Shortbow is bad - perspective of a simple layman

[Kain Francois.4328]

Shortbow #1 does extremely low duration of bleed. It pierces if traited. Has potential, yet horribly undertuned.

Shortbow #2 does bleed for slightly longer but has an annoying cast time that feels awkward to cast and only hits one target.

Shortbow #3 is like shortbow #2 but it applies torment... Except that it's never successful

All 3 of these skills are basically "do condi dmg to single target with nothing else lul". These skills are waaaay too hard to actually land on a target. And even if you do land them, they just feel like they are so insignificant, they are not worth the trouble. This isn't an issue of "not enough dps" more o that it just feels like bad design to have three skill slots taken up by simple condi damage without any other effects. It feels like three skill slots wasted.

Shortbow #4 can apply slow in an aoe, which is surprisingly useful. However the animation feels awkward for some reason. It feels like it lacks feedback. If the skill is a pulsing aoe for 4 seconds, why is there only a single rain of arrows? And why does the fiery smoke go away so fast? It's the most underwhelming pulse animation in the game.

Shortbow #5 is just about the only good skill in my opinion, even if it lacks damage. Nice animation, hits multiple foes, good knockdown.

tl;dr: Auto, SB#2, and SB#3 are not distinct enough from each other, all they do is damage. SB#2 feels stiff, SB#3 is impossible to hit. SB#4 needs its animation reworked.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

Is this from a PvE or pvp/wvw perspective?

[Kain Francois.4328]

@LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:Is this from a PvE or pvp/wvw perspective?

PvE. But based on what I know, it can apply to PvP as well.

Shortbow is a boring weapon. So boring.

[Dace.8173]

I'll tackle this for PvE as, at present, I don't see much of a need to talk about it for PvP.

Shattershot hits 5 people, Bloodbane Path 3, and Sevenshot 1. Shattershot and Bloodbane Path aren't that hard to hit with, in my experience. Sevenshot is tricky, as it is with any shot that you have to actually aim, no matter the profession. The more you practice with aiming shots the better you get with it, which extends to pretty much any such mechanic. I've found myself hitting with Sevenshot pretty reliably. Then again I've also found myself hitting with Deflecting Shot more often too so I imagine it's just the practice I put into the task. Shattershot has a radius of 120 and I've used it to hit things hiding behind cover from the explosion it does.

As for the animations, that's a matter of personal taste, as I have no issue with any of the animations. I actually find Bloodbane Path kinda cool as I fire arrows into a portal that come out and hits my target. I've never really taken issue with the animation of Spiritcrush. shrugs

I do feel that shortbow is underpowered. Shattershot should be slightly faster, likely more in line with how fast you can fire the Ranger's shortbow. The targeting of Bloodbane Path could stand to be tweaked a bit. Finally, Scorchrazor could stand to have a backward evade/roll. Or maybe add it to Sevenshot since folks have problems hitting with it. In either case I do feel the weapon needs some form of mobility. I don't really think the first three abilities are waste slots. I do find them to be fairly distinct, in both animation and what they are doing. I'm not sure what you mean by they do nothing more than just damage since they are also applying conditions. However, damage is the overall point. I think if you get better with it you find that it's first three abilities do in fact do more than just damage and condi. You can use Shattershot to get people who are to close to their cover in a way that you wouldn't with Revenant's other range option. Bloodbane doesn't require you to be looking at your target to hit and is great when you're on the move.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

@Kain Francois.4328 said:

@LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:Is this from a PvE or pvp/wvw perspective?

PvE. But based on what I know, it can apply to PvP as well.

Shortbow is a boring weapon. So boring.

Well, from a PvE perspective I’d disagree that it’s a bad weapon. It’s a pretty strong condi weapon with great cleave and fairly high single target (condi) burst when used properly. The piercing trait makes all of the skills hit multiple foes and with good positioning you can have high single target spike and still manage to apply a handful of condis to several others nearby.

From an endgame perspective it’s fine/excellent. If for some reason you want to only camp one weaponset it’s actually higher dps than Mace/Axe on large+ hitboxes (and ofc the two of them combined are higher dps on all hitbox sizes). In PvE I really like shortbow; it’s my main weapon for open world most of the time because it has higher burst and area damage than mace/axe most of the time, plus its ranged. I can understand why you might find it boring, but in PvE you don’t really need crazy defense/utility generally, so for a pretty much pure dps weapon I don’t really mind that it does lack that utlility. However, I do think Mace and shortbow both desperately need an evade to make them more viable in non-PvE content

[Kain Francois.4328]

@Dace.8173 said:I don't really think the first three abilities are waste slots.

Let's compare it to other damage sources.

Rev Hammer:Auto: Damage + GUARANTEED PROJECTILE FINSIHERHammer#2: Cascading big damage, NOT A PROJECTILEHammer#3: Damage+EVADEHammer#4: PROJECTILE BLOCKHammer#5: AoE Knockdown

Ranger Shortbow:Auto: DamageSB#2: Point-Blank DamageSB#3: self-Swiftness + EVADESB#4: Cripple + BleedSB#5: Stun

Warrior Greatsword:Auto: VulnGS#2: DamageGS#3: Damage + EVADEGS#4: Cripple + ProjectileGS#5: Mobility

See the problem now? Others have evade, while Rev Shortbow is just weak...

[Dace.8173]

@Kain Francois.4328 said:

See the problem now? Others have evade, while Rev Shortbow is just weak...

Let's be clear, I am not saying it's a perfect weapon. It's just not as bad as you claim. Warrior greatsword and Revenant hammer are not really a counter-argument. They're both entirely different class of weapons. Their weapon class alone means they will out damage the shortbow, well before we look at the individual abilities. Therefore they don't support your argument. Though, as an aside, hammer is an extremely slow weapon. It hits hard but it is slloowwwww. Drop the Hammer is avoidable if one is paying attention.

That leaves us with Ranger shortbow. I've already said that Revenant needs to have it's bow more in line with Ranger when it comes to weapon speed. I have also already said that Revenant needs an evade. With that said, you are underselling what Revenant can do with their short bow. I don't always need to be looking directly at my target to it which you need to do with Ranger. Ranger shortbow only has one shot that hits more than one person. Revenant has four. You can't hit people behind cover with Ranger's short bow. Nor can you be running away and still landing shots unless you are backing away. Also, last I checked, Revenant's short bow out damages in all but one ability. Therefore, it does more damage to more people than you are going to get with Ranger. Why one would ignore that fact is beyond me but in my book more targets and more damage is better than flashy looks.

The weapon needs work but is NOT as bad as you make it out to be.

[Dace.8173]

Actually, having looked more deeply at the weapon to compare it to Ranger and Thief for the purpose of this conversation, if all they added was an evade to the weapon the rest of it would be fine. I could live with it being slightly slower (still faster than Theif though) since it does pack a punch for its weapon class.