Guild Wars 2

As it stands, the traits that affect the longbow directly are Burning Arrows and Stronger Bowstrings. Both are lackluster, and both are in the Tactics line, which doesn’t make sense to me. A burning-focused weapon needs condition dmg or duration, not vitality or boon duration. Also, neither of them reduces the cooldown of longbow weapon skills. It really just seems like an oversight to me, as I know that many traits for all professions that only affected a certain weapon in the beta weekends were buffed to also reduce the cooldowns of that weapon (such as Forceful Greatsword, Merciless Hammer, Duelist’s Discipline, etc)

While on the topic of Longbow skills, I believe the tooltip for Arcing Arrow is bugged in-game, as it currently lists a burning effect, which does not happen when I use the skill.

Hopefully if the Longbow traits get looked at, you may actually see a Longbow Warrior in spvp!

I agree. long bow does need some love. On it’s own, it is an awesome weapon. Some traits to compliment a style that focuses on the long bow would be quite nifty.

Cut travel time on the #3 and the burst and you are done.

I will agree that longbow needs a little love. I’ve only ever seen it used in WvW by warriors who’ve retreated into a fort to defend it and once by a warrior in an explorable mode dungeon to set up combo fields in a 5 warrior group.

Not only does it need better traits, it needs the 1200 trait completely removed and made automatic.

Ayestes.1273:

Not only does it need better traits, it needs the 1200 trait completely removed and made automatic.

Agreed, the standard range of the longbow is a joke.

At least warrior LB is worth using in the first place.

As pointed out by someone else in the other thread on the same topic, the 1200 trait has a hidden bonus of transforming the longbow into a projectile finishing powerhouse. Without the trait, you have a 20% chance on your auto attack (two chances) and a 100% chance with your #5. With the talent, you have a 100% chance to combo twice on your auto attack. That makes it an amazing talent worth taking.

^
Ah, that’s good to know. Similar bug/undocumented feature to the Mesmer Pistol trait for iDuelist.

Burning Arrow may be lackluster, but Stronger Bowstring is not. Making LB auto 1200 is insane and make Ranger obsolete.

Putting it in Tactics leave rooms for melee weapons in Strength and Arms. And LB is in fact a very effective tactical weapon in WvW, so it goes there naturally. WvW has many choke points that you can make use of, with arching arrow and combustive shot, it does insane amount of ae condition damage to large group of enemies if placed right. Also, if you are shooting from high ground, your arrows can actually hit further than its range. Think the English Longbowman defending castles raining deaths from above.

TinyHowie.3946:

Burning Arrow may be lackluster, but Stronger Bowstring is not. Making LB auto 1200 is insane and make Ranger obsolete.

Not really, considering Stronger Bowstring would need to be changed so it doesn’t offer more range. When I rolled my first alt, I found it it kind of absurd that my Warrior’s Longbow had the same range as the Thief’s Shortbow (except for a few thief skills, that had 1200), despite being the larger weapon.

Burning Arrow could simply be changed to a Longbow version of Sundering Mace (20% faster cooldowns, 10% while foe is burning) and it would be acceptable in my mind.

Turtles All The Way Down.5608:

At least warrior LB is worth using in the first place.

As someone who has played both the Ranger and Warrior… not really. They are in the same boat.

I remember reading early on about ArenaNet’s design philosophy. Make weapons skills easy to pick up and use right away, but give them enough depth that they don’t ever feel stale (I’m paraphrasing). Longbows unfortunately skew a bit more on the depth side. You’ll probably be a little disappointed when you first pick it up, but once you dive a little deeper into the play-style you start to realize the weapon’s potential.

Play ranger longbow, then come back. Warrior Longbow is EPIC to me.

In fact, Warrior’s anything is epic to me, after playing ranger. I love my warrior so so much.