Xbows and Guns ONLY...

[Narru]

To all you high level rangers out there:

I was planning on leveling up Alchemy and Goldsmith to 50+ (to craft bullets), saving up 1 million+ gil for the best equipment, and level up war/nin/sam to 35 each before even STARTING ranger (will be my main and plan on taking it to 75).

My only problem is this: I HATE bows. If it was possible (don't care about costs of bullets), I would use guns from day one. But I realize that crossbows do about 4x the damage as guns before you get 'bullets' (level 22 ammo). I.e. bronze bullets are crap. But wanna throw archery out the window and only do marksmanship....

Now I know the RNG AF weapon is a bow. I know a few other things that kinda suggest "use bows" "use bows", but my plan was to be using the best X-bows until level 22, then swap to guns there, and never look back. Just curious and wanted to ask those higher level rangers out there, can a ranger live without bows? (also assume infinite gil)

Thanks

-Narru (Mithra)

[Narru]

Forgot to mention elemental arrows/bolts.

Bows have them, Xbows have them, guns don't...

There's a BCNM (I think it's a BCNM 60), where you have 60 secs to do 10,000 damage to a bomb type monster. In this situation, fire arrows would be nice...

Let's assume levels 60+ you'll want to use guns anyways. I just want to justify NOT using bows from levels 1-60. We're talking about not using bows, AT ALL...

[nekote]

Well assuming you got the gil for the bullets I say yeah sure go ahead use guns.

[Nameless]

Saying you'll have 1 million gil, you probably won't.

Saying you'll take alchemy and such that high for a low level, good luck with that.

I doubt you'll do all you say, and once you're ingame you'll find your ideas are rideculous. You'll end up using bows, becuase using "xbows" isn't that great. And I would really like to see a level 22 with no finacial backround use guns. You should care about the cost of bullets, because my friend took RNG to 18 and spent 200,000 gil alone. Just giving you a smack of reality.

[greysenn]

Eh.. probably not the wisest idea.

Narru,

I've just got to 24 here the other night, and since I've had some money laying around, I decided to goof around with guns a little bit. I was using the standard bullets and an Arquebus. While the damage was cool for about 2 levels, a power bow +1 and silver arrows outdamages the combination 2 levels later for just a fraction of a cost.

While this may not seem a big deal, I'm looking at getting a pretty big damage jump from a Great Bow+1, but I won't get any significant gun damage increases until silver bullets at 51. You'll have about 25 levels there when your gun is going to do pretty insignificant damage compared to a bow. (But perhaps not a good crossbow..)

In general I haven't been very impressed by marksmanship at this point, and don't expect to be until later. While the eagle eyed shots are neat to watch at this level.. and I expect barrage to be similarly impressive.. It's very expensive by comparison and the guns are pretty lousy for pulling unless there is nobody around. (Veeery slow) I think you're going to be cutting off a foot not using bows at all.

Hope this helps.

Edit: Bah, need to update my sig. Thats 24 rng, not war.

[Cobalt Katze]

What I'd reccomend you doing is making bow your primary weapon, and when leveling take along a stack or two of crossbow bolts and a crossbow. Once you level, you can skill to cap, then switch back to bow and arrow for the good damage again. Then once you're at a level where it's acceptable to use a gun, by all means if you can afford it go for it.

As far as the AF bow, you'll never use it.. ever ..unless you level down at 50 and can't use your war bow +1 for 200 exp <o o;>

[Narru]

> And I would really like to see a level 22 with no finacial backround use guns. You should care about the cost of bullets, because my friend took RNG to 18 and spent 200,000 gil alone.

Forgot to mention I have a level 40 Thief at the moment. Planning on taking her to 50 to go nm hunting / coffer hunting / farming, so that I will have a financial backing. I’m level 40 at the moment, and so far, if you tally the worth of all my gear, it’s about 1 million+ gil. I’m just saying I want to save up an extra 1 million in cash before starting ranger.

> I've just got to 24 here the other night, and since I've had some money laying around, I decided to goof around with guns a little bit. I was using the standard bullets and an Arquebus. While the damage was cool for about 2 levels, a power bow +1 and silver arrows outdamages the combination 2 levels later for just a fraction of a cost.

Two questions:
1) Is your marksmanship skill maxed?
2) How much more do you mean when you say that the Power Bow+1 and silver arrows outdamages? Was it THAT noticeable?

> As far as the AF bow, you'll never use it.. ever ..unless you level down at 50 and can't use your war bow +1 for 200 exp <o o;>

See here’s my point exactly. Every ranger and their mother will go the Power Bow+1 -> Battle Bow +1 -> War Bow +1 approach. How much of a disadvantage will you have if you go the Xbow/Gun approach? Let’s look at some numbers (we assume infinite money, i.e. best equipment available):

Level 22-24:
Marksmanship – Arquebus+1 and Bullets = 65 damage/822 delay = .080
Archery – PowerBow+1 and Silver Arrows = 50 damage/644 delay = .078

Next level of bow (level 40):
Marksmanship – Serpentine Gun and Bullets = 71 damage/900 delay = .079
Marksmanship – Zamburak+1 and Mythril Bolt = 60 damage/472 delay = .127
Archery – BattleBow+1 and Silver Arrows = 74 damage/644 delay = .115

Next level of bullets (level 50):
Marksmanship – Musketeer Gun and Silver Bullet = 115 damage/822 delay = .140
Archery – WarBow+1 and Elemental Arrows = 95 damage/644 delay = .148
Archery – WarBow+1 and Silver Arrows = 85 damage/644 delay = .132

Like any nicely done equipment system, there's stepwise pros/cons to choose an equipment path (meaning at some levels one is better than other, but at others the reverse is true).

One would tend to want more damage vs less delay based on how the WS's work - multiplier of damage (and zero delay mind you).

At higher levels, rangers will choose guns if they can afford it. Just wanted to know if going through mid levels without BOWs will make me an average ranger, or gimp me so badly, that's all...

[greysenn]

Narru,

Yeah, both archery and marksman are capped at 75 atm. I usually try and cap them immediately after I level up, because if you go more than a level without skilling up, you're in trouble hitting xp mobs. (VT/IT etc) This may change at 28-30 (and I'm hoping it will, but I'm still keeping skills up to date.)

Silver and Power+1 combo hits 52ish versus qufim crabs. (Without any attack boosts, such as mithkabobs). The Arquebus and bullets do about 65 a shot (Should do 67ish if it was a + arquebus), but you're looking at a roughly 2 seconds more delay between shots, plus the bow has +acc, the gun dosen't.

It'll probably work well up to about 30, but then the bow significantly pulls away (44 base damage for a +1, and then another 19 for arrows).

Anycase, I'll probably toy with both for a while just to see the results (and guns are cool to watch at low levels :p) I'll keep you posted.

[Shinoro]

One thing people don't mention which is partly due by the lack of supply, is the status bolts. Such as Acid bolts (weaken def), blind bolts, sleep bolts, drain bolts, etc.. These are actually pretty damn useful but rather non-practical if you're skillchaining (which you should be). Sometimes if I'm below 30TP or so, I'll switch to Acid Bolts/Xbow and weaken the mob and then switch to bow. It makes a huge difference.

But its kind of a pain in the ass, mostly because you need like 60+ Alchemy to even make most of the status bolts, so they aren't in supply very much. For this reason, I think they are more overlooked than anything. Oh and btw, the status effects are 100%, meaning if the bolt hits, the effect goes off.

[Ninjitsu]

Yes, I decided to go 100% x-bow, and later I'll go with a gun when it makes the most sense. Until then, I'm using a gun for Eagle Eye Shots only, because bullets are 7500 a stack, and they don't do enough damage yet to justify the expense.

Anyway, as far as bolts go, I have been buying all of the bolt heads that I can get on the market. Making your own bolts is VERY easy if you can find someone selling bolt heads.

All bolts are Earth Crystal + Ash Lumber + 1 bolt head, which yields 33 bolts on a regular synthesis.

That formula + a given bolt head type makes a different stack of 33 bolts.

I generally see using bolts as a decent trade-off. I use my bolts to keep mobs blinded and to lower their defense at this level, and to put any adds asleep. I really have grown to like bolts, and they are very helpful to the PT at this point. I would think that the indirect damage you are doing by debuffing with bolts would make up for the slightly lower damage output.

I can only speak from experience up to level 24 with my ranger, but looking at the future bolt upgrades and x-bow upgrades looks OK, but definitely not always the best damage output. I also hate bows, and don't want to use them, and was determined to try and go with x-bows. Making my own bolts seems relatively cost effective so far, so it doesn't seem like a bad idea so far. I guess time will tell whether this is a serious mistake or a nicely planned future into gun use post level 50.

[Ninjitsu]

Ok, I looked at things more carefully, and I noticed something disturbing... I just went to look more closely at my upgrade path, and bows are far more available than x-bows!

There are times were you have to use the same X-bow for 12 levels before you can get another one based upon what is shown in the AH!!! I didn't check, but are bows the same story? Also, bolt heads for the later bolts are priced similar to bullets, BUT 12 bolt heads can be used with 12 earth crystals and 12 ash lumber to make 396 bolts.

I ran out of bolts again last night, and went to make more, soooo, I went to Jeuno and went to buy some more ash lumber. Here was the cost break down:

Earth Crystals (12ct)- 600 gil
Ash Lumber - (12ct) - 4000g
Acid Bolt heads - (12ct) - 2200

So, that was 6800g/396 bolts, which is 17.1 gil per shot, or 1700 per stack. Acid bolts are level 15 bolts that lower defense.

Blind bolts were slightly cheaper due to bolt heads costing 2000 instead of 2200. That is 16.6g per shot, or 1643 per stack. Blind bolts are level 10 (?) and inflict blindness on an enemy.

I'm beginning to have second thoughts about the viability of X-bow after doing some more research and taking my head out of the sand. Another disturbing thing is that bolt heads are not nearly as available as arrows are, at least not in Jeuno on my server...

Anyone have any idea how to make bolt heads? How much skill are we talking about for each type?

Also, can we get a list of X-bows together so that we can really break this down? Bows seem to be way more abundant than X-bows for whatever reason.

I can aleady see that I'm paying 1700 per stack of lvl 15 bolts, and the bolt heads only get more expensive from here on out. The damage I'm doing with bolts + status effects probably isn't worth what this will cost later on... This is going to get ridiculously expensive for the damage output that I'm getting out of it.

What do you say that we get more information to quantify the amount of ineffectiveness for the gil you have to spend to use bolts over arrows?

[Narru]

Ninjitsu,

I think you need to look at the upgrade path for "Marksmanship" instead of only the upgrade path for "Crossbows." Remember, bows are the only items in the game which affect "Archery," so that's probably why you're seeing more upgrades for bows vs xbows. But if you look at xbows and guns together, you'll see that at some levels, guns+bullets are more dps and at other levels xbows+bolts are more dps.

In any well designed, "interesting" game, you'll need to have different weapon paths for characters so that they can make a choice. With FFXI, from levels 1-70, we see an alternating trend where bow+arrow is king of damage at X level, then switches to xbow+bolt is king of damage at Y level, then gun+bullet does the most damage at Z level, then back to bow+arrow being the "best" at another level, etc...

If bows were always the best dps at every single level, then it'll be a relatively boring upgrade path wouldn't you think?

Of course, other factors are throw in, such as cost of weapon/ammo, availability of item, aesthetic looks (hehe), etc... that each and every player needs to make a choice on.

Someone who plays the game that wants to min/max things (assume infinite money) and wants "Best Damage Per Second at every single level", will have bows/xbows/guns being used throughout their character careers.

[Ninjitsu]

Thanks for the reply Narru, I'm glad you pointed out the fact that guns should be considered as part of the upgrade path with x-bows.

With that taken into consideration, there are no longer the huge level gaps where there is no new weapon to use. Unfortunately, using a gun means that instead of paying maybe 2k for bolts, you pay 7k for bullets. It just isn't feasible to use a gun where you can't find an x-bow due to cost before level 50. The cost to damage ratio is pretty bad compared to a bow, as many people have pointed out.

Every time I look at this with hopes of using an x-bow so that later on I can change over to guns, it always comes down to the same thing. Bows are generally more cost effective from start to finish. X-bows and guns are not always more damage than the bows, and they are MUCH more expensive than bows.

I guess it really boils down to this.... How much are you willing to pay to look cool, because the amount of damage difference isn't substancial enough to justfiy the expense. This is assuming that funds are not unlimited

I really get the impression that the developers of the game haven't really seen this issue, because the cost of using guns/x-bows is ridiculous for the damage you are doing. I would understand if the cost to damage ratio was maintained (you pay more for ammo, it hits harder), but it isn't the case. It makes no sense if you ask me.

I guess I might just go back to using a bow. I thought that using an x-bow would make sense so that I wouldn't have to level up marksmanship to use a gun later, but I might as well use a bow, and later on, I can just use a cheap x-bow, and level up the skill.

I give up :confused:

[Narru]

Actually, I'd prefer that guns/xbows cost more...

The way I see it, you pay 2x as much to use guns than bows for only, let's say 10-20% increase in damage output. Cost wise, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But here's the catch: I'd like to also be doing something 90% of Rangers won't do (so I can stand out from the crowd/make a reputation for myself).

For me, making gil is trivial (hey I find it enjoyable and fun). So if I can pay more, so that I am a better Ranger (only better by 10-20%), AND I'll look like I'm doing something different (i.e. firing off guns), it's a win/win situation. Thanks Square-Enix ^_^

My plan is to never let my ranger touch a bow, EVER. I'll be using the best Xbows up until level 22, then switch to guns. From there, I'll be using Xbow or Gun based on which one is highest dps at that level.

Thanks to Shinoro for pointing out the 100% effect of bolts. In that case, I'll be a situational Ranger as well, having an xbow on me at all times and a couple of different effect bolts for those emergencies.

I'll set up macros such as "Sleep" -> equip to xbow from whatever ranged weapon I'm using, equip sleep bolt, ranged attack <t>. One for "Lower Defense", etc... so that I can pull it out if our PT gets an add/link or whatever = more versatility.

Should be a fun time.

[Ninjitsu]

Well, good luck to you. Finding the bolts is not going to be fun at all. I gave up on X-bows. The damage output isn't more than the bow, and for the costs, it should be consistently.

Guns are the same story. It is pure asthetics. You will be different because you are not using a bow, but you will not be consistently outdamaging anyone until much later. The 10-20% you would expect to see for your money just isn't there, but the increased expense is.

It just doesn't make sense unless you just want to look different.

I wish you luck, and let us know how it goes. I'd be interested in seeing if your opinion changes of X-bow and guns before level 50. I have gone back to bows and quickly maxed my bow skill back up, have been doing more damage for my level, and have been paying less to do it.

At least Elvaans have a cooler look when they hold their bows than other races.