Rangers receive swords instead of a bow, because at the time they were put into the game Rangers were primarily melee dps. Over the course of (17 now?) expansion rangers have gone back and forth between melee and archery dps, and archery always needed tons of aa's to compare and that was usually only when burning for 2 minutes at a time with Trueshot.

The best bow for your dps will depend on what level you are now, but aside from that, there is a way you can determine if a bow you pick up is better than the one you're using:

Raw Ratio = Damage divided by Delay

Compare the raw ratio of the 2 bows, whichever one is higher will give more dps.