Spears vs Bows

Ok. I adore bows. But I looked at the spears, and I cannot see any sort of reason why you wouldnt take a spear over a bow.

Spears fire 1.5 seconds (according to gwiki)
Short/flatbow fire every 2 seconds

Spears and shortbows have the same range

Spears do 14-27, bows do 15-28

Spears are one handed, bows are two handed.

Spears can inflict deep wound, bleeding, and I assume poison thru a ranger secondary. Bows cannot inflict deep wound.

Seeing where I'm going with this?

This could be the working the kinks out of the beta for balance, or I could be missing some serious disadvantage, but right now, there is no reason to take a shortbow instead of a spear. Comments?

Edit: forgot about conditions, bolded for emphasis

well bow attack skills dont work with a spear now do they? not to mention preps for arrows or interupts with arrows. and base dmg/ speed was never everything. so i dont see where your going with this.

I'd still have to say that despite not being able to interrupt, with lightning spear, the dps is way higher than a ranger with any preps

spears have an interrupt if the person has a condition.

spears don't have the hight advantage that bows do

What about against a longbow? Surely a bow is better there.

There has to be some distinct advantage to one over the other otherwise whats the point?

Wait a minute....you can use a spear as a pole to dry your clothes after swimming across rivers. Cant do that with a bow or arrow

English Longbow. They are massive.

As for is spear better than bow blah blah, many of the spears skills are based on coniditions, target must be moving, target must be suffering from condition etc.

The same penalty doesnt exist with a bow. Bow's are still awesome, you wont see an interrupt paragon with a spear. Too slow and too conditional.

The Bow is not better than the spear and vice versa, they each do their thing, their ability depends on your build and what you wish to accompish.

I don't even see how you are comparing these two. They are used for totally different things and require completely different skills. You can't use bow attacks with a spear and vice versa

AFAIK, with the exception of Might Throw, you can't buff the velocity of the spear, which makes the accuracy pretty poor from full range. Try it on the Master of Enchantments in the Isle since he runs around so much, the spears miss half of the time.

There will also be new skills for each of the core classes as well so I wouldn't worry to much about it.

Why do you make such huge points seem so little.

Spear is ONE HANDED, its like comparing an axe and a hammer, totaly different. So a spear you get a shield or what ever you want. Maybe 12+ energy.

Plus spears fire quite abit faster. That half a seccond really adds up.

It's true, spears have a LOT of advantages.

Spears have a lot of advantages only if you do not take into account all that can be done with bows for a Marksman based Ranger. I see the spear becoming a more useful ranged weapon for those classes who do not use a bow, that is a large maybe though with the real ineffectiveness of them besides pulling, which I thought a comp bow has a greater range anyway, just use that.

Now if Spears can be used with preparations and marksmanship abilities, there would be some issues, but that is like saying if an Axe could be used with Hammer, Sword, and Dagger abilities.

Spears are pretty sick.

Bow skills based on energy, managed by expertise. Buffed by preps or enchants.

Spear skills allow you to have more health and more energy (due to one handed, combined with either shield or off-hand). Many skills based on energy and adrenaline. Ranged A-attacks. And they're no joke. Bleeding? Deep Wound? Burning? Dazed? Spears are pretty ace.

R/P can make a sick use of these things.
And if you add in any kind of attack speed buff, you turn into a damage machine.

R(expertise) turns all energy attacks into nearly free. This means, you get all those wonderful ones. You can even end a stance with a spear this way. You follow up your energy attacks, which just gained you adrenaline, to use things like Bleeding, Deep Wound, or all kinds of nasty conditions, including Dazed without spending energy.

It allows you to greatly increase your damage output.
Greatly increase energy management.
Greatly use that management to buff your own capabilities in defense and healing, so you're not just a one-trick-pony.

R/P is sick durable.