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Point Blank Shot needs to do 0 (or at least very little) damage


Devildoc.6721

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@Devildoc.6721 said:If that's true how come ele's aren't spamming gust off cooldown? Most staff eles pretty much camp fire attune unless they need heals I'll grant but there's use in air for static field (and the combo of static field + gust isn't bad). I think more people would recognize it as a dps loss and stop using it off cooldown.

You answered your own question. The kind of player who uses PBS as just another hit on a ranger is the kind of player who camps fire on an ele. They don't use gust off cooldown because they're not using air at all, because if you use air without understanding it, you die fast and often. You can use fire without understanding it and mostly still survive. The same kind of player uses stomp inappropriately on a warrior and illusory wave inappropriately on a mesmer. They're already not paying attention to the DPS of their skills, because they're not yet experienced enough to understand what they need to pay attention to at all.

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Well you’re in luck OP, as it turns out Point Blank shot is already a damage decrease for the LB, especially at mid to long range.

Removing the damage won’t fix stupid, and as other people said already I’m sure part of the problem is the conditioning other games have done, where your auto should only be used when there’s nothing else to use, which is just wrong in GW2.

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@Devildoc.6721 said:

Here's an idea. It does only token damage unless you interrupt a skill with it. Then it deals more damage than it does now. Kind of a savage shot/punishing shot mechanic. It'd reward strategic use and punish random use in a way every ranger could visually see.

And this is the problem I have with your entire thread, OP. This entire thread is based on the premise that amateur longbow rangers are pressing 4 on the instinct that it does more damage than an autoattack. What makes you think they'll actually notice the smaller number?

If they'd been paying attention (hell, if they'd even bothered to read the tooltips for both abilities to begin with) the reality that PBS does less damage than a well-managed autoattack should already be obvious. The floating numbers over the enemy's head should also have made it obvious as well. I highly doubt that the kind of player you're complaining about will actually learn anything from the suggested more-damage-on-interrupt mechanic, as they're just not taking in all the information the game makes apparent about that skill to begin with.

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@Kulvar.1239 said:Changing the effect of the skill to

Range <600 : Knockback 600Range 600+ : Knockdown 1s

Would solve the issue in most cases

That's even better than my idea. Let's go with that. It'd still need to be renamed though. My moneys still on Punishing Shot unless folks can come up with some good amalgamation of PBS + Punishing.

@"Devildoc.6721" said:So you're just going with "your average player is dumber than a box of rocks, and there's nothing we can do to help them, they will fail events unless you can carry them so enjoy your 2 hour waits to try again or anet nerfs the event" .. great.

Has it been any other way? I'm sorry you seem to be an outlier in that every single ranger player you come across is bottom of the barrel so to speak.

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@Shadowcat.2680 said:

@"Dadnir.5038" said:

The game is already 7 years and the issue with
point blank shot
exist since release. If you really don't want people to use it abusively in PvE, you have to really make it "point blank" which mean melee range (just like updraft or illusionary wave). If you want to just make PvE a less frustrating place to play, the knockdown effect is a simple fix.

Anet has stated before that skill functionality cannot be split between the modes. Only number splits are possible (base damage, power coefficient, cooldown, etc).

And how could it possibly be wrong to have Point blank shot actually be "point blank" in all game modes? Excuse me but knocking back a target that's at 1200 or 900 (or even 600 range) range can't really be considered "point blank". Plus, having no weapon skill that move forcibly a target from it's spot isn't a necessicity, granted that rangers already have access to both fear and taunt via their pets, which make a knockdown a reasonable option. I don't think that replacing a knockback by a knockdown would make PvP worse than it is already right now, in fact it might make it a slightly better place to play.

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@Dadnir.5038My post said nothing of the right or wrong of changing PBS; it merely informed that such a change would affect all modes. I find the premise of the OP's point rather silly (bad players don't pay attention to a skill so let's change the skill they're already not paying attention to).

As to changing PBS in sPvP and WvW, knockdown instead of knockback would be far less value. Knockback has the potential to knock enemies out of capture circles, off cliffs, away from downed allies, etc.

I don't see fear and taunt as relevant here. The meta sPvP/WvW builds don't use wolf, Beastly Warden, or Protect Me. Even if they did, fear and taunt (can be cleansed) are not nearly as valuable as knockback for positioning enemies.

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If only ranger's longbow was interesting and fun to play... Right now the only 2 reasons people use longbows on rangers are:

  1. Rapid fire + sic'em in PvP
  2. Fashion Wars in open world PvE, since 99% of shortbows look wimpy.Ranger's longbow is slow, boring, has zero burst and no sustained damage and doesn't even pierce since Marksmanship trait rework, you know, as an extra middle finger whenever your cc gets wasted on trash mobs. So we, the poor, miserable people that chose rangers as their very first characters and still hold them dear, deep in their hearts, are spamming PBS because trolling other players temporarily disguises all the rage and sorrow inside us, that would otherwise take over our minds and drive us to depression.

Please forgive us. Because we lost all hope of longbows becoming useful and fun long ago. But so many of those longbow skins look awesome.

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@"Devildoc.6721" said:So you're just going with "your average player is dumber than a box of rocks, and there's nothing we can do to help them, they will fail events unless you can carry them so enjoy your 2 hour waits to try again or anet nerfs the event" .. great.

More with "Hey, can I show you a couple neat tricks you can do with that longbow?" being more helpful to both the inexperienced ranger and the people around them than "change the basic functionality of an important skill in a way that will be every bit as invisible to the inexperienced player as the information that would help them avoid that mistake already is."

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The slow Auto on LB gives you room to squeeze a PBS in there between the Auto without loosing much if any cast time thus giving you a tad more damage in that short period of time than just letting the auto go.Essentially giving you 3 attacks in 2 seconds rather than 2 attacks in 1,5 seconds.Same thing applies with Hunters shot too hence where the appearance of spamming skills comes from.In reality a lot of Rangers are just trying to get as many attacks in as they can between Long Range Shots due to LB auto having a longer cast time than most other weapons.

A lot of Rangers, myself included use PBS to knock an enemy away to take advantage of the LB's bonus damage to ranged foes, further away = more damage and a lot of instances I've used this and screwed up someone elses attack is when they come out of knowhere, dashing in with a charge skill after I've popped my PBS.This results in the enemy being knocked away before they can land the hit.. annoying for them but not the fault of the Ranger as the Ranger often times doesn't even know they are there or about to charge in, we're not mind readers.I also use PBS as an interrupt as well, specially against things like Mordrem Thrashers to stop their healing AoE.

If Rangers spamming PBS is such a common stereotype in Gw2 I have to wonder why so many people don't expect it and save their skills for after the target has been expectedly knocked away.If you expect it yet it keeps messing up your skills then as annoying as it is you have to take some blame for doing exactly the same skill spamming you're blaming the Ranger for.I've been in that situation as well.

Taking the damage away from PBS isn't going to stop Rangers using it, they'll still go for the Range bonus and they'll still use it for interupts.I'm not saying there aren't bad Rangers in the game who use PBS poorly, we've all been there and there are times we do it intentionally to mess with people ;)Lets be honest anything that can get knock around is hardly something of vital importance that you absolutely need to kill to get some super rare loot, all those kinds of enemies can't be knocked around thanks to break bars so if it's getting knocked around then it's guaranteed to be just a trash mob.It's not that often any knockback or pull attacks can screw up something of actual significance.

But if it's so common and expected then it's not like you can't do anything about it by using your own skills more carefully.My second character of choice is a pure melee Necromancer so I've dealt with Rangers knocking my targets away, nothing a good pull won't solve or chasing it down in Reaper Shroud.Only way I see this being a real problem is if your carelessly spamming your skills as well, or so focused min-maxing your DPS with your skill rotation you're not actually paying attention to the fight itself which would explain why glass melee zergo types still cant dodge and are usually downed half the time in much of the group content :P

@WolandPL.4280 said:Ranger's longbow is slow, boring, has zero burst and no sustained damage and doesn't even pierce since Marksmanship trait rework.

It does pierce if you trait for it.

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I've never had issues with Point Blank as a melee.

I mean the reason a lot of melees have what is basically a 'chase' attack is for the reasons like running enemies and enemy knockbacks. And considering how LB has terrible cooldowns on skills, I understand why some of them use it, especially since LB3 is a stealth move that does absolutely nothing PvE wise aside from break aggro so LB is already 1 skill too short on a Ranger.

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@Devildoc.6721 said:I never see the mesmer skill used in PVE events. I do see, and hear, a LOT of point blank shots. Trust me, I know the difference between Illusory wave, a level up explosion, and point blank shot. In virtually every case, it's a point blank shot. Second most often it's a warrior with peak performance using kick instead of or in addition to bolas. But that's not usually that often.

You're blind then. Mesmers run around with greatsword in open pve A LOT. Whenever one is close to me, it's only a matter of time before it pushes something away from me. Except, it isn't just one target, it's the entire fucking mob.

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@Lazze.9870 said:

@Devildoc.6721 said:I never see the mesmer skill used in PVE events. I do see, and hear, a LOT of point blank shots. Trust me, I know the difference between Illusory wave, a level up explosion, and point blank shot. In virtually every case, it's a point blank shot. Second most often it's a warrior with peak performance using kick instead of or in addition to bolas. But that's not usually that often.

You're blind then. Mesmers run around with greatsword in open pve A LOT. Whenever one is close to me, it's only a matter of time before it pushes something away from me. Except, it isn't just one target, it's the entire kitten mob.

I can approve this. Pretty much every push skill in this game is misused by noobs. PBS and mesmer GS5 are just the most used ones.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I dont use LB in open world cept to tag in massive metas. It took a while for me to overcome the fear of melee range as a ranger. I think thats what is wrong a lot of players see the range weapon as safe. And it is safer when soloing i mean how much more safe can you get than having a pet tank and you just stand there plucking away from a distance. But yeah its annoying in groups to have a mob go flying off right as you are gonna land a maul. Games like wow have hunters that stand at range with pets that tank all the agro, i think thats where the longbow mentality comes from. I know it did for me when i started playing. I was like oh cool i can be a hunter again!

Then reality set in and i realized in order to do end game i have to learn how to dodge and play in melee.

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I main a ranger for 5+ years and know when to use PBS and when not to use it. I don't want it changed to a knockdown. Please leave it as it is.

EDIT: yes, as a ranger main I, too, get annoyed when other rangers mis-use PBS. I still don't believe it is sufficient reason to change the function of the skill.

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You're not gonna see as many Mesmer's knockback waves because it has a short range. Much shorter than the 1200 range of the rest of Mesmer GS attacks. So while they're all standing at a distance it wont hit so they wont use it. Give the wave a 1200 range and Ill bet you anything you start seeing a bunch of mesmers hitting it on CD because it hits at the range they're standing at now.

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@"Devildoc.6721" said:After years of watching rangers point blank shot out of their own barrage, I'm convinced it's the only way to make your average ranger see the skill as a tactical utility rather than attack they should spam off cooldown.

Nothing is going to make these people realize that situational does not mean "every situation".You could have it deal direct damage to the player and they would still use it off cooldown. Look how many many Rangers melt themselves with their own Rapid Fire when a reflect pops up.This low IQ play is unfortunately endemic to the class.

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@Gabrya.6297 said:

@Devildoc.6721 said:You could have it deal direct damage to the player and they would still use it off cooldown. Look how many many Rangers melt themselves with their own Rapid Fire when a reflect pops up.This low IQ play is unfortunately endemic
to the class.
*

*to the longbow(on ranger), FTFY ;) .

No.... but if that makes you feel better....

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@mindcircus.1506 said:

@Devildoc.6721 said:You could have it deal direct damage to the player and they would still use it off cooldown. Look how many many Rangers melt themselves with their own Rapid Fire when a reflect pops up.This low IQ play is unfortunately endemic
to the class.
*

*to the longbow(on ranger), FTFY ;) .

No.... but if that makes you feel better....

that's a bit insulting all the ranger men....

That's not because the longbow is really bad design that the class is braindead...look at the warrior with the rifle its even worse in berseker spec ^^Some weapons are braindead on every profession and that don't make the whole class dumb...okay warrior is maybe not a good example but still the revenant hammer etc...

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