Guardians ranged is such a pain

I'm still baffled at how little ranged options the Guardian has (Revenant too while we're at it, but they aren't as bad off in my opinion). In it's core kit all it has is Scepter... well now Staff. But both of them take sooooo long. The scepter has a slow projectile, and the staff rework is laughable at best. The animations before the attacks start coming out has cost me so much in loot, if only I weren't playing a guard. I've started to attack things from the front of a group, and it's dead long before my projectile makes it to it. I wouldn't mind the slow animation to start if it fired a beam like the druid's weapon perhaps. It's starting to really make me miss the old, "Loot Stick" days where the Guardians had this 180 degree in front of them attack that only had (I believe) 400 range on the 1 skill.

I know a lot of you will probably comment that Longbow is a good option... Well yes, it's a pretty decent option. The only problem is. Everyone wants Fire(Heal)brands in their parties now, and don't really care for Dragonhunter anymore. I'm also really missing the old Hero/Henchman days of Guild Wars 1. Especially since I prefer playing alone anyways. But sadly all of the things I need/want for my characters are locked behind group content. (I would love to have the game get a basic idea for how I play a class and let me buy an item to use certain characters as heroes/henchman to bring along in parties with me, and have it just save whatever gear I put on to the character last time I was on, or give me a drop down to select an equipment/build template that I have saved.) So the original Dev announcements of "Play how you want" as they funnel us in to cattle pens to get the higher end equipment/shinies we want.

I mean the solutions for the original idea (sorry my mind jumps from topics at a speed it gives me whiplash):

1. Speed up projectiles for Scepter and Staff.
2. Either shorten the animation on the staff so the projectile launches much sooner OR Make the staff a beam like the druids. When I first saw Druid doing this, I thought to myself, THIS is what a Guardian's staff should be like.
3. Add a new weapon to their core kit that is ranged. Perhaps a condi one as the Staff is mostly being used for boons/heals, the scepter is super slow and has no condi, where as a lot of the warriors trait kit, directly revolves around condition damage. Which the best (again in my opinion) weapon for melee is Greatsword, with Zealous Blade. Which has no condi, so it doesn't benefit from a lot of the Guardians things, as a burning condition every few swings is about as good as you're going to get.

Sorry if this was already brought up, I kept trying to look for similar threads to throw my support behind while I was working, but my fragile attention span and having to stop to do my job made it to where I was unable to find a similar thread on the first few pages I looked on.

@Frozen.7245 said:I know a lot of you will probably comment that Longbow is a good option... Well yes, it's a pretty decent option.You answered your own complain. You have a pretty decent ranged option, now if you want to follow the meta you have to conform.

I mean you sound like anybody complaining of lack of ranged options in ranger because that person only want to play with melee weapons. Do you see how silly it sounds?

I would not call guardian ranged options little, but complicated. Scepter has solid PvE uses. It is one of the strongest ranged PvE weapons, but plays as defacto melee if you are solo. Also, beside symbol no aoe. The slow orbs makes questionable PvP option. People use it sometimes in PvP for might stacking.

LB is good in OW. Drops good burst and has good aoe. It struggles in any fight that could extend beyond 10 secs. I would not use in PvP now. It has much worse damage and no CC. Well.. it has CC but GL with that.

Staff is a support weapon. The ranged attacks are slower than a slow turtle. But you will never use it for damage anyway.

I do not think this is bad overall. It is better than many other classes ranged options in PvE.

News flash. NONE of the heavy armor professions have sustained DPS ranged options outside of meme 1-'shot' skills in WvW, those being True Shot, Seven Shot, Kill Shot, and Gunflame.

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:News flash. NONE of the heavy armor professions have sustained DPS ranged options outside of meme 1-'shot' skills in WvW, those being True Shot, Seven Shot, Kill Shot, and Gunflame.

Man, you are missing out. Rev SB in pve now is extremely strong. Condi or power. In fact, it is probably the strongest ranged weapon currently in open world. And with power has ridiculously high survivability.

@otto.5684 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:News flash. NONE of the heavy armor professions have sustained DPS ranged options outside of meme 1-'shot' skills in WvW, those being True Shot, Seven Shot, Kill Shot, and Gunflame.

Yeah, in PvE. I have a SB Rev, and I am aware of that. Same things as Guardian Scepter, its a strong PvE weapon. But that is the story of OW PvE, EVERYTHING works there because mobs are stupid and let themselves get hit.

I'd play my Rev more though honestly since the Seven Shot change but I'm busy pushing my main through LS content that I haven't played until now. Trying to catch up on story and gather the mounts and legendary trinkets I've missed out on by not doing the Living Story seasons.

Gotta admit, I'm kinda confused by the circumstances here: you want a faster "loot stick" projectile but you're talking about organized comps that need Firebrands. What's the niche here? WvW? Fractals? Raiding? Open-world group content?

Yes. My DH bow feels laggard and oddly slow-paced. 

Dude, imagine using Scepter since launch, being within range of an enemy and it almost always missing.....

Fast longbow on DH in pvp + traps and pull? (Pvp)

hell no

besides - with fast ranged attacks guardian would be basically good at everything as a class. I think it would not be fair simply 

3 hours ago, Mik.3401 said:

besides - with fast ranged attacks guardian would be basically good at everything as a class. I think it would not be fair simply 

Guard will still have the worst mobility in the game. if giving guard a viable ranged option would make it the best at everything, then we would see necro being op at everything which is not the case

3 minutes ago, Hogwarts Zebra.8597 said:

Guard will still have the worst mobility in the game. if giving guard a viable ranged option would make it the best at everything, then we would see necro being op at everything which is not the case

Somewhat true, guardians mobility is quite average but besides necro who is more op than guardian? I think these two classes are just too op in comparison to the rest of the pack. 2 drawbacks is not bad anyway given they can do all game modes with ease

27 minutes ago, Mik.3401 said:

Somewhat true, guardians mobility is quite average but besides necro who is more op than guardian? I think these two classes are just too op in comparison to the rest of the pack. 2 drawbacks is not bad anyway given they can do all game modes with ease

I'm mainly talking about pvp/wvw since ranged is largely irrelevant for pve. 

"who is more op than guardian" in pvp? literally every single class other than warr and ranger. 

for roaming in wvw? once again literally every single class other than necro is better than guard. 

The only place outside pve where guard is actually strong is zerging in wvw

making guard have a viable ranged option will do nothing in pve since nobody uses ranged there, but will help it perform better in pvp/wvw where guard is quite severely lacking