Guild Wars 2

…without severely kittening your damage? Being new to the Guild Wars universe, I am unsure as to which professions can play decently with no melee weapons.

I just started playing a thief and liked the idea of playing a dual pistol (single target) / shortbow (aoe) build. I have no idea if this play style would be viable, but it sounds like a lot of fun to me. I tried the elementalist at first, but found myself just a bit overwhelmed with element swapping and weapon/skill selection. I also thought about trying a ranger out, but read on the forums that their pets die a good bit and can also grab unintended agro.

All advice is greatly appreciated!

Warrior.
Elementalist.
Necromancer (Kind of, depends on how far you consider ‘ranged’)
Mesmer.
Engineer’s weapons are all ranged, they have no melee. (Some of their skills are close-range though, and they have kits)

Critwrench.8432:

Warrior.
Elementalist.
Necromancer (Kind of, depends on how far you consider ‘ranged’)
Mesmer.
Engineer’s weapons are all ranged, they have no melee. (Some of their skills are close-range though, and they have kits)

The Ranger says “HellooOoooOOOOOoooo!”

Ojimaru.8970:

The Ranger says “HellooOoooOOOOOoooo!”

Most highly-effective ranger builds involve melee, and the Longbow is generally considered a subpar weapon overall. Your other options are the Shortbow, which is best when used for flanking, or axes, which are “kind-of” ranged.

Something you might not like about thief ranged attacks is that aside from Cluster Bomb (shortbow No. 2), you have a max range of 900 instead of most ranged things’ 1200.

In this game, the Warrior is probably the best raw-damage no brainer hard hitting ranged class. Every other class relies more on kiting or other mechanics that don’t function at max range.

On the other hand, warrior is probably the least mobile ranged class in the game generally speaking, though it’s hard to say as all the classes in this game are very mobile compared to what most people are used too. Warriors can not move while using their hardest-hitting ranged ability though.

Any I guess, but you generally lose alot of dps and playstyle utility by refusing to ever go melee (rangers I’m looking at you). Exception of course for elementalist with ranged wpn and engineers who have a different dynamic altogether.

Engineer only has ranged weapons, if I remember correctly.
Ranger, naturally (although that greatsword can be huge fun….)
Mesmer
Elementalist.

Dual pistol is great fun on a thief, but having somethig more melee-oriented is usually really useful for your secondary weapon slot.

Go engineer, lots of options with the kits + loads of knockbacks to actually fight @ range.