Guild Wars 2

at first: sorry for making a thread for this, but I thought i’d would be better than posting this into a other thread and see how it never gets an answer. Might as well try a thread for this questions (and maybe a discussion)

ok, here we go:
As far as i see, neither the damage nor the attack speed got nerfed, only the range was reduced. I don’t know why they reduced it, but why is this a nerf? Why is it bad?
I do the same damage as before.
And often, I’m even at the same range as before.
I NEVER caught me trying to stay max range with shortbow because it didn’t matter to the damage.
When a mob gets to close and I have to evade I still use 3 and/or a normal dodge (if necessary)

the only thing that I can see that’s worse know, that we can’t pull from 1200 range anymore. So what?
Our pets have 2000 range and can pull a single enemy out of a group or the whole group, depending on what we want them to do.

Anything I haven’t noticed? Or are those people are just a bunch of Q.Q’s as most of the time?

I notice it. I see the “out of range” more frequently, and I can no longer maneuver the way I use to during certain activities.

People are just foaming at the mouth with QQ because their beloved shortbow isn’t THE ranger ranged weapon anymore, it now has a real flaw. I personally don’t see any issue with it, sure you can get a well placed stun on a fleeing enemy thats 1200 away, but so what? it’s not like we don’t have any gap closers and can’t send something like a wolf/spider/snowleapard/owl/etc after him to make him slow down so we can catch up, you know because pets move faster than players and all…

I noticed it within 1st five seconds of using it on the range. 2-5 did crap damage before and still does.

thefantasticg.3984:

I noticed it within 1st five seconds of using it on the range. 2-5 did crap damage before and still does.

So not buffing something is now a nerf? News to me!

Sometimes that is the case. Of course, for the shortbow I didn’t use 2-5 for DPS type damage anyway. And did they not buff the damage by 14% on 2-5?? Or am I remembering incorrectly?

It is bad because in pvp / WvW people can move out of that 900 range quite easily. And when attempting to defend a structure from a wall, 900 range is only useful if the person is almost right below you. It takes away one of our greatest assets for defense.

On top of that, with offhand training axe, dagger, warhorn and torch skills all fire farther than a shortbow, which makes little to no sense… If there was a trait to re-buff SB range, maybe it would make sense…? But as it stands it’s a malicious kick in the nuts.

Its a huge dps loss.

The extra 300 would be hitting numbers, now it’s a dead zone. That’s a dps loss.

Add piercing arrows and you can see it’s even higher.

Dont you think if you could hit at 3000 range, your dps would go up? obviously.

Do you WvW? I took advantage of the 1200 range regularly.

To illustrate the problem:
http://i41.tinypic.com/2ajrvid.jpg

This ranged weapon with no AoE or splash abilities can now no longer reach the rabbit in that picture, which is a relatively close range for any attacker to be standing at. At the same time, in order to try to reach said attacker I am standing up and on the ledge. If this attacker was a Mesmer, or any other class that has a pull skill that does not require targeting or blankets an area, has any kind of AoE attacks or has any attacks themselves that reach over 900 range, I am now in harms way with no recourse.

So the shortbow has effectively been reduced to a skirmishing weapon only and has taken a very effective tool out of our arsenal and replaced it with… nothing.

Edit: sorry, I suck at message boards… no idea how to embed stuff properly… click the link.

First of all I see your point, and I agree.
Frankly, I thought it used to be 900 range all along. Anyway, I think the main problem comes for people who do dungeons and WvW, both which I don’t do much of. The range is too short to engage enemies at a safe distance. I usually run trap builds for tPvP and sPvP, and I don’t mind the SB changes, since I have to be 600 range for my traps to do damage.

Rangers don’t have a whole lot of skills for their arsenal. Like our shouts kinda suck… Sigs are alright, and survival skills like muddy terrain and sharpening stone are almost really never used. So the SB range cuts our potential. Some of our traits are awesome though, like empathic bond. The fury and swiftness every wep swap is pretty strong. i would like to see trap potency and trapper expertise merged though (might be too OP but it can give us more options). The changes they added to SB damage was cool though, it’s not much, but it compensates for the pet damages reduction. Even with pet damage reduction, it was still alright, except for the armor fish and the jelly

Overall the SB changes make it hard for rangers to fight at a distance, I’m noticing it when I try to drop chief or svanir, it’s a bit harder but I will find a way eventually. I started to play around with the LB, not much significant change, but a bit more viable than before.

However for me, I fight within 400-700 range because I like to be brave even in PvE, so I don’t mind the changes, but I feel for those who WvW and dungeons, because it is A LOT harder. Good players adapt though, and provide feedback.

Zephyr speed is the only change I didn’t like Anyway that’s different.

It’s not a big deal for me personally, ocassionally it will be of course and also takes some getting used to aswell I noticed myself getting too far from my target repeatedly yesterday when dueling a bunch of people in wvw but I think that will go away fairly soon.

It’s very noticeable. In WvWvW I switch from axe to SB when an enemy dodges or leaps a good distance away. That way I can hit them with a cripple or stun and catch up. Now I find myself swapping weapons and still out of range.

It’s a learning curve, but it does stink. Especially since the LB doesn’t have any conditions so its unusable in those builds.

so, after reading through, it seems that the problem is mostly in the PvP part of GW2 (WvW and sPvP), right?

I disagree to anyone who thinks shortbow range to 900 affects dungeons. It does not. You don’t stand a mile away from everyone else ever. I was using axe before shortbow and I only switched to shortbow now due to piercing arrows/high crit chance/companion’s might.

Right now, with companion’s might, shortbow is the best ranger DPS weapon bar none. And you are not at a disadvantage—in fact, I didn’t even notice a change. Are we all sure it’s not still 1200 in dungeons (stealth buff we don’t know about)? I was dropping arrows from what felt like really far away. I’ll have to test again then swap to axe to see if range is indeed limited. In any case, it’s much harder to notice in pve than in wvw or pvp where it has a relatively larger impact.

Absolutely positive its 900 Chopps. In the screenie I posted above I also swapped to LB from the same stance and the red bar on the skills goes away. What’s more, when I stepped back from the ledge and the bunny moved away I still was in range.

In tight quarters like dungeons it probably doesn’t make any difference, but that is of no consolation to players like me who have only ever done 3 or 4 of them and barely even know what the term PvE means

Yeah I wasn’t sure. Maybe being able to zoom out so far creates a sort of optical illusion. In any case, I am extremely happy with the results. The shortbow is very much alive.

The shorter range is annyoing and will take a long time for me to get used to. Mainly i hate the change is that it was great to stop people getting away from you with crippling shot, concussion shot. If weapon swap is on cd, stopping people isn’t very easy anymore.

That said it doesn’t make that much of a difference anymore since i barely play my ranger apart from omnomberry picking, not worth losing my nerves and hope with the incompetent devs.

Khayoss is right. It’s just about all close quarters. And SB is good for #1 only while you’re waiting to heal to get back into melee.