If you are using bow/arbalest as main source of damage, bow is better. You have arrows to choose according to target and at high levels bows are better. If you are using bow/arbalest just as occasional ranged option, arbalest is better, as it leaves you with plenty of stamina to do other things. Mages can use arbalests while recharging their eitr, but rarely have enough stamina for bows, for example.
bows also have better ammunition than arbalest, since with a bow and frost arrows you can still one shot most mistlands creatures with the sneak shot including star enemies
This was a great video... It sounds like they got the Xbow right.. I like how the Arbalest mechanics vs bow mechanics work. Exceptional work on this video showing all the info, and without going overboard with each and every level each time. Now, if I only had more room in my prison wallet for all these new toys!! Time to get out the stretcher. Where are those 14 werewolves when you need them?
The biggest annoyance with the xbow for me is that if you load it and then put it away it unloads! A close second is the resetting of the reloading process if you jump which while dodging enemies in the highly uneven terrain of the Mistlands is frequently needed. Then of course if you miss you waste a far greater amount of dps than a missed shot with the bow.
The Arbalest is like the AWP from Counterstrike. So satisfying to use. Its a shame this game introduces so many good things right at the end of the game when you're done playing. Kind of a silly progression system, eggs and chickens are also introduced near the end, so we're preparing to take on the last boss, and just got our hands on magic, the Arbalest, farming chickens, and its all kind of useless once we're done the boss.... Magic needs to be introduced way earlier, at a much more weaker and balanced state.
I think they will probably add more to ashlands, deep north in a future update, or even introduce a new biome. So im not worried at all for this! Keep your hopes up ✌🏻
@@devilmaycry2283yeah this is not endgame. But the sad reality is that whatever armor or weapons are introduced in the deep north, they acrually will have a very short shelf life. Because they will truly be the end of it all. At that point I'd imagine only 2 star DN mobs to pose any challenge, and 2 stars are always super rare.
Great comparison. I do not think the Crossbow was meant to replace the Bow, I think it was meant to enhance the capabilities of a ranged class. Imagine this: You load your crossbow and then you do what ever you want, let's say you explore in the Mistlands. As you explore, you stumble upon an enemy, you immediately shoot your crossbow knocking the target backwards and you slightly backwards due to recoil increasing the distance, if you get a surprise attack that's even better. Then you switch to the bow and kite and shoot your bow until you run out of stamina, and while you are walking away, avoiding to be hit and waiting to regain some stamina, you switch back to the arbalest, because you can't sprint anyway. You shoot your arbalest and reload as many times you want, maybe until you regain a good chunk of your stamina, and then switch back to bow. Same goes for those who combine ranged with melee, switch between the arbalest and the melee weapons as needed. But most of all, where this weapon shines, is the instant and very fast massive attack that is able to perform. It doesn't seem to be intended as a main weapon, although it could be used as such. I think it was meant as a support weapon. Great addition to the game, and I am glad it's so much different than the bow but just as great.
Something I have noted between the two is if you are using a mage build your stamina bar is much smaller and using the spine snap will eat through it in no time leaving nothing to running or jumping. I tend to bring the arbalest with the mage build and use it while my etir is recharging.
As someone who actually shoots competitive archery, the devs made a very good real life representation of each of these tools. Except you can’t reload a crossbow while moving. But things like the arrow drop with distance is accurate: when you fire an arrow at 190 feet per second on a trad bow versus 500 feet per second on a crossbow, the drop is very noticeable within shorter distances. Yes, it takes much longer to reload a crossbow than a traditional bow (and you have to stand still but that doesn’t work for a fast paced survival game). But all things considered, both are loads of fun and boil down to the one you like best. Plus, the crossbow is much more akin to a rifle, so many feel more comfortable with and/or prone to a crossbow. Great video.
i love how this thing only lowers move speed by 5% despite being massive. i just run around with fenris armour and this thing blasting stuff then running away. i just wish it held the loaded bolt after you holstered it. also like that it reminds me of the heavy ballista in osrs, a weapon with weight.
Sure already spoken about with this, but in my mind the arbalest isn't a replacement to the bow, it's the sniper-rifle. Carry the arbalest, start fights with it, then immediately shift to the bow. To continue fighting.
main issue with the arbalest is that you cant keep it loaded. Swim? Now you gotta reload. need another weapon? reload. Sprint at any point during the reload? Reload from the start again. This makes it a really clumsy weapon to use overall.
Something else to consider when choosing which is what ammo is available. The bows have elemental arrows available, which are much more useful vs Mistlands creatures due to lack of resistance to them. The arbalest only has piercing damage. If I had plenty of storage space, I'd use the arbalest for initial sneak shot (aim for weak spot!), then switch to bow for finishing the mob off.
Only thing I have to contribute is that if you earn a high bow skill, accounting for the arrow drop should easily become second nature I've regularly dropped Deathsquitos from almost a render distance away without thinking about it & then asked myself 'how!?!' (I can't consciously aim that well)
I think the bow is superior at high skill levels. To get down to 15 frames and 4 stamina usage is insane. Few will ever approach 100 skill, though. The arbalast shines much more at lower skill levels.
@@fungjungkung That sounds like a good plan. The crossbow clearly does more damage per shot, so the multiplier of the initial hit stacks far more in its favor.
@@anduinxbym6633 Bow is still viable though, primarily because of the specialist arrows. Frost, fire, poison all have their own uses and add a flexibility to the bow the Arbalest simply does not have. So yeah, when it comes to raw damage the arbalest is superior, but there are times you want the CC of frost arrows for example....
The bow is great solo, but nothing is more fun if playing with friends than good ol' Arby. The main difference I find between the two is accuracy. The Arbalest is very easy to aim. I'm pretty good with the bow and can hit deathsquitos at draw distance, but it's still harder to aim. Bow also has the Root Armor bonus.
Your last analogy is spot on. I use the arbalest as a sniper weapon when raiding fuling villages as I can easily pick off the mages in one shot each, and the berserkers usually are almost dead by the time they reach me. After that clearing the village is very easy
My only issue with the arbalest is the fact that it shows up in the late game (6th biome out of 8, or 9 if they do something big with the ocean). My bow skill was in the 30s when I got the arbalest, so it's been catching up (around level 20 now). It would be great if they added a fine wood crossbow. Not directly related, but they should add an earlier variant for the flesh rippers too.
Arbalest is a really cool addition to the game, just it's really sad that's actually a piece of a endgame content, and you'll prob end up with a bow anyway, because at that point you have higher skill in bows. It's really good if you are more of a melee user, and never used the bows in the first place, because you can go for a nice surprise damage to initiate a fight, and you also have a nice tool to deal with gjalls.
it’s also a useful backup weapon for people with heavy armour/ health foods as they can use it and not miss on dps by not having stamina as much as they would by using a bow
From what I've seen here, I'd say the arbalest is good for sniping and/or stealth, or people who (like me) only use bows as a backup. More dedicated bow users can use alternate arrows types for bonus damage, fire much faster, and in general do much better with the regular bow, excepting perhaps with, again, stealth/sniping. As at least one person pointed out, a dedicated ranged combatant can actually use both, and just swap as needed for the situation. Me, I'm more likely to just keep the arbalest, and swap melee weapons as needed instead, since that's my playstyle. Overall, it looks like it's just a matter of choosing which weapon you want for your own playstyle and the situation at hand.
interesting..i didn't notice the stamina usage was so low. i might put that on my caster build because there isn't a lot of stamina for a bow (especially when climbing hills in mistlands)
I'd add one thing about the first shot: - if you keep the arbalest equipped, it holds 'one in the chamber' so you can aim and shoot directly for 1 quick shot. However, if you swap to another item and then back, or if you stow it away with R, then the bolt gets unloaded. - one bit of data that I can't find on the wiki is the 'noise'' / aggro range that the arbalest has. For most bows, they have an 8 meter range - you shoot the arrow at a target and everything within 8 meters of where it hits gets aggroed. The Hunter bow has that noise range cut down to half - only 4 meters, so it's really good for clean pulls (for example when there's a pack of 3 loxes and I want to pull them one at a time). As usual the video is packed full of awesome stuff! :)
I think the Arbalest is a good combat opener/stealth build weapon. One more thing to note is that because it fires from a lower point, you will shoot the tip of your own walls if you try and fire over them
Pro Tip With Crossbow: If you jump and fire a shot, it’ll negate the knock back on you from shooting. Useful if you’re on top of cliffs to shoot Gjalls in the Mistlands (since you probably won’t be able to hit the weak spot up high anyways). Also with Seeker Soldiers if you jump on them when they’re not doing their AOE ground attack, you can get an easy free shot on the booty, and even jump off hitting it so you don’t put yourself at risk.
One thing to consider tho about the comparison of these two weapons is that the bow levels are getting upgraded throughout the game because you are using the bow from the start which means by the time you get to Mistlands after finishing all the other biomes your bow level will be really high but with the arbalest you will start at lvl 1
It's also extremely hard to level up because with the bow you can setup a leveling spot spamming an uncharged arrow shot while crossbows at the start can only be fired every 6s
@@jasoncolburn2182 I recently killed a Yawl with the dragr fang bow which does poison damage with frost arrows and I was doing a ton of damage to it without hitting it' s weak point, although my bows are 50
i only dont like that they dont let you put armed crossbow at the back then draw and fire it. it start reloading everytime it unsheated or switched from another weapon. but i'm love crossbow in valheim because its sneak damage 1 shot most goblins and take chunk of hp mistlands mobs. As melee character this combines great, as i use crossbow for opening shot taking their hp then take sword+shield as they come closer and finish
A point that I didn't see brought up yet is very important in Valheim is *Ammo Conservation*. While you can go all Machine gun style with the Bow, it does burn through its ammo very quickly at higher levels especially if you fight pierce-resistant foes. This means you need to pack up much more ammo than you'd take with the crossbow and you need to farm more to be able to kill as many enemies. It may not seem like that big of a difference if you 1 or 2 shot enemies but when you multiply it by 20 or 50 you really start to feel how little ammo you have left with the bow. However, it also means that the crossbow can't be used to kill *any* target as it will very often overkill it for no real benefit. Killing a boar with a bolt is a waste since you'd be killing it 20 times over given the base 200 DMG of the crossbow.
Next major thing is the arbalests ability to get primed while moving, a bow slows you down to the point on which you can't outwalk a lot of attacks. Most attacks can be dodged by walking the opposite way the enemie's attacking at
The bow also has more flexibility with special arrows. You can add crowd control with the frost effect from frost arrows for example . . super effective actually at keeping mistlands bugs from closing on you.
The crossbow is better BUT since we first get it in mistlands it means we are going to have bow skill leveled up and no crossbow skill, which I think balances things quite ok.
Makes the crossbow literally useless damage wise. I will have to either forcefully grind levels to make it worth any damage, or continue to play the game organically with the bow. Also the spinesnap bow's stamina drain makes it not worth while over the Draugerfang bow. Especially because posion works on basically everything. I have a similar issue with all of the weapons in the Mistlands, Frostner is just far too much better to change to anything else
I prefer the arbalest. Impossible to miss, takes fewer arrows to kill, can get 3-5 shots on something tanky like a lox before they close range when you can just change to melee. The main times I use range is for the gjall, and the arbalest takes fewer arrows. I also hold my aim a long time with the bow, which drains a lot of stamina.
I think there's a fundamental flaw with you testing both of these at level 20 in bow and crossbow. Arbalest is the only base game crossbow meaning you will be at level 0 when you finally acquire it. Bows on the other hand are used from the very start of the game, and generally you will be dozens of levels in bow above crossbows. With the increase in bow damage and draw speed from levels the DPS will multiply 2-3x over
the arbalest is generally very good but the issue is that its a mistlands weapon and in that area you arent fighting on even ground in most cases so since its uneven whenever you fight something you are generally always running if you are using ranged weapons because walking makes it so you cant go up an incline properly at all and the crossbow needs you to walk and thats kind of a gamebreaker in that situation and for the worse part is the fact you cant load the arbalest and have it stay loaded if you change weapons which is very dumb imo since the advantage of an arbalest is having it ready to shoot at anytime by pre loading it with a bolt meaning you should be able to load it change wep and go back to it and shoot right away if you already loaded it. thats my opinion anyway
Also something to note, when you are exploring mistlands from the ''spires'' the arbalest also knocks you back quite a bit, i yeeted myself off cliffs quite a few times before turning back to bows.
Arbalest is a great opener if you have the element of surprise and distance on your side, but the bow is objectively better in mid to close range fights. The bow is also more flexible, whereas the arbalest is a one-trick pony
Spial Snap's spirit dmg is pretty irrelevant in the mistlands, but i think it will be much more useful in the ashlands...they look pretty undead to me anyway
Thanks for this instructional video. What is the DPS of Arbalest vs Bow at skill 20, 50, and 100?? This is the most basic info that is needed for people to make a decision on which to use, and it is missing. Does anyone have any numbers?
dps is a metric for a different genre of game. both weapons are about equally effective depending on preference. nobody needs to crunch the numbers. just get in the field and try em both out.
@@momo-yh7gf Factually wrong. If I wanna know whats the fastest way to kill a Gjall, I need to know the (damage type dependent) DPS for Bows, Arbalest and Staffs
My 2 go to weapons are the demolisher and the crossbow. The coolest combination if you ask me. Plus with the power of the crossbow and its accuracy makes it way better than the bow also nothing beats a good knock back because that allows for a lot more damage with the next strike if it stuns or Parry's the enemy.
Maybe they should add a Greatbow or Longbow variant to Valheim with a bigger movement penalty, but much less arrow drop/greater range. Looking at this, I can't wait to get an Arbalest.
Its a shame you glossed over the Special arrows, aspecially the frost arrows, they single handingly change, how the bow feels you can just circle a soldier keeping him in perma freeze while hitting weakpoints you can kite entir hoardes of seeker, and you can jump over an enemy shooting a frost arrow down at them preventing them from turning fast enough too do anything before they die. Perma slowing a 2 star Seekr and just mowing him down is significantly more efficient then with the arbalest not too mention how cheap they are-
I'm at 100 on bow, and 51 on xbow. I haven't tested them@100 yet, but the draw time on the bow@100 is virtually zero. So I can machine-gun fire them. I'm not sure how much the reload time goes down on the xbow. But I do love it's flat-plane accuracy.
I've managed to shoot birds out of the sky with the arbalest, i kill plenty of seekers and birds to keep it up (carapace bolts are cheaper than carapace arrows)
Except the best arrow in the game is the Frost Arrow, and the Arbalest can't compete with that with any bolt. Honestly, frost arrows are a game-changer. They do very high total damage and the slow-effect allows you to keep shooting while kiting
Excellent testing. Only thing that I think is missing is how much the speed difference effects damage output over time? So since the Arbalest is so much slower to fire, how much ground does the bow make up in that time? Also, the bow you showed is "quality 1" which is not max level.
The Arbalast can't even be upgraded to max yet so it's a fair comparison. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that the bow can dish out more dps than the xbox, considering in the time it takes to fire one shot, the bow can fire at least 4 times at full draw at max levels. I like the xbox a lot but for me, the bow takes the win because of having to load it every single time you put it away.
As of current, levels 3 and 4 of Arbalast aren't obtainable. That with the (in my opinion) issue of not being able to carry it around pre-loaded, it isn't the ideal main ranged weapon. Of you use ranged as a secondary or utility to initiate a fight, then it's good, but overall the higher levels of bow skills combine with special arrow types makes bows superior still. Much more dps and flexibility in use/situations.
level 20 bow when getting to mistlands is unrealistic, would be more like 40+ naturally or 70+ if you trained it, but for the sake of testing i can see why you did both at 20.
I was around that level in bow skill when I reached mistlands but i also used the spear alot (level 91 currently) and I don't hesitate throwing it at drakes, deathsquittos and such so I had not used the bow alot at that stage xD So definitely possible hehe
I think you might be wrong about the scaling. The reload speed of the arbalest has a 40% increase at level 100 while the bow has an 80% draw time increase at level 100 which essentially gives it better DPS scaling last time I checked.
Thanks for that detailes comparison! Being a ranged fighter in nearly all kinds of games I'm appreciating the chance to use something different than a bow in Valheim. Maybe they are going to introduce more Xbows or even slingshots...
would have liked to see a demo of high skill lvl of the bow as u can have multiple arra's in the air within seconds as ur basically legolas. i feel the dmg ratio then would be highly in the favour of the bow in this situation. great vid as always
Good video, you missed one key detail though. No matter what, the crossbow loads the same, but with the bow however you were full releasing the arrow when doing the multi target scenario. It would be even faster if you keep pulling back as you fire and never let go.
See I think the shooting slightly to the left was the idea of a dev who had a little experience with a bow. BUT! He didn't have enough experience with a bow to know that using the right arrows with the right bow eliminates that offset irl.
I personally like the arbalest better. I play with a duo, so I usually don’t need to play super defensively. I use my melee weapons much more than long range stuff and the arbalest is clearly better at the low skill range.
Dude I feel like other valheim content creators just dont bother with these data heavy comparisons because they dont expect to add anything you dont already provide. "Like who's gonna one up him?" They look for your videos to learn the same stuff we do and find other ways to present their own style. If you stopped making these videos, we would just be waiting for someone to realize it and fill your spot. haha :D
I prefer the arbalest. It can shoot the weak spot on Gjalls from a less vertical angle since the shot flies straigt. Its also a faster flying shot so great against zigzaging hares and its just fun to use I hate the nonsensical knockback though it makes about as much sense as ballistas shooting the player. Mainly use melee and bombs for everything else.
@@Crucial_End i think the kickback is funny, i use the feather cape and try to jump off of rocks and shoot guys on my way down, giving me a little more range by pushing me back. totally pointless but i had alot of fun messing around with it.
I prefer the Xbow. i'm not saying the bow is bad, in fact this is really close for me. I prefer the Xbow because I am usually playing with more than just myself, I an not being chased which means I can consistently aim and shoot at an enemy when it is following a straight line towards another player, which in my opinion, is easier to do with the crossbow which 5:53 explains very well.
I'm in agreement with many of the comments that point out--someone is far more likely to be leveled in bows than crossbows at the time of this decision. In addition to that, there is in-game armor that improves bow skill. Do those things factor in here? It would take a long time for me using the crossbow to catch where I am with the bow, but it also enables me to ditch the root armor set and start wearing better armor. Keep in mind, my character is heavily focused on dealing ranged damage (or else I wouldn't be using root armor in the mistlands to begin with).
It wouldn't actually take that long to catch up, if at all. Right now I have 32 bow skill and 0 crossbow. I'm solely focusing on Mistland enemies and considering that the main enemies are seekers, I'm assuming pierce resistance across the board. With a level 3 Draugr Fang and Needle Arrows, I'm doing 43.5 average damage-per-shot to seekers if I let the full poison ride out before the next shot (~48.5 if I use Carapace Arrows). With an Arbalest alongside carapace bolts, I'd be doing 55.25 average damage-per-shot. So the Arbalest will do plenty of damage per shot right from the start. I'm sure it balances out DPS wise with the shot speed differences however. I'm not including Spine Snap in this scenario because it falls short of Draugr Fang when it comes to pierce resistant enemies like Seekers, at least until an update rolls out where we can upgrade it to level 4. The main draw to me to switch to the crossbow is the stamina efficiency.
honestly thats completely fair, however in my friend group's multiplayer, i have a habit of just going to the plains and killing things and also four chests of bone fragments to work through. if someone (like me) enjoys the crossbow enough, the level difference wont matter because it will get used constantly in even non-mistlands things.
Have avoided crafting the arbalest, but think I will give it a shot (lol) now. One benefit between the two that I noticed and maybe missed you cover in your video is that the arbalest shot itself seems to knock back the enemy much further than the bow? Giving a little more distance between the player and the enemy than the bow in between shots?
cool video, I don't know if I will ever get one because as I recall I think the swamp owns me, and that was before those walking treestumps were added to kill me even more. But I did enjoy the video.
Kind of lucky you choose 20 skill level for your damage tests, aka, the skill level that pretty much exactly 1 hits the monster with surprise attack for crossbow :). If you choose anything higher you'd be doing so much over damage on the seekers that it'd be harder to see the damage diff with "number of hits to kill" really. Also as a (80% / mainly) bow user going through the content my bow skill is 70 when I hit mistlands (and I die a bunch, mostly while building LOL), while my crossbow skill is 0. Bow is such a useful item for every class (before mistlands) that I assume they at least have their bow at 35 by the time they hit midlands (unless they are dyeing left and right, or rushing the content to Mistands ASAP to see the new stuff). It should also be said that at high levels (75+), if I have surprise attack, I can probably kill 5 monsters before the crossbow can kill 1... at high level the bow will also do a lot more DPS than the crossbow. I also find it a little misleading when you are doing dmg tests and your choosing a skill level where you end up saying something like "it takes 3 hits to kill a seeker" but really it took more like 2.1 hits to kill that seeker... aka if you upped your skill level from 20 to 23-25 then it'd be "2 hits to kill a seeker". Or if you dropped your skill level to 15 it'd take "2 hits to kill with crossbow" (even though it's more like 1.1 hits). AKA just saying that "20" you choose overly highlights the crossbow IMHO while putting the bow in the situation where it's getting underlie highlighted. Also skill level 20 is what, hitting 400 monsters with arrows? I think I did that on bonemass alone. How to fix this for the future: You can instead list the dmg you are seeing "bow is doing 100-120 dmg per hit and crossbow is doing 240-260 per hit, seeker have 225 hp" (type thing). You can try to list fractions in terms of "how many hits to kill". You could change the monster so it's HP is high enough that fractions become irrelevant "bow took 50.3 hits to kill a lox and cross bow took 25.1 hits", etc); it'd also be pretty useful if you listed about how much time it took to do those 50 hits. Don't get me wrong, I think they both have their uses, however, IMO, if your choosing a main weapon you should be shooting for higher than 20 skill level (aka 50-75 at a min) and at high skill levels bow outshines crossbow in DPS, while still 1 hitting mostly any minor mob in the game with surprise attacks. Crossbow would be A LOT better if it's loading time got reduced with skill level though... Also to me the crossbow feels more like a shotgun vs a AK (bow), with the amount of knockback it does hehe.
2,1 hits still equals three hits in practice, so it doesnt matter. An enemy with 1hp is still capable of hitting and killing you, before you are able to land that final third shot.
you fought bonemass with arrows?? but why? haha, he's resistant to pierce, and weak to blunt. On my ptb playthrough i had no deaths by the time i killed Yagluth and had 25ish bowskill, its just so slow and tedious compared to parry+2shot anything. Especially slow vs high health monsters like lox or berserkers, which are both downed in sub 10seconds with a blackmetal atgeir. Different strokes for different folks i guess.. but the bow is always gonna be slower than parry+punish. only use I get from it is vs drakes, serpents, moder, gjalls, and scoring some cheeky sneak kills on occation.
Fun bow facts Did you know that Europeans thought the cross bow was a cowards weapon as unlike normal bows they require less skill as they shot farther and straighter, they also don’t need the arm strength to hold and notch a arrow, as well as they can be used as a emergency close combat weapon. The most famous and legendary Japanese bowman had a birth defect where his arms where longer, there for he was able to pull the string back farther letting him shoot stronger shots. He was later captured by pirates and had his ligaments cut and in his shame and sorrow performed the first supuko (ending yourself with dignity)
European attitudes about crossbows varied wildly from place to place and time to time. Switzerland's national folk hero William Tell was a crossbowman and mountaineer.
the bow needs to take less stamina...i love using the bows in valhiem but the stamina cost makes them sooo risky to use unless you eat only stamina food, but even then they dont do enough damage to kill anything with on full bar of stamina
Personaly not enough testing is done here imo no damage checks on 2 star with sneak, since every monster on planes and mistland is immune to spirit damage thats allso een negativ. Draugr bow is regarded as a extremly powerfull bow even in mistlands which damage wise was not tested. I agree do that even with the more damage test done that arbelast is sniper and the normal bows are more assault rifles. But damage wise alot more test need to be made before judgement. I believe that the arbelast is superior in group play because you can just sit back from distance and snipe one shot enemys with sneak unles there resistanted against he bow damage. Also another great test would be which bow is better if you get swarmed bij lets 3 or more mobs. also depending on mob type different type of arrows can make great difference.
off note here : the spine snap has 150 durability. the arablest has only 100. so the later breaks after 100 shots fired and the former after 150. so the bow has a durability advantage aswell. given most of ashlands creatues will be undead again the bow wins flat out due to its spirit dmg and the ability to use frost arrows which are just grossly OP stil. if you use these youll do more dmg againist seekers while also fireing faster. only exception is gjall as there pierce dmg just wins on the weakspot. and given you can level bow skill from gamestart while you cannot level crossbow AT ALL until mistlands your bow skil is probaly alot higher than your crossbow skill. not to mention leveling the crossbow up is PAIN due to the slow reload and how quick it kills most targets which for leveling up is bad since the amount of hits is what counts. the bow can also stunlock a lox and kill it in just 4 carapace arrows. 1 hit sneak bonus = stun. 2nd hit combo dmg bonus as its still stunned. 3rd hit stuns it again. 4th kill it. this is at 77 bows skill. the crossbow can take half the hp out of it with sneak shot however due to the super slow reload a combo is flat out impossible. this gives bow another advantage over it. the knockback on the crossbow is an advantage when youre out on an open field as it pushes you back and out of the enemies melee range. however on a small elevated rock (see mistlands pillars of stone) this sucks as it can potentially push you OFF the rock if you dont pay attention. they both are very well balanced overall. crossbow might gain an edge in ashlands if they add elemental bolts to it as bow is most likely going to NOT get a ashlands bow this time as its the last chance for the weaponclass to take a break from progresssin since deep north needs to have ALL weapons available since its the last biome otherwise some weapons would suck at endgame due to not haveing a lategame variant. while crossbow will get a ashland version for certain as its fully new. long story short : if you have high bow skill : USE THE BOW. its better at high skill levels than the crossbow flat out in nearly every category. the uses of the crossbow over it are too niche at that point to make it worth bringing. if you die alot and have low skills the crossbow is an overall better choice for you. note : bow drawspeed aka max machine gun mode maxes at 85 skill. the max dmg cap is reached at 75 for both. the min damage cap requires you to be at 100 with bow. not sure where crossbow reloading speed maxes. i would assume same as bow at 85?
When it comes to durability, bows do less damage and have a relatively high chance of failed shots, so it's fair enough to say that crossbow is more durable in terms of damage or kills per repair
I would have to get to the arbalest to know the feel of it but right now it seems as though the bow is better XD but the crossbow just seems like something to carry for the big hit to surprise everything :P
I was very hyped for the xbow and thaught its very handy because you can make more out of the ambush attacks and safe ammunition. In the end i didnt use neither my bow nor my xbow in mistlands a lot, because its hard to see creeps before they see you because of the fog and since bugs are pretty resistant to pierce (frost and poison arrows are ok). Gjalls were kinda the only aims i used ranged vs, and vs them i found the bow better, since i couldnt afford to take hits while walking and reloading the xbow, i just spent a lt of time jumping on cliffs or rolling behind rocks to reposition fast behind the gjall or you need to get rid of ticks. worked very bad with the xbow. Didnt even use the new bow since gjalls dont take the spirit damage nd i did not fire fast enough to lose dmg by not having the poison dmg of draugr fang not completely ticking....
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![100 Valheim Mistlands Tips + Tricks! [Pt 1/2]](/img/tr.png)
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
i dont care what people say i love that giant crossbow XD
The spine snap stamina cost is insane, so when using a bow I prefer the draugr fang.
Excellent way to think of the two weapons, as sniper versus assault rifles. Thanks for doing the science on this!
If you are using bow/arbalest as main source of damage, bow is better. You have arrows to choose according to target and at high levels bows are better.
If you are using bow/arbalest just as occasional ranged option, arbalest is better, as it leaves you with plenty of stamina to do other things.
Mages can use arbalests while recharging their eitr, but rarely have enough stamina for bows, for example.
TLDR: Bow is better at high skill with a higher skill cap and Arbalest is easier and doesn't scale as well.
bows also have better ammunition than arbalest, since with a bow and frost arrows you can still one shot most mistlands creatures with the sneak shot including star enemies
@@alkemelych7188 Yeah. In the long run bows are better and more versatile.
@@alkemelych7188 one shot?
This was a great video... It sounds like they got the Xbow right.. I like how the Arbalest mechanics vs bow mechanics work. Exceptional work on this video showing all the info, and without going overboard with each and every level each time.
Now, if I only had more room in my prison wallet for all these new toys!! Time to get out the stretcher. Where are those 14 werewolves when you need them?
The biggest annoyance with the xbow for me is that if you load it and then put it away it unloads! A close second is the resetting of the reloading process if you jump which while dodging enemies in the highly uneven terrain of the Mistlands is frequently needed. Then of course if you miss you waste a far greater amount of dps than a missed shot with the bow.
The Arbalest is like the AWP from Counterstrike. So satisfying to use. Its a shame this game introduces so many good things right at the end of the game when you're done playing. Kind of a silly progression system, eggs and chickens are also introduced near the end, so we're preparing to take on the last boss, and just got our hands on magic, the Arbalest, farming chickens, and its all kind of useless once we're done the boss.... Magic needs to be introduced way earlier, at a much more weaker and balanced state.
I just stack up on recourses and build outposts to prep for the next update
I think they will probably add more to ashlands, deep north in a future update, or even introduce a new biome. So im not worried at all for this! Keep your hopes up ✌🏻
I mean you can build out posts and such and get ready for ashlands. We got like 2 more biomes left that are coming out
@@devilmaycry2283yeah this is not endgame. But the sad reality is that whatever armor or weapons are introduced in the deep north, they acrually will have a very short shelf life. Because they will truly be the end of it all.
At that point I'd imagine only 2 star DN mobs to pose any challenge, and 2 stars are always super rare.
More that its just because theyll be adding a new biome soon and likely a secret SIXTH boss soon~
Great comparison. I do not think the Crossbow was meant to replace the Bow, I think it was meant to enhance the capabilities of a ranged class. Imagine this: You load your crossbow and then you do what ever you want, let's say you explore in the Mistlands. As you explore, you stumble upon an enemy, you immediately shoot your crossbow knocking the target backwards and you slightly backwards due to recoil increasing the distance, if you get a surprise attack that's even better. Then you switch to the bow and kite and shoot your bow until you run out of stamina, and while you are walking away, avoiding to be hit and waiting to regain some stamina, you switch back to the arbalest, because you can't sprint anyway. You shoot your arbalest and reload as many times you want, maybe until you regain a good chunk of your stamina, and then switch back to bow. Same goes for those who combine ranged with melee, switch between the arbalest and the melee weapons as needed.
But most of all, where this weapon shines, is the instant and very fast massive attack that is able to perform. It doesn't seem to be intended as a main weapon, although it could be used as such. I think it was meant as a support weapon. Great addition to the game, and I am glad it's so much different than the bow but just as great.
Something I have noted between the two is if you are using a mage build your stamina bar is much smaller and using the spine snap will eat through it in no time leaving nothing to running or jumping. I tend to bring the arbalest with the mage build and use it while my etir is recharging.
Efficiency it is.
As someone who actually shoots competitive archery, the devs made a very good real life representation of each of these tools. Except you can’t reload a crossbow while moving. But things like the arrow drop with distance is accurate: when you fire an arrow at 190 feet per second on a trad bow versus 500 feet per second on a crossbow, the drop is very noticeable within shorter distances. Yes, it takes much longer to reload a crossbow than a traditional bow (and you have to stand still but that doesn’t work for a fast paced survival game). But all things considered, both are loads of fun and boil down to the one you like best. Plus, the crossbow is much more akin to a rifle, so many feel more comfortable with and/or prone to a crossbow.
Great video.
i love how this thing only lowers move speed by 5% despite being massive. i just run around with fenris armour and this thing blasting stuff then running away. i just wish it held the loaded bolt after you holstered it. also like that it reminds me of the heavy ballista in osrs, a weapon with weight.
Sure already spoken about with this, but in my mind the arbalest isn't a replacement to the bow, it's the sniper-rifle. Carry the arbalest, start fights with it, then immediately shift to the bow. To continue fighting.
main issue with the arbalest is that you cant keep it loaded. Swim? Now you gotta reload. need another weapon? reload. Sprint at any point during the reload? Reload from the start again. This makes it a really clumsy weapon to use overall.
love popping shots with the arbalest. its just fun. trivializes early biomes. feeling like a grumpy old homesteader with a gun tending my fields.
Something else to consider when choosing which is what ammo is available. The bows have elemental arrows available, which are much more useful vs Mistlands creatures due to lack of resistance to them. The arbalest only has piercing damage. If I had plenty of storage space, I'd use the arbalest for initial sneak shot (aim for weak spot!), then switch to bow for finishing the mob off.
Yes, frost arrows are fantastic for crowd control . . . you can literally freeze the mistlands bugs in place.
Only thing I have to contribute is that if you earn a high bow skill, accounting for the arrow drop should easily become second nature
I've regularly dropped Deathsquitos from almost a render distance away without thinking about it & then asked myself 'how!?!' (I can't consciously aim that well)
I think the bow is superior at high skill levels. To get down to 15 frames and 4 stamina usage is insane. Few will ever approach 100 skill, though. The arbalast shines much more at lower skill levels.
You actually only need to get to bow skill 85 to get max draw speed. Still takes some bow training but a lot easier than 100!
@@trengilly01 Good to know, thanks!
@@fungjungkung That sounds like a good plan. The crossbow clearly does more damage per shot, so the multiplier of the initial hit stacks far more in its favor.
@@anduinxbym6633 Bow is still viable though, primarily because of the specialist arrows. Frost, fire, poison all have their own uses and add a flexibility to the bow the Arbalest simply does not have.
So yeah, when it comes to raw damage the arbalest is superior, but there are times you want the CC of frost arrows for example....
sniper vs AR is the exact comparison i needed!! thank you!!
The bow is great solo, but nothing is more fun if playing with friends than good ol' Arby.
The main difference I find between the two is accuracy. The Arbalest is very easy to aim. I'm pretty good with the bow and can hit deathsquitos at draw distance, but it's still harder to aim. Bow also has the Root Armor bonus.
Your last analogy is spot on. I use the arbalest as a sniper weapon when raiding fuling villages as I can easily pick off the mages in one shot each, and the berserkers usually are almost dead by the time they reach me. After that clearing the village is very easy
My only issue with the arbalest is the fact that it shows up in the late game (6th biome out of 8, or 9 if they do something big with the ocean). My bow skill was in the 30s when I got the arbalest, so it's been catching up (around level 20 now). It would be great if they added a fine wood crossbow. Not directly related, but they should add an earlier variant for the flesh rippers too.
Arbalest is a really cool addition to the game, just it's really sad that's actually a piece of a endgame content, and you'll prob end up with a bow anyway, because at that point you have higher skill in bows. It's really good if you are more of a melee user, and never used the bows in the first place, because you can go for a nice surprise damage to initiate a fight, and you also have a nice tool to deal with gjalls.
it’s also a useful backup weapon for people with heavy armour/ health foods as they can use it and not miss on dps by not having stamina as much as they would by using a bow
Arbalest is great for that first sneak shot, then you swap to the bow or melee. But its hella fun to use hunting Lox with.
From what I've seen here, I'd say the arbalest is good for sniping and/or stealth, or people who (like me) only use bows as a backup. More dedicated bow users can use alternate arrows types for bonus damage, fire much faster, and in general do much better with the regular bow, excepting perhaps with, again, stealth/sniping. As at least one person pointed out, a dedicated ranged combatant can actually use both, and just swap as needed for the situation. Me, I'm more likely to just keep the arbalest, and swap melee weapons as needed instead, since that's my playstyle. Overall, it looks like it's just a matter of choosing which weapon you want for your own playstyle and the situation at hand.
Surprisingly: depending on playstyle they seems to be pretty neatly balanced.
interesting..i didn't notice the stamina usage was so low. i might put that on my caster build because there isn't a lot of stamina for a bow (especially when climbing hills in mistlands)
I'd add one thing about the first shot:
- if you keep the arbalest equipped, it holds 'one in the chamber' so you can aim and shoot directly for 1 quick shot. However, if you swap to another item and then back, or if you stow it away with R, then the bolt gets unloaded.
- one bit of data that I can't find on the wiki is the 'noise'' / aggro range that the arbalest has. For most bows, they have an 8 meter range - you shoot the arrow at a target and everything within 8 meters of where it hits gets aggroed. The Hunter bow has that noise range cut down to half - only 4 meters, so it's really good for clean pulls (for example when there's a pack of 3 loxes and I want to pull them one at a time).
As usual the video is packed full of awesome stuff! :)
I always keep my Arbalest and 100 bone bolts on me because they’re cheap. Love making Fulings and Greydwarves fly 50 meters away after getting shot
I love all the technical breakdowns!
I think the Arbalest is a good combat opener/stealth build weapon. One more thing to note is that because it fires from a lower point, you will shoot the tip of your own walls if you try and fire over them
Pro Tip With Crossbow:
If you jump and fire a shot, it’ll negate the knock back on you from shooting. Useful if you’re on top of cliffs to shoot Gjalls in the Mistlands (since you probably won’t be able to hit the weak spot up high anyways).
Also with Seeker Soldiers if you jump on them when they’re not doing their AOE ground attack, you can get an easy free shot on the booty, and even jump off hitting it so you don’t put yourself at risk.
A side by side dps comparison would have been nice
One thing to consider tho about the comparison of these two weapons is that the bow levels are getting upgraded throughout the game because you are using the bow from the start which means by the time you get to Mistlands after finishing all the other biomes your bow level will be really high but with the arbalest you will start at lvl 1
It's also extremely hard to level up because with the bow you can setup a leveling spot spamming an uncharged arrow shot while crossbows at the start can only be fired every 6s
unless you're pro at dying and your bow skill is 30ish for majority 😔
@@jasoncolburn2182 I recently killed a Yawl with the dragr fang bow which does poison damage with frost arrows and I was doing a ton of damage to it without hitting it' s weak point, although my bows are 50
I often run out of stamina in combat and can’t fire the bow so found the arbalest better in the ling run
i only dont like that they dont let you put armed crossbow at the back then draw and fire it. it start reloading everytime it unsheated or switched from another weapon. but i'm love crossbow in valheim because its sneak damage 1 shot most goblins and take chunk of hp mistlands mobs. As melee character this combines great, as i use crossbow for opening shot taking their hp then take sword+shield as they come closer and finish
Great analogy with the sniper rifle and assault rifle.
A point that I didn't see brought up yet is very important in Valheim is *Ammo Conservation*.
While you can go all Machine gun style with the Bow, it does burn through its ammo very quickly at higher levels especially if you fight pierce-resistant foes.
This means you need to pack up much more ammo than you'd take with the crossbow and you need to farm more to be able to kill as many enemies.
It may not seem like that big of a difference if you 1 or 2 shot enemies but when you multiply it by 20 or 50 you really start to feel how little ammo you have left with the bow.
However, it also means that the crossbow can't be used to kill *any* target as it will very often overkill it for no real benefit. Killing a boar with a bolt is a waste since you'd be killing it 20 times over given the base 200 DMG of the crossbow.
Next major thing is the arbalests ability to get primed while moving, a bow slows you down to the point on which you can't outwalk a lot of attacks. Most attacks can be dodged by walking the opposite way the enemie's attacking at
Thanks for the info!
The bow also has more flexibility with special arrows. You can add crowd control with the frost effect from frost arrows for example . . super effective actually at keeping mistlands bugs from closing on you.
This exactly.
The crossbow is better BUT since we first get it in mistlands it means we are going to have bow skill leveled up and no crossbow skill, which I think balances things quite ok.
Makes the crossbow literally useless damage wise. I will have to either forcefully grind levels to make it worth any damage, or continue to play the game organically with the bow. Also the spinesnap bow's stamina drain makes it not worth while over the Draugerfang bow. Especially because posion works on basically everything.
I have a similar issue with all of the weapons in the Mistlands, Frostner is just far too much better to change to anything else
Another excellent and informative video. It's going to be the arbalest for me in the Mistlands. Thanks!
Great coverage as always.
Oh that explains why I couldn't fire immediately after the bar finished, I thought I was bugged or lagging or something. Very frustrating.
You're absolutely right about the bow levels. I've got 152 hours in one save but only level 15 in bows cause I die so much 💀
same 💀
I have used the bow exclusively throughout my character's journey. I've died six times and I have 91 bow skill.
I feel like after introducing arbalest, bows feel pretty absent until you hit at least level 60 in them
I prefer the arbalest. Impossible to miss, takes fewer arrows to kill, can get 3-5 shots on something tanky like a lox before they close range when you can just change to melee. The main times I use range is for the gjall, and the arbalest takes fewer arrows. I also hold my aim a long time with the bow, which drains a lot of stamina.
Great analysis fs81. Very helpful.
I think there's a fundamental flaw with you testing both of these at level 20 in bow and crossbow. Arbalest is the only base game crossbow meaning you will be at level 0 when you finally acquire it. Bows on the other hand are used from the very start of the game, and generally you will be dozens of levels in bow above crossbows. With the increase in bow damage and draw speed from levels the DPS will multiply 2-3x over
i thought the same thing, someone getting to mistlands is gonna have bow skill in the 40s or 50s. and a crossbow skill of 0
i hate the fact the crossbow is only hip fired
For ranged attacks, I use the Arbalest on Soldiers and Gjall, and the Bow on everything else
Correction, I also use the arbalest for sneak attacks on Lox.
Question: Why bother using the bow at all?
the arbalest is generally very good but the issue is that its a mistlands weapon and in that area you arent fighting on even ground in most cases so since its uneven whenever you fight something you are generally always running if you are using ranged weapons because walking makes it so you cant go up an incline properly at all and the crossbow needs you to walk and thats kind of a gamebreaker in that situation and for the worse part is the fact you cant load the arbalest and have it stay loaded if you change weapons which is very dumb imo since the advantage of an arbalest is having it ready to shoot at anytime by pre loading it with a bolt meaning you should be able to load it change wep and go back to it and shoot right away if you already loaded it. thats my opinion anyway
Also something to note, when you are exploring mistlands from the ''spires'' the arbalest also knocks you back quite a bit, i yeeted myself off cliffs quite a few times before turning back to bows.
Arbalest is a great opener if you have the element of surprise and distance on your side, but the bow is objectively better in mid to close range fights. The bow is also more flexible, whereas the arbalest is a one-trick pony
Spial Snap's spirit dmg is pretty irrelevant in the mistlands, but i think it will be much more useful in the ashlands...they look pretty undead to me anyway
Thanks for this instructional video. What is the DPS of Arbalest vs Bow at skill 20, 50, and 100?? This is the most basic info that is needed for people to make a decision on which to use, and it is missing. Does anyone have any numbers?
dps is a metric for a different genre of game. both weapons are about equally effective depending on preference. nobody needs to crunch the numbers. just get in the field and try em both out.
@@momo-yh7gf Factually wrong. If I wanna know whats the fastest way to kill a Gjall, I need to know the (damage type dependent) DPS for Bows, Arbalest and Staffs
Figure it out then sucka
My 2 go to weapons are the demolisher and the crossbow. The coolest combination if you ask me. Plus with the power of the crossbow and its accuracy makes it way better than the bow also nothing beats a good knock back because that allows for a lot more damage with the next strike if it stuns or Parry's the enemy.
Th Arbalast is so godtier, it’s hilarious 😂😂😂 standing there one hitting enemies with backstabb damage is paradise 😎
A tier 4, carapace bolt Arbalest can do 1500 damage to an unsuspecting troll
Maybe they should add a Greatbow or Longbow variant to Valheim with a bigger movement penalty, but much less arrow drop/greater range.
Looking at this, I can't wait to get an Arbalest.
That's basically the arbalest. I think it's movement penalty should be increased to at least 10%.
This was super in depth, thank you!
Its a shame you glossed over the Special arrows, aspecially the frost arrows, they single handingly change, how the bow feels you can just circle a soldier keeping him in perma freeze while hitting weakpoints you can kite entir hoardes of seeker, and you can jump over an enemy shooting a frost arrow down at them preventing them from turning fast enough too do anything before they die. Perma slowing a 2 star Seekr and just mowing him down is significantly more efficient then with the arbalest not too mention how cheap they are-
thank you for such a informative video. really helpful. thank you!
This video answers so many questions for me. Thank you!
I'm at 100 on bow, and 51 on xbow. I haven't tested them@100 yet, but the draw time on the bow@100 is virtually zero. So I can machine-gun fire them. I'm not sure how much the reload time goes down on the xbow. But I do love it's flat-plane accuracy.
I answer this question in the video lol
The beauty is pairing them together.
Since mistlands I've only been using the bow to hunt rabbits, deer, or birds. Mainly for the cheaper ammo cost.
I've managed to shoot birds out of the sky with the arbalest, i kill plenty of seekers and birds to keep it up (carapace bolts are cheaper than carapace arrows)
Interesting insight, as usual. Thanks again!
Also the carapace arrows cost more to make than the carapace bolts so the bow costs more resources for less damage
Except the best arrow in the game is the Frost Arrow, and the Arbalest can't compete with that with any bolt. Honestly, frost arrows are a game-changer. They do very high total damage and the slow-effect allows you to keep shooting while kiting
Excellent testing. Only thing that I think is missing is how much the speed difference effects damage output over time? So since the Arbalest is so much slower to fire, how much ground does the bow make up in that time? Also, the bow you showed is "quality 1" which is not max level.
The Arbalast can't even be upgraded to max yet so it's a fair comparison. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that the bow can dish out more dps than the xbox, considering in the time it takes to fire one shot, the bow can fire at least 4 times at full draw at max levels.
I like the xbox a lot but for me, the bow takes the win because of having to load it every single time you put it away.
As of current, levels 3 and 4 of Arbalast aren't obtainable. That with the (in my opinion) issue of not being able to carry it around pre-loaded, it isn't the ideal main ranged weapon. Of you use ranged as a secondary or utility to initiate a fight, then it's good, but overall the higher levels of bow skills combine with special arrow types makes bows superior still. Much more dps and flexibility in use/situations.
High bow skill is just op
level 20 bow when getting to mistlands is unrealistic, would be more like 40+ naturally or 70+ if you trained it, but for the sake of testing i can see why you did both at 20.
If you use bow plus other weapons 40s is about where I am heading into mistlands. I'm still a few days away from entering. Gotta kill that plains boss
I was around that level in bow skill when I reached mistlands but i also used the spear alot (level 91 currently) and I don't hesitate throwing it at drakes, deathsquittos and such so I had not used the bow alot at that stage xD
So definitely possible hehe
I think you might be wrong about the scaling. The reload speed of the arbalest has a 40% increase at level 100 while the bow has an 80% draw time increase at level 100 which essentially gives it better DPS scaling last time I checked.
This is true, bow scales WAY better with skill than the xbow does.
Thanks for that detailes comparison!
Being a ranged fighter in nearly all kinds of games I'm appreciating the chance to use something different than a bow in Valheim. Maybe they are going to introduce more Xbows or even slingshots...
Crossbow currently has max upgrade to level 2, and I believe they will add more upgrades in the future. Probably more bolts too.
lol love using the arbalest to take out victims in the plains at range.
would have liked to see a demo of high skill lvl of the bow as u can have multiple arra's in the air within seconds as ur basically legolas. i feel the dmg ratio then would be highly in the favour of the bow in this situation. great vid as always
Great work!
I wish they'd do away with the muzzle flash with the crossbow. It's stupid and distracting.
Good video, you missed one key detail though. No matter what, the crossbow loads the same, but with the bow however you were full releasing the arrow when doing the multi target scenario. It would be even faster if you keep pulling back as you fire and never let go.
See I think the shooting slightly to the left was the idea of a dev who had a little experience with a bow. BUT! He didn't have enough experience with a bow to know that using the right arrows with the right bow eliminates that offset irl.
I personally like the arbalest better. I play with a duo, so I usually don’t need to play super defensively. I use my melee weapons much more than long range stuff and the arbalest is clearly better at the low skill range.
Do you know what the devs want to add next? I can’t find anything online it would be cool if they made a new roadmap
im not 100% sure but probly will be working on ocean/water stuff since they pushed that to work on mistlands
Well blackforge upgrades are 100% coming
Dude I feel like other valheim content creators just dont bother with these data heavy comparisons because they dont expect to add anything you dont already provide. "Like who's gonna one up him?" They look for your videos to learn the same stuff we do and find other ways to present their own style. If you stopped making these videos, we would just be waiting for someone to realize it and fill your spot. haha :D
great video!
I prefer the arbalest. It can shoot the weak spot on Gjalls from a less vertical angle since the shot flies straigt. Its also a faster flying shot so great against zigzaging hares and its just fun to use I hate the nonsensical knockback though it makes about as much sense as ballistas shooting the player. Mainly use melee and bombs for everything else.
Eh, the knockback makes sense..it's essentially a heavy crossbow, if you get hit, you're gonna feel it
@@kazumablackwing4270 I meant kickback sorry😁
@@Crucial_End i think the kickback is funny, i use the feather cape and try to jump off of rocks and shoot guys on my way down, giving me a little more range by pushing me back. totally pointless but i had alot of fun messing around with it.
I prefer the Xbow. i'm not saying the bow is bad, in fact this is really close for me. I prefer the Xbow because I am usually playing with more than just myself, I an not being chased which means I can consistently aim and shoot at an enemy when it is following a straight line towards another player, which in my opinion, is easier to do with the crossbow which 5:53 explains very well.
Really cool. Thanks.
I'm in agreement with many of the comments that point out--someone is far more likely to be leveled in bows than crossbows at the time of this decision. In addition to that, there is in-game armor that improves bow skill. Do those things factor in here? It would take a long time for me using the crossbow to catch where I am with the bow, but it also enables me to ditch the root armor set and start wearing better armor. Keep in mind, my character is heavily focused on dealing ranged damage (or else I wouldn't be using root armor in the mistlands to begin with).
It wouldn't actually take that long to catch up, if at all. Right now I have 32 bow skill and 0 crossbow. I'm solely focusing on Mistland enemies and considering that the main enemies are seekers, I'm assuming pierce resistance across the board. With a level 3 Draugr Fang and Needle Arrows, I'm doing 43.5 average damage-per-shot to seekers if I let the full poison ride out before the next shot (~48.5 if I use Carapace Arrows). With an Arbalest alongside carapace bolts, I'd be doing 55.25 average damage-per-shot. So the Arbalest will do plenty of damage per shot right from the start. I'm sure it balances out DPS wise with the shot speed differences however.
I'm not including Spine Snap in this scenario because it falls short of Draugr Fang when it comes to pierce resistant enemies like Seekers, at least until an update rolls out where we can upgrade it to level 4.
The main draw to me to switch to the crossbow is the stamina efficiency.
honestly thats completely fair, however in my friend group's multiplayer, i have a habit of just going to the plains and killing things and also four chests of bone fragments to work through. if someone (like me) enjoys the crossbow enough, the level difference wont matter because it will get used constantly in even non-mistlands things.
Have avoided crafting the arbalest, but think I will give it a shot (lol) now. One benefit between the two that I noticed and maybe missed you cover in your video is that the arbalest shot itself seems to knock back the enemy much further than the bow? Giving a little more distance between the player and the enemy than the bow in between shots?
Yes it does. I mention the knock back but don't go into detail over it.
It also seems to knock the player back quite a bit. If you're in a sniper perch on top of one of the mini mistmountains, you're bound to fall off.
cool video, I don't know if I will ever get one because as I recall I think the swamp owns me, and that was before those walking treestumps were added to kill me even more. But I did enjoy the video.
avoiding night at the start, always have antidot and healpot ready and kiting abominations above fire geysirs helps a big lot
If you can aim then arbalest. If you miss a lot or need to use frost arrows then bow.
Kind of lucky you choose 20 skill level for your damage tests, aka, the skill level that pretty much exactly 1 hits the monster with surprise attack for crossbow :). If you choose anything higher you'd be doing so much over damage on the seekers that it'd be harder to see the damage diff with "number of hits to kill" really. Also as a (80% / mainly) bow user going through the content my bow skill is 70 when I hit mistlands (and I die a bunch, mostly while building LOL), while my crossbow skill is 0. Bow is such a useful item for every class (before mistlands) that I assume they at least have their bow at 35 by the time they hit midlands (unless they are dyeing left and right, or rushing the content to Mistands ASAP to see the new stuff). It should also be said that at high levels (75+), if I have surprise attack, I can probably kill 5 monsters before the crossbow can kill 1... at high level the bow will also do a lot more DPS than the crossbow.
I also find it a little misleading when you are doing dmg tests and your choosing a skill level where you end up saying something like "it takes 3 hits to kill a seeker" but really it took more like 2.1 hits to kill that seeker... aka if you upped your skill level from 20 to 23-25 then it'd be "2 hits to kill a seeker". Or if you dropped your skill level to 15 it'd take "2 hits to kill with crossbow" (even though it's more like 1.1 hits). AKA just saying that "20" you choose overly highlights the crossbow IMHO while putting the bow in the situation where it's getting underlie highlighted. Also skill level 20 is what, hitting 400 monsters with arrows? I think I did that on bonemass alone.
How to fix this for the future: You can instead list the dmg you are seeing "bow is doing 100-120 dmg per hit and crossbow is doing 240-260 per hit, seeker have 225 hp" (type thing). You can try to list fractions in terms of "how many hits to kill". You could change the monster so it's HP is high enough that fractions become irrelevant "bow took 50.3 hits to kill a lox and cross bow took 25.1 hits", etc); it'd also be pretty useful if you listed about how much time it took to do those 50 hits.
Don't get me wrong, I think they both have their uses, however, IMO, if your choosing a main weapon you should be shooting for higher than 20 skill level (aka 50-75 at a min) and at high skill levels bow outshines crossbow in DPS, while still 1 hitting mostly any minor mob in the game with surprise attacks. Crossbow would be A LOT better if it's loading time got reduced with skill level though... Also to me the crossbow feels more like a shotgun vs a AK (bow), with the amount of knockback it does hehe.
2,1 hits still equals three hits in practice, so it doesnt matter. An enemy with 1hp is still capable of hitting and killing you, before you are able to land that final third shot.
@@waltgrisly509 I believe you have missed the point good sir ;)
you fought bonemass with arrows?? but why? haha, he's resistant to pierce, and weak to blunt. On my ptb playthrough i had no deaths by the time i killed Yagluth and had 25ish bowskill, its just so slow and tedious compared to parry+2shot anything. Especially slow vs high health monsters like lox or berserkers, which are both downed in sub 10seconds with a blackmetal atgeir. Different strokes for different folks i guess.. but the bow is always gonna be slower than parry+punish. only use I get from it is vs drakes, serpents, moder, gjalls, and scoring some cheeky sneak kills on occation.
@@haken27 Frost-Arrows and bonemass is weak to
Wait, can you load your hotbar with arbalests, pump out 8 shots/slots then focus on reloading/evading?
nope
No, it's dumb. You have to reload it everytime you pull it out.
@@greatcesarii think it's due to balancing
@@greatcesari Aw, potential fun detected. Fun deleted =D
Fun bow facts
Did you know that Europeans thought the cross bow was a cowards weapon as unlike normal bows they require less skill as they shot farther and straighter, they also don’t need the arm strength to hold and notch a arrow, as well as they can be used as a emergency close combat weapon.
The most famous and legendary Japanese bowman had a birth defect where his arms where longer, there for he was able to pull the string back farther letting him shoot stronger shots. He was later captured by pirates and had his ligaments cut and in his shame and sorrow performed the first supuko (ending yourself with dignity)
@@realwishgamer that is funny
European attitudes about crossbows varied wildly from place to place and time to time. Switzerland's national folk hero William Tell was a crossbowman and mountaineer.
Still a coward weapon in game in my eyes... bow for life!
not to mention, if you miss at the recieving end. They cant use your bolt.
the bow needs to take less stamina...i love using the bows in valhiem but the stamina cost makes them sooo risky to use unless you eat only stamina food, but even then they dont do enough damage to kill anything with on full bar of stamina
As you see, the stamina usage decreases drastically with an increase in skill.
Personaly not enough testing is done here imo no damage checks on 2 star with sneak, since every monster on planes and mistland is immune to spirit damage thats allso een negativ.
Draugr bow is regarded as a extremly powerfull bow even in mistlands which damage wise was not tested.
I agree do that even with the more damage test done that arbelast is sniper and the normal bows are more assault rifles. But damage wise alot more test need to be made before judgement.
I believe that the arbelast is superior in group play because you can just sit back from distance and snipe one shot enemys with sneak unles there resistanted against he bow damage.
Also another great test would be which bow is better if you get swarmed bij lets 3 or more mobs. also depending on mob type different type of arrows can make great difference.
off note here : the spine snap has 150 durability. the arablest has only 100. so the later breaks after 100 shots fired and the former after 150. so the bow has a durability advantage aswell. given most of ashlands creatues will be undead again the bow wins flat out due to its spirit dmg and the ability to use frost arrows which are just grossly OP stil. if you use these youll do more dmg againist seekers while also fireing faster. only exception is gjall as there pierce dmg just wins on the weakspot.
and given you can level bow skill from gamestart while you cannot level crossbow AT ALL until mistlands your bow skil is probaly alot higher than your crossbow skill. not to mention leveling the crossbow up is PAIN due to the slow reload and how quick it kills most targets which for leveling up is bad since the amount of hits is what counts.
the bow can also stunlock a lox and kill it in just 4 carapace arrows. 1 hit sneak bonus = stun. 2nd hit combo dmg bonus as its still stunned. 3rd hit stuns it again. 4th kill it. this is at 77 bows skill. the crossbow can take half the hp out of it with sneak shot however due to the super slow reload a combo is flat out impossible. this gives bow another advantage over it.
the knockback on the crossbow is an advantage when youre out on an open field as it pushes you back and out of the enemies melee range. however on a small elevated rock (see mistlands pillars of stone) this sucks as it can potentially push you OFF the rock if you dont pay attention.
they both are very well balanced overall.
crossbow might gain an edge in ashlands if they add elemental bolts to it as bow is most likely going to NOT get a ashlands bow this time as its the last chance for the weaponclass to take a break from progresssin since deep north needs to have ALL weapons available since its the last biome otherwise some weapons would suck at endgame due to not haveing a lategame variant.
while crossbow will get a ashland version for certain as its fully new.
long story short : if you have high bow skill : USE THE BOW. its better at high skill levels than the crossbow flat out in nearly every category. the uses of the crossbow over it are too niche at that point to make it worth bringing. if you die alot and have low skills the crossbow is an overall better choice for you.
note : bow drawspeed aka max machine gun mode maxes at 85 skill. the max dmg cap is reached at 75 for both. the min damage cap requires you to be at 100 with bow. not sure where crossbow reloading speed maxes. i would assume same as bow at 85?
But youll need less shots to get a target downed xDD so the crossbow wins there too
When it comes to durability, bows do less damage and have a relatively high chance of failed shots, so it's fair enough to say that crossbow is more durable in terms of damage or kills per repair
>77 bow skill
"Wow gee golly everything is just much better using the raiseskill command guys, what's there to get???"
How do you get the arbalest new to the game and haven't seen how to get one so I can hunt better plz lmk
You need to craft the Black Forge but you need materials from Mistlands
I haven’t even killed the elder yet. Just got this game a week ago. I didn’t know we had to fight cockroaches in this game as well
I've had the game 2 years and just beat Moder for the first time today. I also get bored quick and game hop so there's that lol.
I would have to get to the arbalest to know the feel of it but right now it seems as though the bow is better XD but the crossbow just seems like something to carry for the big hit to surprise everything :P
arbalest is more than a stealth weapon, and the bow is more effective on a fight
I was very hyped for the xbow and thaught its very handy because you can make more out of the ambush attacks and safe ammunition. In the end i didnt use neither my bow nor my xbow in mistlands a lot, because its hard to see creeps before they see you because of the fog and since bugs are pretty resistant to pierce (frost and poison arrows are ok). Gjalls were kinda the only aims i used ranged vs, and vs them i found the bow better, since i couldnt afford to take hits while walking and reloading the xbow, i just spent a lt of time jumping on cliffs or rolling behind rocks to reposition fast behind the gjall or you need to get rid of ticks. worked very bad with the xbow. Didnt even use the new bow since gjalls dont take the spirit damage nd i did not fire fast enough to lose dmg by not having the poison dmg of draugr fang not completely ticking....