Curse

Amy Awien · Oct 15, 2010, 02:21 PM // 14:21

Hornbows are ok only with Barrage, IAS and/or fixed 'cast time' bowattacks, otherwise, armor penetration affects base damage only, while most of your damage comes from bonus damage that you stack up to make your damage acceptable. So, very little speaks in favor of hornbows.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ras the Swift Death

Would Barrage be a broken PvE skill if anet removed the side-effect of taking away preparations?

Yes, absolutely, kindle, ignite, choking gas would all be devasting, especially when combined with EBSoH

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonofthort

The damage you gain from using a conjure skill is equal to the damage you lose from decreasing marksmanship and losing the vampiric mod. ...

Nah, you get +15 from the Conjure, against the 5 from the vampiric mod and some minor damage from a (-2) lowered Marksmanship, say -3 base damage (at most) and -2 reduced skill damage for a wopping -10 ... you still gain +5 damage per arrow. This may be different for specific builds, but conjures are certainly worth a good look.

Chthon · Oct 16, 2010, 03:34 AM // 03:34

I had until now been ignoring the underlying issue that Conjures suck, but...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy Awien

Nah, you get +15 from the Conjure, against the 5 from the vampiric mod and some minor damage from a (-2) lowered Marksmanship, say -3 base damage (at most) and -2 reduced skill damage for a wopping -10 ... you still gain +5 damage per arrow. This may be different for specific builds, but conjures are certainly worth a good look.

You also lose synergy with Orders/Barbs/MoP. The loss of Orders alone outweighs the benefit from COnjure. (Of course, this is assuming some semblance of team coordination here.)

You also lose your secondary. R/W brings SY! to the table. R/Rt brings Splinter (although it's still better getting it from a Rt primary teammate). Conjure doesn't compare to either one.

Amy Awien · Oct 17, 2010, 12:07 AM // 00:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

You also lose synergy with Orders/Barbs/MoP. The loss of Orders alone outweighs the benefit from COnjure.

Rather obvious if you're running orders which requires physical damage. But that is a specific team setup which the OP obviously did not have in mind when he was asking about bows for 'conjure barrage'.

FoxBat · Oct 17, 2010, 01:09 AM // 01:09

The default scenario these days is really single player, where physical heroes aren't so good, and thus not much motivation to bring phys buffers along. Still unless you're in easymode, SY! will typically do a ton more defense than your ~6-7 points of damage which can be picked up elsewhere in the team.