Guild Wars 2

Yeah, coz dmg is everything… I can’t count how many times I downed stealthed players by using LB 2. just before they went invisible.
Dodgin out of 5.? I play mostly WvW, and with all the AoE there, I’m fine if someone dodges my attack, coz it means he jumed into another AoE.
LB 4. can be used to take players down from wall, even when you are under them. Just need some positioning and luck to them standing in right spot. Situational, but worth mentioning. Tbh, 1500 range alone makes LB far superior in any siege or zerg vs zerg for me. LB 1. can crit even 4k on glass cannons (not uplvl’d), when I’m not GC.
Sure, I’d love LB to be also great weapon for 1v1, but life isn’t that beautiful :p And ofc some buff wouldn’t hurt.

Terkov.4138:

Dodgin out of 5.? I play mostly WvW, and with all the AoE there, I’m fine if someone dodges my attack, coz it means he wasted a dodge on a “soft” AoE.

fyp
When theres a lot of action, I’d actually never dodge out of Barrage. There’s way worse skills out there and if you dodge out of a barrage, you might find yourself bullush-100bladed without a way out, cause you just burned your last endurance.
Barrage is, like most stuff of the ranger, consistant damage over a longer time. It makes the opponent feel VERY unvomfortable to stand in a barrage and just soak up the damage, while at the same time, dodging out might only make matters worse, if the ranger plays it right.
Dodge out of barrage even in a duel and I will ping you a knockback shot to the head, vuln into rapid fire. If you dodged towards me, you are actually right back in the barrage.

Btw most fun I ever had with knockback shot was when some guy tried to jump at me from a wall and got lifted straight back mid-air.

Oh rly? Then what is “not-soft” AoE? Barrage has good dmg (not imba, but still good), cripple that helps to keep targets inside and big radious, that is very helpful when using it on walls.
You can dodge easily any ground targetted AoE, and LB 5. isn’t any “worse” in this matter.
Also, most ppl don’t know if it’s barrage or AC shooting at them.

A not soft AoE would be churning earth, for instance.
Eruption, Concussion Bomb/Big ol’ Bomb, Judgment, Dragon’s tooth+phoenix…
Stuff which can outright spell doom to you if you miss the dodge.
Also Well of Corruption, which gets worse, the longer you stay in it.

I’d rather sit in a barrage than take a churning earth or eruption to the face.
Of course, it also depends on the situation. If theres a lot of bodies around to soak up damage, just try to get out but don’t burn endurance/cooldowns. If you are the only one, you should obviously gtfo asap^^

@naphack: I used “fine” for all of them that didn’t “suck” … it was a “fine”/“sucks” binary description :-p

I think the affect of 10% vulnerability is being somewhat exaggerated. It is a 10% increase in damage in a game where people live by not taking damage.

@Durzlla:
There’s no doubt that it can hit hard at long range in berserker gear. The issues are this:

• It is near impossible to keep an enemy at that max range if they are coming after you.
• Berserker makes you glassy and longbow only has a knockback
  • This is made worse, as the devs mentioned in an interview, by the lackluster utilities given to the ranger that don’t help compensate for this.
  • You could use protect me (now pet is dead) and/or singet of stone with 30 in marks but that’s a long cooldown and you’re dead if they hit you before/after those 6 seconds.

Shortbow provides more control and procs can provide a significant amount of damage.

Sebrent.3625:

Please acknowledge that while longbow’s rapid fire shows you a big number at the end of all of its hits, that it took you a 5 sec channel to do that damage. Yeah, the number is big, but it’s after a 5 second channel. It is extremely lackluster.

Please acknowledge that while longbow’s #5 is a nice AOE that also cripples, a foe can easy dodge roll out of it. Additionally, you have to stand still to channel it, making yourself a sitting target.

Please acknowledge that while longbow hits harder per hit, the shortbow hits more often.

• The higher hit rate of the short bow makes it better direct damage at short/medium range than Longbow … and equivalent (at worst) at long range
• The higher hit rate of the short bow makes it better for on-crit and on-hit affects (bleed, pet might, sigils)
• If someone is not facing you (trying to escape or fighting one of your allies), shortbow easily outdamages longbow via the additional bleeds … even if you have +0 condition damage

Rundown:

• Longbow #1 sucks … Shortbow #1 is great
• Longbow #2 sucks … Shortbow #2 fine (up to 10 seconds of poison)
• Longbow #3 is fine (vulnerability) … Shortbow #3 is fine (free evade & swiftness)
• Longbow #4 is fine (short range KB) … Shortbow #4 is fine (cripple & poison)
• Longbow #5 is fine (AOE dmg & cripple) … Shortbow #5 is fine (daze/stun)

So shortbow has all 5 skills that are fine while Longbow’s #3, #4, and #5 are really the only skills that are fine. I’d prefer to have 100% useful than 60%.

I did the math and LB 2 actually has a DPS nearly identical to SB autoattacking. Your posts are very biased imo claiming stuff sucks that really doesn’t.

Durzlla.6295:

Um guys…. If you use anything other than Barrage, 3, or auto attack at long range (1000-1500) you’re going to be doing worse DPS than you could.

At long range you may not even want to use barrage, you may only wanna use #3 and #1, now I would post all my test results…. But I was an idiot and posted them directly into what ever thread I commented on like 3 months ago….

But trust me, LB #1 is REALLY good at long range and will outshine SB#1 without fail (assuming you’re using berserker gear and aren’t going for procs).

You sure about this? I did some fast calculations on the skill modifiers per second and if my numbers were right it was something along:

SB autoattack: 0.76 per second
LB autoattack: 0.72/0.52/0.4 per second (Note that even on long range it is inferior not factoring in bleeds if you flank)
Using LB Rapid Fire: 0.75 per second (3.75 over 5 seconds)

Now you can add another 10% with the vulnerability stacks and another 5% with the trait for longbow but you still won’t have this up all the time and shortbow will get additional dmg from ocasional bleeds.

However just looking at this I find Sebrents wording that “SB 1 is awesome” and “LB 2 sucks” extremly missleading. They are on a equal level and the only problem is that you can only use LB Rapid Fire every 10 (8 when traited) seconds (thus the advice to change playstyle comapred to SB).

Sebrent.3625:

@naphack: I used “fine” for all of them that didn’t “suck” … it was a “fine”/“sucks” binary description :-p

You did not.
That’s what started my whole rant :P
The only one, you regarded as “great” was sb autoattack, probably as a way to point out, just how broken LB auto is in your opinion.

Dojo.1867:

• SB gets hit harder by quickness nerf because it is more directed towards continues autoattack pressure than swapping it, use the skill rotation and swap back again

SB was always bugged and never got that 100% increase to quickness. Now, after the nerf, it feels more like 30% instead of 50, but never ran timed tests to prove it.

Also, the beuty if the LB+quickness was the synergy of the channels and chain CC from pets. I could use 4, activate QZ, channel barrage with a canine/spider CCing again the target, swap, get 2 more seconds of quickness and another CC from the pet to give enough time for skill 2.

That was a great combo in wvw/spvp, giving us a good burst (comparable to other classes) now severly crippled to the point of not being viable anymore, while SB was always bad with quickness.

Dojo.1867:

Sebrent.3625:

Please acknowledge that while longbow’s rapid fire shows you a big number at the end of all of its hits, that it took you a 5 sec channel to do that damage. Yeah, the number is big, but it’s after a 5 second channel. It is extremely lackluster.

Please acknowledge that while longbow’s #5 is a nice AOE that also cripples, a foe can easy dodge roll out of it. Additionally, you have to stand still to channel it, making yourself a sitting target.

Please acknowledge that while longbow hits harder per hit, the shortbow hits more often.

• The higher hit rate of the short bow makes it better direct damage at short/medium range than Longbow … and equivalent (at worst) at long range
• The higher hit rate of the short bow makes it better for on-crit and on-hit affects (bleed, pet might, sigils)
• If someone is not facing you (trying to escape or fighting one of your allies), shortbow easily outdamages longbow via the additional bleeds … even if you have +0 condition damage

Rundown:

• Longbow #1 sucks … Shortbow #1 is great
• Longbow #2 sucks … Shortbow #2 fine (up to 10 seconds of poison)
• Longbow #3 is fine (vulnerability) … Shortbow #3 is fine (free evade & swiftness)
• Longbow #4 is fine (short range KB) … Shortbow #4 is fine (cripple & poison)
• Longbow #5 is fine (AOE dmg & cripple) … Shortbow #5 is fine (daze/stun)

So shortbow has all 5 skills that are fine while Longbow’s #3, #4, and #5 are really the only skills that are fine. I’d prefer to have 100% useful than 60%.

I did the math and LB 2 actually has a DPS nearly identical to SB autoattacking. Your posts are very biased imo claiming stuff sucks that really doesn’t.

I claim the longbow auto-attack sucks and that the longbow #2 sucks.

You reply with information about longbow #1 being worse than shortbow #1 at all ranges and Longbow #2 being the same as shortbow #1.

What did I claim “sucked” that doesn’t?

Why would someone take a weapon with an inferior auto-attack and a #2 that is a 5 second channel that is only as good as the auto-attack of the other weapon?

That “sucks” :-p

No. Actually autoattacking means maxing DPS for most weapons (exspecially ranger SB, all other attacks will lower DPS). So if LB #2 skills allows it to be on par with SB damage wise on EVERY range I doubt this sucks. On top of that it can hit stealthing targets which is an incredible advantage. It doesn’t suck. It basically makes LB a SB for those 5 seconds while still offering the LB skills.

Dojo.1867:

SB autoattack: 0.76 per second
LB autoattack: 0.72/0.52/0.4 per second (Note that even on long range it is inferior not factoring in bleeds if you flank)
Using LB Rapid Fire: 0.75 per second (3.75 over 5 seconds)

Don’t forget that longbows have higher base weapon damage than short bows too.

Aegis.9724:

SB was always bugged and never got that 100% increase to quickness. Now, after the nerf, it feels more like 30% instead of 50, but never ran timed tests to prove it.

I have. Your “feel” is pretty close. Quickness increases short bow attack speed by 31.3% (used to be 62.6%).

I use both, if one isn’t working out I just switch.