oh noes, another bow question D:

... only invest pocket change into marksmanship ... and with the chances to miss ... Marksmanship does not affect your chance-to-hit (or miss). A vampiric string would give some reliable amount of damage, without points in marks you will get next to nothing from basic bowdamage.

well, 3
first off, the damage bow, ive got a perfect 5/1 vamparic mod, and marksmanship +1 20% mod , mostly intend to use these for spamming barrage, and other spamish stuff as a r/mo, or as a r/w with flail, which would be the best bow type to go for?

shortbow is consistant, recursive is quite nice, flatbow is ok, but the miss rate and high arc and long flight time arent so great. i use a zealous one already for barrage hornbow might be the joker, lower rof but 10%AP might swing it. im intending for this tobe my "nuking" bow, as i already have various bows and mods (+al and hp etc)

i also have a daze/silence lengthing string, so im thinking that would be sweet for a interupt build?, broad head arrow and concusion shot are expensive, so a recursive or shortbow with +5energy would be ideal?

finaly my other ranger is a trapper/beastmaster, would the wintergreen bow be the best (apart from longbow for pulling ) for someone who will only invest pocket change into marksmanship (15^50 inscription, or 5e) with some extra armour and some random string i got spare like fire, AP. i dont think the zealous or the vamparic is worth it as ill just be attacking 1 foe, and with the chances to miss etc, not really worth it.. For barrage, I prefer a recurve or a flatbow. Yes, a hornbow does squeeze out that extra 4ish damage per hit, but it loses out on arrow speed and range, making it not quite as attractive for interrupting or staying out of the fray. Also, for PvE, a hornbow just doesn't find as many uses as other types, and ends up wasting inventory space most of the time.

I wouldn't really bother with a 20% +1 mod. No matter how far you stay back and how good your frontline guys are, you're going to take damage. Better to be able to shrug that off instead of dealing 1 extra damage per hit.

I have a 15 over 50 silencing recurve for dazing builds. I suppose a +5 energy would be helpful since you're relying on others to do damage, but I'm lazy and uncreative, so meh.

I used to use a shortbow most of the time, but it's fairly important to be able to attack from further away, for hitting things on or from cliffs, or being able to interrupt the backline caster without running into a big mob. A flatbow with rtw or fav winds will outperform a shortbow in almost every case. Besides, monsters don't dodge the arrows much.

For a beastmaster, I hear that a staff works well and allows you to control your pet better, but I suck at that, so I use a zealous flatbow. Helps keep up the energy and sends the pet in from a long way away. Give both a try and see which works for you.

I would suggest a +20 energy staff as well, for trapping, touchies, and beastmastery. You'll get more mileage out of it than you'd think.

I also assume you mean that you have a Candy Cane bow and not a Wintergreen Bow since the latter was only granted to those who won the Wintersday Tournament if I'm not mistaken. In this case, the CC Bow acts as a recurve and is not as good as a long/flat for pulling, but is a fine choice for any build that uses no marksmanship. Both the Wintergreen and Normal Candy Cane Bows are short bows, not recurve bows. I've tested both of them on the targets in the isles.

ps, quick test on my wammo with wild blow and a axe, from 14>15 is worth 2-3 extra damage. curiously i always got the same number with wildblow and a +1 axe mastery 19% grip Wild Blow is an unlinked skill. Your axe mastery won't make it do any more damage. You can easily test the +1 axe mastery with Decapitate since it always makes a crit hit

+1 mods suck so much, they really need a buff =/ I don't even use those on my MM.

I would suggest putting the Vamp mod on a flatbow and using it with builds that have Fav Winds or Read the Wind in them (such as most barrage builds). Why would you put Read The Winds on a barrage build?
Barrage removes all preps, right?

____________

anyway I have a question too,
I'm gonna be starting a variant of the popular Holy Barrage build soon -

Judge's Insight
Vigorous Spirit (cover enchant)
Barrage
Penetrating Attack
Savage Shot
Troll Unguent
Storm Chaser (or Fav Winds or Smite Hex etc...)
Whirling Defense (or a Rez skill)

So according to wiki on vamp mods, a shortbow and a flatbow give .5 life stealing per hit (2 secs) and the recurve bow gives .08 (2.4 secs) but Barrage will mean much more than one hit, right?

Right now, I'm looking at a Vampiric ____ bow of Enchanting with a +5 energy base mod (or "I have the Power" Inscription)

So based on the build I've posted above, would manner of bow would you guys recommend?

Mhh, from what I remember JI is a 10E every 18~20 seconds with medium smiting and a bowgrip of enchanting. JI isn't what eats your energy. But jacen has skills from 5 attribute lines, so it might be a bit thin. http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Judge%27s_Insight
The max you will get is 18 seconds. If you are putting in a full 12 Smite, then you will either have less than max Marks (which will lower your dps) and have almost no expertise, or have medium expertise and medium marks.

Also, JI is not affected by expertise, so you are spending 10 energy out of an energy supply of 30ish on top of the energy you use to spam barrage. If you support this with a Zealous Bowstring, then you lose out on 5 damage per arrow that could be gained from a vamp string.