Guild Wars 2

Hello Everyone,

In this thread I plan to highlight some problems with the longbow and the shortbow, make suggestions to fix them and just generally discuss the weapons from a tpvp perspective. I apologise in advance for any spelling mistakes or errors. Please keep discussion on topic.

To understand my viewpoint on these topics it will probably be helpful if you understand how I play. I run a 30-30-10-0-0 with both the shortbow AND the longbow as my primary weapons. I find this a very well balanced build with effective damage, pressure and survivability however it has its flaws or I would not be posting this.
Now into the discussion.
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There are two main problems with the longbow keeping it from being a successful weapon in tpvp:

First Problem:
The range requirement on the longbow is severely hindering the weapon in a tpvp aspect as many of the fights found are centred around nodes, thus making close quarter combat almost impossible to avoid. Due to this the longbow’s damage is hurt majorly and the weapon itself becomes rather pointless unless trying to use Rapid Fire or Point Blank shot.

Possible solution:
To fix this issue (on Long Range Shot), I suggest keeping the range requirement but slightly altering it. I would bundle 0-1000 together and have the damage at 500 (I believe currently it’s 497, anyway the number is debatable) and keep the 1000+ aspect range as it is, thus not affecting PvE damage but helping the PvP ranger keep pressure on the target.

Why it works:
This increases the damage of the longbow slightly while also making it much easier to balance as range isn’t so much of a factor and it works well within the current tpvp game design system of fighting around a node.

Second Problem:
IT SHOOTS TOO SLOW! I understand the wish to separate the longbow characteristics from the shortbow and to keep realism in the game but this shouldn’t sacrifice practicality. I say this as when I TRY to use this weapon within combat around a node and with Rapid Fire on CD (Our only real damage ability on the Longbow), damage just doesn’t happen. Sure you can use Barrage but when you are the focus attention of a warrior or a thief, that 2 second casting time just cost you the fight.

Possible Solution:
Increase the attack speed on the longbow by “20ms” or so on Long Range Shot, about half of what the shortbow animation fix was.

Why it works:
This allows us to have somewhat sustained pressure and damage with the longbow in a tpvp situation as we do not have conditions to apply to the target besides cripple. It also reduces the ‘obstruct’ or just the plain misses that the majority of arrows suffer.

On a side note: If we can reduce the ‘obstruct’ or miss on rapid fire at range that would do wonders to boost the damage and efficiency of this weapon as a large portion of our damage is lost to this.

With these two (possibly three fixes) the longbow has the potential to go from a hardly used weapon to one that is balanced in a tpvp situation around the game design.

The Shortbow:

Currently the shortbow is our strongest range weapon in tpvp and I believe this is because it THRIVES in close quarter combat around nodes. How many times has quick shot saved you from the burst damage about to hit you at keep? I know it’s saved me too many times to count.

The strengths of the shortbow are due to its fast attacks, pressure (through bleeds and poison at the right time), and survival capability (through 3, 4 and 5). However after the animation fix, the short bow seems to be a little bit lacking. To fix this, I DO NOT SUGGEST REVERATING THE ANIMATION GLITCH as that would encourage unskilful play and the ranger class does not need that reputation back.

What the shortbow needs is more reliable and useful ways to apply damage to a target instead of just spamming one. Therefore I suggest the following changes (Note: I do not suggest adding all of these together, instead I am giving ideas of possible changes to abilities that could help)

Poison Volley:
Currently all I use this ability for is to apply a poison at the 35% mark to lessen that annoying heal and it can have the habitat of just not landing due to the spread of the arrows and the base damage is just terrible. So I am suggesting making this a single target ability that applies poison to one target and have a higher base damage. What this in effect does is reduces the reliance in Crossfire as a damage source while assisting condition pressure and adding a small bit of burst.

Crippling Shot:
I would reduce the bleed damage on this ability by half and increase the base damage. What this effectively does is similar to the Poison Volley suggestion. It removes the requirement for Crossfire as our main damage source yet does not hurt our utility and survivability. The only possible problem with this change would affect condition shortbow rangers however I think the damage increase initially will out weight this change.

Thank you very much if you actually read all of this post. Please leave your opinions below and how you would suggest to change or fix the weapons.

I just want arrows to travel faster.

I miss being able to stack bleeds as high as I could before the nerf. Makes me sad I focused on conditions =(

Faster arrows would make a big difference with both types of bows. For the shortbow it would slightly increase the stacks of bleeds you can get on the target at a time, depending on how close the target is and for the long bow it would help solve that stupid obstruct nonsense.

And it would also mean our arrows are less easily bugged by rapidly moving left right left right left right and being able to dodge every single arrow that way.

That is also true, however I would still like to see an increase on the attack speed on Long Range Shot to help compensate for this problem as well.

I remember the first time I saw Rapid Fire, I laughed because I had seen warriors charge faster than my arrows travel, that really takes away from the feel and actual damage of the abilities.

If you would of told me that a month and a half into the game as a ranger I wouldn’t be using the longbow as my main weapon I would of told you “now way” but I find myself using less and less and this saddens me.

It’s frustrating that my longbow isn’t a “long” bow and that it’s too slow….please Anet look into this and do some more testing…you want Rangers to have more fun than pressing “1” on shortbow…FIX the longbow.

LB under 2sec quickness from pet swap, and more currently the LB #2 which channels a barrage of arrows!

That’s how it shines! Use Sigil of Rage!

Now compare LB against SB considering Sigil of Rage and pet swap quickness.

Cempa, I have tried this before but it does not compare to using the Longbow as a support weapon to the shortbow through Hunter’s short and quickness and Crossfire… it just doesnt have the damage atm or the utility..

Sorry but with half crit gear and high points I crit for some good amounts with SB too good to even try LB…….like I say Anet you want us to be versatile with all our weapons and skills…fix em…….

I agree Drok, I use Diversity with the 30 30 10 0 0 build I mentioned earlier and most of the time Shortbow is more than enough in combat. The only time I really use Longbow is as a support weapon for shortbow by adding Vulnerability and Rapid Fire (generally as an opener) to get some burst on the target and some good damage before they realise I’m there. If the player is aware of me however, the longbow becomes obsolete almost.

Yea faster arrows would be a godsend, something like rifle warriors bullets. Idk what fantasy they got the slow moving arrow idea from such a short range but I suggest they up the arrow flight time via buff or new trait. I wouldnt mind a slow arcing arrow if it had like 2500 range on it. That would be cool lol, running from quarry or waterfall to mid with someone targeted and just hit that skill and watch it fly and hit them, the unseen sniper ftw. I think longbow needs something like kill shot, an attack that isnt 10 arrows but 1, and hits for a fat chunk of health. It just needs more damage and more damage attacks, some way to do damage outside of rapid fire.

Dante as cool as that would be I don’t think it would be very balanced. To put it into perspective it would be a ranged Backstab with no requirements.

I do agree with the comment about Rapid Fire, at the moment it’s our only damaging ability in an actual fight when we are being focused besides for our utility shot Point Blank Range. That’s why I believe a speed up on the attack speed of Long Range Shot and remove the first range requirement and put it within the second. So the groupings would look like 0-1000 and 1000+