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Wondering about the Shining Bow...

It’s inheritable, which is cool, and while it’s not a truly magic bow like in Fates, it does do more damage to targets with lower resistance, which is also cool. But...how good is it actually? When you’re inheriting a bow onto someone would there be a good reason to go for the Shining Bow over the good old-fashioned Slaying Bow?

I can think of one situation where the Shining Bow is definitely better, and that’s when you’re up against high-def enemies running guard, but that only really happens in high-level arena, and I feel like the only archer we really see in the high level arena is Jakob, who I doubt is going to give up his Guard Bow or Brave Bow builds.

But outside of dealing with enemies with guard, most units are going to do much more overall damage with an accelerated special, right? Or am I underestimating the power of the Shining Bow?

(Also, as a side note, the Shining Bow is supposed to be a magic weapon, but it has the same effect as Leif’s Light Brand. I know basically nothing about Thracia, was Light Brand originally a magic weapon? Or did Leif otherwise have the ability to mixed attack? And if so, does that make Leif like the only lord ever to attack with magic? Because that’s cool.)

Asked by SourPeridot3 months 2 weeks ago

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Answers

IS didn't probably want to have Light Brand and Shining bow attack using foe's Res. So their current description is the closest they could get.

Leif weapon cause physical damage at close range and magical damage at range, so Light Brand should be a "Expiration Sword", but we got this bad "adaptative" damage instead.

I can't see a reason to use shining bow over slaying, maybe on super situational scenarios, but is not worth. If you can't afford to give Nina other bow yeah, but in all the others cases this bow is not great.

Imagine this, 2 enemies, one with 35 Def 35 Res, and other with 40 Def and 30 Res, which one you will attack with a archer?

The +7 is not good enough to compensate the fast special charge.

Maybe if you had an archer as the only ranged unit on a team, and you wanted to have some kind of faux-adaptive damage to compensate? Still probably not as good as just running a mage, but it’s a thought I guess.

IMO Flat damage should not be underestimated, especially since flashing/ heavy blade are seals, you can still quickly activate powerful specials ON TOP of the damage you're already dealing.

No, I don't think it will make slaying, firesweep, or brave obsolete, but I think its a nice addition. Unfortunate it will be locked likely to a 5* for quite awhile though. :T

Yeah, I guess that’s basically what I’m wondering, how much does the flat damage make up for increased special charge time. It’s true about Flashing/Heavy Blade, but if you wanted to have a “guaranteed special every turn” build you’d still be forced to use Moonbow/Glimmer, as opposed to some of the more powerful 3-charge specials you could use with the Slaying Bow. I suppose it would be an interesting analysis to do, see which units are more or less likely to survive a Shining Bow+Flashing Blade+Moonbow vs. a Slaying Bow+Flashing Blade+Luna (or Draconic Aura, or what have you).

I don't agree. Specials usually activate if you double. Slaying bow is the difference between moonbow and luna or, with flashing blade, bonfire/iceberg and ignis/glacies. Shining bow is 14 conditional flat damage. For luna to do 14 more damage than moonbow, you would need the opponent to have 70 def. For ignis/glacies to hit 14 damage harder than bonfire/iceberg, you need 46-47 def/res depending on how rounding works.

Aaaand this is why I asked the question. Thank you! :)