Guild Wars 2

I change the OP in favour of the conclusionary post which reflects the consensus of the players and which I accept:

The common suggestion for the increase of shortbow range from 900 back to 1200 to be achievable via traits is a sensible one. This may be by adding it to “Eagle Eye” or by the introduction of a specific shortbow trait – but in any case it would allow people to choose whether to invest in shortbow range or not.

Those investigating alternative builds and weapon combinations can continue to do so. Those who have invested effort in aquiring The Dreamer will at least have an opportunity to benefit properly from their investment.

I would ask the community to unite behind this suggestion as the best way of having a chance of influencing the developers. All heated debate about the virtues of bows vs other weapons, what is meant by “Ranger” and how the real-life capabilites of shortbows compare with longbows would thankfully be rendered null & void.

Arenanet just need to work out the details.

Or let us increase Shortbow range with the Eagle Eye trait. =) I wouldn’t mind that! =D

I would , because a lot of condition builds rely on shortbow and go 0 points into marksman

i approve, played with my ranger for a few hours last night and it just felt shallow and weak. I did switch to sword+wh and that worked pretty well (pve though, wouldn’t stand a chance in wvw). What i started doing was starting off with the sword+wh, then swap to short bow to pop a could of the utility skills, then swap back to the sword and finish em off. This was all in Orr.

Merge eagle eye with piercing arrows. Make it so Eagle Eye + Piercing Arrows buffs shortbow to 1,200 range as well as longbow to 1,500 range. This ensures that longbow and shortbow have different range and the shortbow maintains its range as well as actually merging traits like they claimed they would do prior to this patch.

I doubt we will see the range on short bow increased, the design time has decided that short bow is a “skirmishing” weapon and that means short to mid-ranged combat.

We might be able to push for some separation of traits concerning the bows.

Slightly off topic, but which would you all prefer (if we only got to have one) the range reduction taken back or the “animation fix” removed?

Since arenanet keeps deleting my posts because they cant handle the truth.

I would once more like to thank them for making all my progress and all the money i spent on trying to make the dreamer null and void. All wasted time, effort and money.

Just change the trait that increases longbow range to also increase shortbow range, so shortbow goes back to 1200 and longbow stays on 1500 with the trait on.

Posts get deleted if and only if you make a point while being rude and inflammatory fwiw.

SB is the rangers main weapon, take staff form the guardians and see how they feel.

just nerf the SB by 90% dps, it’s the range that makes the bow, not the dps.

I cant chase down, warriors kill me from range…and they have plate?

Why do warriors have better range and plate?

LB is junk, the skills are worthless, the dps is ok though.

Surely Arenanet must reverse this sb range reduction – the class is in chaos.

Fester.9328’s topic “Where to go from here..” says it all. The constant advice is:

“If you want a ranged expert you can achieve that with the Warrior.”

There is no way it should be like that.

D&D shortbow is 600 inches
D&D longbow is 1200 inches
GW2 is heavily influenced by that game. Just a thought. Maybe you should be glad it’s not 600 range?
Still…
Shortbow is almost as powerful as sword, pierces, and stacks insane might on pet with companion’s might and berserker now with the huge buff to companions might. Arguably, in dungeons and wvw, shortbow just got a lot better. In pvp it is a nerf because people were pressuring points from 1200 inches with a psuedo-melee weapon. Come on, that’s not too strong? Everyone and their mom used shortbow until yesterday because of it’s ridiculous range. It should have been nerfed a long time ago.

Btw warrior is awful at range. Ranger is much stronger. Source: I have character slots for every profession and test them in the mists.

Killsmith.8169 has it right:

“Nobody used shortbow solely because of the range. Most people probably saw it as the least sucky ranged option. It has decent defensive/utility skills built in, benefits from the piercing arrows trait, and isn’t the longbow. Those are the three things it has going for it.

Also, if we’re going to apply logic to this stuff, we should probably first recognize that a shortbow’s real world equivalent would probably be a composite bow, which had all of the range of a longbow, but was much smaller due to the improved materials, design, and construction."

Staff has a longer range than a bow?

The only downside to this nerf for me is that I have used the shortbow so much that I’m just used to knowing exactly when I’m in range so it’ll just take some getting used to when running into a fight and getting familiar with the new range

Give up. They don’t give a crap about any of you or your ideas. If they did don’t you think they would’ve fixed the class long ago when there were hundreds upon hundreds of Rangers on forums outlining exactly what was wrong and numerous perfectly plausible ways to fix it?

Sorry to be so harsh but someone has to drive it home. Maybe I’ll get interacted for it even… who knows. But hopefully before I do that mod stops and thinks when the last time any of the suggestions or opinions on this forum were ever even considered at all among the staff they pertained to.

So sad that i worked my kitten off to get the dreamer. What a kitten waste.

One main reason why I was always using the shortbow over the longbow is simply that you cannot stop anyone running away with the longbow.
The shortbow has a stun and a slow and even with these two abilities it was hard to stop people to run away. But still it was good. With 900 they can get out of range pretty often.
I also didn’t use the axe because 900 range was often not enough. After RTL or if a warrior used his gap closers to get away the only weapon which would reach them to slow them was the shortbow. Well that is gone now and our pet leash range was not “increased to 2000” like it is said in the patch notes but “decreased to 2000” from 4000 or something like that.

Shortbow also has some decent defensive utilities built in. It simply was the best pvp weapon.
I guess they saw that and wanted to change it so that the other weapons were not so much worse. They could have buffed the others but they chose that way and we will probably have to live with it.

Now what I am asking is at least give the longbow some sort of a cripple or daze that we can use while chasing someone. Barrage wont work because we have to stand still which means you cannot chase anyone with it. The knockback … well you want to close gaps not kick them away. If the longbow had a cripple it would be fine to me by either giving it to LB #3 or giving us the ability to use barrage while running.

Honestly , if they removed the flanking need for Crossfire bleeds, and lowered the cooldowns by default , it would actually be a skirmishing weapon as it would allow you to zipp around and have far more utility

+100 towards this post so frustrating now, I know alot of people who would sign for this too, This was the only decent thing rangers had left. :/
That and my favourite profession from both GWs1 & 2 has been basically butchered for the sake of a bit of distance.
If its to do with PvP or something why can’t they do like they did in GWs1 and seperate skills from PvE & PvP?

I’m really annoyed tbh because I worked my a** off and pulled out practically everything to get my Dreamer and then they go and nerf it a few days later so much for enjoying my bow…. Grrr

OMG If one more person says that the class is called ranger because it’s a ranged class I’m going to have a meltdown.

Ranger is not the ‘best’ ranged class in the sense that it’s more powerful at range than at melee or than other classes, it’s the ‘best’ ranged class in the sense that it has multiple ranged weapon options and therefore lots of versatility at range compared to the other classes. The shortbow nerf, which I would argue was logical change, changes nothing about that.

Honestly if you believe the class is broken due to a 300 range nerf, you had no idea how to play it in the first place.

Zephyra.9075:

Or let us increase Shortbow range with the Eagle Eye trait. =) I wouldn’t mind that! =D

this please. at least let us have a trait to get it back. doesn’t make sense for lb to get 300 more range and shortbow doesn’t. peas from the same pod really. also, axe having the same range as shortbow doesn’t make sense at all.

Einlanzer.1627:

OMG If one more person says that the class is called ranger because it’s a ranged class I’m going to have a meltdown.

Range is however my preferred play style. I like the idea of having a pet companion using bows. I’ve tried both Warrior and Guardian, and still I come back to Ranger/Ele, who do have weapons to fight at long range. I’ve said I’d gladly trade back all the damage increases, keep any pet ‘nerfs’ in exchange for SB to be back out at LB range, even if through a trait. Seems like a more then generous compromise to me. Also worth noting I don’t participate in PVP/WvW of any sort.

Coming from GW1 I never understood why Shortbow had the same range as Longbow. This really should have been there since the start instead of changed 10 months in.

I don’t envy Rangers in GW2. Ranger was my favourite and main in GW1 and I came into GW2 dead set on playing one again as my main. Got to 80 quickly and also leveled a Warrior to 80 straight after… and was blown away the difference. Glad I jumped ship to Warrior as my main in September.

Sad to see my favourite GW1 class be the class I dislike the most in GW2.

Yep exactly what my thief needs, its longest range weapon down to a melee weapon, superb !!

NOT

Chopps.5047:

D&D shortbow is 600 inches
D&D longbow is 1200 inches
GW2 is heavily influenced by that game. Just a thought. Maybe you should be glad it’s not 600 range?

The ranges in two different games are not the same, you should take that into consideration.

The common suggestion for the increase of shortbow range from 900 back to 1200 to be achievable via traits is a sensible one. This may be by adding it to “Eagle Eye” or by the introduction of a specific shortbow trait – but in any case it would allow people to choose whether or not to invest in shortbow range or not.

Those investigating alternative builds and weapon combinations can continue to do so. Those who have invested effort in aquiring The Dreamer will at least have an opportunity to benfefit properly from their investment.

I would ask the community to unite behind this suggestion as the best way of having a chance of influencing the developers. All heated debate about the virtues of bows vs other weapons, what is meant by “Ranger” and how the real-life capabilites of shortbows compare with longbows would thankfully be rendered null & void.

Come on Arenanet – make your Ranger playing community happy."

Chopps.5047:

D&D shortbow is 600 inches
D&D longbow is 1200 inches
GW2 is heavily influenced by that game. Just a thought. Maybe you should be glad it’s not 600 range?
Still…
Shortbow is almost as powerful as sword, pierces, and stacks insane might on pet with companion’s might and berserker now with the huge buff to companions might. Arguably, in dungeons and wvw, shortbow just got a lot better. In pvp it is a nerf because people were pressuring points from 1200 inches with a psuedo-melee weapon. Come on, that’s not too strong? Everyone and their mom used shortbow until yesterday because of it’s ridiculous range. It should have been nerfed a long time ago.

Btw warrior is awful at range. Ranger is much stronger. Source: I have character slots for every profession and test them in the mists.

WOW! I was just about to open the D&D players hand book for this info. Thank you Chopps.

To the players that are upset about the SB change. I am sorry but this change was a long time coming and it is not the end of the world. I really think many of our fellow Rangers have been over reacting and have not tried to deal with these balance changes.

This quote from the OP:
“The Ranger is a RANGED character class – the clue is in the title.”

Sadly, you haven’t experienced playing a Ranger classes in D&D table top/computer games based on D&D and its a petty. I see the SB change as a LP2 moment and some people just can’t handle it

AydenStar.4216:

Chopps.5047:

D&D shortbow is 600 inches
D&D longbow is 1200 inches
GW2 is heavily influenced by that game. Just a thought. Maybe you should be glad it’s not 600 range?
Still…
Shortbow is almost as powerful as sword, pierces, and stacks insane might on pet with companion’s might and berserker now with the huge buff to companions might. Arguably, in dungeons and wvw, shortbow just got a lot better. In pvp it is a nerf because people were pressuring points from 1200 inches with a psuedo-melee weapon. Come on, that’s not too strong? Everyone and their mom used shortbow until yesterday because of it’s ridiculous range. It should have been nerfed a long time ago.

Btw warrior is awful at range. Ranger is much stronger. Source: I have character slots for every profession and test them in the mists.

WOW! I was just about to open the D&D players hand book for this info. Thank you Chopps.

To the players that are upset about the SB change. I am sorry but this change was a long time coming and it is not the end of the world. I really think many of our fellow Rangers have been over reacting and have not tried to deal with these balance changes.

This quote from the OP:
“The Ranger is a RANGED character class – the clue is in the title.”

Sadly, you haven’t experienced playing a Ranger classes in D&D table top/computer games based on D&D and its a petty. I see the SB change as a LP2 moment and some people just can’t handle it

it’s actually a learn 2 read moment for you can you check this out:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/ranger/

“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”

“Unparalleled archers” and “capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows.” I assume “bows” shouldn’t limit to just long bows, correct?

What would be nice is if the trait to increase longbow/harpoon range was either LB/SB range or all 3. That’s another reason for more builds to consider master marksmanship traits.

rchu.8945:

AydenStar.4216:

Chopps.5047:

D&D shortbow is 600 inches
D&D longbow is 1200 inches
GW2 is heavily influenced by that game. Just a thought. Maybe you should be glad it’s not 600 range?
Still…
Shortbow is almost as powerful as sword, pierces, and stacks insane might on pet with companion’s might and berserker now with the huge buff to companions might. Arguably, in dungeons and wvw, shortbow just got a lot better. In pvp it is a nerf because people were pressuring points from 1200 inches with a psuedo-melee weapon. Come on, that’s not too strong? Everyone and their mom used shortbow until yesterday because of it’s ridiculous range. It should have been nerfed a long time ago.

Btw warrior is awful at range. Ranger is much stronger. Source: I have character slots for every profession and test them in the mists.

WOW! I was just about to open the D&D players hand book for this info. Thank you Chopps.

To the players that are upset about the SB change. I am sorry but this change was a long time coming and it is not the end of the world. I really think many of our fellow Rangers have been over reacting and have not tried to deal with these balance changes.

This quote from the OP:
“The Ranger is a RANGED character class – the clue is in the title.”

Sadly, you haven’t experienced playing a Ranger classes in D&D table top/computer games based on D&D and its a petty. I see the SB change as a LP2 moment and some people just can’t handle it

it’s actually a learn 2 read moment for you can you check this out:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/ranger/

“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”

“Unparalleled archers” and “capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows.” I assume “bows” shouldn’t limit to just long bows, correct?

SB is fine at 900 range. What is not fine is longbow and shortbow having the same range as a base. It makes no sense. It is not a learn 2 read moment when you give me a generic game description to justify SB having a 1200 base range.

“Unparalleled archers” and “capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows.” I assume “bows” shouldn’t limit to just long bows, correct?

Unless melee weapons suddenly increased to a range of 900, I think the term ‘ranged’ still applies even with the shortbow.

It’s clear people preferred the shortbow because of its damage plus its range previously before the patch. I doubt anyone glanced at the longbow given such unless they simply did so for style.

This change simply ties into what they planned on. Build diversity, and this just so happened to include weapons.

As for unparallelled, i’m sure a warrior and ranger fight using only bows the ranger would more likely win out. Even with the shortbows lessened range. Haven’t really tried it. It not once says they are the ‘masters of ranged attacks’ just skilled with bows.

OP edited to reflect the best of the comments above, and other related topics.

I still fail to see what the big deal about SB having 900 range is. The only thing that makes it feel weird is that axes also have 900 range when they really should just be a melee weapon.

To put this in perspective, you’re moving half the distance of sword 2’s leap return closer to the target. Essentially a single dodge roll, the damage hasn’t been nerfed and it still has a ton of utility. This class isn’t dead because you have to be slightly closer to murder something. Also if a warrior is using gap closers to get away, switch to your greatsword and swoop

So a bow ranger has to use a greatsword to damage an opponent running away?

Do you even thing before you post, just how stupid that makes your argument sound? Your longest range attack is a freaking sword! And after that you can’t cripple to maintain the attack.

If you can’t see the problem they you don’t understand much and shouldn’t be in this thread.

Sandpit.3467:

So a bow ranger has to use a greatsword to damage an opponent running away?

Do you even thing before you post, just how stupid that makes your argument sound? Your longest range attack is a freaking sword! And after that you can’t cripple to maintain the attack.

If you can’t see the problem they you don’t understand much and shouldn’t be in this thread.

The Ranger isn’t the only one who has to use gap closers to deal with such a problem. And if you can’t use a gap closer to close in and catch your prey, then they were too far for your extended shortbow to do anything anyways.

Shelving my Ranger until they fix shortbow range – this ruins my hybrid shortbow build and i’m not forking over any more money for new builds.

Just bought some new ascended items for him as well – not happy.

Most skimishes happen under 900. The sb attack is still beyond the 900 range you just have to manual attack at 900 + range. The range has changed if you can’t cripple your target before he gets out of range then you have bigger problems.

This nerf gave us a damage boost and you are still crying. Every patch a bunch of you cry. But the fact remains over all we are in a better place.

The last sb nerf prompted some of our best builds and variations. The best of us will adapt. The worst of us will be lost in the evolution process.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

The last sb nerf prompted some of our best builds and variations. The best of us will adapt. The worst of us will be lost in the evolution process.

Help, I’m struggling to adapt The Dreamer for greatsword use, any ideas?

To people who are saying adapt to the new build, okay

One condition…Let me switch my legendary that I worked so hard to get because I liked the stats it had and RANGE to twilight of sunrise. In fact I think I will put in a ticket to support for this. Otherwise the 2 months I spent to get my legendary is going to be for nothing.

Something like a range deduction on a ranged weapon should allow people to swap their hard earned dreamers. Im not keen on having The Dreamer sit in my bag 80% of the time while I use a crappy GS that took me 2 secs to order off TP. Going to put in ticket.

On the plus side you can now buy the dreamer for 500g less than you could last week!

And it will keep going down until it gets its wonderful range back or a generous damage boost to replace the range reduction.

This is not fair to Dreamer owners and everyone knows it.

The Dreamer has more damage now you have benn copensated for your range loss. And its just a skin it still looks as good as it did before.

Arrow.3856:

To people who are saying adapt to the new build, okay

One condition…Let me switch my legendary that I worked so hard to get because I liked the stats it had and RANGE to twilight of sunrise. In fact I think I will put in a ticket to support for this. Otherwise the 2 months I spent to get my legendary is going to be for nothing.

Something like a range deduction on a ranged weapon should allow people to swap their hard earned dreamers. Im not keen on having The Dreamer sit in my bag 80% of the time while I use a crappy GS that took me 2 secs to order off TP. Going to put in ticket.

Absolutely right.

I agree with the range change of the shortbow personally. It is a rapid-shot weapon to be used at short-mid range. Longbow is a mid-long range weapon. They were far too close before and now I believe they are just right.

However, I do agree that the “Eagle Eye” trait that increases range by 5% should do so on both the longbow and the shortbow. But I don’t agree with increasing the base range of the shortbow from what it is now. That was a good change.

For anyone that cared about range, longbow was 1500 and shortbow 1200. Especially given the longbow #1 skill really needing that long range. That doesn’t seem that wrong to me.

Now it’s 1500 vs 900 and shortbows have the range or a throwing axe kitten .

And don’t think the minor damage buff to some skills (taking the damage up to auto-attack skill 1 damage!) is even remotely anything to notice; rangers would gladly lose that to get the range back.

Wholeheartedly agree on changing shortbow range back to 1200 (and increasing untraited longbow range to 1500). Sorry for the bit of a rant below.

This is the THIRD TIME I’m forced to adapt to out of the blue shortbow nerfs. First was the quite hefty damage nerf it received back in the early days of GW2. I recovered from that no problems since I always thought the damage was bit too much. “Balance update” I thought back then. The second was the infamous “animation fix”. This one really hurt since the difference in firing speed was something noticeable especially as it broke quickness at the same time (if I remember correctly). I cried some tears and bit my lip, but i survived. Number 2½ came in form of quickness nerf. This hit the shortbow’s burst capacity significantly but I recovered from that too since quickness was always considered something OP. I came pretty close to reroll at that time but I resisted the temptation. And now they are making me to face this range nerf, maybe the most significant of all the nerfs so far.

Not the most significant nerf in the terms of damage output or ranger effectiveness as a whole, but in something that changes the nature of the weapon so drastically. Because, really, bows are weapons that shoot targets at distance. Distance far greater you can throw your axe or torch with your bare hands. And the ranger is the master of that range. At this point someone is bound to remind that " aha, rangers are not archers and so you can’t have that long range you’re asking for". Don’t give me that. As long as there’s no profession called “Archer” in GW2, Ranger is the profession you turn towards when you’re looking for some bow&arrow action. Ranger fills that niche, it always has. In GW1 ranger’s only weapon of choice (defined by something you could call “traitlines”) was bow and accompanied with it, came pet (which no-one ever used). Together you formed something what was called Ranger.

Shortbow has always been my weapon of choice because it’s the 1 weapon that made me really feel like a ranger. But gradually with each nerf they’ve been taking the “fun” out of the weapon and at the same time out of the ranger class. And now, almost year in the game, they want to take that class defining range away from us (me)! This is borderline too much for my poor ranger to handle. No i won’t be rerolling for this but I won’t be spending much time on my ranger either, for sure. Hope they come to their senses and revert shortbow changes, asap. Please, Anet, please…

Serraphin Storm.2369:

The sb attack is still beyond the 900 range you just have to manual attack at 900 + range.

this is not working like this – projectile animation will hit but it will do nothing and You will have big comunicate “out of range” – I’ve already tested that – every time, You don’t have skill range IN STRAIT LINE from You to oponent You will have “out of range”
(what is little funny when we consider that actually when shooting from the wall and shooting with proper angle you projectile animation will travel more than 2000 units in and just dissapear after in the middle of the air)

PS. how I do know that just posted? You know… that’s not funny at all when You’ll notice that with longbow You can shoot at much longer distance when You jump and stand just before wall than if You will stand on that higher ground….

I too would like the sb’s range reinitiated. I see no reason to use it over the axe/warhorn at the moment……