Guild Wars 2

I’ve been a Ranger main since Day One. Even when Rapidfire was terrible and Lead The Wind was 3 separate traits. And from everything I can see, they’ve buffed Longbow a lot.

However, I can’t seem to kill any class reliably. immunities are everywhere, stability is everywhere, even thieves just dodge chain while running away.

Heart of Thorns has changed the game. I can no longer reliably Rapidfire, Stealth, Stun, Maul, and when I do. It’s lack luster.

Am I missing something?

DONT use Longbow under the current meta.

You’d totally get owned by the bejillion reflects throwing all over the place under the current meta.

Tempest and Scrappers, 2 of the most popular classes, well tank your arrows like nothing while faceroll you.

I don’t really consider longbow a damage weapon, more of a utility weapon now.

Stealth while tempest and scrappers are reflecting so you can decap a bit. PBS for more decap or interrupting the Tempest heal.

Outside of longbow the only other weapon that feels natural is Greatsword. Should I just switch to DH for a ranged DPS playstyle?

The comments about long bow and reflect is actually true. Sad actually when you take out a primary or core weapon from a class and make it somewhat useless. This is also true in the current WvW format of play. Those classes mentioned will just hunker down and reflect the hell out of your rapid fire.

It used to be one of the core mechanics of Guardians in they had a few ways to reflect. Now, well, seems all the classes are starting to blend with the exception of the Ranger who is standing outside looking in. Wanting to play so very badly but the last one picked for the team

Morryk.7829:

Outside of longbow the only other weapon that feels natural is Greatsword. Should I just switch to DH for a ranged DPS playstyle?

Definitely.

DH is very lackluster in PvP. Have you tried druid at all? You can definitely make LB work with staff.

Aomine.5012:

DONT use Longbow under the current meta.

You’d totally get owned by the bejillion reflects throwing all over the place under the current meta.

Tempest and Scrappers, 2 of the most popular classes, well tank your arrows like nothing while faceroll you.

I use staff and longbow and do just fine in ruby. Yes there are lots of reflects but you should watch for them and switch to staff in those cases. Longbow 5 also doesn’t get reflected. I’m also on a celestial druid too.

“Heart of Thorns has changed the game. I can no longer reliably Rapidfire, Stealth, Stun, Maul, and when I do. It’s lack luster.
Am I missing something?”

If you want reliable stealth use smokescale, its special move creates a smokefield (watch for ele and mesmer combo fields so you don’t write over them) and can be staff 3’ed into for temporary stealth. It’s short group stealth but works for some rez progress and washing their targeting off.

“However, I can’t seem to kill any class reliably. immunities are everywhere, stability is everywhere, even thieves just dodge chain while running away.”

I reliably defeat reapers, dragonhunters, and even some engineers, revenants, and daredevils 1v1 and yes I’ll carelessly LB 4 an elementalist with earth armor (I use the skill too on my tempest, good for secure stomps and rezzes) or other with stability but that’s largely a learn to play issue. Use your pets too. A druid 1v1 is effectively a 2v1 because we have pets.

Fluffball.8307:

DH is very lackluster in PvP. Have you tried druid at all? You can definitely make LB work with staff.

Well, he can burst down people with chain-dazing and amazing utility mechanics. DH can jump into melee range of a teamfight, and help them win it. That’s something a Berserker Ranger will never be able to.
… And he is not as squishy as Berserker Ranger.

Ya I wouldn’t recommend zerk ranger anymore; I never liked it for PvP even before HoT. But non-glass druid (there are several amulets to try) with LB works.

Fluffball.8307:

Ya I wouldn’t recommend zerk ranger anymore; I never liked it for PvP even before HoT. But non-glass druid (there are several amulets to try) with LB works.

For Ranged DPS, not so likely. Not anymore.

Not zerker ranger. But LB as a weapon does well when paired with druid and staff. You can 1v1 extremely well and both weapons are good for team fights from the margins.

Fluffball.8307:

Not zerker ranger. But LB as a weapon does well when paired with druid and staff. You can 1v1 extremely well and both weapons are good for team fights from the margins.

Then it’s an irrelevant matter.

Outside of longbow the only other weapon that feels natural is Greatsword. Should I just switch to DH for a ranged DPS playstyle?

It depends on what you call DPS. I don’t only consider pure glass to be DPS, but if you’re referring to it as an organized 5-man team role, then ok.

Zerk druid with staff also works for WvW or duels, I’m sure it would be a great “for-fun” spec in PvP.

Morryk.7829:

I’ve been a Ranger main since Day One. Even when Rapidfire was terrible and Lead The Wind was 3 separate traits. And from everything I can see, they’ve buffed Longbow a lot.

However, I can’t seem to kill any class reliably. immunities are everywhere, stability is everywhere, even thieves just dodge chain while running away.

Heart of Thorns has changed the game. I can no longer reliably Rapidfire, Stealth, Stun, Maul, and when I do. It’s lack luster.

Am I missing something?

First you should tell us the thing you are looking for. To give an example, my thing is “archery”. Love it and try to play it. Hate pets, love (d) longbow. Still trying to find a proper archer in gw2. Closest thing is rifle warrior sadly.

DH depends also on traps. Is that what you want? Or do you want pure single target ranged dmg? If you want aoe you can go mortineer (mortar engineer). It what you like is mid ranged single target damage, go scepter fresh air ele. Or you want long range dps for single target, try killshot warrior.

Sadly time for lb ranger is over. It can still work against unaware opponents at some point (if they are bad or full glass cannon), but with the new specs and our dear more stupid than a piece of pebble pet system, it is very unwise to play the old build. Tell us what you are looking for exactly, then people can help.

PS: Still looking for an archer. Failed miserably. There are no pure archers in this game.

Glass in general just doesn’t work in the metagame for anything other than Herald, and to a lesser but still strong and notable extent, Scrapper.

Not that you can’t “make” it work, the issue wouldn’t necessarily even boil down to survival as long as you don’t plan on standing on point in teamfights. But the real issue is all of the damage mitigation and ranged hate. Not that glass ranger won’t work, but that it just isn’t very optimal currently.

2-4 weeks from now and this could very well change.

Longbow still works fine. Stealth, CC, AF generation by 5 and DMG wise. You just have to play smarter, watch the enemies buff bars and time your attacks together with your pets.

Shirk.6421:

Longbow still works fine. Stealth, CC, AF generation by 5 and DMG wise. You just have to play smarter, watch the enemies buff bars and time your attacks together with your pets.

That’s why it is weaker than other classes like DH who do not have to play 10 times smarter than like ranger has to.

Lb is fine only if you have druid spec.

Just replace the traditional LB/GS with LB/Staff. Zerk is risky currently with every class being super hard to kill, but zerk Ranger has mad sustain with Druid. There’s a lot of projectile hate at the moment which hopefully will be partly addressed when Tempests get shafted.

So what I’m reading here…if you do not pay for HOT, you will not win as a ranger? Hmm!

Daggos Skelito.2910:

So what I’m reading here…if you do not pay for HOT, you will not win as a ranger? Hmm!

It’s like that in almost every game, be happy that the max level wasn’t raised so you’re not totally useless.

So what is the sPvP build with the Druid that uses a LB?

Not saying that celestial or crusader amulet is a crutch but outside the pew pew zerk build for Stronghold I’ve not see much success with LB on other maps. Well, Temple map due to height also works.

This is for ranked of course. I’m still in the cheese levels so can’t imaging this working above Ruby though.

Stronghold has different requirements. The conquest meta is to just stall indefinitely, which is why super glass builds don’t work. The druid LB build has a lot more sustain for contesting points (and keeping all 3 points contested for the entire duration of the game, ending in a 0-0 score.)

If I recall correctly, in week 1 of the pro league, Final Form (euratien’s team) used 2 LB druids to win their game. I think anyway, that was a long time ago and I haven’t been able to catch any other of the pro matches due to RL.

OK, I’ve been working the last two days pretty much non-stop. I’m very interested in the LB / Staff build, however I still don’t quite know what my build should be. Or my playstyle, druid’s class mechanic is weird.

Morryk.7829:

Heart of Thorns has changed the game. I can no longer reliably Rapidfire, Stealth, Stun, Maul, and when I do. It’s lack luster.

Am I missing something?

No not at all. You are absolutely correct. LB damage output is very lackluster in this meta. Borderline useless. I tried to make it work, early on, and learned quickly it doesn’t. Staff will end up doing more damage because it is not a projectile and cannot be reflected. It also has better utility vs current Meta.

SW/T and Staff work well together, as well as GS/Staff.

Morryk.7829:

OK, I’ve been working the last two days pretty much non-stop. I’m very interested in the LB / Staff build, however I still don’t quite know what my build should be. Or my playstyle, druid’s class mechanic is weird.

Cele amulet. Cele LB doesn’t hit like maurader, but it’s enough that you can’t be ignored while plussing from halfway across the map, and cele druid with any weapons can hold a point.

I personally like quick draw with it. You can get off 2 ~5k RFs plus sigils (or 2 skills 3, 4, or 5 depending on what makes sense.) Combine that with a combat pet swap to bristleback quickness F2 and you have a very dangerous ranged spike. The only concern is not shooting blindly into reflects, which has been very over-dramatized in this thread. Consider a preemptive staff 5 to protect yourself if you’re fighting from range. And then don’t forget you get quickdraw on the staff as well, #3 works well for that.

Spotter doesn’t have much to compete with, it’s either that or hidden barbs. With spotter, Lyssa runes, and fury you get to 60% crit off the top of my head. Or go with hidden barbs and sigil of earth on staff, etc. Whatever makes sense with your rune and sigil choices.

The rest of the build is just normal druid stuff, probably the 2 CC gylphs and SoS. The class mechanic is indeed weird. Use it as emergency healing/condi removal for you and your team and otherwise don’t worry about it. That’s what makes druid very durable, is having basically 2 heal buttons (and then staff 5 into staff 3 for water field combo, and etc.)

Edit: CA also triggers a quickdraw “weapon swap”.

Exactly, I play cele LB with either axe/dagger or sword/torch since 2 years and druid made it even better. There are some matchups where noone wins, like fighting a good scrapper or a good cele ele but it’s nice, I love it. And btw, staying alive and not shooting when reflects are up gets you around reflects.

One thing that people forget about longbow is it’s amazing Decapping potential.

I can come to a point. PBS someone out and instantly root him (Seeds GM Trait) – that forces usually a cleanse and an evade on a spot, then I Tides him away again – that makes him practically out of Endurance and stunbreakers – and I still have Equality as a stunbreak.

I never really understood people playing Longbow for PvP Damage where nothing but burst matters.