Guild Wars 2

I main and only play ranger with over 5000 hours put into my one character. All that I’m about to talk about is based around SPvP because that’s where the majority of people talk about class balances. This is also assuming you aren’t using any other buffs.

These so called “OP” Longbow aren’t as OP as people may believe.
When the launch of the game, back when quickness use to be 100%, I ran this exact same build then too. The cast time back then and now are 2.5 seconds. (You can say you use quickening zephyr now to make the casting time 2.075s but .425s isn’t enough to justify bring it). The thing I found wrong with my build was even though I did a good spike, I still had to wait the 8-10 second cooldown.

They basically made the Rapid Fire skill lower cast time to make the ranger longbow do “stable” damage. Longbow is still kitable from long distances unless you use the grandmaster trait that gives you 100% velocity.

With how easy for rangers to cause movement-impeding conditions, I find the 10% more damage to be better. Reason why I hit ~6-7k every time I press assuming all Rapid Fire shots hit. That’s 2.5 seconds of not dodging where you can get hit by major skills that can lose you the fight. You’re then sitting there auto’ing and using your other horrible longbow skills for 8 seconds, assuming you have the 20% cooldown decrease.
You could make the argument that you can cast all your skills and stealth for 3 seconds but you lose so much dps that way it’s not even worth taking.

People will argue saying that they’ll open a fight with a free quick 6-7k damage but you can easily do that with a greatsword. Not only will the initial burst from a greatsword be massive, you just gapclosed a huge distance. I dropped a longbow ranger using a greatsword/sword and dagger in about 5 seconds without using my elite. If you’re not using a sword, you’re not playing ranger to the fullest potential.

Why did this happen? I dodged. One dodge literally makes you lose substantiation dps since the arrows are so closely packed together. Also the other ranger grandmaster trait that gives you 20% chance to block projectiles while using a melee attack greatly help. Not the mention that the sword has an immense amount of evade. He just lost out on way too much dps to compete. I can easily save a dodge for once every 8 seconds.

Final Thoughts
They made the longbow a lot better. However, it was the fact that the longbow was so far behind the other weapons that it looked like a huge buff. Actually it was only brought up to the same level if not slightly worse.
Longbow is probably still amazing in WvW and possibly PvE where you need to attack up walls and aoe to farm but in terms of 1v1 potential, it still lacks.

What people really should take from the ranger buffs is how great signets got. Basically they gave rangers a free grandmaster trait.

Update I confirmed you can hit up to 15k damage assuming you’re against a light class, hitting them from the back, and using all the damage boosting traits and skills. This is assuming you’re at max range, have 3 seconds to cast buffs, have 2.5 seconds to unload, you crit on every hit, and you’re standing behind them.

^ you didn’t hit for 15K..they allowed themselves to be heavily hit by everything. Standing behind the light golem, with fury, sigils and bonus runes I hit for 7.9k..however you hitting for 15k is not about longbow at all, but about how very-very squishy they made their build.

Of course it was overhyped. 90% of all rangers on these forums have an extreme festish for bows, and arrows, and archery, and feet. Those people were the one’s that overhyped this.

That being said, operating at 1500 range in spvp, with almost no defensive ability besides the GS or long CD utilities, while being outclassed for range DPS by Eles and Mesmers 1000 times over does your team very few favors. At least condition builds are able to actually be on a capture point, and even trap builds offer some form of support, even if its not that great.

LB is more burst now, which is great, LRS is our sustain, the rest are utility. The burst is risk/reward now though, which all burst skills should be. Use it at the wrong time or against a skilled player waiting for it and its wasted, but if you, say, pubs someone and get the cc, you can immediately burst and be effective.

@OP you made me laugh. 10k on rapid fire is sooooo overhyped. What were you expecting? AI to play the game for you? Try a turret engi if you want that.