Guild Wars 2

Xae Isareth.1364:

Stooperdale.3560:

OK, here goes for why melee is better in GW2 than ranged as demonstrated by comparing thief pistol/pistol with dagger/pistol. The point of the ranged weapon is presumably to not get hit, but a smoke field from an off hand melee pistol can blind nearby opponents and prevent damage. Overall, a well used smoke field is safer than running about like a chicken. On top of that a dagger can use a leap finisher in the smoke field for stealth, has more utility, more damage, more mobility, and is a better fit for most traits, utilities, and stealing.

Except that there’s Defiance… which makes your blinds rather useless.

Also, most notably in WvW, sometimes you just can’t melee. Like when a zerg vs zerg fight sometimes, where there’s just too many AoEs around to actually approach anything safely with a melee weapon.

I’d imagine that over time Anet will also add certain mechanics which enforces the use of ranged weapons.

In PvE the pistol off-hand is better to be used with a main hand sword. It’s one of the if not best weapon set against trash mobs. You can perma blind, except those filthy dredge dudes, while cleave everything on sight and with Pistol whip, if you use Signet of Malice, you can heal back to full health against multiple enemies while evading all incoming attacks. OP.

Indeed, in WvW meleeing is risky in zergs as a thief, but a dagger / pistol set is fine in solo roaming.

I’m surprised the guardian’s not been mentioned more. Guardian staff aka the “loot stick” is a staple PvE/WvW weapon that can be paired with sceptre and focus/torch for a 100% ranged character that can bring all sorts of utilities and buffs for team play. If in doubt, go triple shout!

Xae Isareth.1364:

Stooperdale.3560:

OK, here goes for why melee is better in GW2 than ranged as demonstrated by comparing thief pistol/pistol with dagger/pistol. The point of the ranged weapon is presumably to not get hit, but a smoke field from an off hand melee pistol can blind nearby opponents and prevent damage. Overall, a well used smoke field is safer than running about like a chicken. On top of that a dagger can use a leap finisher in the smoke field for stealth, has more utility, more damage, more mobility, and is a better fit for most traits, utilities, and stealing.

Except that there’s Defiance… which makes your blinds rather useless.

Also, most notably in WvW, sometimes you just can’t melee. Like when a zerg vs zerg fight sometimes, where there’s just too many AoEs around to actually approach anything safely with a melee weapon.

I’d imagine that over time Anet will also add certain mechanics which enforces the use of ranged weapons.

If anything I would think they would try and steer us away from Aoes/multi target skills so much (the ranged ones at least) and play more single target weapons/skills. For this to happen I could see huge nerfs to the aoe/cleave skills damage wise. Heck this might just slow down combat some and add more of a strategy to it when zergs hit each other and not be just big blobs of aoe fields all over the place and instant downs on the squishies and almost instant downs on survivalists. People might just be able to see what’s going on as well – imagine that! O.O

Lankybrit.4598:

Hey everyone, just a question here. No one has mention Necro. Is Necro not ranged?

It can be. Staff has it’s uses in WvW.

but alot of it’s power comes from d/d and a/w. The f1 skill, is stronger the closer you are to your enemy.
So although, like every other class, it has ranged, it’s generally best to be up close.

As others have stated, if you want to go pure ranged the engineer is the way to go, most other professions will pressure you into their melee options eventually because often they are their best dps set. Engineer has many good pure ranged builds.

If you’re dead set on staying at range all the time, consider that a Ranger has a pet who can draw enemy aggro. Otherwise, if you’re soloing I would imagine a lot of enemies will be piling on you and will make it tough to keep distance.

Magnus Steelgrave.6580:

1. Ew… (Purely because the dps would be awful compared to almost any other weapon choices for warrior)
2. Not too bad though I much prefer just sb as opposed to both
3. P/p is about as bad as thieves get in most situations. Though sb is a good compliment IMO to a s/p first weapon set but you wish to remain pure in range so that’s not an option either.

If you want to play ranged only, as suggested above, try an engineer.

although not popular I like Thief p/p in pve. Its looks cool and is fun and excellent for delivering precision dps ranged attack. When the sb is just going to aggro all those extra yellow mobs. Or accidently hit the “Suspicious Rat” because he just owned my lv80 Guardian.

Level up your Elementalist to lvl 80, and check out how Staff Ele out-DPSes a melee Warrior.

Even if you’re gonna be ranging, the best practices would still be, in general, to stack tightly or be very near (generally, stack tightly. If you happen to be out-DPS-ing everybody, it’s also possible that you’ll get aggro and you don’t want the mob to be out of the corner/wall chasing after you because you’re not stacked).

This is of course PvE.

WvW, you’ll still find Ele to be extremely powerful for CCs and AoE choke points.

Staff isn’t weak, but in open world, and before lvl 80, you’re much more gear-reliant than many other classes due to your low stats. Also, your best DPS relies the target to be stationary so you need to use your Elementals to tank on them or be in like an absurd PVT gear and go bunker build.

And if you’re wondering if this is slower than going D/F or D/D since they are “melee-oriented” then the answer is yes because the Elementals have quite a long CD and if you rely on them too much, it can’t defeat the speed and ease of clearing the mobs if you were in D/F or D/D.

Mesmer is the only class that can function reasonably well in all game modes with pure range. If you think about it, the only melee weapon the class even really has is the 1h sword. It’s also the only class in the game that can reliably kite.

WilnerGW.3275:

Hey guys,

I’m in doubt about playing a ranged class, i would like to hear your opinion about wich one would better:

-Rifle/LBow Warrior
-LBow/SBow Ranger
-Pistol-Pistol-/Sbow Thief

Any1 experienced in any of this builds, could tell me wich one is more viable to play.

If you want to consider some comment about any meele weapon of those profesions, feel free to say.

I like to play everything:PVE, SPvP, WvW

Thanks;

Warrior absolutely cannot be pure range. The traits don’t synergise well because Rifle is paired with Speargun and is in the Arms (Precision) line, while Longbow is in the Tactics (Vitality) line. Trying to trait into these two at the same time will leave you so underpowered you’ll just cry. Depending on the situation you can go secondary rifle or longbow. For general dungeon running it’s mostly melee so Gs/ Axe-Mace that sort of thing. In fractals however, longbow and rifle have their place as quite a few fights can be melee unfriendly. (I’m looking at you, lava fractal)

LB/SB ranger can kinda work but SB relies largely on conditions for damage while LB is pure power, especially with rapid fire’s godliness (imo anyway). LB/Sword-Axe or Axe Axe is good. Sword does have the problem with the auto attack that roots you so if you keep the auto on you will have a bad time with dodges. Always auto attack off with sword. With high precision, a long bow ranger does very high damage. I’ve used it in wvw more as a sniper and chaser. When an enemy blob is busted up and they’re running, dropping a barrage on a bunch of runners then pelting them with rapid fire makes for a bad day for them. If your target gets away, if you’ve traited for extra range then the further they get from you the more damage your #1 attack does. For structure defence they can be very good as well. Sadly, rangers and engis see very little use in wvw compared to the warrs, guards, mesmers, necros and eles because of the meta for blob fighting. There are plenty of roaming and trolling thieves though.

Thanks everyone for the answers!

Well i played a bit with an engineer, and i didnt like it. I felt like an Elementalist, i need to press 3 buttons everytime, to do something my warrior/ranger can do with one hehe

Anyways you guys changed my mind, i tried play a hybrid style(one range and one meele weapon) and thats cool GW2 is the first game that i dont fell myself stuck to have to get closer to an enemy.

Wich Hybrid builds (one range and one meele weapon) are worth to play with, considering Warrior and Ranger? ( I like to WvW Zerg and SPvP, dont care that much about PVE)

I dont care much about Defense and Utility for group, i’d rather have a great damage than that.

Considering the above post I’d say go warrior.

BigfootArisen.6509:

Meglobob.8620:

I want to play a Ranged-Only class

You need to find another game to play then…

GW2 is very anti ranged combat. As shown by:-

-Best way of killing anything in PvE, group into a ball, buff, melee, revive until foe dead.
-Every good missile weapon has been nerfed to oblivion, example Ranger shortbow, Warrior Longbow, Thief shortbow.

Really, don’t play GW2 with a ranged character only ends in tears…

Do not listen to this person. Ranged is fun. Stacking is only for smart players who don’t like spending hours in a dungeon that should take less than 30 minutes or when you want to actually complete something before the timer runs out in open PVE.

Fixed that for you.

Option 1: Not Stacking in CoF p1 = 30+ mins
Option 2: Stacking in CoF p1 = 7-10 mins

Uh, I’ll take option 2, Bob. Every. Dam. Time.

Elementalist and Engineer is the only classes that function without melee.
If you’re pure range you have to have loads of AOE and CC unless you’re gonna get eaten by high mobility dps specs. (Thief says hi :P)

Regarding P/P thief:

It depends. If you want to be someone who stands in the back shooting from safety, then P/P is not what you want.

It also depends on what you like to do. P/P is plenty viable in PvP and WvW. S/P is considered much better in PvE, though, just because it has cleave damage and is clearly superior for stacking.

That said, anyone who says P/P isn’t viable in PvP/WvW isn’t playing P/P well.

A berserker P/P build is a surprisingly good skirmish build, particularly against non-ranged builds or in 1v1’s. The blind application is astonishing. You’re quite literally capable of facetanking a warrior or guard if you do it well.

With a berserker signet build, the burst is impressive, and you can apply quite a few stacks of bleeding for condi pressure despite not being a condi build. You also have an on-demand immobilize/vuln stack applier and an instant interrupt daze. Unload’s damage potential is also still very high and can be used repeatedly without interruption and is much harder to evade and leaves you still mobile, unlike S/P.