Guild Wars 2

Hi all,

I was thinking of leveling a Warrior focusing on Longbow and Shout Heals. Not sure if I would gear for healing (Clerics) or straight up damage (Berserkers). Here’s a build:
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-so-F-0-VKkN0_4gL-60;9;4J9-T941-2;339B3;8JF04JF045Bk

LONG VERSION:
I’ve got an 80 Thief and a 71 Engineer. Thief is pretty good, but running P/P + Shortbow I don’t feel the range is great, and I feel squishy. Also, outside of Shadow Refuge, I don’t think I offer much team support.

Engineer, well I just feel it may just require more skill than I have. I don’t know Elixir Gun support build, doesn’t feel too helpful. Grenades can tricky with all the ground targeting.

I basically want a ranged build (no pets) that has good survivability and offers real benefits for the team. I also wouldn’t mind being able to roam occassionaly and not be a free kill.

Any thoughts? Thanks!

LB War w/ shout healing and cleric gear would be a great Support Warrior, but forget roaming alone and winning.
Too low damage to set up a spike even if you swap utilities to lockdowns.
You could try a hybrid build but you wouldn’t be very good in either role.

Why don’t just make a gear set for roaming and one for support?
You can swap between each other depending on what you want to do.
The good of GW2 is you can transform completely just going out of combat.

GS/LB is what I run. I’ve tried shout healing, but I prefer running frenzy+BC so you can still punish a single target in melees, small group fights. Also can be nice to knock out one of those pesky stealth chaining thieves. I like it especially because it feels like it has good impact in both small group and large group pvp. Also GS has solid mobility.

Longbow is amazing in WvW (just make sure you Trait it!). Both F1 and 3 can easily hit siege and enemy players on keep/tower walls.

I’ve been testing this out on the mists NPCs and I’m really loving it.

I really wish ANet would change Burning Arrows trait to – Longbow damage is increased by 10% against burning foes and Longbow skills recharge 20% faster. Seems it’s the only weapon missing a 20% cooldown reduction trait!

Greatsword is an interesting secondary set, I wonder what other combinations might synergize well, if at all? And if you don’t build into shouts, then how do you trait?

Burning Arrows suck, but the Stronger Bowstrings Trait is amazing. Not only does it do what it says(900→1200 range) but it also makes all your attacks guaranteed Finishers.

For me the Sword/Axe + Longbow weapon combination provides the greatest amount of synergy not only for field combos (a leap, a whirl, a blast, and projectiles) but also for the immobilizing and crippling, which when using Leg Specialist and Opportunist traits make it very hard for enemies to escape and can result in perma-fury during a fight (especially if you hit multiple targets with the cripples/immobilizes). I personally use runes of the Centaur so I can maintain permanent swiftness between my heal skill (mending) and my elite (signet of rage), to maximize mobility and make sure my enemy is not going to outrun me. And just as a note as a Charr warrior spec’d for bleeds and cripple/immobilize, Shrapnel Mine is possibly the most PvP viable racial skill in the game next to the sylvari root.

SpaceCowboy.1398:

I basically want a ranged build (no pets) that has good survivability and offers real benefits for the team. I also wouldn’t mind being able to roam occassionaly and not be a free kill.

Any thoughts? Thanks!

If this is what you truly want you should stick with your thief. Go dagger/dagger (or sword/dagger for aoe fun) and shortbow. The thief shortbow is probably the best weapon in the game:

1 – spammable aoe attack
2 – clusterbomb, 1200 range blast finisher with bleeds
3 – evasion off of a cc attack (cripple)
4 – poison cloud attack that doesn’t break stealth
5 – infiltrator’s arrow, maybe the fastest form of long distance movement in the game

If your thief is too squishy you need to dodge more. Damage avoidance is better than any armor in the game. Position is very important as well, check your angles before you start spamming clusterbomb.

Group utility is there too. Of course there’s shadow refuge, clusterbomb for clearing tower walls, poison cloud and clusterbomb for combos, you’re also the perfect scout due to extreme mobility/stealth and you do ridiculous aoe and single target dps. Not to mention having the ability to guarantee an initial stomp on any class except guardians.

Grab shadowstep, signet of shadows and shadow refuge and your mobility spikes even higher, especially if you learn to steal defensively. Add in an aoe cripple from your daggers and I’m not sure what else a group could ask for.

Maladon.5760:

If this is what you truly want you should stick with your thief. Go dagger/dagger (or sword/dagger for aoe fun) and shortbow.

Thanks for the response. I tell you, I just find myself suffering from profession commitment anxiety. The Thief is pretty good, Shortbow is definitely my favorite weapon in the entire game. And the Thief has so many good utilities and traits for kiting, that it should naturally be one of the strongest if not the strongest ranged profession in the game.

The biggest problem with the Thief is there is no 1200 range weapon. Sure, you’ve got Cluster Bomb with 1200 range, but it’s so slow you can’t spam it well at that distance. I’m using SB + P/P, 0/0/20/30/20 spec, going for Berserker gear (still a ways off). P/P in Orr hits like a wet noodle, and becomes very boring spamming Unload to get a single kill. I’m considering P/D or D/D, but as a player I’m not great at melee.

I’m hesitant to invest the time to level my Warrior to 80, cause it is such a melee centric class. However, it sounds like LB and Rifle are really strong.

Anyway, I’m still searching, considering all professions, trying to find that Goldilocks class. Just trying to find something that:

• Performs very well at ranged
• Fun and not dull to play
• Isn’t bugged or reliant on underperforming AI
• Does not require a high skill cap, godlike gaming skills to perform well

Thanks!

Running LB+Hammer setup myself. 20/0/0/20/30. Runed for perma uptime on SoR.

Great control, great damage, infinite endurance (or so it feels), nice combo finishers for might, along with FGJ and SoR it stacks up quite well. Using condition removal heal along with the trait that removes cripple etc on heal. FGJ, berserk stance and end regen sigil as utility, with SoR as elite.

Currently thinking about dropping the hammer and testing rifle+LB with my spec.