Guild Wars 2

Apparently (I don’t know if it’s just me)

When I first played the new patch, Light on your feet clearly states on the tooltip “Shortbow effects will proc Flanking effects even if you are not flanking”

and we all agreed that It didn’t work

So, I was waiting for it to get fixed then I decided to check the wiki

And now the effect is this:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Light_on_your_Feet

Apparently It enhances flanking effects.

IMO this is such a horrible, underwhelming change. (still better than before though) The only real winners here are SB 4 and 5. Bleeding duration and all that are pretty meh.

I could’ve wished we get the non-situational flanking effects.

Thoughts?

“Always as if flanking” would have been almost brokenly good, especially added to the other effects. I think they accidentally left in early draft text that didn’t match the final draft buff.

They corrected the in-game tooltip. Wiki has also been corrected.

Looking back, the original in-game tooltip error would have been the better choice of the flanking bonuses being applied always. Wouldn’t even be brokenly good – just good. In PVE, even with the extended bonuses from the new LOYF, Quick Draw is still the better option.

However, in PVP and WVW during smaller skirmishes and duels, an always-flanking bonus would have been build-defining and advantageous for shortbow users in modes where getting the flank rarely occurs.

Overall, the new buff is… there. It’s just there. This is the second time the “other” iteration for LOYF has been better then the finalized one. Remember before when it was revealed to get the +10% damage and condition duration bonus while moving?

Would have been ace if we could have that AND an always flanking bonus. Wouldn’t mean jack kitten in PVE, but for WVW and PVP, it would be kitten nice.

Guys you misunderstood this.

2 and 4 now always behave with the bonus on behind OR flanking. The LOYF just buffs all skills flanking OR behind bonus.

So basically the vanilla shortbow skills got buffed. Last patch the 2 and 4 just had a bonus on behind, not the flanking one is default as well.

the new trait is still the worst and will not be used same as the shortbow.

Wow that trait doesn’t look half bad now. +X seconds? +10 vulnerability? That’s pretty solid once you take +% condition duration into account.

Sister Saxifrage.7361:

“Always as if flanking” would have been almost brokenly good, especially added to the other effects. I think they accidentally left in early draft text that didn’t match the final draft buff.

Making a weapon work like all other weapons wouldn’t make it OP

The op is correct.
The trait initially and right after the patch came out made all SB attacks behave as if you were behind the target.
Now it’s been changed so that it is still required to hit a target from behind or the sides to get the bonuses,and the bonuses are buffed.
Better this way as it involves player skill.

Better this way as it involves player skill.

Is placing oneself behind a target really worse being labelled as having “skill”? At best it’s a restriction that add flavor and punish foes that dare to show their back to the ranger. It has really nothing to do with “skill”.

Dadnir.5038:

Better this way as it involves player skill.

Is placing oneself behind a target really worse being labelled as having “skill”? At best it’s a restriction that add flavor and punish foes that dare to show their back to the ranger. It has really nothing to do with “skill”.

It has more to do with skill than not having to control your position in relation to your target in order to maximise your attacks’ effectiveness.

Still wouldn’t take over Quick draw. Don’t get me wrong, I almost always run Shortbow on Condi ranger builds now but QD just outpaces the other 2 traits.

In raids and PvE this wouldn’t matter much as you’re saving dodges for important attacks. For this to be effective you would need to spam dodges and be behind, which isn’t bad , but it risks your survivability when an important attack or need to get out of an AoE comes into play.

For PvP … Yeaaaaaaaa … Might work in form of group play in PvP but definitely nothing mid to top tier or against organized teams. Staff / Sword / X is still and will be meta for a long time – just too much use out of any other weapon set at the moment.

WvW … Lol , shortbow in WvW – good luck with that. Chances are you’ll be in a squad which won’t matter much what weapon set you’re running anyway and you’ll find yourself pushing forward most of those times which makes it irrelevant…

Roaming , good luck fighting against a person decent and needing to dodge just to get a bonus off on flanking them. 2 things you most likely will not be doing unless you land a roots on them and they have no condi clear left which is almost 0% of the time except maybe necro classes.

—

Way too situational, way too risky to burn dodges to get the effect AND be flanking… Just too much risk vs reward .. Maybe if it was a higher % it would be taken.

yep.
Basically Shortbow needs 1500 range baseline so condi have an actual range option to compete with LB and ranger can be pewpew with condi too.

And that trait should work as the description initially was: all attacks behave like flaking and attacks from side of behind are enhanced.

Not like 1 stack of 3 seconds bleed instead 2 seconds is going to mean a big difference, and actually that could make the SB kittenable weapon for all gamemodes.

As i said hundred of times, in this game you can’t flank another player because of the autotargeting and autofacing your target thing. Great for easy game but terrible for weird mechanics like sb one.

The extra 10% while moving ( not dodge ) could perfectly replace the bad joke that is MDM with some extra effect to make it GM worthy.

anduriell.6280:

yep.
Basically Shortbow needs 1500 range baseline so condi have an actual range option to compete with LB and ranger can be pewpew with condi too.

I wont play ranger/shortbow again unless they up its range. The problem with increased range on condi weapons is unkillable ranged dot bunker though.

Evasive Shot needs to be a leap forward unless you have a target, when it should be a leap away.
Also they should up all Short bow skills range from 900 to 1050.

But the biggest reason why condi builds do not work is that traps, beside healing spring, offer no utility (condi cleanse, boons or stun break) and skirmishing minor traits are bad.

So to sum it up:
- SB range is kind of bad
- Evasive shot needs to leap you forward if you do not have an enemy targeted
- Spike trap, Viper nest, Flame trap and Ice trap needs some utility. Boons, stun break and condition cleanse distributed
- Skirmishing minor traits need a fix: Furious grip and tailwind merged into one minor trait and Sharpened edges moved onto the other minor trait. Then add a new major trait like circle of life was, that would proc HS when below 50% life on a big CD.

Justine.6351:

anduriell.6280:

yep.
Basically Shortbow needs 1500 range baseline so condi have an actual range option to compete with LB and ranger can be pewpew with condi too.

I wont play ranger/shortbow again unless they up its range. The problem with increased range on condi weapons is unkillable ranged dot bunker though.

That’s a problem of Condi sets, which are ridiculously bunker (dire, trailblazer…) for the burst that spamming 4 different conditions just with the AA does, not the range of the weapon as most classes have gap closers they can use to get in melee.

in my mind 1500 is the ideal, so ranger has something different from other condi classes, but even 1200 would be ok.