Ranger question - Longbow builds for High end fractals

Hi all,

Are there any good/viable longbow builds for PvE (high-level fractals, etc)?I personally picked ranger to play ... ranged, most of the builds I have seen so far is mainly melee which kind off defeats the purpose for me to have a range® class.

• Also will the warhorn get some more dps based traits such as making it's first skill AOE for example? I feel like it is a weapon Anet has forgotten about

With this, I am looking for a fun, yet viable longbow build that works for Pve even in raids/strike missions if possible but that might be pushing it hihi

Thank you in advance, everyone :)

nvm, edit button wasn't working at first.

Here's the best Fractal build with longbow:https://discretize.eu/builds/ranger/power-soulbeast

And there's no indication that there will be any mechanical changes to warhorn.

Thank you for sharing, sad about the warhorn I feel like it could be so much more.

Well I don't know about high DPS.. longbow's DPS is pretty low due to it's slow cast time and base single target damage.

However!Longbow is pretty great as an AoE weapon providing you have Piercing arrows and you can line up targets which means you'll have to get really good at positioning yourself to take advantage of it, a Barrage/Rapid Fire combo where every arrow hits max targets can be a brutal chunk of quick AoE damage.

For raids and strikes it wouldn't be optimal DPS but it is still useful there for it's range, specially when you're forced out of melee Range.. but there are better weapons for this content.For Fractals and dungeons most of your fights will be against groups or multiple foes so yeah Longbow can be decent there.

Against bosses it's less useful since you can't often take advantage of piercing arrows so if you want to optimise this you'll need to swap out your Piercing arrows trait for Predator's Onslaught to give you a damage buff on disabled foes or Remorseless to give you more opening strikes and increase their damage.Keeping the piercing arrows isn't a total waste since you'll also get skill recharge benefits and some even some quickness if you hit a target over 1200 range away but in raids and strikes these benefits are minimal at best and most of the time you wont be needing them.

All that said I am very fond of Ranger Longbow myself, I have been using one on my main character for 8 years and I stubbornly refuse to change that XDIt is a good weapon but there are some valid criticisms for it as well, but for the most part those who really hate it usually just don't know how to use it properly.It's not a single target DPS weapon as some think it should be, it's an AoE weapon and that's where it's max potential is.Longbow skill 4 too is a hard CC so this skill is useful to have against breakbars, so against boss creatures you can get some good use from longbow but it's best to swap out of it asap once you've used your CC, Rapid Fire and Barrage skills.

As for Warhorn.. no there isnt any triats that would make your Hunters Call an AoE.. but it's not a bad skill to be fair, I have used Warhorn myself for a good while and keep one in one of my equipment slots so I can swap into it when I feel like it.It's more a support weapon though and with Windborn Notes you can use Hunters Call to deal damage to an enemy while also giving your allies in melee range around it some regen.

A better offhand weapon if you want a more damage focused Ranger is Axe, you'll get another hard CC skill with Axe 4 which can help with bosses and rounding up trash mobs and Axe 5 Whirling Defense is a nice high damage AoE skill which is also a whirl finisher and it gives you some retaliation.I mostly use Sword/Axe myself as a backup to my Longbow ^^

@Teratus.2859 First of all thank you for all your input!

what kind of always bothered me is that the longbow is kind of slow, and the damage has been nerfed several times. To be honest I do not understand why.

I currently use longbow and greatsword it's fun but I noticed that my longbow is pure back up at the moment (CC, or pewpew if I have to go range)My Dps is actually not bad when looking at others but the longbow has a bad rep. in the community I noticed.

I kind of hope for a big weapon revamp for all classes but that might be just a dream or something I want because I really love the longbow :open_mouth:

@Halbarz.3854 said:@Teratus.2859 First of all thank you for all your input!I currently use longbow and greatsword it's fun but I noticed that my longbow is pure back up at the moment (CC, or pewpew if I have to go range)My Dps is actually not bad when looking at others but the longbow has a bad rep. in the community I noticed.

Np ^^

I've used the weapon for so long it's probably the one i'm most familiar with in the game lol

It does get a bad rep and it's true the weapon aint going to be top DPS but it's not a terrible weapon like some of it's haters claim.It's decent enough for single targets if your going to go for a soulbeast and buff your damage as much as you can but even then it's best not to rely on the auto for anything.Swap in, use your skills and swap out again asap is the best way to get any decent dps out of it.

If you're going up against groups though it's a lot of fun, have you ever managed to get a max target Barrage+Rapidfire combo off?It's funny watching a whole group just melt like that lolI expect it's because of the AoE damage potential that Longbow's overall damage has been nerfed down in the past, considering your damage is multiplied for every foe you hit it would be too much if your single target damage was extremely high.

On Claw of Jormag for example it's really easy to get a Barrage/Rapidfire combo off and hit all 3 target boxes because of piercing arrows..If both those skills do lets say for example 30K damage to each box that's 180k damage from just 2 skills.. and Rapid fire only takes around 8 seconds to cooldown giving you an easy 90k every 8 seconds or so.. and Barrage only has a 16 sec CD with Lead the Wind as well.

Even if your B/RF combo combined only does 30K to a single target that's still a potential 150K total AoE damage if you hit 5 targets with every tick of barrage and every arrow from rapid fire.. that's definitely nothing to scoff at imo.. but it certainly could be used to justify damage nerfs lol

Imagine if you could get a 90K Barrage/Rapid Fire combo on a single target.. that would add up to a potential of almost half a million total damage against a 5 man group XD

• EditFun fact I just made a mock damage focused SB build and tested it on that raid golem, 90K RF/Barrage combo isn't just possible it's easily passable with realistic party circumstances (25 might, 95% crit chance, high quickness uptime, frost spirit and 25 vun on targets)I was able to pull off a 120K rapid fire + Barrage combo on a single target thanks to Sic Em and One Wolf Pack, could have gone higher with food items, banners and other things buffing me even more.So yeah the AoE potential of Longbow is nuts when you think about it, definitely makes damage nerfs understandable lol

@"Halbarz.3854" said:With this, I am looking for a fun, yet viable longbow build that works for Pve even in raids/strike missions if possible but that might be pushing it hihi

LB + Sword/Axe is a meta build in fractals and works great for properly timed burst phases in raids/strike missions.

• https://discretize.eu/builds/ranger/power-soulbeast - fractal build for organized groups. That's T4+Challenge mode fractals level.
• https://snowcrows.com/raids/builds/ranger/soulbeast/power/ - raid/strike mission build.

So, expanding on @Teratus.2859 answer. Yes, LB has bad sustained DPS, but your main DPS window falls in the duration of Sic'Em anyway. Basically at some point of your rotation you switch to LB and time Sic'Em so you can basically apply it's bonus to your LB5 + F3 + Axe5 (+Frost Trap if you take it) as those are your most damaging skills. Everything else is an optimized filler for the gaps between two consecutive Sic'Em. By no means LB isn't a meta weapon at the moment.

Unfortunately, at the same time game mechanics prevents you from contributing good DPS from range.

1. You see, to get nice numbers you have to get nice buffs. And you can't get nice buffs if you're out of range of said buffs, ergo no good numbers for you. And a frustrated healer (if you have any) because party isn't properly stacked. So even with ranged weapons that work well (guardian scepter, mesmer greatsword, ranger short bow & long bow, etc) you'll have to be in melee range of the boss, unless your whole group goes for a range strat (won't happen in fractals/strikes, sometimes happens in raids).
2. There are certain mechanics happening at the location of random players in the group. Sometimes other members of your group have to get close to you to neutralize such mechanics. That becomes really difficult when you stand at 1200 range plinking at the boss and may lead to problems and/or group wipe.
3. If you take two identical weapon sets (say you want to play LB+LB) your weapon cooldowns are shared. You can't LB2+LB5+switch+LB2+LB5, sorry (that'd be hilarious but I dread PvP burst from some classes). Basically this means you have 2x less weapon skills compared to someone who takes two different weapon sets. Identical sets somewhat work for cSLB meme SB+SB build, but it's still less effective than proper cSLB build.

So.

• Can you use LB in your build for high-end PvE content? Absolutely yes.
• Can you make the build using just LB? Probably yes.
• Can you take such a build into high-end PvE content? Please no.
• Can you play at range in high-end PvE content? 95% of the time no.
• Can you play at range in open world/easier strikes? Yes.

@Elthari.3968 said:Unfortunately, at the same time game mechanics prevents you from contributing good DPS from range.

Yea this is a downside to the longbow in high end group content, You're definitely better off being stacked up in close range even if using a LB.Upside is you can still make use of piercing arrows and the damage boost they give you in in close range (providing there are multiple enemies to use it on) but it takes far more practice due to how drastically your movements can effect the arrow path, you also have to consider the height of the enemy's target box as well, piercing arrows are totally wasted if they are being aimed over the enemies behind the target so you do have to be more selective with which enemy to target to get the most damage from them.In most cases though you're just far better off with Predator's Onslaught instead since it's a flat 15% damage buff on anything suffering from a hard CC or a movement impairing condition, which will be everything caught in a barrage anyway since it's technically a 12 second AoE cripple.

There are minimal benefits at best being at range in high end content but they're not worth the DPS loss you'll gain from loosing all the boons.In fractals this isn't really much of an issue tbh I'd argue for strikes too but that will depend on who you're playing with.Raids however.. yeah this is not something you want to be doing there at all and will make you more of a burden on the team.

@Teratus.2859 said:Upside is you can still make use of piercing arrows and the damage boost they give you in in close rangeIn most cases though you're just far better off with Predator's Onslaught

Yeah, and that's the problem - lead the Wind conflicts with Predator's Onslaught and the latter boosts your Axe5, trap and F3.I am not sure that even if you can hit two targets consistently Lead the Wind won't be a DPS loss, especially since your LB5 is an AoE without Lead the Wind.

I don't agree that Longbow damage is low... quite the opposite in many situations. With bosses with short phasing or that die fast, longbow is the best option out there. As weird as it sounds I take longbow for single targets normally (fractal CM bosses for example). Greatsword is actaully better at cleaving(killing many mobs), so I replace longbow with that if needed. And x/axe is a must any time for me. So you take longboow to fractals not for cleaving mobs, but for bursting bosses, for cleaving bosses maul, greatsword aas and axe 5 are better. And remember you can prestack Barrage in many situations before the boss becomes vulnerable.Even snowcrows confirm that:" Greatsword:-Stronger sustained DPS.-Favours long phased fights when you can use "Sic 'Em!" three times or more.-When cleave is needed

Longbow:-Stronger burst DPS.-Favours short phased fights when you can use "Sic 'Em!" less than three times.-Has limited cleave and your skills can easily be blocked by trash mobs." (They don't take the piercing arrows for a good reason: it is a trash trait compared to preadators onslaught, longbow's most damage comes from barage anyway, if you want to kill many mobs swap it for greatsword)