Fixing shortbow

Raise damage coefficients by 20%Raise condition durations by 60%

Increase the number of arrows shot, and the CD of skill 2. (this skill feels like your always racing to hit it again when building a rotation with sb. So, make it slightly more powerful and give us more time between casts.)

Sevenshot.... Should work exactly as it does now, plus leave lines, that pulses chill and swiftness. If an enemy is hit by all seven arrows, gain 2 stacks of 10sec burning and 2 sec of slow.

The 4 skill.... Should drop much quicker. It's so hard to hit with, (even as an opener...) That it's most often better to ignore it, and swap back to mace....

The 5 skill needs a projectile speed increase by 20%

These changes would keep the weapon in line with other ranged options... Still be lower dps than mace/axe... And open up options for counterplay in pvp and wvw.

Damage buffs means nothing. No defense mean shortbow will continue to suck.

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:Raise damage coefficients by 20%Raise condition durations by 60%

Increase the number of arrows shot, and the CD of skill 2. (this skill feels like your always racing to hit it again when building a rotation with sb. So, make it slightly more powerful and give us more time between casts.)

Sevenshot.... Should work exactly as it does now, plus leave lines, that pulses chill and swiftness. If an enemy is hit by all seven arrows, gain 2 stacks of 10sec burning and 2 sec of slow.

The 4 skill.... Should drop much quicker. It's so hard to hit with, (even as an opener...) That it's most often better to ignore it, and swap back to mace....

The 5 skill needs a projectile speed increase by 20%

These changes would keep the weapon in line with other ranged options... Still be lower dps than mace/axe... And open up options for counterplay in pvp and wvw.

Sevenshot would murder large hitbox targets sooooooooo much like that... 7 stacks of torment + 2 (10 second!!!!!) burns + pulsing 2 torment/second from the trails through their hitbox = Holycrap for 7 energy.

Although I do think the trails leaving a field is a cool idea...!

Wouldn't be that bad. It would be the mace 2 of shortbow. Just the thing you spam on CD.

But, if large hit box targets are an issue... Simply limit the number of times the chill can be applied per second per target.

How are you guys playing shortbow right now?I am looking for a comparison because I am using shortbow in a hybrid build, using the Vindication trait and it seems to be doing alright.

Increase damamge by a further 800%

Make torment explode pet

Poison now causes burning, fear and immolation

Shortbow skills inflict poison on crit

All shortbow skills crit all of the time

When a character is downed by a shortbow attack they die immediately

All Holosmiths are deleted

Introduce a sixth skill - galactic smash. When fired, the galaxy is cleaved in two. This replaces Sevenshot.

@nosleepdemon.1368 said:

1. Increase damamge by a further 800%
2. Make torment explode pet
3. Poison now causes burning, fear and immolation
4. Shortbow skills inflict poison on crit
5. All shortbow skills crit all of the time
6. When a character is downed by a shortbow attack they die immediately
7. All Holosmiths are deleted
8. Introduce a sixth skill - galactic smash. When fired, the galaxy is cleaved in two. This replaces Sevenshot.

Maybe a bit overly conservative, but I think these changes would help to nudge Renegade in the right direction. Nice to see some reasonable suggestions for a change, people are always asking for the moon on these forums.

@nosleepdemon.1368 said:

2. Make torment explode pet

Do you mean mini pet? Cuz that would be cool.

@Redfeather.6401 said:

@nosleepdemon.1368 said:

2. Make torment explode pet

Torment should stack exponentially in damage, and should be transmissable via proximity. Dismissing your pet should not be able to clear torment, as this allows hunters to avoid their pets taking the damage.

Thanks for the hijacking. Was hoping for serious discussion. But.... Apparently I had bad ideas. It's cool.

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:Thanks for the hijacking. Was hoping for serious discussion. But.... Apparently I had bad ideas. It's cool.

You are right, perhaps it really is a good idea to give a ranged weapon damage dealing potential on par with melee weapons, and to load it with some handy CC as well.

It's already loaded with cc. Or did you not read the weapon skills? I'm only proposing adding 2 sec of slow if you land a difficult skill shot. And some chill... But don't pretend like chill isn't a revenant thing the shortbow totally lacks... Not to mention that using the shortbow in its current state completely wastes the abyssal chill trait.

Also, virtually everything else suggested was a QoL upgrade.

20% dmg increase puts in on particular with melee weapons? In Twilight Arbor (as a simple benchmark) I watched a ranger 1shot the volatile blossoms with shortbow.(we were wearing comparable gear) I have to two shot them. After one shot they had roughly 20% health left.

Also, that same ranger SB can load up 16 bleeds with the auto. Renegade dose 8.

But don't worry. I'm proposing things that are completely rediculous. It's not like this whole forum is lit with the subject or anything. Not like renegade is the ONLY elite spec to receive this quantity of hate sense the evaluation of pve spellbreaker. Save that renegade is bad in all situations, not just 1. (minor correction, renegade is an upgrade for raid dps... So long as you use mallyx, and mace axe. As in.... Not the new renegade shit.)

Look man. If I can pull 30k on a golem with mace axe, and only 17k with SB.... It's pretty weak.

Ranger's SB is so solid that you rotate on and off of it constantly... It's almost like it has the dps of a melee weapon.

Clown.

@Set.7461 said:Damage buffs means nothing. No defense mean shortbow will continue to suck.

IMO a good workaround for shortbow (and for renegade's survivability potential) in terms of mobility and survivability would be reworking Renegade's DODGE. Turning it into either a shadow step or long dodge that removes some movement hindering abilities would increase it's potential in pvp or wvw without taking away or essentially changing one of SB's abilities. Not to mention Renegade brought no new mechanics but flat stats buff so new dodge mechanics would definitely make it more appealing as elite spec.

Interesting idea. Not a fix for shortbow's low damage... But.... Still not a bad idea. Though it would make dodging in raids difficult. (or potentially could) especially if the range of the dodge was increased.

Could be cool if it shadowstepped you 200 range and left a unique warband member in your place.

@Vasdamas Anklast.1607 said:

@Set.7461 said:Damage buffs means nothing. No defense mean shortbow will continue to suck.

That's not true, Renegade introduced CCable Wells! They're really shiny too!

@Set.7461 said:Damage buffs means nothing. No defense mean shortbow will continue to suck.

This. That does not mean SB does not need damage buffs. Damage buffs though areNot enough to make SB useable.

Also SB skills 3 and 4 need major work.

@otto.5684 said:

@Set.7461 said:Damage buffs means nothing. No defense mean shortbow will continue to suck.

2 better start hitting moving targets too.

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:It's already loaded with cc. Or did you not read the weapon skills? I'm only proposing adding 2 sec of slow if you land a difficult skill shot. And some chill... But don't pretend like chill isn't a revenant thing the shortbow totally lacks... Not to mention that using the shortbow in its current state completely wastes the abyssal chill trait.

Also, virtually everything else suggested was a QoL upgrade.

20% dmg increase puts in on particular with melee weapons? In Twilight Arbor (as a simple benchmark) I watched a ranger 1shot the volatile blossoms with shortbow.(we were wearing comparable gear) I have to two shot them. After one shot they had roughly 20% health left.

Also, that same ranger SB can load up 16 bleeds with the auto. Renegade dose 8.

But don't worry. I'm proposing things that are completely rediculous. It's not like this whole forum is lit with the subject or anything. Not like renegade is the ONLY elite spec to receive this quantity of hate sense the evaluation of pve spellbreaker. Save that renegade is bad in all situations, not just 1. (minor correction, renegade is an upgrade for raid dps... So long as you use mallyx, and mace axe. As in.... Not the new renegade kitten.)

Look man. If I can pull 30k on a golem with mace axe, and only 17k with SB.... It's pretty weak.

Ranger's SB is so solid that you rotate on and off of it constantly... It's almost like it has the dps of a melee weapon.

Clown.

The only reason rangers use a shortbow in their rotation is due to the fact that rangers have longer cooldowns, meaning they can't just stick to their higher dps Melee option 100% of the time like a revenant can. Energy based classes (thief and revenant) will ALWAYS only use 1 weapon set because their energy mechanic and low cooldowns make it so that they're encouraged to spend all their energy on their highest dps skills as often as possible.

Regardless SB needs hella buffs, preferable with some nice defensive add ons because it's possibly the worst pvp weapon in the entire game right now.

@LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:Regardless SB needs hella buffs, preferable with some nice defensive add ons because it's possibly the worst pvp weapon in the entire game right now.

I wanted to leave a snarky comment like, "Ele's Scepter says, 'Hi!'" But damn, I think I'd rather be stuck playing scepter ele or even GS Ranger than having to use SB on my rev in sPvP. :astonished:

@nosleepdemon.1368 said:

1. Increase damamge by a further 800%
2. Make torment explode pet
3. Poison now causes burning, fear and immolation
4. Shortbow skills inflict poison on crit
5. All shortbow skills crit all of the time
6. When a character is downed by a shortbow attack they die immediately
7. All Holosmiths are deleted
8. Introduce a sixth skill - galactic smash. When fired, the galaxy is cleaved in two. This replaces Sevenshot.

not much, but at least a step in the right direction

Sevenshot should block everything in front, like the dragonhunter shield

Its energy costs are still to high in comparison to mace, the bleeding it can push out on its auto is still to weak in comparison to mace auto attacking. Sure can argue that its a 900 ranged weapon but the bleeding even traited ( is it still bugged?) its pushing out is just simply to weak for it to be worth swapping to outside of mace and axe. Not to mention revs as a base class honestly don't struggle to much to stick to its target on a decent amount of legend set ups and weapon choices so the fact that shortbow is a mid ranged weapon has very weak damage and high energy costs is pretty off putting. If theirs any weapon I expect to get some love during the balance patch I would vote for Shortbow being number 1 across all new E specs.

My opinion about Shortbow skills - without commenting or even considering the damage dealt by these skills.

1 - Shattershot - very good skill. AOE on piercing projectile (I suppose everyone takes Heartpiercer trait) Hell Yes! Could be bit faster though (1/4 sec instead of 1/2)2 - Bloodbane Path - OKish machine gun skill. Short recast is good. I would like it more if hits would do AOE as on Shattershot3 - Sevenshot - very bad clunky skill. Should be probably completely reworked. I would like to see 7 lines of pulsating torrent AoE damage for 2 seconds (3 ticks) Also cast time could be faster.4 - Spiritcrush - Generic AoE skill with quite a long cast time. Better then Sevenshot....5 - Scorchrazor - again slow to cast otherwise OKish - arc of the spell should be wider to make it easier to use with bad ping

Overall - 7shot is IMHO only one which needs complete rework. rest of the skills needs just QoL tuneup to make it easier to use & damage balancing.Especially long casting times on 3,4,5 skills makes them very uneasy to use and properly target.

I was having a neat experience using mace + axe + short bow condi Renegade for open world content until I decided to try to solo some champions from the bounty hunter quest. I did a couple of attempts in the first map with my power herald but died/run out of time after wearing out ~50% of the HP from the champion (with a PvP build and no food). Then I tried the same with the condi Renegade and was barely able to dent a ~35% before dying.

The problem is that albeit mace + axe damage output surpasses the sword (specially vs multiple foes) those weapons lack defensive skills, so you end swaping to either short bow (for fighting at range) or staff (to parry or cc). In both cases you will lose a lot of dps, so my feeling is that for really dangerous foes power Herald is still the better choice (better sustain leads to better sustained damage, because you aren't constantly struggling for your life). The short bow is also particulary weak vs some of those champs due their properties vs ranged attacks.

@Buran.3796 said:I was having a neat experience using mace + axe + short bow condi Renegade for open world content until I decided to try to solo some champions from the bounty hunter quest. I did a couple of attempts in the first map with my power herald but died/run out of time after wearing out ~50% of the HP from the champion (with a PvP build and no food). Then I tried the same with the condi Renegade and was barely able to dent a ~35% before dying.

The problem is that albeit mace + axe damage output surpasses the sword (specially vs multiple foes) those weapons lack defensive skills, so you end swaping to either short bow (for fighting at range) or staff (to parry or cc). In both cases you will lose a lot of dps, so my feeling is that for really dangerous foes power Herald is still the better choice (better sustain leads to better sustained damage, because you aren't constantly struggling for your life). The short bow is also particulary weak vs some of those champs due their properties vs ranged attacks.

Even in fractals I find myself going down a lot. It's frustrating how few active defense skills you have as a Renegade. As in, you have zero. Lol.