bow of truth for support fb in wvw

[Stand The Wall.6987]

just ran the maths, looks like it can get over 10k heals per charge. worth it?

[RabbitUp.8294]

Number-wise, it's very close to Druid's Rejuvenating Tides. Bow's total is 3480 (2.25) to Tides' 3250 (2.5). Bow is slightly better at low healing power, at Tides is less that 150 more healing with 1500 heal.

There are other difference, of course, Bow has 1200 range while Tides is PBAoE, and Bow takes significantly longer to complete and is unaffected by quickness. That last part is quite important, as it means your allies will have to stay inside a relatively small area for 4.5 seconds to get healed.

I think it's undertuned currently. It's practically a heal for your utility slot, which is not something you see in the game elsewhere, but its use is very limited. I don't really appreciate the charge mechanic for this skill, I would much rather have a 30s hard cooldown that channels significantly faster, less than 3s. In a perfect world, our tome could compete with druid's Celestial Avatar without needing Bow, and Bow would be an actual useful skill.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

I don't think its necessary for the animation to complete faster. if youre pushing through a choke, chances are most people will dodge at the right time and not get severely damaged, so over healing would be a waste in other words. how it is now, it would be spread out a bit (random number, i'll say each 5 person batch will get about 2.5k?) which would help save a bit of resources for other classes (heal rev for example). there are situations where you could get the full 4.5 seconds channel of on 5 ppl but they would be rare. anyway just thoughts.

[RabbitUp.8294]

That's the thing with spirit weapons, though, their usage relies of extremely niche situations. Do we need a skill that only works on chokes? Even the scenario where you are overhealing people so you want the heals to be more spread is niche. At the same time, not being able to heal those that took damage quickly enough is an actual problem, so you are better off using the skill proactively as damage mitigation, and that's where you need to worry about overhealing. And I don't think the game currently avoids wasting heals by selecting new targets to heal, I think it just heals those standing closer to the centre of the AoE, but I could be wrong about that.

Then, there's the other thing. You are wasting a utility slot for raw healing, and one that is not the most flexible skill either. Why not take Merciful Intervention that brings better utility both for yourself and others? Or Wall of Reflection, that will probably mitigate more damage for more people than Bow could heal, especially in choke points.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

hmm I think perhaps youre right. would be nice if the game healed "intelligently". don't think wall of reflect is good though since in between guard+warrio bubbles as a ranged player its hard to get anything to land. played for quite a while and projectiles are pretty much dead dps now, which is bad imo. hum, still gonna use it sometimes lol just for the hell of it. get em bow of troof!

[Aeolus.3615]

@Stand The Wall.6987, WoR might not be good cause the reflected damage isnt based on the damge of the atacked but intead of the guardian, if some one raflects a 2k-3k hit, u would reflect max 1k damage back.

MOst time my WoR was reflecting 300 to 1k max damage back to range sources, and extremelly rarelly cause most every one is using aoe skills at range.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

yeah WoR is great if you can out range all the other projectile reflects, and you gots permeating wrath :.3