Originally Posted by Funny_Bunny

The following is VERY long, sorry about ahead of time.

In the following, I am grouping bows based on refiring times for convenience. So if you see Flatbow/Shortbow, I know that they're entirely different bow types, but they share the same refiring rate classification

All bows have the same "draw" time, which is roughly 1.2 seconds. The difference between the refiring rate between each bow comes from the delay between each draw. What I mean by draw, is the time between STARTING from pulling an arrow out of thin air (I want a quiver) until releasing that arrow from your bow.

So for example, a flatbow/shortbow has a refiring rate of 2 seconds. With a 1.2 second drawtime that is universal, the delay between each draw is 0.8 seconds. Basically, with 1.2 second draw, the delay between each draw for the bow types is basically like this

Delay Between The END of a Draw and the START of the NEXT Draw:
Flatbow/Shortbow - 0.8 seconds (assume 2.0 second total refiring time)
Longbow/Recurve - 1.2 seconds (assume 2.4 second total refiring time)
Horn Bow - 1.5 seconds (assume 2.7 second total refiring time)

Now, that's just for attacking without using any skills. When you use skills, it gets a little more complicated.

When you use an attack skill, one of two things happen. Either you just completed firing an arrow, and thus your attack skill will be queued into your next attack. That's simple. The other case is when you're in the middle of the animation for doing a regular attack. When you use your skill, your regular attack animation will be interrupted, and your attack skill will then replace that regular attack.

Now then, onto the mystery of Barrage and Quickshot, which have 1 second recharge times. You would intiuitively think that 1 second will recharge in time for the 2 second refiring rate of a Flatbow/Shortbow. Meaning that you would think that there "shouldn't" be any breaks in the animation. Unfortunately, reality doesn't match our intiution.

If you want smooth animation (no break) when you use a bow attack skill, you must use that attack skill before you start drawing your arrow, so that it is queued in time. Now then... your attack skill does not recharge UNTIL your arrow is released from your bow. That means that the queuing and the instance when your attack skill starts recharging do not occur at the same time.

Here's an example with Barrage using a flatbow. You use barrage. After your arrow is released, Barrage starts its 1 second recharge. Here's the problem. A flatbow has an approximately 0.8 second delay between the draws. So before the 1 second is up for Barrage to finish recharging, you're already starting onto your regular attack. When Barrage is ready to be used again, you're already about 0.2 seconds into your draw animation. You use Barrage again, which breaks the draw animation, and then the cycle starts over.

Since the draw time is around 1.2 seconds, and Barrage recharges in 1 second, a CONTINUOUS barrage using a flatbow or shortbow can't possibly refire faster than 2.2 seconds. You need 1 second for Barrage to be ready to be queued, and you need 1.2 seconds to draw and fire once queued. Barrage doesn't recharge until you release that arrow, so you need to be continually breaking that animation.

Continuous Barrage using a bowtype with a slower refiring rate is smooth, because their delay between each draw exceeds 1 second. However, their total refiring rate is still slower than 2.2 seconds, so flatbows and shortbows still shoot out more arrows overtime.

In summary, Shortbows and Flatbows dish out the most Barrage damage overtime if you run static buffs (or no buffs) such as Favorable Winds, Vampiric Bow String, Conjure (Element), or you run physical damage with an Orders Necro and Winnowing. Flatbows/shortbows also have the highest damage per second with Judge’s Insight compared to other bow types. Longbows can sub into for a Flatbow if for some reason you're annoyed by breaking the animation or can't use Favorable Winds. And you really wouldn't want to take a Recurve Bow for Barrage anyway when there's better alternatives. Horn bows fall into the weakest bow type for Barrage DPS because of their costly refiring rate (I guess if you wanted to do some weird spike...) It gets even worse because Barrage itself adds a static buff.

And here's a little bonus info

For those that run Increased Attack Speed, such as Tiger's Fury, in their Barrage builds, you gain an increase in SINGLE target damage per second, but you sacrifice your overall AoE damage potential. With a Flatbow/Shortbow, you fire every 1.33 seconds with Increased Attack Speed (total refiring time) Unfortunately, it does nothing to help with Barrage's recharge time, so you barrage, regular attack, barrage, regular attack, etc. Essentially, you Barrage every 2.66 seconds, instead of 2.2 seconds. It could work I suppose if you're interested in added SINGLE target DPS. Though you lose out a little on the AoE damage.

It gets even worse with Longbows/Recurve and Horn Bows though. Longbows and Recurve would fire every 1.6 seconds under Increased Attack Speed, Hornbows would be 1.8. In an alternating Barraging sequence with Increased Attack Speed, you would barrage every 3.2 seconds with Long/Recurve, and every 3.6 seconds for Hornbows.

In short, I would only recommend IAS if you're using Flatbow/Short since the difference is not as noticeable. With a different bow type however, you're REALLY screwing yourself over in overall AoE damage, which was the whole point of using Barrage in your build. If you want single target damage output, change your build.

It used to be possible before the recharge time nerf where you could use Quickening Zephyr to reduce the recharge time of Barrage and Quickshot to 0 seconds (it was 0.5 second rounded down). Unfortunately, it was patched so the game now rounds UP. So it is no longer possible. Back in those days, 0 recharge time on Barrage meant Barrage every 1.33 seconds with Tiger's Fury and Quickening Zephyr, and a Zealous Flatbow to fuel the energy. Those days were great fun, but they're no more sadly.

Originally Posted by K.Ichigo

Simple question, what would the refire rate for be with Barrage using a Longbow and say, Tiger's Fury WITHOUT alternating?

Originally Posted by Archaeus

O.O I expect people will be grabbing after the collector's +15% enchanted max flatbow outside Elona (for five minotaur horns, I believe)... throw in the string and grip of your choice and it sounds perfect for a JI barrager.

Thanks to the OP - I was about to follow the crowd and use my mursaat horn bow for my barrager... never would've thought a collector's flatbow would deal more damage ^_^

Originally Posted by - Tain -

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Originally Posted by - Tain -

IMO, this is just wrong.. you're being picky over numbers that don't actually have an effect on the outcome of the damage. Horn bows are still the best for barraging. You come out with a 0.2 second difference in barrage time, and in a typical fight you would NOT get an extra barrage in with a short/flatbow (unless you're soloing, in which case the fight takes longer, but this is for barraging in general). So you come out with the same number of barrages - the only damage difference between them in that case is the 10% armor penetration on horn bows.

As far as JI barraging, don't bother with 15% while enchanted. 15^50 or 15% always is still your best choice, as sometimes your JI will be stripped, end while you're shooting, etc. Maximal damage would come with a 5/1 vamp hornbow of enchanting 20% or marks +1/20%.

Originally Posted by Nehsher TalonStrike

By the way where do you purchase capture sigs?

Originally Posted by Nehsher TalonStrike

...By the way where do you purchase capture sigs?