Guild Wars 2

Greetings, I am writing this post from a tpvp point of view so bear that in mind when reading.

As far as I am concerned, bow(s) should be the signature weapon of a ranger. Yet time and time again, you are forced with sword -x and axe -x and some rangers also ran shortbow for bm/trapper as well. However, according to the last SOTG, (don’t remember the exact words from Anet side but it was very close to) “we don’t like how LB is not good and/or underutilized right now, so we went ahead and nerfed shortbow !”
Gee, thanks guys!

Oh while we’re in the topic of longbow, let me go ahead and explain how it is/could be in tpvp:

-Rapid Fire: The channel is TOO long for tpvp. You would need an enemy with serious lack of awareness for his surroundings or severely absent minded at the time of the fight, for him to get a full Rapid Fire combo, which even if you land 1 or 2 of them, it still wouldn’t kill them. But that’s another story.

-To begin with, the 3-2 combo of LB was arguably acceptable (solely from a DPS viewpoint) because if somebody was AFK or timed a good enough series of crowd control, you could burst. However, with Rapid Fire and Hunter’s Short changes now (2 and 3) Anet ensured with just 2 changes that LB ranger now can never burst on its own.

-Why are the new patch changes actually bad? Well, if you want to play LB ranger (and that’s a big IF, because you don’t want to at the moment), you would need to spend a minimum of 30 points in MM, due to how the traits work: you need VIII (piercing arrows) is a must for any and all bow-power builds of tpvp. You also need X (Eagle Eye) – because it is the reincarnation of the LB’s essence. It was made to be a weapon of long distance nuke. Right now it only fulfills the long distance part, and, with the Hunter’s Shot + Remorseless change, some builds don’t even fulfill the “long distance” aspect.

-I am curious, what was the mindset behind these changes? Make a bad (again, for tpvp) weapon even worse? There were tenths of good posts right in this forum after the previous patch suggesting LB changes and it feels like nobody from the developer’s side even bother to skim through them, let alone read them.

-I don’t mind Hunter’s Shot stealth, but if it is for this weapon to be even remotely appealing – I wanted to use the word balanced, but it’s only 2013, I’ll save it for later, there need to be some changes that go to the core of its abilities, not flashy changes to satisfy the casual players.

(bonus content: some quick ideas that popped in my head, because I am just upset that I can’t play the class that I like, let alone the builds that I want competitively)

-For example, right now in the mists, with a 30-0-0-0-0 build (since you need at least 30 pts in MM to play LB) and bers amulet, your Long Range Shot (1) says the following:
0-500 range: 412 damage,
500-1000: 535,
1000+: 741
This, alone, is silly. Longbow’s 1 needs to hit at least like a small truck. You need to have people fearing you standing far away, on a high ground. And you need to have your long-range shots land like nukes. Right if there was to be a power ranger in a competitve setup right now, it would either be killed first because its glass-ier than actual glass builds or ignored for the whole game because it can’t do anything besides pinch others for giggles.

=A random idea: 0-700 range: 639 danage and after 700 range, you get 50 damage for every 100 range. Also, have 1 stack vulnerability per hit up to a certain cap – say 10 or 12 or 13, for a few seconds.

=Reduce 2 channel to 5 or 6 shots with the same damage and remove vulnerability stacks from 2 – or don’t, it doesn’t even matter. the Current mechanic is… I don’t know if ranger players’ intelligence is to be insulted on the whole by this change or not. It is beyond stupid.

=make 3 a big burst shot, with a channel… Because stealth? Really? You shouldn’t even need that at where you’re standing with a longbow. The LB should be a sniper rifle, long-distance killing machine.

=change traits: Make piercing arrows (currently VIII) a 10point trait. Give a different trait for 30 points, something big for longbow

I made a pretty big post following the last big patch suggesting several changes to ranger, most of them around the concept of power builds, so if you too have that sort of fetish (like myself) you can take a look here
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Suggested-Tpvp-ranger-changes-power-mostly/first#post2475596

I only ever use LB as a (defensive) utility weapon, and this new patch has just reaffirmed that. A knockback for trolling people off the edges of things and getting them out of your hair, an aoe to kitten them off in tight spaces and now a stealth to make a retreat if need be.. it’s the ranged version of the greatsword imo.

swiftpaw.6397:

I only ever use LB as a (defensive) utility weapon, and this new patch has just reaffirmed that. A knockback for trolling people off the edges of things and getting them out of your hair, an aoe to kitten them off in tight spaces and now a stealth to make a retreat if need be.. it’s the ranged version of the greatsword imo.

It still doesn’t make it even remotely good to have in a team. LB ranger with what build? Condition? Spirit? power? (giggles, not you but to the build of course)

And if you like knocking people off, get any other weapon set, and have a wolf instead. AoE fear OP You can also “fake” cast that fear, to make the actually good players who watch the pet burn a dodge or 2. The retreat options is definitely decent, but it isn’t needed or good. it’s just something flashy they added to keep pve/wvw/casual players satisfied.

Boot.7368:

swiftpaw.6397:

I only ever use LB as a (defensive) utility weapon, and this new patch has just reaffirmed that. A knockback for trolling people off the edges of things and getting them out of your hair, an aoe to kitten them off in tight spaces and now a stealth to make a retreat if need be.. it’s the ranged version of the greatsword imo.

It still doesn’t make it even remotely good to have in a team. LB ranger with what build? Condition? Spirit? power? (giggles, not you but to the build of course)

And if you like knocking people off, get any other weapon set, and have a wolf instead. AoE fear OP You can also “fake” cast that fear, to make the actually good players who watch the pet burn a dodge or 2. The retreat options is definitely decent, but it isn’t needed or good. it’s just something flashy they added to keep pve/wvw/casual players satisfied.

I use the fear as well :P usually what happens is I go and camp the skyhammer, someone comes up top and after a few knocks off the edge they wisen up and stand by the door, so I use the wolf to fear them out then LB knock them off the edge right after lol… that or swap to the drakehound and KD then immobi them over one of the transparent tiles. I find many times, the wolf’s fear is not long enough to get them running off the edge unless they stand quite close to it.

I certainly prefer GS, ( and even more so, Sword/WH) to LB, and I really only use it for trolling skyhammer and a few other places XD. I don’t use LB at all in tourneys, it’s just not a competitive weapon.

But yeh, my main point being, all I can really see their aim as being, is making it a defensive weapon that is weaker than your melee options in both damage and defensive capabilities simply because it has a ranged nature.

Boot, try this setup out in TPvP

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-F;4sEku-d2VEF-0;9k7Z;1TJJ;027919-05;5K-F4;2JH8_H9dZEwk-1-56;2Vc-h0m1rYxZ259DV276mW6TsW6T;9;9;9;9;9;4V6s5Y

I know, you might think it sounds awful, but give it a try.

There is one ranger I know of and have faced allot at top tier level that uses LB/GS and most of the time he does the most work for his team and this was before the patch, I hate to see him now with them great updates on the LB.

But one thing I have found you also need the right team setup to make such builds viable you can’t just throw a build into mix without having the right team comp or your team will just fall apart and the build will seem unreliable.

Also if you compare the LB serker build to a Ele serker build your going to find there in the same boat. Most teams use mix off skills over several players to land these big combo’s only sometimes can you land these plays solo.

Also you need to think outside of the box, that first team fight is key and taking down a player right off the bat will sway the fight in your way massively. So by taking QZ+Rapid fire with say burst team, your in for good chance taking down the target right away. Throwing the fight in your favor allowing you to more freely cast not having to worry about going on the defensive.

It all comes down to how to look at the change’s and how they can combo with your team mate’s. No one likes 1v1 hero’s they are the reason allot team’s lose.

E.g. Team I ran into ran a thief in there burst comp almost 100% they always got there target right off the bat, and they didn’t insta gib him took them few seconds easy the length of Rapid fire to take down the target. What they did was Stealth’ed up and rushed the far point knowing they be solo and trained them into the ground using daze warrior followed with stun/burst thief to support any stun-breaks they might run into. This allowed that team to always have the upper hand right off the bat letting them 5v4 the mid point taking control of the map.

So that’s my point of view coming from a TPvP player.

@Sol.4310

I am sorry to break this to you mate, but I have not seen a single ranger past the tier of competitive tpvp to play that build. Not because the players aren’t good enough. Because it cannot be played. Try zerker ranger for yourself. It is not about skill; it is NOT viable to play it. People dodge, line-of-sight, interrupt your burst – oh and there’s the situation where they realise u are runnign zerker, INSTANT death. And even if none of those was to happen, the damage isn’t high enough. You build for glass cannon but you are just glass. Check backstab thief – THAT’s a glass-cannon. Glass, but also cannon. Unlike zerker ranger. (by zerker I mean berserker’s amulet + the corresponding build).

Maybe that ranger you are referring to ran solo queues and happened to face people who are new to pvp. I don’t know. But it is fair to say I know the vast majority of hardcore rangers in Tpvp and since they are all sane, do not burden their teams with zerker builds and/or longbow.

By competitive tpvp I am not referring to just PuG premades, I am talking about actual teams, who play on an organized level that implies a certain all-around game knowledge.

But to each his own I suppose. Thanks for the input

@Boot.7368 Sorry to break it to you mate, I HAVE and at a competitive tpvp level.

Been using Longbow since the BWE’s, and completely disagree on a few points:

-Eagle Eye is not effective in tPvP and a complete waste. WvW yes, PvP, never.

-Longbow is not a Burst or high DPS weapon (yes maybe it should be, but it’s not and never has been) and should not be looked to or played as such. You can’t use a butter-knife as a screwdriver and then complain at it’s relative effectiveness.

-The 2-3 combo was no less avoidable than RF is, and in terms of the vulnerability and the extra damage, it is even less effective. HS delivered all of it’s Vulnerability at once, in a single shot, for a strict 10 second duration – easier to avoid, easier to condition cleanse. RF does so over a longer stretch, meaning overall, your target is under the effects of Vulnerability for a longer period of time – during the application phase and the Vulnerability phase. It takes about .3 seconds to apply each of the 10 stacks of Vulnerability, with the stacks dropping off after about 7 seconds…uncleansed, your target is Vulnerable for 13 seconds minimum. You are also doing damage, at an increased rate, over the application phase….the end result is better, especially when you factor in things like Quickness, attacking out of Stealth, a recast timer allowing for perma-Vulnerability. Also, this change is far less problematic in PVE.

-Stealth…even IF the Vulnerability tool was hugely reduced in effectiveness, the granting of stealth far outweighs that. Stealth in tPvP is huge.

It is true LB is not the high quality DPS or Burst weapon it perhaps should be. You can get decent damage out of it, but you need to do so in a specific way. Otherwise, it is best used as a utility platform…for point control, in a non-1v1 scenario, it is very useful indeed imho.