Before you say ‘’apples and orange’‘s. No, it’s apples and apples. They have so many similarities that I’m still surprised nobody is talking about Revenant (Renegade) shortbow.
Crossfire vs Shattershot :
- Bleeding : Crossfire do 1.5 secs of bleeding, 3 secs if flanking. Shattershot is always 3 secs, no need to flank. To get more Bleed, the ranger will have to trait Sharpened Edges, which is in a pretty bad shape. You need to have a high precision to make this trait valuable. If you don’t, just forget it.
- Piercing and bleed damage : Both have to be traited. LoyF only gives flanking bonuses (except Concussion Shot). Heartpiercer gives 25% bleed damage. In order to get more bleed damage, the Ranger will have to trait Hidden Barbs, which gives 33% more bleed damage.
Results : Crossfire is only good when Flanking, it’s sole advantage. Shattershot doesn’t need to flank and needs less investment to make it work, making it better for general play.
AoE :
- Ranger Shortbow has nothing of mention for AoE, but the Revenant Shortbow is one crazy AoE machine. Heartpiercer can pierces 5 target and Shattershot can AoE 5 targets. You know what they do ? One pierce = 5 AoE targets. 5 pierce = 25 AoE targets. Also, every hit do Bleeding.
Results : Just crazy AoE. They actually just mixed Crossfire and Fragmentation Shot of Engineer MH Pistol.
Condition Duration :
- In order to get longer bleed, the Ranger has to trait LoyF and has to dodge. Not just evade with Quick Shot, it has to use the Endurance bar dodge. It gives 10 % condition duration. (Always hated those dodging traits in order to get more damage, it’s just eh…).
- For the Revenant, it needs to trait Blood Fury, but it always gives 25% bleeding duration. No wonky mechanic glued to it, just a simple duration.
Results : Ranger Condition Duration trait is useless and most likely never used. Revenant is easy.
Fury and Critical Chance :
- Ranger : Hidden Barbs is against Spotter, which gives Precision. It’s a loss here. One would have WS traited with WK if playing a CRanger with Shortbow, which helps a little with the Fury uptime on a CRanger. To get more Fury from Skirmishing, the Ranger will have to swap weapon all the time.
- Revenant : It gets Fury when it crits a target below 50 % hp and more Critical Chance if a full endurance. A total of 53% critical chance increased. If the Revenant uses Roiling Mists, then it goes up to 73% without much investment from items or skills. Just pure simple traits.
Results : Revenant gets easier access to Critical Chance and Fury than Ranger. Revenant just needs to hit, Ranger has to use mid cooldown skills to triggers Fury.
Condition Damage : Deadly pets and Kalla’s Fervor:
- Deadly pets : Can give +200 Condition Damage and +100 Precision. CRanger, alone, will most likely not to have Might or not many stacks.
- Soulbeast’s Twice as Vicious : I’m so ashamed to mention it, but Condition Damage is Condition Damage. You have to disable (hard cc) to get a pitiful 5% condition damage buff that lasts 4 secs, big LOL.
- Kalla’s Fervor (12 secs easy stacking buff, aka permanent) : Non traited, it gives 10 % Condition Damage and 150 Ferocity. Traited, it gives 20 % Condition Damage and 300 Ferocity. With Heroic Command, it gives 5 might (150 Condition Damage, +150 Power) or 10 might (300 Condition Damage, +300 Power)
Results : Bleed Damage on Revenant just got higher than Ranger. Revenant gets more buff in general. Ranger just gets Deadly Pets small stats increase, but needs to get in Beastmode to get it.
Other skills :
- Bloodbane Path : Is a non projectile Rapid Fire that gives 3 bleed. Less damage, but shorter cooldown (3 secs). Closest comparison is Crippling Shot (12 secs cooldown Projectile) that will give 3 bleeding as a form of a buff in Beastmode.
- Sevenshot : Is an inverted Poison Volley. So far so good, until it you see it has 20% projectile finisher and Poison Volley don’t.
- Spiritcrush : Is a mix of Muddy Terrain Slow and (better) Flame Trap. All this, a non projectile at 900 range. Shorter cooldown, better burning and better damage than Flame Traps. But, hey, don’t make Traps throweable, they would be like Grenades engineer ! Now, now, a better comparison would be Narcotic Spores (Projectile ? Again !?) in Beastmode with the Iboga. Which does Confusion, which is a condition that ranger doesn’t have, so it means you won’t be able to stack it high. Thanks, but no thanks.
- Concussion Shot vs Scorchrazor : Concussion shot Daze if not flanking, Stun if flanking, 25 secs cooldown. Nothing else. Scorchrazor is an width aoe casted at range that KD and Burn, 10 secs cooldown. Scorchrazor might be slower and harder to hit someone with it, but it can be casted 3 times before you have a chance to cast a Concussion Shot that will only Daze if you didn’t flank your target. Oh and again, Scorchrazor is not a projectile and Concussion Shot is.
- Razorclaw’s Rage : Is an AoE shared Sharpening Stone, on a shorter cooldown. Yes, you can’t spam right away all the bleeds like Sharpening Stone. Yes, you can’t trait like Sharpening Stone to remove condition. Still, I had to make the comparison. It has pros and cons, which is alright.
Conclusion : Shortbow Ranger is getting shafted with clunky mechanic and underpowered traits that should be fused and buffed. The only place where Shortbow Ranger will shine is in PvP skirmishing/dueling style or Roaming, because of Quick Shot, but that’s it. The Revenant can use Shiro Riposting Shadows and do the same.
Mention : I tried to not include Renegade Utilities Skills, since you can also play without it. So, don’t come and be smartypants and say Renegade utilities are bad. Nobody forces you to use Renegade stance.
TLDR : Renegade Shortbow is Shortbow CRanger 2.0. Needs serious buff.
(edited by Krispera.5087)