Guild Wars 2

Filed a report with you guys about the Dragon Hunter in game, but wanted to see what others thought of it. Here was my take.

Nothing about the dragon hunter makes me feel they could hunt a dragon… The theme feels really off. Why is our virtue of justice a spear when we are using a bow? why not a huge arrow of binding light that chains them to the ground or to you? why are there angel wings on retribution? It feels really out of place… also why would we use this ability to jump forward if we are trying to stay at range and have no close quarter combat abilities? Surely it isn’t to leap forward and try to lay a trap that takes far to long to cast that also wouldn’t help fight a dragon? The only thing I can think of is to use the last virtue to put up a shield for a few seconds and then back up and repeat.

Then arrow bounce, sweet for attacking multiple targets but not for attacking a single dragon the size of a fort. The only way this will help is if you can aim for the head and have it hit the hand and deal full dmg. The pierce shot is meant to hit multiple targets in a line. then the arrow that blinds and destroys incoming projectiles, cool, I guess this ought to reflect or defend against breath weapons. #4 a flaming arrow that leaves a light combo field… I think that ought to be a FIRE combo field for a FIRE arrow. Then #5 a cool AOE that allows you to imprison 5 enemies with arrows….

However, none of these abilities will do anything to dragons in this game. You can’t destroy a breath weapon with #3, you can’t blind a dragon and have it miss, piercing past the hitbox doesn’t do any more damage, and you can’t cage a dragon with AOE. They are immune to all of these effects and it has meh DPS from its abilities. How is this a Dragon hunter?

At least give us a few abilities that make sense to fight dragons. This just feels like it doesn’t know what it is supposed to be. It can’t fight a solo target well, it can’t fight a swarm well. using the abilities feels the same, 2&3 and 4&5 are redundantly feeling abilities that don’t affect combat enough in damage or status effects. I end up sitting there waiting for the long cooldown on my abilities just pressing 1 and seeing it do meh damage at a slow rate and trying to maintain distance from enemies despite having tanky stats because there aren’t any abilities to deal with close range combat. Nothing that makes me feel like a dragon hunter at all.

If this is the class you meant to make, I’d call it something else, if you intended to make a class specialization that could actually fight a dragon I feel its fallen woefully short of the theme. It needs a way to deal more concentrated dmg, or have effects that actually work on bosses. Then they need to look and feel the right size for fighting the dragons of tyria.

I look forward to seeing what you guys do with it.
What did other beta testers think about it today?

Some of the damage seemed a bit low. My only major complant is that you can’t move and use the 2 skill, it makes me feel like a sitting duck while i’m trying to fight competitively to have one of my lowest recharges make me stand still.

chaw.3916:

Some of the damage seemed a bit low. My only major complant is that you can’t move and use the 2 skill, it makes me feel like a sitting duck while i’m trying to fight competitively to have one of my lowest recharges make me stand still.

I’m fine with not moving while charging skill 2, but the skill needs to do higher damage than current . The skill is meant to be doing high damage with limitation, but the damage currently is just mediocre.

I agree that the name isn’t overly representative of what the specialization actually does. They are more Dragon – minion hunters. Not necessarily the Dragon itself, just all of the minions of said beast. I haven’t used Longbow at all yet, so I have no input there. I’m playing around with my specialization and current build for solo havoc/roaming in WvW (my primary playground).

I took the DH line just for the boosted Virtues and still GS/Sw/F for now, but will soon be trying it with GS/Ham. I find the virtues to be nice. They can be both offensive or defensive in nature. 1 is use on cooldown and stay in range, 2 can be offensive leap/heal/damage or retreat/heal or group support splash heal (~3500hp). 3 can be used to charge a ranged class without eating too much damage or can be used to buffer your health while waiting on a cooldown or support. I’m really enjoying the playstyles it provides and I really like the Judgement Light trap. revealed + 20 stacks of vuln on someone that’s speared and getting an extra 10% damage from spear is crazy, and i’m not even a bursty build.

I know it’s no major feat, but I used the maw elite and judgement trap and completely bursted down a dps Rev in seconds. Not bad for a 3200 Armor/20k health/2100 Atk Guard with mostly Celestial/Soldier gear.

I feel like we’d have to play with traits a bit more to get the most out of Dragon Hunter, but even then, it feels awful squishy.

Im running a pure condi build with mine and it actually wrecks stuff just don’t use all traps take like the spinning blades one. The 4 skill does a HUGE burn. I have a few nitpicky things with it like casting times ojn virtues and not being grounded for skill 2. The other traps are kinda Meh for what they do and need lower cooldowns or buffed to the point that they are more useful. Bow skill 5 also needs to fence in enemies IMMEDIATLY. among other things people have said. Personally I like the longbow the new virtues and the spinning blades trap with whirling wrath and purging flames is pretty good synergy. hopefully they will listen to us and touch it up more.

Ominous.7583:

Im running a pure condi build with mine and it actually wrecks stuff just don’t use all traps take like the spinning blades one. The 4 skill does a HUGE burn. I have a few nitpicky things with it like casting times ojn virtues and not being grounded for skill 2. The other traps are kinda Meh for what they do and need lower cooldowns or buffed to the point that they are more useful. Bow skill 5 also needs to fence in enemies IMMEDIATLY. among other things people have said. Personally I like the longbow the new virtues and the spinning blades trap with whirling wrath and purging flames is pretty good synergy. hopefully they will listen to us and touch it up more.

Which condi build are you using? Like what gear?

I’m okay with the traps – they make sense for keeping nearby minions off of you while you focus on the distant target. I’d generally want to go with Cleanse+Some Trap+Wall of Reflection, I think, probably with greatsword as my other weapon for when I can’t ignore the minions anymore.

The weapon, though, is way too focused on crippling groups of units.

The trait Zealot’s Aggression (+7% damage to crippled targets) seems like it would make an okay damage boost even for bosses who are functionally immune to cripple… except that the cripple on your auto-attack ONLY works if you hit two targets. So during a typical boss fight, you only get that +7% damage if you use your 5 or someone sets you up for it, because your cripple-happy traps are for the things you aren’t targeting with your bow.

There is, of course, making cripples apply to single targets anyway, by using Dulled Senses+Heavy Light… except now you’re reduced to Range 300 instead of 1200 and you’ve burned all three of your choices in the line to get +7% damage, and negating your +10% damage for being 600 away.

So, realistically, if you’re fighting a dragon, you’re only really reliably working with Burning and maybe Vulnerability*. Neither of which are boosted at all by your trait line.

On the plus side, burning is a big thing for the class, so there’s plenty of benefits to focusing on Burning. Just uh… avoid fire elementals forever.

*Obviously, in a world boss fight, chances are SOMEONE has applied every condition in the game… but less so with other types of boss fights.

We’ve seen it countless times in their videos: devs do not care about guardians. They do not play them. They look bored every time they talk about them. The specialization does not make sense. The name does not make sense. During their meeting they probably spent 2 minutes finding a “gimmick” for the guardian specialization and then moved on to the other classes.

I did not expect to even try dragonhunter, mostly due to the name. However, after seeing them in action, I made one and…. I kind of liked it…. It felt very ranger-y (NOT big-game-huntery; it would need a rifle for that). I happen to enjoy ranger so I guess it makes sense that I’d like this too, but I don’t think that it’s a good thing. I know they do different things, but they should feel much more different. And the name still makes no sense.

I was surprised that I actually like the DH, I just felt the bow could be a bit of faster firing.
And I think being able to throw traps ahead of you might work alot better.

Please “no” with the rooted skills. No way I am going to use LB if I have to stop dead every time I want to use it.

Zanshin.5379:

We’ve seen it countless times in their videos: devs do not care about guardians. They do not play them. They look bored every time they talk about them. The specialization does not make sense. The name does not make sense. During their meeting they probably spent 2 minutes finding a “gimmick” for the guardian specialization and then moved on to the other classes.

You’re just being a kitten. There is no feedback in this statement, nor is it based in any reality other than your temper tantrum.

As a (co-)main guardian, my disappointment in DH can be defined, and is based on the functionality and not that I have some delusional belief that the developer team has a disdain for a class.

I may not be the best fighter in this game, but one hard lesson learned is to never stand still. I can force myself to stand still for skill 2 (and I think it hits okay) but I don’t feel like I can really kite with the other skills. I’d rather keep my mobility up with a scepter/focus so there’s not much point in this new weapon imho.

warbignime.4610:

chaw.3916:

Some of the damage seemed a bit low. My only major complant is that you can’t move and use the 2 skill, it makes me feel like a sitting duck while i’m trying to fight competitively to have one of my lowest recharges make me stand still.

I’m fine with not moving while charging skill 2, but the skill needs to do higher damage than current . The skill is meant to be doing high damage with limitation, but the damage currently is just mediocre.

Ok, we have to compare this to ranger it is very similar. Ranger’s #2 lb skill does much more dmg, you are allowed to move while using it, and it is impossible to dodge the whole attack. DH’s skill does less dmg, you can’t move, and it is dodgeable because it fires only one arrow with a huge tell that it is being used.
On top of this, how many other ranged weapons are out there that have 2 skills that require you to stand still to use?

After playing it more, i have a few more complaints. On both Warrior and Ranger if you have something selected behind/beside your character and you try to attack it while inputting no controls (left, right, forward, backward) the character will turn and attack it. When on DH, if you have something behind/beside your character it tells you no line of sight, and does nothing, even if the selected thing is in clear view when you manually turn around. Also when you use Warrior’s #3 skill on lb behind you or beside you while running, it fires and lands. If you try this with the #3 or #4 skill on DH, it does the animation of it firing, but it doesn’t actually become airborne.

Guardians were never my favorite class due to their simplicity, but becoming a Dragonhunter actually improved things for me. The bow and new utilities gave me more to think about, and actually gave me something to place. Never really thought about it before, but guardians never really had much aoe, did they?

I’ll have to agree on the longbow #2. Standing still = death.

As far as the utilities go, though, love the animations! Visually, they’re really appealing. I had fun playing Dragonhunter. It was a nice change. Not as much fun as playing Chronomancer, Revenant, or Reaper, though, but I’m an off-tank. Consider me biased.

In my play DH is also fun to play.

Ok, we have to compare this to ranger it is very similar.

I don’t think we should compare DH to Ranger. They aren’t similar at all they both have LB and that’s the end of the similarities. Not even the traps works in the same way.

• I agree Puncture Shot is too slow. The only thing it needs just to reduce the cast time to 1/2 to be the right slow for the damage t does. The arrow seems ugly, Is it possible to change it to an small projectile of light?
• I think the mechanic of True Shot is spot on. Shot Cd high damage but you have to stay still for 2 secs. So it does not become an spawn attack to use mindlessly.
• Deflecting Shot is a difficult skill to use but i can see all the uses and it seems great. perfect defense against ranger RF or PBS. i wouldn’t change anything beause the slow speed is good to eat all the RF.
• Symbol of Energy is fantastic. the art also.
• Hunter’s Ward, i have mix feelings about this one. The warding should begin from the initial casting instead t the end because then most probably there is nobody waiting for the last effect.. the cripple could stay for those who escape.

The traps in general i see them fine, like you can lure your foes with the bow just to have the traps ready for them.

• Purification, i would change to be activated on our hp instead a foe. the trap pulses for 8 seconds 750 heal and if foe enter it get blinded and the rest of effects. the pulsing could be invisible to the foes, so they olny could see we are healing ourself really quick.

the other traps maybe lacks some damage. It is really low for the long CDs. To avoid the traps OP one hit and i go down just extend the pulses in time, so if the stay in range they’ll get reckt.

• Procession of Blades : x15 twice as much damage total. duration of the trap up to 1.5 of the actual.
• Light’s Judgement, 12 secs duration. damage x15, double the total damage.
• Test of Faith double the duration of the wall of blades, right now you can wait to go away with no actual effect in your game. i would apply bleeds or burning also to make more punishing to get across.
• Dragon’s Maw i simply don’t like it. don’t like the animation, seems unpolished compare to the other traps and the effects aren’t great neither.
  the pull effect has to have a larger area and affect more than one foe ideally up to 5. the animation i don’t like how poorly defined is the dragon head, looks like a chunk of stone or a big packman just ate the foe . more detailed dragon head would be welcome. I would change the barrier (i don’t know what it does thou) to 2 secs knockdown and 6 slow. the animation is head of a dragon that bites and pull the foes down as it drown again into the ground.

Here are the problems I see with DH.

1: Since the virtues are no long instant they cannot be used while casting another ability. (This is a big hit when it comes to survivability and ability to adapt to changing situations)

2: The AA is rather slow given the damage it does (its actually the same damage then the scepter at 3x the cast time. If it had a 1/2 second cast time and a bit more damage it would be perfect)

3: Deflecting Shot feels kinda meh. If it was a knock back in addition to stopping projectiles then it would be excellent. (it would also allow them to change the heavy light trait into something useful)

4: Piercing Light, this trait is very meh. If it caused all hits with the bow to also bleed then it would be worth using.

5: Zealot’s Aggression. Given the the guardian has very few ways to cripple foes & they require trait investment perhaps this would be better suited triggering off of enemies with vulnerability.

6: Soaring Devastation. Given you recently reduced the duration of the immobilize to 1 second perhaps you could add something more on to it (given the CD of the skill and the fact it effects such a small area perhaps it could daze enemies it hits)

7: Dulled Senses. There are only 2 ways to trigger this trait currently, one is with the shield & the other is via getting another trait. Please change it to be triggered by knock downs, knock backs, stuns, dazes, fears etc…

8: Heavy Light. Like I suggested in complain number 1, deflecting shot really should be a knock back. I say that because it would have more counter play & allow for the creating of another trait.
9: The low damage on traps. As is they need to be doing allot more damage before they could ever be considered worth using vs meditations or shouts.

10: Dragons Maw. The pull radius is extremely small & the fact it only effects one person is laughable. It should effect at least 3, if not 5.

11: Traps, & the amount of sustain you give up for damage that can easily be avoided.
Assuming complaint number 1 & 8 where addressed you could easily change the trait heavy light so that it reduced the CD of traps and caused them to do a 1 second immobilize when triggered.

The class felt fun to me, just kind of slow and clunky. I really wanted to try out Trapper Runes on the Guardian, but didn’t have a way to get a set to them in Beta.

The Dragonhunter is such a mixed bag. Like others have pointed out, nothing about it says “I hunt dragons,” nor do the new abilities feel particularly original – Rangers have had bows and traps since the beginning. It really does feel like like a blend of Guardian and Ranger more than something unique.

BUT… I did find the new stuff to be useful. I didn’t spend much time playing with traps, but what I did seemed helpful in some situations. I can easily imagine the trap that reveals stealth will be a huge bane to Thieves in PvP.

I also found the bow fit my play style a lot better for ranged combat than the staff ever did. It certainly gives Guardians some versatility they didn’t have before.

Overall, I liked playing with the new Dragonhunter stuff.

chaw.3916:

After playing it more, i have a few more complaints. On both Warrior and Ranger if you have something selected behind/beside your character and you try to attack it while inputting no controls (left, right, forward, backward) the character will turn and attack it. When on DH, if you have something behind/beside your character it tells you no line of sight, and does nothing, even if the selected thing is in clear view when you manually turn around. Also when you use Warrior’s #3 skill on lb behind you or beside you while running, it fires and lands. If you try this with the #3 or #4 skill on DH, it does the animation of it firing, but it doesn’t actually become airborne.

This. This is what bothered me the most about my time playing DH.

Zanshin.5379:

We’ve seen it countless times in their videos: devs do not care about guardians. They do not play them. They look bored every time they talk about them. The specialization does not make sense. The name does not make sense. During their meeting they probably spent 2 minutes finding a “gimmick” for the guardian specialization and then moved on to the other classes.

I see posts like this all the time in the ranger and warrior subforum…

…Does anet care about any profession?

Tregarde.6031:

The Dragonhunter is such a mixed bag. Like others have pointed out, nothing about it says “I hunt dragons,” nor do the new abilities feel particularly original – Rangers have had bows and traps since the beginning. It really does feel like like a blend of Guardian and Ranger more than something unique.

BUT… I did find the new stuff to be useful. I didn’t spend much time playing with traps, but what I did seemed helpful in some situations. I can easily imagine the trap that reveals stealth will be a huge bane to Thieves in PvP.

I also found the bow fit my play style a lot better for ranged combat than the staff ever did. It certainly gives Guardians some versatility they didn’t have before.

Overall, I liked playing with the new Dragonhunter stuff.

I found myself using the reveal trap in PvE just for the vulnerability. Spear of justice with Big Game Hunter is also good for vulnerability stacking.

While I enjoyed the gameplay of the dragon hunter, there are a few complaints I have about it.
-First, the synergy between traps and the longbow is severely lacking. Especially in the new map, you don’t have a lot of time to “set up” enemies. Especially ranged enemies with limited los breaks. If the traps were ground targeted, this might fix the synergy a bit.
- After playing with the traps for several hours, I ended up ditching most of them for my old skills, mainly purging flames, and sword of justice. There just isnt enough reason to carry the traps over the skills that provide significantly more utility.
-The virtues have very nice animations, and are very pretty, but the cds are way too long to lose the passive buffs on them. The leap is a 60 second cd, and you lose regen while its down, for a mediocre heal and a leap. The spear is nice, but its 8 seconds longer cd than the old justice virtue, and it doesn’t seem worth it. I never used the shield, so I cant really comment on that, but I feel like I dont want to use the active virtues cause the payoff isnt big enough to warrant me losing the passives.
-The longbow was fun, and I felt a lot more mobile than before (still looking for that passive speed boost btw), but the 2 skill as mentioned previously needs a bigger payoff to root me for 2 seconds. I felt like I was almost on par with my ranger AA wise, but the other skills need some tuning.
All in all, I think it was fun to play, but its not quite there. It feels kind of halfway ready…

honestly, i got completely bored w/ it after 30 minutes…..could be that i tried chronomancer and reaper first, but i see no reason to use this elite spec over normal guardian.

LB is worse than scepter/x in every way.

the traps are nice in pve melee, obviously, but overall are hard to justify taking over our other utilities.

i like shields of courage, but not a fan of the other two. wings of resolve would be nice with 900 range (traitable 1200). spear is bad. cast times are unnecessary.

didn’t really play around w/ traits, but there seems to be some decent dmg modifiers….so DH isn’t lacking for damage.

probably should have given it more time (same w/ tempest), but the other two specs were far more enjoyable.