Why Rangers Shouldn't Use Bows/Crossbows

[Gragorak]

Well... Quite simply... You're wrong. Dual wields and daggers do more damage than a bow in a given amount of time. Like grrims said above, for PvE you should use a dagger or dual wields.

Nope. It may look like that, because daggers/dual wields have higher attack speed =>higher DPS (dps shown in avatar page is just weapon damage divided by weapon speed. It doesn't take enemy armor into account).

Example (lvl 20 fox, 83 dex, 22 str, lvl 5 crafted armsman, 10 dmg ring):
(note: all weapon speeds are rounded to one decimal)

Bandit dual daggers (plat pack, best lvl 20 daggers): Damage 55-60, weapon speed 0.4s. DPS in avatar page is 150 ((55+60)/2/0.4, rounded down to first integer).
Lvl 20 momentarily forgotten bow: Damage: 117-162, weapon speed 0.9s. DPS in avatar page is 155 ((117+162)/2/0, rounded down to first integer).

So they seem to deal pretty same amount of damage in a unit of time, right? Well, against enemy with armor 25 (very easy basic enemy), the real damage dealt per secons is:

Dual daggers: 81.25 (((55+60)/2-25)/0.4).
Forgotten bow: 127.2 (((117+162)/2-25)/0.9).

Damage is more important than weapon speed (=DPS), because DPS doesn't take enemy's armor into account. Damage also increases skill damage. In higher levels there are better examples. End game dagger can have DPS ~700, while a weapon with DPS ~500 deals a lot more damage and has significantly higher skill damage. And basically, all dual wields suck. Daggers and talons can be good in some levels though.

Believing that DPS is more important than damage is pretty common misunderstanding for newer players.