Guild Wars 2

Tested 2 weapons of the same level on the same mob (auto-attack skill only)
-with shortbow i killed it in 14 seconds
-with longbow i killed it in 28 seconds

Did anyone else tested the kill-time between different weapons? I find the difference in dmg gamebreakingly huge.

>auto attack skill only

there is your problem. I can kill the same mob with a LB FASTER aslong as all my CDs are up when the engage happens, HOWEVER, longbow really suffers once you blow all your skills, if Barrage had a lower cooldown, Longbow would be dabes. I use SB/LB so I basicly, LB start off, barrage->Hunters shot->Rapidfire then swap to SB till CD is up and swap back.

Now, Melee weapons are the ones that are skewed. Sword feels clunky but ok damage wise. Dagger off hand is kitten. Axe offhand is pretty sweet. But generally melee is outclassed by ranged by a longshot.

Dice Dragon.4326:

>auto attack skill only

there is your problem. I can kill the same mob with a LB FASTER aslong as all my CDs are up when the engage happens, HOWEVER, longbow really suffers once you blow all your skills, if Barrage had a lower cooldown, Longbow would be dabes. I use SB/LB so I basicly, LB start off, barrage->Hunters shot->Rapidfire then swap to SB till CD is up and swap back.

Now, Melee weapons are the ones that are skewed. Sword feels clunky but ok damage wise. Dagger off hand is kitten. Axe offhand is pretty sweet. But generally melee is outclassed by ranged by a longshot.

Barrage is situational, using it for a single target would be a waste. Rapid Fire did less damage than the Short Bow auto attack despite using Hunter’s Shot.

In order to determine if two weapons are actually balanced with each other you have to compare a lot more than the autoattack damage. Weapons in this game are the source of nearly half your active skills at any given time.

For large scale WvW fights, especially around keeps or towers, I’d say the longbow is superior to the shortbow due entirely to the Barrage skill, which is incredibly useful in that kind of scenario. Half a dozen rangers with longbows using Barrage on cooldown makes a big difference in a keep fight – certainly a bigger difference than higher autoattack damage would make.

However, in almost any other scenario the longbow is a poor choice. It’s basically just Barrage with some subpar other buttons to press while Barrage is on cooldown. In that regard, it should probably be fixed. If Anet thinks Barrage is so kitten good that it necessitates everything else about the weapon being noticeably weak, maybe they should just nerf Barrage and make the other skills more useful. At least then the weapon would be good for more than one thing.