Bowmaster or Marksman?

MM > BM

If you don't go the SE-mule route, you'll be much stronger than your BM counterparts until very very late in the game. This means you can effectively use your MM skills to boss earlier and easier. Especially if you master snipe early, you'll have a huge advantage over other classes. It's less straightforward "1-button-lmao" as a BM, but that's part of the appeal and keeps it fresh and versatile. MM weapons and scrolls are cheaper as well, even after the recent buff.

oh, and ice > fire.

 

Note that because of how SE crit mechanics works, this 75% does not do what you think it does. A crit line of marksman strafe is 75% + 240% = 315% damage, compared to a crit line of BM hurricane 100% + 240% = 340%. Since marksman have a slightly higher multiplier on crossbow vs bow, it works out that MM and BM have basically the same max lines.

Post buff MM actually has a small niche over BM now, in that they are higher dpm on low atk pots (at least until you get to extreme endgame tiers of funding). However, note that this is only true if the MM has SI . Without SI, MM is still pretty mediocre and outclassed by BM pretty early on.

Some people believe that playing MM is harder compared to holding down hurricane with BM, but this is only true to some degree. The one thing BMs have access to that MMs do not is the technique of buffering inputs out of hurricane, which has a variety of uses and notably minimizes your reposition time when you get hit. The thing is fairy obscure technique that only a few experienced players utilize, so its often not understood by people looking from the outside. In situations like cwkpq BM is certainly much easier, as you are not getting hit and basically dpming a dummy. For bosses like HT, if both the MM and BM are playing their characters optimally, its not clear which one is easier (depends if you think hurricane-buffering is harder of jump attacking/using snipe on cd is harder).

 

When PB comes out MM will do quite a bit more damage to it due to generic damage resistance and snipe ignoring it.

Well, that's assuming PB's damage resistance gets implemented and Snipe pierces it anyways, which is a lot of assumption for unreleased content, but it's still something to hope about.