Guild Wars 2

“Long Range Shot: Reduced the aftercast on this skill from .5 seconds to .25 seconds. Increased arrow speed by 15%”
“Rapid Fire: Reduced initial cast time by .4 seconds. Increased arrow speed by 15%”

Full Zerk gear 30/30/10/0/0, no traits used. Bloodlust/Force Sigil and Butternut crit food w/ power potion.

2748 Power, 61.7% Crit Chance, 122 Crit Damage, 100 Condi Damage. 5% Bonus Damage (Force Sigil)

This is vs 2,600 Armor BTW which is what the Heavy Dummy uses in the mists and its also what your tooltip number on your attacks use.

Currently

LB #1 has 1.25s per hit, at max Range it has a 0.9 Skill modifier, 0.65 Mid Range and 0.5 Min Range.
LB #2 has kitten Channel and its 0.37 Skill Modifier, hitting 10 times.
SB #1 has a 0.5s per hit and its 0.4 Skill Modifier.

LB#1 is 1,647 DPS at Max Range, 1,189 at Mid Range, 915 at Min Range.
LB #2 is 1,693 DPS.
SB #1 is 1,743 DPS, 2,028 If you Flank every hit for bleeding.

As we can see LB is pretty kittening horrible, lets see after the patch.

LB#1 is 2,059 DPS at Max Range, 1,487 at Mid Range, 1,144 at Min Range.
LB #2 is 1,840 DPS.

LB #1 gained 25% Damage, LB #2 8.6% Damage.

So LB is better than SB at Max range, but as soon as the enemy closes in 200 units SB is better, but if can flank than SB is pretty much the same DPS. Of course this is full glass cannon, the less damage you have the more SB Flanking will do, also most ranger take 30 wilderness so thats 200 more condi damage.

The 14% Damage gain on SB 3-5 will make them hit as hard kitten #1. ATM they are .35 and with 14% gain thats 0.399 so 0.4 just like SB #1. Basically they are still not worth using them for DPS over utility even in PvE/PvP.

How do the range weapons compare to the other weapons though?

Axe #1 is 1,089 DPS, pretty bad still but if you can bounce of 1 target thats decent dps, but no one in their right mind would use it in a power build.
Axe #4 is pretty good to burst people being able to crit for 3,450 per hit (6,900 combined) vs 2,600 armor. Against GC with 1,836 armor you could crit for 4,900 so thats a nice burst if it crits since its quick to use.
Axe #5 is still freaking crap barely doing more DPS than spamming Axe #1.

Sword #1 is still on top with 2,300 DPS though.

GS #1 is 1,677 DPS but if you do Maul on CD its 1,929 DPS and you get a free evade with the #1.

In closing if you plan to use LB after the patch i suggest you pick up Eagles Eye for the extra Range otherwise you won;t get much use out of the #1 buff.

But we’re losing Zephyr’s Speed, which affects the longbow a lot more than the shortbow. No more rapid rapid fire, you’ll save QZ for Barrage.

Daemon.4295:

But we’re losing Zephyr’s Speed, which affects the longbow a lot more than the shortbow. No more rapid rapid fire, you’ll save QZ for Barrage.

No, Quickness affects SB and LB the same in terms of DPS.

Puandro.3245:

Daemon.4295:

But we’re losing Zephyr’s Speed, which affects the longbow a lot more than the shortbow. No more rapid rapid fire, you’ll save QZ for Barrage.

No, Quickness affects SB and LB the same in terms of DPS.

Wrong. Quickness has been bugged for SB for a long time. Attack speed is increased by 31% instead of 50% for Crossfire. When Quickness was still at 100%, SB had an increased attack speed of 62%. This may be due to the same graphic glitch that caused the SB Crossfire attack speed nerf in October. Because Rangers get nerfed for graphical reasons.

SirJack.4760:

Puandro.3245:

Daemon.4295:

But we’re losing Zephyr’s Speed, which affects the longbow a lot more than the shortbow. No more rapid rapid fire, you’ll save QZ for Barrage.

No, Quickness affects SB and LB the same in terms of DPS.

Wrong. Quickness has been bugged for SB for a long time. Attack speed is increased by 31% instead of 50% for Crossfire. When Quickness was still at 100%, SB had an increased attack speed of 62%. This may be due to the same graphic glitch that caused the SB Crossfire attack speed nerf in October. Because Rangers get nerfed for graphical reasons.

I will have to look into this.

Puandro.3245:

SirJack.4760:

Puandro.3245:

Daemon.4295:

But we’re losing Zephyr’s Speed, which affects the longbow a lot more than the shortbow. No more rapid rapid fire, you’ll save QZ for Barrage.

No, Quickness affects SB and LB the same in terms of DPS.

Wrong. Quickness has been bugged for SB for a long time. Attack speed is increased by 31% instead of 50% for Crossfire. When Quickness was still at 100%, SB had an increased attack speed of 62%. This may be due to the same graphic glitch that caused the SB Crossfire attack speed nerf in October. Because Rangers get nerfed for graphical reasons.

I will have to look into this.

Yeah it’s a well known fact that shortbow quickness is bugged, it was bugged before the quickness nerf and remained bugged after the nerf. But regardless, quickness affects Lb more than Sb because Lb deals spike damage off barrage and rapid fire, whereas Sb deals more consistent damage off autoattack. The higher the spike, the greater the impact of damage buffs like quickness and fury.

Add that Eagle Eye also adds +5% dmg. Not big, but every bit matters.

Point Blank Shot into Rapid Fire with Moment of Clarity produces a considerably higher spike than you can get with a shortbow, particularly with quickness.

I’m sure nobody thinks improved autoattack DPS is going to turn the longbow into a damage dealing monster, but at least it’ll be less of a tradeoff to carry it for its utility now.

Nice calculations but still can LB>SB..Beyond the calculations theres the real combat that has to many varietys.Calculations and numbers can be helpfull but again in real combat lets say an enemy comes at you with a gap closer skill that you can interupt,he reaches you and makes an small aoe around him even tho you interupt his first attack with SB 5 and move away with SB 3..Well you are downed and you lose a lot of dps….If you had a LB equiped you could push him away with LB 4 and not die which means you will do more dmg in the end of the fight….
The example is not accurate i just want to explain that the dmg in the end of the day is what matters,not the dmg on a dummy..

As someone that consistently played LB/GS in top 1000 turney games I can say that LB autoattacking never really was a thing. You played it for the other 4 skills which are all really good but also took advantage of petswap QZ. I am really curious how that changed now.

Dojo.1867:

As someone that consistently played LB/GS in top 1000 turney games I can say that LB autoattacking never really was a thing. You played it for the other 4 skills which are all really good but also took advantage of petswap QZ. I am really curious how that changed now.

What kind of build did you use for that? As a GS/SB power BM these change look like the end of the style of play I enjoy the most.

Actually playing>doing the math. You could say LB is stronger then SB but in game, i’m sure your minds could be changed. I do appreciate all the work you’ve put into making this though.

I am saying this a lot but single target dmg really isn’t what puts LB > SB and I doubt this will ever change (maybe it is a bit more bursty if anything). Everybody is overlooking the huge utility of 12 sec cd point blank shot. The team DPS buffing of 10 stack vulnerability of hunter shot. The AoE cripple/dmg of Barrage.

Inverted.7439:

Actually playing>doing the math. You could say LB is stronger then SB but in game, i’m sure your minds could be changed. I do appreciate all the work you’ve put into making this though.

I actually agree on the first part Now all calculations show SB is stronger, but somehow I’m doing better with LB.

Dardamaniac.1295:

Nice calculations but still can LB>SB..Beyond the calculations theres the real combat that has to many varietys.Calculations and numbers can be helpfull but again in real combat lets say an enemy comes at you with a gap closer skill that you can interupt,he reaches you and makes an small aoe around him even tho you interupt his first attack with SB 5 and move away with SB 3..Well you are downed and you lose a lot of dps….If you had a LB equiped you could push him away with LB 4 and not die which means you will do more dmg in the end of the fight….
The example is not accurate i just want to explain that the dmg in the end of the day is what matters,not the dmg on a dummy..

The thing is, with SB you can interrupt him with 5, get back and flank with swiftness with 3, then cripple him and have your pet stack bleed faster. With LB ranger you knock him back and hope he doesn’t have any gapclosers left. Also your DPS is significantly reduced on LB as well because if he is close enough to you you will lose damage.

Longbow has much better synergy with RaO than the shortbow does. Most people on this forum seem to overlook this when comparing the two.

Inverted.7439:

Actually playing>doing the math. You could say LB is stronger then SB but in game, i’m sure your minds could be changed. I do appreciate all the work you’ve put into making this though.

You know how numbers are, they can change based on “how something feels”.

Dojo.1867:

I am saying this a lot but single target dmg really isn’t what puts LB > SB and I doubt this will ever change (maybe it is a bit more bursty if anything). Everybody is overlooking the huge utility of 12 sec cd point blank shot. The team DPS buffing of 10 stack vulnerability of hunter shot. The AoE cripple/dmg of Barrage.

I’ll highlight this this little bit of info in the quote as it seems to be forgotten in the OP. The 10 stacks of vulnerability to buff everyone attacking the target is one of the biggest perks the LB has over the SB.

The advantage of the LB over the SB is not the auto damage but the utility it has in LB #2-5.