Guild Wars 2

I love bows, I just do. I want to play a class who can utilize a bow.

Right now those classes are: Ranger, Thief, and Warrior.

Could you guys help me pick which one of these would be the best for me? I would most likely run one ranged weapon and one melee.

I don’t like to faceroll content: I enjoy a challenge, and I like interesting mechanics.

I like having good range: Obvious from wanting to use a bow, even when for me its mainly because of the look.

At least decent mobility: I currently main a Necro, I’ve had enough of not being able to move.

Good dps: In whatever form it may take IE: Burst or sustained.

Halp.

Sounds like Thief to me

you want good range? ranger longbow can reach 1500 range (it can actually go over 1500 if you manually press skill 1).

you want mobility? ranger GS has one of the best gap-closer skill called Swoop at a relatively low cooldown (lower if traited).

And since you’re not picking warrior, it won’t be faceroll. You will have troubles with controlling your pet.

Good dps? that depends for rangers…because part of their dps comes from pets (and pets die a lot).

The fact this even has to be discussed is an inditement upon the state of the Ranger class…

Despite what some people are saying about Rangers, ignore them. Rangers are an amazing class, only elitists will tell you that they are bad because they themselves prefer full zerker gear war.

I’d go with ranger. Because they have excellent mobility. Excellent range. A pet that can revive them, and melee is amazing.

Rangers, it’s my main and i’m always having fun with it, the pet mechanic is nice and add a second layer to the ranger like a beastmaster, the only thing missing is quiver but the ranger is the class for you if you’re looking for a range class.

While thieves can technically use bows, they are at best a secondary weapon set. Outside of WvW zergs and specific range-only encounters, you will always swap to some other weapon.

So if you want to use a bow and shoot people a lot, don’t pick a thief.

Edit: As someone pointed out below you can still kill things with a bow. However the damage sucks compared to other weapons (but hits an area).

Ranger has a few skills (1 utility, 2 MH Sword, 1 OH Dagger) that offer mobility, and the weapon animations are very cool, but mastering the pet mechanic can be difficult if you are more suited to running solo.

A troll hunter is really good if you like bows.

Get off the trolls Drew!

Ranger if you don’t mind pet classes.

Thief if you prefer crazy mobility. They never stay in one spot (actually nobody should anyway) and are able to pop around everywhere.

Thief shortbow is amazing. Great AOE dps w/ #2 and evade/cripple on #3. Teleport on #5.

I’ve leveled ranger and warrior to 80 as well and Its definitely my favorite bow.

Just play the ranger
You Long bow has a knockback(was really useful fighting as mini boss solo), short bow has a jump back.

Sunflowers.1729:

While thieves can technically use bows, they are at best a secondary weapon set. Outside of WvW zergs and specific range-only encounters, you will always swap to some other weapon.

So if you want to use a bow and shoot people a lot, don’t pick a thief.

Not true, my short bow thief can take down whole mobs easily. You just have to keep moving and use the mouse for movement.

A Necro can’t move?

Anyway, out of the bow classes all of them are fine to play. If you want the most challenging of them to play, a thief is probably the best bet. I mean it isn’t that difficult but it isn’t a profession in which you can just stand there and fire away.

thieves have great mobility and a lot of gap closers/chasers. However, their forte is not really the SB (as compared to rangers). So..yea, either thieves or rangers. :p

Rangers longbow sucks ..only good in zergs and thats it. Theif’s shortbow skills> rangers shortbow. It has one of the best blast finishers in the game and plus it has a tele & all skills are less than 6 sec cd. And I see a lot of high ranked theives use shortbow for a while now in spvp.

Not saying theif is better then ranger but their shortbow abilities are.

Try out the ranger; they are actually pretty decent now when not eclipsed behind a zerk warriors damage (lol warriors, in my opinion are probably one of the worst designed classes in the game; all they can do is damage and that’s all they are worth… and in a game like this thats actually all you need).

If you want a bow as a main weapon I would go with a shortbow, if you just want a bow on hand to swap to as conditions change; the longbow is a pretty good secondary.

The only thing that is really wrong with the ranger is they can be a bit unreliable in a couple of ways when pets up and decide to look at you funny as they die in a big attack you tried to get them to avoid (but they always seem to be just within range of). This a bit less so when you play just from a range, because you can sometimes be far enough away to have your pet move out of harms way when you call them (sometimes, but they also have a nasty habit of running one direction and then back to get back to you, which often gets them killed all the same….).

If you can deal with your pets being a major gamble at times in group battles and dungeons, then you might really enjoy the ranger. Everything else about the ranger (besides the pets) is pretty solid.

Ranger. They can snare and punt and can use both types of bows. Learning how to keep your pet alive takes a bit of skill and babying but it’s not a bad class like everyone says.

Thief bow is more of a gimmick. I’m not sure of the warriors bow, but ranger can use both bows and they’re both pretty fun to use. they can also throw axes for whenever your feeling like a bad kitten

thief shortbow skills are much more fun and feel a lot more dynamic than ranger & warrior bow skills imo.

Once you have piercing and are Condition specced, Ranger Shortbow can be really fun, kiting behind mobs, rolling through them and rapid firing them before they turn, strafing to get them lined up so you can hit 3 with the same arrow. I’ve run bow on all 3 classes and Ranger is the most fun.

Thief shortbow for the most spammable aoe blast finisher in the game.

Ranger currently has many issues in instanced (dungeons) content, to the point that many groups just dont want them- but is one of the best classes in open world/levelling

Thief in dungeons is hard to play, but alot more rewarding then ranger if you do correctly.

I find Rangers fine in Dungeons, did all my leveling in them, they work great as tanky close support. I run a condition build with some power, toughness and healing and spec heavily into BM. The damage is solid, not top notch but very decent, if you can keep moving and behind enemy. You can keep up the best healing field in the game about 50% of the time and your hard to put down.

I feel part of the issue people have is poor pet control, survivability. The fact that they try to run Pow/Pre/Crit, which doesn’t scale as well for them as they have low base damage (due to it being split with pet, remember crit is a percentage of damage, the lower your base damage, the less each point spent in crit does). And they try to remain at extreme range, your best fighting at about 600, as it’s easier to get behind mobs, line them up for piercing and support your melee by placing your healing spring so they are on the edge of it.

Speaking from a PvE dungeon perspective, with an 80 of each of these:

Thief shortbow is an amazing secondary weapon, but you’re really bringing yourself down if you don’t switch to melee whenever you’re able to. It has nice utility with its shadowstep and blast finisher spam, and functions as an acceptable form of AoE if you’re running mainhand dagger.

Warrior longbow is a great choice for fights where it’s too hot to melee, or as something to swap to when you’re low on health. If you primarily use longbow people are going to be annoyed because you aren’t living up to half the potential you could be with Axe or Greatsword.

Ranger is the only class that can really primarily use a bow. Shortbow, in particular. Unfortunately, rangers are pretty garbage in dungeons, offering no support outside of sometimes putting up a small, stationary regen circle in an oftentimes very mobile game where regeneration is pretty easy to come by and doesn’t stack, alongside some unimpressive damage that’s reliant on an AI-controlled pet that can’t dodge.

Bored of thief bow skills really really fast. My opinion.

RainbowSyrup.4130:

Sounds like Thief to me

+1
bow thief got great aoe, and got insane sweet mobility skills
and when they switch to melee, they probably will win a 1v1

I also want to primarily use a bow but NOT as a secondary weapon. I really don’t like ranger though. =/

They need to make another bow class.
I’m sick and tired of there only being 1 real option for a bow class in every mmo. Break the mold anet!

I can’t speak for Rangers in a dungeon, but those of you saying ranger is a bad class either have never played it (or haven’t played it long enough), or are playing with rangers who have no idea what they are doing.
First off pets, you need to pick the right pet for the situation. Spiders and Carrions so far are the best pets I have come across. Spider can hold targets in place as well as poison. Where carrions can poison and get themselves away from mobs. I use these all the time whether solo or not. I’ve found the trick with pets, summon the next one, just before the first one dies. Then when the second one is about to bite it, summon the first one back. It will be fully healed when the timer recycles. Remember pick you pets wisely.
As for bows, my ranger uses nothing but bows. I have no problems killing anything. Where Longbow is slow, short bow is fast, I switch between the two in most fights. The longbow AOE is the only attack where you need to be standing still to use, as said before longbow has a push back great when in a small space. Short bow has the leap back, great for out in the open (just watch those cliffs!), and also counts as a dodge.
As for the utilities, my regen circle is not that great, but when I use it it’s usually for myself, if others get in it so be it. I know a ranger isn’t any kind of great healer.
As for traps and sigils, you need to know when to use what. In a big Champion/World event most times traps are useless unless you can drag them threw them. The sigils will keep you and your pet alive longer, especially when you take the ability for your sigils to effect you.
Rangers are great solo or grouped. I have gone for condition damage, stacking them to max. So what if you get max bleeds, they are still taking damage. You have to remember conditions only last seconds, so they can be stacked over and over. I’m also stacking poisons and slowing them down. A ranger is an effective fighter, They can also save you, drag away the big baddies so others can rez you, or their pet can. I do this alot, pull aggro from the downed, kite it, till they are back up.
I also play a Guardian, between the two I enjoy the Ranger more, I have also played a thief but I have not played one to 80 yet.
And that’s my 2 gold on this.

Rangers and the pets can be wonderful. One of my favorite things to do with my Ranger is sic the pet on a target I want to draw out, call it back and let the target follow it a short distance then sic the pet on the target again and unleash my longbow. Great way to pick opponents off one at a time… Downside to pets is they don’t stay put when put away and can come out at inconvenient times, though, overall I have really enjoyed playing my Ranger and it remains one of my faves.

You can do things as a ranger but if you’ve ever played an actually decent class you’ll find that it is embarrassing how poor rangers are in comparison.

Direngrey.8376:

Despite what some people are saying about Rangers, ignore them. Rangers are an amazing class, only elitists will tell you that they are bad because they themselves prefer full zerker gear war.

I’d go with ranger. Because they have excellent mobility. Excellent range. A pet that can revive them, and melee is amazing.

pet healing ability is no guarantee the pet will go to you to heal if you need it when there are a dozen allies around you who need it as well. its pretty worthless in wvw.

what is needed for a ranger pet extra is the ability of the pet to revive their owners, instead of just running over to them and standing on top of them like a useless idiot.