Bests Bows?

[mahouyolo]

Dreadwyrm > Perfect Zodiac > Augmented Ironworks > Ironworks > Perfect Nexus > High Allagan > Diamond > etc.

Zodiac is marginally better than augmented ironworks because it has so little det and skillspeed is a dps loss, so the crit and det on relic can make up the lost weapon damage. If you aren't going to bother making your relic perfect then there is basically no reason to use it at all outside of a placeholder weapon for getting diamond, rosenbogen, or HA because it won't have those great secondary stats to put it above the other weapons in its ilvl tier.

[Buff_Archer]

There's one i110 bow not mentioned, that I think is interesting in that it's not only better than the other i110 bows (it's clearly better than Rosenbogen), it might be better than the higher ilvl 115 Diamond Bow (since 44 Crit & 22 Det vs. Acc & SS seems like it would offset the damage/dexterity difference). I'd be interested in knowing how it rates against the i120 Ironworks Magitek Bow; I'm guessing at i120 the Ironworks Bow would probably edge it out because of higher ilvl, Physical Damage, and Dex even though it loses the 44 Crit, since it has Det in addition to the other stats that are 10 ilvl higher.

Here's the weapons I'm referring to, and where I think the Birdliege fits above the higher-ilvl Diamond bow (but I don't know how to calculate how these numbers actually translate to DPS)-

i120 Ironworks Magitek Bow-Physical Dmg 49 | Auto-attack 49.65 | Delay 3.04; Dex 48 / Vit 56 / Det 24 / SS 47
i110 Birdliege Bow- Physical Dmg 46 | Auto-attack 50.29 | Delay 3.28; Dex 42 / Vit 49 / Crit 44 / Det 22
i115 Diamond Bow- Physical Dmg 48 | Auto-attack 46.08 | Delay 2.88; Dex 45 / Vit 53 /Acc 46 / SS 32

[Tex_Mex]

Bard Stat Weights:
WD: 9.153
DEX: 1
CRT: 0.315
DET: 0.318
SS: 0.146
i120 Ironworks Magitek Bow-Physical Dmg 49 | Auto-attack 49.65 | Delay 3.04; Dex 48 / Vit 56 / Det 24 / SS 47
i110 Birdliege Bow- Physical Dmg 46 | Auto-attack 50.29 | Delay 3.28; Dex 42 / Vit 49 / Crit 44 / Det 22
i115 Diamond Bow- Physical Dmg 48 | Auto-attack 46.08 | Delay 2.88; Dex 45 / Vit 53 /Acc 46 / SS 32
To get the overall stat weight for the weapon, you just multiply the weights I listed by the number of stat points.

Below is an example for ironworks bow:
i120 Ironworks Magitek Bow-Physical Dmg 49 (49*9.153= 448.497)| Auto-attack 49.65 | Delay 3.04; Dex 48 (48*1 = 48) / Vit 56 / Det 24 (34*.318 = 10.812) / SS 47 (47*.146=6.862)
Total: 448.497+48+10.812+6.862 = 514.2

Giving the other 2 weapons the same treatment yields:
i110 Birdliege Bow- Physical Dmg 46(421.038) | Auto-attack 50.29 | Delay 3.28; Dex 42(42) / Vit 49 / Crit 44(13.86) / Det 22(6.996) = 483.9
i115 Diamond Bow- Physical Dmg 48(439.344) | Auto-attack 46.08 | Delay 2.88; Dex 45(45) / Vit 53 /Acc 46 / SS 32(4.672) = 489.016

Summary:
Ironworks Bow > Diamond Bow > Birdliege Bow

The higher ilvl weapon will always have higher auto attack DPS as well, which will only further widen these margins. Basically, this just shows that weapon damage and main stat value make up 95-96% of a weapon's damage potential. Don't stress too much over secondary stats, they don't add much.

[Buff_Archer]

Very interesting, thanks for taking the time to share that. I suppose without the Crit/Det on the Birdliege bow, the difference between the two would have been even larger... since the Diamond bow is 5 ilvl higher and gains just over 5 stat points, whiereas the Ironworks gains roughly 25 points over the Diamond bow for its 5 ilvl difference.

[EdgeFayth]

Hi.
I redid some calculations.
Indeed, it seems the weights used in the previous calculations are outdated.
I used the last weights I found, which are:
WP: 9.429, DEX:1, VIT:0, ACC:0, CRT:0.339, DET:0.32, SS:0.161
So using these weights, I calculated the equivalent DEX for all the bows with an ilvl>=110.

Here are the results. I sorted them from the best to the worst. The ilvl are between brakets. The relic bows are made using CRT DET only:
Dreadwyrm Longbow (135): 573.6
Augmented Ironworks Magitek Bow (130): 551.1
Yoichi Bow (125): 550.3
Ironworks Magitek Bow (120): 525.3
Artemis Bow Nexus (115): 523.4
High Allagan Composite Bow (115): 507.8
Pentameld (CRT IV*5) Ebony Longbow HQ (110): 505.6
Diamond Bow (115): 502.7
Artemis Bow Novus (110): 500.6
Birdliege Bow (110): 497.7
Rosenbogen (110): 493.3
Ebody Longbow HQ (110): 490.6
True Ice Bow (110): 480.7

If the next step of the relic is ilvl 135, then its equivalent DEX will be 577.1
If the next step of the relic is ilvl 130, then its equivalent DEX will be 563.7

Some remarks:
- be careful with these numbers (1): weapons with ACC will give less equivalent DEX, but if you have more ACC here, you can reduce the ACC on you other items and then gain some equivalent DEX on these items.
- be careful with these numbers (2): weapons with SS, even if they give a better equivalent DEX, will drain out your TP faster. The reason why I prefer to use the Yoichi Bow instead of the Augmented Ironworks Magitek Bow, even if this one is theoretically giving a better equivalent DEX (0.8 pts...)
- even if the new step of the relic is i135 (and I hope it will be), it will be only better than the T13 Bow by 3.5 DEX pts. Acceptable I think, regarding the fact that the T13 Bow is available for months, and all these items will become obsolete at the 3.0.

[Ooshima]

With regards to stat weights - my personal long runs of parses believe that even with the updated CRT = 0.339, DET = 0.320 numbers, it doesn't take into account of extreme stacking effects.

I believe some of you bards must have heard of the Patch 2.5 build that allows to stack up to 699 crit - or at least some of you in Tonberry which I shared the build with, or have seen my other posts on other bard related thread.

My own test shows that while by stat weight calculations, Augmented Magitek > Yoichi and Magitek > Nexus, by a slight margin, if you are able to stack crit to a certain level, the Yoichi/Nexus becomes better than the Ironworks version.

The Ironworks provides a more stable parsing output on a typical 3min to 3:30min tests, but if you parse it by a large sample number, the Yoichi/Nexus will out perform the Ironworks 80% of the time.

I believe that the breaking point is 641 crit (300 points above your base crit) which allows you to push your average/overall crit rate to the low 40%, while when approaching the 691 mark you can start to see mid 40% to 50%.

For this reason or the absolute hate on Skill Speed, most of the bards I know will take the relic over the Ironworks.

[FranSeara]

Yep, all of the zodiac weapons stuff is a grindfest, there is no way around it. (Unless they nerf the grind when they release Heavensward, which is the only way I will ever level a nexus past ilvl90) Opinion
You have to remember that the Zodiac weapons are designed with casual players in mind. They are for people who cannot, or do not want to participate in end game raiding. There will always be equivalent or better weapons than zodiac weapons available from end game raids. "Untrue and misleading"
RNG
So if you don't feel like grinding for your yoichi bow, then skip it. It is completely unnecessary and IMO a waste of time, but to each their own. Some people have the time to spend on it and don't mind the grind.

"If you get the Yoichi bow, It can now be upgraded to the Best or nearly best weapon in the game. "FACT"