Guild Wars 2

(I realize with a patch about to hit, this may be irrelevant, but I thought of it a while back and figure it may still be worth discussing.)

Long Version: I’m not one of those people that’s going to complain that DH is a world-beater, but I will say that DH is fairly strong right now. As we’ve seen in the past, a profession flourishes in part when its counters are on the wane (e.g. mes when thief was in the tank). One of the counters — not a hard counter but a definite advantage-disadvantage case — for DH was power rev. Rev started out way too strong and received some needed nerfs, but these coupled with DH buffs have made rev a bit weak and the match-up is a lot dicier for the rev than it was in the past.

There are lots of small causes, but I’d suggest that one significant change was that to Heavy Light (the DH grandmaster trait). When it was passive and range-limited before, it could be difficult to control for the DH and would often proc on an auto-attack. In July, it was instead tied exclusively to Deflecting Shot (Guard LB3), meaning DH now has an unblockable knockdown on a 10s cd that adds a blind for a kick in the shins and grants stability as a cherry on top.

Of course, the number of “kitchen sink” skills in HoT is legion and the matter for another post, but for our purposes, this particular skill really screws a rev. As long as the DH has a bow out, you can’t reliably block. You can’t block a trap, because you will instead get knocked down into it and eat all the damage you were trying to avoid. You can’t sword 3 the traps, because it bugs out half the time, and even when it doesn’t, if the trap touches the rev, it now applies slow and the rev sits there in the wind-up animation and gets destroyed. This means it’s hard to pressure the DH, and if a rev can’t apply pressure, it’s not doing anything.

I’d suggest removing the ‘Unblockable’ aspect from Deflecting Shot. It already pierces, so one can hit multiple targets. Plus, active ‘unblockable’ skills were not really part of the guardian’s kit (they had passive lines and such).

I played a bit of DH last season, but not a ton. I’d want to hear from people who played it a lot (or are otherwise knowledgeable) at a high level. Would this be too much? Would this be an indirect buff to warrior? Would this make scrappers a complete DH nightmare? Or would this not do much at all?

Short Version: Remove the ‘Unblockable’ part of Deflecting Shot so that Revenant can better pressure DH.

I’d understand if deflecting shot was tab targeted like true shot, but it’s a skillshot, and heavy light itself is the only reason for it to knockback which is a GM trait. By removing the unblockable affect from DS itself it’ll basically make the weapon unreliable, not being unblockable means it makes it reflectable, destroyable, and a singe block or aegis will nullify it meaning no pierce. And you eliminate the reward of hitting your skill shot via setup pushing through ToF or getting breathing room from people coming into melee range. If you want Rev to actually pressure DH, making phase traversal giving you 2-3s of unblockable attacks will do it. Though I’m curious on how standing still with Shield 5 or throwing up staff 3 is helping you pressure someone.

LB is pretty much crap this season cause of so many projectile blocks.

Lucentfir.7430:

I’d understand if deflecting shot was tab targeted like true shot, but it’s a skillshot, and heavy light itself is the only reason for it to knockback which is a GM trait. By removing the unblockable affect from DS itself it’ll basically make the weapon unreliable, not being unblockable means it makes it reflectable, destroyable, and a singe block or aegis will nullify it meaning no pierce. And you eliminate the reward of hitting your skill shot via setup pushing through ToF or getting breathing room from people coming into melee range. If you want Rev to actually pressure DH, making phase traversal giving you 2-3s of unblockable attacks will do it. Though I’m curious on how standing still with Shield 5 or throwing up staff 3 is helping you pressure someone.

I had considered the “skillshot” aspect, and it’s a fair point — it’s nice to reward something that requires a little more attention than the normal attack — though the skill demand is somewhat diminished when it’s point-blank range. Still, the fact that the change would make Deflecting Shot less powerful is kind of the point. The question is if this would hamstring DH against other foes.

Look, I’m not trying to start a “my class vs. your class” silly forum argument, so there’s no need to get defensive. I don’t main either class. I can say that because of the Heavy Light change rev shield is essentially dead weight against a DH (actually shield 5’s usefulness is rather limited overall at this point). Mobile blocks, like staff 3 and sword 4, however, allow the rev to stay on top of the target, rather than ceding ground because of traps or symbols (and they also blind and chain into an immob, respectively, but that’s again a case of HoT skills doing everything).

Re: projectile shutdown. It was even worse in earlier seasons. I agree it’s an issue and it’s one reason guardian was a no-show for a couple seasons. I’m not advocating a return to that. If anything, I’d say it highlights the back-and-forth power-creep in the design of HoT skills and weapons. I could certainly be underestimating Deflecting Shot. I was simply suggesting a simple change that could effect a shift in the playing field.

Ocosh.5843:

Lucentfir.7430:

I’d understand if deflecting shot was tab targeted like true shot, but it’s a skillshot, and heavy light itself is the only reason for it to knockback which is a GM trait. By removing the unblockable affect from DS itself it’ll basically make the weapon unreliable, not being unblockable means it makes it reflectable, destroyable, and a singe block or aegis will nullify it meaning no pierce. And you eliminate the reward of hitting your skill shot via setup pushing through ToF or getting breathing room from people coming into melee range. If you want Rev to actually pressure DH, making phase traversal giving you 2-3s of unblockable attacks will do it. Though I’m curious on how standing still with Shield 5 or throwing up staff 3 is helping you pressure someone.

I had considered the “skillshot” aspect, and it’s a fair point — it’s nice to reward something that requires a little more attention than the normal attack — though the skill demand is somewhat diminished when it’s point-blank range. Still, the fact that the change would make Deflecting Shot less powerful is kind of the point. The question is if this would hamstring DH against other foes.

Look, I’m not trying to start a “my class vs. your class” silly forum argument, so there’s no need to get defensive. I don’t main either class. I can say that because of the Heavy Light change rev shield is essentially dead weight against a DH (actually shield 5’s usefulness is rather limited overall at this point). Mobile blocks, like staff 3 and sword 4, however, allow the rev to stay on top of the target, rather than ceding ground because of traps or symbols (and they also blind and chain into an immob, respectively, but that’s again a case of HoT skills doing everything).

Re: projectile shutdown. It was even worse in earlier seasons. I agree it’s an issue and it’s one reason guardian was a no-show for a couple seasons. I’m not advocating a return to that. If anything, I’d say it highlights the back-and-forth power-creep in the design of HoT skills and weapons. I could certainly be underestimating Deflecting Shot. I was simply suggesting a simple change that could effect a shift in the playing field.

I’m just specifically replying to what you brought up in your post, and it’s aimed against DH vs Revenant specifically. I’m not getting defensive. Though on topic Shield is a dead weight against a DH only? Well i mean you’re standing still when you’re in shield 5, which equals easy targets for anyone with unblockable skills, and skill demand point blank usage, isn’t supposed to get harder with any skill unless you’re directly inside their hitbox and you’re both moving around, or do you have a example to bring up in terms of skillshot that requires more skill the closer your target is?. DS isn’t the only thing that will ruin Revs blocks. Warriors with might signet will ‘can’ you, Necros staff unblockable fear will ‘can’ you as well, and so on and so forth with unblockables.

To answer your question yes it would hamstring the entire longbow playstyle against professions that already bring boats of projectile hate. Which is why I said in the previous post, if you’re aiming for Rev to be a guard worry, then Phase Traversal getting
a X seconds of unblockable attacks instead of just 2 attacks would be the way to go.