Guild Wars 2

Other than defending points in WvW, maybe? I like the longbow better as a weapon, and like the legendary skin more. But I feel like there is almost no reason to use it.

You are exactly right, i have given longbow many chances, i even recently bough one from AC with tokens to try it again but i just cant use it at all. I love the mobility, evasion of the shortbow, the speed. Sadly the shortbow only damage heavy skill is 1 and i am a power, crit, prec build mostly, still love the SB anyday over LB. I am probably going to make my legendary shortbow

In WvW yea LB might be good with barrage but that is all, i prefer the shortbow mobility to escape, evade attacks and as always the speed :P

It’s more situational than the shortbow. Where the shortbow generally requires only one thing to shine (flanking), each of the longbow skills has its own utility in certain situations at certain ranges. #1 is for dps at long range, #2 is a close-to-midranged burst, #3 applies a condition, #4 is for close-range interruption and knockback, and #5 is a condition-applying AoE.

Just my two coppers.

The long bow shoots further and its #1 seems to have a higher chance to hit than short bow. In a skirmish you would use shortbow. Longbow’s long range #1 hits glass cannons reasonably hard. It’s #5 dominates an area. #1 shoots slow so retalation and confusion do little. It’s range is probably only of benefit in WvW however. In dungeons and sPvP shortbow with omnomberry pies and piercing shots would probably trump all. In WvW I probably use long bow 80%+ of the time and shortbow when I’m chasing down a kill or in the middle of a skirmish or when I want to do a burst with pet swap quickness.

Barrage. If you want to knock someone off a cliff. If you want to increase your teams’ overall dps with 10stacks of vulnerability.

Is all based on you play style liking.. LB is not better then SB and SB isnt better then LB they both are equal. SB is all about speed and mobilty so if you like being fast you want SB. LB is all about distance and hiting hard so if you if like to attack from a save distance and see big Number you want LB.

I play my ranger with LB only , I can attack mobs from a range of 1500 wich keeps away from harm since range on mobs is limited to 1200 so i rarely get hit . My auto attack is 1100 a hit and since i am a critical build i have a 50% to crtic with a 80% critc damage increase i can crit for 3000k with auto attack, My rapid fire starts doing damage at 1k and it end doing 10k non crits hits, ITs hard to calculate the rapid fire damage with out some kind of dps metter but is close enouf to say that my rapid fire does 20k damage or more base on how many time i crit every 8 sec.

i would not change my LB for SH

Drakent.9605:

My rapid fire starts doing damage at 1k and it end doing 10k non crits hits, ITs hard to calculate the rapid fire damage with out some kind of dps metter but is close enouf to say that my rapid fire does 20k damage or more base on how many time i crit every 8 sec.

i would not change my LB for SH

…no. The total damage done is the last number that comes up. Your rapid fire did 10k damage total, not 20k.

While the usefulness between sb and lb are apparent in www, the sb does more damage than the lb ever will in pve and in 1v1 it’s worthless.

Long bow is good weapon all ranger know this.

In WWW if you have party/guild/friend cover your position longbow will make perfect job.Like open strike/open fire cover your friend make foe uneasy to forward/backward.And good as hunt a victim.
But if no1 cover your position longbow will make you worst.

Silverkung.9127:

Long bow is good weapon all ranger know this.

lol..kitten off longbow

its nice to hold the position?
it make more fun to stay in front of the enemy,kill-one-stomp-one or rezz one like a boss with pet swap :p

barrage is the dmg version with higher cdr of muddy terrain..if you want more bags of loot, okay barrage could be nice.

If u use dual bows in pve and you keep swapping off the longbow after rapid fire, while you are not in max range, while also not using condition dmg gear the LB is a good option. If for any reason You have to settle for a single bow, go for the shortbow. (I personally use dual bows in dungeons)

If you want to RP and dive inside your mind into some fantasy that has you using a LB. Functionally, no you don’t the weapon design sucks due to damage variation with range.

For wvw, whenever your groups fights, you want to be using quickness lb5+2 to quickly turn the fight in your groups favor by big dmg and aoe cripple, then switching to sb to help pressure the assist target.

LB2 with pet swap quickness is key to bursting down targets too. LB is an amazing weapon I don’t know why people cry all the time.

Admittedly lb1 is only situationally useful and if you’re just sititng there spamming it, it’s your choice…You need to combo skills and utilities like every class and Longbow is a very good weapon for all round wvw, expecially with a shortbow.

Well, for me, especially in WvW, I find the extra range, the AoE of Barrage, the knock-back and the ‘tracking/hitting through stealth’ of Rapid Fire pretty much make Longbow a must have. I can’t count the number of situations where each of those things individually has been hugely useful…having them together seals the deal in my opinion.

Longbow is a direct damage weapon, shortbow is a condition damage weapon. So if you are playing a direct damage build, and have next to zero condition damage, I would use the longbow over the shortbow.

Kasama.8941:

Longbow is a direct damage weapon, shortbow is a condition damage weapon. So if you are playing a direct damage build, and have next to zero condition damage, I would use the longbow over the shortbow.

Here is the problem, the moment you are below 1000 range the shortbow wins out and even at 1200 the longbow barely beats a non flanking shortbow, in full crit based gear.

Longbow needs to do more damage if they want to keep the slow as molasses speed and distance damage scaling the way it is now. Sure barrage is nice but most players just laugh at it’s damage and run around it anyway. I really want to like it but it just doesn’t perform.

A better question would be: is there a reason to use either bow over the good old axe/warhorn combo? I’m having more succes in 1vX with axe/warhorn than with the shortbow (with which in turn I’m having more succes with than the longbow, but I digress).

Barrage at your feet or in between you and enemy (QZ’d) is a great defensive move, QZ’d Rapid Fire is a great Burst, Knock back is valuable utility, Vulnerability Arrow helps everyone’s DPS vs Target. Like anything else the LB skills have its particular uses like any other weapon. It is not useless per say, if anything the Skill 1 needs evaluation as its too slow an option….

I use longbow all the time,except for Spvp where i go shortbow.
I don’t know,just i normally find the longbow skills better for WvW and Pve,the knockback and 10stacks of vun are just too handy

Gelltor.3015:

I use longbow all the time,except for Spvp where i go shortbow.
I don’t know,just i normally find the longbow skills better for WvW and Pve,the knockback and 10stacks of vun are just too handy

Same here. Playing ranger since beginning, over 900h now and using LB all the time. I tried SB coz ppl say it’s better, but simply can’t use it – too boring and my dmg doesn’t seem to go up. I had to think about it much before finishing my legendary, but tbh it’s just matter of preferences.

If you need reason to use LB:
- in WvW there are places where you can use effect of arrow “falling” to hit eniemies (or mostly siege coz they think it’s safe there) in over 2000 range.
- LBs (not only legendary) looks imo a lot better :P
- 1500 range is extremally usefull in zerg vs zerg, even in small zergs
- idk about SB, but with LB I can easily solo camps in WvW
- LB is better to “tag” enemy, be it player or mob, to get drop
- 4. for knocking enemies from walls, cliffs, sieges, to interrupt heals and finishes on our teammates, to make a gap from melee. And it deals not that bad dmg
- with 3. you can keep 10 stacks of vuln all the time (with 8 sec CD you can even have 20 for 2 sec)
.
.
.
- longer = better (ask your GF!)’

Also, you can use 3. and 4. between 1. shoots to maximize your dmg output.

But yeah, it’s shame we have to even think about it. Weapons sholuld be balanced in a way, where you can use anything and don’t be woried you will be less effective.

I choose longbow because its the superior weapon at long ranges. If they get close I just switch to sword+dagger to make distance again.