confused about the bow

[Sektorn]

i want to make a bow char but i dont understand why people say that 80:80 bows arent the best build for bow.
why do pure strgh build are better than the hybrids?
Why arent they better than the hybrids?

[Cloverleaf]

Bow has two skills that raise your crit chance, crit doubles your phy damage but it has nothing to do with mag. As phy damage comes from phy balance and phy balance comes from str, this means more str makes for bigger crits. Hybrids waste this potential, even though they might deal more damage without crits.

[borat2]

Bow has two skills that raise your crit chance, crit doubles your phy damage but it has nothing to do with mag. As phy damage comes from phy balance and phy balance comes from str, this means more str makes for bigger crits. Hybrids waste this potential, even though they might deal more damage without crits.

wasn't this already cleared up? that in fact hybrids bows crit harder than str bows!? if your standard damage is higher than the pure str based builds your crits will be higher too.

think the balance is wrong
maybe having more phy balance would give you better results, if i am not mistaken liquidsmooth is a 2str-1int hybrid right?

[X20AFreedom]

yea hybrid damage more than full str. just accept the fact...

[[AoW]ForLife]

STR crit damage is very near a hybrids, perhaps a shade higher. But pure str has a lot of hp . And with archer when you're fighting good hybrid swords or glaives you can get beaten pretty fast without a lot of hp. Heavy STR hybrid bow isn't bad though.

[Doctor_MOS]

criticals are AROUND the same. look in the damage contest between pure str bow and hybrid bows.

im 80:80. Glavies arn't a problem with ice snow on (however im just lv 48)
and it get's nasty after those 2 mins, however at my level fights won't take that long
s/s 90% int hybrids are a problem when they block my strong bow

[glavie]

It is very simple actually. Now that we know hybrids work( there are multiple high lvl hybrid bowers on this forum, who say there build is just fine) we can just skip the whole debate on which one crits higher it just comes down to what is different between them.

The simplified version
pure str: high hp, less damage
80:80 hybrid: med low hp, more damage

Both work just fine. They both have some pros and cons.

Why when you ask 10 people which is better, and you get 10 different answers?

Cause not everyone has the same priorities/playing style, what works for me may not work for you.

So good luck on your decision.