Range bow damage - dex or str?
 

Thinking about starting a ranger down the line and am trying to understand if dexterity is worth investing in for ranged combat. As I understand dex affects bow damage and hit rate (str has 0 effect on ranged weapons), though on the Game Mechanics page it states that archery has no damage bonuses. is there a formula that demonstrates stat level with added damage (e.g. for every 5 dex above 100 +1 damage)?

There is an interesting thread from 2016 that states str is used instead of dex - was this fixed at some point between now and then? the wiki on patch notes seems to refer to original EQ timeline, not p1999 patches

On P99 you want STR, not DEX, for bow damage on a ranger.

Thanks for the clarification - seeing you have a 60 ranger I imagine this is accurate. Do you have any idea the +str to + dmg ratio, from your experience?

Also, is dex still relevant for bow accuracy or is that also str? (would edit previous post but looks like too much time has passed)

Unless you're playing on Red and worried about PVP, bow damage isn't really compelling enough to worry about during the lifetime of the server due to lack of Luclin-era EQ/AM3 AAs, except for 2 mins of Trueshot every 72 mins with a very small subset of endgame bows. At that point, you will be max STR and pretty close on DEX anyway.

Bowkiting is tedious.

In most cases, you are doing max DPS with melee weapons unless you've neglected to upgrade.

I know doing a bow ranger (especially pre-kunark/velious) may be tedious but it's something that I've been itching to try for some reason. Still going strong with my wizard for now so I probably have some time until the urge sinks in, but something about the unorthodox play style appeals to me

I get it, but it will appeal to you for about 3 mobs.

The unorthodox playstyle of a ranger comes from its versatility, not so much the ability to bow-kite. Harmony-pulling singles out of Mistmoore or Unrest, tanking for your group... shit, here comes a roamer... swap targets and rootpark. Wizard just overnuked and got aggro, no problem... flame licked back onto you. Nice, a warrior just joined the group... shit, he can't hold aggro. Cast root or swap to Ebony Bladed Swords and proc root for him. Got a runner... uh oh... no problem, snared. Wizard's at 50% HP and cleric is healing the warrior... top him off with a few heals and go pull the next mob.

I can make the case that playing a defensive/utility ranger like this with STA/HP/AC/WIS gear vs. an offensive ranger with STR/DEX is more compelling gameplay.

Bow kiting once in a while for a quest mob or some names mob for a drop outdoors is cool. What’s not cool is when you’re solo grinding through bow-kiting and it takes you an enormous amount of time just to kill one mob. Source: me.

I imagine str affects bows similarly to how it does on normal weapons. Usually it doesn’t add damage, it just makes it more likely your hits will do damage closer to your max damage. It seems to rather rarely also add a small amount of extra damage to a few of your hits, but again this is rare. Dex doesn’t seem to do much, maybe a marginal increase in crit hits, but again those are rare enough it doesn’t really improve your damage most of the time.

Bows are surprisingly good at very low level as they ignore damage caps. The benefit of this is largely lost by the time you’re done with giant scarabs and you start benefiting from things like double attack or dual wield and melee weapons beecomong uncapped.

Bow
 

Yeah you will want Str. I think the dmg calculation is really based off the bows damage more than strength bonus. Like you are only going to hit so hard with the increased attack rating you get. It obviously changes when you get into 50s for double dmg when it's standing there not rooted. I've done a dex build in the past to see if my crits happened more and it seemed worse with the lost damage of my strength gear being replaced.
I feel bow kiting stuff in classic and in other situational stuff later on in expansions is viable. But you shouldn't be doing it in groups and stuff. That's like a druid meleeing because he has a scimitar.

Root and shoot is viable to put your dots on it and med while you bow

Snare and bow to finish off mobs when your hp/mana gets a bit low during melee.

Make a buttload of arrows and solo a red con mob with sow. This sounds like a waste of time but getting a hero bracers way before you can tank and spank, or a short sword of Morin, orc impaler. 6-30 damage and not getting hit is nothing to laugh about in classic.

Tldr: Go strength, use archery as a tool not to define your class.