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Bow Kai Guide

ScarrletttScarrlettt
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edited October 26, 2016 in Kai
Similar to gun kai guide, I decided to move this here to and reword it a little:

As a bow kai fixed shot is like hollow shot for gun kai: its your main move that you spam as much as you can. It does good damage and builds you more sp than it takes to use. The cost is 50 but the gain is about 30 per arrow and you shoot 3 arrows, so roughly 40 sp net gain. Shortbow should almost never be used. The only time you use it is if you are very sp deficient or are fighting extremely small bosses like iset/SQ (in which case I would have just gone gun). I see lots of other bow kais shortbow the majority of the time and that's just not how you use him effectively and its quite frankly boring.

Awakening:
Damage: Fixed Shot, Ricochet, Arrow Storm, Rapid Fire, Eagle Eye
SP reduction: Magnum

To give you some perspective on the damage of his moves, ill use myself as an example (Capped stats, with +12 bow)

1. Fixed shot (hits up to 3x, no CD): 1100 base, 2200 crit; 5000 if red hit marker; 1750-3500 on headshot; 8000 on red hit marker + headshot
2. Magnum (hits 4x, each nxt hit is about half damage of previous hit similar to perforate, no CD): 5000 base, 10000 crit; 23000 on red hit marker; 8800-18000 on headshot; 34000 on headshot + red marker. The remaining 3 hits that come after trickle off and are half damage of previous hit but it is dependant on the nature of that previous hit. For example: first hit has base 5000, second one has base 2500, 3rd is 1250, etc. each can crit on their own and get headshot/red hit marker bonus independant of the others.
3. Ricochet (hits 5x, no CD after magnum, 7 sec CD if used by itself): 1500 base, 3000 crit per hit; 6000 red hit marker; 2500-5000 headshot; 10000 red hit marker + headshot.
4. EEA (can tag up to 7x, 30 sec CD): 3300 base, 6600 crit; 11000 red hit marker; 5000-10000 headshot; 15000 red hit marker + headshot.
5. Arrow storm (hits 5x, 40 sec CD): 3450 base, 6900 crit

Now that you know the relative damage, the CD, and the net SP cost or gain of each move, you can judge what is the best attack rotation. (I actually went into practice mode and crunched all these numbers to make an accurate conclusion on what is best to use. Remember, your numbers will be different depending on your stats but this at least gives you a baseline of how strong each move is when compared to each other in a control group). Typically, magnum+rico, fixed shot and arrow storm right as it hits CD are your main deeps. Shortbow if small boss or lacking SP.

Side Notes:
1. Hunter's Eye is rather hard to actually land and most of the time you won't get it simply because of hitbox bugs. Still it is useful as it guarantees a super critical damage, which is basically about 4x stronger than a non-crit attack (so basically 2x stronger than crit attack). Try to go for it if you can but don't stress too much as its got an insanely high skill ceiling to it. Going for headshots is more reliable.
2. Regarding his dodge, yes it is more difficult to use than gun and it has less iframes. Grapple is rarely used. The dodge is just something you have to get the hang of over time. It is definitely one of the worse dodges in the entire game.
3. Speed is very important for bow kai. He charges magnum faster and cancels out of dodges faster. He also ricos and arrow storms alot faster.
4. As you may have noticed I did not really include a flow chart for bow kai like I did with gun kai. That is because he isnt restricted much by cooldown like gun kai and therefore has more freedom. Do what you think is good in any given scenario. I listed the damage to give you an idea of what each move is capable of.

Bow kai has one of the highest skill caps in the game due to bosses moving constantly and you attempting to fish for hunter's eye and headshots. Shortbow is easy mode but Longbow is very hard to use in some raids. Don't be discouraged if you cannot do well with him, you just need practice and patience. He is rather difficult to use optimally.

Glas Solo (not my own):

VeneratorImNotYourDadTheGreatCreidneDelterosRolandArrow95Krevosjeddyhi
  1. Was this guide helpful?28 votes
    1. Yes
       86% (24 votes)
    2. Hell No! You suck
       14% (4 votes)

Comments

  • Arrow95Arrow95
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    This should be at the top, i still see bow kais using shortbow in raids
  • PrototypemindPrototypemind
    Vindictus Rep: 8,530
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    Really would be nice if they added a means of building stacks on the boss with short bow and then getting their procs with long. I like the ravamp overall, but making one bow mode still essentially useless is just bad development.
  • keytiekeytie
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    just wanted to come back and vote that you're awful c:
  • Arrow95Arrow95
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    keytie wrote: »
    just wanted to come back and vote that you're awful c:

    lol
  • KrevosKrevos
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    edited May 6, 2017
    Very informative guide. Well done. If only more bow Kais knew about this guide.
  • akulbaakulba
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    Can shortbow shots(single arrows/charged arrows) crit? They are lmb normals so logically they should not but want to be sure