Guild Wars 2

Looks like that recently a lot specs in PvP/WvW are heavily based on the use of longbow (hambow, gs/bow, ss/bow), which by the way is going to nerfed (slightly) soon again by Anet.

While bow is a not-so-bad weapon, imho there are a lot of more fun and war-ish weapons that could be used instead.

Imho one of the reasons why people use bow is that it is the only weapon, coupled with cleansing ire, that guarantees condition removal when burst is used.
Burst skills from other weapos can be missed, blocked, dodged, thus not allowing a realiable condition removal.

This limits a lot the viable specs and make longbow a preferred weapon, in particular for PvP.

I would propose a couple of changes to allow more spec variety:
- remove cleansing ire trait and make it inherent to the burst skill mechanic. Every time you use a burst skill, conditions are removed as per cleansing ire trait (after the miss/dodge/block check is done .. i.e. If you are blinded, you burst would miss but the conditions are removed afterwards)
- To compensate the improvement above, every time a burst skill is used, all the adrenaline is lost (even if the burst gets missed dodged, blinded, etc..).

What do you think?

People use longbow because it’s good. People don’t use other weapons because they’re not good. Offhand mace = not good. Offhand axe = not good. Rifle = almost OK, but in the end, not good.

Cleansing Ire is too strong to be a trait. It is Cleansing Ire that is restricting build diversity. If the effects of Cleansing Ire were built into the adrenaline system, then it needs to be a shaved down version, such as 3 adrenaline = 2 conditions cleansed.

3 adrenaline=2 condition cleansed? Then what about 1 adrenaline?

I went from axe/shield to longbow because the damage pressure was much greater. Some ranger builds (the good ones) tend to dodge and run away heal and reapply damage, its too much to deal with so I need to keep the damage on them via range. Rifle is okay, but the burst is slow and not worth it to me and since I use GS I need a reliable burst.

Many reasons why Longbow is a preferred weapon by many people.

- Great burst damage and decent condition damage in one weapon
- Pin Down
- Only combo field
- Excellent AoE
- Only blind
- Procs Cleansing Ire and Building Momentum the best (probably the main reason)

Tamtam.4328:

Looks like that recently a lot specs in PvP/WvW are heavily based on the use of longbow (hambow, gs/bow, ss/bow), which by the way is going to nerfed (slightly) soon again by Anet.

While bow is a not-so-bad weapon, imho there are a lot of more fun and war-ish weapons that could be used instead.

Imho one of the reasons why people use bow is that it is the only weapon, coupled with cleansing ire, that guarantees condition removal when burst is used.
Burst skills from other weapos can be missed, blocked, dodged, thus not allowing a realiable condition removal.

This limits a lot the viable specs and make longbow a preferred weapon, in particular for PvP.

I would propose a couple of changes to allow more spec variety:
- remove cleansing ire trait and make it inherent to the burst skill mechanic. Every time you use a burst skill, conditions are removed as per cleansing ire trait (after the miss/dodge/block check is done .. i.e. If you are blinded, you burst would miss but the conditions are removed afterwards)
- To compensate the improvement above, every time a burst skill is used, all the adrenaline is lost (even if the burst gets missed dodged, blinded, etc..).

What do you think?

No thanks. I’d rather keep my adrenaline. And longbow is a great weapon for a lot of reasons other then guaranteed cleansing.

Long bow has always been popular for its utility. The reason why people use the longbow has less to do with cleasining IRE and more to do with the immobilize, Its ability to shoot up keep walls, the blind skill, and it being the only other viable condi weapon for condi wars.

But the bust skill is not as helpful in open field wvw where people can just runn out of it. Its a better skill for holding a point like in SPVP which isn’t the case in WvW.

There are also other more viable ways to deal with conditions in WvW, where as in Spvp there are not.
interesting conclusion you came to but far off.

Thanks for the feedback.

I agree that longbow has a lot of good points to bring on the table.
I have tried several different combination of builds/weapons recently in sPvP, and my impression was that going for full melee or melee/rifle requires additional means to protect from conditions with respect to a longbow-based build, assuming cleansing ire (which is kinda must-have these days).

I would gladly take 2 guaranteed condi clear on burst, as it would put all weapons on the same ground… but hey it is a personal preference, and class balance should be also considered.