Guns Vs Bows

The thing is, that difference in fstr is actually kinda important on stuff like colis at least. You don't need 136 str to beat it since for a little area above 111, ebow would still get fstr bonuses that gun wouldn't and bow can actually pull higher fairly quickly there.

Ok, not going to try to re-explain the last couple of pages of how your 'math' is completely and utterly wrong as you still can't seem to grasp that ranged delay is broken into three parts. Your "DPS" is way off.


But it doesn't really matter since comparing ebow to HF is now like comparing Hagun to a Cermet lance.


Zerg Situation (i.e. Dynamis Lord): Culverin and Cannon Shells. Slug, wing, slug, barrage, EES, slug. No comparison.


EP-IT mobs (nyzul isle, merits, etc): Dragonmaw. 30%+ more damage than HF over time. Even if Ebow was marginally better than HF (it isn't) it gets dusted here.

Large raids (i.e. dynamis): Acid bolts. One acid bolt and your alliance just did more damage in 1 second than you could do with ebow.

Kraken: Gun wins easily.


That's....every situation in the game. Archery just has no place unless you can stand safely at 10' but not at 6'. Peace.

Well if I'm mistaken about how the delay works, correct me. Because from what I can see, Delay = (Weapon Delay/110)s + 1.7s~1.8s + 1.1s and that's exactly the calculation I used in my math.

It's what wiki says

Wow... this blew the *** up, a lot more then I expected, but I should have known.

I would like to thank Haxorking, Barber, and Aeyela and everyone else for their insight on this.

So from what I have gathered, use Gun or Bow, have all your ***capped, they all have their use. But if you want excel, stfu and get a Gun.

In that case, would HF(NQ)+Silver Bullets be ok, till I get HF+1? I assume that since no one mentioned Coffinmaker that I should stay away?

I'll look into getting the Evolith for Ratk. If anyone has some tips for that, that would be awesome if you would share.

NQ is fine until you can find/afford a hellfire+1
Sabotender Bailarina drops that evolith

The only thing I neglected was that your WS hit will generate tp as well. Before I continue, I should say again, I am not arguing that bow > gun. I know HK is better then ebow in general. My point is that there are times that ebow is better, even if the conditions are ridiculous to make it happen. So this time I'll expand the math and you point out what's wrong with it.

Delay = (Weapon Delay/110)s + 1.7s~1.8s + 1.1s

Now to add 5% rapid shot job trait, 5% snapshot merits, and 15% delay reduction from velocity shot. (Note: I know snapshot and rapid shot act differently, but over time they're really the same thing)

Delay = (Weapon Delay/110*0.75)s + 1.7s~1.8s + 1.1s

Therefor

Ebow = (490/110*0.75)s + 1.7s~1.8s + 1.1s
= 6.14~6.24s

Average = (6.14+6.24)/2 = 6.19s

HF+1 = (640/110*0.75) + 1.7~1.8S + 1.1S
= 7.16~7.26s

Average = (7.16+7.26)/2 = 7.21s

Now, for the damage ratings I mentioned earlier...
They were calculated by entering the gear, conditions, and base stats I mentioned into my earlier post, and using EXACTLY the same stats for both slug shot and sidewinder but changing the weapon and ammo damage for the respective weapons. The totals were this.

Archery DMG:
Normal - 363.75 to 371.25 = 367.5 AVG
WS - 2306 to 2352 = 2329 AVG

Marksmanship DMG:
Normal - 393 - 401 = 397 AVG
WS - 2252 - 2297 = 2274.5 AVG

Don't like the look of these totals? Well sucks to be you, download quattro pro and grab a copy of the spreadsheet and enter the information yourselves.

Now with the particular setup I mentioned earlier, Gun is 5 hit tp, bow is 6 hit tp. But because you get tp from weaponskills... Gun would only need to fire off 4 hits to get 100% tp, and bow would only need 5.

Therefor, the total time it would take would look like this.

Ebow:

(Ratk Delay)+(Ratk Delay)+(Ratk Delay)+(Ratk Delay)+(Ratk Delay)+(weaponskill delay)

Or to simplify 5(Ratk Delay)+(weaponskill delay)

HF+1:

(Ratk Delay)+(Ratk Delay)+(Ratk Delay)+(Ratk Delay)+(weaponskill delay)

Or to simplify 4(Ratk Delay)+(weaponskill delay)

Now with ranged weaponskills, you can start firing another normal shot partway through the weaponskill, the delay of the weaponskill is only 1 second

Therefor...

The total delays for each weapons cycle is

Ebow:

5(Ratk Delay)+(weaponskill delay)

= 5(6.19)+ 1

= 31.95 seconds

HF+1:

4(Ratk Delay)+(weaponskill delay)

= 4(7.21)+1

= 29.84 seconds

Now, for the damage per cycle

Ebow:

(Attack dmg)+ (Attack dmg) + (Attack dmg) + (Attack dmg) + (Attack dmg) + (WS dmg)

= 5(Attack dmg) + (WS dmg)

= 5(367.5)+2329

= 4166.5 dmg per cycle

HF+1

(Attack dmg)+ (Attack dmg) + (Attack dmg) + (Attack dmg) + (WS dmg)

= 4(attack dmg) + ws dmg

= 4(397) + 2274.5

= 3862.5 dmg per cycle

Now, dps is damage over time. In other words, how fast you do dmg.

Ebow:

4166.5 dmg / 31.95 seconds

= 130.407 DPS

HF+1:

3862.5 dmg / 29.84 seconds

= 129.440 DPS

Last time I checked 130.407 > 129.440

Now, to further explain on this. This is NOT saying Ebow > HF+1. It's simply saying that if you wear certain gear under certain conditions.

What this means is there are situations that are physically possible (even if they're impractical and highly unlikely) that ebow can beat hf+1

I don't mind being wrong, but you can't just say "Your math is incorrect", you have to point out exactly what is incorrect about it.

The Cobra gear was a joke but please i shouldn't have to explain sarcasm to you.

Why don't you point out something specific with what is wrong with my gear sets since you seem to be the expert on Ranger. Too bad you don't have a relic and don't know what its like but you can live vicariously through my screenshots and the stories of other relic owners.

I know I'm not the best ranger and I am always looking to improve myself so please constructive criticism is appreciated by anyone who plays Ranger.

Skadi hands would be a good improvement lath, you might also get a little more bang out of wilhelms/altdorfs earrings on WS but you'd have to test that. Pahluwan, dessultor or hachiryu pants would be an improvement too

I'm not sure Laitha but it might be your wishlist set being /sam, you have enough store tp to be 5 hit without /sam. With /sam you only need 6 stp to have a 5 hit, without /sam you need 21.

Hey you need cobra gear to get a 4 hit!!! I think...


Oh yeah and good luck getting help with the evolith for that HF. So much lack of interest even among the people that want the 100% drop from the nm lol

In all honesty... Ebow and HF+1 are nothing compared to dragonmaw so that's what everyone should concern themselves with.

God this thread moved way too fast for me to keep up with it. There's also a lot of frankly false stuff going on in here so I'm going to play the part of Reali from ESPN's PTI and do your Errors and Omissions:

1) Hachiryu Haidate or Sune-ate alone give 0 Store TP, and the set bonus for equipping both together is 5, not 10.

2) Yes, STR is a mod for Sidewinder and is not for Slug Shot. This does not mean that Sidewinder has to be more damage than Slug Shot. fSTR2 is going to make a much more significant improvement in damage than WSC will any day of the week. The only instance where this is absolutely false is when fSTR2 is capped which should only really happen in some merit situations and on any lower level mobs than that. Also in most normal cases the higher damage on gun+bullet is enough to overcome the lost base damage suffered from the lack of a STR mod on Slug Shot (things like merited Firestorm, STR etudes, etc would start to tilt this in Bow's favor however).

3) Like Barber said, distance penalty is something people make too big a deal of. Does it matter? It would be a lie to say no. Is it the end of the world? No, not really. The penalty is designed in such a way that your accuracy and attack at point blank range is heavily affected, but not as badly affected when you're at a distance. The worst your attacks will get beyond the sweet spot is 12-14% less than normal. Also, this penalty is applied to pDIF and not to total damage, so it can potentially be overcome by buffs and job abilities like Berserk and Velocity Shot which improve ranged attack. The age-old adage "you're only as good as your support" is very relevant here.

4) To the person who challenged my point about ammunition, shame on you. You're basically defending everyone who uses gimp gear because they're too lazy or don't care enough to justify the additional cost of an upgrade or HQ. BLMs who only use normal quality staves and AF1 because they're trying to save a buck are going to pale in comparison to the BLMs who have every HQ staff and the best possible gear. This is a fact of the game, if you're still playing FFXI, you should accept this instead of making smart comments.

5) If DPS is the concern, then all of this is moot because the new occasionally attack twice weapons blow the old standards out of the water. Even though I won't Slug Shot as big as I will with an evo'd HF+1 in most situations, the DOT and WS frequency of my Dragonmaw will outperform it bar none without a doubt in any situation (excluding the use of multi-hit like KC for TP, and even then it's debatable).

6) As stated before, the more Snapshot+ you have the greater the advantage will be for a gun. This is because the delay reduction is greater overall when the delay is larger, and because 26-27% of the TP earned from firing a bullet comes from ammo vs. about 15% for bow+arrow. The same can be said about Velocity Shot, and Rapid Shot activations which I'm surprised no one has bothered to mention. So simply put, a RNG with no merits or access to Snapshot gear will see much better results with an Ebow than he will with a HF+1 because the disparity in the delay will be much larger than it would be for a decked out, 5/5 Snapshot/RapidShot merits/mirke/zha'go RNG. This is the biggest reason why some people believe that "gun is better for high-end RNG" even though they don't really know why they heard that.

7) @ Kvazz, thanks. :)

OK I'm done for now, I'll let you guys take a bite out of all that and check back some point later. Have fun.

@Laitha, for starters /NIN is a dead subjob for RNG. The only situations you should be /NIN for are those where you ABSOLUTELY MUST have Utsusemi to be successful. These situations very very rarely present themselves anymore. A Vulcan's Staff, Axe Grip, Hasso and Meditate will easily outperform any two-handed combination you can think of. Berserk is even better if you don't need the STP. Especially considering the fact that you have an Annihilator, you should be much less concerned about your total enmity and more about your damage over time and WS frequency.

The only times I'm ever /NIN are when I am doing low-man events or vs. things I know will kill me without /NIN. For example, if I'm in Limbus and know I will be basically tanking the Apollyon NE bird floor, then I'll sub NIN. Also, if you fight Sandworm, you know that Serket basically requires you to be /NIN or you risk getting Earth Pounder'd into oblivion.

Pretty much any other situation where you can stand out of range and come in for WS when the coast is clear, you should be able to sub WAR or SAM without any issues. If you take hate, either your tanks aren't doing their job, or you're not sufficiently aware of your total enmity.

The fact that Kriegsbiel still sells for anything is a sign of how many uneducated RNGs there still are.

That said, your /WAR set looks fine until you get more STP gear (I'm assuming you're macroing off Fenrir's Earring when it's not active) and I hate you for having Scout's Socks +1. :)

Yeah I wouldn't say my gear sets are entirly current. I tend to only go /nin to nyzul, Dynamis TAV, and sistuations where i need to run around and would rather have 2 inventory spots taken up with 99 sneak/invis.

As far as the whole Dragonmaw thing goes I don't think its a bad choice at all but I feel that it is not so much due to the cost of the silver bullets but mainly the availability of buying the silver bullets of the AH. I think the gun is cool and I might get it when my cor hits 75. So unless you got the hookup or the crafts leveled yourself I can see you being limited by ammunition availability. Granted I don't know how the situation is on your server but sometimes on cabry we can go a while without seeing a stack of silver bullet pouches (funny thing as i type this i see we have 4 stacks of silver bullet pouches for sale >.<) The dragonmaw thing may just make me get off my *** to level my alchemy to 60 so I can Nq stacks of silver bullets on my own time.

As far as what people have said about me getting those agi + 8 rng acc +1 rng atk+1 earrings, I just don't have the time currently to spend a week camping a nm with a crappy drop rate for a marginaly improvement in stats (since you can get +6 agi rather easy) I spend most of my time either doing my relic weapon trial, storyline completion, VNM, ACP 7 and Final battles, dynamis, leveling my gimp subs to 50 now, and helping ls mates. I haven't hadthe time to do half of what I wan to do so salvage and assualt items while maybe be the bomb diggity right now I don't have the time to spend on them atm. Honestly I hope AF3 eliminates the need for me to have to do salavage after spending 5 years in dynamis to get my relic (yes thats why I have like 4/5 AF2+1 items for rng).

Most of this RNG stuff is above my head, but one quick note.

Cobra Harness isn't crap if you are meleeing your TP. It the 3rd highest accuracy body that RNG can use (behind Skadi and SH+1) and the sTP is enough to drop at least 1 hit of your build.

Obviously situations where RNG can melee there TP is rare (KC RNG is pretty much it) but when they do, Cobra Harness is close to the best choice, and pretty easy to get.

But the rest of the set is rubbish as you need to be wearing Haste in those slots.

rng cant use SH+1 >.>
Hachiryu Haramaki, Skadi's Cuirie, then Cobra Harness.

iv seen numbers put up for the dragonmaw and they look pretty sweet but has anyone finished or seen the math for the OaT bow? my issue is, getting krabkatoa shells wont be to much of an issue but getting the valhandi eyes is kinda ***because "it doenst drop anything useful" also i have 8/8 archery merits so any opinions on the OaT > DMG80 > Vbow on the archery side of things?

Well spotted.

Only goes to prove my point even more:

PW drop vs Salvage body vs Campaign piece

(although a KC RNG should probably be working on Skadi body)

rng can also use avalon breastplate

-.-

Damn you for being right.

Any way, my point was Cobra Harness isn't a bad piece for a KC RNG (or any RNG meleeing TP).

yeah i just remember seeing one in WG looking hideous :p

Really?


shame on me? Smart comment? really? lmao look @ you now.. i am talking about a REAL COST per DMG and you pop your HQ staff and AFv1, wtf? Is like compare Apple with orrange, i think my first comparison was better: Mage using Vile/Vile+1 or not, bc if you really think about it is BOTH a REAL waste of gil. Wait a min, is actualy WRONG, bc MAGE going to do a real improvement using Vile/Vile+1 while RNG with GUN or BOW [with correct gear] wont see that much the difference. [outside the GIL...]

I still strongly belive my coment is decent for who reading, doubt ppl like waste all they gil for fun just bc the info is wrong.

but anyway let look back @ Original post:


If I want to "casual" play, camp NM, quests/missions, etc, should I just stick with Selene's, Scorp/Demon or can Gun be done on the cheap and still produce good numbers?

Now as Fairy.Haxorking say, and i totaly agree with him:

Gun is situational, is it worth for "casual" play?
IMO answer is NO.
can Gun be done on the cheap and still produce good numbers?
IMO answer is NO.
Should I not worry about Guns till End Game?
need fix that question: Should I not worry about Gil?

Silver Bullet Pouch x12: 140k
Demon Quiver x12: 60k
Scorpion Quiver x12: 20k

Choice here not too hard... your choice your gil your character.

I agree with that logic. Do what fits well with your play style.

Again you compare gear you dont loose vs bullet you loose every RA. I personaly get all the HQ i can afford ( i currently work on full Heca+1 on my THF). I do understand the small 1% can make all the difference, but when is to toss ammo..

What is the difference? Both are investments made to increase your performance and damage output. Just because one is a consumeable and the other not, doesn't subtract from the fact they will both greatly enhance your overall damage output.

vs greater lolibri whats the difference between ebow > wooden arrow and demon arrow?

Hard to say without exact numbers but I'd say like idk 29-31% less dmg just shooting. Maybe more only like 20% less on ws

The Vile/Vile+1 example wasn't good at all because it doen't improve the mage's performance (also, you see very RARELY a mage use this for regular events, like xp party/sea/sky/dynamis/etc).

What would be better example for "real cost per dmg"?
Food: using better food cost more, but do increase damage.
Quality of arrow: demon arrows are more expensive then scorpion arrows, but deal more damage.

YOU say the info is wrong ... but most ppls who say "bullet cost SOOOOO MUCH, and doen't increase that much the damage" haven't even't TRYED it.
At least test it before saying it's not worth it