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Dragonhunter's Bow requires attention


Xervite.5493

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DH with a longbow I think is the worst spec weapon in game. I'm speaking with experience as I main DH bow build both in pve and pvp. The damage is clearly underwhelming (Except for the second skill) and the range is weird, one skill has 1500 and the rest 1200? Since there aren't many specs with Longbow as a weapon I'm gonna compare this to a suitable rival i.e Ranger with long bow. I'm gonna compare all 5 skills side by side so lets get down to it:

1. Auto attack: Ranger's auto attack gains damage as the distance grows, DH has that too with "Pure of sight trait" Additionally DH's arrows bounce so that's good but the range is 300m less compared to ranger.2. Second skill: Trueshot, is a single hit skill with good range but very predictable animation and very likely to miss your target in PVP. Ranger's rapid fire is a 12 hit skill with vulnerability add-on in every hit. 12 hits means you are guaranteed to land something and get the conditions on your target unlike trueshot, granted the cooldown makes up for it but even then a successful hit despite being a crit wont hit more than 4k with around 1-5 might or less which is pretty bad.3. Third skill: Deflecting shot, Cast time is the same as ranger (instant) Skill animation is very obvious (yes its cool), projectile speed is terrible AND you have to manually aim it unlike ranger which is a simple lock on and fire. The projectile block is good I guess but its hard to use it that way because it has no tracking and in pvp no range class is gonna fire at you while standing still. Oh the range is inferior too.4. Fourth Skill: Symbol of energy, Symbol skill is good as it follows the guardian theme but why vigor?? If I'm using a bow to hit my targets I'm gonna be far from them, How does the vigor help me at all? am I supposed to fire it on my feet? if so then why give it any damage? Oh and range is inferior too.5. Fifth skill: Hunter's ward, Great skill for pvp, the chain's look gorgeous and the sound effects are lovely. Damage is ok so no complaints there BUT the range and cooldown make it a serious pain to use not to mention you have to channel it all the way to make use of the rings which is dangerous and can be easily interrupted in pvp. Ranger has a better CD on 5th skill along with lots of cripple and ok cool down which can be reduced via traits. DH LB cannot do that because there are no traits for it.

In conclusion DH bow has 0 value in pve (Sceptre outclasses it in terms of damage) and its only good for shooting from a safe distance which is again inferior to ranger or deadeye. Only reason I use it because I like the blue arrows and the fact I have Pharus. And what synergy do ground based traps share with LB? Maybe you can use it to create a protection area in pvp where players cannot charge at you recklessly but even then most builds only use one trap(test of faith) because rest are very easy to dodge or negate completely, I mean apart from the initial damage test of faith is also useless because you can simply dodge out of it or stand inside. Hell even the elite skill dragon maw can be cheesed with a single stability boon making the barrier useless. I guess traps weren't meant to nuke so that's fine but at least give them some form of damage overtime or hard cc? make them punishable for players who trigger it. But seriously give us some speed/range/trait for Longbow DH. Make it at least decent and an alternative option to other range guardian weapons. Thank you for reading this far.

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  1. Auto attack: Ranger's auto attack gains damage as the distance grows, DH has that too with "Pure of sight trait" Additionally DH's arrows bounce so that's good but the range is 300m less compared to ranger.

Pure of Sight If all longbow skills had 1500 range then this trait could have additional damage boost 20-25% for 900-1500 range. Which would improve the damage of longbow but not scepter.

  1. Fourth Skill: Symbol of energy, Symbol skill is good as it follows the guardian theme but why vigor?? If I'm using a bow to hit my targets I'm gonna be far from them, How does the vigor help me at all? am I supposed to fire it on my feet? if so then why give it any damage? Oh and range is inferior too.

To me it seems like Symbol of Energy is kinda underwheling because you have to aim at your feet almost every time. This skill could be similar to Rifle Butt - warrior's rifle skills which pushes back an enemy. A melee attack which knocks back or dazes enemies and puts symbol of energy below our feet.

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@RisenHowl.2419 said:Make symbol of energy a backwards leap that leaves a symbol where you started, like acid bomb. 1/2s evade.

what DH LB needs is something defensive

An interesting concept. LB 4 could do something like cause a low damage strike immediately on top of you (that applies aoe burn like it currently does), then leap to target location and create a symbol of energy where you land. Would be a unique defensive skill and would really help LB's sustain.

I think originally, LB3 was supposed to be a defensive skill since with Heavy Light, you can punish people who get too close to you and knock them back allowing you to control positioning in the fight but it doesn't function like a defensive skill at all if you don't take heavy light. This is why people say that LB doesn't feel like a complete weapon without Heavy Light, and thus the knockback on LB 3 should be made baseline.

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It's very unlikely they will increase the Bow2 damage, I hope they will decrease the cooldown and remove the root. And the range increase is a bit weird because if you enter the combat with Bow2 at max range then realised that all other skills u have are out of range. But it is good to down a fleeing player.

As for Bow4, I remember they design DH for range support. So Bow4 is more like supporting teammate rather than damage.

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@HawkXtream.1538 said:It's very unlikely they will increase the Bow2 damage, I hope they will decrease the cooldown and remove the root. And the range increase is a bit weird because if you enter the combat with Bow2 at max range then realised that all other skills u have are out of range. But it is good to down a fleeing player.

As for Bow4, I remember they design DH for range support. So Bow4 is more like supporting teammate rather than damage.

True, but keep in mind that due to the range buffer, bow's auto attack is actually much larger than 1200 range. I remember testing this. If you have a static target, flat ground, DH's auto attack on LB will hit them at around 1550-1600 units away which is a pretty massive range buffer. This is probably a bug though since range buffers for other weapons aren't quite that large.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Symbol of energy needs to be completely redesigned since guardian relies on enemies being in their symbols to deal damage. Longbow also gives zero retal and guardian relies on retal to deal damage.

Overall, the weapon is MASSIVELY outdated.

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@"Shiyo.3578" said:Symbol of energy needs to be completely redesigned since guardian relies on enemies being in their symbols to deal damage. Longbow also gives zero retal and guardian relies on retal to deal damage.

Overall, the weapon is MASSIVELY outdated.

While I'm not sure a complete redesign is warranted I have always thought that Vigor was an odd choice for a boon., granted all of the guardian symbols depend on the guardian and any allies being inside the symbol to be given the boon but Vigor always felt like a "We used everything else that we are willing to make available what else can we use?" type of choice being it felt very random and not something that really builds any strong sense of synergy, but that's just my take on it.

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@RUNICBLACK.7630 said:

@"Shiyo.3578" said:Symbol of energy needs to be completely redesigned since guardian relies on enemies being in their symbols to deal damage. Longbow also gives zero retal and guardian relies on retal to deal damage.

Overall, the weapon is MASSIVELY outdated.

While I'm not sure a complete redesign is warranted I have always thought that Vigor was an odd choice for a boon., granted all of the guardian symbols depend on the guardian and any allies being inside the symbol to be given the boon but Vigor always felt like a "We used everything else that we are willing to make available what else can we use?" type of choice being it felt very random and not something that really builds any strong sense of synergy, but that's just my take on it.

It doesn't need to be changed. It's actually well thought out.Vigor is a buff to your allies in melee or to yourself should you be forced to fight in melee.You take risks, you're rewarded. I enjoy this skill a lot.

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@"RUNICBLACK.7630" said:While I'm not sure a complete redesign is warranted I have always thought that Vigor was an odd choice for a boon., granted all of the guardian symbols depend on the guardian and any allies being inside the symbol to be given the boon but Vigor always felt like a "We used everything else that we are willing to make available what else can we use?" type of choice being it felt very random and not something that really builds any strong sense of synergy, but that's just my take on it.

This is pretty true. You can see from Firebrand Axe that they just gave up on boons in symbols alltogether. It doesn't have one.

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@Shiyo.3578 said:Slow travel time, low uptime, wrong damage(condi on a power weapon), boon requires you to be inside it but it's a long ranged weapon. Just makes no sense and goes against how guardian does DPS now as well.

I think what the devs were thinking is you lay it on your trap then pull the enemies to it. Needless to say, this design no longer works.

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@RUNICBLACK.7630 said:

@Yannir.4132 said:This is pretty true. You can see from Firebrand Axe that they just gave up on boons in symbols alltogether. It doesn't have one.

Actually the FB axe gives Fury now, you may have missed that update but it was back on Dec 11 of last year

Yeah, that's how much I play Firebrand in PvE these days. :lol: Only been using Mace/Sword in PvP.I did the Elegy collection last week, so I have a Grieving armor set now. Maybe I'll give it a whirl.

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@Alex.4982 said:Fingers crossed for a rework similar to what Rev, Beserker, and Scrapper all got. Or even just a weapon rework like they did with guardian staff

Considering that both herald and berserker are worse after the update, if Anet is thinking of any rework of DH, no thanks. Just buff some outdated traps and traits. Nothing else.

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Only reason I use bow is #4 and range

4 is good because you can either use it offensively at range and defensively in melee.

So it help allies in melee, and can also help yourself if you come in melee too. Or you can lose the damage part to bolster your own defense at range.

2 and #3 are the ones needing a little up.

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I only recently started playing my guardian full tilt (I dabbled a bit with burn builds in past years). I think bow #3 is too weak for a skill shot. If I were to make one tweak, I would have a successful hit result in a retaliation buff so it meshes well with other guardian traits.

-Jeff

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DH longbow skill #2 got nerfed into the dirt - kinda like what happened to Deadeye Rifle's "sniper" shot - because people whine when they get hit by a single-shot, high-damage skill and take a boat-load of damage even though they've built glass cannon.

Heaven forbid glass cannon builds should be punished for not having taken any defensive options.

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@Alex.4982 said:Fingers crossed for a rework similar to what Rev, Beserker, and Scrapper all got. Or even just a weapon rework like they did with guardian staff.

Swap traps to a system alike wards like gw1 elementalist had.

Buffing bow while inside ward, punishing enemies coughtbon wards, so many kewl mechanics could had been done.

Use f1 to pull and tount and try to force to fight ur opponents in wards.

Wards defense, offense, support.

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