Guild Wars 2

I was reading through the post and got me thinking about LB and I wanna put some of the ideas which really liked and expanded a little. I apologize for not mentioning the one who originally came up with the idea. If any of the lists are what you came up with, plz let me know

1. LB auto attack, removing range penalty

The way i see it is that ranger’s LB reminds me of a turret. LB does not provide mobility like SB but it deals a lot more dmg with much longer range. So i believe, LB’s dmg mid-range (I believe it was between 400 and 800) should be our base dmg and INCREASE the dmg output further target gets. So no penalty for close-range combat but advantage in long-range combat.

2. Rapid Fire

I actually like this skill. I do hear people complain about this skill, but it actually deals good amount of dmg and with zephyr’s speed and fury, it deals a surprising amount of dmg. Due to LB’s nature, this dmg will be from distance and that cannot be ignored. Added vulnerability is a bonus on my book.

3. Hunter’s shot -few more added condition

This is an interesting skill for me as it grants stealth on me and swift on my pet. Whenever I run with my LB i bring wolf and krytan hound and when they get swift, they are pretty good. Then i can either use rapid fire or switch to my GS and re-position myself. This already provides a large tactical advantage for rangers. I just wish we had longer stealth period, but I might be asking too much. Or immobilize is nice too.

4. Point-Blank shot – Dealing heavy dmg

This skill can be a life savor for many LB rangers and I’m pretty sure it already is. However with other classes access to ‘closing-gap’ skill, it is easy to get close twice, through pull and charge type, or even immobilize. So my idea is, let this skill deal HEAVY dmg. So other classes must take that risk of: 1. being knocked back. 2. getting nuked up close. The major problem with LB is that it is simply too easy to get close to LB ranger and make him/her run for life. What if though, there was a risk of suffering huge amount of dmg up close? That there is one skill which, if executed correctly, can kill or deal massive dmg in a very short period of time? Then I think it is gonna become much more interesting. Ranger LB is the single longest ranged weapon in GW2 (if traited). But there are too many factors in this game that make LB’s range irrelevant.

5. Barrage – longer cripple duration

I like using barrage to cripple large groups of enemies. If I use berserker amulet for my ranger in TPvP it’s great to barrage enemy mesmer from a far, killing his/her clones instantly, leaving mesmer vulnerable, barrage thief who’s health is low and used shadow refuge. But like I mentioned earlier, for LB operating like a turret, I simply think barrage should put more pressure on enemies who are approaching.

Warrior is the only other class with LB so I cannot help but to make comparison. Warrior’s auto attack is 100% projectile finisher and fires 2 shots. It can fire multiple arrows at once in a cone-shaped form. It has 2, not 1, TWO aoe that deals large amount of dmg with one being fire field and the other being blast finisher. It can immobilize and put bleeding. It can even blind the enemies. Compare to that, ranger’s LB lacks any form of quick and reliable dps REGARDLESS of your positioning. Being turret-like, positioning is of course the most important part. However, with lack of stability with ranger (unless you go signet build and use signet of wild you have to have Rampage. That limits possible utility skill combinations and elite skills) it is simply too easy to de-position rangers into less ideal state for them.

LB is a good weapon. But it lacks some really crucial sauce to make rangers use that weapon in pvp and wvw.

1. I like the idea of a range penalty BUT I would counter that what would be better is to increase the base damage so that at long range the bow is a real beast and at shorter range the bow is still sufficient. I would prefer an increase to base damage.

2) Rapid fire should fire its shots more rapidly. I would like it to keep the 10x attacks (great for proccing). Vulnerability could last longer.

3) Hunter’s Shot should stealth on cast not hit.

4) Point Blank Shot should be chargeable. The more you charge it, the greater damage it does AND the further it knocksback the enemy. In theory, the ranger should have the longest knockback with the fully charged Hunter’s Shot.

5) Barrage needs a couple of things:
a. Better crowd control (longer durations)
b. Stealth to ranger while firing

LB should have an innate 1500 range.
LB should pierce automatically.

Eagle Eye should be adjusted to provide 5% damage and 20% reduced cool down for both longbow and short bow.

Shortbow (I know I am adding onto the original theme):

Needs to pierce on hit automatically
Should be 1200 range.

Ranger’s ranged prowess should come from having more range than anyone and having all skills pierce so as to provide the possibility for extra damage or “AE lite” effect.

Bombsaway.7198:

LB should have an innate 1500 range.

This is something I can really get behind. I think it’d do so much for the Longbow, and that’s coming from someone who thinks LB is already pretty solid anyway.

Innate 1500 range, remove range bonus from Eagle Eye, give it gasp Fury on hit. (With on ICD, of course.)

1: Overlapping range does same DPS as shortbow just like the mid range shot now does. Remove the increased damage at max range and instead simply allow shots beyond 900 deal +30% crit damage.

2: Rapid Fire just needs a second shaved off its duration while maintaining the same damage. It is then a burst skill that easily outshines our standard attack.

3: Only issue I have with this skill is if it misses. Skill should stealth when pressed and do something special if the hit lands.

4: I like and dislike this idea. It has come up tons of times in the past. On the one side it gives us burst, but encourges us to run into melee range to use it (which would then hit for a ton and knock them back) which is fine, but the weapon/class already has issues with defending itself so tying burst to a defensive skill isn’t ideal imo. I think I’d just learn to live with it if it changed, but wouldn’t be my preferred approach.

5: Drop barrage. With the poor damage, it only being a cripple, and requiring us to stand still briefly to set it up, it’s counter productive to anything but zerging. And in zerg situations, you often end up taking about the same damage you deal because retaliation returns about a large chunk of that damage right back to you x5.

Since the class overall lacks AE, make barrage a skill so any spec can use it. Have it provide a bleed on each wave of damage so either a condi or power build would want to use it. Have it immobilize for 2 seconds on the first wave so it has some utility. Tada… it’s now better then spike trap and didn’t require 30pts to do it. So drop spike trap to make room.

Replace it with whatever. I prefer kill shot, but couldn’t care less at this point.

The problem with Rapid Fire is that our simple auto attack does more damage over time that Rapid fire is channeled. It needs to be stronger and Rangers need a little more AoE capability so why not do this:

The first shot of Rapid Fire applies 10 stacks of vulnerability. The final shot (if it hits), is an exploding arrow that hits 4 other players for 50% each of the total damage the initial player took (ignoring armor) So if that player took 10K damage, the other 4 will take 5K in the blast. Make the blast maybe a 600 AoE range, and cause burning.

I actually think the rest of the LB skills are fine, though I still wish it’d fire just a bit faster.