Guild Wars 2

I’m a little tired of just using a bow for defensive purposes. This is geared way more to pvp than anything since pve its an aoe machine but really, I’m a little tired of the only real use for it is defending gates or evading/running away from people. Especially with the 1200 ranged nerf on cluster bomb to a measly 900 you can barely hit the ground from ontop of a wall let alone use it in a zerg v zerg fight. I think my bouncing auto hits do more dmg in total because people tend to just casually walk out of the way.

Maybe I’m doing it wrong but when you feel like ranging someone down for the hell of it the only real thing you can do is auto hit. If you’re chasing someone you can’t fire the cluster bomb ahead of them anymore, by the time it hits the ground you yourself are already about to pass the impact site so how would it even be possibly to hit an enemy slightly ahead of you running away? Sure you could shadowshot to them and hit them with an easy cluster but there goes all your initiative and whole point of dealing dmg from a distance. Sure you can also root someone out of stealth but what’s the point? Especially when there’s no way to get into stealth from the bow you’re sacrificing a 30-60 second cooldown just to get one 2 second immobilize that lets you what? safely land one cluster bomb? a regular attack? I’m sure most thieves won’t want to give up a 9k backstab for a 400 dmg quick root.

However I don’t think it’s out of place, it is geared more to be a utility weapon rather than a main choice but even one or two tiny aspects of possible offensive play would add more variety to the game. A bow seem’s like a much better choice for an assassination rather than a loud pistol, sniping your target from a rooftop then yeah maybe having bombs for those other situations. I’m not saying the bow is weak when I say it’s defensive. I’m not new to the game, I love using it to murder people who are chasing me and just get lured into constant clusters to the face but I’m more addressing a scenario when I’m the one doing the chasing.

Possibilities? Maybe make Surprise Shot (the shot from stealth) deal a hight burst instead, like a volley. You don’t have roughly any means of stealth on a shortbow so most likely you’d be burning cooldowns, it wouldn’t spammable. Just a quick volley of arrows to chase down or initiate a good jump. Something else but not that big of a deal but what about speeding up cluster bomb’s projectile? maybe with less arc? If they want to keep a short range maybe make it easier to actually hit people… not let someone casually walk out of the way. I dunno I just feel something new would be nice rather than having a weapon only for poofing yourself away to rush objectives or run from people… I dunno any thoughts? Would it be too imbalanced? It’s fine right now for a quick swap defensive weapon but I just feel it could be more being our only bow option.

And again
Just make the Infiltrator’s Arrow rate like all other teleports. Warriors leaps run faster than this arrow. While flying arrow I run a third of the distance teleport.

Run away best defence for thief.

You’re doing it wrong. Go watch any thief in the top 100-or-so of the PvP leaderboards, and come back and tell me the Shortbow is a defensive/utility weapon.

I love using shortbow offensively. If you can shotgun clusterbombs onto people’s faces you’re going to do insane damage. Try using Sleight of Hand and steal and clusterbomb. Anything that can immob/stun and if you are essentially on top of someone and bomb them, they are going to hurt- moreso if you practice detonating on them as well. I think of it as an additional melee weapon that I can also use from range.

AshinDreidon.3861:

I love using shortbow offensively. If you can shotgun clusterbombs onto people’s faces you’re going to do insane damage. Try using Sleight of Hand and steal and clusterbomb. Anything that can immob/stun and if you are essentially on top of someone and bomb them, they are going to hurt- moreso if you practice detonating on them as well. I think of it as an additional melee weapon that I can also use from range.

Yeah that’s what I think of the shortbow now, only effective if ur right infront of the person, then it’s hilarious lol But yeah that’s my gripe right there, It’d be nice if it could be used for range but it just feels like we already have daggers and swords, why would we need even more melee power.

Marduh.4603:

And again
Just make the Infiltrator’s Arrow rate like all other teleports. Warriors leaps run faster than this arrow. While flying arrow I run a third of the distance teleport.

Run away best defence for thief.

Not sure what language you’re speaking here, I’m not talking about defense at all lol. Just maybe a surprise shot buff or something offensive.

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And I’ll def take a look at some of those Reikou, just not seeing it though. Other than initiating I don’t see how it would be used any more effectively than initiating normally with D/P or Hidden Thief or any traditional initiate really.