Guild Wars 2

I’ll start by saying I’m stubborn and really feel like using bows. I play mainly WvW and currently use LB/axe+horn. There’s nothing I love more than being able to sit on tower walls and rain down Barrage on the enemy, and I run axe+horn to tag zerglings and blast water fields at tower gates. I drifted away from glass cannon towards more toughness while retaining some power and crit damage, utilizing as much fury as I can to keep crit % up. However, after having my face melted by a mesmer last night I am looking for something with more survivability. Here’s my current build.

Could someone please point me in the direction of a survivable build that still offers damage, whether it be direct or condition damage, that doesn’t rely on melee weapons? Please feel free to critique my build if you have some constructive suggestions, and I will be more than happy to try them out!

If you want to make the leap to condition damage and shortbow, you can just run the typical bunker/regen build in apothecary/settler’s gear. You could also try the spirit build that everyone is currently running in sPvP, but spirits don’t work in WvW nearly as well as they do in sPvP.

If you like working from the walls, you can also try going with a toughness/precision/condition damage build, focusing on good crit rates, bleeding and/or burning, either of which can be applied at range if you trait offhand, sticking with LB and either of warhorn or torch. 30/20/20/0/0, Keen Edge, Eagle eye and Signet of the Beastmaster, Sharpened Edges and Quick draw, and Shared Anguish or Vigorous Renewal or Expertise training and Off-Hand training, running Sharpened Stone, Signet of the Wild and Signet of Stone, with Rage as One. Healing Spring and a Red Moa for walls and Heal as One and a Lynx when running with the zerg on the ground.

With Rabid gear that would give you just over 3000 Armor and 15k HP, 2 sources of stability and 1 of invul and stealth. On the ground I would probably swap out Sharpening Stone for a stunbreak, probably Signet of Renewal, or Lightning Reflexes. Go Signet of Fire for Flame Blasts on the Longbow or Earth for the bleeds, and Geomancy and Earth on your Axe/Horn or Axe/Torch.

You’ll have 100% uptime on Fury very easily, and do really well from walls with little trouble. On the ground you’ll need to stay on top of your positioning and utilities, but will do decent damage and be pretty survivable, with your invul for a panic button. Those stats do not include your two consumables for WvW or PVE, so you can push you Armor, HP or Precision/Crit Chance or Condition Damage up quite a bit, defending on your taste.

It’s different and can be fun, it’s not my main but I run it once in a while when I get tired of my primary build and I enjoy it.