Guild Wars 2

OK, for starters, I have a ranger, and I have a thief which are the two sides to this post. I like both professions in different ways but equal, however, I have one problem(others may too, but this is my opinion not stating facts here)

SB on thief, is good for aoe, poison, and a short utility of escape skills although is very costly which I have no problem with as teleporting 3-4 times away would be unfair in pvp and almost everywhere else. Then we have Ranger SB which is quick, offers bleed, poison, and cripple, a stun/daze, and a good escape skill if you hit the guy. The problem I come across is range. In GW1 there were 4 different types of bows. Idk if the arch length made a difference however they didn’t carry over range too well. Ranger SB has 5 skills at 1200 range all of which are part of a good kit while the longbow on ranger still has 1200 range but only on 4 skills. Yes that 1 skill is a knockback which is fair but still if you look at the overall, Longbow has less range which just is nonsense. Thief SB has only 900 range with 1 skill at 1200. This creates HUGE problems for me in WvW and pve in general. The Thief SB basic attack is horrible anyways unless you wana aggro entire groups or proc fire sigil, and 4 skills are at 900 range. The 1200 range bomb shot is very slow and easy to predict since it lights up the area its about to hit b4 it lands. Now that the basics are covered about the issue, a possible resolution.

SB on ranger- Reduce range of skills to 1000 range. This atleast makes the Longbow for long range slow speed rangers while keeping the shortbow at its quick but up closer build. For how quick the SB is it almost seems useless to use the longbow other than for barrage.

SB on thief-Increase range to 1000. This atleast puts thief SB skills up to par with other professions in range and being how squishy they are, doesn’t put them in any more risk than the others for. Pistols are very strong on thief so I feel as the range for them is ok regardless of real pistols being literlly farther range, this isn’t real life…..

Some may say, “Well thats not balancing thats just buffing one and nerfing the other.” To you I say, how is there balance when 1 profession has 1200 range and the other has 900? It may seem like a small difference in numbers but it does make an huge impact time after time after time in any pvp encounter. Besides, 1000 doenst equal 1200 so rangers still win if they use longbow.

Every thief I talk to say the range on SB for thief is laughable and everyone I’ve asked about ranger say go Condition with Sb. In other terms, one build is over used and another is under used. With this change atleast longbow on ranger feels like a long range weapon while shortbow is still far but more quick attacks. As for thief it allows more participation for thiefs to use the SB attacks instead of getting bombarded by skill shots because of how close they have to get to hit anything.