Bowman

DEX impact to your damage range can be calculated as

The 0.07 is the mastery modifier at Weapon Mastery Level 0

1st job Bowman’s damage tends to be all over the place. This is because DEX is affected by Weapon Multiplier and Weapon Mastery, and you don’t get a Weapon Mastery skill until 2nd job.

Weapon Multiplier

STR impact to damage can be calculated as

Because STR isn’t affected by Weapon Multiplier and Weapon Mastery, the difference between min and max is solely from the 80 - 100 roll that’s added to your STR. Building STR works the same way as DEX build for warriors: put enough points into DEX to equip your gear, then dump everything into STR. This raises your min damage and tightens your damage range, but the gains are a lot smaller than they are for warriors.

STR Build Pros

• Higher min range because STR scaling isn’t affected by weapon mastery
• Tighter damage range due to STR not scaling with weapon multipliers

STR Build Cons

• Smaller gains than DEX warriors. Bows and crossbows always shoot, so there’s no Swing / Stab variance to remove
• Arrow Blow’s lower multiplier (240% vs Power Strike’s 260%) means min damage rises less
• Critical Shot already rescues a lot of low rolls, leaving less for STR to improve
• Lower accuracy without DEX
• Need to AP reset when you start putting points into weapon mastery at 2nd job

For example, against Jr Necki (272 HP) with 47 Weapon Atk, 10 Atk Power, 25% crit and 35% crit damage, going from 130 DEX / 15 STR to 55 DEX / 90 STR only moves max Arrow Blow from 75% to 82% 1 shots. A warrior with a 2H blunt weapon going from STR to DEX build moves max Power Strike from 80% to 100%.

Accuracy decides whether your attacks hit. It's one stat used for both physical and magic attacks.

Accuracy from your stats can be calculated as

Every stat here is your total, including equipment and buffs

Each attack compares your Accuracy against the monster's Avoid. Monsters that are a higher level than you need a lot more Accuracy to hit reliably, while being a higher level than the monster gives no extra bonus. Level is part of the formula too, so your Accuracy goes up a little every level even without adding stats.

Avoid decides how often monster attacks miss you.

Avoid from your stats can be calculated as

Every stat here is your total, including equipment and buffs

LUK gives twice as much Avoid as DEX. Avoid doesn't help at all until it reaches a baseline for the monster attacking you. For example, Zombie Mushrooms require 52 Avoid before you have any chance of dodging them.

Arrow Blow is better for the following reason.

• It uses 2 less MP per cast, which translates to 25% less mp pot usage at lv4 and 12.5% less at MAX
• Because of bow whacking, it’s better to finish off mobs 1 by 1 rather than AoE 2 and get run down.

Damage wise, they do the same damage on a single target even when taking into account monster w. def.

We max The Eye of Amazon 3rd because the range increase for maxing it vs leaving it at 1 point isn’t that significant when training early on. For most of the early game, you’re going to be in a party and sitting on a platform killing anything that spawns. Not a whole lot of movement required and things will also take multiple hits to clear, making mobs run towards you. Being able to consistently reach hit count thresholds with maxed Arrow Blow and Critical Shot is better for exp.

Unfortunately Power Knockback uses the bow whack weapon multiplier when calculating damage. Not worth using as the damage is low and you’ll end up wasting time chasing mobs you knock back.