Guild Wars 2

So I love playing ranged classes in these games… I first started with a ranger and I would almost fall asleep playing him… then switched to pp/bow thief… it was fun to play but the character lacked in both dmg and survivability, not that fun… I’ve been having a fun time playing my rifle/longbow warrior up to lvl 20 for a few days now… anyways… I’ve been trying to plan out my traits, I was gonna go with 25/25/0/10/10 initially… yes I wanted to be a bit glassy and deal good dmg with the rifle, but I realized that 25pts in strength/power doesn’t do much in terms of rifle/bow skills at all and I would only be putting points in there for more dmg… going beyond 10 pts in strength/power doesn’t seem to benefit me that much at all anymore…

I looked at adding points into defensive traits and the extra 15 points that I can take out of strength can be nicely put into defense/toughness (less dmg taken and to get adrenal health)… so the traits that I’m considering now are 10/25/15/10/10… very balanced I feel like, but not too spectacular at anything…

now my dilemma… 10/25/15/10/10 build seems to be really nice… but I really like dealing damage and killing enemies fast from a distance so I really want to use the 25/25/0/10/10 build… I just logically can’t justify that spec to myself… what do you guys think? is 25/25/0/10/10 doable for ranged PvE? or should I just suck it up and go with the more sensible 10/25/15/10/10 build? I mainly want to play PvE… and use rifle 90% of the time (bow for AoE)

thought? ideas? suggestions? thanks guys!

The only advice I’ll give you is do not go full ranged. There are plenty of monsters out there that will have you kill yourself in a heartbeat when they bounce/ reflect your projectiles back on to you.

Eh, when you come across one of those, you have a couple of options. Rifle Butt will go through, being a melee attack obviously. A well aimed Longbow F1 and #3 will hit, too. But yeah, when you come up against something that reflects projectiles, you feel kind of dumb lol. Usually I just holster my weapon until the effect in question wears off.

Personally I went 30/30/0/10/0. I used my Longbow to AoE farm a lot. Generally I tagged everything nearby with autos (using my Longbow if I needed Adrenaline, Rifle otherwise), gathered them all up, rolled through them twice to evade most attacks, tossed Longbow F1 down for the field and endurance gain along with #3 for the might, then #4 for the AoE blind to buy me some time to line up a good #5 immobilize on whatever was left. #2 and a switch to Rifle would usually let me clean up whatever was left, if there was anything.

Problem with Rifle in PvE imo is that it’s just slower overall. It’s safe as heck and you can pretty much make sure you never die (between #2 cripple, Bolas, Rifle Butt, and reduced cooldowns, pretty much nothing in PvE will ever reach you), but for the most part you will be doing single target damage, maybe hitting 2-3 max on a very large mob (and for reduced damage). You can’t burn down large groups of mobs. I like lining up the shots though, so I use it a lot anyways.

But all in all, if you really want to make it work, you can. I used Rifle/Longbow all the way from 1-80, and actually followed the exact same train of thought you did in picking that route (tried Ranger first, didn’t like it, tried ranged Thief, didn’t like it, tried Warrior). Admittedly, in dungeons, I tend to swap out one or the other for a Hammer, just so that I have a lot more CC to add to the group. But for general world PvE, it will do just fine, though you might get some funny stares.

Hey there,
I’ve been using the same weapons setup on my warrior for quite some time now, rifle/longbow, just recently started switching longbow for dual swords for particular fights in dungeons.

My build is based around frequent weapon switching, crit chance (60% buffed) and heavy condition damage (1129 bleeding per rifle shot).

For traits I’m using 0/30/0/10/30
Arms major traits:
+40 precision per unused signet (using signet of healing, might, dolyak, stamina and rage most of the time… might and rage whenever off CD and signet of stamina for condition removal)
+50% bleed duration (great trait, but doesn’t seem to stack with other bleed duration buffs… still +50% is all you need)
and -20% cooldown on rifle skills

Tactics major trait:
Increased dmg for every boon on you (since you can have 70% uptime on Signet of rage (3 boons), this one is pretty good)

Discipline major traits:
-20% signet cooldown (with this Signet of rage has 48s cooldown and 33s duration)
100% chance to rally when you kill during Vengeance (not so sure bout this one)
Burst skills cost less (pretty awesome trait)

For gear I use power, condition damage, precision/vitality.
Superior rune of undead full set and Superior sigil of earth in weapons.

This build can maybe use some tweaks but it’s working like a charm in dungeons and in world PvE also.

One more thing… don’t spend your adrenaline on rifle burst skill… ever… it sucks badly.
Even in single target situations the longbow burst does more damage overtime + grants a nice fire combo field for your group.

Suggestions to improve this build are welcome :)

Robique.8279:

One more thing… don’t spend your adrenaline on rifle burst skill… ever… it sucks badly.

Eh, it has its places. For example, in CoE exp, against the mark T, I can use it to heavily chunk 2 of the turrets and the boss all at the same time. Though yeah, Longbow burst is just really good, unless you’re up against targets who are immune to burning lol.