Guild Wars 2

Rapidly shooting arrows is the shortbow’s job. It is in their auto-attack.

Why would Longbow have rapid fire?

I think it should be switched to a single shot skill.

Why does longbow apply vulnerability? Applying conditions is the shortbows job.

I think the LB should just be removed in favor of dual-wielding shortbows

Because 1, 3, 4, and 5 are useless during a gap close. LB1 suffers lower damage at short range, LB3 stops you from shooting, LB4 knocks the target away from you, and LB5 requires you to remain stationary.

If you can’t maintain max range, then LB2 fills the gap during the in-between before you switch to melee. If it’s a single shot on cool down, then you have a long wait doing nothing useful during the intermediate ranges.

As is, you can Opening Strike for vulnerability, Rapid Fire while you’re running down the target for more vulnerability, stealth out & then Swoop/Maul for effect.

Seth.1308:

Because 1, 3, 4, and 5 are useless during a gap close. LB1 suffers lower damage at short range, LB3 stops you from shooting, LB4 knocks the target away from you, and LB5 requires you to remain stationary.

If you can’t maintain max range, then LB2 fills the gap during the in-between before you switch to melee. If it’s a single shot on cool down, then you have a long wait doing nothing useful during the intermediate ranges.

As is, you can Opening Strike for vulnerability, Rapid Fire while you’re running down the target for more vulnerability, stealth out & then Swoop/Maul for effect.

• LB4 creates a gap. Which longbow clearly benefits from.
• Barrage can be an anti-melee field.
• If you want a true melee weapon, you want another weapon set.
• Why can’t a ranger run and use his single shot that inflicts vulnerability the same way you use rapid fire?

I use rapid fire to track stealth enemies and to defend myself in close range combat.

I think they should truncate RF’s damage into a shorter time period and give it a stealth ability, ie

Rapidfire
Normal – Reduce arrows to 6 and double damage per arrow, 2 stacks of vulnerability per arrow, 3s cast time. (essentially a 20% increase in damage over a shorter time period)

While Stealthed – “Sloth Hunter’s Shot”, Channelled 4s. Marks target. This arrow does
same dmg as ‘maul’ and applies 6 stacks of Bleeding and Torment for 3s. 60s CD. 1500
range.

Honestly the entire longbow doesn’t make sense to me, it’s a totally unfocused weapon; what they should do is rework it into a long range AoE weapon and give us a rifle to use as a high damage single target weapon.

@Ickorus:
LB is an autoattack-focused weapon. Whenever you press something else than 1 it’s likely the fight isn’t going to your favor. 2-3-4-5 buttons are for supporting AA (rough idea I know but still…). Same goes for GS (except Maul obviously…).

Axe+Wh or Torch combination is a cooldown-focused set. You want to AA as less as possible.

But you are right! Some of the ranger weapons need a defined role. LB has one: max. range autoattack damage on single target.

I’d rather have rapid fire changed to shooting 10 arrows at once. At close range (withing 600) almost every arrow would reliably hit the enemy with maybe 1 or 2 missing the target. At long range, like 1200, only half of them would hit. The twist would be the skill’s damage. It’s a huge burst with low CD which punishes ANYONE that comes close to the ranger. Compared to Rapid Fire, it would deal just as much at 1k to 1.2k range, but almost double at point blank range. The skill would have around 1s cast time.

I’d also welcome Barrage changed to a chargeable skill that shoots a highly explosive arrow that deals massive damage. The more it’s charged the more tells it has.
A fully charged shot would release a big glowing arrow (the fuse is burning) that arcs like thief SB#2

Aggrostemma.1703:

@Ickorus:
LB is an autoattack-focused weapon. Whenever you press something else than 1 it’s likely the fight isn’t going to your favor. 2-3-4-5 buttons are for supporting AA (rough idea I know but still…). Same goes for GS (except Maul obviously…).

Axe+Wh or Torch combination is a cooldown-focused set. You want to AA as less as possible.

But you are right! Some of the ranger weapons need a defined role. LB has one: max. range autoattack damage on single target.

I understand that it is an auto-attack focused situational weapon, I just think that we already have a weapon that makes more sense for that role and does a better job at it: the Shortbow; I don’t think we need two weapons filling a similar role.

We really need a proper long-range AoE weapon and the Longbow in my opinion would make the most sense, of course, you’re right about a long range single target weapon and I’d say giving us the use of rifles for that role would make sense.

LB is perfect. If anything its auto attack just needs speeding up. Everything about LB is perfect at long range. Want a better short range weapon? Then usebthe SB or other weapon set. But LB is our long range weapon. Like the GS for Mesmers or staff for necros.

Yes please, don’t touch my Longbow. kitten it feels good to have that 1,500 range in WvW and PvP. I don’t think any other profession has access to this much range.

Djahlat.9610:

Yes please, don’t touch my Longbow. kitten it feels good to have that 1,500 range in WvW and PvP. I don’t think any other profession has access to this much range.

Engis do with nades.

Carpboy.7145:

Djahlat.9610:

Yes please, don’t touch my Longbow. kitten it feels good to have that 1,500 range in WvW and PvP. I don’t think any other profession has access to this much range.

Engis do with nades.

Oh ok, I never tried playing Engi for more than lvl10 so I wasn’t aware of that. But then if we take in consideration the Radius effect of Grenades vs Barrage, Longbow has a longer range than Grenade Kit. It’s still just one skill though…

LB range is quite a bit more than 1500. I’ve heard between 2100 and 1800 quoted on the ranger forum. Not sure how you would go about testing it.

Would prefer #2 on the longbow to be more like warrior’s killshot… But, thats just me and I don’t pvp… so.. Yeah.

Our killshot is the autoattack. RF is a utility skill for tracking thieves.

I think it would be fun, if totally impractical, to see how hard you could get LB1 to hit. I am picturing 5 digit numbers easily.

Ickorus.4518:

Honestly the entire longbow doesn’t make sense to me, it’s a totally unfocused weapon; what they should do is rework it into a long range AoE weapon and give us a rifle to use as a high damage single target weapon.

This^

They could take literally every skill except for #5 on Longbow, put it on rifle, and then give us a brand new longbow ideal for skirmishing and wvw with more AoE.

infantrydiv.1620:

Ickorus.4518:

Honestly the entire longbow doesn’t make sense to me, it’s a totally unfocused weapon; what they should do is rework it into a long range AoE weapon and give us a rifle to use as a high damage single target weapon.

This^

They could take literally every skill except for #5 on Longbow, put it on rifle, and then give us a brand new longbow ideal for skirmishing and wvw with more AoE.

There is one problem with this sentence.
Longbow.
Skirmishing.
Historically, the longbow was a heavy range weapon.
It is a weapon designed for stationary long range warfare.

RF make little sense, at least it kills ppl sometimes.
However, who ever got killed by Barrage??? oh well, I forget ranger himself, everytime a ranger barrage on a group of zerg with retaliation, ranger himself got killed. Yes a zerk ele suffer the same too, but he rallies up 10x times after getting down, watching+laughing at the ranger beside him.
That’s the biggest joke of ranger’s LB —- the only AOE skill of ranger is a suicide skill.

lb 1: needs a faster animation, faster cast time, faster arrows (we shouldn’t have a gm trait to do this), damage is OK as it is

a nice change would be to have a standard damage across all ranges BUT, we shoot the arrows faster and faster the closer (or farther depending on what u guys want) the target gets

lb2: double arrows, 30% damage increase, 20% cast time reduction, 12 second cd

lb3: change to stealth for 3 seconds, cripple target for 2 seconds, and gain swiftness for 3 seconds as well

lb4: knockback stays the same, have it immobilize the target for 2 seconds after

lb5: single attack, like thieves clusterbomb, does 1200 base damage, cd reduced to 25 seconds

naphack.9346:

infantrydiv.1620:

Ickorus.4518:

Honestly the entire longbow doesn’t make sense to me, it’s a totally unfocused weapon; what they should do is rework it into a long range AoE weapon and give us a rifle to use as a high damage single target weapon.

This^

They could take literally every skill except for #5 on Longbow, put it on rifle, and then give us a brand new longbow ideal for skirmishing and wvw with more AoE.

There is one problem with this sentence.
Longbow.
Skirmishing.
Historically, the longbow was a heavy range weapon.
It is a weapon designed for stationary long range warfare.

Historically, bow users had to fire arrows from a limited resource pool in their quiver, and people couldn’t summon spirits from the natural environment to resurrect the dead.

Point is, it’s a moot point to argue real world logic and history in a fantasy MMORPG. Guild Wars 2 has already created a lore so all that is necessary is that the remain true to that lore, so modifying the longbow in any way to create a smoother gameplay experience should take priority over trying to introduce reality into a fantasy MMO.

Now, if you want to just make a blanket statement and say that longbow compared to shortbow should be a slower paced weapon that focus more on maintaining range and doing damage than closer range skirmishing, that’s a completely agreeable statement.

Djahlat.9610:

Carpboy.7145:

Djahlat.9610:

Yes please, don’t touch my Longbow. kitten it feels good to have that 1,500 range in WvW and PvP. I don’t think any other profession has access to this much range.

Engis do with nades.

Oh ok, I never tried playing Engi for more than lvl10 so I wasn’t aware of that. But then if we take in consideration the Radius effect of Grenades vs Barrage, Longbow has a longer range than Grenade Kit. It’s still just one skill though…

No they are the same. The thing is you can spam grenades, you can’t spam barrage lol. Grenades is actually has more dps than longbow. Hate to break it to ya. I have level 80 Ranger and a level 80 Engineer.

naphack.9346:

infantrydiv.1620:

Ickorus.4518:

Honestly the entire longbow doesn’t make sense to me, it’s a totally unfocused weapon; what they should do is rework it into a long range AoE weapon and give us a rifle to use as a high damage single target weapon.

This^

They could take literally every skill except for #5 on Longbow, put it on rifle, and then give us a brand new longbow ideal for skirmishing and wvw with more AoE.

There is one problem with this sentence.
Longbow.
Skirmishing.
Historically, the longbow was a heavy range weapon.
It is a weapon designed for stationary long range warfare.

Yep, Well said if anything the longbow should negate amour as that was what it was great at long range killing of anything it hit.

new #2 skill, which ignores the toughness of the target?
heck, I’d even mule my ascended mats, which pretty much stuff 3 entire bags on my ranger back to another char and rock ranger again.

I think people need to stop thinking so much in the mindset this is an ordinary mmo. There being only one build, set of weapons, ect is a ridiculous idea and an elitist mindset that I am sad to see this community fall in to.

All this ‘long bow sucks’ and get rid of longbow’ discussion only tells me that since people don’t know how to properly use something, they automatically discard it. If you knew how to keep your distance from enemies and kite instead of getting in their faces you wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss a weapon option that is very viable. I do admit it could use a small power boost to make up for the speed being as low as it is, however saying that it should be removed from the game just because you don’t like it is selfish. Other people have no problem with it, don’t try to ruin it for them.

LB is a great weapon in pve (I don’t pvp/wvw much). It does massive amounts of aoe damage and spreads tons of vuln with the rapid fire. If you’re not sure how it works, then make sure you spec for piercing arrows and it will make more sense. Also remember condi damage has nothing to do with the LB, you only need duration and you get a lot of that just through taking power traits.
I just don’t understand all the whining about rangers being weak. I guess it’s a pvp thing.
P.S. Forgot to add link for reference. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vMIQNAT8XjMqUyaLLGsw1aAYpYvA7M0kTODDZ8gPXWA-zAyAYLioZiwQ0oCwJvioxWULiGriBTVSEV7NKiWNA-e

OctavianZiest.7960:

I just don’t understand all the whining about rangers being weak. I guess it’s a pvp thing.

It’s a WvW thing, in PvP ranger is good.

Rapid Fire makes sense. It brings LB to the ROF what it intended to do by basic.
Why need a skill for this? To apply a bugfix for a short duration? No clue.
I bet its the same reason as you have to put a GM trait to bugfix the arrow’s velocity.
Logic here? None. Both of them would be still awesome after the ROF and A.velocity gets a boost…

RoyalPredator.9163:

Rapid Fire makes sense. It brings LB to the ROF what it intended to do by basic.

Rapid Fire shoots 10 shots over 4.5 second. At max range you hit for let’s say an average of 4k on an autoattack. That would be 40,000 damage over 4.5 seconds or almost 9,000 damage per second at over 1500 range. And it pierces. For comparison, a ballista hits for ~ 3800 damage per second.

The reason LB fires slowly is because it hits very hard with very little risk to the user.

sminkiottone.6972:

OctavianZiest.7960:

I just don’t understand all the whining about rangers being weak. I guess it’s a pvp thing.

It’s a WvW thing, in PvP ranger is good.

Correction: Spirit Ranger is good in PvP.

Every other build is bad.

runeblade.7514:

Correction: Condition Bunker Ranger is good in PvP.

Every other build is bad.

Fixed that for you.

Sarision.6347:

runeblade.7514:

Correction: Condition Bunker is good in PvP.

Every other build is bad.

Fixed that for you.

Fixed that for you.

Djahlat.9610:

Yes please, don’t touch my Longbow. kitten it feels good to have that 1,500 range in WvW and PvP. I don’t think any other profession has access to this much range.

Closer to 1800 range and yea, I don’t want anything drastic done to LB …especially some of the suggested ideas for Rapid Fire. whatever is adjusted, please don’t touch the tracking channel. It’s one of the few things Thieves fear about Rangers.

Fluffball.8307:

Sarision.6347:

runeblade.7514:

Correction: Condition Bunker is good in PvP.

Every other build is bad.

Fixed that for you.

Fixed that for you.

Touché.

I want to make it more clear then;

• ROF: ~Half damages at distance. Okay on paper. Not on field – They get out of optimal distance very quickly (in your face or out of range) if not a usual behind-da-Zerg situation. I admit, there its still “good”, but not outstanding.
• A.Velocity: Simple sidewalking dodges them, takes way long time to hit things…
• Rapid Fire: When facing someone who pays attention, he dodges/blocks most of it. All other games have their rapid fire guess what? RAPID.
• Range: 1500 is really good. 1200 isn’t. The more the range is, the more the chance to fail the shot. It is the fault of both AutoAim and hit-detection.

So I state at a bit of boost on all of these. Not THAT mutch.
LRS needs these buffs most.
Then LB would be a really good and enjoyable weapon, and we would be effective.
+ The RtW+EE GM trait merge

solrik.6028:

I’d rather have rapid fire changed to shooting 10 arrows at once. At close range (withing 600) almost every arrow would reliably hit the enemy with maybe 1 or 2 missing the target. At long range, like 1200, only half of them would hit. The twist would be the skill’s damage. It’s a huge burst with low CD which punishes ANYONE that comes close to the ranger. Compared to Rapid Fire, it would deal just as much at 1k to 1.2k range, but almost double at point blank range. The skill would have around 1s cast time.

I’d also welcome Barrage changed to a chargeable skill that shoots a highly explosive arrow that deals massive damage. The more it’s charged the more tells it has.
A fully charged shot would release a big glowing arrow (the fuse is burning) that arcs like thief SB#2

I’d LOVE this. Hate that there isn’t anything you can do against any more than 1 person if you suddenly get swamped. Cant just sit there with Barrage. Plus it’d be nice for tagging.

Carpboy.7145:

Why does longbow apply vulnerability? Applying conditions is the shortbows job.

I think the LB should just be removed in favor of dual-wielding shortbows

vulnerability is a power boosting condition….

man shortbow is dead feel bad for those folks who wasted so much time and coin to get the legend weaps…..shame

shortbow is not dead. not only does it bring great dps, it has evade, stun and cripple. sb is a great weapon in my opinion. i chose to play a ranger because i wanted to use both bows.

Rapid fire make sense, It doesn’t make sense the way you look at it. One In most case when you try do something faster you lose something. throw one punch you can hit as hard as you can when throwing combination you lose power in each punch. So it is with the Long bow.

Your also not considering that there are other factor not just sheer damage. Thing that proc on crit can proc more (depending on cd) like companions might.

uping the damage per shot during rapid fire means one block or evade will evade more damage. If you double the damage and shorten the channel one dodge or block could negate 50% percent of the damage. While it is possible now its less likely.

infantrydiv.1620:

Ickorus.4518:

Honestly the entire longbow doesn’t make sense to me, it’s a totally unfocused weapon; what they should do is rework it into a long range AoE weapon and give us a rifle to use as a high damage single target weapon.

This^

They could take literally every skill except for #5 on Longbow, put it on rifle, and then give us a brand new longbow ideal for skirmishing and wvw with more AoE.

Except a lot of people want a single-target DPS archer.

Single-target DPS rifle is already a thing on Warrior.

Regarding RF and the longbow kit in general, I prefer it as it is. It’s an AA-oriented weapon, yes, however it therefore just makes it less of a faceroll class. If you enter a fight and just mash all of your skills, you’re going to lose. I very much like this aspect of the class and believe its utility on 3/4 is quite nice.

RF is a good skill for stealth-tracking and using it in close range if the enemy comes near you. The only change it needs is a bit more damage to equate to an AA.

Arguably barrage is the ranger’s weakest skill. I’d like to see that changed the most of anything.

I don’t have problems with the longbow’s direction.
Only a lot of concern about the skill’s stats and functionality.

1. Like why both DMG, ROF and A.Velocity so low?
2. Why Rapid Fire isn’t rapid at all?
3. Why Hunter’s Shot has waste of 3s stealth instead of being in Point Blank Shot?
4. And then, why Hunter’s Shot isn’t a special skill like “Mercy Shot”?
5. Why Barrage has low damage, no reveal, why rooted?
   ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

DeceiverX.8361:

Except a lot of people want a single-target DPS archer.

Single-target DPS rifle is already a thing on Warrior.

Warriors can Move.
Warriors can Heal
Warriors can AutoAttack
Warriors can do a lot more.

So you say, we shouldn’t move, heal, autoattack, or else?
Build Diversity is the key. When we play Rangers, we chose our basic style, not the overal basic abilities… or at least this is how it SHOULD BE.
But forget me, Engineers can flee invulnerable just as Elementalists.
Warriors can stack conditions just as Necromancers. If not even better.

So then if rifle were to become an option on the ranger, it wouldn’t need to be single-target long range DPS because the bow already has that role designation covered and ranger is already the only class which can use that weapon for that role. No other class can play a single-target DPS archer and obviously even now it’s weak on the ranger.

Thus removing it from this role and swapping the rifle in its place would only inhibit build diversity. Give rifle another role if it were to become a ranger’s weapon.

Sarision.6347:

runeblade.7514:

Correction: Condition Bunker Ranger is good in PvP.

Every other build is bad.

Fixed that for you.

I rarely hear about Ranger condi bunkers.

If people are crying about rangers, it is always about Spirit rangers.

runeblade.7514:

Sarision.6347:

runeblade.7514:

Correction: Condition Bunker Ranger is good in PvP.

Every other build is bad.

Fixed that for you.

I rarely hear about Ranger condi bunkers.

If people are crying about rangers, it is always about Spirit rangers.

I can only guess that they cry mostly due to the fact that the spirits are mostly passive in nature. And for some reason passive causes issues with PvPer’s never mind that sigil massively work, most traits are passive in nature and a profession that won’t be called out can not work without high PASSIVE healing. That and the stat starved environment of sPvP lessens the some of the problems ranger has in many of the other modes.

runeblade.7514:

Sarision.6347:

runeblade.7514:

Correction: Condition Bunker Ranger is good in PvP.

Every other build is bad.

Fixed that for you.

I rarely hear about Ranger condi bunkers.

If people are crying about rangers, it is always about Spirit rangers.

Spirit Ranger is a variant of the Condi Bunker.

Carpboy.7145:

Why does longbow apply vulnerability? Applying conditions is the shortbows job.

I think the LB should just be removed in favor of dual-wielding shortbows

^—- lolwut. Amazing.

Rapid Fire doesn’t need that much of an improvement to make it a viable skill to use. The current problem with it is the low damage it does and how the vulnerability stacks are applied.

If all stacks were applied on the first shot, the full skill would benefit from the vulnerability which would make it more valuable overall.

On top of this, the damage of the weapon needs to be increased to make it more valuable than auto attack at range. Assuming a real 4.5 duration (I don’t know if the skill has an after cast for example), the weapon needs a 4.05 coefficient just to do the same damage as #1. It ideally should have a 4.2 to 4.5 coefficient so the skill could actually be considered a burst skill and not just a utility skill we use at min range.

I also know this isn’t a popular opinion, but I still have a lot of issues with the barrage skill. For starters, simply using barrage makes it impossible to use hunter’s shot because the pulsing damage will pull you out of stealth. But on top of this, the damage is low (it does shortbow damage to 5 targets), the delay in triggering makes it impossible to use as a real kiting tool, and the way it deals damage often gets you killed first.

If I were going to adjust the Longbow, I’d increase Rapid Fire’s coefficient or reduce the channel duration with a net goal of about 10-20% increase in damage.

I’d like it if they simplify the autoattack and move the vulnerability from RF to it.