Guild Wars 2

I’m one of the minority the minority that feels that the long bow’s attack speed is fine when compared to the short bow. Testing in the Mist puts the attack speed at about 1.25 shots per second. However, I feel that the damage department is where this weapon is lacking.

Whereas the short bow epitomizes the agile skirmisher, the long bow should fill the role of cunning marksman that makes each shot count.

I would like to see the tiered damage go away and just have power scaling regardless of range.

Currently at 2495 power against 2600 armor Long Range Shot does any where from 441-933 damage per non-critical hit. This would kill an unaugmented Necromancer using Well of Blood in about 26-53 hits taking 33-66s. To put it in perspective, a Warrior using the same stats with a rifle will accomplish the same thing in about 32-37s shots and take 33-38s.

With a 1.1 coefficient the range is 971-1140, taking 21-25 shots in 26-31s.
With a 1.0 coefficient the range is 883-1036, taking 23-27 shots in 29-34s.
With a .9 coefficient the range is 795-933, taking 26-30 shots in 33-38s.

There are other things to take into account such as the other skills, putting more points into condition damage, burst capability, pets. However, I would like the community’s critique and opinion on what I have put forth.

Pet account for 40% of our damage you cant compare weapons straight up. one should consider pet damage in the calculations. Pets have thier own issue but you will find the damage is on par with that of the warrior.

What’s the point of pelting someone at max range if they are just going to run away?

It should cripple on the autoattack, based on range (maybe even Immobilize at max range).

Granted though such a change would mainly benefit WvW. Maybe a max range hit should also grant your pet a protection boon for like 3s.

roamzero.9486:

It should cripple on the autoattack, based on range (maybe even Immobilize at max range).

As much as I love aiming Barrage in front of fleeing enemies in WvW and watching my teammates run over them, there is no way Anet is going to give any profession a cripple with 1500 range and no cooldown.

Long Range Shot already hits pretty hard compared to most other ranged autoattacks, but it does have a slow attack rate. I won’t complain if they buff it, but I wouldn’t count on it. Any longbow buffs will probably be on Hunter’s Shot or Rapid Fire.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

Pet account for 40% of our damage you cant compare weapons straight up. one should consider pet damage in the calculations. Pets have thier own issue but you will find the damage is on par with that of the warrior.

Valid point, that I did concede. However, that 40% of damage is not always available. Melee pets are useless during sieges and have difficulty when taking on a boss at range. Then there are the range and AI considerations.

Stice.5204:

As much as I love aiming Barrage in front of fleeing enemies in WvW and watching my teammates run over them, there is no way Anet is going to give any profession a cripple with 1500 range and no cooldown.

What if the cripple on #1 only lasted 0.5s? Ignoring flight time and misses, this would give you 40% uptime on cripple. This way, they won’t really have to touch the issue of slow flight speed and outrunning the arrows.

Pets can’t really ever be considered part of the rangers overall damage as they are either dead half the time or being pulled out of combat to avoid death (both of which take away 40-50% of your dps).

Ranged pets are no different, the AI is so bad, they will often just run into battle anyway and be dead within seconds. The only pet I really use is a brown bear because it at least has a little bit of survivability. Then again, I’m speaking from a WvW standpoint.

With that being said, I think the damage for the LB is fine in itself, but it really needs something extra like immbolize at max (or close to max range), cripple, knockdown, etc

DeadlySynz.3471:

Pets can’t really ever be considered part of the rangers overall damage as they are either dead half the time or being pulled out of combat to avoid death (both of which take away 40-50% of your dps)

Be that as it may, I did some more testing and found out devourers, my ranged pet of choice, do 2×200 damage every ~1.8s for ~200dps. Combined with LB#1 at max range gives us a dps of ~1k.

ChillyChinaman.6057:

DeadlySynz.3471:

Pets can’t really ever be considered part of the rangers overall damage as they are either dead half the time or being pulled out of combat to avoid death (both of which take away 40-50% of your dps)

Be that as it may, I did some more testing and found out devourers, my ranged pet of choice, do 2×200 damage every ~1.8s for ~200dps. Combined with LB#1 at max range gives us a dps of ~1k.

Hmm I’ll have to give that a try. Do they actually stay out of battle though? My biggest issue I have with pets, well ranged ones anyways, is they see fit to run up right next to the enemy to attack, which in effect is pointless lol.

DeadlySynz.3471:

Hmm I’ll have to give that a try. Do they actually stay out of battle though? My biggest issue I have with pets, well ranged ones anyways, is they see fit to run up right next to the enemy to attack, which in effect is pointless lol.

I mean experience my pets stay at range and fire away. It seem like they charge ahead because they only have 900 range. It’d be nice if Anet Increased their range 1000, or at least give a trait for it.

LRS should simply do flat damage but have a 1500 default range. 300 more than the 4 other skills. With the default now at 1500, change the eagle eye trait to one that allows the LB to cause cripple but on a 15 or 20 sec CD. With the LB crippling every 15 to 20 sec, remove cripple from barrage and make it a fire field.

Deamhan.9538:

LRS should simply do flat damage but have a 1500 default range. 300 more than the 4 other skills. With the default now at 1500, change the eagle eye trait to one that allows the LB to cause cripple but on a 15 or 20 sec CD. With the LB crippling every 15 to 20 sec, remove cripple from barrage and make it a fire field.

Good idea. But instead of the cripple on CD, since we pretty much have that already, how about, LB applies vulnerability. Also, you wouldn’t really have much control over when this cripple was applied, short of changing weapons, so I’d rather keep Barrage the way it is.