posted in Suggestion forum, shared here as more directed at this audience:
A Ranger Conundrum
My goal was to build a classic “Aragorn” longbow ranger, with a preference on “long”. The type of play style I went looking for is, whenever possible, to engage a target at the longest possible distance and use mobility / cripples, etc to maintain separation from my target.
The longbow is designed to perform best at the greatest distance; if you shoot the longbow #1 skill at shorter ranges, you do less damage. From tooltips I saw three breaks: low, mid and high damage at 1-500, 500-1000, and over 1000 foot ranges respectively, with a damage value of 168 being a point of reference (unsure if this is the mid- or high-value). By comparison, the shortbow looks to do a flat 134 damage regardless of range from 1-1200 feet. The shortbow has a considerably higher rate of fire, so as I see it, and I am open to correction, on a straight #1 skill comparison, at 1200 feet or less the shortbow has a higher damage output.
For maintaining gap, SB has a cripple/bleed shot at #4 (12sec cooldown) which can slow an enemy closure rate at extended distance versus the longbow #4 Point Blank Shot (15sec cooldown) which will knock a target backwards after it has gotten close. In my experience, PBS can be unreliable – terrain features or angle of attack issues can limit or negate the knockback effect whereas the cripple, at least for me, seems to be almost completely reliable. At 1200 feet or less I can more readily maintain quality separation with a shortbow, and burn targets faster, than I can with a longbow.
The Marksmanship tree is arguably my main avenue to beef up my longbow skills. The 5pt skill in that line is Opening Strike, which by design does not work past 900 feet. So it technically does not give me any benefit at the base 1200 range of longbow or shortbow and certainly not the trait-extended 1500 longbow range. So unless I misunderstand something, I have to choose between taking my first longbow shot at max range to get max-distance damage but sacrificing Opening Strike, or give up some first-shot damage in exchange for OS vulnerability and the hope of making up that damage over the next couple seconds (which seems more likely in group efforts than in solo play). That mutual-exclusivity does not seem to be consistent with Arena’s design rules in the game.
THE SUGGESTION PART…
I readily concede that the two bows are different and each has a unique value, but their practical difference has little to do with long versus short aside from the name. I open at max range with a Hunter Shot, dismissing any benefit from Opening Shot, roll right into Rapid Shot and flip to my shortbow. When the chance permits and I get some separation, I will flip back to longbow for a refresh of Hunter Shot and a Rapid Shot, but it feels like an alternate Shortbow.
I suggest that since Opening Shot has no effect at Longbow range (i.e. over 900) and since Hunter Shot has a 1200 range to give me the same Vulnerability more reliably, that the 5pt skill for Marksmanship be changed to an Opening Shot knockdown with a 1 sec duration out to 1200 and a 2sec duration from 1200-1500 feet. This would give a tiny nod to the Longbow mystique of firing farther and hitting harder, and allow a Ranger to at least initiate a second attack, most likely Rapid Fire, while at a good stand-off distance. It would also give a slight perk to the 20pt skill choice Eagle Eye. Since Rangers are one of the slower-moving professions in PvP it would give a one-shot chance at closing the gap with prey on the run, or buy us a brief head start when we are being pursued from out of combat. It is not spammable within a given combat phase nor do I see it as a game-breaker, but instead as getting a real effect in place of the rather self-contradictory Opening SHot/vulnerability we have today.
I welcome thoughts on the suggestion and hope Arena gives it consideration.