Guild Wars 2

Hello all!

Got back into the game after a break. Used to main a Guardian, going to focus wholly on a Ranger this time around.

I’m close to getting my first legendary. I’m considering the legendary longbow.

I enjoy dungeons, events, and WvW all using a longbow. I also enjoy sPvP, and although I’ve been casual with it so far, I plan to get much more serious into it.

My favorite build has been the tanky/support spirit ranger. I’ve had such a blast running this, it’s been my favorite Ranger sPvP build by a long shot (no pun intended).

Since I am considering the legendary longbow, I’ve been trying the spirit ranger build using longbow and sword/horn instead of the typical weapons, which I believe are shortbow and sword/dagger. My mileage has been about the same, but I wanted to get some feedback on it.

Is the longbow viable for a spirit ranger build in sPvP? Do you lose out on too much not having a shortbow for condi damage and faster auto attacks to proc the spirits, or is the weapon choice for this particular build more preference than necessity? I’ve missed some condi damage of the shortbow, but the knock back shot and the stealth shot have been great for me. Not to mention, rapid fire is super fun, even without a lot of power. Also, the dagger seems to be used for the extra ranged attack and the evade, but I’ve been using horn for the pigeons and speed buff. I can see decent arguments for any off hand for this build.

Anyone else running spirit Rangers with longbow in sPvP? What weapons/build are you making use of if not? What do you think is the most important part of your build? What do you think could be swapped in your build and maintain a similar feel?

Using a Power weapon in a condition based build is never a good idea. Wouldn’t recommend it. It’s a point holder/team support build, standing on point with a longbow is the last thing you want to do. You can invest more into defensive stats with a condi build, so going for power stats to shoehorn in the longbow is also far from optimal.

Thanks for your feedback.

I assumed it was sub-optimal, but I wasn’t sure how bad. Does any utility of the longbow shots make up for the loss in damage from playing close and not using conditions via shortbow?

What about for the second weapon set? I assume dagger offhand is most optimal because of the extra evade and another ranged condi ability.

How about greatsword instead of sword/x?

Help a noob out. Are there videos or guides anywhere that might be useful?

dunzees.2489:

Thanks for your feedback.

I assumed it was sub-optimal, but I wasn’t sure how bad. Does any utility of the longbow shots make up for the loss in damage from playing close and not using conditions via shortbow?

What about for the second weapon set? I assume dagger offhand is most optimal because of the extra evade and another ranged condi ability.

How about greatsword instead of sword/x?

Help a noob out. Are there videos or guides anywhere that might be useful?

http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki

Ive seen them run with s/t a/d with great success. Maybe give that a whirl.