Guild Wars 2

While i know these two proffessions are not exactly the same, they both have the same ranged way of doing damage.

I like the mechanics of both Longbow adn Rifle but i cant quite decide on which to play so i wanted to see what you all had to say about the two.

Pro’s, cons? ^^

Rifle War does more single-target DPS. I’d say it’s superior to the Longbow in every way except Barrage.

Barrage is the only aspect of the Ranger Longbow I prefer over a Rifle War.

Rifle is better for damage now for suvavility ranger is the way to go, warrior lack of defensive skills, heals, boons and condition removal so, a ranger will win a warrior using rifle anytime on 1 vs 1

Rampage.7145:

Rifle is better for damage now for suvavility ranger is the way to go, warrior lack of defensive skills, heals, boons and condition removal so, a ranger will win a warrior using rifle anytime on 1 vs 1

Yeah…I’d take this ^ advice with a grain of salt, having both a Warrior and a Ranger level 80. Warrior has heavy armor and the highest HP pool in the game. Please explain how a Ranger (using a LB) will “win every time” vs. a Warrior with a Rifle. Even my heal-spec support Warrior gets off 4-8k+ Kill Shots, no problem. He also has 3100 armor, 25k HP, a 10k self-heal, 2k+ healing shouts (x3), condition removal, fury, lots of might stacks…etc.

Ursan is pretty spot-on with his comment.

A little hard to compare based solely on LB vs Rifle. You’ll still get traits, utilities and another weapon set to switch to.

Warrior has more innate defense in Vitality and Armour. Shouts, Banners and Signets could all add to a ranged build. Less bugs, but some useless traits as well. Terrible condition removal.

Ranger can get more ready access to Quickness (QZ), and can get better mobility with weapon swap. Not going to do as much DPS, not by a long shot, but may have more ability to build in escape options.

Both classes can get lots of fury and might. Ranger has better condition removal if traited for it.

In the end, decide whether you want to deal with the Ranger pet or not and look through the utility skills. Then decide. The weapons themselves are quite similar in feel.

Helequin.2608:

Both classes can get lots of fury and might. Ranger has better condition removal if traited for it.

I’d disagree there. In fact, of the 6 classes I’ve played (I don’t have a Mes or Engi), I’d venture to say that Ranger has the worst availability of condition removal skills in the game. The following, for comparison, is just some Warrior skills and a commonly used rune. I didn’t include any traits.

Warrior
—————
Heal: Mending – Heal yourself and cure two conditions.
Utility: “Shake It Off!” – Cure a condition on yourself and nearby allies. Also breaks stuns.
Utility: Signet of Stamina Passive: Grants faster endurance regeneration. Active: Cure all conditions.
Runes: Superior Rune of the Soldier (6): Shouts remove a condition.

List does not include things like Pray to Kormir (removes 3 conditions), etc. because they are racial skills and any class can have access to them with the proper race selection. It should also be noted that the Warrior skills for condition removal have a much shorter cooldown then the Ranger ones. Signet of Renewal comes to mind in regards to the Ranger: 60s CD (untraited) on Active use and relies on pet being alive to draw the conditions in the first place. The Warrior equivalent, Signet of Stamina, will cure all conditions with a 45s CD (untraited), and does not rely on external factors (pet).

I love my Warrior -and- my Ranger. One of my biggest gripes with the Ranger, compared to other classes, is the lack of on-demand conditional removal (or the ones they do have, are gimped compared to other classes).

What about a longbow warrior? They have 4 second immobilize on #5 + 4 second immobilize with bolas. #3 big aoe. #2 reasonable burn. Their adrenal skill is really big aoe burn or you can weapon swap to rifle for kill shot(and weapon swap sigil buffs) while target is immobilized. Their number 1 also depends less on condition damage. The only thing a ranger has which immobilizes is muddy terrain which has 900 range and lasts 2 seconds and drakehound which has 500 range and lasts 2 seconds. Entangle on a 150 seconds cooldown is a big woopty do.

rifle connects with targets way, way better. way better. past 900 range, the LB is simply undependable. i wasted 25-30g on berserker and PVT gear before testing the weapon, only to realize after how dysfunctional it really is.

with piercing arrows, Rapid Fire can do some impressive damage if the targets the bad enough to not dodge roll, which by the way almost completely nullifies the burst. and barrage is good, no complaints there.

i found the LB to be most effective at 600-900 range actually. u can unload 15k in 2-3 seconds using QZ. best 1200 weapons are mesmer GS and warrior rifle. LB doesnt even come close at that range.

over an extended period of time ranger longbow is better, but given best scenerios for both war rifle will do much more damage in less time thanks to kill shot, this is not taking other things like target actions into account this is just best scenerio for both weapons longbow ranger is better for extended periods, but war rifle can still crit 10-17k according to most glass cannon warriors that ive talked to.

Ranger will win a warrior anytime no warrior buid can, OFC warrior can go full GC and 1 shoot u, but u would have to be very noob. I have both i have warrior anda ranger both fully geared and warrior just can’t roam 1 vs 1 most classes will beat him including ranger, a roamer ranger will just kill almost any class may be not a bunker build but most of the other roamers. If u ever get killed in 1 vs 1 fight by a warrior ranger is just no the class for u. Most of warrior signets are very bad, the shouts are uselss for PvP unless u go with a group… and banners, common, they are the most PVP uselss skill. Take a look at this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBv96A4jbIE
That guys would take any warrior down no matter what build the warrior is running, yeah they can hit hard, but is the only thing they can do right, if u can avoid their burst they are just another mob on the field.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir-Ggm92Q8U
That if u preffer bow
I do agree for PVE warrior is much better all the way tho, more damage and mobs are stupid and wont avoid the heavy damage skills, but WvW, sPVP any skilled ranger will kill any warrior out there.
I am not being bias towards the rnager here tho, i love my warrior and play it all the time even while is terrible for 1 vs 1 killing noobs with 25K killshoots is very very fun, But u have to be in group and make sure nobody targets u cuz if so u will be dead in 3 secs. So, if u like glass cannon stile sniper mode go warrior, but if u like to roam and try find 1vs1/1vs2 fights arround the world go ranger.

lol what rampage said, but it depends on where you are in WvW, in some of the teirs of those finding 1v1 battles is kind of hard (usually when u think u find one it is a culling issue and there is really 15 other players around him that ur client is not registering), its very easy to find mob on mob battles though in the group of servers im in

Rampage, that guy is using that overpowered Asura racial ability. It is in no way representative of what a Ranger can do.

In terms of general PVP situation
-melee ranger>melee warrior
-ranged ranger>ranged warrior
If u are looking for burst/raw damage ranger is not for u, if u are looking for a smart playstyle then go ranger, if u like to press 2 buttons and deal good damge go warrior.
http://es-es.twitch.tv/mentalrage/b/359780523
I think everyone who says ranger sucks cuz they deal poor damage should just reroll warrior
U see this game balances according to PVP/WvW, since ranger beats almost any class in 1 vs 1 allready it will be very unlikelly to get buffed anytime soon untill underpowerd classes like warriors or engi does. I also don’t think they will rework ranger mechanics cuz they works they way they want, few bugs yeah, but compared to engi is really nothing to complain about, most classes have bugged traits/skills still at this point.
-Rangers atm have at least 2 competitive tournament builds, warrior have 0
-Rangers atm have many WvW viable builds, tanky, damage, very versatile. Warriors have 2 or 3 damge focused, everytime i see a tank warrior in WvW/PVE makes me wanna cry.
-Warriors are unmatched on PVE in general since fights are easy all the way Rifle/GS -warrior deals 2x more damage than any ranger out there, this is the only aspect warriors are really good. Glass cannon warriors can solo several bosses on every dungeon, that is actually pretty epic lol. Even a Hybrid defensive warrior can deal more damaage than any Glass cannon ranger anytime.

Rifle|+GS Warrior will wipe the floor several times over with a LB ranger.

A riffle warrior will beat LB ranger easily …
u guys talk about condition removal ..signets ..banners .. shouts … rofl .. those r all pve skills . a pvp warrior wont even use them except maybe signet of rage.

I m surprised none of u talked about Endure pain , Fear me . Frenzy , Stomp , Charge utility skills .. which actualy gives the warrior 1 vs 1 roaming ability .. that rampager cant do with his warrior.

@ rampager .. if i spot ur ranger 1st , and i hav 9 second quickness over u with +110% critic damage (not even counting killshot) , use endure pain for 4 sec immunity to dmg followed by fear me to get rid of ur annoing pets , how the hell ur ranger will win ?

i know mesmers do put a great challnge vs rifle warrior and thieves eat up rifle warrior , but a ranger ? comeon u must be joking . I see a ranger i almost become sure i m winning , atleast while its 1 vs 1 .

“if u cant play a ranger go roll a warrior” ? it goes other way around as well " if u r good with warrior try ranger"

Oh 1 more think , if i want to play a class that roams free , op and can take on 3 vs 1 i wud play a thief .. why the hell will i play a ranger for ?
i m not going into mele warrior vs melee ranger , not the topic here .

You guys are wrong, we have our pet to make up the differance.

Of course, the pet is fighting the theif that ran by 10 seconds ago, but that’s a different story.

I found the warrior longbow works quite well in WvW. I ran a 0/20/0/30/20 with healing banner and toughness banner and budget knights/berserkers armor. Banners give regen plus stat buffs plus swiftness when you pick them up and use #3; and the healing one heals for 3.5k+ when you use its #2. #3 on the longbow hits 5 people for 3k each + burning. #2 hits a bunch of people. The adrenal ability covers an area whose radius is twice that of a mortar incendiary shot. And amongst all the aoe and healing and conditions adrenaline builds quite quickly. And the cooldown on #3 is 10 seconds while for barrage it is 24 seconds. Plus the warrior in the budget gear has 23k health and about the same toughness compared to 17k health on my equivalent ranger in exotics. And I can switch to rifle and do a killshot whenever it suits me with only a 5 second cooldown on weapon swaps. Or I could equip a shield or gs for extra survivability and escape. Plus I have a 5 second invulnerability ability I don’t need to trait for while for ranger you need 30 points in the top line for 6 seconds of invulnerability. So the warrior longbow has better aoe, better aoe conditions than ranger longbow. The warrior’s support abilities are better than the ranger spirits. The heal on the healing banner on a 10 second cooldown is better than the moas hit or miss heal on a 40 second cooldown or 20 second net cooldown with 2 moas. And I can switch from longbow to rifle while #2 and #3 are on cooldown on my longbow and spam piercing shots. Ranger longbow has 1500 range if traited and spammable #1. I can also use the crit banner instead of the toughness banner and use its #2 for perpetual fury while for a ranger the red moa can keep fury up about 5/6 of the time if you for whatever reason run a boon build and have the cooldown reduced to 24 seconds.

I’m assuming you’re wanting to Zerg Surf in WvW if you’re wanting to use Longbow on the ranger, in which case..Pick a Rifle Warrior….We have nothing that remotely compares to Killshot or the Rifle line warriors have in regards to loading up on full berserker gear and going to town. The Warrior can even use Great Sword and do quite well compared to us in melee thanks to Endure Pain.

Now with that said, I can’t tell you the last time i’ve lost to a Warrior 1v1 in World vs World….My Ranger with the build I use absolutely just stomps on them.

2v1 one yea..I can easily die to a warrior who catches me with 100b’s, However other then that I simply don’t die to them….They don’t have nearly enough condition removal to fight against me, and I can pretty much dodge all their burst whenever its up, and it’s very easy to spot.

Now granted like someone stated early in this thread, I’m running Pain Inverter….i could easily switch to Sharpening Stone and run my more offensive set and stomp on them just the same..

all PI allows me to do is take 2v1 better, 1v1 They’re kind of comparable…. I’d say on Average I’ll get about 5 hits of Confusion on someone, which will be around 5k Damage, SS will do around that same amount in comparison with bleeds.

But my advice is still choose Warrior, They are a better designed class, and they have more options available to them then us.

Rampage.7145:

Ranger will win a warrior anytime no warrior buid can, OFC warrior can go full GC and 1 shoot u, but u would have to be very noob. I have both i have warrior anda ranger both fully geared and warrior just can’t roam 1 vs 1 most classes will beat him including ranger, a roamer ranger will just kill almost any class may be not a bunker build but most of the other roamers. If u ever get killed in 1 vs 1 fight by a warrior ranger is just no the class for u. Most of warrior signets are very bad, the shouts are uselss for PvP unless u go with a group… and banners, common, they are the most PVP uselss skill. Take a look at this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBv96A4jbIE
That guys would take any warrior down no matter what build the warrior is running, yeah they can hit hard, but is the only thing they can do right, if u can avoid their burst they are just another mob on the field.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir-Ggm92Q8U
That if u preffer bow
I do agree for PVE warrior is much better all the way tho, more damage and mobs are stupid and wont avoid the heavy damage skills, but WvW, sPVP any skilled ranger will kill any warrior out there.
I am not being bias towards the rnager here tho, i love my warrior and play it all the time even while is terrible for 1 vs 1 killing noobs with 25K killshoots is very very fun, But u have to be in group and make sure nobody targets u cuz if so u will be dead in 3 secs. So, if u like glass cannon stile sniper mode go warrior, but if u like to roam and try find 1vs1/1vs2 fights arround the world go ranger.

You don’t sound knowledgable enough to have both a Warrior, and Ranger. I’d love to duel you with my Warrior so you can prove it.

That video you posted highlights the power of Pain Inverter, an Asuran class ability that does 6k or more damage to the attacker, unless they stop attacking for FIVE SECONDS. It’s both one of the best defensive, or offensive ability in the game, wrapped up in a very short cooldown timer.

Any Ranger, or Guardian with Pain Inverter does not show a classes potential, or lack of potential. It only shows the power of Pain Inverter.

Send me a PM when you want to fight my Rifle Warrior in WvW, and we can get something set up so you can show me rather than tell me.

Xsorus.2507:

But my advice is still choose Warrior, They are a better designed class, and they have more options available to them then us.

the painful truth. and this is after running all sorts of LB builds over the last 2 months, including LB + traps, which is quite powerful.

im mostly a tpvp’er and the ranger is very strong there. the ranger is one of the best duelists. unfortunately, i havent been able to find a role for the ranger in WvW that isnt better filled by a warrior, mesmer, ele, guardian, or hell even necro. my meditation guard with knight’s gear can hop into a zerg, down 5 people and get out. warrior can do the same. while eles, thieves and mesmers remain the best duelists (the latter two due to culling mostly).

the main issue is our clumsiness at 1200, lack of powerful utilities (lol shouts), and an entirely useless trait line after 10 points (spirits). we just cant contribute much to WvW and that is the truth the devs need to face and deal with.

Rifle warrior, sure.

I’m very surprised by the range of opinions here. I’ll toss in my own for kicks.

My first character was a Ranger and after level 30 I began to notice where the profession was lacking. I’ve worked hard to find ways to enjoy the class and to this day I’m still proud to say its my main character but I’ll still deter newer players from rolling one.

I recently rolled a Warrior to 80 in full exotics. The damage output from a Rifle build is staggering! A Rifle Warrior is a strong contender for best ranged DPS, but here are my opinions on the matter when compared to a Ranger:

- Rifle Warriors lack the surprising amount of evasion a Ranger has. A traited Ranger has a far better Endurance regeneration, even when compared to a Warrior who’s using a Warhorn.

- A Ranger can also trait for Protection on a Dodge roll, where as a Warrior does an AoE damage (which causes more threat).

- Rangers can swap to weapons which gives them even more ways to evade damage. Warriors can swap to weapons that can block or mitigate damage, but have a longer cooldown compared to the Ranger’s.

From experience in Dungeons and WvW, I find a Rifle Warrior has a harder time escaping damage than a Ranger. Despite having more armor than my Ranger, I end up Downed more often on my Warrior (its very embarrassing because I know I’m a better player than that).

With that said, Longbow is by and large my most hated weapon on a Ranger. Its autoattack is pitifully slow and its damage is dreadful. If a Rifle Warrior and Longbow Ranger of equal skill were to face-off, I’d put my money on the Warrior simply because of the auto-attack. While both Rapid Fire and Killshot are easy to recognize and dodge, the Rifle’s auto-attack is faster, hits harder, applies a bleed (which, when traited, increases all damage by 10%) and has no diminishing damage based on range.

I am thinking of building a rifle/GS Warrior. Need to do some research first to decide what race.