Guild Wars 2

I’m a somewhat new player with warriors, and have just hit level 80. I always carry a melee weapon and ranged on my warrior because I’m mostly PvE, and it’s nice having options

However, I’ve been reading the metagame, and it all seems focused on the bow. But bows look stupid on Iron Legion Charr… so, what are the points in the Rifle’s favor, and its status in the metagame?

WvW sniping fun.

Rifles are the least useful weapon choice for warriors. They require your target to be clueless and incapable of dodging, simply put. Kill shot has such a long cast time and is so easily avoided that it’s even less effective than an ele’s churning earth on earth dagger 5 is, tbh.

It’s certainly a lot more useful in WvW and that’s generally what I’m concentrating on, but it’s still almost always better to use longbow simply for the utility.

As far as PvE is concerned, you shouldn’t feel inclined to use rifle unless you’re killing Vahid (Melandru) on Arah P4. It’s just… bad.

Hi,

As for every weapon, the rifle has some situations where it can shine, and others where you’d prefer other weapons (long bow, or even melee). Basically:

• The rifle is a single-target weapon (even if it can be traited to be piercing), with good control (cripple, knockback) and huge damage (putting vulnerability, volley and kill shot), so mostly preferred for (player-)dueling purposes. It works mainly in direct damage builds, although I’ve had happy times playing it as a condition weapon as well.
• The long bow is more versatile, having AoE, direct and condition damage, a powerful blast finisher, and above all a burst that creates a fire field for combos and can trigger without an actual hit (so perfect for Cleansing Ire). It is wonderful in small skirmishes, and does quite well in 1v1 as well.

Use both, until you get a good feeling on what situations they excel? As for the long bow, have you checked the existing skins? There must be some you’d find useful for your charr.

Regards.

Yea the rifle is mainly WvW sniping which isn’t even that great. Bow is still infinitely better with more utility and versatility. I got an Ascended Cavalier weapon chest awhile back and stupidly chose the rifle and I still regret it. For WvW/PvP I’d rather just bring an exotic bow or another melee weapon which would be more useful. Its fine for PvE single targeting if that all you want to do. It has nothing to help deal with groups and you will rarely ever find a use for ⁵ “Rifle Butt”. If I were you just avoid it all together, theres really no reason to choose it over the longbow.

Its a troll weapon. If I get killed by a riffle warrior I feel like I got killed by a bearbow ranger. It can happen in a team fight where you cant see the kill shot .

It there to feed off chaos I believe. Kill Shot is a huge sign that says ‘dodge me’ in a 1v1, but say in a 30 vs 30, the chances are that your enemy won’t see it coming until it’s too late.

They are good for kill shot thats about it. They are good for killing unsuspecting players.

… I don’t even use Kill Shot, prefering to let my Adrenaline power passive abilities…

And, I’m going to derail my own thread – after switching from gun to longbow, I’ve found bow to be much more FUN than rifle, in addition to more effective… though I do miss the autoattack condition damage and bleeds. But explosions and fire make up for that… sort of.

I did see a warrior using killshot in TOL. That’s about it, though. It has slightly better DPS for single target, but none of the awesome utilities of a Longbow.

In PvE (dungeons), there’s no weapon out there that can be better used as a troll for a warrior

What do you mean by “used as a troll”?

means its a yolo troll weapon that isn’t to be taken seriously but can ruin somones day if you are successful at trolling them.

Rifles are good for breaking an enemy’s tempo. If you have Leg Specialist and Crack Shot you can be immobilizing for a second every 8 seconds, along with the Rifle Butt if they get close. Kite kite kite.

Warlord.9074:

means its a yolo troll weapon that isn’t to be taken seriously but can ruin somones day if you are successful at trolling them.

Lol, so it’s a joke weapon especially if you get killed by it? Okay.

Sartharina.3542:

… I don’t even use Kill Shot, prefering to let my Adrenaline power passive abilities…

And, I’m going to derail my own thread – after switching from gun to longbow, I’ve found bow to be much more FUN than rifle, in addition to more effective… though I do miss the autoattack condition damage and bleeds. But explosions and fire make up for that… sort of.

If your crit is high enough you can still bleed them with autoattacks if you put a sigil of earth on your bow.

60% Chance on Critical: Inflict Bleeding (5 Seconds)
(Cooldown: 2 Seconds)

I also has superior range to and faster projectile velocity than the longbow, so it means you can be more of a threat from long range. The longbow will only maximize it’s damage potential when it’s at mid-range, but the rifle can put out the same punch and pressure at its maximum range.

I have used the rifle in a hammer/rifle control build. You can play from ranged, and use the rifle butt to combo into hammer CC abilities, and then I’ve taken various CC utilities like kick and stomp. Not really a good build overall though.

Longbow tends to bring much more utility to the table, which is why people like it better. But if you’re looking for raw ranged direct DPS than rifle will be your best bet.

… I’ve compared the numbers, yet I’m not seeing how the rifle puts out better DPS, since it seems to shoot slower, and has less damage per shot for some reason – the only longbow attack that deals less damage than any rifle attack is half the double-hitting autotattack.

My other weapon set is sword+sword, or sometimes Sword+shield. I’ve found that my Runes of the Warrior are great with Sword+Bow, though, because with my high crit rate (The damage is meh, but that’s irrelevant when all my goodies are on crit proc), I can rapidly swap between sword+bow, turning myself into a flying fireball that shoots flaming arrows and throws flaming swords while maintaining maximum adrenaline.

Kill Shot is easy to land in WvW in the big group fights, and can be specced to do a terrifying amount of damage. Just don’t try to solo roam with it. Rifle is also great in general PvE against tough champs/bosses (fractals/dungeons probably not, but that’s an entire different discussion). Long bow gets the nod, yes, but for most uses I don’t see a big difference between the two. Knockback on #5 is also nice because no ranged character can avoid melee at times, plus it cleaves. Rifle is a perfect fit for Charr players, given the lore and the look, which I also consider an advantage since Charr is what I play.

Rifle is useless in current state.

Signed
Retired charr from blood legion that crafted predator.

Scoobaniec.9561:

Rifle is useless in current state.

Signed
Retired charr from blood legion that crafted predator.

Your commentary is from the meta, I assume. Which means little to the other 90% of the players who are not playing meta.

I use Rifle on my Blood Legion Charr Warrior because “bows are for skulky Ash Legion Rangers and Thieves!”

It makes for an awesome Champ soloing weapon though. You can kite a lone target forever with a Rifle if they don’t have a hard hitting ranged attack.

Both weapons have their uses, but I went with Rifle just because it felt more “fun” to me.

Well, to be fair, I did ask about a metagame analysis of the rifle.

As for it being called a “Troll” weapon, I can think of three nearly-mutually-exclusive definitions for such a weapon. Which would the Rifle be?
1. A powerful weapon that is easy to shut down, causing people beaten by it to rage because their shame won’t let them admit they were bested by someone with such an easy to negate strategy, and their pride won’t allow them to blame themselves for losing to such a simple-to-thwart weapon.
2. A weak weapon that is hard to defend against, but can ruin someone’s day if part of a series of unfortunate events, provoking rage through incessant petty annoyance.
3. An unreliable but strong weapon that is hard to defend against, provoking rage because of the helplessness in being beat by such a weapon, despite its statistical inferiority caused by its unreliability. (Such as the infamous Noob Tube in Call of Duty)

I’ve been having fun with a Bow, even as a Charr – but it only looks right if I use one of the cultural weapon skins (Steam, Flame, or Legionnaire. Adamant Guard weapons look flat and cardboardy)

The rifle is considered a “troll” weapon simply because of its F1, which can make huge damage in exchange for a long cast time (which should so “naturally” be avoided, from what I read). Of course, what some non-rifle users fail to see is that the burst is actually similar to Hundred Blades, in that you must prepare its use (immobilizing, fearing, having the opponent deplete all his endurance before, or using a block skill…), or look like a fool using it without preparation. Restricting the rifle to its “Kill Shot” as some surprise shot is IMHO making quite a bad use of the rifle.

It is a strong weapon for dueling, but difficult to understand (and therefore master), which could explain part of its unpopularity. It can cripple (and immobilize if you take Leg Specialist), knock-back (interrupt a skill, a revive or a stomp, push outside a zone…), and put 8 stacks of vulnerabilities – all sort of things that are useful both to you and your party. Also, Volley itself can make up to 7k damage, and does not require much preparation, because it can be rotated quite fast. Eventually, the rifle helps maintain pressure against an opponent trying to kite you (and they will kite you, because your second weapon set shall be melee oriented, and staying melee against an axe/shield user is asking for death).

PvE players will (rightly) see little use for the rifle – because mobs in PvE do not require lots of controlling, and there are more appropriate weapons to use (more damage-oriented). In WvW, the rifle has limited usage, as it does not provide mobility and boons, and must be traited to pierce to be useful. In PvP, provided you use all of its skills, you’ll kill tons of players with it – and have lots of fun doing so.

i found rifle to be extremely helpful against thieves and mesmers.

Its a troll weapon because you only lose to it if you dont see the 15k killshot coming. Its not that they bested you, or if they did best you they bested you while you were fighting someone else.

Its also troll because its all it can do. Its a gimmick. They rage because it takes no skill to one shot someone who is unaware

If you are looking for PvE options, I’d say go with rifle. You can use Rifle and Greatsword with similar traits, no need to swap any out (Even though its free and fast now). On hit damage, bleed damage, vulnerability stacks, cripple and hard crowd control. It also has more range than the bow. If you need to heal up, walk to long range and take pop shots safely.

This thread makes me so sad

Granted its generally viewed as “not the best choice for a warrior”, compared to all the other warrior weapons it has a unique play style, one that is deadly when practiced enough, mainly because most people assume you’re only trying to kill shot (and they wait for it sometimes, giving you free hits) or just a noob, and you can use these to your advantage.

Crafted predator simply for the pew pew and to muck around in WvW. No regrets here, I have a tonne of fun picking off commanders and casters.

Volley a thief/mes before they stealth. Get rekt.

Rifle butt is also fantastically easy to use against a dagger thief trying to backstab you, sometimes wasting their stealth.

Sometimes I have thieves stand a bit away from me, looking at my mace/shield thinking “kitten he’s a full CC warrior…”, I then pull out predator, volley them, they panic and shadow step in, I switch and CC them.

Basically, its a weapon for having fun with in WvW, or taking people by surprise because it isn’t apart of the meta, they don’t expect it or they think you’re a noob, and they have to adjust their play style which they may not like doing. Throwing people out of their comfort zone is a big advantage.

To each their own, but it definitely isn’t useless in capable hands. You don’t even need to fire a single Kill Shot….

The people flat out calling rifle useless are bad at the game/warrior, and only play meta builds because they were told “This build is the best”, they can’t think for themselves.

I play my Rifle build with Rampager gear with 4/6/0/0/4 traits. I loose a lot of burst capability but I do have high sustained damage with the mix of both bleeds and physical dmg.

The Rampager build also works great with Sword&Board as secondary weapon set because it takes full advantage out of Distracting Strike and condition damage while keeping enough power and a bit of ferocity to take down opponents with small bursts. The shield also gives some additional tools for survival, wich is always a good thing sinds you are very fragile.

On another note, you do have a lot of issues with that kind of build. The lack of team synergy is one of them, wich you can make up for it by bringing the CCs into a fight. But also the fact you are neither specialised in direct damage or condition damage, making it pointless for you to team up with condition builds sinds yours are slightly less powerfull.

But it does well in Pvp, you might be glassy like a Berserker build, but the variety of controls, conditions and direct damage output makes it effective against a large variety of builds, wich will have difficulties to adapt their gamestyle against yours.

Ambrecombe.4398:

On another note, you do have a lot of issues with that kind of build. The lack of team synergy is one of them, wich you can make up for it by bringing the CCs into a fight. But also the fact you are neither specialised in direct damage or condition damage, making it pointless for you to team up with condition builds sinds yours are slightly less powerfull.

Are they really, though? Don’t condition damage builds simply rely on Condition Damage+Precision (With the 3rd stat being a Bunker stat)? Rampager gear hits just as kitten the Condition Damage front as any other condition build as far as I can see, but trades survivability/bunkeriness for burst/direct damage. And a warrior Sword+board/rifle condition build only has two or three conditions to bring to the party (Lots and Lots of Bleeds, Cripple, and a rifle’s Vulnerability), making it focused (So other condi builds in a party can focus on torment/poison/chill/burning, etc) while a Sword+Sword/Bow dedicated condition build is fighting to also try stacking Torment and Burning.

Right now, though, I’ve been testing out the Bow (I’ve been Rifle+Sword and Board throughout leveling, and just recently noticed the rifle was almost never mentioned on these boards) running full Warrior Runes (Instead of Krait, I’m considering changing that, but weapon swapping every second is crazy, especially with longbow burst and the fast-mounting adrenaline from Blade Master and Furious) and Geomancy+Rage sigils, because it’s fun seeing the ground explode in a ring of spikes every time I swap weapons and make everything bleed… so I hit things with my sword, blow up the ground with spikes, set the area on fire, blow up everyone with Bow3, blow up the ground again with spikes, turn myself into a might-gaining fireball, then blow up the ground again with spikes before setting the area on fire to repeat the process until everything is dead.

I’m glad to see all the rifle suggestions here now, though!

Right now, I think my biggest issue with Rifle over Bow is that every attack with the rifle feels “The same” – I just shoot them with each skill – no visual variety at all.

The bleed on riffle #1 is not there for the damage. Its just there to look like it does somthing. You cant really stack enough bleeds with it in a condition build to make up for a loss of power that the rifle needs to shine.

Rifle is mainly just 2 skills Volly and kill shot thats it folks. And both of those skills need to be power/critical damage and they need to crit to hit hard.

The rifle is just that its used for sniping people from the back line or sniping people when they are not looking. To drop their HP fast.

Honestly rifle is only viable in WvW. Because you have the terrain/environment to work with, and you aren’t forced to fight in a specific way like sPvP. The weapon needs to be able to use its range and kiting potential, so its only a WvW weapon.

You also can’t learn to play rifle effectively in PvE or sPvP. Combined with the sPvP game mode locking out rifle entirely, this is probably why most people haven’t bothered to learn how to use the weapon.

You have to practice with it solely in WvW, which will result in you eating dirt quite often. Once you get proficient at using the terrain and environment to your advantage, and versing certain classes/builds with a rifle as one of your weapons, its really fun and certainly pays off for having to eat dirt in the beginning.

In PvE the only uses for a rifle is to be lazy at zerg content, or some terrain exploits like Frost in CM dungeon. I’m not surprised you got bored using rifle in general PvE.

In sPvP, since the only game mode is “sit in this small circle or lose”, rifle is useless, because you can’t use it to its full potential which is all about kiting/positioning and long range.

The poster above is the type of person I wreck often.

Would you wreck him with a 10k killshot? Or would you not use killshot at all?

Warlord.9074:

The bleed on riffle #1 is not there for the damage. Its just there to look like it does somthing. You cant really stack enough bleeds with it in a condition build to make up for a loss of power that the rifle needs to shine.

Rifle is mainly just 2 skills Volly and kill shot thats it folks. And both of those skills need to be power/critical damage and they need to crit to hit hard.

The rifle is just that its used for sniping people from the back line or sniping people when they are not looking. To drop their HP fast.

I normally disagree with you to the point of becoming really irritated, but for once I actually agree with you.

Well said!

:D

that baby stealing dingo.7216:

Scoobaniec.9561:

Rifle is useless in current state.

Signed
Retired charr from blood legion that crafted predator.

Your commentary is from the meta, I assume. Which means little to the other 90% of the players who are not playing meta.

It’s the meta for a reason.

Rifle is bad, and likely the worst weapon a warrior has other than an offhand axe.

Sadly, Rifle’s current incarnation in both its capabilities and numbers is below par.

I made a post a while ago with concern to the problems with the Rifle, and some suggestions on how to increase its viability but overall, it needs a lot of help.

Kind of bad that it gets beaten by Longbow in the raw damage department.

It’s the slow attack rate of a single projectile of the ‘1’ Rifle skill that basically makes Rifle not viable.

Longbow Dual Shot is 1.2s (2 projectiles) versus Rifles one projectile at roughly 1s. Longbow has superior Adrenaline gain (and superior chance of crit proc on critical sigils). More often than not, an opponent at long range will evasive dodge one Dual shot arrow to be hit by the second traveling just behind it; winner = Longbow by a huge margin.

Travel time difference is basically minimal. Slight advantage, Rifle.

Distance of weapon use is minimal (Longbow has arc to its shots which means it travels further than described and can travel over small obstacles). F1 from Rifle is 1500 range which rarely matters considering the cast time. No clear winner.

But it comes down to Rifle basically only being useful for the F1, Volley (pretty good) and Rifle Butt (no one here seems to mention the awesome interrupt/utility/damage of it) whereas Longbow is a complete package (save for the recent nerfs which makes it less attractive compared to straight up melee builds).

TL;DR Rifle needs bleeding shot cast time/animation time reduced to ~.75s (similar to the improvements made to Warrior Hammer a while back) or its damage coefficient improved by 25% (yes, it is that bad). Personally, I’d rather see the former since Warrior ranged combat already feels “slow” and it’ll be a bit better for Adrenaline generation mechanic builds.

EDIT: Or option 2, leave Rifle as is and throw in a Main Hand Pistol option that has faster attack animations over Rifle

Artaz.3819:

TL;DR Rifle needs bleeding shot cast time/animation time reduced to ~.75s (similar to the improvements made to Warrior Hammer a while back) or its damage coefficient improved by 25% (yes, it is that bad). Personally, I’d rather see the former since Warrior ranged combat already feels “slow” and it’ll be a bit better for Adrenaline generation mechanic builds.

Few months ago before i left the game i made a complete suggestion list for all rifle skills. One of them was to make 1 on rifle to be like harpoon gun 1. I really like that desing.
Even ignoring what i writed in the past, if rifle had a few skills from harpoon gun;

- 1 for sustain dps based on the distance
– 4 for immo (its obvious why)
– 5 for way better “get off of me”

Yep, i guess rifle would be awesome in this case. Sadly we have devs a bit ………… so nvm

Really, Rifle is only useful because people aren’t used to it, so struggle to counter.

But Killshot? Come on, that thing is useless. If someone didn’t dodge that, you could have killed them naked with nothing but physical utilities.

Really what Flissy said.

I would gladly take a nerf to kill shot. Make kill shot just like sword 3 so it works as it does now but only if the target is below 50% HP. Then buff the AA and the rest of the skills so rifle becomes decent.

I think theres a couple of bushes on Forest of Nifhel that you can stand in as an asura and then people can’t see your killshot animation

because asura

Artaz.3819:

It’s the slow attack rate of a single projectile of the ‘1’ Rifle skill that basically makes Rifle not viable.

Longbow Dual Shot is 1.2s (2 projectiles) versus Rifles one projectile at roughly 1s. Longbow has superior Adrenaline gain (and superior chance of crit proc on critical sigils). More often than not, an opponent at long range will evasive dodge one Dual shot arrow to be hit by the second traveling just behind it; winner = Longbow by a huge margin.

Travel time difference is basically minimal. Slight advantage, Rifle.

Distance of weapon use is minimal (Longbow has arc to its shots which means it travels further than described and can travel over small obstacles). F1 from Rifle is 1500 range which rarely matters considering the cast time. No clear winner.

But it comes down to Rifle basically only being useful for the F1, Volley (pretty good) and Rifle Butt (no one here seems to mention the awesome interrupt/utility/damage of it) whereas Longbow is a complete package (save for the recent nerfs which makes it less attractive compared to straight up melee builds).

TL;DR Rifle needs bleeding shot cast time/animation time reduced to ~.75s (similar to the improvements made to Warrior Hammer a while back) or its damage coefficient improved by 25% (yes, it is that bad). Personally, I’d rather see the former since Warrior ranged combat already feels “slow” and it’ll be a bit better for Adrenaline generation mechanic builds.

EDIT: Or option 2, leave Rifle as is and throw in a Main Hand Pistol option that has faster attack animations over Rifle

I think this does sum up my experience with the rifle.

I also favor the “Fire faster” option, essentially making it function like a ranged Sword (Just swapping Burst and 3 functionality) – It allows easier Bleed stacking, making Condi rifles more viable, brings a lot more energy to ranged combat, and put the gun’s single-target damage potential above the Longbow’s (While the Longbow has superior multitarget damage). Of course, that might require Rifle 3 to be changed as well, since a faster fire rate makes Volley relatively less appealing.