What is the best Tinker's Construct Material should I use for the Tconstruct Bows
- Thread starter Airbornehurdle
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Ahh, I get you now mushroom. It does seem weird he didn't add a flamestring bowstring though too.
I did some more arrow testing too. Still seems like plain feather fletching is the best if you have feathers to spare. Weight differences are negligible, and I didn't bother checking the accuracy penalty for leaf fletching. I'd guess it's also not really an issue, as ThatOneGuy said.
Rods:
Paper and thaumium add a modifier, and since enchanting bows apparently only adds to melee damage, that could be useful. However, paper makes it slightly less accurate, and thaumium makes it slightly heavier. Green slime is the lightest (~.2 less than wood/cactus), but the difference seems to be pointless. Metal rods seem to have no advantages whatsoever. They're also the only case where the added weight has a noticeable effect, so I would avoid them. Overall though, cactus seems to be the best for that extra damage, unless you're using it as the head.
Heads:
Obsidian does really seem to be a solid choice. Good damage, decent weight, and readily available. Alumite is also nice for the slight bump in damage, and isn't *too bad* to get. Mahnamahna has the best damage (a full 1 heart higher than obsidian, but eh), but is a pain to get. Thaumium is a nice standout. Same damage as obsidian/iron, but a free modifier.
Thus, it seems like the best arrow (IMO) is a Thaumium head (or Alumite if unenchanted), Cactus rod, and feather fletching.
Edit: Huh! While necrotic and damage mods don't seem to do anything to arrows when placed on bows, knockback *does* seem to transfer. Also, knockback can't be placed on arrows. I wanted to test blaze, but it doesn't seem to be placeable on bows. There seems to be no logic here.
I did some more arrow testing too. Still seems like plain feather fletching is the best if you have feathers to spare. Weight differences are negligible, and I didn't bother checking the accuracy penalty for leaf fletching. I'd guess it's also not really an issue, as ThatOneGuy said.
Rods:
Paper and thaumium add a modifier, and since enchanting bows apparently only adds to melee damage, that could be useful. However, paper makes it slightly less accurate, and thaumium makes it slightly heavier. Green slime is the lightest (~.2 less than wood/cactus), but the difference seems to be pointless. Metal rods seem to have no advantages whatsoever. They're also the only case where the added weight has a noticeable effect, so I would avoid them. Overall though, cactus seems to be the best for that extra damage, unless you're using it as the head.
Heads:
Obsidian does really seem to be a solid choice. Good damage, decent weight, and readily available. Alumite is also nice for the slight bump in damage, and isn't *too bad* to get. Mahnamahna has the best damage (a full 1 heart higher than obsidian, but eh), but is a pain to get. Thaumium is a nice standout. Same damage as obsidian/iron, but a free modifier.
Thus, it seems like the best arrow (IMO) is a Thaumium head (or Alumite if unenchanted), Cactus rod, and feather fletching.
Edit: Huh! While necrotic and damage mods don't seem to do anything to arrows when placed on bows, knockback *does* seem to transfer. Also, knockback can't be placed on arrows. I wanted to test blaze, but it doesn't seem to be placeable on bows. There seems to be no logic here.
I dunno, seems somewhat logic. Sharpen your bow, cut off your fingers while shooting it. Sharpen your arrows, pierce trough your enemies. Set your bow on fire and wear glowes, singe your eyebrows while aiming, set your arrows on fire and burn your oponents, make your arrow heavier and sure, it'll have more knockback, but won't fly as far, make your bow sturdier and shoot with a force that can knock back your enemies.
MDiyo really hates having cross-mod compat between his own mods for some reason. Why? Don't ask me.
Something I did notice between the regular and enchanted bowstrings is that the enchanted one adds an extra modifier and negligible decrease in draw speed, but it also slightly decreases the power of the bow too.
I know its been a bit, but I was just toying with this and wanted to share my findings. In trying to develop a boss killer arrow I tinkered with getting highest damage with arrows and found that the combo of a Thaumic arrowhead, paper rod, and feather fletching to be the most deadly and one of the lightest (farther flying) arrows I've made. If you can part with the feathers (chicken farm) go for it, leaves are a cheap alternative and do not have a great adverse effect on anything. Overall you'll have 5 modifiers (can go to 7 once you have the materials for the additional modifiers) so for damage sake throw a diamond/gold block and 432 quartz on them (not too shabby for the singular intended purpose, I advise using on an entire stack of arrows) and you'll get 12-24 damage. Nice.
So in testing I found that on Iron Golems the arrows did an average of 42 damage per hit, armored goblins only 4-7 (good armor), and Wither Boss 29-30 damage. So in about ten hits you can kill the wither boss assuming he doesn't get really ahead with his healing cycle.
As for bows I went with a Slime bow with enchanted string which allowed me to get my draw speed to .86 (100 redstone) and 3 levels of knockback (30 pistons) Setups can vary but in the case of fighting an Ur- Ghast, it was very helpful for keeping it at a manageable range and away from cover points on the towers. Setups vary but I found this to be the most helpful. If you are having issues finding slime. there are those terrible slime trees in the new version of TC, or use the Factorization crystallizer to make them from lime dye (cactus green+bonemeal/white dye) and milk. Hope this is a bit helpful
So in testing I found that on Iron Golems the arrows did an average of 42 damage per hit, armored goblins only 4-7 (good armor), and Wither Boss 29-30 damage. So in about ten hits you can kill the wither boss assuming he doesn't get really ahead with his healing cycle.
As for bows I went with a Slime bow with enchanted string which allowed me to get my draw speed to .86 (100 redstone) and 3 levels of knockback (30 pistons) Setups can vary but in the case of fighting an Ur- Ghast, it was very helpful for keeping it at a manageable range and away from cover points on the towers. Setups vary but I found this to be the most helpful. If you are having issues finding slime. there are those terrible slime trees in the new version of TC, or use the Factorization crystallizer to make them from lime dye (cactus green+bonemeal/white dye) and milk. Hope this is a bit helpful
I would also like to note that the only difference between green slime rod bows and blue slime rod bows are the durability, they both have the same speed.
Furthermore, the best arrow I have devised is Cactus Head, Slime Rod, and Feather Fletching. Base damage is 2.5, it has the Jagged property, Weight is only 0.62, and a 96% accuracy.
Alumite increases base damage to 3, but increases Weight to 1.4. Mahnamhana increases base damage to 3.5 but increases weight to 2.59.
The better range and faster flight speed in the cactus head and slime rod arrow, in my opinion, more than makes up for the .5 heart decrease in damage over Alumite. If you're more worried about close-quarters shooting, however, Manyllium would be a better material than Alumite due to overall higher damage potential.
Furthermore, the best arrow I have devised is Cactus Head, Slime Rod, and Feather Fletching. Base damage is 2.5, it has the Jagged property, Weight is only 0.62, and a 96% accuracy.
Alumite increases base damage to 3, but increases Weight to 1.4. Mahnamhana increases base damage to 3.5 but increases weight to 2.59.
The better range and faster flight speed in the cactus head and slime rod arrow, in my opinion, more than makes up for the .5 heart decrease in damage over Alumite. If you're more worried about close-quarters shooting, however, Manyllium would be a better material than Alumite due to overall higher damage potential.
Green slime rods is the optimal rod type for making the bow as far as bow power goes. combine a green slime rod with a thaumium one and an enchanted string for extra modifier slots, but appart from that. green slime all the way.
as for the arrows. it's slime rods all the way. feather fletching if you have a chicken farm ofc, and cactus for arrowheads. obsidian is not worth the hassle. you have to cast it now, so may as well use alumite or steel heads instead if you are going to sacrifice range for damage anyway. make it count so to say.
Cactus is practically free once you got a quick farm up and running. it's a very good choice overall. esp since you can just bump it up quite a bit dps wise with a modest investement in blaze powder and quarts. (one piece of each per arrow). And they are still cheap enough to not worry about loosing them. (damn ghasts).
PS. jagged does nothing for DPS on arrows. they aren't damaged, and jagged uses the damage value to calculate the bonus. bow damage does not count.
Obsidian does the same damage Cactus does, so Cactus is in every way superior.
There is zero difference between blue and green slime rods for arrows, they both have the exact same stats.
Your only real options for arrowheads are: Cactus (lowest damage, furthest range and fastest flight speed) and Manyllium (highest damage). Either way, slime rods and feather fletching are really the only way to go.
Just to note here, with 1.6.2 you can make a bowstring out of Flamestring from heatscar spiders if you have Natura installed (was wondering when mDiyo was going to add compatibility for his own mod XD ). I dont know the exact difference over normal string, but I believe it was better.
Also, I personally use vanilla arrows for when I'm not going to easily recover the arrow (ie Ghast/Enderdragon) since they actually do quite a bit of damage.
Also, I personally use vanilla arrows for when I'm not going to easily recover the arrow (ie Ghast/Enderdragon) since they actually do quite a bit of damage.
I hadn't noticed that before, but yea, as of 1.6, you can use Flamestring for a bow. Stats are decidedly superior over regular string.
with 2x slime rods and flamestring, stats are: Draw Speed: 1.24 Arrow Speed: 1.56 durability 1843
With 2x slime rods and regular string, stats are: Draw Speed: 1.2, Arrow Speed: 1.2 durability 1536
with 2x slime rods and flamestring, stats are: Draw Speed: 1.24 Arrow Speed: 1.56 durability 1843
With 2x slime rods and regular string, stats are: Draw Speed: 1.2, Arrow Speed: 1.2 durability 1536
Arrows: alumite tip cactus shaft feather fetching seem to be the best only slightly heavier, the distance difference is negligible, and they hit like a metal tip. Cactus shaft for jagged and feather fletching.
Bow, best is cactus and green slime. Tho blue slime will do. String does not matter really as the draw time reduction lowers arrow speed. I prefer normal string. Add Redstone and moss and enjoy.
Bow, best is cactus and green slime. Tho blue slime will do. String does not matter really as the draw time reduction lowers arrow speed. I prefer normal string. Add Redstone and moss and enjoy.
your bow info is not correct. jagged does nothing to the arrow DPS. arrows use the arrow durability when calculating the jagged bonus, and since arrows do not take damage they get no bonus. the bow do not benefit from jagged either, unless you use it to bash mobs over the head with it. if you use your bow for that, then you are doing it wrong.
all testing indicate that slime shafts of both colors are superior to any other shaft type as far as arrows go. again. jagged does not affect arrow DPS. using cactus just for getting jagged is a pure nerf since cactus is heavier than slime. using a cactus head however gives the best range/cost/dps ratio. making it the superior choice for normal play. swap to shorter ranged uuberarrows for bosses. (thaumium being the top choice for uuberarrows since you get an extra modifier slot. moar quarts for even better dps)
Some of us collaborated on some pretty extensive testing of what do and do not have an effect on arrows, so unless Mdiyo makes some pretty big changes when porting to 1.7, then what we already have tested and verified still remains true.
I hate moss for Bow repair, everything goes electric once I have a nano plate, With Double Slime/enchanted string, you get the best drawback speeds and can add whatever mods you want to effect the melee damage of your bow. Probably knockback is the best for that part. As for the arrows I mentioned, they were just pure damage with decent range. Have not tested the catus arrows for best range, but I just use my scythe to kill non boss mobs. loves me some 3x3 aoe attacks with Pure damage (Many head, paper cross, paper cross, paper tough rod. Electric and all quartz)
That's a lousy arrow. Slime shafts are half the weight of cactus. Using a Cactus head, however, instead of Alumite also dramatically reduces weight at the cost of .5 heart damage output. A single piece of Quartz makes up the difference. Big flippin' deal.
There is zero need for cactus. String is important, Flamestring is now decidedly superior to regular string for a bow. Not sure how enchanted fabric works, since TC hasn't really updated to 1.6 other than for a VERY unstable Alpha designed primarily to tell everyone else how to hook into his mod for cross-mod compatibility.
I've broke tools witht he eletric modifier, seems bugged in the Tinker's Construct version in unleashed 1.1.3. I normally don't use arrows, except with creepers, I normally use a claymore (manny blade and plate, thaumic and green slime handle) 1 moss, 1 gold/diamond and everything else gets quartz. I call it "Mac" because it hits like a truck, kills most mobs with 1 hit.
The arrows were designed for damage, Alumite does more damage, and you can add quartz to the Alumite to hit even harder not to mention I have tones of the stuff. I did not know about the fact that Jagged does not apply to arrows, it's the only reason I used cactus at all. Now that I know this, I'll used slime instead.
Flamestring is not an option in the version that comes with FTB unleashed 1.1.3, enchanted bowstring lowers the speed and draw time of the bow. Since speed is easily modified with redstone, I use normal bowstring.
If all you care about is damage, use Manyllium, which does even more damage than Alumite. Otherwise, use Cactus. Alumite buys the worst of both worlds.
well.. to be fair. Alumite is better than steel.
assuming all heads are compared with slime rods and feather fletching, we find that alumite is lighter than steel for the same base damage. 1.40 vs 1.98
Many otoh is much heavier for another half heart of base damage. 1.4 vs 2.59.
cactus arrows mass in at a very good 0.62
These numbers have a significant impact on the parabolic trajectory of any arrow shot, and hence has a big impact on ease of aim, as well as final range of the arrow.
any decent shot, uses arrows at medium to long range. hence the desire for lighter arrows that fly straighter. they are simply much easier to hit with, as well as the fact that long range shooting means loosing arrows. the expense of maxing out the alpha strike capability is not usually worth it. there is plenty of time to bring even tough opponents down to size by hitting them multiple times at these ranges. Heck. i routinely snipe skeletons from outside their aggro range. getting the sniper achievement is not a hard thing to do.
Now here is an important point to make: you must be consistent with your arrows. if you are constantly swapping out what kind of arrow you use, your aim at long ranges will suffer. even a small change in the mass of the arrow affects how much you have to deflect your shots in order to hit a target at any given range. this means that you have to constantly practice your aim with the arrows you are currently going to use in battle. There is therefore a hidden player skill penalty cost associated with swapping type during gameplay. later tier arrows have to therefore give a major long term advantage to be worth it. they might be better in PVP, but against mobs?
Here's where we get into Math.
To be able to determine if the additional half heart from Alumite is worth the decrease in trajectory, we have to determine how much damage you need to deal to kill opponents. Much like D&D and other games, an opponent is fully functional and just as big a threat at 'nearly dead' as he is at 'full health', therefore the only real considering factor in your damage output is 'how many hits it will take to kill an opponent'.
For example, if your opponent has 10 health, doing 5 damage is better than doing 4.5 damage, because you go from needing three hits to needing two. However, going from 5 to 5.5 is completely worthless, because you're still needing two hits to kill your opponent.
Most of the opponents you will be shooting at have 10 hearts of health. Spiders only have 8, and Endermen teleport when you shoot at them, so there's no point. Cave Spiders have 12, but generally they jump at you from around corners in the abandoned mines.
Therefore, the 'breaking point' numbers are: 10 (one-hit), 5 (2-hit), 3.5 (3 hit), 2.5 (4 hit), and 2 (5 hit).
For purposes of this discussion, we're primarily talking about either 10 (1 hit) or 5 (2 hit) point breaks, and how easy it is to get there.
For an arrow with a cactus head, slime rod, and feather fletching, the weapon does a base damage of 2.5, with a total damage of 5 at full draw. Right off the bat, it deals enough damage to two-hit most opponents you will be shooting at. Therefore, Alumite is a complete waste of resources and trajectory smoothness, without modifiers.
Now then, Nether Quartz for sharpness will modify an arrow to do more damage. If you can manage to get the arrows to stack (still a bit buggy, last I checked), you can put it on a whole stack at a time. If you are willing to dump 72 nether quartz on a stack of arrows (which might get lost or fall into lava or whatever), you can attain a theoretical 10 damage with Alumite versus 9 damage with Cactus with a single enchant slot.
Practically, of course, this means you simply need a single piece of nether quartz for the whole stack to match that damage output with a cactus head, which isn't going to break the bank if you aren't hesitating to put 72 on there already.
At this point... what other enchants do you really want on your arrows? Sure, you've technically blown two enchantment slots as opposed to one on the cactus head, but practically, it is just a single piece of nether quartz extra. You are now one-shot killing practically every mob in the game that you are going to be drawing down on.
So really, the question to ask here for yourself: Is it really worth having to cast all that alumite, plus the reduction in trajectory, for a single piece of nether quartz per stack of arrows? Personally, I don't think so.
But what about the EnderDragon or the Wither? Won't that extra damage add up after a while? The answer is: Probably, but particularly with the EnderDragon, you're going to want that extra range and smooth trajectory to hit the bastard accurately in the first place (not to mention getting rid of the towers). The lighter weight afforded by the cactus will translate into a higher accuracy rate at longer distances, meaning you will end up killing him dead sooner, and probably with fewer shots overall.
As far as the wither, he won't really get far enough, so you might as well go with Manyllium for the extra damage output afforded by it for the first half of the fight. The second half, of course, you have to go melee.
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