Guild Wars 2

Kuya.6495:

The counter to DH, particularly medi trapper is power rev.

i would like to mention warrior counters dh fairly well also. if you play around the traps and blocks and his team doesnt outnumber you. ill wreck a single dh all day on my power warrior. as ive always agreed stacking is the issue. moreso with gaurdian than any other class atm

sophiewhite.3149:

Kuya.6495:

The counter to DH, particularly medi trapper is power rev.

i would like to mention warrior counters dh fairly well also. if you play around the traps and blocks and his team doesnt outnumber you. ill wreck a single dh all day on my power warrior. as ive always agreed stacking is the issue. moreso with gaurdian than any other class atm

if you fight long enough that his team come to help or if you didnt manage to decap his point than you are not counter his build

pu mesmer can counter all build mostly but it will take him one day to kill someone….

Guards are at an unfair advantage this S4.

Matchmaking isn’t smart enough to allocate the surplus of would-be-Ele-players turned Guardian. I’ve seen 100% soloQ Guards stacked on the same team cause matchmaking had a brain fart.

If there was a single DH per team, the threads would be a lot different. In the upper tiers, Guards really only need a minor shave among other class specific nerfs (looks at Ranger & Rev) while in the lower tiers, we’re having obvious extremes that’s not seen in the pro leagues.

Then again, Anet are going by this chart:
Rev, Engi, Ranger > DH
DH > War, Necro, Mesmer

War, Necro, Mesmer, > Rev, Ranger (typically)
Ele/thief are meh atm.

Ele/Thief don’t really fit in any rock, paper, scissors combo. Thief is the Wild card that sometimes work and Ele are Jokers.

Basically this sum doesn´t look bad for me. It´s the right direction. But this system is very sensible. Currently it needs the joker (ele) to have more diversity to be a real joker and counter to DH. the this could work. Don´t know what tweak a thief needs to have some special spot that is a bit more then being a wildcard.

Wolfric.9380:

Basically this sum doesn´t look bad for me. It´s the right direction. But this system is very sensible. Currently it needs the joker (ele) to have more diversity to be a real joker and counter to DH. the this could work. Don´t know what tweak a thief needs to have some special spot that is a bit more then being a wildcard.

Ele is a very good counter to DH though… Menders, Stone Heart combined with Tempest 40% protection and Aura heals with Magnetic Aura / Frost aura spam. Ele also has access to Weakness which further decreases over all output of DH.

D/D build, I’m bad though and play with baddies so it works for me well.

I know. I main ele and mayby this is why i don´t feel DH so strong… If i see a bunch druids and DH on the oposing team i swap flash freeze with aftershock and give them a kick. Unfortunately many of my team tend to melt on the point ….

both, rev and druid should beat necro/reaper in 1v1. Rev needs to watch out to not tank too many skills, but druid beats reaper even if he tanks pretty much everything. All you have to do is use your avatar cleanse properly and kite. Assuming meta builds, druid is pretty much the hardest reaper counter.

Why are so many guards playing pvp, cause in this season guardian is finally viable so every guardian main is trying it. After 4 years we actually have a decent build for pvp. End of story.

messiah.1908:

the problem with some classes and build is that they dont have a unique counter

mesmer counter rev
thief counter mes
thief counter rev
guard counter thief
etc…

dh has no unique counter same as druid most fight if they want is stalemate fights
engi used to be stalemate due to its passiveness traits.
ele used to be stalemate and now it balance (but have no other builds to play with)

now if there was a counter to DH you would see ppl changing to it when they face one or four

this is the problem

Power Rev can kill a DH. Also current overtuned Druid can kill DH especially meditrapper. Druid uses pet to trigger the traps and then DH has lost a lot of its burst.

Also despite the nerf, scrapper in a team fight destroys DH. Use Elixir Gun 5 and 4 to give AOE retaliation to your team. Then when you see the DH drop his Procession of blades (yes a lot of DH in lower tiers use Test of faith and Procession of blades), the team wide retaliation kills the DH instantly.

Since were on the topic of counters, I’ll go over what I’ve found.

To echo other people, yes power rev works. The multi hit skills and glint heal allow you to smack around guards.

Druid is good if your using staff and properly using pets to destroy the traps. Honestly if and when druids sustained is toned down, I think druid will be moved to a place where many of the other classes are with guard/dh atm, they can contest a guard, it will result in a stalemate.

The only other hard counter works against lower skilled players and that’s power reaper. Unblockable marks, well of suffering and nothing can save you don’t really allow guardians to play with their defenses. Instead you bypass them.

The only nerf need to get DH inline:

1- Heal trap (other trap should have cast time too, they did this to scrapper gyro, why not DH OP traps?) should have a cast time to get interrupted like all other classes.

2- Cooldown should start when the trap is triggered, not when it’s put on floor… because that give 2x traps when a DH hold a point.

Purification has a cast time.

Jourdelune.7456:

The only nerf need to get DH inline:

1- Heal trap (other trap should have cast time too, they did this to scrapper gyro, why not DH OP traps?) should have a cast time to get interrupted like all other classes.

2- Cooldown should start when the trap is triggered, not when it’s put on floor… because that give 2x traps when a DH hold a point.

We went over this before . If you start cooldown after trap is triggered this can completely destroy DH in other game modes where he drops a trap that never gets triggered. So you would need to also include a timer that after say 2 min the trap disappears.

I have an alternate suggestion. Have a second CD timer for traps.

Example

1, DH drops Test of Faith trap on point. He waits and his trap comes off CD. Enemy steps on trap and triggers it. His Test of Faith immediately goes on a 10 sec CD timer so he cant drop it instantly again.

Example 2
2 DH drops test of faith on point. His CD is ticking slowly but still with 20 sec to go it gets triggered. Since 20s is more than 10s the other timer does not need to happen.

This way regardless of scenario a DH cannot ever use the same trap twice without at least 10 sec between triggers.

Another nerf would be to say that a DH trap uses his “virtuous energy” and as such requires that he remains within a certain range. lets say 1200 or 2400 units. If A DH drops a trap on home point and the runs to Mid his trap will disappear once he moves a certain distance away.

I believe this will help with the trap spamming we see in lower tiers without completely destroying DH.

FYI I play DH, Rev, Scrapper and War in pvp.

Ragnarox.9601:

Why are so many guards playing pvp, cause in this season guardian is finally viable so every guardian main is trying it. After 4 years we actually have a decent build for pvp. End of story.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA you must be new to this game. 4 years… ahhaahhahahahahahahahaahahahhahahaahhaaaa.

Shall i remind you on medi guards, on bunker guards (with various weapon sets), burn guards, trapper guards in s1-s2? Guards were always in decent/good spot. They were used in ESL/WTS tourneys in the past years. They weren’t even THAT bad in s3 (other classes/builds were just bit better), at least nowhere as bad as thieves/wars in s1 for example. I haven’t seen a single DH being trashtalked by team in s3, i myself however got told to go kill myself (and worse things) just for playing thief before match even started for 4 seasons now (season 1 was the worst).

So many people play guards atm because it is braindead(the only difference to turret engi is that you actually need to press buttons more frequently), it is low risk/high reward. Lot of people got carried to higher divisions by the build alone (you can tell someone is total garbage by their rotations/map/fight awareness). People i did duoq with would switch to guards when matches got rough because it is easiest thing to be effective and win match with. Not to mention most classes got nerfed last patch (even thieves, honestly WTH ANET) while guards got buffed across the board when they weren’t that bad on first place.

This game’s pvp is all about holding points – aoe spam (instant!!!), high uptime on heals, blocks/stab/cc is all you need.

Yeah, traps may be (arguably) by itself not so broken, yes virtrues by itself may be not so broken, blocks etc. but combination together is just too much allows people to drool their way through divisions w/o actually learning how to properly play. The fact that i solo’ed some DHs in late diamond/legend on a thief says it all (those players belong to sapphire tops).

“Guardian main” hahahahahahahahaha, more like bandwagon potatoes.

The main issue with the game is the disappearance of build variety.

Anet can well nerf DH (which they’ll probably do since they mostly react to forum complaints) it will not create more variety; 75% of the elementalist traits will still be useless and the class will still be forced to bunker up just to do something useful.

The “new” trait system was a failure in the fact that all it did was limit most of the possibilities while making a few new ones completely overpowered.

The game was balanced around getting extra stats from trait lines, specially in the case of a celestial class like the elementalist (which is why the class is so broken right now):
At launch the class could use a berserker amulet, but with traits in water get extra healing and vitality. You could have points in all 5 lines. The condi duration buff from the fire trait lines made condi/power hybrid builds possible; I had an amazing unique build using that which was destroyed with the new system.

Anet should understand that people expect class balance (we shouldn’t have to ask for that), but what we really need is some build variety back. They need to stop tweaking numbers, it’s the trait system that is flawed. Then once the have variety back at the core of the system they can start by looking at all the skills that are useless and those which have unreasonable animation time, like Dragon tooth.

Then for god’s sake stop buffing unskillful gameplay and buff complex combo chains.

Xillllix.3485:

If the Meta was balanced there would be some build variety.
It’s far from balanced in my opinion, it’s the contrary, the worse meta in a long time.

The game was balanced for a few weeks when they nerfed turrets engi, before they came up with the new trait system and ruined everything.

Back them I had 4-5 builds that were unique and completely viable. None of these builds are possible today.

Turret engi was not playable against anything other than scrubs. It did not unbalance the meta, if by meta you mean the actual high level play meta. It was easy to play but capped out once opponent skill level got to a certain point.

Ele and necro need love.

Xillllix.3485:

the class will still be forced to bunker up just to do something useful

This is an inherent problem with Conquest as a game mode. To win Conquest, you need to hold two capture points for longer than your opponents can hold two capture points. To hold a capture point, you need to stand in it longer than your opponents. To stand in a capture point, you need to have a bunker build. This is why the strongest PvP builds have always been bunker builds. This is why the strongest PvP builds always will be bunker builds.

Mobility builds and burst builds and sustained damage builds only come into meta if they’re strong enough to kill bunkers. And when they’re strong enough to kill bunkers, they’re so insanely deadly that they melt non-bunkers with little counter-play, so they inevitably get nerfed. And the cycle repeats until the only builds that are viable are bunkers.

Even if ANet plays whack-a-mole with the bunker of the month, this pattern won’t change. Because it’s baked into the game mode. The only thing that could possibly save us from the eternal bunker meta is a new game mode. But ANet can’t get anybody to play a new mode now, because the die hard PvP players are too addicted to the current meta and the idea of change scares them, while everybody else has already been driven away from the boring, frustrating bunker meta.

tobascodagama.2961:

Xillllix.3485:

the class will still be forced to bunker up just to do something useful

This is an inherent problem with Conquest as a game mode. To win Conquest, you need to hold two capture points for longer than your opponents can hold two capture points. To hold a capture point, you need to stand in it longer than your opponents. To stand in a capture point, you need to have a bunker build. This is why the strongest PvP builds have always been bunker builds. This is why the strongest PvP builds always will be bunker builds.

Mobility builds and burst builds and sustained damage builds only come into meta if they’re strong enough to kill bunkers. And when they’re strong enough to kill bunkers, they’re so insanely deadly that they melt non-bunkers with little counter-play, so they inevitably get nerfed. And the cycle repeats until the only builds that are viable are bunkers.

Even if ANet plays whack-a-mole with the bunker of the month, this pattern won’t change. Because it’s baked into the game mode. The only thing that could possibly save us from the eternal bunker meta is a new game mode. But ANet can’t get anybody to play a new mode now, because the die hard PvP players are too addicted to the current meta and the idea of change scares them, while everybody else has already been driven away from the boring, frustrating bunker meta.

This is in large part right, and Stronghold has the same flaw. Bunk up and heal the npcs and you’re almost certain to win.

However even without that aspect build variety is extremely low. Too many skills/traits are useless, too many skills/traits have a huge advantage over others. The amulet system doesn’t work as well for every class. The 3 trait lines instead of 5 and the removal of stats associated with them reduced variety.

Same with many nerf and buffs, they didn’t help at all, most of the time they just completly removed the skills by making them completely useless (Ice Bow, Turrets, Wash the Pain Away, etc).

Everybody talking about DH all all his blocks and traps…
- Remove his traps and what is left?
- About blocks, meditation can block everything, except conditions already applied (and trust me, is a real problem). If you dodge/use a skill/change weapon you waste meditation and need to wait for cooldown.
- F2 can be interrupted and goes to waste.
- F3 can can only block what is in front of you, gives you stability at cost of one trait.
- When you waste all your skills you are a sitting duck.

Now look at ranger for example, a monkey can troll anyone with the right build.
- Conditions can hurt more than some necros.
- Ranger heals pet, pet revives ranger, ranger heals himself, ranger heals allies, pet revives allies, ranger hides in shadows while pet kills you, ranger change focus to pet.

Only problem with DH as someone said is class stack, and is you fault for saying DH is OP. Now everyone is a DH.

Little WTS update: warriors kicked from meta, DH forgotten, most teams with ele lose…and yea…I am sorry for thiefs ;/

so again WHY SOMEBODY WRITES WE HAVE BALANCED META WHEN WE GOT ONLY 5 OPTYMAL BUILDS + ANET TRAP JOKE.

Kaburro.4712:

Everybody talking about DH all all his blocks and traps…
- Remove his traps and what is left?
- About blocks, meditation can block everything, except conditions already applied (and trust me, is a real problem). If you dodge/use a skill/change weapon you waste meditation and need to wait for cooldown.
- F2 can be interrupted and goes to waste.
- F3 can can only block what is in front of you, gives you stability at cost of one trait.
- When you waste all your skills you are a sitting duck.

(…).

Just a small correction:

Meditations dont block, they heal and one remove condi, RF is the only that will give player invunerability wich is not block and aplyed condition with still tick, and thus not trigger the traits that use block situations, has in remove condition or increase healling power.

bump
/15 characters

Alehin.3746:

Nerf the traps size instead of nerfing blocks.

Now that is likely a good idea. Traps that are almost the size of points are a bit too good.

Astralporing.1957:

Alehin.3746:

Nerf the traps size instead of nerfing blocks.

Now that is likely a good idea. Traps that are almost the size of points are a bit too good.

yup or on the new maps way bigger than the points.

So here’s a question:

If the meta is balanced except for Dragonhunters and yet Power Berserker, Druid, Scrapper, Power Revenant, P/P Thief and Tempest and Chronomancer (the good ones) can counter Dragonhunter, where does that leave the meta exactly?

azyume.6321:

So here’s a question:

If the meta is balanced except for Dragonhunters and yet Power Berserker, Druid, Scrapper, Power Revenant, P/P Thief and Tempest and Chronomancer (the good ones) can counter Dragonhunter, where does that leave the meta exactly?

pp thief = lootbag, good try tho

Cynz.9437:

azyume.6321:

So here’s a question:

If the meta is balanced except for Dragonhunters and yet Power Berserker, Druid, Scrapper, Power Revenant, P/P Thief and Tempest and Chronomancer (the good ones) can counter Dragonhunter, where does that leave the meta exactly?

pp thief = lootbag, good try tho

Thanks for not answering a genuine question and to add to your reply: and so it is the tempest in overall. Perhaps the meta isn’t exactly balanced as people claim?

:-). Maybe P/P thief is in a bad spot but you can build it to kill a meditrapper ….

azyume.6321:

So here’s a question:

If the meta is balanced except for Dragonhunters and yet Power Berserker, Druid, Scrapper, Power Revenant, P/P Thief and Tempest and Chronomancer (the good ones) can counter Dragonhunter, where does that leave the meta exactly?

People don’t like fighting against 3 or 4 DH trap builds, so they must be OP… Even though they have so many classes can counter them…

While i agree that it’s frustrating to get downed walking onto an empty point with 6 traps on it, it’s just as frustrating for your whole team to get nuked by a necro that is ranging into a team fight or insta-gibbed by a thief at some random spot on the map or stun locked to death by a warrior or watch mini-me engi negate the last bit of your burst passively.

There is counterplay, if the other team has 4 DH just assume that a freecap on mid will be stacked with traps. It’s not that hard to negate DH trap damage – Dodge, block, invuln… If you are rev, traps are a great way to get a full heal from Facet of Light.

You can make arguments that it’s the symbols or the blocks or blah, blah, blah not just the traps. But it’s just BS. Every profession has some skills that are frustrating to play against, just react properly and you’ll be fine.

Astralporing.1957:

Alehin.3746:

Nerf the traps size instead of nerfing blocks.

Now that is likely a good idea. Traps that are almost the size of points are a bit too good.

Just a thought- If the trap size of Test of Faith was smaller couldn’t it do more damage if you are trying to stay on point?

R O C.6574:

azyume.6321:

So here’s a question:

If the meta is balanced except for Dragonhunters and yet Power Berserker, Druid, Scrapper, Power Revenant, P/P Thief and Tempest and Chronomancer (the good ones) can counter Dragonhunter, where does that leave the meta exactly?

People don’t like fighting against 3 or 4 DH trap builds, so they must be OP… Even though they have so many classes can counter them…

While i agree that it’s frustrating to get downed walking onto an empty point with 6 traps on it, it’s just as frustrating for your whole team to get nuked by a necro that is ranging into a team fight or insta-gibbed by a thief at some random spot on the map or stun locked to death by a warrior or watch mini-me engi negate the last bit of your burst passively.

There is counterplay, if the other team has 4 DH just assume that a freecap on mid will be stacked with traps. It’s not that hard to negate DH trap damage – Dodge, block, invuln… If you are rev, traps are a great way to get a full heal from Facet of Light.

You can make arguments that it’s the symbols or the blocks or blah, blah, blah not just the traps. But it’s just BS. Every profession has some skills that are frustrating to play against, just react properly and you’ll be fine.

Yeah except to play thief properly you need months/years of experience. To be as effective if not more on DH atm requires like 5 games.

Cynz.9437:

R O C.6574:

azyume.6321:

So here’s a question:

If the meta is balanced except for Dragonhunters and yet Power Berserker, Druid, Scrapper, Power Revenant, P/P Thief and Tempest and Chronomancer (the good ones) can counter Dragonhunter, where does that leave the meta exactly?

People don’t like fighting against 3 or 4 DH trap builds, so they must be OP… Even though they have so many classes can counter them…

While i agree that it’s frustrating to get downed walking onto an empty point with 6 traps on it, it’s just as frustrating for your whole team to get nuked by a necro that is ranging into a team fight or insta-gibbed by a thief at some random spot on the map or stun locked to death by a warrior or watch mini-me engi negate the last bit of your burst passively.

There is counterplay, if the other team has 4 DH just assume that a freecap on mid will be stacked with traps. It’s not that hard to negate DH trap damage – Dodge, block, invuln… If you are rev, traps are a great way to get a full heal from Facet of Light.

You can make arguments that it’s the symbols or the blocks or blah, blah, blah not just the traps. But it’s just BS. Every profession has some skills that are frustrating to play against, just react properly and you’ll be fine.

Yeah except to play thief properly you need months/years of experience. To be as effective if not more on DH atm requires like 5 games.

While I agree that DH has probably the lowest skill floor (someone has to have it), a good thief is by FAR more effective. And honestly this is true of most classes compared to thief.

I do feel your pain, traps on an empty point are a kitten for thief

As has been mentioned before, there are hardly any guards in the ESL championships. All players need is to have ESL level skill and they’ll have no problem dealing with guards. No balance needed just l2p issue.

Solstace.2514:

As has been mentioned before…
…No balance needed just l2p issue.

Yup