Guild Wars 2

I am still trying to wrap my head around the skills and stuff in GW2, and I levelled using greatsword, but looked forward to being a dragonhunter. However, once I got to 80, and tried out the LB, the damage seemed quite a bit less than the GS, and I took a crapton more damage.

Is it mainly just for pulling or if you have a bunch of other suckers taking all the damage? I am only doing PvE atm, so going around solo it seems like the GS is still better, unless there is a secret I haven’t learned yet, any tips?

Generally speaking in MMO’s, ranged attacks and DPS are lower than melee; there is less risk associated with camping range. I don’t find that GW2 strays from that too much either. Even the way you can trait LBow encourages sticking to your ranged zone.

If you compare apples to apples, Lbow has a good place between Staff (the ideal zerg spamming weapon, though completely crap for single target) and Scepter, that CAN do good (or best?) ranged damage under the right scenarios. I don’t have numbers but then again, most theorycrafters won’t either.

Bottom line is that our range options do give us choices ideal for different situations. I think because LBow can do a little of both the single target and AOE stuff, people prefer it.

ahh gotcha, I still need to get used to the whole switching weapons in combat thing, I am still used to the other games that actually prevent it on purpose. Thanks for the insight

I know this is a bit off topic but still:

If you see an “unaware” target shot LB#3 then LB#2 (so they hit the same time) follow up with one auto attack then swap to GS (hammer supposed to be here but ANET “bugfixed” it) start channel #2 and after 0.5 sec cast Judge’s Intervention. Fire-Air-Leeching sigils are optimal.

After you tried this I would like to know what you think

On the contrary, I would say longbow damage is quite decent if you have a fairly zerky build. Metabattle even recognizes it as part of an ideal rotation along with GS for general dungeons/pve.

One thing I would advise is to take the trait Unscathed Contender in the virtues line. You can actually make a bit more use of this trait with longbow compared to with melee weapons. That combined with the +13% damage modifier, another +10% from Big Game Hunter and runes should let you pump out some nice dps overall.

I think you must be doing it wrong. Great sword does provide higher damage especially in regards to burst damage, but the longbow is close behind and should be a far safer weapon to use, not sure why you would be taking more damage. Like Obtena said melee weapons are designed to be slightly stronger than range in general.

If you’re having trouble my suggestions would be:

Buy a cheap Superior Sigil of Speed which will give you high swiftness uptime and allow you to kite mobs easier.

Always have Test of Faith as one of your utilities. 24s cooldown, instant cast, daze+cripple and does a lot of damage if enemies run through the wall. Between your swiftness and the enemy being crippled you should never have problems while kiting.

True Shot should always be prioritize for damage.

Symbol of Energy is crazy strong and works well with Inner Fire, since it + Spear of Justice can proc 3 burn stacks instantly.

Wings of Resolve has a much shorter cooldown than the previous F2 virtue so don’t be afraid to use it much more often, even if it is only to re-position/escape.

If you are taking Big Game Hunter, please keep in mind that it procs vulnerability from almost every instance of damage the guardian does (not just strikes). Abilities like symbols/Whirling Wrath/Procession of Blades can easily stack very high vulnerability very fast. Example: while tethered and taking around 5s to accomplish: Procession of Blades + Symbol of Wrath + Whirling Wrath = 22 vulnerability (22% damage increase); alternatively, Procession of Blades + Symbol of Energy + Deflecting Shot + True Shot = 17 vulnerability (17% damage increase).

Obtena.7952:

Generally speaking in MMO’s, ranged attacks and DPS are lower than melee; there is less risk associated with camping range. I don’t find that GW2 strays from that too much either. Even the way you can trait LBow encourages sticking to your ranged zone.

If you compare apples to apples, Lbow has a good place between Staff (the ideal zerg spamming weapon, though completely crap for single target) and Scepter, that CAN do good (or best?) ranged damage under the right scenarios. I don’t have numbers but then again, most theorycrafters won’t either.

Bottom line is that our range options do give us choices ideal for different situations. I think because LBow can do a little of both the single target and AOE stuff, people prefer it.

generally speaking, ranged damage is not lower than melee. i don’t know what games you’ve been playing.

I think part of the issue is I JUST trained dragonhunter,and only had a few hero points left, so don’t have traps and stuff yet, from what I have read lately it seems traps help a bunch.

I will say the HoT content is significantly different than the original content, I wasn’t prepared for the mob strength lol, what an eye opener! The range attacks are definitely safer there!

Guardian damage has been mediocre at best and now has fallen to trash tier with the introduction of elite specs and people learning them.

I am maining a revenant and a reaper right now and let me tell you their dps capabilities sustain and party support blow the Guardian away.

There is a reason you don’t see any guardians in Raids and barely any in 90+ fractals right now.

The only impressive thing the bow has going is the clunky #2 which requires a full zerker build to be remotely effective leaving u at 11k hp

Dragon hunter besides giving you longbow will do absolutely nothing for your dps as guardians have small dmg modifiers in 4 traitlines. Trap’s will give you a small boost in burst dmg but that is still nothing in a 7 min drawn out fight