Guild Wars 2

superherofan.8042:

To recap for changes requested:
1) Add a 25% movement speed trait
2) Keep the passives up when activating virtues or cut the cooldowns in half.
3) Make traps ground targetable.
4) Unroot #2 longbow

yes, no, maybe, no

well looks like I’m back again for more punishment with the spec i like the least.

The Good:

-Some of the issues i’ve had with the bow’s targeting were fixed i can hit mobs and players at slight elevated heights. (I still cannot attack an enemy on stairs or higher inclines my guard refused to point the bow UP, are we incapable of moving our bodies in that direction?)

-The Damage with the auto attack feels decent.

-Skill #3 on the bow is definitely an improvement.

The Bad:
(based on my time in WvW)

-Traps have no use as i run support guard using shouts, they serve no utility and in a 1v1 fight with someone standing still for any amount of time gives my opponent a free shot and in 3 single fights they were able to walk away or past my traps.

-The range on Wings of resolve really needs to be 900 minimum. In fights having the ability to disengage in a fight or fall back to regroup is key in battle, without a good hop to use as an escape or as a “chase” skill makes things harder for us to be of any use to our party and even to ourselves.

- Bow #4 symbol of energy, i’ve been debating this one, its kind of in a place where its bad and acceptable… I dont think the Vigor is that necessary honestly id rather see it clear 1-2 conditions from anyone in the symbols impact radius as a way to help the group as well as deal fire damage. Since we cannot be in the front line to clear conditions as we used to it would be great to have a range condi clear on the bow to help our party out.

- Bulwark isn’t a good trait, please give it something else to make it better? in fact some of the traits still need to have some kind of synergy with current traits…

-True shot needs to not be a root skill, reduce the damage a bit and give us the ability to run while using it.

-If dragon hunter is to be a “control” spec then please give us some more “control” options? im still confused as to what this spec is supposed to be. we aren’t damage, we aren’t healing, and we are in no way support we have a little of everything and this is a very muddled class with no clear direction as to what we are.

All of that being said i just hope to see more changes done to dragon hunter to make me love my guardian even more, thank you for giving us another beta week!

Probably one of my favorite specs so far. Im probably in the minority that like traps but I like catching people with the elite trap followed by the blade one for my own personal ‘kill blender’. Knights Zerker gives me a good bit of dps and I can usually get a good chunk of damage out of them. Its pretty fun. The only real issue I have is that Longbow 5 doesnt always function how its supposed to.

When im a different level from the enemy or any kind of uneven territory, there are times where the arrows dont do damage, and the only damage I get would be the last hit (which, when this happens, gives me a large number like 4-7k). It rarely happens but its happened a few times when I got the ‘kill blender’ and messed me up some

I always play support guardian so i’ll focus on Protection aspects and support first.

Mechanics

?I don’t enjoy my class mechanic skills (virtues) have traits that both discourage and encourage their use… (supreme justice+permeating wrath X Big game hunter and tether spear) should allow us to keep the passives always.

Weapon Skills

? I would be so very happy if the Hammer auto attacks got reworked a little… I hate SOO much that long long windup and after cast on the attacks, especially the 3rd in the chain. I would rather the symbol be 1 second shorter, but the cast time on the 3rd attack be much faster. I feel Hammer 2 is clunky if I have quickness on it.

?This goes equally for the mace auto attacks, make the hits faster, and symbol of faith faster cast too please. Make mace 3 much faster so we can react and block without being hindered by cast time

?Shield of judgement, I love it since last patch, just wish it was faster cast time too, reactionary blocking comes into play.

? Sword 3, make it so we can move at the same time, i never hit anyone with this.

?Greatsword 3, Make the leap travel the same distance regardless of having quickness or slow? , I dont like when I know i would have hit someone, but because quickness i didn’t reach.

? Staff orb of light, so clunky to use

? Torch cleansing flame, wish it was slightly faster cast time.

?Valor — Strength of the fallen seems super weak in its current state, the game is devolving into condition wars and 1 random condi every 10 seconds that i cant even keep track of is bad… Stalward defender is sooo boring with extra toughness. I’d wish it was Merged with communal defenses or something….

? Virtues — Supreme justice and permeating wrath give me a headache, so I’m supposed to NOT use my dragon hunter tether so i can keep burning, or use it for Big game hunter?

?Honor — Protector’s impact… i dont remember a single time ive used this in 3 years.

?Radiance — Radiant retaliation is like only a 5% dmg increase if i was FULL CONDI dmg vs FULL POWER, it should seriously do something else fun an exciting

Utilities

? all spirit weapons, the incredibly long cast time and then cooldowns make me not wanna use them ever.

?Save yourselves, give it 3 seconds of resistance? that way we would be able to react.. just in case we gave ourselves 20 stacks of burn and instantly die.

?Sanctuary, i dont remember having seen anyone use this for 2 years other than to block fractal projectiles at the 4 golems boss

?Merciful Intervention, i feel its seriously undertuned for this, needs more OOMf, or reduced cd.

?Signet of courage, i wish the passive heal worked at much much faster rate, (tick every 2 seconds for example) and at a much lower healing ratio to compensate, have it heal the same per second, but at a more steady pace. Cast time and CD too long.

? Feel my wrath, I know at 30s was too good, but at 45 i feel all my rotations messed up, make it 40? ;p

?Symbol of judgement (downed 3), wish i didnt lose hp while inside the symbol and while casting it, by the time the symbol stopped ticking i already lost 1 tick worth of hp because i keep losing hp.

Can’t say I’ll ever use traps in pvp. We are absolute stuck taking either monks focus or altruistic healing if we want to survive. Unless a trait comes out to provide “heal on trap activation,” then we cannot use them.

Also, just as a touch of wishful thinking, could we maybe get a 1second evade frame on Wings of Resolve? Those wings SCREAM, “cc me!”

I’m still deciding on pve, but so far in pvp the elite spec has been pretty decent. Enemies usually have to disengage from me if they land on my traps and if you bring wall of reflection then you also get an upper hand on ranged opponents.

My only complaint on the pvp side is that the procession of blades trap isn’t very useful unless you can hold the enemy in the trap, so i would find it more useful if the daze on the trap trait were replaced with a 1s stun to give me time to land a cc to pin the down to the the spot. On bow 5, i would rather if the rings would appear faster during the channel as it’s currently a bit difficult to actually catch an opponent in it due to the rings only showing up at the end of the channel, giving the enemy more than enough time to leave the attack area.

The trippy stuff here is that if we wish to use virtues like other classes do with their F’s then we are FORCED to go with virtues spec which kind of sucks bwalls for those who use greatsword and meditations/shouts
If spirit weapons didn’t die like a lil’beach from a few flimsy AoE attacks and were really powerful as well as consecrations didn’t have such long cooldowns even with trait, then it could work out to move out of meditations or shouts to something else while using DH spec. But as someone said on one of the recent threads on guard forum that it will be hard to make more valid builds due to only shouts and meditations being best utilities as cons, spiritw and signets are really useless in almost every encounter.

By the meaning of “physical aspect” we think of weapon-like skills that are meant to be used frequent rather than ocassional enahncements like regular virtues. Well of course we could use renewed focus but such ability feels kind of weird to use on already altered virtues.
If we sacrifice a spec to get a new one that changes the way of how virtues work then why can’t it also grant us much lower cooldowns to really make it feel like physical aspect that is enjoyable to use frequently (In that case if we somehow had low cooldowns, renewed focus would not refresh those virtues but refresh abilities that are on 30 sec CD and up.
And seriously, make traps work on downed enemies.
Purificiation has nice heals on short CD if traited but since almost everyone can go into ranged swap and we know that if we don’t have healing trap laid somewhere then it’s really predictable that we are about to drop it once we get low on hp. Your enemy doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to swap to ranged and finish you off once you drop your trap and watch yourself die like a scrub. If we are to use that trap, it should really be worth it to sacrifice shelter or in some cases LoW. Thus it would be really helpful if we could trigger purification trap remotely by using the skill once again 5 seconds after it got deployed, or perhaps walking over it by ourselves plus it works on 1200 yard range (remote activation).

P.S.
We can’t have everything but why during using wings of resolve we can’t be evading stuff ? It’s a bummer that when we use it to heal we don’t get any condi cleanse (we are forced to go virtues here) and we are still vulnerable to being shot down like a bird during the flight. What, does it seem too much OP by any chance ?

Feed back time!

Longbow:

Auto: Feels good now, can’t be strafed. Excellent change

#2: Nice damage boost, feels strong for sure. Still a bit weak for the root attached. I’ve seen Revenants Coalesence hit for over 10k on a 2 second cd while moving.

#3: Fires too fast to block projectiles, needs to be slowed down.

#4: I’m not a fan of symbols since they feel like wasted skills so…not sure what to put here.

#5: Feels a bit slow on the channel, bit of a long cd.

Traits:

Piercing Light: The daze doesn’t do much to keep people in said traps, feels out of place

Dulled Senses: Without consistent kb’s, this feels useless.

Soaring Devastation: Strong immobilization. I feel like this should have an added affect but maybe that would be too strong.

Hunter’s Determination: ICD is way too long.

Zealot’s Aggression: Excellent trait for both cc and damage.

Bulwark: Just like Soaring Devastation, it feels like this should reduce the cd of the specific virtue or something added on.

Hunter’s Fortification: Completely useless. The ICD makes this this below-average for condition removal and the 10% damage reduction is NEVER on since everything sneezes conditions.

Heavy Light: Too much RNG with both cc and stability, very weak for a GM.

Big Game Hunter: Feels relatively weak for a GM, 10% damage increase? This should be bumped up and maybe have an added affect like keeping the passive?

Defender’s Dogma: Discourages the active use of your Justice Virtue, bad design.

Pure of Sight: Too weapon specific and boring.

Traps: They’re traps…I can’t say much honestly except what everyone else has.

I’m sorry if im coming off strong but this is ridiculous

Why are you even bothering with this ranger wanna be idea using the utilities that 99% of the community hates with a passion.

Longbow is a mediocre weapon at best and complete trash in sPVP or should any melee class get on you.

longbow #2 can very well hit for 20k and STILL won’t be able to hit anyone assuming they know you are there. Telegraph and rooting effect pretty much excludes this option vs any intermediate and above player.
Longbow #1 still hits like a wet-noodle for having sacrificed a whole traitline just to be able to use it
Longbow #5 simply does not work in PVP and you might as well just trash the whole skill and things would not change 1 bit

Utilities are the worse offense i have seen in gw2 so far. Traps are hated by 99% of the playerbase yet you give that to an ELITE spec, not to mention in the broken/kitten form they are now

Everyone has been screaming their lungs out to get them removed yet you continue to go with them

As of right now EVERY SINGLE ELITE SPEC has been an improvement to the base class, or has been adding to it at least. Dragonhunter FORCES the player to give up something to get something else. I don’t understand how this important point has been ignored for so long.

And lets not get into the traits; they are a complete mess; no coherence, and extremely weak. Our GM traits might as well be minor traits and i STILL wouldn’t take them if i had a choice.

Guardian is slowly being pushed to trash tier in PVP now. You really think this class can stand to chroniclers, reapers, zerkers and even scrappers at this current state?

No i am not going to suggest changes in this post, as we have plenty of those already. But i want to say that this class has been slowly sinking due to dev apathy and being seen as “in a good spot”. This is a reason i barely see any guardians any more in serious sPVP games, only the occasional bunker, which will be completely replaced by the time HoT hits

DRAGONHUNTER
There is still too much “pigeonholed-into-range-or-accept-carrying-a-dead-trait” due to the Pure of Sight trait. Traps still need improvements.

Pure of Sight
Pure of Sight should swap place with Zealot’s Aggression as Minor trait.
Pure of Sight is close to useless with any weapon other than Longbow/Scepter/Torch.
Just like Zeal line, we dont need more Minor traits that do not work for over half of our weaponsets/builds.
On the other hand, Zealot’s Aggression fits in every build.

Purification
Initial Heal amount should be the large heal.
This skill could use some improvement, such as removing conditions from you when the trap triggers(light returns to you), or even transferring conditions from you to the foe that triggered the trap.
Other possible effects such as removing boons from the foe stepping on it, or even stealing boons from the foe stepping on it.

Light’s Judgment
Reduce the amount of Vulnerability it gives, but make it pulse Blind.
It will then have synergy with Binding Jeopardy.

Test of Faith
Could be made into something much better.
This could be made to remove boons from foes standing on it per pulse(similar to Mesmer’s Null Field).
Or possibly be a Ring of Warding.

Procession of Blades
Remember the “Trap hits bleed enemies” trait that once existed?
Include it just for this trap and it’s ready to go.

CORE
There are still things many players would like changed, specially in terms of swapping trait locations.

Zeal Minor traits
Half of our weapons do not have Symbols(Scepter, Sword, Torch, Shield, Focus, Spear, Trident).
Symbol traits should not be Minor traits.

Symbolic Avenger
Change it to: You deal more damage to enemies (while) standing in your symbols.
The extra damage is now under your control, a grandmaster trait should do this much.

Radiant Retaliation
Change it to: Retaliation ticks twice while you are under 50% health.

Glacial Heart
Swap place with Retaliatory Subconscious.
This way Glacial Heart will see play because it does not compete with Absolute Resolution.
In addition, Retaliatory Subconscious(another source of Aegis) can now combine with Unscathed Contender.

Sanctuary
Reduce recharge to 90 seconds(72 when traited).

Save Yourselves
Could use the addition of at least 2 seconds of Resistance so that it does not become an instant-self-destruct button in WvW.

Traps simply need to go, its that easy, and still would not fix even half the problems, but would be a good start.

Right now this elite spec is simply a braindead nub friendly class to run around and pew pew during zerg events from the safety of 1200 range and maybe toss a few shouts around.

I can’t understand how this pathetic excuse of a mess can be advertised as an elite spec

BW3 DH is much much better and contrary to what a lot of other people are saying, I don’t think traps need to be changed much. It’s not hard to 1shot people with a pile of traps. They most certainly don’t need to be ranged, they just need a little more functionality. From a Conquest perspective, it just requires a different play style, don’t forget there’s a nice target that your opponent needs to stand on to win, and traps are just wells placed at your feet when melee fighting.

pros:
longbow skills have good damage and velocity
traits are better and give us damage modifiers, cc, and condi removal
virtue cooldowns are great, justice and resolve actually feel good to use, especially with wrath of justice (Radiance) and absolute resolution (Virtues)
I’m glad that courage is counting as blocking, it’s hard to give up the instant casts but it’s only 1/4s, the thing that might make it worth it is a baseline increase in the shield size so it’s a little bit easier to protect a moving ally.

cons:
no stunbreak trap
no instant condi removal, it’s also really difficult to use fragments of faith to it’s full potential with hunter’s fortification outside of a 1v1
longbow #2 roots us but it’s a skill on a 4s cooldown and can be used frequently so it feels awkward, long wind ups or after frames are better drawbacks than being rooted. My main concerns are that skills with rooted animations are much easier to dodge and I can do the same damage with 2 autoattacks while moving.
When using (all) traps, you don’t have shelter or renewed focus soooo….. add that on top of a heal skill with a delayed activation and virtues with cast times, yup

solution:
Test of Faith is now a stun breaker
Hunter’s Fortification 10% damage reduction is now constant
True Shot’s cooldown has been increased from 4s to 6s but the player is no longer rooted
When setting Purification, remove 1 condition

fyi the burning on the symbol is fantastic with inner fire (Radiance)

The auto attack is really good, I don’t see your problem with it.

lbow #2 is very hitable since it only has 4s cooldown and people will run out of dodges pretty fast, especially in teamfights (remember that it also pierces which is pretty decent). Also you can use the knock from heavy light to secure hitting it. (lbow #3 is actually pretty good for triggering that trait now that you can shoot it everywhere arround you).

lbow #5 is pretty useless or at least only useful in niche situations, I can agree with that.

Traps are useless but every class has its useless utilties and you’re not forced to run them on DH so whatever.

DH improved a LOT since the last 2 betaweekends, when will you guys stop whining?

TRUE SHOT make it unblockable and it will become widely used. Right now putting my life on the line for 3/4 s root to have it not crit for ~2.5k or get blocked makes it weak. It’s a one shot pony so make it unblockable as its pretty easy to block a kills hot like this one.
And no big changes? Something has to give since traps have been utterly avoided since bwe1. DH ‘is in a bad spot.’

Longbow, as a weapon, is a lot of fun. That said, some minor nuisances as well as some, in my opinion, lackluster design choices still remain.

LB#1: Feels about right, more responsive than scepter, like the flavor.

LB#2: I tend to agree about the rooting issue. The damage (particularly in PvP!) just does not justify being unable to move. In PvE, though, it is mostly workable. Let us use it more frequently, let us use it while moving, or give it more damage. Honestly, if you have the ability to do it, I think it would be an interesting design choice to be unrooted, but deal bonus damage (+30-50%) if you do not move for the entire cast. Not sure if you guys have the tech to do that at the moment, though.

LB#3: Interesting potential, tough to use well, I like the changes made with this BWE for this skill in particular. Unlike many of the others, I like the skill-shot element of the ability.

LB#4: Strong, unique Symbol, good range. This skill feels okay. Things that could improve it? Maybe, and this is crazy, make it something other than a light field.

LB#5: Flavorful, but awkward. The warding goes up at the end of the skill, which might allow too much counter play. I don’t know if you’ve played around with frontloading the damage, but that might be an interesting change.

Longbow Overall: If I could equip a longbow as a Guardian (read: without DH), I would love this weapon so much more. Having it tied to the elite spec leaves us an awkward place. It feels like a guardian weapon, but the DH doesn’t synergize with the rest of Guardian at all.

Dragonhunter is so far, for me, a disappointment. Objectively, I like the flavor – and I’ve reconciled the name – but, the implementation of the DH provides almost zero synergy with the baseline Guardian.

Firstly, the Virtues… each of them has a cast time. This means that, if we’re in capacitated for any reason… we can’t use our class ability. Guardian relies on that functionality to be… well, functional. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to use those abilities and not being able to because of the cast time. It seems unlikely, but if you could make it so the ability activates with baseline functionality if you’re stunned/CC’d, etc. Really, I’m not sure of a good way to do this, though, especially with such a tight deadline.

Spear of Justice: We are a few iterations in now and this ability feels better. I feel like the Justice buff needs to last longer, though. Given the cast time, being able to out range the tether, given how relatively easy it is to cast the ability and have it be eaten by the ground/a corner, I think a 10s duration on the Justice buff would be a good compromise.

Wings of Resolve: The range feels better, the effect feels strong, but again: the cast time kills it in the thick of a skirmish. Otherwise, fix the bug with the Absolute Resolution not working at the least.

Shield of Courage: I actually quite like this skill as it is. Broken record here, but the cast time prevents us from using the stun break on the skill when spec’d in to Virtues. This is baaaaad.

Traits

So, many posters have already said this, but: Where is the synergy? So many traits are devoted to DH related mechanics that making a build that compliments the Guardian is clunky at best, and not functional at worst. The opportunity cost for going in to DH is very, very high and, despite how fun LB is, the traits don’t provide enough yet.

Skills (Traps)

These skills, unfortunately, will rarely be used in pvp. Certainly not more than one at a time, anyway. Again: opportunity cost. We give up meditations? Less self-healing/fury/etc. We give up shouts? Less cleanse/boon coverage. The compromise would be to give the traps secondary effects and allow us to activate the trap early for the immediate benefit.

I will find a place to play DH, but it will likely not be in PvP. We MIGHT find a use for it in the raids if mechanics call for something our traps explicitly provide (elite trap is the only one that comes to mind.)

Overall, though, I’m underwhelmed. The other elite specs feel like more natural extensions of the class, whereas DH doesn’t quite fit the mold.

Amaya.1483:

Is this a final Problem? No not at all, but it will be a problem, if you, dear Arenanet Team, refuse to admit, that implementing a already failed game mechanic (traps) as a new feature to a class which already has a completely failed game mechanic (ghost weapons), was a good Idea, because its not.

Hey hey hey slow down there. Minions are unaffected by AOE in raids and the spirit weapons with the Zeal burning trait make guardian have some of the highest STDPS in the game.

Traps on the other hand are complete garbage and would never be used seriously in PvE or PvP.

Easy solution. Make the traps ground targeted and have the DH fire them with the bow. It’ll still have all of the other problems but at least traps won’t be complete trash.

Well the only constructive advice I coud give:
If you have the idea to lazily copy and paste existing mechanisms that do not work and are no used… try to find another one.
I more and more think you switched Guardian and Ranger spec because you estimated DH was garbage and you could not give it as originally planned to the most left alone profession : ranger. I remember you were talking about stance for Guardian. The stance came to the ranger.

This is a double fail:
-Guardians didn’t roll guardian to become rangers and so did rangers for not rolling guardians.
-Demon hunter is still trash (you can put 50 k damage on 2 it will still be obliterated with its subpar defense)

So to summarize…less laziness next time please.

Our feed back are reused for other professions (see revenant shield / ranger heal).
So now it’s time for the customer to become lazy.

Bye.

My opinion on the DH:
The longbow is okish
The 5. attack is bad, you can easily dodge the last big impact, just know the mechanic, count 1,2, dodge.

the traps are – sorry – just rubbish.
i played against a mate in pvp. he was a minion master necro, i could never kill him, then we tested the whole stuff.
all minions and himself cluttered together and i hit all traps at once.
long story short – > i died the minions attacked me and i was down and got killed by them.
the mechanic that you got a longbow and traps seems that the guard should be a ranger, but how can you hold your enemy on range? its nearly not possible.
then traps are not used with ground target, that means i have to go to the enemy and use the trap, which can be easily evaded.
in conclusion:

1. let us get the 25% movement speed. if i have it right in mind the guard and mesmer are the only class which don’t have this utility.
2. the sound is ok’ish but sounds a bit like a lightsaber or similar.
3. make traps ground based, or just let us get something different. i got no use, espically of the new heal.
4. the fifth skill from the bow needs a bit of rework. if you know the mechanic you can easily evade the big impact by counting.

besides that i don’t see any reason for using the dh.
the class of the guardian doesn’t get any benefit. the class is called GUARDian but just the new virtues help me, but the rest is a big misunderstanding, in my eyes.

-Longbow is feeling good this BWE
-Shield of Courage feels very satisfying to use
-Wings of Resolve feels much better than last BWE.

Defender’s Dogma Criticism
Defender’s Dogma trait does not feel useful. Given how frequently the justice passive goes off, especially when hitting multiple targets and/or using Supreme Justice, the extra procs of Defender’s Dogma are not noticeable. This is made even more apparent when you compare the frequency of procs to the infrequency of blocks in the majority of cases. The number crunching may or may not suggest it adds sufficient damage, but the player never FEELS like that is the case. Furthermore, using Spear of Justice actively makes this trait feel even more limited. The trait just feels like a waste.

Defender’s Dogma Suggestion 1
Cause cripple on block. There’s a lot of synergy that DH gets when a foe is crippled, and the effect can be immediately noticeable for the player. There would be visible synergy with skills such as mace #3 or Retreat. It would FEEL satisfying while also providing a useful benefit when traited to take advantage of cripple.

Defender’s Dogma Suggestion 2
Or change Defender’s Dogma to feel more active in some way. Lower remaining cooldown on a Virtue when blocking an attack, perhaps? There should be a visible benefit from this trait.

Pure of Sight Criticism
Pure of Sight trait feels restrictive. The damage bonus is really nice, but the trait discourages the player from using anything but longbow and perhaps scepter, and does not facilitate a skirmisher playstyle in a fun way for players that still enjoy using the other weapons of a Guardian, such a greatsword. Most Guardian weapons are melee or encourage close combat. Even traiting Wings of Resolve to deliver an attack seems counterintuitive when you lose the damage bonus of Pure of Sight.

Pure of Sight Suggestion 1
I’m under the impression that the DH is supposed to have a skirmisher hit-and-run sort of feel. Put in a trait that gives a damage bonus while the DH is above a certain threshold. It encourages and rewards players for being in range or at least remain safe. Going into melee remains an option, but a trait like this would discourage the DH from being in the danger zone for too long, or risk losing the damage bonus.

Pure of Sight Suggestion 2
Grant fury/might when hitting something from beyond a ranged threshold with an internal cooldown on this trait. A DH can hit something from range to get fury/might, then jump into melee or close range for a burst of damage, only to try to move away again once the internal cooldown is over. It would help facilitate a skirmisher feel, or encourage ranged play, without punishing melee combat.

This is my first time trying the DH so I can’t compare to previous versions. But being really attached to my guardian I played thousands of hours with, I can’t help feeling really sad. I think the problems with the concept of dragonhunter go way beyond minor balance issues. I know you’re not gonna do a complete rework of the DH, and most of us guardian players are gonna have to wait for the next specialization. But maybe our feedback can help improving it a little bit…

Traps
I don’t really know what should be done here but traps really don’t seem to work well with a guardian – if they work at all. Weak damage, only soft ccs, and not really fun to use…. Maybe boosting their effects to a decent level and making them throwable would help ? but even them I don’t see much reason for a guardian to use them over shouts and meditations that are really strong and synergize well with guardian’s traits.

Longbow
This part is not entirely negative. It’s actually nice to have an option for range as a guardian

Puncture shot :
The damage is ok and the cripple ability is nice, but it seems that ennemies need to be REALLY close for the arrow to bounce, or maybe it’s just my impression. Slightly increasing this radius would be really helpful. However the most frustrating thing when using it is how slow the attack is – I’m talking about the time between each attack, the projectile velocity is fine.

True shot :
Great damage and piercing ability, but being unable to move during channeling feels horrible and adds to the already frustrating low guardian mobility. we need to have attacks we can use in movement, but in that case the cooldown could also be increased to 6 or 8s.

Deflecting shot :
I’m not too sure about this skill. The overall feeling is nice but the skill itself is too situational. I also feel like it should freeze enemies instead of blinding them which would make it really good.

Symbol of energy :
The one thing that shocked me here is the REALLY slow missile velocity. It needs to be reduced.

Hunter’s Ward :
The casting time here needs some adjustment. As it is, beeing immobilized for 3 seconds for in the end not even being able to trap ennemies – because they are long gone – isn’ t rewarding. But the concept itself is good and if the casting time was reduced to something more reasonnable – like 1.5s – this skill could become quite good.

Virtues
Overall the virtues feel nice and refreshing – except maybe Spear of Justice that is a little weird. However just like with guardian virtues there should not be cast time.

Spear of Justice :
It feels like i’ts not working half the time, and when it does work it doesnt feel really good. I’m not too sure why it feels this way or what to do to make it better. Maybe once an ennemy is trapped he should be knowcked down if he tries to get out of the range.

Wings of Resolve :
I love this one. At least something that makes you feel like a guardian and that helps a little bit with guardian lack of mobility. The heal is quite good but the range is really poor. I think the base range should be 900, and the trait “Soaring devastation” should increase it to 1200.

Shield of courage :
Quite nice and in the guardian spirit but the cooldown is way too long.
Also there seems to be something wrong with the skill Bulwark. Increasing the radius of the shield seems to make it weaker imo. It should increase the surface of the shield to protect you from a bigger angle but not increase the radius.

Traits

I’m not gonna go through all the traits in details but DH traits feel very weak .There is no really strong GM trait, and nothing that synergize well with other guardian traits. I feel like 2 important things are missing in the DH trait :
- a trait that boost damages and reduce cooldowns on the longbow
- a trait that increases movement speed. This is really important for a range class

Hunter’s fortification :
Maybe should also remove a condition to allies ? or at least several conditions to the DH. We are talking about a grand master trait here … Should also give the damage boost for a few seconds after blocking an attack as a player will never be condition free for more than a fraction of a second in a real fight.

Piercing light :
Should immobilize when triggering a trap instead of dazing.

chrisnx.1674:

My opinion on the DH:
The longbow is okish
The 5. attack is bad, you can easily dodge the last big impact, just know the mechanic, count 1,2, dodge.

the traps are – sorry – just rubbish.
i played against a mate in pvp. he was a minion master necro, i could never kill him, then we tested the whole stuff.
all minions and himself cluttered together and i hit all traps at once.
long story short – > i died the minions attacked me and i was down and got killed by them.
the mechanic that you got a longbow and traps seems that the guard should be a ranger, but how can you hold your enemy on range? its nearly not possible.
then traps are not used with ground target, that means i have to go to the enemy and use the trap, which can be easily evaded.
in conclusion:

1. let us get the 25% movement speed. if i have it right in mind the guard and mesmer are the only class which don’t have this utility.
2. the sound is ok’ish but sounds a bit like a lightsaber or similar.
3. make traps ground based, or just let us get something different. i got no use, espically of the new heal.
4. the fifth skill from the bow needs a bit of rework. if you know the mechanic you can easily evade the big impact by counting.

besides that i don’t see any reason for using the dh.
the class of the guardian doesn’t get any benefit. the class is called GUARDian but just the new virtues help me, but the rest is a big misunderstanding, in my eyes.

chrono has 25% movement speed in its traits

Azure.8670:

chrono has 25% movement speed in its traits

thanks, then the poorish DH is the class with a lack of movement, bad traps and a poorish design.
looks like:
dh → is an undercover ranger
druide → is an undercover guard
revenant → is the better choise.

but for more distinct opinion i need to play the rev a bit more, but seems so.

chrisnx.1674:

Azure.8670:

chrono has 25% movement speed in its traits

thanks, then the poorish DH is the class with a lack of movement, bad traps and a poorish design.
looks like:
dh -> is an undercover ranger
druide -> is an undercover guard
revenant -> is the better choise.

but for more distinct opinion i need to play the rev a bit more, but seems so.

We are the only one without 25% moving trait, druid have 33%. haha.

Now that I have some more realistic numbers I can finally start tackling this thing. I am not a super proficient guardian player, so my expertise on the following is limited. As always, these numbers are acquired via no gear in PVP, making them the tooltip or the “base” values of these skills. First, for reference:

Orb of Wrath: 237. 1200 range. 0.25 second activation time listed. Actual attack speed is 0.8 seconds.
Smite: 117 per impact. 16 total impacts. 200 radius. 1200 range. 6 second cooldown. 0.25 second activation time listed. Actual attack speed is closer to 0.5 seconds.

First, the longbow.

Puncture Shot: 317. 2 targets maximum. 1 × 2 cripple per hit. 20% projectile finisher. 1200 range. 0.75 second activation time listed. Real activation time is 1 second. Or rather, the auto attack speed is 1 second.

True Shot: 932. Pierces. 100% physical projectile. 1200 range. 4 second recharge. 0.75 second activation time listed. Actual activation time is closer to 1 second.

Deflecting Shot: 317. Does double damage if it destroys a projectile. 1 × 4 blindness on hit. 120 radius. 1200 range. Pierces. 100% projectile finisher. 10 second cooldown. 0.25 second listed activation time. Closer to 0.5 second actual activation time.

Symbol of Energy: 205 per pulse. 1 × 3 vigor for 4 pulses. 2 × 5 burning per pulse. 5 targets, 180 radius. Light Field. 1200 range. 15 second cooldown. Listed activation time and actual activation time seem consistent at 0.75 seconds.

Hunter’s Ward: 93. 559 on final impact. 2 cripple per hit. 4 hits. 5 barriers maximum. 6 second ring duration. 360 radius. 1200 range. Not listed, but creases a holding ring for anyone caught in the attack. 45 second cooldown. Listed animation time is 2.75 seconds. Actual animation time seems consistent.

Bow notes: At this point, I’m just glad the AA of the bow is higher than the scepter.

From the PVE perspective, the rest of the skills are there just to make up for the 3.7k DPS that smite has. But from other perspectives this weapon definitely has uses. Symbol of Energy and True Shot are the the DPS skills, where Deflecting Shot and Hunters Ward are more for control.

My first concern is that hunter’s ward takes way too long to activate. 2.75 seconds is enough time for even the most sleepy of players to realize what is happening and get out of the barrier. My only advice so far is to cut the activation time down by a second.

Virtues

Spear of Justice: 224. applies Justice debuff, which applies 1 × 2 burning per second for 6 seconds. Pierces. Unblockable. 1200 range. 20 second cooldown. 0.25 second activation time listed. Closer to 0.5 seconds.

Wings of Resolve: 84 heal per second with 0.06 scaling. 3890 active heal with 1.2 scaling. Cures immobilize. 240 radius. 800 range. 30 second recharge. 1 second listed activation time and actual time.

Shield of Courage: Grants Aegis every 40 seconds. On active, makes a shield of 180 radius for 5 seconds. 75 second cooldown. Listed as instant cast, but it is actually 0.25 second cast time.

Virtue Notes: Well, they’re fun. These are a vast improvement over their slower counterparts. It is fast enough to be used tactically. Not as tactically as the original virtues, but still.

The good news is that they aren’t dependent on other players being around, so on the solo side they are of a great help. This… is more of a PVP thing, since in PVE unless you happen to be specifically soloing, then you’ll be surrounded by a bunch of other people.

I only have a few small suggestions. Reduce the Animation Time of Wings of Resolve to 0.75 seconds, and make Shield of Courage a true instant-cast that doesn’t interrupt skills.

Traps. Note, all traps have a listed activation time of 0.5 seconds and a real activation time of 0.75 second. All traps have a trigger radius of 180 and an attack radius of 240.

TOOLTIP ERROR: Most traps affect a maximum of 5 targets, but this isn’t listed.

Purification: 50. 2,192 Initial heal. 6,413 triggered heal 0.25 initial heal scaling. 1 trigger heal scaling.. 1 × 6 blindness. 30 second cooldown. Hits 5 targets.

Fragments of Faith: 665. 1 × 6 cripple. drops 5 10-second long fragmetns which grant 8 seconds of aegis on contact. 45 second cooldown

Procession of Blades (x10): 1200. 25 second cooldown. Does its damage over the span of about 3.5 seconds.

LIght’s Judgement. 53 per pulse 1 × 1 revealed per pulse. 10 × 2 vulnerability per pulse.. 8 second duration, 1 second interval per pulse. 9 pulses total. 45 second cooldown.

Test of Faith: 798. 1 × 6 cripple. 8 second duration. Unblockable. Causes damage to enemies that cross its range. 30 second recharge.

Dragon’s Maw: 638. 1 × 4 slow. 6 second barrier duration. 90 barrier radius. 60 second cooldown.

Trap Notes: Though I’ll miss the bleed, the daze is still useful. It gives traps the ability to both ambush and be used tactically, which is what was really missing.

I’m hesitant to make any suggestions for an increase in strength. These numbers aren’t insignificant in any way, especially on skills that can be pre-cast to go off simultaneously. I guess light of judgement could use a 33% direct damage buff. Also, procession of blade’s actual damage duration is longer than its animation duration. Ideally they would be the same, so increase the rate that Procession does damage to make it match with the skill’s animation.

Traits. I’m not going to catalog these as much as just go over them.

Pierced Light: Fine
Dulled Senses: I’m not a big fan of the knockback thing. Unless I am missing something, the only knockback that guards get is on the Heavy Light trait. The vuln on cripple is decent for the dragon hunter, but for base guardian not as much.
Soaring Wings: Fine
Defender’s Dogma: Overall it is lackluster, especially considering it is just a far inferior version to Amplified Wrath. I’d change it so blocking an attack reduces the recharge of Wings of Resolve, or Blocking Causes Cripple, or something like that.
Hunter’s Determination: Fine
Zealot’s Aggression: Fine
Bulwark: Fine
Pure of Sight: Fine
Hunter’s Fortification. The first half of this effect is good. The second half… not so much. Much like unscathed contender, conditions are everywhere and used by everyone, so the frequency at which it is up is questionable. Still, with adequate cleanse in a PVE area it is useful, and the cleanse is good.
Heavy Light: I’m not that big a fan of this trait. Mostly because base guardian doesn’t play keepaway that much, so if an enemy is closing in I’m swapping to my melee set and bursting them down. Even as a dragon hunter, I don’t see much reason to keep an enemy that far at range. The stability could be useful if you’re going to swap weapons and melee immediately after.
Big Game Hunter: Fine

Overall, there are a handful of traits that are lacking. However I am not particularly creative, so I’m not sure how I should go about fixing them. I also don’t PVP that much, which is where most of the Dragonhunter’s utilities will be used. I’ll have to leave the traits up to someone else.

Heavy Light is too random to be useful. Changing the second part of the trait to grant stability on true shot would remedy this and would also help with rooting concerns. Hunters Fortification was a welcome change though

Lb autoattack sucks,
I find biggest problem is that Virtues aint instant.

That i cant use virtue #3 for stunbreak or mid stomp to gain stability nor use #1 for blinding while stomping imo makes dh useless in pvp

Plus the minors need revamp..they are so bad

And with talented #2 Virtue it does more then #1. Buff the dmg on #1 maybe.

I dont even have to say how useless traps are imo,we all know that.

And I found annoying sound, when you hit second target with LB autoattack there is same sound of staff4# skill empower. So annoying.

Please allow virtues to be activated while available. It feels like we are going backwards by using the Dragon Hunter with the virtue mechanics. IE, you cannot active virtues if stunned or activating renew focus etc. This is bad.

Hello,

Here are my suggestions. As a support guardian I find Dragonhunter lacking in the following;

Spear of Justice: I strongly believe that it should provide the Virtue of Justice Active effect to allies, it really is a shame to loose a boon that works perfect in maximizing the damage of the entire group. as a virtue it has its place and its a shame to loose this unique boon that we provide.

Wings of Resolve: I’m glad this ability has shorter cooldown, but because it has 3/4 cast time i do believe that increase it’s range to 1200 will provide a better escape tool, guardians lack in mobility, and its an amazing tool but after we cast that we are basically sitting ducks . Also, shouldn’t it have a blast finisher ?

Hunter’s Fortification: There are two ways you could go with this talent
A) when you use a healing ability block attacks for 2seconds, ( adds 2 sec of block to Shelter)
B) Aegis removes a condition when it blocks an attack. at least like that it will provide with a good synergy between other support traitlines.

Hunter’s Ward seems weak, the initial damage is almost insignificant, the final impact has the same damage as each tick from Barrage, but since its a utility ability, could we please have the command of Bow of Truth integrated in that ability?

Spirit weapons in general seem to be a bit… outdated lets say, they seemed great as an idea but something doesn’t quite fit It might as well become an F4 ability that changes depending on the weapon you have equipped.

Trueshot: could it give a protection boon to the caster and to 1 ally that passes through ?

Forgot to mention that Symbol of Energy does not target Gates or walls , even though symbol of swiftness can be place on a Gate for example

BUG: Hunter’s Fortification doesn’t remove conditions on block. Tested it out with shelter a few times.

I’ve played about 5,000 games as Guardian and after playing DH for a couple hours I can say the following:

Hammer- was in a coma after 23rd patch, 29th patch unplugged its life support. Revert JI nerf and place the freaking Hammer trait in Zeal

Shield of Courage – make it instant and reduce the CD to 50 seconds

Wings of Resolve – I’m ok with it having a cast time because it’s an actual attack and not just an effect skill, but it should be a leap finisher because, well… it “leap(s) to a target area”

Longbow – reduce cooldown of Hunter Ward to 40 seconds and its cast time by .5; increase the size of deflecting shot by 25% and make it reflect shots OR slow it down

Traps – sigh make them targetable or at least placeable on target within, say, 900 range. I understand you’d be making them similar to wells but in their current form they are garbage and will never be used outside of maybe niche damage builds in PvE

Confessor Elite Specialization

Hello, I’m sorry my post on the Confessor is very long but making a whole Elite Specialization is not easy on paper.

I personally find a lot of things wrong with ArenaNet’s current Profession System, the core of it requires extremely skilled Developers to make it work. Also a lot of new weapons will have to be created to fully expand the ability of this idea.

Of course DH went terribly wrong! If you read my post to the full you will see how difficult it is to work around and change the core of Guardian F1-2-3 Ability’s. To change the profession core with a Elite Specialization takes a lot of time, editing, and testing. ArenaNet should of made these Player Tools have a higher standard and priority. If these tools aren’t refined they won’t stand up to Challenging Content at all. Then developers will realize their mistakes and have ended up creating a very expensive problem.

Enjoy the post.
If someone is trying to change anything it must be done with no sanity.

Dragonhunter:

Virtues:
I’d like to see a leap finisher aswell as a stun break OR 3/4 of evade added to f2 (risk of getting interupted is just to high in a PvP setting), also please increase the range to 900.
I hope you consider lowering the cooldown of f3, 75 seconds base is just to high (should be between 50-60). I’d also like to see this beeing made into a blast finisher.

Longbow:
Feels decent, only problem I have is with #5, cd aswell as casttime feels to high.
Projectile velocity on #4 could use some love to, feels a bit slow.

Traps:
Purification: Initial and Trap heal should be switched.
Make the trap pulse for 3-4 seconds when triggert and remove/convert 1 condition per pulse aswell as pulse the “Trap Heal”.
Fragments of Faith: Please add a Stun Break to this trap, traps need more defensive utility.
Light’s Judgement: Feels like the weakest trap, add a pulsing blind? Feels very niche now.
Test of Faith: Should really punish players for entering/leaving the ring, short knockdown? Stun? Something, please.
Procession of Blades: As suggested a few times before, add a whirl finisher at the start and the end of the trap and make it into a light field. Also keep the old functionality of the “Traps bleed” trait for this trap.
Dragons Maw: Doenst feel like an elite, let it affect 5 targets and add immob for 1-2 seconds.

Traits:
Minors:
Defenders Dogma: Is very unnoticable and feels anti synergy, change it to have an effect on block (burning, cripple etc.).
Pure of Sight: Again very limiting, change it to “Deal 10% more damage when endurance is not full” (which got removed in the big trait overhaul).
Majors: (I will only go over the ones that I think need more tuning)
Bulwark should be baseline wich opens up a slot for a new trait:
Trappers Speed: Gain 10% increased movement speed for every currently active trap (capped at 25%).
Big Game Hunter: doenst feel very impactful at all, something needs to be done.
Heavy Light: Add “gain 10% Increase damage when whielding a Longbow, Longbow Skills recharge 20% faster”.
Hunters Forification: Change the damage reduction to work while having condions on you.

Core Guardian:
I’ll make this one short,
Spirit weapons need a complete overhaul, for obvious reasons.
Consecrations need some love, mainly Sanctuary (lower cd, bigger radius) and Hallowed Ground (lower cd, additional effect)

For Traits:
Merge Battle Presence with Strenght in Numbers (opens up a slot in Valor).
Swap Glacial Heart in the open slot in Valor (which opens up a slot in Virtues).
Create a new Trait in Virtues which reduces the cd of our virtues by another 15% and adds back the 1200 range we lost in the big trait overhaul.

My feedback for the 3rd Beta weekend:

Traps:

I want to talk about traps first because the functionality of the traps is definitely something I am worried about. If there is something I want the developers focus on in these three weeks left it’s definitely traps. The damage is nice, I also like the added daze but unfortunately that still makes these utilities awkward to use. These are my main concerns:

• Traps lack synergy with Longbow. I have problems with my traps and fighting (ranged) enemies in groups (very important in an MMORPG). I can’t control the enemies to get them into my traps. It feels very unnatural to run up to my enemy to place the traps and then go ranged again to use longbow. We need some kind of pull (see virtues) or a jump and retreat kind of skill (Wings of Resolve is nice but only does half the work). Or you could also say that the Dragonhunter specialization lacks synergy with melee to use melee with traps. If the Dragonhunter could be motivated to run in with a melee weapon and place their traps it could definitely help. I still prefer this solution over ground targeted traps.

• Something hilarious happened when I put my traps down yesterday. I engaged a Veteran with a group and after putting down my traps a neutral Moa ran into the traps and activated each one of them before the Veteran ran into it. Even something as silly as an Armadillo critter can activate the traps. This shouldn’t be happening!

Traits:

• Heavy Light, stability is not useful when you knock back an enemy. It makes more sense to have something offensive to follow up on a knock back. Like quickness, might, fury or even swiftness to get away. On top of that the knock back on this skill feels too random. Merge the knock back on Heavy Light with Deflecting Shot (#3 Longbow) so we can time the knock back (they have the same cool down).

• Bulwark looks rather weak. The radius increase is too small (make it a full circle instead) and two more seconds does not feel like it adds a lot to this trait. All in all, I would probably never pick this trait. Let it reduce the cooldown on Shield of Courage so it syncs up with the traps. What I like to do is jump in with Wings of Resolve, use Shield of Courage to block attacks while I lay down my traps on the enemy. But most of the time Shield of Courage is not recharged.

• Defender’s Dogma feels very weak. I have no ideas for it. Although I hear a lot of people asking for swiftness.

Virtues:

• It feels unrewarding to activate Spear of Justice with all the passives going on. Especially when having the Cripple on Justice passive and Defender’s Dogma you never want to activate it again. Big Game Hunter should allow us to pull tethered enemies into our traps to make activating virtues more interesting. This would solve some issues with the synergy between longbow and traps as well.

• Wings of Resolve should let us jump back and forth. This way we would be able to jump in with Wings of Resolve, put down traps on the enemy, and jump back out. This is necessary for situations where enemies do not automatically run into the traps. For example, when you’re fighting in a group or fighting a ranged enemy.

Longbow:

• Change the sound on Skill #1 Puncture Shot when it hits more than one target. It is the same sound as Staff #4 and it doesn’t feel it belongs there. It confuses teammates expecting might/heal from staff.

• Skill #3 Deflecting Shot, in theory it sounds like an incredible skill but in practice 80% of the time I can’t deflect the projectile. It still feels like the arrow moves too quickly. It would help to lower the velocity some more or let it zig zag.

• Skill #5 Hunter’s Ward, move the barrier to the middle of the cast. This means the enemy still has a one second chance to dodge out of this powerful attack. Otherwise the channeling takes too long to justify for the Dragonhunter to stand still for almost three seconds.

My suggestions Karl:

Traits:
- Hunter’s Determination: Add stun breaker. (It will help full trap builds.)
- Bulwark: Add reduced cool down to Shield of Courage.
- Hunter’s Fortification: Change to “Reduce damage when you have conditions on you.”
- Big Game Hunter: Add Longbow skills recharge fast.
- Defender’s Dogma: Gain swiftness when you block an attack.

Longbow:
- True Shot: Unroot but add more 4 second of cool down.
- Hunter’s Ward: Casting time reduced to 2s.

Virtues:
- Wings of Resolve: Add evade + 100 range.

Traps:
- Procession of Blades: Add whirl combo finisher.
- Test of Faith: Add Light field.
- Light’s Judgement: Cooldown reduced to 30s and less stacks of Vulnerability.
- Purification: Initial heal should be buffed a lot, remove the damage.
- Dragon’s Maw – Improve damage and attack radius.

Great work on audio/visuals, only thing I can ask at this point is to lower shield of courage cooldown to 60 seconds untraited and to add bleeding to traps baseline.

Traps like purfication and fragments of faith could be remotely activated for own benefit instead of trying to lure our enemies who clearly anticipate that there is a trap and we don’t have that many abilities that will alter our opponent’s positioning to force them to enter our trap (though I once saw a guardian who banished someone into dragon’s maw and that was hilarious).
It will be mega obvious once guard goes low on HP and pops purification, all you have to do is switch to anything ranged and just finish him off cause he won’t heal for the whole ammount, thus purification is not welcome in PvP and WvW. It is a nice idea but sadly it’s also just another wasted healing utility that will gather dust along with others except shelter.

Here is my feedback trying to play a celestial dragonhunter PvE and spvp unranked(I jsut pvp every now and then for fun).

Bow:
I actually love the gameplay of the bow and in pve/spvp i actually found it to be my preferred weapon of choice now. Though that could be because of “new shiny” feeling.
My biggest problem with it is, it seems to unable to hit stuff that on a higher ground(Sometimes only tiny bit higher). That Seems like something that needs to change, since a bow that can´t shoot upwards, seems wrong.

Puncture shot Seems to work and damage is fine overall. so overall happy, but if something should be changed i would prefer putting skill at 1/2 instead of 3/4. For reason it just works better for burning on hit and people trying to run burning build. (change to to 1/2 and lower damage, so it is same actually dps)
True shot First of all, the damage seems fine and for PvE the fact it is peircing and finisher actually makes very strong for the open world. I am slowly getting use to the root part. I get idea behind rooting for high damage skill, though does feel like need a bit more oomph. Also LOVE it being 4 cooldown.
Deflecting shot Skill shot idea is amazing. Had to get use to it being aimed ground target skill shot(Which is good, since i can run forward and shoot it behind me without turning!). That simpely makes it more useful. damage is fine, since it is never a DPS lose (small increase since only 1/4 activation) and if you manage to pull skill shot off the damage boost is nice. This skill is it a good spot
Symbol of energy I am glad you decided to up the burning, since this actually made it more useful for my spec. Damage seem fine and added in vigor is never a bad thing for group content. Though wished it could be a fire field instead just to make fit with burning part, But again happy with it
Hunter’s ward This is one is hard. I actually found it useful in pve. When a new wave of mobs come in and aim this just right it has helped me kill groups of mobs very fast. And in pvp i found it to be a good opener if i am late to fight that already started, though if i am in middle of a fight i can´t see myself using it. And also using is a dps lose, so the use for it is very limited. So has some use, but feel like it needs a bit more to it.

Virtues:
I like the idea

Spear of Justice Since passive is the same, nothing to add for that part. I love the idea of this skill, but fast found out, it seem very useless in PvE. I seen it miss way to often and losing passive for nothing is always a bad thing. My main problem is though Justice passive can be made so good, that throwing the spear is a very bad idea. Way to fix this is either add a trait makes passive keep going when on cooldown or make a trait that gives burning on crit. This way condition build will still be able to have some burning running. So for now i will most likely never throw my spear and i really want to, because i find idea of the spear and tether good.
Wings of Resolve i Think enough people have argued for more range, and i will agree more range would be good. Now for what it does, being able to leap and end with a good heal. I been using this on cooldown when playing, since a nice up front heal for me and my group is something i prefer to passive healing. I am ok with this, but more range and/or blast finisher would put this in a good spot. Thanks for cooldown change
Shield of courage I actually haven´t used this skill much. The cooldown is just to long, but i like idea and can see myself using it, i just need to learn it better.

Traps:
I seen big hate for these, in pve they are very easy to trigger and for pvp i had no problem with having em triggered either. I fine with “setup” and trigger time, seem fast enough to me. But i don´t expect ever to see people running more then 1 or maybe 2 traps at max. And i expect they only be slotted in because they really help with a boss encounter.

Purification The idea is fine, problem with this one, is if it doesn´t get triggered, the healing is just to low. higher initial heal and lower trap heal, would make this a good choice if it is turned into the highest healing skill with ok initial heal.
Test of faith The damage is good, and with knock back on bow i can see some nice damage from this in pve against melee mobs. For PvP it is just to easy to dodge out or just stay inside and wait. There needs to be something here that keeps pulsing and makes people wanna leave or make people avoid dodging in when you inside it. Think strong pulsing condition(burning)/damage inside ring, daze or other effect. That would turn this into a very good skill to use with bow.
fragment of faith This one i am fine with. Has good damage and gives a lot of aegis. I have yet to see a time i wanted to drop it, so never used it much. Though could be nice for 1vs1 with having 5 aegis for myself!
Light’s judgement Low damage, so nobody will ever take this for damage. Reveal could maybe see some PvE use if future bosses call for it. vul stacking needs to be replaced with something else, since it isn´t that hard to get 25 stack anyway and dragonhunter already can stack it fairly ok with traits. Other then a pve encounter that calls for it, i don´t see this trap being used much and i don´t like it.
Procession of blade Ok this is the trap i used most. Since it is the damage trap and hits more then ones (Justice passive burning). It is ok, but the lose of bleeding trait made this go from very strong to barely ok with burning build. Put some bleed, burning or torment (Torment makes sense, Walking through blades should hurt!) on it as standard.
Dragon maw It is a elite skill, yet does less damage the fragments of faith. The slow is nice and all. Can´t explain my dislike for this and how to make it better from my view. Maybe i should just force myself to try it some more.

Traits:
There has been some good changes here and getting close to being happy. But still some problem left.
Minor:
This part is where dragonhunter has most problems and it really needs some good changes.

Viruous action Nothing here, since that what enables spec.
Defender dogma This one seems useless, since some of us are traited for every 3 hit or we don´t block enough for it to be any good. Hell this is just amplified wrath over again and actually worse. Other block traits works because they can be use with multi block abilities(shelter and shield of courage). All this does it give us more burning, so changing to something like burn on crit would result in trait doing same thing, just working better. Other option would be “blocking causes justice to trigger on enemy”, but this also kinda a bad option because that just amplified wrath over again.
Pure of sight I do use bow, so it does work for me. But it just such a limited trait and with dragonhunter bow being only real range we got. This should just be added base to bow and then changed to 25% run speed increase or something else that.

Major:
Line 1:
This part is ok. Though one of the trait seems useless and another 2 traits are forced to certain spec, 1 for condi/justice user and other for power/none justice user.

piercing light Good to have trait for traps. But like i said earlier i never expect people to run with more then 1 to maybe 2 traps. Daze is good, but it is short and people get out traps fast, so as it is now i don´t see this trait as worth the time.
Dulled sense This one i really like. But it is because of a later trait i like it. Without Zealot’s aggression i wouldn´t even consider this trait. So this needs another trait to be worth it and doesn´t stand on it´s own.
Soaring Devastation putting some ok damage on wings of resolve, seems fine option for power build or people that doesn´t wanna go whole justice route with dulled sense and zealot’s aggression. Having immobilize on top, can be useful. Ok option overall.

Line 2:
This line i am actually ok with, The traits are fine, but because of the the skill itself cooldown, one these trait won´t be touched much.

Hunter’s Determination Having a anti-CC option is good. aegis can be made strong with traits, so getting aegis is fine. But getting a trap that does ok damage and drops 5 more aegis. This is actually pretty good. If zealot’s aggression wasn´t here, i would love to take this.
Zealot’s agression 10% damage buff is never bad, though it needs cripple for it to work. Thanks to bow 1 and trait itself, putting cripple on people is pretty easy. Now cripple on each justice proc is just a nice bonus, which also ends up being vul with every justice proc because of dulled sense. This + dulled sense + Permeating wrath + supreme justice = AoE burn, cripple and vul on very 3 hit. Love this synergy
Bulwark Idea is fine, but the trait gets very weak because of only working on a skill that has a 75sec cooldown. Either skill needs a way lower cooldown, or this trait needs to do a lot more.

Line 3:
This part is actually for me always been most boring part of dragonhunter and find this is what needs most work overall. Though it did get better with this beta.

Hunter’s fortification Condi removal was something dragon hunter lacked and with fragment of faith, trait that drops free “aegis trap”, shelter, shield of courage(passive and active) it could be a viable option and i could see myself run in pvp if it goes condi heavy.
Heavy light Knock back is not bad, problem is, that we can´t control it and seems to have 10 cooldown. Stability is never a bad thing, but feels strange to get stability just after i knocked someone else back. Seems like a weak option.
Big game hunter This is the dps trait, or should have been. Sadly vul we got better option for already. 10% damage is nice, but we need to tether people to get the bonus, so bonus last for 6 sec. So anybody that put points into improving justice will never touch this, and i expect it is these build that want something like this most. This needs a change or we need to get “justice passive works will on cooldown” somewhere.

Ok this ended up being a wall of text. But this is my honest opoin on dragon hunter and what i tried. I end bow is good enough for me to actually go with dragon hunter for release.

Copy from my reply on the reddit thread:

I think at the moment the Dragon Hunter is in a pretty good state.
The only complaints I have are the synergy with the Guardian traits, BUT considering some of the Guardian traits are in a pretty strange state (For example “Zealous Scepter”, a trait for a weapon with no Symbols in a line where the minors are based on Symbols), maybe it are the Guardian traits that need adjustment to provide more synergy instead of the Dragon Hunter ones.

Keksmuffin.1450:

Traps are useless but every class has its useless utilties and you’re not forced to run them on DH so whatever.

Sorry, but I have a huge beef with this statement. This is not how you go about balancing a game. Literally half of our current utility skills already fall under the “useless” category and are very rarely used. We don’t need more that won’t see any play. Furthermore, adding skills that are useless is about as counterproductive as you can get. It just ends up in wasted effort that could have instead been put toward making utilities that aren’t traps that might actually be better than useless.

The problem here is they are adamant about their own statements now matter how wrong they might be. Soon as they say something is virtues are a trade off cast time for new aspects etc. they the. Become hellhound on making it that way not realizing this is a beta not a so-let-it-be-written-so-let-it-be-done phase.

Karl McLain.5604:

There are three weeks until launch. As you can imagine, things are locking down as we work to polish, fix bugs, and tune everything. It’s quite unlikely that you’ll be seeing gigantic changes between now and then. The smaller the change suggestion, the more likely we’ll be able to discuss and action it. We’ll also continue to review and update, as necessary, after launch as well. Cheers, Karl

This upsets me.

For months now feedback has been overwhelmingly negative regarding Traps, calls for them to be complete replaced, redesigned, hundreds of posts giving wonderful constructive ideas, and yet nothing… silence.

Now mere days before launch you tell us that nothing large can be changed, knowing that Traps NEED to be replaced or redesigned.

It looks like you deliberately avoided all Trap feedback on purpose until this time where you can now use the excuse “its to late to make changes”.

I am extremely disappointing that we have been so blatantly ignored and poorly handled. The way the Guardian community has been so rudely treated in recent months is appalling.

How many times in how many different ways do we have to say it? Traps are bad!

Can’t say I really hate traps on DH, speakin of which.. is it me or Procession of Blades’s spin animation is way way more slower than it used to be?

If only Traps could land some sort of ward or symbol, combo finisher (for PoB) or anything else, that’d be great..

Guardian Longbow is easily the worst long bow in the game. Skill two’s charge time is completely unacceptable for spvp and if you are going to keep it you need to have that skill do more then decent damage and pierce. People will see that animation and dodge every time. The cooldown of skill 5 is too long. Skill one is dodgy and three is cut paste garbage look a long bow skill that blinds. Grats on one good skill number 4. Seriously I played about 20 ranked pvp games with it yesterday it needs some work still. There is really no compelling reason to play long bow in spvp. At the very least skill 5 needs like a 30 second cooldown and add something else to skill 2. Traps are crap for spvp we dont even need to go into that although no traps with burning lol. I thought that was a major class thing. I guess you really took to heart the cripple nonsense its all over the place with DH and bow. There should be more bow effecting traits as well. This all feels so kitten. For spvp at least Dragonhunter is not close to ready imo.

Howdy Karl! Thanks for your continuing work on this; DH is feeling much more responsive and powerful this time around. There are just a few pretty minor improvements that I think would finish it out nicely:

VIRTUES

• Spear of Justice: Would be awesome with a knockback or knockdown on hit, and/or a flip skill that pulls (and breaks the tether).

• Wings of Resolve: Could still use some evade, even if that means a little less healing. It’s really easy to interrupt right now — but I do love how cool it looks.

• Shield of Courage: Is working much better now; thanks! It could use a little bit of a CD reduction, though, and I’d still love to see it be a Light Field. _Bulwark_’s size increase (or something in between) should probably be baseline. Bulwark is a silly trait right now.

TRAPS
I am actually really enjoying most of these. I like traps in general, and I love the graphic FX on these. They mostly feel pretty powerful now, and I’ve only got a couple suggestions:

• Purification: Honestly, just make this a stun break when placed and it’d be worth taking, I think. The heal is very strong, and with both blind and (traited) daze on it, it can turn a fight around fairly well. Boon strip/steal of some kind would also be a really interesting and useful functionality.

• Procession of Blades: Could we please have this be a Whirl Finisher? And applying a decent-duration bleed with each hit wouldn’t hurt, either.

• Light’s Judgement: This would be a great option for a Light Field, and I also kind of like the other poster’s idea for having it pulse Blind.

• Dragon’s Maw: Still does not seem to actually hold more than one enemy; it’d be really great if, since it’s an elite skill, it actually affected up to 5 foes. It could also use something extra, like a stun, or an extra powerful hit at the end (and/or the ability to Finish foes, as others have suggested).

• Test of Faith: This is currently the most ridiculous trap. Sure, it offers some area control, but mostly, it’s just weak and silly. Give it a fire field that pulses Torment (instead of burning), and/or let it rip boons, or drain endurance, or just make it a Ring of Warding, or something. Without any effect on enemies actually caught in it, and simultaneously without the ability to actually keep them from leaving it (and entirely avoiding it with a simple dodge-roll), it’s mostly useless at the moment.

LONGBOW
Is feeling much, much better. Thank you again for the burning on the symbol!

• That said, the auto-attack could really use a little more style and uniqueness, and better synergy with Justice: Can we please make it a chain that fires 1, then 2, then 3 light-arrows? The damage could remain around the same, but the multiple hits would guarantee one untraited Justice proc at least once per chain, and 2 traited procs, making it a little better at crippling with Zealot’s Aggresssion, and a little bit more condi-friendly with Supreme Justice/Permeating Wrath.

• LB4: I wholeheartedly agree with the suggestion to have this clear conditions, instead of applying Vigor. Many classes already have significant access to Vigor, and it is difficult to hit with the symbol — and even more difficult for anyone who is actively dodging to remain in it and get the full benefit. Condition cleanse on each pulse, however, would be extremely useful, both for group and solo play.

• LB5: Light Field? Flip skill to teleport into the middle of it? Flip skill to pull nearby enemies to the center (destroying it)? And most of all, could we at some point please have a more Guardian-like animation on this? I love the skill, but the re-use of Barrage’s animation makes me sad (even though I love my Ranger).

TRAITS
Some of the improvements here are fantastic, and a few changes could really make this trait line fantastic. Could we please have:

• Zealot’s Aggression and Pure of Sight switched? ZA would make an amazing Minor GM trait, and Pure of Sight would be tolerable as a major, although it is terrible as a minor. Also, if we’re supposed to do some ranged control and have access to cripple for it (but no real access to better movement for ourselves), then we really shouldn’t have to waste a major trait to get reliable cripple access. ZA is such a huge part of what makes DH good, I can’t imagine ever selecting a different trait in this slot right now, which is not how major trait slots should work.

• Pure of Sight, once it’s major, should either be rolled into Heavy Light and replaced in the major slot with “Cause bleeding when you strike a crippled foe,” or it could remain on it’s own and have the added functionality: “Inflict Bleeding (or Torment) when you apply Cripple.”

• Defender’s Dogma has pretty limited synergy and use; could we please have it also recharge Virtue Actives by a set amount when you block an attack?

• Bulwark: is mostly just weak and silly. Make part of it baseline, and then replace it with Hunter’s Fortification, which I still don’t think should waste a GM slot.

• Fill that newly-opened GM Trait slot with: “Gain quickness and taunt nearby enemies when you activate a Virtue.” This would have amazing synergy with a large number of things, and it could be a lot of fun to use, as well as a worthy GM trait.

• Big Game Hunter would be a lot more interesting if it: Stripped boons instead of causing Vulnerability, or also caused you to “inflict bleeding when you strike a burning foe,” or caused you to “Inflict Torment whenever you inflict Burning.”

• Heavy Light still feels…. odd. If nothing else, could we increase the True Shot CD to 5 seconds and then let Heavy Light include a 20% LB CD reduction?

Well, that’s about all I’ve got for now. Maybe more later, but thanks again, and keep it up! It’s starting to feel pretty fun to play! God bless, and happy hunting!

Can only repeat myself… I have absolutely no incentive to use DH or bow in any situation that comes to my mind.

In sPvP there are more reliable builds that do more dmg and there are other builds that offer more survivability and support. I won’t even start on Traps and pvp.

In PvE (where I have the least experience) I don’t see this low bow dps see use. This is the only mode where traps would make sense because mobs are stupid and still I don’t see the ammount of damage it would need to convince me droppen other stuff. Greatsword beats bow in damage and fun any time of the day.

In WvW there might be comps that could use a DH if you build around it… probably.. but I see no reason to change the tanky frontline stability-provider with GS and staff.

So for me I have 3 game modes and non need a DH. The more I play DH the more I want to change my main to something fun like necro. I have 5 lvl 80 chars and I already startet map-completion on my other chars because I don’t see me having fun as a DH and I think I would somehow feel a bit salty playing regular guard in the jungle while watching other elite specs running around.

My biggest complain with the Dragonhuner is the skill 5 on the longbow. Its cast time and cooldown are way too long for something that functions essentially as a glorified immobilize. I would either reduce the cooldown and the cast time, or allow it to be used while moving. I really like the rest of the longbow skills a lot, especially #3, which is actually a fun and interesting skill to use now.

About the traits, I also have a few suggestions.

The first one is Hunter’s Determination which currently applies stacks of stability to the player depending on the number of enemies hit by True Shot. I think this trait would work better if a single stack of stability was applied to the player at the beggining of True Shot’s cast animation, for the duration of the cast time, making it a bit harder to interrupt. An additional functionality could be added here as hell, such as a knockback for True Shot if the enemy is below X range. This would be a more reliable way to get a knockback with the longbow without having to use the often random and unpredictable Heavy Light trait, which could be removed, allowing Hunter’s Determination to take its place as a Grandmaster Trait.

Bulwark is another trait which could use some improvement. Currently the cooldown on the new virtue of courage is a bit too high. Maybe this trait could be updated to offer a cooldown reduction for this specific virtue.

Pure of Sight should be removed with the 10% damage increase added to the longbow as baseline, regardless of range. This minor trait is very uninspired and could be replaced for something more interesting. A few ideas would be a passive movement speed increase, swiftness on critical hits, or the ability to 1-hit KO Wyverns!

Come on, Arenanet, make my skills super effective against dragon types

All of this is from my experience with DH in spvp.

Traps: the elite is really good for landing those trueshots. Plus with daze it really messes with people.
Fragments of faith is my second favorite trap. I’ve had tons of people whispering me and asking me how I am blocking so much stuff.
Between mace, shield of courage, shield, and traps I have a ton of blocks and damage mitigation.
I actually like the heal trap. It’s another daze, a 7k heal on a 24 sec cooldown, and is pretty easy to land with judges intervention.

Longbow: Insane damage on a four second cooldown is amazing. The root isn’t even that bothersome. Sure one or two true shots might get shut down, but it will be back in 4 seconds.

Longbow 5 is very situational and I mostly use it in team fights when a group is righting on point, but when it lands it screws people over hard.

The rest of the bow skills I tend to just spam while I wait for my second auto attack, trueshot, to be ready.

Virtues: I really like the wings and shield of courage. I have maybe thrown the spear only once or twice though.

It is so much fun to watch Reapers do their death shroud spin into me with shield of courage up. So many blocks. I am more than happy to trade the instant activation for the amazing defense if provides.

Wings of resolve is also really good. Its great for leading people into your traps and getting out of dangerous situations.

Many guardians are displeased with DH, but I love it for the much more active role it provides. Judges intervention is still the best though. That plus the heal trap is an easily landable 10K heal. Or something around there. Trap initial heal is 2k, active is 7k?, and judges heals for a little less than 2k.

I’m still trying to see where I would want to use the new virtues over the old ones. None of the trait line skills for specialization seem to fit with the two we have left over. Honestly feeling that being a Dragon hunter weakens the guardian. I like the use of a bow for a ranged weapon but it’s not worth the trade off.

I will try and give some more feed back but I can’t see me using the specialization. Perhaps if I could use the virtues without having to use that trait line, the skills and buffs the traits give just don’t make sense or work well together.

Can we have a trait in dh tree that replace new virtue by old ones ?
I feel this would hugely increase DH survability.