Guild Wars 2

The range reduction of the shortbow has been extremely painful for the players who own the shortbow legendary The Dreamer. After working so hard with the belief that it had 1200 range we get hit with a knockout punch.

The fact is people who do not have The Dreamer are free to move on and adapt to the new builds, take on new weapons in substitute to the shortbow and they wont get too penalized for it. However we The Dreamer owners are lost, wondering what to do? Do we accept the weaker state of our legendary which makes us more suseptible to damage or do we leave it looking pretty in our bags and banks.

I believe this is unexceptable. While crafting The Dreamer I had no idea that there would be a range reduction and crafted it accepting the stats & range as they were. It feels like a kick to the corner. This warrants attention. I would like to exchange my legendary for something else now. Either make it so its not soulbound/accountbound anymore or let us swap it for something else. The former will make The Dreamer price drop in TP and the latter will, not do anything really.

Sincerely
Arrow

I second this. This legendary is now somewhat akin to creating a legendary speargun

Is Shortbow damage now weaker than Longbows? I have The Dreamer, but I still use it and I will only use builds with Shortbows in them.

I guess you could try reroll thief and reskin it onto that

My fellow unicorn lovers. I absolutely feel your sentiments. I made my Dreamer, only 2 weeks prior to the patch. Little did I know, post the patch I just end up neglecting my Ranger and went on to my necro. All the hard work – nullified. ):

Dear devs, please please please reinstate the 1.2k range. It has been a severe handicap on my WvW runs. I can’t chase, my kiting is impaired and I am now more of a burden than anything to my Guild when we do guild runs. Even if you don’t reinstate it to 1.2k, I hope at the bare minimum give us a trait which allows us to trait it up and get back to where we started.

swiftpaw.6397:

I guess you could try reroll thief and reskin it onto that

No you can’t, it’s soulbound not account bound

For what it’s worth, I purposely used my only found Jade ticket on my Short-bow as a manner of silent protest, it does look cool though. Oh and this- “I’d shoot the ice pillars/walls on Jormag but I get Out of Range, sorry.”

I agree.. i have The Dreamer and now my heart has started to separate

Sandpit.3467:

swiftpaw.6397:

I guess you could try reroll thief and reskin it onto that

No you can’t, it’s soulbound not account bound

You can, you reskin it onto a low lvl white shortbow, then you can bank it and put on your thief, use a lvl 80 transmute stone then to put on 80 exotic.

I feel for you guys I have been working towards the Dreamer myself, but with no precursor to lock me in, I’m free to switch goals.

I absolutely hate the range reduction and the constant “out of range” that pops up for me. I have switched out my SB for an axe/warhorn which, with access to birds of doom, 20s of fury and swiftness, chill, and an auto attack that hits 3 of my enemies instead of 1 untraited (allowing my 20/30/20/0/0 build to pick the spotter trait over the piercing arrows trait) has really upped my damage (even upped my single-target damage!) without touching my survivability.

It’s just too bad that the fractal backpiece that I worked so hard to create disappears every single time the axe is thrown. Awesome. :/

Sandpit.3467:

swiftpaw.6397:

I guess you could try reroll thief and reskin it onto that

No you can’t, it’s soulbound not account bound

actually You can…
trasmute skin on some rubbish item (with no soulbind) and You will have account bound item – then give it to the thief and transmute it on some exotic worthy of it – all the trick

anyway I didn’t even started to making dreamer.
that’s because imo… that skin just sukcs (with no offence that’s only my opinion) really pink/violet bow that shoots unicorns? really?! (and bow that shoots flowers and pistol that shoots serpents, and mace that is discoball on the stick [massive facepalm]) who projected this “legendary” weapons?

that’s why my ranger will never have legendary – no one of them have skin worthy of the efford.

That’s a lot of investment into a skin. And would it still have the animation arrows if you did that?

Even at 1600g I wouldn’t pay that just for the dreamer skin

Sandpit.3467:

That’s a lot of investment into a skin. And would it still have the animation arrows if you did that?

Even at 1600g I wouldn’t pay that just for the dreamer skin

I never used this trick on legendary but there was ppl that transmuted their legendary weps to have stats better for their builds – and also there is a no loss on stats – because legendary have same stats as exotics.

(so as for me It should have all their appearance – skin, unicorns, whatever it has – just You can in the middle time give it stats You want – but to be sure ask somebody who already transmuted legendary projectile weapon)

Yes it breaks all our hearts a little bit that we have to be forced to do things that defile our legendary. I do not wish to transmute my legendary because it feels like its not a legendary after that. Nevertheless either way it feels like they did not consider legendary owners at all when they thought about forcing people to move onto new builds.

They should have allowed Dreamer owners some incentive for this big Patch. Either give us our range back to all shorbows (or only to The Dreamers that were made before patch) or Let us swap our The Dreamer with another account bound legendary. This wont hurt the TP much. What do other Dreamer owners think would be a way to make things right?

Lord Trejgon.2809:

… there is a no loss on stats – because legendary have same stats as exotics.

didn’t they say Legendaries would eventualy be upleveled to ascended stats?

Aioros.4862:

didn’t they say Legendaries would eventualy be upleveled to ascended stats?

Yeah they did and there was a rumor that a transmuted legendary does not get ascended stats.

The shortbow does more damage than before. If you were using the short bow for 1000+ plus range then you were gimping you damage. You can still use sb for 900+
range you just have to attack manually. With the range reduction you get like 5% less use out of this weapon.

Talking about crying over split milk. Other weapon may gain more favor due to their buffs. This is a good thing. The problem with all legendaries are they have the same stats and dont compliment builds very well. That in itself is a reason not to use the dreamer.

I personaly rather go with something like the feathers of Dwayna. Once Legendary become ascended it probably will be possible to up grade named weapons crafted in the mystic forge.

For most build the dreamer isnt the most effective weapon. So most of this crying about effectiveness is bs.

Some people just need something to complain about I understand but it’s not good for the class.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

The shortbow does more damage than before. If you were using the short bow for 1000+ plus range then you were gimping you damage. You can still use sb for 900+
range you just have to attack manually. With the range reduction you get like 5% less use out of this weapon.

Talking about crying over split milk. Other weapon may gain more favor due to their buffs. This is a good thing. The problem with all legendaries are they have the same stats and dont compliment builds very well. That in itself is a reason not to use the dreamer.

I personaly rather go with something like the feathers of Dwayna. Once Legendary become ascended it probably will be possible to up grade named weapons crafted in the mystic forge.

For most build the dreamer isnt the most effective weapon. So most of this crying about effectiveness is bs.

Some people just need something to complain about I understand but it’s not good for the class.

I have no idea what you are talking about? This thread is to discuss why The Dreamer owners were not considered. It is after all a legendary and people who do own one have put in 2+months of farming. It is not to discuss if people like the The Dreamer or not. Plus Feathers of Dwayna is about 1300g cheaper then the Dreamer and requires about 1/20th the time to get.

Dreamer owners were under the impression that the 1200 range was what they were getting when we made the legendary and we accepted it even with its unsuitable stats. Reducing the range for a ranged weapon that takes so much effort to craft is unexceptionable. Although it is just -300, this reduction puts rangers in the danger zone. So if I am in the danger zone I might aswell use a greatsword and get more damage out. This leaves our legendary The Dreamer in our bags 80% of the time. We need to be considered.

PS: Shortbow manual autoattack range is 1000. However this does not apply to the rest of our shortbow skills. Which are about 950.

They can’t make balance decisions based on weapon skins, especially because there is a legendary of every weapon.

Kudzu owners are a little happier right now for example.

EDIT: Of course no weapon ever deserves to be nerfed to utter uselessness, but I’m not sure if the shortbow is there at the moment.

I never had the dreamer (nor do I want it) but I had been using the shortbow since day one. This patch taught me that the shortbow was my favourite thing about the ranger class. Even though the weapon wasn’t the most powerful weapon on the class, never mind in the game, I enjoyed using it. I distinctly hate the range of the thief shortbow whenever I play a thief.

After this patch I find myself hating the shortbow. The range in which you engage an enemy is a fundamental part of how you play the game. If you play the game every day for almost a year at the same range (and they can’t disengage until they leave it) you become very accustomed to that range. When you use different weapons it becomes a considerable loss to not have access to that range. The weapon feels very unfamiliar and often weak now, in some situations it’s the same as before, but too often I am out of range.

One of the worst parts of this nerf is that it has nothing to do with the power level of the shortbow. Ranged DPS is automatically inferior to melee DPS by game design and the ranger shortbow wasn’t even the strongest ranged weapon. Yet despite the weapon not having a power level problem to overcome, the balance devs disregarded the players who were happy accepting inferior DPS for a weapon that felt good at range. They didn’t care that this weapon could exist in its current form without hurting the meta (the longbow issues are longbow issues, not shortbow issues). Now a game which people spent almost a year playing is dramatically different for no understandable reasons.

This reaks of balance devs suffering from a major case of tunnel vision. They are so obsessed with their sPvP goals and their crappy job designing the longbow and any viable builds for it (but no willingness to redesign or give reasonable buffs, look at spirits as well) so they go after other weapons which aren’t problematic. No challenging PvE content favoured rangers or the shortbow and the only sPvP complaints about the shortbow were the auto attack. The whole change looks senseless to me and the devs don’t even have the respect to write a blog explaining why (something that was done better in GW1).

Well, there s a dreamer available for sale 500g less than last weeks cheapest dreamer, it’s been up for a couple of days now at that price and it isn’t selling. The only reason why nobody has posted a cheaper one is because it is now a bad ledg to craft if you are going to sell.

Sirena.1573:

I second this. This legendary is now somewhat akin to creating a legendary speargun

Heh…

howevermanychars

Has there been any official word aboutt he shortbow nerf?

Have they ever justified any of the tons of silly nerfs to rangers?

Well, to be fair it’s weekend now. The devs are all sitting round their pools drinking pina colada (j/k)

I’m sure we will get a full engaging dialogue with them tomorrow

If you ever played any MMO (esp. first GW), you should know everyting can change. They can (and one day surely will) nerf your build, weapon, whole class. Other time they will buff. If making some item gave guarantee it will never be changed, then ANet would never make ANY balance. (for example I could cry LB buff destroyed animation and I’m unhappy with Kudzu).

Terkov.4138:

(for example I could cry LB buff destroyed animation and I’m unhappy with Kudzu).

ARE YOU CRAZY?!

You just said “animation” on the Ranger forums where THEY can see it.

:P

The nerf to shortbow was a slap in the face after I crafted my Dreamer about a week before the patch.
That being said, after I made my Dreamer, it felt like the final achievement in PvE, so now I mostly just PvP.
WvW is all about zerging in Tier 1, which I despise, so I hardly ever get to show it off unless my guildies would like to go for a group run.
So the problem for me is that I have no more incentive to do anything other than sPvP. After 1600+ hours of total play time across all 8 classes, there’s just nothing new to do in PvE or WvW.
I would LOVE to be able to equip my Dreamer in PvP, even with the nerf to shortbow…which really doesn’t affect my bunker playstyle.

DarkWasp.7291:

Terkov.4138:

(for example I could cry LB buff destroyed animation and I’m unhappy with Kudzu).

ARE YOU CRAZY?!

You just said “animation” on the Ranger forums where THEY can see it.

:P

Fix the animation! I hope they see it, because honestly, it bothers me more than it really should…

And back to the topic, I personally do not own the Dreamer, but I would be at a loss for words if this happened to me after spending countless hours grinding for the skin…

I really wonder how much the thing will drop in price now. I don’t really see them ever reversing this decision and I doubt the Thief community alone can keep the price where it was.

Good news for thieves I guess.

While I understand your guys pain, you invested into the dreamer and should have known full well that the game is in its adolescence in terms of balance.

Was it a foreseeable change? Absolutely not. But just as this patch made it worse, the volatility of the updates could dictate that it gets made even better in the future.

So… Deal with it, and you might get rewarded. Choose not to, and you might be either rewarded or disappointed. It would be drastic decision to go messing with your legendary though, so if you do and you miss out in the future, all I can say is its your own fault. And if it doesn’t get improved, you can say to me “I told you so.” Seems fair.

I crafted mine 5 days before the nerf, i would like to know why i can throw a radiation field 1200 range and fire only 900 range. Yes im sick of the out of range popping up all the time. People who have crafted The Dreamer want to use them and not switch to a/a or whatever other weapon we have.
All in all i cant see this getting reverted back but one thing i have noticed is i play a lot less now and have boycotted the gem store.

ToT.7018:

and have boycotted the gem store.

You and me both, brother. You and me both.

Pedra.4381:

ToT.7018:

and have boycotted the gem store.

You and me both, brother. You and me both.

+1 here too. Really hard to find the motivation to play now. Mostly hanging around LA trying to move traits around and looking at other games out there.

It was bad enough waiting for some ranger love in GW1, which never came, so I am not going to wait around again for a buff that never comes. If they are going to fix this bloody mess then they need to do it fast.