Do posts for very specific (long tail) questions need to be long articles?

I keep getting this feedback that I need to write 2000 or 3000 word articles in order to rank in Google... but I feel like I can answer the specific longtail question in more like 400 to 600 words.

Yes I could probably add another 400 to 600 words if I widened the coverage or maybe tried to go almost too in depth.

But at what point is it just becoming extra just for the sake of being extra?

I could be spending the time writing another article entering another specific long hill question. Seems like that would be time better spent right?