Better Bows

[Vael]

I absolutely love using a bow, and was very excited when they came out. But I was very disappointed to find that they can't compare to swords. I find that they can definitely stand up to swords if you spec right, but you have to use mostly skills and not your default attack the majority of the time, and if you don't spec at least 30 points into mana you go through a ton of mana potions. Though currently bows do less DPS but more regular damage. Now I could be wrong, but I believe that DPS is your weapon damage ONLY, and bonus dmg% and the other regular dmg attribute govern your skill damage. I find that I do much higher skill damage with bows than swords, but not enough to permanently use a bow as I would like to.

[Vael]

Edit: Currently bows do less DPS, but do more regular damage [[THAN MOST SWORDS NOT ALL]] please don't troll me if I'm wrong on some aspects.

[Royce]

I think that's just the way bow (and guns for sorc) are meant to be. You sacrifice high DPS for higher damage and longer range. Keep in mind also that the current bows are plat pack items, which are never the best of the best. If you want to see how bows will compare in general to daggers, compare them to the steel commando blades (plat pack daggers). When they add dropped bows to the game, I'm sure they will be on par with the elite daggers, not equal in DPS maybe, but if they had the same DPS, why would anyone use daggers?

Just to clarify damage stats:
Bonus damage: Ignore it. It gets factored into damage and is a superfluous stat.
Damage: this is your pure damage, the amount your weapon does per attack, and what your skill damage is based off of
DPS: your damage multiplied by your weapon speed, or about how much damage your weapon would do alone per second if attacking constantly, not including crits.

[Vael]

Ok so I was correct in my theory about the difference between damage and DPS. Thank you very much for clarifying that for me. And I understand that you sacrifice DPS for higher damage and range, which I love. But I didn't take into account that plat items aren't the best.

I will be patient and wait for new bows ^_^

[Samhayne]

Thanks Royce, that's great feedback for Vael :)

[CosmoxKramer]

Here is a long description on the calculations
http://www.spacetimestudios.com/showthread.php?81840-confuuuuussssiinnggggf