Guild Wars 2

Just throwing this out there because questions have popped up in the past. Using rifle for the longest time and switching to longbow from time to time. I can safely say longbow is far superior for anyone except strictly berserk. The damage is more reliable if you know what your doing with the aoes.

In pvp: The fire damage longbow brings is quite powerful if you have a decent amount of condition damage. Melee enemies have a harder time avoiding it if your dropping fields consistently. And you can pin enemies in it. The skills have more loaded into them. The rifle just doesnt have it. The blind has alot of use and its a quick hard to dodge shot along with a quick immobilize. Swapping to a longbow has alot more use for the 10 seconds your stuck in it than the volley you have with rifle.

Since switching longbow i crush people in pvp. Thieves cant handle the fire field i drop then swap to sword and hold them in it. Longbow allows you to control the fight better than the rifle by bounds. So try it out. Fighting in your own fire field in melee is very powerful.

Longbow is better, as direct damage > condition damage. Fact.

I speak strictly for PvE.

Flissy.4093:

Longbow is better, as direct damage > condition damage. Fact.

I speak strictly for PvE.

How so as they are both hybrid?

Single target rifle. Multiple LB. LB has more utility in the long run.

I use rifle in pve mostly because conditions in groups are just awful because fire can only tick for one person. Bleeds are a little better but not by much.

If your into pvp and want a good ranged option i recommend longbow all the way.

Aarean.5398:

Just throwing this out there because questions have popped up in the past. Using rifle for the longest time and switching to longbow from time to time. I can safely say longbow is far superior for anyone except strictly berserk. The damage is more reliable if you know what your doing with the aoes.

In pvp: The fire damage longbow brings is quite powerful if you have a decent amount of condition damage. Melee enemies have a harder time avoiding it if your dropping fields consistently. And you can pin enemies in it. The skills have more loaded into them. The rifle just doesnt have it. The blind has alot of use and its a quick hard to dodge shot along with a quick immobilize. Swapping to a longbow has alot more use for the 10 seconds your stuck in it than the volley you have with rifle.

Since switching longbow i crush people in pvp. Thieves cant handle the fire field i drop then swap to sword and hold them in it. Longbow allows you to control the fight better than the rifle by bounds. So try it out. Fighting in your own fire field in melee is very powerful.

Could you share your build and add armour for WvW?

Thanks

If you use the Trait ‘Cleansing Ire’ like me, Longbow wins.

I keep both with me, because I use them in different situations.

Choke-points and sieges, LB wins hands down. The damage from AoE on tightly packed groups can be devastating.

For open field fighting I prefer Rifle. The single target burst is superior to what LB can do

Cherubino XV.2384:

If you use the Trait ‘Cleansing Ire’ like me, Longbow wins.

Thats an Elementals trait that cleanses 3 conditions and burns foe!

Cempa.5619:

Cherubino XV.2384:

If you use the Trait ‘Cleansing Ire’ like me, Longbow wins.

Thats an Elementals trait that cleanses 3 conditions and burns foe!

Cleansing Ire, not Cleansing Fire

Cleansing Ire: New Master tier trait with the following effects: Gain adrenaline when hit. Remove a condition for every bar of adrenaline spent.

My build goes off a mix of rampager and berserk gear. 30 into arms 30 into defense and 10 for discipline because i love the 25% run speed. Longbow is very useful for cleansing ire. Sword and shield with longbow works way better than rifle with s/sh. I love the rifle but using the longbow now with the new default 1k range is too good to keep pvping with the bland utility-weak rifle

Longbow is nice with conditions because it works nicely with the new sword. You can get fire and 6 stack of bleeds going in a short amount of time. Then you get fire aura with a leap. With ire, you can flurry within seconds. That is a lot of condition burst damage.

Rifle is good for killshots into zergs. It does have a nice cripple also on a short timer.

I use to be a big rifle fan, but my new bunker warrior build with longbow is like my BM ranger, but it has something my ranger didn’t have. 100% mobility and a ton of stability. No dumb pet to deal with.

if you spec boon duration, you can stack 6 stacks of might within a very short time period, and every time you have your combustive. I use this to gain like 20 might stacks on myself during solo wvw.

They are both hybrids but are strategically different. If you’re doing a lot of single target fighting, (or against champions/bosses) Rifle is probably better. If you’re doing a lot of zergs or group fights, Longbow is probably better.

Aarean.5398:

My build goes off a mix of rampager and berserk gear. 30 into arms 30 into defense and 10 for discipline because i love the 25% run speed. Longbow is very useful for cleansing ire. Sword and shield with longbow works way better than rifle with s/sh. I love the rifle but using the longbow now with the new default 1k range is too good to keep pvping with the bland utility-weak rifle

That would give about 1,200 toughness, I haven’t seen any game play or know any one who runs this build so Im just guessing, but wouldn’t you get eaten alive by any one in a ‘roaming’ build?

Longbow is my favorite Warrior weapon and probably the best PvP weapon that Warrior currently has.

Both the Rifle and the Longbow are pure direct damage weapons, Conditions are just an added bonus.

I used rifle for ages, but converted to longbow when I started getting serious about weapon swap builds.
Rifle feels good and pumps out great single target damage, but it’s not a very synergistic weapon. When taking advantage of the warrior’s fast weapon switching mechanic, there’s just no reason to swap to rifle. It doesn’t mesh with any other weapon.

Longbow on the other had offers fantastic combo potential with combustive shot and arcing arrow.
On top of that, the auto-attack, as well as effectively clearing blind, doubles adrenaline gain, something not to be sniffed at when you’re building around maintaining a burst every 5 seconds.
Then it has its own blind as well as a root.
It’s just a FAR superior weapon, and weirdly works best when used in close combat.

Took me a long time to become a convert, as to use it effectively requires a lot more active playstyle than a lot of warriors are used to, but I’d never build without it now.

I have 2800 toughness. Pretty decent. I do the eating in these parts lol. With longbow the pressure is up constatly so no. Havent had any problems. Rifle is different. You cant keep up with rifle because its easy to predict and cant even use kill shot solo.

Aarean.5398:

I have 2800 toughness. Pretty decent. I do the eating in these parts lol. With longbow the pressure is up constatly so no. Havent had any problems. Rifle is different. You cant keep up with rifle because its easy to predict and cant even use kill shot solo.

2800? How on earth would you have anything above 12xx Toughness with Rampager and Berserker gear? None of those has any Toughness!

Please show me: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/

thx

I wonder how many people even realize the potential damage that Pin Down does? I bet alot still think it’s ONLY a root lolol.

Raw dmg = Rifle
Cond dmg = LB

But LB #4 could inflict Poison, and LB #3 could additionally finflict Blind or Daze(hello! Explosion!)

1. is a fan of burning arrows hitting multiple targets. Supposed to be a 2 second burn base duration, currently bugged to have 1 second burn. #5 is 6 stacks of bleed for like 20 seconds. F1 is an extremely large area of effect damage + burn patch that pulses every 3 seconds for 2 seconds of burning, up to 5 pulses. 3 of the 6 longbow attacks are multi-target attacks.

Warrior has a trait called Precise Strikes in the Arms line that causes 3 seconds of bleeding 33% of the time on crits. With even a modest crit rate you will proc this often with AOE damage. Deep cuts is a Adept level trait 10 points into the line which gives you this minor trait, Deep cuts increases the duration of bleeds by 50%. With rare veggie pizza that’s 90% bleed duration (100% when wielding sword) and 50% burning duration when wielding longbow.

I currently have a warrior that is built 0/10/0/30/30 focusing around the longbow and Burst skills/adrenaline. As part of tactics I took the warhorn trait as well and wield mainhand sword to compliment the horn.

Longbow is far far superior condition damage in group situations and is superior condition damage in single target situations too thanks to pin down, combustive shot, and fan of fire.

Ironically Longbow does very good power damage too, and my Arcing Arrows regularly crit for over 3-4k with full Rampager’s gear. with all the AOE and my 80%+ crit rate (with fury) I proc bleeds constantly.

My bleed damage is a little over 100 dmg per stack per second.
My Burn damage is a little over 600 damage per second.

IMO Rifle only has 3 things over Longbow. Killshot (single target and quite counterable), Knockback, and spammable cripple.

Oh and for people staying in your AOE field. Zerg battles that’s an autowin. Single target you have Pin down and Flurry.

Here is my build below (It’s a little outdated on the site but too lazy to redo on another site atm. Just replace quick bursts with burst mastery and it’s accurate enough.)

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/warrior/?8.3|c.1o.h9.g.1o.h1i|3.1o.hf|1o.a3.1o.a3.1o.a3.1o.a3.1o.a3.1o.a3|1o.63.1o.63.1o.63.1o.63.1o.63.8b.63|0.a3.0.u49a.u42b|30.d|5y.6d.6e.69.6m|e

https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/85592/BowBug.JPG

Don’t touch stronger bowstrings. Wouldn’t even really be worth it if it wasn’t bugged.

Sry to say this but you are wrong about the stronger bowstrings. I know about the 10% less damage and 1200 range isn’t far above 1000 but with stronger bow strings you’ll have bow 1 and 2 100% combo finishers that add burning to your foes when they’re in your fire field.try it it is definatly something like a must for a bow warrior.

That’s basically an even tradeoff on the auto attack and just an extra tick on ur 2 skill. You could get more damage out of empowered or empower allies.

hm i’ll try that. I got 20 in tactics anyway for the warhorn trait so I got 3 buffs up all the time.
Oh and I’m talking about WvW not PvP. The increased range there is probably not worth it anyway.

Longbow is better for mid range fights with choke points/point capture fights.

Rifle wins in the sniping competition since it comes with 1200 range and has no projectile animation. A rifle is terrible once your opponent notices you (you cant land reliable f1 anymore).

In PvE i just think its a matter of AoE versus Single target.