Bows: are they underpowered?

As for the idea of straight up damage and spiking from a ranger, those are obviously doable by the ranger without an increased DPS. The niches that the ranger fills makes the profession very useable, save for where major care must be taken in order to make the damage output of a ranger(s) increase at the sacrifice of team effectiveness, as in Orders spiking. The necro can play a better role in most places.

Also, the places where a ranger excells at in damage output almost always consist of spiking and some form of spell buff with the group being almost totally filled by rangers. B/P being my topic of choice. A total ranger powered bulldozer build for PvE. In PvP, the ranger spike isn't as threatening, and thus the ranger has to play to its strengths as mentioned already by others.

This goes for its solo action abilities as well, but as for a ranger build focused on pure damage output on the merit of the bow, that is nearly non existent. Yet, the ranger having a few more heavy damage skills couldn't hurt. I'm hoping that IAS prep makes a difference, yet hope isn't facts.

The fact is that currently the ranger does little damage of consequence on its own outside of the fields of degen/conditions. And that's the bottom line.

Even if its not high dmg, but has lots of conditions with it to ensure proper dmg, Hunter shot + kindle arrows, followed by poison, could eat up to 60% to 70% of ur foes HP!
Idealy 1 of the skills i fancy but not use because of the low dmg is the needle shot, the ability to instantly recharge is perfect especially when u r opponent's health is below 50%, but with as low as 29dmg when u have full Marksmanship its not tempting, i wish they review it and release the restriction on the dmg when using that skill.

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Needling shot + stacked buffs or Dazed = win. Gets nice in Realm of Torment with Lightbringer when you can end up doing about 70-90 damage per shot, makes for a brilliant finisher when they use Call to the Torment.

The Rapid Fire prep will be interesting i guess. It pretty much begs to be used for infinite energy build with Prep Shot and attack skills spammed on recharge.

Needling + Incendiary arrow = hack (ok... bad joke here)

Its juts to see players or monster being interrupted constantly while their health is below 50%

I dont know if this was mentioned in this post (I read most of the replies but not all) but the damage output also has alot to do with the type of damage bows do, Peircing Damage. If you shuffle over to guildwiki and look at damage types; the list of things vulnerable to Peircing damage is VERY short, where as the list of things vulnerable to slashing damage is VERY long. Doesnt make sense to have a bow do slashing damage though.

Anet could do away with the whole "type of damage" thing when it comes to percing, slashing, and blunt (KEEP elemental) but again hammers and bows and spears doing slashing damage would be kinda odd.

I would prefer a SLIGHT decrease in the refire time. Upping base damge would be too much, I wouldnt mind a little love given to the marksmanship line skills

Decrease in refire time? Just use a flatbow with [skill]Read the Wind[/skill]

Insightful post there jrk.... not.

I have often wondered why they implemented so many types of physical damage. It doesn't actually seem like they have any significance in PvE at all, i don't know of any foes that are weaker to Piercing than they are Blunt, unlike Fire compared to Cold. They removed Evade from the game to make balancing skills easier... so why not simplify the damage types, Shields Up affecting Daggers seems a bit stupid and skills like Bladeturn Refrain are completely useless because they're so specific.

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a point that many of you are missing is that the bow is the only weapon that can be DODGED... perhaps the spear too but its much harder to dodge a spear than to dodge a bow...
to counter this you can do 1 of 2 things:
1. get closer to your target, which defeats the whole range advantage
2. use skills that reduce arc, favourable winds and read the wind come to mind, but than you waste 2 rather useless skill slots just so you can actually hit...
add the rather pathetic attack speed of the bow and the lack of a good IAS and you start to understand the problem...

now after we've identified the problem lets see what we think about it:
1. bows specificaly and rangers in general are the most versatile class in gw, can do so many things.
2. bow skills are fit for utility rather than damage however they have some nice damage spells, glass arrows, marauder shot(with a big drawback), melandru's shot and arrows(to some extent, too conditional though), punishing shot(to some extent, aka spike) which are all too conditional to be really good, the rest are mediocre at best
3. why do we bring a ranger into a party? what role do we want it to play? and thus does the bow fit the role we expect the ranger to play? I think that most rangers are used for utility/pressure(conditions and interrupts ffs) and thus the bow fits pretty nicely with them. however the reason rangers arent used as DPS machines is because of the bow characteristics. there is no reason for an archer to have sad damage capabilities outside of a spike just because he can interrupt and cause conditions...
4. if we do improve ranger's damage capabilities would it be too overpowering to have it along with all the other things? perhaps on paper but think practical for a moment, there isnt enough room in your skill bar for both good damage capabilities, condition spreading and interrupting...
lets take a look at the classic damage dealer build
attack skill, attack skill, attack skill(or elite), IAS, speed boost, utility/defense, self heal, res
and lets try to fit a ranger bar for that
distracting shot and savage shot(must haves for any ranger worth his place), whirlind defense(or another defensive stance), troll unguent, res
that's already 5 skills that will be on almost every bow ranger's skill bar. that leaves us 3 skills for IAS, speed boost AND damage.
lets just for the fun of it compare that skill bar with a warrior sword condition spreading pressure bar
crip slash, gash, standing slash(or different attack skill), flail(or frenzy or something), enraging charge(or rush/sprint), heal sig(or lion's comfort), watch yourself(or for great justice or other utility) and res
spam bleeding, cripple and deep wound, not as easily as the ranger but still spammable enough, especially for FGJ. while doing pretty good damage, gash+standing does nice damage AND deep wound! true this build lacks interruption, which can be fit in the utility slot or somewhere else if really neccessary. this build needs to be in melee range, not too much of a problem with a speed boost and crip slash, crippled enemies cant run fast enough. and you got 80+20(physical) armor compared to 70+30(elemental)

kinda hard to see it happen. thus I conclude that a buff to either the bow itself and/or the marksmanship attribute will only add another very basic option to the ranger while not making it overpowered... at the very least I'd rather see a reduction in refire rate(or a good IAS, comparable with aggresive refain) and lower arc for all bows, proportionaly of course and of course a rework of the useless hornbow... and I wont oppose some MINOR buffs to marksmanship, to make it a viable damage dealing attribute like all weapon masteries...

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put sloth hunter's shot on your standard cripshot, and you'll have a build that can do it all. damage is still pretty weak, but sloth hunter's shot is one mean spike, especially on low hp, fleeing opponents.

.......ok I'll admit since playing a ranger I've noticed bows do littile damage compared to other classes. I mean the most + dmge you get with bows are like 30 while other weapons get like 40s and higher, I just think Anet, should decrease the refire rate alittile faster or make the dmge alittile higher then It'll be ok

bows with faster refire rate and higher damage will be overpowered. you won't here me complain, but for the sake of game balance, i cannot agree with it.

Bows can be overpowered atm, Brutal Weapon + Glass Arrows and Dual Shot, Forked Arrow is a lot of damage from a range.

well every weapons can be overpowered if you have the exact build for it, but the problem is they still own even without the exact build, except the bow, I dono it just feels alittile weaker after playing with my other caracs, o well..

Umm.. I may be wrong here, but aren't both sides of this discussion saying the same thing?

"Bow damage sucks, regardless of utility" vs. "We know it sucks, but they have great utility"

Its kind of amusing that this thread is 9 pages of talking about how awesome spears are, yet Paragons are less popular than Ritualists and Mesmers combined. On the other hand, Rangers have always at least been moderately popular. Bows have always done 15-28 damage with 2-2.7 second refire times, and yet people used them... a lot, actually ...for more than two years. Say what you will about their attack skills, but certainly they have only gotten better in each successive campaign.

^true, bow dmge does suck we can all agree on that, and yes it is funny how so many people have rangers, a lot more than Paragons, I think it's basiclley since
-some people might like Ranger armour better
-Rangers class can be with all games, Paragons only NF
-bows are just cool Spears are cool too though....
-rangers can play alittile more "varied" roles from touch rangers, to trappers, beast masters, etc.
-hmmm..
-......
-hmmm...why don't I have a Paragon?

Bow Damage isnt underpowered

15-28dmg is nice + u have different bows to choose from
so u can get +10% AP or better accurecy

and a Bow Combined with barrage cant do as much dmg as an axe sword scythe spear or hammer can do on a 6 man group tbh

and if u combine that with splinter shot woah

35x4x6=840dmg + 6x+17 and 6x15-28 ^^

Thats not all at one enemy and you have to hope that there are 6 or so enemies packed close enoght together to get the full effect. And because a splinter barrager does decent dmg all rangers who want to do good damage need to be splinter barragers? Yes Glass arrows build does good dmg to a single target, but its not something to be in awe about and is that all they got going for them?

And iridescentfyre you got it right both sides are saying the same thing. But the difference is: the side that is saying "We know it sucks, but they have great utility" thinks sucky damage is ok because of the great utility, but that forces people into the utility niche even if they dont want to.

As zling said you cant do dmg and all the other "utility" things on the same skill bar.

the 10% AP on a hornbow is NOT worth the slow as balls refire from the bow. that argument is mute.

Look at the conditions a ranger can apply: poison, bleeding, burning, cripple, dazed, blind. A warrior can apply bleeding, deepwound, cripply, weakness, and knockdown if you want to call it a short condition. so thats 6 vs 4 or 5 depending on how you look at it, yet the difference is the warrior can do amazing damage while applying the conditions. A ranger cannot. Look at deep wond alone in the Eviscerate + executioners strike combo, that hits for close to 300 pts of dmg in less than 2 seconds. And an assasin can apply all the conditions a ranger does PLUS deep wound and knockdown.

You could go with the argument that a ranger can apply conditions rapidly to many enemies, but there are so many good condition removals it can make your mad condition spamming almost mute, or a minor irritation. How many people honestly do: Apply Poison> tab>space> tab>space> tab>space> tab>space> tab>space> tab>space> tab>space> Apply poison> tab>space> tab>space> tab>space> tab>space>

The bow does need some help in the damage line, weather its to do with that actual type of damage it does or the refire rate or the marksmanship skills ( just ONE area NOT all 3)

Wild Karrde ,

Your wrong

a Hornbow is good if u use it with an attack skill like barrage , refire rate with all bows is then the same

and a ranger is a ranged combatant not melee so stop talking about melee combatants go talk about paragons then

theres a nice skill called : [skill]Fevered Dreams[/skill]
so u can bust those condition removal monks as those conditions reapply often

and i dont think u got much condition removal in PvE honestly

15-28 Dmg is fine one of the best dmg ranges

only a scythe does more dmg 9-41 but u have to be lucky to hit that 41

Cya

Theyr not underpowered, they do what they are meant to do and do it well. They spread conditions and interrupt. Plain and Simple.

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