Originally Posted by
Meledelion
With PvE encounter do you mean dungeons or open world or both? Since in dungeons there's no frigin way you'll be at 1100 range.
Also you'er forgeting that rangers don't need to dodge that much with an SB, SB 3 is awesome and has quite a short CD (7sec).
Want to know the kicker? Short bow can shoot just as far...(unles you grab the longbow range trait which is simply useless.)
Another side note is that you say "close brawley ranges" which is a blatant lie. You are better whenever a longbow isn't at max range (and even then...).
On a similar note, flanking with a longbow is pretty hard because of this. If the boss flips targets all of a sudden you're not flanking anymore. If the boss gets kited, there again is a big chance you won't be flanking anymore...
Scholar runes or not isn't really important 90% means that 2k dmg will take me under that threshold, that's one random AoE hit. And another big if. You're better off with ruby orbs anyway.
But let's give this the benefit of the doubt, 10% from flanking vs 10% from scholar sort of evens out. But oh wait, not if you add ruby orbs, now SB is ahead again...