Guild Wars 2

In a lot of matches I’m been playing the one thing that stands out are DH pretty much the deciding factor in winning whether they are on my team or not. In mid fights I’m seeing their traps and true shot downing 2 and sometimes 3 players on the opposing team. They are tanky as hell and dish out obscene damage. Some of their utility traps do more damage than the chrono elite gravity well which they are able to rotate at a good frequency. Why is this acceptable?

Vague Memory.2817:

In a lot of matches I’m been playing the one thing that stands out are DH pretty much the deciding factor in winning whether they are on my team or not. In mid fights I’m seeing their traps and true shot downing 2 and sometimes 3 players on the opposing team. They are tanky as hell and dish out obscene damage. Some of their utility traps do more damage than the chrono elite gravity well which they are able to rotate at a good frequency. Why is this acceptable?

Pretty much every single game where there were 3 DH on the opponent’s team, I have won easily.
Any DH is a lacking support class that can keep that very DH alive.

From my experience in general a DH seems to be the deciding factor. I think the difference between DHs are people who mained or played Guard before HoT and know the class, and people who are jumping on the band wagon thinking they can get some OPness. It is pretty easy to tell the difference. A decent DH in a bad team will still lose, but even in an average team they make a big difference.

The only competitively viable DH build runs 2 traps – 1 heal 1 damage trap, so this is the build I’ll talk about. Any build that runs more than 2 traps sacrifices too much defensive ability to be anything other than gimmicky one trick ponies. This build takes a lot of setting up to max out the damage – tt involves cc-ing you through the trap, and stability is a straight up hard counter. The trap border can be dodged across.

DH is extremely squishy once the F3 (and renewed focus) is blown. It’s a pure glass build after all. DH has 1 consistent source of condi cleanse on a huge cooldown. Baiting the cleanse then condi bursting will down the DH very fast. DH F2 heal/cleanse is very obvious and easy to predict/interrupt, unless they chain the F3 beforehand, after which they better start running because they’re completely out of defenses. Reapers, mallyx revs and druids are all very disadvantageous matchups for the DH since they can easily bait, condi burst then cc.

DH is hard countered by auramancers and have no where near enough damage to 1v1 them. Stick an auramancer in the middle of the team fight and a bad DH is liable to kill himself on stray reflect auras. Scrappers can out sustain DH, have high stealth uptime to avoid getting targeted by the bow, short cd blocks and reflects on the hammer, and a ton of ccs. DH vs DH is all about the mind games and getting the opponent to waste his defenses first.

DH has one source of stability on their F3 which is also their primary defensive ability, after which they can be stunlocked quite easily. Slickshoes in particular are very effective.

If you focus down the DH at the start of the fight, he won’t have time to pause and throw true shots out at you and will soon have to bail out of the fight. DH doesn’t want to be in melee range for too long, but needs to do so in order to put down traps, which is when the team should be focusing him so he can’t concentrate on pulling off the cc combo.

How easy DH’s are to beat on their own is not the issue. The problem is the amount of hate they can put down in a team fight. Power based traps were a bad idea…period.

harsh but true reality of traps/DH:

they literally only farm bads.

Lurock Turoth.9085:

How easy DH’s are to beat on their own is not the issue. The problem is the ammunition of hate they can put down in a team fight. Power based traps were a bad idea…period.

DH 1v1s against most meta builds are an uphill battle, and sticking traps in the middle of a team fight leaves the DH extremely vulnerable. A bit of focus fire will mean the DH can’t combo his trap and that halves his damage. Popping stability when you see the trap come up is also a good idea to prevent stray ccs from shoving you through it.

The other traps like procession of blades and dragon maw which put out more oomph in a team fight means the DH is losing out on vital defensive utilities. A DH running such a build shouldn’t even be a factor in team fights because he will melt so fast, or have no JI to teleport and trap combo people.

If your team has a DH, he should probably concentrate on neutralizing the enemy DH in team fights. Otherwise, take the initiative yourself, don’t tunnel vision in team fights, and immediately pressure the DH if he shows his face. If he focuses on you, he can’t focus on the team fight, and he probably wont get far in a 1v1 if you can dodge the true shots.

Darknicrofia.2604:

harsh but true reality of traps/DH:

they literally only farm bads.

This. Its all about triggering + avoiding the traps for a few seconds. After that its a relatively easy kill for pretty much any class.

Bad players struggle with it since they run in to traps and do nothing to avoid the damage

Darknicrofia.2604:

harsh but true reality of traps/DH:

they literally only farm bads.

There is an empty point that no one is guarding or you are leaving the exit of your base and bang after some badly done flashy graphics you are downed in about a 1 sec. Those situations do not distinguish between a good or bad player.

Vague Memory.2817:

Darknicrofia.2604:

harsh but true reality of traps/DH:

they literally only farm bads.

There is an empty point that no one is guarding or you are leaving the exit of your base and bang after some badly done flashy graphics you are downed in about a 1 sec. Those situations do not distinguish between a good or bad player.

You have a lot of time to react between the trap triggering and you getting trapped by dragon’s maw and eating the full procession of blades damage. Dodging sideways will get you out of most of the damage and isn’t even hard to do because this is an empty point and you should have full endurance. A good player shouldn’t ever get trapped.

In any case, any DH running such a build will have sacrificed all his defensive utilities and should be an extremely easy farm everywhere else for the rest of the game. Train him down and focus him in fights until he learns his lesson and stops playing such a terrible build.

Every time Anet manages to come (again ! dont you freaking leanr ?) with a massive abomination such as turret engi, perma bunk aoe spam ele, trap ranger, and now this utmost stupidity DH brings to the table, you’ll find some fish brains defending the concept saying it’s easy to beat.

Yea, it’s easy to beat, with certain specs.
It still ruins the whole combat mechanics, is stupid easy to play, brings way too much unpredictable punishment, and easily ruins any teamplay that isn’t voice chat synced.

Just stop thinking with your e-balls and admit it : it’s plain stupid, uninteresting, and does way too much for what it actually is.

It’s easy to beat with pretty much every current meta spec except thief. It IS stupid easy to play, but it’s equally easy to counter and punish. There is hardly anything unpredictable about traps unless you count the stupidity of the enemy. That’s why it sucks the higher up you go in MMR until you get to the ESL where it hardly sees any representation and is just barely viable.

Some skills should be toned down to raise the skill floor, but a straight nerf to traps would completely make the class unviable across the board. Anet needs to be careful with how they balance DH or it will be the next warrior.

I’ve written a couple paragraphs further up, actually read and discuss those points please.

Opc.4718:

Vague Memory.2817:

Darknicrofia.2604:

harsh but true reality of traps/DH:

they literally only farm bads.

There is an empty point that no one is guarding or you are leaving the exit of your base and bang after some badly done flashy graphics you are downed in about a 1 sec. Those situations do not distinguish between a good or bad player.

You have a lot of time to react between the trap triggering and you getting trapped by dragon’s maw and eating the full procession of blades damage. Dodging sideways will get you out of most of the damage and isn’t even hard to do because this is an empty point and you should have full endurance. A good player shouldn’t ever get trapped.

In any case, any DH running such a build will have sacrificed all his defensive utilities and should be an extremely easy farm everywhere else for the rest of the game. Train him down and focus him in fights until he learns his lesson and stops playing such a terrible build.

Define lots of time. Fraction of a sec?

Dolyakhunter strikes again i see

Vague Memory.2817:

Opc.4718:

Vague Memory.2817:

Darknicrofia.2604:

harsh but true reality of traps/DH:

they literally only farm bads.

There is an empty point that no one is guarding or you are leaving the exit of your base and bang after some badly done flashy graphics you are downed in about a 1 sec. Those situations do not distinguish between a good or bad player.

You have a lot of time to react between the trap triggering and you getting trapped by dragon’s maw and eating the full procession of blades damage. Dodging sideways will get you out of most of the damage and isn’t even hard to do because this is an empty point and you should have full endurance. A good player shouldn’t ever get trapped.

In any case, any DH running such a build will have sacrificed all his defensive utilities and should be an extremely easy farm everywhere else for the rest of the game. Train him down and focus him in fights until he learns his lesson and stops playing such a terrible build.

Define lots of time. Fraction of a sec?

Half a second before maw gets you, which is an eternity in gw2 combat. If you can’t react within that time, you gotta train up those reflexes. I mean you know there’s a possibility the traps are there, and those giant flashing lights are hard to miss. If I can do it on aussie internet with 350 ping, I’m sure the average player can as well.

It’s kinda like this:
http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime

Let’s not forget the second part of my post. Even if you die once, you know the DH has terrible survivability, and it’s basically a 4v5 from there on.

Opc.4718:

Vague Memory.2817:

Opc.4718:

Vague Memory.2817:

Darknicrofia.2604:

harsh but true reality of traps/DH:

they literally only farm bads.

There is an empty point that no one is guarding or you are leaving the exit of your base and bang after some badly done flashy graphics you are downed in about a 1 sec. Those situations do not distinguish between a good or bad player.

You have a lot of time to react between the trap triggering and you getting trapped by dragon’s maw and eating the full procession of blades damage. Dodging sideways will get you out of most of the damage and isn’t even hard to do because this is an empty point and you should have full endurance. A good player shouldn’t ever get trapped.

In any case, any DH running such a build will have sacrificed all his defensive utilities and should be an extremely easy farm everywhere else for the rest of the game. Train him down and focus him in fights until he learns his lesson and stops playing such a terrible build.

Define lots of time. Fraction of a sec?

Half a second before maw gets you, which is an eternity in gw2 combat. If you can’t react within that time, you gotta train up those reflexes.

Surely you jest? In the scenarios I painted is that really feasible or even acceptable gameplay.

An empty point with no one guarding…yeah. Half a second is a really long time. My benchmark reaction speed is just above 220ms, and it can hardly be that different in game with a similar scenario like reacting to flashing lights with not much other distraction around.

And even if you’re trapped, pop some blocks or evades or invulns or whatever. Almost every class has access to some these days.

Also, I’m not defending DH just because I play one. I play a lot of classes, and on all of them including DH, enemy DHs are the easiest kills for me. ESPECIALLY ones that run 4-5 traps and do dumb stuff like stick all their traps in one spot. I don’t want to see a nerf that makes the class completely unviable like warrior.

DH needs adjustments to raise the skill floor, but it doesn’t need nerfs that kill it at higher levels of play.

How to avoid instadeath from traps —-——> stun break, dodge

Any competent team (which might be a problem for you if you just soloq) knows that a DH is among one of the priority targets you burst down first, because:

1. They lack sufficient sustain to survive a burst.
2. You want to avoid them dumping traps on a downed body and cleaving anybody who gets near, unless you’re a reaper.

A DH is only ever a problem for low skills players who aren’t yet used to paying close to attention to character cues and reacting accordingly.

1v1 i have no trouble with DH

in a teamfight, simply add any second player to that DH that can help secure a cc chain on 2-3 players and you’re done. trap stack and death.

High end play you’ll find that Viper Revenants are the deciding factor.

I see a lot of honest, detailed feedback here on the state of DH from Opc and others, and I appreciate your time and experience that you are sharing here. But the simple fact is that DH trapper is a garbage, low skill class that remains effective against a majority of players. That is why you see so many DHs. If it didn’t work against a majority of players, the DH players would pick something else to play. If you want to call the majority of players “bad,” that’s fine with me. It’s just a matter of semantics and I’ve never considered myself more than an average PvP player at best anyway.

Sure, at higher levels of competitive gameplay you may see fewer DHs because the really good players (playing really good HoT meta builds) can more easily counter it. But for the majority of us that are poor-to average-to slightly good players, DH remains a garbage, low skill class that is effective.

The reason you don’t want Dh traps nerfed, presumably, is that the rest of the class doesn’t have much to offer. The answer of course is to balance the rest of the class to make it more viable while nerfing the traps to make them effective but reasonable. Since Anet probably rushed HoT at the end, the had no time to properly balance the class and decided to make traps ridiculous to make the class viable at all.

Nova Stiker.8396:

High end play you’ll find that Viper Revenants are the deciding factor.

From what I’ve been experiencing up to Sapphire, the key classes to push a win are often Condi rev, support tempest, and bunker mesmer.
Well played scrapper can have a really big impact too and often get the most damage in a game out of anyone.

Dragonhunters doesn’t do anything against those 4 classes really.

Opc.4718:

It’s easy to beat with pretty much every current meta spec

Except, every Meta spec feel’s like crap to play. This has to be the least fun Meta in GW2 history.

My own experiences also seem to indicate that, at least as far as pug games go, indeed most of them are decided primarily by the presence and number of DHs on each team. I don’t know if this holds for more than 2, but being without a DH on your pug team is usually a strong indicator of being on the losing team if the other team has one.

Similarly, while having 1 is nice, if the other team has 2 you’re usually in the same boat.

In fact some of the most fun pug matches you can have right now are those with no DH present on either team…no doubt, very far and few between! It’s the quintessential FoTM right now and this was clear during the final BWEs and post patch, and Anet has been completely inept in balancing this ridiculous class in a timely manner. (Whilst other less popular glasses got some of their new stuff gutted before it ever went into the hands of the general population to test! Or very very shortly after.)

DH isn’t even close to being balanced right now, and needs some pretty significant nerfs to traps, and it’s whole risk:reward balance. (Cry’s of L2P have never helped any previous OPd profession avoid a nerf bat, and neither will DHs…eventually when HoT settles in a bit more.)

It’s really quite a bad showing for Anets balancing that having -or not having- a Guardian on your team really has always been the most significant impact on your team’s success out of any of the professions.

Hopefully, Anet doesn’t listen to any of these posts asking for a nerf to DH, otherwise, guardians can say goodbye to ever seeing a pro league team again.

Hope warriors like company.

Yesterday I fought against a team of 3 Tempests and 2 DHs. I just Alt+F4’d a few minutes it when it was like 300-0 because it’s impossible to kills something with that team combo.

Paulash.5814:

How to avoid instadeath from traps —-——> stun break, dodge

Stunbreak, dodge => get KD again by invisible traps

A DH alone isn’t a problem at all, they can be annoying. But give him a chrono or tempest elem, and see they winning the TF’s or giving you real hardtimes.

What I hate the most is => getting wombo-combo-d by a chrono ult+DH’s invisible traps… + the daze every 0.1s. Yeah

On my Rev current build, I don’t have any stab.. so I would really be glad if I could see the “Dragon’s Maw” limit zones… and if it would be little bigger so it let’s little counter play and allows me to dodge inside the cercle/barrier.

Much like in every game there is always a noob-killer class. I say this as a non-DH class but a game with lots of DH are not going to win against competent classes. Sure you could nerf them so that newer players find it easier but then they will be less viable in higher tiers.
Look at what has happened to thieves, their job was single target burst which has been nerfed since newer players couldnt/didnt want to learn to react to a thief or prepare for one, they were toned down to be easier for newer players but now their viability has gone. (also saying this as a non-thief player)
Even games like LoL, new players will get destroyed by characters like Katarina but she is completely unviable at higher level games

Vague Memory.2817:

From my experience in general a DH seems to be the deciding factor. I think the difference between DHs are people who mained or played Guard before HoT and know the class, and people who are jumping on the band wagon thinking they can get some OPness. It is pretty easy to tell the difference. A decent DH in a bad team will still lose, but even in an average team they make a big difference.

Don’t forget about people who know how to play the game, don’t like guard, never did, and just want the 5 wins.

There are lots of DHs that aren’t very good but still have a strong presence due to how powerful the build is; but DH + good player is really strong. That aoe burst combined with a lot of hard defences, lots of stability, lots of CC, good heals, and reasonable mobility is just magnificent.

Honestly, if you think DH are a problem you are kittened when you get to Revs…
Walking into traps or not anticipating them is a you problem

The problem with DH isn’t the damage, it’s the daze on traps trait combined with the elite trap pretty much holding you in place for 5 seconds, knocking you down constantly if you even try to move an inch.

CC in this game needs toning down, a LOT.

As someone else has mentioned, a Chrono + DH can pretty much keep you stunlocked indefinitely, and it’s kittening stupid.

Well, I’m convinced.

I’m going to go make a DH right now! Thanks gang!

naphack.9346:

Vague Memory.2817:

In a lot of matches I’m been playing the one thing that stands out are DH pretty much the deciding factor in winning whether they are on my team or not. In mid fights I’m seeing their traps and true shot downing 2 and sometimes 3 players on the opposing team. They are tanky as hell and dish out obscene damage. Some of their utility traps do more damage than the chrono elite gravity well which they are able to rotate at a good frequency. Why is this acceptable?

Pretty much every single game where there were 3 DH on the opponent’s team, I have won easily.
Any DH is a lacking support class that can keep that very DH alive.

Even two Dragon Hunters is pushing it in pre-made vs. pre-made fights… and some of the easiest fights I’ve had were against people who stacked four Dragon Hunters.

It’s a tricky situation though, because outside of the traps, DH’s are literal trash, they’re garbage, insanely easy to kill.

They’re DPS monsters but once they’ve exhausted their traps, they’re useless, so if traps get nerfed (Which they should) changes need to be made elsewhere, true shot needs it base damage reduced too, hits way too hard.

I really don’t agree with trap damage getting nerfed since that’s the only thing keeping DH viable at higher levels of play. If traps were made so that cooldowns didn’t start counting down until the traps were triggered for example, that would be a better way to raise the skill floor and stop the trap spam nonsense on an empty point.

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

The problem with DH isn’t the damage, it’s the daze on traps trait combined with the elite trap pretty much holding you in place for 5 seconds, knocking you down constantly if you even try to move an inch.

CC in this game needs toning down, a LOT.

As someone else has mentioned, a Chrono + DH can pretty much keep you stunlocked indefinitely, and it’s kittening stupid.

I’m learning to accept that in any given game, I’ll be flying around the point like a ragdoll for a good 60 seconds of match time. I’m figuring out that this game’s CC is a lot like having diabetes! You can’t really get rid of it, all you can do is try to manage it.

I must agree that Guardians playing ping pong with people with extremely EXCESSIVE CC and extremely fast damage is disturbing the fun of the league, and the time I am using to play it. I am not even discussing they are heavy armor tanks with perma stability.

I don’t get what exactly was ArenaNet thinking adding that skills/traits to game, I play PvP for enjoying as fair as possible fights, specially the 1vs1.

This is NOT about balance, it’s just about enjoying PvP. It’s normal if a MMO has unbalance, but this is exaggerated and anti fun.

Note: I am talking about good players using this build, I read some people say it’s easy to manage? it’s always easy to manage bad players, whatever the build, and a LOT of bad players use this build because is basically an EXPLOIT.

Only issue I see with DH is true shot’s damage for its low cd and complete lack of setup needed and the unblockable dazes from traps and such. Make the dazes blockable, nerf true shots damage by 15-20% and fix the invis wall bug and DH will be probably the most balanced elite spec.

After playing against DH’s for awhile now. Trap’s I don’t have much issue with besides the elite one being over the top in my opinion (the duration you are stuck standing still if you don’t have a counter play up is far too long its basically insta win vs thief with no SS up for example).

After playing ON my DH for the obligatory 5 achiev wins. True shot is silly as f, that is all.

Revs and bunkers are deciding the games right now, DH is secondary concern.

gavyne.6847:

Revs and bunkers are deciding the games right now, DH is secondary concern.

Well, revenants (if the player know how to play) are extremely annoying, being almost unkillable, full of buffs, and with big damage plus conditions. Obviouslly overpowered, I suppose to promote the buy of HoT expansion (aka: Pay to Win). In some months that class will be nerfed to hell.

my very first toon was a guard and i played DH when it first came out and i can safely say in my experience its great for farming trash tier players. Any halfway decent player or a team with even basic coordination and composition can totally negate a DH.

As one poster said above full trap Dh are gimmick builds. The Medi trapper build is much better and generally only uses heal trap and one damage trap. So when fighting those you;re not gonna see 5 traps on you.

Most DH don’t use traveller runes and can be out rotated in a team match like conquest. Minions and ranger pets can trigger traps and leave a full trap Dh completely vulnerable.

DH is far from broken. I’d say it’s one of the better balanced elite specs however it’s boring as heck to play. Would be nice if it was less trap-reliant. I would love a slight nerf to traps as long as we get something else in return. Make some other DH builds viable please. I can’t remember the last time I saw something besides DH trap or burn guard. Yawn.

Revenants are the REAL problem. Insane AoE condi burst on (pretty much) zero cooldown. 5 Heals (2 legend heals + shield block + auto shield block trait + shield 4), short cd invincibility with UA, quickness, resistance, boon ripping, almost-guaranteed rez of downed players, zero cd dodge that refills endurance, the list goes on. And nothing about them is gimmicky like DH traps.

I can’t believe anyone is complaining about DH. Have you even been playing this game? DH is the least of our problems. BunkerWars2 is the problem. Viper Rev being the most broken spec since beta is the problem.

Zero acknowledgement from ArenaNet that we’ll see a good balance patch soon. Very disappointing.

only thing that DH isnt op in is his mobility
DPS is insade
Blocks are insane
Traps are insane
CC IS SO F INSANE that is hurts my brain to even think how much CC they can dish out

DH’s traps are ridiculously strong, especially with zerkers. The other traps like ranger’s and thiefs are mostly utility and condition, meanwhile DH’s are burst.
Please nerf the damage its totally BS to walk into them and instant down.

Yes I am being salty and QQ-ing, but its facts that I am crying about.

Seems like most of the people in here are QQing about DHs that wiped them in solo queue or hotjoins. Zerker amulet ^ ? Are you serious?

This is not competitive PvP. In coordinated team based play, DH are severely lacking. They are fun for wiping scrubs that are dumb enough to stack up and eat traps, that’s about it.

Top ESL teams have almost no interest in Dragonhunters. They’re running two revenants.

Chip Skylark.2367:

Seems like most of the people in here are QQing about DHs that wiped them in solo queue or hotjoins. Zerker amulet ^ ? Are you serious?

This is not competitive PvP. In coordinated team based play, DH are severely lacking. They are fun for wiping scrubs that are dumb enough to stack up and eat traps, that’s about it.

Top ESL teams have almost no interest in Dragonhunters. They’re running two revenants.

Dude, this thread is about how most people find the traps. Its call general feedbacks, leave your “revenant is more OP” to the revenant section? Why are you even bringing revenant up in here.