Guild Wars 2

I really do like this weapon, I love the aoe, the tactial area denial and theme of it.

There’s just a couple things about it that feel really bad, besides the low-ish dmg of it.

Main offender : Fan of Flames. I like the idea of a narrow cone spreadshot skill, it’s a nice contrast to the rest of our slow volleying skills, however skills like these which other long range weapons also have drive me sort of crazy, they’re basically bad or worthless at long range, and are 100x more effective point blank because they’re essentially shotgun abilities.

Most of the time if you don’t use it in melee it’s a single arrow doing a measely bit of direct dmg plus a 1 second burn, not even worth using. Even in melee range this ability just isn’t that amazing just 3 tics of measely direct dmg and 3 second burn. And considering this is supposed to be our main attack next to auto’s as the low cd #2 skill it hits this weapon pretty hard.

My suggestion :

Vastly improve the dmg/effect from single projectiles and limit each target to be hit by a single projectile which would make it just as useful at long range, although it’d be less satisfying.

Or turn it into a single projectile that pierces and explodes on each target hit, would atleast have the benefit of being useful at long range and have multiple targets be it’s escalating condition.

edit : I’m not asking for this skill to have massive dmg or anything, just changing the way it works so it’s just as useful at long range.
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The second skill that has a few minor things that bug me is our Burst skill Combustive Shot, definately love this skill however the inconsistency with is aoe radius at different adrenal stages and the fact that it tics every 2 seconds and scales with duration sort of bother me.

My suggestion :

First of all I think it should tic every 1 second for 1 second burns as opposed to 2 second burns every 2 seconds as it’s just more flexible and doesn’t feel as delayed. The direct dmg would of course be cut in half, or maybe boosted slightly as it’s a little on the weak side.

The aoe radius, I think, should be made a consistent one either that or have the duration remain a constant or have slightly lower scaling. For example instead of 4/6/8 seconds, it could be 5/6/7 or 6/7/8. Mainly, other Burst skills don’t scale as hard as this one does stage 3 is literally x2 what stage 1 is. The aoe radius inconsistency, especially with the actual visual radius not changing is the main offender IMO.
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Now, for Smoldering Arrow, it’s a bit weak considering it’s a 15 cooldown for such a small effect, a single small aoe splash blind. I would either have the cooldown reduced or as I’ve seen suggested, have it place a tiny, short duration smoke field on the target, this would work very well with our combo finishers and our Immobilize, great potential. Immobilize your target then smoke field him.

Finally the Auto Attack Dual Shot, the main reason I’m ok with this skill AT THE MOMENT, is the trait causing it to be a double 100% finisher. This feature reminds me an awful lot of the Scout from Allods Online, they had a dual shot skill which would make use of their quiver mechanic, loading special arrows to cause an effect on their next shot(s), dual shot using 2 at a time.

Throwing down a fire field on yourself and raining down flaming arrow just feels so right, and having the auto attack be a low dmg but versatile utility skill is interesting. The only down side is, we only have 1 combo field : fire. If we could drop a tiny poison field or a tiny smoke field next to us to essentially load our Dual Shot with an effect it would work better, but we don’t, and won’t unless they feel like making banners have certain combo fields, but that’d be weird.

All I ask is, if this trait is a bug, please consider making it a legit part of the trait, even if Fan of Fire and Smoldering don’t become a combo finisher. And if that’s not acceptable, then atleast consider adding some interesting proc trait to make use of the “dual” gimmick.

And finally, 1200 range default please. =p

Did you care to finish that thought?

fellyn.5083:

Did you care to finish that thought?

z.z

I don’t know how this got posted but I wasn’t finished lol.

edit : finished now however.

well the problem is your thinking that the longbow is gonna be a straight forward damage weapon, its not…. not really. skills 4 and 5 are for supporting, skills 2 and 3 are aoe and hence better in situations like w3 when zerks meet you can just fire em and hit 10-20 people and the burst is pure support, the burn it does is ok but the true use of it is the 8 second fire field set up for others and yourself to throw out all those finishers.
If you really wanna ranged single target, the rifle outclasses the longbow easily, but if you go to w3/dungeons/DEs where there are a bunch of mobs/players the LB works better except for those builds that go glass cannon rifle crit+ power+ pierce + adren gain + none stop kill shot :P

so yeah LB is more of a ranged support weapon than a damager

Well, longbow’s main strength is burst and skill 3 combo, the short CD of burst skill and skill 3 allow you kept rain down powerful explosive shot and keep up a great fire field for allies burning projectiles.

Crossaber.8934:

Well, longbow’s main strength is burst and skill 3 combo, the short CD of burst skill and skill 3 allow you kept rain down powerful explosive shot and keep up a great fire field for allies burning projectiles.

kitten yeah Area Might!

kitai.7638:

well the problem is your thinking that the longbow is gonna be a straight forward damage weapon, its not…. not really. skills 4 and 5 are for supporting, skills 2 and 3 are aoe and hence better in situations like w3 when zerks meet you can just fire em and hit 10-20 people and the burst is pure support, the burn it does is ok but the true use of it is the 8 second fire field set up for others and yourself to throw out all those finishers.
If you really wanna ranged single target, the rifle outclasses the longbow easily, but if you go to w3/dungeons/DEs where there are a bunch of mobs/players the LB works better except for those builds that go glass cannon rifle crit+ power+ pierce + adren gain + none stop kill shot :P

so yeah LB is more of a ranged support weapon than a damager

I’m not sure where you read that I want Longbow to be a straight forward, high dmg weapon. I do like it’s “support” features of area denial, and cc. I never said I wanted the 4th and 5th skill to do a bunch of dmg.

Fan of Fire doesn’t need to do a crazy amount of dmg, it’s just really bad as it is now though, and doesn’t really make sense for a long range weapon to have a purely melee ranged ability.

You think it’s weird that Warrior has a pure melee ranged ability? Try Ranger, heh. My latest endeavor.

The power in Longbow comes from the Combo Field and Finishers you can pull off with it. I go 30 tactics and 30 discipline. I have adrenaline-building shouts and reduced burst cost. I basically have enough adrenaline to keep my fire combo field up every time it’s off of cooldown.

Drop it on an enemy, immobilize, fan of fire at point blank, explosive shot, and auto attack a few times, you’ve just built like 15 seconds of burning, swap to sword, lay on some bleeds, swap back and my burst is back up before they even stop burning. Longbow is almost too strong in this build. The fact that the auto attack is TWO 100% projectile finishers when every other bow in the game is 20% is ridiculous.

This combo is actually keeping me from playing other classes because I just can’t find a build that has nearly as much synergy and feels as good as this does. Ranger was a nightmare… Engineer and Ele just feel weird to me. 10 second weapon swap is killing me on any other class. Nothing feels as good as my longbow warrior does.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mVRm0kVMzoRaNmoRaNma9MxxzmRbmob8khs707khs7khf7070z7kNc70V

My shouts heal. My shouts build adrenaline. My shouts remove a condition. Burst skills cost 1 less bar when used. I gain 4 stacks of might on weapon swap. I can weapon swap every 5 seconds. I gain even more might from Longbow blast finisher in combo field.

Lay down field, lay on 10-15 seconds of burning, swap sword, leap for finisher, lay on bleeds, swap back, lay on burning, swap, etc.. built for Condition Damage, Healing Power, Toughness. Between the elite signet, for great justice, and the blast finisher, I basically sit at 25 stacks of might comfortably if I’m in combat for more than 45 seconds. Target will be constantly burning and bleeding. All I could ask for out of Longbow… it’s making it hard for me to play other classes because it honestly feels too OP. Longbow is essentially the best weapon for interacting with combo fields, at least that I could find. If you wanna lose some survivability and CC removal, drop Warhorn and grab an axe offhand, you now have a GIANT, nearly permanent combo field and every combo finisher in the game in one build.

Knote.2904:

I’m not sure where you read that I want Longbow to be a straight forward, high dmg weapon. I do like it’s “support” features of area denial, and cc. I never said I wanted the 4th and 5th skill to do a bunch of dmg.

Fan of Fire doesn’t need to do a crazy amount of dmg, it’s just really bad as it is now though, and doesn’t really make sense for a long range weapon to have a purely melee ranged ability.

when i posted, your suggestion was not up so all i had was the part where you talked about measly damage from skill #2 :P

so now that i can see your actual suggestions i guess i can see where you are going with this.
Firstly the issue with fan of fire: i guess the problem with longbow is how i think anet wants it to function. Anet gave warriors 2 completely ranged weapons the rifle and the bow. Hence they also made em do 2 completely seperate tasks, rifle for 1v1 encounters, LB for group situations. That would be why i think skill#2 would suk against A long range target, cuz it was specifically designed to discourage just targeting 1 enemy which is supported by the burst skill and skill 3.

As for the burst, well the ticking is wierd but i stand by my post before, it is meant to be used simply for its field, the damage should be a secondary purpose, hence i think thats the reason for the wierd ticking.

For smoldering arrow…. i dunno… its an auto target small splash blind. problem comes along with making a smoke field that auto targets is that a too short duration makes it useless while a longer one makes it op so thats gonna take a bit to think about.

Finally dual shot….. i’m not quite sure how to improve it anymore cuz making it 100% combo finisher without the trait seems…. unfair? and yet without the trait it feels useless so maybe up the % chance to 40-50 so at least an average of 1 arrow per shot gets the finisher?

And finally for your suggestion to give warriors more fields, i’m quite sure we wont get it simply cuz its not our job to set up fields, i think thats the job of the elementalist :P our job is simply to use em, cuz if you look at our weapon choices, almost all the melee ones have at least 2 combo finishers( exception of mace, hammer and warhorn but those are heavy cc/buff so yeah) while our ranged weapons get crazy more, LB gets 4 with trait and the ability to set up its own field while rifle gets 5!!!! thats every skill it has except for the rifle knockback one!!! And dont start on utillity skills that you cast on others, hell even the banners are freaking blast finishers lol :P

Absolem.2941:

You think it’s weird that Warrior has a pure melee ranged ability? Try Ranger, heh. My latest endeavor.

The power in Longbow comes from the Combo Field and Finishers you can pull off with it. I go 30 tactics and 30 discipline. I have adrenaline-building shouts and reduced burst cost. I basically have enough adrenaline to keep my fire combo field up every time it’s off of cooldown.

Drop it on an enemy, immobilize, fan of fire at point blank, explosive shot, and auto attack a few times, you’ve just built like 15 seconds of burning, swap to sword, lay on some bleeds, swap back and my burst is back up before they even stop burning. Longbow is almost too strong in this build. The fact that the auto attack is TWO 100% projectile finishers when every other bow in the game is 20% is ridiculous.

This combo is actually keeping me from playing other classes because I just can’t find a build that has nearly as much synergy and feels as good as this does. Ranger was a nightmare… Engineer and Ele just feel weird to me. 10 second weapon swap is killing me on any other class. Nothing feels as good as my longbow warrior does.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mVRm0kVMzoRaNmoRaNma9MxxzmRbmob8khs707khs7khf7070z7kNc70V

My shouts heal. My shouts build adrenaline. My shouts remove a condition. Burst skills cost 1 less bar when used. I gain 4 stacks of might on weapon swap. I can weapon swap every 5 seconds. I gain even more might from Longbow blast finisher in combo field.

Lay down field, lay on 10-15 seconds of burning, swap sword, leap for finisher, lay on bleeds, swap back, lay on burning, swap, etc.. built for Condition Damage, Healing Power, Toughness. Between the elite signet, for great justice, and the blast finisher, I basically sit at 25 stacks of might comfortably if I’m in combat for more than 45 seconds. Target will be constantly burning and bleeding. All I could ask for out of Longbow… it’s making it hard for me to play other classes because it honestly feels too OP. Longbow is essentially the best weapon for interacting with combo fields, at least that I could find. If you wanna lose some survivability and CC removal, drop Warhorn and grab an axe offhand, you now have a GIANT, nearly permanent combo field and every combo finisher in the game in one build.

Yes, ranger shortbow also has the same issue of having a shotgun skill. Just poorly designed/implemented skills IMO.

Regardless of how decent longbow is, Fan of Fire and Smoldering could use a slight change/buff.

kitai.7638:

Knote.2904:

I’m not sure where you read that I want Longbow to be a straight forward, high dmg weapon. I do like it’s “support” features of area denial, and cc. I never said I wanted the 4th and 5th skill to do a bunch of dmg.

Fan of Fire doesn’t need to do a crazy amount of dmg, it’s just really bad as it is now though, and doesn’t really make sense for a long range weapon to have a purely melee ranged ability.

As for the burst, well the ticking is wierd but i stand by my post before, it is meant to be used simply for its field, the damage should be a secondary purpose, hence i think thats the reason for the wierd ticking.

For smoldering arrow…. i dunno… its an auto target small splash blind. problem comes along with making a smoke field that auto targets is that a too short duration makes it useless while a longer one makes it op so thats gonna take a bit to think about.

And finally for your suggestion to give warriors more fields, i’m quite sure we wont get it simply cuz its not our job to set up fields, i think thats the job of the elementalist :P our job is simply to use em, cuz if you look at our weapon choices, almost all the melee ones have at least 2 combo finishers( exception of mace, hammer and warhorn but those are heavy cc/buff so yeah) while our ranged weapons get crazy more, LB gets 4 with trait and the ability to set up its own field while rifle gets 5!!!! thats every skill it has except for the rifle knockback one!!! And dont start on utillity skills that you cast on others, hell even the banners are freaking blast finishers lol :P

The function of the burst skill doesn’t really change the fact that having it tic every 1 second for half of what it does now would make it more fluid/less clunky just like nearly every other “field” ability out there, that won’t necessarily make it stronger or hit harder.

If having Smoldering drop a “too” short duration smoke field is useless, what does that make the skill right now as is? =p

And for banners, that was just hypothetical, I don’t expect them to add more combo fields for us, I was just talking about the Dual Shot gimmick specifically.

Absolem.2941:

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mVRm0kVMzoRaNmoRaNma9MxxzmRbmob8khs707khs7khf7070z7kNc70V

My shouts heal. My shouts build adrenaline. My shouts remove a condition. Burst skills cost 1 less bar when used. I gain 4 stacks of might on weapon swap. I can weapon swap every 5 seconds. I gain even more might from Longbow blast finisher in combo field.

Lay down field, lay on 10-15 seconds of burning, swap sword, leap for finisher, lay on bleeds, swap back, lay on burning, swap, etc.. built for Condition Damage, Healing Power, Toughness. Between the elite signet, for great justice, and the blast finisher, I basically sit at 25 stacks of might comfortably if I’m in combat for more than 45 seconds. Target will be constantly burning and bleeding. All I could ask for out of Longbow… it’s making it hard for me to play other classes because it honestly feels too OP. Longbow is essentially the best weapon for interacting with combo fields, at least that I could find. If you wanna lose some survivability and CC removal, drop Warhorn and grab an axe offhand, you now have a GIANT, nearly permanent combo field and every combo finisher in the game in one build.

This is the exact same build I use, But instead of having burst cost less I take the -20% recharge, I find that I always have enough adrenaline to keep my burst on cooldown, I love the longbow, it is absurd the amount of damage that I can put out in an AoE situation, I sit at 13-18 stacks of might all the time. Let’s not even get started on the carnage that happens when I swap to an axe off-hand, fun stuff