Curse

gw_poster · Jul 14, 2009, 05:30 PM // 17:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by tasha_darke

Did my team miss the damage? Nope, I can still interrupt and do a fair amount of damage with the ones I carry with me.

QFT. But, I was mainly referring to solo outings, or 4-man team areas, such as HM ascalonian areas (wherein the charr bowgrip will be noticed), or FoW forest solo farming wherein the +20 vs plants helps a ton...but otherwise yeah...

wiz12268 · Jul 18, 2009, 07:51 AM // 07:51

Sundering is really overrated.

Zealous number one choice, especially with barrage/volley on bar. Some sort of ele string with the corresponding conjure would be second choice.

I have an old school 8 req feathered long bow 15 always -5 energy (brawn over brains inscription) it brings me down to 27 energy, but even with a 10 energy PvE skill I never have energy issues. There is also 15 always -10 armor while attacking. 15>50 is just the generic, and for the most part you should always be above 50% but for the times you aren't it is always good to keep the 15%, and usually if you ARE below 50% it is from a degen which is why the -10 armor while attacking won't matter anyway.

Grips-- either +30 HP, maybe enchanting , if you are using ele string and don't like to cast too much (saves energy also). And an underated one, especially in a lot of dungeons is deathbane.

Bows themselves. I am partial to longbows, but recurves are what you want if you are looking to interupt stuff. Shortbows are overrated in terms of interupts actually, because at the same distances hornbows and long bows are just as fast as a short bow in terms of arrow speed (interput chance), and if you are out of range with a short bow you will never interupt a skill in time because you need to run up to the correct range.

As far as bow "speed" that is only for autoattacking. Hornbows might have a "slow" 2.7 attack interval, but they spam barrage (1 second recharge) just as fast a short or flat bow will, and their 2.0 second attack interval.

And if you really want to get technical if you are above something you will have a longer flight time, more distance possibility, and do more damage than if you are shooting uphill. (assuming they havent changed any of that).

So it all depends. But you really can't go wrong with a long bow, best overall choice and least worries. Recurve would be next choice, you aren't gonig to get blocked or miss nearly as much with a recurve as you will with other bows, and its range isn't that horrible, and maybe even better with H/H since you will get them into their aggro range, because with a long bow it is possible to shoot things and not have your H/H even engage it if it is a stationary target.

Dante the Warlord · Aug 07, 2009, 10:02 PM // 22:02

Zealous is probably the most useful since you will be needing the extra energy - especially if you run a barrage build. In large enough groups the cost to use barrage is almost made back.

I have been told that since rangers generally compose of the backline 15^-10AL is the best. Still 15^50 is good too!

As for type of bow - probably flatbow for the arc (though you have a higher chance of missing). Longbow is better for accuracy.

For the suffix, I would go fortitude since degen is the killer nowadays

Quaker · Aug 08, 2009, 04:34 PM // 16:34

There is no best bow, or bow mod. As many have said, it depends upon your build and play style.

If you have a number of builds and a lot of bows, you can put together all the specialized bows that people have mentioned, but even then you are apt to only use 2 or three bows most often.

So here are my general recommendations:

Your average common-dog general purpose (GP) bow should be 20/20 sundering, 15^50, +30 health and customized. The bow type will depend upon a few things, but should mostly be a short bow or recurve.

20/20 because, there have been many discussions about vamp vs sundering, but the bottom line is that, if vamp is better, it's better by a very, very small amount (requiring thousands of hits to show the difference). This small advantage is outweighed by the energy degen that requires you to switch out the bow when not fighting. Elemental strings are useful when combined with the proper skills (such as ebon with Ebon Dust Aura), but only then. Condition extenders (poisonous, silencing, etc) are not usually worth it - the small extension of the condition time is outweighed by the extra damage of vamp or sundering and by the likely hood that the condition will be reapplied anyway. Zealous, as a GP bow, is not a good idea - you lose to much damage potential for an iffy energy gain.

15^50 because everything else is generally too specialized. But it can be useful to have a +5e bow to switch to when needed (possibly combined with zealous)

+30 health - More health can protect you from more things (attacks, degen, etc.) than more armor. However, if your health is already quite high due to Survivor runes and such, +5 armor can be a nice boost.

Customized - the extra damage always helps, but make sure that you don't intend to ever sell the bow or use it on another character.

Bow type - if you are playing a lot with H&H or just just 2 or 3 humans plus heroes, a shortbow is best. Heroes will sometimes not attack if they are set to "guard" and you are outside of spell range. If you use a shortbow, you will automatically draw your heroes within range. Shortbows have the fastest refire rate and can interrupt quite well.
If you are not worried about heroes and are too wussy for a shortbow, you can use a Recurve for a good combo of range and arrow speed.
Flatbows should only be used if combined with things like Favorable Winds or Read The Wind, that flattten the arc and speed up the flight time - such as in a B/P group.
Longbows are really only best for pulling. As an overall bow they are too slow and don't trigger the heroes. They are for people who are too wussy to even use a recurve.

gotta go - edit later.

Tenebrae · Aug 08, 2009, 04:48 PM // 16:48

For shortbows i will def go with zealous and vamp , just for its fire rate.
For recurve and interrupting go with silencing or crippling because its arrow flying time
For long and flat go sundering or elemental and use a good prep

Taurean · Aug 08, 2009, 08:44 PM // 20:44

For PvM - Flatbow, it covers every purpose, and if you want to complain about slow arrow flight when you're interrupting, use Read the wind and Favorable winds.

The only other bow i would consider using is Hornbow 10% armor penetration bow, for spiking.

PvP - I wouldn't know.

Targren · Aug 09, 2009, 04:41 AM // 04:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by IronSheik

Slowest bow, the attack speed lost by it isn't worth the 10% Pent. Vamp hornbows stay in pvp. Vamp flat/shortbow would give most DPS if all hit, unless you're running high single target spike, then sundering might sneak in there.

Coupling it with shots that have activation time gets around that nicely. Penetrating and Sundering both have 1s activation times, plus extra armor penetration, and if you're running high enough expertise (which you should be, if you're attacking enough to be worried about attack time), they're cheap.

Ugh · Aug 09, 2009, 06:47 AM // 06:47

Types
Recurve: Interrupting and general PvP.

Longbow: Long distance combat against foes that are kiting or foes that you need to interrupt.

Flatbow: Long distance combat against foes that are stationary and you don't need to interrupt. Also great with RtW or Favorable Winds to bypass its only downside.

Hornbow: For spiking and use with 1c bow attacks.

Shortbow: For pew pew at short ranges. Good for PvE for the quick fire rate and you usually have to drag your henchmen into range anyway.

Strings
Sundering: Basic damage string if you don't feel like dealing with -1 health degen.

Poisonous: Poison spreading. Other condition strings are generally ignored.

Zealous: Mainly used for Barrage/Volley.

Vampiric: Used for high damage and spiking.

Elemental: Used with Conjures and for pew pew against warriors. Ebon is nice for Ebon Dust Aura + Volley.

Grips
Fortitude: Basic/most common grip.

Rest are ignored, for the most part. Expecially +1 Marks (20%).

Inscriptions
15>50: Basic/most common inscription.

+5e: Sometimes used for energy intensive builds. Can be put on a secondary bow if you run low on energy.

Rest are usually ignored.

laksa and curry · Aug 09, 2009, 10:56 AM // 10:56

As for sundering vs vamp mod argument, here is my point of view:

Go into a +75% to block stance, run into a mob of 3 to 4 monsters (Simulate barraging vs multi targets), +75% to block = 25% chance for each monster to hit.That versus 20% chance of 20% AP. See how many of those hits land. You will know that sundering is the games most over rated mod.

At marksmanship 16, critical hit percentage is about 20%as illustrated
1.3% chance of critical per level of marksmanship*16 = about 20%.

To maximise the effect of sandering, both your critial hit and +20% AP have to occur at the same time.

Take the critcial percentage multiply by sundering chance percentage. That works out to be only 0.2*0.2 = 0.04 which translates to 4% chance.
If you use this statistics, one will realize that the 20% AP will most likely trigger when u are scoring non critical hits.

Another observation will be your 20% HCT mods for magical items. Gamers with caster playing class will know how often that happens.

When I compare these 2 mods there can only be 1 choice.

Well all this is just my opinion, maybe right maybe wrong.

wilebill · Aug 09, 2009, 01:26 PM // 13:26

Hornbow: Useful with a beast master build too. With BM, the hornbow seems reminiscent of the Crossbow I use on my Hunter in that other game.

Kumlekar · Aug 10, 2009, 10:33 PM // 22:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by wiz12268

As far as bow "speed" that is only for autoattacking. Hornbows might have a "slow" 2.7 attack interval, but they spam barrage (1 second recharge) just as fast a short or flat bow will, and their 2.0 second attack interval.

This really isn't true, tack on the 1 second wait before the next barrage, and you have on barrage per 3.7 seconds instead of per 3.0 seconds.

The one time hornbows should be used is with 1 second casting time skills. If you're running quickshot/needling/hunters or any other skills along those lines, you should have both a vamp and zealous hornbow in your inventory with a zealous flat or short to switch to for energy.

The only other build I would use a hornbow with is glass arrow/point blank/zojuns shot, because the mirrored skills artificially lower your attack speed. A horn bow has a .3 second down time between attacks iwth this build whereas a longbow would have .6 and a flat or short would have full 1 second downtime.

I prefer flatbows for barrage builds with FW in effect (or long range on any build with read the winds). If you don't have FW with you, longbow/shortbow is better.

Quote:

Originally Posted by laksa and curry

Another observation will be your 20% HCT mods for magical items. Gamers with caster playing class will know how often that happens.

I agree with the vamp > sundering (sundering can't match + 5 unreducable damage per shot) but this comparison doesn't stand up. Casters get a much better end of the deal for two reasons. First, they don't need both 20% chances to trigger, meaning they have closer to a 40% chance of gettign a benefit, second, they can cancel their skills to avaoid interupts, and wait for the fast cast (this being the primary purpose of a 20% reduced cast time).