[CUnknown]

Yeah, I was talking about 'best mundane bow'.. although Sauromatia's poison bows may in fact be better, I forgot about them.

Where have you 'shown' that arbalests deal the most damage per combat round of any missile weapon?

I did earlier on in the thread:

Weapon -- DPR (Prot 10) -- DPR (Prot 12) -- DPR (Prot 16)

Shortbow -- 0 -- 0 -- 0
Longbow -- 3 -- 1 -- 0
Crossbow -- 2.5 -- 2 -- 1
Arbelest -- 3 -- 2.67 -- 2

Arbalests are no better than crossbows if the stumbling block is shielded enemies - indeed they are worse, as they produce less chances to get by the shield.

Shields are irrelevant in this dicussion because they affect crossbows and arbelests equally. It doesn't matter that "they have more chances to get through the shield" since that when arbelests -do- get through, they do more than enough damage to make up for not getting through last time. Just look at the damage numbers.

Fire arrows is a different matter, when that spell is cast, the DPR changes:

Weapon -- DPR (Prot 10) -- DPR (Prot 12) -- DPR (Prot 16)

Shortbow -- 3 -- 2 -- 0
Longbow -- 6 -- 3 -- 0
Crossbow -- 4 -- 3 -- 1
Arbelest -- 4 -- 3.33 -- 2

In this case, you can't really tell which one is better.. Longbows are definitely the best against anything lower than 12 protection with fire arrows up, but arbelests still do pretty good, and are still the best against higher protections. But, admittedly, the lead has shrunk a lot, since even a shortbow has a good chance of damaging a 16 prot guy if it's flaming.

Without flame arrows, arbelests are just better. Now, there may be some issues with the first volley missing due to range (although arbelests have a nice range and precision stat), and that is more a problem with unit placement before the battle than with the arbelest itself anyway.

Here are the total damage numbers with the first volley completely missing (no flame arrows), through 5 combat rounds:

Damage x5 rounds (first missing): (Prot 10) -- (Prot 12) -- (Prot 16)

Shortbow -- 0 -- 0 -- 0
Longbow -- 12 -- 4 -- 0
Crossbow -- 10 -- 8 -- 2
Arbelest -- 9 -- 8 -- 6

This is a little more debatable, since the longbow has a nice edge against 10 protection or below. Also, the arbelest doesn't do any damage whatsoever until the 4th round.. but still, on the 4th round the arbelest catches up in a big way against anything over 12 protection.

I guess the take home lesson is to not put your arbelests in the far back, because they might miss the first round, and then they're much closer in power to the other mundane bows.