Why do Shortbows have such awful range?

in WvW its almost unusable due to infinite spammed AoE's.

coz its 'short' ;)

I think the name 'short bow" really explains it all TBH.

Because if it was longer they’d have to call it a longbow

My asura ranger uses shortbow and is short and disagrees lol.

Historically, short bows were designed to be easier to utilize on horseback and areas where movement is advantageous (woodlands/urban settings). Mechanically, there is less force acting upon an arrow compared to a longbow, which was designed to disable foes at great range where terrain is not much of an issue. So yeah, if you are going to attack my position with a shortbow, but i can reach out and touch you with a hail of arrows from a squad of longbowmen or a catapult before you get close enough, i'm going to.

Because it's pretty much meant for mid/close range and not as awesome as a longbow.To be fair, longbows sure take a LONG time to do attacks as to shortbows having a shorter animation.

Pick your poison.Mine is pistols.

lol =) thanks for the replies.

I don't really care about the distance they shoot as much as the size they have. Shortbows in game are sized like toys.

Yup. The tension caused by the string is what projects the arrows. Longer bows have greater force behind them (assuming you have the physical strength to pull it all the way back.) which is why they have a longer range. I have dabbled with basic models of both in real life. It's also easier to draw the shorter bow string and is more quick to release and reload.

@Haishao.6851 said:I don't really care about the distance they shoot as much as the size they have. Shortbows in game are sized like toys.

I always saw them as toys.I don't think they were meant to be like inspiring or threatening or shocking.

"Oh, that little thing. Cool."Kind of like what a Norn might say to an Asuran during a sparring match.

They're toys alright, they'll toy with your insides quite a bit if one gets within range, :P

Range in this entire game is bonkers except for LB and certain abilities. Hence stupid boon stacking and Melee range where hits miss half the time even when your standing on their hitbox (ping, ploss and desync is 10x more debilitating when melee range is literally 2cm)

:) Just play a condi spec or aoe spec where you can mash out the dps and win (Soulbeast, scourge, breaker or dh/fb bunker build - huh that's odd they are all best specs in the game too) and never worry about awfully short and crappy Range requirements ever again.

@Kodiak.4213 said:Historically, short bows were designed to be easier to utilize on horseback and areas where movement is advantageous (woodlands/urban settings). Mechanically, there is less force acting upon an arrow compared to a longbow, which was designed to disable foes at great range where terrain is not much of an issue. So yeah, if you are going to attack my position with a shortbow, but i can reach out and touch you with a hail of arrows from a squad of longbowmen or a catapult before you get close enough, i'm going to.

@Zeivu.3615 said:Yup. The tension caused by the string is what projects the arrows. Longer bows have greater force behind them (assuming you have the physical strength to pull it all the way back.) which is why they have a longer range. I have dabbled with basic models of both in real life. It's also easier to draw the shorter bow string and is more quick to release and reload.

This is not correct, double curve reflex bows have the same if not longer range than longbows because the limbs are mechanically much faster and velocity is the square of power, ie you double the velocity, you quadruple the power. Longbows such as the english have a very long draw length and as such they are far easier to use and do not take anywhere near the force or muscle training to utilize effectively, you can basically teach a peasant to use an English Longbow in a couple of days because they are not aiming at anything, just firing on an angle into the sky in vollies. It was basically area denial. That's how they were used in combat, although there are many tales of freakishly good archers using one. Keep in mind the length of the arrows used in a longbow are of course, much longer due to this very long draw length and therefore heavier, which also contributes additional speed to the arrows fired from the shortbow.

A shortbow of the type you are describing for horseback archery has a much shorter draw length and therefore a much higher draw weight for the limb length, but they are still effective for several hundred metres if used in the same way as a English Longbow style. Although the record for longest shot with a self-made traditional recurve bow is over 650m, in 2012 by a Hungarian archer, I cannot remember his name atm. Because of this greatly increased draw weight, they are generally fired with the thumb instead of fingers due to it being stronger and able to be locked-off with fingers. The record at the Mongolian Nadaam Festival for a bullseye is over 400m, I'm sure it was a woman and around 425m, I cannot remember exactly. This is also the reason compund bows are used today, the cams accelerate the arrow much faster, and also allow a lower draw weight because of the shape of the cam. Now, keep in mind that the best Arab, Turkish and Mongol archers could hit an egg from 200m. Also, top Saracen archers were expected to be able to fire off 3 shots in 1.5 seconds, hitting their targets on horseback. I'm not even joking. They were able to do this because they held the arrows in their draw hand and fired them from the right side of the string, not the left side like modern archers.

In the sport of Flight Archery, where 1000 meter distances are not uncommon, a short bow is used with carbon fibre arrows, but that is another story.

@Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582 said:

@Kodiak.4213 said:Historically, short bows were designed to be easier to utilize on horseback and areas where movement is advantageous (woodlands/urban settings). Mechanically, there is less force acting upon an arrow compared to a longbow, which was designed to disable foes at great range where terrain is not much of an issue. So yeah, if you are going to attack my position with a shortbow, but i can reach out and touch you with a hail of arrows from a squad of longbowmen or a catapult before you get close enough, i'm going to.

@Zeivu.3615 said:Yup. The tension caused by the string is what projects the arrows. Longer bows have greater force behind them (assuming you have the physical strength to pull it all the way back.) which is why they have a longer range. I have dabbled with basic models of both in real life. It's also easier to draw the shorter bow string and is more quick to release and reload.

daaaaaang, schooled. I enjoyed the post though, i'm a sucker for weaponry history!

@Drew.1865 said:My asura ranger uses shortbow and is short and disagrees lol.Your asura ranger's long bow is short : )

Short - Bow

Long - Bow

lol It's practically in it's name tbh

Maybe certain skills could do with a small increase, but really.. it's ... in the name sorry :)

Originally Shortbows in the game had also a range of 1200, until anet had the awesome idea of nerfing their range down to 900 together with Pistols, whyever.The problem , the wait.. now he comes PUN PUN *cough "shortsight" on their side was, that anet absolutely hasn#t thought about it, that by just decreasing the range of the shortbow, that they literally conceptionally in regard of gameplay DESTROY the range weapons that is Shortbow and Pistols for for a whole game mode, because with that reduced range these weapons don#t work anymore (and thats so ridiculously laughable for a ranged weapon, because therefore are actually ranged weapons made and designed for) to defend yourself good with them in WvW when defending places, because due to the decreased range you can't attack no **** anymore from the walls, towers and so on, because since there you lack now the range that you need to have just to freakign be able to TARGET your enemies that are on the ground ....

In fact it is so, that when you stand on a higher position, than your enemy, you short have in WvW when defendign some kind of HOME ADVANTAGE, that you have increased range on walls with ranged weapons, that you deal higher damage from higher positions onto enemies below you, while enemies from the groudn should deal lesser damage to enemies on a higher position and shoudl have decreased ranges when targeting somebody on a higher position.. you know, god damn GRAVITY working against you ,when you shoot high ... logic, not really ANets best strength sometimes ...this is one of such cases..., especially when you consider, that the gameplay elements I'm talking about here, ALREADY EXISTED BACK In GW1 and now 5 years later, GW2 degenerated to this back step, providing not good gameplay elements, that even its older prequel had!! Its so silly, I could cry ...really about such a no brainer not beign part of the game, when even its prequel offered these mechanics and it just makes sense, because its just naturally logical to have these mechanics affect the combat, and it would naturally balance WvW and make taking over well defended places harder, because then you would be able to just nuke everybody with AoE skilsl from the walls away, because you wouldnt be able anymore to cover the whole walls with tons of AOEs anymroe, due to reduced range that lets you not place them anymore there and defenders would deal more damage against the overload of enemies below them, giving attackers actualyl a good reason to be not for too long in their range to be attacked, before you actually opened a way with siege weapons, which should be the answer to a good ranged defense on the walls.

But i guess, things liek that will never change anymore with WvW, this game mode has always been from begin on the neglected game content, that was just only supported for like the first 1-2 years, but then completely left to rot slowly away. No WvW Tournaments anymore for already 3 years speaks for itself.OWuldnt have been HoT, then WvW wouldnt have seen until today any new substantial fundamental improvements or any new real content.. the implemention of the deswert map feels like being an exception, whereas before of that anet just has only removed content from WvW - Events, Water Ares, Jumping Puzzle Areas.. WvW is degenerating only, because I say it out now and I'Äm pretty confindent about it, that this is the case - Anet is simply clueless about how they should continue with WvW, they lack a vision on how to fundamentally improve the game mode and to fix its population problems.Just review, how long it just took them to fix the WvW Achievements and there they have already officially admitted back then basically, that they were a long time clueless about it, how they should fix the achievements, because they knew, on the one side, they make lots of peopel happy with the changes, but on the other side they make also alot of peopel angry with the changes..

Thats life, you cant always please everyone, but stagnancy is no answer... a game and its gameplay elements must evolve continously. Change is good, stagnancy is a game's death!! Especially when stagnacy becomes degeneration and you get as an active player the feeling, that the game begins to develop itself backwards, and not forwards through the removal of content....