Guild Wars 2

Before I get into this, I’ll admit that I haven’t followed a lot of Soulbeast stuff too closely, but from what I’ve seen so far, it looks like it’s possible that a power Soulbeast build could be good enough to be meta in PvE with the PoF release.

If this happens, I really hope that there’s a build that will make use of the longbow. Of course, I don’t expect this to be a build that camps longbow, but I could see it being a weapon that’s at least swapped to for Rapid Fire/Barrage and then swapped off of after.

It’s clear that ANet never want to balance this weapon to outpace a melee weaponset, despite how much they’ve stylized the class behind the use of a bow. However, I’m still dreaming of a day when a ranger running with a longbow is considered strong, even if they spend most of their time using a sword or greatsword.

I agree. I love my long bow and since we are Rangers, you would think that would be the main focus.

Anela.3867:

I agree. I love my long bow and since we are Rangers, you would think that would be the main focus.

Ranger =/= ranged.

The term ranger doesn’t mean someone who focuses on the use of ranged weapons, so that’s not a valid enough reason to think the class should be focused around bows.

Kreed.2768:

Anela.3867:

I agree. I love my long bow and since we are Rangers, you would think that would be the main focus.

Ranger =/= ranged.

The term ranger doesn’t mean someone who focuses on the use of ranged weapons, so that’s not a valid enough reason to think the class should be focused around bows.

We don’t need to spiral into the same debate that’s gone on in this subforum since the dawn of time. Yes, the word ranger doesn’t imply ranged dps, but it’s also still true that the art and marketting of the ranger class in GW2, along with one of the trait lines (marksmanship) imply that using a bow is a core part of the class identity.

Kreed.2768:

Anela.3867:

I agree. I love my long bow and since we are Rangers, you would think that would be the main focus.

Ranger =/= ranged.

The term ranger doesn’t mean someone who focuses on the use of ranged weapons, so that’s not a valid enough reason to think the class should be focused around bows.

The official description, official art, and implementation of the profession in GW1 were all heavily focused on archery.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Kreed.2768:

Anela.3867:

I agree. I love my long bow and since we are Rangers, you would think that would be the main focus.

Ranger =/= ranged.

The term ranger doesn’t mean someone who focuses on the use of ranged weapons, so that’s not a valid enough reason to think the class should be focused around bows.

The official description, official art, and implementation of the profession in GW1 were all heavily focused on archery.

That wasn’t the point I was trying to make. I was just pointing out that the term ranger itself has nothing to do with ranged weaponry/fighting and that it was thus a poor argument to back up the notion that the class should have a greater focus on it. Don’t get me wrong though, I’m all for buffs to our ranged weapon options as much as the next ranger. Been running longbow since they gave it some buffs like RF being a machinegun intead of just 10 AA’s with a vuln stack at normal speed. God, that was terrible before the change…

I believe that the soulbeast have already the tools to be as competive at range than he will be at melee range.

However, when it come to the debate about range damage, the reality is not that the longbow is bad or anything but that in high end PvE it’s better to have everyone close together so that everyone benefit from all buff. Having a profession that do inately more damage at range than the others can only be a bad thing for this profession since it would promote a gameplay that put this profession far away from it’s group, losing large part of the teamplay.

This way it’s better to have a longbow that have the reputation to be an underperforming weapon since it promote a gameplay where the ranger is close from it’s teammate, sharing and receiving buff instead of the gameplay of a lone wolf that just cower away from the fight, without receiving any benefit from it’s teammate nor giving anything.

From the point of view of most non ranger, a ranger that like to camp or even use longbow in group content, is a ranger that is super anoying to have as teammate. That’s mainly due to their habit to use the knockback on cool down. No ranger will ever be able to remove this bad image of the longbow on other player view because there will always be rangers that will abuse this kitten skill ruining the game experience of other players.

It’s better that the longbow do not perform to well due to that.

Dadnir.5038:

I believe that the soulbeast have already the tools to be as competive at range than he will be at melee range.

However, when it come to the debate about range damage, the reality is not that the longbow is bad or anything but that in high end PvE it’s better to have everyone close together so that everyone benefit from all buff. Having a profession that do inately more damage at range than the others can only be a bad thing for this profession since it would promote a gameplay that put this profession far away from it’s group, losing large part of the teamplay.

This way it’s better to have a longbow that have the reputation to be an underperforming weapon since it promote a gameplay where the ranger is close from it’s teammate, sharing and receiving buff instead of the gameplay of a lone wolf that just cower away from the fight, without receiving any benefit from it’s teammate nor giving anything.

From the point of view of most non ranger, a ranger that like to camp or even use longbow in group content, is a ranger that is super anoying to have as teammate. That’s mainly due to their habit to use the knockback on cool down. No ranger will ever be able to remove this bad image of the longbow on other player view because there will always be rangers that will abuse this kitten skill ruining the game experience of other players.

It’s better that the longbow do not perform to well due to that.

“New players might get confused about what weapon to use” is a terrible excuse to keep a weapon underpowered, and half the time I see the ranger get blamed for a knockback when the real culprit is an elementalist or something.

That’s wasn’t what I said.

I said that good damage on a range weapon promote a lonewolf gameplay while you need a party gameplay.

Longbow already do a lot of damage but it’s suboptimal in group content and it’s good as it is since Yes! a lot of ranger like to abuse of the knockback. On time I had a guy like you in a group, and we specifically asked him to not use the knockback and he even agreed. Yet he couldn’t refrain himself from doing so. There is way fewer ele that waste time casting their knockback than ranger that use knockback on cool down because it’s instant and do a bit of damage. Do you even know how annoying it is for an ele to use this 1 second cast time skill that do no damage and just have half the knockback distance of the ranger longbow? Most ele don’t use such a skill while most ranger in brainless mode use without a though their knockback. Nobody can correct the player base better than long a cast time on a skill.

Dadnir.5038:

That’s wasn’t what I said.

I said that good damage on a range weapon promote a lonewolf gameplay while you need a party gameplay.

Longbow already do a lot of damage but it’s suboptimal in group content and it’s good as it is since Yes! a lot of ranger like to abuse of the knockback. On time I had a guy like you in a group, and we specifically asked him to not use the knockback and he even agreed. Yet he couldn’t refrain himself from doing so. There is way fewer ele that waste time casting their knockback than ranger that use knockback on cool down because it’s instant and do a bit of damage. Do you even know how annoying it is for an ele to use this 1 second cast time skill that do no damage and just have half the knockback distance of the ranger longbow? Most ele don’t use such a skill while most ranger in brainless mode use without a though their knockback. Nobody can correct the player base better than long a cast time on a skill.

Gust has a shorter cast time than Point Blank Shot, but I guess facts aren’t as important to you as rhetoric. My point, that much of the time it isn’t the ranger knocking the target back, still stands.

Oh, and your claim that there should not be good damage on a long range weapon just got undercut by Deadeye. If Thieves can have it, Rangers should as well.

Kreed.2768:

Anela.3867:

I agree. I love my long bow and since we are Rangers, you would think that would be the main focus.

Ranger =/= ranged.

The term ranger doesn’t mean someone who focuses on the use of ranged weapons, so that’s not a valid enough reason to think the class should be focused around bows.

Do you think Anet has bots set up to post this everytime somebody mentions Longbow?

Dadnir.5038:

I believe that the soulbeast have already the tools to be as competive at range than he will be at melee range.

However, when it come to the debate about range damage, the reality is not that the longbow is bad or anything but that in high end PvE it’s better to have everyone close together so that everyone benefit from all buff. Having a profession that do inately more damage at range than the others can only be a bad thing for this profession since it would promote a gameplay that put this profession far away from it’s group, losing large part of the teamplay.

This way it’s better to have a longbow that have the reputation to be an underperforming weapon since it promote a gameplay where the ranger is close from it’s teammate, sharing and receiving buff instead of the gameplay of a lone wolf that just cower away from the fight, without receiving any benefit from it’s teammate nor giving anything.

From the point of view of most non ranger, a ranger that like to camp or even use longbow in group content, is a ranger that is super anoying to have as teammate. That’s mainly due to their habit to use the knockback on cool down. No ranger will ever be able to remove this bad image of the longbow on other player view because there will always be rangers that will abuse this kitten skill ruining the game experience of other players.

It’s better that the longbow do not perform to well due to that.

Yea, but I think they can still have longbow as a meta-viable weapon without making it a ranged spec. So long as the longbow auto attack hits like a wet noodle, you’ll never want to camp a longbow at range. However, if Rapid Fire and Barrage are strong enough, it could be worth swapping off your melee weapon to use those skills and then swap back immediately.

This gives the longbow flavor while preserving the high risk melee play style.

Longbow just does not work well with melee weapons in a competitive environment (it has its uses in WvW and Open World of course) simply because when in close proximity for your ‘main’ weapon set, swapping to Longbow (which requires max range to be even close to ‘competitive damage wise’) is just a DPS loss.
If they got rid of the damage numbers on ranges and just made it do its top damage at all ranges then it could be viable, but as is it is just counter productive.

I honestly think Soulbeast is going to be the wet dream for melee/medium ranged rangers, and we will probably have to wait for a next expansion to get a proper ranged elite spec.

I really hope they implement new weapons next expansion that we have never seen before. A throwing spear weapon would be so awesome honestly! Amazon being the Elite spec name

Skuzz.6580:

Longbow just does not work well with melee weapons in a competitive environment (it has its uses in WvW and Open World of course) simply because when in close proximity for your ‘main’ weapon set, swapping to Longbow (which requires max range to be even close to ‘competitive damage wise’) is just a DPS loss.
If they got rid of the damage numbers on ranges and just made it do its top damage at all ranges then it could be viable, but as is it is just counter productive.

I honestly think Soulbeast is going to be the wet dream for melee/medium ranged rangers, and we will probably have to wait for a next expansion to get a proper ranged elite spec.

I really hope they implement new weapons next expansion that we have never seen before. A throwing spear weapon would be so awesome honestly! Amazon being the Elite spec name

Autoattack is the only ability on the longbow that increases damage-wise from range.