War Bow best bow?

[🍀]

Tried using the legendary bows and they feel underwhelming. Does anyone think the warbow (shoots twice if it crits) is the best bow?

The bow has literally carried me from the start of the game! Is there a better bow found later on?

[Ninth Hour]

It depends on what you want.

Each individual shot of the War bow actually does less damage than a Raider bow of similar level, which also pushes a target back and is good at disengaging enemies from your companions or preventing them from approaching. So if knockback is a valuable part of your team strategy, then it actually edges out the War bow. It's higher individual damage is a bonus. Both give the same Dexterity bonus but the Raider bow yields a higher percentage of that stat for damage.

The only time the War Bow will do more damage than a Raider bow is if it actually crits, so it depends on your archer's stats. Even with 40% crit rate on my archer, I feel that the War Bow does less average damage than the Raider bow. Crits on Raider bows can do a ridiculous amount of damage too, on their single shot.

In addition, the Raider bow synergizes with any archer who has a Legion bow, which sets up an overwatch zone and executes an attack of opportunity for any enemy within who moves. So if you happen to have another Archer with a Legion bow, you could potentially knock back any enemies in the overwatch zone and trigger an attack of opportunity from the Legion bow. This can be quite a deadly combo.

Personally, I only use the War Bow on my beastmaster, who benefits from not disengaging enemies with every shot. You want to keep targets locked down with your animal companions, so that you can use the ATTACK! command. The Raider bow isn't good under these circumstances.

The Indomitable One (the bow from the Ghost of Harag) does a significant amount of damage as well and has a piercing quality, so if you line up 2 or 3 targets, you can potentially crit all of them, push them back, and cause bleeding damage to all (if you have the Reinforced Arrows skill). I actually prefer it over the War bow because of these qualities.

In tombs, the Fugitive bow (the ones used by Bombers) potentially has tactical value that the War Bow (or indeed any direct fire bow) does not, as it allows you target empty areas and set up flaming chokepoints which also provide some light- that is, if you can tolerate the risk of being set aflame by enemies who pass through those areas.

[🍀]

Originally posted by Ninth Hour:

It depends on what you want.

Each individual shot of the War bow actually does less damage than a Raider bow of similar level, which also pushes a target back and is good at disengaging enemies from your companions or preventing them from approaching. So if knockback is a valuable part of your team strategy, then it actually edges out the War bow. It's higher individual damage is a bonus. Both give the same Dexterity bonus but the Raider bow yields a higher percentage of that stat for damage.

The only time the War Bow will do more damage than a Raider bow is if it actually crits, so it depends on your archer's stats. Even with 40% crit rate on my archer, I feel that the War Bow does less average damage than the Raider bow. Crits on Raider bows can do a ridiculous amount of damage too, on their single shot.

The Indomitable One (the bow from the Ghost of Harag) does a significant amount of damage as well and has a piercing quality, so if you line up 2 or 3 targets, you can potentially crit all of them, push them back, and cause bleeding damage to all (if you have the Reinforced Arrows skill). I actually prefer it over the War bow because of these qualities.

Also, in tombs, the Fugitive bow (the ones used by Bombers) has tactical value, as it allows you target empty areas and set up flaming chokepoints which also provide some light- that is, if you can tolerate the risk of being set aflame by enemies who pass through those areas.

Thanks man, I will have to look out for the raider bow for sure. Hopefully there are new weapon types in the new zone as well!

[pd28]

Don't discount the bows you can make yourself I've always found them good for raw hitting power. In comparison the war bow is too hit and miss (forgive the pun) because it relies on a critical hit to give any benefit and I'm not sure that even then it give you much over and above a critical from a good quality crafted bow.

I used to waste an awful lot of money buying upgrades to bows at each level, these days I'll only ever consider splashing the cash for a fugitive bow because they are the one piece of essential kit for both rat nest and tombs - and infantryman or two with these bows and valorous victory will pretty much clear all the vermin whilst earning you a stack of valour points. Outside of these environments you need to be careful with the fugitive bow unless you're comfortable with how fire can spread from enemies to allies.

There's also a unique bow you can pick up from one of the special bounties which is worth looking out for. It give you a guaranteed critical against an undamaged enemy and a free valour point for every critical. The downside is that you can't score a critical against a damaged enemy but if you use it carefully you can rip holes in lightly armoured enemies before they get anywhere near you, and because it's a unique you can upgrade it at the training ground so it never loses it's potency.

[drake_hound]

Originally posted by voodoo sonic:

Tried using the legendary bows and they feel underwhelming. Does anyone think the warbow (shoots twice if it crits) is the best bow?

The bow has literally carried me from the start of the game! Is there a better bow found later on?

No the Legendary Bow especially the one that can hit multiple target is still the best.
The other Legendary Bow, is higher then warbow.

Warbow is great if it's critical but if it doesn't, it is meh. so do not compare Yellow Damage with White damage.

[Ninth Hour]

I actually used Sharpening Oil on my War Bow, to increase its crit by 10% and gave it to my Beastmaster, who is a Journeyman Thief (extra Dex and Crit chance) and who has gear that further increases crit chance. Even then, it is kind of underwhelming, especially as the second shot may not be a crit, which means that the damage of the two shots may actually be less than one crit from a Raider bow, which multiples a higher base damage.

The only reason I keep it is because I have not yet found a suitable replacement for my Beastmaster's weapon. The Raider bow is not a good choice for her because I do not want her to disengage targets from her bear companion. Similarly, the Indomitable One can push targets back, so I gave it to my other archer, who wields it with devastating effect.

The War Bow really should have higher base damage so that it can compete favorably with the Raider bow. It already loses out just by virtue of having no other special properties than a moderate chance to land a second hit.

[drake_hound]

Originally posted by Ninth Hour:

I actually used Sharpening Oil on my War Bow, to increase its crit by 10% and gave it to my archer who is a Journeyman Thief (extra Dex and Crit chance) and who has gear that further increases crit chance. Even then, it is kind of underwhelming, especially as the second shot may not be a crit, which means that the damage of the two shots may actually be less than one crit from a Raider bow, which multiples a higher base damage.

The War Bow really should have higher base damage so that it can compete favorably with the Raider bow. It already loses out just by virtue of having no other special properties than a moderate chance to land a second hit.

It has been overnerfed, sadly happens first it was hitting for unlimited Criticals, so wasn't two shot, but you could instakill anybody as long it was criticaling.
Then with patch before Release global damage nerf to weapons. everybody favorite weapons gotten Nerfed so hard, it makes some of the White Weapon look superior >.<

So if you take some common weapons, some of them hit harder then legendary.
Cause they haven't been touched yet.

[Ninth Hour]

Originally posted by drake_hound:

It has been overnerfed, sadly happens first it was hitting for unlimited Criticals, so wasn't two shot, but you could instakill anybody as long it was criticaling.

Even before the nerf, how can you achieve such a high critical rate that you can land more than two criticals in a row?

My high crit characters, with the right professions and gear, have reached 53% crit chance at most.

The chance of landing three crits in a row would be 0.53 x 0.53 x 0.53= 0.♥♥♥♥, or roughly a 15% chance. It's not a very high probability, so arguably it did not need a nerf.

Unless it was possible to achieve much higher crit rates at one point?

[drake_hound]

Originally posted by Ninth Hour:

Originally posted by drake_hound:

It has been overnerfed, sadly happens first it was hitting for unlimited Criticals, so wasn't two shot, but you could instakill anybody as long it was criticaling.

Even before the nerf, how can you achieve such a high critical rate that you can land more than two criticals in a row?

My high crit characters, with the right professions and gear, have reached 53% crit rate at most.

The chance of landing three crits in a row would be 0.53 x 0.53 x 0.53= 0.♥♥♥♥, or roughly a 15% chance. It's not great odds, so arguably it did not need a nerf.

Unless it was possible to achieve much higher crit rates at one point?

By going full Critical build, you could easily achieve 55% on a Archer, cause of nimble and critical levelup . then hitting somebody from the back, it also gives bonus Critical hit Chance (when they are engaged)

And then it was pop pop pop pop dead. A bit like Ambush where your Ranger with 50% + critical more often then not, all three critical.

So they nerfed it to only 2 shot.

[🍀]

Originally posted by Ninth Hour:

Originally posted by drake_hound:

It has been overnerfed, sadly happens first it was hitting for unlimited Criticals, so wasn't two shot, but you could instakill anybody as long it was criticaling.

Even before the nerf, how can you achieve such a high critical rate that you can land more than two criticals in a row?

My high crit characters, with the right professions and gear, have reached 53% crit rate at most.

The chance of landing three crits in a row would be 0.53 x 0.53 x 0.53= 0.♥♥♥♥, or roughly a 15% chance. It's not great odds, so arguably it did not need a nerf.

Unless it was possible to achieve much higher crit rates at one point?

The reason I am finding the war bow really strong for me personally, is that I pumped up all the crit stats on my bow user.

They are hovering around ~70% crit chance on the stat sheet atm, without a belt to boost it up. I am using 'Quality Projectiles' belt - that adds 10% damage to ranged attacks.

I am getting around 250-400 damage in one blow from double shots regularly. (Level 9 on my bow user atm.) This is without even using the skill to add damage, which also can be another 200 ish using recoil shot. (Not using the overwatch skill.)

I am using the sharpening oil AND infectious oil. Infectious oil feels great, because it has a chance to build up stacks of bleed if the targets not dead. I have seen the bleed next round go for as high as 150-190 ish damage. So that means in total of 550-600 (HIGH roll) damage in one turn from my bow user on a single turn. 800+ If using my recoil shot skill in the same turn, which I usually do as well.

This is just straight dps build and single target only, so it lacks a bit of utility, but thats what recoil shots good for, Lengethens the gap and stops enemies turns effectively.

Most of the time with this build I am killing one person right off the bat, then zoning another target with recoil shot adding in the bleed from the skill upgrade and STACKS from my oil. Sometimes recoil shot kills too.

Then again I specced the bow user to focus on crit to build for this bow, not knowing the other legendary attributes at the time.

Hence why I say warbow is really strong, at least for me.

I can see if you are a beast master how things might be different, because of different builds, but thats why you also have animals, they can be op. Bear is so op lol.