Sure, i prefer the longbow aswell, for the headshots and easy special removal.
The longbow is probably the highest damaging range weapon in the game concerning headshots, these require a draw and aiming.
Hagbane has the benefit of just demolishing monsters without either, i’d wager it’s the better monster killer except for chaos troll where headshotting is easier.
But yes overall it’s a worse range option since it packs less of a punch per arrow over the course of a game.
Less spike damage as well unfortunately, which can be costly. That’s my primary reason for preferring LB myself. I’ll often see other people tag stuff with hagbane but since it doesn’t kill it right away I find I’m killing it anyways, so in practice it feels like a lot of the hagbane’s damage isn’t “effective” damage. I’m sure there’s a case for bosses but I still don’t care for the drawbacks in V2.
The hagsbane is actually worse for monsters, which is why i’m of the belief it needs a buff. I should go a little more in depth about how I figured this out and how I tested this though. So I did this under uncontrolled situations, but basically the same all around. I solo ran against the grain on legend and would go until i got a boss to spawn at the big tree, I did this for all monsters. The reason for this is there’s an ammo stash there all the time at the ladder and it’s quite the open space. The lb beat the hagsbane even when I was not getting mostly headshots and even when all my shots on the hagsbane were charged or not charged. I did this while there were many enemies still alive and attempting to kill me, yet i had no problem killing the monsters (except for the bt) with the charged shots on the lb. Now that I mentioned it I feel like ranting about the Bile trolls, but honestly i’m sure everyone and their mother has already. The low ammo it has also kills it, because if I didn’t have that ammo stash it would just run out of ammo too quickly, even with scrounger.
I’d actually like the in depth, genuinely interested btw.
Agreed but Scrounger + WS ammo regen would likely compensate, but that’s nothing to write home about considering LB is basically unlimited ammo with either of those methods individually, so you don’t have to sacrifice a DPS weapon trait or a different supporting talent just to make it sustainable. Also doesn’t help the situation on HM/Shade at all.
no, it is a bow made for monster killing.
it also removes hyperdensity hordes, it’s also a stormvermin patrol stunlocker/killer, special killer and stunner.
nope. the longbow cannot compare to the burst dps of a hagbane on bosses, and it cannot kill/cc a large pack of infantry mixed with heavy mobs. sure, a longbow can 1 shot headshot a stormvermin, but when 4 SVs are charging you, the longbow can’t do much vs hagbane can just chain CC/kill them.
i made a huge post about the hagbane playstyle somewhere, i’ll try to find the link.
you are pretty much comparing a sniper rifle to a grenade launcher.
edit: link
Alright I’ll highlight points here then
-Map and area details: Against the grain, at the the bottom of the hill by the ladder with the ammo crate and healing supplies. Approx 300m from the big tree.
-class played: handmaiden for all tests
-traits: scrounger and barrage were tested on both the lb and the hb
-Results per Monster:
>Troll: if it wasn’t for the ammo crate the hb would be useless. Scrounger does not allow it to hold up
unless on the waystalker AND under half health constantly. The Lb did admirably with scrounger as it still
had ammo to get it through the 1st healing stage. Barrage is useless on the bile troll as ammo runs out
too fast
>Spawn of chaos: melted by both the hb and lb. The lb still lasted longer in terms of ammo and had
accomplished more damage by the time it needed a resupply. However, with the bosses speed it was a
little obnoxious to fight using the lb while there were many enemies.
>Stormfiend: This boss is too easy… please do something to actually make it difficult. I could use a rock to
defeat this boss and I would still end up winning at some point. If you really require me to make a point
on this then I will, but honestly do you even care?
>Rat Ogre: Similar to the SoC, however the Lb did better as headshots were easier and there was more
breathing room. However, as stated with the SoC, it was obnoxious to fight while there were many
enemies as the RO would fling them behind me while i used my charged shots.
-Extra Note: Scrounger is mandatory on both against trolls, but barrage still adds some damage on all other monsters as they don’t heal.
-Additionally in terms of specials and elites, the hb was only useful on maulers and stunning globes, while the LB basically managed to do everything else using less ammo and faster. (Lb clutches against leeches and packmasters)
The LB especially out performed in terms of sv as it was a life saver against patrols, where as the hb ran out of ammo after killing only 2 Sv on an average of 3 patrols. Even with scrounger it failed to accomplish much.
If you’re attempting to imply that I don’t play with the Hagsbane the right way or that I don’t understand how to use it, you’re pretty daft. I have 310 hrs in v1 exclusively using Kerillian with that bow only and most of my 220 hrs right now has been with it as well. I have a lot of experience with the hb. However, after getting a vet lb and moving onto Legend, I’ve honestly found no reason to use it anymore. I tested both bows out today and I already pointed out the results.
On champ the hb is good on monsters… on Legend it flops. It didn’t make the jump. I’m simply putting my points out there and the results of my testing with it and the lb, if you want to then give it a try too. Take some time and test out both on Legend by yourself so you don’t have others adding damage on, you’ll be as disappointed as I was.
Only the health regen aspect of Amaranthe is dependent upon being sub-50%. The ammo regen is always on, even at full health. I generally run ammo regen + hunter to good effect.
Eyyy that’s pretty good. I didn’t realize this so i’ll have to try that out on Waystalker then. I mainly play on handmaiden for the clutches, but even when I do play waystalker I grab the increased health regen as with the passive health regen necklace it’s pretty useful
Sure, but theres no timing, no numbers ( i still agree with you )
Imo hagbane should have more kick to it on legend, on champ and below sure it will demolish as long as you have arrows for it ( limiting it’s potential to WS )
What bothers me the most about … all elf bows really is the way they made armor types and and how elf bows interact with bosses, you kind of needing a str pot to be able to deal un crit damage… leaves a bad taste in my mouth in terms of design
do u mean vaul’s quiver or some other mechanic? because vaul’s quiver works all the time regardless of your hp. something like 4% ammo every 7 seconds.
the LB has no means of CCing the patrol to buy time for your party to kill. also, the hagbane should be killing much more than 2 SV per patrol if they are grouped up, unless you are hitting shields, then it does no damage.
also, hagbane doesn’t really synergize well with handmaiden, too little ammo and no ammo regen.
one of the hagbane’s core strengths is CC. in legend a longbow is not gonna save your group if they’re suddenly surrounded by an ambush, 4 stormvermin and a couple maulers and people are dying - hagbane spam to clear the area for breathing room is an example of the utility it provides. one of the best things to do is to heavy shot a huge bunch of enemies that are just about to lay the smack down on a teammate, it will stun all of them and buy time for that person to get away or kill them.
otherwise, str pot hagbane light attack spam on unarmoured parts of bosses is still the highest burst dps out of all the bows.
well not sure if xbow is part of your subset of elf bows, but i don’t need no str potion to shred a boss with a shade at range, it helps of course
Yeah, it’s pretty stellar. I thought the same thing for the longest time then a friend told me and I finally tried it. You have enough ammo you’re able to spam quickshots when the situation calls for it or to take full advantage of a hunter proc and still you don’t have to worry. Plus her ult makes a big difference.
It’s so funny you say this because I was doing a deed for war camp a bit ago on legend and I saved all my ammo for Bodvar since there’s no pickups and when I went to shoot him with a charged headshot I was baffled by how it did literally no damage. Meanwhile my knight kruber is going in with the blunderbuss
Never liked the hagbane much because I never found it outperforming the swiftbow. Also it isn’t very efficient against specials which mostly require ranged weapons.
It halts hyperdense hordes better? Arguably. I’d trueshot it in the 0.001% chance the swiftbow couldn’t handle.
Xbow is the exception to the rule, but i meant bows 
I started using the xbow a bit ago and found it’s quite good for chaos hordes and bosses. It definitely beats the swift bow in terms of horde clearing and specials in my opinion. I know you’re saying str pot lights on hagsbane are great on monsters, but honestly I’ve found that with the increased potion duration (or if you’re lucky with the dupe) the charged shots do more damage. The Lb stills beats it in terms of damage against monsters on Legend. On champ though the hb is more convenient since it does good damage and you can just fire away, but again on Legend I’ve found it doesn’t make the climb. The changes I would suggests for it is just give it 6-8 more shots and 0.75-1 more damage per shot. That way it will out damage the LB on bosses and it does better on ammo for handmaiden or shade for those that want to use it instead of the xbow. Of course I really just rather them test multiple changes they could make to it and then come to their own conclusion on how it should be balanced, but I just wanted to make a suggestion. Someone stated earlier that it’s niche and I would certainly agree with that as the lb just feels more adaptable and reliable.
On an off note, I would love to actually get an exact number on the DoT the venom does on the Hagsbane, but unfortunately there is no way to find out unless someone datamined it from the game or the devs told us.
My only concerns with is are ammo on Handmaiden and Shade, and whether or not charged shots benefit from weapon traits.
Other than that, charged attacks on hordes is insane, light shot spamming bosses is good, and left click spamming unarmoured targets is pretty good.
As Shade, Hagbane is my main bow for a monster killing build and it works great.
Swiftbow has incredibly low monster damage, and near useless against armored targets and it’s stagger is not very effective.
Hagbane performs decently here, even against specials it’s still quite good. It’s all about familiarizing yourself with the tool.
The glaring issues with ammo or effect per arrow is another case : P