I'm not sure why there's all the hate for damage while in stance. I never leave home as a damage ranger without some sort of IAS, and that means offensive stances. Damage while in stance is fantastic when you're using things like Tiger's Fury constantly.
I said above that in general greens are cheaper than their crafted counterpart.
There is at least one exception: Tarnok's Recurve seems to be selling for 25K these days, but a (nearly free) collectors flatbow has the +15 enchanting and I had no trouble finding a perfect grip of enchantment for 10K or less.
Speaking of green items, trapper rangers like to carry around a +15 energy staff while trapping.
These all have the unconditional +15 energy, and they sell for around 1-2K:
Flint's Fleshcleaver
Milius' Pillar
Illyana's Staff
Volkur's Staff
Stinger
(aka Poisonous Hornbow of Marksmanship +15 stance)
Best of the green bows for a ranger "spike" build. Hornbows have 10% armor penetration, and while they are slow to reload, they fire interrupts (essential to spike) just as fast as any other. Add Poison and this is one deadly bow, especially in PvP.
Negative: A PvP Spiker will prefer a custom "Sundering Hornbow of Marksmanship +15^50" more, though a perfect stat custom bow will cost about 50 times more. This is probably the most common green bow out there. If you want one, just go to LA1 and say "WTB Stinger 2K" and you'll likely get an offer.
Tarnok's Recurve Bow
(aka Sundering Recurve Bow of Enchanting +15 enchanted)
If you are an R/Mo, this is an excellent bow to keep handy! Healing Breeze, Vigorous Spirit, Protective Bond, Holy Veil, and Judges Insight(!) all last 20% longer when using this bow. Recurve's are ideal for interrupting, and this is the only green recurve that is not vampiric or zealous.
Negative: Not so ideal for non R/Mo's.
Usually spikes use a Vamp Horn and a Sundering Long.
Prot Bond and Veil don't last 20% longer since they are maintained...
I don't know how many PvP or PvE battles you've been in, but when is the warrior ever the main target? You can get away that rangers may be least likely targeted with other targets, but just because you have a warrior in your party doesn't mean you'll be immune from attacks.
My comment was regarding PvE. Warriors take most of the damage in PvE battles.
How would your team benefit if you were to stand 30 feet back, but shoot twice as slow because you're afraid to get closer to the action?
If your thinking in terms of pvp. Flatbows are definately the worst. On any one on one or split team encounter the enemy will be painfully aware of you. Nothing is easier than strafeing flatbow shots. This is terrible if you are still playing cripshot ranger. Recurve is the way to go in non-spike pvp in my opinion.
I just love my elswyth's recurve bow.. i even dumped my perfect +15^50 sundering storm bow in it's favor..
really too many people regard elswyth's recurve as a sucky one.. i guess they just don't like the -1 degen thingy, but it rocks imo and as long as they sell for 5k a pop i'm happy
Got a Tarnok's longbow and an Elswyth's recurve. Elswyths is the backbone of my general build. Tarnok's, well, I think I'm holding it for a guildie. Or my little brother.
On green bows-I'm glad. I have a 15^50 vampiric bow with a +30 health on it. I didn't pay 150k for it. I am t3h winnar.
Drago's Flatbow, Boulderbeard's Short Bow, Forgerunner, both Tarnok's, and Thornbeard's Horned Bow all suck due to their strings. Sundering is crap, and if a Ranger wants to do elemental damage, they are better off running Kindle Arrows.
There are quite a few situations where the elemental bows are quite useful. e.g.- I use forgerunner to solo ice imps and ice golems. Preperations like kindle arrows are not always a good option because barrage strips preperations. Plus, what if I want a different preperation but still want to use an elemental bow? (apply poison is one of my favorites) Elemental bows work much better against warrior mobs than a lot of the other bows. Though I'm not a huge fan, there are those builds that use conjure flame/lightning which would work quite well with the forgerunner, thornbeards, or boulderbeards short bow.
Just for the record, I would never use a horn bow for barrage. Much too slow and as such you can't do a constant spam of barrage with a horn bow.
It really depends on the build you are using, but my favorites from the list at the beginning of the thread are:
1. Graygore's Zealous Shortbow
2. Elswyth's Recurve bow (excellent for BP in tombs)
3. Boulderbeards short bow
4. The Forgerunner
5. Dragos Flat bow (not particularly useful, but I love taking screenies with it because its so freekin huge)
I mostly use golds nowadays but greens are great if you don't want to spend uber cash for godly perfect weapons.
Last edited by winkgood; Apr 16, 2006 at 09:19 PM // 21:19..
i have 4 bows which i find a perfect ranger set... and YES drago suks. ok so it has long range.... so does any other horn, flat bow ao long bow. lets leave sundering alone for a sec... (useless mod, imagine, only 1/10 of you arrows hits for +2 dmg... vs always +5 (vamp bow))... Drago is no good for interrupting because of the painfully long arrow flight, not good for pvp spiking cuz again, long arrow flight and spikers prefer vamp bows for damage. not good for solo either cuz....long arrow flight.... and no poison mode (most ranger solo builds are based on poison) so all it does is +30 hp... but so does Elswyth bows...
i had a thread about it before in Q&A, before i tried Drago's, i posted the math of odds to do damage with diffrent bows, got flamed for dismissing Drago... but now i bought it for 25k (i HAD to try it for all its popularity), tried it and all it does is looking HUGE and +30 hp.... I equip it for Tombs or FOW parties to show off, but i dont fight much with it cuz theres nothin usefull on it.
conclusion out of my experience: Drago's Flat Bow is the new Noob's expensive bow
Last edited by Maria The Princess; Apr 17, 2006 at 06:40 PM // 18:40..
After all the research I did, I finally concluded that the only green bow worth permantly keeping in a weapons slot is the Elswyth's Recurve.
Drago's Vampyric and Graygore's Vampyric are worth keeping in storage for certain kinds of farming runs. Perfect vampyric strings are really getting up in price, so going green is still cost effective.
The Tarnok bows look great, but grab an ascalon bow and throw on a fiery or icy string and you get the same results, which is pretty much what I did.
For my pve play style, I have concluded that the only two types of bows I need are recurves and flatbows. The recurve excells where the flatbow is weak and vice versa. So my bow slots:
1. Gold Composite Bow of Defense
2. Fiery/Icy Flatbow (icy in fire islands or desert, fiery in shiverpeaks or kryta)
3. Elswyth's Recurve (in the middle of fighting I can switch to this for more damage/health, then switch back to 1 to stop the the health degen)
4. specialty farming bow, or something that makes me look cool holding.
After all the research I did, I finally concluded that the only green bow worth permantly keeping in a weapons slot is the Elswyth's Recurve.
Drago's Vampyric and Graygore's Vampyric are worth keeping in storage for certain kinds of farming runs. Perfect vampyric strings are really getting up in price, so going green is still cost effective.
The Tarnok bows look great, but grab an ascalon bow and throw on a fiery or icy string and you get the same results, which is pretty much what I did.
For my pve play style, I have concluded that the only two types of bows I need are recurves and flatbows. The recurve excells where the flatbow is weak and vice versa. So my bow slots:
1. Gold Composite Bow of Defense
2. Fiery/Icy Flatbow (icy in fire islands or desert, fiery in shiverpeaks or kryta)
3. Elswyth's Recurve (in the middle of fighting I can switch to this for more damage/health, then switch back to 1 to stop the the health degen)
4. specialty farming bow, or something that makes me look cool holding.
my collection 4/5 are green bows:
1-Elswyth long Bow (for solo)
2-Elswyth recurve (for extra damage as you said)
3-Stinger or Zealot storm bow ( pvp )
4-Dragos flat bow (to take nice screen shots and show off )
I have Boulderbeard short bow and Elswyth Recurve bow. I can say I prefer to have Lightning (Boulderbeard short bow) dmg than Fire or Icy. Anyway, is the Flat bow has a poor accuracy rate? I say that because I wonder if Drago Flat bow has this problem. If so, I wonder why the popularity? I'm sure its not for the perfect sundering
Last edited by Francis Demeules; Apr 18, 2006 at 01:51 AM // 01:51..
Flatbows are fine if you are an avid RtW, or FW user. That straightens the arc out and makes it much more accurate. Thus with it's faster fire rate, it becomes quite useful. But, if you don't use one of the 2 speed-ups, leave it in your storage.
Flatbows are fine if you are an avid RtW, or FW user. That straightens the arc out and makes it much more accurate. Thus with it's faster fire rate, it becomes quite useful. But, if you don't use one of the 2 speed-ups, leave it in your storage.
Ok, I dont really use RtW or FW now. I prefer using Melandru Arrows when I dont need these skills. RtW/FW are used, for me, to interrupt.
I bought Elswyth's recurve while it was still 10-15k. Best money I've ever spent in this game. It's exactly the type of bow I wanted. I was thinking to myself, if I could only have one bow, what would it be? Answer: Vampiric recurve of fortitude. Then when I saw the prices of perfect vampiric and fortitude mods, I bought Elswyth's in seconds.
As long as we are listing weapon sets:
Elswyth's recurve
Firey Ascalon(long) of Fortitude
Icy Ascalon(long) of Fortitude
Poisonous Longbow of Fortitude
Ok, well, I'm a little short on fortitude mods, and the poisonous longbow, but I'll get those shortly.
I have Boulderbeard short bow and Elswyth Recurve bow. I can say I prefer to have Lightning (Boulderbeard short bow) dmg than Fire or Icy. Anyway, is the Flat bow has a poor accuracy rate? I say that because I wonder if Drago Flat bow has this problem. If so, I wonder why the popularity? I'm sure its not for the perfect sundering
i was testing it, and wrote on a post above the EXACT answer
just few posts above yours