Guild Wars 2

With the recent 7% damage reduction to the short bow auto attack direct damage I wanted to take a second away from the main ranger thread and offer some constructive feedback and suggestions to make the weapon a little more viable in PvE and PvP.

Some of these suggestions I’ve offered before both here and on gw2 guru (I’m Fatalplus over there). So some of this may be old news. I’ve scrapped many of these suggestions after being able to play the SB at launch. I found the speed of the autoattack so good that any of these suggestions would have made it too good. Now that the auto attack is “fixed” I think we need to look back at some of the prelaunch suggestions.

1. Crossfire. Remove the flanking requirement for the bleed and either increase base damage or bleed duration when attack from the side. It makes no sense that other classes have a bleed built into many autoattack moves (including our own harpoon gun) and not have it built into the SB.

With the amazing attack speed prepatch – it made sense and did not feel like a penalty when I couldn’t get position. Now, it’s nearly impossible for a condition speced SB user to keep enough bleeds on a target to cause the kind of pressure it needs to be competative. Furthermore – increase damage or bleed duration when flanking would give a strategic edge in PvP and make a SB user a dangerous enemy to turn your back to.

This would also help PvE builds as getting flanking is sometimes unwise or impossible in a dungeon or in the MoB choked regions of Orr. Giving the bleed as standard would bring the SB in line with the necro sceptre, warrior rifle and engineer pistol to name a few.

2. Quickshot is a fun skill and very handy in PvP – I would suggest giving the speed buff to both ranger and pet or give it another buff. Right now, this skill is only used when needed to retreat in PvP or to evade a large attack in PvE. There is no reason to use it now since the damage is less than the auto attack. Giving it an additional effect may make it more useful even considering the low damage.

The skill often will take a ranger out of position so there should be another reason to use it when it’s not needed to retreat and make it a “go to” ability or at least included in a damage rotation.

Boons or Conditions that could be added to Quick Shot: Retalation (we currently have no way to gain this buff), confusion, speed to pet, stability. Even something as simple as increasing the pet’s next attack damage my 5% would make it enticing to use.

3. Increase Conc. Shots base damage. Using or not using an ability when it comes off of cool down should be a risk/reward. Right now, the ranger short bow does not have any of this. Autoattack is the ONLY way to apply regular damage. Poison volley is good when at point blank or when needing AoE but no one would call it a spike attack, and Crip shot gives the pets attacks a bleed – again nothing that makes the ability necessary to use when I don’t need to cripple – the bleed is just a nice bonus.

Adding an additional buff to Quick Shot and increasing the damage of Conc Shot would make the ranger weigh the benefit of using the ability now, or saving the effect for when it’s needed. Right now, the only reason to use conc shot is to intrupt a mob. If I’m fighting a boss, it stays off of cooldown since I do more damage with my auto attack.

Increasing the damage so Conc shot is our one nuke ability for the weapon will challenge a ranger to manage when to save it for a vital interupt or to use it to assist a team on a spike. Additionally, it will make the ability useful in PvE against boss mobs that are not effected by stun.

Increase castime or cooldown if necessary but giving the SB one skill that could offer a team some measure of spike damage would do much to bring this weapon in line with other classes abilities.

If increasing the damage is not possible or unbalanced through testing – perhaps just increasing the damage if it actually interupts would give a payoff to the ranger who uses it wisely.

Heck – even giving it confusion would help the ability out and give a boost to condition speced rangers.

Those are my suggestions for the Short Bow. The reason many of us Short Bow users are so worked up about the recent change to the SB 1 skill is because it’s the only way for us to apply reliable damage with the weapon – be it condition or direct. With any of these changes it may make the weapon more versitile, competative and fun. Keep suggestions constructive and positive and perhaps Anet will look at them and test them out. Cheers.

Love your post. Very well thought out and put together. My biggest problem with the damage nerf is I feel skill’s #2-#5 are all situational. Well that and the damage for those skill’s are rather low.

I main ranger atm and I don’t feel like the shortbow needs a buff. I would not change a thing about it for PvE. You are talking strictly PvP. In which case the shortbow goes from being your main source of damage to a utility weapon. Think about it, you have a stun/daze, cripple, ect. It makes a good secondary weapon in PvP.

I do not want bleed always applied, I mean of course it would be nice, but it would make the ranger ridiculously over powered.

Therefore i am against most of these suggestions. You want to PvP the ranger go with Longbow + Sword/dagger or Greatsword.

That’s because #2-#5 are situation. Most wont run through the CDs like other class’ skill sets because there is no need.

Best fix I see is make SB bleed from any position while keeping the post patched stack Bleeds. Warriors can bleed from anywhere they shoot. Thieves can bleed also AND they have automatic bouncing that don’t rely on 20 trait points to gain and enemy position. Why are their ranged weapon skills better? Shouldnt it be the opposite?

As for LB, I believe we rangers should have gotten Warrior’s LB skill set. Played all 3 classes and a Ranger’s LB skillset seems more right for a warrior’s play style and vice verse for warrior’s LB skillset towards a ranger’s.

This is a quality suggestion. Removing the positioning constraint on Crossfire would compensate for the “40ms” slowdown. You hit the nail on the head with Concussion shot as well; it is a great skill to interrupt heals or daze a charging enemy, but the power of it definitely doesn’t draw me in.

I don’t know if confusion on Quick Shot would be best because when you leap back with it you widen a gap; your enemy will be working to close that gap instead of attack you. I feel like Quick Shot should evade and cripple and the Crippling Shot ability should be something else, maybe gap closer of sorts for those of us who would like to swap into melee.
Also, I really think Poison Volley should be a Poison Cloud instead.

Keep up the good suggestions!

DUAxWolff.2759:

I do not want bleed always applied, I mean of course it would be nice, but it would make the ranger ridiculously over powered.

Like Rifle Warrior you mean?

xLiveLucidx.5071:

DUAxWolff.2759:

I do not want bleed always applied, I mean of course it would be nice, but it would make the ranger ridiculously over powered.

Like Rifle Warrior you mean?

And necro sceptre
And ele earth attuned sceptre
And Thief pistol
And engineer pistol
And Ranger harpoon gun (seriously!)
And warrior sword
and…

With the fix to our animation, the 1 skill should be normalized like every other classes auta attack bleed.

Crippling Shot and Concussion Shot both need faster arrows as most people get out of range before the arrow actually hits unless you are almost point blank.

+1 signed.
I can agree with this, even before the animation fix the SB skills for ranger seemed rather lackluster.

Totally Agree.
Bumping this, since a nerf was the LAST thing the ranger needed to the only viable dps weapon.

I have an idea for a skill to replace Crippling Shot:

Distracting shot (named after the GW1 skill): Fires a sparkly arrow at foe distracting their attention, next pet attack causes knockdown.

Basically serves the same purpose as Crippling Shot, just a little bit more entertaining. Especially if they could add a sparkly effect to the arrow when it is fired with this skill.

Oh, and if they don’t want us to spam skill 1 all the time, how about lowering the cool down of Poison Volley from 9 to 3 seconds. Damage and poison duration could be appropriately turned down.

Rachel Spahr.8307:

Oh, and if they don’t want us to spam skill 1 all the time, how about lowering the cool down of Poison Volley from 9 to 3 seconds. Damage and poison duration could be appropriately turned down.

Yeah that’s sort of the meat and cheese of my post. Anet said they don’t find spamming 1 as fun gameplay. I actually agree with them. The problem is we don’t have an alternative on the SB. Everything else does significantly less damage then the 1. Sure there’s a cripple and pet bleed on 4 and 5 dazes/stuns but the damage is too low for us to use for anything other than control. Those attacks are only going to be situational.

I’ll hit poison volley anytime it’s up in PvE because it’s damage. But in PvP I even hold off on using it until my target is low, to make their heals less effective. That means 2-5 I am often saving for when the situation calls to use them – never for the damage. That means 1 is my only real source of damage and it was hit with a 7% raw damage nerf (not counting bleed stacks here or flanking damage with traits, or crit effect sigils).

This is a problem built into the weapon. It’s too versatile and doesn’t do anything well by itself. Because of the damage reduction it really isn’t as effective as a primary weapon and instead is better paired with a more effective weapon. Like a trusty side arm you can pull out when you need a cripple or poison.

The problem though is we don’t really have a good set otherwise. Axe/torch or Axe/horn is probably about it. That’s a really problem in our weapon design that we just don’t have a lot of options that are A.) Fun and B.) Effective. or C.) Both. Short bow was C. and that’s why the Ranger community is so upset. It was a good set, and the built in flaws were offset by the fact that we had one ability that gave reliable damage.

Now, not so much and the ranger community is now trying to figure out what weapons to fall back on and finding it lacking. Or what utilities we can bring to bear to make up the difference and also getting frusterated looking at those. Maybe we can adjust our traits to make SB more effective…but our traits aren’t great either. Well we can always fall back on our super effective pet, who can’t attack and move at the same time.

This is the problem. We didn’t have much to begin with and for the SB to be adjusted downward without anything to fall back on, or without an equal balance upward in another set, trait, utility or mechanic we’re just left with another broken system.

Sorry about the rant. I really want to keep it positive and constructive but after scraping my pet up after every fight in a dungeon last night and not feeling like I was bringing anything to the group it’s hard to feel positive today.

Hi, I love the ranger class but…

Longbow is slow, dodge arrows is easy , Shortbow only have 1 skill of damage and now with 7% of reduction… Ranger need a kill shot or something that give the ranger some to be more powerfull like the other professions….

We have medium armor and the distance should be our strength!

Thanks.

DUAxWolff.2759:

I main ranger atm and I don’t feel like the shortbow needs a buff. I would not change a thing about it for PvE. You are talking strictly PvP. In which case the shortbow goes from being your main source of damage to a utility weapon. Think about it, you have a stun/daze, cripple, ect. It makes a good secondary weapon in PvP.

I do not want bleed always applied, I mean of course it would be nice, but it would make the ranger ridiculously over powered.

Therefore i am against most of these suggestions. You want to PvP the ranger go with Longbow + Sword/dagger or Greatsword.

I don’t think you get what is wrong with the shortbow.

The shortbow is WAY off, not because it’s a bad weapon, but because the skills just don’t make sense.

When I play on my elementalist my #1 skill is my filler ability and my #2-5 are my actual abilities that provide MORE damage and a secondary benefit.
On the ranger’s shortbow they ONLY provide a secondary benefit.

What this results in is that you NEVER USE THEM unless you really need to. All I do in dungeons on my SB ranger is spam #1; getting in close for #2 if the situation allows (not often) and I use #4 sometimes but I don’t even have to, the damage increase is neglicable.

The whole setup of the weapon is out of whack; what you should have is a solid #1 skill that doesn’t need you to jump through hoops to make it work and the #2 through #5 skills should at all times make you want to use them on cooldown UNLESS you want to keep the utility effect of it for a certain moment.

I say put the cripple on #3 together with the jump back, so that becomes our major escape tool. That frees up #4 to get a serious damage increase and an offensive aspect; #5 should simply hit harder because it has a long cooldown, all that together would make a huge difference. (Of course there are many other ways to go at it like the OP posted).

Again this doesn’t take away the other weapons need an overhaul too (because by god they do), but this is a SERIOUS lacking aspect of the shortbow. It’s my favorite weapon, but the fact you can get the most out of it by just standing there auto-attacking is annoying as hell.

When did they reduce the shortbow damage? Is that reduction for PVP or PVE? As a ranger myself, I am disappointed with the short and longbow skills, I seem to have better results with an axe.