Guild Wars 2

Sitting beside me in real life is an 80 pound test compound bow. My father gave it to me as a gift after allowing me to shoot his one after noon. It came as a complete surprise to both of us that I could use it. I was a natural and have been into archery ever since.

Each time I log into Guild Wars 2 I think to myself why I find so much contempt for the Ranger: my first 80.

It comes down to the simple fact that in no way shape or form do bows do sufficient damage in Guild Wars 2. Neither do they possess enough range to be considered accurate to the real life equivalent. This is completely unacceptable. I’m sorry. The damage which a bow in Guild Wars 2 does is no different than that of an automatic dart gun; painful, but requiring poison to be practical.

When I was 17 my entire family, moms and daughters included (!), when to Alaska for three weeks of hunting. We brought with us hunting dogs. They were well trained to handle bear, bird, and a variety of smaller tasks.

The combined experience of years doing this sort of thing makes playing rangers in Guild Wars 2 feel like the developers need to take a hunting trip and have some training themselves on just how much more powerful a girl and her dog can be. I keep a k-bar knife on my hip, a .45 on the other (for personal protection against mountain lions, bear, and pig), while the bow is for hunting (when in season). The larger bow I use, combined with a proper arrow head will kill the animal I’m aiming for with that single arrow. That’s the point of the longbow. Short bows are also this way, but the range is usually closer and meant for being stationary rather than shooting considerably further with the longbow.

It’s been 3 years since release. In all seriousness, go take some hunting lessons in the trade and experience which the Ranger is. Spend a few nights out with just you and your dog(s). After that come back and make this class what it should be.

Don’t think it can be done?
- A .45 is the same thing as a flitlock. And actually, made right the flitlock can do more damage.
- K-Bar comes from a letter written about the knife by a man who could barely spell. “K” and “Bar” comes from his attempt to say to the makers of the blade, “I killed a bear (k bar) with this! Wonderful, wonderful knife.”
- Longbows are not toys. If someone gets shot by an arrow they are going to be incapacitated. Moving around is the best way to help the arrow do its job: tear wounds and cause massive internal bleeding.
- Shortbows are for close range, stationary shots, or from horseback (such as the Mongols) where sudden bursts of fire were made by holding three to four arrows, point down, inside the hand holding the grip of the arrow. This posture allows for quick shots.
Summary of Bows: Guild Wars 2 has their purpose nearly completely reversed. You do long steady shots, like a sniper with one-shot kills, from a longbow. You do planned attacks or rapid fire shots from the shortbow.

Please fix the Ranger.

10/10

I honestly cried while reading this.

Anet please go hunting.

To be fair, the rapid fire stance used with shortbows can also be applied to longbows of lighter draw weights.

Also, 80 pounds is a bit overkill for hunting, unless you’re hunting bears or moose.

I have the opposite problem. Sometimes in the game I’ll play a staff ele and I’m dealing massive damage by shooting fireballs and summoning meteor showers to smite my enemies. I figured it would be pretty awesome to do that in real life so I went out and got a staff but guess what? The lousy staff doesn’t do any of the things I can do with it in game, it’s just a piece of wood that comes in handy for hiking.

I swear the developers have no sense of reality when designing this game, rangers should be 1 shotting people and eles should be taking hikes. I say we riot until they fix this.

Great read. I have no insight into real hunting so that was very interesting.

That said, I think your expectations of a video game are just a little high?

Maybe if gw2 claimed to be some sort of combat simulation I would agree with you, but its a fantasy based mmo.

And have you ever worked with software developers? I can assure you 99% of them have not spent 3 nights in the woods with their dog…

However, I think the points you raised about longbow damage are quite iinteresting.

The thought of a slower hitting bow with arrows that immobilise might actually be a more interesting weapon to use.

Puck.9612:

I have the opposite problem. Sometimes in the game I’ll play a staff ele and I’m dealing massive damage by shooting fireballs and summoning meteor showers to smite my enemies. I figured it would be pretty awesome to do that in real life so I went out and got a staff but guess what? The lousy staff doesn’t do any of the things I can do with it in game, it’s just a piece of wood that comes in handy for hiking.

I swear the developers have no sense of reality when designing this game, rangers should be 1 shotting people and eles should be taking hikes. I say we riot until they fix this.

Best post. Made my day. haha

Puck.9612:

I have the opposite problem. Sometimes in the game I’ll play a staff ele and I’m dealing massive damage by shooting fireballs and summoning meteor showers to smite my enemies. I figured it would be pretty awesome to do that in real life so I went out and got a staff but guess what? The lousy staff doesn’t do any of the things I can do with it in game, it’s just a piece of wood that comes in handy for hiking.

I swear the developers have no sense of reality when designing this game, rangers should be 1 shotting people and eles should be taking hikes. I say we riot until they fix this.

So. Good. So. kitten . Good.

Thanks mate, made me laugh!

Am I alone on this?

No one else wants the lb turned into a long range hammer? :P

how many moms do you have?

Puck.9612:

I have the opposite problem. Sometimes in the game I’ll play a staff ele and I’m dealing massive damage by shooting fireballs and summoning meteor showers to smite my enemies. I figured it would be pretty awesome to do that in real life so I went out and got a staff but guess what? The lousy staff doesn’t do any of the things I can do with it in game, it’s just a piece of wood that comes in handy for hiking.

I swear the developers have no sense of reality when designing this game, rangers should be 1 shotting people and eles should be taking hikes. I say we riot until they fix this.

Well, they better be some OP hikes if ele’s are going to compete with rangers in this brave new meta.

“You use your staff to take a hike. If you take a hike, EVERYONE DIES.”

OP is an abnormally strong girl, 80lb bow is no joke. Most men would struggle with that.

You are mistakenly comparing game physics with real world physics. Why would this be addressed in the ranger forum and not gw2 general forum for bow are not exclusive to rangers.

The are no single shot kills in Gw2 (at least not commonly don’t by players). One does not do more or less damage base on hit location (excluding flanking bonuses).

To say a deer hunter has any insight on hunting abominations or anything that is a real threat. You want real game design how about adding a fatigue meter that decreases as you draw back each arrow. Speaking of arrow lets put an end to the endless arrow while we are at it. Not to mention the physical requirement of running everywhere and still having a steady enough hand and strength to rapid fire (how man hunter actually have the dexterity to rapid fire) dodge 2 times and rarely if ever miss a target unless it actively evade while arrows are in mid flight.

So lets keep it real and not compare game physic with real world physics or real world anything.

Puck.9612:

I have the opposite problem. Sometimes in the game I’ll play a staff ele and I’m dealing massive damage by shooting fireballs and summoning meteor showers to smite my enemies. I figured it would be pretty awesome to do that in real life so I went out and got a staff but guess what? The lousy staff doesn’t do any of the things I can do with it in game, it’s just a piece of wood that comes in handy for hiking.

I swear the developers have no sense of reality when designing this game, rangers should be 1 shotting people and eles should be taking hikes. I say we riot until they fix this.

This made the thread.

My 100-pound bombs aren’t leveling structures and leaving my enemies as unidentifiable charred meat chunks spread across a mile-wide radius in a single charge. This upsets me. >:(

I served in the army for a year and there I saw many example that if someone take a single shot from a rifle, even if only in the leg, that person will be incapacitate but usually the person just die.
Devs, please fix warriors and engineers, rifles should do a lot more damage I can’t imagine someone taking a shot and still be able to fight at all, btw it also work with pistols, so mesmer and thief should also be fixed.
The biggest issue I see is with engineers, they use grenades and mortars, and guess what? A person can still fight after being hit. WTH ANet, what are you guys thinking?

Waffler.1257:

10/10

Very Beautiful and ‘Sensational’~

An arrow in the head usually does the trick !

I used to be an adventurer like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee.

I see your point, but being able to 1-shot on an auto attack is a bit OP, dontchathink?

Longbow has one of the strongest AAs in the game already, after all.

I’m not a hunter but I do practice archery as a hobby and have an interest in historical warfare in general. There is a pretty big flaw in your logic. This is a video game that has to be balanced around virtual mechanics. They can’t make the bow the same as it is in the real world any more than a warrior’s greatsword is the same. Have you seen how they use that thing? Freaking children could fight more competently than that, and yet we’re meant to believe that these are highly skilled warriors.

Were longbows to have the same range as they do in real life a ranger could fire from across an SPVP map. If an arrow did the same damage as an arrow in real life they’d be able to just about one shot anyone in light or medium armor nearly every time. It wouldn’t be balanced.

Plus real life archers don’t have the 95% hit rate that rangers in GW2 have, so the insane accuracy while running/jumping against a moving target kind of compensates for the lack of range and damage of individual arrows. Also, we have access to giant predators who would murder a human under normal circumstances along with freaking magic.

If you want a game’s mechanics to reflect real life combat you need a different game. GW2 is high fantasy and was designed with “Rule of cool” in mind for how the weapons are handled rather than practicality. Thus it takes a hundred arrows to bring someone down. Mount and Blade is pretty fun and is probably as close as you’ll get to actual archery outside of a dedicated archery game.

This thread has made my forum browsing day. Thank you OP and thank you Puck.9612.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I used to be an adventurer like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee.

I used to be an arrow like you, but then I took a knee to the head.

Yes, let’s be realistic in a video game like gw2. Being the game inspired by a “medieval” fantasy spirit, let’s make a simple example:
In the hundred year’s war a medieval english longbowman could have easily killed a knight in full armor, simply aiming at the less protected spots, at a considerable distance, like someone said earlier. Or could have killed EVERYONE, even with a heavy armor, with no problem (they did, in fact)in little skirmishes.
Also, those archers started training when they were little kids to develop all the muscles needed to use those killing machines that were the english war longbows. So, asking for realism, are you ready to embark in a possible 10+ years long trip to reach lvl 80?

If you want a little more realism, simply play a different game that tries to do so, like Mount & Blade Warband (or even Skyrim).

I shoot bows bare since I’m 3 years old, I’m 22 now. I shoot bows with a drawweight of 100 pounds without any technical help, no pulley, no release, effectively. Some weeks ago I trained some highland-game guys to shoot a bow. Muscle loaded Bulls. But guess what – they couldn’t handle 50 pounds of drawweight because the muscles they would need were weak. You want realism? Now you need 10 years to be allowed to use lvl 80 bows. Are you satisfied yet?

And now try hitting a moving target which is 70 yards away while moving on your own shooting on arrow every second. No modern kittenbows, take a stick and a string, If you make me a video doing this and hitting 90/100 times I personally visit ANet and change it for you.

WHY THE HELL WON’T PEOPLE GET THAT IT’S A FREAKING GAME THAT HAS TO BE MORE OR LESS BALANCED.

And btw, most composite-shortbows shot a lot farther than longbows.Heavy Longbows were commonly more powerful and had more penetrating power, yes, but because of physics (arrow paradox) the arrows had to be fitted to the bow, the tips were heavier and this reduced the traveled distance. Also warbows/english longbows were almost exclusively used in big battles and sieges, not to hit single targets. The warbow shouldn’t even travel that long in a siege, you wanted to shoot over the walls so that the arrows hit inside the walls, not behind the whole castle. Shortbows were used to hit single targets much more, killing people one after another from a horseback, not shooting in a whole mass. OP has clearly no idea about the historical usage of bows.