Guild Wars 2

Greetings everyone,

I’m not sure if my topic is out of place or anything but I need to know something before I come back to this game again, for me the thing I loved and enjoyed the most was playing as a ranger using short bow…I heard that the short bow became useless after few patches and no one is using it anymore, is it true? and if so.. how badly is it?

because without my short bow I don’t think I’ll be coming back at all :/

depends on gamemode. pvp it does pretty well if played correctly. pve not so much. wvw it can be good for roaming. most ppl play lb zerker atm tho.

Shortbow is decent on condi/hybrid set-ups. I haven’t really used it myself in a while though. You should come back and try longbow, its sooo much better than it used to be.

Ranger sucks. We all know that.

Wow. Darkenss, you’re still here? Thought you would have been banned for LOL’s by now.

In PVE the SB was nerfed into disuse and LB was buffed into use. It’s the reverse of what the situation was 2 years ago. I see so few using SB in PVE but many using the LB. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have made the Dreamer, but no one knew back then that it was going to be nerfed (see “animation fix”) and LB buffed to the point that it made no sense to bring the SB over the LB. I should’ve made Bolt or a GS legendary as it would see a lot more use… Well, now with new legendaries coming out I’ll probably go with one of those vs. the old ones… if I decide to do it. I still have one gift of exploration left I just don’t want to gather all the stuff again to do it. Maybe I’ll just credit card the mats for one of the new legendaries as it seems the precursor is the only thing that is going to be needed from the collections (as of now but that’s subject to change).

SB has a place in condi/celestial builds, namely condi survival and stealth trapper. Typically I’ll run SB/A+D instead of S+T/A+D because frankly I’m not that great with the sword.

Sagramor.7395:

SB has a place in condi/celestial builds, namely condi survival and stealth trapper. Typically I’ll run SB/A+D instead of S+T/A+D because frankly I’m not that great with the sword.

Sounds like a wvw or point capture pvp build.

You guessed it. Sorry I didn’t specify.

I run a LB/GS glass cannon build with my ranger in both sPvP and WvW and to be honest, it’s a freaking ton of fun. Everyone knows how a LB ranger fights so they will predictably take actions to defend against your burst. The trick is to fake them into burning their CD’s and then you kill them.

It’s great in sPvP where you are needed to provide some long-range pressure on a bunker class.

It’s in a pretty decent place with condi/hybrid builds like everyone above me said but again like everyone said, LB is pretty much the king of ranged damage right now. Being able to down people from past 1500 in under 3 seconds is pretty awesome. The damage and vulnerability stacks in pve are really solid when mixed with something like sword and what not.

Darkness.9732:

Ranger sucks. We all know that.

no way xD, you should not play ranger anymore.

If you have to ask, dont bother “returning”.

Why do i say this?
Because whenever people ask “should i do this” “should i do that” “is that good enough for me”, it just screams “i am too lazy to check it out, an i am too unmotivated to play anything that is not FOTM”.
Seriously though, if you have to ask, it is not FOTM, thus it is not going to be good enough.

Darkness.9732:

Ranger sucks. We all know that.

I’ve played over 1,5k hours of ranger, and i can tell that there is no class in game that can beat ranger, if ranger does setup for the match (usually 3 skill changes) and weapon setup.

As for the op.

Ranger with short bow is awesome, you can go condition build or simply trapper.
There is just one thing, if you use shortbow, sword/dagger or sword/axe setup is a must, because greatsword is not offering enough mobility itself, where s/d offers enough dodges and mobility to kite what ever you desire.

I just want to warn you, that shortbow is not viable for every fight. You might win, but chances that you win are slim.

Matchup setup:
Ranger – power build + longbow + sword/axe or sword/dagger
Mesmer – power build + longbow + sword/dagger
Engie – power build + shortbow + sword/dagger
Warrior – trapper build + shortbow + sword/dagger
Thief – trapper build + shortbow + sword/dagger
Guardian – power build + short or longbow + sword/dagger
Elementalist – power build + longbow + sword/axe