Here is a side-by-side version of Mtemtko's images to make the comparison more straightforward.With 255 WPF and 6 PD, the strong bow and long bow aiming reticule appear to be identical, and both are smaller than the hunting bow.(click to show/hide)
From experience, if you have dreams of glory that involve beating other top archers at dueling as well as hitting headshots from medium to long range, you're going to need a modified WPF of at least 275 if not 300+. At that point your reticule settles very quickly and to a perfect point, and it stays that way for several seconds. Getting that high with PD 6 (i.e. Warbow/Longbow) requires about 205-210 base WPF without any armor penalty (less than 6 modified armor weight). For some perspective, to get that high, you'd need to get to at least level 32 assuming you put skill points only in PD, WM, and Athletics, and dumped the rest into AGI, while putting WPP only into archery (generally this is considered a pure archer build).
To reach similar proficiency with a Khergit Bow at PD 4, you only need about 180-185 base WPF with no armor penalty, which can be reached in a pure archer build at about level 24.
Your Khergit bow is doing 5 base damage less than a Warbow, which is pretty significant. But notice that you can reach the same level of mastery with a Khergit bow a good 8 levels earlier. Ultimately, if you're doing anything other than a PURE archer build (No melee skills at all, no horsies, and no real armor), I'd say stick with a Khergit, or Strong at the most. If, however, you like running away on foot whenever baddies get close, and you wanna 1-2 shot all those silly infantry running around, and you don't mind grinding until your eyes bleed, get a Warbow (or Longbow if you're really crazy) and level until about the mid-30's. You will then be feared from afar.
In conclusion, everything beneath a Khergit Bow isn't really worth your time and should only be used temporarily. The step from Nomad to Khergit is by far the best upgrade in the category of bows. After that, moving up to Strong, and eventually War/Long is a matter of taste but shouldn't be done too hastily. You'll regret more points in PD if you don't yet have the WPF to handle it. Track your progress with the calculator above, get your modified archery to at least 250 as quickly as you can, and then upgrade bows to your preference while keeping modified WPF above 250 (275+ for archer heaven). Bulzer's advice approximates this quite well:Go for 12 str for your equipment and Khergit, then 15 or 18 agi.
Then 15 str for strong bow, then 21-24 agi.
Then 18 str, and all your other levels go for agi.
Works quite well.
Again, except for the math, this is all my opinion based on personal experience. Mileage may vary.
NOTE: It remains to be seen how the next update will affect this advice. If nothing else, the steeper experience curve that will make anything above level 35 essentially impossible will probably reduce the number of people wielding War/Long bows significantly or else render them a bit less effective since the top archers using those weapons right now are in the level 40 range. This is all conjecture, feel free to ignore it completely.
Thanks for the .ogg file suggestion, that's a good idea.
Becasue of wpf soft cap, consider more long term max power draw 4 or 5.
Could anyone post the wpp cost list...?
Like 1-80=1, 80-100=2 etc etc
Go for powerdraw 6 use Khergit, go for powerdraw 7 use strong bow, you need higher powerdraw then the bow youa re using or your accuracy gets nerfed.
Now that it seems they've completely reversed the way PD works I'm strongly considering the following build once I retire again.
Level 31
* Hit points: 59
* Strength: 24
* Agility: 18
* Converted: 12
* Athletics: 6
* Power Draw: 8
* Weapon Master: 6
* Archery: 157
With heirloomed Strong Bow.
Any thoughts?
Sounds like it would be pretty bad ass. Go for it