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So Longbow is bad DPS right?


Omnicron.2467

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I got that Dragon Longbow from the Black Lion Chest from my weekly key farm. I really like it but wish I could sell it since I do not play characters with Longbows. As far as I know Berserker is the only viable Longbow class? I do not even have a warrior :(

So how bad is Longbow on Dragonhunter compared to sceptre? I think it would look pretty cool on him, but no point if I have to use sceptre for the DPS

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Firstly, congrats on the drop. It is quite a cool skin.

As for your questions, it really depends on what game mode you are playing. Longbow is perfectly viable for open world PvE, but then, so are most weapon sets. I also find it's a good weapon in WvW, where you can damage or disrupt multiple players over a long distance (it's especially fun to use Hunter's Ward - Skill #5 - on mobs of enemies and watch a few get knocked around inside the barriers that form).

That being said, I do think longbows as a whole are a bit underwhelming in GW2. They haven't really found their identity. What I don't understand is why they nerfed the damage for DH longbow skills, because of it's ability to do high spike damage in PvP, etc, but then they give thief a rifle with even higher damage (P.S. I don't think Deadeye is OP either, I just think if thief can get a 1500 range skill set with good damage, there's no reason why Ranger or Guardian can't have good damage on their longbows as well).

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Thanks for the replies!!

I will try generate some numbers and see how much worse it is. The issue is that while it can be used in open world, why would I bother if sceptre is better dps and I am mostly jumping in with my Greatsword anyway and swapping to ranged when needed or for better damage on my rotation.

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LB on DH is fine in open pve/dungeons but it does indeed have poor DPS. Unfortunately, it's not that great in pvp either. You can still perform fairly well with it and the standard medi-trapper build, but you won't be pulling off very nice numbers with the longbow alone since trueshot has been a surrogate for rev hammer 2 nerfs since forever.

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@"RabbitUp.8294" said:Longbow was never good for dps. Even before the nerfs, longbow was bad in organised pve.

But the guardian community is not as whiny as others, so longbow was left to rot, while Deadeye's rifle is buffed patch after patch.

To be fair, the balance team shouldn't rely on the "whining" of players on the forum in order to be proactive on balance updates. They should have the capacity to identify areas of imbalance, and work on them using their own skills and intuition. To begin with, a lot of player requests or complaints are based more on emotion than reason, and are inherently unreliable as a whole. The Devs also have access to more data on their side, and should be able to observe trends, which they could use to determine whether or not a class/weapon/spec is performing above or below par.

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@Tenrai Senshi.2017 said:

@"RabbitUp.8294" said:Longbow was never good for dps. Even before the nerfs, longbow was bad in organised pve.

But the guardian community is not as whiny as others, so longbow was left to rot, while Deadeye's rifle is buffed patch after patch.

To be fair, the balance team shouldn't rely on the "whining" of players on the forum in order to be proactive on balance updates. They should have the capacity to identify areas of imbalance, and work on them using their own skills and intuition. To begin with, a lot of player requests or complaints are based more on emotion than reason, and are inherently unreliable as a whole. The Devs also have access to more data on their side, and should be able to observe trends, which they could use to determine whether or not a class/weapon/spec is performing above or below par.

Anets "balance" team is already patheticly small.. I doubt we'll see any changes to bow.Furthermore Anet abandons older content, and real changes/overhaul/reworks won't happen to anything.It's just the natural rythm of an buy-to-play MMO

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@Warrost.4895 said:

@"RabbitUp.8294" said:Longbow was never good for dps. Even before the nerfs, longbow was bad in organised pve.

But the guardian community is not as whiny as others, so longbow was left to rot, while Deadeye's rifle is buffed patch after patch.

To be fair, the balance team shouldn't rely on the "whining" of players on the forum in order to be proactive on balance updates. They should have the capacity to identify areas of imbalance, and work on them using their own skills and intuition. To begin with, a lot of player requests or complaints are based more on emotion than reason, and are inherently unreliable as a whole. The Devs also have access to more data on their side, and should be able to observe trends, which they could use to determine whether or not a class/weapon/spec is performing above or below par.

Anets "balance" team is already patheticly small.. I doubt we'll see any changes to bow.Furthermore Anet abandons older content, and real changes/overhaul/reworks won't happen to anything.It's just the natural rythm of an buy-to-play MMO

The mere fact that ANet did a complete rework of the mesmer's phantasms, which largely affected core or Chronomancer builds, while nerfing the newer Mirage condition builds, shows that they do work on old content. Perhaps you also forgot the complete rework of spirit weapons for Guardians, or Reaper shroud for Necromancers, both of which also received further tweaks in more recent patches. To put it bluntly, your statements regarding the "abandonment" of old content or the idea that reworks or overhauls "won't happen", as you've put it, are what I'd call cases of sensationalism, especially when evidence clearly contradicts those statements.

Still, I do understand the frustration players can feel when they feel like things are not moving forward at the pace they'd like, so I won't hold it against anyone. That being said, I do think it's best not to ignore the actual changes being made in favor of trying to validate our own perceptions. ANet has been making changes and overhauls to older skills or specs, that's an undeniable fact, so there's no reason why they can't do the same for longbows, nor is there any reason to believe with certainty that it will never happen. The real concern is how long it would take.

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@Tenrai Senshi.2017 said:

@"RabbitUp.8294" said:Longbow was never good for dps. Even before the nerfs, longbow was bad in organised pve.

But the guardian community is not as whiny as others, so longbow was left to rot, while Deadeye's rifle is buffed patch after patch.

To be fair, the balance team shouldn't rely on the "whining" of players on the forum in order to be proactive on balance updates. They should have the capacity to identify areas of imbalance, and work on them using their own skills and intuition. To begin with, a lot of player requests or complaints are based more on emotion than reason, and are inherently unreliable as a whole. The Devs also have access to more data on their side, and should be able to observe trends, which they could use to determine whether or not a class/weapon/spec is performing above or below par.

True, they shouldn't. But look at what happens currently. Thief players whine, rifle is buffed patch after patch, to the point that thief can sit at 1500 range and do 31k. Sure, practically you can't actually do that, because you won't be in range for buffs, but it's a huge range weapon with competitive dps. And it's more bursty than DH lb ever was in wvw, and deadeye burst you down while stealthed.

Look just how whiny mesmers are. There's no patch that mesmers don't complain about. Even now, mesmer is the best pve class in the game's history, and the mesmer forums are filled with axe and confusion complaints, and 2 days later, here come the axe buffs.

When was the last time the balance team reacted within 2 days to fix anything guardian related, other than when the symbol stacking bug occured? DH doing 25k dps and having only hamer as a viable weapon? It took them 1 whole year to fix that. And they have never touched longbow in pve.

@Tenrai Senshi.2017 said:

@"RabbitUp.8294" said:Longbow was never good for dps. Even before the nerfs, longbow was bad in organised pve.

But the guardian community is not as whiny as others, so longbow was left to rot, while Deadeye's rifle is buffed patch after patch.

To be fair, the balance team shouldn't rely on the "whining" of players on the forum in order to be proactive on balance updates. They should have the capacity to identify areas of imbalance, and work on them using their own skills and intuition. To begin with, a lot of player requests or complaints are based more on emotion than reason, and are inherently unreliable as a whole. The Devs also have access to more data on their side, and should be able to observe trends, which they could use to determine whether or not a class/weapon/spec is performing above or below par.

Anets "balance" team is already patheticly small.. I doubt we'll see any changes to bow.Furthermore Anet abandons older content, and real changes/overhaul/reworks won't happen to anything.It's just the natural rythm of an buy-to-play MMO

The mere fact that ANet did a complete rework of the mesmer's phantasms, which largely affected core or Chronomancer builds, while nerfing the newer Mirage condition builds, shows that they do work on old content. Perhaps you also forgot the complete rework of spirit weapons for Guardians, or Reaper shroud for Necromancers, both of which also received further tweaks in more recent patches. To put it bluntly, your statements regarding the "abandonment" of old content or the idea that reworks or overhauls "won't happen", as you've put it, are what I'd call cases of sensationalism, especially when evidence clearly contradicts those statements.

Still, I do understand the frustration players can feel when they feel like things are not moving forward at the pace they'd like, so I won't hold it against anyone. That being said, I do think it's best not to ignore the actual changes being made in favor of trying to validate our own perceptions. ANet has been making changes and overhauls to older skills or specs, that's an undeniable fact, so there's no reason why they can't do the same for longbows, nor is there any reason to believe with certainty that it will never happen. The real concern is how long it would take.

What are you talking about? It took them 4 YEARS to touch spirit weapons. And the result is that they are now more useless than before, more boring and more clunky.

They reworked mesmer because it didn't live up to the fantasy of spamming shatters. And it was a buff for chrono support, a buff for mirage and it created a viable chrono power dps build. So, yes, they rework older content, but they are working on a strictly preferential system. Mesmer not spamming shatters? Full rework, buffs across the board, new builds possible. Core guardian having useless virtues? LUL. Guardian having no identity, no unique aspects? Have some more dps elite specs. Oh and give more aegis access to mesmer.

FB being good support in pvp only? Nerf it for both pvp and pve withing 2 months of release. Chrono being OP support in pve for 2 years now? Buff it some more.

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@"RabbitUp.8294" said:What are you talking about? It took them 4 YEARS to touch spirit weapons. And the result is that they are now more useless than before, more boring and more clunky.

They reworked mesmer because it didn't live up to the fantasy of spamming shatters. And it was a buff for chrono support, a buff for mirage and it created a viable chrono power dps build. So, yes, they rework older content, but they are working on a strictly preferential system. Mesmer not spamming shatters? Full rework, buffs across the board, new builds possible. Core guardian having useless virtues? LUL. Guardian having no identity, no unique aspects? Have some more dps elite specs. Oh and give more aegis access to mesmer.

FB being good support in pvp only? Nerf it for both pvp and pve withing 2 months of release. Chrono being OP support in pve for 2 years now? Buff it some more.

To be honest, I'm not sure what your point is. I never specified time frames (in fact I specifically mentioned that the main concern was "how long it would take."), nor did I say that changes were always for the best. I only iterated the sentiment that saying old content does not get reworked, or that it won't be reworked in future is a statement that could simply be regarded as sensationalist. In fact, for someone to say it doesn't or won't happen right after a patch releases containing one of the biggest reworks we've seen in a while is something I find a bit amusing all things considered.

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@Tenrai Senshi.2017 said:

@"RabbitUp.8294" said:What are you talking about? It took them 4 YEARS to touch spirit weapons. And the result is that they are now more useless than before, more boring and more clunky.

They reworked mesmer because it didn't live up to the fantasy of spamming shatters. And it was a buff for chrono support, a buff for mirage and it created a viable chrono power dps build. So, yes, they rework older content, but they are working on a strictly preferential system. Mesmer not spamming shatters? Full rework, buffs across the board, new builds possible. Core guardian having useless virtues? LUL. Guardian having no identity, no unique aspects? Have some more dps elite specs. Oh and give more aegis access to mesmer.

FB being good support in pvp only? Nerf it for both pvp and pve withing 2 months of release. Chrono being OP support in pve for 2 years now? Buff it some more.

To be honest, I'm not sure what your point is. I never specified time frames (in fact I specifically mentioned that the main concern was "how long it would take."), nor did I say that changes were always for the best. I only iterated the sentiment that saying old content does not get reworked, or that it won't be reworked in future is a statement that could simply be regarded as sensationalist. In fact, for someone to say it doesn't or won't happen right after a patch releases containing one of the biggest reworks we've seen in a while is something I find a bit amusing all things considered.

And who was that rework for? How does that disprove what I said, about the preferential treatment behind these changes. If anything, it's the most solid proof, because mesmer was in no way the most problematic class or the class with the biggest identity crisis to warrant this amount of dev attention.

And really, you are not really saying anything here. Yes, something might change eventually, be it 2 months or 10 years. So what? You will be technically correct if it happens, but that doesn't contribute anything to the discussion nor it negates the concerns people are voicing. For some of us, waiting 4 more years is not an option, nor will any eventual changes justify the wait or excuse all the past mistakes and blunders the balance team has done and continues doing. Especially when history shows that when devs turn their attention to guardians, we get spirit weapons.

In the end, what you are say is the same technical truth as me saying to someone that complains about how bad their life is that the universe will eventually die. Unless it happens in our lifetime, it doesn't really add to the discussion.

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@RabbitUp.8294 said:

@RabbitUp.8294 said:What are you talking about? It took them 4 YEARS to touch spirit weapons. And the result is that they are now more useless than before, more boring and more clunky.

They reworked mesmer because it didn't live up to the fantasy of spamming shatters. And it was a buff for chrono support, a buff for mirage and it created a viable chrono power dps build. So, yes, they rework older content, but they are working on a strictly preferential system. Mesmer not spamming shatters? Full rework, buffs across the board, new builds possible. Core guardian having useless virtues? LUL. Guardian having no identity, no unique aspects? Have some more dps elite specs. Oh and give more aegis access to mesmer.

FB being good support in pvp only? Nerf it for both pvp and pve withing 2 months of release. Chrono being OP support in pve for 2 years now? Buff it some more.

To be honest, I'm not sure what your point is. I never specified time frames (in fact I specifically mentioned that the main concern was "how long it would take."), nor did I say that changes were always for the best. I only iterated the sentiment that saying old content does not get reworked, or that it won't be reworked in future is a statement that could simply be regarded as sensationalist. In fact, for someone to say it doesn't or won't happen right after a patch releases containing one of the biggest reworks we've seen in a while is something I find a bit amusing all things considered.

And who was that rework for? How does that disprove what I said, about the preferential treatment behind these changes. If anything, it's the most solid proof, because mesmer was in no way the most problematic class or the class with the biggest identity crisis to warrant this amount of dev attention.

And really, you are not really saying anything here. Yes, something might change eventually, be it 2 months or 10 years. So what? You will be technically correct if it happens, but that doesn't contribute anything to the discussion nor it negates the concerns people are voicing. For some of us, waiting 4 more years is not an option, nor will any eventual changes justify the wait or excuse all the past mistakes and blunders the balance team has done and continues doing. Especially when history shows that when devs turn their attention to guardians, we get spirit weapons.

In the end, what you are say is the same technical truth as me saying to someone that complains about how bad their life is that the universe will eventually die. Unless it happens in our lifetime, it doesn't really add to the discussion.

I wasn't trying to prove or disprove anything you said, I was just questioning what it had to do with my reply to Warrost. You seem to think the two of us are somehow at odds with one another, but I'm here scratching my head wondering what it is exactly you're trying to argue about.

Again, my ultimate point to him/her was that resorting to sensationalism to try and justify our own feelings or perceptions won't help matters. If we want realistic solutions, we ourselves have to be realistic, and not approach everything from a obscured angle. Trust me, I have my fair share of criticisms as well, but I believe that criticism has to be objective and honest, rather than sensational, if you want it to be taken seriously.

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@Traveller.7496 said:I like the longbow on WvW. Sometimes I run a core build with a hammer. When it comes to solo/small group roaming, I'm kinda still struggling to find the best option - I find that the suggested Firebrand burning builds are more focused on bigger groups.

wiht arround 500 healing power and a few healing output modifiers bow heals per tick arround 400+ health, not to shabby, still is a weak skill for the current gameplay, the healing quoficient could be slighty increased and the light field could provide light aura.

Shield needs to be fixed has i already ointed out several times, casting time needs to be instant or almost instant, cause that is bugging the shield when in combat and atacking a target shield wont cast and will burn a ammo.. been working bugged since changes... guess Anet does not fix classes nor skills they dont use...>_>Shield needs something as well i would not mind some stuff like paragon had that increased armor on allies (similiar with the guardian trait) or somethign that would reduce damage that is not a boon.

Hammer and Sword.. well they can only hit targets that are CC'ed to death... they are slow casting, to much telegraphed, and dont need to be dodges a short kite will make skills miss.. the sword itself is like a trap in range..lol...

SW are in need of a HUGE QOL they were kinda killed a bit after game release....

Theres quite some stuff on guardian that is not balanced at all.... if u use consecrations u can be 11111 to death with a sanctuary that can be countered with stability on a1 minute CD and when traited, this skill needs a decent CD since it is not that ofensive like spellbreaker dome is..Still lacking a consecration elite... RF is th eonly elite guardian has and some skills can interrupt it (bug?).

Please ANet care for guardian.... and the SW shield tooltip is still wrong.

@Ragnarox.9601 said:Guardian is in a good spot so we dont need to balance them just nerf some thing we dont like and buff spirit weapons and signets here and there-------> sad future of guardian class.

Define good spot.... just because people play DPS with it or be jsut bots for stack and be carried with boon stacking does not mean class is in good spot >_>.

Class actually is in need of a QoL&skill fix most than most classes....

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It's fantastic to use in open world and in some pvp, but for fractals and raids it's a big output loss. As you may know, most of the PVE is designed to have melee range be the strongest, stacking for boons, cleanses, combo fields, abilities doing more dmg that are closer range etc. I personally would like to see range options be just as strong because mechanics make them both equally risky yet being range based is a damage loss AND you're not helping your group with previously mentioned benefits.

But outside of that, I am always using GS+LB on my DH, it's by far my favorite fantasy spec. I am hoping the new legendary LB Is something epic.

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  • 4 months later...

Honestly, I feel like one of the biggest things holding back GW2 from being even bigger than it already is happens to be ANET’s small balance team leading to infrequent balance updates. Just imagine how much better this game could be if we didn’t have to fuss over metas and worry about getting into groups because a favorite build depends on a weak weapon (cough most ranged weapons cough).

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People concluding that that Anet buffs because people QQ on the forums are using faulty logic there ... and should cease and desist. Anet will buff things they feel appropriate, not because of what players cry about. We have LOTS of evidence that Anet does ... and does not ... listen to players, so that conclusion of cry moar, get buffed, is nonsense.

Lbow is not a good PVE weapon and since we have choice, you don't have to use it. It's simply a consequence of the game having optimal solutions. The part where the game is good is that you don't need optimal solutions to win ... unless of course you like being told how to play by others. Both options exists for both kinds of players.

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@"Obtena.7952" said:People concluding that that Anet buffs because people QQ on the forums are using faulty logic there ... and should cease and desist. Anet will buff things they feel appropriate, not because of what players cry about. We have LOTS of evidence that Anet does ... and does not ... listen to players, so that conclusion of cry moar, get buffed, is nonsense.

Yah. Do ANet listen to complaints? Absolutely. Do they base their actions on them? Only very, very distantly, and way behind things like "actual statistics", and "design goals", and that sort of thing.

Lbow is not a good PVE weapon and since we have choice, you don't have to use it. It's simply a consequence of the game having optimal solutions. The part where the game is good is that you don't need optimal solutions to win ... unless of course you like being told how to play by others. Both options exists for both kinds of players.

It also fills a role as a secondary weapon, useful when you can't get up close and personal for various reasons. Like dying if you stand too close to the thing dropping pools of fire, ice, and poison, because the game hates you.

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@Tenrai Senshi.2017 said:

@"RabbitUp.8294" said:Longbow was never good for dps. Even before the nerfs, longbow was bad in organised pve.

But the guardian community is not as whiny as others, so longbow was left to rot, while Deadeye's rifle is buffed patch after patch.

To be fair, the balance team shouldn't rely on the "whining" of players on the forum in order to be proactive on balance updates. They should have the capacity to identify areas of imbalance, and work on them using their own skills and intuition. To begin with, a lot of player requests or complaints are based more on emotion than reason, and are inherently unreliable as a whole. The Devs also have access to more data on their side, and should be able to observe trends, which they could use to determine whether or not a class/weapon/spec is performing above or below par.

There is no indication that anet uses class performance much in terms of balance. There are three main things that anet does:

1) Work on whatever vanity project they want and these tend to be hit and miss. The Mesmer major update was extremely good for Mesmer as a class. It opened diversity significantly. Obviously there was limited testing to performance, this is why chrono wad ridiculous for like three month. On the other hand the deadeye redesign absolutely killed deadeye in every game mode. No one asked for the underwater skills rebalance either and it had no point.

2) Anet would would go on hunt trying to make a specific underpowered utility skills or weapon meta, without any consideration of what they actually need to do. Take spirit weapons for gurdian. Anet has been tinkering with them since PoF release. Some of the changes, like reducing the CD to 1 sec, are down right hilarious. Mind you this was a PvP change first. Literally, a dev thought that this would make them PvP viable. Clearly, after million patches they still are not, cuz the issue of why the do not work on PvP (action delay + cast time) was never addressed.

3) They do nerf over performing classes, but wayyyyyy tooooo slowwwwwwwwwwww.. since PoF release every single patch scourge, SB and holo were nerfed, and yet they still are over performing in sPvP. I am almost certain they will get nerfed again together with mirage. But at some point, they will be over nerfed and there will be no going back. DH is an example of a build that was op, got nerfed million times in a row, until it is effective enough not to be unplayable, but far from being meta. It is a common theme.

From all three points, the common thread is that anet does realize when something is under performing, but rarely try to investigate why, then makes some random change. Sometimes this can be good, though much of the time it results in something being over powered or under powered.

Are players emotional and not rational. Duh?! Just look at some of the suggestions in any buff or nerf request threads. Some suggests are way off the wall. Though this is no an excuse for anet to ignore feedback.

I have played other MMOs and action rpgs. I think anet is decent in terms of monitoring and making changes. Though anet devs are probably the most arrogant I have seen. They just do their thing regardless of feedback or even the game balance status sometimes. This is why the balance changes that vary from terrific to head scratching.

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