Guild Wars 2

I stopped after watching 70% of the video. Wasn’t funny at all to me.

I also mained engi for a long time so I can atleast speak for that.

While there is also stuff like HGH all those elixirs can still be kind of useful without that. You can also play certain turrets without a turret build and untraited. Their gadgets are a bit weak in general but all in all similiar to our survival skills.

Our utilities really are total garbage without the traits in most instances and the gap between traited/untraited is way to big and kittens up the balance. Before the devs realize that and rework some traits our number of builds will remain limited.

Chokolata.1870:

Ranger goes from crap to great .

I now think I could have made my opening post shorter.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

I use the signet of the hunt ablity all the time. 150% damagefor me and my pet. Once activated you have 16 minutes to use it. You can get attack of oppertunity twice in the same fight. With the right set up this skill can help you do 23k damage in 3 seconds between you and your pet (jaguar).

I know about all that but are you really trying to tell me the active is good because you can precast it in your WvW base? Really? Oh and it only gives you the damage if you traited it. It is crap without 30 into Marksmanship and this is what this thread is saying.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

SoS that signet is all about the active ablility.

Can you tell me your build where you use untraited SoS for the active? If you talk about the traited version again you are proving my point. Our utilities go from crap to great which limits build variety. The only skills you can really mix are survivals and some rare other exceptions.

Chopps.5047:

This is about to get a lot better if you can actually get the moa to successfuly daze post patch.

Doesn’t work for Moment of Clarity and also wont be influenced by + daze duration. You thought there would be synergies? Hah!

Belzebu.3912:

You realize that the rox quiver is just a skin and ppl with the ascended quiver have a back item with ascended status, so the ones that spent time/gold on their ascended will still have the advantage over the others, I don’t see the problem with that.

You get these stats for 20% of the effort.

scanz.4536:

Disappointed with this to be honest. A lot of us with ascended quivers have had to put a lot of time, effort and gold into getting one and now anyone can just go buy one with gems. Sigh, nice one ANet.

I got my ascended literally 1 day before the announcement.

Mandar I said that traits are ofcourse supposed to enhance specific skills/playstyles.

The way they made it though is that it increased efficiency by 100-200%. Example here are trap condition duration and size or Signets not only giving buff to pets but you. Without that nobody ever uses the signet active to buff his pet because it is really really weak to give up the passive for that. Without the traits traps are just too kitten small and giving up 50% of their damage/utility.

These traits are just too polarizing. It is bad and what they need to do is bring the untraited version closer to the traited version for this kind of stuff. If these traits added 30% strength they would still be good but 100% is kitten and the reason why our utilities appear bad. It is bad design.

I play Moment of Clarity since quite a while now and I like it. It isn’t like super strong because we just have 2 interrupts no matter what weapons we go for (+1 asura racial, I am human though…). It would become significantly better if we one day would get more interrupts like an utility skill or changes to a weapon.

Best case scenario you interrupt their heal and Maul them for like 5k damage. I love when this happens but it is rather hard to pull off. I love the idea of an interrupts based class. Generally it goes nicely with a BM spec so you can have a lot of fun with it, you just can’t count on it. It’s not that 30 into Skirmishing would be wasted stats.

Traits are supposed to lead builds into a specific direction and tune certain aspects. For ranger they overdid it though in a way that we HAVE to take most traits that are linked to certain utility slots. They actually balanced those utility skills in a way that they are always considering them traited. They become worthless without the traits and this actually affects 80% of our utilities.

Signets
The passive effect will see a buff soon but the active is what is worthless right now. Rangers run around with perma 25% speedbuff and health regeneration all day. If you ever want to use the active you are forced to take the Marksmanship grandmaster trait which pretty much tripples their efficiency becaue they give the effect to the ranger. This is bullkitten design. It shouldn’t be like that in any game ever.

Traps
Want to mix a single trap into yout build for some variety and interesting plays? NOPE! Arenanet doesn’t want build variety. If you want to play traps you have to pick 2 traits that increase their damage by 100% and their size aswell. Otherwise they are just some small weak circles that barely do anything. It wasn’t enough for them that you already have to go for condition heavier weapons like sword/axe/torch. No, they also want to force you into all the utility slots. Bad design Arenanet. Bad design.

Spirits
Well just understanding what they do and then looking at stuff like warrior banners makes you kind of sad? No problem you get more. Just like the other skilltypes discribed above they added musthave traits that make your spirits follow you or just make the effect somewhat worth it in the first place. Next patch they even buffed the TRAITED effect some more. YEY! Even less variety on what you can mix.

Shouts
Oh I heard about those. They appeared crappy and buggy to me which is why I forgot them soon though. I feel offended as a player that they expect people to use such badly designed and bugged skills over 7 months since release (remember they weren’t even there on release but they weren’t any less unfinished when they introduced them later).

Survival skills
I think those are actually okay and the only option where you can get them without having to trait their efficiency first before they are useful.

Sorry that it turned into a rant a bit. They just completly missunderstood traits for our class though. They made them decrease build variety instead of promoting it which makes me sad.

TLDR: Less traits that force you into specific utility slots. Less traits that add crappy stats to the pet. More traits that actually help the class and our weapon skills. More traits that PROMOTE build variety instead of hindering it.

Xsorus.2507:

Doesn’t sound like i’ll be able to replace PI in my build (even after its nerfed to hell) with something else in the patch.

Spirits won’t be good without heavy nature, and its doubtful whatever they add will be equiv to PI even nerfed…

Traps are still a no go unless you dump 30 points into Skirmishing.

Sharpening Stones is alright, Just wish it did something more besides a bleed.

I agree that utilities beside traits are much more of a problem than weapon skills. Sure LB and some offhand choice could be a bit better but overall our weapons are decent exspecially when traits would be reworked some day. What really sucks are our utility slot options:

• traps pidgeonhole you into a condition build, mixing just 1 trap into your build is punished because they are only good when traited -> bad design
• spirits are just a really flawed aura mechanic that would need a total remake done by someone that actually understands the class (I always cringe when I see 2 devs do balanicng for classes they most likely didn’t play in the last 3 months) … oh and they suffer from the same problems as trap that they make the traits 100% must have leaving no real options and limiting build variety, classical example of failed balancing
• signets are kind of a bad design aswell, they aren’t good at balancing so they even create signets where you not only have to balance overall strength but also find a good spot between active and passive use? …overall they seem to reward just filling one of three utility slots with a passive and do nothing
• shouts are just bullkitten and as bugged as pet AI in general, should be reconsidered aswell
• survival skills are like the only interactive skill typ that somewhat improves the combat in terms of fun but also here are really badly designed examples like sharpening stone which is just sooo boring to use

Blude.6812:

ANET! Just put all the changes in a txt file and post in the forums. That was painful to watch. I found the Ranger info to be about 30 minutes into the video.

Wow you managed to completly miss what this is supposed to do. They will release patch notes when the changes are about to go life. SOTG is supposed to communicate withplayers and explain their thought progress. If you dont want to watch the video then dont and wait for the patchnotes. Your comment is stupid.

Writetyper.1985:

For pure, maximum PvE DPS would 2 GS auto hits>maul>2 GS auto hits>swoop>2 gs auto hits>maul repeat not be way better than letting the full chain hit?

Also, would that be possible?

Swoop doesn’t significantly increase DPS compared to autoattacking when you already melee a target. The tooltip is wrong and the slightly higher damage isn’t worth the longer animation time compared to autoattacks.

I would have liked to see a GS traited for cooldowns though. It is perfectly possible to Maul → 1 (x6) then which should add quite a bit. Overall there are only few circumstances where SB will deal more damage and obviously there is no question when cleaving on additional targets with GS. This seems perfectly balanced to me just because you take a higher risk in melee range and have to stick to the targtet.

The immobilize is really a problem. We don’t have good on the spot condition removal, we just have stuff that takes away a condition every x seconds. This is worthless against immobilize.

I indeed think it should cleanse crippled and immobilized together with breaking stuns. That wouldn’t be asked too much at all and not force us to take signet of reneval anyway leaving us with more slots and thus a higher build variety.

Another solution would be giving us the warrior trait “Mobile Strikes” that breakes Immobilize when using movement skills. Would work for Swoop, nearly every sword skill, SB 3 and of course Lightning Reflexes. Still you would have to invest into the trait just like warrior which can be a hard decision dependent on where they put it.

If you want to stand there autoattacking with a bow you should indeed go for shortbow. Longbow is an utility option and should never be the main weapon right now.

Well I don’t care about this whole ranger – thief comparison. Thief dmg isn’t the problem but the stealth time of certain skills and that it wont autoreselect him.

However concerning utility skills: This game has only 3 utility slots. There ofcourse is also 1-5, the heal, the elite but basically the real free to chose slots are those 3. And even though there are only those 3 and you might think you will have a hard time deciding what to take it is totally no problem for me when playing ranger. I take the 3 least crappy skills and if I don’t play a condi trap build there aren’t even more than those 3. Utilities for ranger are horrible we even fill one of those 3 slots with a passive 25% speedbuff because there really isn’t anything better. This is a result of bad/no balancing and makes the gameplay and build options boring. They could be so much more fun but this is why many friends of mine stopped playing the game.

Manekk.6981:

Dojo.1867:

Manekk.6981:

Dojo.1867:

Manekk.6981:

Chokolata.1870:

Good thieves and good mesmers , my own personal hell .

+1 much harder than any elementalist I ever came across.

This is why you run LB in WvW skirmishing.

I’m terrible with a longbow I can’t make it work against rats in the starting zone let alone skilled players, it might have some specific uses sure but most times it’s a terrible weapon for anything but sniping from the safety of a keep in my opinion.

To be honest if had to pick the opponent and the weapon that I think would be the easiest to fight it would be a ranger with a longbow.

Yes that is a common missinformed opinion. Used right you drop nearly no DPS but hit thiefs and mesmers for twice the damage (the damage you miss with SB when they stealth). Your primary weapon should never be the longbow. It is a “use it when the opportunity is there but don’t keep it active too long” kind of weapon. A real secondary choice. Basically you have to master your skill rotation in a way that you don’t have to autoattack with it ever (which is possible).

I knew what you meant the first time I just don’t think having a good aoe on a long cd or an ability that channels through stealth makes up for being terrible in everything but long range sniping, I use one ranged and one melee weapon range is my main fighting mode in general I melee if I have to only the longbow in it’s current form will never fit that style I don’t think that’s being misinformed I think it’s just my opinion and it carries some weight too.

I tried to point out that your dps will NOT drop if you do not autoattack compared to longbow. So you basically can have the utility without losing damage if you use it correctly. The whole “only longrange dmg” thing doesn’t matter if you don’t autoattack.

I think he can. 2 leaps + teleport create the initial distance. If this is enough to get out of combat his swiftness will put his movement speed 8% over Sigil of the Hunt which is enough for the leaps to cooldown until the ranger could reach him in my experience. It is close though and traited cooldowns vs untraited cooldowns can make a difference.

Sometimes I end up being equally fast as the ele allowing me to ranged attack him with my bow. Not enough to really close up to melee range though let alone pin him down to the fight. When I beat them it is because they decide to fight themselves thinking they can win.

Manekk.6981:

Dojo.1867:

Manekk.6981:

Chokolata.1870:

Good thieves and good mesmers , my own personal hell .

+1 much harder than any elementalist I ever came across.

This is why you run LB in WvW skirmishing.

I’m terrible with a longbow I can’t make it work against rats in the starting zone let alone skilled players, it might have some specific uses sure but most times it’s a terrible weapon for anything but sniping from the safety of a keep in my opinion.

To be honest if had to pick the opponent and the weapon that I think would be the easiest to fight it would be a ranger with a longbow.

Yes that is a common missinformed opinion. Used right you drop nearly no DPS but hit thiefs and mesmers for twice the damage (the damage you miss with SB when they stealth). Your primary weapon should never be the longbow. It is a “use it when the opportunity is there but don’t keep it active too long” kind of weapon. A real secondary choice. Basically you have to master your skill rotation in a way that you don’t have to autoattack with it ever (which is possible).

Manekk.6981:

Chokolata.1870:

Good thieves and good mesmers , my own personal hell .

+1 much harder than any elementalist I ever came across.

This is why you run LB in WvW skirmishing.

Noss.4105:

Dojo.1867:

Why not. It is very easy to counter for human players and it might make rangers more viable in dungeons.

Because pets critting close to 10k while ranger having around 40k ehp feels OP.

10k crits wont occur on any defensively specced class. If you are playing glasscannon and get hit by the pet then it is pretty much your own fault. What I give you is that the Jaguar is really somewaht the only pet that makes some hard to counter attacks connect due to the stealth that doesn’t break when attacking. I have a feeling that wont stay forever though, I am nearly 100% sure they will change that very soon and it wasn’t intended like that. However for all the other pets it is really your own fault if you get hit while running a glasscannon spec.

Noss.4105:

Sebrent.3625:

@Noss:
I really don’t think more reliable pet damage would require our pets to have to do reduced damage. They are nowhere near the realm of other classes’ dps.

I also disagree about Sic’em.

Sick ’Em - Your pet runs faster and does more damage (40% more). 60s cd and 10s duration.

Assassin’s Signet - Passive: Grants increased power. Active: Deal 15% more damage on your next five attacks. 45s cd and 30s duration (or 5 attacks).

Now the assassin’s increases the thief’s damage by less, but the thief already does quite a bit more damage than our pet does. The signet also has passive bonuses and can be used more often (3 times for every 2 Sick’Em)

It’s not really Sic ’em alone(although I think 40% is pretty kitten strong alone), but when you add it to other damage boosts to pets, like signet of the wild.

Really the last thing I want is everyone to play a tanky beastmaster and just watch it’s pet to shred things in seconds. Kinda like beastmaster hunters in WoW at one time.

Why not. It is very easy to counter for human players and it might make rangers more viable in dungeons.

Swoop does weaken your dps when used in melee range compared to autoattacking due to the animation time. Beside that it is generally wise to keep your gapcloser for when you actually need it because the target moves or you wanna disengage. Also you get more evades like that. Always Maul when possible though!

I doubt going for the pet is a good advice here. As mentioned just applying poison will remove 33% of his health pool over the duration of the fight. In the end unguent doesn’t heal much more than the other heals, the only difference is that the healing is over time allowing you to precast it. You can take advantage of this circumstance with poison or applying your damage tactical in general (for example just wait a bit for all your cooldowns being ready when he used it and let himheal, then damage him when it is about to end and maybe even land a fear on his next cast).

Rising Dusk.2408:

You should suggest to them to actually post in these forums, then, because as of now you’re the only one who ever does.

This a million times! You are the only one actually communicating with us at all and you get into trouble over it? I mean clearly something is wrong there.

Ranger and Engineer are basically the 2 classes I played 90% of the time in gw2. They both deal nice condition damage but while ranger condi options have still somewhat of a hybrid aspect (I actually believe all stats gear is second best on ranger after ele) engineer condi builds really can go all in on conditions. Engi just has all of them while ranger can stack more bleeds.

Ontopic I would reallylike to see:

• small changes to the least usable weapons to push them further into viability (overall weapons are at a decent spot though)
• massive rework of traits, removing/merging many of the bad pet traits
• rework of utility skills exspecially spirits and shouts but also polishing for the rest

I disagree that “ranger loses to thieves anyway”. But yes with this build the chance is high that you will. I would give it a try if signet of the wild had a bit lower cooldown.

Also the 30% more pet ms trait does not stack with signet of the hunt passive.

Dragin.4520:

add pet damamge…

You know those are really stupid posts and show that yo don’t understand the purpose of this. Maybe you realized that all pets deal different damage and it becomes even more complicated factoring in traits or the fact that most pet attacks miss.

If you want to know take his values and estimate the part of your specific pet yourself.

Imo Guardian/Warrior should rather be reduced aswell instead of making Ranger hit more. Would solve a lot of issues.

I agree. Evasive Purity should be renamed a bit and get this mechanic. Would be strong but with a low duration still balanced.

I like the idea of a melee fighting staff. Unfortuantely the staff designs of gw2 all resemble magic caster staffs with something on the top. Would have to be a completly new weapon type otherwise I can’t see this work.

Torgal.8345:

Chokolata.1870:

There are many dungeons where 5 zergker warrior will just die

You are right there are dungeons where 5 zerker warriors make no sense because they lack survivability. However I tried to compare the possible damage output of classes. A pure class-cannon ranger is as squishy as a zerker but does only a third of the warriors damage.
I just wish there was an offensive spec for every class which is comparable to the the others in regard of the damage dealt, or I don’t have to bring a certain class if I want to deal damage or be a supporter. Because at the moment it’s about bringing the right class not the player although the trinity doesn’t exist. It’s possible to do every dungeon with any class combination, even 5 rangers, but it’s just not as effective as certain combinations and the reason is just some do much more damage or have way better support than others.

He actually does only 30% less damage and this is without the pet. Also the eveade of the autoattack chain makes ranger stay alive significantly longer.

Shiren.9532:

Boon removal doesn’t feel like a ranger mechanic nor does it feel like it has anything to do with fire.

Oh I think while water fields add boons fire would be very fitting to “burn” them away.

Also you realised it is called “Bonfire”. More like “Boonfire”, hehe. And not a ranger mechanic? Well what class would you adress this mechanic to. I agree that the size untraited should be a bit bigger if you compare it to warri longbow or the fact that we get the same thing with one utility skill alrdy.

First of all I don’t think that offhand torch is weak nore that it is too strong. The direct damage part of 4 could be a bit higher to open it up more for hybrid builds but beside that it is defnitely at a decent spot. However I think it is one of the most boring weapons in the game:

• burn a single target
• create a fire field

Both effects are so basic they are actually identical to the fire combo finisher effects. So does anyone have ideas to make it a bit more interesting to use? Something like:

Throw Torch
Burn your foe. Deals twice the direct damage if the target is already burning.

Bonfire
Set a fire around you damaging and burning foes. Removes a boon on each tick.

While the quickness stomp got nerfed standing behind pet is nice and so is the trait that transfers a CC every 90 sec. Beside that most of the time stomping just takes 2 approaches anyway.

Sebrent.3625:

ArenaNet has mentioned the longbow needs love. What do you think they were talking about then? eh?

The autoattack which is hard to hit on max range and to punishing on other ranges.

Longbow will atttack with +10% dmg most of the time due to the vulnerability stacks. Also your data is a bit wrong because sb takes longer than 1 sec for 2 attacks actually. In the end direct DPS of rapid fire is slightly higher due to that without the +5% of the trait and the +10% od vulnerability already.

SB autoattack is its absolute damage cap, all other skills just lower damage. It makes sense that Rapid fire only deals equal damage. It is supposed to not drop DPS if targets are lower range and that is what it does. Stop saying it is bad. Hitting stealthed targets is just another huge plus.

I think that the autoattack is indeed bad. I play longbow but I try to avoid autoattacking in general to the point that I switch to my secondary weapon when all other LB skills are on cooldown and I am not at perfect range.

Perfect range.
This is propably the main issue. The untraited distance for that is just so small and together with the high animation time and missrate due to low projectile speed really messes with the whole concept. In my opinion damage is fine for max range. They either need to increase it for the lower ranges or increase the max range interval.

Currently untraited:
1000-1200 range: 0.9
500-1000 range: 0.65
0-500 range: 0.5

How it should be (range fix):
600-1200 range: 0.9
300-600 range: 0.7
0-300 range: 0.5

How it should be (damage fix):
1000-1200 range: 1.0
500-1000 range: 0.8
0-500 range: 0.6

First option would make it just easier to use. Second option would reward skill/tactical play (chosing the correct ranges for maximum damage) a bit more. I would be fine with either of those.

The classes and their skills are just at a horrible state. This is the result of not having adressed anyone on fixing this stuff over months. They just ignored it or people that have to do other stuff were told to “just do it if you find the time” (which they ccouldn’t find).

Their balaning/class fixing mentality is horrible. They were released unfinished and they didn’t improve it at all since then. This is really pathetic if you consider that they announced the game as an esport title but I accepted it now since a few months. I am playing the game semi actively (because otherwise I would get too frustrated about that exact thing) and wait if they one day change their priorities.

God job with the thread though. I am too tired to go through the billion bugs. A list isn’t even necessary. Takes like 10 second to stumble across the first wrong desciption or bugged skill if you play the game and pay some attention to it. Really poor quality management there.

This is something that even low budget f2p games take for granted because it is such a basic thing to assure this quality standard. Not for gw2 dev team I guess…

Dina Van Heyr.3018:

sword is good but only in sPVP in www sucks because you just jumping around target and if target moves you miss most of the time and dmg is awfull

First person without a clue posted.

I like your ideas but I don’t think the concept of ranger for gw2 will make him see a hammer any time soon. First there would be Engineer to recieve a hammer and overall Ranger is designed as a mobile evasive class that uses accuracy to kill foes.

A hammer is the brutal opposite to that. If anything they would get a maze I guess or rifles/pistols.

Oh and I agree that your skillset feels a lot like Guardian GS.

I like it. I agree with Arenanet that pets should stay the class defining mechanic for Ranger but I think having an elite for just a certain amount of time that will buff ourselves for the sake of the pet (remember that already exists with certain shouts) would be a very good option.

No matter how they buff/change/improve pets there will be always situations when they will just die (attacking gates/walls in WvW or certain bosses in dungeons). This is the moment an elite like that could shine. It would just be the perfect compromise.

Whatever redesign you do please lower the cooldown and make the active just trigger on death imo. The current implementation is very hard to use and high cooldowns don’t help in getting stuff to work.

20 seconds cooldown, 40 seconds duration, old spirits dies when casting a new one

Would make it so much more accessible and also solve the low hp problem imo. Oh and I agree that the active effect should just be the corresponding combo field. Keeps things simple and useful.

Nice. I really think we aren’t that different from eles/thiefs when it comes to DPS options. The only real difference is that they have faceroll disengages with those 100 miles leap chains and stealth.

Interesting. Did anyone actually test it or would be willing to provide vids? In theory ranger with 60% of his DPS failing to connect because pet hits air could benefit the most from a heavy single target CC build.

Not sure if I want to do the gear changes right now because just did some.

No. Actually autoattacking means maxing DPS for most weapons (exspecially ranger SB, all other attacks will lower DPS). So if LB #2 skills allows it to be on par with SB damage wise on EVERY range I doubt this sucks. On top of that it can hit stealthing targets which is an incredible advantage. It doesn’t suck. It basically makes LB a SB for those 5 seconds while still offering the LB skills.

Sebrent.3625:

Please acknowledge that while longbow’s rapid fire shows you a big number at the end of all of its hits, that it took you a 5 sec channel to do that damage. Yeah, the number is big, but it’s after a 5 second channel. It is extremely lackluster.

Please acknowledge that while longbow’s #5 is a nice AOE that also cripples, a foe can easy dodge roll out of it. Additionally, you have to stand still to channel it, making yourself a sitting target.

Please acknowledge that while longbow hits harder per hit, the shortbow hits more often.

• The higher hit rate of the short bow makes it better direct damage at short/medium range than Longbow … and equivalent (at worst) at long range
• The higher hit rate of the short bow makes it better for on-crit and on-hit affects (bleed, pet might, sigils)
• If someone is not facing you (trying to escape or fighting one of your allies), shortbow easily outdamages longbow via the additional bleeds … even if you have +0 condition damage

Rundown:

• Longbow #1 sucks … Shortbow #1 is great
• Longbow #2 sucks … Shortbow #2 fine (up to 10 seconds of poison)
• Longbow #3 is fine (vulnerability) … Shortbow #3 is fine (free evade & swiftness)
• Longbow #4 is fine (short range KB) … Shortbow #4 is fine (cripple & poison)
• Longbow #5 is fine (AOE dmg & cripple) … Shortbow #5 is fine (daze/stun)

So shortbow has all 5 skills that are fine while Longbow’s #3, #4, and #5 are really the only skills that are fine. I’d prefer to have 100% useful than 60%.

I did the math and LB 2 actually has a DPS nearly identical to SB autoattacking. Your posts are very biased imo claiming stuff sucks that really doesn’t.

Durzlla.6295:

Um guys…. If you use anything other than Barrage, 3, or auto attack at long range (1000-1500) you’re going to be doing worse DPS than you could.

At long range you may not even want to use barrage, you may only wanna use #3 and #1, now I would post all my test results…. But I was an idiot and posted them directly into what ever thread I commented on like 3 months ago….

But trust me, LB #1 is REALLY good at long range and will outshine SB#1 without fail (assuming you’re using berserker gear and aren’t going for procs).

You sure about this? I did some fast calculations on the skill modifiers per second and if my numbers were right it was something along:

SB autoattack: 0.76 per second
LB autoattack: 0.72/0.52/0.4 per second (Note that even on long range it is inferior not factoring in bleeds if you flank)
Using LB Rapid Fire: 0.75 per second (3.75 over 5 seconds)

Now you can add another 10% with the vulnerability stacks and another 5% with the trait for longbow but you still won’t have this up all the time and shortbow will get additional dmg from ocasional bleeds.

However just looking at this I find Sebrents wording that “SB 1 is awesome” and “LB 2 sucks” extremly missleading. They are on a equal level and the only problem is that you can only use LB Rapid Fire every 10 (8 when traited) seconds (thus the advice to change playstyle comapred to SB).

Daemon.4295:

Dojo.1867:

Sebrent.3625:

Yes, once I’ve closed on that Ranger, they can swap to their other weapon set … but now they only have one weapon set that is useful in the fight against me.

When comparing shortbow, it does the same direct damage as longbow, if not better. Then you factor in the times you get to a flank and it bleeds … not it is ahead. Now factor in that shortbow hits more often so can proc more. It’s ahead even more. Now take bleed-on-crit. You’ll crit more as you hit more so even more ahead of longbow. Now look at how shortbow can apply bleeding and poison as well as interrupt from 1,200 range, evade, swiftness and it’s no wonder it is superior to the very lackluster longbow.

Now factor in that the longbow skills will actually do more for you than SB when an enemy tries to close up. Now factor in that the 10 stacks of vulnerability can still boost your secondoary weapon and pet damage after switching. I don’t see why it would be a disadvantage anyway if I have to swap at one point. SB users should do the same if they want to play efficiently.

You keep saying it was designed for longrange but please aknowledge that skill 2, 3, 4(!) and even 5 really weren’t. Those are skills for all ranges and since 2 skills have rather long cast times you don’t have to autoattack at all if they close up. Just unload your other skills and swap weapon. Played like that it isn’t limited to long range at all.

Autoattack != The whole weapon

Any weapon that I am forced to swap out of at short range within a handful of seconds clearly is not designed for close combat. The longbow is absolutely limited to long range, it has a couple of skills that you can throw out before swapping but you certainly can’t sustain close combat.

The mechanic doesn’t bother me though, I love the idea of playing a sniper rifle and would be perfectly happy to swap out for skirmishing, if only it actually did high damage at max range. To justify the enormous damage loss at < 900 I would expect it to dish out significantly higher dps than shortbow at 900+, not to be debating in the forums as to whether it is or is not marginally more effective.

So yeah, jcbroe hit the nail on the head, I expect the longbow to function as a primary damage dealer rather than a utility weapon and suspect it is not functioning as Anet intended.

Again. You are not more forced to swap out than you are with SB imo. Close combat damage is about the same as long you don’t autoattack which the skillset easy allows to do. And yes it is worse than actually swapping to the melee weapon (naturally) but that also acounts for SB.

Sebrent.3625:

Yes, once I’ve closed on that Ranger, they can swap to their other weapon set … but now they only have one weapon set that is useful in the fight against me.

When comparing shortbow, it does the same direct damage as longbow, if not better. Then you factor in the times you get to a flank and it bleeds … not it is ahead. Now factor in that shortbow hits more often so can proc more. It’s ahead even more. Now take bleed-on-crit. You’ll crit more as you hit more so even more ahead of longbow. Now look at how shortbow can apply bleeding and poison as well as interrupt from 1,200 range, evade, swiftness and it’s no wonder it is superior to the very lackluster longbow.

Now factor in that the longbow skills will actually do more for you than SB when an enemy tries to close up. Now factor in that the 10 stacks of vulnerability can still boost your secondoary weapon and pet damage after switching. I don’t see why it would be a disadvantage anyway if I have to swap at one point. SB users should do the same if they want to play efficiently.

You keep saying it was designed for longrange but please aknowledge that skill 2, 3, 4(!) and even 5 really weren’t. Those are skills for all ranges and since 2 skills have rather long cast times you don’t have to autoattack at all if they close up. Just unload your other skills and swap weapon. Played like that it isn’t limited to long range at all.

Autoattack != The whole weapon

What if we were allowed to do the priority of pet skill usage ourself?

A → B → C could become A → C → B or even just C → C → C. Just allowing us to set this by ourselves would take away a whole lot of the curretn frustrating randomness and make everything more controlable. No more stupid swiftness cast of Bird pets on every engage. Moa heals or dazes when we need them. Cat burst on demand.

Hell they should even allow us to slot A, B or C into the f2 position or include the f2 into the chain. The interface is already there.

Depends. If you zerg then hp matters but for 1on1 fights your pet will very rarely die. DPS matters here and nice to see how much going 15 instead of 30 will change dps. Never really did the math myself.