It seems unfair (not unbalanced)

That Chaos has 2 reliable ranged choices (deads and eclipsors) while Order always has to use Archers.

Archers are so much better than albows cheaper fast good dps quick to train and they can kite

Is the main problem that their too expensive it seems strange that a meric is cheaper (150 gold cheaper) and in most situations I would rather have a meric

Their only use seems to be in ele matches against tress and airs

I have very limited SE knowledge so could you please enlighten me why albows are not often used?

DISCLAIMER

Im not saying Chaos is better than Order or am I saying Albows are broken (they are perfectly fine units but underused and not seen as much as their archer cousins.)
Nor am I asking for a nerf or buff you are the judge of that.

Albows used to be used more, then they got a mostly invisible nerf in the form of the fire dot. This means the first Albow is just as good if not better than before, but increasing numbers don't deal a huge amount of dps because damage is lost in refreshing the dot.

Albows aren't useless though, good timing, usually just after many archers die on both sides, with introduction of them into the game can be very effective.

I do feel that the mana cost on Albows is a little too high though, I'd rather see it at 175 mana than 200.

I am a noob and I have am am a newcomer to the game could you explain to me what this nerf is as I don't under stand what you mean by a refreshing dot? do you mean Damage over time?

I can see a use for them after major archer loses late on but good players wont lose their archer are really late on aren't giants better?

Albows used to deal raw, instant damage

Now they deal less raw, instant damage and apply a damage over time debuff. This debuff is only refreshed when a unit is attacked by more than one albow arrow.

Thus you lose out on damage due to the DoT damage being 'lost'.

If you're willing to lose your archers as well, you can probably force a lot of archers to die by all inning with your archers on the opponent's in the mid game before mages or giants are a thing.

They are also rather poor uses of population. 4 pop is a bit too high for their rather poor power. They are very good when both sides are building up an army but if you cannot finish the enemy by the time you hit 80 pop then you probably lost in the long run due to your inefficient units.

Oh I see burn I get it the damage per shot was reduced to make way for burn so when they take a second hit burn refresh but you lose some damage.

To be very honest and I might get shot down for saying this but burn is so unnecessary. It was brought in to nerf bombers (which is fair) but has damaged other units such as albows.

What do you think about Burn?

Honestly the only unit I think is better for gameplay with burn are bombers, fires, and archers. Every other unit in my opinion was made worse by burn or on ele units just shouldn't have burn.

Two niches for albow:

1) Mid-game after an archer trade, or a punish on a spear/meric -centric army. High DPS, but you can't retreat vs archers so tentative pressure.
2) Late-game recovery unit, after some trades and you need to get pop out fast (and you've already used it during mid-game); however you want to slowly be going into a more giant-focused army.

If you had the power would you remove burn?

Also surely burn is a nerf on bombers because before you could run in aLL your bombs as once but now to get max damage you have to wait for burn but surely no one (well i don't) wait for burn bombers work best when you can cause massive immidate damage that turns the battle in your favour. Surely its against the point of bombers

Quote from lewislewis

If you had the power would you remove burn?

Also surely burn is a nerf on bombers because before you could run in aLL your bombs as once but now to get max damage you have to wait for burn but surely no one (well i don't) wait for burn bombers work best when you can cause massive immidate damage that turns the battle in your favour. Surely its against the point of bombers

Only if the total damage dealt isn't changed. For a while the burn was a bitch.

what I want to say is similar to DAZ

but still, I don't think albows is a viable unit in high level matches unless its speed is faster/lower cost . That was why I suggested albows to get their power/cost slightly buff to make order players one more choice of range units

In OvO , high level gameplays is only archer battle , because archers just beat albow in both efficiency and speed, the only thing albows win is the armor and health, nothing else.
Archer : fast queue time, low cost, no mana required, higher dps, higher moving speed, can be tanked by spear, longer range with fire arrow, cheaper upgrade

In late game, you only need giants, not albows , which make albows even more useless.

If their were faster/cheaper would you use them or would you stick with archers?

Are worse than eclipsors? if not why not make them cost 400 gold 150 mana or would that be too similar to chaos?

albows are worse than eclipsors in general

eclipsor has higher speed and cheaper cost, and the most important thing is that they can auto-heal. So if a chaos player is smart enough and use bombers to support, eclipsors can beat albows directly

then shoudnt they be cheaper than eclipsors?

if archer are so cheap then for albows to compete wont they have to be like 350 gold 150 mana or something?

Quote from lewislewis

If you had the power would you remove burn?

Also surely burn is a nerf on bombers because before you could run in aLL your bombs as once but now to get max damage you have to wait for burn but surely no one (well i don't) wait for burn bombers work best when you can cause massive immidate damage that turns the battle in your favour. Surely its against the point of bombers

You forget the fact that the total damage done by bombers has increased. One bomber in the past did about 49% to an archer, but a bomber now does about 60% after burn. Also, two bombers hitting an archer at the same time will not kill it, but will get just as close as two bombers in the past. So sapced out bombers are even stronger than clustered bombers of the past, but using 3 or more clustered bombers now will be weaker than the clusters of the past.