Guild Wars 2

Hello folks,

After my previous Rifle War vs Shortbow Ranger tests, I wanted to continue in the spirit of science and research. I wanted to compare damages of Longbow vs Shortbow. In order to try out a larger variety of parameters, I opted to calculate everything instead of testing things out. Anyways, as before, I shall explain my methodology and post my results! So if you’re not interested in the methodology, feel free to skip to the results section. If you’re not interested in the results and just want to know what all these numbers mean, skip to the conclusion.

Methodology

First, it was decided to look at the damages of 1 skill on the Shortbow (Crossfire) vs 3 skills on the longbow (Long shot, Rapid Shot, Barrage). The reasoning is that the other skills weren’t optimal for DPS (Shortbow everything else, Longbow knock-back) or the experimentalist was too lazy to deal with factors such as vulnerability (Hunter’s shot).

First, the damage of each skill was recorded. Then, the amount of time each skill took was recorded for Rapid Shot and Barrage. Afterwards, the shots/sec of Crossfire and Long Shot were observed and recorded. Listed below are the data gathered. Character had no traits and no equipment (0 power, precision, cond dmg, crit dmg)

Crossfire: 134 dmg, 1.93 shots/sec
Bleed: 43 dmg, 7 stacks max
Long-Shot: 176/229/317 dmg, 0.8 shots/sec
Rapid-Shot: 1320 dmg, 5s cast time
Barrage: 1692 dmg, 2.75s cast time

After the above data was gathered, the numbers were put into a series of formulas that calculated the total damage in a 9s and 30s skill rotation.

9s was chosen because it’s the time required for a weapon swap. It’s the time you have to swap into the longbow, use all your skills, and swap back again.

30s was chosen because it is the cd for Barrage. So if someone is using longbow 24/7, this is the total skill rotation time.

In both rotations, Shortbow damage is calculated by:

Crossfire Damage * Shots/sec * Time + Bleed Damage * Bleed Stacks * Time

WARNING: bleed damage is a bit iffy. When a target dies, a bunch of bleed damage is essentially wasted. This effect is pretty significant on targets that die fast, but negligible in targets with tons of hp. For the purposes of these calculations (because the experimentalist is lazy) this wasn’t taken into account.

In the 9s rotation, Longbow damage is calculated by

Long Shot Dmg * Shots/sec * (9s-5s-2.75s) + Rapid Shot Dmg + Barrage Dmg

In the 30s rotation, Longbow damage is calculated by

Long Shot Dmg * Shots/sec * (30s-10s-2.75s) + 2 * Rapid Shot Dmg + Barrage Dmg

The biggest different between a 9s and a 30s rotation is the percentage of total damage Long Shot contributes to. In a 30s rotation, Long Shot contributes much more to the dmg than it does in a 9s rotation.

Two values were used for the parameters of Bleed Stacks and Long Shot Dmg, to see the effects of positioning.

For Bleed Stacks, a value of 0 and 7 was used. 7 is if all attacks are flanking, and 0 is no attack is from flanking.

For Long Shot Dmg, 176 and 317 was used. 176 is damage in short-range, 317 is damage in long range.

After everything was calculated, several sets of stats were applied to the total damage. A total of 6 stat sets were used: no stats, Berserkers, Rampagers, Valkyrie, Carrion, and Rabid. The equipment is assumed to be full exotic armor (1003 primary stat, 697 secondary stat, 78% crit dmg)

Power, Precision, and Crit Dmg were applied to the total Longbow damage, and the Crossfire damage excluding Bleed. Cond Dmg was applied to Crossfire’s bleed.

Results
The following list is the calculated DPS for each stat set, weapon, and situation. For the Shortbow, 7 stacks situation, the percentages of damage done by direct damage and bleed are shown. For the longbow, “Long” means Long-Shot’s long-range dmg (317) was used, and “Short” means 176 was used.

No stats
Shortbow, 7 stacks: 562 (47% direct, 53% bleed)
Shortbow, 0 stacks: 264
Longbow, 9s, Long: 377
Longbow, 30s, Long: 296
Longbow, 9s, Short: 361
Longbow, 30s, Short: 230

Berserker
Shortbow, 7 stacks: 1097 (73% direct, 27% bleed)
Shortbow, 0 stacks: 799
Longbow, 9s, Long: 1141
Longbow, 30s, Long: 895
Longbow, 9s, Short: 1093
Longbow, 30s, Short: 695

Rampager
Shortbow, 7 stacks: 1115 (51% direct, 49% bleed)
Shortbow, 0 stacks: 573
Longbow, 9s, Long: 819
Longbow, 30s, Long: 642
Longbow, 9s, Short: 784
Longbow, 30s, Short: 499

Valkyrie
Shortbow, 7 stacks: 868 (66% direct, 34% bleed)
Shortbow, 0 stacks: 571
Longbow, 9s, Long: 815
Longbow, 30s, Long: 639
Longbow, 9s, Short: 780
Longbow, 30s, Short: 496

Carrion
Shortbow, 7 stacks: 1114 (42% direct, 58% bleed)
Shortbow, 0 stacks: 465
Longbow, 9s, Long: 664
Longbow, 30s, Long: 521
Longbow, 9s, Short: 636
Longbow, 30s, Short: 405

Rabid
Shortbow, 7 stacks: 955 (32% direct, 68% bleed)
Shortbow, 0 stacks: 307
Longbow, 9s, Long: 438
Longbow, 30s, Long: 344
Longbow, 9s, Short: 420
Longbow, 30s, Short: 267

Disclaimer

These tests do not take into account many many many things, such as Longbow 5% dmg trait, conditional removal, obstruction problems, enemies with damage mitigation, traits, Hunter’s shot vulnerability, Barrage AoE, etc. So please do not use these numbers as a definitive conclusion.

Thoughts

1. Crossfire is by FAR our most damaging skill, especially with the bleeds. And bleeds are a huge part of Crossfire’s damage. In fact, with full Carrion gear, you achieve the same amount of DPS with 2 offensive stats (Condition Dmg, Power) as Rampagers’s 3 offensive stats (Cond Dmg, Power, Precision). Therefore, positioning for any Shortbow users is HUGELY important.

2. Long-Shot’s damage sucks. Like, sucks. Crossfire, by just its direct damage alone, matches Long-shot’s damage from long-rage. When you add in the bleeds it’s one of the definitive conclusions you can draw from this study.

3. Rapid-Shot’s dps was also…incredibly lackluster. It did a bit more damage than Crossfire in the same time period (1320 dmg / 5 s vs 1295 dmg / 5s of Crossfire. 1452 dmg / 5s if Rapid Shot was done after Hunter’s Shot with 10 vuln). And of course, once you add in bleed stacks this becomes a no contest.

4. Barrage damage is amazing, assuming you get the full channel off and the enemy stays in it for the entire duration. Which….won’t happen very often, even in PvE.

5. So what is a Longbow good for? Again, these calculations do not take into account several important things the Longbow provides you. Hunter’s Shot lets your entire team do 10% more damage, and Barrage is massive AoE dmg/cripple. The knockback skill is also handy to have. But when looking at single-target dps, shortbow wins out.

6. Although results weren’t posted, I did several tests to see which skill rotation does the most damage on a Shortbow. Turns out Crossfire 24/7 is the answer. Using any other skill decreases your damage output slightly.

Conclusion, for those who don’t want to read everything
Shortbow good for single-target damage, Longbow good for utility/AoE damage. Also, Crossfire rules and I hope to god it doesn’t get nerfed.

Shortbow is the most boring weapon we have too, which is a real shame, since it’s got a lot of damage output.

It is interesting to note that the highest DPS achievable in a short duration (i.e., burst) comes from a longbow in Berserker gear. That would be compounded even more with Hunter’s Shot added into the mix.

Shortbow has always been an auto attack weapon, even before they nerfed the attack speed, which is a shame really.

The first char I made at headstart was a ranger with red hair, ironic that the class turned out to be the red headed step child of the game lol

Longbow has a fine burst if you use QZ + RF + Barrage allowing you to take advantage of quickness since we all know quickness and shortbow are not good anymore. People understimate Barrage and Rapid Fire, Barrage shoots 12 arrows and has quite a “fast” casting.

I still swear up and down that the Longbow’s damage specs were calibrated under the assumption of a faster rate of fire than it actually possesses.

In short, I believe the Longbow #1 skill (for both rangers and warriors) has a longer recast than it’s supposed to have and consequently does less damage than it’s supposed to.

I also believe this affects several other sets in various ways.

fabulous research. Can we see an axe version?….:) I for use know that using axe in a mob together with my mates make a huge difference in assisting them.

The skill cast time has nothing to do with animation time. As an example, crossfire has no cast but that doesn’t mean you’ll throw 1000 arrows per second.
Longbow has 3/4 cast time but animation is longer…plenty of skills have short cast time and longer animation.
Since no one but devs know how fast longbow is supposed to shoot, i don’t see anything wrong with longbow fire rate.

Even if longbow firing rate was slightly faster, it doesn’t change the conclusion too much.

With the current rate of fire, Longbow 1 at the longest range is equivalent DPS to Shortbow 1, WITHOUT the bleed. Add in the bleed, and the shortbow 1 is basically doing twice the damage. Even if it was slightly increased, shortbow 1 remains far superior.

@Ichan: I actually did some preliminary tests with Axe/warhorn and Sword. I might post some quick calculations, but these are single-target tests so dps will be pretty unspectacular, since these calculations don’t take into account multiple targets.

@Sleepy: Very good point. Since QZ doesn’t affect Crossfire as much as, quickness will increase burst of longbow that much more. That’s exactly what I do these days. Crossfire, swap, use quickness, barrage/hunters/rapid shot, swap back.

Gotta say for me Short bow has always been my fav (even after the nerf) the conditions plus speed make it the only real viable wvw weapon imo..

Long bow is way too random to do much but shoot people in a zerg or onto /out off castle walls..to maybe make them move away…

Sleepy.2647:

The skill cast time has nothing to do with animation time. As an example, crossfire has no cast but that doesn’t mean you’ll throw 1000 arrows per second.
Longbow has 3/4 cast time but animation is longer…plenty of skills have short cast time and longer animation.
Since no one but devs know how fast longbow is supposed to shoot, i don’t see anything wrong with longbow fire rate.

The problem though is that the recovery time is inconsistent across weapons/skills, and I would be surprised if it was intended to be this way, mostly because #1 skills with large differences in their activation speed and their actual recast are very noticeably underpowered (pistol, longbow) while those with little difference in the two do relatively well (rifle, mesmer GS). I feel it’s very likely to be a design oversight with the way animations/cooldowns work.

Regardless, it makes damage coefficients, etc., nearly impossible to balance on paper and means that activation speed is a useless metric for #1 skills, which is just messy and pointless.

Dante.1508:

Gotta say for me Short bow has always been my fav (even after the nerf) the conditions plus speed make it the only real viable wvw weapon imo..

Long bow is way too random to do much but shoot people in a zerg or onto /out off castle walls..to maybe make them move away…

Longbow is still super useful in WvW. That long-range AoE/cripple is super nice to pepper into the zerg. and I use hunter/rapid fire to snipe at people who are downed, but I don’t want to get near to stomp.

one thing most players dont consider:

you can use longbows 3 and 4 IN BETWEEN the 1 autoshots, if timed correctly, without loosing much of the “delay” time between 1’s. This makes a quiet good difference in longbows dps because even if 3 and 4 arent mainly there for dmg, they still do. Compared to the shortbow, where using 2-5 significantly lowers 1’s dps because it will cost you more time during the animations.

Also your assuming that you can stay behind/side of your target with shortbow to get to the conclusion that shortbow is better. this will almost never happen in pvp when enemys are attacking you, effectively leaving you with an average of about 3-4 stacks of bleedings (and this is with the 60% chance on crit-bleed sigill + 33% trait), same for pve where enemys at higher lvls tend to focus you more often instead of your pet.

Thanks Ursan, this is really useful info! I now feel a little bit better about running with a Berskerker LB build, I would have expected it to come up much shorter against SB than it actually did in your tests

You would have expected the bows to do the same damage at close range but the longbow to outshine the shortbow at long range, at the very least. Hopefully they’ll decide to improve longbow damage or increase its rate of fire.

Atherakhia.4086:

You would have expected the bows to do the same damage at close range but the longbow to outshine the shortbow at long range, at the very least. Hopefully they’ll decide to improve longbow damage or increase its rate of fire.

LB does outshine SB on long range, as you can see at the numbers posted, you cant compare them with any Set that has Condition dmg, because LB has no conds … but with berserker, LB has, even if just slightly, more DPS on long range than SB.

and also, always keep in mind that you cant shoot your targets from behind/the side permanently, and that your target might just remove your bleedings every once in a while and so on… imagine a SB cond Ranger fighting another berserk LB ranger 1v1, standing/strafing in healing spring and always facing you, good luck with that bleedings.

Vulnerability shot + QZ + Rapid Fire with rampage as one is by far much more burst than the short bow, and can be pretty exceptional in WvW if you have Piercing arrows.

nldixon.8514:

Shortbow is the most boring weapon we have too, which is a real shame, since it’s got a lot of damage output.

Shhhh! Don’t say that too loud or they might find more animation bugs!

I do completely agree though, it’s a shame that crossfire was nerfed instead of buffing 2-5 or both.

Though I didn’t post the raw DPS numbers, Crossfire outshines Long-Shot even in suboptimal situation for Crossfire (no bleed stacks) vs optimal situation for Long-Shot (long-range).

Crossfire dps (no bleeds): 134 dmg/shot * 1.93 shots/sec = 259 dmg/sec
Long Shot dps (at long range): 317 dmg/shot * 0.8 shots/sec = 254 dmg/sec
Rapid Shot dps: 1320 dmg / 5 sec = 264 dmg/sec

So as you can see, even when you completely ignore the bleeds, Crossfire out-DPSes the Longbow #1 and #2 skills. The reason why Longbow skills beat out Shortbow in certain situations is because of the amazing DPS of Barrage, and the numbers reflect that.

And oh yes, Barrage DPS:

1692 Dmg / 2.75 sec = 615 dmg/sec. Assuming you finish channeling and they stay entire duration.

Rocklin.4106:

one thing most players dont consider:

you can use longbows 3 and 4 IN BETWEEN the 1 autoshots, if timed correctly, without loosing much of the “delay” time between 1’s. This makes a quiet good difference in longbows dps because even if 3 and 4 arent mainly there for dmg, they still do. Compared to the shortbow, where using 2-5 significantly lowers 1’s dps because it will cost you more time during the animations.

That’s actually a very good point, and something I didn’t consider. There’s still gonna be some time wasted though, I’m just not sure how much….

Barrage does more damage than what you’re suggesting unless I’m missing something. The damage scales up with each hit. I often get up to 3-4k with the last shot.

Also note that tomorrow’s update will increase the speed of the longbow.

Ayrilana.1396:

Barrage does more damage than what you’re suggesting unless I’m missing something. The damage scales up with each hit. I often get up to 3-4k with the last shot.

Also note that tomorrow’s update will increase the speed of the longbow.

That damage you see is the total cumulative damage done by a channeled skill. If you look at your combat logs, it will show the individual damage the ticks do.

Also they said they’ll increase longbow projectile speed, not firing rate. Though the projectile speed improvement is still very important and nice to have…

Ursan.7846:

Ayrilana.1396:

Barrage does more damage than what you’re suggesting unless I’m missing something. The damage scales up with each hit. I often get up to 3-4k with the last shot.

Also note that tomorrow’s update will increase the speed of the longbow.

That damage you see is the total cumulative damage done by a channeled skill. If you look at your combat logs, it will show the individual damage the ticks do.

Also they said they’ll increase longbow projectile speed, not firing rate. Though the projectile speed improvement is still very important and nice to have…

They really need to increase both. The firing rate on a lot of ranged #1 skills is not working correctly due to animation/cooldown issues and those sets suffer in DPS because of it:

Longbow – Ranger/Warrior
Pistol – Thief/Engineer
Staff – Ele Water/Air/Earth
Shortbow – Thief

Probably a few more, Rifles, Ranger SB, and Mesmer GS are actually the only ones that seem right.

There’s way too many assumptions in there for the results to be meaningful. Inaccuracies compound one another, and that calculation has loads. It’s like saying apples are 20% better than oranges, give-or-take 60%.

Einlanzer.1627:

Shortbow – Thief

This is the only one I wouldn’t agree with considering the rediculous AoE damage you can rack up with it when people are standing sufficiently close to each other. With the bows/pistols you mentioned they’re single target UNLESS piercing is obtained and your enemies position themselves in a neat little line for you.

Rocklin.4106:

Atherakhia.4086:

You would have expected the bows to do the same damage at close range but the longbow to outshine the shortbow at long range, at the very least. Hopefully they’ll decide to improve longbow damage or increase its rate of fire.

LB does outshine SB on long range, as you can see at the numbers posted, you cant compare them with any Set that has Condition dmg, because LB has no conds … but with berserker, LB has, even if just slightly, more DPS on long range than SB.

and also, always keep in mind that you cant shoot your targets from behind/the side permanently, and that your target might just remove your bleedings every once in a while and so on… imagine a SB cond Ranger fighting another berserk LB ranger 1v1, standing/strafing in healing spring and always facing you, good luck with that bleedings.

That’s true, but it’s often just as hard to keep max range with a LB as it is to keep bleeds up on the SB. In sPvP it’s so difficult that I wouldn’t ever consider using a Longbow.

I see a lot of people only looking at numbers, and not considering range.

You need to be pretty far away to milk the most damage out of the Longbow, and it can be very difficult – especially in PVP – to maintain that maximum distance and maintain consistent attacks. If you’re at max damage range and you fire off QZ and Rapid Fire, and your target moves closer or further – then your damage drops considerably.

Range is not a concern with the Shortbow, so damage is more consistent.