Chapter LII: Bows

Well, I’ll talk about bows, but this can be generalized to all weapons that use ammo.

I see bows and arrows having repeated attributes that happen to compose stats like attack, accuracy and damage type…would be way more interesting if they all had no repeated attributes, which would cause the importance of each attribute being raised (no more players rank 50 using warped arrows).

First, I’d leave arrows with attack and damage type. This is important because this way we can have role-based arrows…arrows meant for damage, arrows meant for enfeebling, arrows meant for tanking…

And, with the removal of these stats we would have space for some new attributes for bows. I’d add “Parry” and “Range” so it would have Attack, Accuracy, Critical rate, Parry and Range as attributes.

With these attributes we can make a better discerning between bow types, like having short bows with increased accuracy, cavalry bows with increased critical, long bows with increased range, composite bows with increased attack and armored bows with increased parry.

This way each bow would have its own role, like long bows being preferably usable to shot monsters out of their ranged range since they are the only ones with increased range, composite bows focusing on damage, being the only ones with additional attack, cavalry bow being the “solo-friendly” bow that, since it has shorter range, not only allows you to critical hit better than any other but also to parry at melee range (cavalry bows are armored bows), armored bows (like weevil and crab bows) that are the tanking bow, excelling in nothing other than the great parry rate. The main difference between cavalry and armored bows is the range…while cavalry has a shorter range, being focused in very close combat, armored bows have a normal range.

About shortbows, they would be pretty weak and have a shorter range, just like cavalry bows…but they are separated than others because it has an unique characteristic…like I said at ARC chapter. I wanted to see the “single nock” action where the ARC would nock an arrow equipped at pouch quiver instead of the main quiver, allowing a brand new flexibility option to the class…shortbows take this to a brand new level…at off-hand slot you can equip a third quiver at bow quiver (like those bows where the quiver is part of the bow), allowing you to actally having 3 different types of arrows equipped, being specially useful when you’re taking a support role.

The only thing ARCs need to be aware is that each extra quiver equipped he will get a brand new action to use it, just like the throw for throwing actions or guard for shields.

ARC was by far the less flexible class of the original FFXIV…but this would give it a brand new way of playing! ^^