Bowmanology

In terms of bows and xbows, with strafe, the firing speed is almost exactly the same (that's what I remember anyways. I remember before 4th job, people were talking of how snipers were so unbelievably better because they got the best of both worlds: Better dmg formula along with the same shooting speed as well as having freeze)

Until the firing rates were changed, that wasn't the case. Strafe fires at the same speed as every other bowman skill, although recently Nexon decided to modify firing rates for Bows. Bows now fire the same speed (For every skill, not just Strafe) as Xbows. I am fairly certain this is an error(seeing as how it sorta breaks the equality), and once it is fixed (It's been here since 0.51) Bows will fire a faster Strafe than Xbows.

Alot of people say Strafe fires faster because it looks faster. It's not any faster in reality =P