Guild Wars 2

As we’ve seen as of late, Anets intention on improving weapon skills is that they want to narrow down what’s the purpose of a weapon (whether it’s a condi weapon or a damage one in most cases). They decided to change/improve several AAs skills on many weapons:
- Upping the damage of Longbow’s AA on short distances.
- Axe’s AA now provides might on hit.
- Greatsword’s AA damage was slightly increased.
- Warrior’s Rifle’s AA was changed from a shot that applies bleeds to one that does increased direct damage.
- They decreased the cast time on the thrid strike on the Warrior’s main hand Mace’s AA.
- Mesmer’s Scepter’s AA now applies torment (broken change that I’m not in agreement with, but we can see the trend here).
- Thief’s Dagger’s AA now can hit up to two targets.
- More like an indirect improvement: Riccochet (Thief) trait that now increases range on Pistol attacks.
- Necromancer’s Dagger’s AA now can hit up to two targets, too.

But… what about Shortbow’s autoattack?

Isn’t it supposed to be a condition damage weapon? I know it can also be hybridized as it’s rapid fire rate can provide some decent and consistent direct damage, but we all agree its main theme are conditions. The bleed application is unreliable in its current state. We can also discuss this point though.

This is my proposal:

Crossfire changes from:
Fire an arrow. Bleed your target if you hit them from behind or from the side.
Bleed duration 3 seconds base.

to

Fire an arrow and bleed the targets you hit. The bleeding lasts longer if you hit them from behind of from the side.
Bleed duration 2 seconds base.
Bleeds you apply on targets hit from behind or from the sides last 50% longer (this only applies to Crossfire).
___________________________________________________
EDIT: it turns out 2 second bleeds from the AA would be a little too strong with the right set up so I changed it to:

Crossfire does 1 second bleeds from the front and 2 second bleeds from the sides and back. The overall results should be roughly the same and the bleed would be much more reliable and not so RNG.
___________________________________________________
The duration increase is added multiplicatively insted of additively with other condition duration sources.

Note: Let’s not talk about Sword’s AA, it’s been discused to death already.

Thoughts?

Short Bow needs a lot of re-work to be a real decent option….

Your suggestion is good, and a step in the right directions; however, there are still issues with other skills being rather lacking…

Poison Volley is very lack luster, unless you’re on top of someone it really doesn’t do much…. It would be nice if they turned this into an AOE skill with an added blast finisher mechanism. Range 900, hits up to 5 targets within the aoe circle. If hit, it applies the current poison. The added blast finisher to this skill will allow for more utility and aid for the class. Allows rangers to blast their own fields and other fields, would be very handy for a trap ranger.

Quick Shot, as nice as it sounds on paper, the practicality of it is very lacking… an added function to break focus in one way or another would make this skill a lot more useful. 1 second stealth to break focus? or 1 second stun? Just something that forces the enemy to re-adjust instead of using an AA to counter it.

Cripple Shot is fine the way it is… though a couple second torment would be rather nice. Could even drop the “pets next three attacks inflict bleeding” to “pets next three attacks inflict torment”

Concussion Shot, i really have no complaints….

Or:

Adding shortbow to Eagle Eye 900 Range is now 1200 when traited
Adding Shortbow to Read the Wind projectile velocity is increased

Adding shortbow to Read the Wind could bandage a lot of issues with the weapon alone….

Well, if we talk about the Shortbow as a whole, I would increase Quick Shots leap distance a little bit, maybe adding a dodgeroll backwards in addition to the current leap, and decrease how much the arrows spread on Poison Volley so at least 2 arrows hit your target at max range or maybe increase poison duration per arrow, or just increase the nomber of arrows shot, the idea is to put higher poison uptime on your target at max distance. Fan of Fire makes sense on Wariror’s Longbow as it’s an AoE themed weapon, but not much PV on the Shortbow though.

A secured bleed on Shortbow’s AA would be sweet and deserved imo.

Wolfey.3407:

Adding shortbow to Eagle Eye 900 Range is now 1200 when traited
Adding Shortbow to Read the Wind projectile velocity is increased

Adding shortbow to Read the Wind could bandage a lot of issues with the weapon alone….

I’m wondering why this is not the case, maybe just becouse they’re in a power line and Shortbow for all intents and purposes is considered a condition weapon by Anet?

If they changed Eagle eye for use on shortbows too , it creeps to much into Lb Territory.
people would use a shortbow at 1200yards rather than the Lb , because of its fire rate is till faster than lb and it applies conditions the difference in its type of damage is lots of DoT+ controling effects liek daze and cripple on its skill 4 and no real Burst skill on a shortbow.

Poison volly is only sub par if you have less than 700 condi and Scales Extremely well at high lvls of condi damage, not duration, focus on the condi damage and just adding poison master can get that volly up to 8secs of 7k poison
so that skill or these type of skills are working well enough , if traited.

the change to shortbow auto you proposed with the increase bleed time on flanks or behind , would just encourage flanking still because of the extra damage, it also already applies enough bleed time to stack enough without the extended durations.

adding read the wind to a Sb with Quickening on would get some insane bleed stacks if the always bleeds on hits without flank, bleeding on flank would be needed as a counter balance for the immense bleeds in a really short time.

all i think it would need is a higher Condi-damage co-effecient on the bleed and volly.
the Rollback and then leap back idea sounds good but having both give evade wouldn’t be useful, changing it to match the Reverse version of the new gs swoop would be nice but the leap backwords needs to be near instant.

a Increase in leap distance would be enough , but it needs to match the Range of the shortbow.

I kind of like the idea of Moving Cripple to Quickshot same duration , ad adding torment to skill 4 torment+bleeds , (torment 2stacks 3secs) and make this weapon into a focused Kiting condi damage weapon more than it is now.
of course with a little increase in the Bleeding co-efficents so we don’t rely on Krait runes too much and can use other options like mad king ect.

I don’t really agree with where you are coming from. Ranger weapons are in general extremely good for at hybriding, really the only weapons which aren’t are the LB and GS, all the others can be used in power, condition builds or hybrid builds, and it’s something I love about ranger. I think it would be a real shame to lose that and start polerising weapons even more into condition only or power only.

Also I generally disagree the SB is lackluster… If you ask me it’s one of our very best weapons.

The only thing I can acknowledge is I can understand why some people dislike the way it works (being very AA attack heavy). Personally, that doesn’t bother me and dont see it as a problem, but I can understand why others dislike it.

I would love to see Quick Shot changed to a leap forward and strike your foe with the bow, then be able to leap back out of range while firing an arrow granting swiftness and evading.

Kind of like Warriors ‘Savage Leap’, but the second part of the skill would allow you to leap back. Anet, make it happen!!

Sb hybrid is actually very strong. When used in conjunction with sharpened edges and fairly high crit chance, the rate of fire can stack up quite a lot of bleeds which can result in pretty good DPS. Poison volley is pretty lackluster, I agree. It spreads out way to quickly essentially lowering it’s effective range.

What I would change with SB is take away the cripple and bleed from #4 and give it torment instead, then throw an immob on #3 and take away the swiftness. That would make #3 a very nice kiting skill, and would also work well with the new GM trait. Also SB 5 needs something added to it. Without moment of clarity it’s only use really is an interupt, 1s of stun isn’t really much, let alone 1s of daze. I’ve been using SB for a while recently with a hybrid build and it works quite nice, but it isn’t perfect, and I’m even considering changing to axe/dagger after the patch because of the buffs. Not too sure how well axe will work with a hybrid build though, axe #2 suffers from the same issues as poison volley =p

Cufufalating.8479:

I don’t really agree with where you are coming from. Ranger weapons are in general extremely good for at hybriding, really the only weapons which aren’t are the LB and GS, all the others can be used in power, condition builds or hybrid builds, and it’s something I love about ranger. I think it would be a real shame to lose that and start polerising weapons even more into condition only or power only.

Also I generally disagree the SB is lackluster… If you ask me it’s one of our very best weapons.

The only thing I can acknowledge is I can understand why some people dislike the way it works (being very AA attack heavy). Personally, that doesn’t bother me and dont see it as a problem, but I can understand why others dislike it.

I never said Shortbow is a luckluster weapon, just the condition application of the autoattack is unrealiable, and it is, you can’t really control where your enemy moves most of the time and said enemy can easily outmanuver you by just strafing and/or mouse turning. The bleeds feel more like a bonus to the direct damage than a damage source on itself, this shouldn’t be the case on a condition weapon. I’m also nerfing the base duration of the bleed substantialy to compensate.
Poison volley being most effective on melee range (as strong as it can be), does not quite compute on a strictly ranged weapon, and Quick Shot is used more as a clutch evade rather than a kiting skill, increasing the leaping distance just a little bit would more than fair in my opinion.
Also, how would attaching a sacured bleed on the autoattack stop this weapon’s viability on hybrid builds?

Shortbow is a very good weapon, I never said otherwise, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a place for improvements.

For SB to be really good, imo, remove the flanking condition for the bleed on AA and make it 2 stacks for two seconds instead of 1 stack for 3s. Or 1 stack of bleeding for 2s while flanking and a 1 stack of torment for 2s unconditionally. Concussion Shot could do with 5s less CD and put 3s of vigor on Quick Shot.

I’d also make RtW affect it and Eagle eye extent the range to 1050, if a thief can shoot to 1050 with a pistol and major trait (Ricochet) then a bow can do the same.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

For SB to be really good, imo, remove the flanking condition for the bleed on AA and make it 2 stacks for two seconds instead of 1 stack for 3s. Or 1 stack of bleeding for 2s while flanking and a 1 stack of torment for 2s unconditionally. Concussion Shot could do with 5s less CD and put 3s of vigor on Quick Shot.

I’d also make RtW affect it and Eagle eye extent the range to 1050, if a thief can shoot to 1050 with a pistol and major trait (Ricochet) then a bow can do the same.

There shouldn’t even be condition application on auto attacks. Especially torment, do you even realize how broken mesmer will be with torment on their AA’s, we don’t need that either, it just encourages un-skilled play. If any AA is going to have a condition the attack should meet some requirement like SB AA.

Increase damage so it hits as hard as lb in the same amount of time.

Decrease base condition damage but increase the scaling.

The flanking requirement provides the only form of counterplay against this already terribly designed weapon. It outputs far too much damage and offers far too much mobility and utility as is, for very little effort.

I really hope they never remove the flanking requirement of this.

warriorjrd.8695:

There shouldn’t even be condition application on auto attacks. Especially torment, do you even realize how broken mesmer will be with torment on their AA’s, we don’t need that either, it just encourages un-skilled play. If any AA is going to have a condition the attack should meet some requirement like SB AA.

Well, its either bring this weapon into line with other condition weapons, or bring every other condition weapon into line with this one.

I see no problem with adding conditions on AA, assuming the AA direct damage + the condition dmg with high condi dmg/low power is comparable to the direct damage + condi damage with zerk stats. Its really just a trade off for damage now or damage over time. Its pressure that lasts an extra few seconds instead of stopping when the last arrow hit. Whats unskilled about that? It’s just another form of damage. I could argue that power promotes unskilled play because you kill your opponent faster, therefore negating the need to dodge or plan any sort of defence. You just throw bolas, bulls charge, 100b, or w/e.

SB is near useless when you are faced with someone attacking with any sort of determination and knowledge of the weapon, with high condition damage, it does very poor AA direct dmg, without the bleeds, its garbage. It needs something.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

warriorjrd.8695:

There shouldn’t even be condition application on auto attacks. Especially torment, do you even realize how broken mesmer will be with torment on their AA’s, we don’t need that either, it just encourages un-skilled play. If any AA is going to have a condition the attack should meet some requirement like SB AA.

Well, its either bring this weapon into line with other condition weapons, or bring every other condition weapon into line with this one.

I see no problem with adding conditions on AA, assuming the AA direct damage + the condition dmg with high condi dmg/low power is comparable to the direct damage + condi damage with zerk stats. Its really just a trade off for damage now or damage over time. Its pressure that lasts an extra few seconds instead of stopping when the last arrow hit. Whats unskilled about that? It’s just another form of damage. I could argue that power promotes unskilled play because you kill your opponent faster, therefore negating the need to dodge or plan any sort of defence. You just throw bolas, bulls charge, 100b, or w/e.

SB is near useless when you are faced with someone attacking with any sort of determination and knowledge of the weapon, with high condition damage, it does very poor AA direct dmg, without the bleeds, its garbage. It needs something.

“whats unskilled about that?”. The fact it encourages people to use AA even more rather than other skills. If I have condi application on the very fast SB AA why would I bother using other skills? It’s unskilled gameplay if you can just use AA 90% of the fight and still win. As for your first statement the latter is what should happen. AA isn’t supposed to be strong, that’s why it has no CD. You shouldn’t be able to apply X amount of conditions by just sitting there and doing nothing. If you want an example just look at mesmer post-patch. A mesmer can sit there with scepter and get clones that give torment which means 100% uptime of multiple stacks of torment with just their AA. It’s mindless and skill less, and shouldn’t be encouraged.

Post patch, celestial builds would be stupid to take SB over axe.

Khenzy.9348:

I never said Shortbow is a luckluster weapon,

I know, sorry, I should have been more clear. Not all of that was specifically replying to you, more to Wolfey and to others in the community who dislike the SB (because I know there are many :p)

Halan.7931:

warriorjrd.8695:

There shouldn’t even be condition application on auto attacks. Especially torment, do you even realize how broken mesmer will be with torment on their AA’s, we don’t need that either, it just encourages un-skilled play. If any AA is going to have a condition the attack should meet some requirement like SB AA.

Have you seen bleed on warrior’s sword autoattack? Or you’re against it too?

Btw I would trade ranger sword 1 for warrior sword 1 without hesitation.

What other skills do you think i’m talking about if i’m not considering warrior sword 1? It’s two 8s bleeds on their AA guaranteed, no flanking nonsense. Also if you learn how to use ranger sword 1 it’s often times better than warrior. 1. It has more raw DPS, the only way warrior would get more DPS is to be hybrid or condi. 2. if you disable the AA instant cast so you control each attack, it’s great for sticking to your enemies. 2 and 3 for ranger sword are much better for small scale.

I have fought condi wars who go S/S + X and what they do is AA until they have enough adrenaline for flurry and I have 25 stacks of bleeds on me instantly. They don’t bother with other skills except when impale is off CD. Now I usually beat these warriors because 90% of the time they are bads looking for an easy build and easy wins, but the amount of damage they do with just the AA is ridiculous. 10 stacks of bleeds maintained with the AA then add flurry on top of it, they can literally kill things with just their AA quite easily. It’s boring and easy play, an AA should be a weak but spammable skill that’s used only when you have other skills on CD. In a lot of cases right now we have AA’s that aren’t weak but still spammable, there isn’t any trade off when there should be.

Neko.9021:

The flanking requirement provides the only form of counterplay against this already terribly designed weapon. It outputs far too much damage and offers far too much mobility and utility as is, for very little effort.

I really hope they never remove the flanking requirement of this.

Uh, lol? It offers far to much mobility? The distance of the number 3 skills is exactly the same as a single dodge roll. OP!

To those asking for it to become a condi weapon, a lot of us like using it as a power weapon.

To those asking for torment on auto attack, you are on drugs thats crazy OP.

• make the auto attack a non-positional chain (1 (physical), 2 (1 bleed, 3 sec), 3 (burn, 1sec) )
• make #2 leave behind lingering trails of poison for 3 seconds,
• rollback on #3 should really be a longer distance (you are already fighting within 900 range, so there is a lot less leeway for kiting and keeping distance than on the longbow)

The shortbow is fine. I don’t want to see another over-buffed weapon like mesmer scepter.

First of all, Ranger shortbow does pretty miserable damage. If you’ve ever fought an even halfway decent warrior as a SB ranger you will know that the weapon can’t even get close to killing them on its own.

However, it excels at focusing targets in a team fight with the cripple, and interrupt on a relatively short cooldown. Add piercing and you can pressure people very well in a teamfight with a reliable on demand heal interrupt and a combination of power and bleed damage.

Obviously, most of the hate for ranger shortbow stems from how the attacks are all similar, and the very fast auto attack. People say that “Ranger shortbow has no counterplay”. That simply isn’t true. The easiest way to fight ranger shortbow is to simply get right in the ranger’s face and outdamage them. Because almost any other class in the game is going to out-damage the shortbow from close range.

infantrydiv.1620:

First of all, Ranger shortbow does pretty miserable damage. If you’ve ever fought an even halfway decent warrior as a SB ranger you will know that the weapon can’t even get close to killing them on its own.

However, it excels at focusing targets in a team fight with the cripple, and interrupt on a relatively short cooldown. Add piercing and you can pressure people very well in a teamfight with a reliable on demand heal interrupt and a combination of power and bleed damage.

Obviously, most of the hate for ranger shortbow stems from how the attacks are all similar, and the very fast auto attack. People say that “Ranger shortbow has no counterplay”. That simply isn’t true. The easiest way to fight ranger shortbow is to simply get right in the ranger’s face and outdamage them. Because almost any other class in the game is going to out-damage the shortbow from close range.

lolwut. 20g says I can kill a warrior with just SB. Warrior is not the unkillable monstrosity people make it out to be, and I find ranger has all things required to kill a warrior.

1. Plenty of access to poison, this counters healing signet, which 90% of warriors use.
2. Plenty of CC to kite for days. Even with dogged march it’s still possible to kite warriors.
3. Plenty of evades to dodge those hard hitting skills. Tons of weapon evades, natural vigor, LR, all makes for easy dodging of those 1 shot skills,

Throw those three into a build and warriors won’t be a problem, and most builds have access to at least one of those. Having said that, you can still run into the warrior who is actually a good player and will wreck you, but a good player is a good player. If you get killed by somebody who knows the class and plays it well, don’t feel bad or feel the class you play is bad.

warriorjrd.8695:

infantrydiv.1620:

First of all, Ranger shortbow does pretty miserable damage. If you’ve ever fought an even halfway decent warrior as a SB ranger you will know that the weapon can’t even get close to killing them on its own.

However, it excels at focusing targets in a team fight with the cripple, and interrupt on a relatively short cooldown. Add piercing and you can pressure people very well in a teamfight with a reliable on demand heal interrupt and a combination of power and bleed damage.

Obviously, most of the hate for ranger shortbow stems from how the attacks are all similar, and the very fast auto attack. People say that “Ranger shortbow has no counterplay”. That simply isn’t true. The easiest way to fight ranger shortbow is to simply get right in the ranger’s face and outdamage them. Because almost any other class in the game is going to out-damage the shortbow from close range.

lolwut. 20g says I can kill a warrior with just SB. Warrior is not the unkillable monstrosity people make it out to be, and I find ranger has all things required to kill a warrior.

1. Plenty of access to poison, this counters healing signet, which 90% of warriors use.
2. Plenty of CC to kite for days. Even with dogged march it’s still possible to kite warriors.
3. Plenty of evades to dodge those hard hitting skills. Tons of weapon evades, natural vigor, LR, all makes for easy dodging of those 1 shot skills,

Throw those three into a build and warriors won’t be a problem, and most builds have access to at least one of those. Having said that, you can still run into the warrior who is actually a good player and will wreck you, but a good player is a good player. If you get killed by somebody who knows the class and plays it well, don’t feel bad or feel the class you play is bad.

What is the point of making a bet whether you can kill a warrior with just a Shortbow? If the warrior knows how to play, and has a proper build, then no, you can’t. If you CAN, well, the warrior sucks. Plain and simple.

I did not say that warrior is an unkillable monstrosity. However, there is an obvious reason why you see teams running 2 warriors and winning tournaments. It’s because warrior is, like ele, overpowered at the moment.

I don’t feel ranger is bad, and no where in my post did I ask for shortbow buffs. I think shortbow has a role right now that it fits well.

It’s pretty funny that whenever someone mentions how warriors are strong you get ridiculous responses like “oh yeah? well ill beat a good warrior with just a shortbow! that’ll show you”. Lmao.

warriorjrd.8695:

“whats unskilled about that?”. The fact it encourages people to use AA even more rather than other skills. If I have condi application on the very fast SB AA why would I bother using other skills? It’s unskilled gameplay if you can just use AA 90% of the fight and still win. As for your first statement the latter is what should happen. AA isn’t supposed to be strong, that’s why it has no CD. You shouldn’t be able to apply X amount of conditions by just sitting there and doing nothing. If you want an example just look at mesmer post-patch. A mesmer can sit there with scepter and get clones that give torment which means 100% uptime of multiple stacks of torment with just their AA. It’s mindless and skill less, and shouldn’t be encouraged.

This post has some slight exagerations to say the least, people wont use the Shortbow’s AA any more that what they use it now. Shorbow skills from 2 to 5 are situational/utility or even residual weapon skills, they are not there to set up any kind of damage, that’s what the AA is there for.
This would give more of a purpose to this weapon, a realiable really short bleed on AA wont make this weapon any more broken, there are weapons that are clearly utility based, more damage oriented or even purely difensive, you shouldn’t criticize or give the same general point of view on all weapon AAs without taking into account what I just said above.
If I spec condis my AA shouldn’t do crappy direct damage if the target is facing me the entire time that’s far from reliable and extremely easily counterable, I shouldn’t have to spec into heavy precision and on crit bleeds just so my condition weapon can do some condition damage on its main damage source. All that speccing should be a bonus, it isn’t currently.

Khenzy.9348:

…If I spec condis my AA shouldn’t do crappy direct damage if the target is facing me the entire time that’s far from reliable and extremely easily counterable, I shouldn’t have to spec into heavy precision and on crit bleeds just so my condition weapon can do some condition damage on its main damage source. All that speccing should be a bonus, it isn’t currently.

Exactly. If condition weapons didn’t add conditions on AA, they would need much shorter CD #2-5 skills and then multiple stacks of conditions, or they would be completely useless. Even if they were like that, they would be still almost useless as the stacks which cannot be re-applied quickly are just cleansed and you have pitiful damage while you wait for CDs. If you up the power damage for the AA and remove condis, it makes speccing into condi pointless as if you spec it more to power, its going to be a power weapon.

Its not mindless play, its pressure play. To continually do damage over time to force actions and stress.

I still don’t see the problem with adding conditions to AA. Its actually easier to counter this damage than it is to counter direct dmg. Not only can you dodge it or evade it or LoS it as with direct dmg, you can just cleanse it when it gets to a painful level. Not to mention passive condi removal, imagine if there was passive evade, now that would be/is mindless play.

On average, without gear or stats, AA on SB does about 130dmg per strike on a golem, the 3s of bleed IF you are flanking does 255. The condition damage is double the direct dmg! What is the difference between the arrow doing 385dmg including the bleed or 385 direct damage? Time. That’s it.

That is also time that the opponent can cleanse your dmg and negate it completely, or damage you sufficiently that you have to withdraw or are killed. That’s why condi builds and trait lines generally go together with tankiness and sustain, because you are sacrificing damage now for damage over time and pressure.

I don’t think the short bow aa need a buff. I am not a big fan of condition but when I do run condition I use a short bow. The flanking requirement is a minor thing. The attack speed of this weapon is almost twice that of any other weapon. With the right (bleeding from sigils and traits plus utilities)set up you can easily get 25 stack of bleed in seconds.

Yes from time to time you will face a warrior that you can barely scratch because he’s running stability so you k9 kd don’t work and neither does your fear. Poison is an option but it cleared almost right away. Not a short bow problem its his build is a counter to your. It doesn mean you have no chance just a very slim one and that’s the way it should be. Warrior have to give you very little to do everything. This speaks more of an inbalace with warriors than the short comings of the sb.

Shortbow is pretty good still in my opinion but of course it could use some improvements:

1. The flanking requirement should be changed somehow bleeding duration might need to be reduced but I think that would be ok.

2. Range increased through traits make it shorter than longbow then if you will but atleast give the option.

3. Poison volley should be a “poison explosion arrow” give it a slightly shorter duration on hit but make it explode in a small aoe inflicting poison to all enemies in a 180 area or whatever is the norm for these types of aoes.

The rest of the skills are pretty good I think, the stun/daze could have a slightly shorter cd but that is about it.

infantrydiv.1620:

warriorjrd.8695:

infantrydiv.1620:

First of all, Ranger shortbow does pretty miserable damage. If you’ve ever fought an even halfway decent warrior as a SB ranger you will know that the weapon can’t even get close to killing them on its own.

However, it excels at focusing targets in a team fight with the cripple, and interrupt on a relatively short cooldown. Add piercing and you can pressure people very well in a teamfight with a reliable on demand heal interrupt and a combination of power and bleed damage.

Obviously, most of the hate for ranger shortbow stems from how the attacks are all similar, and the very fast auto attack. People say that “Ranger shortbow has no counterplay”. That simply isn’t true. The easiest way to fight ranger shortbow is to simply get right in the ranger’s face and outdamage them. Because almost any other class in the game is going to out-damage the shortbow from close range.

lolwut. 20g says I can kill a warrior with just SB. Warrior is not the unkillable monstrosity people make it out to be, and I find ranger has all things required to kill a warrior.

1. Plenty of access to poison, this counters healing signet, which 90% of warriors use.
2. Plenty of CC to kite for days. Even with dogged march it’s still possible to kite warriors.
3. Plenty of evades to dodge those hard hitting skills. Tons of weapon evades, natural vigor, LR, all makes for easy dodging of those 1 shot skills,

Throw those three into a build and warriors won’t be a problem, and most builds have access to at least one of those. Having said that, you can still run into the warrior who is actually a good player and will wreck you, but a good player is a good player. If you get killed by somebody who knows the class and plays it well, don’t feel bad or feel the class you play is bad.

What is the point of making a bet whether you can kill a warrior with just a Shortbow? If the warrior knows how to play, and has a proper build, then no, you can’t. If you CAN, well, the warrior sucks. Plain and simple.

I did not say that warrior is an unkillable monstrosity. However, there is an obvious reason why you see teams running 2 warriors and winning tournaments. It’s because warrior is, like ele, overpowered at the moment.

I don’t feel ranger is bad, and no where in my post did I ask for shortbow buffs. I think shortbow has a role right now that it fits well.

It’s pretty funny that whenever someone mentions how warriors are strong you get ridiculous responses like “oh yeah? well ill beat a good warrior with just a shortbow! that’ll show you”. Lmao.

And warriors are also one of the most over rated classes in the game. People see highest HP and heavy armour + passive regen and start crying. People use warriors in pvp teams because they bring team utility and can bunker etc. I personally don’t have any issue with warriors, but I guess every warrior I have killed is just a bad player then right? A great argument. If you killed a warrior then he is bad. Well if you can’t kill any warriors then I would have to say you are the one who is bad. ( I say you but I don’t mean you specifically). Also I have killed warriors who actually know how to play, with just SB, and when I say just SB I mean that’s the only weapon I use, I still use pets, but it’s not that complicated really.

I’ve been thinking about numbers quite a bit, and Crossfire applying a 2 second base bleed would be a little too strong considering it shoots more than one arrow per second and other condition duration and bleed duration sources, it would make it stronger that what it is now, that’s not the intention here, really.

So I propose:
Crossfire does 1 second bleeds from the front and 2 second bleeds from the sides and back. The overall results should be roughly the same and the bleed would be much more reliable and not so RNG.

Edited the OP for clarification.

No, the problem is they hybridized ranger weapons and made them useless as a result.

Both the axe and shortbow step on each other’s toes. The axe auto is power based yet the other skills are condition skills.

The shortbow auto has a power and condition attack mix as well, which makes optimizing the weapon pretty much impossible.

It’s why longbow and the swords bear better results for what you use them. All the stats you gear for go directly to the skills.

Zenith.7301:

No, the problem is they hybridized ranger weapons and made them useless as a result.

Both the axe and shortbow step on each other’s toes. The axe auto is power based yet the other skills are condition skills.

The shortbow auto has a power and condition attack mix as well, which makes optimizing the weapon pretty much impossible.

It’s why longbow and the swords bear better results for what you use them. All the stats you gear for go directly to the skills.

A few things
1. Sword is kind of a hybrid weapon too
2. I hope you’re not implying that longbow based power builds are considered good for high level pvp, because that is incorrect.
3. The axe and shortbow are far from useless. Celestial is a thing you know which makes hybrid great. You can even run a rabid or carrion set up with axe or shortbow and do wonders with it. They are not useless. The axe auto on some builds is less useful, but in two weeks it will serve a very clear and good purpose..

Khenzy.9348:

So I propose:
Crossfire does 1 second bleeds from the front and 2 second bleeds from the sides and back. The overall results should be roughly the same and the bleed would be much more reliable and not so RNG.

Lowering the base duration would have a major impact on builds. A 33% condition duration increase in your proposal would result in no addition seconds to bleed (from the short bow).

Serraphin Storm.2369:

Khenzy.9348:

So I propose:
Crossfire does 1 second bleeds from the front and 2 second bleeds from the sides and back. The overall results should be roughly the same and the bleed would be much more reliable and not so RNG.

Lowering the base duration would have a major impact on builds. A 33% condition duration increase in your proposal would result in no addition seconds to bleed (from the short bow).

With just 1 second duration you would be able to maintain at least 3 stacks as long as you keep attacking, that’s pretty decent considering you could also take bleeds on crit and earth sigil.
Also, remember bleeds stack, unlike burning with which you have to round that next second for the next damage tick. You can still stack a higher amount of bleeds which also increases the damage potential for slightly longer even if it doesn’t round to a 3rd second with +condi duration. Although I’m not sure I understood you correctly, my apologies in advance if that’s the case.

I personally feel that damage wise, the Short Bow was in a good position at release. Someone pointed out the weapon’s mobility. Ever since the range reduction it has become tricky to kite well with it. The damage it does is generally lower than what the Axe does at range, even more so after the upcoming patch. As for kiting, chill>cripple and the lack of dodge can be compensated by taking a Dagger off-hand.

Having said all that, none of that is the reason why I dislike the weapon, which is quite simple actually. The auto-attack does, by far, the most damage. There is no burst skill on the weapon and little reward to skillful play other than positioning yourself well to make use of Piercing Arrows.

Longbow suffers from the same problem, that the auto-attack does the most damage and while that is being fixed due to the reduction of Rapid Fire’s casting time, mobility is actually more of an issue on that weapon because it lacks defensive utility.
Yet the Longbow seems to rely less on Piercing Arrows, but rewards it more.

nearlight.3064:

Zenith.7301:

No, the problem is they hybridized ranger weapons and made them useless as a result.

Both the axe and shortbow step on each other’s toes. The axe auto is power based yet the other skills are condition skills.

The shortbow auto has a power and condition attack mix as well, which makes optimizing the weapon pretty much impossible.

It’s why longbow and the swords bear better results for what you use them. All the stats you gear for go directly to the skills.

A few things
1. Sword is kind of a hybrid weapon too
2. I hope you’re not implying that longbow based power builds are considered good for high level pvp, because that is incorrect.
3. The axe and shortbow are far from useless. Celestial is a thing you know which makes hybrid great. You can even run a rabid or carrion set up with axe or shortbow and do wonders with it. They are not useless. The axe auto on some builds is less useful, but in two weeks it will serve a very clear and good purpose..

I’m talking from a numbers perspective. Don’t dwell on what they are. Just think about scaling with gear.

A berzerker in full ascended is getting more bang from that gear on their sword/longbow/axe offhand than on a mainhand axe or crossbow, where a portion of the skill borrows in its formula from a stat they don’t have as much of.

It’s also part of why warriors are so powerful. Not only are the base values of their skills really high, but the weapons they use are highly specialized. A greatsword or mainhand axe or hammer all perfectly scale on a power spec.

Splitting power from condition damage was a terrible idea. It heavily punishes hybrid skills and weapons. And celestial is pretty worthless for PvE, and you will do pretty garbage damage in group play in WvW where specialization is more desired.

Zenith.7301:

nearlight.3064:

Zenith.7301:

No, the problem is they hybridized ranger weapons and made them useless as a result.

Both the axe and shortbow step on each other’s toes. The axe auto is power based yet the other skills are condition skills.

The shortbow auto has a power and condition attack mix as well, which makes optimizing the weapon pretty much impossible.

It’s why longbow and the swords bear better results for what you use them. All the stats you gear for go directly to the skills.

A few things
1. Sword is kind of a hybrid weapon too
2. I hope you’re not implying that longbow based power builds are considered good for high level pvp, because that is incorrect.
3. The axe and shortbow are far from useless. Celestial is a thing you know which makes hybrid great. You can even run a rabid or carrion set up with axe or shortbow and do wonders with it. They are not useless. The axe auto on some builds is less useful, but in two weeks it will serve a very clear and good purpose..

I’m talking from a numbers perspective. Don’t dwell on what they are. Just think about scaling with gear.

A berzerker in full ascended is getting more bang from that gear on their sword/longbow/axe offhand than on a mainhand axe or crossbow, where a portion of the skill borrows in its formula from a stat they don’t have as much of.

It’s also part of why warriors are so powerful. Not only are the base values of their skills really high, but the weapons they use are highly specialized. A greatsword or mainhand axe or hammer all perfectly scale on a power spec.

Splitting power from condition damage was a terrible idea. It heavily punishes hybrid skills and weapons. And celestial is pretty worthless for PvE, and you will do pretty garbage damage in group play in WvW where specialization is more desired.

That’s fair enough. I only use ranger in pvp so that’s where I speak for.

Let just say they did remove the flanking requirement. the short bows attack speed is .54 seconds. So that would roughly be 19 stacks of bleed in 10 seconds. That doesn’t include any traits or sigil or utilities that also produce bleeding.

While there are melee weapon that can proc bleeds their limitations are their r range.
As stated before even with the flank requirement its not hard at all to produce s5 stacks of bleed in a few seconds.

How to fix poison volley, and frankly, a lot of issues with shortbow:
It shouldn’t be allowed to hit a target more than once per cast;
It applies the current maximum poison duration on each arrow;
Its arrow hitboxes are larger and allow for a 30% increased spread radius;
It applies 3 stacks of torment for 5s to enemies hit.