What's puzzling to me isn't the pronounced difference between snipe and fire for xbows, but the relative lack of difference for bows. I was always under the impression snipe's multiplier (or whatever you want to call it) would be significantly weaker than FIRE as compensation for the tactical advantage of remaining in hiding.

Perhaps it's a percentage reduction, and the additional power allotted to crossbow shots for longer load times means a higher loss of result? Sort of like how a 20% debuff means more at 1750 ranks than 1000 ranks.

Very interesting to see actual statistics in a DR discussion. That said, I don't think you should look at second hits - it just adds so many additional variables. Ideally, each target would be solidly balanced. I'd be interested to see how initial snap shots compare using fire or snipe. Obviously, that's a lot more work to compile. Maybe the accuracy boost from snipe would be evident there?

I'm sure there are better ways to gather the data, but I'm just using my normal training script as this started with the question "what's the best way to train ranged". I wouldn't fire flat-footed if I have the balance boost from CS, I wouldn't snap shot b/c of the huge increase in miss rate, and I wouldn't single load b/c the learning from a single shot is bad compared to dual load (no stat data for that yet, I'm sorry). Below is the data as of my last hunt.

Ignoring 2nd arrow and combined arrow data (if you want to), the first arrow from a composite bow is all the same (fire v. snipe v. poach). Interestingly fire v. snipe on a short bow has hit a 10% significance threshold. I like 5% much better as an arbitrary significance alpha so I won't make any definitive statements, but it is interesting. Also look at that number for the mind states/shot on snipe v. fire from a battle bow. Strange right?

For the crossbow data, clearly snipe is worse than fire or poach in damage output. IF that is intended, I think it sucks. On the bright side, the extra 3 seconds of loading the arbalest v. forester gives an approximate 1.6 multiplier to exp per shot. That's well worth it in my opinion!

Shout out to Nasrid for hooking me up with an arbalest for these tests!

BOW	First Arrow	Second Arrow	Combined		average Mindstates gained
average hit (all)	7.98±2.3 n=418	8.14±3 n=418	8.06±2.7 n=836		2±0.6 n=418
fire (battle)	9.12±1.7 n=77	8.78±3.8 n=77	8.95±3 n=154		2.1±0.6 n=77
snipe (battle)	8.96±1.6 n=102	9.06±3.1 n=102	9.01±2.5 n=204		2.3±0.6 n=113
poach (battle)	8.67±2.5 n=76	9.39±2.6 n=76	9.03±2.6 n=152		2.2±0.6 n=76
p(fire v snipe, battle)	0.539	0.602	0.834		0.083
p(fire v poach, battle)	0.201	0.249	0.789		0.336
fire (nisha)	6.74±1.8 n=42	6.83±2 n=42	6.79±1.9 n=84		1.7±0.5 n=42
snipe (nisha)	6.13±1.8 n=71	6.59±1.7 n=71	6.36±1.8 n=142		1.7±0.5 n=74
poach (nisha)	6.47±2 n=36	6.44±2.2 n=36	6.46±2.1 n=72		1.7±0.5 n=36
p(fire v snipe, nisha)	0.09103	0.50856	0.09360		0.87846
p(fire v poach, nisha)	0.54709	0.42173	0.31041		0.94287
				fire v fire	0.000120642
				snipe v snipe	3.5751E-10
				poach v poach	4.24909E-06

CROSSBOW	Average HIT		average Mindstates gained
average hit	7.66±2.2 n=261		1.5±0.6 n=225
fire (forester)	8.02±2.2 n=115		1.5±0.6 n=115
snipe (forester)	7.15±2.4 n=112		1.5±0.6 n=133
poach (forester)	7.55±2.2 n=125		1.4±0.6 n=125
p(fire v snipe, forester)	0.00500016		0.79
p(fire v poach, forester)	0.101562391		0.62
fire (arbalest)	10.56±3.3 n=41		2.3±0.7 n=41
snipe (arbalest)	9.09±3.4 n=47		2.2±0.8 n=50
poach (arbalest)	10.69±2.3 n=26		2.5±0.5 n=26
p(fire v snipe, arbalest)	0.043701084		0.639204501
p(fire v poach, arbalest)	0.850718732		0.348332481
		fire v fire	1.08691E-09
		snipe v snipe	1.27147E-08
		poach v poach	3.13081E-15

~Hunter Hanryu
>Everything Rangers have is just a lame version of something cool.~Morkim