Are rare bows ever worth it? And at what cost?

A pure physical or high physical + single elemental rare thicket bow even 100% maxed rolls (about 420 dps) will never beat a lionseye.

An extraordinarily high elemental damage rare thicket (at least 200 elemental dps) can beat a lionseye if the build is perfectly optimized to take advantage of the added stats from a rare quiver.

Due to the rarity of said bows a lioneyes will be the best bow by far for 99.5% of players. Considering they go for 2 exalts for a random roll and 22 for 6l, everyone should be able to eventually get one.

In summary, lionseye glare is a ridiculous powerful weapon that simplifies bow builds by making 99.9% of the competition utterly worthless which is fine except they drop like candy and almost everyone can get one with ease.

seems like poor design..

For a level 50 bow its not bad.

I use this slow bow for now. I only play solo and stutter step my shots so a higher speed is not going to make much difference.

PS. the lightning arrow is just there to be leveled... I have rain on a 5L chest.

Lioneye is BiS for physical-based archers- even a perfect phys+phys+phys+ias rolled rare (of any base type) can only equal it, and even then, substantial accuracy investement will be required.

Nerfing lioneye to its cb stats (much less total phys damage) or changing "hits cant be evaded" to "resolute technique" would both work as far as returning it to a somewhat balanced state. Nothing worse for long term economy and playability than endgame uniques that make entire item blocks of rares obsolete for common mainstream builds.

Regarding the actual OP question: A short/grove bow with +2 bow, +1 gems, 30+ WED and 11+ IAS solidly beats lioneye for an elemental hit archer, and the same bow without the WED mod wrecks lioneye for dot-only poison arrow builds. Unfortunately, lioneye is once again BiS for more versatile poison arrow builds, so the times when an archer would prefer a rare over lioneye are few.

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KoTao wrote:

Lioneye is BiS for physical-based archers- even a perfect phys+phys+phys+ias rolled rare (of any base type) can only equal it, and even then, substantial accuracy investement will be required.

Nerfing lioneye to its cb stats (much less total phys damage) or changing "hits cant be evaded" to "resolute technique" would both work as far as returning it to a somewhat balanced state. Nothing worse for long term economy and playability than endgame uniques that make entire item blocks of rares obsolete for common mainstream builds.

Regarding the actual OP question: A short/grove bow with +2 bow, +1 gems, 30+ WED and 11+ IAS solidly beats lioneye for an elemental hit archer, and the same bow without the WED mod wrecks lioneye for dot-only poison arrow builds. Unfortunately, lioneye is once again BiS for more versatile poison arrow builds, so the times when an archer would prefer a rare over lioneye are few.

I think this is a fantastic suggestion

"Resolute Technique"

On Lionseye...Would still be an excellent bow, just wouldn't give you a free ride into a crit build like it does corrently.

I think that's the straw that breaks the rares back.

why has no one mentioned ROA in which you don't need accuracy at all?

only thing im confused about is .. WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU SPEND SOOOOOO MANY CHAOS ORBS ON A LVL 61 BOW?

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this is mine. getting a bit under powered now but still packs a punch. wont last past act 1 merc im afraid though.

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kamil449 wrote:

only thing im confused about is .. WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU SPEND SOOOOOO MANY CHAOS ORBS ON A LVL 61 BOW?

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it's an item level 79 bow (meaning it dropped from a rare monster in a 77 map), not 61..giving it access to every prefix/suffix available.

he picked that base type because it is the fastest at 1.55 attacks per second base.