Raid Roach vs. Henchman's vs. Sentinel archer gear: a comparison

[Moogerfooger]

Archer Equipment comparison
A couple of us were wondering which of the upper level 50 and 55 archer gear was “the best”. Since there are a lot of combinations of helmets, bows and armor that had very different scores for damage, armor, and health regen, etc, I decided to try and map out some of the combinations to see strengths and weaknesses. Thanks to Argothewicked for starting me thinking about it, and Physiologic for help with the concepts and ideas. If anyone sees an error, let me know and I will fix it

Some statements:

1. This is for a pure dex 55 bird.
2. This assumes you have level 6 Focus like any attack-driven bird should :P
3. EDIT: This does not factor in other archer skills, or buffs and debuffs from other party members; this is for hypothetical solo damage using Focus only. Buffs/debuffs/other skills would be nigh on impossible to figure out and would take a whole lot of time and effort to figure out.
4. EDIT: This does NOT take enemy armor into effect. That would also take forever to test.
5. I did all of these stats with a vanity item for +1 armor, so subtract 1 armor if you like for pure stats.
6. This is over a 5 minute period and assumes that you hit Focus right at the start of the 5 mins, and re-cast it at soon as it cools down/recharges the entire time.
7. I crafted my Raid Roach Recurve into the Customized Gemstone Recurve. It was worth giving up a little damage for some heath regen, plus I just wanted to do it after all that running around doing Daily Quests. This was a personal choice of mine; not saying it is the way to go. Until there is a crafted set bonus (or IF), I will not be crafting the Raid Roach cap or leather.
8. There are no rings in any of these scores. Choice of ring can boost some of the stats however you want.
9. Crit scores are in decimal format. Example, 25 crit is figured as 0.25
10. This is only for the lvl 55 Raid Roach gear minus the RR Talon/Shield, the lvl 55 Henchman’s (blue/epic gear) and the lvl 50 Sentinel Shotgun and Talon Sets.
11. The stats below are valid and have been checked. I have a lot of the data columns hidden because the spreadsheet got way bigger than expected, but I included the ones I thought people would want to see.

Speaking of #5, I do not have the numbers for the regular Raid Roach Recurve because I thought of doing this after I crafted mine. So until I get my hands on one, it would be about the same as the Customized Gemstone Recurve with a little bit more average damage per hit, less health regen and 2 less dex.

I don’t have the 55 pink talon set, but the pattern would be about the same as the pink and purple bows.

There are way too many combinations of orange and green lvl 55 gear to include in this. Some of the green and orange equipment has pretty decent stats themselves.

If you want to see the full version, go here : Link to full spreadsheet







Results…in a Nutshell.

The right-hand green column is the hypothetical total damage you could do in 5 minutes, while using Focus.

EDIT (BECAUSE ROYCE IS SMARTER THAN ME): Again, this does not take enemy armor into effect, since there is not a way to do this easily. You can't compare a Talon Set against a Bow set directly because the fact that a 150 dmg hit from a Talon will not have as much effect as a 240 dmg hit from a bow on an enemy with (making this up) 100 armor....but maybe this will help you choose which bow setup, shotgun setup or Talon setup which is best for your style

The Raid Roach Leather/Customized Recurve/Raid Roach Cap has the highest overall damage due to its outrageous Crit; it has crummy armor and dodge, so pot usage will be higher.

The Raid Roach Cap and Leather with the purple Henchman’s Talon/ Shield has the highest overall Talon set damage, plus has decent armor. If you can deal with the crummy dodge and regen, is probably the "best" talon set.

Out of the Sentinel Talon/Wing combos, using it with the Raid Roach Cap and Leather had highest damage; the pure Sentinel Talon set has great armor and the dodge and health/mana regen is excellent.

Out of the Shotgun sets, the Raid Roach Leather and Cap had the highest damage.

The Henchman's bow set has decent damage and armor, but lower overall damage than the Raid Roach because the Crit for Henchman's gear sucks. However, it is way cheaper if you can deal with the bad health/mana regen.

Generally speaking:

Do not only look at DPS. DPS does NOT take Crit into account, and while using Focus as much as you can, Crit score seems to be actually more important than DPS.

The higher the damage output, the worse your armor, dodge and regen will be; this seems true for all Archer weapons

Using Rings will affect these stats, so see Physiologic’s post on rings about the possible best rings for Archers.

Talon Sets generally have lower damage than bows but have much better armor (most of us knew this) and shorter range than bows; this is the tradeoff for having better armor

Shotgun Sets have the worst damage, but better range than any other weapons.

The Raid Roach gear generally outperforms Henchman’s gear as far as damage goes due to its Crit scores (where Henchman’s is terrible), but the Henchman’s is way cheaper and has generally better armor.

The Henchman’s Talon/Wing sets do way more damage than the Sentinel versions, but the Sentinel Talon versions have much better dodge, health and mana regen. Armor for the two is roughly the same depending on which helmet and armor you use.

I am not trying to say one set or combination of gear is better than the others, or is "Teh Best". And again, this is hypothetical solo damage using Focus, just to see which sets "could" put out the most damage. I was just going crazy trying to figure out the best setup, and was curious if some of the gear’s “lower damage” was improved by having high Crit scores. And to see all the scores for everything in one place to help me decide what setups I wanted to try. That is all, hope this helps.

Edit: Added Sewer King Scarab data for use with various Raid and Sentinel gear; thanks to Drewcapu for the Scarab loan