While I'm not saying it has no uses, I think a generally popular opinion is that Longbow serves very little use for the DH in PvE situations with 'some' uses in PvP. From looking around other elite specs, this seems like a generally unique issue; most specs will find their unique weapon spec attractive in some regards, atleast in an offhand role in the case of one handers, if not dominate their playstyle in some cases (gs with reaper). The reason for this seems largely that, the Bow is simply under tuned in PvE compared to Scepter/Torch which accomplish the same goal much better than Bow ever could. I had a few suggestions to make Bow more attractive to DH, while not making too many adjustments to the weapons power in a PvP settings.

Puncture Shot

One of the easiest to identify offenders for Bow is the very poor damage of its auto attack. When adjusted by attack speed, Orb of Wrath does 14% more damage, and ranged generally not being an issue in PvE. Of course, Bow has the advantage that it can hit a secondary creature and snare, which cannot be overlooked, so a direct damage buff would be too much. I propose the following language added (Bolded) to the ability.

• Fire an arrow which can bounce to the enemies behind your target. If an arrow hits a second target, all enemies struck are crippled. If no secondary target is available, the arrow bounced back to hit the primary target, dealing an addition 100 (.85) damage.

The math on this takes Puncture shot damage from being roughly 14% less than scepter on single target to being roughly 16% more on single target. In these situations no CC is applied, and the attack is slower, so scepter still serves a fine role. Given two handed weapons do not allow for the offhand flexibility of one handers, and this is an elite spec weapon, this seems more than fair.

True Shot

The damage on this ability seems simply undertuned, even given its short cooldown. When compared to Symbol of Punishment with a similar CD and same cast time, the damage difference is rather huge (with the later in the 1500's to the 700's for True Shot). True shots ability to pierce targets makes it very valuable in PvP, and its additional range cant be under estimated, and it deals its damage all at once (where you can walk out of Symbol of Punishment). It also does not do anything like granting Might or creating a very useful combo field.

• Charge up energy, creating a powerful attack which pierces through enemies. The first target struck receives 50% additional damage, the second target struck receives 25% additional damage.

In most situations this is simply a nice addition, and in single target situations (PvE) cuts down on the damage loss from Symbol of Punishment (although, Symbol of Punishment still remains the stronger damage option).

Deflecting Shot

This power seems fine.

Symbol of Energy

A big offender. When compared torch 4 which shares its cooldown. Torch 4 offers substantially more damage. Symbol of Energy is an aoe so it can apply more of that damage to a group, but the damage difference is still pretty substantial. Given the slow nature of the projectile in PvP it also sees very little good use outside of choke points and bunk play, which seems further limiting.

There is no wording change I would make here, but a mechanic change. I would have each of symbol of energies 5 pulses also deal additional damage to targets within of 166 Physical damage and Burning (3s): 100 damage. The combined damage for a target that wants to stay inside the symbol of energy fast approaches torch 4, but of course has the downside of being something you can get out of, where Torch 4 damage is half based on the Guardians ability to stay close (easier to control condition) while the other half cant be stopped normally.

Hunters Ward

This applies significant utility in PvP, and the abilities goal does not really seem to be that of damage perse. With its very lengthy 2 3/4 second cast time, its never a dps gain in PvE, though it would be nice if there was some utility from this ability. I would offer another mechanic change here, in that in PvE (and PvE only) the impact and pulses would each apply two stacks of vulnerability to the targets within it as well. This would make Hunter's Ward an excellent alpha strike ability in PvE, as well as during some encounter resets, but probably still not nearly valuable enough to make it within a proper rotation (which is fine. Not every ability needs to be valuable in a rotation).

DH needs 25% movement speed buff. I don't get why no one thought about it. Range spec usually associates with being able to kite.

In ranked DH is hard countered by Mirage, RR spellbreaker, Soulbeast and even struggles against competent Holos and competent S/D thieves. Despite having so many counters for being a 1v1 class, it brings basically nothing else to the table. It's a below average teamfighter, brings mediocre mobility, and zero utility. At least other niche underpowered builds like Herald/Weaver bring something to the table. Anet needs to either give it some buffs or do another general powercreep nerf, because the state of DH in PvP is pretty sad right now.

In PvP Dh received too many nerfs and usually they never revert those back, so it is just an utopia to hope.

In WvW is still a decent 1vs1 profession, with good damage output and decent survivability.It lacks a bit of a sustained rotation to survive, once you popped F1 F2 F3 and used renewed focus and used F1 F2 and F3 again you are stupidly weak against anything, even simple autoattacks... other professions can rotate almost non stop and survive definitely better for example rangers, warriors... mesmers and thiefs due to the disengage and kiting abilities, elementalists, especially weaver recover from 20% to 100% hp in few seconds swapping to water etc.

Longbow offers good survivability if you can perma land deflecting shot and have almost perma stab due to it, and it's just used to combo it with the trap and because it's the only 1200 range weapon we got.

Longbow5 should be 20 seconds cd, longbow symbol casted way faster.

I think the trait associated with deflecting shot should give stab on hit, and not on knocking back only, similar to holo corona burst, get stab on hit.

@FyzE.3472 said:DH needs 25% movement speed buff. I don't get why no one thought about it. Range spec usually associates with being able to kite.

This would be nice.

@FtoPScrub.5476 said:In ranked DH is hard countered by Mirage, RR spellbreaker, Soulbeast and even struggles against competent Holos and competent S/D thieves. Despite having so many counters for being a 1v1 class, it brings basically nothing else to the table. It's a below average teamfighter, brings mediocre mobility, and zero utility. At least other niche underpowered builds like Herald/Weaver bring something to the table. Anet needs to either give it some buffs or do another general powercreep nerf, because the state of DH in PvP is pretty sad right now.

That is true. While my focus was in PvE, after playing it in sPvP and WvW, I'm really at a loss as to what ANET wanted for this weapon. It does not have much support, much condi, much cc (it has some in its 5, but the long CD kind of makes this limited overall), and ontop of that it does little damage. It feels like they had intended it to be a high damage ranged weapon but, as people said, it was over nerfed. Hopefully someone from ANET sees this and recognizes the issue.

@"whoknocks.4935" said:In PvP Dh received too many nerfs and usually they never revert those back, so it is just an utopia to hope.

As a returning player that is sad to hear. I would hope ANET would take continuous balance more seriously. From what I have gathered they seem to knee jerk rather than working incrementally to get balance exactly where it should be. Imagine this game if we could explain the game not as "every class have some specs that are viable and competitive" and instead as "every spec and weapon is viable and competitive." At the moment I can't say DH LB is viable, only that its 'functional'. It's outclassed in both damage, cc and utility by Scepter/XXX, leaving its only use for long range poking in WvW, at which point its so weak you may want to not be a Guardian because any Ranger hitting LB 2 is going to down you in the blink of an eye while you ineffectively plink away.

@FyzE.3472 said:DH needs 25% movement speed buff. I don't get why no one thought about it. Range spec usually associates with being able to kite.

It's not that it wasn't thought about. It was thought about and the conclusion was that it wasn't inline with the theme of Guardians.

@Obtena.7952 said:

@FyzE.3472 said:DH needs 25% movement speed buff. I don't get why no one thought about it. Range spec usually associates with being able to kite.

Yeah all this theme of Guardians is bull tbh. DH is supposed to be treated like a range profession, not as heavy armor user.

if its not in line with Guardians, why give them a bow and lore around shooting dragons with arrows? More over, heavy armor in this game seems kind of like a misnomer, Guardians have the same HP as thieves and heavy armor in my experience does nothing significant to keep you alive.

@faytte.1057 said:if its not in line with Guardians, why give them a bow and lore around shooting dragons with arrows? More over, heavy armor in this game seems kind of like a misnomer, Guardians have the same HP as thieves and heavy armor in my experience does nothing significant to keep you alive.

Especially in wvw if you don't run dura runes for the extra tougness you feel yourself squishier than a thief.

Only warrior have a feeling of wearing a heavy armor.

They gave guardian a bow because it was highly requestes from the community, the only class with zero long range option (scepter is a melee weapon even if 900 range). And they creates longbow which is a gimmick weapon used yes, for the 1200 range, but mainly to pull off the combo with test of faith.

And test of faith is the only trap worth using among all of them, that's why dh is pretty static and always the same, if you run longbow you have to run test of faith and viceversa, smite condition is too good to give up and judges intervention as well. So yeah dh exist only as meditrapper for roaming. You are forced to use that build if you wanna compete.

@FyzE.3472 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@FyzE.3472 said:DH needs 25% movement speed buff. I don't get why no one thought about it. Range spec usually associates with being able to kite.

You think it's bull? I got some news for you then. You must be new here.

Anet decides the treatment for DH, not you, not any other player. Weird idea right? The game developers actually decide these things/ Who would have thought. The funny part is that you are actually in denial of the real history of why we don't have 25% runspeed buff. Maybe you think I'm making this stuff up ...

Here is another bit of 'theme-based' argument you won't like. DH doesn't really seem to be aimed at PVE anyways, because of all the range control it offers that isn't really useful in PVE. I'm going out on a limb here and say that ... you probably just shouldn't use it if you feel it's not optimal for PVE play, even as a DH; not everything is designed to be good for every game mode. The fundamental fact is that we play a game with meta and as long as that's true, there isn't much reason to selectively target anything for performance improvements in specific game modes.

Personally, I would prefer if LBow simply get more of what it already doing well in the DH theme instead of trying to make it mediocre for everything and appealing no where .... again, theme-based arguments.

Than by your argument the Elite Mesmer specialization the Chronomancer released in the HoT expansion should not gained 25% run speed movement buff in it's Trait line because they didn't have it in the original release. Since you are pointing out the theme so strongly have you considering that the "Theme" of the Guardian as it was described before the release and during the Beta was that Guardian (which didn't exist as class in the original Guild Wars nor did the Thief but that was mostly taken from the original Assassin) as a combination of the Paragon and the Monk which in no way defines as a Slow heavy class(which it doesn't really love up to either of we are being honest). Frankly this seems to be on going issue with you where you parse out information that you define as facts to invalidate anybody's opinion you disagree with when all you are truthfully saying is your personal opinion.I'm not saying your opinion is invalid but neither is theirs but they have a right to it and maybe a more thoughtful discussion could be had if you were more willing to be less rigid in your viewpoint because I can see by your arguments that you have seriously throughout what you are saying but feels like your more interested in winning the argument than discussing the subject on its own merits both pro and .com which is unfortunate, but hey to each their own .

That's something you will have to take up with Anet. I can only say that FOR A FACT, Anet stated Guardian didn't get a 25% runspeed buff intentionally, because of the intention of how they want Guardian to play. Clearly, they gave Chrono a 25% RS buff because they felt it was appropriate for that espec ... and that's not unreasonable giving the idea of how the 'time' theme of chrono coincides with being 'faster'.

These aren't 'my opinions' ... we were TOLD by Anet the reason why Guardian doesn't have that RS buff. The best part ... it's clear these decisions are based on class theme, not because of any practical realities based on playing the game. The real issue here is that people don't like the burden of thinking from a thematic perspective when making suggestions ... yet it's clearly important to Anet. Think about that.

Honestly, the ideas that best serve DH/Lbow are related to strengthening it's current ranged and movement-impeding capabilities. For instance:

1. Slow is OK on Piercing Light, but cripple would be more effective and inline with all the crippling effects LBow has as well. (I think Immobilize would be too much there). maybe that's too much cripple. Frankly, I think the Daze was really reasonable, but less inline with impeding movements of opponents.
2. I could imagine getting swiftness in some way ... improving the ability to keep the ranged advantage (or close the gap for melee).

There are lots of ideas to consider that don't go against what we already know Anet intends for the class generally. Pushing for something that is in complete opposition to the intended class theme is just a waste of time.

@FyzE.3472 said:DH needs 25% movement speed buff. I don't get why no one thought about it. Range spec usually associates with being able to kite.

It was requested like million times before. Will it happen? The devs are busy playing underwater after the last update :'(

Just pointing out that as you're saying the issue of Theme repeatedly earlier that as far as Theme goes the original concept of the Theme of the Guardian has largely been ignored after the release of the game. The first was the original Monk class being all about strong Healing and Cleansing (please correct me if I'm wrong weren't there somethings that only a Monk was good at clearing Its been awhile since I played GW1) and second was the Paragon class being strong at buffing their allies thru the use of Shouts and Chants. This by their own design and original description of the Guardian would lead one to say that the Guardian shouldn't be as lacking as it does in these areas but that's the way development decisions came about so as to spread some of these potential game roles out amongst other classes but in so doing lessened importance of these roles for the Guardian(good decision or bad decision is really only a matter of personal opinion even I have a mixed opinion on this honestly).

By the way my apologies if my comment got you upset (noted by the FOR A FACT and TOLD comments) but I could already see that you had thought a great deal about the arguments and whether I or anybody else agreed or disagreed with your viewpoint was irrelevant but when you got past the perceived slight (admittedly it was, but I only to hoped to get you out of your old pattern of arguing) you then came back to come to be your 2 points where you have very good ideas (I did agree with you on the Daze issue and not sure why that was changed) and you have interesting idea for possible way swiftness could be applied if not in the way most other people see happening. Again thank you even if I did irritate you there.

P.S.I personally I think if they were to ever add a movement bonus into any existing part of the Guardian , I think "Thematically" (sorry I couldn't help myself) it would fit in with the Firebrand so as to enable their ability to stay close to their enemies and allies in a fast dynamic combat situations.

P.S.S.I have thought about it, my only interest in bringing these different points up in the various forums is to hear other people's ideas and to discuss different ways of working with the class etc...and of course to VENT about the INJUSTICE leveled at our poor Guardian! To each there own and have a good day.

I have a feeling, a hope even, that we are going to get a gunslinger type elite with a pistol that’ll have 25% speed increase.

Longbow as far as I’m concerned will never get modified.

i dont know but the most range weapons doesnt fit into the lore of a guardian. Longbow could be ok as dragonhunter but i dont like the bow at his current state.Zepter is good but it looks ridicilous. heavy armor and swinging a stick like harry potter.gun and rifle dont fit either. maybe with the next elite spec change hammer or mace into a thor like weapon which shots lightnings? :-)

@Stalkingwolf.6035 said:i dont know but the most range weapons doesnt fit into the lore of a guardian. Longbow could be ok as dragonhunter but i dont like the bow at his current state.Zepter is good but it looks ridicilous. heavy armor and swinging a stick like harry potter.gun and rifle dont fit either. maybe with the next elite spec change hammer or mace into a thor like weapon which shots lightnings? :-)

I think dagger or warhorn are most likely as guard's next elite spec weapon. Warhorn is slightly more likely just from the perspective that guard hasn't yet received an offhand for an elite spec.

offhands are boring.

@Stalkingwolf.6035 said:offhands are boring.

I absolutely agree. Having a boring aoe boon support skill, then some boring generic skill that gives swiftness sounds rather boring. It's definitely on the table though since people have been calling for guard to have warhorn since before HoT.

i dont mean the skills.

@Obtena.7952 said:

@FyzE.3472 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@FyzE.3472 said:DH needs 25% movement speed buff. I don't get why no one thought about it. Range spec usually associates with being able to kite.

So, basically, "stop with your theme-based arguments! Here is mine theme-based argument btw." Thanks.

@FyzE.3472 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@FyzE.3472 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@FyzE.3472 said:DH needs 25% movement speed buff. I don't get why no one thought about it. Range spec usually associates with being able to kite.

If you're theme-based suggestion was 'moar 25% RS buff", I'm simply telling you that isn't what Anet's idea of the Guardian theme is. In otherwords, you can imagine whatever you want related to any theme you can think of, but the relevant theme is the one Anet creates and maintains and for Guardian, they have explicitly stated 25% RS buff isn't inline with it.

Elite shake up how core plays. 25% movement speed increase isn't out of the realm for any future elites.