I’ve recently fallen in love with longbow and have been wondering what the most effective use for it would be, if anyone has any ideas.
I’m aware that Warrior is in a poor state so please don’t feed me any of that. I stuck with Ranger before it had it’s CDI and complete overhaul and I stuck with Necromancer long before Reaper, being in a bad position doesn’t bother me.
Speaking from a WvW perspective, I’ve been full zerk, Greatsword, Sword/Shield with a pretty standard utility/trait set up for a pretty long while now. Recently picking up longbow and for some reason really loving it, I’ve still been using the same gear/utility/traits and have just been wondering if I could be more effective. Longbow has some really nice utility but it doesn’t hit terribly hard even in a very offensive build. I usually get about 2 – 4k tops from the AA (both arrow hits combined obviously, usually roughly 1.2k per arrow) and landing the hard hitter, Arcing Arrow, is incredibly difficult to do. I’ve seen it reach some insane numbers but landing it on an actual player is next to impossible without CC or landing a well timed Pin Down.
Would a condition build, maybe with Tactics, Berserker and Discipline make longbow a more powerful choice? Any ideas people are willing to share?
Either can work, and so can hybrid. The most powerful build dps wise has gotta be anything that maxes burn damage while using Berserker, but a power-based lb/gs can work well for roaming.
I’ve used Berserker gear, but I know someone once posted the same build using Valk gear instead, using the Intelligence sigil to max the CS->AS->WA damage while still getting the vitality bonus from valk.
The power build uses str/def/disc, condi would probably go tac/disc/bers (as you said, and only because you can’t afford to camp a weapon there). Hybrid, I’m not sure… probably either one of those, depending on what you wanted to focus. Lots of options.
As power weapon, the bow can be coupled with a GS, using Strength/Defense/Discipline. You have no blocks and no hard control, but compensate with ranged pressure and soft control. It’s quite fun to play.
As a condition weapon, the bow is very strong. It should work in any condition build, traited or not with Tactics:
As an hybrid weapon, I believe that a possible approach would be to leverage some shoutbow build, i.e. Defense/Tactics/Discipline, traiting shouts, making sure you can stack might easily. Gear could be either Celestial, or Viper/Sinister for more aggressive setup. Runes can be either Strength, Soldier, Hoelbrak, Berserker…
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