Currently playing on a TLP server and prepping for Luclin and beyond when Ranger Bow dps improves. However, I am not sure which bow types are the best for DPS. Is a higher Damage/Delay (War Bow of Rallos Zek 43/45) or a Lower Dmg/Delay (Bow of the Destroyer 10/17) the best options? I assume disciplines like Trueshot on a shorter delay allows for more arrows in the timelimit, but not sure if it out paces a harder hitting but slower bow. Anyone with experience know what type I bows I should be aiming for with concern to dmg/delay for DPS?
Bows are a weapon like any other. Go by overall ratio. Take the arrow damage, add it to the bow damage, and then divide by the delay. It does not matter if the damage is from the arrow, from the bow, or later, from augs, one point of damage is one point of damage. Well, not elemental damage; that gets resisted in whole points. A 10+3 arrow adds 10, 11, 12, or 13 damage to the bow’s damage for that hit’s damage calculation, depending upon how much of the elemental damage got resisted. For simplicity’s sake ignore elemental damage when figuring out ratio unless the ratios would be very close.
Unless you are maxed out in "worn vengeance" (worn attack, now) I would think a Primal Velium Reinforced Bow is the only choice, regardless of ratio comparison until Planes of Power player made bows. The ratios take a large leap forward in PoP.
If you have bows similar ratio is it better to go with the quicker less damaging bow or the harder hitting, but slower bow? Especially when you factor trueshot into the mix. I assume the faster bow would allow you to get in more shots while under trueshot effect, but not sure if it would out damage the slower, harder hitting bow? I know bow of the destroyer used to be the clear choice since it used to allow more chances for headshot to proc, but with that not being the case not sure if bow of the destroyer is worth picking up.
A couple years ago (before TBL) I was headshotting in FM using my phlogiston bow. I decided to compare the faster uzi (bow of the destroyer) to it, to see if the increased speed meant much. I think I went from about 110 AA’s per Lesson with the raid bow, to about 100-105 with the uzi. I did this over a couple of Lessons (so several times given the reuse on Lesson) to get a good feel on how they compared. With the ratio difference between the two bows (about 243 23 vs 20 17 after factoring in augs but not the arrow) giving the raid bow that minor an edge ... I’d say that for your era, the BotD would be the best headshot bow for a while. For regular DPS however, go by ratio. Trueshot is a flat damage multiplier. It will (slightly) magnify any ratio advantage that one bow has over another. Just remember to factor in the arrow you are using; if the bows ratios are close with the higher damage, slower bow having a slightly higher base ratio, factoring in arrows (and augs, when available) could put the faster bow on top. That 10 17 Bow of the Destroyer, for example? If you are using the top crafted pre-Luclin arrow, that is acting as a 18 17 weapon due to the 8 damage arrow. If you are shooting 3 damage arrows from Tolan’s Darkwood Bracer, it is acting as a 13 17 weapon. Because faster bows are, well, faster, they get more benefit from higher damage arrows (as a percentage increase to their ratio) than slower bows. This, not Trueshot, is what can make faster bows more DPS, both when burning (when its most apparent) and when not burning.
People talk about ratio, but a 20/20 will have the same ratio as a 40/40. Trueshot is a 12% archery and 105%dmg increase for 2 minutes. So in those 2 minutes you can have more potential shots fired with a quicker bow than a slower bow. So given similar ratios I'm not sure if a quicker bow is better than a slower harder hitting one. Also, you mention quicker bow for headshotting. Headshot hasn't worked off a per arrow basis in a while and is like normal weapon procs of a per min basis and maintained by H-Dex. So, the main point of contention is if faster, but lower damage will out DPS one that fires less, but hits harder. The other thing I can see going for the quicker bow is more chances to hit. If you fire 2 arrows in the time the other takes to shoot 1,but the faster bow you get 2 chances to hit so a miss isn't as bad on a fast bow as it would be to a slower firing one.
You are mistaken. Procs ARE on a per combat round (the developers would call it a “swing”, with multiple attacks per swing, a more understandable way of putting it to me is calling it a round, with multiple swings). It is some tiny number (0.000XXX) multiplied by weapon delay, to generate the desired average Procs Per Minute (PPM) that people think of. That amount is then modified in some unknown way (its increased, but beyond that is not known as far as I know) by HDex and Dex, and certain AA’s. Headshot chances ARE per archery hit, to whatever you have targeted (so the old trick of Hail of Arrows hitting and Headshotting 8 targets in one cast does not work). They simply dramatically reduced the chances of it happening when they raised the damage and normalized the levels at which it works back in Veil of Alaris. It is not as likely as it used to be, but it is still possible to have all four of the four archery hits from a Focused line cast trigger Headshot (its unlikely enough to be functionally impossible, but it is still theoretically possible). In my anecdotal report, that was killing 100-110 AA’s of mobs in a half an hour. Each of those mobs took 2-4 Headshots (depending on the time between Headshots, meaning the amount of non-Headshot damage it took). So do not consider it to be some arbitrary PPM number. Depending on /con each of those mobs was worth a little over 2 AA points (due to Lesson) so 45-50 mobs in 30 minutes? 150ish Headshots in 30 minutes? As for Trueshot, it is a damage multiplier. If the hit would have been for 100 damage, it is now 205 damage. If the hit would have been for 200 damage, it is now 410 damage. It plays NO part in determining which bow is better, because it affects both bows the same way. While this is not how it works, if you want, simply multiply the archery attack’s weapon damage by 2.05 (100% + 105% = 205% = 2.05) to compare the different bows; you’ll find that the ratio order is not changed, the best ratio bow is still the best ratio bow, the second best is still the second best, and so on. I say its not how it works because the disc is not multiplying the weapon damage by 2.05, it is multiplying the actual damage done by that amount. But since the formula for damage is not going to change from one bow to the next (the bow and arrow and augs determine one of the numbers used in the formula, they do not change the formula itself) it is a reasonable approximation of how the disc will affect the damage from that bow. Missing on an arrow shot is like missing on a melee swing : it is going to happen, a certain percentage of the time. Accept it, ignore it, and move on. While a slower harder hitter is going to lose more damage from the miss, the faster, weaker weapon will miss more times in total, resulting in the same overall loss of damage. It is a non-factor.
Definitive and Comprehensive answer here Bows are different then other weapons in that they have NO damage bonus but are modified by Arrow damage. What this means is a Bow like the 10/17 Bow of the Destoryer actually has a sneaky good ratio 25/17 if you're using best available arrows. Just make sure to add the Arrow damage when calculating ratio All things being equal slower is better. You should be casting a decent number of spells and slower Bows lose less uptime while casting them. Your best Arrows available in those eras are https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/recipe.html?recipe=4281 and https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=12525 You can use them regardless of Deity restrictions. Elemental Damage works just like regular damage except it's checks vs the mobs Resistances instead of AC. Contrary to popular belief Elemental damage is often better then normal damage. Fire is typically the default best Elemental damage for raids and you should primarily be using the +fire damage arrows and make sure your Druids are using Ro's debuff line. You should be swapping out your fire Arrows for the+ Cold damage ones when bosses/mobs are resistant to fire like in Plane of Fire, BoT West ect. These things are actually a really big deal for your DPS The best Bows by era are as follow Velious #1 Primal #2 AOW Bow #3 BOTD Note: You can proc a Primal bow without attacking. Just turn on autofire without an arrow equipped. SOL #1 Bow of Flames #2 Bow of Shadows #3 Primal if you don't otherwise have worn ATK or a normal Avatar buff(Rangers should be #1 prior in Avatar/Fero buffs during SoL and PoP) #3b Seru Bow PoP #1 Time Bow #2 Featherwood Compound Bow #3 Primordial Compound Bow GoD(melee weapons pass bows for normal DPS but trueshot is still the disc of choice) #1 Bow of the Wispering Wind #2 Time bow OoW #1 Plaguebreeze Bows distance is checked center to center. Kick range is checked edge to edge. What this means is when mobs have really large hit boxes you can kick them while using a Bow. Growing and using large illusions will give you extra kick range and allow you to kick some Plane of Time bosses that you wouldn't otherwise be able to do. Finally Headshot is ruined for TLPs in that era and literally worse then healing/buff AAs now don't bother with it until TSS at the earliest. Edit: Oh and get a Fleeting quiver. Quivers give DELAY reduction equal to the 1/4 the weight reduction.
I vaguely remember trying the arrow swapping thing, but do not remember if it was really worthwhile. What I mainly remember about elemental damage was parses about the Longsword of Ethereal Energy, a 1hs with 5 Magic damage. Parses on that thing, against stuff that was not particularly Magic resistant, showed it averaging out to being 2.2 weapon damage, a little under half of the total elemental damage. Those parses also showed it was resisted as discrete chunks, whole points, suggesting that the weapon damage formula (like so much of EQ’s base math) was designed around integers. I did not, however, see any parses on the Fire or Cold elemental damage on the arrows.
If you were to use 11+4 Fire arrows and a Featherwood compound bow in Plane of Fire you would effectively be throwing away over 10% of your damage potential since most of the mobs are completely fire immune and take basic zero damage from the +4 fire. So you tell me is it worth losing 10% of your damage potential for hours to not click a button?
As I said, I vaguely remember it, but I was not one of those who spent ages exp’ing in PoFire, so ... did I remember to switch from the 11+4 to the 11+3? Long enough ago that that is not something I remember. I also never got my hands on the Featherwood ... I was sporting a Twisted Longbow until I got my BFT (or was that the other way around) and from there, Stonewood. 35+4 24 or 53+4 37 ... 1.45 vs 1.43 ratios (ignoring the elemental damage which as far as I knew, extrapolating from the LSoEE parse, did not amount to much overall on a consistent basis) even though it was slightly lower ratio I was happy with the Stonewood. As far as one button .. think again. In era there was no bandolier, so you had to actually go and open your bags, find the arrow, and equip it. Now, yes, there is the bandolier, and it would be silly to not use it.
