Guild Wars 2

Ok well I tried both and they are both quite useful and almost a need in pvp, with piercing arrows I am never body blocked from my target, with remorseless I almost always have a constant 20% additional damage on my target at all times, especially in large battles. Which do you guys prefere for pvp?

Neither. Piercing arrows is a good way to draw more attention than you can handle, remorseless is pathetic in comparison to the usefulness of signet of the beastmaster when it comes to a dps ranger.

To clarify, I ran piercing arrows once before. Since rangers aren’t aoe based, it really seems to help very little. Sure, there are some circumstances where your target is behind a pet or another player, but that usually doesn’t last long or can be corrected very quickly. Not to mention striking an opponent is again a good way to draw their attention, so hitting two of them at once is a nice way to die since we have no strong aoe cc, conditions, damage, or survivability. As for remorseless, I find it a waste of a trait considering you get opening shot back after a few seconds of leaving combat. Considering you have to actually kill somebody to gain the effect back (and still be in combat to make use of it), the meager guaranteed crit and +5% damage debuff just isn’t worth it in comparison to having 6s of invulnerability while running a dps build.

Problem with signets is the long kitten cd, soon as that is fixed sure, but atm Id prefere to be useful more than once every 2 minutes. Also I will mention that piercing arrows drawing attention in pvp isnt important.

You can’t fit both into your build? What would you be giving up in order to have both? I’m assuming Eagle Eye?

Piercing arrows is great for PvE and WvW. Not so much for regular PvP.

Remorseless is best for PvE. I’d have to test it for WvW first, but I’d either have to give up my piercing arrows or my 1500 range, which I don’t want to do. It’s probably useless for regular PvP.

So:
for PvE: both good
for WvW: piercing arrows good, the other maybe if you use shortbow.
for PvP: both not good

nldixon.8514:

You can’t fit both into your build? What would you be giving up in order to have both? I’m assuming Eagle Eye?

Yeah you’d have to give up Eagle Eye. Which I for one am not willing to do in any Longbow build. Some might disagree, but I find the extra 300 range for maximum damage on my longbow and the 5% damage boost to be invaluable. I personally never saw the point of remorseless, piercing arrows or beastmaster is better imo. If you’re in WvW or PvE, I’d say piercing arrows is almost a must. While you may not be body blocked all that often, it can be really frustrating when you fail to get a kill just because some idiot moved in front of you at just the wrong time. Can’t comment on SPvP as I honestly know very little about it.

Yes Id have to give up eagle eye, and as Maz said, not worth it. However Ill give you my first opinions on both for spvp. Piercing arrows is amazing and almost a must against mesmers and necros and even rangers if they stay behind their pet, however its also situational. Remorseless was thought of as useless by me as well, till they fixed opening strikes, vulnerability duration ect… Now since I built for group sniping and sniper support I am almost always in a group battle, and remorseless shines there. Pretty much whenever you down someone its refreshed, even if your aoe hits someone and they get downed, Ive literally kept 20 vuln stacks on someone because barrage downed about 2 people in a 8v8. Its great at keeping you in the fight, dps someone, and pretty much buff everyones damage by 20% when they attack him, then when he dies you switch targets and rinse and repeat, it is quite a nice feeling knowing that you are contributing without having to go support.

So I find both quite unique and useful, I still believe anet should combine piercing arrows with quick draw to be on par with warriors crack shot, but thats wishful thinking. Out of these I find times when I wish I had the other, so Im just getting opinions atm.

Just did a bit of testing. Remorseless does not work in sPvP.
In PvE however, pet kills count as your kills and thus refreshes Opening Strike.
I don’t think Remorseless refreshes your pet’s Opening Strike though.

With that said, in my opinion, groups are usually not big enough to warrant taking the piercing trait. Even in large 8v8 hot matches, the team opposing forces are almost never gathered together. If they were together, they would probably be moving and thus not lined up for your arrows.

However, Remorseless and Piercing Arrows is a great PvE combination that will allow you to have almost permanent vulnerability on your non-boss foes.