Obsidian Arrows is a technology in Age of Empires II: The Forgotten that is unique to the Mayans and can be researched at the Castle. Once researched, it gives Archers and their upgrades an attack bonus against standard buildings and stone defense of +6.
Strategy
Archer armies are usually completely dependent on siege units to deal any damage to buildings, since their overall damage is lower than melee units and buildings naturally have armor. The Mayans are particularly dependent on archers, having a limited tech tree for other unit types and no access to cavalry.
With the addition of Obsidian Arrows, a large group of Mayan Archers actually becomes a severe threat to buildings, since all units in the group can be damaging the same building at the same time without having to surround it, letting them pile on the damage quicker and from a safe distance.
Blacksmith upgrades should still be prioritized since they add the same damage against everything plus range while being overall cheaper, and Plumed Archers don't benefit from Obsidian Arrows. When playing in team games and if the Mayan player has a Saracen ally, it also adds the team bonus of +2 attack bonus against buildings for Archers for a total of +8.
Team bonuses
Changelog
The Forgotten
- Obsidian Arrows gives Archers +4 attack against buildings.
The African Kingdoms
- Obsidian Arrows now gives Archers +6 attack against buildings. With patch 4.8, Archers also gain +6 attack against stone defense.
Trivia
- Before patch 4.8, the additional +6 (+4 in The Forgotten) attack against stone defense did not trigger due to a bug. However, that was fixed with patch 4.8.
