Guild Wars 2

I have to say, I’m actually starting to ENJOY playing a sniper-esque role as a full zerker Ranger in WvW, but it could be so much better.

As things stand with the Longbow, one of the few viable group-based roles in WvW is to stay at the back of whatever group you’re in, maximising range between you and the enemies, or to position yourself at an elevated vantage point away from the fighting that, ideally, is challenging for the enemies to reach quickly. To maximise your efficiency at performing this role however you pretty much have to resign yourself to having to stay well away from the fights.

This seems to be a moderately good damage support role. I’ve found it’s surprisingly good at deterring enemies from stomping your downed allies. Though of course this’ll all be old news to many Rangers on here.

However this playstyle currently lacks substance and encouragement (by way of lack of damage, traits and utilities). The way things are currently designed, Anet seem to want the Longbow to be considered a sniping-style weapon, encouraging further distances between you and your target. Therefore, it seems sensible to ask them to enhance this playstyle. For example, if they’re planning on following through with this “Aspect of the [pet]” idea, we could benefit from new passive effects of pets such as +200 range to the LB or +15% critical damage. Another simple idea would be to introduce a new shout (with a cliche name such as ’Predator’s Aim’ or whatnot) that extends the longbow’s range by +300 and increases critical damage by 25% for 10 seconds with a 60 second cooldown. Or something along those lines.

Generally, I feel as though this is a playstyle that can be tapped into much more thoroughly. We really do need a bit more umph added to the most hated Ranger weapon in the game.

Truthfully the stuff I find so off about Ranger Longbow as a sniping-style weapon is way more core than something some trait-able distance could hope to fix.

For example,
As much as RPG fans view ranged attacks as a kind of easy mode, in the FPS world Snipers are actually among the more high skillfloor/ceiling characters. So the fact Ranger longbow delivers damage in such an automatic and brainless way drives me straight up the wall.

The only skills on that weapon that require some aiming or timing or predictive capabilities from the player is the bloody control skills. No matter how much damage that thing does, it’s always going to feel like a control/utility weapon if that’s all I ever think about when using it. The gameplay is focused on the wrong thing.

Vox Hollow.2736:

Truthfully the stuff I find so off about Ranger Longbow as a sniping-style weapon is way more core than something some trait-able distance could hope to fix.

For example,
As much as RPG fans view ranged attacks as a kind of easy mode, in the FPS world Snipers are actually among the more high skillfloor/ceiling characters. So the fact Ranger longbow delivers damage in such an automatic and brainless way drives me straight up the wall.

The only skills on that weapon that require some aiming or timing or predictive capabilities from the player is the bloody control skills. No matter how much damage that thing does, it’s always going to feel like a control/utility weapon if that’s all I ever think about when using it. The gameplay is focused on the wrong thing.

Maybe rangers should get a proper skilled sniper skill, like a 2000 range arrow-aimed projectile?

Vox Hollow.2736:

Truthfully the stuff I find so off about Ranger Longbow as a sniping-style weapon is way more core than something some trait-able distance could hope to fix.

For example,
As much as RPG fans view ranged attacks as a kind of easy mode, in the FPS world Snipers are actually among the more high skillfloor/ceiling characters. So the fact Ranger longbow delivers damage in such an automatic and brainless way drives me straight up the wall.

The only skills on that weapon that require some aiming or timing or predictive capabilities from the player is the bloody control skills. No matter how much damage that thing does, it’s always going to feel like a control/utility weapon if that’s all I ever think about when using it. The gameplay is focused on the wrong thing.

Thats what i find rediculous about the Longbow aswell. Its incredibly powerful autoattack that takes no skill to use. Meanwhile the other abilities that actually take a resemblance of skill, are lacking.
And i dont see how you can buff these other skills when the AA is so strong.

Which leads to a very boring playstyle. All you try to do is get max. range and then brainlessy autoattack. As the OP described. Thats just not fun.