ArenaNet:Skill feedback/Ranger/Bow Attack Overhaul

Note: As of September 2, 2009 this page is no longer active. If you have suggestions for Guild Wars skills please go to Feedback:Main to learn how to submit suggestions that ArenaNet can use.

Most bow attacks still suck and bows in general suck except for range spike and interrupt spam which are still causing problems. Rework bow attacks completely! This balance article buffs bows in general while addressing particular issues that prevent them from being buffed.

• Arcing Shot-Useless due to moving slowly and being inferior to a lot of other bow attacks. Remove the movement penalty, increase energy to 10, and add Weakness for 1 second so you can't spike with it.

• Barrage-Inferior to Volley. All 7 arrows are rarely, if ever, used, and no one's going to miss 9 more damage if they get their elite slot back. Increase area to nearby and drop damage bonus to 1...11...13. Increase recharge to 2 or 3 seconds if needed. This isn't going to be any more overpowered than Incendiary Arrows since you can't have a preparation with Barrage.

• Broad Head Arrow-Is too passive, and is effectively an elite Spear Swipe since it isn't affected by Read the Wind. If you dodge it, enemy Ranger is disappointed for 15 seconds, otherwise you are useless for 27 seconds. Rework and make it more active. 5e 0r, remove movement penalty, decrease duration to 1...7...8 seconds, this skill is disabled for 12 seconds(to prevent abuse with serpent's quickness)

• Burning Arrow-Way too overpowered. For single target DPS, this outshines everything else, so I will actually suggest a NERF. Decrease burning duration back to 1...4...5 seconds and increase recharge to 6 seconds. Needs a slight nerf, but don't 25/90 it.

• Called Shot-I have no idea what the idiot who made this skill was thinking. It's just plain useless for all practical purposes. Needs a rework. Add damage bonus of 5...15...17, scale with marksmanship. Then this may actually see some use.

• Concussion Shot-This is just simply bad. 25 energy for a conditional condition is laughable. Make this more active. Decrease energy to 10, decrease condition duration to 1...5...6 seconds, increase recharge to 10.

• Crippling Shot-Is fine as it is. One of the most balanced bow attacks in Build Wars.

• Crossfire-Is fine as it is. Low damage, but cheap and spammable with conditional unblockability. IMO this is one of the most well balanced bow attacks in Build Wars.

• Debilitating Shot-Could use a small buff. It can throw out energy as fast as a Mesmer can, but with less skill slots, however it can be blocked or miss. To punish people who "hide" energy by switching equipment sets, add "For each point of energy that target foe did not have, you strike for +2 damage."

• Determined Shot-This skill is just borked and bad for anything. Fails at recharging bow attacks since it's conditional. Fails at doing damage because of the recharge. Solution: 5e 4r "If Determined Shot hits, you strike for +5...17...20 damage. If it misses or is blocked, gain 5 energy." This allows it to function as a cheap, partially spammable damage skill and conditional energy management that's not blatantly overpowered. Also note that it must miss or be blocked for the energy, so rangers can't just throw these into a wall for energy management on demand.

• Disrupting Shot-What was Anet thinking? This is just plain inferior to Savage Shot. Decrease recharge to 8 to make this viable. To discourage range spike, this should do 50% less base damage.

• Distracting Shot-Almost overpowered. To prevent abuse from other professions, scale the disable duration to 1...13...16 seconds, decrease recharge to 8. Basically keep the current recharge-disable ratio. Note that most people run 14 expertise at most except for touch rangers, so that's a 15 second disable for a lot of attribute investment, nothing to QQ about.

• Dual Shot-10 second recharge is way too much, but range spike is holding this back. Just make Dual Shot ignore the effects of all buffs that are not enchantments or preparations. Recharge reduced to 6 seconds.

• Focused Shot-Useless, since you can't interrupt while using it. Remove the attack skill disable, increase damage to 10...26...30, give it 3 second activation, fixed. Sort of like Mighty Throw for bows.

• Forked Arrow-no problems, really. Should be around the same as dual shot.

• Hunter's Shot- Is overpowered due to low cost and spike capability. The 1 second activation is for moving foes. Make the bleeding unconditional and remove the quick activation.

• Incendiary Arrows- Since Burning Arrow would be nerfed to 1...4...5 seconds, keep the burning duration for Incendiary Arrows the same, but move to Marksmanship.

• Keen Arrow- 5 energy for +57 damage? I think not. This rewards luck, not skill. Change to 5e 6r "Bow attack. Strikes for +3...13...15 damage, if target foe was using a skill, it criticals." Intelligent players will use this on someone spamming skills.

• Magebane Shot- It can be frustrating to get your skills disabled for 10 seconds every 5 seconds. Scale disable duration with expertise at 3...8...9 seconds.

• Marauder's Shot- Useless. This should be a long range unconditional heavy damage bow attack with nothing special about it. Remove skill disable, increase damage to 10...34...40 and increase energy to 15. If you use this correctly, you get spammable damage. If you use this badly, you empty your energy pool while target foe's Reversal of Fortune heals him for 80.

• Melandru's Shot- Rewards spiking. Just revert it to what it originally was.

• Oath Shot- This skill is borked because it allowed maintained Whirling Defense, so it got nerfed into the ground and never recovered. Make this a "Flourish" for bow attacks- 10e 10r "Elite Bow attack. If Oath Shot hits, all of your other bow attacks recharge, and for each one recharged in this way, you strike for +2...5...6 damage. If it fails to hit, all of your bow attacks are disabled for 5 seconds."

• Sundering Attack-Fine in PvE, but no one's going to spend 10 energy on 10%AP and +10 damage. 5e 8r, up damage to +10...22...25, 15%AP. Powerful and cheap, balanced by long recharge, and remove the quick activation. If you don't like the recharge, bring it's duplicate.

• Pin Down-Balanced. Don't change it.

• Point Blank Shot-Balanced.

• Poison Arrow-Useless. Apply Poison is infinitely more efficient and doesn't eat your elite. Move to Marksmanship and add +3...11...13 bonus damage.

• Power Shot-Seriously, it just sucks. Boring, inefficient, worthless skill. Decrease energy to 5, increase damage bonus to 10...22...25, remove quick activation.

• Precision Shot- Same cost and damage as Power Shot, but double the energy cost. No longer easily interrupted.

• Prepared Shot- Overpowered, unconditional, skill-less energy management with a hefty damage bonus. Increase recharge to 7.

• Punishing Shot- This is just crap. If it was not elite it would be very good. Unfortunately, range spike keeps this in the trash. 10e 1/2s 5r "Elite Bow attack. Interrupts target foe and strikes for +10...18...21 damage, but inflicts 33% less base damage. If a skill was interrupted, this causes Deep Wound for 5...17...20 seconds." Bows get deep wound now if you aren't bad at interrupting.

• Quick Shot- Doesn't encourage skilled use at all, just encourages buff, buff, buff, + quickshot spam builds and rangespike. Just leave it as it is, even though it's weak, it could cause problems if it's buffed. Probably should be reworked but whatever.

• Savage Shot-Overpowered in range spike. This should be the baseline "spammable interrupt that recharges quickly, and the penalty for being bad at interrupts is an empty energy bar and time spent waiting for aftercast." Make it inflict only 1/3 of normal base damage, and up the conditional damage to +10...34...42. So if you interrupt with this, you can still do major damage, but if you don't interrupt it will just lolfail.

• Screaming Shot-Decrease recharge to 6. Bows spread conditions, amirite?

• Sloth Hunter's Shot-Reduce energy to 5, reduce recharge to 7, change secondary condition to Weakness for 5...17...20 seconds. Again, bows spread conditions, amirite again?

• Splinter Shot-Is pathetic. Conditional is laughable. Make the adjacent damage unconditional, increase recharge to 7 seconds, increase bonus damage to 10...22...25, fixed. For people who want AoE bow damage and want to keep both their preparation and their elite skill.

• Volley-Makes a nice baseline skill for Barrage-type bow attacks. No change needed.

Some other interesting stuff

• Focused Shot-

5 0 2 "Strikes for 10...22...25 damage and disables your bow attacks for 1 second." Disable is at 1 second to prevent range spike but doesn't hinder interrupting nearly as much.

• Keen Arrow-

5 ½ 5 "Keen Arrow strikes for +5...13...15 damage. If it hits a foe using a skill, it criticals, otherwise it does half damage." Sort of like Overload for rangers. Does not encourage range spike because of the half damage.