Shortbow doesnt feel viable

[Rezzet.3614]

maybe make the  casts instant  and the chain reactions be more of field extensions as you overlay them ontop of each other? 

currently it just doesn't  work on anything that isn't standing still While Requiring You to almost stand still to stack your fields ,  also one of the  fields should have been a boonstrip , maybe make it so if you mix all fields at once i guess

[Rezzet.3614]

to Elaborate my conclussion comes from PvP and WvW , i can see short term shortbow use having some success in sPvP as  players are forced to engage in closed  circles 

useless in WvW because of Boonball meta , said boonball being all about constant boons and nonstop mobility  and mostly having 1200+ range pressure 

[Zzik.5873]

The only good thing anet could do with this is either dont give engi new weapons XD
Or scrap that kitten and make an actual real weapon mthat can work in gw2.

[Atmaweapon.7345]

I decided to take a crack at a rework while keeping in theme with the weapon:

Chain Reaction: Most shortbow skill will now leave an Canister on impact. Certain shortbow will consume your own canisters within a 900 range radius of the target area to create a chain reaction and enhance their own effects. Up to 4 of your own Canisters can exist at once before being replaced.

Attacks are now as follows

1. Attack chain: Magnetic arrow- Dual hazard - Skypiercer.
   Magnetic arrow- Fires a shot that marks a the target it hits for 6 seconds and deals an additional hit to the target and nearby targets. 100% Projectile finisher. Initial arrow is unblockable, but additional hits are not.
   Dual hazard - Fires two shots into the air that fall and pierce the target, inflicting Vulnerability x2. Hits all nearby enemies when attacking a marked target.
   Skypiercer- Fires three shots into the air that pierce the target, inflicting Vulnerability x3 and leaving behind a Canister. Hits all nearby enemies when attacking a marked target.
    
2. Homing Rocket- 3 charges - 4 second cooldown
   Fires a homing rocket at the target that leaves behind an Canister on impact. Ignores Blind when fired at marked target. Explosion. Blast finisher. Non-projectile.
    
3. Blasting Sphere- 2 charges - 10 second cooldown
   Fires a shot at the target area in a 360 radius, creating an explosion that grants nearby allies Might and Fury while damaging and burning enemies, and leaves a burning field on the ground that continues to apply these effects and leaves behind a Canister on impact. Explosion. Combo field: Fire
   Chain reaction: Increases impact damage and Triggers an additional explosion within the burning field on each pulse, up to the number of Canisters consumed.
    
4. Dark Matter shot- 2 charges - 12 second cooldown
   Fires a shot at the target area, granting allies within Barrier and Aegis, removing up to 3 boons from enemies and leaving behind a 360 radius field provides Barrier and removes 1 condition from allies on each pulse for 5 seconds and leaves behind a Canister on impact. Combo field: Dark
   Chain reaction: Every Canister consumed will cause the attack to heal for 25% of Barrier provided and cause the field to pulse .5 seconds of Regneration, Vigor, Resolution, and Swiftness to allies.
    
5. Spacetime Collapser 2 charges - 25 second cooldown
   Fires a shot at the target area that Stuns enemies for 2 seconds and leaves behinds a 360 radius field that pulses Slow to enemies and Superspeed to allies for 3 seconds and leaves behind a Canister on impact. Upon expiration, the field collapses on itself, pulling all enemies towards the center. Ethereal combo field
   Chain reaction: Every canister consumed increases the radius of the field by 60, up to 600, and increases the duration of Slow, and Superspeed pulses. Deals additional breakbar damage on impact for each Canister consumed.

With these changes, Shortbow becomes much more flexible and straightforward.

• The auto-attack chain being split into a 3 part attack helps with creating a flow to the weapon as Engineer doesn't have any ranged chain attacks outside of traited Photon Forge and allows interplay with the Chain reaction mechanic itself by creating a canister.
• The auto attack now hits multiple times and triggers Firearms bleed traits in the same vein as Virtuoso builds.
• Homing Rocket's purpose is simple internal synergy; you fire Rockets into fields created by your other attacks and get Canisters to spend on other fields.
• Manual detonations have been removed in favor of an ammunition system. This allows you to use each attack on cooldown while keeping an extra use in reserve if you need to chain it properly.
• Chain reactions themselves fit neatly into Damage/Healing/Crowd Control instead of being all over the place.
• Chain reactions are more distinct from their initial attack so that they're more flexible in use. You don't have to chain everything to get Might stacks for example, that's instead handled by blasting your fire field.
• Shortbow is now capable of providing boon strip outside of mines.
• Boon coverage enhanced. Shortbow is now capable of Might and Fury by itself and brings everything that Medkit does, allowing you different options as a heal, and providing a distinct tradeoff between Shortbow vs Mace/Shield.
• Names changed so that the Engineer isn't ripping off of other professions again.
• All in all, the Shortbow becomes the most adaptable weapon in Engineer's arsenal with the canister system allowing you to focus on the needs of any given build or situation.

 

Edited November 30, 2023 by Atmaweapon.7345

[Hamberg.2538]

The whole weapon needs to be reimagined. Engineer doesn't need another kit with no versatility. The shortbow needs other ways of doing what it was designed to do. With the current design every other weapon will always outperform it, unless it can provide stab, perma full barrier and do a lot of dmg.

On actual critisism, the wind up of the skills are way too long and combined with having to wait for the arrow to drop down after the cast just makes any reactive play in wvw or pvp is left to be desired. On top of that you want at least couple of them down for that chain reaction gives the opponent the chance to move away quite easily from the arrows. The bow not having cripple, stun or immobilize built in makes any chain reaction on an opponent almost impossible. Same goes for supporting. With the fast pace of the game, people dashing around, blinking and running around with either swiftness or superspeed makes stationary puddles of boons, healing and barrier very undesirable.

If the current design is kept and made to fit in, it would require some cc and the radius should be made bigger and the cast should be faster.

The roleplay of the weapon is sick tho.

[Artemis.8034]

On 11/29/2023 at 11:55 AM, Zzik.5873 said:

The only good thing anet could do with this is either dont give engi new weapons XD
Or scrap that kitten and make an actual real weapon mthat can work in gw2.

No the best idea would be scrap the sb and give us a real weapon swap!

[Rezzet.3614]

i think my proposed suggestions in some other threads would make it viable

chain reaction  inverted , instead of manual trigger make it a ground targeted skill and have the aoes trigger/extend  reactions as you over lap them onto each other , this tackles both combat speed and the weak base damage output of sb as the extending of chain  adds both  effect duration and  chain effects as you mix more aoe and would allow for boonstrip/booncorrupt to be added as the final chain pulse reaction if you do a full combo of all 2-5 skills 

 

thing was so bad it made me quit the game right as i was started crafting legendary gear lmao

[Custodio.6134]

That´s actually basically what i suggested in the original feedback-thread. 

The effects that shortbow delivers as a support-weapon are completely viable, as you have everything you need. Barrier, healing, cleansing, and even some CC/superspeed. But for evaluating the value, i´ll only consider barrier, healing and cleansing, since these are atm the main aspects of a second-support profession. 


the biggest issue that shortbow has is its unreliability. The cast-times on the "drop" of the canisters is already difficult to use, especially in WvW. Just dropping one canister on max-range, while moving towards it (out of combat without swiftness, or in combat with swiftness) will basically result in arriving at the "impact site" exactly when it drops. Although for some people this may sound perfect, this does leave absolutely ZERO room to add another canister for a chain-reaction, let alone 2 more or all of them for a "massive burst". 

The cooldowns themselves actually align pretty well. In a WvW-scenario, assuming you are in a coordinated squad and are able to predict your squad's movement well, you can place for example: Skill 3 --> Skill 2 --> detonate 2, then Skill 4 --> skill 2 --> detonate 2. The cooldowns suggest, that you primarily want to use skill2 as "detonator", and skill 3 or 4 as your main "chain-effect". They are also relatively short if you play that way, and changing the cooldowns while keeping their relative CD intact will not change much. Especially since inbetween you will still swap to medkit and Elixir Gun frequently, so you´re probably not gonna be able to utilize everything on CD either way. 

so, how to address the issues: 

since the weapon was so unreliable, it has been held back massively, making it a bit hard to judge the numbers. But it felt like that on the numbers-/scaling-side, it actually felt quite balanced. 
So instead of changing any numbers, i would adress the reliability-issues as top-priority. There´s a few main ways that come to my mind that could solve the issues: 
 

• instead of making the canisters "place first, then detonate manually", let them detonate immediately on impact. 
• since you will have immediate detonations, the detonated canisters leave a field behind (similar to combo-fields), that will cause a chain-reaction when the next canister gets placed into it. It will feel like an automatic combo-field->finisher combo, but they don´t necessarily have to be combo fields at all (although this synergizes very well with kinetic accelerators and relic of karakosa)
• increase the effect-area of both, the detonation-/chain-reaction's effect by a big amount (at LEAST 600 radius, maybe even 800) to reduce the skill-barrier and make the effects actually connect to their target reliably (as i´ve said before, reliability is the main issue shortbow has in this state)

this would in my opinion be the absolute minimum of required changes to make shortbow valuable as a support-weapon. 

[Peter.3901]

Or just make them spawn cool turrets instead.