How to build a bow using..........

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S
Stormstaff
Ascalonian Squire
#1
I looted a 20/20 Sundering string. I've just recently brushed off my ranger so I'm behind the times.

What type/style bow should I put this on and what handle would you suggest and why?

Thanks in advance for your time and help!!!!
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Plastic Cutlery
Ascalonian Squire
#2
Depends on what you are doing... in PVE generally anything will work in my experience... in PVP though a flatbow is bad because of the extreme flight arch.... in PVP I generally go with either a hornbow or a recurve/composite. Both have advantages and aren't TOO slow (though the hornbow is a bit slow, but it has 10% AP built in).

EDIT: And I always put a +30 fortitude mod on my bows... some prefer other things but for me you can't beat extra health.
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Wolydarg
Lion's Arch Merchant
#3
Rspiker in PvP runs a 20/20 Sundering Longbow of Fortitude with a 5:1 Vampiric Hornbow of Fortitude

Sundering sucks anyways, stick it on your secondary bow you plan on using, your primary should be a vamp
Thom Bangalter
Thom Bangalter
Grindin'
#4
*seconds what wolydark said*
Valerius
Valerius
Desert Nomad
#5
imo sell the string and use the gold to buy a couple of nice green bows
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Yamat
Krytan Explorer
#6
Ok... I kinda agree with Wolydark, but I'm interested in trying out a 20/20 on a horn/shadow bow with Judges Insight (for a possible 50% armor penetration). Anyone tried that? Seems like it would rip through people...
SparhawkJC
SparhawkJC
Krytan Explorer
#7
Why would you bother with armor penetration when Vamp does 5 armor ignoring damage to everything?
Y
Yamat
Krytan Explorer
#8
^^ Because 50% armor penetration = way more damage than 5 from vamp!
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Skyy Forn
Ascalonian Squire
#9
Yeah, but 30% armor penetration (horn bow + JI) and vamp > 50% armor penetration.

Compare the sundering string to the vamp sting, not the vamp string to a string, a bow, and a skill combo. You'll see that you'd have to face someone with crazy armor for the sundering to be equal, and even then, the vamp will still do better vs squishies.
draxynnic
draxynnic
Furnace Stoker
#10
Quote: Originally Posted by Skyy Forn
Yeah, but 30% armor penetration (horn bow + JI) and vamp > 50% armor penetration.

Compare the sundering string to the vamp sting, not the vamp string to a string, a bow, and a skill combo. You'll see that you'd have to face someone with crazy armor for the sundering to be equal, and even then, the vamp will still do better vs squishies. This does, of course, assume you have a max vampiric string. From what I've seen, decent Sundering strings are more common than decent Vampiric strings - largely because Sundering doesn't have a drawback, so it makes a nice 'filler' mod while waiting for something better.
SparhawkJC
SparhawkJC
Krytan Explorer
#11
Originally Posted by Fender
posted this in another thread, but it is probably worth repeating here, with a little more information.

Against an AL 60 target w/ perfect vamp your damage increases over base by:
sword 8.8%
axe 8.4%
hammer 9.7%
bow 12.4%

Against an AL 60 target w/ perfect 20/20 sundering your damage increases over base by 4.6% for all weapons. Much better than the 1.1% a 10/10 sundering mod would get, but still well below vamp.

vamp vs AL 70
sword 10.4%
axe 10.0%
hammer 11.6%
bow 14.7%

sundering 20/20 vs AL 70 compared to base all weapons 6.4% (10/10 = 1.3%)

vamp vs AL 100
sword 17.6%
axe 16.9%
hammer 19.4%
bow 24.8%

sundering 20/20 vs AL 100 compared to base all weapons 8.3% (10/10 = 1.9%)

So, sundering still sucks, just not as much.

Sundering doesn't have a drawaback? It's going for 30-40k at the moment compared to 5-10k for a perfect vamp (which by the way are the only kind of vamp strings that drop anymore). You're paying a lot more money to do less damage....it's kind of a "I'm with stupid" sign. The only reason to even have sundering on a bow is a)absolutely nothing else fits (unlikely) b)you like the bow skin and can't change the mod (i.e. Drago's Flatbow, Urgoz's Longbow).
XvArchonvX
XvArchonvX
Forge Runner
#12
Can you post a link to that thread SparhawkJC?
Epinephrine
Epinephrine
Master of Beasts
#13
Agreed. Sell string to someone who thinks they're good, buy a nice Vamp string and invest the rest. Don't forget that the sundering effect doesn't even apply to any of the bonus damage (it only affaects the base bow damage, not bonuses from RtW, FW, OoP or bow attacks), so sometimes people will feed misleading info showing a larger effect, because they are adding the sundering effect to the total arrow damage rather than the base arrow damage.