Guild Wars 2

in the last state of the game Jon Sharp said that Ranger long bow is lacking (still) and it has no place in a power build currently, he also said that they were talking about consolidating/moving/ and combining skills on it and also adding new skills to it to make it a much more effective weapon with this build setup.

now whether it happens or not ( we can only hope it does… I mean REALLY HOPE IT DOES! everyone sacrifice a goat, or your swamp drakes since it is pretty useless anyways) but last time they said long bow was really lacking they never made a move to make it any better, all we got was a slightly and I mean very slightly marginable faster fire speed.

anyone else want this sooner rather than later or never at all? think if we pester about it enough in all aspects of forums we might get it sooner? hell it worked at getting our pets nerfed by other classes lol.
those of you wondering

he starts talking about long bow at around 0:48:35 into the video for those that wanted to watch it and it is at http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/c/2517953

would be cool if we had an attack that gave us 10-15 stacks of might on hit hahaha would at least make it possible to do some good dmg with it without relying from other sources of might since we have so very few options to actually stack might on our selves at any reliable rate, at least no ways outside of an elite.

1) Fix OBSTRUCTED bug.
2) Remove range penalty on damage
3) Increase projectile speed
4) Increase damage gained per point of power
5) Make its arrow pierce and bounce

Cempa.5619:

1) Fix OBSTRUCTED bug.
2) Remove range penalty on damage
3) Increase projectile speed
4) Increase damage gained per point of power
5) Make its arrow pierce and bounce

it doesn’t really make sense to bounce though, everything else would be nice, I can see pierce but not bounce. and we already have a projectile that bounces having too many weapons bounce is very bad especially in pve where bouncing onto the wrong mob wipes party.

1) Arrows pierce by default and hit for 1500 range (neither should be traited)
2) Auto attack (1) adds stacks of vulnerability
3) Remove attack (3) and replace with a sniper shot or another AoE attack
4) Remove the charge up time from point black shot
5) Return barrage damage to the way it was (completely mind boggling why they reduced it 50%), or give barrage a combo field like a blast finisher
6) Make it so players cannot side step arrows, either by making them faster, or tracking to hit the target
7) Most important, fix the obstructed bug

Changing the skill bar is a bit scary to those of us who already use LB. However, getting rid of hunter’s shot but keeping the pet swiftness somewhere would be nice. Point blank shot and barrage MUST stay (though we should be able to move while barraging). Biggest thing that needs fixing is the player’s ability to side step arrows.

about the obstruction bug… I really don’t notice it anymore more or less I notice it saying out of range very often though which I think has actually replaced the obstruction bug for those that pay attention, you will get “out of range” popping up well when they are in range, hell you can even melee them and LB can still say “out of range” on some of it’s attacks at the same distance. this happens a lot more than obstructed now and it usually happens on moving targets a majority of the time, including targets running strait at you.

my own personal thoughts on how to make Long bow work and make it a lot better, feel free to give opinions… in a mater of fact please do lol.

• giving point blank shot the swiftness grant to pet,
• giving long range shot one stack of vulnerability at less than 600 range for 6 sec, 2 stacks of vulnerability for 6sec at 1000-600 range, and 3 stacks of vulnerability at 1000+ range for 6 sec and keep all damage constant as the vulnerability stacking would be enough of a reason to keep range with this skill without punishing players to heavily if someone uses a closing gap skill on them. <- which is the current case rangers are punished for not having enough abilities to gain distance with classes that have several gap closers.
• removing hunter’s shot since it no longer has a place since it’s mechanics are covered by the 2 skills listed above
• drop barrage down to skill #4 reduce it’s CD by 4-5 sec
• add new skill to slot #5 that ether does double dmg on a moving foe or does significant dmg and can immobilize a moving foe with a possible cd range of 30-35 sec maybe even 40 seconds untraited if the damage is significant enough.

Eurantien.4632:

Changing the skill bar is a bit scary to those of us who already use LB. However, getting rid of hunter’s shot but keeping the pet swiftness somewhere would be nice. Point blank shot and barrage MUST stay (though we should be able to move while barraging). Biggest thing that needs fixing is the player’s ability to side step arrows.

Combine the effects of point blank shot and hunter’s shot. Personally I love hunter’s shot for the 10 stacks of vulnerability it gives. Maybe have it so that if you hit an enemy with point blank shot at anything less than 300m you put the stacks of vulnerability or something.

DeadlySynz.3471:

1) Arrows pierce by default and hit for 1500 range (neither should be traited)
2) Auto attack (1) adds stacks of vulnerability
4) Remove the charge up time from point black shot
7) Most important, fix the obstructed bug

I vote for all these changes 110%. It would appease players who want to be archer types, and give them some nice opening dps / awesome tactical options in large fights in wvw.

Default 1,500 range, LOL i want what you guys are smoking.

They are not going to fix anything, but continue to nerf the class. That is my prediction. Let’s see them prove me wrong.

Puandro.3245:

Default 1,500 range, LOL i want what you guys are smoking.

They could give us that and change Eagle Eye into something other, like SB range.

I would say increase longbow and speargun range by defult and make eagle eye do 5%dmg on longbow, short bow, and speargun as well as pearce targets. and replace Piercing Arrows with a trait that increases shortbow range and allows bleeding to no longer req hitting from the side or rear…. or just to no longer req hitting from the side or rear of foe to cause bleeding, that there would be a significant buff to the short bow

lol so any one else think it will be another 6 months till we see a real Longbow skill change for our better?

Woah woah woah combining hunter’s shot and point blank is a bad idea. I use hunter’s shot as a quick skill to remove my blind, their aegis, or their block. Also, the skill can be used at max range. So when they are running my pet can catch them (ideally the wolf will cripple or something). A fast shot like hunter’s shot is very necessary in PvP imo. I also don’t wanna have to waste my KB just to give my pet swiftness to hit someone.

Criminal.5627:

lol so any one else think it will be another 6 months till we see a real Longbow skill change for our better?

Sadly I don´t think that we´ll see changes in the near future. After the last “huge” balance patch they´ll be resting on their laurels and keep telling themselves what great work they accomplished.

Criminal.5627:

my own personal thoughts on how to make Long bow work and make it a lot better, feel free to give opinions… in a mater of fact please do lol.

• giving point blank shot the swiftness grant to pet,
• giving long range shot one stack of vulnerability at less than 600 range for 6 sec, 2 stacks of vulnerability for 6sec at 1000-600 range, and 3 stacks of vulnerability at 1000+ range for 6 sec and keep all damage constant as the vulnerability stacking would be enough of a reason to keep range with this skill without punishing players to heavily if someone uses a closing gap skill on them. <- which is the current case rangers are punished for not having enough abilities to gain distance with classes that have several gap closers.
• removing hunter’s shot since it no longer has a place since it’s mechanics are covered by the 2 skills listed above
• drop barrage down to skill #4 reduce it’s CD by 4-5 sec
• add new skill to slot #5 that ether does double dmg on a moving foe or does significant dmg and can immobilize a moving foe with a possible cd range of 30-35 sec maybe even 40 seconds untraited if the damage is significant enough.

I like pretty much ALL of these. Although, I think #5 should be something along the lines of:

• Splinter Shot = inflict 3s bleeding every 2s for a total of 10s(basically 5x 3s ticks), inflict 2s cripple every 5s for a total of 10s on moving foes(basically 2x 2s ticks). That would give us an ability to punish people moving/trying to close distance etc.

There is no way rangers are getting 1500 range as a standard duration. If you want to sit back and fire arrows from 1500 yards away at melee, you have to trait for it. The game philosophy is melee>ranged, so get used to it. The devs no doubt witnessed the ranged shootouts in World of Warcraft’s Alterac Valley where melee got pulverized when they took 3 steps forward and came to the conclusion that this is a situation that leads to a ranged standoff resulting in unfun gameplay. The longbow is the a user friendly weapon that can do decent damage if you trait and gear for it – but from what I gather you sacrifice survivability. This is how it should be.

Criminal.5627:

about the obstruction bug… I really don’t notice it anymore more or less I notice it saying out of range very often though which I think has actually replaced the obstruction bug for those that pay attention, you will get “out of range” popping up well when they are in range, hell you can even melee them and LB can still say “out of range” on some of it’s attacks at the same distance. this happens a lot more than obstructed now and it usually happens on moving targets a majority of the time, including targets running strait at you.

I’m getting the obstructed message standing 200-700 range away (with the shortbow) from the enemy with no obstacles in between us. I get that message, every single solitary time. It essentially is an unusable weapon for me.

“There is no way rangers are getting 1500 range as a standard duration. If you want to sit back and fire arrows from 1500 yards away at melee, you have to trait for it. The game philosophy is melee>ranged, so get used to it. The devs no doubt witnessed the ranged shootouts in World of Warcraft’s Alterac Valley where melee got pulverized when they took 3 steps forward and came to the conclusion that this is a situation that leads to a ranged standoff resulting in unfun gameplay. The longbow is the a user friendly weapon that can do decent damage if you trait and gear for it – but from what I gather you sacrifice survivability. This is how it should be.”

This is why enemies can easily side step arrows. Melee no doubt does more damage than the LB, but it doesnt mean it has to be greater than the longbow, they should be equal if traited properly.

What we have now with the longbow is people side stepping arrows effectively making semi-useless have the time. If it stays “traited” for 1500, then the arrows should be a guaranteed hit unless they physically evade the shot or run behind an obstacle.