Guild Wars 2

The refire rate on Long Range Shot is significantly slower than I believe it was intended to be. It fires about 1 shot per 1.25 seconds when it should be about 1 shot per .80 seconds. It’s an animation/cooldown design issue that affects the Warrior’s Longbow as well (but not the Rifle) as well as Pistols and Staffs/Scepters for various professions to a lesser degree.

They really need to look into this.

Totes, but they won’t. Sucks, and the only reason I still use it over the shortbow is the vulnerability and knock back. I’m not even that big of a fan of the knock back.

kiwituatara.6053:

Activation time sucks:
“Activation time, also referred to as casting time, is the length of time it takes for a skill to prepare before it can initiate.”

Heres the activation times for your regular auto-attack skill:
Ranger Longbow: 1.25
Warrior Longbow: 0.75
Ranger Shortbow: 0.5
Thief Shortbow: 0.25

Pathetic.

Is this how it is? If so that is more than pathetic it is downright stupid. But hey we have drakes right?

kiwituatara.6053:

Activation time sucks:
“Activation time, also referred to as casting time, is the length of time it takes for a skill to prepare before it can initiate.”

Heres the activation times for your regular auto-attack skill:
Ranger Longbow: 1.25
Warrior Longbow: 0.75
Ranger Shortbow: 0.5
Thief Shortbow: 0.25

Pathetic.

Not exactly. Activation time doesn’t tell the whole story. It doesn’t include the “refresh”, or the delay that occurs after one shot before the next one begins activation, which is erratic from weapon to weapon. Consequently, it’s a misleading and totally useless metric.

Here’s the breakdown:
Warrior/Ranger Longbow – .75 Activation speed, 1.25 total refire (BROKEN)
Warrior/Engineer Rifle – .75 Activation Speed, .85 total refire (about right)
Thief/Engineer Pistol – .50 Activation Speed, .80 total refire (BROKEN)
Ranger Shortbow – 0 Activation speed, .4 total refire (debatable, but certainly better)
Thief Shortbow – .25 Activation Speed, .7 total refire (BROKEN)
Elementalist Fire Staff – 1 Activation Speed, 1.2 refire (about right)
Elementalist Air/Water/Earth Staff – .75 activation speed, 1.2 refire (BROKEN)

Unsurprisingly, the Rifle and the Shortbow feel much more “right” than the Pistol and Longbow do, regardless of profession. I’m sure there are also examples with Scepters and other Staffs, but I’m less familiar with them. It seems to be a problem with the lack of chain attacks on ranged weapons and the erratic design of animations accompanying those attacks.

Please fix this ANet, it’s a glaring problem single-handedly causing tons of balance issues.

LB feels off mostly because it misses moving targets past 900 range. LB should be a sniper weapon, with a slow fire rate but hitting reliably for more. LB projectile speed needs another 30% increase, and then we might be getting somewhere. it’s the worst weapon in the game.

nerva.7940:

LB feels off mostly because it misses moving targets past 900 range. LB should be a sniper weapon, with a slow fire rate but hitting reliably for more. LB projectile speed needs another 30% increase, and then we might be getting somewhere. it’s the worst weapon in the game.

I think they designed away from that because one of the tactics in GW1 was a party of longbow rangers. One would call a target and all of them would shoot at it simultaneously. It was enough to instantly drop most opponents.

They don’t want high burst damage on ranged attacks. Against melee-range burst, everyone can choose to retaliate or run away. But against ranged burst, the classes with no or poor ranged don’t stand a chance. So they want players to be able to avoid ranged damage more easily.

but that doesnt explain why they designed the warrior’s rifle to do just what you described.

nerva.7940:

LB feels off mostly because it misses moving targets past 900 range. LB should be a sniper weapon, with a slow fire rate but hitting reliably for more. LB projectile speed needs another 30% increase, and then we might be getting somewhere. it’s the worst weapon in the game.

No, as I said – it feels off because it is off. And it is neither the projectile speed nor the damage that’s off, it’s the firing speed. It seriously could not be more obvious that it isn’t working as intended, and that it’s the entire reason why LB is weak.

kiwituatara.6053:

Einlanzer.1627:

kiwituatara.6053:

Activation time sucks:
“Activation time, also referred to as casting time, is the length of time it takes for a skill to prepare before it can initiate.”

Heres the activation times for your regular auto-attack skill:
Ranger Longbow: 1.25
Warrior Longbow: 0.75
Ranger Shortbow: 0.5
Thief Shortbow: 0.25

Pathetic.

Not exactly. Activation time doesn’t tell the whole story. It doesn’t include the “refresh”, or the delay that occurs after one shot before the next one begins activation, which is erratic from weapon to weapon. Consequently, it’s a misleading and totally useless metric.

Here’s the breakdown:
Warrior/Ranger Longbow – .75 Activation speed, 1.25 total refire (BROKEN)
Warrior/Engineer Rifle – .75 Activation Speed, .85 total refire (about right)
Thief/Engineer Pistol – .50 Activation Speed, .80 total refire (BROKEN)
Ranger Shortbow – 0 Activation speed, .4 total refire (debatable, but certainly better)
Thief Shortbow – .25 Activation Speed, .7 total refire (BROKEN)
Elementalist Fire Staff – 1 Activation Speed, 1.2 refire (about right)
Elementalist Air/Water/Earth Staff – .75 activation speed, 1.2 refire (BROKEN)

Unsurprisingly, the Rifle and the Shortbow feel much more “right” than the Pistol and Longbow do, regardless of profession. I’m sure there are also examples with Scepters and other Staffs, but I’m less familiar with them. It seems to be a problem with the lack of chain attacks on ranged weapons and the erratic design of animations accompanying those attacks.

Please fix this ANet, it’s a glaring problem single-handedly causing tons of balance issues.

My bad, not too familiar with the refresh rate and whatnot. But the warrior longbow rate of fire feels better? maybe im just imagining it~

No, it’s actually just as bad. If you play a Warrior and use their Longbow autoattack, you’ll see that it’s just as pitifully weak as Long Range Shot is. It’s very, very obvious it’s a design issue with the animation and that the damage specs on both skills were balanced around the idea that it fired significantly faster than it actually does in-game.

The fact that this continues to go unnoticed by everyone really causes me a lot of cynicism about things in general.

Solandri.9640:

nerva.7940:

LB feels off mostly because it misses moving targets past 900 range. LB should be a sniper weapon, with a slow fire rate but hitting reliably for more. LB projectile speed needs another 30% increase, and then we might be getting somewhere. it’s the worst weapon in the game.

I think they designed away from that because one of the tactics in GW1 was a party of longbow rangers. One would call a target and all of them would shoot at it simultaneously. It was enough to instantly drop most opponents.

They don’t want high burst damage on ranged attacks. Against melee-range burst, everyone can choose to retaliate or run away. But against ranged burst, the classes with no or poor ranged don’t stand a chance. So they want players to be able to avoid ranged damage more easily.

A group of Rifle warriors attacking a single target kinda blow holes in your theory. And only class with poor ranged is the Guardian but it still has some ranged.

Einlanzer.1627:

The fact that this continues to go unnoticed by everyone really causes me a lot of cynicism about things in general.

Reason so much in this game goes unnoticed was fact Anet is a brilliant software MMo company.

Unlike other companies who display numbers and log them to a file you can access Anet has made a convoluted system. Even if you say recorded a video and play it back later it is way too much work and can be riddle with errors to figure out exact timings of things because Anet does not know how to make a timestamp using seconds.

So much is hidden in this game to prevent players from asking to many questions. Case in point no /who to see pop numbers or place in WvW Que.

And where does it say that fire rates need to be the same across the board?

If your concern is about balancing the professions, then you need to look much farther than just how fast each profession auto attacks. You need to take into account:

- Base damage of the skill
- Power coefficient of the skill
- Possible conditions and/or other special effects of the skill
- Whether the skill is part of a chain, and if so what the damages and coefficients and conditions are of the chain skills

Then you need to take into account all the rest of the profession’s abilities, including the other four weapon skills and what they’re damage, coefficients, etc. are, as well as traits and utilities. And then you need to take into account what the weapon is designed to be used for, because not all weapons were designed to be used in all situations (Ranger Longbow in melee range is going to be bad no matter how fast it shoots). Just because a profession has a weak auto attack does not mean they don’t make up for it with the rest of their skills. In fact some professions are specifically balanced around having mediocre auto attacks (Only Fire auto attack of Staff Ele is truly useful by itself, but the Staff more than makes up for this lack with the other abilities from each Attunement).

All in all, weapon activation time is an extremely minor aspect of what makes a weapon balanced or not. Ranger Longbow for example is better than Shortbow with the right gear, traits, and situation, even though it has what you amusingly believe to be a “broken” fire rate.

This being said, I’m still not sure the Longbow is balanced in it’s other skills. The only time a Longbow really overtakes a Shortbow is with 100% crit chance, huge crit damage, and maximum range. As I said above every weapon has a situation that it was designed for, but to me the Longbow’s ideal situation seems far too specific with not enough leeway to make it a balanced weapon.

TL;DR
Weapon auto attack does not determine the overall usefulness of the weapon. High DPS auto attack can make a weapon powerful, but low DPS auto attack does not necessarily make it useless. You need to look beyond the #1 skill before you start making silly whining posts.

Welcome to theorycrafting.

Prism.5649:

All in all, weapon activation time is an extremely minor aspect of what makes a weapon balanced or not. Ranger Longbow for example is better than Shortbow with the right gear, traits, and situation, even though it has what you amusingly believe to be a “broken” fire rate.

This is true, it does have its place. But let’s compare the two anyways.

The real problem is that it is placed into a niche role on the ranger, most weapon sets are based around conditions in one way or another, with the exception of the Greatsword or the off-hand War Horn, however the Shortbow benefits from being closer to your target for Poison Volley, includes skills to improve kiting and dodging with Quick Shot and Crippling Shot. To me this makes it a more effective weapon in a dungeon than the Longbow.

Of course, in the right situation, traited with Piercing Arrows and high critical damage, Rapid Fire can be excellent burst damage. The only problem is it leaves you with a poor auto-attack skill for the duration of your weapon swap cooldown. Barrage and Point Blank Shot really don’t make up for it, and inevitably I used this time re-apply my utility skills that are not on cooldown before swapping back to my other, usually stronger (all dependent on stats of course), weapon set.

That being said, the right or ideal situation rarely presents itself for us to effectively position ourselves to make the burst damage from the Longbow more effective than the downside of using its auto-attack. To me, this is the ideal situation:

• Foes lined up in a nice, solid row, preferably from back or side to gain 10% damage from flanking (Longbows do benefit from having high Skirmishing), to make it really effective, more than four foes would be ideal but it is very unlikely.
• Quickness (from pet swapping or Quickening Zephyr)
• Fury, which can be gained from weapon swapping with points in Skirmishing
• Vulnerability, conveniently applied with Hunter’s Shot to all foes before Rapid Fire.

Keep in mind the real damage is not from hitting a single target, but hitting as many foes as you can.

The weapon grants us access to two combo-finishing projectiles, excluding the 20% chance auto-attack and Rapid Fire (which is likely to grant one, maybe two, as well). Compared to the Shortbow it falls short, as you are likely to get at least one finished from Poison Volley and two more from Quick Shot and Crippling Shot, in addition to a faster auto-attack to increase the likelihood of more projectile finishers.

What does this mean?

The Shortbow is more effective at finishing combos than the Longbow, capable of better movement through a built-in dodge and swiftness skill, a more reliable cripple that can be used while kiting (Barrage is amazing versus groups but stopping to channel it really limits the distance you can gain while kiting), this makes it a better all-around weapon to have and use. Yes, it lacks a knock-back but has a daze and / or stun.

Does the Longbow have its role in our arsenal?

Absolutely.
Some classes can get away without having their full set of weapons to choose from, I find myself constantly changing my two sets as much as I swap utility skills when I know that certain foes, mechanics, or objectives benefit from the capabilities they have.

Of course, that’s just me, I enjoy running a condition Ranger over other builds, not that they are more or less effective, just feels capable of performing well against a single target and multiple ones.

TL;DR

Prism.5649:

As I said above every weapon has a situation that it was designed for, but to me the Longbow’s ideal situation seems far too specific with not enough leeway to make it a balanced weapon.

And that is why it falls short outside of its moment in the sun.

Prism.5649:

And where does it say that fire rates need to be the same across the board?

I responded more thoroughly to your response in the Game Bug forum, so check it out. In this case, I’ll summarize a little bit more:

No one is arguing that the fire rates need to be the same across all weapons. The problem, in summary, is this:

The “cooldown”, or time between the end of one activation and the beginning of the next one, is erratic from weapon to weapon. This is because each weapon has a minimum delay (probably based on the animation) that it forces on the refire regardless of the activation speed of the skill being used. The reason this is “broken” is because the skills in the game have offensive specs that are balanced around their activation speeds, when for non-chain autoattacks in particular that metric is either heavily minimized or outright ignored due to the delay imposed by the skill’s animation.

Here’s some data:
Rifle – .75 activation speed, .85 refire = .10 sec cooldown
Pistol – .50 activation speed, .75 refire = .25 sec cooldown
Longbow – .75 activation speed, 1.2 refire = .45 sec cooldown

The result is that, while the Pistol is clearly supposed to fire much faster than the Rifle, it doesn’t due to the actual pistol shooting animation, which creates an unintended and unaccounted for delay between the individual castings of the skill. When you give it even a cursory analysis, the power level of the skills is precisely inversely proportional to the length of the cooldown.

In other words, the Rifle autoattack for both Engineers and Warriors is a strong autoattack that hits in the same range of DPS as other autoattacks in the game, because there’s only a .1 cooldown between each shot. The Pistol autoattack is worse and is weaker than it should be, because there’s an inflated .25 cooldown between each shot. The Longbow autoattack (for both Warriors and Rangers) is very noticeably weaker than other autoattacks, because there’s a hugely inflated .4 cooldown between each shot activation. If you don’t believe me, go start a warrior and equip a longbow and try to fight something using the #1 skill – you’ll notice that it does pitiful damage. No matter what anyone says, the #1 skills are not supposed to do pitiful damage, they’re supposed to represent a healthy baseline of DPS, supplemented by other skills.

It is so painfully obvious that this is not working as intended that it amazes me the forums aren’t lit up about it. What they need to do is make all #1 skills chain attacks OR normalize the delay between skill executions to something like .1 seconds. That would fix many of the problems people have with ranged weapons.

Solandri.9640:

nerva.7940:

LB feels off mostly because it misses moving targets past 900 range. LB should be a sniper weapon, with a slow fire rate but hitting reliably for more. LB projectile speed needs another 30% increase, and then we might be getting somewhere. it’s the worst weapon in the game.

I think they designed away from that because one of the tactics in GW1 was a party of longbow rangers. One would call a target and all of them would shoot at it simultaneously. It was enough to instantly drop most opponents.

They don’t want high burst damage on ranged attacks. Against melee-range burst, everyone can choose to retaliate or run away. But against ranged burst, the classes with no or poor ranged don’t stand a chance. So they want players to be able to avoid ranged damage more easily.

but you never spiked or nuked with a longbow, recurve or hornbow was used for that,
and in gw2 you can doge

If you use all the skills on the longbow then you end up firing like 2 shots on the auto attack before you have to switch weapons. If you are at a good range you can crit for about 2k per auto attack.

For those hatin’. Do you want me to post a vid of LB + GS dominating in Paid tournaments?

Eurantien.4632:

If you use all the skills on the longbow then you end up firing like 2 shots on the auto attack before you have to switch weapons. If you are at a good range you can crit for about 2k per auto attack.

For those hatin’. Do you want me to post a vid of LB + GS dominating in Paid tournaments?

I’m pretty sure nobody is hatin’. I’m pretty sure “accurately analyzing flaws and design issues” is a better way to put it. Frankly, it doesn’t matter if you leveled the entirety of Lion’s Arch with a longbow, Long Range Shot is not working as intended.