Longbow vs Rifle

I'm pretty sure neither of these are good weapons buuuuut if you had to pick one for the purpose of having a backup ranged weapon which one of the two is better?

Rifle in power builds, LB in condi ones. Lb is very strong on condi berserker actually.

@Dace.8173 said:I'm pretty sure neither of these are good weapons buuuuut if you had to pick one for the purpose of having a backup ranged weapon which one of the two is better?

For core warrior and Spellbreaker, the rifle is the better weapon because it's a power weapon. Both core warrior and Spellbreaker are better with power weapons instead of condition weapons.

The longbow is only beneficial to the Berserker which is an elite specialization that focuses on applying conditions on their foes, the main one being burning. It's the weapon that most Berserker warriors use at least for open world PvE and raids.

The Longbow is actually a very good weapon, not a bad one at all. I’d even argue that it is better than Sword/Torch for Condi ‘zerker.

With berserker, longbow is GREAT. Massive damage at long range, pure devastation.

Rifle is the power range weapon of the warrior. But it's bad. Damage is too low to make it effective. You gain most from a second set of melee weapon

That's good to know. I mostly need it for WvW. I've been finding that in some instances I actually want a ranged weapon as I don't want to be at the center of a zerg or they are using siege against us and thus I want to keep my distance. I have been using this build while I use WvW to earn HP to continue unlocking Spellbreaker.

If it's for WvW, for sure longbow. It can haze walls and generally cover the battlefield so that you can tag for bags easier. I would LOVE if Warrior got a 3rd weapon slot, just for ranged weapons. It would totally fit their theme, and if Eles can be limited to one weapon, why not Warrior be on the other spectrum?

rifle is good coz it has evade, throwback, cripple, and high damage burst. key is that you have to have like a high damage weapon when they close into you. then like escape, then shootem again.

actually i don't see longbow ever being good in pve aside from bosses with alot of hp. core power war or spellbreaker deal with any trashmobs much faster and especially it's much easier to switch targets. With longbow a big portion of your dmg comes from being in melee range anyway and you have static firefields. So if trashmobs die you also have to walk up to the next one and have to recast your firefield.and longbow in pvp is a complete joke :D. at least in wvw you can use it to tag people in a zerg, but for that to be effective you'd have to play condi war in wvw and that is just inredibly underpowered and downright useless if you are ever facing any oponents without your own zerg around you. So useless that any other class will eat you alive while you try to hit them with your 25 sec cd and super obvious animation immob (seriously, because of the animation even noobs who never played warrior before and have no idea what longbow does will dodge this ability) :D.

Just compare the utility of warrior longbow to ranger longbow which does not have any distinct animation for it's utility skills #3 and #4.And good luck ever hitting arcing arrow on any moving target :D.

rifle would work if gunflame was the standard rifle burst skill. as it stands killshot is so outdated, much like 100b and sword and axe f1, with super long, clunky and obvious animations that you will rarely ever hit any enemy player with it. killshot also does not have any added utility and much like 100b the dmg is simply lackluster for the time it needs to build up the adrenaline and how rarely it will hit.

@Ferus.3165 said:actually i don't see longbow ever being good in pve aside from bosses with alot of hp. core power war or spellbreaker deal with any trashmobs much faster and especially it's much easier to switch targets. With longbow a big portion of your dmg comes from being in melee range anyway and you have static firefields. So if trashmobs die you also have to walk up to the next one and have to recast your firefield.and longbow in pvp is a complete joke :D. at least in wvw you can use it to tag people in a zerg, but for that to be effective you'd have to play condi war in wvw and that is just inredibly underpowered and downright useless if you are ever facing any oponents without your own zerg around you. So useless that any other class will eat you alive while you try to hit them with your 25 sec cd and super obvious animation immob (seriously, because of the animation even noobs who never played warrior before and have no idea what longbow does will dodge this ability) :D.

Just compare the utility of warrior longbow to ranger longbow which does not have any distinct animation for it's utility skills #3 and #4.And good luck ever hitting arcing arrow on any moving target :D.

rifle would work if gunflame was the standard rifle burst skill. as it stands killshot is so outdated, much like 100b and sword and axe f1, with super long, clunky and obvious animations that you will rarely ever hit any enemy player with it. killshot also does not have any added utility and much like 100b the dmg is simply lackluster for the time it needs to build up the adrenaline and how rarely it will hit.

Don't forget you can move with gun flame vs kill shot.

The reason why Longbow was good in WvW (prePoF) was because it had guaranteed Cleansing Ire procs. Longbow burst counts as a hit, even if you whiff enemies entirely with it, so you would get Max Berserker's Power, 3 Condis Cleared, 3 Adrenal Health, etc.

Of course, nowadays condi builds dump so many condis so often that it doesnt matter, better to just be a spellbreaker for resistance/full counter, or just hit the enemy for high damage and kill them hopefully before zerker stance runs out.

@Kiroshima.8497 said:

Of course, nowadays condi builds dump so many condis so often that it doesnt matter, better to just be a spellbreaker for resistance/full counter, or just hit the enemy for high damage and kill them hopefully before zerker stance runs out.

lol the absolute state of this game's balance