Guild Wars 2

DH trappers have become an invasive species in WvW. No single build should be this pervasive in WvW. Reminds me of Hammer Warriors pre stab nerf and Mesmers pre-PU nerf only with annoyingly buggy skills and over-the-top spam.

The invisible fence is still in full effect. On several occasions I have teleported out of one into another. Either eliminate the skill as it is today or fix culling on this skill.

The traps… there are so many players running this build, we can dodge out of one set, into another, then into another set. Those traps everywhere and have become a complete nuisance. My suggestion is to remove dropped traps when the trap skill resets.

Next up is the bow’s long range DPS on a class with this much sustain. It is fine to have solid DPS but not when it is coupled with relatively high up time on Invulns and Blocks. Their auto attack has solid DPS, bounces, long range and applies cripple. This is probably the best ranged auto attack in the game. It is substantially better than pretty much any shortbow attack. True Shot hits very hard with 5k plus hits and its cooldown is stupid fast. 3 and 4 attacks are solid, not wasted and well thought out. 5 as mentioned above is a shock collar with an invisible fence.

A personal gripe, the pull needs to have the same suck as the thief pull which consumes a utility slot, much longer cooldown, terrible animation and significantly buggier.

Nothing to argue here, I think same way.

Inb4 guardian mains come in and insult you with l2p, I actually agree with this post, but the problem is, that Dragonhunter is sorta balanced in the current meta in PvP (no real meta evolved yet tho, just popularity), since elite specializations are still stupidly OP compared to core specs (except for ele, warrior and mesmer).

What’s even worse is they run with thieves and mesmers for stealth.

I’m not seeing that on our server.

I main a Guardian but I still have issues with the DH LB#5… Mostly because I cannot see it and I cannot distinguish it from marks-wells. It can be my computer running on lowish settings because of wvw blob size. This ability is absolutely punishing if you have a budget PC.

But I have no idea for the solution since I don’t want my main nerfed based on graphical performance of the plebs like me :P And I do think this ability is fine in small scale fights.

That’s weird, all I’m seeing are reapers and daredevils.

… to all noobs, it’s the DH elite trap skill that doesn’t let you move out/get knocked down, you don’t see that, the actual #5 longbow is visible 100%, you are using some kind of drugs?! Every person says that, or you have a very bad computer…?! This is the 2 possible ways how I see it!

@otto, if was Maw, players knew it was Maw since LB 5 aplies criple and Maw aplies slow, and yes the amount of spammed traps is really comical.

Maw usually dont get me trapped more than 2 secconds when that happens.

@otto i canz readz what you sayz

My character is a DH trapper yet now I’m often the only one in our group playing this. A few weeks ago there were so many of us that I felt redundant.

I’m Fissure of Woe tier 8 so perhaps things are different elsewhere.

By the., since HoT release the damage output seems to have been greatly reduced – it used to kill NPCs very quickly but now its taking appreciably longer. I’m not complaining because compared to Guardian its traps still seems super powerful.

Another thing about its armour. After lots of fights in zergs even though I got killed a lot the armour never needed repairing. Now even small fights and it needs repairing.

Perhaps its receiving a better or fairer balance now.

I’m still really a newbie so don’t understand all the stats etc – just knew how long it used to take to kill NPCs so in the hands of better players perhaps DH coud be awesome?

I see a lot of trappers as well. I am trying mine out now as well, as it seems to be the only viable way to play guards now.

I think the trapper isn’t the only class that should be checked for balancing issues in wvw. A lot of the specialisations seem to be a lot better damage-wise instead of just “another way” of playing the class. If the advantages of specialisation would have the same amouth of disadvantages, then it would be ok in my book.

LordOtto.2650:

… to all noobs, it’s the DH elite trap skill that doesn’t let you move out/get knocked down, you don’t see that, the actual #5 longbow is visible 100%, you are using some kind of drugs?! Every person says that, or you have a very bad computer…?! This is the 2 possible ways how I see it!

DH LB #5 gets culled when there is a lot of graphics to process. The last patch improved the culling time but didn’t remove it. I suspect if a player isn’t on a q’d map, they probably see it just fine. Once a map fills up and crap is flying everywhere the graphical display of that skill turns invisible before it finishes its effect.

I tried LB DH early on and didn’t like it but recently switched out to more of a zerker meditrapper build w/ LB/GS and have had great fun with it (yes I enjoy trolling w/ LB #5).

Picking off people lined up in the pirate ship is great fun and if they get close in, I drop my trap and spam with GS / meditations (especially fun for thieves sneaking up on me). I thought I would have a problem running in the front line as needed, but I can do that too.

It surprising how versatile the build is, from larger zergs, to small group fights, to even 1v1s. I had been distraught about the state of guardians (I have 2, including my main) but this has perked me up a bit.

MaximillianVonSchatten.6278:

It surprising how versatile the build is, from larger zergs, to small group fights, to even 1v1s. I had been distraught about the state of guardians (I have 2, including my main) but this has perked me up a bit.

Guardians/DH went extinct in the PvP Pro League season 1, and looking to the nerfs in damage and cc over the traps since the jan 26th patch the future looks dire for that class in that part of the game.

Taking in consideration that the nerfs on the amulets in PvP had 0 effects over the tankiness of Tempest, Chronos and Scrappers in WvW I’m surprised about people having problems against DH in WvW…

Buran.3796:

MaximillianVonSchatten.6278:

It surprising how versatile the build is, from larger zergs, to small group fights, to even 1v1s. I had been distraught about the state of guardians (I have 2, including my main) but this has perked me up a bit.

Guardians/DH went extinct in the PvP Pro League season 1, and looking to the nerfs in damage and cc over the traps since the jan 26th patch the future looks dire for that class in that part of the game.

Taking in consideration that the nerfs on the amulets in PvP had 0 effects over the tankiness of Tempest, Chronos and Scrappers in WvW I’m surprised about people having problems against DH in WvW…

Because you don’t have 10 necros dropping wells on those that got caged into your LB #5? There are “little” differences between pvp and wvw….

Guardian has always been the most op broken class in wvw
thats why you see zergs where 6/10 players is guardian

Aezyr.5304:

Because you don’t have 10 necros dropping wells on those that got caged into your LB #5? There are “little” differences between pvp and wvw….

Maybe is more because stability was destroyed in June. With the old system this wouldn’t be a problem. So ArenaNet created the problem, and isn’t a trouble linked to this specific class, but due the rampant umbalance between the amount of cc that exist in the game compared to the small acces to stability -and how easilly gets wiped-.

Extreme.8350:

Guardian has always been the most op broken class in wvw thats why you see zergs where 6/10 players is guardian

It has nothing to do with broken, and has everything to do with Guardians being the only source of mobile group stab in the game. Since the stab changed to stacks, you’re getting a glimpse of what wvw would look like without stab: no one can push in melee due to CC spam, and without melee to pressure casters the casters are free to zerk up without fear. The end result is two groups look at each other pew pewing from max range.

WvW has come to the end of its life, but it would never have been able to have the life that it did without the existence of Stand Your Ground.

Buran.3796:

Aezyr.5304:

Because you don’t have 10 necros dropping wells on those that got caged into your LB #5? There are “little” differences between pvp and wvw….

Maybe is more because stability was destroyed in June. With the old system this wouldn’t be a problem. So ArenaNet created the problem, and isn’t a trouble linked to this specific class, but due the rampant umbalance between the amount of cc that exist in the game compared to the small acces to stability -and how easilly gets wiped-.

WvW will always suffer from scaling issues. There was a balance stuck, for better or worse, when stab stacked in duration that countered CC spam. Groups had to organize to manage and maximize the uptime on their stability. What we have now is that blobs spam CC, same as always, but now its extremely effective as the stacks are stripped away. What we all need to accept here is that: Anet balances on PvP nearly exclusively, and that WvW (at least how we used to know it for the couple of years until the stab patch) is not something Anet is interested in supporting. In PvP, going to a stacks system for stab arguably made room for boon duration as a stat. In PvE the change made little no difference. In WvW it was single handedly the most detrimental change Anet ever made.

I think its likely too late now, but I really believe that even with layer after layer of OP garbage adders only accessible to large PvE guilds (dragon banners, airstrikes, etc etc), and even with pay-to-win power creep on Rev’s spamming 10k+ Coalescence of Ruin every 2s the players would have stuck it out (longer at least) if stability hadn’t got gutted.

The current balance issues with DH in WvW are numerous. Spear of Justice is far too easy to land especially for a specialisation that has such massive AoE trap damage and you can pull people out of evade (bug?). It’s velocity is so high and it’s cast time so low that you can have it attached to someone and pull them before the chain has actually become visible for them (tested numerous times). Feels like the old Temporal Curtain but worse. Needs fixing.

Then there’s Shield of Courage which is one of the most oppressive skills in the game. I think it’s fine as a means of providing ranged sustain but it simply should not be blocking attacks at melee especially as it’s non-channeled. If someone manages to not explode to your traps when they enter melee range they shouldn’t then have to immediately leave because you have a frontal cone blocking all their burst. I suggest that it only blocks attacks at >200-300 range.

I also think Hunter’s Determination is simply too good, to the point that CC just works in your favour. If a Thief daze steals you it gets whacked by the trap for large damage, is dazed itself and gets crippled whilst you get aegis, stability, break stun and have more aegis to vacuum up as the Thief struggles to make an impact. The Thief is in a worse position and as a DH you’ve had to do exactly nothing for that to happen.

As for Hunter’s Ward, well, I really don’t think a ranged Ring of Warding is particularly healthy for the game at all, but the CD is long-ish so it’s kind of okay I guess. But I think the cripple feels unnecessary. Also it’s kind of invisible 70% of the time (tested lots) so you have people use one skill to get out of one ring only to put themselves next to or within another. With a 6 second duration this really shouldn’t be allowed to happen.

I’ve only mentioned DH as that is on topic, but I could easily tear through every single elite specialisation in a similar manner. Although it’s not as easy to single out Mesmer and Warrior issues apart from Double Gravity Wells and Gun Flame.

Simonoly.4352:

The current balance issues with DH in WvW are numerous.

… snip …

Well thought out post and I agree. I would add the new form of prison CC from the DH is also somewhat OP. Players cannot stun break out of Maw or LB #5. Some classes and many builds do not have access to stability which makes prison CC something that should never have been put in GW2.

Simonoly.4352:

I’ve only mentioned DH as that is on topic, but I could easily tear through every single elite specialisation in a similar manner. Although it’s not as easy to single out Mesmer and Warrior issues apart from Double Gravity Wells and Gun Flame.

Gun Flame… single biggest WTF skill in the game. Only thing that keeps it from being flavor of the month is the general mess that is the warrior state. I think Dare Devil and Reapers are relatively well balanced.

Yeah you’re kind of right about LB5 and Dragon’s Maw. Stun breaks should work through them. After all, if you get hit by Gravity Well you can stun break out, which is how it should be. Dragon’s Maw also applies slow and you get a lovely amount of might. I feel very sorry for people when I see them stuck in it.

Luckily, the core weaknesses of Daredevil and Reaper have somehow been maintained where they’ve been lost on other classes (except Warrior and Mesmer). Although I have to say that the auto-attack buff on Thief dagger is extraordinarily lazy on Anet’s part. It now has enormous dps to the point where I now find it more efficient to steal to someone and simply auto-attack them. If you do land a backstab on a glassy mid-low HP pool opponent, I often kill them simply with the first two part of the auto-attack chain anyway. But you do still die in seconds if you’re caught out of an evade frame on Daredevil so there’s still risk involved thankfully.

Simonoly.4352:

Although I have to say that the auto-attack buff on Thief dagger is extraordinarily lazy on Anet’s part. It now has enormous dps to the point where I now find it more efficient to steal to someone and simply auto-attack them.

Completely agree with this as well. If they wanted the thief to have more sustainable damage throughout a fight, they should have bumped Initiative. The AA is now better than Heart Seeker or even Backstab since it consumes zero Initiative. Backstab is now bonus damage rather than being integral to play.

Straegen.2938:

Simonoly.4352:

Although I have to say that the auto-attack buff on Thief dagger is extraordinarily lazy on Anet’s part. It now has enormous dps to the point where I now find it more efficient to steal to someone and simply auto-attack them.

Completely agree with this as well. If they wanted the thief to have more sustainable damage throughout a fight, they should have bumped Initiative. The AA is now better than Heart Seeker or even Backstab since it consumes zero Initiative. Backstab is now bonus damage rather than being integral to play.

As far as I know, this was basically an attempt to make Daredevil more appealing for raids and as usual this has grave consequences for WvW. But Daredevil looks so boring in raids that I honestly don’t know why anyone would want to play it in that game mode

Naix.8156:

Extreme.8350:

Guardian has always been the most op broken class in wvw thats why you see zergs where 6/10 players is guardian

It has nothing to do with broken, and has everything to do with Guardians being the only source of mobile group stab in the game. Since the stab changed to stacks, you’re getting a glimpse of what wvw would look like without stab: no one can push in melee due to CC spam, and without melee to pressure casters the casters are free to zerk up without fear. The end result is two groups look at each other pew pewing from max range.

WvW has come to the end of its life, but it would never have been able to have the life that it did without the existence of Stand Your Ground.

Naix is spot on. Guards are the ‘life blood’ of WvW still.

DH everywhere? Where?

albotelho.2931:

DH everywhere? Where?

In US T1 they are pervasive.

I am pretty sure when Anet released them into the wild they came with a disclaimer to never give them water and not to feed them after midnight. Too bad bright light doesn’t kill them.