Very surprised at the XBow answers in this thread. I have been playing around in a spreadsheet with the bonuses you get from Archery and it is quite hard to find a practical stat allocation that shows XBows pulling ahead. For example, at 30% crit chance and 250% crit damage, bows are ahead by a fair margin. If you raise either crit value independently from this baseline, bow dps remains ahead of xbow dps. Only when you have a relatively high crit % chance and relatively low crit damage % do xbows pull ahead.
Furthermore, xbows are slow as ****. Good luck avoiding Belial claw void zones or mortar affix if you're in mid xbow cast. I still have trouble sometimes moving away in time with a bow and 2.7 APS.
Regarding stutter stepping, unless you are playing solo and kiting, I don't think this is an issue. From what I have seen in groups, you need a fast weapon for those "oh crap" moments when you need to stop holding/clicking your mouse button and move away asap. Your ability to do this with slow xbows is severely hampered.
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Furthermore, xbows are slow as ****. Good luck avoiding Belial claw void zones or mortar affix if you're in mid xbow cast. I still have trouble sometimes moving away in time with a bow and 2.7 APS.
Regarding stutter stepping, unless you are playing solo and kiting, I don't think this is an issue. From what I have seen in groups, you need a fast weapon for those "oh crap" moments when you need to stop holding/clicking your mouse button and move away asap. Your ability to do this with slow xbows is severely hampered.
Am I missing something here?