Deadly shot vs Take Aim

A well-leveled deadly will outdo Take Aim almost all the time pre-89.

As for the rank 4 top, if you have the coin to afford it at that level or feel like farming the rep, go for it. If not then it can wait. It does help your DPS a good bit, especially if you also have bracers of blood moon, but it's not a must have thing and you can survive fine without it.

Even in theory, you don't need a +10 weapon, boogie.

Asterelle - Sanctuary wrote: »

Demon take aim is +400% weapon attack.
Lvl 10 deadly shot is 100% of weapon damage plus 4986.6.

When your level + average weapon damage + garnet shards in your weap + damage from your rings is > 1662, demon take aim is better on the average.

For sage take aim the break even point is at 1246 weapon attack.

Demon cross over point is roughly a +5 tt90 xbow. Sage is roughly a +4 tt90 or a +7 tt80. If you don't have those go for lvl 10 deadly.

Legerity - Sanctuary wrote: »

Here's the numbers if you are interested.

Level	TA	DS	TA %	DS %	DS_c	TA=DS
49	10	1	300	55	2235.3	912.4
53	10	2	300	60	2494.6	1039.4
57	10	3	300	65	2765.5	1176.8
61	10	4	300	70	3048.0	1325.2
65	10	5	300	75	3342.1	1485.4
69	10	6	300	80	3647.8	1658.1
73	10	7	300	85	3965.1	1844.2
77	10	8	300	90	4294.0	2044.8
81	10	9	300	95	4634.5	2260.7
85	10	10	300	100	4986.6	2493.3

89	d 11	10	400	100	4986.6	1662.2
89	s 11	10	500	100	4986.6	1246.7

99	d 11	s 11	400	100	5800.0	1933.3
99	d 11	d 11	400	100	6300.0	2100.0

99	s 11	s 11	500	100	5800.0	1450.0
99	s 11	d 11	500	100	6300.0	1575.0

Last column shows when Take Aim is the same as DS on average. This value is your average weapon damage.

Deadly shot has a longer casting time then Instant Take Aim + Quick Shot

Instant take aim + quick shot is faster.

But the whole purpose of a channeled skill is to bypass charm with a crit.

Teppeii - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Demon Take Aim's casting time is reduced to 2.5 seconds, though

And Take Aim's damage is %based while Deadly Shot's is not. So Take Aim really shines when you get better gear, and is much better than Deadly Shot at 90+

Deadly Shot takes way too much mana to justify use anyhow.

As a demon Archer with both demon skills, you'd need a +10 HS (average weapon attack ~2100) to have take aim do similar damage as DS (again; on average), although yes TA is slightly faster. The purpose of DS really is as Quilue mentionted and that is to bypass charms. If you're looking for dps, DS is definitely not the way to go.

Also, as you're leveling at a moderate pace, TA will pretty much never outshine DS (exception is around 90-98. As soon as you hit 99 and learn DS, it's hard to compete). The only reason why there use to be so much talk about it was because leveling wasn't as easy, which meant a lack of spirit and in turn lead to careful picking of skills (spirit and coin limitations) during your Archer career. Having said that, TA acts as a "poor man's" substitute. It's void if you can level fast enough and max DS, especially if you end up learning d11 DS.

edit: Sage of course, is a different story. Here's an attached graph that may help.