Guild Wars 2

Warrior’s long bow skill 1: fires 2 arrows.
Thief’s Short bow skill1: fires an arrow that bounces and hits multiples.

for Ranger….
Longbow skill 1: does more damage the farther away you are…. but its not like its a high powered attack or anything

Shortbow skill1: same range as the longbow, rate of fire is faster so you still do more damage compared to the longbow and if you want to hit multiple targets you need a trait to do so.

Damage wise the shortbow is excellent for dps and keeping mobile, so Ive no real issue with it but with the longbow… its like… :| I get that it has a devastating AOE with cripple which doubles as an excellent Crowd control, but its basic damage is soooo weak even if you placed vulnerability on the target, that and the fact that warriors fire twice as many arrows as you on their basic attack.

When only looking at a single aspect of the game, like the number of enemies hit by the basic attack, you could be disappointed by any class.

I love my shortbow , it’s just that my arrows can be dodge easily , still trying to find a way to counter that. But ranger is a great class in pve and pvp or WvWvW ,it’s just that you have to fully utilize what you have in hand.

I like thief #1 and # 2 short bow skill. I make a thief becoz of that. Haha

I’m going to resist poking fun at a certain username above me, especially since said user is admitting to having issues with their opponent dodging arrows. Perhaps a certain dwarf can beat your score?

@Rizzy, I’m still a new player to GW2, but I have a long history with MMOs. I did some serious WvW last night using a Longbow/Shortbow build. My opinion is that on the ground the shortbow was amazing, especially with Quickening Zephyr. When it came time to run and hide in a tower, however, the longbow’s range and AoE was absolutely devastating – especially with the 5% extra range and damage talent!

Back on the ground, opening with a longbow is great but a ranger with my build and weapon choices goes down easily under pressure. In one scenario, I managed to solo kill a thief but could not manage the mesmer that soon followed him.

I think the lesser damage might be because your pet is making up the difference. You can’t really judge the ranger’s weapon abilities without taking the pet into account.

Well .. I am a ranger, not an archer, when I play my ranger. I pull a variety of strings, bow happen to be one of them.

I find what helps me is an effective secondary weapon set, my longbow for me with the way ive set up my utilities, my knockback shot and all my other weapon skills deters them enough for me to take 75% off a regular enemy, about 30% off a veteran (those being my best accurate guess :P) and champions well no one fights them by yourself thatd be dumb :P… but after ive shaken them up and they finally reach me i just pull out my dual wield secondary set with my sword and dagger and mangle them in seconds. Thats what works for me anyways. Its effective and does alot of damage if its what your looking for.