Curse

Splinter Barrage · Sep 17, 2011, 12:53 PM // 12:53

I have been playing Guild Wars for 6 years, and Ranger is my favorite profession. I have 4 types of bow (with identical mods) equipped at all times, which I freely switch between (F1-F4) depending on the build I'm using and situation I'm in. My experience has given me a lot of insight into what's useful and what's not, and I'm going to flat out contradict some misinformation less-experienced (if well-intentioned) players have been spreading about the supposed uselessness of hornbows, among other things. Please bear with me as I explain my findings.

BOWS

Hornbow: My default in PvE. Perfect for use with the spammable elite attack Barrage (which is made even more powerful through combination with Splinter Weapon [requires Ritualist secondary], but I digress). The best bow for two reasons: (1) The time between shots is the same as that between Barrage recharges (once per second), and faster-firing bows might actually slow you down, as the animation for starting another (regular) attack would be interrupted and have to begin anew once Barrage was ready again; (2) it has native armor penetration (more damage than any other bow type). If you're a Barrage ranger (which you'd have to be crazy not to be, since in PvE you will be fighting groups as opposed to individual targets >90% of the time), you cannot do better than this bow. Since you will be waiting the full second between Barrages anyway (and actually gaining energy if you have 14 Expertise, but I digress again), no other bow confers any advantage, whereas hornbows do extra damage. 'Nuff said.
Longbow: I only switch to this when I need to pull in PvE, or snipe a target such that it can't attack back (e.g. the Terrorweb Dryders up on the ledges in Tomb of the Primeval Kings).
Recurve: My default in PvP. Combined with Rapid Fire, you can spread conditions faster than with a shortbow, and at greater range. Since human players move more than monsters, the reduced chance of missing (thanks to fast flight time and low arc) is also essential.
Flatbow: Combined with Read the Wind (or Favorable Winds, if you won't be moving around much), this is like the recurve but with greater range. Its native refire rate is the best in the game, so once again you will have a "machine gun" going. It is unusable without one of those two skills, however. It is my alternate in PvP or other situations (like some farming areas) where I want extra range and there are more individual targets than groups. (Since Barrage doesn't work with preparations, and this bow doesn't work without them, I never combine the two.)
Shortbow: Useless. (See Recurve above.) Refire rate of a flatbow, but half the range and only medium arc/flight time. No true advantage, no matter how you look at it. (Theoretically, in a situation where you had no preparation and no Barrage and range didn't matter, you could use it. But when would such a situation ever arise? Perhaps when battling the Doppelgänger, but that battle will be over in 1 second anyway.)

STRINGS

Sundering: I use this string on all my bows. Combined with Barrage, at least two arrows do extra damage every time (and by extra, I mean as much as double, as that's how significant armor is); and even when you are spreading conditions, it is more useful to have the damage bonus than lengthen condition times (see Poisonous below).
Zealous: Useless. As long as you have 12+ Expertise (you should have 14) and a reasonable build, you will never run into energy problems as a ranger.
Vampiric: Useless, because it degens your own health just to hold it; so, unless you have Monk as your secondary and Mending cast on you, or a Sundering bow to switch to when you're not actually fighting/the skirmish isn't prolonged enough to merit the switch (you will end up holding the Sundering >50% of the time, perhaps even 90%), it's just not worth it.
Poisonous: Useless, as it doesn't actually inflict poison; all it does is lengthen the duration thereof, and it's already the longest-lasting condition you can inflict. Any target should be dead before it's ended (or else you could easily re-poison them; if it ended because they removed it from themselves, you'd have to re-apply it anyway). Just never worth it, not in any conceivable situation.
Fiery: Truly useless: with the same number of attribute points in Wilderness Survival and Fire Magic, Kindle Arrows has a higher damage bonus than Conjure Flame, and it converts your damage to fire damage without the need for this string (which therefore does exactly nothing). I know Elementalist is a very common secondary profession for Rangers, but it shouldn't be.

(My opinion of all condition-lengthening and elemental strings is the same; I chose poison and fire because they are the most common.)

MODS

15^50 (Strength and Honor): The best inscription in the game, period. You will be doing 15% more damage 99% of the time this way, with no downside, whereas every other inscription takes effect only in more rare situations (e.g. when your health is below 50%), or imposes some penalty (e.g. -5 energy), or is outright useless (e.g. +5 energy with no damage bonus).
Fortitude: +30 health is superior to +5 Armor for three reasons. (1) Rangers already have the second-best armor in the game (and the best vs. elemental), so they really don't need more; whereas, if you're using a superior rune (which you should be, because it's worth it) you'll need all the health you can get. (2) My nemesis in PvP is Mesmer hexes that degen health. Troll Unguent (+8 regen with 10 in Wilderness) does a great job of countering degen; still, hexes ignore armor and go right for your health. So once again, more armor won't really help you, whereas more health could save your life while you're activating Unguent. (3) Rangers are robbed of a +30 already: Warriors can have +30 on their shields too, as can casters on their focuses (or have +60 on their staves); thus, to not take advantage of the only +30 available to you, would be to have 60 less health than every other class in the game.

In sum: In PvE, hornbows are actually perfect for general use (Barrage-based builds)--they fire just as fast as anything else will be able to and do more damage; in PvP, a recurve bow and Rapid Fire will spread conditions fastest; and the best bow will have Sundering, Strength and Honor, and Fortitude mods.--This is my not-so-humble opinion, based on 6 years of cumulative fiddling.

If, after having read the above and tried these respective bows with spreadfire or degen builds for themselves, anyone still disagrees, it's because they are confused, and I will happily take them on in PvP anytime.

Happy hunting!

Pew · Sep 17, 2011, 03:54 PM // 15:54

I personally just keep a Vamp Flatbow and Recurve for PvE, and that's all I've ever needed (I should probably get a Zealous Flat too, but w/e). The Flatbow is for pulling and attacking once agro has settled, and I use the Recurve during the initial agro while enemies are running around, and whenever I know I'm coming across a mob that's got a particularly dangerous/irritating skill because yay for rupts.
When enemies aren't moving (or are at very close range), the flatbows arc becomes irrelevant because they aren't going to dodge it anyway.

Sigh, why do people assume there's only Barrage on their bars. If you're litterally only spamming Barrage while not under an IAS, sure, Hornbows match. That doesn't mean it's good. You should be using the other skills on your bar too.
I really do find it hard to believe that some people have played for 6 years and still doesn't know how2gw. /sigh
Your points about Vampiric and Zealous being useless because you switch to Sundering most of the time are flat out wrong, because you should switch to your defensive set whenever you're not attacking.

Hornbows are bad. R-Spike and spamming fixed attack speed skills ie Sundering Attack/Penerating Shot are its limit. Slowest refire rate, medium arc, and the same range as recurve? Compare that to a Longbow. The only thing the Hornbow has over it is the 10% Armour Penetration. If you think that's worth it, then you should take a read of the many threads that explain why that's wrong.
Recurve is general PvP use. Its arc makes it the most useful for interrupts and snares (hence it's used in PvP the most), which is useful when you need to interrupt a particular skill. eg, D/Savage Shotting Stone Shard Crag's Sandstorm.
Shortbows serve the same purpose as a flatbow at close range. They're not useless, just made redundant by that fact.

As for the mods, you're grossly overexaggurating how much 20% penetration is. And how often it triggers, to a slightly lesser extent. Armour Penetration just isn't as good as a Vampiric in terms of DPS, there's no way around that.
Plenty of people still just use Sundering because it's on the majority of Unique weapons people use, or because they're not comfortable with having the -1 Health Regen. That's fine, w/e, but that doesn't make it better than Vampiric.

Poisonous is pretty useless in PvE, but in PvP you use it because you're spreading poision. You're not constantly attacking the same person, so you want the longest duration you can out of it.

Elemental Strings are pretty pointless unless you're running a Conjure. (or R-Spike again I guess.)

Inscriptions are pretty self explanatory. 15^50 normally. If you're particularly energy hungry a +5e swap probably won't go wrong.

As for Armour vs HP, it's debatable, but generally higher armour is always prefered over HP. The reason being is that if you have higher HP, it costs monks more energy to heal you back to full, and that you're taking more damage than a high AR target would too (higher actual damage as well as a higher percentage of your HP), meaning more energy (+ casting/aftercast time) expended by healers just healing you. With higher AR, you take less damage from attacks, and healers heal you for a higher percentage of your max HP than before. This means less time + energy healing, so it's just more efficient. In PvE having higher health also reduces the effectiveness of the two most used Prots, Protective Spirit + ST/Shelter. (as well as a few AI behaviours, like making you the priority target for Grenth's Balance because you have the highest HP)
You probably won't notice most of the effects, but it is more efficient to run higher armour.

But lol that's not really the point of this thread.

Wenspire · Sep 17, 2011, 07:05 PM // 19:05

The double damage he is seeing on occasion is probably caused by the landing a critical hit. The 20% armor pen actually has a good effect. The problem lies with it only happening once every five arrows that makes it not as good as vamp.

For bows, I switch between four based on situation in battle. 1) sundering long bow during travelling and when I want to land the first hit in a stationary mob (using splinter), 2) I have a short vamp bow when attacking a single target, 3) short zealous used during battle the majority of time, 4) zealous flat for pulling (long flight time makes it ideal for this role).

Splinter Barrage · Sep 18, 2011, 10:42 AM // 10:42

Interesting.

For the most part, you merely regurgitate some of the stereotypes/biases already expressed in this thread, the very ones with which I was begging to differ/attempting (and I guess failing) to disabuse people of. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough, or didn't provide sufficient examples. There is a whole world of non-standard possibilities out there, worthy of being explored and considered, dependent largely upon your build (which should consist of 7 skills besides Barrage, of course), and the standard "this bow is ONLY for spiking" mindset is inherently closed to receiving any of that knowledge. It's like talking to converts of some religion. I do not mean to accuse you of zealotry or unthinking (perhaps of hopping on the bandwagon--and I mean that's no crime, in fact one should expect it), but I just find it frustrating and disappointing that what I said should be thus, err, dismissed. That said, there are a couple of points you raised which I would like to address.

First, I'm sorry, but it could never be ideal to use +5e on a bow in place of 15^50. If you're "energy hungry," resort to any other option instead (higher Expertise, Radiant/Attunement on your armor, even a Zealous string or--best of all--change your build). You will be doing -15% damage; how could that ever be better? (Answer: It couldn't.)

Of course Barrage isn't the only attack skill I employ. Neither is it the only attack skill that is better with a hornbow. I should have also mentioned that there are several bow attacks (Penetrating Attack, Precision Shot, and Savage Shot, to name a few) which fire instantaneously after the preceding attack used, thus bypassing your bow's native refire rate entirely (in the case of Penetrating, it also bypasses arc and flight time, sending a faster-than-normal arrow). Thus, if after a couple Barrage volleys a monster or two is left standing, you can finish them off instantly (the same second as your last Barrage) using such an attack. Once again, no other bow type will confer any advantage since these are all instant attacks, and only hornbows have a native damage bonus. (The three skills named all cost 10 energy, but at 14 Expertise it will be half that and you will have boosted regen; thus, even if you use all three in a row after Barrage, you shouldn't run into energy problems.)

Were you even aware of the instantaneous nature of bow attacks like those? Maybe you haven't tested the hornbow with an appropriate build. I will happily discuss builds if that's what it comes to (and it looks like it is), though I'm not sure if this is the right thread for that, and I generally only share mine with other people in my guild, since it would suck if I found myself facing someone else in PvP whose own build is as sneaky as mine.

All I'm saying is, in my experience, those other types of bows and mods haven't been as useful, and the stereotypes you promote are lacking since I can easily contradict them with the right setup. I stand by everything I said.

Quaker · Sep 18, 2011, 03:43 PM // 15:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coast

well, I mean: nobody rly uses shortbows anymore, their bots wouldn't interupt good anymore!

Nobody? I use a shortbow almost exclusively, except for pulling.

And +1 on the above mention of stereotyping. Think outside the box.

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A few comments about this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Splinter Barrage

Shortbow: Useless.

Not true. (PvE)
- because of it's closer range, it can interrupt almost as well as a Recurve. (Incidentally, it's the same range as a spear)
- it's repetition rate is the same as a Flatbow and when combined with an IAS such as Never Rampage Alone, it can pump out a lot of shots, quickly
- because you get within spellcasting range, your heroes will also automatically get within 'target awareness' range. (If any of you rangers have noticed your Heroes not attacking, you'll know what I mean.)
- best all-around bow for general damage-dealing PvE imho.

Quote:

My opinion of all condition-lengthening ... strings is the same;

Not quite so true when it comes to Silencing. The short duration of most dazing spells can benefit from the lengthening. It is, of course only a benefit while you are using dazing skills.

Quote:

Fortitude: +30 health is superior to +5 Armor for three reasons.

Personally, I think they are basically equivalent, but I too, lean toward Fortitude because of degen.

Aldric · Sep 18, 2011, 06:45 PM // 18:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Splinter Barrage

Interesting.

For the most part, you merely regurgitate some of the stereotypes/biases already expressed in this thread, the very ones with which I was begging to differ/attempting (and I guess failing) to disabuse people of. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough, or didn't provide sufficient examples. There is a whole world of non-standard possibilities out there, worthy of being explored and considered, dependent largely upon your build (which should consist of 7 skills besides Barrage, of course), and the standard "this bow is ONLY for spiking" mindset is inherently closed to receiving any of that knowledge. It's like talking to converts of some religion. I do not mean to accuse you of zealotry or unthinking (perhaps of hopping on the bandwagon--and I mean that's no crime, in fact one should expect it), but I just find it frustrating and disappointing that what I said should be thus, err, dismissed. That said, there are a couple of points you raised which I would like to address.

First, I'm sorry, but it could never be ideal to use +5e on a bow in place of 15^50. If you're "energy hungry," resort to any other option instead (higher Expertise, Radiant/Attunement on your armor, even a Zealous string or--best of all--change your build). You will be doing -15% damage; how could that ever be better? (Answer: It couldn't.)

Of course Barrage isn't the only attack skill I employ. Neither is it the only attack skill that is better with a hornbow. I should have also mentioned that there are several bow attacks (Penetrating Attack, Precision Shot, and Savage Shot, to name a few) which fire instantaneously after the preceding attack used, thus bypassing your bow's native refire rate entirely (in the case of Penetrating, it also bypasses arc and flight time, sending a faster-than-normal arrow). Thus, if after a couple Barrage volleys a monster or two is left standing, you can finish them off instantly (the same second as your last Barrage) using such an attack. Once again, no other bow type will confer any advantage since these are all instant attacks, and only hornbows have a native damage bonus. (The three skills named all cost 10 energy, but at 14 Expertise it will be half that and you will have boosted regen; thus, even if you use all three in a row after Barrage, you shouldn't run into energy problems.)

Were you even aware of the instantaneous nature of bow attacks like those? Maybe you haven't tested the hornbow with an appropriate build. I will happily discuss builds if that's what it comes to (and it looks like it is), though I'm not sure if this is the right thread for that, and I generally only share mine with other people in my guild, since it would suck if I found myself facing someone else in PvP whose own build is as sneaky as mine.

All I'm saying is, in my experience, those other types of bows and mods haven't been as useful, and the stereotypes you promote are lacking since I can easily contradict them with the right setup. I stand by everything I said.

You can try to disabuse and contradict and insist your thinking is correct however

damage from 100% trigger of Vamp > damage from 20% trigger of Sundering
+5 Armour > +30 Health.

The statistical analysis of these have both been pretty much done to death over the last 6 years although I tend to have +30 mods mainly because I always have dozens of them

+5 Bows : When i run bows i always stick a +5 bow in a slot somewhere just incase. Yes 15^50 for damage is better but using something else on a switch slot on occasion is fine, as Pew said.

Bow Attack : Not sure what your trying to say about Penetrating/Sundering Attacks. They vary with the arc/speed of the bow being used and dont have a set arc/speed

Short Bow : has its uses when range is irrelevant and refire rate is what you look for eg Point blank/Zojins shot spam.

Personally in PVE when i run bow builds I always have a +5 Bow, 15^50 Flat / Recurve with Vamp / Zealous variants along with a decent staff and a spear&shield set. However I do tend to play alot more non bow builds and have done for quite a long time, R/P Spears being my favourite now that they kinda killed off the R/D Scythe builds.

Of all the dozens of builds and people who Ranger I know, the only thing generally agreed upon is that Hornbow are kinda shit...

Pew · Sep 18, 2011, 07:23 PM // 19:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Splinter Barrage

/snip

I'm not saying Hornbows are bad purely to bandwagon, I used a hornbow for a long time in PvE (I really liked the Ivory Bow skin), and as soon as I switched I saw better results. Those are my findings. As well as the majority of people who have played. If the majority of people are saying something is worse than another option, there's probably some truth behind it. Sure, people are bound to bandwagon, but it had to start somewhere. (inb4 parallel drawn with conspiracy theories)

For me personally, the thing that really lets it down (other than the refire rate) is the flight time. The extra .2s over the Recurve can really make a difference if you're reflex rupting. (although lol AI)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pew

spamming fixed attack speed skills ie Sundering Attack/Penerating Shot are its limit.

Reading comprehension > Walls of text. zz I know how attack skills work. It doesn't have the advantage with Savage/Distracting shot because those skills aren't used for their damage, and has a longer flight time. 14 Expertise also is the breakpoint for 10e skills costing 4e, (and 13 5e skills costing 2e.) because the 56% reduction gets rounded up.

As for the +5e swap, you swap to it when you need that extra energy for one last skill, be it a critical interrupt or something. And by "energy heavy"
I mean running things like Concussion shot. (with with 10e PvE skills on the bar, which are a staple in pretty much all of my PvE Ranger builds) Even with 14 Expertise that is still a lot of energy expediture.
If you are running a +5e over 15^50 won't make much of a difference when most of your damage is going to be coming from the AoE triggers of Splinter Weapon from Barrage.

Needing a specific setup to show something is better for general use doesn't really make sense. In the case that you run Barrage/Sundering Attack/Penetrating Attack as your attack skills; sure, it has an advantage with the 10%AP, but in almost all other cases it loses out because of the slower attack speed. I don't run that, because I don't run a Hornbow, there's better skills for me to use.

But who cares, you're going to continue to believe that hornbows are "perfect" for general PvE, and continue to tell people so, and I'm not going to be the last person to say otherwise, and I'm sure I wasn't the first either.

cataphract · Sep 19, 2011, 01:07 PM // 13:07

Hornbow has proven too slow for me. But then again, I am rather impatient and tend to carry at least one interrupt on my bar.

Amy Awien · Sep 19, 2011, 06:24 PM // 18:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Splinter Barrage

.... It's like talking to converts of some religion. ...

Religion has nothing to do with it, it's game mechanics and their application using math. I've been there, calculated outside the box then turned it upside down and again - until the Jack came out sick.

Vampiric deals, on average, hits for more -HP on your enemy then sundering, which may still be better under certain circumstance (damage multipliers for instance), it doesn't change the damagetype and has no negatives, but for a general advice, the plus of the vamp outweighs the minus more then for sundering.

Hornbows are slow, so much so that their armor penetration usually does not compensate for the lost hitrate. Naturally, fixed activation time bow attacks alleviate that problem. Like pew I love the Ivory bowskin, I wish things were differently.

Quaker · Sep 19, 2011, 09:58 PM // 21:58

The problem is, the math doesn't match the actual game play and/or is irrelevant.

Outerworld · Sep 19, 2011, 10:15 PM // 22:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quaker

The problem is, the math doesn't match the actual game play and/or is irrelevant.

It might not be overly significant, but that doesn't mean it's irrelevant.

Xenomortis · Sep 19, 2011, 10:55 PM // 22:55

The Hornbow only works well with Quick Shot. Whilst it will out-DPS a Recurve and Longbow on targets with 70 armour in a vacuum, you shouldn't be depending on the base auto-attack damage along. FWIW it's only at 180 armour that it out does a Shortbow or Flatbow.

The choice between Recurve, Flatbow or Shortbow isn't huge though; the range disadvantage on the shortbow can be annoying but the flatbow has a very high arc, making it more impractical without Read the Wind. Single rupts hardly matters any more in PvE.

The choice of bowstring is trivial; Vampiric by default, Zealous if you need the energy. The drawback to Vampiric is totally inconsequential and is more than made up for by auto-attacking on anything other than a Hornbow; Sundering has no real advantage over it.

Bow grip is also quite straight-forward; Defense is generally better but the difference between that and Fortitude is pretty small.

As for Barrage specifically, the OP is misleading. The recharge is identical across bows, but the attack time still varies accordingly; the first half of the activation is still slower on a hornbow than it is on a shortbow. The second half is made irrelevant due to the fact that barrage will interrupt the attack animation with no delay.
Here are some approximate numbers:
Bow : Time taken for 10 activations of Barrage
Flatbow/Shortbow : ~21 seconds
Recurve/Longbow : ~24-25 seconds
Hornbow: ~26 seconds

Splinter Barrage · Sep 20, 2011, 02:13 AM // 02:13

Gentlemen (and ladies, if any are present),

I am pleased to have had some hand in sparking this stimulating discussion. I have greatly appreciated each of the thoughtful replies since my last post. I no longer feel that my perspective isn't being taken seriously, and apologize for reacting immaturely when I felt that was the case before.

It was perhaps misleading to cite how long I've been playing the game in my first post, if only because I haven't actually been using hornbows all that time. As a matter of fact, I always shied away from them based on the advice of other players like yourselves, and have only been using one for the past several months. (I beat Prophecies with a zealous flatbow and Read the Wind, at that time believing this combination superior to any other.) It was the discovery of Barrage (which rendered RtW unusable and thus made my flatbow "less superior") that led me to the conclusion that hornbows would have no great disadvantage (26 seconds instead of 25 for 10 barrages vs. a recurve bow, as the previous post cites), and one advantage others didn't (negligibly higher damage output). All the testing I did seemed conclusive, and I was thrilled. When I happened upon this thread in my random searching the other day, I was disappointed to see hornbows almost universally despised, and thought I would register simply to share this insight of one possible point in favor of them actually being used frequently in PvE, figuring perhaps it might inspire someone else. I was then disappointed to be shot down so quickly,

and now here I am rethinking my enthusiasm!

I accept that I may have been overzealous, myself. Perhaps my tests a few months ago weren't as conclusive as I supposed.

Many of the examples you people furnished of your own preferences seem quite reasonable, and I intend to try some of them.

Here is my current plan. I am going to keep Sundering on the longbow, carry it between fights and use it for initial pulling, then immediately switch to a vampiric recurve (Barrage will magnify its effects quite nicely); then, if the battle is prolonged and energy is running low, switch to a zealous shortbow (since at that point range won't be an issue). I figure it's all right to leave the sundering on the long since I will probably be pulling warriors most often (and it is most effective against them), and I suppose I could use a flatbow instead in some situations . . . and remove my beloved Ivory Bow from among my weapon sets.

I also figure the zealous shortbow, still combined with Rapid Fire, would be pretty optimal in PvP, since it will spread conditions even faster, and keep my energy up.

Does all of that sound like a fairly reasonable strategy? Is there anything any of you would change? (Should the vamp be a shortbow too, for example? Or is a shortbow really better than a recurve in PvP; what's the consensus there?) I am, as always, trying to be perfect, while recognizing that there is no one perfect plan. I am also genuinely curious! and endeavoring to be humble. Thanks again for all your thoughts.

Wenspire · Sep 20, 2011, 06:02 AM // 06:02

Regarding the ivory bow skin, doesn't one of the green campaign reward bows use that skin for every class of bow available? if so, you could always pick up one of those.

Splinter Barrage · Sep 20, 2011, 07:14 AM // 07:14

Well, I've been playing for the past few hours using the sundering long/vampiric recurve/zealous short swap, as previously devised. Since I was in a party with a monk who was kind enough to keep Mending on me, I didn't need to swap to the longbow at all; and I never ran low enough on energy to require the short. Vamp did, indeed, do slightly more damage; however, I noticed no advantage from the recurve over a vamp horn. Since I'm still relying on Barrage, a sundering attack, and an interrupt, with all the rest of my skills being preparatory/defensive, there was no noticeable speed improvement. My conclusion is that I can't reap any benefit from it without substantially changing the build to one which, perhaps, doesn't even use Barrage. And since, at the moment, that's the best elite attack I know of for PvE, I think I'm sticking with the horn. (I'm also fairly confident the recurve is going to prove more useful in PvP, since it misses less often and has greater range; but that's a more subtle test, and I've yet to try either it or the short with a zealous string.)

At least one discovery I've made from this is that Sundering isn't as great as I thought it was. I stand corrected about the vamp, but still prefer a hornbow. Splinter Weapon + Barrage + Vampiric Hornbow = highest DPS to groups (for a Ranger at least). I've seen the numbers and counted the seconds, and I'd bet money on it. That said, if anyone can find a weapon/skill combination that outperforms this setup against mobs in PvE, I would be keenly interested to hear of it.

Splinter Barrage · Sep 20, 2011, 09:48 AM // 09:48

Back to the original topic of this thread then: I concur with the consensus that Vampiric is the best string for general PvE combat, and think Zealous or Silencing make fine choices in PvP, with Sundering being a good swap for pulling in PvE and downtime in both. Of Defense is best for PvE, and Fortitude for PvP (since Throw Dirt/Pin Down/Whirling Defense can all render physical attackers inoperative, but degen hexes are still a problem if the chance to interrupt is missed). 15^50 is the best general use inscription, but others can have specific applications. As for bow type, I really think that depends on the build you're running; and yes, hornbows have their place albeit niche.--Seem logical enough? (Probably as conclusive as this is ever going to get.)

Amy Awien · Sep 20, 2011, 04:02 PM // 16:02

I am not sure why you compare hornbow with recurve bow and not a shortbow, which fire approx. 25% more Barrage's in the same time as a hornbow, 25% more barrages equals 25% more damage for base and bonus damages, while armor penetration only affects the mediocre basedamage of your bow. Recurve bows have an attack speed that is only slightly higher then hornbows so it is no surprise that you'd see little difference.

Aldric · Sep 20, 2011, 05:22 PM // 17:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Splinter Barrage

. . . and remove my beloved Ivory Bow from among my weapon sets.

Or keep it equiped and chew on Blue candies to increase your attack speed to that of a short/flatbow

A favourite bow is a favourite bow after all

Splinter Barrage · Sep 20, 2011, 10:24 PM // 22:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy Awien

I am not sure why you compare hornbow with recurve bow and not a shortbow [. . .].

Just looked at Xeno's numbers again--good point! But may I ask what is the advantage of a shortbow over a flatbow? I just tried out a vamp flat and it didn't miss as often as I expected it to, especially not once it was within shortbow range; however, I got to get in some shots much sooner than I would have been able to with a shortbow, and as a result the fight was over sooner.

So, Flatbow vs. Shortbow. Anyone?

In the event that it's too difficult to determine which is better overall, I propose a vamp flat -> vamp short swap.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Aldric

A favourite bow is a favourite bow after all

As a matter of fact, my personal favorite is the Dryad [Recurve] Bow, followed by Urgoz's Longbow, but that's affected by my choice of Elite Druid armor. I'm more fond of the Ivory's performance than its appearance, though starting to question the former since no one else here concurs. (It might not beat flat or short, but it still beats long and recurve with Barrage.)

It's only a shame I have no use for a fiery string, since "Fiery Feathered Flatbow of Fortitude" is a lovely lot of Fs.

Splinter Barrage · Sep 21, 2011, 02:05 AM // 02:05

Trying to be scientific about this, and wish I had actual numbers, but further testing seems to indicate that a shortbow misses less often than a flatbow, even with Favorable Winds affecting the latter. I guess that settles it then: longbow for pulling, shortbow for everything else. (Probably better than a recurve in PvP, too. Though perhaps Disrupting Accuracy or Expert Focus would prove more useful than Rapid Fire now. . . .)

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Wenspire

Regarding the ivory bow skin, doesn't one of the green campaign reward bows use that skin for every class of bow available?

I don't believe so, at least I never noticed. No mention of it on the Ivory Bow wiki either. Any idea which campaign you're thinking of?

Having trouble finding a likeable shortbow skin. ;(