Powerful ranged damage professions?

[Deleted]

Greetings everyone!

As the title suggests, I'm interested in your experiences regarding ranged damage in PvE as well as PvP.

I rolled a mesmer at first, but the relatively low damage output at lvl 23ish has discouraged me some. It seems the only way I'll get any halfway decent numbers is by going with the sword, which isn't really what I'm looking for, seeing as it isn't ranged. At all.

So I'm asking you, the all-knowing GW2 Community, which ranged dps is the most powerful? Who can send some devastating projectiles to wreak havoc upon some poor rooted melee character? Who can deliver hefty burst?

I'm not interested in underwater combat, as I have an aquaphobia that unfortunately translates to computer games.

I know there isn't a 100% definitive answer, but I'm interesting in hearing from you all the same. Both from your experiences as a ranged dps, and against one

Thanks in advance!

[Deleted]

You tried Mesmer with both Clone-summoning traits yet? The damage inflicted that way isn't something to ignore in my opinion.
But to answer your question, as far as I've played them the Engineer seemed to do the most damage.

[Clockwork Pinkie]

Engineer and Mesmer do the most. I prefer Mesmer as no matter what, it'll be my favorite class. Engineer does tend to just kill things faster though, especially with dual pistols.

[Deleted]

Aye, pistol Engineer and to some extent, Shortbow ranger can be quite nasty. If you stack condition damage then scepter Necromancer is quite punishing in longer fights since you stack up unbelievable amounts of condition ticks. Staff Necro is also very effective at closely packed AoE, being able to ice a group of mobs with ground-targeted wells and the staff marks. Staff elementalist with Arcane Blast can be very nasty for burst damage.

Unfortunately for you, there are personal story missions that are entirely underwater, so you might want to look into underwater combat a little. Necro trident isn't bad, but it's condition damage, largely, so you will be kiting an enemy while it slowly dies for a while. The spear is fun but you die in seconds. Elementalist under water... Fire SUCKS. Use air, as illogical as that sounds.

[Riavan]

Hold on, do any of you actually play an engineer?
It's not that ranged at all. Duel pistol doesn't even work with auto attack. The rifle is even less ranged.

I'd go mesmer/ranger/warrior for ranged.

[Leben]

Quite frankly, all of the professions do decent damage at range. The way they do damage is slightly different of course (Condition spamming Necromancer has to stack his conditions up to do decent damage, versus an air elementalist who just does high damage with their regular hits) but the choice of profession should almost always be about which playstyle you prefer and not which profession is the most buff at that particular time.

Sorry if you felt this was unhelpful, but it is the truth.

[Mistral]

Play anything but guardian imho. (for ranged that is)

[Deleted]

Hold on, do any of you actually play an engineer?
It's not that ranged at all. Duel pistol doesn't even work with auto attack. The rifle is even less ranged.

I'd go mesmer/ranger/warrior for ranged.

Indeed you are right. I've played power rifle/grenade build since start. My autoattack (1200) range, does decent damage but the big burst abilities are closer, maybe not melee but somewhat in between. Take Grenade Barrage for example. It can do a huge amount of damage (record is over 7k) if you hit with all bombs on one target and they all crit. But doing that is next to impossible the further away you are. Blunderbluss/Jump shot are the other two high damage burst, and yea, they're also melee/close to target.

[Deleted]

Mesmers put out incredible dmg, its just that its a bit harder to do, and requires more effort than say an elementalist. Conditions can really increase dmg massively, and also you can shatter for that last burst to finish people off.

[mafao]

Warriors do decent ranged damage as well.

However, melee weapons do more damage by design.

[Ashnazg]

Elementalist with a greatsword

[Window]

Elementalist with a greatsword

Mesmer ?
Long bow ranger imo can get off a good volley of shots with bleeds quickly

[kivipää]

I gotta say engineer. So, he's a mid to low range, but if you kill your foe fast enough for the extra range to matter, you wouldn't need to kite it anyway, and vice versa. And if you're in a group, pistols range will be quite enough. Not to mention that the engineer has a fantastic array of tools to keep themselves a-kiting. Just some random, level-appropriate veteran with 3 friends? No problem. Only thing to worry about is accidently resetting them. Or ridiculous spawn rates -.-*
As far as random 1 vs 1 meetings in the mists go, I almost universally win them. Twice I couldn't, once I didn't get help, and that time I kited that poor mesmer for 10 minutes before he gave up. Haven't had the pleasure ot run into another engineer yet, though. Might also mention I've been doing this since early 40's with inventory full of whites at worst.

If you actually need the range for WvW, grenade kit is your answer. In a siege situation or an entrenched battle, especially in bottlenecks, this thing is a beast when correctly used. The 1200 range clicks perfectly into many "sweet spots" across the map, and even allows you to bombard the enemy on the walls with ease. It's quite easily the best, non-vehicle defensive/offensive siege weapon in anyones arsenal. 50 kills for monthly? This'll take a while... or not. Done in 10 minutes, literally. Full inventories of swag included.
Plus the flamethrower demolishes wave-based events in a matter of seconds. That's VERY short range but sweet zombie jesus, I never go anywhere without either this or grenade kit in my arsenal.

[Ashnazg]

Mesmer ?
Long bow ranger imo can get off a good volley of shots with bleeds quickly

Nah, an actual ele with the elite greatsword. Vicious autoattack with splash, long cripples, massive aoe damage.

[Deleted]

I'd say warrior with a rifle. I'm friggin' loving it. Bleeding DoT effect on your auto-attack. Rapid fire. Vulnerability followed up with an adrenaline-fueled extra powerful shot. Two abilities to maintain distance between you and the target. Great fun.

[ZeroWashu]

Ranged? Yeah I too was not impressed with Mesmer, perhaps just need better build/play advice. That and was waiting for ANet to hit me for the name I chose. Ranger is very good but its very positional. I use the short bow and stack conditions. If I know I can stay at range a lot then long bow is not bad versus people who cannot interrupt its one burst - but it hits like a truck except when you up against people who know how to handle you, then your over to greatsword or shortbow.

Engineer is fun. While I was not impressed with long range as much as I guess I should have been when it goes to hell you just break out the grenade kit and remind people to leave you alone in your spamtastic damage barrage. Never really cared for my ele... necro is fun because of that range of staff :P

[Sojou]

Elementalist under water... Fire SUCKS. Use air, as illogical as that sounds.

Fire rocks while underwater. Slow, AOE dot, might buffing attack and a blind. I cycle through constantly but always start off in fire to get that water boil rolling.

[Cempa]

I am a die hard ranged player and have been looking into your question for many months. On live today I have taken all possible ranged combinations (except Elementalist) to over 20 and some past 25, here is what I have learned:

Engineer: You need to think of engineer as also having two sets of weapons and you need to realize that you can not clump any two sets together. Pistol is traited as condition so you need to pick one of the tool kits that also benefits from that! Rifle benefits the most from power and so does flame thrower and so on. Rifle you can trait to extend range which makes little sense to me but in any case you need to jump in, burst and then use an ability to fly back out! That is not a pure ranged class.

Also Engineer need to always be doing some kind of utility, you can't just stand back and role bleeds+burns all day long. Actually that can be some what incorrect because you can pick a kit that is DPS like Grenades or one that has support like Elixir Gun. In any case it is very much a Weapon+Kit profession and you NEED to be comfortable with that.

Thief: I could not get a pure ranged build to function as well or better than a mix of both. Pistol+melee or melee+pistol out performs P/P and Bow any time of the day for solo questing and PvP. Having said that I will reserve judgment on P/P until more people hit higher levels because the last 5 point trait adds a cripple to pistol attacks which is a HUGE thing and it only comes at the very end of the trait!

Warrior: I am amazed at how resilient and powerful Rifle is because you pretty much get all the end game stuff really early. I have linked a post on the warrior thread with a build that plays really well in sPvP and WvW and solo questing. Rifle Warrior to me feels like the purest range because they do not switch weapon unless they want to use the horn and charge for movement buffs -though you can take sword+sword to stack more bleeds if you feel aggressive- and you have loads of crit and power +3k and +57% crit with buffs that can be kept up pretty much 100% AND +3k def which makes you kind of tanky as well as 33% less damage below 50%hp always up and traited anti CC!

The Rifle Warrior roles crits and bleeds with high mobility if you have sword+horn as second sent and uses the remove all condition signet on a short CD which is so amazing.

Mesmer: A complete shift in MMO game play from other ranged, it just plays so differently I think people are still learning. Mesmer is as far as I can tell built on shattering your illusions. If you find that your burst and damage is a bit low you need to shatter more. After you teach your self to always shatter you will begin to build synergies between your illusions and your build and play style. You can chain stun, condition kite, line up ridiculous burst! All that and you bring really cool utility in the form of boons and condition cleansing. You can also build a point-hold build! You need to enjoy highly strategic game play with this class ad you need to visuals ability-line-up with this profession. Unlike say a Warrior that pretty much kites and keeps all abilities on CD, Mesmer you need to think ahead and if that is what you enjoy then go for it.

Ele: I can't get myself into a class that depends on constant stance switching, drives me mad! So no comment

Necromancer: One word comes to mind that is RESILIENT. These monsters do not go down without taking a looong time to do so. So its an outlast profession that can go condition, power or minion wise and all work. You have your FOTM condition build which use Scepter+Dagger and then Staff, very high control, AE kiting and when all abilities and available -about 4xsec CD- mobs drop like flies. If you are roaming and come across one in WvW its going to take a long time and some of them are NOT condition builds which means they are either power/minion or siphon life build. To me this is your typical Affliction spreading caster, dark and evil sacrificing own life to hurt others and outlasting enemy.

Necro brings amazing condition spreading and cleansing abilities to the table.

[Deleted]

Mesmer: A complete shift in MMO game play from other ranged, it just plays so differently I think people are still learning. Mesmer is as far as I can tell built on shattering your illusions. If you find that your burst and damage is a bit low you need to shatter more. After you teach your self to always shatter you will begin to build synergies between your illusions and your build and play style. You can chain stun, condition kite, line up ridiculous burst! All that and you bring really cool utility in the form of boons and condition cleansing. You can also build a point-hold build! You need to enjoy highly strategic game play with this class ad you need to visuals ability-line-up with this profession. Unlike say a Warrior that pretty much kites and keeps all abilities on CD, Mesmer you need to think ahead and if that is what you enjoy then go for it.

You dont need to shatter excessivly depending on your build, you shatter tactially when you need a bit of burst, or survival. Keep you clones up if you can, you never want to be without for long as it provides distraction, shatter options and depending on traits, passive bonuses to dmg and survial and speed, also bleeding effects if traited that way.

You want to get your conditions up and working, a mesmer can keep conditions up easy and keep boons on themself, and this really has a massive impact on a fight. And phantasms do a load of dmg and are really quite durable.

I'd advise the opposite to you, dont shatter all the time, shatter when you need to, but dont just go for the CD shatter its a massive waste.

[Herecius]

Dual pistol eng with a range trait and grenade kit is outstanding damage and utility.

Dual pistol engineer with flamethrower and very high condition damage is crazy amounts of damage at close range, though extremely twitchy if you want to stay alive. The big key is the flamethrower's fire wall... you get that right underneath the mob and lock the mob down there and instantly switch back to pistols (maybe blow smoke screen as well).

Engineer with dual pistol, flamethrower and grenade kit is a beast of a kiter, capable of kiting hoards of mobs even when in the middle of a melee. But it's again, really twitchy with all the kit switching.