Guild Wars 2

Longbow as main with traits 10% with 100% endurance, Eagle eye 1500 range, Piercing arrows.

Great sword as secondary, Martial mastery traited for reduction to skills.

30/0/30/5/5 (tonnes of survival)

The key is positioning and placement. With a SB you have to go within 900-1200 to make it affective. This generally means you have to put yourself at the front of the zerg to get the maximum out of your piercing shots. When someone on the other side see’s a ranger on the front line. Its an automatic trigger into their heads to charge in and kill it. As you are also a GC Ranger, it takes no longer than 3 seconds to kill you.

Now here is where the longbow comes into play. Put into the same zerg vs zerg scenario, you can stand within 1300-1500 and still make piercing shots work. By staying beyond 1200 you are not in danger of any of the enemies attacks or CC skills. There are other players who will be standing infront of you to be the juicy target that the enemy will rush out to get first.

This is proper strategic placement. As the enemy keep moving left and right you will tag them all as they move into your arrows. You can even move the Camera to aim left and right and not having to fire in just one line. Since you are firing from relative safety, you can even pick your targets. Someone tried to make a charge forward and failed and hobbling back into their lines? you can down them even when they are in enemy lines.

Bags also drop where you are standing so having to pick them up whilst in the safety of your own zerg is viable.

If the battle moves and the zerg is broken, switch to GS and use GS3 to gtfo of danger. Very few classes will catch you. And with 1200 range head start to when you run… no class will.

Longbows have taken a very bad rep, but mainly it is due to people not knowing how to use it properly.

Combat effectiveness for all classes have a maximum range of 1200 bar Ranger and necro. But Rangers have the advantage in 1500 range.

That can be done by anyone. on a 1 man part of a zerg situation.

Now here is the romanticism.

Imagine a team of 5 Rangers all with LB firing in front of their zerg in a line/formation. The zerg moves slowly forward decimating anything that comes into the line of fire. The kill zone is 1200 in front of your zerg. Now if you want to visualise it, imagine a phalanx with spears 1500 range long.

To get into even max range of 1200 for all the other classes they have to wade into a line of arrows turning them into pin cushions. Cloths get torn to pieces. Mediums don’t last long either. Heavy’s just cant get into proper range to be of any use.

Now imagine a mesmer popping time warp onto this crew of archers. All archers time their LB2 and move forward at the same time. Zerg melted.

Shortbow is for skirmishes and effective within 900-1200 range. This puts you in very big danger from all classes. Don’t spec GC and use SB. I’ve played GC with much better success in WvW only whilst defending or sticking withikittenerg with a LB. When i tried using a SB as a GC… there is a very low..VERY low success rate.