Guild Wars 2

Please remove the “only bleed when standing to the side or behind” a target on shortbow. Alot of enemies wont even aggro to your pet so then you’re just doing wimpy direct damage and can’t do the bleeds. I really like shortbow and think it’s a viable weapon for ranger but the “from the side thing” is just really meh.

The only condition weapon with a conditional condition.

They won’t do it, or you could maintain at least 12+ stacks of bleed constantly.

SB needs range increase, direct damage increase, and some way to get you in/out of dodge (the #3 skill doesn’t cut it).

The problem with it right now is it is a skirmishing weapon that can’t skirmish very well. Smart people know to pop reflect, retaliation, or stealth and you are SOL. If you DO manage to hurt them they run and you simply cannot chase them. They will pop block or something and there goes the crippling and daze shot.

AOE might be nice since it seems all the other bows have it.

Gotejjeken.1267:

They won’t do it, or you could maintain at least 12+ stacks of bleed constantly.

SB needs range increase, direct damage increase, and some way to get you in/out of dodge (the #3 skill doesn’t cut it).

The problem with it right now is it is a skirmishing weapon that can’t skirmish very well. Smart people know to pop reflect, retaliation, or stealth and you are SOL. If you DO manage to hurt them they run and you simply cannot chase them. They will pop block or something and there goes the crippling and daze shot.

AOE might be nice since it seems all the other bows have it.

I agree with basically everything you’ve said here, except I don’t think it needs AoE.

However:
- Shortbow used to be 1,200 range, they nerfed it.
- Shortbow used to attack faster, they nerfed it.

At launch SB was the only weapon worth using on ranger, and it was good. Anet didn’t like the fact that rangers had a weapon that you basically just spammed 1 and didn’t use the rest of the bar because it wasn’t “exciting gameplay.” They didn’t really fix the problem they just nerfed it so it’s not used as much.

As for the OP’s point, I have to agree with Gotejjeken, it would be too powerful that way. However, that doesn’t mean I think it’s fine as it is. I think Anet needs to revisit the SB and make some modifications to make it a more reliable condi weapon because it certainly can’t compete with LB as a power weapon.

Gotejjeken.1267:

They won’t do it, or you could maintain at least 12+ stacks of bleed constantly.

SB needs range increase, direct damage increase, and some way to get you in/out of dodge (the #3 skill doesn’t cut it).

The problem with it right now is it is a skirmishing weapon that can’t skirmish very well. Smart people know to pop reflect, retaliation, or stealth and you are SOL. If you DO manage to hurt them they run and you simply cannot chase them. They will pop block or something and there goes the crippling and daze shot.

AOE might be nice since it seems all the other bows have it.

Other classes have weapons that can maintain bleeding and poison at the same time without having to be at the side or behind someone. And I’m talking about pve anyhow.

circuitnerd.5863:

Other classes have weapons that can maintain bleeding and poison at the same time without having to be at the side or behind someone. And I’m talking about pve anyhow.

It’s the attack speed that is the problem/difference.

Other classes weapons don’t attack nearly as fast.

Unspecified.9142:

circuitnerd.5863:

Other classes have weapons that can maintain bleeding and poison at the same time without having to be at the side or behind someone. And I’m talking about pve anyhow.

It’s the attack speed that is the problem/difference.

Other classes weapons don’t attack nearly as fast.

A sword/sword warrior is the stronger condi spec in PvE and has little issue keeping 15+ bleed stacks.

The shortbow may attack fast but it only applies one stack and its duration is pretty miserable.

The problem with the shortbow is the same as the mainhand axe, it’s a hybrid weapon and hybrid weapons suck because they neither bring enough condi spam and variety of conditions nor do they possess high power coefficients.

The issue was the same with Maul on greatsword doing bleeds on a power weapon until they changed it.

That’s what needs to happen with the ranger.

Alternatively they could merge condi damage and power into simply Power so hybrid weapons don’t suck because both condi damage and direct damage would scale from the same offensive stat.

Even as a hybrid weapon, I feel the SB doesn’t really have a role. Like MH axe for instance has a role as a utility weapon. You have a shotgun bleed, a chill, and whatever might stacking you can get out of the AA. This lets you set up combos with other weapons.

SB on the other hand is supposed to be ranged pressure, however its only 900 range. IF you are at 900 range, the #2 skill is useless, because for that you have to be pretty point blank. So if you are point blank, you use the #3 skill to get out of range, however the #4 skill is a cripple so you need to be in range to take advantage of it…

The only thing that makes any sense is the #5 skill. It’s an interrupt. Yay.

I REALLY want some kind of buff to make the SB usable. It was my first ascended weapon, and I have a sigil of torment on it, which could be really useful if it had any followup whatsoever.

So I go back to the AOE thing and wish that maul was a blast finisher. This would at least allow field setup and blast…some kind of synergy between a pure melee weapon and a ranged weapon that is only effective if you are 3 feet from melee range.

So, thieves get Ricochet, which is a 50% chance that the projectile from a pistol will bounce to a maximum of 3 extra targets and increases the range to 1050, master trait.

Mesmer gets Duelist’s Discipline which increases pistol range from 900 to 1200 for both them and their illusions and also reduces the recharge by 20% as a master trait.

Seems crazy that they can shoot further with a PISTOL and a trait, than a ranger can with a short bow.

I suggest having Eagle eye as “Your Longbow attacks have +25% additional range, longbow skills recharge 20% faster and deal 5% more damage.”

Quick Draw could then be changed to “Your Shortbow attacks have +25% additional range, shortbow skills recharge 20% faster and deal 5% more damage.”

Or you could just delete Quick Draw or Eagle Eye and make the other one “Your Bow attacks have +25% additional range, bow skills recharge 20% faster and deal +5% damage.”

I would also make Poison Volley pierce by default and have 3s per arrow, Quick Shot would get 6s swiftness and 3/4s evade, Crippling Shot would have 4s cripple, the pet bleeds removed, adding two stacks of player applied torment for 8s and Concussion Shot would get confusion on interrupt, a large number of stacks, but for a short duration. Like 8 stacks for 2s.

I got stupid idea.

2) 6sec CD: Roll left 450 unit and cause poison 5sec. No evade.
3) 9sec CD: Evade backwards and cause cripple. If this is a flanking strike your pets next attack causes Imobilize 2sec.
4) 6sec CD: Roll right 450 unit and your pets next attack causes bleeding. No evade.

I have been on both sides of the ranger SB and the having to attack from the side make sense…and here is why.

The AA is pretty darn rapid as it is now. most people with put earth sigil on SB to maintain that bleed stack. Imagine not needing the sigil due to changing the SB to apply bleed no matter what. That allows you to put an additional on hit or on crit sigil such as frailty and torment layering in more than enough conditions to allow 25 bleed stacks with only AA. The would require 0 skill to play a class that most ppl dislike as is. plus for only 2 trait points you can have bleed on crit…just saying.

The only way i could see them making this change is to cut the bleed duration in half as well as slightly reduce the attack speed. Also…yes classes like SS Warrior can maintain better condition damage but you are at 900 range and they are not. The SB is in a pretty strong spot as is.

Just remember everything in this game is about balance. If they buff something…they will eventually need to nerf something else to make up for it. And you may not like the buff you get as much as you dislike the impending nerf :/

Treeoflife.4031:

I have been on both sides of the ranger SB and the having to attack from the side make sense…and here is why.

The AA is pretty darn rapid as it is now. most people with put earth sigil on SB to maintain that bleed stack. Imagine not needing the sigil due to changing the SB to apply bleed no matter what. That allows you to put an additional on hit or on crit sigil such as frailty and torment layering in more than enough conditions to allow 25 bleed stacks with only AA. The would require 0 skill to play a class that most ppl dislike as is. plus for only 2 trait points you can have bleed on crit…just saying.

The only way i could see them making this change is to cut the bleed duration in half as well as slightly reduce the attack speed. Also…yes classes like SS Warrior can maintain better condition damage but you are at 900 range and they are not. The SB is in a pretty strong spot as is.

Just remember everything in this game is about balance. If they buff something…they will eventually need to nerf something else to make up for it. And you may not like the buff you get as much as you dislike the impending nerf :/

I don’t give a kitten about your range argument, why do rangers have to suffer for the sake of PvP. A warrior can have plenty of uptime on the target and while he does not have 900 range, MELEE ATTACKS CLEAVE 3 TARGETS IN A CONE, WHICH RANGED WEAPONS DO NOT.

I am sick and tired of this game limiting every kitten class into a terrible state just so that pvp people don’t whine about losing duels/skirmishes.

I don’t think the flanking argument for Shortbow has any weight ever since its attack speed was nerfed to be 0.54s.

• Crossfire applies a 3s bleed only if you’re flanking.
• Crossfire attacks once every 0.54s

Compare this to Elementalist Stone Shards from their Scepter.

• Stone Shards applies 3x bleeds that each last 6s … no flanking required.
• Stone Shards is a 1.9s channel that applies 3 bleeds (0.63s per bleed applied)

Both of these attacks have 900 range.

We’ll ignore that the Elementalist has a trait that increases bleed duration by 20% AND increases damage to bleeding targets by 5% (yep … a single trait that does both of these).

I currently see no reason why the Shortbow still requires flanking to apply a bleed with half the base duration available to Elementalist with a very similar attack.

Don’t compare single skills of different classes, and ignore the whole picture.

Hardly anybody plays bleedstacking condiele and i’m pretty sure, there is a good reason why nobody does it.

Bleedstacking condiranger with shortbow is not so rare and it is definitely not a bad build. Without the flanking requirement it would be way to easy to maintain high bleed stacks just through autoattacks.
Of course shortbow could use some improvements, but i would prefer if it becomes less depending on the autoattack, not more.

@UmbraNoctis:
Your argument is “it would be way to easy to maintain high bleed stacks just through autoattacks” …

… but the math I just showed you shows that we’re getting shortbow attacks every 0.54s that each apply a 3s bleed. So you’re going to stack 5 bleeds from that and the 6th bleed will fall off before you get that 6th attack because:

• 0.54 * 5 = 2.7 … less than 3s bleed duration.
• 0.54 * 6 = 3.24 … more than 3s bleed duration. so the 6th falls off and you still have 5.

If you doubled that with a heavy investment in traits, sigils, runes, etc. then you could get up to 11 stacks of bleed.

• 0.54 * 11 = 5.94 … less than 6s bleed duration
• 0.54 * 12 = 6.48 … more than 6s bleed duration so the 12th falls off and you still have 11

Elementalist is already doing this without flanking.
Warrior is already doing this without flanking (though at melee).
Necromancer is already doing this.
Engineer is already doing this and weaving in all sorts of other conditions as well.

So why exactly do we still need flanking in order to apply our bleed that is half the base duration of others bleeds that don’t require that flanking?

Compare it to the Elementalist I already showed the math for. Since they are applying 1 6s bleed every 0.63s, they can stack 9 bleeds without any additional condition duration.

• 0.63 * 9 = 5.67 … less than the 6s bleed duration
• 0.63 * 10 = 6.3 … more than the 6s bleed duration so the 10th falls off and you still have 9

Now, if that very same Elementalist stacks up to double bleed duration, they have 12s bleeds now so they can then stack up to 19 stacks of bleeding

• 0.63 * 19 = 11.97 … less than the 12s bleed duration
• 0.63 * 20 = 12.6 … more than the 12s bleed duration so the 20th falls off and you still have 19 stacks

So, again, I ask you why the Ranger needs to be flanking someone in order to stack 5 to 9 bleeding from their auto-attack when an Elementalist doesn’t require flanking and they can stack 9 to 19 stacks of bleeding from their auto-attack ?

I fail to see the logic here.

Unless you spec quickness..but that is pretty far into the BM line.

In any case, I agree with less reliance on the auto. It is so easy to counter that it is unreal.

Which is why I keep going back to AOE, as I feel that is the only way to add synergy to the weapon, allow for group situations, and combat stealth mechanics. That is, it is a skirmishing weapon that totally falls apart when the target goes invisible as it is single target LOS. Against thieves this is especially bad as even if they are visible they can just start spinning and you eat your own arrows.

Also the SB is terrible for chasedown an flanking anyway when we could just use either sword to perform that function much, much better. Which is ironic as a melee weapon gives more mobility then a ‘skirmishing’ one.

With regards to the AA, I think it should apply the conditions on hit, without flanking, its silly that it is even still there. While it is not difficult to get the flanking to happen, even while duelling, it is still unnecessary.

The AA should be unconditional with short duration torment AND bleeding, like 2s. We need access to torment to really be a good condi build, relying on bleeds makes it too easy to cleanse all the time.

No torment instead of bleeding, please.

Torment is a useless PvE condition as mobs don’t continually move to make it outDPS bleeding.

All conditions are useless in PvE.

Well, I am still a huge fan of the SB because I like the flexibility it brings to a hybrid build (which is what I like to play).

It’s direct damage is not that bad. It does about 25% less damage than the LB AA (at 1000+ range), which is of course noticably worse but still enough to give people serious problems.

Then there’s the bleeds it applies, which in my opinion are fine just the way they are. It requires more work and postioning than just kitten-a-kitten stand at 900 range and press 1, but if you get it right and make the use of the Rangers soft CC you can get plenty of bleeds out.

Then there’s the insane first rate, which synergies beautifully with Sharpened Edges as it has no ICD. It also helps proc on-hit/crit sigils a little more often, though not as much since they all come with ICDs.

And then there’re the range. I like to kite people and keep constant pressure on, and that does require having a ranged attack. The only other option is the axe, which is no doubt a fantastic condition / BM weapon, but it’s short range. You only appy pressure at <250 range since Split Blade is worthless further than that and the AA is slow and hit’s poorly.

So yeah… it’s not the be-all and end-all of Ranger weapons, but I think it’s fine as it is and has a unique purpose. It might not match every build or playstyle, but no weapon does (or should).

EDIT: If Anet were to change it though, I would suggest changing the #2 or #4. The SB is already a very AA heavy weapon, so buffing the AA seems an stupid idea even if we all agree’ed the SB needed buffing. The #2 doesn’t fit the weapon that well, and the #4 is good but could be better IMO, so look at changing those if anything.

You can stack over 10 bleeds by just autoattacking without considering traits/sigils/food buffs. The only counterplay to that is facing the ranger otherwise everybody will just crumble and die to auto spam.

robertul.3679:

You can stack over 10 bleeds by just autoattacking without considering traits/sigils/food buffs. The only counterplay to that is facing the ranger otherwise everybody will just crumble and die to auto spam.

No. If you don’t have facing in your build, you can also use:
dodge, block, reflect, condition remover, hide behind a wall or summons or circle around the enemy in melee so he can’t hit while he moves.

@robertul:
Please scroll up and look at my post with the math on how many bleeds you can stack with shortbow. You can’t stack over 10 bleeds by just autoattacking with shortbow unless you have roughly +100% duration on those base 3s bleeds. Please also see where I compared that to Elementalist who can stack 9 to 19 bleeds given +0% to +100% duration.

Then please tell me why Elementalist Scepter doesn’t require flanking but Shortbow does.

Given that the Elementalist already starts at 6s bleeds (equivalent to Ranger shortbow capped at +100% duration), why is it that we aren’t seeing people “just crumble to auto spam” from Elementalists?

@Cufufalating:
You got me wanting to crunch the numbers on the direct damage of Shortbow’s AA versus our other weapons:

See spoilers below for full breakdown of the math for each weapon.

• Shortbow—Crossfire DPS (without Flanking) = 248.15 + (0.74 * Pow)
• Longbow—Long Range Shot (1000+) DPS = 317 + (0.9 * Pow)
• Longbow—Long Range Shot (500-1000) DPS = 263 + (0.8 * Pow)
• Longbow—Long Range Shot (0-500) DPS = 211 + (0.7 * Pow)
• Greatsword—full AA chain DPS = 252.34 + (0.68 * Pow)
• Sword—full AA chain DPS = 355 + (1.06 * Pow)

Please note that is an untraited Longbow’s numbers. The longbow specific traits would increase both the base damage and the coefficient by 5% to 15% depending on which trait(s) you took.

It is interesting to note that Shortbow isn’t far behind our other weapons except Sword which we all know is our best DPS weapon. So, when compared to other Ranger power weapons, shortbow isn’t doing too badly.

I’m not sure if this is a good thing though as it could just be that most of our weapon’s power coefficients are lackluster. I’ll have to dig into that sometime I guess.

I find it interesting / odd that Shortbow auto-attacks scale better with Attack Power than Greatsword auto-attacks. This may lend some more credit towards all our claims that Greatsword auto-attacks don’t hit hard enough since it has been made a 100% power weapon ever since Maul was changed to apply Vuln instead of Bleeding. My only possible thought on how this is “okay” is that Greatsword does have some nice direct damage from Maul and Swoop … but I’m not sure that is sufficient without crunching more numbers.

Currently, once you have 70 or more Power, those Shortbow auto-attacks have a higher DPS than Greatsword’s auto-attack chain. I’m fairly confident that I’ve had more than 70 Attack Power on my Ranger for quite some time … even when running gear without Power on it :P

Sebrent.3625:

Please scroll up and look at my post with the math on how many bleeds you can stack with shortbow. You can’t stack over 10 bleeds by just autoattacking with shortbow unless you have roughly +100% duration on those base 3s bleeds.

Skills are not independent from other skills/traits, so you shouldn’t ignore them. With a 0/2/6/6/0 build with rabid amulet, krait rune and earth sigil on the shortbow (which is an actual working build) i could stack 8-14 (average 11-12) bleeds on a golem only with shortbow autoattack. With fury 12-16 stacks. Of course those stacks wear off fast, if you are not constantly shooting, but with the mentioned build it is possible to maintain a high amount of “autoattack spam” even in a real fight. And you can easily add more bleeding and some poison and burning with other skills/sigils, etc.

Sebrent.3625:

Given that the Elementalist already starts at 6s bleeds (equivalent to Ranger shortbow capped at +100% duration), why is it that we aren’t seeing people “just crumble to auto spam” from Elementalists?

Maybe because (almost) nobody plays “auto spam condiele”, because such a build sucks? I don’t know enough about ele, to give you the exact reason, why it doesn’t work well, but i’m sure there is one, otherwise we would see “people crumble to auto spam from ele” more often.

If your argument is skills, traits, sigils, etc. … there is nothing preventing the elementalist from doing the same and proccing more bleeds on their hits.

Krait runes, etc. fall exactly into what I already showed the math for … +% duration.

You actually do see some Condi-Eles running around. They love berserker builds because they can camp in Earth and be immune to critical hits (goodbye 2/3 of zerk stats) via their Grandmaster trait as long as they sit in Earth which they want to camp in anyways to bleed to death with autos.

You also see less of it because metabattle shows people that Dagger/Dagger Celestial is king … as do tournaments and many of the top dueling elementalists.

Back to the main point … people are only saying we should continue to require flanking because otherwise we’d stack too many bleeds from autos … I call bull on this (and show the math to prove it) as others are already capable of stacking far more with autos.

I can’t believe you’re ignoring the fact that an Elementalist with +0% duration is only stacking 2 less bleeds from autos than a Shortbow Ranger with +100% duration.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

All conditions are useless in PvE.

Now. In HoT, we don’t know. What we do know is we’ll never have mobs that permanently move around players to make the effective dps of torment higher than bleeds.

BTW calculating greatsword DPS without mixing Maul in is pointless, it’s like calculating warrior greatsword DPS without 100b. Warrior greatsword DPS is balanced by constant 100b use, otherwise you’d see warriors just camping mainhand axe+mace offhand as mainhand axe has the strongest hitting autoattack chain in the game.

And that’s just theoretical DPS, the practical DPS of mainhand sword takes a big hit due to its animation lock, as people need to stop attacking to make sure they can dodge in time without the animation lock delaying them.

Try to use mainhand sword on fractal 50 mossman or archdiviner. You have to hamper a lot of your DPS just so you can dodge reliably instead of eating an autoattack that can take off 60-70% of your HP out.

If you use greatsword on ranger, you can time your evade portion in a rhythm to the boss’s autoattack patterns, meaning you don’t even need to dodge most of the time, no need to back out or stop attacking.

I have encountered a earth camping condiele only once (thats the reason why i wrote “almost” ^^). Died against him in the first fight, because i didn’t expect a condi ele, but afterwards i won every single time. I played a trap ranger with sb and s/d if i remember correctly.
Have met a few other condiele builds that didn’t rely on autoattack from scepter, which were usually harder to beat, but still not a big problem, at least for a condi survival ranger with sb, even with the flanking requirement.

And i don’t understand why you want to buff the autoattack instead of other shortbow skills.

It’s agreeable and problematic at the same time. It’s only problematic because the Shortbow already doesn’t require any sort of skill rotation to maximize DPS. If there were some other reason to mix in the skills to reach peak damage, then maybe.

Personally, I think the solution is a little more complex than just removing the flanking requirement. I think that actually, the flanking should remain a functional part of the skills effectiveness, but that that non-flanking should get a boost.

These are all just ideas, and I would personally have to see them in action to make a decision, but I think the basis is clear:

• Not flanking, the shortbow applies a 1.5 second bleed (that way stacking duration reductions can never take it below 1 second), flanking remains the same.
• Not flanking, the shortbow applies a 2 second bleed, flanking, the shortbow applies two 2 second bleeds. Less stacking potential, but more consistent damage and potential to “burst” bleeds through positioning.
• Not flanking, the shortbow applies a 1.5 second bleed, flanking, a 3 second bleed and a 1 second cripple.

Other than that, I think that Crippling Shot should make the pets next attack apply stacks of bleeding that scale off of the players condition stat and the cripple should be longer. SB3 should also apply a short duration cripple, and maybe an AoE melee range blind (throwback to Throw Dirt from GW1).

Additionally, I think we should go full flanking theme for the weapon, and what I mean is attaching some additional condition duration extensions or effects on SB2 and 4 (auto and 5 already have effects, and 3 is purely defensive in nature, so unless it’s a defensive function addition, wouldn’t want to contradict its usage). Maybe like a longer poison duration on SB2 if you hit while flanking, or even make this where the weapon gets torment application (additionally, apply torment per hit if flanking). Maybe SB4 if it hits while flanking could cause the pets next attack to also immobilize for a short duration.

Still, lump all this together and you get my ideal weapon.

The sword doesn’t require a skill rotation either for max DPS. They just need to reverse the nerfs to shortbow and it’ll be usable again. As of right now I can’t justify it over the longbow no matter the range to the enemy.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

I have encountered a earth camping condiele only once (thats the reason why i wrote “almost” ^^). Died against him in the first fight, because i didn’t expect a condi ele, but afterwards i won every single time. I played a trap ranger with sb and s/d if i remember correctly.
Have met a few other condiele builds that didn’t rely on autoattack from scepter, which were usually harder to beat, but still not a big problem, at least for a condi survival ranger with sb, even with the flanking requirement.

And i don’t understand why you want to buff the autoattack instead of other shortbow skills.

Because autoattacks are the biggest source of sustained damage. The amount of damage buff you would need to put on a 12-20 sec recharge skill would be so massive to bring the effective DPS up to competitive levels in PvE, that PvP people would be whining right and left about losing 1/3 of their health to a single skill or more just like they do with rapid fire.

This is why the lack of DPS meters has hurt this game so much, people are so ignorant about damage dealing, they just go based off anecdotes.

And it meant very little in PvE. People didn’t have meters, but they still quickly figured out who were the most damaging classes regardless and hierarchies were still formed and necromancers/rangers excluded. Hell, mesmers are only brought for portals and reflects since mesmer sustained damage is terrible, they only have burst.

The lack of damage meters only helps developers so players can’t compile data and post it publicly to contradict what developers say.

I’d be fine with buffing the non-AAs of the shortbow, or simply buffing the AA of shortbow.

I think it would be easier and less error-prone for ANet to simply buff Crossfire. I think it would also give us something that we are lacking … a weapon that applies conditions via its auto-attack (without flanking).

I have always found it frustrating when I’m running a full condition build that all of my auto-attacks are just doing horrible direct damage unless my opponent is for whatever reason not even looking at me … in which case I could be horribly UP and kill that player … because they’re likely afk.

@Zenith:
I’m not a fan of that 1.5s bleed. I again direct you guys to look at the math for the other classes. Their auto-attacks allow them to do far more than that. They are already getting twice the bleed per auto-attack as Ranger shortbow but without requiring flanking. I don’t see why we couldn’t have our bleed, which is half the duration of theirs, without the flanking requirement … then work from there buffing Crossfire and/or the other Shortbow skills.

Sebrent.3625:

I’d be fine with buffing the non-AAs of the shortbow, or simply buffing the AA of shortbow.

I think it would be easier and less error-prone for ANet to simply buff Crossfire. I think it would also give us something that we are lacking … a weapon that applies conditions via its auto-attack (without flanking).

I have always found it frustrating when I’m running a full condition build that all of my auto-attacks are just doing horrible direct damage unless my opponent is for whatever reason not even looking at me … in which case I could be horribly UP and kill that player … because they’re likely afk.

@Zenith:
I’m not a fan of that 1.5s bleed. I again direct you guys to look at the math for the other classes. Their auto-attacks allow them to do far more than that. They are already getting twice the bleed per auto-attack as Ranger shortbow but without requiring flanking. I don’t see why we couldn’t have our bleed, which is half the duration of theirs, without the flanking requirement … then work from there buffing Crossfire and/or the other Shortbow skills.

I agree, the flanking is stupid, as are flanking traits in a game where you stack for maximum benefit and protection and in order to sit inside reflect walls.

Aye, I dislike the +%damage when flanking Ranger trait as much as I dislike the Mesmer +%damage when target isn’t using an ability.

I think both traits are garbage.

Sebrent.3625:

They are already getting twice the bleed per auto-attack as Ranger shortbow but without requiring flanking. I don’t see why we couldn’t have our bleed, which is half the duration of theirs, without the flanking requirement

You pretty much answered your own question when you worked out the SBs DPS earlier. The Ranger SB is not a condition weapon, it’s a hybrid weapon.

The Engineers pistol or Necromancers Scepter or Eles Dagger / Scepter.. they do put on much longer bleeds with no flanking but they do truely aweful direct damage. It’s because they are full on condition weapons whereas the Ranger SB just isnt. It’s a hybrid weapon so of course it doesn’t do conditions as well.

The exception here is the Warriors sword which does both insanely well. I suppose ANet sees that as balanced by the fact it’s a melee weapon. Personally I am not convinced it’s entirely balance but thats a problem with their sword not our SB.

Also, it is a fair comment that Rangers actually do lack a condition-only MH weapon. We only have the Axe and SB, both of which I would class as hybrids rather than purely condition based. So in that sense I see where you’re all coming from in wanting more from the SB, but it’s not because the SB is broken at the moment.. it’s because it was never designed to be the pure condition weapon you all want.

If I were you, I’d look at getting the MH axe AA changed instead… You could drops it’s power coefficent right down (because who actually cares about it anyway) and maybe make it apply torment of the first hit, bleed on the second and weakness on the final bounce. Or something. Something to make it the condition weapon you all want rather than a slightly awkward hybrid. The Axe is a far better candidate for going condition-only than the SB.

Maybe it is a hybrid, but that would only explain why the bleed from it is half the duration of those applied by the full condition weapons. Why must it be both half and require flanking? That doesn’t make sense. It’s already penalized with the half duration.

The short duration is balanced by it’s much faster attack speed, the flank balances the hybrid-ness.

Necro Scepter does 5s bleeds, but only attacks once per seconds. If crossfire did 6s bleeds (double, like you are suggesting) every 0.54s then thats clearly taking the kitten.

Cufufalating.8479:

Sebrent.3625:

They are already getting twice the bleed per auto-attack as Ranger shortbow but without requiring flanking. I don’t see why we couldn’t have our bleed, which is half the duration of theirs, without the flanking requirement

You pretty much answered your own question when you worked out the SBs DPS earlier. The Ranger SB is not a condition weapon, it’s a hybrid weapon.

The Engineers pistol or Necromancers Scepter or Eles Dagger / Scepter.. they do put on much longer bleeds with no flanking but they do truely aweful direct damage. It’s because they are full on condition weapons whereas the Ranger SB just isnt. It’s a hybrid weapon so of course it doesn’t do conditions as well.

The exception here is the Warriors sword which does both insanely well. I suppose ANet sees that as balanced by the fact it’s a melee weapon. Personally I am not convinced it’s entirely balance but thats a problem with their sword not our SB.

Also, it is a fair comment that Rangers actually do lack a condition-only MH weapon. We only have the Axe and SB, both of which I would class as hybrids rather than purely condition based. So in that sense I see where you’re all coming from in wanting more from the SB, but it’s not because the SB is broken at the moment.. it’s because it was never designed to be the pure condition weapon you all want.

If I were you, I’d look at getting the MH axe AA changed instead… You could drops it’s power coefficent right down (because who actually cares about it anyway) and maybe make it apply torment of the first hit, bleed on the second and weakness on the final bounce. Or something. Something to make it the condition weapon you all want rather than a slightly awkward hybrid. The Axe is a far better candidate for going condition-only than the SB.

You are forgetting mesmer scepter which is considered to be a hybrid weapon, only difference is it scales really well with power stat too, our SB doesn’t.

Genuinely not sure why you think the Mesmer Scepter has good power scaling.

I mean sure it has decent coefficients, but concidering the SB attacks well over twice as fast, the SB blows the Mesmer Scepter right out of the water in terms of direct damage.

I didn’t suggest anything about the Shortbow having a 6s bleed nor double bleeds.

I simply don’t think its bleed on Crossfire should require flanking.

TheFantasticGman.9451:

The sword doesn’t require a skill rotation either for max DPS. They just need to reverse the nerfs to shortbow and it’ll be usable again. As of right now I can’t justify it over the longbow no matter the range to the enemy.

If it was up to me, I wouldn’t have designed any of the weapons in the game to reach maximum DPS just from autoattacking. Even if it’s just a single button press rotation, it’s still a more interactive experience and preferable to anything being “auto to win.”

Cufufalating.8479:

Genuinely not sure why you think the Mesmer Scepter has good power scaling.

I mean sure it has decent coefficients, but concidering the SB attacks well over twice as fast, the SB blows the Mesmer Scepter right out of the water in terms of direct damage.

It doesnt. The scepter 3 skill scales really well with power. AA is out of the question because it sucks and 2 is a block. I know this is a dumb comparison but if the AA was good it will blow out SB out of the water assuming you get all hits for scepter 3. Also if 2 isnt a block. It gets to hit for 4k to 5k iirc full zerk.

My point is.,SB could use some love when it comes to scaling too.

At the same time mesmer scepter has only 3 skills too compared to our SB which has 5

I somewhat disagree with you jcbroe.

I think the weapons that do their damage from AAs are designed to slowly wear a player down while using the rest of their skills to (1) Stick to their target and/or (2) Avoid their target’s burst.

I think the weapons that don’t just do their damage from AAs are designed to win through landing their burst. It’s two different playstyles.

• Burst vs Burst … need to land my burst and avoid yours.
• Burst vs Sustain … need to keep my sustain up while avoiding your bursts … will likely have to avoid more of your bursts than if I was a burst build.
• Sustain vs Burst … need to land my bursts before you wear me down with your sustain.
• Sustain vs Sustain … need to keep my sustain up on you … disrupting each other’s sustain and/or throwing in little “mini-bursts” will help decide … example: Shortbow vs Shortbow I’ll beat you if I do a better job with my Poison Volley than you do with yours as the Poison will give me the edge.

This is also reflected quite well in the differences between my Power Shatter Mesmer and my On-clone-death Condition Mesmer. With my Power Shatter Mesmer, I can jump in, burst, and jump out and the player feels the pressure because I just tore a chunk out of them. With my On-clone-death Condition Mesmer, I have to stay “stuck in” to keep the pressure on them.

@Sebrent

You just asked why the SB had half the bleed duration of other AAs. I interprited that to mean you thought it shouldn’t be half, and therefore assumed you wanted it doubled. In any case, I anwered your question.

@StickerHappy
Well now we’re sort of comparing apples with oranges if we are comparing a #3 skill to the AA, but still, I take your point.

One could argue, though, that the scepters damage is much easier to avoid which is what balances it’s superior theoritical performance (just as melee attacks are all better on paper and are blaanced by hpw hard they are to land), as it comes in the form of a very long, obvious, interuptable / avoidable channel, which has a CD. The SB, on the other hand, actually has no real counter play you can use.

And in any case, I have already conceded that the SBs other skills could use some love, rather than the AA.

Oh, I think you misinterpreted what I said; likely my fault.

I was pointing out that the Shortbow bleed is already half the duration … so, given that already significant disadvantage, why must it also have the disadvantage of requiring you to flank your target in order to bleed them.

Heck, it enables an enemy to mitigate a significant amount of damage by looking at you. If we were warriors with Fast Hands, I wouldn’t care as much, but I’m locked in my shortbow for 10s. I’m quite aggravated that the skill floor for mitigating my damage is “face him”.

Well, my original answer still is the answer.

The short duration of the bleeds is purely to balance the SBs attack speed. Clearly it can’t be applying bleeds of the same duration as other weapons but firing twice as fast as them. So the short duration is purely a reaction to it’s attack speed.

The flanking, on the other hand, is a balance for the fact that the SB has a very high power scaling compared to other classes bleed-AAs. If you remove the flanking you need to remove the high direct damage to bring it in line, which is ultimately what I am against here.

It is roughly the same attack speed as the Elementalist scepter which has less damage but allows double the bleed duration.

It is faster attack speed and hits harder than the Necromancer scepter but the Necromancer scepter applies almost twice the duration and poison on top of its bleeds (can’t underestimate poison).

It is a little faster and hits harder than Elixir Gun, but Elixir gun applies almost double the duration in bleeding and can keep up perma-weakness on its target.

It is already balanced with these others in other ways. I don’t see why it needs to flanking restriction as well. Back when shortbow attacked even faster … sure. Now? No. It doesn’t appear to still be warranted.

Y’all must be talking about changes needed for PVP… Cause in PVE it really just needs the previous nerfs reversed and it’s good to go.

@TheFantasticGman:
Which previous nerfs?
Attack Speed?
Range back to 1,200?
Both?

If they removed those, I’d be very happy with my shortbow again.

Yeah, those two specifically. The “animation fix” and the range nerf… which were pretty much done to make the long bow look better as admitted by, I think, John Sharp.

They could remove the base flanking requirement for the bleed on Crossfire, lower the damage a bit, then have it do additional damage(or an additional condition) to flanked targets.

Might be interesting for them to add additional mechanics to encourage the ranger to flank beyond the one passive damage trait.