not viable for the AoE needs in the Ashlands (maybe meadows?)
Quineloe, Im afraid I am not familiar with the term AI pathing. What exactly is this?
If you don't like damage per hit (it wasn't dps) as a measure of balance, perhaps time to kill the same boss would be more appropriate (and so accounting also for time spent running, dodging regening, stamina cost, ect. you mentioned Quineloe) The times for the videos I mentioned above are 2 minutes and 10 sec for a full melee run as opposed to 4.983 minutes for the bow, and neither died. By this metric doubling the damage of the bow might be in order. I tried to find videos of players of roughly equal understanding of how to play.
Speedkilling Ashlands Boss Solo | Valheim Ashlands Boss Fight [full melee run]
Valheim - Fader VS Bows 100 lvl (6:00) [full bow run]
As to your point about playing melee without bonemass, I am afraid I disagree. I think later enemies/bosses are designed with players using Bonemass/Fader/pots/Eikthir in mind. The hypothetical scenario of melee not using bonemass is akin to asking an archer to avoid any foods beyond swamp level for higher bosses.

[Quineloe]

Originally posted by Celebrindal:

By this metric doubling the damage of the bow might be in order. .

Again, this is not a logged MMORPG raid encounter. There's no reason why the bow should take out a boss as fast as a melee attacker. The player with the bow is denying many boss mechanics by staying at range, making the fight considerably easier to survive for them. If they were also killing the target as fast, there would be no reason to ever risk going into melee.

also surely you're pulling my leg with the question about AI pathing, right? You know who is meant with AI, and you know what pathing, short for path finding, is

[Celebrindal]

Originally posted by Quineloe:

Originally posted by Celebrindal:

By this metric doubling the damage of the bow might be in order. .

Again, this is not a logged MMORPG raid encounter. There's no reason why the bow should take out a boss as fast as a melee attacker. The player with the bow is denying many boss mechanics by staying at range, making the fight considerably easier to survive for them. If they were also killing the target as fast, there would be no reason to ever risk going into melee.

also surely you're pulling my leg with the question about AI pathing, right? You know who is meant with AI, and you know what pathing, short for path finding, is

Okay, I think I understand, but what does the AI pathing have to do with the bow?
Also, I do think there should be this reason for melee/range being nearer to balanced, and that is that when I am playing with my friends, they often feel they are not contributing to the group. Being closer damage wise I think would help
May I ask your thoughts on my other suggestions?

[blprice61]

@Celebrindal

The fire arrow AoE capabilities under Fire Hazard are... weird.. like Fire Hazard itself. Basically you turn every mob you hit with a fire arrow into a fire spreader that has a chance to ignite anything flammable nearby. If you spread out your targets over a group, its almost like dropping campfires. Remember, everything that gets set afire through the Fire Hazard mechanic will then have a chance to set other things nearby on fire.

I haven't tried this next idea but the next time I'm playing with Fire Hazard on I surely will; use 'plink mode' - fire as many fire arrows as you can in front of as well as at the group of mobs as a form of crowd control. Might be hilarious against a fuling village.

[Quineloe]

Originally posted by Celebrindal:

Originally posted by Quineloe:

Again, this is not a logged MMORPG raid encounter. There's no reason why the bow should take out a boss as fast as a melee attacker. The player with the bow is denying many boss mechanics by staying at range, making the fight considerably easier to survive for them. If they were also killing the target as fast, there would be no reason to ever risk going into melee.

also surely you're pulling my leg with the question about AI pathing, right? You know who is meant with AI, and you know what pathing, short for path finding, is

Okay, I think I understand, but what does the AI pathing have to do with the bow?
Also, I do think there should be this reason for melee/range being nearer to balanced, and that is that when I am playing with my friends, they often feel they are not contributing to the group. Being closer damage wise I think would help
May I ask your thoughts on my other suggestions?

Mobs are bad at getting to you. You get free hits in because the mob needs to walk around a bunch of rocks or trees. Or the mob is slower than the player so it can be kited forever.

Melees don't have this advantage. Therefore what you call balanced because dps is the same because we're killing Onyxia with a raid of 40, is actually unbalanced in favor of range.

Given how popular bows are and how many players are out there who kill EVERYTHING with a bow, no matter what, I see it hard to argue that bows are underpowered.

And then we're not even getting into flying enemies that can hardly be attacked with anything other than a bow.