Which bow prefix would give the biggest increase in damage?

I'm currently using a 10/10 sundering, but from what I've read, sundering only gives a 1% dmg bonus...making it a useless upgrade. I was thinking of replacing it with an elemental bow string like ebon, but which element would give the best dmg benefit without the use of a conjure element skill? Thanks in advance.

It depends on your enemies' weaknesses or strength. In PvE, I believe it's pretty safe to say that you'd get more damage output over the entire game with a fire string and no conjure, but in PvP it really depends on if the enemies have wards or not...

With conjure element, however, elemental bowstrings win hands down.

I was talking about PvP, and would an elemental bow string still be effective without a conjure element skill? If so, which element?

They would be less effective, taking into account the many possibilities of counter. If you come up against elemental warding elementalists, elemental mantra mesmers, or other forms of elemental defense, your damage will be greatly reduced.

Also, the +30 blanket resistance that ranger armor has against elements would make one almost impenetrable if you were to try to take him out (if that were to ever occur). Elementalists have +15 armor against elements as well, but their random form (which set one ele might wear as opposed to the next) would make predicting the best to be very hard.

Unless elemental damage upgrades add bonus damage, in my opinion, using one in PvP scenarios would be more of a detriment or drawback as opposed to a sundering string

i think i heard from somewhere that ebon is the best because earth ignores armor.im not sure if earth ignores armor or not though

earth doesnt ignore armor, but it is commonly ignored as not many people use it, so no one uses geomancers armor...but still the sundering will end up better if you ever want to fight a single ranger

Zealous. Much more energy for spamming bow attacks, which is where you will get most of your damage. If you still want to use a conjure, bring Kindle Arrows. For some reason, Kindle applies enough fire to your shots that you can use Conjure Flame regardless of bowstring.

in my opinion, 5:1 vamp, extra 5 dmg every hit.

Vamp beats sundering, hands down. The low % on sundering actually activating is not very good at all... Plus vamp works very well with kindle + conjure + dual shot. Nasty stuff.

The only drawback to vamp is the health degen, but as a ranger you can offset that easily with troll unguent once in a while.

I find that in PvP, equpping multiple types of damage bows works the best. When you come up against casters, you use physical damage bows and against warriors you use elemental damage bows. This helps you combat the bonus stats by ignoring them that comes from armor and allow you to do more damage.