The Bow Bear. pew pew pew

[Splurd]

Introduction
OMG bow bear? Are you crazy?
Well, I cannot vouch for my sanity, but I assure you, the bow bear is an awesome build. Tired of running up to bosses and tanking, expecting your team mates to back you up, but they are too busy opening chests? Or better yet, that silly avian is taking the opportunity to chat up with the elf, and now you're getting your face pummeled in. Yeah, sometimes being a tank is just not a good life.

So, as we all know that bows are excellent for DPS. Their high attack speed results in a great DPS number. Also, requiring dex which improves crit rate also. So the best DPS weapons are bows. So lets make a bow bear! The key reason why a bow bear is so awesome is Rage, a skill which not only increases your crit rate, but also your damage. This really increases your damage output by a huge factor. The second reason why a bow bear is awesome is his survivability. Stomp has low cool down, ok damage, and excellent knock back, and even a chance to stun. Awesome. And Iron blood, gives you a HUGE boost in defense. Really. Huge. Like, omg huge. yeah. The only area where the bow bear loses very badly to the bow bird, is blast shot. Blast shot is an awesome skill, and can do massive amounts of damage in a instant, and AoE. bow bears dont have that ability, and no bear skill matches up to it. However, in terms of DPS and survivability, the bow bear is just as good, sometimes better then the bow bird.

Why play the Bow bear?
Highest DPS in the game with rage.
High defense with ironblood.
Higher Health pool.
Stomp > Avian scream. (more range, more knocback, stun is not 100% though. But its 10x better)
Mega Slash > Knockback arrow. (except it is a melee skill, and knockback arrow is ranged)

Why play the bow bird?
More kiting skills. Thorn root, thorn wall and knockback arrow, keeps the baddies away without going near them.
Near Unlimited mana with Meditation
Blast shot, Ranged AoE spell with very high damage.
Better Evasion skill

The Real reason why you should play a bow bear instead of a bow bird.
For the bear, they get to dress up as a heavy metal rock star. Awesome!
For the bird, they get to dress up like a missing member of a circus clown act. Grossome!



Skills
Now we talk about what awesome skills to get for this awesome build.

1. 5 stomp: Sometimes you get surrounded, and your introversion cannot take the claustrophobia any more. This is the skill for you. It tells everyone to GO AWAY. Cool down is excellent and you can potentially keep opponents at a distance permanently by just spamming it.
2. 5 rage: RAWR! BEAR ANGRY! BEAR SMASH! Gives added damage (omg more dps) and increases crit (OMG MORE DPS). Crit rate is lower then birds focus, but the +dmg makes up for it. Most important skill.
3. 4 super mega Hyper Ultra Godly Sexy manly slash. That is its real name. They shortened it because it wouldnt fit. I dub it the smHUGSms. Mmm bear hugs. Anyway, if anyone gets to close to you, you let this go into their face. Dont ask me how you slash with a bow and arrow. The bear is... manly. Dont question him. Or else he'll get angry, and well... see 2)
4. 5 Iron blood: Normally, changing your liquid blood into hardened iron provides fatal results, but the bear is manly, he can do it. Gives a huge armour boost. Blades, arrows, fireballs, and love struck elves all bounce harmlessly off his body.
5. 5 Evade: Now, I know Iron blood lets you withstand all those sharp stuff, but seriously sometimes, you dont WANT a monster attacking you. I mean, who knows where that blade has been. And zombies, UGH, its just gross! No. The bear has studied ninjitsu and can now dodge such nasty stuff.

Why slash at 4? because you dont really want to melee with monsters, and it has a high chance to miss due to you being too far away. heck, you can even change it for Beckon, which is another awesome skill (esp when used on elves to get them into our manly arms)

Stats
Stat wise, I have 3 builds. The difference is minor and really down to personal preference.
First= 11 str, 16 int, 999 dex. 11 str and 16 int to get 1 h/s and 1m/s. Helps in survival. 1m/s is important for spamming spells.
Second, 7 str 16 int 999 dex, 1h/s is not important, and with items like sniper bone tunic and sniper battle crossbow, you can get 4h/s already.
Third, 7 str 1 int 999 dex. This build is just pure dps. Highest dps but no regen at all, so heavily reliant on potions. You gain around 2-3 more dps with this build.
Fourth, 7 str 1 int 2 dex. dont add anything. Show off your real manliness by charging into monsters naked. Not for the faint of heart.

Firstly, 999 dex means, pour the rest into dex. duh. Anyway... Personally, I recommend the 2nd build. 1h/s is not worth it, not when you get 4h/s from equipment anyway at lvl 30. 1m/s however, is very useful. If you get 2m/s (from equipment etc) it allows for almost non stop stomp and range spam. BUT! if you are very determined to get high dps, just stick to build 3. Pure dex. Get 1m/s from items and a few pots and you wont notice the difference.

But getting a high DPS does not mean much. A mosnter has maybe 500 hp? you do around 70-80 dmg? Shooting him 7 times 80 damage, versus shooting him 7 times for 70 damage... no difference. That is why I dont mind sacrificing 1-2 dps for the regen.

Final result at lvl 30.
Items, I recomend
Burglar's Penguin Snowcap,(lvl 30) 1 dex, 1m/s 7 armour
Sniper's Battle Crossbow, 39-53 damage, 1.0 speed, 7Dex, 3% crit, 2h/s 2 armour
Sniper's Bone tunic, 7 dex 3% crit 2h/s 31 Armour

The sniper bow and armour is the best for dex characters now. And the Burglar snowcap gives 1m/s which allows for alot of stomping and raging and awesomeing.

For a clearer picture for what stats they'll end up with, see the following post where I compare my two bow characters.

Conclusion and on a serious note

As you can see, this build results in a high dps character with good defensive skills. The real problem about this build is that you dont have any AoE damage worth mentioning. But with your iron blood and evasion, it is fairly easy to solo bosses. Even the difficult ones like dead eye, sparkie.
Is this build BETTER then a bow archer? It depends on how you define better. It is defeintly better in terms of survability, thanks to iron blood and stomp knockback.
is it a better DPS char? IMO... no. This is because despite the stats saying high DPS, but its not so simple that number A is bigger then number B. This is simply because, Archers have Blast shot, which does massive amounts of damage, ANd it is AoE. The bow bear has... stomp?
But the bow bear does more attack dps then any other class, and has excellent survivability, which makes him more versatile and useful.
And if they ever ever nerf the bow bear, you can always respec to a normal tanking bear. (and get smacked in the face again while archers chat up elves in the distance)

And lastly, and very importantly, I'd like to thank Azrael for helping me get my Sniper Battle Crossbow. Yes, he is awesome for it. If you ever see him, give him a hug. (no, not the super mega hyper ultra godly sexy manly slash)