Guild Wars 2

Wellcome to nagy.m.bear’s wall of text on fighting Longbow rangers

This guide is aimed at (possibly entry level) players struggling against rapid fire/longbow rangers. There is a dos and don’ts version for those who can’t/don’t want to take the time to understand how a longbow ranger works.
Chapter 1: Wut?
Chapter 2: Y U so stronk rhepid fhaier?
Chapter 3: Sooo…
Chapter 4: I houp U liek pphain
Chapter 5: Dos and don’ts

Chapter 1: Wut? (terms)

to top

First off we need to clarify some terminology, because some of it is used inaccurately:
- L2P (Learn to play) – This coming from rangers basically means looking at the build a ranger might be using, as this would reveal the weaknesses of someone who’s rapid fire can down a player in 2 seconds. Learning to play a longbow rangers is basically having to make choices on survival options versus damage output. If someone sacrifices too much defensive options – while they will be able to deal devastating damage with rapid fire – they will be very vulnerable to icoming attacks.
- Rapid fire – Most players don’t realize but in fact they refer to a ranger who has spent 6 points in a trait line, 2/3 master traits are fixed, and probably spent another 6 in another trait line and used 2 utilities and an elite only to enhance its damage output. This is very important as it should now be clear how much someone needs to sacrifice to deal the amount of damage that some of the player base is suggesting on the forums.
- Counter/hard counter – This would be a strategy/build that it is very effective against a longbow ranger, maybe even be so effective that a longbow ranger will stand no chance against that build/strategy. This guide will not include any counter/hard counter, but it will list some tools/practices that professions have access to, and list others which everyone regardless of their build can use to stand a chance against a longbow ranger. I will not tell you what build/profession to use, its up to you.
- Mitigation – Basically this means to lessen the effect of something, in this case damage taken from a longbow ranger.

Chapter 2: Y U so stronk rhepid fhaier? (how it happens)

to top

With that out of the way let us look at what longbow ranger needs, and what it can/can’t have.

Needs:
It is highly recommended to spend 6 points in the Marksmanship line to deal high consistent single target damage at high range.
Longbow in and of itself is not what some players make it look. In fact lonbgow projectile speed, even though it was increased in the last year or so, is slow enough for players that are at a range of 900+ avoid being hit (“sidestepping”) easily. In order to achieve consistent hits with a longbow a ranger will need the recently introduced Read the wind trait, which increases projectile speed to a level where this is almost impossible to do. This is part of the complaints that are aimed at rangers/LB rangers in general, because it makes it seem as though hits from a longbow are unavoidable.
For a ranger to hit others consistently at 1500 range consistently it will need (in addition to Read the wind) the trait Eagle eye. This will allow the ranger to hit targets at 1200+ range, as the longbow without this trait has an effective range of up to 1200. After all this the ranger still needs something to be effective which is maybe even more important than all of the above, which is a positional advantage. Specifically, to be effective the ranger needs to be out of range of attacks. As mentioned above rangers are sacrificing defensive options to be able to deal high damage. The more defences they forfeit, the more important the positional advantage is for them to stay alive.
Aside all these a ranger will also need another weapon set to be dedicated to defensive options. This will most probably be either the Greatsword or Sword combined with an offhand weapon of choice i.e. Warhorn, Dagger, Axe.
In everything other than 1v1s (one player against one player) a ranger will also need the team to stay alive. Since the more players are involved in the fight, the more a ranger is in danger of being defeated. This comes from the fact that lonbgbow is mainly a single target weapon, and a longbow ranger dealing high damage simply doesn’t have the defensive options to stay alive/in fight for a longer period of time once the other team realizes the threat it is and decides to mitigate that threat.
With the tests coming up you will see that even with those investments ranger is nowhere near the threat others make it look like. It needs a very heavy investment in traits and utilities.

Can has:
In addition to the above the ranger has the following options to enhance its damage or defences.
Damage options:
- Runes/sigils/amulets: In order to deal consistent high damage the ranger will need an amulet (in pvp) or armor+trinkets (in wvw) that grants power and precision. Most rangers will go with Berserker stats as it also grants a bonus to critical damage, which is a great part of the longbow damage. Without critical damage a longbow will deal damage that is far less then people are being hit for if you believe what you read on the forums.

Test

Try this in pvp, equip a soldiers amulet and spend 6/0/x/x/x trait points. Attack the medium armor golem to trigger your first guaranteed crit and 5 stacks of vulnerability from the minor marksmanship traits Precise strike and Opneing strike and attack the ligh armor golem. At a power of ca 2100 you should see long range shots hit for ca 800 and rapid fire hit for ca 3500-4000 only on a low armor opponent. Now lets do that with knight gear (toughness/precision/power) and spend 4 points in the skirmishing trait line. This should give you ca 1900 power and around 44% critical hit chance + 20% critical damage (above the baseline + 50%) without any sigils or runes that grant power/precision/ferocity. You should see hits as high as ca 1000 in case of critical hits from long range shot, and rapid fire hitting for ca 4000 damage on a low armor target. This, is nowehere near the damage people claim to be hit for on the forums. The reason is, that in order to deal higher damage with rapid fire you need other factors. Now lets put another 2 trait points in skirmishing and equip a berserker amulat (power/precision/ferocity). You should be at 2158 power 49% crit chance and + 100% (i.e. 200%) critical damage and will now see ca 1500 on long range shot crits, and with half your hits criting ca 6000 damage on rapid fire from the front on a low armor opponent. This is the damage you will be hit for by a longbow ranger with 12 trait points spent in lines aimed at dealing high damage without other factors. Which brings us to runes and sigils. Let us equip runes of the ranger and fire and air sigils in our longbow. This should give you 2158 power, 58% crit chance and 207% critical damage. The results should be long range shot hitting for around 1800 on crits and rapid fire hitting for around 6000-7000 damage on a low armor target. Soooo…. how are people being hit for 12k+ damage from rapid fire? How are they downed in seconds?
- Other traits, utilities, pets, conditions, boons: This is where the plot thickens, try hitting your first strike on the light armor golem first. This will grant you a guaranteed crit which will be able to trigger your air and fire sigils further increasing the damage, and also add 5 stacks of vulnerability granting another 5% of damage incease (before critical damage is factored in). You might see damage from rapid fire go as high as 7000 if it is hit after the opening strike from a long range shot and you will see 2000 damage coming from critical hits on long range shots. This is (IMO) high single target sustained damage! Mind you this is what the developers were aiming at, as discussed in one of the Ready up episodes (i.e. Ranger being the best ranged single target dps profession followed by Mesmer). It just isn’t the 12000 damage some people are being hit for however. Now try this. Equip Signet of the Wild (SotW), Quickeing Zephyr (QZ), Rampage as One (Rampage as One), select the Jungle stalker pet, select Steady focus, Eagle Eye, Reat the Wind and Quick Draw for traits, sigil of accuracy and sigil of strength and go near the warrior npc in the Heart of the Mists. You should be out of 900 range, on a “perch” as some like to call it, and behind the light armor golem. Activate RaO, activet F2 on your pet, activate SotW, activate QZ target the light golem and press 2. You should now hit for 14000 on a single rapid fire. This is awesome!!!!

What happened so far:
We have spend 12 out of 14 points in marksmanship and skirmishing traitlines and selected 4 out of the available 7 traits 2 out of 3 utility skills and our elite all dedicated to being awesome. What happened specifically? We had stats of around 2158 power, 2051 precision, 852 Ferocity, 65% critical hit chance. We then activated our elite (1 second cast time), activated our pet F2 (3 secon cast, but can be pre cast), activated SotW (1 second cast), activated QZ (instant) and pressed 2 on our keyboard. We received 5 stacks of might from our pet (+ 175 power), were at max endurance (+ 10% damage), behind the target (+ 10% damage), criticcally hit with our first hit and applied 5 stacks of vulnerability, applied another 10 stacks of vulnerability (+ 5% damage after first hit, and gradually incrasing as the channel goes up to + 15% damage), had a pet out which gave us another 7% damage, we received fury from the elite (+ 20% chance to critically hit) and ended our rapid fire with 7 might stacks on us. This translated to damage between 13k and 16k in about 1 second. Awesome! Actually I had to change the sigils from air and fire to accuracy and strenght to get more consistent damage, and also for the golem to stay alive for the whole channel, as with air and fire it died too quickly. Just for a control result I fired some rapid fires with my 2 utility skills and my elite and pet skills on cooldown to see the results. It is fair to say that rapid fire without using any cooldowns can hit for 7500-10000 damage from a range of 1500 (from behind, at max endurance, with full endurance, with sigils of accuracy and strength, runes of the ranger a pet out and with significant investment in traits).

After rapid fire:
With the above setup, you will be at 2403 power, 85% crit chance and your target will have 15% stacks of vulnerability on them, you will be behind them and at max endurance. This will result in an amazing long range shot that will deal considerably higher damage then 2000 on an already almost downed player. In case quickness is still up this is bad news for anyone, as it should be fairly easy to finish any player that survives the rapid fire damage with just autoattacking.

So how do you deal with all this? Let’s look at what rangers cannot have if they are this awesome.

Chapter 3: Sooo… (outside rapid fire)

to top

Cannot has:
With 3 traits out of 7 spent here are your defensive options from traits:
- 6/6/1/1/0 – + 25% endurance regeneration 5.25 seconds of regeneration when below 75% health (30 seconds internal cooldown(ICD))
- 6/5/3/0/0 – - 5% crit damage, – 50 precision, + 25% endurance regen, 2s protection after dodge in combat only (this actually was 2 seconds with the dodge included in the past), and either Shared anguish (first incoming stun/daze/fear is transferred to pet, ICD) or Vigorous renewal (gain 5 seconds of Vigor (+ 100% endurance regen) when using a healing skill)
- 6/6/0/2/0 – + 5.5 seconds of regeneration when below 75% health and Nature’s protection (5.5 secs of protections when you receive a hit dealing more damage then 10% of max health) or Nature’s bounty (regenerations you apply last 33% longer)
- 6/6/0/0/2 – Your defensive options here are related to pet heals only basically, although you do receive 100 of healing power from the traitline too.
- Primal reflexes is a minor trait in the skirmishing line which grants endurance when you are hit by a critical hit.
This sounds frightening when you consider that there are others out there that can deal high condition damage from 1000+ range, high direct damage from 1000+ range, or close 1500 range with relative ease.

Let’s look at utilities and heals:
Since we spent 3 utilities on being awesome we have 1 heal and 1 utility we can choose.

Heals:
Troll unguent heals 850 health per second for 10 seconds, cannot be removed has a 1 second cast time and a 25 second cooldown.
Have heal as one heals for 6520 health has a 1.25 seconds cast time and a cooldown of 20 seconds.
Healing spring heals for 4920 health, removes conditions when used and 1 condition every puls till it lasts and grants regeneration, is a 0.25 second cast time and has a cooldown of 30 seconds.
Water spirit, when summoned (1.5 seconds cast) grants a 35% chance to heal you for 814 but has an internal cooldown of 10 seconds and can be killed. On activation (1 second cast) it heals you for 3900 +1930.

Utilities:
Signet of stone 6 seconds of invulnerability (80 second cooldown). It is instant cast, so you can use it while stunned/dazed/feared, but is not a stun break.
Signet of Renewal removes 1 condition every 10 seconds and on activation transfers all conditions to the pet. It is a stun break, activation is instant, cooldown is 60 seconds. Lightning reflexes is an evade backwards that also deals damage for 575 grants 10 seconds of vigor, cures immobilize and breaks stuns. It is instant and has a cooldown of 40 seconds.
Protect me is a shout that transfers all incoming direct damage to the pet for 6 seconds. It is instant cast, is a stun break and has a 60 second cooldown, and your pet will not attack whil it lasts.
Spirit of stone when summoned grants you 35% chance to apply 3 seconds of protection when you get hit but this effect has a 10 second internal cooldown, and the spirit can be destroyed.

Weapons:
Longbow With hunter’s shot grants you stealth for 3 seconds, but you need to hit your target with this. It has a base cooldown of 12 seconds and deals damage that is less than half of a long range shot. It is the only longbow skill that is instant cast. All others have a cast time.
Point blank shot is a knockback that deals damage equal to a mid range long range shot (500-1000 range) and has a base cooldown of 15 seconds.
Greatsword has on of the best blocks in game, it lasts 3 seconds, counter attacks when hit in melee, and doesn’t break when attacked from range. It has a cooldown of 15 seconds. Swoop is a leap attack (actually two leaps) which has a range of 1100, and the second leap (the attack part) now is an evade for 0.5 seconds since the september feature patch.
Sword has evades built into the number 2 and 3 skills on it, that are low cooldowns, and also are mobility skills that allow the ranger to move about the battleground while evading.
Dagger has an evade but the movement on it is not as good as on sword.
Axe off-hand has a projectile reflect on skill 5 which also grants retailiation, and ot has a pull and good damage on skill 4.
*Warhorn*’s only defense is it granting swiftness to nearby allies, so the ranger has more movement speed.

Pets:
In the form of crowd control skills (cripple, immobilize, chill, fear, knockdown, daze), boons (protection), other conditions (weakness, blind) and heals (heals skills, regeneration, condition removal) pets also provide a wide selection of defensive skills to the ranger, although these are not as easily utilized as traits and utilities.

With all that in mind it is important to note, that every investment into defense is made at the cost of giving up a considerable amount of damage.

Chapter 4: I houp U liek pphain (how to hurt LB rangers)

to top

So how to actually deal with longbow rangers?

From the above it seems that rangers have limited defensive options against melee opponents outside of sword and dodges as they have a low armor although in pvp with a berserker amulet and 2 points in Nature magic they can reach a health pool of 19500 health. However without protection they will take direct damage like the light golem that we tested on. Also notice that rangers will have a low number of on demand condition removal skills, and even those are not without their flaws.

Direct damage: With rangers being vulnerable to damage they will be forced to use their defensive options, and as most of their options are used for dealing high damage, you will be able to deal high damage to them with relative ease should they lose their optins and positional advantage.

Condition damage: Rangers that invest a lot in dealing high damage have fairly poor ways of dealing with conditions. With QZ and SotW taken rangers have access to healing spring and Signet of Renewal to rely on for cleansing with brown bear also being an option. Signet of Renewal is on a fairly high cooldown 60 seconds and requires a pet that is in 600 range and is alive. If these two conditions are not met, the skill is used, goes on cooldown and it won’t clear any conditions for 60 seconds. It removes 1 condition every 10 seconds but can be overloaded fairly easily. Healing spring is on of the best heals in game. It removes all conditions on activation and 1 per pulse afterwards, it is a 0.5 second cast, adds a water field to play with and is a burst heal. The 3rd option is with brown bear, which needs to be in range and alive as well to remove 2 conditions on a 25 seconds cooldown.

Hard CC: Although with SotW and RaO rangers can have high duration stability, stability can be removed or turned into a condition. After that, with little to no stunbreaks available to the ranger it can easily be controlled with stuns/dazes/fears/knockbacks/pulls/kncokdowns. Since it is vulnerable to both direct and condition damage, this allows for players to deal their damage easier to the ranger. It also stops the ranger from attacking, and since most longbow skills are channeled skills, the damage can be shut down with more frequent shorter term interrupts, and can be used to apply on interrupt effects.

Soft CC: Given the low amount of condition cleanse options rangers can be overloaded with movement impairing conditions (cripple, chill, immobilize), and since a lot of the ranger defenses come through dodging (high endurance regen, vigor, on dodge protection, the dodge itself) most of these can be removed by immobilize. Weapon skills that move the ranger are also affected by these conditions (i.e. it will move a shorter distance) the ranger receives a huge blow to its defenses when it cannot move at a normal or faster pace, although a ranger with sword/dagger will still be able to evade when cc-d. It will also become much more vulnerable to summoned creatures such as minions, illisions, pets, as they will have an easier time hitting the ranger.

Other conditions: Confusion can be a way to deal great damage to the ranger due to rapid fire hitting a lot of times. Weakenss can be used to reduce incoming damage. Blind can be used to help avoid hits. Blinds are best used on specific hits, but these hits can be forced. If you try to get close to the ranger he is forced to either swap weapons to create a gap, use a utility such as lightning reflexes (not there to create range but can be used like that) or use longbow skills such as point blank shot and hunter’s shot. This means that blinds are best applied when approaching the ranger, after they’ve used rapid fire.

Boons: Aegis, stability and protection are great ways to mitigate damage from longbow. Some rangers will take moment of clarity which adds 50% damage to an attack after an interrupt. This means when you are knocked down with point blank shot, chances are you will get hit by a pretty big long range shot. With stability, you will strip a ranger from one of its tools to defend itself, and one of the tools to deal high damage to you. With protection you can reduce the incoming damage by 33%, which is again a huge blow to a ranger’s offense. Aegis, while not a great defense against rapid fire will strip a 100% critical hit and 5 stacks of vulnerability from the ranger if up at the beginning of the fight. Beginner rangers might even blow their point blank shot on a character with Aegis up charging them.

Other, profession specific options: Even though rapid fire tracks stealthing targets, it is very hard to hit anyone with it without a target. This means approaching a ranger in stealth is a big disadvantage for the ranger, especially when you consider that 2 of the defensive options a longbow provides also need to hit their target, so they need a target to begin with. Projectile destruction and reflection is another option that some professions have acces to, that can be used to greatly reduce incoming damage. Traits/utilities that do not allow condition application, or passive condition removal can reduce longbow damage significantly as they won’t have a 15%-30% damge increase as vulnerability is not applied. There are invlunerabilities, crit immunity, and probably even other options to mitigate longbow damage available to professions.

Other options available to everyone:
Hits: Some of the ranger defense and offense relies on hits such as opening strike (a crit and 5 stacks of vulnerability), hunter’s shot (stealth), point blank shot (knockback/interrupt), sigil of strength (might on crit). These can be avoided by dodging, evading, blinding, blocking (with skills, players, summons) or making sure there is an obstacle in between the ranger and the target. This again is a huge blow against ranger offense and defense.

Dodging: The most recommended tool by rangers for players struggling against longbow. If you look at the way rapid fire works, it applies vulnerability with each hit. This means that it will hit harder at the end of the channel. So even if you can’t read the mind of a ranger, dodging when you notice rapid fire will probably negate the more/most damaging part of rapid fire. You can also dodge forward which allows you to dodge while you approac the ranger. Not only will you avoid damage, but chances are you will also avoid being hit by hunter’s shot or point blank shot, or maybe even some other trick a ranger might have up their sleeves. Dodging is a big help to all players against longbow rangers, and cannot be over emphasised.

Positional advantage: This is by far the best tool a longbow ranger has available, and you should work on removing it from him/her if you want to defeat them. Just by facing them you can strip the option from them to increase their damage by 10-20% if they spent 5 points in skirmishing.

Chapter 5: Dos and don’ts (tl;dr)

to top

By now you should have an understanding of what is required to deal such an awesome damage from 1500 range, and how you can avoid or mitigate it.

As a summary here are the Dos and Don’t, or PLEASE STOPQQ:

Dos:
- *P*ay attention to your surroundings
- *L*ook at ways to avoid incoming damage
- *E*verything you can to reduce the gap between you and the ranger, or
- *A*djust your position to remove the positional advantage the ranger has
- *S*top them from attacking by applying pressure with damage or cc
- *E*xcercise measures to force defensive options or weaponswap

Don’ts:
- *S*tand there and take it in the face
- *T*ake everything others write on the forums for facts, test them
- *O*verexaggerate the experience you’ve had with/against lognbow rangers
- *P*ropose changes until you read the above and understand how longbow works with and without significant investment
- *Q*uarrel with experienced rangers that try to give you advice
- *Q*uench your thirst for revenge by asking for nerfs until you understood and tried the above

Anyone is welcome to post tips and tricks in case some players don’t have the time to experiment or just don’t know how to adjust their build.

cheers

HOLY KITTEN BATMAN! SOMEONE ACTUALLY POSTED A GUIDE!!!!

Also, Best way to take down a Longbow Ranger is apply as much DPS pressure as possible. We can’t really do much while we’re using Rapid Fire or Barrage, especially Barrage. It shouldn’t be that hard for any profession to close the gap and get in a free hit or two or five while barrage is channeling. Any smart Ranger will cancel the attack immediately, but many don’t.

Just dodge the knockback, get up-close and enjoy the kill. Simple as that.

People should know that a ranger’s longbow’s dps is highly punished in close range. GS is a very bad weapon. All it’s attack are very obvious and most ranger will not use their burst using this weapon.

Guardian, Wall of reflect
Warrior, reflect misiles
Thief, dagger storm, smoke screen
Else & mes, lol too many to list
Engi, some weird options
Necro, no idea

Necros can plant a Specteral wall on the ranger himself to interrupt him and maybe his pet , some rangers will swap pets to use Fear as a pressure break doing this is a two for one if they swap pets.

Chrispy.5641:

HOLY KITTEN BATMAN! SOMEONE ACTUALLY POSTED A GUIDE!!!!

I certainly thought that most players will sooner or later find out how to deal with a longbow ranger, but some insisted that us rangers provide actual counter play. I was also interested what it really takes to deal 13+ k damage with a single rapid fire – although I already had a sneaking suspicion. And maybe – just maybe – some of them will realize now what investments are necessary to down someone with a single RF.

I loved this guide!! I play a LB/GS ranger but I dont use a “glass cannon” build. Mine is very tanky and can take and dish out a ton of damage. I almost never use my LB except when Im having to chase someone down or someone is kiting me. I hope this trend of flavor of the month rangers will end and serious rangers will be back in the game. I still think the class is nowhere close to where it needs to be in terms of balance especially with pets but thats another discussion

Thank you for this. I surely wasn’t going to spend the time or the energy doing this (and don’t know that I could’ve done the same level of detail either) lol.

I believe you can side most of the LBs damage at a certain distance still, most importantly referring to Rapid Fire, even with Read the Wind. However, it isn’t something I can readily test on my own and I didn’t want to go around making that potentially erroneous claim just anywhere. It’s just something that I’m curious about how effective it is.

This is a great guide…
and from now on when I see a QQ thread I will just reply with link.

Cheers

Nice guide! Thanks for going into such great detail! Very well explained!

So I just want to follow up and say that I did some testing with a friend and came up with the result that with Read the Wind equipped, you can’t strafe any of the longbows damage (didn’t test it with swiftness up though, so the result might vary on that regard).

As to not divert the goal of the thread, I just want to say it now that this particular detail may prove to be a nail in the coffin factor later on down the line.

Just to clarify, people are getting hit by 12k+ rapid fire in WwW, not pvp. The stat cap is higher, and a full berserker ranger in WwW will have far more damage. For instance, I got it by a 8k+ auto attack yesterday, wich is impossible in pvp. Guide is about good, although a bit long for my little brain.

Yes, its stronger in wvw, but then again, so are other classes. See here some rediculous displays on what RF is capable of in pvp:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eep0pd97ox4

Yes the guide did turn out to be long, but I needed all the details to show what is needed for these really huge damage numbers. Its not just rapid fire, and not just longbow. It had to be said, because some still throw around ridiculous claims. Someone suggested that the longbow received a 50% buff, which is just nonsense.

At extreme ranges the lb will only hit stationary targets. So somewhere between the zone that you cannot strafe and absolute max lb distance you will be able to strafe with some varying degree of success depending on what side of the spectrum the target is.

Justine.6351:

At extreme ranges the lb will only hit stationary targets. So somewhere between the zone that you cannot strafe and absolute max lb distance you will be able to strafe with some varying degree of success depending on what side of the spectrum the target is.

Nope, that was updated 8 months ago with read the wind. It makes the arrow hit instantly.

Justine.6351:

At extreme ranges the lb will only hit stationary targets. So somewhere between the zone that you cannot strafe and absolute max lb distance you will be able to strafe with some varying degree of success depending on what side of the spectrum the target is.

We actually were testing this. As far as I can guesstimate, out to the realm of about 1800 range (manually pressing the auto and using skills of course), not a single attack was missed from strafing.

Even tried it with leaps as movement modifiers, every attack was still successful.

I honestly thought the same thing about strafing until that last round of testing. After I saw that I kind of just went “ummm, well, at least I never claimed strafing to be a counterplay” lol.

Is this with or without RtW? Because I’ve had my longbow attacks being sidestepped in both pvp and wvw. I don’t think it was 8 months ago or before, but before the september patch or even RtW. If it was fixed, it wasn’t fixed 8 months ago.

With = by. It was fixed by RtW, which makes arrows hit instantly.

Yeah, it’s only while using Read the Wind. Otherwise the weapon acts as it always has as far as avoiding damage by strafing goes.

one thing that i don’t under stand about all this QQ is that people are saying that they need to equip skills/traits just to counter LB, how where this people handling large volume for phycial damage before (Thief’s, hambows, GS Guards, shatter mezs, etc.)?

When I’m deciding on my build for the days play, I don’t think how am i going to handle a LB ranger or any other common build. I think how am i going to handle big physical damage, how am i going to handle condis, etc. Just by doing this i have some options when fighting a LB ranger (LB rangers don’t bother me unless they’re Fluffball).

I suppose as rangers we have some inherit hard counts to LB rangers such as Nature’s protection, Bark Skin, primal reflex’s and the all mighty companion’s defense. that’s before we start including skills. I’m sure that other classes must have some sort of versions of these.

nagymbear.5280:

Other conditions: Confusion can be a way to deal great damage to the ranger due to rapid fire hitting a lot of times.

Just to clarify, damage from the condition confusion is only applied once – when the ranger activates rapid fire. It doesn’t damage your opponent for every hit (if, as a ranger, you are inflicted with confusion, activating rapid fire is better than using auto attacks).

You may be thinking of countering rapid by applying retaliation to yourself. This will damage the ranger for each attack (of which I think there are 10?), resulting in around 2000-2800 damage, so that is a great idea!

Siroso.2769:

You may be thinking of countering rapid by applying retaliation to yourself. This will damage the ranger for each attack (of which I think there are 10?), resulting in around 2000-2800 damage, so that is a great idea!

I would suggest that active application of retaliation is a poor choice of for countering RF as you would have to eat 10k+ damage to deal 2.5k back not something i would do deliberately, if its passively in you build anyway then fair enough though.

As for reflects, some are better than others. Guardian reflects have a reasonable cooldown that can fit into a legit build, but I don’t really see much use in the thief’s Dagger Storm due to a long cooldown unless you’re in a group fight with a number of projectiles flying around.

It’s nothing new that RtW guarantees the attack to hit if the hitbox timing on the animation isn’t avoided. This reliability increase alone is what allows for LB to be a functional weapon.

DeceiverX.8361:

It’s nothing new that RtW guarantees the attack to hit if the hitbox timing on the animation isn’t avoided. This reliability increase alone is what allows for LB to be a functional weapon.

Oh, I don’t disagree at all, don’t get me wrong.

But I did figure that you would at least still be able to strafe attacks actively (like, not just because your moving, but stagger stepping, or rapidly changing your movement pattern).

I don’t think anything needs to be nerfed because of it either. What I do think is that ANet should explore why (not necessarily change) increasing the velocity of a previously avoidable projectile is turning it into a not-avoidable at all projectile.

I mostly just posted it for verification. I tested it with a friend and got that result, but that doesn’t mean other people can’t strafe it.

However, if other people get the same result, I think it’s worthwhile not even to talk about it, but just think over whether or not the Longbow really needs to have guarantee-able damage with Read the Wind on top of the buffs, or whether with the projectile speed, if ANet introduced the ability to actively strafe it by stagger stepping, it would be too hard of a hit.

I’m just providing information at this point, I’m entirely in the middle on it and know I have an extreme bias that wouldn’t help lol.

I see nothing inherently wrong with it and agree with the change entirely since the shots won’t even fire/will not hit anything if the target within melee range moves around your character while close (breaking the required angle for the projectile to track). Most other ranged weapons, if not all of them, also prevent side-stepping. The only attacks you can side-step are melee ones, but that also usually means in a melee vs melee fight, neither players are dealing damage to each other.

Seeing as RtW only really affects the auto-attack, and nobody’s complained about it, I see no reason to try and fix what isn’t broken.

Do recall that this trait is a 6pt investment in the power line just to make a weapon functional, and it subsequently overrides another trait point. It’s like saying HK is overpowered on thief since it lets backstab (unique to one weapon) always guarantee its maximum damage with already-high scaling.

DeceiverX.8361:

I see nothing inherently wrong with it and agree with the change entirely since the shots won’t even fire/will not hit anything if the target within melee range moves around your character while close (breaking the required angle for the projectile to track). Most other ranged weapons, if not all of them, also prevent side-stepping. The only attacks you can side-step are melee ones, but that also usually means in a melee vs melee fight, neither players are dealing damage to each other.

Seeing as RtW only really affects the auto-attack, and nobody’s complained about it, I see no reason to try and fix what isn’t broken.

Do recall that this trait is a 6pt investment in the power line just to make a weapon functional, and it subsequently overrides another trait point. It’s like saying HK is overpowered on thief since it lets backstab (unique to one weapon) always guarantee its maximum damage with already-high scaling.

I didn’t claim it was overpowered and I wasn’t making an argument either way though lol. I was just providing information, I thought this was a thread for doing so, and I thought it was a worthwhile note to say it can’t be strafed. Now people will hopefully not waste their keystrokes trying and take it off their mental multitask list so they can focus on doing something else.

As far as I’m concerned, Read the Wind makes the Longbow the Recurve Bow from GW1.

You don’t have to jump all over me when all I did was make a “food for thought” type post. Relax a bit. I’m not trying to make any sort of argument at all and I know all of the sides of both arguments already anyhow.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not jumping on you. Your initial post (from my standpoint) carried an air of that the trait might provide too much. I just disagreed with that stance since I thought it was what you were alluding to.

But melee pressure and repositions trump RtW’s bonus and allows for the projectiles not to hit due to projectile geometry handling.

Oh, yeah, I meant it more like “we’ll never here the end of it” as far as the qq’ing goes and every time we try to make a logical argument it will be countered with “but you can’t avoid it” which is not at all the same thing lol.

I would hope that if ANet thought it would’ve “broken” the game, that they wouldn’t of given the trait itself a buff on top of the weapon buffs lol. I mean, that right there to me seems like that if they thought it needed a buff, that it wasn’t strong enough to begin with.

Frankly, I suggested in the CDI (before any of this was implemented) that Ranger’s longbow 1 should just see a 50 (or 100, can’t remember) percent increase in velocity to make the weapon functional and allow power-built longbow rangers to also use Signets of Power, since melee ones were capable of doing so with no drawbacks/dependencies on slow-moving projectiles. This would then make the ranger need to choose between signet power builds spewing SotW-boosted attacks, or vuln-stacking/critting ones using stealth from Remorseless.

Seems they took my suggestion to heart to an extent but twisted it, as my suggestion would have opened up more doors for diversity and improved the class better as a whole, rather than just making signet-longbow the only option available for longbow players.

But I digress :\

I Main ranger and I can tell how u kill me easily in PvP….

• Get in my face – the quicker the better. In Close combat I’m useless towards interrupting warriors, stealthy thieves etc…
• Overwhelm me with condis is another way. I can only clean so many condis and i can only do it on the spot – not while running…
• Immobilise me and DPS me is Another way… But make sure u are Close.
• Have tons of retaliation – either I kille myself while hitting u, or I have to stop attacking not to do so…
• Use reflect projectile skills. Prevents me from hitting u and if i don’t stop shooting i’ll stack tons of vulnerability on myself. Preparing myself to be an easy kill.

• And if u combine any of those things u will definetly kill me – like in a couple of secs, if u havnt done it already…

If u know how to do it I’m a sitting duck! Before, Rangers had no strength, now we have at least one – the range.

I rely on distance and the various semi strong/weak skills my pet provides. I protect myself with the little invunrebility (signet with quite long CD) and stealth I have. I can’t stealth unless I have landed a hit first, so a ranger stealthing only happens in combat. “Sick’em” can reveal/prevent stealth for 6 s – but only if i have managed to target that person first.

This is how most ppl manage to kill me in PvP

Excellent guide, beautiful…

Thanks for all the nice feedback, and also thank you all for the tips/tricks, fact checking!

Justine.6351:

Guardian, Wall of reflect
Warrior, reflect misiles
Thief, dagger storm, smoke screen
Else & mes, lol too many to list
Engi, some weird options
Necro, no idea

LOL…As Necro being my main sPvP character this made me laugh….You really don’t have anything. With the cool-downs you have and they have…near impossible.

I will give OP props for the guide. It was good and informative. I will only post this reply here just because it has been scratching at my rage to come out. This guide and all other posts from rangers on how to mitigate them are really near invalid. This suggests that you are rolling up in a 1v1 situation (15% of Spvp).

The problem is since the update and changes, everyone and their sister re-rolled Ranger. I can’t tell you how many people I see in SPvP with newb gear on just to go rock sox. Anyone that has been in Spvp can tell you there is a minimum 2 rangers on the opposing team and 50% of matches has at least 3. How do you mitigate now? You don’t. You just die. Stuns, fear, evade, block etc are all fine in theory until you have 2 rangers near the same point and your done….never mind 3. They always stick together.

So when Anet said “There are too many people using LB”, that is exactly true. It’s NOT the fact that a ranger is OP; it’s the fact that either by random or by team que there is 3 on each team almost always and quite ridiculous. Just spend the match on my back…

Let me write a how to now:
1: Get into Arena and see 3 rangers
2: 3 people log out
3: Log back in as team Ranger Wreckers (Theives)
4: Profit

GhOst.4019:

Justine.6351:

Guardian, Wall of reflect
Warrior, reflect misiles
Thief, dagger storm, smoke screen
Else & mes, lol too many to list
Engi, some weird options
Necro, no idea

LOL…As Necro being my main sPvP character this made me laugh….You really don’t have anything. With the cool-downs you have and they have…near impossible.

I will give OP props for the guide. It was good and informative. I will only post this reply here just because it has been scratching at my rage to come out. This guide and all other posts from rangers on how to mitigate them are really near invalid. This suggests that you are rolling up in a 1v1 situation (15% of Spvp).

The problem is since the update and changes, everyone and their sister re-rolled Ranger. I can’t tell you how many people I see in SPvP with newb gear on just to go rock sox. Anyone that has been in Spvp can tell you there is a minimum 2 rangers on the opposing team and 50% of matches has at least 3. How do you mitigate now? You don’t. You just die. Stuns, fear, evade, block etc are all fine in theory until you have 2 rangers near the same point and your done….never mind 3. They always stick together.

So when Anet said “There are too many people using LB”, that is exactly true. It’s NOT the fact that a ranger is OP; it’s the fact that either by random or by team que there is 3 on each team almost always and quite ridiculous. Just spend the match on my back…

Let me write a how to now:
1: Get into Arena and see 3 rangers
2: 3 people log out
3: Log back in as team Ranger Wreckers (Theives)
4: Profit

I’ve actually had a good laugh every time I’ve gone against a new longbow ranger on my necro, but I play a condi necro. If I get the drop on them they don’t stand stand a chance because almost none of them bring any condition clear. If they get the drop on me I can usually dodge, DS, or just face tank enough damage to get in 1200 range and start CC’ing them. It helps that so many of them pop stability at the start of the fight which ends up hurting them because I use corrupt boon.

I’d rather fight multiple rangers than multiple thieves or mesmers any day. Nothing is more annoying than constantly downing your opponents and having them stealth rezzed (although that is easier to deal with as a necro)

GhOst.4019:

Justine.6351:

Guardian, Wall of reflect
Warrior, reflect misiles
Thief, dagger storm, smoke screen
Else & mes, lol too many to list
Engi, some weird options
Necro, no idea

LOL…As Necro being my main sPvP character this made me laugh….You really don’t have anything. With the cool-downs you have and they have…near impossible.

I will give OP props for the guide. It was good and informative. I will only post this reply here just because it has been scratching at my rage to come out. This guide and all other posts from rangers on how to mitigate them are really near invalid. This suggests that you are rolling up in a 1v1 situation (15% of Spvp).

The problem is since the update and changes, everyone and their sister re-rolled Ranger. I can’t tell you how many people I see in SPvP with newb gear on just to go rock sox. Anyone that has been in Spvp can tell you there is a minimum 2 rangers on the opposing team and 50% of matches has at least 3. How do you mitigate now? You don’t. You just die. Stuns, fear, evade, block etc are all fine in theory until you have 2 rangers near the same point and your done….never mind 3. They always stick together.

So when Anet said “There are too many people using LB”, that is exactly true. It’s NOT the fact that a ranger is OP; it’s the fact that either by random or by team que there is 3 on each team almost always and quite ridiculous. Just spend the match on my back…

Let me write a how to now:
1: Get into Arena and see 3 rangers
2: 3 people log out
3: Log back in as team Ranger Wreckers (Theives)
4: Profit

I’m just curious how your experience with multiple rangers is any different from other players experiencing frustration in PvP against a team stacked with multiples of the same build (Hambow, D/D ele, AIDs engi, etc).

I mean, I’m not disagreeing with the sentiment that a team stacked with multiple “effective enough” builds doesn’t become more frustrating than if there was only one to deal with, and I actually echo that sentiment, but I don’t get why it is either ranger specific or being posted here.

GhOst.4019:

So when Anet said “There are too many people using LB”, that is exactly true. It’s NOT the fact that a ranger is OP; it’s the fact that either by random or by team que there is 3 on each team almost always and quite ridiculous. Just spend the match on my back…

One of my main goals with this thread was to help people (mostly new players) understand what they are experiencing, clear up some misconceptions, test just how much damage RF can actually dish out and give some ideas on how to fight against them. I am glad you see the problem for what it really is. Rangers had to suffer from the misconception that they are useless in pvp, pve, wvw, now they suffer for being easy to pick up and be effective. I guess we will never have it nice, but I’m pretty sure other professions won’t either.

‘cept for Guardians. I think they are in a pretty good place. (sorry couldn’t pass on that)

jcbroe.4329:

Justine.6351:

At extreme ranges the lb will only hit stationary targets. So somewhere between the zone that you cannot strafe and absolute max lb distance you will be able to strafe with some varying degree of success depending on what side of the spectrum the target is.

We actually were testing this. As far as I can guesstimate, out to the realm of about 1800 range (manually pressing the auto and using skills of course), not a single attack was missed from strafing.

Even tried it with leaps as movement modifiers, every attack was still successful.

I honestly thought the same thing about strafing until that last round of testing. After I saw that I kind of just went “ummm, well, at least I never claimed strafing to be a counterplay” lol.

Is this still entirely accurate? I’m getting missed shots from being strafed all the time in WvW when I’m at max range, even with RtW.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

jcbroe.4329:

Justine.6351:

At extreme ranges the lb will only hit stationary targets. So somewhere between the zone that you cannot strafe and absolute max lb distance you will be able to strafe with some varying degree of success depending on what side of the spectrum the target is.

We actually were testing this. As far as I can guesstimate, out to the realm of about 1800 range (manually pressing the auto and using skills of course), not a single attack was missed from strafing.

Even tried it with leaps as movement modifiers, every attack was still successful.

I honestly thought the same thing about strafing until that last round of testing. After I saw that I kind of just went “ummm, well, at least I never claimed strafing to be a counterplay” lol.

Is this still entirely accurate? I’m getting missed shots from being strafed all the time in WvW when I’m at max range, even with RtW.

Are they strafing in and out of your effective range?

The testing conditions were with Eagle Eye and Read the Wind being used at maximum effective range in a PvP server with both no speed boosts, speed boosts, and movement skills being used.

So I’d be really curious myself, because my testing proved my own hypothesis wrong and I could have sworn the same thing, but I didn’t test it outside a PvP environment and I didn’t test for what would cause the arrows to miss once I saw that within range, they couldn’t be actively strafed.

jcbroe.4329:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

jcbroe.4329:

Justine.6351:

At extreme ranges the lb will only hit stationary targets. So somewhere between the zone that you cannot strafe and absolute max lb distance you will be able to strafe with some varying degree of success depending on what side of the spectrum the target is.

We actually were testing this. As far as I can guesstimate, out to the realm of about 1800 range (manually pressing the auto and using skills of course), not a single attack was missed from strafing.

Even tried it with leaps as movement modifiers, every attack was still successful.

I honestly thought the same thing about strafing until that last round of testing. After I saw that I kind of just went “ummm, well, at least I never claimed strafing to be a counterplay” lol.

Is this still entirely accurate? I’m getting missed shots from being strafed all the time in WvW when I’m at max range, even with RtW.

Are they strafing in and out of your effective range?

The testing conditions were with Eagle Eye and Read the Wind being used at maximum effective range in a PvP server with both no speed boosts, speed boosts, and movement skills being used.

So I’d be really curious myself, because my testing proved my own hypothesis wrong and I could have sworn the same thing, but I didn’t test it outside a PvP environment and I didn’t test for what would cause the arrows to miss once I saw that within range, they couldn’t be actively strafed.

No, it’s strict lateral movement. I don’t see the Out of Range message and I was hitting my target before and if the target stops for a second, I’ll get a hit in. I’m also just using the auto attacks rather than manual method (I only just now discovered that) and am also being strafed when using RF. Also using EE and RtW traits.

However, a speed boost of some sort might’ve been what aids the strafer. Pardon my ignorance if you weren’t including movement boosts in your tests. I didn’t think about that. I figured most people nowadays run with movement speeds in WvW.

I have perma swiftness up and have strafed and had my own rapid fire strafed. Of course that is in WvW so it might have just been the grass was too tall and it was blocking the shots…