Guild Wars 2

First off, a disclaimer that I play Necromancer primarily and, while I have a Warrior, do not play him often.

The thing is, I pretty much never see Warriors with longbows, either in PvE or WvW. Due to their AoE, I would think it would be more common in WvW, but I can count the number of Longbow Warriors I’ve seen there on one hand. Is there something that I am missing about this weapon? Is it just plain bad?

It’s FAR from a bad weapon. It’s one of our most effective, in fact. After all my hours in WvW through countless builds and weapon combinations, I’ve always come back to the Longbow – I think it’s essential for co-ordinated fights.

For solo roaming (which is rather trendy) it’s not required though, so you’ll more often see a Warrior with two sets of melee weapons.

I tend to couple Longbow with Sword/x depending on requirements, particularly now that the sword is much improved as a combat weapon. You can cover many bases. The Longbow is an incredible weapon – I’m quite proud to be an LB hipster – I’ve extolled it’s capabilities from day one, even when everyone was in love with the Rifle.

It’s not bad, it’s just more suited to a condition damage build, which most warriors don’t run. Arcing Arrow is a very strong direct damage ability, but the rest of the longbow abilities are condition based.

I run longbow on my main, with a condition damage build, and I love it. You stack burning better than any other class, and the bleeding from Pin Down is very potent. Longbow and Sword/X builds are becoming more popular recently, but I think most warriors still want to run power/crit builds, which is not optimal for longbow.

I tend to steer clear from weapon sets that impair my movement, and LB fits that mold. I like it, and it’s useful for back-end support, but I’d rather have mobility than range.

Just pair with GS or Sw, great weapon and suitable for power or condi builds.

Like the above poster said, longbow is good for both power and condi.

That’s why I made a hybrid, and it rocks incredibly hard in wvw. Roaming or small scale. Zerging is boring, but I suppose it works there to.

Longbow is our only AoE weapon, and it’s a solid weapon overall. I love it for WvW sieges and siege breaks.

Burst is simply fantastic (and our only combo field in the game)

1. double attacks to build adren faster
2. is sorta meh
3. is really strong in a power build
4. is meh
5. is good but the CD is a bit too long.

It’ll never be zomgdamage like rifle vs a single target can be, but it can still cause a lot of hurtin’ in the right hands

Dand.8231:

Longbow is our only AoE weapon, and it’s a solid weapon overall. I love it for WvW sieges and siege breaks.

Burst is simply fantastic (and our only combo field in the game)

1. double attacks to build adren faster
2. is sorta meh
3. is really strong in a power build
4. is meh
5. is good but the CD is a bit too long.

It’ll never be zomgdamage like rifle vs a single target can be, but it can still cause a lot of hurtin’ in the right hands

Try using 2 at point blank right b4 weapon swapping to melee. All 3 hits and 3 ticks of burn. 4 also fires off very quickly, you can even shoot 3, see some1 pop aegis, and use 4 to strip the aegis before 3 hits the ground.

Longbow is a fantastic weapon. In PvE, where utility in a weaponset doesn’t typically matter as much, it loses some of it’s potency unless you’re in a strong condi/hybrid spec, but in PvP the weapon is AMAZING. It’s the only access warriors get to blind, a 4 second immob, an ENORMOUS fire field that is great for purging conditions with Cleansing Ire and even laying down a good bit of pain, and a decent burst hit. It’s my go-to weapon in PvP, and I pair it with hammer for when I need more CC or enemies get into melee, PLUS I get to add extra might to my team. Win/Win/Win.

Thanks for the clarifications. Think I will make the Longbow my ranged weapon of choice, especially in WvW.

Still makes me wonder why it isn’t seen more often, but at least it doesn’t seem like it is just a sub-par choice.

I’m think longbow shines in zergs. Arching + combustible shot do a lot of damage, make a fire field and can stack a bit of might. This is especially good in a power setup.

Playing around with the longbow roaming is different. It just really lacks defense. You have 1 blind and 1 (kind of long imob) with a horrendous CD. When roaming you kind of rely on pin down to land for anything to work. If you miss it as they dodge, blind cleanse, you’re kinda out of luck. The one thing that’s slightly beneficial is that the longbow is the only weapon where you are guaranteed condition cleanse from cleaning ire on burst.

On the roaming side a condition setup is probably stronger on longbow then power because you can spec more toughness to make up for the lack of defensive options on the bow.

Longbow is more sustained dps than rifle. Rifle’s only really good for 1shotting afk people in WvW with a full adrenaline shot. Two hundred times. And posting it in a bad youtube montage. With awful music over the top.

For all other purposes, choose Longbow.

Though a Rifle/Longbow combo could be sneakily good. Rifle for the burst, then swap to bow for the superior auto attack.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

First off, a disclaimer that I play Necromancer primarily and, while I have a Warrior, do not play him often.

The thing is, I pretty much never see Warriors with longbows, either in PvE or WvW. Due to their AoE, I would think it would be more common in WvW, but I can count the number of Longbow Warriors I’ve seen there on one hand. Is there something that I am missing about this weapon? Is it just plain bad?

It’s bad in the sense that it’s clunky as kitten. Almost as clunky as a Greatsword. You can still be very skilled with it-using pin down at the perfect moment for example: scoring a mid air shot on someone who jumps. But the f1 is so buggy that it won’t even fire 30% of the time so you have to spam it and most the time by then it doesn’t land where you want it to, or a guardian has teleported into you. I know I’m not the only one who experiences this issue. It’s one of the best dps weapons because you can stack 15-25 stacks ofmight as long as you have atleast 20% boon duration from traits. F1+3 give 3 every shot. With my solo build I maintain around 14-20 stacks during combat. If you run a 75%/25% condition/Crit damage spec, having atleast 1k condition damage and around 45-50% crit damage, you will hit very hard with sword when paired with the might stacks. 700-800 on heavy armor targets+the bleeds.

It’s amazing in WvW/PvE solely for tags.
Pretty much this: 3 1 1 1 1 ect F1, heal f1 3, berserker stance F1 3.
Profit.

LB are good.
The only problem are projectile speed/animation. Warrior cast 0,75s to shoot LB #1, and need wait long animation and slow projectile speed to finaly hits the foe.
All Warrior’s LB skils last to hit the foe.

I think Warrior’s LB projectle speed needs be increased in 100%

From a PvP standpoint, I’ve been messing around with this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAscTjcOtwBPGPMxBEkCNsKOPSipg8UKmD7A-TsAAzCpI+S9l7LzXyvsfN6Y1x8AA

What makes Longbow fun is what you can do with the Combustion Shot. Because this build focuses on condition Arching shot isn’t as useful for dealing damage as it is for Might. Drop it on yourself in the field and you’ll get might, but the fun doesn’t stop there, Sword 4 gets set on fire when you throw it through it and deals more burning and Sword 2 gives you a Flame Shield. The weapons complement each other almost perfectly. It’s just that Mace/Shield atm is a way for us to counter Condi Spam and that’s the preferred choice currently.

I use my LB in PvE, sPvP, WvW and even tPvP….Love the kitten thing! and usually get interesting responses when I’m done stomping someone (or 3)

Just downed some guy in WvW/PvP but his friend shows up? Throw a fire field on the downed guy, prevent him from self ressing, prevent his friend from ressing him, and all the while buffing yourself and dealing considerable damage. Play your cards right and you can put this onto multitudes of downed players to secure their demise….works globally

even though I made a predator I still rock the bow sometimes, I miss that thing great for attacking/defending keeps etc firing f1 and 3 into a zerg with cond build is brutal.

It’s a pretty good weapon from time to time, though in WvW it always drives me crazy to lose mobility by using it.