Guild Wars 2

Is it just me or is shortbow a bit… lacking vs other classes these days? For condi it’s still got it’s uses, but for power builds it feels like it doesn’t do as well as it used to since HoT. Thinking mostly for 1v1 situations really, anyone else feeling this?

Shortbow always felt awkward for me, specially Cluster Bomb since it just ignores physics by “flying” in slow-motion.

cluster bomb really needs to move faster
then shortbow would be good

The auto is ok if it can bounce, 2 is far too slow, 3 is unreliable and akward, 4 deals sub par condi damage, 5 is great. So yeah, it’s pretty lacking.

4 needs the poison duration to be increased, compared to the duration of other professions poisons its pathetic.

I don’t really see the problem. All shortbow skills are amazing for different reasons. The only part of it that could do with a buff is Surprise Shot. I still think it should bounce like Trick Shot and immobilise both targets.

Surprise Shot – Decent for immobilize but otherwise does not provide enough impact to justify spending resources on stealthing.

Cluster Bomb – As good as it might be for a power skill, the fact that it moves slow makes using it from a distance pointless.

Disabling Shot – Tiny damage, tiny cripple, tiny evade distance and tiny evade window. Initiative cost of 4. Not really worth using sept for clutch evade.

Choking Gas – The 2s duration was needed when poison timer could be easily stacked above a minute. Now that poison stacks intensity, it is time to remove the nerf.

These are just the issue I see with them.

yolo swaggins.2570:

Surprise Shot – Decent for immobilize but otherwise does not provide enough impact to justify spending resources on stealthing.

Cluster Bomb – As good as it might be for a power skill, the fact that it moves slow makes using it from a distance pointless.

Disabling Shot – Tiny damage, tiny cripple, tiny evade distance and tiny evade window. Initiative cost of 4. Not really worth using sept for clutch evade.

Choking Gas – The 2s duration was needed when poison timer could be easily stacked above a minute. Now that poison stacks intensity, it is time to remove the nerf.

These are just the issue I see with them.

Completely agree. 4 is really only useful for tossing it on a downed enemy and that’s about it. 2 is really only good for blasting fields. AoE weakness from 4 and 2 is pretty good. Trickshot should do more damage if there’s only one target. The AA damage is just laughable. 5 is really the only reason why we take it.

Clusterbomb’s slow projectile speed was to encourage firing one from range, then firing a field out before it lands, but I rarely see it used like that, and for that matter, rarely see people going for the full bomb blast at range and not detonating it. With that said I think bumping cluster back up to 1200 in addition to a very slight speed increase so the adjusted bomb’s flight time would be the same as it is now, just over a longer range.

Aside from that I’d say choking gas definitely need another second of poison duration or some other small adjustment. Honestly, things like choking gas should be fields that get more severe the longer you have been standing in it, but I’m not sure they have tech for implementing things like that just yet.

Surprise Shot: Decent opener if I’m in stealth and can’t engage melee. Good for locking down targets that try to flee from my team.

Trick Shot: Very good for proccing sigils.

Cluster Bomb: Good for AoE damage spam against stealthed targets and amazing for blasting combo fields. Damage is okay, but I would like to see its travel speed a bit faster.

Disabling Shot: Not worth the initiative. Was good but got nerfed to the ground…

Choking Gas: Amazing in combination with Deadly Arts or Cluster Bomb to weaken an entire team or make reviving slower.

Infiltrator’s Arrow: The main reason thieves pick this weapon.

I don’t find it lacking as it definitely still are one of, if not the best utility weapon in the game. I would like to see the nerf to Disabling Shot reverted and some speed added to Cluster Bomb. But that’s about it. Overall a solid choice for any thief build.

It’s only ever really been good just for mobility on 5. Pure ranged viability, P/P is better and has been, despite its weaknesses/past weaknesses.

In anything but sPvP I don’t bother running it because S/D is better for damage, in-combat mobility, and utility in my opinion.

Lets compare to the DH Longbow and lets remember all their attacks are 300 longer in distance:

Auto Attack: They fire at roughly the same speed (even though the descriptions say otherwise) yet the DH does 35% more damage and applies a cripple. It only bounces once instead of twice but IMO much better.

2 attack: No contest. The DH ability pierces, fires faster (again the descriptions are wrong), 4s timer and hits more than twice as hard.

3 attack: Solid on the DH with blinding, nice damage, blocks projectiles… oh and is unblockable. The thief… gets crappy damage, a cripple (something their AA does) and an evade. I think I forgot something… oh yeah… DH attack pierces.

4 attack: Similar but DH wins out again. The DH version does 2 stacks of 5s burning, lasts 5s, pulses 5 times. The thief gets 1 stack of 2s poison, lasts 4s and pluses 4 times. DH attack actually has some decent base damage while the thief damage is minimal. The surprise here is the thief has a rare unblockable attack but the DH trumps that with 3s of Vigor. F’ing Vigor!?!?

5 Attack: The ONLY reason to take this weapon on a thief. It is awesome. Course the DH does try and compete by putting up barriers preventing other players from moving and the DPS is solid. The barrier effect is doubly good because culling removes the visible barrier before the effect ends. This creates the quite excellent invisible barrier that for a thief would be Vault, Backstab, Pistol Whip heaven.

At the end of the day the DH gets vastly more DPS, better range, great AoE, excellent utility and traits that play well with weapon. Thieves get an extra couple teleports.

Cluster Bomb is too slow and defies gravity; causing it to be impossible to use up your initiative bar in max range battles. It’s also a ranged skill that is confusingly designed to work far better at close range; blowing up your own face with shrapnel. The small anti-stealth damage on Choking Gas could at least do Auto Attack damage; the small amount is just silly. SB AA doesn’t benefit Condition builds despite being a Hybrid weapon geared for both condi and direct.

SB 2 needs to a.) move faster, b.) get it’s 1200 range back as it was years ago and c.) leave a fire field (instead of inflicting bleeding) if you choose not to detonate it mid-air. That would be cool.

The fire field could add some cool options for the thief and allies. Blasting for might, leaping for fire aura, and for thieves using condi – get a much needed burn option.

Scratch that fire field: Bad idea! It’s already a blast finisher xD

It seems to be a thing to make ranged weapons for certain classes, like Warrior and Thief, really suck compared to melee options so they are only used for utilitarian purposes. That’s the only possible explanation for why, despite that SB and Pistol have the weakest auto attacks by far, they were not buffed with the other autoattacks.

I find it kind of stupid, because there are better ways to ensure balance that don’t involve leaving a weapon set with 5 uniquely designed skills all but unusable.

But this just goes back to the competence of the balance team, which I just don’t think is quite where it needs to be.

Jugglemonkey.8741:

Is it just me or is shortbow a bit… lacking vs other classes these days? For condi it’s still got it’s uses, but for power builds it feels like it doesn’t do as well as it used to since HoT. Thinking mostly for 1v1 situations really, anyone else feeling this?

nah. SB is as awesome as allways. it’s must have in pvp not just for the mobility but for aoe dps, support and ranged pressure. I uploaded a vieo yesterday, go watch it there are some showtbow moments in it.
I dont know what do you expect from your secondary weapon set as thief, but the function should be to fill out the defects of your main weapon set. Shortbow fills out EVERYTHING, it has unpaired vertical mobility, aoe poison application, evasion, high damage aoe ability <- blast finisher, fair CC on stealth attack and decent aoutohit damage. These things solve all your problems besides spike damage(steal+2xcluster is still high enough) that you already have on most main weapon sets. And this is why SB is strong as hell. do some 1v1’s just using SB with your friends to practice, not too much though ’couse they gonna start whineing about the weapon being OP…

i think only part make short bow awkward is random delay you get on disabling shot. it similar to water field on engi turret.

No, I think short bow is too good, probably just as good as d/p in terms of utility. Cluster bombs isn’t designed to be shot at far range, even tho it can. It’s also an awesome blast finisher (not just for might)

Yeah choking gas could be a bit better and the cripple could be longer too on disabling shot. Apart from that, it’s awesome.!

Anomaly.7612:

yolo swaggins.2570:

Surprise Shot – Decent for immobilize but otherwise does not provide enough impact to justify spending resources on stealthing.

Cluster Bomb – As good as it might be for a power skill, the fact that it moves slow makes using it from a distance pointless.

Disabling Shot – Tiny damage, tiny cripple, tiny evade distance and tiny evade window. Initiative cost of 4. Not really worth using sept for clutch evade.

Choking Gas – The 2s duration was needed when poison timer could be easily stacked above a minute. Now that poison stacks intensity, it is time to remove the nerf.

These are just the issue I see with them.

Completely agree. 4 is really only useful for tossing it on a downed enemy and that’s about it. 2 is really only good for blasting fields. AoE weakness from 4 and 2 is pretty good. Trickshot should do more damage if there’s only one target. The AA damage is just laughable. 5 is really the only reason why we take it.

4 is pretty amazing on point unblockable poison field that can reduce on point fighter’s healing also put weakness if you blast it

SB’s a pure utility weapon, so it’s not really meant to feel optimal in combat.

The initiative system reduces dependencies on needing to swap weapons, which allows for stylized weapons like the shortbow to be so strong without needing high numbers. It’s what the skills bring to the table which makes them good, and no-cooldown blink, AOE unblockable poison, spammable evade/cripple, spammable blast finisher, and AoE tagging auto give the weapon lots of use despite not being main-set-worthy.

For sPvP enthusiasts, the weapon is often considered as being pretty much the only thing holding the class together due to its unrivaled vertical mobility potential, such that it’s pretty much required on all competitive builds for its mobility alone.

Surprise shot is alright but usually it’ll just guarantee a hit from your next auto attack if at all, since so many builds run on-demand immob break, and duration reduction. In the past it benefited from the condi duration granted from the DA line but trait lines don’t give stats anymore.

Trick shot, as someone already mentioned, is alright if it can bounce between two foes, otherwise it doesn’t boast the single target damage to even be worth using, except that there is nothing else to use while waiting for cluster bomb to land.

Cluster bomb is slow, easily avoided by walking, and the detonate to be able to cast it faster at point-blank range often bugs and spawns the smaller bombs underground so they deal no damage (the chances of this happening can be reduced by minor positioning adjustment but it can still happen). Still, it has its uses and is not considered bad.

Disabling shot kept being altered by ANet and was only left alone after they bugged it so that as it ends, it jerks you toward the direction you just moved away from. All this is is an evade or a cripple (i.e. usually used for one or the other). (Also used to - If you can time it right - cripple someone jumping from a building onto the clock tower so that they fall (lol)).

Choking gas is still in the typical ANet vs. thief state. Other classes had their condi durations increased when stats were removed from trait lines. Thief’s conditions were left the same duration, but choking gas got special treatment and actually had its duration nerfed. It used to be very good for debuffing support roles on point, but now the duration isn’t long enough to be worth it. It used to still have a use to make a basilisk venom hit through block but now basi does that itself.

Infiltrator’s Arrow is what makes shortbow viable. Without this we might see some P/P use... A set that’s been complained about needing a buff for as long as I can remember on this game.

Reading most of this makes me want to headbutt people.

I’d just like to see the projectile speed on SB#2 increased by 33%-50%. SB 4 could probably use a poison duration buff back to the original of 4 seconds, but I think they were worried about the possibility of stacking high stacks against people and mobs who chose not to walk out of the area.

I’d like to see SB moved more toward condi damage and Pistols moved toward true burst (and not split between bleeds/white damage. )

Maybe a trait that buffs Choking gas for an extra pulse, and Cluster Bomb does 3 stacks of bleeding for 4 seconds or something. Maybe the auto attack could apply 1 second of poison.

I never see thieves using SB in PvP for anything but the shadow step. Without the shadow step, nobody would bother equipping it. So yeah, not that awesome.