Perhaps this is the best time to buff bows/bow skills?

Rangers main function is as some sort of support unit, rather is be as a condition spammer or interupter. These days though, monking has become so good that condition spamming has become uneffective, just as hex spamming has become uneffective. Thumpers are used because in order to take out characters you need to bypass the stronger monk healing abilities with brute damage rather than the slow damaging of conditions. The thumper is born! Thumpers are prefered because they put more taxation on the monks rather than condition spamming. While being pounded on by a thumper they need to be more on their toes. The monk gets hit by a poison arrow and leaves it up to the other monk to remove it. Bows dont need to be buffed, if anything monking abilities need to be nerfed. But....... that won't happen .

Should sheer damage not be an option with bows as well? Just for thought, rangers are the only melee/ranged class that can't apply a deep wound with their class weapon.

those conditions do more damage then most other builds, iv found....20 damage a second+the damage from the bow is a lot :P

Plus rangers have the range advantage. They can cripple and whittle down people before they can get into spell range. Even more so if the ranger uses the environment effectively.
Rangers are more strategy than brute force. Builds have been made to allow rangers to play in a brute force style and that's quite okay as a lot of professions can use their secondary to create that playstyle.

Bunny Thumpers (Rangers with Hammers and pets) with RaO, Trappers with staffs.

A moron, maybe?

Touchers are fine to use another weapon, but not thumpers or trappers? Hypocrite much? Not to mention touchers are a horrible, horrible build that no self respecting player should run.

Yes experimentation is great .. just not when it is a random pug. Had a r/mes in a mission group I was a mesmer. Couldn't figure out why my degens were so short ... TADA!!!!!!! The r/mes was playing his secondary as a primary>.<

If Anet is going to do anything to a bow .. any chance we will EVER have a visible string?

I loved touch rangers because they caused so much outrage..I laughed and laughed as people got hotter and hotter under the collar...

[skill]Rampage as one[/skill]
Why go 15-28 when you can do 1 damage less in exchange for 16 armor?

nerf spears...and expertise. Kthx anet for making bows useless.

So in other words, you want it to be the *only* primary attribute that *only* works on the primary profession's skills? Strength works with any attack skill (R, A, P, D), Leadership works with any shout (W, R), Fast Casting works with any spell, Mysticism works with any enchantment (M, Me, A, N, E). Making it work with just Ranger skills would cripple it and make it worse than any other primary attribute... except maybe Soul Reaping.

Nightfall gave us some of the best bow attacks yet (Burning Arrow, Screaming Shot, Forked Arrow, Crossfire, Prepared Shot). I don't even B/P anymore unless I'm in Cantha (where AoE is king) because these skills are so much better in comparison when you need to deal with fewer but stronger targets.

Divine Favor M I RITE?

Rangers with bows are still used in PvP, but mainly as skirmishers. The disruption/pressure available with a thumper is significantly more, unless you were running a heavy condition build.

Bows totally arnt useless.... I have a Warrior which is up close melee, I have a Rituralist which is a caster and i have a ranger which is long range....why would i wana use a hammer for my ranger wen i have a Warrior already?

Because it's stronger.

Nothing wrong with a ranger not using a bow. I always use a bow personally (unless I'm using my BM build, then its the staff all the way) but many people don't want to use a bow. In fact I'm sure I remember way back before Factions that people wanted daggers added for Rangers to use. If Rangers *must* always use a bow, then we should tell people off for using bows on other classes for pulling purposes, or for using swords on touch-eles or anything else like that.

I'm not good with builds, I make mine up and get by but have no outstanding ones, but some of the best come from trying random weird things. If the player can play the build, it doesn't matter what weapon they use.

Am I the only one here that PvP's with an R/A using Expertise and Daggers?

Please say no.

Nerfing expertise would hurt my feelings. A lot.

the only reason rangers are used for anything other then being a ranger is based on armor and the bonus it gives them against elemental damage, lastly epertise gives them both energy reduction and good evaiding against attacks

they are rangers, not archer
You want to bash power ranger for using giant robot too??
(and todays ranger carry a gun )
we have mes using sword and axe for IW, monk use axe for that 20% enchantment, assassin using crit+barrage....why limit ranger with bows??

People think from an unusual direction, that is why we have all this fun possibilities

I don't want to see rangers limited to bows, but FFS it's their primary weapon, so they should be the most powerful for a ranger to wield. There is similar problem with warriors and scythes. They haven't become that popular yet, but there are warrior scythe builds (think Warrior's Endurance + strength & scythe attack skills) that output more raw damage than the warrior's own class weapons, and you get the benefit of multiple target strikes with the scythe. I sure as heck don't want to see this build get nerfed, but there's something just not right when a class is more effective weilding another class' weapon.

It's a shame you can't do A/D. I think Crit Strikes + Scythe Mastery would be the win.

yea also nerf Fast Casting such that it only affects mesmer skills. :/ or soul reaping that it only affects dying minions. :/

When rangers lose the "range" aspect, they become suspect to things that affect warriors/sins/Dervs.

I mean things like Weakness, Cripple, Slowdown hexes, element of suprise (Because thumper builds are extremely predicable)