Ranger Bow Damage Calculation
 

Anyone have definite info? On the wiki it says max damage is based off STR, though hunting around I've read DEX elsewhere, and that's what I thought I remembered from live.

If STR, do crit bonuses from DEX outweigh STR base bow dps?

tldr: Strength or Dexterity for bow dps?

You're talking the difference between 10 dps and 12 dps at this point. If you're worried about dps, break out your jade mace/wurmslayer combo. By the time Velious comes around, you can max dex AND str with shammy buffs for the two minutes your archery damage will really matter.

I know melee>range dps, especially after this latest mini patch, just curious really.

So do you know?

No... because it doesn't matter. That's like asking if dual wielding rusty long swords outdamages a bronze 2H sword.

I believe it should be DEX, something I've been searching for to help out Kanras. If the stuff you're finding relates DEX to archery, how about heading down tot he Bug Report forums and posting there? That would provide loads of help to the staff (I haven't yet because I'm looking for the actual calculation... a blind change to DEX might hurt bow DPS even more).

Also in most cases you aren't going to benefit from a low damage bow at the moment (read: in this expansion or ever) because the hit distribution is very wide. I wouldn't recommend going the route of bow DPS but to answer your question: it should be based off of DEX.

The info I've found has been contradictory, some people saying STR, some people saying DEX, nothing definitive or worth repeating really, just random opinions from the relevant time period.

But I'm sure an answer exists somewhere, people must have known after Luclin when bows mattered.

Yup. My biggest thing is when I tried to use the DEX formula I found the parse that I was attempting to use to figure out his base stats (to see if it made sense) had a level 60 ranger with primal weapons sitting at 111 DEX. There is no way in hell that's right so I made a mistake somewhere or that formula doesn't work. I noticed DEX gave me a much higher chance of hitting a target at one point which meant more overall damage but I'm not sure if DEX by itself increases the damage.

Post-Luclin I went DEX so my archery would crit more...as that was the school of thought on the Glade at the time.

I'm pretty sure that happens even here. Before Kunark dropped I could guarantee harder hits and more crits with higher DEX. DEX is supposedly the ATK modifier for archery (not the ATK you see in inventory because that's main hand ATK). The issue here, though, is does DEX increase the maximum damage a ranged weapon can achieve.

Less anecdotes, more data! :) Someone produce numbers that corroborate this stuff :P