Guild Wars 2

Howdy

I’m looking to make a long range longbow build on my new ranger, and was looking for a little advice for the gear.

I main a thief, so I know how quickly full glass rangers can go down if caught out. So what I’m basically asking is what is the minimum amount of defence I should aim for, whilst still maintaining as much DPS as possible.

I’m thinking using 6/0/2/6/0 for traits, so I can take advantage of the new grandmasters in both trees, and S/D as my off set for the dodges/mobility/poison. I know that longbow power builds aren’t the strongest option, but as long as I’m vaguely viable I’ll be happy.

Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks in advance ^^

If you want to go LB/GS that trait setup is basically the best. You should be taking LR and QZ which are both stunbreaks and condi removal with that setup. Personally in this setup I find SotH crutial for mobility and being able to kite effectively. Id aim for max DPS so full zerk w/ ranger runes. You could probably swap to knights armor and keep zerk trinkets if you feel you need more defence, but honestly if you get caught out your most likely going to die in either setup so may as well maximise damage. GS is great for keeping distance and disengaging fights. Knockback on LB can also be used to keep distance from enemies. Basically you want to keep at max range to be most effective, as well as avoiding the majority of damage being at 1500 range.

S/D is generally less effective with this build as it doesnt give you the mobility that GS does. It does have evades, but honestly if your in melee range and stay there your boned either way so may as well have an easy way out with GS. GS also has a block which can be great for blocking projectiles.

Sword 2 can technically double leap back for a greater distance than GS if you learn to do it properly, but is fairly hard to do in a pinch unless you practice a lot. If you do get this down though you can make a great deal of distance between you and your target with sword 2/LR/ do a 180 and sword 2 again. GS is generally better though for general purpose mobility as it is more controlled.

The 1st thing you’ll need is some sort of defensive cooldown.

Since you’ll be going for Survival of the Fittest – that will be a repositioning tool. You either need to go for “Protect me” which is not so reliable and kills your pet straight ahead.

I found the most use of Singet of the Beastmaster in combination of Signet of the Stone. You won’t have much “viability” in Read the Wind if you aim for sPvP.

I figured that full zerk might be the way to go, I just didn’t want to waste money if there was another option really.

For the mobility, I chose norn for the racial elite to help with that, and on my thief I’m used to using the camera trick to withdraw forwards so S/D isn’t much of a problem in that respect. I’ll try greatsword out though, you make good points ^^

I was thinking more for WvW than sPvP tbh, although I’m not sure if I’ll find read the wind to be all that helpful yet so I might use the signet traits instead. I’m just glad for some active condi cleanse…

Thanks for the tips, much appreciated ^^

In that case if you are familliar with the theif withdraw trick, then youll be fine. Only difference is that you are technically disengaging backwards, so be wary of cliffs around you in wvw while doing so. if this is the case then S/D would be superior for disengage IMO (but not for active mobility between battles), and if you have norn racial youll be set to disengage. Just make sure to remember to deselect target after LR before the 180 and popping the second part of sword 2.

If you plan to fight at max range, RTW is crucial for LB to land on target. Without it, your arrows will be too slow and enemies can basically dodge the arrows simply by strafing. RTW will allways hit if your in range unless they evade/dodge or block. Also, it doesnt say it on the tooltip, but with RTW, your effective range is technically closer to 1800 rather than 1500 due to increased velocity. It will show out of range on your bar, and wont auto attack, but if you manually hit the 1 button it will hit from that range.

This is a great build for WvW, and I use it if im in a group of 3+ (solo roaming wont work with this build unfortunately). Sometimes I like taking Sic Em when small group roaming as it is great for dealing with theives which are plentiful in wvw, although you lose a stun break and defensive skill/condi clear. In that particular case, take entangle over norn elite as it will give you a condi clear back, and AOE Immob. It says 1 condi clear on the entangle tooltip, but I have confirmed it does 2 and appears to be a tooltip bug.