Twisted Longbow  

 

I would have to agree that rangers would get the most use out of this bow (and most other bows) hands-down, and because of that they would usually get this kind of bow before other classes. For the most part, only rangers use bows for actual combat, while every other class with archery generally only uses arrows to pull monsters. If you just use a bow to pull monsters with, then all that really matters is the range on the bow and the range on the arrows, because the damage from that single shot is fairly insignificant. Also, because most tanking fighters will usually replace the bow with some other item in the range slot, to add large amounts of armor class and other stats, the stats on the bow don't matter much either. In this case, the bow adds to armor class and other stats to a small degree, but probably not enough to keep it in the range slot instead of other available items. I do agree that this bow is very good for anyone that can use it; I am simply giving my opinions on class priority, and everyone is quite free to disagree with me completely. :)

Out of the five classes that have archery available to them, it's pretty obvious to me how they stand in order of rank:

Rangers first. Hands down. Bar none. Rangers get several class specific buffs and abilities that actually make archery useful in a game where archery seems quite a bit watered down, as well as having very high caps in the archery skill. In many cases, rangers can actually do *more* damage with a bow than they can do while dual-wielding good quality weapons.

Warriors and rogues would fall in the second grouping. While these two classes are primary melee characters, and have high skill caps with archery, they do not have any special spells or abilities available to them that accentuate the archery skill, other than critical hits (which some people seem to consider unreliable eye candy). Most of the time a warrior's main role is simply to take damage in melee and hold a target's attention, and ranged attacks rarely come into play in this role. A rogue's primary combat ability is the backstab, and while this role may take a lot more finesse than a warrior's, it still involves getting up-close-and-personal with a target, precluding the use of ranged attacks; when a rogue does decide to use ranged attacks they may likely choose to use throwing weapons in order to take advantage of their class-specific throwing abilities (critical hits, deadly strikes, assassination). Good quality bows will still see a lot of use in the hands of a rogue or warrior, but in the hands of a skilled ranger, that use will increase 100 fold.

In the third grouping, we have the remaining two classes with archery available to them: paladins and shadow knights. Originally paladins didn't even have the archery skill, but of course that was way back in the day where paladins were considered by many (certainly not all, but many) to be rather useless. Paladins do have archery available to them now, however the skill has a very low cap, making it pretty useless for mainstream combat. Shadow knights are basically in the same boat, with a lower skill cap than the primary archers. While bows will certainly still see use in the hands of knights as pulling tools, especially for "tag pulling" with a feigning monk or shadow knight, much like the other fighters the bow will be de-equipped and replaced with something more suitable to melee combat when the heavy fighting starts. In many cases, however, paladins and shadow knights will simply *keep* their melee items equipped in the range slot, and use various spells to pull with, using a bow only for "tag pulling" when necessary.

I realize that this post began to drag on quite a bit, but I hope that I was fairly clear with my explanations, and that some people out there will understand more clearly this type of "Ranger bow! Monk item!" argument.

Now, let me equip my Gnomish Environment Suit, and let the flames begin!

Tomlin Tallfellow - 55 Halfling Druid
Azlaire Tallfellow - 41 Halfling Paladin
Kevlin Tallfellow - 32 Halfling Warrior
Silvester Stormblade - 46 Half-Elf Ranger
Vaeliin - 47 Dark Elf Rogue
Vaelorn D`Bious - 34 Dark Elf Shadow Knight
Mithaniel Marr Server

PS: Edited this message to say that yes, this bow is tradeable, so for many lower level characters, this is a very good range item *and* an excellent bow. There, maybe that took away some of the fuel for at least one flame...

Edited, Thu Oct 24 00:57:40 2002

I'm a warrior.. and I wouldn't even THINK of bidding on this over a ranger. When it comes to melee weapons, if I can use it I will bid (i.e. winning the guild's first smouldershank that's a 14/20 dagger), but bows... rangers outdamage other classes by a huge margin with them.

Out of all the classes listed, only a ranger should ever get this unless al the rangers present have better. The other classes will only ever do token damage with a bow or will primarily use it for pulling, so they can stick with the hunting bow lol