I took a peek at my inventory sheet the other night and noticed that my bow was using dex to damage. I'm on a human and took the bare minimum dex for combat archery and str for overwhelming crit but there are so many more bonuses to strength that my strength was +6 bonus higher than my dex with the boosts running.

I'd picked up Ninja Spy Core III (Shadow Veil) as quickly as possible but now I'm questioning that at least until I'm running EE's (currently only level 15). Does the Ninja Spy Core II really nerf damage (showed a +5 using dex instead of a +11 using bow strength) or is it just a display error? I tested it on the target dummy before dumping the enhancement and then after dumping it and it definitely seems like it's truly dropping the damage but it's hard to know for sure with only a 6 point split.

I don't really feel the need for that extra incorp while leveling so if this is legit I think I'll just wait on Shadow Veil. Maybe permanently assuming I'm not dying all the time in EE's. There's plenty of spots to spend points and I'd rather not blow them on an enhancement that nerfs my damage output.

I'm pretty much always ranged just because I enjoy the play style. I'm still running heroic levels (15 right now) so it's pretty much a no brainer for Shadow Veil not being remotely necessary (especially on a toon that's at about 90% on heal scrolls and boosted 75%). Even in epic levels this doesn't feel cut and dried though.

Hopefully they recognize this as a bug and fix it eventually. Taking enhancements shouldn't lower your damage output...especially not when the enhancement is a pre-req for other useful enhancements.

Hrm...guess it doesn't really change my build as I'm doing minimum strength and minimum dex for the feats I need. The spread is a bit smaller than I thought anyways...part of my gap was in Tensor's...I forgot that Tensor's grants dex as well...so I guess it's not quite as bad as I thought. It definitely scoots Ninja spy toward the end of the life though as slaying arrows is really nice.

All I know is that smart play with IPS makes all of the 'every x seconds' shots crazy powerful. They all seems to work like Furyshot in that they fire on every arrow of manyshot/10k stars. That makes me really want to go deep into DWS as well since Leg Shot looks like it could be pretty powerful...not quite as good as Pin but an extra Pin. I'm going to have to hotkey some more moves tbh...so many cooldown-based shots and if you manage to trigger them on several mobs in a row...it just gets sick.

I just ran an Undermine solo and decided to try out the bow on the opening fight rather than just sitting there cleaving. I think I dropped about 8 or 9 mobs w/ a 1-shot between Manyshot and Arrow of Slaying. The problem is that I can see 32-36 points being worth spending in AA, 22+ in DWS (although that's a place to cut out some if Leg Shot is underwhelming), and there's 8 in Henshin. That's at least 62 points if not more and that's before you get in to any racials, Shintao, Ninja Spy, and in my case Arcanotech (though I only really need 4 points there).

I haven't been able to fit in Leg Shot yet as Arrow of Slaying takes priority now that I (temporarily?) dumped Shadow Veil...a lot about end-build will depend on how good it is. If it makes a big difference for soloing Ninja Spy might be the spot to suffer a bit. Then again, Ninja Spy has 30% extra damage against helpless mobs higher in the tree so hopefully I don't like Leg Shot all that much

At least it is only seeming to affect bows.

That sound as good a reason as any other.