What's The Best Bow?

[HonorThySelf]

Ranged Stat Wise, what is the best bow for a pure ranger to use?

[Powerfrog]

Ermm...

 

Sighted magic longbow has the best accuracy.

 

Magic shortbow has the best damage/time on all enemies that don't have crazy high defense.

 

Dark Bow can hit the highest.

[HonorThySelf]

Alright Thanks!

[Naive]

Crossbows are a much better choice though

[Low Levelled]

zaryte bow is cool.

[Th e Doctor]

Karils Crossbow is the best dps range weapon besides hand cannon.

[Powerfrog]

Karils Crossbow is the best dps range weapon besides hand cannon.

False. Magic short can fire god arrows which have a higher range strength AND have an effect that deals extra damage. Much higher base damage, but karils is slightly more accurate.

 

I think you're right about handcannon, you fire 5 arrows for every 3 cannonshots, arrows hit just above 320, cannon hits about 620. Note that's without the potential extra damage from god arrow effect, though.

 

But handcannon isn't a bow. :P

[Hedgehog]

It was always hand cannon>karils but the hand cannon was nerfed, so now karils is the best (or msb, apparently). It doesn't matter anyway, since you should only use ranged when you absolutely have to.

[Th e Doctor]

Why don't we ever see people using msb at tds if its better than Karils?

[Hedgehog]

Can't look up the stats atm but I assume it's low accuracy. I'll run some dps calcs when I don't have to be at the beach ;/

[Ren]

Tormented demons use three prayers, changing to your last combat style after a fixed amount of damage with it. You should aim for using a chaotic crossbow there because of it's accuracy, and the damage the bolts can inflict is huge (500+ maxes with rigour, ovl and adamant bolts).

 

I'd say the top 5 choices, in order from best to worse for pvp specifically are:

(Include best ammo for each if possible, it makes a huge difference)

 

Chaotic Crossbow

Karils Crossbow

Rune Crossbow

Dark bow spec switch, with msb + rune primary

Possibly tied or close to that of a Zamorak bow + arrows.

 

Personally, I say Ccbow>Zamorak bow>Karils>Dark bow>Rune c'bow. Zaryte is really expensive and is probably only good with rigour and void, let alone including ovl/extreme range pots. Really cheap to use, however.

Also, as far as I know, the God arrows deal the same damage as rune arrows in terms of rune arrow range strength. The actual effects come from the bow itself, if not only the special. Therefore, msb really isn't useful for them. MLB sighted might be considerable, but with the amounts of healing done in members pvp it's max hit isn't worthy of use.

[Powerfrog]

It was always hand cannon>karils but the hand cannon was nerfed, so now karils is the best (or msb, apparently). It doesn't matter anyway, since you should only use ranged when you absolutely have to.

When was handcannon nerfed? How does it work now?

 

Also, as far as I know, the God arrows deal the same damage as rune arrows in terms of rune arrow range strength. The actual effects come from the bow itself, if not only the special. Therefore, msb really isn't useful for them.

 

Nope. They give 60 range strength when used with mage shortbow, and the special effect occurs 1/10 hits (opposed to 1/5 hits with the relevant god bow)

[Ren]

Let me add in that pvp killing does not work the same way as pvm. You have two things to watch out for during pvp kills; you aim to kill them overall, but the chances are they will tele or run. So you also are going for a max hit KO to prevent that, unless it's a DM (no one ever does deathmatches anymore I think..). Just because it's high dps does NOT mean it has the best overall ability to kill a player. Chaotic crossbow is the best of both worlds, and is truly the king of the range game. I decided to solo Arma as soon as I got 99 range, with my EEK and Ccbow, and I'm pretty amazed at how well it performs. Dungeoneering may seem tough to grasp, but with a few guides and some practice, you can learn to not care about losing a chaotic in the wild. They are extremely cheap and easy to get after a certain point.

 

@Powerfrog (above)

I did not know the rates and such, thanks for the interesting info..Still isn't really worth it, seeing how obvious the difference is. That's probably a really large dif in damage for the speed boost msb will give. It's not exactly high up there overall anyway.

[Hedgehog]

Hand cannon was slowed down by 1 tick.

[Quyneax]

You really don't want to use ccbow for tds, magic is much better there.

 

For a pure ranger, the main weapons are:

Dragon darts on very low defence, in Kuradal's etc. 247 max, 3000/hr (741k).

Karil's crossbow. 348 max, 2000/hr (696k).

Chaotic crossbow (bane bolts). 427 max, 1200/hr, 1.5x multiplier (765600)

Chaotic crossbow (dragonstone bolts). 528 max, 1200/hr, special = 5% boost (665280)

Chaotic crossbow (runite bolts). 522 max, 1200/hr (626400)

Chaotic crossbow (bakriminel bolts). 551 max, 1200/hr (661200)

Hand cannon. 623 max, 1000/hr (623k).

 

Karil's is +82 attack +55 strength at 316 gp per shot, medium price. Magic shortbow is +69 attack + 60 strength at 1553 gp per shot, med price. So you can get 124/119 = 104.2% dps, the special effect adding about 5 damage per hit (1.5% tops), works out to 105.6% dps overall. That costs 1237 gp per shot extra. You can fire 1800-1900 shots per hour (2000 theoretical max). That's 2m/hr and more in ammo costs for 5.6% extra dps - never really worth it afaik.

[Powerfrog]

You really don't want to use ccbow for tds, magic is much better there.

 

For a pure ranger, the main weapons are:

Dragon darts/rune knives on very low defence, in Kuradal's etc.

Karil's crossbow

Chaotic crossbow (bane bolts, dragonstone bolts, runite bolts, bakriminel bolts)

 

Karil's is +82 attack +55 strength at 316 gp per shot, medium price. Magic shortbow is +69 attack + 60 strength at 1553 gp per shot, med price. So you can get 124/119 = 104.2% dps, the special effect adding about 5 damage per hit (1.5% tops), works out to 105.6% dps overall. That costs 1237 gp per shot extra. You can fire 1800-1900 shots per hour (2000 theoretical max). That's 2m/hr and more in ammo costs for 5.6% extra dps - never really worth it afaik.

Cost is a good point. I was just giving the best weapon. Much like you'd say SoA is better than rapier for slayer. Doesn't mean it's ever sensible to use it.

 

I'd like to reiterate that you should never be using range anyway. Use chins to train, use CCB for nex. No other reason to use it, unless you want to use dark bow/handcannon's potential KO power in PVP. (1/250 chance of Hitting 990+ with darkbow can be better than 1/25 chance of hitting 800+ with claws, depending on the situation.)

[Quyneax]

SoA can be efficient at reasonable incomes (leech floors, merching). Paying 2m/hr to save 4 minutes is an equivalent 30m/hr. Paying 2m/hr to save 25 minutes (mithril dragons) is 4.8m/hr - much more reasonable.

[Powerfrog]

SoA can be efficient at reasonable incomes (leech floors, merching). Paying 2m/hr to save 4 minutes is an equivalent 30m/hr. Paying 2m/hr to save 25 minutes (mithril dragons) is 4.8m/hr - much more reasonable.

I meant for slayer as a whole, i was deliberately trying to say something that isn't worth doing for the hypothetical. SoA won't save you anywhere near 25 minutes on hellhounds, for example. Buuutttt....

 

Runescape is similar to real life in a way, once you get to the "1%", you can make crazy money through merching or hosting where the difference between 5m and 30m becomes meaningless. You practically have to be in the 1% to make a consistent 4.8m/hour, unless you live in the fight kiln or have a constant stream of leechers awaiting your service.