Guild Wars 2

TL;DR summary at the bottom if you don’t wanna read this wall.

‘Unparalleled Archers’

The physical damage is simply terrible compared to the archetypal weapons of other professions. My level 50 Warrior deals far, far more DPS than my zerker longbow ranger.

Now, I’m not going to say it’s completely useless – at the moment I’m having fun in zergs stacking as much might as I can and seeing how much I can crit with the auto attack at max range. But that’s about all it’s good for right now, and even then that kind of gameplay gets boring REAL quick. Why should my zerker ranger be limited to that kind of gameplay?

Why has this issue still not been addressed? Should the longbow not be considered the ranger’s archetypal weapon of choice, as the staff is for the ele and the greatsword is for the warrior?

It’s easy to say “oh well the pet makes up for the lost damage” but it just doesn’t because of the terrible AI and the ease with which other players can avoid their attacks.

EDIT: up till now we’ve only seen trivial updates to the longbow. Anet have not addressed the core issues (apart from auto attack speed, but even then the difference is just not enough to bring the bow to par with other mechanics). We’ve been given gimmicks. e.g. the stealth on skill 3. Everyone was excited at first but it didn’t take long for us to realise it was ‘meh’, because it just doesn’t flow that well with the other skills.

As it stands, the longbow has no solid direction in its purpose. The most “viable” use for it currently stands as a long-range auto-attack physical damage weapon, but that gameplay is seriously limited and flawed. The way in which the skills are set up suggest that it should be a physical DPS weapon, suited to a zerker build with decent burst damage. Just as the GS is to the warrior and the dual daggers are to the thief. But it is just too weak for that purpose. Skill 2, rapid fire, is far too easy avoid and compared with the damage potential in PvE does almost completely insignificant damage to PvP/WvW targets. To be at all viable, this skill needs to have either a significant damage boost or to be given double its current execution speed. Alternatively, replace it with a single, stronger-than-auto-attack shot that has a lower cooldown.

Allow us to cast barrage (skill 5) while moving. It takes too long to cast as it is (and is avoided by most anyway), and in zerg fights it’s all too easy to get downed while trying to make the most of your primary AoE skill.

Make skill 1 faster, or increase its damage. Anet seem to have attempted to take the ‘sniping’ route with this auto-attack, but it’s still too weak and too easy to avoid. Now, I’m not saying it’s completely terrible: in-fact skill 1 is the only current appeal to actually use the LB if you’re zerg fighting in an attempt to pick off enemies from the back lines. But it’s not a killer. It’s too weak.

These are a few ideas. I expect if they were all implemented, it would become OP. I’m not expecting that. However some of these key issues NEED to be addressed.

TL;DR Summary

- LB damage terrible in comparison to the archetypal weapons of other profs (GS warrior; staff ele; dagger thief; rifle engineer).

- LB skills seem geared towards making it a zerker-based physical DPS weapon (as it should be; we have nothing else as suited to the role). But it’s too weak.

- Up till now we’ve seen trivial, almost useless updates to the LB.

- Skill 1: needs to be stronger or quicker; Skill 2: stronger or quicker or replaced with a single, powerful shot with a lower CD or added debuffs; Skill 3: is fine for now; Skill 4: only truly useful LB skill; Skill 5: allow movement when casting.

Huh. I hunt warriors with a longbow. They’re difficult prey to catch because they run so fast.

They could make us “unparalleled archers” by taking the longbow away from the warrior lol. Not sure why the warrior is even able to use one in the first place.

Fluffball.8307:

Huh. I hunt warriors with a longbow. They’re difficult prey to catch because they run so fast.

This.

My concern is that the distance between you and your foe can be closed within seconds because of shadow steps and invuln/dodge leaps. Once your enemy is in point blank range your longbow is useless. Even if you use point blank shot your enemy will just leap or shadowstep back.

Utilities such as traps and muddy terrain are nice for snare , but they dont last long enough. I thought utilities were supposed to impact the battle?

My zerker ranger may pull of 4k each arrow but they just aren’t fast enough compared to melee warrior damage. When my ranger goes melee zerker sword …………………lol not even close.

Yah and those pets…. they could do damage if they shared your power level instead of having their own.

dunno what builds you use on your warrior. But if you use direct damage on the warrior LB, you will be terrible since it really is a hybrid weapon.
Warrior LB is also slow, the projectiles are so slow infact, that at max range, i can go AFK, fry a steak, cook some potatoes and make sauce. By the time i am done eating what i made, i still have a couple of seconds to dodge.

You will find NO warrior, able to spam 2.5-3.5k crits, consistently, at 700-1800 range.
Sure a warrior can do 3-4 shots that deal heaps of damage, i can do INFINITE shots that does 2-3k.

Go make a zerker warrior with all the buffs you want, dont care if you go grab 200 might stacks and use a 30/30/30/30/30 build. In the end, Warrior LB is horrible apart from immobilize on the Nr 4.

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

My concern is that the distance between you and your foe can be closed within seconds because of shadow steps and invuln/dodge leaps. Once your enemy is in point blank range your longbow is useless. Even if you use point blank shot your enemy will just leap or shadowstep back.

You’re probably not using the longbow correctly. This is a big theme of this forum; a ton of posters use berserker longbow roamers to great success so I’m not going to beat a dead horse. Use it for the utility first, damage second, and that goes for ALL ranger weapons.

There is an expression in boxing, “chasing the KO”. If you try to knock someone out, you will get knocked out yourself. Instead, just stick the jab, move your feet, box well, and almost unexpectedly you’ll KO the other guy. That’s how rangers fight.

If you need specifics I’m sure about 600 people will point you to other threads on how to use a longbow, or offer up the same tips again.

but that jab is so weak. good advice and yes I do switch when the tables turn or I am getting focused. Longbow i guess is really just for freecast(the jab)? The trait for 1500 range is great for it.

The “jab” on a longbow is the stealth and KB. Use them liberally.

But you’re right, the range of it will kill bad players almost instantly. I do that a LOT; people just panic when a third of their health disappears and I’m that far away. If they run, rather than do something appropriate to protect themselves, they’ll be dead in seconds.

When I said my lvl 50 warrior deals more DPS I meant with a GS not a LB lol, just to clarify

Ranger are unparalleled archers. How is archery measured. It is not by damage it is by accuracy and distance. Ranger have superior range couple with the fact we can use both types of bows.

The player with most damage isn’t the one who always wins the fight. Warrior can do alright damage with a bow they also have to use the class mechanic to get the job done. As a Ranger you have to use yours. Stability or a Warrior can make the fight difficult but you have stealth on your lb. Know when to disengage k9’s will do a kd early in a fight if he has stability then call your pet off until his stability is gone. After that the fight is yours.

I personally don’t know how any self respecting Ranger can fear a LB Warrior.

As far as zerker Rangers using a sword; stop looking for the big numbers. Rangers 1h sword aa is 3 attacks in about 1.5 seconds. Then you have to include rangers pet damage for all damage calculations. Co-efficiency numbers are only part of the damage formula you have to include weapon speed.

Unparalled Archers.
Still known as “Free Kills” in PvP and WvW roaming.
Unless “unparalled archers” drop both bows and pick up unparalled melee weapons + run condibunker.

Yay for WvW experience supplements !

Urr nothing wrong with longbow. Skill 2 hitting 10k+ easily. Autoattack when i see an enemy I start shooting hitting 2-3k, and when I get close I can swap to swords, but he already lost alot by then. Perfectly. Also the range increase is awesome and perfect when fighting off big groups of enemies and using skill 5 on them.

Rapid fire can land 10k+ on NPC or downed players, but to a normal player it will never land that much, there are millions way to avoid that much damage. Usually 5k is already a lucky number in zerg fight. If in 1v1 or small scale fight, pray to god to hit more than LB1 coz it’s just too easy to avoid. Also don’t forget, to get theoretical 10k+ damage , your ranger is very squishy.
I would rather to see rapid fire become some skills as warrior’s rifle F1 — 1 big hit, even with longer CD. Ranger also has many ways to maximize that 1- deadly shot.

The V.8759:

Urr nothing wrong with longbow. Skill 2 hitting 10k+ easily. Autoattack when i see an enemy I start shooting hitting 2-3k, and when I get close I can swap to swords, but he already lost alot by then. Perfectly. Also the range increase is awesome and perfect when fighting off big groups of enemies and using skill 5 on them.

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

My concern is that the distance between you and your foe can be closed within seconds because of shadow steps and invuln/dodge leaps. Once your enemy is in point blank range your longbow is useless. Even if you use point blank shot your enemy will just leap or shadowstep back.

Utilities such as traps and muddy terrain are nice for snare , but they dont last long enough. I thought utilities were supposed to impact the battle?

The problem isn’t as much the utility skills available to harden a target area it’s only having 3 utility slots.

If building max damage I need signets and MoC and signets are in the utility slots as a result.

However, a majority of our utilities are designed to support and be functional with a sniping ranged ethos.

Traps – Obviously power doesn’t get condition damage but it does get condition duration. Frost trap and poison trap frost trap being my preference are not pleasant surprises on leaping to melee although their healing penalty is more preferred late rin the fight.

Spirits – provide both a beneficial on attack benefit and their active. So I can have protection and a personal muddy terrain sphere or + damage and a chilling AOE to trigger when someone closes, Or perma swiftness and a lightning bolt to trigger when someone closes. The mechanics of how the spirits apply their proc chance even support the ability to use them stationary requiring you to only be in their sphere of influence for @ 2 seconds of every 10 to pick up the proc chance buff.

Even guard as a shout can be used to install a stealthed protected pet arrow shield between you and your target(And since you probably don’t have condition removal up to full speed that can be a very good thing).

Utilities are present that do support sniping. Because of the game meta (I MUST have condition removal and stun break….) well the slots to carry and use it, not so much.

However a majority of our utilities support use before we ever initiate an attack and provide benefits during the fight if we use them that way.

CRrabbit.1284:

I would rather to see rapid fire become some skills as warrior’s rifle F1 — 1 big hit, even with longer CD. Ranger also has many ways to maximize that 1- deadly shot.

Kill Shot has no chance in hell of landing in a 1v1. RF is a really unique ability. Stealth tracking alone makes it invaluable, but also the fact that using a dodge on RF is a complete waste of a dodge. RF was there before you started the dodge and it’s still there after you finished dodging. Even berserker rangers win their fights through pressure, not spikes, and are therefore difficult to defend against.

1) RF doesn’t even do more damage than long range shot, so who cares if someone dodges it? They’re only avoiding a few stacks of vulnerability. Its no different than dodging any other attack, its not like they’re dodging some huge-cooldown burst damage skill.

2) All of rangers weapons have lower coefficients than other classes due to pet damage, long bow is no different. For example: Guardian hammer skill 2, mighty blow, has a coefficient of 1.75, where as Ranger greatsword skill 2, maul, has a coefficient of 1.5. Guardian skill is also a gap closer, Ranger isn’t, and its an AOE (not just a cleave attack), and it has a shorter cooldown (5s/4s vs 6s/4.8s), and its a blast finisher.

If they don’t defend RF somehow they’re going to eat the full 12k of damage. 8-|

It’s pressure; 4.5 seconds of steady, high damage. Autoattack can be avoided. Almost all guardian skills are easy to avoid. RF is difficult to avoid, not even stealth will protect against it. If they use a block on it, that’s exactly what you wanted.

Slow and steady, that’s how rangers win small scale fights.

I don’t buy the consistent damage argument, because it’s consistent low damage.
just look at the DPS, it’s a joke. compare it to other raneged skills it’s not even close to match them.
not even talking about bows talking about general burst damage weapons.
If the channel time was 2 seconds then RF would have be amazing (twice as much dps)
or otherwise just have 2x the damage and keep the long channel time.
As of now zerker rangers are the joke of PvP. That’s just how it is. :\
I play power zerker very often in PvP despite it being incredibly weak and I have a good time. But when ever I play another zerker profession I have such an easier time dealing damage.
The big problem zerker ranger’s have is a lack of defensive abilities.

Zerker LB is very suboptimal in PvP. It is outstanding in WvW though. I was talking about roaming builds.

And today i met 2 rank45+ elementalists who complained about lb/gs signet zerk Ranger (i played this) “easy to play” , jumped on my double teamed Body (as if it was a challenging fight for them), and solo they just died to it which Made them even more upset.So they began to Call me a Bad Player (im surely not an awesome outstanding SuperPlayer or madness like All those uberwarriors) cuz i dont play a Meta built.
Some ppl…lose to One of the weaker pvp builts and still complain.
Power Ranger needs some love, its fun and All, but Not rewarding. 1 mistake (or enemy has healing sig) and you will have a Bad time.
No idea why i share this

Fluffball.8307:

Zerker LB is very suboptimal in PvP. It is outstanding in WvW though. I was talking about roaming builds.

While I don’t disagree it’s sub optimal at a competitive level. Functionally at the level most players play at you can easily go zerk LB and win far more matches and 1v1 fights than you lose. At least partly because there are already so many bunkers out there a damage build even a sub optimal one adds value to a group. In many scenarios more value than another bunker would simply because a faster kill supporting one bunker leads to a faster rotation to assist the other bunker. In short it’s very rare you enter a group short bunkers to sit in a circle making sub optimal damage skillsets viable when played in support of the team.

And because you are completely reliant on active defense it makes playing it fun and rewarding.

Rapid fire is fine. I see rapid fire as a pressure tool. To force enemies to get defensive or die quickly. After all, rapid fire has a 10 second cool down.

The LB is quite fine, what needs to be done is for Eagle Eye to apply 10% damage boost instead of 5, to make it in line with other professions +% damage to weapon traits. And rapid fire and barrage needs slightly higher skill coefficient. Currently Rapid Fire coefficient is 0.38 per shot, if this was given 0.46 it would be a very strong burst. CD might need to be increased by 2-5 seconds for this to happen.
Barrage coefficient is 0.4 per tick. If it was increased to 0.6 it would simply be devastating and put meteor shower to shame. I wouldnt mind if CD was made close to 30 seconds for that to happen. The damage it would roll out would be epic.

Prysin.8542:

what needs to be done is for Eagle Eye to apply 10% damage boost instead of 5, to make it in line with other professions +% damage to weapon traits.

1500 units, though…

(inb4 “engineer grenade master!”)

warrior rifle, engineer rifle, mesmer GS and engineer nades can all reach 1500.

But ranger reaches all the way to 1800

<3 anet bugs

not sure what you’re saying, Prysin. which circumstances are these?

runeblade.7514:

rapid fire has a 10 second cool down.

or less. like, 20% less. with that trait.

oh btw. if it pierces, i guess it applies to all enemies it hits.

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

not sure what you’re saying, Prysin. which circumstances are these?

gotta trait em, but they reach 1500, yet all of them have traits that grant em 10% more damage, not just 5% as with our traits (GS and LB trait needs to be brought up to the level of other +% damage traits)

Longbow and shortbow should do equal damage to the other weapons available to the Ranger. Not less damage than most of the weapons and only equal damage if the target is standing still.
I want my Long Range Shot to be hitting 5 – 6k instead of my Maul.

Prysin.8542:

gotta trait em, but they reach 1500

no really, they don’t.

warrior has stronger bowstrings, but that obv. is for the longbow, and it only increases from 1000 to 1200.

engineer has rifled barrels, but as you see, that’s only 1200 max as well (but ofc. the grenades reach 1500, as we’ve stated already).

the only stuff mesmer has that increases range is far-reaching manipulations and duelist’s discipline, but that obv. does nothing for greatsword…

in short, 1500 is a lot. it’s prob. the most useful in wvw, if you can manage to keep your distance. but for a trait that grants one of the longest ranges in the game AND a 5% dmg increase, it’s not bad. i’ll take it!

I believe engineer rifle turret does 1500 according to the tooltip

You’re doing something wrong if you think you need to stack might while in zergs as a zerker ranger. Let alone, you’re using zerker armor in WvW. That’s a mistake. For Longbow you need to take out your opponent with strategy, not burst.

I honestly dont see why people think they’re so bad, the little wvw group I usually run with is mainly melee with a fair amount of cc and what not which enables me, who runs full zerk with frost spirit for the damage, signet of the hunt for the damage buff, this build lets me hit for up to 10k with my auto attacks, as long as you have a group that can hold the line while you sit back i find longbows great

If anyone considers LB as a roaming weapon…
Killing zerglings or upscaled with your pitful “crits” or doing your 10k RF on Doylak doesn’t count as “roaming”.

Try dueling some players, for example on Obsidian Sanctum Arena. You’ll be trashed

actually u can duel use zerker and longbow in obsidian sanctum, the jumping part that is :p

Rym.1469:

If anyone considers LB as a roaming weapon…
Killing zerglings or upscaled with your pitful “crits” or doing your 10k RF on Doylak doesn’t count as “roaming”.

Try dueling some players, for example on Obsidian Sanctum Arena. You’ll be trashed

solo roaming yes it blows, but if you have a small group than you can sit behind it does not, it gives a fairly decent sustained dps, from extreme distances, where yes can be closed fast but, again if you have the group distracting them its good

LB is useless, Engineers do much more dps just with their rifle AA (not to mention toolbeltskills and SD). Range is not an advantage in GW2.

U get less buffs>less dps/support
Others will get less buffs/support from u
And your team has no benefit if u stand behind and do a some crappy dps.

LB2 is a joke, but a rly bad one. Less dps then AA. Boring 5 seconds channel to make your enemys giggle.

I never saw a good or usefull LB ranger in PvE/WvsW/tPvP. Not even one. Killing noobs is not a indication to say that a weapon is useful or balanced.

after testing the LB for hundreds of hours and after all the buffs, i have concluded that it’s still horribly subpar. this is mostly due to its channeling abilities – they get you killed.

Lb #1 and barrage do very good damage if youre full valk/zerker, but you wont live i promise you that.

LB is decent if used as a utility weapon on a tanky build for barrage, invis and the KB.

Sigh….I still love my LB/GS combo so much utility between the two….movement, stealth, knock back, interrupts and a couple of good burst skills….the AA on both are decent…effectively using stealth shots help GREATLY with using the channeled attacks.

Instead of crying about what we do not have why not focus on making what we do have work for you?

Tons of QQ over the class but I have always felt we are not a bad class, just limited compared to most. Focus on what we do well and go from there….

i have over one thousand hours of focusing on what we do well, and im telling you that LB is BAD and requires further dev attention. so instead of qq’ing about qq’ing, maybe you should get on the same page and advocate for profession improvements.

Yeah, and I also have over one thousand hours of focusing on it and see great results with it. People just want to slap on zerker gear and see big numbers at 1500 range and, while the weapon can do that, it’s not really what it’s great at and it leads to people getting thrashed.

Nobody’s crying about crying, there are just people advocating furthering yourself as a player, which this community seems to have a problem with.

mistsim.2748:

i have over one thousand hours of focusing on what we do well, and im telling you that LB is BAD and requires further dev attention. so instead of qq’ing about qq’ing, maybe you should get on the same page and advocate for profession improvements.

I play similar build in PVP (only rank 30) and WVW (rank 467) my Ranger is my ONLY lvl 80 and I manage with it very well, in fact the only weapon I never changed was long bow as I enjoy the dynamic it brings and use it as best I can.

I am working now but can provide both video footage and screen shots when I get home of people kittening about my build in both WvW and PvP….yes kittening that my “Ranger” is in fact OP (no I dont use spirits)

I support many other issues are broken or in need of help such a Pet AI, Condition removal, I simply dont agree that LB is a pressing issue and broken. I have active experience as my reason for this position…

ITT, vulnerability is mentioned all but once. i find that weird. what you can do with ranger/lb is apply vulnerability (via piercing, too). that’s good for the entire party (yes i’m talking pve).

LB isn´t good in PvE.

you mean, “isn’t the best personal dps [given optimal circumstances]”, right?

No im not so close minded.

If i talk about “bad or useless” traits/weapon/skills, i have always party dps/missing (needed) support in mind.

It´s what i said, LB is bad in PvE, u can´t discuss it, it´s just true. Not more not less, nothing personal.

not sure which angle you’ve got going then. you’d use something else, yes? i took you to be referring to melee sword style.

I don´t prefer anything. I wrote about “balance”.

i haven’t commented specifically on anything of yours (until i asked you that question).

but surely, if LB is “bad”, something must be “good”, or “better”, to you. this is the question at hand.