looking for bow information

[waywardgs]

I just moved to ranged, and I'm trying to figure out what style bow to put my money into. So what do people like best and why? Shortbow, composite, longbow, value of sighting, firing rt's, etc... Trying to figure out ranged weapons because I know very little about them at the moment. Any tips/advice on what to look for, what's good, what sucks, and so forth?

[Goretawn]

Need race and stats. If you can have a high dex bonus, then go with the longbow, if you are a halfling go with a shortbow. Anything in between is a composite. You should be able to fire in 3 sec with your bow, 1 with haste.

[Kitsun]

Most people use longbows, probably followed by composite. Short bows are okay for group hunting if you don't intend on doing crit shots. Crossbows are extremely clunky for in-combat use but aren't bad for initial set up shots or trying to one shot difficult foes.

You would probably choose based on what STR bonus you can muster to keep your fire time reasonable. Each 10 bonus reduces the firing time by 1 second. Aiming adds 1 second, fireing from hiding(sniping) adds 1 second. High enough STR bonus allows you to fire from hiding, and aiming in 3 seconds.

If you feel like fletching, getting a 5x bow and using bladed masterfletched arrows will give you the 10x nice and easy. If you're lazy, like me, gun for a 6x bow and use 4x ebladed.

There really aren't many mid-range toys. At the bottom end, it is very easy to slap together a 10x flaring combo. At the high end there are obviously the elemental bows of many varieties. There are sighted bows but I haven't seen any dedicated research to prove effectivness versus cost in years. I'd stick with a cheap and easy route(4x bow and 4x arrows) until you figure out whether you can deal with arrow management then decide to blow a chunk on any nicer bows.

[Izzy]

Need race and stats. If you can have a high dex bonus, then go with the longbow, if you are a halfling go with a shortbow. Anything in between is a composite. You should be able to fire in 3 sec with your bow, 1 with haste.

Dex has nothing to do with bow choice. Strength is what affects Rt. Every 10 str bonus = -1 second. Longbow is base 7, so you need +40 str bonus to get a 3 second rt, unaimed. Hiding/aiming add one second each. 509 and 606 both help (allowing you +25 between the two).

[Loyrl]

Hmm I was considering ranged also... keeping surge of strength up and having a 51 str bonus would be best for a longbow.

What good are wand loading bows? Just to have different flares depending on the type of wand? Are there certain type of cmans best for ranged use? Warrior Cmans. When going ranged, do most people do brawling also? Or is it just for preference in case you get disarmed?

[Kitsun]

Wand loading bows burn the arrows, so in order for them to be "good" you'd be burning out fletched faewood arrows or something. Not exactly an efficient use of resources.

CMANs aren't necessary with ranged. My rogue has gone up post cap without ever bothering with it.

My rogue's CMANs, most of which I picked up post-cap. I only had some Wspec on bolts for AS, both mobility ranks and a little Surge from Black Forest to OTF.

Disarm Weapon disarm 5
Sweep sweep 5
Specialization I wspec1 1
Specialization II wspec2 5
Coup de Grace coupdegrace 3
Combat Mobility mobility 2
Surge of Strength surge 2

Brawling training is a relic of the past when the bow didn't provide its own DS. Rangers train in brawling for the archery to compliment voln fu.

[kookiegod]

Yah, in general, unless you got a speed crossbow or an elemental crossbow, avoid them OTHER that this caveat...

Keep 10 bolts and one cocked heavy crossbow in a container and a macro to grab and fire it if your kneeling or prone, might save your life.

However, I'm hoping with the ranged review crossbows be a lot more useful, and spring is rapidly coming to an end , so hopefully, soon.

Other than that, yah, get some decent macros and scripts, best enchanted bow you can get, ebladed/blessed arrows, and have some fun.

~Paul

[Jaimaltz]

Yah, in general, unless you got a speed crossbow or an elemental crossbow, avoid them OTHER that this caveat...

Keep 10 bolts and one cocked heavy crossbow in a container and a macro to grab and fire it if your kneeling or prone, might save your life.

However, I'm hoping with the ranged review crossbows be a lot more useful, and spring is rapidly coming to an end , so hopefully, soon.

Other than that, yah, get some decent macros and scripts, best enchanted bow you can get, ebladed/blessed arrows, and have some fun.

~Paul

That's a waste of 15 lbs of encumbrance. Blue crystal if you really need to one shot something.

[kookiegod]

That's a waste of 15 lbs of encumbrance. Blue crystal if you really need to one shot something.

I do it on my archers and i'm using ebows, sometimes you just need a quick heavy shot...

<shrug>

Its worked well for me.

~Paul

[Donquix]

sometimes you just need a quick heavy shot...l

That's what she said?

(couldn't resist)