Best bow for ARC/BRD

[Lamentor]

I've been doing some research, and although as of right now, I do not have finished results (I plan on having some soon), I'm trying to determine which bow is really the best to use on ARC, or more specifically BRD. It seems generally agreed that Ifrit's bow is the best choice, at least from what I've been reading, but there are bows that could be better considering their delay/dps/other factors. I'll update this post, but right now I only have data for Ifrit's bow, and am working on data for other bows, such as garuda's/moogle's/verdant, etc.

Do any of you arc/brd's have a preference other than ifrit's bow? I would like to hear it! Especially if you have data to back up what you're saying.

[Deltara]

Sortof interested in seeing the Serpent Sergeant's Bow (or any of the three company bows), which has 26 less base damage than Ifrit but higher DPS.

I'm really curious about all those sergeant weapons.

[NoctisUmbra]

Garuda's Spine is best for BRD.

Sarnga +1 is best for ARC.

[Lamentor]

I'll hopefully be testing out every bow I can. I am with the Adder guild, so I'll be testing out that bow. There are actually quite a few bows with higher DPS than Ifrit's bow, so hopefully I will have some good data to show other than "This one is the best," because that doesn't really say much. Data! Results!

[Rofellos]

I'm not sure that Garuda's Spine is the best bow for bard because unlike other jobs, the WS damages are not your primary source of damages. For this reason i would keep the ifrit bow to boost my light shot/barrage dmg.

[Lamentor]

Well that's kind of why I'm going to be conducting research on this. Since WS damage is only addition to the light shot/barrage damage, I'm trying to figure out if a low delay low dmg bow will out parse a high dmg high delay bow such as ifrit's bow.

[Dzian]

Well that's kind of why I'm going to be conducting research on this. Since WS damage is only addition to the light shot/barrage damage, I'm trying to figure out if a low delay low dmg bow will out parse a high dmg high delay bow such as ifrit's bow.

I seem to recall a similar longbow vs shortbow debate a while ago. which iirc summarized delay to be unimportant for achers (and now brds) for reasons of autoattack mechanics

and any half decent bard will put a lightshot between every skill so a reduction of light shot delay offers no real benefit.
if for example i peircing arrow > lightshot > gloom arrow> light shot > bloodletter then the light shot is always available between the skills.

considering that a bard rarely strings a sequance of lights shots together (nearly always swimming in tp tp spam your 10s skills) the reduced delay doesnt actually offer much because the timers are static. barrage is 90 seconds regardless of delay for example

[Lamentor]

I'm going to be testing out a low delay bow soon. And then I'm going to be working on getting my hands on a Sarnga +1, which to be honest, might win in general. I'm pretty sure DPS doesn't count ifrit's bow fire damage proc which adds quite a bit of damage on a lot of fights, so I'm trying to add that into my calculations, and also is why I'm trying to do multiple fights in the game. That and Sarnga +1 isn't something feasable for just anyone in the game to get, so having other bows, such as a second/third/fourth best might be very helpful.

[Enfarious]

I'm going to be testing out a low delay bow soon. And then I'm going to be working on getting my hands on a Sarnga +1, which to be honest, might win in general. I'm pretty sure DPS doesn't count ifrit's bow fire damage proc which adds quite a bit of damage on a lot of fights, so I'm trying to add that into my calculations, and also is why I'm trying to do multiple fights in the game. That and Sarnga +1 isn't something feasable for just anyone in the game to get, so having other bows, such as a second/third/fourth best might be very helpful.

Yeah it really would, I don't know that I'll ever bother going after every bow, but a GC(if I have nothing left to waste seals on), Ifrit and Garuda (if it drops @random) could happen, I won't spend gil on anything for the job tho as I don't really care for it. But if there were a couple decent options that didn't take too much that'd be nice to know

[Fiosha_Maureiba]

This is an interesting question you pose. Since auto-attack isn't the factor, but how frequently one can weave Light Shot between their abilities.