Best bow for ARC/BRD

[Spider-Dan]

It's not whether you beat others using ifrits bow while you use crab bow. That's not a controlled test and is irrelevant as it brings player skill differences into question, which is a variable you cannot control.

Once more: I'm still waiting on controlled tests comparing Garuda's and Ifrit's.

Also in XIV TP generation is ultimately the same regardless of DPS or attack delay. Lower delay hits generate less TP and higher delay hits generate more TP, and yes it is very linear meaning that as far as TP is concerned delay is irrelevant.

In XI, lower delay hits generate less TP and higher delay hits generate more TP. The curve is not as linear as XIV, but as I just explained, even though a 499TP/hit weapon and a 500TP/hit weapon are superficially identical in TP/time, the 500TP/hit weapon has a huge advantage in WS/time. This is still true, regardless of the flatness of the TP/time curve.

A higher DPS weapon almost always being superior is perfectly fine so long as they don't throw DPS values of weapons all over the place for same level weapons.

Please explain why it's "perfectly fine" for higher DPS weapons to be clearly superior, but bad and wrong for higher DMG weapons to be clearly superior.

The point that I'm getting at is that in the current system, a low DPS (but high DMG) weapon is practically useless. In the old system (where WS damage is based on DMG), a high DPS (but low DMG) weapon is still probably not going to be as good as a high DMG weapon... but it will still have a wider variety of situational uses than a low DPS weapon does in this system.

If WS damage was based on the Damage stat higher Damage would be the superior choice for every scenario. Period. No choice at all.

False. I already gave you already existing scenarios in this game where that was not true (melees vs. Ifrit), as well as giving you other possible scenarios in which that would not be true (ones like those that occurred in XI).

Lower damage weapon would always translate to lower numbers on the parse at the end. WS are not kept in check by anything other than TP generation and their own cooldowns, neither of which are based on DPS or delay. So higher damage would always win, which again offers less flexibility than higher DPS always winning.

I'm sorry, you're just wrong. I've offered historical examples (in a TP/weaponskill-based game, like this one) that show exactly how and why you are wrong, but it just doesn't seem like you get it.

Under the old system, higher autoattack output (read: high DPS) can legitimately outdamage higher WS output (read: high DMG) when the ratio of AA damage:WS damage for a given job/fight skews towards AA. However, in the current system, higher autoattack output necessarily means higher WS output. The competition is rigged.