Diablo® III

Just saw the archery passive and came on line to see if people feel the same way and apparently they do.

Makes anything other than a bow completely useless for leveling. So now I got this xbow and hand xbow that both are almost double the damage of this crappy bow I picked up and sure enough the bow does more damage. The +damage rings would boost dual hand cannons up if you could ever manage to find 2 of them the same level(which you almost never can).

My suggestion:
"Bow: +5% crit change and +25% damage"

This would make it almost seem fair across the board.

Well each weapon (1h, 2h xbox, and bow) have their own use.

1H = shooting fast with archery passive = massive damage becasue of the crit chance.

2h xbox = shooting slow BUT the base of most xbox bow are pretty high so getting that lucky crit will be very rewarding

2h bow? Well bow is between 1H +2h bow. It doesn't do as much as 2h xbox or shoot as fast as 1h xbox. Ofc Bow does more damage because each hit will do more damage even if it's not a crit. But you have to notice that DW or 2h xbox have their crit damage or cirt chance which will make a big play.

base damage 100
say a bow is hitting 115 everyhit
1h xbox is hitting 100 but every 5 or so hits it will hit a huge crit of like 200 maybe higher
(and you have to put in the Speed of 1h )
2h xbox will hit 300-400 but hit at a higher base.

Not really correct in damage but this is what i'm trying to say. Each one have their own power in terms of what you want.

Raw damage -2h bow / xbox
Trying to crit and do more damage than the 2h bow would be 2x 1h xbox. Really depends..

@ LoveYuri
I get where you are coming from, but my conclusions are from hardcore math and all of your information is so flawed it's ridiculous. Sorry. I will go over in point form with easy to understand math for you so you and nobody else who jumps on here is confused by your errors.

-1H = shooting fast doesn't matter. dps is dps. Crits % averages the same regardless of attack speed
-2H = sure getting high numbers may make you feel good when you see them, but you still have the other 20 mobs running at you.
-Bow = again, dps is dps. speed and damage mean nothing the average dps is the same.

Your breakdown is missing base crit 5% and bonus 50%. I will redo the breakdown using actual numbers and an average time. The numbers are based off 1000sec at 100dps.

-bows will still also crit from a base of 15% extra damage so the crits will be 172.5 (115,000 regular + 6625 bonus crit damage Total damage = 121,625)
-1h will only crit 15% of the time for 150 (100,000 regular + 7500 crit = 107,500)
-2H will hit 200. not 3-400. 200. Period. 50% base plus 50% bonus = 100%. not 200-300 you're just making up numbers, way to go.... (100,000 regular + 5000 crit bonus = 105,000)

So in conclusion. No, it does not depend. Averaged out the bow is superior by almost 13.139535% over 1H and 15.833333% over 2H Xbow. It's as if the xbows weren't boosted at all in comparison.

That is only partially correct. While I'll trust your math in that the bow may work out to be superior on average, the actual gameplay doesnt always work out that way.

Faster Attack speed translates to faster Hatred regen through your builders (and the difference between 1-hand crossbows and the big 2-handers is massive)

Bonus crit damage from the big xbows synergize well with sharpshooter (which many people are frontloading mass aoe with) where you open with guaranteed crits, etc.

Like Riether said, you get lots of frontloaded damage with 100% crit on sharpshooter if you are using a 2h crossbow. Each different weapon is going to synergize differently with abilities, even if you hardcore math determines bows as the clear winner in DPS.

In reallity while you are leveling, the weapon you will be using is going to be based on whichever weapon you get that turns out to be good. If you have a choice between 2 equal weapons and a bow, then choose a bow based upon the facts in your head. Whats the problem?

Tip: If you are using two 1hand-crossbow try to socket them with green gems. Now try to use Impale with:
Grievous Wounds
Critical Hits cause 100% additional damage.

Bam, you are now criting 20% of the time for huge damage, get the sharpshooter passive and you will be seeing huge numbers quite frequently. Now try to focus on getting +crit chance gear.

In the end it comes down to your build.

I agree with many of these later points for sure, but that's still only on certain builds anyway and if you don't have/want them you are forced to use bow which again, is not always the good weapon you get while gearing up.

The math on the dps was only put there to prove a point. Yes you do get faster hatred build on dual wielding but not by as much as you think. remember the quiver adds 10(just on the first ones more later) of the 15% you get from dual so really it's just attack speed and the dps is lower to compensate for that anyway.

Frontload AoE is nice and all, but that doesn't help you at all against a pack of champs with shielding/waller/desecrator, etc.

The builds you make depend a lot on equipment as well which like I said you may not be able to choose until you are at max level and collect for a bit. So therefore all these points that seem valid are still missing the point. Point is that during leveling 99 times out of 100 if you had gotten a bow instead of a xbow off that last pack of elites your dps would be 10-15% better.

Regardless, all the builds in the world will still have to make ridiculous strides to make a difference and in the end everything you do to make it worth it will still exist if you choose bow anyway and the math is still gonna work out in it's favor...

Oh, Actually about the hatred build actually it's completely irrelevant anyway. Faster weapons build hatred faster, but they also use it faster while doing less damage. So it's EXACTLY the same. You are just cycling through it faster. Like I said before DPS is DPS.

@ LoveYuri
-1H = shooting fast doesn't matter. dps is dps. Crits % averages the same regardless of attack speed
-Bow = again, dps is dps. speed and damage mean nothing the average dps is the same.

Speed means everything when you've got Fast/Arcane mobs surrounding you.
The faster attack animation and overall attack speed lets you deal out more damage before you have to run.

Been times when I could've shot 3 times with a bow/1 hander before having to run, but as I'm using an Xbow, I had time to shoot once and get hit before actually making escape.

05/24/2012 03:29 AMPosted by Raaptor

Oh, Actually about the hatred build actually it's completely irrelevant anyway. Faster weapons build hatred faster, but they also use it faster while doing less damage. So it's EXACTLY the same. You are just cycling through it faster. Like I said before DPS is DPS.

Which is exactly why 2H crossbows are superior because they spend the hatred you get from passive regen more efficiently.

10% crit from hand crossbows gives you more chance to gain disc through night stalker, and 100% crit frontloaded on a wave of enemies where every single one of them is hit with nether tentacles is BUNCH of big crits for a 2-h crossbow, due to how much slower a 2h xbow is so its weapon damage is a lot bigger, thus "DPS IS DPS" does not always hold true.

Math is good and all, but you cant say "Oh hey this is so much better if i could sit there and shoot one enemy for 1000 seconds completely ignoring every other passive you could take, and moving around and all the other factors in the game"