Guild Wars 2

I’m a returning player that left during year 2. I’ve always been partial to archer classes the class I was most excited about when GW2 was released was Ranger. It always felt lackluster though.
I’ve come back for HoT and am enjoying it. I had Engineer, Mesmer and Ranger at level 80. Used my level 80 boost on a Necro and made a thief which I’m levelling to use as a Staff user.

I’ve never been a fan of Mesmer so I’m thinking of deleting it for a Guardian. I like the idea of running around as an LB guardian in a Ranger or medium armor-esque costume.

What I’m contemplating is whether the LB Guardian would work in PvE/Raids and WvW.
If Spirit weapons were viable, I’d do a Viper build with LB+S/T for burn damage and increased physical damage to burning foes.
However, I’ve settled for Meditations with M/Shield on an Aegis/Retaliation build heavy on boon duration.
Build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVMQNAT5en8cClChtCBGkittendil5BrqBsACAy3v83BMrEtiaRA-TBSGQBpb/hBq8beq/ARlgjT3A2uAAA4JAkgDCAA-e

I just wanted some ideas and feedback from the more experienced Guardians of gw2.

1) If you want to create a new character I should advice you to save some gold, buy gems and buy the a propper new character slot. When a character reaches a birthday gets some gifts, when reaches the 3rd and 4rth birthday gets access to the celebratory and jubilant dye packs, and you can get for free extremely rare/valuable dyes. Rerolling a class puts back the birthday counter. I have 11 characters and got just due birthdays dyes which at his top price add in the north of 2k gold coins.

2) Retaliation is useless in PvE due the low “rate of fire” from the enemies. If you want a PvE longbow based DH use the typical meditrapper variations. That would cover without problems any PvE content except high fractals and raids. For high fractals and raids I would recommend you to join a clan.

3) I have no clue about how permissive are pugs in high fractals/raids, I’m sure there’s people here that could advise you better about the topic.

Concerning fractals/raids with the Guardian:

Fractals you should be constantly using and swapping weapons, this doesn’t mean you can’t use the Longbow for the majority of it but it does mean you should think to use what is needed at the time. I personally use scepter/torch with a swap to sword/shield because the symbols allows pretty good cleave, same with the sword auto attack. The Longbow itself I use for the following in fractals: Subject 6 to push back/hold the oozes, Urban to use on the burning oil pots at the start (#5 basically cleaves all 3 of them down in one go, though make sure to bring stability because the balistas will try to interrupt you), Uncatagorized at the end to push all of the golems on the same spot as they spawn so you can Dragon Maw → Procession them all down quickly.

Slotting in the knockback trait and turning it off are key for good usage for the bow. This is because at times you just want the blind while not messing up AoEs for the group. Like my example of Urban, you don’t want the trait because the blind is great and you want to AoE them down ASAP.

Concerning raids, sadly the longbow pales in comparison to the scepter (all hail the glorious scepter overlord). The main weapons used by Guardians in raids are: Sword, Scepter, Torch, Hammer, with some usage of Focus and Shield (and if you’re cheeky like me, Mace for grabby hand kiting on Deimos). Greatsword, Staff, and Longbow don’t see much raid use which is sad because I’m a fan of the Longbow and Greatsword set ups. Then again, all but 3 weapons is better than basically any other class in this game, fairly certain Guardian has the best rounded weapons in GW2.

Azoqu.8917:

Concerning fractals/raids with the Guardian:

Fractals you should be constantly using and swapping weapons, this doesn’t mean you can’t use the Longbow for the majority of it but it does mean you should think to use what is needed at the time. I personally use scepter/torch with a swap to sword/shield because the symbols allows pretty good cleave, same with the sword auto attack. The Longbow itself I use for the following in fractals: Subject 6 to push back/hold the oozes, Urban to use on the burning oil pots at the start (#5 basically cleaves all 3 of them down in one go, though make sure to bring stability because the balistas will try to interrupt you), Uncatagorized at the end to push all of the golems on the same spot as they spawn so you can Dragon Maw -> Procession them all down quickly.

Slotting in the knockback trait and turning it off are key for good usage for the bow. This is because at times you just want the blind while not messing up AoEs for the group. Like my example of Urban, you don’t want the trait because the blind is great and you want to AoE them down ASAP.

Concerning raids, sadly the longbow pales in comparison to the scepter (all hail the glorious scepter overlord). The main weapons used by Guardians in raids are: Sword, Scepter, Torch, Hammer, with some usage of Focus and Shield (and if you’re cheeky like me, Mace for grabby hand kiting on Deimos). Greatsword, Staff, and Longbow don’t see much raid use which is sad because I’m a fan of the Longbow and Greatsword set ups. Then again, all but 3 weapons is better than basically any other class in this game, fairly certain Guardian has the best rounded weapons in GW2.

What about Open world PvE and WvW? Does the LB see much use there?

jpnova.4572:

What about Open world PvE and WvW? Does the LB see much use there?

In open world Longbow is a perfectly fine weapon and paired with Greatsword makes a good combo. Anything really works in open world so test everything and play whatever you find fun.

Concerning WvW, I sadly don’t do it that much so I don’t really know what people use, but the #2 of Longbow was nerfed by 20% because of the damage it did in WvW so it did see some use in the past. Nowadays I couldn’t tell you.