Guild Wars 2

Can it be done? My buddies said if I wasn’t spirit ranger they didn’t want me but I enjoy longbow builds much more. I never have trouble on spvp either. Is it viable or isn’kitten

Spirit Ranger has just far superior group utility and requires little effort to play so it’s easy to pick up.

Longbow on the other side is the worst weapon for tpvp by design at the moment. You don’t want to use that on point, but you have to because it’s point conquest. It has some good stealth and knockback for utility, but should not be treated as main source of damage in there.

And no, you’re not a good roamer or point holder. “Sniping” from ledges will only bring you angry whispers from teammates and kick.

An alternative to Spirits might be Trapper build. Or similar build to Spirit one, but based on SotF, without Spirits.

Longbow power build is viable atm. 6/0/2/6/0 with SotF and read the wind, lb as main and gs offhand is pretty decent. You will be squishy as hell but it’s not your job to fight on point, your job is to snipe those pesky power necros/staff eles, or put presure on the enemy bunker.
Spirit ranger is pretty cheese in my opinion, but that’s just me, i played it but got bored of it pretty quicky, it’s almost a no brainer

theodor.3480:

Longbow power build is viable atm. 6/0/2/6/0 with SotF and read the wind, lb as main and gs offhand is pretty decent. You will be squishy as hell but it’s not your job to fight on point, your job is to snipe those pesky power necros/staff eles, or put presure on the enemy bunker.
Spirit ranger is pretty cheese in my opinion, but that’s just me, i played it but got bored of it pretty quicky, it’s almost a no brainer

^^ this is probably your only option. The build is great at what it does. I played this for a while and is a viable point pressure build. It has its advantages and does have it downfalls. As stated, you generally cant fight on point with this build being so squishy so generally capping is out of the question so generally you are designated to a roaming/support offensive build, meaning your teammates who are on point are relying on you to do sufficient damage or theyre screwed. You can apply significant pressure on point from a safe distance by sniping with autoattack/quickness, or AOE with barrage. You have excelent mobility with GS meaning that you can be back at home point in a short amount of time to assist home bunker if he needs help.

Your main problem however is other roaming classes (mainly theives and mesmers). Other burst/DPS classes fill a variety of roles better than what the ranger can do. This is why ranger bunkers are so common as that is what they excel at.

Theives specced for burst (which they usually are) also have dificulty fighting on point, being super squishy and all and mostly being restricted to melee range to be effective, meaning AoE and cleave is dangerous for a theif, which is usually in abundance on a point teamfight. so their job is to intercept and burst down lone players roaming around the map, or to assault your home bunker and try and spike him down/decap. The problem is… you are one of those lone players on the map that a theif will assault. His advantage is he has equal or superior mobility, stealth, and higher burst. So a theif will easily get the jump on you and your screwed, because once he knows your game plan, he will be on your kitten the entire game.

Mesmers also have great burst, stealth, mobility, AND a bunch of decoys, so on top of being an excelent roamer that can burst you down quicker than you can burst them, they have defences that can confuse the crap out of people which allow them to somewhat fight on point, making them more useful in team fights or confuse the crap out of you when they find you, making killing them that much harder.

Other DPS builds (usually warrior/guardian/necro) generally have some form of reasonable defence built in allowing them to fight on point with no loss of DPS, meaning if you are attacking a point out of range not taking damage, your teammates who are on point are absorbing more damage without you there. So you really have to do significant damage from a distance to make the tradeoff worth it, or as i said earlier, your teammates are screwed.

Unfortunately, the damage you do from range is considerably less than a burst class that either has the potential to fight on point (thus being more useful in a teamfight) or will out roam you with superior mobility/stealth. The build kind of semi fills the roles of both point offence and roaming, but will never be better than classes specced into doing one of those two tasks.

While this build is viable to some degree, it is outperformed by other classes. If you wanted to play a LB sniper build this would definately be the way to go, but be aware, other classes do your job and fill your roles better. The only advantage to this build over other burst/dps classes is the range, but is kind of a double edged sword.

Agreed with you, i didn’t say that i doesn’t have disadvantages, or it’s downfalls. You won’t be the best at roaming, and you’re squishy as hell, but the build is viable. I also played with it for some time then reverted back to my trap build (much more fun to play than spamming rapid fire and barrage).

So the build is good, but you will be as squishy as a ele (if someone looks in your genral direction you will be dead)

@Filterkat it depends entirerly on your variation of the zerker LB build, for example, mine has literally no issues vs thieves OR mesmers or any 1v1 burst build because the amount of evasions and vigor uptime I have is absolutely kittened. The only thing I have issues with FIGHTING is my friends Mace/Shield + GS warrior build, but I can out maneuver it all day long so getting away/leading him into a trap wouldn’t be difficult.

My LB zerker build is 6/2/2/0/4 with sigils of air and blood on both weapons, with runes of the pirate, a Fernhound + Drakehound while running Marks: Beast Masters Bond, Eagle Eye, Piercing Arrows/RtW (varies on what I think I need more) Skrim: Primal Reflexes, WS: Vigorous Renewal. BM: Commanding Voice, Vigorous Training.

My utilities are TU, “Sic’Em!”, LR, SotH, RaO

Filterkat.2143:

theodor.3480:

Longbow power build is viable atm. 6/0/2/6/0 with SotF and read the wind, lb as main and gs offhand is pretty decent. You will be squishy as hell but it’s not your job to fight on point, your job is to snipe those pesky power necros/staff eles, or put presure on the enemy bunker.
Spirit ranger is pretty cheese in my opinion, but that’s just me, i played it but got bored of it pretty quicky, it’s almost a no brainer

^^ this is probably your only option. The build is great at what it does. I played this for a while and is a viable point pressure build. It has its advantages and does have it downfalls. As stated, you generally cant fight on point with this build being so squishy so generally capping is out of the question so generally you are designated to a roaming/support offensive build, meaning your teammates who are on point are relying on you to do sufficient damage or theyre screwed. You can apply significant pressure on point from a safe distance by sniping with autoattack/quickness, or AOE with barrage. You have excelent mobility with GS meaning that you can be back at home point in a short amount of time to assist home bunker if he needs help.

Your main problem however is other roaming classes (mainly theives and mesmers). Other burst/DPS classes fill a variety of roles better than what the ranger can do. This is why ranger bunkers are so common as that is what they excel at.

Theives specced for burst (which they usually are) also have dificulty fighting on point, being super squishy and all and mostly being restricted to melee range to be effective, meaning AoE and cleave is dangerous for a theif, which is usually in abundance on a point teamfight. so their job is to intercept and burst down lone players roaming around the map, or to assault your home bunker and try and spike him down/decap. The problem is… you are one of those lone players on the map that a theif will assault. His advantage is he has equal or superior mobility, stealth, and higher burst. So a theif will easily get the jump on you and your screwed, because once he knows your game plan, he will be on your kitten the entire game.

Mesmers also have great burst, stealth, mobility, AND a bunch of decoys, so on top of being an excelent roamer that can burst you down quicker than you can burst them, they have defences that can confuse the crap out of people which allow them to somewhat fight on point, making them more useful in team fights or confuse the crap out of you when they find you, making killing them that much harder.

Other DPS builds (usually warrior/guardian/necro) generally have some form of reasonable defence built in allowing them to fight on point with no loss of DPS, meaning if you are attacking a point out of range not taking damage, your teammates who are on point are absorbing more damage without you there. So you really have to do significant damage from a distance to make the tradeoff worth it, or as i said earlier, your teammates are screwed.

Unfortunately, the damage you do from range is considerably less than a burst class that either has the potential to fight on point (thus being more useful in a teamfight) or will out roam you with superior mobility/stealth. The build kind of semi fills the roles of both point offence and roaming, but will never be better than classes specced into doing one of those two tasks.

While this build is viable to some degree, it is outperformed by other classes. If you wanted to play a LB sniper build this would definately be the way to go, but be aware, other classes do your job and fill your roles better. The only advantage to this build over other burst/dps classes is the range, but is kind of a double edged sword.

good post …..