Guild Wars 2

Title pretty much sums it up. I have three weapons that I want to use, but I’m not sure which two I want to take. This is mostly aimed at PvE leveling and maybe a bit of DE.

I love the auto-attack speed on shortbow, especially since it has 1200 range, but the other skills leave me somewhat disappointed. 2 doesn’t feel like it’s any good for groups so it’s just another dot to add (though nice to have for enemies that heal I guess). 3 and 4 feel like they could be the same skill, with 4 just stacking up another bleed from my pet. 5 is pretty nice, though I haven’t run into much that needs an interrupt yet. Also the appearance of the shortbow, especially on my norn, is a bit toy-like.

The longbow looks like a ranger’s weapon should, and has a nice range especially after Eagle Eye. I just hate the auto attack. It’s slow and just overall feels weak. Doesn’t help that the only way to range-find with it is to either wait till the damage drops or you’re out of range. Piercing might help the damage (though it would help the shortbow just as much) but that would either have to wait till I hit 60 or delay Eagle Eye (I somehow don’t see the 5% damage increase from that helping all that much). Aside from that the skills are nice. 2 helps make up for the fire rate of the auto-attack but is locked to one target. 3 gives a damage boost and pet boon. 4 is nice for the knockback and the 15 sec c/d on an interrupt is nice. 5 just turns you into an arrow cart, which is amazing, with the exception that it’s very easy to interrupt the skill.

Finally the greatsword. It’s either this or axes for groups of enemies and this just seems more fun. The only real issue with this is: I can’t decide which bow to take. I want the auto-attack from shortbow, but I’m not sure I’m willing to give up 3-5 from the longbow. Which leaves me with the dilemma: do I just take both bows and have a hard time with groups, or do I drop one of the bows and lose damage or utility?

I’m sure I’ll get a lot of flack since condition spec rangers are preferred and considered superior but after playing to 80, I personally like the longbow/greatsword combination the most. While the auto attack feels a little slow and isn’t the most interesting thing to watch, with enough power, crit, and crit damage, it has the potential to do very high sustained damage, and is even (dare I said) bursty on soft targets. Rapid fire is amusing but its real deadliness is shown when combined with quickness whereas it will do roughly the same amount of damage as hundred blades w/ quickness, yet still retain all the ranger’s mobility. The self debuff is always nice and knockback is even better. Although barrage won’t end up wiping the zerg, it’s nice to have when everyone else is throwing down their aoe’s so you can cash in as well.

The greatsword is a combination of solid damage (especially with quickness, signet of the wild, & rampage as one up), defense (evade on the 3rd auto-attack) and 100% parry w/ knockback, as well as survivability/escape (I use swoop more often to get away from bad situations more than I use it to actually hit things and I feel like a lot of people overlook it for that purpose). And hey, you even get a stun/daze, depending on where you are standing.

In any case, it’s a long range/close range spec with lowered damage in medium range, so you really need to keep your distance until you are sure you have no choice but to go melee. In that sense, I tend not to blow my utilities/elite until I’m forced into melee as they are a nice trick to have up your sleeve in a bad situation and most melee classes tend not to expect the potential damage that you can do with a greatsword and specific utilities.

Like I said, condition spec with shortbow and sword/horn or torch seems to be the preferred spec right now but the play style feels completely off in my hands, so I eventually went back to lb/gs and haven’t looked back.

I thought I might as well contribute to this because Ranger is my main and have been 80 for quite some time now. I personally agree with Mournblade. I enjoy having a GS / Longbow. First of all the range on longbow is extremely nice. Secondly I like the skill sets of both the Longbow and GS combined. I am not gonna spend the time re listing what Mourn said because it’s pretty much the same way I see things. I like being able to juggle and kite player in sPvP and the range is useful for WvW to keep distance for those large engagements. One of the most useful things imo while useing Longbow / GS is the vast amount of utility and mobility you are able to sustain, when I switch my weapons I gain movement speed + crit chance. Also am able to take advantage of that from using it to increase ranged burst damage or melee damage coupled with the GS stun / block / auto attacks.

Finally in regards to PvE I don’t think it’s much of a detriment, I personally always prefer Longbows to Shortbows for many reasons but I am currently in 7 exotics power/prec/crit % build focus and am able to reach around 18k with Longbows #2 skill coupled w/ vulnerability & rampage as one.

Also when I first started playing I also hated the extremely slow firing speed of the longbow but have grown use to it because I am using my abilities much more consistently and it keeps a good flow going.

Besides my opinions on what I use, I would recommend to just put the time into it and experiment with both and figure out what you personally like more. It is a game, enjoy it.

Shortbow until they nerf it. Then FOTM.

I only PvE and level 40, but prefer the LB/GS as well …

Since most the points have been stated already, I’m just going to add my 2 cents. I personally prefer the Longbow. I’m going to say this right now: It really depends on your playstyle. Yes, the auto attack is slower and not as “enjoyable” to look at when compared to the Shortbow. Yes, the skills of the Longbow recharge longer than the Shortbow, but imho, that’s pretty much it. Doing solo content, shortbows are awesome. Those bleeds do considerable damage too, but when it comes to group content (which, you’ll be doing A LOT at level cap), shortbows start to lose their “awesomeness”. Other players tend to overlook the bleed cap. Currently, bleeds from skills can stack up to 25 times, so that basically means when the target already has 25 stacks of bleeds on it, spamming your other bleeding skills won’t make it die faster. Sure, you’re going to re-apply the bleed, but you’ll also be competing with other skills from other classes that also apply a bleed. Good sustained damage, but you will never have burst damage, which I’d dare say is more useful than bleeds.

Also, Longbows have more interesting skills than shortbows. _ The only ones that I found interesting with a shortbow is crossfire and poison volley. Longbows are harder to use. They suck, if the one pew-pewing doesn’t know how to use it well, and doesn’t know where to position himself/herself in a fight, especially in WvW. Shortbows seem too easy for me, but like I said, it depends on your playstyle and preferences. Plus, shortbows look like a child’s bow. They’re all hideously small.

No such thing as the shortbow being absolutely better than the longbow in all circumstances. If people who keep saying that swear by it, then there’s no use arguing with someone content with lying to himself/herself. lol

It all boils down to you – the one who’s going to play. Spend an entire day with each weapon, then make an informed decision. Don’t let what we say ultimately decide for you. We’re just expressing our opinions, after all.

Even by raw dps standards, the basic attack on the shortbow will result in more raw damage than the longbow at max range without factoring in the bonus bleed from the shortbow. The skills on the shortbow provide more survivability(evasion and swiftness) and, more importantly, skills for not allowing a player to escape to fight again(cripple and poison), the longbow gets a dps channel skill that’s ok and that’s about it really about it. Don’t get me started on the aoe, it is pretty bad as it’s easily avoidable and rather low dps, certainly not burst and only useful in pve and only marginally so there.

As for the greatsword, it’s lowest dps weapon in the rangers arsenal with very little function other than swoop(which is awesome mind you as you can travel for 1000 to initiate an attack). You get the same aoe range with a one handed sword but a crap ton of more damage and a lot of evasion not to mention you can choose between 2 really good offhands(torch and warhorn, dagger ain’t half bad either), each of which has more use in their two skills than the entirety of the greatsword line.

You will probably use all of the weapons by level 80 anyhoo(heck, by level 15 most likely), who wouldn’t want to try them all out.

It’s very unlikely you’ll settle on greatsword though. Longbow is at least fun if underpowered compared to it’s smaller cousin.

If it’s just for PvE, then go will all three weapons. I don’t understand the need for people to always set things in stone. Just play with whatever combo you feel like, and then when that gets a bit boring, you change it around. The only thing you should be concerned about it whether you deal condition or direct damage. Anything ells is just personal preference.

For reference – shortbow and longbow have the same range. 1200

JustinTime.5890:

For reference – shortbow and longbow have the same range. 1200

You know, I don’t ever think I caught on to that. I just assumed shortbow lost at least a little range. Good to know.

longbow 1500 with traits. which is HUGE

Lysico.4906:

longbow 1500 with traits. which is HUGE

Completely forgot about eagle eye. For some reason I thought it included shortbow.

For reference, unless you are running a full dungeon group filled with only rangers and scepter necros, you will be hard-pressed to maintain close to 20 stack bleeding.

In which case, it’s your fault for choosing that kind of awful lineup nobody in the right mind would go along with.

Most dungeons feature fights in which you have a limited space to battle in. The 1500 range on the longbow is just moot and highly obsolete – you have to fight within less than 1200 range most of the time anyway.

In any case, there are extensive calculations showing why Longbow loses to Shortbow in terms of single target dps by a huge margin, but I leave that to each person to do their own research and think critically for themselves.

Pikafan.3792:

For reference, unless you are running a full dungeon group filled with only rangers and scepter necros, you will be hard-pressed to maintain close to 20 stack bleeding.

I find more bleed competition from Mesmers than anyone else. Sharper Images and a few duelists stack bleed very quickly.

Although I don’t think it particularly matters. Ignoring condition damage entirely for Shortbow in favor of crit and power is likely almost as much damage as longbow anyway. It is also ~13-5 shot ratio, so short bow is objectively better in a game where combos exist.

I want to like longbow, but I dislike the distance mechanics on auto attacks (Ranger longbow, engineer rifle, mesmer GS, etc). It seems like you take such a huge penalty for being out of your “preferred” range and gain virtually no increase for being at the “ideal” distance. Not to mention that your sweet spot of max damage usually only gives you as much play as melee swing distance. Trying to maintain “max damage” is very obnoxious in a game with so much movement.

Just seems like way too much of a hassle compared to Shortbow’s current mechanic of “If I attack from the front I do it super fast, combo often, and do great damage. If I attack from the rear I get all of that AND an awesome stack of bleeds!”

Positional mechanics > Distance mechanics.

Condi/prec provides a shortbow ranger more damage than prec/power does. But I don’t expect anyone will get the calculations right anytime soon, much less realize that.

Also, I don’t believe mesmers can maintain 10+ stacks of bleeding like rangers and necros do at any given time. Rangers apply them too quickly, and necros have extremely long durations on their bleeds. I could be mistaken, though, since I don’t really play my mesmer much.

Edit: Did a few tests on dummies on my mesmer. Mesmers CAN put out 10 stacks of bleeding easy, but can’t maintain it as well as rangers and necros do simply because of the long attack interval of duelists. However, they can apply that 10 stacks a lot faster than rangers and necros can, which makes up for it.

Just jumping in here to note that with a critfocused phantsm build, a mesmer can keep up 20-24 bleeds on a target if it live long enough to get up 3 duelists (16-20ish seconds).

With phantasmal haste duelists begin their second attack just as the bleeds from the first start to drop off. For some strange reason duelists stack 7-8 bleeds at 56% critchance+fury (math says they shouldn’t, but they do)