Guild Wars 2

Hey guys sorry if this has been brought up a thousand time or if I’m just clueless.

Ok so I’d love to play a Rifle build for either Warrior or Engi but every time I try and find build ideas all I read is a sea of “This is trash! Nerfed! Don’t use this anymore hammer/insert any melee is way better!”
I understand the Meta is pretty straight forward and people are pretty picky nowadays but I’d still love to give Rifle a shot. I’m just not sure which class is more I guess “viable” since I don’t want to be totally useless.
Also what are some of your personal experiences using the Rifle in this current meta? Is it still enjoyable? Do you still see anybody doing some crazy and oddly useful things with this weapon?
Any advice would be appreciated!

Unless you’re raiding, spvping or high level fractals…doesn’t matter.

Ubik.8315:

Unless you’re raiding, spvping or high level fractals…doesn’t matter.

Well I haven’t raided in this game before so I’d eventually like to try that on a character I have. I enjoy spvp a lot with friends and I haven’t done WvW since the launch day of the game so I’m a bit behind. But I’d like to do all of those eventually.

I used to use rifle on my warrior when I needed a ranged weapon but I stopped after the change to Brutal Shot(#4). I rarely used #5 as it was and the change to #4 makes me not want to use that either so that leaves me with a 2h weapon that functions like a 1h weapon.

IN WvW a flamethrower/rifle engineer actually had my p/p scrapper beat in a one on one fight some weeks ago. Yeah out of all the bloody things you can meet. I’m built for roaming and I can duel every class (or 2) with confidence yet that guy on a silly rifle build and flamethrower of all stupid things took me down like a baby. It was quite embarassing. I’m sure I would have handled it alot better had I actually fought similar builds more than once every 6 months or so, but still.

Dawdler.8521:

IN WvW a flamethrower/rifle engineer actually had my p/p scrapper beat in a one on one fight some weeks ago. Yeah out of all the bloody things you can meet. I’m built for roaming and I can duel every class (or 2) with confidence yet that guy on a silly rifle build and flamethrower of all stupid things took me down like a baby. It was quite embarassing. I’m sure I would have handled it alot better had I actually fought similar builds more than once every 6 months or so, but still.

Hate to break it to you but FT is not weak lol. I am assuming he took you down by conds, namely fire. I run FT and rocket kick, both of those F skills combined vs 1 oppnt can be very deadly especially if built for cond dam from runes/sigils.

To the OP I main an Engi and do have a warrior as well. I would suggest warrior if it’s just the rifle you want to use. On Engi it works more like a shotgun so has short range except for the skill 1, it’s also more a control weapon. It’s not very satisfying tbh and you are usually better off with kits. Warrior I guess is slightly more fun and more built for doing damage. However mine uses a Bow for range, especially now since it’s a viable wep for some good cond burn damage with the right trait.

Either way good luck deciding. Also don’t forget you can go to the PvP lobby and try both classes out for free. All skils and traits etc are unlocked for free and instantly so you can test them. You don’t have to fight other players. Test them out on the golem dummies or npcs there.

I love rifle+FT engie, but IMO engie is a very complex profession, you can’t take it just for the rifle. As Paulintz says, engie rifle is more like a shotgun, mid to short range weapon, focused on CC. I find it VERY satisfying, but you need to use it along kits: much more than just 5 skills for your game.

I don’t like warrior rifle, I find it boring. But also almost everything else from warrior bores me, so dont take my opinion on this too seriously.

If you want to use a rifle use a rifle.

Unless you really struggle to complete even basic things like open-world events you don’t need to restrict yourself to the current favourite meta builds. (And if you do struggle with all areas of the game those builds probably won’t help as they tend to assume a high level of player skill.)

If you do start doing things that need a specific build you can get the weapons for it then. If it’s not likely to be for a while it might actually be better to wait, otherwise you run the risk of spending a lot of time and gold on kitting yourself out with gear you might never get to use before a big balance update comes along and changes the meta.

You could also get yourself multiple weapons to use in different areas of the game. It’s a bit OTT but my ranger normally uses showbow and sword/torch but also carries an axe (mainly for reflects), longbow and staff. They’re all exotics I got cheap/free so it doesn’t matter if I don’t use them often and they occasionally come in useful.