Disappointed...

[RaunII]

Several months ago when I caught wind that a major nerf was incomming for rangers, I ditched the character I was leveling for raids(at the time level 40 ranger) and leveled up a swashbuckler instead as my main raiding character. the swashy is now lvl 70 with 100 AA's, and I was looking for my next project to level up with one of my wifes characters, so I decided to blow the dust off my ranger...and I was so glad I didnt make my ranger my main.

I went out and bought him adept 3's of all his heavy hitters and master 1's or adept 3's of all his ranged attacks...I got a couple better bows for both long range and short range fights, and then I outfitted him with some better jewelry and leveled him to 42.

So, I threw up a parser last night...and to my shame, he had been hit very hard. prior to my leaving him to sit unused a couple LU's ago, he was pulling 400+ DPS with app4's and treasured gear and jewelry...last night on blue heroics in a group my average parse for a DFC run was 162 DPS...the peaks when all my skills were up barely cleared 200dps...and thats after new gear...

[Removed for Content] did they do to us? seriously...I hated solo'ing with my ranger, but in groups the ranger was for more fun and took much more skill than my swashy...he was challenging...but now...its sad...at the same level my swashy was pulling 500DPS tanking for groups in defensive stance with app4's...are high level rangers this bad? should I even bother leveling him?

[xandez]

hmm maybe swashies need a nerf... they apprently do too much DPS for a utility scout eheh...Ranger = late blooming class, give it some time, learn the tricks of the trade etc... use nice poisons, good arrows... and last but maybe the important thing is: GET A GOOD BOW!w/o a good bow, ranger = suckwere not that bad, but nowhere near the "demi-god" state before LU(xx, sry dont remember anymore what is was ) ++Xan

[Kalvaine]

Yeah that's kinda low DPS for that level for a Ranger. Gonna be 3 possible reasons for that.(1) Get a great bow. At that level a pretty decent bow is the Vinestrung Bow (I think that's the name). Remember, forget the damage rating on bows and go for the biggest damage spread. (ie: 80-180 > 140-200)(2) Brush up on your Ranger skills. When in group, remember to stand in the "sweet spot" where you can throw in melee CA's when your ranged CA's are down to maximize DPS.(3) Maybe you were in a group with a tank that likes his own DPS more than taunting, causing you to gain aggro when you should be pumping out more DPS.When I stepped back into my Ranger boots after playing a couple of other classes, I found that a Ranger is a very tricky class to play to get the most out of him until you get used to him again.Btw, welcome back!

[Deterre]

Bow for short range combat? Never use shortbows, they are awful for rangers. Really.

[LoreLady]

I dunno, I have always been top parse in every guild ive been in regardless of group. Personally I dont see these "disappointed" views or where they are coming from.

[Ve]

Vindane@Everfrost wrote:

Yeah that's kinda low DPS for that level for a Ranger. Gonna be 3 possible reasons for that.(1) Get a great bow. At that level a pretty decent bow is the Vinestrung Bow (I think that's the name). Remember, forget the damage rating on bows and go for the biggest damage spread. (ie: 80-180 > 140-200)(2) Brush up on your Ranger skills. When in group, remember to stand in the "sweet spot" where you can throw in melee CA's when your ranged CA's are down to maximize DPS.(3) Maybe you were in a group with a tank that likes his own DPS more than taunting, causing you to gain aggro when you should be pumping out more DPS.When I stepped back into my Ranger boots after playing a couple of other classes, I found that a Ranger is a very tricky class to play to get the most out of him until you get used to him again.Btw, welcome back! " width="15" height="15" />

Could you clearify what you mean by: go for the biggest damage spread instead of the higher damage rating? Shouldn't the higher damage rating give the most DPS? I don't get it.

[RaunII]

well, first, what i meant by long at short range was for soloing or groups. I use Long Arm when I can because of the bigger damage spread(68-205) and the delay and higher damage rating, but because the range is 4m-50m it is very difficult to use in dungeons...you can still get in the "sweet spot", but there isnt enough room most of the time, if there isnt enough room for me to back up aways, I am using Foewhistler(45-135) which is a short bow (2m-25m).

both are high 30s legendary bows and i cant find anything better on item database except a couple fableds i cant get my paws on.

prior to live update i was using non mastercrafted poisons, now i am using STR potions and mastercrafted caustic poison.

as far as AA's i am all the way down the AGI line of the predator tree and almost to doubleshot on the ranger tree.

The tank for that run was a very capable fabled out mentored down 70 SK, didnt pull aggro once.

so, thats where i sit. maybe rangers get better at high levels, but after that big of a change in DPS, I was disappointed with what he is like now after i got him better gear and CA's.

maybe i do need to relearn to play him...was just wanting some more experienced players take on the subject. thanks guys and girls!

[Deterre]

The damage rating is practically inconsequential when looking at how good a bow is.A higher damage spread increases the critical hit damage, which is much more important than the DR. The normal damage spread ratio is 1:3 (eg. 137:411. The damage spread of the Ghostly Bow of Bylze is 1:9, giving it massive critical hits. Because of this it is a very solid bow and is better than lots of t7 fabled bows if you don't have t8 ammo.Check this: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=353709

[RaunII]

so would that bow be better for DPS than raincaller???

[littleman17]

Just to reiterate, NEVER EVER USE A [Removed for Content] SHORT BOW! They are bad bad bad bad bad, for our dps... Did I mention that they are hella BAD for our dps? That is prob why you were sucking so hard in dfc (a dungeon). You were using a [Removed for Content] short bow. Faster delays = less crits and less proc.

Crits and procs are a big part of our dps, as is timing our arts between our auto attacks, which is much easier with a high delay bow. If you have a bow with around about a 7 second delay, you should be able to get off about two combat arts between each attack. It takes some serious practice, Ranger's can be one of the best classes in the game dps wise if played right. (I am still learning with subpar str and I hit 1.3 dps just about every parse)

Also, if you do not know, the first two lines you should go down are AGI then INT. I then suggest you go the multi shot line then the focus line. You will notice a large jump in your dps when you complete the agi line (8 points in the ranged crit) and the int line (8 points in the spell crit for poisons/procs).

[LoreLady]

Most bows out there are better than raincaller - get the grizzfazzle if your at that level and are looking for the next step up.. Its a real easy quest to.

[Hecafe1]

I have to disagree (although its a personal taste thing) I prefer RC over Grizz's anyday of the week and parsed higher with it in Raids (when i was in a  raiding guild) Ghostly bow of Blyze is a very nice bow not too difficult to get,and a very nice bow  despite the long auto time which you can lower with haste items anyway.

[RaunII]

ok...the short range bow i was using in dungeons was like a 4.7 second delay...maybe allowing for one ranged CA between reloads i suppose. yeah, if i have room and can use long arm i get almost 300dps...i am going to see if i can camp a named in oblisk of lost souls for a 40ish long bow with a sick damage spread and long reload...better than long arm and mastercrafted at any rate.

as far as if raincaller is good or bad for high 50s i will worry about in 15 levels,lol.

also, the poison crit chance does more DPS vs double attack and my main ranged attacks damage buffed through that line? hmmm....

[EQ2Magroo]

OK, I've read everything I can on this damage spread argument and the conclusions people are making still seem completely incorrect to me.What all the data says iS that a crit hit = ( max damage +1 ) * 1.3Try as I might, I just don't see where the damage spread has anything to do with this calculation ?It seems logical to me that, all things being equal, you want a bow with the highest max damage you can.For example, take 2 bows as follows:Bow A - Delay 5 - Min 500 - Max 1000Bow B - Delay 5 - Min 900 - Max 1000Which of these two would you pick ?I can't see any reason why you would want to pick Bow A rather than Bow B. Bow A has a much larger damage spread and this means it will see more benefit from crit hits, but this is because the crits will be replacing some of the low damage rolls caused by its low minimum hit. This isn't the same thing as saying it will do more damage than Bow B. Bow B will clearly be the best bow as you know you'll always hit for a minimum of 900.Am I missing something here, or is all this talk of damage spread just plain wrong ?BTW, when talking about T7 bows, I still say Rain Caller is the best non-raid zone bow out there if you only have access to T7 ammo.

[xandez]

crit is  maxdmg + 1 OR maxdmg * 1.3this is where the dmg ratio comes into play... the higher the ratio (eg. 1:9 with bylze vs 1:4 with some other bow), the better your chance of getting the maxdmg *1.3 rather than the maxdmg +1 correct me if i have understood this wrong... " />*edit*ps. i still use Bylze since imo that is pretty nice non-raiding bow to get... ++Xan

[Yarginis]

EQ2Magroo wrote:

OK, I've read everything I can on this damage spread argument and the conclusions people are making still seem completely incorrect to me.What all the data says iS that a crit hit = ( max damage +1 ) * 1.3Try as I might, I just don't see where the damage spread has anything to do with this calculation ?It seems logical to me that, all things being equal, you want a bow with the highest max damage you can.For example, take 2 bows as follows:Bow A - Delay 5 - Min 500 - Max 1000Bow B - Delay 5 - Min 900 - Max 1000Which of these two would you pick ?I can't see any reason why you would want to pick Bow A rather than Bow B. Bow A has a much larger damage spread and this means it will see more benefit from crit hits, but this is because the crits will be replacing some of the low damage rolls caused by its low minimum hit. This isn't the same thing as saying it will do more damage than Bow B. Bow B will clearly be the best bow as you know you'll always hit for a minimum of 900.Am I missing something here, or is all this talk of damage spread just plain wrong ?BTW, when talking about T7 bows, I still say Rain Caller is the best non-raid zone bow out there if you only have access to T7 ammo.

Yeah, he didn't quite explain the spread thing right. the was he explained it holds true in 95% of cases, just not in the example he gave. Really you should be looking at top damage, which in almost all cases correlates to spread.For example 2 bows with the exact same dmg rating (average dmg), but different spreads:100-300 (3:1 standard spread)50-350 (7:1 spread)Now these numbers are 100% made up, but as you can see, even though they both average 200, the 7:1 will actually hit harder with crits, because every crit will be a minimum of 351, as opposed to 301 on the top bow. So a hit of 50 that crits will get +301 to it's dmg (a whopping 7x what it would have been), while the other bow's minimum of 100 would get +201 to it's damage (only 3x what it would have been). When you are down ranged crit AA's and critting say 1/3 of your attacks you can see how that would add up.

[Deterre]

Just to clear a few things up:Grizzlefazzle is an awful bow, worse than Raincaller for DPS.littleman17 wrote:

Just to reiterate, NEVER EVER USE A [I cannot control my vocabulary] SHORT BOW! They are bad bad bad bad bad, for our dps... Did I mention that they are hella BAD for our dps? That is prob why you were sucking so hard in dfc (a dungeon). You were using a [I cannot control my vocabulary] short bow. Faster delays = less crits and less proc.

Crits and procs are a big part of our dps, as is timing our arts between our auto attacks, which is much easier with a high delay bow. If you have a bow with around about a 7 second delay, you should be able to get off about two combat arts between each attack. It takes some serious practice, Ranger's can be one of the best classes in the game dps wise if played right. (I am still learning with subpar str and I hit 1.3 dps just about every parse)

Also, if you do not know, the first two lines you should go down are AGI then INT. I then suggest you go the multi shot line then the focus line. You will notice a large jump in your dps when you complete the agi line (8 points in the ranged crit) and the int line (8 points in the spell crit for poisons/procs).

A short bow doesn't proc less or do less crits. It just does much less damage and much lower crits because of the really bad high end damage, giving you a much lower overall DPS.The longer delay is just useful for timing autoattacks in between CAs.

[Beldin_]

Deterrent wrote:

Just to clear a few things up:Grizzlefazzle is an awful bow, worse than Raincaller for DPS.

A short bow doesn't proc less or do less crits. It just does much less damage and much lower crits because of the really bad high end damage, giving you a much lower overall DPS.The longer delay is just useful for timing autoattacks in between CAs.

Not to forget .. a short bow costs more money because you fire much more arrows

For solo i think its a no-brainer why Raincaller is better, for grouping i also prefer RC over Bylze because i still think that the stun is also a little help for the tank/healers. I remember one fight against the witch in Unrest where nobody was ported into the prisons because she was stunned/stifled most of the time

[EQ2Magroo]

xandez wrote:

crit is  maxdmg + 1 OR maxdmg * 1.3this is where the dmg ratio comes into play... the higher the ratio (eg. 1:9 with bylze vs 1:4 with some other bow), the better your chance of getting the maxdmg *1.3 rather than the maxdmg +1 correct me if i have understood this wrong... " />

This is the part that doesn't make sense to me.The way I understand crits to work is as follows:If you get a crit hit, then the actual damage is calculated by taking the damage you would have done on the roll and multiplying it by 1.3. If the resulting value is less than your max damage value for the bow, then it is rounded up to max damage +1. This gives us the result that crit strikes are in the range max damage +1 to max damage * 1.3.Now, where the benefit comes in for bows with a high damage spread, is that some of those rolls will be for less than ( max damage / 1.3 ), so they will be rounded up to maxdamage +1.However, surely in effect all this is doing is increasing the minimum damage of the bow when it crits to match that of a 1:3 bow ?If you roll a 50 say, and maximum damage is 500, then with a crit this 50 will be increased to 501. This doesn't take into account what happens with non-crit hits though. That roll of 50 is going to stay as a 50 if you don't get a crit.It seems to me that bows with high damage spreads benefit more from crit hits in as much as on a crit hit their damage range is effectively 1:3.However, this benefit is simply bringing it into line with a 1:3 bow for crits, and does nothing to help out with non-crit hits which are on average going to be lower.I am more and more convinced that max damage is the only stat that really matters.

[EQ2Magroo]

Yarginista wrote:

Yeah, he didn't quite explain the spread thing right. the was he explained it holds true in 95% of cases, just not in the example he gave. Really you should be looking at top damage, which in almost all cases correlates to spread.For example 2 bows with the exact same dmg rating (average dmg), but different spreads:100-300 (3:1 standard spread)50-350 (7:1 spread)Now these numbers are 100% made up, but as you can see, even though they both average 200, the 7:1 will actually hit harder with crits, because every crit will be a minimum of 351, as opposed to 301 on the top bow. So a hit of 50 that crits will get +301 to it's dmg (a whopping 7x what it would have been), while the other bow's minimum of 100 would get +201 to it's damage (only 3x what it would have been). When you are down ranged crit AA's and critting say 1/3 of your attacks you can see how that would add up.

This is where I think people are making a mistake.The second bow does higher average crits for sure, but this is a function of it having a higher max damage and nothing to do with damage spread.If you change the example to:Bow A - 200 - 600 (3:1)Bow B - 100 - 600 (6:1)With this, I don't see that there is any difference to crits. Bow B is going to benefit from any crit rolls below 200 being upgraded to 200. Bow A will not see this benefit, but as it is never going to roll below 200 in the first place, it doesn't matter - they will be identical on crits.However, on non-crit rolls, Bow A is going to win with an average hit of 400 compared to 350 for Bow B.

[LoreLady]

EQ2Magroo wrote:

xandez wrote:

crit is  maxdmg + 1 OR maxdmg * 1.3this is where the dmg ratio comes into play... the higher the ratio (eg. 1:9 with bylze vs 1:4 with some other bow), the better your chance of getting the maxdmg *1.3 rather than the maxdmg +1 correct me if i have understood this wrong... " />

This is the part that doesn't make sense to me.The way I understand crits to work is as follows:If you get a crit hit, then the actual damage is calculated by taking the damage you would have done on the roll and multiplying it by 1.3. If the resulting value is less than your max damage value for the bow, then it is rounded up to max damage +1. This gives us the result that crit strikes are in the range max damage +1 to max damage * 1.3.

Thats just it... when your looking at spread your crits will turn into 40-50% when you get to a 1-6 spread its nolonger a 30% crit bonus.

[Gareorn]

EQ2Magroo wrote:

Yarginista wrote:

Yeah, he didn't quite explain the spread thing right. the was he explained it holds true in 95% of cases, just not in the example he gave. Really you should be looking at top damage, which in almost all cases correlates to spread.For example 2 bows with the exact same dmg rating (average dmg), but different spreads:100-300 (3:1 standard spread)50-350 (7:1 spread)Now these numbers are 100% made up, but as you can see, even though they both average 200, the 7:1 will actually hit harder with crits, because every crit will be a minimum of 351, as opposed to 301 on the top bow. So a hit of 50 that crits will get +301 to it's dmg (a whopping 7x what it would have been), while the other bow's minimum of 100 would get +201 to it's damage (only 3x what it would have been). When you are down ranged crit AA's and critting say 1/3 of your attacks you can see how that would add up.

This is where I think people are making a mistake.The second bow does higher average crits for sure, but this is a function of it having a higher max damage and nothing to do with damage spread.If you change the example to:Bow A - 200 - 600 (3:1)Bow B - 100 - 600 (6:1)With this, I don't see that there is any difference to crits. Bow B is going to benefit from any crit rolls below 200 being upgraded to 200. Bow A will not see this benefit, but as it is never going to roll below 200 in the first place, it doesn't matter - they will be identical on crits.However, on non-crit rolls, Bow A is going to win with an average hit of 400 compared to 350 for Bow B.

Using the crit formula, both bows have a max crit of 780.  Any hit below 462 that crits will hit for 601 (461*1.3=600).

Bow "A" hits below 462 66% of the time, which means 34% of the crits will be greater than 601.  Bow "B" hits below 462 72% of the time, which means that 28% of the crits will be more than 601.

The more a person crits, the more attractive bow "B" looks because the more you crit,  the less you'll be hitting at the bow's lower end of the damage range.  For those that don't crit much, bow "A" will be better because of the higher average damage.

It's not as simple as picking the bow with the highest DR or the bow with the highest damage srpead.  Both factors have to be taken in consideration as well as personal stats, and group/raid set up.

[EQ2Magroo]

Gareorn wrote:

EQ2Magroo wrote:

This is where I think people are making a mistake.The second bow does higher average crits for sure, but this is a function of it having a higher max damage and nothing to do with damage spread.If you change the example to:Bow A - 200 - 600 (3:1)Bow B - 100 - 600 (6:1)With this, I don't see that there is any difference to crits. Bow B is going to benefit from any crit rolls below 200 being upgraded to 200. Bow A will not see this benefit, but as it is never going to roll below 200 in the first place, it doesn't matter - they will be identical on crits.However, on non-crit rolls, Bow A is going to win with an average hit of 400 compared to 350 for Bow B.

Using the crit formula, both bows have a max crit of 780.  Any hit below 462 that crits will hit for 601 (461*1.3=600).

Bow "A" hits below 462 66% of the time, which means 34% of the crits will be greater than 601.  Bow "B" hits below 462 72% of the time, which means that 28% of the crits will be more than 601.

The more a person crits, the more attractive bow "B" looks because the more you crit,  the less you'll be hitting at the bow's lower end of the damage range.  For those that don't crit much, bow "A" will be better because of the higher average damage.

It's not as simple as picking the bow with the highest DR or the bow with the highest damage srpead.  Both factors have to be taken in consideration as well as personal stats, and group/raid set up.

Bow A will hit below 462, 66% of the time.Bow B will hit below 462, 72% of the time.Ignoring crits, Bow A is obviously the one to pick.Now when we consider crits does this change ?Bow B has the potential to benefit from an extra 6% of its hits being "upgraded" to max damage +1 compared to Bow A.Note that this isn't 6% more chance of a crit, it's just that 6% of its rolls *could* benefit if they were also crits i.e. if your crit chance was 100%However, this is a moot point, because if your crit hit is 100% then Bow A is going to crit just as much. In fact, Bow A will be better, because it has fewer chances of just hitting max damage +1, and more chances of hitting a *1.3 as more of its rolls will be above 462.If your crit chance is 50% say, then you have 3% more more rolls that could benefit, but even if they do, they are only going to be upgraded to the same damage as you would have gotten from the bow with the smaller damage spread.Just to make it clear, in the following example:Bow A - 200 - 600 (3:1)Bow B - 100 - 600 (6:1)Bow B is going to benefit more from the upgrade effects of crits below the threshold. However, this is unimportant as Bow A is going to put out more DPS - it has fewer low rolls, and those crits it does have are more likely to be on rolls over the upgrade threshold (462)Damage spread is just a big red herring - the max damage is the only *important* determining factor in your crit damage.Or am I still missing somthing obvious ?

[Mordith]

Wow, this was a very useful discussion as I had no idea how bow damage and crits worked.  That being said, it would appear that you would first want to look to max damage and second to look to have less of a spread, not more. 

[Ve]

EQ2Magroo, from a logic standpoint I am in agreement with you. I think people are putting to much faith into the higher damage modifier of a larger damage spread. Most aren't factoring that yes your crit's will be higher by percentage, but they will be higher based off of lower base damage to begin with AND your non-crit auto attack damage will be lower with the higher damage spread bow. Considering your vast majority of hits are non-critical and your damage on all of those hit's will be lower on the high damage spread, I think you would need to parse individual bows to get the best. To me it would appear the two most important stats are max damage and delay. In order to tell which bow is better in regards to higher spread or lower spread taking into consideration crits and non-crits, you would need to parse them. I don't think the difference in the end will be huge if you have a decent crit rate on your character as both bow "types" seems to level out a bit. Both types just make their damage slightly different.

[RollerDog]

I think the simple answer to the whole issue is that everyone is right. Namely, maximum hit value is very important. And for two bows with the same damage rating, the one with the widest spread will obviously have the largest maximum hit.

There are wierd cases where the largest spread doesn't have the highest max damage, but those are cases where the damage ratings are vastly different and therfore not a valid comparison anyway.

[Yarginis]

Ok, right now i feel like a complete idiot... I have a couple pages for calculations written out, but I am getting stumped by a total brain fart that I know will make me want to hang myself once i wee it because it's completely basic but I just can't seem to catch it. (This is why trying to calculate formulas at 9am after being up all night is a bad idea)

Bow "A" hits below 462 66% of the time, which means 34% of the crits will be greater than 601.  Bow "B" hits below 462 72% of the time, which means that 28% of the crits will be more than 601.

For some reason, I absolutely cannot figure out where the  66%, 34%, 72%, and 28%'s are coming from. I know they look right, I just cannot for the life of me seem to reproduce them for my calculations right now, and it's driving me insane because I've literally been staring at a calculator and a notepad for over an hour, but even though I've done it a hundred times, I can't seem to work it out right now. If you could possibly share the math to same me the insanity I'd be most appreciative.

[EQ2Magroo]

I know the feeling, my head is hurting too....so I'm going to program something to work it out for me as soon as I can find my Delphi CD I think what you do is take the max damage value, in my previous example this was 600. Divide that by 1.3 to give the crit "upgrade" threashold. This comes out in that case as 462.Now if you look at the damage range on Bow A, it is 200-600, which is 400 different possible rolls. 200-462 will be in the "upgrade zone", which is 262 possible values. 262/400 = 66%. The 34% is simply what's left.Bow B damage range is 100-600 which is 500 different possible rolls. 100-462 will be in the "upgrade zone", which is 362 possible values. 362/500 = 72%. The 28% is simply what's left.Here's some dodgy Pascal pseudo-code which I was scribbling down on bus home which I'm going to use to work out the damage rates.

---

critrate := 40 ; { this is our crit hit % )damagespread := ( maxdamage - mindamage ) + 1 ;critthreashold := maxdamage / 1.3 ; { any crit hits below this figure will be rounded up to maxdamage + 1 }numberofrolls := 0;repeatdamageroll = random ( damagespread ) ; { generate a hit in damage range }critroll = random ( 100 ) ; { roll to see if we are a crit }if critroll <= critrate thenbegin { this is a crit hit, so increase the damage }   if damageroll < critthreashold then damageroll := maxdamage + 1 else damageroll := damageroll * 1.3 ;   crittext := '*' ;end elsebegin { this is a non crit hit, so do nothing }   crittext := ' ' ;end ;writeln ( crittext + 'Your roll hit for ' + INTTOSTR( damageroll ) + ' damage.' ) ;inc ( numberofrolls ) ;until ( numberofrolls > 100000 ) ;

---

I think that's a valid algorithm for calculating damage for a bow, certainly for comparing the effects of damage spread on bow damage (which is what I've been trying to get my head around). Hopefully I'll have something coded later which I can stick on our guild site...Who ever knew not playing the game would be more interesting than playing it ?

[RollerDog]

The range for bow A is 400. 66% of 400 is 264. 264 + 200 (base of range) = 464 (he was close)

The range for Bow B is 500. 72% of 500 is 360. 360 +100 is 460 (he was close)

462 was picked because any value below that will yield a crit less than max hit value so the crit becomes max + 1.

[Gareorn]

RollerDog wrote:

The range for bow A is 400. 66% of 400 is 264. 264 + 200 (base of range) = 464 (he was close)

The range for Bow B is 500. 72% of 500 is 360. 360 +100 is 460 (he was close)

462 was picked because any value below that will yield a crit less than max hit value so the crit becomes max + 1.

I did my calulations in my head, so I did some rounding to make it easier.  Also, I didn't state that this is assuming that chances to hit are linear in nature (equal chance to hit any number between the spread).  If the chances to hit are on a curve then all the calculations are worthless and may explain why people seem to get more DPS from bows with larger spreads.

I'm not saying which bows are better.  I just think that people need to try out different bows and see for themselves which works best for them.  I used the Grizz for the longest time, even though most people deemed it unworthy for raid use, and it gave me some pretty good DPS.  I tried using the RC and, even though it had a high end crit of 1K more than the Grizz according to my parses, my DPS was actually about the same with the two bows.  I think that was only because of the normalization of ammo (lvl 60 ammo is more efficient with a lvl 58 bow than it is with a lvl 65 bow)...  There is a whole thread on this issue alone.

Edit:  http://www.purple-hat.net/WeaponComparer.xls might help with figuring calculations.