Guild Wars 2

Hi All,

In a bit of a predicament, I could use your help with. I run a power ranger with a legendary longbow. I am thinking about doing higher tier fractals and raids but not sure if the longbow is the right weapon to go with a condi built. Can anyone throw some light on this? What are my options here? Also I don’t want to go through the trouble of crafting another legendary/ascended shortbow. Thanks for your help!

cant go condi with a longbow as a ranger you could use it on a warrior or guardian tho.

Quick look at metabattle yield druid dps/support with lb or warrior condi/support for fractals and raids. Dh bow isnt really a thing there.

You can’t use a longbow for a condi ranger build because longbow attacks don’t cause any damaging conditions (only vulnerability and cripple).

You could use a power build, or you could start off with an exotic weapon and build up to an ascended one if you know you’re going to be doing it a lot. (Although you might have a harder time finding a group that will take you without full ascended.)

Just because something isnt ‘ideal’ doesnt mean you shouldnt do it. play however you want and find like minded ppl that will accept that. dont let others view of a ‘meta’ ruin your good time.

Longbow on a condi-ranger is unfortunately not just about meta or no meta, it does not make a lot of sense, since the longbow does not make any condition damage (as above mentioned).

But to make an ascended shortbow is a lot less troublesome than making a legendary, IMO. Especially since you can craft a weapon of any stat that is easier to optain (aka cheap to buy inscription) and change the stats in the mystic forge with the Anthology of Heroes. But you will have to craft some of the sprititwood/elonian leather square stuff I am afraid (I forgot what precisely).

If you want to raid with a condi ranger you will want to have a viper’s armor I am afraid. I don’t raid myself though, that’s just what other people told me.
The easiest way to optain it is playing the HoT Story (last chapter) with several characters ;-).

I’d suggest enjoy your Legendary at the power ranger and take your take your time to optain a set for a condi ranger if you want to try that. You could also buy a rampager’s armor at the karma vendor to try how the condi works and replace it bit by bit with viper’s gear.

I have a complete power and condi set on my druid and switch between them as I like. Both versions are fun to play IMO.

Khailyn.6248:

Just because something isnt ‘ideal’ doesnt mean you shouldnt do it. play however you want and find like minded ppl that will accept that. dont let others view of a ‘meta’ ruin your good time.

In general that is absolutely right, especially in this game.

But there are exceptions and unfortunately this is one of them. When we say you can’t use a longbow on a condition ranger build we don’t mean some guy with a youtube account has declared that no one should be allowed to do it because it’s not “meta”. We mean it does not work at all.

It’s like saying you want to make a ranged build using sword/warhorn. That gives you just 1 ranged attack with a 20 second recharge, meaning you have to be in melee range to actually kill anything. You can’t make a ranged build without ranged attacks and you can’t make a condition build without conditions and the longbow only does 2 conditions, neither of which causes damage.

(This is one reason people keep asking for more options for weapon skills – then they could add condition skills to the longbow, power skills to the shortbow etc. and everyone would have more options for how to make builds.)

^^^ that. you are not choosing a weapon, you are choosing a set of attack skills. unfortunately, this means that what you might like for style (wield a longbow) may not be possible with mechanics (condition damage) because the skills are inextricably tied to it.