Guild Wars 2

right now if a ranger is fighing any target that has any ability to stealth we can not effectivly counter that with 3 of our weapons. All (with the exception of 2) of the ranger projectile abilities(longbow, shortbow, axe, greatsword throw, dagger throw) do not fire out in a strait line when no target is found, insted they are shot/launched almost directly into the ground infront of us. For us to be more balanced against stealth foes please fix our ranged abilities to go out to near if not max distance accross the land scape when no target is found so we can at least shoot/throw in the direction we think they are in since we cant target them currently to be able to damage them at all unless we are using one of very few abilities with a long cool down. this is in comparison to alot of other classes that ether fire in a strait line from their char or fire something that tracks accross the landscape

Its a quirk of the camera angle. If you angle your camera up more you can shoot straight.

Without a target it’s aimed based on the camera, which is usually pointed down. So most of the time the ranger shoots at the ground like a complete moron.

If you zoom the camera in and up you can shoot quite a long way – but then you have trouble seeing anything, which is not good when you’re playing spot the thief.

A good default would be a shot that fires parallel to the terrain path in front of the ranger, but that might be difficult to pull off. That way you would fire slightly up or down on a slope to stay parallel to the ground rise/fall, or level if you’re standing on a flat patch of ground. It would have to be an option though, because of lot of rangers turn off auto-target and fire target-less to hit enemies on walls in WvW.

On a related note: Do bows get a range advantage when shooting from elevation? It looks to me that I don’t fire any farther standing up on a keep wall than I do standing on the ground.

ChrisP.4386:

On a related note: Do bows get a range advantage when shooting from elevation? It looks to me that I don’t fire any farther standing up on a keep wall than I do standing on the ground.

Slightly, but the projectiles disappear not too far from the listed range. So your arrows could just be vanishing before they reach the target.