sling vs bow vs xbow

BareBear - Lost City · February 2013

Hey guys, I'm thoroughly confused.
I made a nv sling planning on going to 3rd with it, and then I was told , no, keep it 2nd and get soul concealment. At one point it had int+attack+def (+1 ) and so I rerolled a zillion times, eventually got to

Now my friends are saying #1 you should've made bow to begin with
#2 you should reroll to nv3
#3 you should've kept the int+attack.
the whole purpose for making the sling in the first place was to replace my R8

for NW.

I could REALLY use some solid advice... NORMALLY i'm not a pkr.
the reason for rubys
was

I had them already
anti-bm / barb
Lunar tomb/boss

opkossy · February 2013

Your current is fine. While a third cast Nirvana bow would be better damage and such, this weapon seems well suited for pissing people off via autos and that's more fun anyways.

Damage-wise, however, your bow will still do better for NW.

As for the gems, they're a waste compared to garnets but can be okayish as temporary shards. You're an archer and that means you have blazing arrow. So the rubies are gonna wind up less useful for you, even against the tombstones, than just using good garnets and keeping blazing up.

BareBear - Lost City · February 2013

I figured the rubys would stack with the fire buff

mogwai · February 2013

they do but garnets still better, i tested this by socketing a low lv bow & using it between a veno & an archer (both same lvl, stats), only archer had buff.

it was longggg ago so i cant remember the details but yea...

sling = solo PvE
bow = parties/PvP
Xbow = AoE parties/skill spammin PvP & an odd special build i've been working on & am not disclosing

oh god that was long ago, it wasn't a veno, was 2 archers & a fist weapon.
ok remembering more now..one archer lv9 i think & a copper fist,..
test 1 = copper fist only..kill mob, note damage.
test 2 = buff then equip fist..kill mob, note damage.
test 3 = buff then equip fist with ruby gem(s) in it..kill mob, note damage.
make sure you fight the same mob which does not have adjusted stats inc life, sac assault, etc.

at this stage the damage increase with each successive test should only be a point or two, with higher & higher lvls the test becomes more obscured because dex is like a pitchers spaghetti arm & throws wildly with every pitch.

opkossy · February 2013

Nah.

Rubies are a set damage independent of anything else. It's just a plain X fire damage that will then have to deal with being reduced further through defenses and the like.

Garnets on the other hand are a part of weapon attack and all the calculations those involve. So things like dex, buffs, sparking, and the like all boost how effective garnets are while elemental gems get nothing of the sort.

Blazing arrow itself, being based on weapon damage, is also similarly boosted from garnets.... and unless you have something completely immune to physical damage and are auto-attacking it (which is the worst thing to do when you have metal skills that can do the job better) garnets will basically always be more useful to you than even high-end elemental shards.

mogwai · February 2013

right, so it's not stacked damage, just added damage. but yea garnets is the way to go unless you want to get 5 of every weapon for only a slight advantage vs. every element type + garnets

i like playing avatar but not that much b:laugh

Azura - Lost City · February 2013

I think sling does more damage than 3rd cast bow or crossbow, if you get interval.

The reason is because the sling lets you fire a lot faster than a bow. If you get many interval gears, and then prok quickshot, you will be doing a lot of damage.

I always do nation wars, and I've fought archers with 3rd cast bow. They aren't a problem to me at all, because their bows shoot so slowly, and they can't debuff. However, like 2 weeks ago, a sling archer almost killed me (I have 19k hp unbuffed, and 9k defense in human form). I had to use bramble hood, and that barely saved my ***. I was really impressed, it was almost like a ranged sin.

Nry - Lost City · February 2013

Slingshot sucks. Blade archer ftw.

Cofari - Heavens Tear · February 2013

I always laugh at people who say slings or xbows suck. This is very much a play style thing. Xbows have the highest single-hit damage output capability. Period. Slings have the highest attack rate. Period. Bows are in between.

If you are a skill spammer in fights, Xbows will always out DD anything of same level/refine.

If you are a single skill, then auto attack person (or just auto-attack) slings will always out-DD anything else.

If you mix it up pretty evenly, then the bow is the way to go. Most people think they mix it up a lot more than they actually do. In reality, people tend to be either primarily skill spammers or auto-attackers.

Archers who say "slings suck and can't DD" are exactly like the old-school BMs who said Fist/Claws suck and can't DD. We all know how that thinking turned out.

Decus - Dreamweaver · February 2013

Cofari - Heavens Tear wrote: »

If you are a skill spammer in fights, Xbows will always out DD anything of same level/refine.

If you are a single skill, then auto attack person (or just auto-attack) slings will always out-DD anything else.

If you mix it up pretty evenly, then the bow is the way to go. Most people think they mix it up a lot more than they actually do. In reality, people tend to be either primarily skill spammers or auto-attackers.

I can't think of a single good archer that spams skills outside of trials.

Badazmofo - Dreamweaver · February 2013

As Decus said, only reason a archer should skill spam is in trials.. or if they are trying to mimimize their dps...

Slingshot fo life yo!!

Edit: and +1 on a nercro

opkossy · February 2013

Good thing the topic's only been around 4 days and can't be a necro then, isn't it?

Badazmofo - Dreamweaver · February 2013

Whoops lol, was just wakeing up and thought the OP was in 2012.... Should have had that coffee

Sint - Harshlands · February 2013

Cofari - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I always laugh at people who say slings or xbows suck. This is very much a play style thing. Xbows have the highest single-hit damage output capability. Period. Slings have the highest attack rate. Period. Bows are in between.

If you are a skill spammer in fights, Xbows will always out DD anything of same level/refine.

If you are a single skill, then auto attack person (or just auto-attack) slings will always out-DD anything else.

If you mix it up pretty evenly, then the bow is the way to go. Most people think they mix it up a lot more than they actually do. In reality, people tend to be either primarily skill spammers or auto-attackers.

Archers who say "slings suck and can't DD" are exactly like the old-school BMs who said Fist/Claws suck and can't DD. We all know how that thinking turned out.

In reality, you know a lot better than most people how everyone plays, and we should all ignore you for the sake of not becoming as **** as you are. And you're wrong on both counts.

Also, for old school BMs: I can't think of a single good bm who still uses fists for endgame pvp. I can't think of a single good bm who ever thought he should DD with fists in TW, either. I can't even think of a single good bm who didn't use axes in group pvp.

Bow is the way to go because the only r9 option is a bow, you imbecile.

Xbows, by the way, have a dmg range so **** you have no idea what you'll be hitting people for. To give you an idea, Stellar Vibration, unrefined, has a dmg range going from 1174 min to 2737 max. Anywhere below +7, you can expect low end crits to be worse than high end noncrits.

For slingshots, the argument against is mostly that they only really shine when you use aps gear. Unless you're planning on using APS gear, which was already a stupid idea when people weren't third cast, you'll cap at about 1aps, which is far from where interval starts paying off. You will, however, have thrown away any hopes of doing something with your DPH, which means your metal is no real threat to heavies, you'll seal yourself on every psy, and any third cast mage will watch you purify him repeatedly while laughing his *** off.

Decus - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I can't think of a single good archer that spams skills outside of trials.

That's why nobody cares what barbs say on this forum.

Badazmofo - Dreamweaver · February 2013

While some of what you said is true, aps does not cap out at 1 with a slingshot. Im currently 1.05 base quickshotting to 1.54 this is useing just basic aps gear (no interval cape) if you start adding into the equation unique peicies with interval like r8r with x2 interval on a peice it really takes off.

The new g16 gear also nullifies most of your argument about it not haveing the DPH, I do not even have a +10 on my weapon yet and i can already hit most HA for 10k+ crits. Perhaps the sling archers are doing it wrong on your server.

While the R9s3 bow is at this moment the best bow to use it is not the only viable option, Looking at things cost effectively for the cost to get R9 ring + the bow and then 3rd cast it you could already have a +10 maybe higher sling shot and begin working on your armors, rolling r8r so you can maintain interval while haveing boosted defences and more hp.

Cofari - Heavens Tear · February 2013

Sint, hate to say this, but you're either trolling or a moron. (actually I don't hate to say it)

"Bow is the way to go because the only r9 option is a bow, you imbecile."
Yeah, except that the thread was about sling vs bow vs xbow, meaning the OP was wondering about which was better for S3 Nirvy gear. Unless you're an imbecile and think that archers have a choice for R9 between the three. Now, before you say that everyone should go R9, not everyone can afford it. And the OP wants to know about non-R9 options. I know, it gets really confusing to keep in your little brain what the original post was about.

"Also, for old school BMs: I can't think of a single good bm who still uses fists for endgame pvp. I can't think of a single good bm who ever thought he should DD with fists in TW, either. I can't even think of a single good bm who didn't use axes in group pvp."
Archers are not BMs. If you want to rush into groups and kill, reroll your toon. They are own from afar people, meaning that they will be doing a lot of single target attacks. If your response to this is that they are going to barrage, you just made the case for the xbow. And high spike damage is extremely helpful with barrage, it's why BMs like Sacrificial Strike

"Xbows, by the way, have a dmg range so **** you have no idea what you'll be hitting people for. To give you an idea, Stellar Vibration, unrefined, has a dmg range going from 1174 min to 2737 max. Anywhere below +7, you can expect low end crits to be worse than high end noncrits. "
Bow 1300-2400
Sling 1400-2100
If you truly believed what you were saying you'd be arguing for the slingshot then. Unless you're an idiot that doesnt' understand what applies for Xbow to Bow also applies for bow to sling. Most consistant damage is the sling. Highest top-end damage is the xbow. Gee, sounds like what I said originally. BTW, the thing about low end crits being the same as top-end non-crits would also be true for bows, if it were true. You forgot that you have rings, arrows, and other items that also add to your physical attack reducing the % gap between the low end and high end.

"For slingshots, the argument against is mostly that they only really shine when you use aps gear. Unless blah blah blah"
No, foolish people like you only see the difference when you hit 2-3 APS. Smart people know that hitting .85 per second vs. the 1.54 per second referenced above is an incease in damage of more than 50%. So unless you think the bow does 50% more damage than the sling, your argument loses.

Decus - Dreamweaver · February 2013

Cofari - Heavens Tear wrote: »

You forgot that you have rings, arrows, and other items that also add to your physical attack reducing the % gap between the low end and high end.

You seem to have forgotten that those do not reduce any "gap" at all, as they are modifiers to any damage you do. The low end will still be the same distance away from the high end. The only thing you can do to alter the "gap" is to have adds with +maximum phys. attack which just widen the "gap."

Cofari - Heavens Tear · February 2013

BTW low end damage drop of xbow vs bow is 9.7% reduction in damage (1300-1174)/1300
top end damage increase of xbow vs bow is 12.3% increase in damage (2737-2400)/2737

Even from a pure math perspective the loss in damage from low end hits from xbow vs. bow is less than the gain in damage of the same comparison.

As for skill spamming. Archers do it a lot in PK. Up against a HA toon archers spam their metal skills, at least non-fail archers do. Up against groups they spam AOEs or Barrage, both considered skill spamming. I'm not saying it's smarter or worse than auto attacking. Just pointing out that they do.

Cofari - Heavens Tear · February 2013

Decus - Dreamweaver wrote: »

You seem to have forgotten that those do not reduce any "gap" at all, as they are modifiers to any damage you do. The low end will still be the same distance away from the high end. The only thing you can do to alter the "gap" is to have adds with +maximum phys. attack which just widen the "gap."

You are correct, the damage gap is the same, but the % of the gap reduces. Going from doing 10 damage to doing 20 damage is HUGE in the game when you're low level, a 50% difference between the high and low end. Going from 15,000 to 15,010 means there is no difference in the damage output. ...ok...let's do some math.

Damage range of 1300 - 2400 is a gap of 45.8% between the high end and low end. (2400-1300)/2400

Add in only rings +300 and arrows +100 attack, brings weapon damage range to:
1700 - 2800 with a gap of 39.2% between the low end and high end (2800-1700)/2800

Non max phys attack adds add the same to both the high end and the low end of your weapon attack. As the % in the gap decreases, the downside of low end damage vs high end damage decreases (as shown above with the extreme example of 10 base damage verses 15,000 base damage.

sling vs bow vs xbow

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