question about bows in diablo 1

[FireIceTalon]

Indeed, seeing is believing. Harold Camping claimed that the Bible guaranteed that May 21st was the end of humankind and it was backed up as fact by his mathematical calculations. Well, here we are on May 25th. He was wrong.

Elemental bows CANNOT do 1k dmg with one arrow on a target with max resists. Nuff said.

[Mahida]

Im not interested in formulas, Im interested in empirical evidence that can be proven in extensive practice, not theory.

If I roll 10 6-sided dice, then the chance of rolling 10 sixes is one in a million. Have any of us ever seen this? I strongly doubt it.
Even then, I hope you'll agree that it's possible, otherwise your understanding of probabilities has a very serious flaw.

This just goes to show that empirical evidence is not the only gospel. There are events so improbable that you will likely never see it in your lifetime, and yet they are still possible. This is one reason why formulas and theory is more useful when discussing possibilities.

Keep in mind that no-one claims to have seen the two-arrow takedown. Zenda just pointed out that this is possible, i.e. has a probability greater than zero.

Harold Camping claimed that the Bible guaranteed that May 21st was the end of humankind and it was backed up as fact by his mathematical calculations. Well, here we are on May 25th. He was wrong.

Elemental bows CANNOT do 1k dmg with one arrow on a target with max resists. Nuff said.

I'm pretty sure Harold Camping didn't have a full mana globe...

[Kal]

Trying to simplify everything down to a matter of DPS often misses a lot of considerations in games like this. Throughout most stages of the game, a rogue will be struggling to get enough damage per shot to interrupt the enemy and put them into hit recovery. This is one of your primary *defensive* abilities, so it is a very important consideration. So for the developing rogue, damage per shot tends to be more important than damage per second. If your bow of swiftness doesn't do enough damage to stun, you will spend more time running away from the enemy than shooting it.

On the flip side, the high level rogue with maxed stats may not really care how much damage her bow does. She may rather have a resist all bow so she can use a plain zodiac ring or a dragon's ring of something. Of heavens suffix will actually give a few points of damage to a high level rogue, but also helps to wear full plate, increases survivability, and increases magic chance to hit. But certainly at high levels where most of the damage is coming from *base* damage, a swiftness bow can mow enemies down slightly faster than the alternatives. Except of course, if you consider chain lightning as an alternative....

Windforce and bow of the bear have to be considered as a separate possibility. The knock back effect has to be played in a different way. The good news if you play a developing rogue with one of these bows is, you don't need to worry about the stun damage issue anymore. The problem is you need to line up your shots so that your arrows continue to hit the enemy after it is knocked back. For a high level character who will always stun anyway, this can be more annoying than beneficial, regardless of the big damage of Windforce.

Great points here Nystul, though I've never liked using knock back personally.

My preference has always been for the Needler, mostly because I enjoy it's obscurity, and have only found it a handful of times, the quick attack is nice, and with the inherent high base damage of high level rogues the item damage itself is not as important as you stated.

-Kal

[FireIceTalon]

But why go with the Needler when a Massive Long War bow of Swiftness gets the job done so much better xD

[Galbraith]

Any other bow of swiftness, even without prefix is better than The Needler. cth% bonus is not really need for a Rogue.
For low levels, playing Iron Man I found using plain short battle bow, or even white composite more effective, cause it adds stun some times and The Needler - not (because of very low damage), now on Iron Man I always decide to not identify it.

[Kal]

Any other bow of swiftness, even without prefix is better than The Needler. cth% bonus is not really need for a Rogue.
For low levels, playing Iron Man I found using plain short battle bow, or even white composite more effective, cause it adds stun some times and The Needler - not (because of very low damage), now on Iron Man I always decide to not identify it.

Good points, like I said, I mostly enjoy using it for its relative obscurity rather than its superior functionality, though I've never had the pleasure of finding the GnatSting in Hellfire, I'm working my way through Marsh's 1.02 mod now, so here's hoping.

-Ka