Guild Wars 2

Don’t get me wrong, neither bow is awful, I’m not here to tell you that everything sucks and that Rangers are in serious need of buffs, I’m just honestly wondering why our bows feel worse than the bows from the other professions that can use them.

Both Warrior and Thief bows take a look at Ranger bows to draw inspiration from, and then spin it on its head to come up with something that isn’t just different, it’s just better.

I drool for my Thief’s shortbow on my Ranger, I really do. It stacks bleed faster, over an AoE, stacks poison faster, has a better evade (Only through the Thieves resource though, since their evade has no recharge rate and instead relies on their Initiative.) and far more mobility than anything else in our weapon sets through Infiltrator’s Arrow.

And then you’ve got the clear cut design for the Warrior’s longbow. It set out to make a multipurpose weapon that goes well with its own theme. It’s got double shot for twice the chance at triggering a burn from the two fire fields it can lay down, it’s got an immobilize to stick people inside fire fields for a longer time its got a quick access to burns over large areas while also having a blind to take the heat off! (Oh the irony)

What do our bows have that preform on par with the theme of these weapons? Both bows seem like a mishmash of weapon skills tossed together because they vaguely fit together on a general theme of “this is a bow” rather than goals for the weapon or rolls for it in general.

The Longbow in particular feels odd. Your auto attack is slow moving and rewarding for a longer distance between you and your target, but Rapid Fire shoots fast and doesn’t care how close you are at all, neither does Hunter’s Shot. Point Blank Shot does care, but doesn’t knock back to the point where you pass the second tier of your auto attack and Barrage feels awkward to use because of its channel time and AoE centric nature. Rapid Fire and Barrage just feel like the odd ones out here, even though by themselves they’re great, I just feel like they don’t really fit with the weapon as a whole, or that the weapon is pulling itself in too many directions theme-wise.

The Shortbow is a little more consistent in that all of it’s abilities apply conditions and are vaguely single target (Lets be real here, how many times have you lit up a huge group of mobs with Poison Volley?) but all of the conditions applied are very short duration and counteract the “Yes! I just flanked this guy!” feel. It was a weapon that seemingly had its sights set on being great for flanking or attacks of opportunity, but then fell short when it didn’t have a real way to keep flanking once engaged. Yes, your pet will generally do a decent job of making sure things aren’t hitting you, or have their back turned to you, but when that fails you just kind of end up circle strafing. The daze / stun helps a bit, as does the cripple, but it’s not really ever enough unless the target’s attention is pulled elsewhere (Like a Thief popping up and he has to be dealt with quickly, so you can plink away at your target’s back, or your pet pulling aggression away from a teammate in a dungeon so you can both have a shot at it’s rear.)

TL, DR: Can we start a discussion on the different themes for the bows in this game? (Not relating so much to power, but a lot more to feel and execution) Some of our traits can fix a few things, but that speaks leagues for the design of the weapons themselves as a whole, quick fixes are never preferable to better design and execution.

I just do 5→4→2→3→1 spam, then use skills as they come of cooldown. This in WvW/PvP btw. Shortbow should stay single-target focused imo, but the poison volley should be changed to an AoE (Like an explosive arrow head) with the size between normal and traited necro marks. The flanking bonus on 1 should be bigger and the 5 skill is just an interrupt with too long CD.

Longbow should have it’s long range damage on lowest range, and about 200 to 300 bonus damage for longest range. Barrage, as it is the only AoE, should have it’s CD reduced by a few seconds.

All is IMO

I agree with solrik that Concussion Shot’s cooldown has to be lowered a bit (just like Hilt Bash’s, but that’s kinda off-topic), apart from that the weapon feels great to me.

The longbow has a bit more problems. Its auto-attack is slow and underwhelming, and Rapid Fire is a copy of Crossfire (shortbow auto-attack), without the potential bleeding.

Especially Rapid Fire could use a buff, because it makes no sense the auto-attack of the shortbow outshines a cooldown skill of the longbow. Maybe it could be reworked into a faster channel with less arrows, making it more bursty and less time-consuming. Something like 6 arrows in 2 seconds would be great (keeping the damage per arrow the same).

Longbow is almost-good I think, small tweaks could fix it.

Autoattack should cripple based on range (further away your target it, the longer the cripple, maybe even apply an immob at max range)

The wind-up time for rapid fire should be reduced.

Hunters shot, instead of applying swiftness to your pet should instead do something like cause your pets next 3 attacks to strip a boon.

There, longbow fixed.

The only issue I have with the interrupts on the Shortbow, is how long it takes them to go out. By the time you actually finish the winding down animation… the target is already back and swinging at you (A one second daze or stun is just so short it isn’t even worth breaking nine out of ten times)

It just feels funny to stun yourself for almost as long as you stun someone else with no real gain (It’s not high damage, it doesn’t go through block or anything, you just kind of get a cute little interrupt?)

I’m really just looking for things that feel better, even if they are not mathematically better. It feels weird for the Longbow to have Rapid Fire when everything else but Barrage is slow and calculated. It could be our really heavy hitter instead of the mess it is now.

And I had never thought of that Bean, Rapid Fire legit shoots just as fast as the auto attack from Shortbow, and that’s a crazy glaring problem. “Rapid Fire” shouldn’t mean “Shoot as fast as your other weapon!”. If they made it faster with less overall damage but also shaved some recharge off of the skill it might make it feel better, but then it still wouldn’t fit with the auto attack because Rapid Fire is the only skill that goes fast on Longbow.

Is there any way to change the auto to both not be so boring and also have the same sort off effectiveness with a different theme?

Longbow needs AoE love. If #2 skill was a single arrow shot, that exploded when it hit its target, I’d be on cloud 9.

It wouldn’t have to be any more damage than a normal shot, just fast access to an aoe on a 4 second cooldown.. woot worthy!

…and not a targeted area; grenades suck.

Longbow needs a significant buff and reworking, shortbow needs to be fine tuned.

Nothing new here.

Longbow needs an immobilize on hunter’s shot, so you can follow with barrage and actually hit your target. I’d also buff its base damage, it isn’t strong enough even at max range.

I like that idea Daemon. I’d also make #4 a charge-up skill, that way we can get our own Killshot…plus make it do more damage the closer the enemy is. Enemy coming your way? Charge up #4 and release it to knock them back and do massive damage.

RyuDragnier.9476:

I like that idea Daemon. I’d also make #4 a charge-up skill, that way we can get our own Killshot…plus make it do more damage the closer the enemy is. Enemy coming your way? Charge up #4 and release it to knock them back and do massive damage.

The only thing I don’t like about this is putting lots of control on a weapon with lots of damage.

Despite how silly I sometimes think the weapon is, look at Greatsword for Warriors. It’s got a perfect theme going, modestly mobile no holds bar damage from the sky. It’s a reckless weapon and to get the most out of it… you need to play reckless (Or at least be able to calculate risk vs reward for using it in any given situation) lest ye suffer the consequences of not really using the weapon well.

If we wanted to make the Longbow into a straight up control weapon, it’s already got the fixings, which might help it find its place among our arsenal. We don’t really have a weapon for “control” like the hammers or maces from other professions, it could be a great option. I see it as a sort of “pin down” kind of theme, you’ve got barrage for larger groups to control, you get a sort of explosive shot to cripple or daze, the auto attack can have varying conditions that reduce the damage dealt from the target (Or perhaps a chain on it?) with cripple being another option. It’d be a cool idea to get it rolling with pure cripples and knockouts.

I’d really love to look at the Longbow as a go to option to control the battlefield, it sort of does that now already, but it’s not particularly good at it. The more I think about it the more I like the idea.

I like the lower attack speed on lbow, it sets it apart from sbow. sbow fast skirmishing weapon, lbow slow sniper weapon. I use mainly lbow since I despise the machine-gun sbow, so I can’t speak much for sbow, but for lbow.

1. Needs to loose the silly range penalty, that has no place on the auto
2. Feels uninspired, long channel, pathetic damage and no secondary effects…
3. Nice for keeping a perma 10 stack of voulna up, it’s acceptable…but just barely
4. ok
5. ok

Though I am missing a killshot-esque skill…

They are better than Engineers Rifles and Pistols….I know, i know… just saying

Fix long bow:

-Make Long Range Shot actually match it’s tooltip (3/4 second is the in game description. 1.5 seconds is the actual time on refire)

-Make the damage from Long Range Shot static across it’s range.

-Speed up arrow flight on Long Range Shot

-I would like another cripple component in there somewhere, maybe on hunter’s shot, but we don’t need it.

Here’s a simple solution for the theme of the Ranger’s longbow:

• Drop the range tiers for Long Range Shot and lower the damage slightly.
• Remove Rapid Fire and replace it with either a charge-up killshot-type skill or one that uses Long Range Shots range tiers.

In my mind, the longbow is first and foremost a slow weapon. We already have a fast firing weapon in the shortbow. Let the longbow fire slowly but do heavy, piercing damage.

Rapid Fire is incongruous with the other skills, and the damage is terrible.

No, don’t drop the power of the weapon. Make the furthest away range shot tier the normal damage for LB #1, while getting rid of the tiers. You do that, and I will gladly accept the slow shooting from the LB.

Think the whole reason for the tiered #1 damage is to encourage weapon swapping when enemies are close by. While not a fan of bows, I do think that it’s a cool idea…shame that tier system isn’t across the rest of the longbow skills (would make longbow #2 super deadly at max range)

I would love to see skill2 replaced with a kill shot. Maybe have it be one of them ‘hold to charge’ skills and the longer you hold the more damage it does, or give it tiers, tier 1 is just damage, tier 2 adds cripple, tier 3 add immobilize. Something like that would be neat and different.

I wouldn’t mind the range penalty on LB1 if it hit about 10% harder at max range. I like the mechanic, but at the moment the longbow’s damage is mediocre at max range and awful at short range. In order for that mechanic to function though you need at least some way to keep your opponent at a distance, hence why I proposed the immobilize on LB3. Without reworking any skills, you would be able to hold your opponent at range a little longer for LB1, and land barrage or rapid fire, which are way too easy to avoid right now.

Setun.4368:

Think the whole reason for the tiered #1 damage is to encourage weapon swapping when enemies are close by. While not a fan of bows, I do think that it’s a cool idea…shame that tier system isn’t across the rest of the longbow skills (would make longbow #2 super deadly at max range)

I’d honestly prefer it to do more damage up close if not standardised. The RoF and it’s mobility are hardly ideal for it after all.
I think that Rapid Fire gets some unfair bashing. A small damage boost so it’s clearly better than auto attack may be nice, however consider how many shots you fire during the ability. You do that through a field and you can drop some poison/fire/chill durations that are simply vicious.
The skills make sense for it thematically overall imo; it’s clearly a ‘hang back and shoot things’ weapon, with barrage there to punish people who blob up (the mass cripple makes sure they will hang around a bit longer in a friendly caster’s AoE spell)

Shortbow’s clearly a skirmishing weapon-the mobility is good, it has a stun, cripple and swiftness boost. Skill 3 can even be shot while they’re behind you, actively encouraging you to make sure the distance is kept. You keep your distance and let the bleeding (and pet, ideally) do the work. Skill #2 is a pretty good one for people bunched up, since the poison does a fair bit of damage in a short space of time. More importantly it’s multi-projectile so again, mass combos in a field. I’ve stripped conditions from a clumped up group of allies and hit enemy beyond, helping damage them.

The most important theme however I feel is these are both weapons you use with the pet. Comparing them directly is going to make them look inferior because the ranger’s designed to work with the pet.

id be mad if rapid fire was removed altogether; i love abusing it on stealthers (my rapid fires hit for 10k on gc thieves; i hit it when they go half health and watch as they squirm in their shadow refuge >=D)
… though it could do with some tweaks

roamzero.9486:

Hunters shot, instead of applying swiftness to your pet should instead do something like cause your pets next 3 attacks to strip a boon.

i like pet swiftness; good for roaming wvw; makes the pet harder to kite

- id be happy with longbow if eagle eye was default; so we got the 5% damage and range without having to trait for it (and its in the same tier and tree as piercing arrows; so you have to go 30 into one tree without getting a GM trait)

solrik.6028:

I just do 5->4->2->3->1 spam, then use skills as they come of cooldown.

thats a horrible waste of concussive shot; use it to interrupt a heal, stomp or big hitter

it’s silly that if I wanted to play an Archery focused character i have to roll a Warrior over a Ranger.

JoxerNL.3752:

it’s silly that if I wanted to play an Archery focused character i have to roll a Warrior over a Ranger.

Actually, if you think in terms of PvE, the ranger is the only class that’s capable of playing a true archer. A Warrior or Thief will draw aggro with their bow and have to switch to melee almost immediately, while the Ranger’s pet will hold aggro and allow him to happily fire away from a distance. It’s also the only class with access to both bows. If someone wanted to play an archer type character, to be honest I’d recommend the Ranger.

Longbow just needs a faster fire rate. It should at least be on par with the Warrior’s Longbow fire rate. How can a warrior fire 2 arrows faster than a Ranger fires 1. That is not consistent with the philosophy of a Ranger.

Since the OP brought up the “ideas” behind the weapons, I’d re-focus the two bows like this:

Longbow
An offensive long-range weapon (there are already non-bow weapons for shorter range). Centred around dealing damage at long distance and denying the enemy the ability to avert the damage.

1. As now, deals more damage at longer range. I would add a mechanic where you can actually shoot beyond 1200 range (up to 1500 by default) but your character visibly fires in a high arc and hence the chance of hitting the intended target is lowered (it might have moved away). This opens up an interesting thought in that this could go over walls, and in theory hit whoever is standing there when the arrow comes down.
2. Should fire it’s arrows in a descending arc (first shot goes highest), so the arrows are fired over a little bit of time but all impact nearly at the same moment. At longest ranges this can catch enemies off-guard if they don’t see you lining up the shot.
3. Changed to Shackling Shot, fires an arrow next to the target, shackling up to 3 nearby enemies to the arrow for 3s of immobilize, broken immediately if all three try to move away from the arrow at the same time.
4. All in all, kept the same. If used in actual melee range, makes your pet sprint after the knocked-back enemy and pounce into him at full force, dealing damage and knocking him back again.
5. Changed to be a held-down targeted ability. The longer you hold the longer you fire, but the targeted are continuously increases so the accuracy continuously decreases.

Shortbow
Should become the defensive weapon in the Ranger’s arsenal.

1. Kept the same, but shooting someone who is looking at you restores a bit of endurance.
2. Same
3. Same
4. Same on the shot, pet-attack changed to strip boons off the target with each attack.
5. Same

Antisceptic.9174:

Longbow just needs a faster fire rate. It should at least be on par with the Warrior’s Longbow fire rate. How can a warrior fire 2 arrows faster than a Ranger fires 1. That is not consistent with the philosophy of a Ranger.

Indeed. Just increase the fire rate, even if they have to lower the amount of damage per hit in order to keep it balanced.

Didn’t they say that GW2 is an “action” game? Longbow #1 doesn’t feel like action at all. More like Zzzzzzzzz – oh, sorry, what?

Carighan.6758:

1. As now, deals more damage at longer range. I would add a mechanic where you can actually shoot beyond 1200 range (up to 1500 by default) but your character visibly fires in a high arc and hence the chance of hitting the intended target is lowered (it might have moved away). This opens up an interesting thought in that this could go over walls, and in theory hit whoever is standing there when the arrow comes down.
2. Should fire it’s arrows in a descending arc (first shot goes highest), so the arrows are fired over a little bit of time but all impact nearly at the same moment. At longest ranges this can catch enemies off-guard if they don’t see you lining up the shot.

1. longbow hits 1500 range (slightly more; the the tracking gets even worse and it the game wont auto attack for you) with the eagle eye trait
2. like the idea… giving ranger some nice burst (im aware of the gimmicky signet builds…) would be nice; but id miss using it to follow stealth; and means that itd turn into a dragons tooth style attack (as long as someone is aware if there – if its visibly different – then they can easily avoid it all)
… dont like the rest of your ideas for either weapon

I rolled a ranger because i like archers. I play archers in every rpg that I can. Personally im saddened by all the builds for melee being so strong, it feels like bows are just not as effective.

This is actually one huge thing that i have a problem with a lot of games. If your going to build the game as having many possibilities for play styles, make sure all of them are viable. If the class is not designed to be able to run around with a bow and short bow, then why can you even do that.

Kajind.6195:

I rolled a ranger because i like archers. I play archers in every rpg that I can. Personally im saddened by all the builds for melee being so strong, it feels like bows are just not as effective.

This is actually one huge thing that i have a problem with a lot of games. If your going to build the game as having many possibilities for play styles, make sure all of them are viable. If the class is not designed to be able to run around with a bow and short bow, then why can you even do that.

I run a viable double bow build as I wanted to be an Archer as well, PM me for details if you like.

Kajind.6195:

I rolled a ranger because i like archers. I play archers in every rpg that I can. Personally im saddened by all the builds for melee being so strong, it feels like bows are just not as effective.

This is actually one huge thing that i have a problem with a lot of games. If your going to build the game as having many possibilities for play styles, make sure all of them are viable. If the class is not designed to be able to run around with a bow and short bow, then why can you even do that.

If you want a truly useful ranged option, roll a warrior. It’s depressing as kitten, but it’s the truth.

Speaking of Warrior, I’m still wondering why they get double-shot. Wouldn’t you expect an actual ranger to be able to pull that off? Imagine it being the add-on to the #1…Long-Range Shot, followed by a double arrow shot in succession, ending with a triple arrow shot.

Consolidate some bow-centric traits first:
Increased Range/Piercing/Reduced CD should be on a single trait, like the Warrior rifle. As it stands, to get the most out of the bow I have to follow multiple traits to the 20 point mark, it feels a little disorienting. I wouldn’t even mind it being a 30 point trait since most of our other 30 point traits in the Marksman/Skirmish line are a little underwhelming.

Melee is more attractive because it also offers a more dynamic and interesting combat, especially when you pair it with the dagger. The greatsword is just genuinely fun to swoop around the battlefield. Simply put, melee is just more entertaining and I wish the abilities of the bows were equally as dynamic or interesting to play with. I also wouldn’t mind seeing the Rifle added as part of the arsenal for us to play with.

I actually love the Ranger’s Shortbow. It’s a great skirmishing weapon. The auto gets beastly when flanking, the 2 gives some AoE, heal reduction, and improves when you end up closer to your target, the 3 makes you very slippery, the 4 and 5 are great for chasing, and the 5 is good for stopping heals or other big attacks.

The longbow doesn’t feel rewarding enough to me for how slow it is.

I for one think the bows are just fine the way they are. A Ranger’s bow should NEVER have the Thief’s bow’s abilities. A Ranger should NEVER have the Warrior’s bow’s abilities. I don’t know what you were thinking in that OP but I’m sorry to say this, your wrong. Ranger is a completely different play style than the other classes (as intended by A-Net).

All the weapons have some sort of synergy with the Ranger’s pet. Talking bows specifically, they are meant to keep distance and deal damage (conditions or crits) while your pet does the up-close damage (some are ranged I know). The problem is with most people who play Ranger (that complain about it) is they haven’t played the class long enough to fully understand its full potential. I being a Ranger from the day GW2 was released, have played almost if not all possible classes and know how it’s played.

Anyway back to the point, Shortbow is great for keeping distance with skills 3, 4, and 5. The 4 skill even has the pet deal 3 stacks of bleed on the target and with the cripple and new AI it’s almost guaranteed. The 2 skill is useful for the 33% less effective heal and up close it’s even better.

The Longbow is good for very far distance using the 1 skill. Very useful weapon to open with cause you can drop your AoE and force the enemy to go around or use energy, skills to get through it. Than hitting with the 3 and 2 skill combo is ideal, following up with the 4 skill to a weapon swap.

(This is the Shortbow comparison for Thieves and Rangers). Thief has to spam 2 skill to apply bleeds whereas Ranger can auto attack for bleeds. Thief skill 4 is poison, Ranger skill 2 is poison. Thief skill 3 is evade backwards, Ranger skill 3 is jump back. Ranger skill 4 is three stacks of bleed, Thief skill 2 is three stacks of bleed (that’s two skills the Ranger has that applies bleeds). And skill 5 for both, would you rather waste half initiative running away or potential blind (which no one would use in a fight as a thief)? OR interrupt or get the upper hand or kite.

It’s not the Ranger, it’s you.

Zorak, since ALL your posts in forum are about PvP and thieves, your opinion is, at absolute best, suspect.

Rangers are, as described by Anet on the character page and character creation menu, the masters of ranged combat. The fact that in game, we’re not, is what leads to all the complaining.

In short, it IS the class/weaponry, not the player.

EDIT: part of the problem, and it IS a problem, is that melee is always more powerful than ranged combat.

The ideal should be having ranged classes dealing damage at range that equals melee class damage while they’re in your face.

I have to agree with the opening poster. While the ranger bows are not awful, they feel very lacking. Using the shortbow can be effective, but it feels very dull. It usually just comes down to flanking and 1 spamming the enemy to death. The other skills have their uses, but they really lack the fun factor other weapon skills such as the thief’s shortbow has.

As for the longbow, it feels very sluggish. The lack of damage on the auto attack was a badly implemented, and the weapon as a whole needs its speed increased. Once again, when looking at fun factor, the warrior longbow wins out. It seems like Anet took a number of signature ranger skills and attack styles from the first game and decided to give them to warrior. I personally would love to have dual shot back on the ranger but it is not going to happen.

I think what really stands out when looking at the bows of other professions is that their weapons are a lot more stylistic and more concrete in design. Their skills stand out and are fun to use. In comparison, the ranger bows feel bland. The longbow skills point-blank shot and barrage are some of the better designed skills, but are unable to vitalize the ranger’s longbow to the level of the warrior’s.

I am critical of the ranger’s bows not because I do not like the ranger, but rather because I love the ranger. It was my favorite profession in the first game, and I felt like it could have been so much more in the Guild Wars 2. However, the building blocks for a revitalizing the ranger in Guild Wars 2 are in place, and fixing and reworking the the ranger’s bows so they have more flavor and style would be a great step in the right direction to doing so.

stale, yeah I was on a thief streak for a while in the game. And I don’t post much about anything really lol but I don’t like when people complain about the classes (especially ranger). So I had to put my two sense in.

Anyway, yes I did notice that the melee is slightly more powerful for rangers but I have always loved ranged combat in any game. So I am currently running a SB/GS BM build that has the best of both worlds.

P.S. I’m more into WvWvW now. I love how people underestimate the power of the ranger in this game! It completely throws them off guard lol.