Colorless vs Colored Bows, Why I think Colored Bows is a great addition to the game.

Hello to all, I'm just a longtime FEH player here. I don't think I have much credentials to my name but I feel like I had to make this post. From what I gather from lurking on this sub, it seems there is a misdirection on the fact that being a Colored bow is a disadvantage and overall a negative experience compared to being a colorless instead, and I feel that's certainly not true. I'd actually argue being colored is actually an ADVANTAGE over Colorless outside of fringe cases and that is much healthier to have a good Colored Bow than it is to being Colorless. This will be a long post so if you want the TLDR, you can scroll to the bottom.

 

Now to start off on why I feel there's misdirection about Colorless bows vs Colored Bows, I have to first talk about once was considered the golden standard for Colorless, Brave Lyn. For those that were playing when she was released, I'm sure we all remembered how much of a monster Brave Lyn was. With a great statline, synergistic kit, and being calvary, she was a threat that you had to have a counter for in arena or you'd be at the mercy of losing your arena run right there. DC units themselves were helpless because of her B skill, Sacae's Blessing and with her being Colorless, means she was always hitting for neutral damage. With horse buffs, this means that she would always at worse, Chunk the opposing unit without retaliation, if not outright kill them. Worse yet, the Firesweep build she had meant that NO unit could offer retaliation, which along with her 5 attack range, meant she would always have the first hit. Now then, if you may notice, it almost seems like I'm arguing that being a colorless bow for BLyn is an advantage.... and I'd say you'd be right. BLyn's best color is Colorless, because it's synergistic with what she wants to do. She is an amazing Sweeper, and so long as she's able to kill the opposing unit, does it matter if she has WTA? Of course, NOW she seems to have fallen off due to the rise of the Dragon meta, and the fact that units are more tanky, which means she's missing out on vital kills. Intiating on ANY Dragon for her is pretty much suicide now. However, now I ask of you, what if you were to turn Brave Lyn into a Colored Bow? If she were Blue, would she suddenly have a winning matchup with Red Dragons that she lost if she were colorless? Sure she would do worse vs Green Dragons, but would that matter if she were to lose them anyways even if she was colorless? Brave Lyn has 53 effective health at neutral vs +Att Adult Tiki who has 54 attack with BoF and Distant Counter. This is a situation where she would lose as colorless but actually win if she were Blue.

 

Now, I'm not trying to argue that BLyn would be better as a Colored Bow here. As I said before, I feel being colorless works to her advantage, but ONLY because of the fact that her kit synergises with that fact. You see, the nature of being Coloress I feel leads you to two states. You're either very good as Colorless BECAUSE your kit is just so excellent that you don't need WTA to have a role of fighting one color and instead win vs most of them, OR you're very bad due to the fact that your kit is underwhelming to the state where you would want WTA to have a role to fight at least one color. Brave Lyn or Halloween Jakob are NOT just good because they are Colorless, Their kits just take advantage of that aspect really well. Legendary Lyn is NOT just lackluster because she is a Green Bow, it's just one part of the whole package.

 

Hoo boy, talking about Legendary Lyn, this is where I feel where the "Colored Bows are inherently bad" mentality seems to stem from. I won't argue against the fact that Legendary Lyn is bad (though I feel she does have her underutilized strengths but that's not important on this topic). However I will argue the point that Legendary Lyn being Green is not the reason she's bad. Now I'm no expert on the character, but it seems that even with WTA, she seems to struggle vs even tanky blue units. Forget about even taking on DC red units which are very common. Honestly speaking, if I were to be a Bow unit, Green is the last color I'd pick due to this reason as that is part of the meta. However, you turn L!Lyn into a colorless bow, her matchups do indeed change, but would they be for the overall better? Her red matchups would definitely improve, but she would lose out on matchups vs blue units that she'd have won previously. That's just WTA again at work. I will say personal opinion of mine, Legendary Lyn is better at being colorless since improving matchups vs DC reds is always a plus. Becoming Colorless however does not change her kit lacking cohesion. Laws of Sacae is still an EP skill on what is seen as a Player Phase unit. I can see why a negative mentality would come from as L!Lyn was the only color archer we had for a while, until L!Lucina came which will be my last character to mention.

 

L!Lucina is MUCH better as a Blue Archer than if she were colorless. Take this fact, L!Lucina vs Ayra. If L!Lucina was colorless, she would ALWAY lose this matchup vs Distant Counter Ayra. Wrath Regnal will always Ko and she would never kill her. However by becoming Blue, she instead will almost always win an engagement with Ayra, no matter her build. With her Bow and Swift Sparrow, she will not miss a double and along with the 20% damage boost, she will get the KO. Merges, Slaying Edge Refine HP boost, even a distant defense seal , so long as Lucina has the right build, she will win that matchup based on my calculations at +10 and an even playing field. I feel not to drag this out but I can indeed post the mock battles I had for information if so requested. This is already an important matchup to win for ANYONE due to Ayra's meta significance, and being blue is where Lucina can win this matchup due to surviving the Wrath Regnal Astra build. That's not the only matchup that improves to a level where she can win however. Zelgius is another although it can be very shaky. I do not believe she can survive a Black Luna, so if Zelgius is able to have a build with an Instant Black Luna, she can die. However it's important to note that with solid support, that changes a shaky matchup to a good one. If she were colorless however, this dynamic changes, and even with support she would struggle to get a kill, much less survive. Already , being a Colored Bow actually enhances her performance in arena. So long as she has a role to perform, she will always have a place in a team. Lucina's kit allows her to fight DC reds being blue allows her to successfully complete that objective to an effective degree. Red DC units can't even run Bowbreaker as that is actually a big advantage to why you would want to be a Colored Bow. How many of you are hoping for a Breathbreaker B skill right now due to the prevalence of the Dragon meta? Can you imagine If you couldn't even run a breaker on a possibly prevalent RANGED unit? Imagine if there were colored calvary bows that had ridiculous kits, you would have to rely on the respective color advantage to fight them until they do release the breaker corresponding to that color.

 

If you were to make a point that Lucina cannot fight Greens, I say to you why would you want her to fight Greens as a blue unit? I would rather have a slot for a unit that can specialize in one role very well rather than a generalist. You have 4 slots to work with. I also ask of you if you really want a Colorles-, nay, any unit that is able to fight all colors? Is that not the definition of unbalanced? We've seen the damage it can do when Brave Lyn was able to run rampant for a while before the updates to Dragons. Heck even in the infancy of the game, Takumi was seen as so much of a danger in arena that one of the reasons Robin was valued very high was due to that matchup. Colored Bows, while not only can be seen as as advantage to a character with the right kit for it, is also easier to balance and objectively a healthier addition to the game.

 

TLDR: Colored Bows as a concept is in it's baby stages right now, with only two units to the name. Please do not just assume that it's a flawed class to have due to that. Also L!Lucina is a great addition for what her kit offers to the game as a Colored Bow.

Also for those who may not know some of the terms definitions I used

Kit- A unit's statline, class, and unique skills working together.

WTA- Weapon Triangle Advantage