Jump to content
  • Sign Up

Is the Revenant Shortbow that bad?


aaron.7850

Recommended Posts

> @"aaron.7850" said:

> Got exited to unlock the elite spec, then noticed 99% of the builds in metabattle dont use short bow... yikes!

> Is it that awful?

 

Outside of specific PvE content, yes, it is awful. The main damage skill, skill 3, needs the target to be: stationary, at mid range and preferably large hit box. Needless to say, that does not work in most context. I play renegade a lot nowadays in open world. I have SB, but mostly sit on mace/axe.

 

As for Kalla, it is badly designed, but anything can work when you brute force with high damage modifiers and ridiculous effects. It is very strong in PvE.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

> @"RabbitUp.8294" said:

> What content are we talking about? In pve, condi dps Renegade does use shortbow.

> In competitive mode, the problem is not the shortbow, but Kalla in general. Or more specifically, the fact that Glint has no energy costs makes every other elite spec obsolete until Anet decides to revamp the energy system.

 

> @"RabbitUp.8294" said:

> What content are we talking about? In pve, condi dps Renegade does use shortbow.

> In competitive mode, the problem is not the shortbow, but Kalla in general. Or more specifically, the fact that Glint has no energy costs makes every other elite spec obsolete until Anet decides to revamp the energy system.

 

It most definitely is the shortbow as well. For one, the shortbow suffers from all the terrain ills of the revenant class. From Unrelenting Assault to Coalescing Ruin to Sevenshot to Bloodbane Path to Scorchrazor are all terribly inconsistent in landing the complete attack with the slightest change in terrain or when near walls.

 

Sevenshot also is a skill that assumes the revenant can control distance to land the proper projectiles all on a coalescing point, but the fact is that shortbow and revenant in general have abysmal kiting tools to do so, unlike ranger and thief.

 

The only reason shortbow works in PvE is because PvE is a mess where virtually every single encounter consists of a stack of people hitting a boss point blank for 99.9% of the encounter, and most of these bosses have large enough hitboxes for any skill to land the full shots. There's no such thing as skill shots in PvE because with the way boons are shared only within melee range as well as healing, all the spatial aspect of the game is removed.

 

PvE also does an atrocious job of selecting melee and ranged mechanics separately, at best it's usually 1-2 people baiting a ranged mechanic and that's it. It's nothing even close to WoW where multiple concurrent ranged+melee+healer+ tank mechanics force positional arrangements that just don't exist in GW2, so the ranged weapons in this game are essentially played like melee ones.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I used the snowcrows condi rene build for months in OW pve and never really had any trouble with it once i got the basics down. It shines in bounty/non-commune HP's and mob-dense areas. If the #3 skill is annoying you, check your ground-targetting settings in 'Options'; i have mine set to 'cast on release' so i can hold the button down for as long as i need to align the shot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've been trying it in WvW -- I love the animations and the vibe, but from the perspective of an average player (and repeating what others have said above):

 

-- no defensive / mobility skills

-- can't cast 4 behind

-- 3 slightly unreliable

-- 2 has a long cast time

 

In the perfect fight -- open, blobs not too massive, bit spread out -- it does good work. But this is hardly flexible. The other issue is if you pair it with m/a you still have no defensives, and with staff you have some mobility but only have the SB for damage.

 

As for the Renegade legend, if you can land the elite + icerazors it's kinda cool, but again you need a slower / more predictable fight. Often I think I'd be doing better with m/a and staff. I don't mind the Renegade trait line per se, the alacrity is still nice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 8 months later...

> @"Game of Bones.8975" said:

> Would Renegade have been better using a longbow instead?

> Gain distance, maybe some flanking shots, ...

> Or is it not the weapon itself, but the skills that go with the weapon that don't make sense.

 

This thread is 9 months old, and things have changed a lot. At the present day the short bow does a very good job at PvE in both open world and instanced content, and a case can be made about being the best weapon for map completion, since hits hard at both range and mele, cleaves, scales very well with both power and condition stats and most of creeps in the maps die before they can even touch you. And now is even a thing in PvP: Shiro + Jalis with short bow/staff, demolisher amulet and runes of speed is imo better than long bow ranger and rivals thief in mobility while being able to defend a control point in his own.

 

So the weapon is currently extremely competitive at every game mode (outside large teams at WvW, in which can be easily negated/countered with Wall of Reflection, Winds of Disenchantment, Valiant Bulwark and a lot of other tools).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...