Guild Wars 2

Make it happen!

The scepter is not a viable ranged weapon even if they buffed the orb speed.

No. And i’ll tell you why….Crossbow.

I honestly think some people rolled the wrong profession.

Corsix.4895:

No. And i’ll tell you why….Crossbow.

Oh yeah!
That would be awesome!

And pole arms that do fire AoE damage.

Shimond.2478:

I honestly think some people rolled the wrong profession.

We are the only class without a real ranged weapon.

And engineers don’t have a ‘real’ melee weapon, what’s your point?

I’ll say it once again: Rifles!
Or just change the Scepter.

@Shimond: What is it about Guardians that should prevent them from being viable at range?

Because it’s not the way we were designed. /shrug

People seem to have this idea that all classes should be able to do the same things. I don’t.

Ynna.8769:

I’ll say it once again: Rifles!
Or just change the Scepter.

@Shimond: What is it about Guardians that should prevent them from being viable at range?

Longbow feels more fitting to a guardian than a rifle and the scepter is traumatic to even think about so do not change it, just remove it and let us forget that it ever existed.

Warrior Longbow and thief shortbow are completely incapable of killing other players at ranged too, but they are great for PvE. Does that mean they aren’t real ranged weapons?

Shimond.2478:

Because it’s not the way we were designed. /shrug

People seem to have this idea that all classes should be able to do the same things. I don’t.

I would normally agree with you on this but every other class is designed to be viable at both range and melee combat except us and maybe the engineer.

Servanin.5021:

Warrior Longbow and thief shortbow are completely incapable of killing other players at ranged too, but they are great for PvE. Does that mean they aren’t real ranged weapons?

If it cant be used to do massive AoE damage and tag mobs it has no use in GW2 DE PvE.

Shimond.2478:

People seem to have this idea that all classes should be able to do the same things. I don’t.

I kinda remember A.Net mentioning that they do in fact want everyone to be viable in every situation. This is why the trinity is gone.

Giving guardians a viable ranged weapon hardly means that all classes should be the same. It simply means that guardians would have a viable ranged weapon.

Who’s to say that it wouldn’t fit in with the rest of the guardian?
It would probably end up with a fair amount of support skills on it.

Limiting classes to a certain range in a game like this is simply bad.
If you honestly think that i should have less fun in WvW because of my class choice then i don’t know what to tell you.

At the moment i have no reason to do WvW on my guardian main when i can do it on my low level ranger and be a lot more useful to the team.

We already have the longbow as a spirit weapon so why not as a real one?

Ang.2157:

Ynna.8769:

I’ll say it once again: Rifles!
Or just change the Scepter.

@Shimond: What is it about Guardians that should prevent them from being viable at range?

Longbow feels more fitting to a guardian than a rifle and the scepter is traumatic to even think about so do not change it, just remove it and let us forget that it ever existed.

(Before reading the following I feel it necessary to state that I am not insane or making a threat on your life)
Take my scepter and I’ll KILL YOU ALL!!! In game of course. Just wanted to say I love the scepter in both pve and pvp.

Dragonhero.1852:

Ang.2157:

Ynna.8769:

I’ll say it once again: Rifles!
Or just change the Scepter.

@Shimond: What is it about Guardians that should prevent them from being viable at range?

Longbow feels more fitting to a guardian than a rifle and the scepter is traumatic to even think about so do not change it, just remove it and let us forget that it ever existed.

(Before reading the following I feel it necessary to state that I am not insane or making a threat on your life)
Take my scepter and I’ll KILL YOU ALL!!! In game of course. Just wanted to say I love the scepter in both pve and pvp.

The problem is that the autoattack is extremely slow thus making it into a semi melee weapon and the staff fills that role much better with it’s AoE autoattack.

The number 2 ability is pretty nice and the number 3 feels useless when fighting in WvW.

Keelin.5781:

I kinda remember A.Net mentioning that they do in fact want everyone to be viable in every situation. This is why the trinity is gone.

Giving guardians a viable ranged weapon hardly means that all classes should be the same. It simply means that guardians would have a viable ranged weapon.

Who’s to say that it wouldn’t fit in with the rest of the guardian?
It would probably end up with a fair amount of support skills on it.

Limiting classes to a certain range in a game like this is simply bad.
If you honestly think that i should have less fun in WvW because of my class choice then i don’t know what to tell you.

You chose the Guardian to use a longbow?

Shimond.2478:

Keelin.5781:

I kinda remember A.Net mentioning that they do in fact want everyone to be viable in every situation. This is why the trinity is gone.

Giving guardians a viable ranged weapon hardly means that all classes should be the same. It simply means that guardians would have a viable ranged weapon.

Who’s to say that it wouldn’t fit in with the rest of the guardian?
It would probably end up with a fair amount of support skills on it.

Limiting classes to a certain range in a game like this is simply bad.
If you honestly think that i should have less fun in WvW because of my class choice then i don’t know what to tell you.

You chose the Guardian to use a longbow?

Yes, is that a problem?

Obviously, since you can’t :P

Shimond.2478:

You chose the Guardian to use a longbow?

What? Stop trying to put words into my mouth, okay?
I chose the guardian because i wanted to play a guardian.
I did not expect the ranged options to be this bad – It’s a problem that needs to be addressed.
I honestly couldn’t care less if it’s a longbow or a rifle or a flippin’ sling.

Keelin.5781:

I honestly couldn’t care less if it’s a longbow or a rifle or a flippin’ sling.

Well there’s any number of weapons they could add to the game that could fit the theme of the Guardian. Just add some pretty blue light to its attacks and voila, Guardian weapon.

• Composite Longbow
• Sling
• Javelin
• Repeating Crossbow
• Throwing Axes
• Throwing Knives
• Shurikens
• Darts

The list goes on and on. I can’t wait to see what new weapons they add to the game. Just depends on how long it will take before that happens.

Keelin.5781:

Shimond.2478:

You chose the Guardian to use a longbow?

What? Stop trying to put words into my mouth, okay?
I chose the guardian because i wanted to play a guardian.
I did not expect the ranged options to be this bad – It’s a problem that needs to be addressed.
I honestly couldn’t care less if it’s a longbow or a rifle or a flippin’ sling.

Hey, that’s actually not a bad idea. A sling wouldn’t fit badly with the Guardian’s supportive/magical style, and it’d look pretty cool (though admittedly, weapon skins would be a bit difficult). Still, something like this might work beautifully:

1. Autoattack chain: 1 – sling a rock, 2 – sling another rock, 3 – sling an imbued rock that deals smaller damage, but sets enemies on fire for a short time in a small AoE around the target. 1200 range.
2. Bury: Rapidly throw 5 rocks at your target, one after another. If the target is struck by 3 or more rocks, they are crippled for a short time. 1200 range.
3. Stone: Sling a small boulder at the target area for significant damage. Slow projectile, 600-900 range, causes weakness. Short but visible windup and AoE indicator.
4. Blessed Shot: Launch a handful of blessed shot at target area, dealing a small amount of damage. Blinds enemies and removes one condition from each ally in the target area. AoE size expands the further away the target is (unknown if this could be implemented with current game mechanics, but if so it’d be an awesome addition, tactically). 1200 range.
5. Bludgeon: Swing a massive boulder at a nearby target with your sling. Knocks down target foe, dealing significant damage. 180 range.

Well if we’re just throwing out “I wish” ideas here, I’d just say make the trident or spear work on land (and reconfigure the skills a bit).

I have to say while it would be nice to have a Longbow, it’s by no means a necessity. IMO, of course.

I’m not sure Guardians are supposed to be all that good at range. With the Staff being somewhat weak and only good at medium range, and with the Scepter being unreliable with its slow projectiles, I can only assume this was on purpose.

My vote is for Javelin, used the way the Romans used them. To de-shield opponents.

Guardians are magic knights. bows and guns are not the tools of magic knights. The scepter is fine, but is poorly executed. The only other ranged I want to see is a melee weapon with a chain attached to it.

arcdash.4039:

I’m not sure Guardians are supposed to be all that good at range. With the Staff being somewhat weak and only good at medium range, and with the Scepter being unreliable with its slow projectiles, I can only assume this was on purpose.

Every single class has a good range and melee spec, everyone except guardians, and with this game being so anti-melee its very difficult without a ranged spec

No reason to add a new ranged weapon instead of making existing ones not terrible.

Animatus.6197:

Every single class has a good range and melee spec, everyone except guardians, and with this game being so anti-melee its very difficult without a ranged spec

I think most engineers would take issue with you assuming they have a good melee spec.

Even if we were designed to not have a real ranged weapon, why is it warriors get to have this advantage then? They already have better shield abilities as well but that’s a whole other topic… I’m just saying maybe even our design is a bit flawed.

Guardians are magic knights. bows and guns are not the tools of magic knights.

Says who?

The existing ranged weapons are decent. However we lack a REAL option for ranged gameplay; the scepter, despite being 1200 range, is far too easily dodged.

Longbow would fit perfectly – we even have a spirit weapon version of it, so why not allow us the real thing?

Shimond.2478:

Animatus.6197:

Every single class has a good range and melee spec, everyone except guardians, and with this game being so anti-melee its very difficult without a ranged spec

I think most engineers would take issue with you assuming they have a good melee spec.

you have a wrench you can smack people over the head with

As I said, a ‘good’ melee spec. Technically we have a ranged one with the scepter, a similar argument is being made about its use.

If by melee, you mean short range, then Bombs are extremely viable for engineers. Throwing hammers, Javalins, or Crossbow, i would love any of these to be for the guardian ranged. OR maybe let us main hand the Focus? That way they dont need to work in the new weapon for other classes. Focus is a magical tool, we can use it.

Just want to say:

The Staff is “okay” for ranged. Symbol with 50% uptime when fully traited (6s duration) and a ‘2’ that hits for solid damage with a relatively short time between fires. The issue is that Wave of Wrath is 600 range and can’t even traverse the Y-axis, and the ‘2’ skills moves far too slow.

The Scepter can be good for ranged, but only in PvE or against swarms of enemies. Smite does not pulse, which makes it rather pathetic in many cases, against single targets and multiple. Orb of Wrath is simply too slow for any form of PvP, and even struggles in WvW.

Changes to our current weapons can solve the current issues and should be looked into first. But, the idea of a Longbow is still interesting and workable.

I’m very much in favor of advocating Longbow for the Guardian class. We talked about it in Beta, and by BWE2 (or was it 3?) the Devs mentioned they’d looked into the idea, but just didn’t want to commit to a new weapon this close to release.

I think we can make a stronger case for or against Longbow once we can have a stronger discussion on profession balance. To do so will require a more developed metagame, and that will take time. Right now, ANet is focused on squashing bugs and removing exploits, and maybe tuning content. Heavier rebalancing of professions won’t happen until more players are running dungeons, doing sPVP, doing WvWvW and sharing builds.

Right now, the metagame is still in its infancy. Players are still figuring things out. I don’t think ANet is going to listen to a debate over new weapons until the metagame matures.

Stop saying Engineers have no melee spec. Their range specs have no minimum range to be useful so they can be used at melee range (Heck, the engi rifle #3 is even more powerful the closer you are to your target), however we have no range spec that’s really good.
Keyword being really since we have the scepter, which is meh. Other than doing suppressing fire with #2 on keeps, it’s pretty useless.

Breakdown is: engineers, and all other classes, are viable in both close and long range, we’re viable only in close range, with the possibility of a subpar long range.

Shimond.2478:

And engineers don’t have a ‘real’ melee weapon, what’s your point?

Yes, they do. Rifles are melee weapons for engineers.

@Eveningstar: If I remember correctly, it was BWE2. In the third we got the range increase on our weapons.
And the rest of your post is something I find myself agreeing with. I’d rather like to see a decent ranged option for the Guardian (Rifle!), but it’s probably not needed for a big part of the content.

I wish guardians were able to use their spirit weapons like normal weapons…

Corsix.4895:

No. And i’ll tell you why….Crossbow.

Im all for this. Septer is too “magiei”, short/long bow is too hunterlike. I am all for crossbow for guardians. That is the “soldier” way to go

arcdash.4039:

I’m not sure Guardians are supposed to be all that good at range. With the Staff being somewhat weak and only good at medium range, and with the Scepter being unreliable with its slow projectiles, I can only assume this was on purpose.

For what reason do you think that guardians should not be as good at range as the other classes? Since the game is not supporting the old “Tank/healer/melee/ranged/suppot” system. All classes should be viable in every situation. In this game you should not “need” 1 class over an other in any situation.
Septer is a really weak ranged weapon. Most probably the weakest ranged weapon in the game. IMO Guardians need a 2hander ranged weapon. It fits more into the role of a “knight”.

Just increase the range of the scepter, done.

I wouldn’t mind being able to shoot a fireball too lol! Take something away from Elementalists Staff skills

In all seriousness though, Longbow would be awesome but I think we will have to wait until an expansion comes if they are going to add weapons to Professions.

Hasteo.6437:

Just increase the range of the scepter, done.

Don’t think the range is the problem here. The scepter alredy have 1200 range. That is long enough. The range is actually the only thing that is OK with it. I will rather say everything ells is wrong with it.

While I enjoy my Guardian (main character), I find myself wishing I had one more ranged weapon with faster projectiles for WvW. The Scepter is decent, and better than nothing, but it can feel cumbersome because of the slow projectiles. It strikes me as a mid-range weapon.

I would love to see a long-range support weapon with fast projectiles.

I throw in my vote with the Crossbow, as it fits the feel/mold for the character.

ZtriDer.9573:

Hasteo.6437:

Just increase the range of the scepter, done.

Don’t think the range is the problem here. The scepter alredy have 1200 range. That is long enough. The range is actually the only thing that is OK with it. I will rather say everything ells is wrong with it.

Yes but the problem with Scepter is if you actually use it at range, you’ll never hit your target. Most likely the target is moving in which case the extremely slow projectile has already missed them. If they are actually standing completely still from 1200m away, all they have to do is sneeze and suddenly your skill missed them. It’s not a homing missile like most other ranged weapon attacks which it should be, or just give the scepter more AoE ground target skills.

My Staff Ele can stand at range and hit with every skill because they’re designed properly. Scepter and Staff as well really aren’t up to par with other ranged weapons from other classes. Other classes can support with ranged weapons while also doing decent damage and actually still hitting the target with ease. I do think though that the ranged options should remain magical and not a longbow type thing, since it needs to fit into the magical fighter style of the Guardian.

Focus for main hand is another possibility, more magical ranged/beam of light spells, give the scepter a damage buff to compensate the ridiculous travel speed since its basically a melee weapon without combos. With a focus being beams of light the attacks would hit instantly, still not a combo projectile but it could have more bursty AoE rather than the control/fluff of scepter. IT’d also be quicker/easier than adding a new weapon entirely.