Non-Marksmanship Bows

One of the main problems with Rangers at the moment is the "Tactics Problem". To successfully use a bow a Ranger's going to want high Marksmanship. A 12, in fact, as it's a weapon attribute and it's only at 12 that such attributes give you the full amount of damage - after 12, the rate of return drops off so you don't want to go higher, either. Yet, at the same time a Ranger's not going to want to pass up much Expertise, either. That means they have a lot of points tied up in both Marksmanship and Expertise from the start, at least enough for a 12/10 if not higher. That's the same as a Warrior with their Strength/Weapon combination or an Elementalist with Energy Storage/Elemental. It leaves precious little room for flexibility with their remaining attribute points as, even with runes and headgear, they have over 100AP devoted to just making them playable.

The issue, then, is that those leftover points still get spent but where to spend them is usually, also, as predetermined. Most characters aren't Rangers. They're Range/*. So they'll have a secondary profession to pick from with the associated skills and attributes. Rather than going for something from Ranger - unless it's just a brief splash - then the choice becomes what's best from that secondary profession. A Warrior who's picked up Strength and their chosen Weapon is going to overlook Tactics because they can get something more - more exciting, more powerful, more diverse, more useful - from that secondary. And, taking Tactics at a meaningful level means they're stuck with poor secondary profession skills or those they can use unlinked. The same holds true for the Ranger lines of Wilderness Survival and Beastmastery.

Sure, they're useful but taking one as an archer means you're a pure Ranger and, therefore, somehow reduced. Taking them without using a bow and Marksmanship means you're an odd Ranger, indeed. It might work for Beastmastery as that pet functions a lot like a weapon - a very poor an inefficient weapon - but without a bow you need to rely on something else to let your character actually have a purpose other than buffing up that pet. It's worse with Wildeness Survival - unless you just want to lay traps, of course - because a lot of Survival skills are designed around making you a better archer just as Tactics skills give a Warrior more options.

Now, Strength has gone down much in its desireability to the point where most Warriors still want it but they want it just enough for that Strength linked shield. Not the case with Rangers, though, as most will want Expertise through the roof, if they can. If there were no Strength linked shields a lot of Warriors would be out of Strength altogether, probably. It's only that the defense of a good shield is available elsewhere that they can avoid Tactics altogether. So, here's what I propose. Using a bow is fundamental to the concept of a Ranger. As fundamental as using a shield is to that of a Warrior. Yes, you can do without it and function but the archetypal setup is that a Ranger plucks a bow. So, just as a Warrior can get shields from attributes other than the shield-only attribute of Tactics, a Ranger should be able to get bows from attributes other than the bow-only attribute of Marksmanship.

At best, I'd like to see bows available linked to Beastmastery, Survival, and Expertise. Marksmanship Ranger will still be best with a bow but those Rangers who forgo Marksmanship will still have a go-to source of cheap, sustainable damage and be much better off. That's probably a bit ambitious but I'd settle just for having a selection of bows tied to Expertise. Any Ranger will likely have an amount of Expertise necessary to have a good bow so archers can pick up an Expertise bow or a Marksmanship bow and just worry about Marksmanship for the skills and Expertise for the cost reduction. Meanwhile, that Survival Ranger and that Beastmastery Ranger who've neglected Marksmanship can still have an effective bow. This leaves secondary Rangers still stuck with Marksmanship but that's not disimilar from secondary Warriors and Tactics.

I like this idea, but if they are going to do this I really think they need to add in Wilderness Survival bows as well rather than just expertise-based ones. Currently, it is extremely difficult to be a secondary ranger based in marksmanship because all of the marksmanship skills are highly over-priced and are intended to be used with expertise. Because of this situation, most secondary rangers are only ranger because of the run buffs, wilderness survival, or some other non-bow-related reason.

With only marksmanship and expertise bows, it would still force someone to go primary ranger if they wanted to use bow as their main weapon (either directly by using an expertise bow or indirectly by marksmanship requiring expertise just to be worth using). If they had wilderness survival bows, then secondary rangers could actually have a viable option for using bows as their primary weapon.

I think you're on the right track here, and in line with the format used for the Warriors as well which would make it more plausable in ANet's eyes. The majority of shileds are linked to Tactics which is a general attribute for Warriors, and the secondary option is the primary only Strength attribute. Your suggestions works in the same manner with the current bows being mostly Marksmanship and a smaller set being linked to primary only Expertise.

Though it would be nice to see bows based in the other attributes (Beast and Wilderness), because they are ofter major focuses of character types, I don't see that happening. The main idea that ANet is trying to get people to do, the way I see it, is to pump 2 primary profession attributes and 1 secondary profession attribute. If there were bows linked to Beast Mastery and they could get a good bow linked to that, there would be no primary Ranger Beast Masters. Wouldn't be much point. Take it as your secondary, focus on it, AND have a good bow as well as your beefy pet.

Yes, I agree it would be a nice option, but if that option then significantly reduces (or even practically eliminates) vareity, it doesn't seem worth it to me.

Eh? No, that's very unlikely. If someone is just interested in Beast Mastery, they can already do this now; there's already not a lot of point of being a primary ranger if you're just looking for Beast Mastery. If they're interested in a bow as well, there are some nice advantages to being a primary Ranger that make you a better bowman that way, even if you're using a BM Bow (e.g. bow skills, some of which are Expertise linked and most of which really need Expertise to be affordable). People interested in both bows and pets would still more often choose ranger as primary rather than secondary. If you're interested in a bow, choosing primary ranger is an advantage, adding BM bows wouldn't change that. If you're not interested in a bow, choosing primary ranger offers only a little advantage, adding BM bows wouldn't change that. So, adding BM bows really won't discourage any beastmasters from taking a ranger primary that otherwise would.

It's better to change Expertise bonus. Now it gives a linear decrease in a skill cost that means that it has an increasing returns. Expertise bonus should suffer from a diminishing returns.

Yes, Expertise bows would do nothing for secondary Rangers. And I think that's a bad thing as I like the idea of having secondary members of a profession be as good as thing as their primary bretheren - they do things differently but they still get the job done. However, that's not the direction the game has taken what with primary attributes, and primary-only runes. So, I don't like that secondary Rangers are reduced to hunting for the right rituals and stances but that seems to be what the developers want.

Yes, that's a separate, though no less important issue. As many have pointed out Marksmanship skills are extremely expensive and would probably be trash were it not for that Expertise bonus. So, only primary Rangers can make the best of them (Or Ele/Ran with huge ES). But not just primary Rangers. High-level primary Rangers. It's not until you have enough AP for Expterise and Marksmanship that you can really start taking advantage of those skills, meaning that lower level Rangers are gimpy by design. Having Expertise progress some way other than linearly so that the biggest benefit came over the first few ranks but it still gave a boost the higher up you went would mean that Rangers aren't playing with one hand tied behind their back before, say, 15th level.

It would hardly be fair to create bows for all the ranger attributes. This would be like putting shields linked to Swordsmanship attribute. How does being a beast master help with being a bowman? No way, just like being a sword master doesn't help with being good with a shield.

Expertise bows, on the other hand, seem like a very good idea (though I thought these were suggestion a few betas back already). Expertise is a very unique attribute, and I could see someone "training" in it being able to use a bow properly. It's like a combination of all the other ranger attributes into one that helps make the ranger good at what he does. And considering Expertise has some bow attacks/buffs, it seems unfair that there aren't Expertise bows. This would be like warriors having a good amount of sword skills in Strength too, meaning they would need a good Strength and Swordsmanship to use some of the best skills.

The problem with the ranger is that its primary has the biggest impact on its skills and usage (in my opinion). While other professions gain major benefits from their primary (Monk and Divine Favor, for example), the ranger's skills are heavily designed to use some expertise to counter their cost. The only other profession you can compare their power to is the warrior for they both are based on physical attacks. And with the warrior having adrenaline skills to counter their energy problems, it leaves the ranger needing expertise or using energy gaining skills (taking up valuable spots) to actually maintain their power. I think the ranger and warrior need to be balanced out better compared to eachother.

I mainly play a R/W, W/Mo, Mo/Me, and E/N, and out of the four I find the ranger the least polished with its skills and attributes (evidence of this is the constant changing of ranger skills and attributes from beta to beta, more so than any other class I believe.) Just my two gold coins about the issue. I'm glad the rangers aren't godly like they used to be (I do want a balanced game) but I would just like it that a ranger doesn't need Marksmanship and Expertise to be good at the bow.

Not quite. Bows are not defensive items; they are weapons. It would be similar to caster set-ups where they have wands for most of their skill lines (air wands, fire wands, smiting wands, blood wands, etc.). Also, if you want to compare to a warrior, a warrior has weapons for each of their main skill lines as well (swords, axes, and hammers).

Ranger is the only class that only has one line from which their weapon skill is based off of. This is one of the other reasons Rangers that intend to be "ranger-like" all have to be primary rangers where as warriors that want to melee, on the other hand, can be necro, mesmer, and other primaries. I think adding a Wilderness Survival bow is more like adding in an air wand if all ele could get previously were fire wands (though, admittedly, ranger's main attack is with their weapon so the analogy isn't complete).

I disagree. You have to remember that a ranger is a physical damage dealer while a caster is a magic damage dealer. Having wands for each magic attribute is just a bonus, but a bow is the main source of power for the ranger. Making it too diverse in its attributes makes a ranger too powerful. If a ranger should have them bows for each attributes, warriors should have swords, axes and hammers for Strength and Tactics. But the fact of the matter is that doesn't reflect the physical power of the warrior or the ranger.

I think more importantly is the fact that there are a lot of good bow skills in Expertise is required to be effective at the bow. Needing two attributes to truly master one weapon is what is really wrong here. If Marksmanship was just needed then we wouldn't be having this problem. You need Swordsmanship for a sword, you need Marksmanship for a bow. Simple, right? No, rangers also need Expertise to match the power of their attacks with warriors and the spells of the casters. Not balanced in my opinion.

I would totally agree with this. I was under the impression that by focusing a lot of my AP into Marksmanship that my damage would always be near maxed for the current bow that I was using, at least if the bow was tied to the Marksmanship category. But it never seemed to make much of a difference in normal damage, though my Power Shots hit for an average of about 45 at around Gates of Kryta. My Expertise, Beast Mastery, and Wilderness Survival had to take the hits so that I could pump up my Marksmanship category so I could see any sort of benefit in attack power. I think my spread was 10 Marksmanship, 6 Expertise, 4 Wilderness Survival, and 2 in Smiting just to use all of my points (at level 14). I would like to see, at the least, more Bows which are attributed to the Expertise category, since most of the worthwhile skills, like Lightning Reflexes and other such skills, are linked to Expertise.

I think it's feasible to have a bow linked to Wilderness Survival, and the only idea I can think of for that would be that, for each hit you make on a creature, 1/4 of that health is syphoned into your hit points, so that you can "survive" easier. I don't see a bow linked to Beast Mastery being plausible; what would be the bonus that would come about it if you found a rare bow which boosted your Beast Mastery?

I like how this discussion is going though, since I'll most likely be playing a Ranger primary at least for the first time that I go through the game. I'll have to check back in sometime later.

I did if you read my entire statement.


Yes, and if you want to go that route, there are also a lot of bow skills in Wilderness Survival as well.

Why, for example, should a N/R who just wants to run around with kindle and poison arrow while he life siphons people be forced to pump marksmanship when he has all of zero marksman skills on his bar? If he was a N/W sword user instead he would run into no such problem.

First off, kindle and poison arrow are preparations. They require nothing about being able to use a bow, just knowing how to prepare it. I think the attribute should reflect on knowing how to use a bow, like Marksmanship, for it to be tied to a bow. Otherwise, why should someone using Tactics or Strength as a warrior not be able to have a sword or other weapon based on those attributes? If you want kindle and poison arrow to do well, then you need Wilderness Survival which makes sense. Your focusing on the preperation's damage and not the bow's. If you want your bow to do more damage too then you should work on "training" in the bow, hence Marksmanship. Wilderness Survival augments bow attacks, it does not provide a strong foundation for them.

Most of the bow attacks are in Marksmanship, followed by Unlinked, then Expertise, then Wilderness Survival (which has one, Poison Arrow). It's not really that I'm against bows for Wilderness Survival (though I am against them for Beast Mastery), it's just that I think the attacks are so spread out right now, and at most I think there should be only two attributes bows can be linked to. Not three or all four. I think the ranger has some weird placements of skill and so their attribute lines are quite diverse and make it hard for someone to really figure out what they want to use.

The different attributes are to reflect on each profession's different focuses. You can't expect to have an attribute and know everything about being that profession. Marksmanship is for using the bow, Wilderness Survival is for using nature to your advantage, and Beast Mastery is for controlling and altering creatures. Expertise isn't clear to define, but in a way is a kind of attunement to your ranger lifestyle. A skilled warrior who knows a bunch of powerful strategies and tactics isn't going to know how to use a sword without training, and likewise for a ranger who knows how to survive in the wild and create poisons, fires, etc isnt going to know how to shoot a bow without training.

If there were Expertise and Wilderness Survival bows, I think the problem is finding a good way to keep them balanced so they aren't too powerful. How much damage should they be able to do? Do they have the same potential to have good stats? The thing is not making them so powerful that a secondary ranger character can abuse them by combining strong magic damage with strong physical damage.

How is this abuse? Is playing a W/E abuse then? The W/E I played for a but last beta used physical sword attacks and magical Water element attacks. A E/W could do the same thing as could a E/R or R/E using Marksmanship.

Just wanted to say, they are going to have Expertise bows. I specifically asked Cynn of Ascalon this about 2 months ago.

A W/E isn't abuse for the warrior can't have the "strong" magic that I am talking about. I know they can use all the skills just as well if they have high enough attributes, but with half the magic regen of the caster they just don't have the ability to keep up the energy required for a strong magic caster in my opinion. If they have energy gaining skills then sure, but at the cost of one or more skill slots.

A E/W does not have the armor to take hits back, though. So while they are strong offensively with the weapon, the fact is they are still in the "danger zone" of the enemy area. A E/R with an equally powerful bow would be at a far advantage for they are meant to attack from distances, and increasing their base damage at range plays a big factor. The bow decreases the risk, which is good for the player, but if implemented poorly could ruin the goal of balance between classes.

I'm glad about Expertise bows, but I question the power of any other attribute linked bows.

I have supported this idea for quite some time and hearing the Guru post it himself in a forum helps me feel like I'm not some crazy guy that's thinking up bad ideas.


anyway... that quote from Cynn gives us rangers a lot of hope. Now I can completely forgo Marksmanship if I wish and invest in Expertise, Wilderness Survival, and my secondary.

Expertise is a bigger problem, methinks. If it was just Marksmanship then you could get away with an 8 (+1 hat, +3 rune) and still have a perfectly functional character, but the vast majority of Rangers, Marksmen or not, are going to want a 14 Expertise (10, +1 hat, +3 rune), which devours a whole more more APs. Realistically you want to be running 14/12 with a Superior Rune of Expertise, which locks you into a 11/10 setup with, as you say, doesn't leave a lot of room for creativity.

I don't think that requiring Marksmanship to use a bow is as bigger a drawback than requiring Hammer Mastery to use a hammer. It's the stupidity of Expertise coupled with how awful Marksmanship skills are that wreck secondary Rangers.

Peace,
-CxE