What's the best unit for Flaming Arrows?

[moderation]

With Flaming Arrows in effect, are crossbows still better than shortbows when firing on heavily armored troops? And how about against light or medium armor?

I'm assuming crossbows will still hit slightly harder even after the Flaming Arrows effect, but is it worth the slower fire rate?

* This is referring to Conceptual Balance by the way.

[MaxWilson]

I expect markatas are probably the best chassis for Flaming Arrows because you can pack so many cheap markatas onto the map. Or maybe Sauromatians because they have better precision.

That said, I haven't tested it. Fire damage aside, flaming arrows makes your arrows magic == better at avoiding shields, so if you're dealing with Abysians with shields, crossbows are still probably a better bet than arrows. For heavily-armored normal infantry...

A crossbow bolt that hits does 10 AP + 6 AP. A flaming (shortbow) arrow that hits does 10 + 6 AP, and you get twice as many. That means that 10 AP needs to do as much as (10 + 10 + 6 AP, since the other 6 AP cancels out). Gut feel tells me that's going to be around Prot 15 or so but you could crank the math or run a simulation to be sure.

-Max

[moderation]

Hmm, thanks for the input. By what would be the use of using Flaming Arrows against Abysians? I'm assuming they would be immune to the 6 AP fire damage, but maybe the hard to measure boost in shield avoidance helps? I guess I will test this later when I get a chance.

[Meglobob]

Longbows are very good, 45 range, decent damage, 2 strategic move, I think and very cheap.

[MaxWilson]

Yep, that's what I was thinking off. Might boost your hit percentage by as much as 50%, depending upon how fatigued the Abysians are. (+3 is usually about a x2 improvement, but the curve is flatter near the middle IIRC, at +/- 0 territory.) I still probably wouldn't rely on crossbows but if you have to, Flaming Arrows might provide a force multiplier.

-Max

[moderation]

Hmm, the manual says Flaming Arrows are magical for the purposes of hitting ethereal units. Does the magical bonus also give +3 precision then?

[Argitoth]

the best unit for flaming arrows is undead archers.

[Endoperez]

Flaming arrows adds 6 points of AP fire damage in addition to the missile itself. The fire damage is magical, missile is not. So the missiles won't get the +2 bonus you get from using magical ranged weapons (the bonus doesn't add to precision, but helps getting a hit any way; check manual for details). However, at leat poison bows' poison effect is applied even when the arrows hit. If it works the same way for Flaming Arrows, the fire damage always hits. It's a bug, even if it only affects poison archers.

[atul]

I was going to say Sticks and Stones for them having 2 attacks per round, but it seems they don't get anything from Flaming Arrows. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

At least there's no apparent animation...

[Endoperez]

Yeah, that's unaffected. If you see Edi's database and check weapons, there are weapons under such as "fire boulder", "fire composite bow", "fire javelin" etc that are what Flaming Arrows changes weapons into. One of them is "Fire Bow of War"...

[atul]

Hm. If giant's boulder catches fire why doesn't Stick&Stones benefit from the spell? Is it just an oversight or decision made on purpose? I remember Markatas' bows needed to have fire weapons added afterwards.

I once used bow of war on unit with Heroic Quickness and Jade Armour while Flaming Arrows was active. Good times, good times...

[ano]

Problem with Bow of War is that it has only 7 shots and after that commander goes to melee. So, probably, you normally don't want quickness on him)

[Meglobob]

Or you could script fire x4, fire and flee (or something similar) and thus avoid melee.

[JimMorrison]

Or do it with a commander that has magic, and simply do Firex5 - Cast Spells. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Tuidjy]

Or what I do: "Eagle Eyes, fire x 4, stay behind troops" on a shaman or similar.