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.