Guild Wars 2

My point is that the shortbow does more damage than the long bow in many ways. Also it has the same range as the Longbow, unless you put a trait rune into range. And even if you do that it’s not a biggie anyway.

So is there a reason for me to drop my Shortbow for a Longbow? It can’t be for the damage, shortbow is superior and faster. Is it for the weak aoe? It’s nice with the cripple but, meh~a trap does better.

So why would I drop my damage, speed and mobility for a longbow?

For me, it’s basically just because of the 15ØØ range trait for longbow. :-\
I like the idea of playing a max-range sniper, even if the game doesn’t seem too particularly receptive to the idea.

Other than that, it’s a decent opener if you want to run dual bows.

If you dont know how to use the Longbow, dont use it

Longbow= Tactical Weapon
Shortbow= Skirmish Weapon

This is how I see it(skills):

Crossfire – The best skill the shortbow has, its fast, effective and very quick, also gives you a lot of mobility.

Poison Volley – Does barely any damage if 1 arrow hits enemy but can poison several foes at once. Decent move.

Quick Shot – Its pretty good as you can retreat and give yourself a better position with this move, also gaining swiftness is nice.

Crippling shot – Pretty decent move again, Cripples opponent and animal can inflict bleeding.

Concussion shot – Another decent movie, nothing too special, daze/stun your opponent for a second, decent damage. very high recharge for a skill that isnt that good.

Shortbow overall is just…. decent, its a 3.5/5 for me as it is solid but at the end of the day, the only good skills inmo are the Crossfire and the quickshot. People always think that just because the shortbow is faster that its stronger or better in damage in anyway, it isnt.

Longbow:

Long Range Shot – Damage per shot is superior to the shortbow but the shortbow is indeed faster altough the long range shot of the longbow gives you guaranteed more damage the further away you are from your opponent.

Rapid Fire – This is one of the best skills the ranger can have, shooting 10 arrows in a rapid speed is highly damaging and very effective. does more damage than all of shortbow skills put together.

Hunters Shot – Giving your opponent weakness and pet gains swiftness is a pretty ok skill as it does weaken enemy and makes the pet faster, damage is alright.

Point Blank Shot – Does a good amount of damage and pushes the opponent away frm you the closer you are to him, Easily is better than Shortbows quick shot and the Point Blank does more damage and pushes the enemy away instead of having to jump backwars yourself… with the shortbow.

Barrage – Has a large are of effect and again, very very high damage for one single move, easily does more damage than every shortbow move combined. Also cripples enemies that fall under the are of effect, and if you completely use the skill, it will rain arrows for a good 5-10 seconds.

Overall, Longbow has 4 skills that are very very good and powerful as well, longbow is a 5/5 no doubt.

You have to remember every ranger ranged weapon has a gimick you need to play to or you’ll be bad all around with it.

Shortbow – this is a flanking and skirmishing weapon, the idea and gimick to this weapon is to get behind your target and essentially be a pee shooter, you just overwhelm your enemy with a ton of small pricks and let them bleed out, it’s really good at moving in and out of close range, not to mention you can use this in melee range against melee profs and not have a single care in the world because hey, this weapon does -better- in close range where it’s easy to get behind people then it does at long range where you have to put forth more effort to get behind them. Not to mention you get a 3rd dodge with quick shot, and if you spec like i do that also allows your pet swiftness allowing you to keep your pet on the enemy with relative ease. Another thing shortbow is great at is picking off the runners, if someone decides they can’t win a fight against you, congrats you have a free kill feel free to collect your soul!!

Longbow – this bow is significantly different to the shortbow, this bow relies on being as far away from your enemies as possible, you have large amounts of skills to create a gap and keep that gap open. You have barrage to essentially scare people out of melee range of you, as well as creating a good kiting location, you have a low CD interrupt and knockback that punishes people for getting close, especially on cliffs. Then most importantly, you have hunters shot, this ability alone marks your target for death, making them take 10% more damage from all sources, and it allows your pet to close the gap very quickly, the shot itself doesn’t do very much, but that’s not its purpose. And then you have your rapid fire skill, this skill will pump out more damage in a short burst then a shortbow with quickening zephyr, it is good at all ranges!!

Rapid Fire – This is one of the best skills the ranger can have, shooting 10 arrows in a rapid speed is highly damaging and very effective. does more damage than all of shortbow skills put together.

I hope you know that the damage you see is the damage all shots did combined, it doesn’t show the damage of each single hit.
I’ve tested it in the HotM, Rapid Fire shots 10 arrows in about 4 to 5 seconds for a little more than 3k damage, a Shortbow shoots 10 arrows in about 4 to 4 seconds for around 300 damage each, resulting in around 3k damage.

DesertRose.2031:

Rapid Fire – This is one of the best skills the ranger can have, shooting 10 arrows in a rapid speed is highly damaging and very effective. does more damage than all of shortbow skills put together.

I hope you know that the damage you see is the damage all shots did combined, it doesn’t show the damage of each single hit.
I’ve tested it in the HotM, Rapid Fire shots 10 arrows in about 4 to 5 seconds for a little more than 3k damage, a Shortbow shoots 10 arrows in about 4 to 4 seconds for around 300 damage each, resulting in around 3k damage.

what kind of kitteny longbow were you using in order to do that mediocre amount of damage? I’m built for defense and pump out more damage then that…

Longbow can layer damage front end. Hard part is you have to keep the target in the barrage to do so(which can be really hard). (pet stun KD effects). Shortbow layers damage back end with bleed dots effortlessly.

Essentially max range barrage (when the animation finishes several flights of arrows still have to hit your target area. If you can keep your targt locked down there you can be hitting with the barrage damage plus other bow skills simultaneously. Perceptual damage burst really.

Durzlla.6295:

DesertRose.2031:

Rapid Fire – This is one of the best skills the ranger can have, shooting 10 arrows in a rapid speed is highly damaging and very effective. does more damage than all of shortbow skills put together.

I hope you know that the damage you see is the damage all shots did combined, it doesn’t show the damage of each single hit.
I’ve tested it in the HotM, Rapid Fire shots 10 arrows in about 4 to 5 seconds for a little more than 3k damage, a Shortbow shoots 10 arrows in about 4 to 4 seconds for around 300 damage each, resulting in around 3k damage.

what kind of kitteny longbow were you using in order to do that mediocre amount of damage? I’m built for defense and pump out more damage then that…

Are you being sarcastic? He just told you he was in the HotM.

LoL that is a very weak longbow that you have…I have a better damaging shortbow than a longbow but for some reason I do better damage on my longbow…especially when I’m being mobbed by multiple mobs. I feel that a shortbow severely limits my mobility and damage when doing anything. I die so fast whenever mobs suddenly start respawning in an area and I’m using my shortbow. Plus with the added range of the longbow it is way better for survivability. The pointblank shot is one of the best skills for survivability…course…it doesn’t work on all mobs…but that’s the whole joy of being a ranger. kiting, running and trying to stay alive while doing a bunch of damage. I just like the Longbow much better…

I use long bow as my Ranger’s Main wpn. It is a thinking gamer’s weapon and can be more effective, if you’re willing to plan ahead, than short bow. I set my traps. I wait until and enemy comes into range (which isn’t very long of a wait). I fire. By the time my second shot is off, I use Hunter’s Shot so my pet can get there and do a bit more damage. I quickly follow with Barrage – raining death down on to the enemy and immediately follow it up with Rapid Fire. Usually, I just wait for the CD (not a long wait) and repeat. Should my pet take on too much damage, I employ Point Blank Shot, call my pet back and use Healing Spring. If the enemy chases it back, it will activate my traps, by this time, I activate Barrage and let it rain down around me.

Leknau.1723:

LoL that is a very weak longbow that you have…

Please stop, you have no idea what you are talking about and this line pretty much negates anything you might have to say otherwise. The guy already stated he was in HotM. I just don’t see how you can even make that statement knowing this.

As for testing, it’s been done many times already. There are even multiple dummies to test on in hotm. Shortbow does more dps, not even up for debate. If you simply like lb better, awesome.

Oh and with a full speced out marks/skirmishing build the rapid fire will get to just over 5k. The downside is that sb still out damages it over that same time.

longbow does more damage if you hit the target

if target is strafeing(moving from side to side) means you cant hit target from long range means you do 0 damage

i dont see the usage for longbow in WvW or sPvP

the barrage is only good to harass ppl on walls they heal anyway but you can die going close to wall and rapid fire is easly evaded

I do believe your comparing apples and oranges, when you say “SB is better than the LB”. Firstly, the LB requires different traits, different attributes and a different play style. When I equipped a SB on my ranger, who is build around the LB, it’s damage was ridiculous.

Back to OP’s question .. why use a LB? In my experience, the LB does good damage at very long range. Also, the LB is a much more stationary weapon, which imo makes it great for dungeons. It’s OK-ish in WvW also, because of its range, but most ppl will just evade your Rapid Fire, leaving you with auto-attacks. It sucks donkey balls in small PvP.

In the end, the LB is by no means “clearly” inferior to the SB. Give a shot, but pay attention to how you are supposed to play with one equipped.

The longbow is highly useful in WvW because Barrage is one of the best possible skills you can have there.

True, it doesn’t make a huge difference for just you to be using Barrage, but WvW isn’t about just you. Having several rangers on hand all with longbows and using Barrage on cooldown can have an enormous impact on WvW fight by constantly showering the enemy position with large-radius AoE damage and cripple fields that ignore line of sight.

It prevents enemies from running away from your team. It hits enemies and siege engines up on the wall who are out of line of sight of your other attacks. It stops enemies getting through breaches in walls. It makes it harder for enemies to reach a downed teammate to revive them while also damaging the downed player. It hits enemies who have gone invisible. It damages enemies close to a door from behind it. It’s just got a million uses.

That skill alone justifies slotting the Eagle Eye trait and equipping a longbow for WvW.

Obviously the other 4 skills on the weapon could all use some work, though. You can get some modest ranged damage out of the 1 and 2 skills if you wear full berserker gear and your target is nice enough to stand still, but that’s about it. The weapon is basically your Barrage button for team support in WvW and little else.

Thank you for your constructive replies. Made me look at the longbow with new eyes.

Aever.3208:

I do believe your comparing apples and oranges, when you say “SB is better than the LB”. Firstly, the LB requires different traits, different attributes and a different play style. When I equipped a SB on my ranger, who is build around the LB, it’s damage was ridiculous.

Care to post your build and gear?

Only reason I use longbow is to get the swiftness on weapon change, which is incredibly powerful. I’ll pull with rapid fire, arguably the only decent longbow skill, then swap to my shortbow and with swiftness proceed to decimate.

I tried using a longbow and I was just thoroughly disappointed.

No utility, no damage, a kiting move that roots you, the only good thing was the knockback.

A shortbow gives you more damage, more mobility, more control, more utility.
I cringe whenever I see a Ranger with a longbow and a bear pet. Bonus points if they’re using 3 signets.

3k with longbow rapid fire?!

LOL

I get that with 3 critics with shortbow

My longbow rapid fire reachs 8k on heavy golem

I agree with the people who have said it depends on your playstyle and what you’re trying to do. What works in WvW isn’t what works in Dungeons, that that isn’t what works in sPVP and so on.

For me personally long bow suits my playstyle better, especially the ability to keep them at range without risking throwing myself off a cliff. The only thing that bothers me is that as far as I can tell there is no way to apply poison with a LB, but that’s not a huge deal.

The best thing about the longbow is without a doubt the knock-back.

It’s not going to be a fun day when all of these longbow sucks shortbow rules threads only result in the shortbow getting nerfed and the longbow still sucking.

:\

the people that keep coming up with these threads IMO are stuck in the old mindset of MMOs, in which they find the ‘best’ build and proceed to use that even though it doesn’t suit their play style. the only thing i hav to say to answer the OP’s question is: because it suits my play style.

Also, Leaf, which skill for lb roots you?

FrozenLuv.6017:

the people that keep coming up with these threads IMO are stuck in the old mindset of MMOs, in which they find the ‘best’ build and proceed to use that even though it doesn’t suit their play style. the only thing i hav to say to answer the OP’s question is: because it suits my play style.

Also, Leaf, which skill for lb roots you?

I think he’s referring to the #5 skill barrage.

I use both long and short bow. They complement each other. Love them both.

DesertRose.2031:

Rapid Fire – This is one of the best skills the ranger can have, shooting 10 arrows in a rapid speed is highly damaging and very effective. does more damage than all of shortbow skills put together.

I hope you know that the damage you see is the damage all shots did combined, it doesn’t show the damage of each single hit.
I’ve tested it in the HotM, Rapid Fire shots 10 arrows in about 4 to 5 seconds for a little more than 3k damage, a Shortbow shoots 10 arrows in about 4 to 4 seconds for around 300 damage each, resulting in around 3k damage.

My Rapid Fire can crit up to 10k++ damage in WvW.

Samfisher.7942:

DesertRose.2031:

Rapid Fire – This is one of the best skills the ranger can have, shooting 10 arrows in a rapid speed is highly damaging and very effective. does more damage than all of shortbow skills put together.

I hope you know that the damage you see is the damage all shots did combined, it doesn’t show the damage of each single hit.
I’ve tested it in the HotM, Rapid Fire shots 10 arrows in about 4 to 5 seconds for a little more than 3k damage, a Shortbow shoots 10 arrows in about 4 to 4 seconds for around 300 damage each, resulting in around 3k damage.

My Rapid Fire can crit up to 10k++ damage in WvW.

Not vs real lvl 80 xD

In spvp SB is the real winner for mobility and utility. No way to use longbow in spvp atm, in hotjoin its ok but in tournament is a waste.

the Long bow has many uses. its up to you to learn them.. people insisting that the long bow is useless presses 1 on the short bow and auto attacks while walking around.

I don’t think that one bow is better then the other bow. It all depends on the situation your in, or the battle conditions to determine which bow is best for that moment. I read up about a lot of ranger’s who use one bow and sword/axe with horn or similar set up, so I think I’m one of the few rangers that run around with a short bow and a long bow equipped. I don’t think I even have my sword skills except for the generic 1 ability.

It is true that in PvE, most of the mobs your taking on will go down faster with the short bow. I have tested this and it is a fact. However, there are many times where I need to switch to barrage + bleed because I picked up an add or two. Or an event that sends a swarm of enemies and you need to dispatch them quickly. There might be that one mob that won’t stay on your pet and keeps on chasing you around, switch to longbow, Point blank shot, back peddle while using rapid shot. By the time rapid shot is done the timer for swap weapon is over and you can swap back to short bow and use quick shot to give you extra space/maneuvering room.

You also have those big events where everyone is bleeding the boss mob, you can only stack so many bleeds on a mob which means your short bow won’t be doing as much damage as your longbow from a max range. besides, you’ll be safer at max range during this event and can use your pet to revive people (if you have the skill up).

A bow is a situational weapon. It’s up to you to find out when one bow is better then the other, or when swapping bows mid battle can give you the extra 3 seconds needed for the timer on your heal to pop back up.

I’ve tried the longbow at many points throughout the game, but the fire rate is just too low to be of any use in a real fight. The enemies get too close too fast, and there’s not enough mobility for it to be useful. If you’re only fighting ONE enemy, and you have a lot of distance between you and them, longbow is OK. The #2 ability is OK, but it’s got a cooldown that’s too long to be any use if you’re fighting more than one enemy.

The only other longbow perk is the AOE Barrage. But, it’s useless in anything but events, since it’s channeled and running interrupts it.

I suppose if you’re not a big fan of actually moving, longbow could be an OK choice, but I find it boring and uninspired combat.

Because nothing makes me laugh harder than hitting something with the knockback shot. Seriously, every time I use it, I laugh in real life. Especially since my ranger is a tiny Asura, and when I hit something as big as a Norn, Centaur, etc…BACK OFF!!! /laugh

i use both SB and LB tbh (i mainly WvW).

LB has burst ability (RF) + vuln
SB is consistent dmg

for both i use a pwr/perc/crit% spec/items (pure glass cannon)
sometimes i find boring the SB other times i find boring the LB so now my problem is solved :p
the tl:dr is that both bows are usefull in different circumstances
LB = Sniper/Burst/Some AoE
SB = Keep the Pressure in 1 target

I use a longbow quite well in sPvP… Then again I can flat out, outrun people so that helps when I want to stay at range, not to mention Longbow > shortbow at point defense… NO ONE wants to stand in a barrage against a ranger they know has a sword…

Edit: oh yeah not to mention I can break the wall in for fire with a longbow while standing at quarry/waterfall, as well as snipe people from anywhere in the map while standing on clock tower….

Small group roaming/skirmishing – Short Bow + Axe/Horn
Sieging or open field zerg on zerg – Long Bow + Axe/Horn

Essentially, short bow is for mobility and long bow is for stand off.

Alright, here’s my experience, for whatever it’s worth.

Spec is 20/25/10/0/15. I have most of the common traits like Eagle Eye, cooldown reduction on bows, Master’s Bond, Survival cooldown reduction, etc.

Wearing 4/6 Exotic and using an Exotic bow. Currently using a life steal sigil on it, but I’ve considered switching to Air for the lightning/burst. The rest is yellow (green accessories). Axe/Horn off-set. I think I’m around 3000 attack, 43% crit, somewhere around 50 extra crit damage. 1300-1400 toughness, around 1100 vitality. Bit glassy.

In PvE, my rapid fire hits for around 5K-8K altogether. Auto attack varies wildly depending on range. Most mobs are dead after 3/2 followed by the eagle, so I’m not really sitting there ticking “1” over and over like I would on a golem.

WvWvW is a bit screwy since you never know how someone is geared, but I’ve had auto attack hit for up to 3K before, and I’ve taken someone down in a single Rapid Fire. Barrage also does fairly significant damage both in PvE and WvWvW, I’m not sure where this business about Barrage being “weak” came from.

Those saying that Rapid Fire is too slow to really bring someone down at range are correct, most people will move out of the channel before it finishes. I find QZ is more or less necessary if you really want to burn someone down and not just scare them off a wall. QZ and RF go beautifully together, it’s probably the best burst a Ranger has, albeit on a long cool-down.

For general zerg vs zerg skirmishing (90% of WvWvW) or sieges, I would prefer Longbow for range + Barrage. For general solo play or co-op with my GF, roaming around killing singles or small groups of enemies, I’d prefer Longbow as well, just for burst and AoE. For veterans or champions, if I was in a pair or a very small group, I’d prefer the Shortbow…if you can’t burst them dead quickly with a Longbow the Shortbow will start to overtake it through conditions and through the superior auto attack. If I was in small team PvP or 1v1 PvP where I couldn’t maintain any kind of reliable range and I needed to be extremely mobile, I’d prefer Shortbow as well. For massive scale PvE like event bosses with 10+ people in attendance, I’d prefer Longbow, due to bleed cap/condition stacking issues and since mobility is not a concern.

If I was soloing golems in the Mists and all I cared about was raw numbers completely devoid of any context whatsoever I’d prefer Shortbow and come to the forums to talk about how it was OMGBBQ better in all situations.

You guys realize if you want to compare the damage of two weapons that are both affected by the same attribute it doesn’t matter if that specific attribute has +0 or +300?
You guys realize if you want to run an empiric test it’s best to reduce the chance and impact of an random event as little as possible as thus reduce Precision and Prowess as much as possible?
The lack of common sense in this thread is stunning…

You also have those big events where everyone is bleeding the boss mob, you can only stack so many bleeds on a mob which means your short bow won’t be doing as much damage as your longbow from a max range.

Even in that situation the Shortbow deals more damage.

SpectacularYak.6518:

QZ and RF go beautifully together, it’s probably the best burst a Ranger has, albeit on a long cool-down.

Fun fact:
QZ and Shortbow auto attack deals in the worst situation for it just as much damage; the only advantage of the Longbow has is that you can do it at a range of 1500 for the price of a Master major trait.

ErkiB.8375:

Point Blank Shot – Does a good amount of damage and pushes the opponent away frm you the closer you are to him, Easily is better than Shortbows quick shot and the Point Blank does more damage and pushes the enemy away instead of having to jump backwars yourself… with the shortbow.

You do realize Quick Shot is a literal evade, like an extra dodge? It gives you the same invincibility frame. I use it a lot to dodge out of AOE circles etc. Shortbow is much more flexible since almost all of its dmg is from its auto attack. If you’re using rapid fire and need to dodge… then it gets interrupted etc. Not everything is DPS centric and is based off of standing still and attacking a target.

Durzlla.6295:

DesertRose.2031:

Rapid Fire – This is one of the best skills the ranger can have, shooting 10 arrows in a rapid speed is highly damaging and very effective. does more damage than all of shortbow skills put together.

I hope you know that the damage you see is the damage all shots did combined, it doesn’t show the damage of each single hit.
I’ve tested it in the HotM, Rapid Fire shots 10 arrows in about 4 to 5 seconds for a little more than 3k damage, a Shortbow shoots 10 arrows in about 4 to 4 seconds for around 300 damage each, resulting in around 3k damage.

what kind of kitteny longbow were you using in order to do that mediocre amount of damage? I’m built for defense and pump out more damage then that…

this… mine does minimum 5k and I dont use any longbow improving traits, using a 20/20/0/0/30 build with pet focus.

Is there anywhere we can get ACTUAL math on this? Like, properly parsed damage, proper attack speed times, etc, etc? I’m finding sweet fanny adam when I go looking for it, and all this “I knew a guy who totally did a test once”, or “roughly” or “more or less” anecdotal stuff is giving me a headache.

Rangers can perform a niche role of point defender, and using a GS and a Longbow, they can easily accomplish this ability. Because of the KB on the longbow, a ranger can push a person off teh CP and then rapid fire them down. When they close again, they can use GS4 and block an attack and push several people off the point. Then, the ranger can attack with GS until longbow 4 is ready again, and so forth and so on.

DesertRose.2031:

You guys realize if you want to compare the damage of two weapons that are both affected by the same attribute it doesn’t matter if that specific attribute has +0 or +300?
You guys realize if you want to run an empiric test it’s best to reduce the chance and impact of an random event as little as possible as thus reduce Precision and Prowess as much as possible?
The lack of common sense in this thread is stunning…

You also have those big events where everyone is bleeding the boss mob, you can only stack so many bleeds on a mob which means your short bow won’t be doing as much damage as your longbow from a max range.

Even in that situation the Shortbow deals more damage.

SpectacularYak.6518:

QZ and RF go beautifully together, it’s probably the best burst a Ranger has, albeit on a long cool-down.

Fun fact:
QZ and Shortbow auto attack deals in the worst situation for it just as much damage; the only advantage of the Longbow has is that you can do it at a range of 1500 for the price of a Master major trait.

You know, I had a really long and nice reply to answer your ‘common sense’ remark but I deleted it…on purpose. Mostly to give you a chance and answer me why do you believe that it’s ‘common sense’ that the short bow will do more damage on a boss event, like the level 74 (I think it was) dragon event? Besides the fact that not only I and several people on these forums have stated that long bows are better for these events because of the lack of conditional damage since so many people are using conditional damage and mobs can only be stacked with so much conditional damage.

Answer me, how you know for a FACT that the short bow outdamages the long bow in this circumstance and I’ll tell you and even recreate the accurance and take screenshots to prove to you that the longbow does better damage in this situation. Although it may be a bit more difficult to prove it now with my short bow having about 100 damage more then my longbow (haven’t had any good longbow drops lately) but I’m certain I can recreate it and give you screenshots. But before I go through all of that trouble again, you show me your proof that shows a short bow doing better damage in an event over a long bow.

I understand that a situation like crits could throw off the numbers, you can still get a time spread, rally the numbers and get an average dps. As long as your stats are the same between weapon switch outs, the number’s should hold true. Without a parser this is all we can do.

Sean.1897:

It’s not going to be a fun day when all of these longbow sucks shortbow rules threads only result in the shortbow getting nerfed and the longbow still sucking.

:\

Agreed wholeheartedly.

I honestly do not see a point in arguing which bow is better. People will use what they like to play for whatever reason they like to play it. Each of the bow’s skills sets require a different style of play. Joe may hate LB but Bob my love it. Arguing over that is pointless.

Imo Longbow is good for more a long ranged stationary weapon to dish out some burst damage. Shortbow is great for consistent damage & condition builds plus more kiting potential..

In the end play what you like and what suits you.

I agree people should play what they like and what suits them but that does not change the fact that the longbow is weak.

In no situation should the longbow auto attack for less damage than my shortbow. I dont care how close or far away from the enemy I am that should never happen. Yeah there are times where I will get a nice crit auto attack with my long bow at max range for 2 – 3k ( I am assuming a low toughness / Armor build ) but combine that with the amount of times my auto attack misses because the target is strafing side to side I am doing much less damage. On the very same target I can auto attack with my shortbow 3 or 4 times for about 1k – 1.3k crit damage in the time it would take me to get my long bow to fire another shot.

The only reason I use a long bow ever in WvWvW is because of the barrage ability. This is the only real AE ability ranged get and without that ability 90% of the honor badges I currently have would have never dropped for me. The amount of damage barrage does compared to other classes AE’s is pretty crap as well.

Mostly to give you a chance and answer me why do you believe that it’s ‘common sense’ that the short bow will do more damage on a boss event, like the level 74 (I think it was) dragon event?

The “common sense” comment was directed to the people who responded to my presentation of a simple, quick test that Shortbow’s auto attack and Longbow’s Rapid Fire both do the same amount of damage with “l0l, m! RF cr!t$ f0r m0r@” or “get better gear, n00b!” and being ignorant of the fact that your gear is standardized in PvP or that if their RF will hit for more damage the Shortbow’s auto attack hits for more, too.

Cause you won’t believe anyone else why don’t you simply test in yourself?
Go into the HotM, take of all your armor, reset your traits and remove any damage upgrades from your weapons.
Go to a Heavy Golem and attack it from the front with your Shortbow’s auto attack; how long does it takes until it goes down?
Now, try the same with the Longbow’s auto attack. Then, use Rapid Fire, too. Did you managed to get the golem down faster? In the next test, use also Hunter’s Shot. Did you now managed to be faster than the Shortbow’s auto attack?
And remember, that’s still without the bleed from Cross Fire.

Now, let’s get back to the event; if the boss has constantly 25 stacks of bleed on it so you can never ever apply a bleed during the entire fight the chances are high that it also has close to 25 stacks of Vulnerability, so Hunter’s Shot helps as little as the bleed from Crossfire.
And still we ignore that Shortbow will proc combo fields more often.

The longbow was overnerfed at the end of beta at the same time as the shortbow was buffed. That’s why the shortbow is generally seen as a more effective weapon.

The longbow’s auto-attack bonus from range simply isn’t significant enough to warrant the difficulty of maintaining that range, especially when coupled with how slow the attack speed is. As a result is has very limited uses.

Ideally it should work in a way that shortbow is better in mid-range skirmishes and the longbow is superior at max range. Instead currently the longbow barely even manages to get even with the shortbow at max range. It’s undertuned, simple as that.

I use it basically for AoE support. i DO bring along an axe/warhorn too though.

Just gotta love barrage. Wished that the longbow could have a shorter firing time though. I agree that it is way underpowered now, but still, gotta love barrage.

i myself very much would love to use longbow as much as shortbow but always find myself using shortbow . one thing about longbow is it is very difficult to maintain the distance.

enemy close down on you too fast even if you’ve crippled them with barrage….

I used to be a Longbow useing Ranger, i hated the look and feel of the short bow. After hitting 80 though and having both a 1000dps+ longbow and short bow I have found that the short bow out dps’s the long bow in almost every fight unless you are standing at 1500 and then its still very close.

Now that im useing the torch off hand to create a flame patch with a quicking zypher skill the short bow with its rate of fire and extra bleed damage off skill 1 blow the longbow out of the water.

The only place the longbow I have found is better is for keep attack/defense due to the range not the damage.

I really do hope they buff the longbow, untill then though the short bow is better.