Teh Hornbow

[Gods Feathers]

Hey all! Now I've been a ranger for quite a bit. He's my main char. And I'm curious about why some people prefer to use hornbow for spike builds. I mean the 10% built in armor pen is nice but does it actually make up for it's super slow attack? Although I suppose you could use IAS and make it not so slow. But I still think other bows have better use over hornbow. I feel like I'm just missing something or don't know the math. But I feel like a hornbow would make your damage output slower. Could someone help me out on understanding why people are using hornbows with the spike builds?

[Link6590]

May i direct to to this page
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Hornbow

Relative to the shortbow (not considering flatbow because of its inaccuracy), the 10% penetration only out damages the shortbow at 180 AL. Not sure about you, but I usually don't see too many people in PvP with 180 AL.

Relative to the recurve/longbows, the hornbow out damages at 70 AL, meaning R, A, D, W, and any of those other high to medium armor classes have to look out for it.

Another thing you need to note is the actual spike. Although the hornbow attacks so slow, the whole point of the spike is to hit those high damages (50+ to be at least slightly effective) before a healer has any time to react. So your not just looking for DMS, but also high damage over all

[MasterSasori]

Hey all! Now I've been a ranger for quite a bit. He's my main char. And I'm curious about why some people prefer to use hornbow for spike builds. I mean the 10% built in armor pen is nice but does it actually make up for it's super slow attack? Although I suppose you could use IAS and make it not so slow. But I still think other bows have better use over hornbow. I feel like I'm just missing something or don't know the math. But I feel like a hornbow would make your damage output slower. Could someone help me out on understanding why people are using hornbows with the spike builds?

People don't exclusively use Hornbows. They just use it for a quick spike before changing to recurve or flatbow (if they run RTW).

[Balky]

I use my Korens for my spike builds , 10% with the 20/20 and Marks at 16 creates a massive spike when it all kicks in , add in Asuran Scan Experts Dexterit Expert Focus and any other damage booster you care, and it is a vicious first strike weapon

[IcyFiftyFive]

Because some attack skills such as [Hunter's Shot] have "Activation Time" which doesn't matter if you use a Shortbow or a Hornbow or a Flatbow, because activation time will be 1s anyways.

[Taurean]

Because some attack skills such as [Hunter's Shot] have "Activation Time" which doesn't matter if you use a Shortbow or a Hornbow or a Flatbow, because activation time will be 1s anyways.

Good point, there are numerous attack skills with 1 second activation time - which is why i always use the hornbow.. to utilize the somewhat long range\inaccuracy, i almost always use [favorable winds]. It seems to help a lot..

[Hugh Manatee]

The whole point of hornbows(and flatbows for that matter) is that you have to have a good build to compensate for the weapons flaws. Like take the flatbow, if you have RTW or FW it's like a short bow with a longer range. Likewise the hornbow needs attacks with fixed activation times to work. The old spike build was [dual shot][punishing shot][savage shot] , 4 arrows in about a second, likely buffed by orders or conjures, a prep, maybe a spirit, vamp strings with the armor penetration on top of that. Then they nerfed the 1/2 attack speed skills to have aftercast delay. Now it's something like [Dual shot][hunter's shot][punishing shot] or [Burning Arrow][Hunter's shot][savage shot]. IIRC the 1 second activation time skills don't have the aftercast.

[Gods Feathers]

aaah ok thank you guys for that. I finally understand lol