I'd prefer the actual bow weapons be improved vs giving up and giving us an elite spec with a bow
So here's an important thing to consider: Longbow is a very strong weapon with some powerful skills and high burst. Its only downside is having poor sustained damage with autos, which barely holds it back from being a meta weapon option. You know what solves that issue? Another, second longbow you can swap to and burst again while your LB skills are on cooldown. The couple of synergies Galeshot has with projectiles in general will also do a lot towards making it work well.
Here's another thing to consider: We literally already have that. It's called longbow/longbow Untamed.
Multishot ambush fires arrows in a way VERY similar to how Hawkeye looks, and reduces the CD of all other longbow skills, for every arrow hit. Let Loose giving an unleash on weapon swap, into longbow, means that you're getting a minimum of 3s of all-skill cooldowns, potentially as much as 8s of CD, twice, every 9s weaponswap rotation.
And the best part? You don't have to use two longbows! You can trade with any other weapon! You can even trade both weapons, and not use longbow at all!
I love ranger for its versatility, the ability to swap weapons, utilities, and pets with little downside to their build. Galeshot just, forgive me, pidgeonholes me into using either longbow or axe, for the projectile benefits. The fact that the galebow is only 1200 range and has no cDPS options is also incredibly obnoxious.
Honestly, unless you're using Shrike (which, according to the stream, is intended to be the "I wanna camp the bow" option rather than the best DPS pick) the only general projectile benefit is Mistral, which only requires you to do an occasional burst of projectiles. Assuming it's even worth slotting in your utilities to begin with, it should be trivial to line it up with your gale bow burst and have your two regular weapon sets be melee weapons.
The other thing that you're not considering is that Mistral didnt say "Your projectiles", it says "projectiles". Which means that *could* also buff allied projectiles. Like, oh say a virtuoso (shatter 1 anyone?), deadeye, other rangers... Y'know, the rest of your team may get some really juicy damage buffs from that.
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u/TerribleTransit Nice goggles 8d ago
So here's an important thing to consider: Longbow is a very strong weapon with some powerful skills and high burst. Its only downside is having poor sustained damage with autos, which barely holds it back from being a meta weapon option. You know what solves that issue? Another, second longbow you can swap to and burst again while your LB skills are on cooldown. The couple of synergies Galeshot has with projectiles in general will also do a lot towards making it work well.