Guild Wars 2

I’m trying to figure out what weapons work well for PvE and WvW. I’m a glass warrior, although I might grab some more toughness and vitality gear for WvW.

I currently use GS for spike damage. I tried other weapons (I’m still new to warrior so I may have missed something) but I really like sword and shield in WvW for the crowd control, which makes my Hundred Blades hit more often. This said, I lack range. I tried both longbow and rifle, and they’re so low damage they don’t seem worth it; but again, in certain situations I feel kitten by my need to melee while glass.

What do you guys do? Can you persistently be melee only while glass? If not do you prefer rifle or longbow?

Longbow by far, unless you are running a Rifle centered WvW build.
Regardless of PvP or PvE, a combo field, burn, might, hard hitting AoE, insane root+bleed, etc. etc. make LB the better overall choice.

For PvE/dungeoning longbow never leaves my side as a 2ndary and a AoE opener/might stacking, mobs just melt to the AoE. For wvwvw I’d either use sword+shield/warhorn as extra mobility, rifle only if I’m glass specced and if I use it as a main weapon to pick off single players, otherwise longbow for extra pressure and setting up kills/combofields/AoE burn. Rifle is good with piercing with a high adrenaline and glasscannon build, but in big fights it often offers less pressure, since people will just massrez whoever you sniped.

Psybunny.8906:

For PvE/dungeoning longbow never leaves my side as a 2ndary and a AoE opener/might stacking, mobs just melt to the AoE. For wvwvw I’d either use sword+shield/warhorn as extra mobility, rifle only if I’m glass specced and if I use it as a main weapon to pick off single players, otherwise longbow for extra pressure and setting up kills/combofields/AoE burn. Rifle is good with piercing with a high adrenaline and glasscannon build, but in big fights it often offers less pressure, since people will just massrez whoever you sniped.

I agree that Long Bow is better, but I don’t necessarily believe Snipe is useless. You down a player, than #3 right into the big field of players ressing that person. RIDICULOUS amounts of damage… although I rather #3 Longbow + F1 the group

Cook, what happened to you using your rifle build for everything under the sun? Did you all of a sudden stop using it?

I use Taugrim’s build, although with different runes, and I find it enjoyable in both pve and wvw. Granted, I use Knights Armor, and I’ve had great success with it. I’ve thought about going with LB but just not sure I want to go back to using shouts, as much as I really like them.

I do really like the LB’s abilities, I’d go with LB and have rifle on swap if there were never any reflecting mobs, that would be cool!

Honestly, I have thought about drifting from rifle and having a more LB centric build trait wise. The AOE and combo field you lay down is just way too useful over what the rifle provides. I guess I would feel more useful as a shout warrior with a LB. I’ll have to give that a shot.

I’m more in favor of the rifle most of the time. While the combo field from the longbow is nice, rifle 3 hits quite hard and you can stack some vuln with 4. If you use adrenal health and don’t need much health you can always kill shot before healing for even more DPS. Also, while the longbow pin down is nice, the more consistent longer range cripple i find more useful if I use a rifle in WvW. For defending however, I do switch the the longbow for the AOE.

LB is more consistent and reliable damage, proc application, gets a root, a blast finisher that is immune to reflection, etc.
I only use Rifle when I’m forced to (i.e. I need to keep 1200 range).

I definitely wouldn’t say the long ranged option lack damage. If you are specced glass then you should be able to 1 shot quite a few people with rifle’s kill shot plus the volley does a lot of damage as well. The main problem with the rifle is the lack of aoe damage unless you manage to line up the enemies just right. Granted hitting 5 people with 1 kill shot for 16k damage each is awesome but it very rarely happens that you get that kind of lined up shot.

Longbow is actually pretty good aoe damage. The F1 ability ticks for 1500-2000 damage plus it applies burning…it ticks 5 times over 8 seconds when used with full adrenaline. The #3 ability can hit for 7-10k damage as well. Plus you can time these 2 so they hit at almost the same time for a 10k+ aoe burst. I actually really like the longbow for WvW especially if you take the trait to increase the range to 1200.

Basically you gotta be flexible.

90% of the time i’ll be using the longbow ( as i’ve been doing the combowarrior routine with longbow+swd/axe since launch) but depending on build sometimes flipping a trait or two and using rifle for specific spots can do wonders.

Examples :
- Fractals shaman. And you can crackshot the hell out of the magmaworms)
- I also flip to crackshot rifle for the fractal harpies since bow has issues with the angles involved in maxranging them.

In wvw you could never take away my longbow. Especially against stealth classes, being able to “guesstimate” instead of being limited by targetting is just something i cannot understate. One of my fav moves is to drop combushot on downed enemies while fighting to keep things cozy while i work on their friends.

Rifle’s primary advantage in WvW is its range and #3 skill. It’s burst skill is not bad but is overshadowed by the longbows abality.

As a warrior, even in large ZvZ battles the 900 range is not that much of a hindrance, even as a zerker warrior, (though I would always recommend some Toughness or Vitality.)

I also really love the LB’s combo fields. They can really help your team in a pinch. Best thing to do, is to have your melee set and LB secondary ready, and in the instances when you need the range, get our of combat and swap in your rifle.

Balao.3016:

Cook, what happened to you using your rifle build for everything under the sun? Did you all of a sudden stop using it?

I use Taugrim’s build, although with different runes, and I find it enjoyable in both pve and wvw. Granted, I use Knights Armor, and I’ve had great success with it. I’ve thought about going with LB but just not sure I want to go back to using shouts, as much as I really like them.

I do really like the LB’s abilities, I’d go with LB and have rifle on swap if there were never any reflecting mobs, that would be cool!

Honestly, I have thought about drifting from rifle and having a more LB centric build trait wise. The AOE and combo field you lay down is just way too useful over what the rifle provides. I guess I would feel more useful as a shout warrior with a LB. I’ll have to give that a shot.

Everything under the sun?
I believe that my argument was primarily my preference for the ranged weapons and that it is, indeed, a viable build.
You bitter, bro?

Even thouh Ill admit that the longbow is very useful in ZvZ or wall defence, I tend to favor the rifle. If I didnt have it’s heavy ranged dps, I feel like I would get owned by every mesmer that looked in my direction…

Plus I spec 10 into tactics for leg specialist anyway so rifle 2 gets a short root as well.

@CookMETender

LOL! I think you misunderstood my post. I always thought you prefered rifle, is what I was getting at. I think you read emotion in the post that wasn’t there at all, lol!

I prefer being ranged as well, I love being a ranged warrior. The only reason I’m not a LB+LB warrior, is because sometimes I need a melee set.

Anyway, sorry you misinterpreted my post. I laughed pretty loud when I read it, because the post was completely opposite of what I was trying to get accross.

Balao.3016:

@CookMETender

LOL! I think you misunderstood my post. I always thought you prefered rifle, is what I was getting at. I think you read emotion in the post that wasn’t there at all, lol!

I prefer being ranged as well, I love being a ranged warrior. The only reason I’m not a LB+LB warrior, is because sometimes I need a melee set.

Anyway, sorry you misinterpreted my post. I laughed pretty loud when I read it, because the post was completely opposite of what I was trying to get accross.

Then…
I sincerely apologize
Today was a horrible day of sickness and essays, so I guess I was in a bad mood and read “everything under the sun” in a mocking tone.

Thank you very much for clearing that up!