Guild Wars 2

I hear the talks, I have seen the debates, but seriously, some love for us short bow users would be great. I mean come on, I hit people for 500 to 1k per hit, and then get hit by 5k hits…. Instead we get traits that benefit longbow, and spirits… no one uses spirits, and longbow is …. slow… and very easy to evade the big hit. The sad part is people regen more than I can cause….. and I am in full berserkers….. sad… just sad….. Please if your going to make a ranged class, focus on what everyone is playing. On my server you see unicorns flying like mad, and all of them say that the short bow is useless… I read the changes that are coming, we are supposed to get excited that if we are under 25 percent life we can then do a little more damage,, um hate to tell you, but as a ranger since open, when I’m below 25 percent life, its game over, not ok I got this time. I might have to join the legions of people who have gone over to guardian, or warrior, I mean I lost to a warrior who was using a gun yesterday, and we just stood each others ground, I of course evaded his big multi hit, and then I’m dead, and he was almost full. Fix the class as a whole, not as a hey look we will buff you when your about to die… Seriously maddening.

I have to agree. I use full ASCENDED Bezerker’s gear in WvW and I chased a Warrior for 2-3 minutes and POURED damage into him (with Crit food) then, he got tired of running, turned around and killed me, WITH FULL HEALTH. I never got him any lower than 85%.

I’m PvP Rank 38. I know what I’m doing. This is BS.

You nerfed our pets! We need power!!! Why can’t Ranger’s be dangerous too?

Soilder.3607
Hey mates, I’ve got some good ideas to fairly improve the shortbow.
2 – Changes to, fire an arrow at your foe that explodes on impacting, poisoning (6’s) and blinding (6’s) nearby foes. Recharge increased to 10’s.
4 – Changes to, fire an arrow that immobilizes your target (2’s). Your pet’s next three attacks inflict bleeding.
5 – Changes to, fire an arrow that dazes (1’s) and confuses (3 stacks, 5’s) your foe. Recharge reduced to 20’s. No longer stuns.
That’s it mates. These are simple but I think they’re pretty good and could definitively improve viability.

^^ this guy hit the nail on the head. Keep the poison on the two skill give it an added aoe blind for utility. The cripple on the 4 skill is way too weak. An immobilize would be fantastic! The five skill adding another condition like confusion would justify it’s 20/25 second cooldown.

Link to his post:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Shortbow-Rework/first#post3153460

See barely even anyone responds when they see short bow any more, they have given up…… us 3 should join them….

One change that Ive been thinking about is the #3, half the time when you use it your enemy is still in your face, leaving you without too many options. What if after the evade, it force swaps your weapons without affecting the weapon swap cd (and increase the base cooldown of the skill to like 15s)? That way you can quickly shortbow #3 into a swoop or lb knockback or whatever on your second set to your advantage (and if your swaps not on cd you can immediately switch back to the sb)

I have never used Longbow actively and I will always use Shortbow. Even after dec 10th I will keep using SB over LB (except in some tower defense situations in WvW). Although I like Shortbows utility and skills, I too think it needs some love. Longbow has recently gained (and will get soon) some nice buffs, so when’s Shortbows turn? But then again I do believe Shortbow got nerfed (twice) to make Longbow more appealing, so it’s unlikely SB would get a buff.

I still use shortbow, i try and try to get the feel of the longbow but i just cant use it, too slow for me and sucks. Sadly SB i dont think will receive must changes, the class overall is receiving more nerfs than anything so doubt it.

Yup, the lack of bow talk in general makes me sad.

To realize that my playstyle of circle kiting and primary bow dps is not accepted in any way shape or form is kind of disheartening.

It doesn’t even look like future concern will be placed on consolidating the MM traits for bows, improving general skills on bows, or even improving something that should be integral to the shortbow, moment of clarity either, because all the talk I’ve seen is all melee or pets.

People don’t view a ranger as a primary bow wielder at all anymore, and that is saddening.

They need to up the range and return crossfire back before they lied about the change.

I just think … It’s supposed to be use with some condition … Not purely raw dmg.

If u r full berserk then u should use LB

Why?

No seriously. Why if the SB is one of the top 3 ranger weapons does it need more love at this stage?

Now, if you mean we need a new SB legendary, I can agree. Any self-respecting ranger that flounces around with a pony-shooting set of butterfly wings should re-roll mesmer.

If more skills for LB and SB will work like Quick Shot (SB#3), I’m very happy. Though QS on SB could get some improvement on disengage ange (I think 400-600 would be veery fine), I adore this skill, mostly for one thing : “Usable when retreating”. It basiclly means, applied to other Bow skills like Crippling Shot, Concussive Shot, Point Blank Shot, Hunter’s Shot, that NONE of them would ever BREAK and go on full/Gcd. It’d be such a great improvement, merging this with some trait or just giving it straight to basic LB and SB. Imagine, 100% usability when facing teleporting thief. Never again, slowing yourself just to execute skill. That would be insane

Making a couple skills of short bow 1200 range would even it out a bit.

KyreneZA.8617:

Why?

No seriously. Why if the SB is one of the top 3 ranger weapons does it need more love at this stage?

Now, if you mean we need a new SB legendary, I can agree. Any self-respecting ranger that flounces around with a pony-shooting set of butterfly wings should re-roll mesmer.

But then you wouldn’t be able to use said short bow!

Too bad guardians don’t use short bow I would so get it.

KyreneZA.8617:

Why?

No seriously. Why if the SB is one of the top 3 ranger weapons does it need more love at this stage?

Now, if you mean we need a new SB legendary, I can agree. Any self-respecting ranger that flounces around with a pony-shooting set of butterfly wings should re-roll mesmer.

Being the top 3 amongst weapons that are lackluster and obsolete in some cases doesn’t say much for the shortbow. They need to bring back the original range and return crossfire back to what it was before they “fixed an animation” while in reality nerfing the damage output because they felt spamming “1” didn’t fit their idea of how the ranger should be played.

Not that reality has much to do with this game; but I applauded when Short Bows were given less range than Long Bows. It made perfect sense. A larger bow size means greater string size, and the farther a string can pull its arrow back, the greater the arrow’s velocity and the farther it will fly. That said, Short Bows should have been boosted in other ways to make up for the loss of range. Still waiting for that.

KyreneZA.8617:

Why?

No seriously. Why if the SB is one of the top 3 ranger weapons does it need more love at this stage?

Now, if you mean we need a new SB legendary, I can agree. Any self-respecting ranger that flounces around with a pony-shooting set of butterfly wings should re-roll mesmer.

The SB needs lots of love. The only reasoning to take it is for the auto-attack. Every other skill except #3 is very weak.

Poison Volley – Most effective when used right next to your target, which is completely illogical considering that you’re supposed to attack from range and kite with the weapon.

Crippling Shot – Cripple is the weakest condition in the game, next to useless if you’d ask me. The pet bleeds are fine, but since pets are very unreliable, that make’s the skill pretty weak.

Concussion Shot – A meager daze/stun on a fairly high cool down for just one second. Other classes can get way better than this, and we should too.

Let’s compare to the thief shortbow.

1. Pretty weak auto-attack, but it bounces to make up for that.

1. Most spammable blast finisher in the game. EXTREMELY strong.

1. Fairly spammable evade and cripple, EXTREMELY strong.

1. AoE poison field, which, due to their spammable blast finisher, makes for aoe weakness. VERY strong.

1. 900 range teleport, not spammable, but still useable. Gets you out of immobilizes and sticky situations. EXTREMELY strong.

Henri Blanche.8276:

Not that reality has much to do with this game; but I applauded when Short Bows were given less range than Long Bows. It made perfect sense. A larger bow size means greater string size, and the farther a string can pull its arrow back, the greater the arrow’s velocity and the farther it will fly. That said, Short Bows should have been boosted in other ways to make up for the loss of range. Still waiting for that.

Why do I always have to read something like that? It’s plain nonsense. I’m traditional archer myself, practical and theoretical, since about 17 years. The most shortbows are build in a composite-style, other materials than wood is used, like leather and bone to give the arrow a better acceleration. A shortbow shoots at least the distance a longbow does, even further in most cases, but a longbow hits harder. This is (except the range…) already in the game, the longbow is better for sieges, which is even seen in the skills ingame, while a shortbow is used for skirmishing, shooting from horsebacks, open areas, not as good for sieges as the longbow is due to most commonly heavier arrows of the longbow. If you shoot over a castle wall with a shortbow, the arrow is just flying over the whole castle, while the arrows of a longbow are designed to come down in a different angle. Just to clarify that a shortbow doesn’t need to have a shorter range than a longbow.

The axe dagger combo is much stronger and offers better conditions/utility than the shortbow. Traits for the shortbow are located in the power and precision tree’s which fits for the longbow but not for the shortbow. In order to make it a viable weapon in condition builds you have to build around precision which forces you to give up a lot of survive-ability.

The cripple on the four skill is too weak and should be replaced with a short 2s immobilize
There should be a trait located in wilderness survival that makes the shortbow bleed with crossfire regardless of direction.
The cooldown on the 5 skill is much too long for such a short interrupt.