Guild Wars 2

I finally got around to making a ranger and (of course) had to choose between Long Bow and Short Bow. I went off to the Mists to try each and see if/when I’d prefer to use either one and if one had significant advantages over the other, particularly DPS. Y’all have likely done similar tests or seen this topic before, but I thought I’d post my findings anyway as sort of a confirmation of what you no doubt already know by a non-ranger.

The big surprise was that I couldn’t find a weapon skill combination that reliably outperformed auto-attack on either bow. Lbow autos a golem down in about 10~11s, Sbow in about 11~12s: ie. Lbow auto seems to maybe be a little nicer, but by a very small margin (if it even is nicer). The sad part about rangers and bows, though, is that using other skills doesn’t help. Barrage will drop the rate by 1~2s, but no mix of the other skills will budge either bow from it’s auto-attack rate. (NB. Lbow auto becomes a LOT worse at medium and close range — that’s when skill use pays off significantly — but adding in skills just makes close range Lbow’s kill rate the same as max range auto.)

For a bit of comparison, I have 4 other L80 classes: mesmer, necro, guardian, & thief. NONE of those classes achieve anywhere near maximum DPS by only auto-attacking. Skill use dramatically improves DPS for all those classes.

This makes it painfully obvious why all bots are Short Bow rangers. It’s an immense simplification for bot coding to never need to maneuver or use any skills other than auto-attack in order to achieve near-maximum DPS. Knowing you’re just an auto-attack bot makes it more than a little depressing to play the ranger class.

BTW, I also tested utility skills Quickening Zephyr and Sharpening Stones to make sure they increased DPS as expected (yes) and to see if they helped one bow more than the other (they don’t). So, I don’t have to play as a one-button bot to maximize my ranger’s DPS; ie. I’ll be using Lbow for my ranger. I want my ranger to be a little bit more actively involved in fights than a bot and Sbow’s other skills are mostly useless outside of a seriously long 1v1 kite fight.

IMHO, the ranger’s bow skills need help badly. Both need to be at least a little more actively involved in fights than a bot. This isn’t to disparage existing rangers, but to sympathize with them. The class is a boring bot by design. I thought necros had it bad with all their bugs, but at least they get to use their skills.

—

How would I fix it? ‘Dunno — I’ve only played ranger a little while now. Forum regulars probably have better ideas. I’d probably reduce auto-attack DPS by 1/3 to 1/2, increase skill DPS to compensate, and change a LOT of the skills themselves. I’d probably add fields to each bow, like a fire or light to barrage and a smoke or dark to a pbAE for short bow. That would invite rangers to setup combos for both themselves and their team. Anything to cultivate a little advantage for more complex play with a bow.

Ranger bow skills definitely do need help. The sad thing was that Anets approach to stop people from auto-attacking with the short bow (even though as you proved that is the best and really only way to deal damage) was to nerf the short bow auto-attack speed. Or should I say “animation fix”… When people asked about this fix, Anet finally came out and said it was a nerf because they don’t like everyone “spamming” the 1 button on the bow. Comments like that make them seem clueless to the ranger profession.

In any case, while I feel like the short bow is in an okay position, the long bow should definitely be taking a look at first. Damaging decreasing at close range does not make much sense when damage at long range isn’t that much to start with.

Edit: Also, I forgot to add. I would also like to see the ranger long bow feel more lively. While the skills it has right now aren’t horrible, I don’t have a particular attachment to any of them. Honestly, the warrior longbow skill bar reminds me more of what rangers were like in Guild Wars 1 than the ranger skill bar.

That being said, I don’t think the DPS of either of the weapons should be decreased. Just the weapons as a whole need to be looked at.

Aethersong.5189:

Ranger bow skills definitely do need help. The sad thing was that Anets approach to stop people from auto-attacking with the short bow (even though as you proved that is the best and really only way to deal damage) was to nerf the short bow auto-attack speed. Or should I say “animation fix”… When people asked about this fix, Anet finally came out and said it was a nerf because they don’t like everyone “spamming” the 1 button on the bow. Comments like that make them seem clueless to the ranger profession.

Makes me angry everytime….

To contribute to the discussion: shortbow is far superior because of its chance to cause bleeding on autoattack. Shortbow also gives you a 3. dodge (4. when using that one utility), keeping you alive.

Guys, seriously, its not all about damage.

For instance, shortbow’s skill 5 is used to interrupt heals, or hundred blades, skill 3 saves you from a world of pain, skill 4 prevents the person from reaching you, skill two prevents someone from recovering their health effectively.

They are utility skills. They’re not supposed to do damage, they help your survive. People keep saying warrior’s rifle does more damage than the shortbow. Of course! But they don’t survive as much. They may wear heavy armor, but they cant escape while using a rifle. The amount of escapes a ranger has is ridiculous and is only surpassed by the thief. So sure, the warrior will do more damage but i’ll still outlive him.

Longbow skills 1,2,3 need a little boost in damage though i’ll give you that.

AlexRD: The other 2 classes I’ve gotten to ~40, thief and mesmer (yeah, I’m going to join the OPs), both have on every weapon set that I can think of BOTH utility AND dps increasing abilities.

Sure, we get some survive-ability out of them. So do they. They also OMGWTF spike damage out of the bargain. And since our utility tends to be self-preservation style, pretty much anyone else could better fit any role that a ranger can fill.

AlexRD.7914:

Guys, seriously, its not all about damage.

For instance, shortbow’s skill 5 is used to interrupt heals, or hundred blades, skill 3 saves you from a world of pain, skill 4 prevents the person from reaching you, skill two prevents someone from recovering their health effectively.

They are utility skills. They’re not supposed to do damage, they help your survive. People keep saying warrior’s rifle does more damage than the shortbow. Of course! But they don’t survive as much. They may wear heavy armor, but they cant escape while using a rifle. The amount of escapes a ranger has is ridiculous and is only surpassed by the thief. So sure, the warrior will do more damage but i’ll still outlive him.

Longbow skills 1,2,3 need a little boost in damage though i’ll give you that.

No one was comparing warrior rifle to ranger bows in this thread, they just said ranger bows are lackluster.

However, if you are just comparing the escape/cc abilities of the rifle and ranger bows you have:

Rifle: knock back and cripple (can be traited to immobilize and is on very short CD)
SB: cripple and jump back(evade) and short stun/daze
Longbow: aoe cripple and knock back
Bonus comparision thief SB: spammable cripple and jumpback and spamable teleport that can be used while immobilized

So you see utility wise the weapons are very similar, its just that rifle (and thief bow) also does more damage and has killshot as an extra burst skill.

Yasha, we must have been writing those at the same time

Sounds like LB1 has been silently improved from when I tested it. Must retest. I was getting in the neighborhood of 17 second kill times up to double sb1 kill times with longbow 1. Only 5,3,2 let me outpace SB 1 when I tested a good time back.

The longbow as a weapon outranged all other weapons and so it still shoot. The idea an engineer can throw grenades as far as the longbow….facepalm…why have different professions and have no discernable difference. I am alting a Warrior at the moment and find their longbow as good at least as ours…and their rifle simply superior.

I really hope tomorrow delivers, otherwise I will struggle to put my warrior away.

Okuza.5210:

I finally got around to making a ranger and (of course) had to choose between Long Bow and Short Bow. I went off to the Mists to try each and see if/when I’d prefer to use either one and if one had significant advantages over the other, particularly DPS. Y’all have likely done similar tests or seen this topic before, but I thought I’d post my findings anyway as sort of a confirmation of what you no doubt already know by a non-ranger.

The big surprise was that I couldn’t find a weapon skill combination that reliably outperformed auto-attack on either bow. Lbow autos a golem down in about 10~11s, Sbow in about 11~12s: ie. Lbow auto seems to maybe be a little nicer, but by a very small margin (if it even is nicer). The sad part about rangers and bows, though, is that using other skills doesn’t help. Barrage will drop the rate by 1~2s, but no mix of the other skills will budge either bow from it’s auto-attack rate. (NB. Lbow auto becomes a LOT worse at medium and close range — that’s when skill use pays off significantly — but adding in skills just makes close range Lbow’s kill rate the same as max range auto.)

For a bit of comparison, I have 4 other L80 classes: mesmer, necro, guardian, & thief. NONE of those classes achieve anywhere near maximum DPS by only auto-attacking. Skill use dramatically improves DPS for all those classes.

This makes it painfully obvious why all bots are Short Bow rangers. It’s an immense simplification for bot coding to never need to maneuver or use any skills other than auto-attack in order to achieve near-maximum DPS. Knowing you’re just an auto-attack bot makes it more than a little depressing to play the ranger class.

BTW, I also tested utility skills Quickening Zephyr and Sharpening Stones to make sure they increased DPS as expected (yes) and to see if they helped one bow more than the other (they don’t). So, I don’t have to play as a one-button bot to maximize my ranger’s DPS; ie. I’ll be using Lbow for my ranger. I want my ranger to be a little bit more actively involved in fights than a bot and Sbow’s other skills are mostly useless outside of a seriously long 1v1 kite fight.

IMHO, the ranger’s bow skills need help badly. Both need to be at least a little more actively involved in fights than a bot. This isn’t to disparage existing rangers, but to sympathize with them. The class is a boring bot by design. I thought necros had it bad with all their bugs, but at least they get to use their skills.

—

How would I fix it? ‘Dunno — I’ve only played ranger a little while now. Forum regulars probably have better ideas. I’d probably reduce auto-attack DPS by 1/3 to 1/2, increase skill DPS to compensate, and change a LOT of the skills themselves. I’d probably add fields to each bow, like a fire or light to barrage and a smoke or dark to a pbAE for short bow. That would invite rangers to setup combos for both themselves and their team. Anything to cultivate a little advantage for more complex play with a bow.

Ive done a similar test as a power crit glass cannon build, I attacked medium armored targets since they seem to outnumber everything else. Longbow and shortbow usually did about the same kill speed, however I also have 4 other toons I play as well, all glass cannons. I can assure you that aside from rifle warriors auto attack, my engineers, guardians, and thiefs auto attacks all kill the target dummy nearly 4-5 seconds faster. Why? Because they attack faster and hit harder with their auto attacks, plain and simple. My guardians 1h sword rotation in 3 hits generally does 7-9k on the medium target, thieves is similar but a bit lower, closer too 6.5-8k, my engineers rifle, smacks for about 1800-2k each hit crit, and has a quick fire rate and an almost impossible to dodge projectile speed. My rifle warriors auto attack takes a bit to get the desired damage because it builds bleeds but it can keep 10 stacks on someone quite easily and thats an extra 600-650 damage per second + the 1k-1200 crits it does.

Longbow needs a little bump in damage and also speed of attack. Not much, but some.

miragezero.2738:

Longbow needs a little bump in damage and also speed of attack. Not much, but some.

Needs alot more than that. Needs faster attack speed, faster projectile speed, and 20-30% more damage. Shortbow really isnt as bad as people make it out to be, it just needs to work with QZ more. GS needs a good damage bump, 1h sword needs to not root, axe needs more damage too imo.

Something no-one has pointed out is LB crits harder, ergo, harder hitting in less time, ie. higher burst.

Also, thieves sb has a draw time, unlike ranger.

AlexRD.7914:

Guys, seriously, its not all about damage.

For instance, shortbow’s skill 5 is used to interrupt heals, or hundred blades, skill 3 saves you from a world of pain, skill 4 prevents the person from reaching you, skill two prevents someone from recovering their health effectively.

They are utility skills. They’re not supposed to do damage, they help your survive. People keep saying warrior’s rifle does more damage than the shortbow. Of course! But they don’t survive as much. They may wear heavy armor, but they cant escape while using a rifle. The amount of escapes a ranger has is ridiculous and is only surpassed by the thief. So sure, the warrior will do more damage but i’ll still outlive him.

Longbow skills 1,2,3 need a little boost in damage though i’ll give you that.

Uh, I play both a warrior and ranger, and I have yet to see a ranger “escape” from me on my warrior. Most rifle warriors run with other melee or ‘mobility’ weapons, like greatsword, which I personally run with. Between Signet of Rage (30s swiftness), bulls charge (effect increases with swiftness), GS skill 3 and 5 (both effects increase with swiftness), there is NO way a ranger will ever escape from me. In fact, a ranger’s “escape abilities” are quite laughable in my opinion and is the LEAST mobile class out of all the different professions I have (which are Guard, Ele, Ranger, Warrior).

BAEK.8561:

AlexRD.7914:

Guys, seriously, its not all about damage.

For instance, shortbow’s skill 5 is used to interrupt heals, or hundred blades, skill 3 saves you from a world of pain, skill 4 prevents the person from reaching you, skill two prevents someone from recovering their health effectively.

They are utility skills. They’re not supposed to do damage, they help your survive. People keep saying warrior’s rifle does more damage than the shortbow. Of course! But they don’t survive as much. They may wear heavy armor, but they cant escape while using a rifle. The amount of escapes a ranger has is ridiculous and is only surpassed by the thief. So sure, the warrior will do more damage but i’ll still outlive him.

Longbow skills 1,2,3 need a little boost in damage though i’ll give you that.

Uh, I play both a warrior and ranger, and I have yet to see a ranger “escape” from me on my warrior. Most rifle warriors run with other melee or ‘mobility’ weapons, like greatsword, which I personally run with. Between Signet of Rage (30s swiftness), bulls charge (effect increases with swiftness), GS skill 3 and 5 (both effects increase with swiftness), there is NO way a ranger will ever escape from me. In fact, a ranger’s “escape abilities” are quite laughable in my opinion and is the LEAST mobile class out of all the different professions I have (which are Guard, Ele, Ranger, Warrior).

Sadly yes, I mean I can escape as a ranger using GS and longbow simply because the knockback and swoop but its not as easy as it is with warrior or ele or engineer.

Ninjah.6298:

Something no-one has pointed out is LB crits harder, ergo, harder hitting in less time, ie. higher burst.

Also, thieves sb has a draw time, unlike ranger.

Thieves shortbow also teleports them, bounces from target to target multiple times, oh and blows up for 5-6k aoe. So yea, lets not go there about how rangers have it better than thieves shortbow. I cant count the times Ive used shortbow on thief to dps and when someone sees me and attacks I infiltrator arrow away out of reach several times to escape.

Also, thieves sb has a draw time, unlike ranger.

— yeah, and thieves SB also actively seeks its target and kicks the everloving crap out of our sb. Add in their 25% swiftness, and I kite like a fiend on my thief and like a greasy spot on the road on my ranger.

Ninjah.6298:

Something no-one has pointed out is LB crits harder, ergo, harder hitting in less time, ie. higher burst.

Also, thieves sb has a draw time, unlike ranger.

Crits harder? What do you mean by that? LB has higher crit damage? Because that’s wrong. They both do 200% damage on crit.

Also, thief sb homes in on the enemy, bounces, and actually has damaging skills.

Kincaidia.3192:

Also, thieves sb has a draw time, unlike ranger.

— yeah, and thieves SB also actively seeks its target and kicks the everloving crap out of our sb. Add in their 25% swiftness, and I kite like a fiend on my thief and like a greasy spot on the road on my ranger.

Dont forget the low cost spamable evade shortbow comes with.

Longbow hits harder, fires slower. It evens up in damage if you count rapid fire. Shortbow lands more hits in the same time, making it better for chance on hit abilities, but the shortbow has no natural damage compression.

Well I dont think shortbow was intended to be a main damage weapon like longbow was. Shortbow imo was meant to be hybrid damage/CC so it shouldnt hit as hard, but it does. Barrage is longbows saving grace but thats it.

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

Ninjah.6298:

Something no-one has pointed out is LB crits harder, ergo, harder hitting in less time, ie. higher burst.

Also, thieves sb has a draw time, unlike ranger.

Thieves shortbow also teleports them, bounces from target to target multiple times, oh and blows up for 5-6k aoe. So yea, lets not go there about how rangers have it better than thieves shortbow. I cant count the times Ive used shortbow on thief to dps and when someone sees me and attacks I infiltrator arrow away out of reach several times to escape.

Agreed. Basically I play my thief how I imagined a ranger would play- using the bow as the main weapon, kiting a lot, always moving, very mobile, and pumping out huge burst when left alone. Its not the optimal thief set up, but it is the closest I can get to what I thought the archer/scout-archetype would be.

Division.9618:

Ninjah.6298:

Something no-one has pointed out is LB crits harder, ergo, harder hitting in less time, ie. higher burst.

Also, thieves sb has a draw time, unlike ranger.

Crits harder? What do you mean by that? LB has higher crit damage? Because that’s wrong. They both do 200% damage on crit.

Also, thief sb homes in on the enemy, bounces, and actually has damaging skills.

Sigh…but the LB does more damage per strike, so whatever percentage the number is for your char the Longbow will always be a larger amount….

You guys are terribad at analysis, really… as for pets doing 40% damage, pure myth, they dont event show in combat log so how did people come to this magic conclusion?

Thieves arrow is far slower moving too, as well as the draw time…and they are close to pure DPS so, yes, they should do more damage. Nearly all of the thief melee is single target where as most of ours is AOE..

I left out a couple of details about my little tests. My test ranger was 30/30/10/0/0 (with 5% Lbow increase). Full berserk. I run all my characters as full DPS. I haven’t found a PvE or WvW situation in game yet that makes anything but full-DPS even worth considering. However, I do sometimes run toughness/condition on my main (mesmer) when I don’t want to pay attention to combat.

So, back on the bow topic for ranger. I used Lbow almost exclusively to level for quite a while and realized that while my tests were great for targets that behave like golems and sit there at maximum range all the time, but this isn’t how things work elsewhere. Unless things are nearly in melee range, it’s an absurd waste of time trying to position for the flanking bonuses. Rapid Fire’s CD is too long to make up for the DPS reduction due to distance in live PvE compared to golem tests.

And, as another poster stated above, the bleeds do push DPS up a bit. It’s not enough to bother with condition gear, but it’s enough combined with the tactical advantage of zero-distance issues to make Sbow much nicer in PvE. I can’t speak to sPvP or WvW bows, though I’d probably pick Lbow for it’s AE, range, and KB for WvW zergs.

I’d argue the utility of the other Sbow skills in PvE. They sound great and would really help in situations that almost never happen. I haven’t needed to use them. Just tab, 1, tab, 1, tab, 1. Sometimes I hit other skills for fun and so I don’t completely forget what they do. I have wanted to use them solo’ing a champion, but it was immune to CC and thus negated whatever utility I might have gained from them. Basically, the PvE where you can use those skills isn’t difficult enough to benefit from anything other than more DPS.

—

BTW, for Ninjah above, you can’t really use the combat log or the damage numbers for any kind of analysis; it has time data and a number of things (like dots and heals) don’t show in the log; GW2’s log still hasn’t quite caught up to EQ1’s technology. Unfortunately, the most reliable method I’ve found to measure DPS is to use a stop-watch on golem kills. Do a number of kills with different methods and compare the results. More kills is better, but it gets boring fast. You can test pet DPS this way: time kills with pets, time kills without pets.

Okuza.5210:

I left out a couple of details about my little tests. My test ranger was 30/30/10/0/0 (with 5% Lbow increase). Full berserk. I run all my characters as full DPS. I haven’t found a PvE or WvW situation in game yet that makes anything but full-DPS even worth considering.

Ah. Try a shortbow with a spec that pushes some condition damage, and use fire trap in one of your slots. That gives you poison, burning, and stacking bleeds. The built-in bleed isn’t much help since pets don’t hold aggro and you mostly attack the enemy’s face, so I use a bleed sigil in the bow. 20/30/15/0/5, mostly “Rampager” gear and “Afflicted” runes.

The longbow goes in my other slot but honestly I only use it for the arrow storm. After using barrage I want to switch back as soon as the cooldown lets me. I pass the time with rapid fire, maybe the pushback, but then I always go right back to the shortbow as soon as I can. No point in hanging around on the LB because the SB is a much more effective killing tool for me.

I’ve come to look at it this way: I’m a bow Ranger; LB and SB are just different aspects of the same weapon to me. I also have a mentally disabled animal that follows me around and occasionally bites things, but that’s more for flavor than real combat utility.

TravisTrout.6803:

Ah. Try a shortbow with a spec that pushes some condition damage, and use fire trap in one of your slots. That gives you poison, burning, and stacking bleeds. The built-in bleed isn’t much help since pets don’t hold aggro and you mostly attack the enemy’s face, so I use a bleed sigil in the bow. 20/30/15/0/5, mostly “Rampager” gear and “Afflicted” runes.

Conditions are nice for kiting hard stuff and great for solo’ing things between level+5 and level+10 while you’re leveling up — they don’t suffer from “glancing” issues and unlike “berserker” builds, you can get decent stats for it before level 80. However, in general, conditions have very serious drawbacks at 80.

They’re low DPS and unless your class is required to DPS via conditions (pretty much just Engineer and Necro), your use of conditions is highly likely to seriously nerf the group’s DPS due to stacking limits by pushing a higher value dot off the stack. If you push a warrior’s bleed off the target it’s not that big a deal, but pushing a necro’s off is.

—

A minor comment on other class’s auto-attacks versus Ranger’s: are you sure you’re comparing ranged attacks? IMHO, for DPS, this is how it should work: melee > ranged > conditions. And, for the most part, that’s how it does work. I can only imagine the dev’s reasoning, but mine would be that melee looses a lot of time moving in and out of position even when they have gap closers. And, it’s much higher risk, too. The end result is that in a “real” fight, melee is probably at best only similiar DPS to ranged and takes much more player skill to use effectively.

The original post was mostly a sympathy/pity post for the ranger community. I’ve since leveled my ranger to 80. Most of the time, I used axe/horn (80%) + short bow (20%). I tried a spirit build. Tried a trap build. I’m still bored with it. The class is not ineffective; I could accomplish the same stuff using it that I could with my other classes (different tactics, same result).

For myself, Ranger is so boring that it’s the first class I didn’t bother to gear with exotics as soon as it hit 80. I just put some green 80s on it, finished the good-reward maps, converted skill points to mystics, and put it on the shelf.

For those of you playing only Ranger, I hope you get some improvements to make your class more exciting to play.

imo LB is more abt burst dps whilst SB is meant more for inflicting conditions (dots) and sustaining dps.

Ninjah.6298:

Division.9618:

Ninjah.6298:

Something no-one has pointed out is LB crits harder, ergo, harder hitting in less time, ie. higher burst.

Also, thieves sb has a draw time, unlike ranger.

Crits harder? What do you mean by that? LB has higher crit damage? Because that’s wrong. They both do 200% damage on crit.

Also, thief sb homes in on the enemy, bounces, and actually has damaging skills.

Sigh…but the LB does more damage per strike, so whatever percentage the number is for your char the Longbow will always be a larger amount….

You guys are terribad at analysis, really… as for pets doing 40% damage, pure myth, they dont event show in combat log so how did people come to this magic conclusion?

Thieves arrow is far slower moving too, as well as the draw time…and they are close to pure DPS so, yes, they should do more damage. Nearly all of the thief melee is single target where as most of ours is AOE..

This was derived from a quote from an ANet employee stating that Ranger pets are suppose to account for ~45% of our total dps, which is how they’re balancing ranger dps on.

They are basing our dps on the assumption that the pet will deal 45% of our total damage, even though they are buggy as hell and cannot hit moving targets.

Ninjah.6298:

Division.9618:

Ninjah.6298:

Something no-one has pointed out is LB crits harder, ergo, harder hitting in less time, ie. higher burst.

Also, thieves sb has a draw time, unlike ranger.

Crits harder? What do you mean by that? LB has higher crit damage? Because that’s wrong. They both do 200% damage on crit.

Also, thief sb homes in on the enemy, bounces, and actually has damaging skills.

Sigh…but the LB does more damage per strike, so whatever percentage the number is for your char the Longbow will always be a larger amount….

You guys are terribad at analysis, really… as for pets doing 40% damage, pure myth, they dont event show in combat log so how did people come to this magic conclusion?

Thieves arrow is far slower moving too, as well as the draw time…and they are close to pure DPS so, yes, they should do more damage. Nearly all of the thief melee is single target where as most of ours is AOE..

They show up in the breakdown, so its not pure myth. When I kill someone, my pet is always top on damage with blinding slash, followed by rapid fire, then another pet attack, then barrage, then another pet attack. My raven does 50% of my damage, fact, not myth.

Nero.4706:

imo LB is more abt burst dps whilst SB is meant more for inflicting conditions (dots) and sustaining dps.

Supposed to be. Is it? Not by a long shot (hehehe) -_-

Samfisher.7942:

Supposed to be. Is it? Not by a long shot (hehehe) -_-

I’m not privy to developer intentions, so I can’t say what it’s supposed to be. Sam is definitely correct about how things are, though. Neither SB nor LB have any burst DPS ability in themselves (they do with Zephyr, though). Remember, LB’s Rapid Fire is the SAME DPS as maximum range auto-attack. It just puts short range LB DPS on par with long range. LB is really just for the AE rain; it’s a wonderful WvW skill.

BTW, increasing conditions means sacrificing direct damage and from what I’ve seen you can’t increase condition damage enough to make up for what you sacrifice. You can come close, but you end up with a glass cannon build that now has the added limitations of conditions. There’s no free route to both DPS and passive defensive stats.

I would definetly run with the shortbow in terms of dmg. A longbow will never out dmg a shortbow in terms of dps.

caKez.3219:

I would definetly run with the shortbow in terms of dmg. A longbow will never out dmg a shortbow in terms of dps.

It will if properly fixed. Once they increase projectile speed and fix obstruction bugs and opening strikes, and for the love of god get rid of the damage drop per range on LRS then yea, it would be quite nice. I was using a eles frost bow for kicks and I love how he has a kill shot type skill, gets down on 1 knee and uses something akin to kill shot and encases them in ice, I want that on longbow except it does huge damage and adds vulnerability and cripple. Hmm maybe hunters shot could do that.

Here is a post from Reddit relating to these bows.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/13ryxb/shortbow_vs_longbow_damage_outputs_ranger_data/

The short bow is overall better than the long bow because of its consistency. Also, when using long bow skills, you actually decrease your dps.

Aethersong.5189:

Here is a post from Reddit relating to these bows.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/13ryxb/shortbow_vs_longbow_damage_outputs_ranger_data/

The short bow is overall better than the long bow because of its consistency. Also, when using long bow skills, you actually decrease your dps.

Sad but true, I still use it because I love the attacks and skins but other than that I agree it sucks.

Aethersong.5189:

Here is a post from Reddit relating to these bows.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/13ryxb/shortbow_vs_longbow_damage_outputs_ranger_data/

The short bow is overall better than the long bow because of its consistency. Also, when using long bow skills, you actually decrease your dps.

The key statement in that post is this: “If you are in PvE and can maintain distance, the LB will be able to out burst the SB”. In any situation in which your opponents (mob or player) are likely to close the distance gap, LB becomes a severely underpowered weapon. Shortbow is almost always superior in terms of DPS due to the distance penalty on Longbow, but in certain circumstances (namely WvW) LB’s utility skills are invaluable. Barrage is great for defending walls against zergs, and Eagle Eye allows you to safely take down wall defenses from a distance. In sPVP, on the other hand, LB is almost completely useless, I would never slot it even as a secondary.

I don’t quite see how LB 3 can not boost DPS. 10 stacks of vulnerability from a quick shot has to be helpful.

But yah, other than that (and Barrage of course) most of the bow specials are utility-based (or AoE based in the LB5 and SB2) and not damage-based. So it makes sense that they don’t boost pure DPS against a single target much if at all.

I just realized LB would be way cooler if they increased LB1 1000+ range damage by like 30% and reduced the cooldown on LB4 from 12 to say 7 sec. Especially that last one can change playing LB entirely while its just a cd reduction.

Electro.4173:

I don’t quite see how LB 3 can not boost DPS. 10 stacks of vulnerability from a quick shot has to be helpful.

If LB3 was instant or if the skill itself did more damage, then it would improve the solo kill rate. However, it takes longer than a regular shot and does less damage itself. This means it has to “make up ground” for the damage that was lost by using the skill. It doesn’t do that for solo play, though.

Where LB3 would really shine is in group play. The more people you have attacking a target, the more people you just buffed by 10%. You’re sacrificing a tiny bit or even nothing on your own DPS for the sake of improving the group.

Okuza.5210:

Electro.4173:

I don’t quite see how LB 3 can not boost DPS. 10 stacks of vulnerability from a quick shot has to be helpful.

If LB3 was instant or if the skill itself did more damage, then it would improve the solo kill rate. However, it takes longer than a regular shot and does less damage itself. This means it has to “make up ground” for the damage that was lost by using the skill. It doesn’t do that for solo play, though.

Where LB3 would really shine is in group play. The more people you have attacking a target, the more people you just buffed by 10%. You’re sacrificing a tiny bit or even nothing on your own DPS for the sake of improving the group.

Thats one way to look at it. I still think they need to make hunters shot do more damage and add cripple. Id love it to be like kill shot, a long casting hard hitting attack so we dont rely just on rapid fire for burst. Ele frost bow uses something like that, I believe its the number 4 skill, gets down on 1 knee for a slow cast, hits hard and encases the enemy in ice……legit.

Aethersong.5189:

Here is a post from Reddit relating to these bows.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/13ryxb/shortbow_vs_longbow_damage_outputs_ranger_data/

The short bow is overall better than the long bow because of its consistency. Also, when using long bow skills, you actually decrease your dps.

Unfortunately it doesn’t also account for the fact that if you are at long range with the longbow, you can’t actually hit a moving target.

I’ve been trying lb for the last days. It’s pretty cool to have some big numbers in your screen but I keep feeling that I’m doing less dmg then my cond build.

I will probably get back to my cond build and set, and maybe in the future give it another shot to LB.

One of the major issues that I see in LB is that a bug can completely ruin your bust, and the bug that I’m talking is the one that say that your target is blocked. This piss me of =/

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

Okuza.5210:

Electro.4173:

I don’t quite see how LB 3 can not boost DPS. 10 stacks of vulnerability from a quick shot has to be helpful.

If LB3 was instant or if the skill itself did more damage, then it would improve the solo kill rate. However, it takes longer than a regular shot and does less damage itself. This means it has to “make up ground” for the damage that was lost by using the skill. It doesn’t do that for solo play, though.

Where LB3 would really shine is in group play. The more people you have attacking a target, the more people you just buffed by 10%. You’re sacrificing a tiny bit or even nothing on your own DPS for the sake of improving the group.

Thats one way to look at it. I still think they need to make hunters shot do more damage and add cripple. Id love it to be like kill shot, a long casting hard hitting attack so we dont rely just on rapid fire for burst. Ele frost bow uses something like that, I believe its the number 4 skill, gets down on 1 knee for a slow cast, hits hard and encases the enemy in ice……legit.

I think they should make Hunters Shot into a “screw you!!” Button by making it vuln, poison and burn, and then put the cripple on knockback shot to REALLY cause the butt hurt to flow in PvP when you use it! If they added a poison and burn to hunters shot they wouldn’t need to buff the damage on it because it’d be buffe by those 2 conditions and it’d be a nice pressure ability (which I feel is the point of it seeing as how it allows your pet to stick to them like glue).

PS: that move on the icebow is just… Amazing, there are no words to describe how satisfying it is to land that in tPvP on the enemy bunker and then laugh as you shove dragons tooths down his 6second stunned all alone self!! NO ONE LIVES!!

I highly disagree. I use both LongBow and ShortBow on my Ranger.
I swap between them very offten and i have tons of different strategies playing them.

Its not about DPS its about how the skills deal Damage, Control, and Support.
Ranger has one of the most well thought out Skills planned.

I swap a lot between LongBow and ShortBow. Why not just use both? Pretty darn effective.

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

I highly disagree. I use both LongBow and ShortBow on my Ranger.
I swap between them very offten and i have tons of different strategies playing them.

Its not about DPS its about how the skills deal Damage, Control, and Support.
Ranger has one of the most well thought out Skills planned.

I swap a lot between LongBow and ShortBow. Why not just use both? Pretty darn effective.

That isnt the problem, and you arent reading what people are saying. Longbow as some good points such as barrage and point blank shot and even rapid fire at times. But the problem is every other weapon can be used as a primary weapon except for longbow. Longbow from 900+ range is so easy to sidestep its not funny, gets obstruction bug messages like crazy, and with opening strikes being bugged its currently only able to do damage during barrage and rapid fire, not to mention when enemies get close ur damage drops massively.

People are saying they want it to be a primary weapon, useable as one. Id love to be able to snipe with my longbow, but when I fire at someone and they move arrow completely misses, you dont have that problem with guns, the bullets move too fast and even hones in like with engineers hip shot.

Durzlla.6295:

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

Okuza.5210:

Electro.4173:

I don’t quite see how LB 3 can not boost DPS. 10 stacks of vulnerability from a quick shot has to be helpful.

If LB3 was instant or if the skill itself did more damage, then it would improve the solo kill rate. However, it takes longer than a regular shot and does less damage itself. This means it has to “make up ground” for the damage that was lost by using the skill. It doesn’t do that for solo play, though.

Where LB3 would really shine is in group play. The more people you have attacking a target, the more people you just buffed by 10%. You’re sacrificing a tiny bit or even nothing on your own DPS for the sake of improving the group.

Thats one way to look at it. I still think they need to make hunters shot do more damage and add cripple. Id love it to be like kill shot, a long casting hard hitting attack so we dont rely just on rapid fire for burst. Ele frost bow uses something like that, I believe its the number 4 skill, gets down on 1 knee for a slow cast, hits hard and encases the enemy in ice……legit.

I think they should make Hunters Shot into a “screw you!!” Button by making it vuln, poison and burn, and then put the cripple on knockback shot to REALLY cause the butt hurt to flow in PvP when you use it! If they added a poison and burn to hunters shot they wouldn’t need to buff the damage on it because it’d be buffe by those 2 conditions and it’d be a nice pressure ability (which I feel is the point of it seeing as how it allows your pet to stick to them like glue).

PS: that move on the icebow is just… Amazing, there are no words to describe how satisfying it is to land that in tPvP on the enemy bunker and then laugh as you shove dragons tooths down his 6second stunned all alone self!! NO ONE LIVES!!

As much as Id like fire and poison too hunters shot, I just dont feel it would make sense with the attack, adding a cripple would, and so would adding more damage. Now if they reworked the longbow to bring back burning arrow then that would be legit.

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

I highly disagree. I use both LongBow and ShortBow on my Ranger.
I swap between them very offten and i have tons of different strategies playing them.

Its not about DPS its about how the skills deal Damage, Control, and Support.
Ranger has one of the most well thought out Skills planned.

I swap a lot between LongBow and ShortBow. Why not just use both? Pretty darn effective.

That isnt the problem, and you arent reading what people are saying. Longbow as some good points such as barrage and point blank shot and even rapid fire at times. But the problem is every other weapon can be used as a primary weapon except for longbow. Longbow from 900+ range is so easy to sidestep its not funny, gets obstruction bug messages like crazy, and with opening strikes being bugged its currently only able to do damage during barrage and rapid fire, not to mention when enemies get close ur damage drops massively.

People are saying they want it to be a primary weapon, useable as one. Id love to be able to snipe with my longbow, but when I fire at someone and they move arrow completely misses, you dont have that problem with guns, the bullets move too fast and even hones in like with engineers hip shot.

Ohh I think I see what you are saying.
Honestly, all ranged weapons should be dodgable with the right movement/positioning. Moving evades attks. Positioning is key. Dodging helps evade bigger attks also. Kinda the key dont you think?

But yeah.. I dont use LongBow as Main weapon only because Its best situational weapon I like using to swap between with my ShortBow. I mean both ShortBow and LongBow do their jobs. Arrows or any long ranged should miss when enemies move.

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

Durzlla.6295:

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

Okuza.5210:

Electro.4173:

I don’t quite see how LB 3 can not boost DPS. 10 stacks of vulnerability from a quick shot has to be helpful.

If LB3 was instant or if the skill itself did more damage, then it would improve the solo kill rate. However, it takes longer than a regular shot and does less damage itself. This means it has to “make up ground” for the damage that was lost by using the skill. It doesn’t do that for solo play, though.

Where LB3 would really shine is in group play. The more people you have attacking a target, the more people you just buffed by 10%. You’re sacrificing a tiny bit or even nothing on your own DPS for the sake of improving the group.

Thats one way to look at it. I still think they need to make hunters shot do more damage and add cripple. Id love it to be like kill shot, a long casting hard hitting attack so we dont rely just on rapid fire for burst. Ele frost bow uses something like that, I believe its the number 4 skill, gets down on 1 knee for a slow cast, hits hard and encases the enemy in ice……legit.

I think they should make Hunters Shot into a “screw you!!” Button by making it vuln, poison and burn, and then put the cripple on knockback shot to REALLY cause the butt hurt to flow in PvP when you use it! If they added a poison and burn to hunters shot they wouldn’t need to buff the damage on it because it’d be buffe by those 2 conditions and it’d be a nice pressure ability (which I feel is the point of it seeing as how it allows your pet to stick to them like glue).

PS: that move on the icebow is just… Amazing, there are no words to describe how satisfying it is to land that in tPvP on the enemy bunker and then laugh as you shove dragons tooths down his 6second stunned all alone self!! NO ONE LIVES!!

As much as Id like fire and poison too hunters shot, I just dont feel it would make sense with the attack, adding a cripple would, and so would adding more damage. Now if they reworked the longbow to bring back burning arrow then that would be legit.

lol well i was thinking hunters shot could become the sig of poison + burning arrow combo just with added vuln xD, and poison would make perfect sense, don’t lie!! Maybe they can make it a poison and cripple + vuln?

Okuza.5210:

Conditions are nice for kiting hard stuff and great for solo’ing things between level+5 and level+10 while you’re leveling up — they don’t suffer from “glancing” issues and unlike “berserker” builds, you can get decent stats for it before level 80. However, in general, conditions have very serious drawbacks at 80.

They’re low DPS and unless your class is required to DPS via conditions (pretty much just Engineer and Necro), your use of conditions is highly likely to seriously nerf the group’s DPS due to stacking limits by pushing a higher value dot off the stack. If you push a warrior’s bleed off the target it’s not that big a deal, but pushing a necro’s off is.

Given that I can inflict poison, burning, chilled, and stacking bleeds without even changing my weapon, I don’t care about anyone else’s dots. That’s my job. As further evidence I point out the fact that you get condition damage for free when you spec some toughness, meaning that any survivable, actually useful build naturally gains higher condition damage.

Now, you might have had a point if you were talking about open-world champ/boss fights. When 20-50 people are banging on the same megatarget, obviously the condition caps will be reached very quickly. On the other hand, who cares? As one of 50 people inflicting a steady stream of damage on the same target, your personal contribution is negligible.

For myself, Ranger is so boring that it’s the first class I didn’t bother to gear with exotics as soon as it hit 80. I just put some green 80s on it, finished the good-reward maps, converted skill points to mystics, and put it on the shelf.

For those of you playing only Ranger, I hope you get some improvements to make your class more exciting to play.

Ah. You should gain experience with the class before presuming to make authoritative statements regarding how it works ;-)

Longbow needs more situations that make you think “hey I should switch to longbow right now” and less situations like “wow this longbow sucks here”. Right now the only time longbow is desired is in a keep fight. Any other time it is inferior.

It’s pretty obvious Anet envisions longbow as the long range required, bursty power/precision cooldown weapon, while the shortbow is the steady, consistent damage weapon. The problem is rapid fire sucks as a burst tool and longbow auto is far too penalized based on range.

1. Longbow 1: Currently, you get 100% damage at 1000+ range, but a huge dropoff to ~70% from 500-1000, and ~50% <500. This essentially makes eagle eye pretty much mandatory to even think about equipping a longbow, as otherwise you have about a nornswidth worth of window (from 1000-1200) to do remotely decent damage, which is nearly impossible to find. I find it nearly unusable in solo pve untraited. Either the location is too small to get 1000+, or you have room but can’t get the perfect 1000-1200 window. Should be changed to 100% damage at 900+ range, ~85% from 450-900, ~70% <450. Or ~85% 600-900, ~70% 300-600, ~55% <300.

2. Rapid fire …. isn’t rapid. It’s not a burst ability at all. It doesn’t increase your dps for crap, all it does is show a medium sized single number to fool the ignorant into thinking they are bursting. Personally I think the damage total is fine, it just needs to fire much quicker. Same damage in ~3 seconds instead of 5+.