F
Falcon
Guest
Well, I decided to use my respec last night, the one left over from when GOA screwed up respecs. I now have the following:
39 Blades
36 Pathfinding
35 Celtic Dual
33 Stealth
27 Recurve Bow
When I respecced, I did a couple of tests, the lowest bow can go to is 12, it automatically specs it this high for you so was unfortunately unable to test lower, however, the crit shot cap at 12 bow spec, with +4 RR, +5 on bow thus 21 recurve is 905. I know also that with 47 recurve including items your crit shot is 1002. This means that roughly, for every point in bow you gain an extra 3.7dmg. This also fits in that at 71 recurve (I always thought 70 was max you could get with RR and items, but keep seeing otherwise) you'd crit for around 1090dmg, which seems in line with most people's claims. This also kind of points to the idea that if you could have 0 recurve bow, at lvl50 you could crit for about 827dmg. Which leads me onto the next paragraph.
Most people are under the very false impression that bow scales from 1dmg to 1090dmg or whatever, this is clearly not the case, bow in fact appears to scale from 827dmg to 1090dmg (1090 - 827, divided by 71 the highest spec possible does indeed give 3.7 backing up my previous theory somewhat. Also note at 27 bow spec +9 I get a 961 crit shot, this again pretty much falls in line with the 3.7dmg per point theory). Now that I've proven the point of bows highest and lowest damage, and what you get for each spec I'll move onto the arguments against leaving bow low with my counter-arguments as to why I feel the arguments aren't particularly valid:
Argument 1: Ok so there's not a lot of damage difference Xest, but without high bow spec you'll suffer massive variance!
Reply: Although this is often claimed by many, I originally had 50 recurve bow dropping to 37, when I did so I really noticed no difference in variance at all, the same so far seems to be the case with my 27 spec, although nowhere near as well tested as I only changed yesterday lunch time. Also some facts, at 37 spec my damage cap was 1002. I can remember capping at 1002dmg on: A level 49 cleric with thrust arrows. A lvl45 minstrel with Thrust arrows. Tons and tons of lvl50 mages in epic. Various lvl50 scouts. One keep seige I crit for 1002 on 13 out of 14 successful crit shots on mages. So then, why do I think variance hasn't seemed to have been an issue? The answer?, dexterity. Dex is rediculously easy to get, I have +75 on my armour - you get overcapped in dex on your epic, your PF buffs give you a load and I also have aug dex 2 from MoP. I beleive my dex, with only self buffs, no external buffs is something like 298 (300 is where it stops doing anything). Now I wont pretend to be an expert on the whole variance thing and how it's effected by stats, but from what I know and have learned this seems to be the only explanation I can think of, providing of course the common idea of variance even really exists in the form people beleive, for bow at least. EDIT: Oh, almost forgot, bow quality probably plays a large part in this alongside the dex. The test used a 16.5dps 99% quality heavy recurve bow as did all the above crit shot claims I made
Argument 2: You'll miss more with low bow!
Reply: Totally invalid, bow spec has no effect on miss, fumble or anything of the sort.
Argument 3: You'll shoot slower!
Reply: Again, totally invalid, bar the exception in the paragraph below about crit shot. Bow spec has no bearing on fire speed.
Argument 4: I don't like you Xest, so your test is completely wrong.
Reply: Kindly FOAD.
Okay so the question some of you will be asking is, "Xest, you have told us speccing bow doesn't seem worth it, so why did you even spec past 12?", the answer is simple, and many know it already, but at 27 spec you get the last crit shot ability, this lets you get your crits off faster, for reference at 12 bow my crits took 7s, at 27 they take 4s.
So for my conclusion, I personally don't feel spending ALL those extra spec points in bow to take it higher is in the slightest bit worth it. The gains you can get in melee (I'll have 50 blades, 50 celtic dual and a 7dps damage add from pathfinding with my spec, RR and items) far outway the minimal bow damage gain. As a side note I can outmelee any Mid/Alb class bar zerkers with a large degree of success.
Okay, well I've presented a couple of arguments, facts, opinions, I'm sure there are many more, which is what I hope this thread will provoke, to find out if there really are any major disadvantages to low bow. I know also many tests of this sort have been done before, but these were done without being arsed to read any previous ones, so hopefully will provide unbiased results and an unbiased viewpoint. Yes I also know this is something some people have known for a long time already but I don't care, if they have then they should be happy with the fact I've provided more data to back them up.
Also, I know I've concentrated on crit shot here, but some people only use crit shot as I do. The theory holds the same for normal shots, simply divide the crit shot damage by 2. Please note resists and absorb and so on will effect all the figures listed here as usual, but this should give you an idea of what to expect.
Now very finally, what experiment would be complete without formulae! So here they are:
Approximate ranger crit shot damage = 827 + (Bow skill x 3.7)
Approximate ranger normal shot damage = (827 + (Bow skill x 3.7)) / 2
Thank you for reading Xest's theory of bowitivity.
39 Blades
36 Pathfinding
35 Celtic Dual
33 Stealth
27 Recurve Bow
When I respecced, I did a couple of tests, the lowest bow can go to is 12, it automatically specs it this high for you so was unfortunately unable to test lower, however, the crit shot cap at 12 bow spec, with +4 RR, +5 on bow thus 21 recurve is 905. I know also that with 47 recurve including items your crit shot is 1002. This means that roughly, for every point in bow you gain an extra 3.7dmg. This also fits in that at 71 recurve (I always thought 70 was max you could get with RR and items, but keep seeing otherwise) you'd crit for around 1090dmg, which seems in line with most people's claims. This also kind of points to the idea that if you could have 0 recurve bow, at lvl50 you could crit for about 827dmg. Which leads me onto the next paragraph.
Most people are under the very false impression that bow scales from 1dmg to 1090dmg or whatever, this is clearly not the case, bow in fact appears to scale from 827dmg to 1090dmg (1090 - 827, divided by 71 the highest spec possible does indeed give 3.7 backing up my previous theory somewhat. Also note at 27 bow spec +9 I get a 961 crit shot, this again pretty much falls in line with the 3.7dmg per point theory). Now that I've proven the point of bows highest and lowest damage, and what you get for each spec I'll move onto the arguments against leaving bow low with my counter-arguments as to why I feel the arguments aren't particularly valid:
Argument 1: Ok so there's not a lot of damage difference Xest, but without high bow spec you'll suffer massive variance!
Reply: Although this is often claimed by many, I originally had 50 recurve bow dropping to 37, when I did so I really noticed no difference in variance at all, the same so far seems to be the case with my 27 spec, although nowhere near as well tested as I only changed yesterday lunch time. Also some facts, at 37 spec my damage cap was 1002. I can remember capping at 1002dmg on: A level 49 cleric with thrust arrows. A lvl45 minstrel with Thrust arrows. Tons and tons of lvl50 mages in epic. Various lvl50 scouts. One keep seige I crit for 1002 on 13 out of 14 successful crit shots on mages. So then, why do I think variance hasn't seemed to have been an issue? The answer?, dexterity. Dex is rediculously easy to get, I have +75 on my armour - you get overcapped in dex on your epic, your PF buffs give you a load and I also have aug dex 2 from MoP. I beleive my dex, with only self buffs, no external buffs is something like 298 (300 is where it stops doing anything). Now I wont pretend to be an expert on the whole variance thing and how it's effected by stats, but from what I know and have learned this seems to be the only explanation I can think of, providing of course the common idea of variance even really exists in the form people beleive, for bow at least. EDIT: Oh, almost forgot, bow quality probably plays a large part in this alongside the dex. The test used a 16.5dps 99% quality heavy recurve bow as did all the above crit shot claims I made
Argument 2: You'll miss more with low bow!
Reply: Totally invalid, bow spec has no effect on miss, fumble or anything of the sort.
Argument 3: You'll shoot slower!
Reply: Again, totally invalid, bar the exception in the paragraph below about crit shot. Bow spec has no bearing on fire speed.
Argument 4: I don't like you Xest, so your test is completely wrong.
Reply: Kindly FOAD.
Okay so the question some of you will be asking is, "Xest, you have told us speccing bow doesn't seem worth it, so why did you even spec past 12?", the answer is simple, and many know it already, but at 27 spec you get the last crit shot ability, this lets you get your crits off faster, for reference at 12 bow my crits took 7s, at 27 they take 4s.
So for my conclusion, I personally don't feel spending ALL those extra spec points in bow to take it higher is in the slightest bit worth it. The gains you can get in melee (I'll have 50 blades, 50 celtic dual and a 7dps damage add from pathfinding with my spec, RR and items) far outway the minimal bow damage gain. As a side note I can outmelee any Mid/Alb class bar zerkers with a large degree of success.
Okay, well I've presented a couple of arguments, facts, opinions, I'm sure there are many more, which is what I hope this thread will provoke, to find out if there really are any major disadvantages to low bow. I know also many tests of this sort have been done before, but these were done without being arsed to read any previous ones, so hopefully will provide unbiased results and an unbiased viewpoint. Yes I also know this is something some people have known for a long time already but I don't care, if they have then they should be happy with the fact I've provided more data to back them up.
Also, I know I've concentrated on crit shot here, but some people only use crit shot as I do. The theory holds the same for normal shots, simply divide the crit shot damage by 2. Please note resists and absorb and so on will effect all the figures listed here as usual, but this should give you an idea of what to expect.
Now very finally, what experiment would be complete without formulae! So here they are:
Approximate ranger crit shot damage = 827 + (Bow skill x 3.7)
Approximate ranger normal shot damage = (827 + (Bow skill x 3.7)) / 2
Thank you for reading Xest's theory of bowitivity.
