Guild Wars 2

Hi,

Having a hard time picking a main for WvW (and the rest of the game for that matter). I like to play from range as much as possible. Right now, I’ve got an Engineer at 80, but not a Warrior. I find the Engineer requires a lot of button mashing to make grenades work, which can be exhausting after awhile, but fun when it works.

Strongly considering making a Longbow Warrior. I was wondering what people think of the playstyle and what it brings to the group vs a Grenade Engineer? I would even consider a Longbow Ranger, but I don’t want to be burdened by a pet getting stomped by zergs.

Here’s how I see things:

Warrior:
+ Several viable Longbow builds.
+ Good support through shouts.
+ Low skill cap.
- 1200 range.
- Lacking mobility (outside of weapon sets).

Engineer:
+ 1500 range.
+ Lots of mobility, able to keep Vigor up most of the time.
- High skill cap.
- Group support through Elixirs is random and has to be targetted.

Ranger:
+ 1500 range.
+ Lots of mobility.
- Longbow not as strong as Warriors(?)
- Pet
- Pet
- Pet

What does everybody think? Anybody playing these classes and can share their thoughts and comparisons?

Thanks!
-Cowboy

Warrior can use longbow?

hey cowboy, longbow isnt really a main weapon set for warrior. the autoattacks are garbage and there is no sustained dps on it and it lacks adrenaline generation, the pin down has a high cooldown and the traits are quite lackluster, i dont even use any of them while using longbow. however it can spike damage like a boss and isnt as much of a ranged weapon as it seems (fire fan is a point blank skill for example, smoldering applies blind, combustion shot is good for defensive purpose also), be played both power and condition variant and provides the only warrior combo field. you can get very happy with it as a 2nd set if you pair it with sword / x (condition) or greatsword (power), those make up for lacking mobility, but you shouldnt consider longbow your main weapon, it provides tools to complement your main set.

Warrior is in more demand for group play. And as you know there’s the whole problem with ranger pets just being in existence so that gets super annoying when you play it.

Never played engi much.

I have a level 80 engineer, ranger and warrior. Here are my thoughts:

Warrior

Warrior’s longbow offers pretty good set of conditions + AoE damage, but I would suggest a melee weapon set besides it. Sword/sword condition build synergises very well with longbow. That is a good build for solo and small scale roaming. Most large guild group warriors are hammer / sword + warhorn. Mace/shield+greatsword offers good mobility (via GS) and feature of the month stun lock build.

Warriors together with guardians form the base of any organized zerg. Warrior’s elite battle standard is a must skill for this type of play. If properly traited + right weapons warriors compete with the thief as the most mobile profession in the game.

If you want to play a profession, which has easy to begin with and currently excels in pve and all forms of WvWvW, select a warrior.

Engineer

Engineer can feel very weak compared to other professions in the beginning, due very high skill cap. Engineer excels in small scale and solo roaming. But in large guild groups and zergs engineer is the rarest professions. Grenadier 30 point trait gives you 1500 range with grenades, but this is more theoretical as you will only hit immobile targets and large enemy groups from such range. Grenades are most effective at close (about melee) range. Retaliation damage can hurt a grenade spamming engineer more than it hurts enemies, so be careful. Bomb kit is another good option for dps.

If you like to play a complex deep quirky and funny character, jack of all trades, master of none, support + solo roamer, select engineer. Engineers can quickly adapt to almost any situation. Their support ability is topped only by the guardian.

Ranger

Ranger’s longbow can actually hit longer than 1500, roughly 1800 range, with the eagle eyes trait. It does more single damage dps than the grenades at 1000 range, but ranger lacks AoE damage. Ranger is a bit overpowered underwater as its dead pet can still revive it (with lick wounds), but in large battles the pet dies very quickly. Ranger can be very strong as a solo roamer or in 5-player group if played correctly. Don’t believe all the crap in these forums people say about ranger.

Ranger is also easy to begin with. If you like sniping from long range and almost endless dodging / evading + small scale battles, select ranger. Longbow + greatsword is good beginner weapon set.

Junkpile.7439:

Warrior can use longbow?

That is low quality.

You literally have no reason to play a longbow in WvW as a warrior. Wariors provide something that except them only Guardians can provide: they are the vanguard that presses into the enemy position, soak the first wave of attacks and inflict heavy damage.
Longbow satisfies none of that. It does neither notable damage, nor does it help in the frontline, nor does it provide CC like a hammer war/guard, and it’s not a particularly tanky weapon set.

So, if it has to be one of those two, chose Grenade Engi, by a wide margin. If you want to play ranged generally, I’d recommend basically every other class but Warrior. Necros or Eles are always much sought after for their (ranged) attacks (Mesmers are highly sought after as well of course as well, but more for their utilities and elite, not their damage/weapon skills).

Thanks for all the advice guys! Really appreciate it!

I’ve avoided leveling my Warrior further for exactly the reasons some of you have posted. It’s just tempting cause Longbow can be so strong.

Going to start a Ranger and see how I get on. Just want a good ranged class that doesn’t require the button mashing the Engi does.

I do wonder if I should consider the Necromancer, seems the FotM lately. But I’ve never been into caster classes aesthetically. Plus, they don’t have the mobility a Ranger does. Do they fair well or better in zerg v zerg?

Thanks again for opinions, please share more if you have any more insight!

Just to provide a counterpoint on longbow warrior in WvW. I use it all the time to fairly good effect. It provides a long lasting fire field with Combustive Shot that ticks for 700-800 on many targets and you combine it with Arcing Arrow you suddenly nail 5 people for 3-5k damage depending on circumstance as well as provide might to friendlies in the blast radius. Also you have access to two skills that can fill up your adrenaline instantly so you can use that fire field every 7-10 seconds depending on your setup and rotation. It is also a pretty decent counter-stealth weapon since you can AOE well.

The key, ofc, is to be prepared to use it as a melee weapon. You get past that mental hurdle and it works well.

Thing to remember about the warrior in general is each weapon set usually has a particular thing it does really well, a couple of things it does okay and some things it is horrible at. LB is good to excellent in zergs, good to excellent in sieges, okay in 1v1s and underperforms other weapons in small-group fights.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Ranger

Ranger’s longbow can actually hit longer than 1500, roughly 1800 range, with the eagle eyes trait.

Just like to correct this. Rangers have a BASE range of 1200 and eagle eye gives them MAX 1500. They DO NOT have a base of 1500 with eagle eye bumping them up to 1800. I wish this were the case, though it is not.

engineer is a good class if you choose the right skills
im a rifle engineer with all rifle affecting traits, all elixers as utilities, and supply crate as elite. and i soak up TONS of dmg with my invul and evasion

I’d strongly suggest you rethink the Warrior. While Ranger is a strong ranged class, it’s clearly not strong enough to amount to any real value in WvW. You’ll also find the ranged ranger builds are incredibly straight forward and boring to play. Instead of wasting time leveling to see how each plays, I strongly suggest you go to sPvP and give each a couple hours of your time. If you can stomach the boring gameplay of the ranger then you’ll probably enjoy the class no matter how inferior it is.

Warrior is currently one of the most broken classes in this game though. A condition/regen build with Warrior is near unstoppable. While you will use the longbow, you’ll be using it more in melee and mid range (to great effect I might add) as opposed to long range sniping (which you can use the rifle for if you want).

Few classes in this game can take on a condi warrior 1v1. They’re very mobile and make good roamers too. And at the end of the day, you’re still a Warrior so you’ll always have something to do for a zerg. Ranger not so much.

Adminir.8140:

Deniara Devious.3948:

Ranger

Ranger’s longbow can actually hit longer than 1500, roughly 1800 range, with the eagle eyes trait.

Just like to correct this. Rangers have a BASE range of 1200 and eagle eye gives them MAX 1500. They DO NOT have a base of 1500 with eagle eye bumping them up to 1800. I wish this were the case, though it is not.

I know all that, but read this:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Long_Range_Shot

Several skills in the game can hit longer than much longer than the range in their tooltip says. Me and fellow elementalist from my guild tested. A staff elementalist can hit such locations (upwards the walls) which grandmaster grenadier cannot reach even though staff has official 1200 range and traited grenades have 1500 range.

I’ve been fighting longbow Warriors on my Mesmer, they die easily even when they had help and their help hurt more than they did…soo I guess they were playing it wrong? The damage seems to slow for what they do per hit.