Guild Wars 2

Absolute Resolution triggers when you land with the Wings of Resolve, I think that it should trigger when you activate it, because the synergy here is bad. Now I understand that the new virtues are not immediate, but the effect, such as cleanse, should be immediate, otherwise your trait can be interrupted or are simply delayed, which is not the case on the base virtues, making them more is appealing.

Thats some really nice artwork on Fragments of Faith.

Did you draw it Karl?

Also unroot True Shot, kthx.

(1) Longbow does feel like need a 20% CDR trait.
(2) Hunter’s ward: Cooldown is way up there. Too long. The wards are only good for capturing environmental mobs. I so far have not been able to capture an average player – most of the time they simply walked out (while whistling) or got stability or protection on them (therefore they dont even care).
(3) Longbow AA – increase radius for bouncing please. The arrow virtually don’t even bounce unless you shoot into a zerg.
(4) Deflecting shot – good in theory, but in pratice not so much. With so many ways to mitigate missile, we don’t feel like the hassle to time it right. Most of walls/bubble blocks missile for an extended of time, the arrow only does so very very briefly, thus does not give players incentive to learn the needed reflex. Most of the time I use it is for the blind.
(5) Bow 2 – the root is unnecessary. The delay itself already justify the power of the skill.
(6) Traps, well, so far i have only success with scratching a charging zerg and environmental mobs that accidently walk in there. Test of faith need damage all inside upon trigger . I havent seen a reason to use the spinning blade, the slot is always competed by something better. Even when someone manage to trigger either of Test of Fath or the spinning blade trap, sometime i scratched my head: did I achieve anything ?. Let them inflict some vulnerability or cripple perhaps?

For backline support I would want the longbow to have one of two things:
1. a trait to reduce cool downs
2. AA should provide a boon for allies hit by the attack either with a percentage or on critical. (Fury maybe)

I would love to replace the random knockback, which can be really disruptive to play and plans, with a random boon proc (like quickness or protection). This would provide more backline support.

Traps, well traps are traps. They should discourage players from wanting to get near the backline support and so should cripple, chill, or slow. The heal trap needs to be an “Oh kitten” skill. If that goes off it means all other traps have failed and we need help. It needs to be a stronger heal, either give regen, protection, or strip condition. If you want it more offensive I think it would be great if it knocked down or boon stripped. This would allow for us to run or switch to our melee, but most importantly it makes it a pain to come near a DH.

My two cents

Deflecting shot feels impractical, there are too many steps to get a reward.

A. You have to manually aim a narrow line to hit the target.

B. To get max damage you have to aim it at incoming projectiles.

It sounds good in theory but to me its just inconvenient.

Maybe if step A was changed to be auto target, the skill would feel better. I think having both A and B are too much.

1- Virtues need to be instant cast.
2- Bow is klunky as hell, half of the skills either root you or are ground targeted.
3- Traps, yeah, they need to be something else, traps are useless in EVERY game mode.
4- Traits, there is like 0 sinergy in the trait line, we get a know back, with a ranged weapon for when we are close range with no way to dissengage. Could it get any more contradictory?.

OK after writing that big reply earlier. I decided to give pvp a good go again and this time focus on traps.

Mostly using trap only, i couldn´t get it to work at all. Though adding wall of reflection to the mix seemed to be the thing that made traps work for me. Since wall punished people for being ranged, so a melee would always come charging in. They where actually ok at this point, but not anything that me keep using em.

So i decided to add in piercing light. The cooldown reduction was a welcome thing and worked wonders for a longer fight me and a necro had at enemies lord. Daze is short, even though it effect for combat is hard for me to explain, it did help a lot and keept melee from just jumping in and do instant burst damage.
This also worked for my build, since dulled defense isn´t that good in spvp

Then for last bit i decided to see if i could get better use out of test of faith, since it was already doing good job of controlling the area(people where afraid off it or had to waste more then 1 dodge). Heavy light actually made me knock people through damage part more then i expected.
So yeah i am actually beginning to enjoy traps for pvp

Also finally got around to using shield of courage alot. This skill is amazing, a controlled block cone and still being able to attack. I have start using it a lot now. Still needs a lowered cooldown.

my feedback thus far.

longbow is feeling much much better. the damage is solid. being able to fire deflecting shot and symbol of energy behind and to your side makes them much easier to use and for the most part the CD’s far reasonable.
true shot is great. I don’t mind the root at all given the damage output. Going heavy power 7k hits with the occasional 10k on a 4 sec cooldown is amazing.
deflecting shot works fine in pve, the blind is nice in pvp, but I still wish the projectile was slower yet. unless the target is directly in front of you its unlikely that you’ll reliably deflect any worthwhile shots. this is even less likely if there’s a valley between you and the enemy since the shot hugs the ground instead of going straight across.
symbol of energy the flight speed increase was a big help. I’m reliably able to get enemies in it except at extreme ranges.
hunter’s ward I’ve liked everything about this ability except the channel duration and CD, mostly the latter. the channel can be worked around by only using it at a good range, leading the target or supporting allies already engaged, but the CD is just murder even for such a strong ability. I would really like to see it reduced. maybe 35 sec?

Virtues
these are feeling ok for the most part.
justice I would still like to see stronger active use for justice. its pretty much the same as base justice just with a different visual and a range restriction.
resolve is better with the increased range, some are asking for it to be even longer but I’m ok where it is. It would be nice if you evaded during the leap though. being stunned mid jump when you’re trying to disengage really sucks.
courage I don’t know if this is intended because I haven’t seen it explicitly stated in the patch notes, though maybe from a dev in a previous post but courage in addition to actually “blocking” attacks instead of absorbing(awesome) is also working against melee. not just projectiles like the tooltip says. Now I thought I saw a dev say they were going to try it this way and I just had an argument with another player who insisted I found a glitch, I was full of crap, His friend tried it, he tried it and it didn’t work that way blah blah etc. But I’ve been able to reliably block melee attacks with it against mobs, and players no problem.

hopefully its intended and will stay because I’m really liking it this way especially when paired with our on block traits its very nice.

I haven’t finished testing all the traps, but Im mostly ok with them. this weekend I’ve been mainly using fragments of faith and like it a lot when paired with shattered aegis and/or pure of heart. the ones I’ve been least impressed with are the damage oriented ones. procession of blades and test of faith both feel really weak and a waste to use a lot of the time. as far as the heal I haven’t even considered trying it. It just sounds awful right from the get go.

I’m sure I’ll post more later, but this is the bulk of my feedback.

Thanks.

I was surprised to see Signet of Courage not heal 100% but only 50% (to the Stronghold lord). I guess there is a set amount somewhere (25k? can’t remember which number I saw). IMO it should be written in the tooltip.

Hello,

Today I’ve played Pvp… I’m a guardian, I do not have the HoT expansion yet, but I can give a suggestion how to improove Guardian, since I’ve played against Guardian DH, and I have to say I’m very dissapointed; with my Meditation build I could easily dominate Dragonhunters!
I have to mention that when I was facing the Reaper and Revenant builds/caracters… I was litteraly having a hard job, I had to fight them 3-5 minutes to have a little chance to get them in downed faze…in some cases I could not even get a single hit on revenant for 30 sec, so many blocks, and he heals so fast that I can’t even get his heatlh down to 60%…
( I consider myslef a good player, doing daily dungeons, fractals, wvw, 2 year experience with main guard, pvp lvl 32, wvw max level).

Now the suggestion to improove Guardian DH:

Please do real tests in pvp on 1vs1 with DH against Reaper and Revenant, and you will see that any Guardian build is not enough against them, or you will have to be an elite player and the opponents to be normal players to have a chance at winning!

1. At the momment, in my oppinion, Meditation is the elite specialization, it can be used anywere in gw2; and with struggle ( you must be a good player) it can defeat the reaper, revenant.. the DH never will be an elite skill while the Meditation build still exists; and it’s perfect/-ed, it’s that simple!
P.S. Meditation skills with Longbow … it means that you cripple yourself, if you use ranged, how can you harm the enemy with meditation skills?! It forces you to go closer to your opponent, litterally go into their face with longbow?!

2. Traps need changing, big time! Like use stability on them, speed, stun break and when you are casting them make them instant, or get a minimum 2 stability casting time! Plus traps need to make more damage!
If the traps remain the same, there will be useless.. meditation builds will rule gw2 untill then!
In the current state, I’m not even considering to use DH trait line! (When a DH will beat me or give me a hard time my current Guardian build, only then I will use DH traits!)

I have to note, that this is my oppinion, so don’t judge me, you wanted a feedback!

Deflecting shot: I love the concept of the skill but still find it difficult to use effectively – you absolutely cannot use it to take out a projectile perpendicular to you, you’ve got to be shooting directly in front of yourself to even have a chance at destroying something. Not sure how this could be changed, might just not be possible with this kind of skill.

At least I would want the skill to be instant cast – it’s fun to use as a reactionary skill but with the added .25 seconds of reaction time, it just feels that much more clunky.

I feel like DH is close to being really fun, there’s just a few things that need to change to make it a real contender.

Arken.3725:

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

I actually had a great time chain-dazing stuff. It’s alright for an Adept trait. There are also quite a few traps which don’t have to keep your enemies inside (FoF and ToF). I think the daze is a good compromise.

Arken.3725:

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

Agree. Too situational.

Arken.3725:

Hunter’s Determination: ICD is way too long.

This trait is actually pretty good when running many traps. Because it can make up for the lack of having a stunbreak. Then again, it would be much better if it just had a stunbreak instead of the additional Aegis.

Arken.3725:

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.

I agree on the 10% damage reduction. It’s pointless. When you got no conditions on yourself you most likely weren’t hit anyway. Which makes a damage reduction pretty useless. It would make more sense if it was reversed.

The condition removal is kitten good, though. I ran an all trap build with Mace/Shield today and I had so many blocks I barely had any conditions on me. You will have to build for the trait to work but then it’s awesome. I’d even say it’s better than Pure of Voice.

Arken.3725:

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

Not a fan either. Still would like it to work with other ranged attacks as well. There doesn’t do have to be a weapon specific trait on Dragonhunters. Chronomancers are a good example here.

Arken.3725:

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?

The bigger issue I see here is that keeping F1 passive is way more efficient for most builds. Especially when considering stuff like Permeating Wrath. Also the single target nature is a bit unattractive. They should consider reworking Spear of Justice to behave like the Druid Elite Glyph and hit more than one target (not in a line) to make it more attractive.

Arken.3725:

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

Partly disagree. Would be fine if it was a Major. But it’s quite kittenophrenic to create an elite specialization whose Virtues are supposed to be used more actively and then put such a trait as a Minor.

Whould changing it to ‘Recharge your Spear of Justice when you block an attack.’ be too much? A bit like Renewed Justice but different trigger. I think this would also make Big Game Hunter more attractive.

Arken.3725:

Pure of Sight: Too weapon specific and boring.

Agree. Shouldn’t be a Minor. A Major at best.

Arken.3725:

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

I actually enjoy quite a few of them due to different reasons (triggering passive F1, more Aegis etc.). They just play very different than baseline Guardian especially when going for ranged combat.

The only ones I feel are untertuned or too situational are Light’s Judgment and Test of Faith. Test of Faith could be fine with a significantly lower cooldown. Light’s Judgment… not so sure.

Appreciate Xaylin coming out and responding to my post specifically. Excellent points you’ve made.

Okay, a lot of hate for traps here.

One way to majorly fix them.
Either Virtuous Action, Defender’s Dogma, or Pure of sight (or ANY of the traits we currently have in fact) should give the added bonus of allowing Dragonhunters to ground target traps IF they are holding a longbow.

So while wielding a longbow with this trait you are able to set traps from a distance BUT if you switch to, say, a mace, things go back to normal and you set it at your feet.

Is this possible? I feel like it would take away a lot of the flack Dragonhunter is getting AND give a cool new mechanic that everyone seems to be craving

Yep I agree, in order for Hunter’s fortification to be useful it would have to do the reverse of what its doing now:

Hunter’s Fortification: You take 10% less damage when you have conditions on you.

Traps feel great with 1/2 second cast. I’m running a modified Medi Guard and Dragon’s Maw lowers sustain a ton, but has been hitting for upwards of 5k so I usually finish up a fight before I would need Renewed Focus.

Virtues are great but seem to bug out on me every now and then. The cooldown starts up with no effect. All three have been very useful though, just a little buggy.

A 25% move speed trait would be nice. The traits feel much better this time around, but my Guard is just always so slow… And I really hate running Rune of the Traveler and losing build synergy, though I my engage/disengage feels terrible. Maybe a slightly longer range on Wings of Resolve? 600 just always feels a little weak on a leap attack, in my opinion.

Hi Karl,

Thanks for your cooperation. Here are things I feel NEED to change, and they are also QUICK to change

1. Pure of Sight – This needs to go. I’ve found a Dragonhunter build I like that uses Greatsword and Sword/shield. However this minor directly punishes me for using melee weapons because I only get the damage increase at range.

We need a minor that can work with any weapon set and synergizes with the rest of Guardian builds

2. Procession of blades – This trap just straight up sucks. Flat damage for short while and nothing else. Change it.

3. The concept of Traps as a whole- As much as I feel Dragonhunter with the Longbow, Traits, and synergy are going in the right direction for the Guardian. I feel Traps were doomed from the start as a suggestion for this new Elite Spec.

Since we are commited to using Traps, Traps need a SUPPORTIVE capability to synergize better with the rest of the base Guardian.

I suggest traps have a passive support element to it. I.E. A boon while trap is placed and untriggered.
An active suggestion would be: when they are triggered give 1 stack of Stability or Protection. But I think a Passive is necessary.

(Another note: the Guardian has very little disengage/mobility to make Traps effective, this has to be taken into consideration)

4. Hunter’s Ward (Longbow skill 5)- The cast time is WAY too long, my kiting capability is drastically reduced and very rarely people get caught in it.

This should be in line with OTHER Two-handed Guardian skill 5 cast-times. Greatsword/Hammer/Staff skill 5 take around 3/4th of a second cast time, Hunter’s Ward should be no different in order for it to be useful.

5. True Shot (Longbow skill 2)- Needs more mechanical “oomfff” to it. Suggestion: When shot above 75% get 2s of Retaliation, below 75% and above 50% you get Regeneration, Below 50% you get Protection.

Again, synergizes with the base Guardian.

6. Deflecting Shot (Longbow skill 3)- Still quite difficult to use, limited when you target are in adjacent directions. I suggest make it a parry and trigger into a ranged attack. Similar mechanic like Warrior off-hand sword skill 4, or Greatsword Ranger skill 4. It blocks the next ranged projectile it whatever direction, AND THEN, sends a Deflection shot BACK in THAT direction.

Still maintains the core original function, but easier to use because it depends on the enemy aiming at you while you parry it.

6. Spear of Justice- Make this work without a target, sometimes I misclick in large group fights and doesn’t land at all. Otherwise its “pretty goodish” as it is, but could be better.

Hope this Helps!

More thoughts
Longbow
Puncture Shot feels good with cripple, but feel it would be more support if it provided Fury on critical rather than bouncing.

The blind on deflecting shot feels, odd. I would prefer a knockback, slow, or chill affect

Hunter’s Wars, and maybe I missed this in the description, should be a symbol.

Traps
Some people have said it before. Sometimes a trap goes off and I wonder if I did anything. The daze is nice, but either the damage needs to be upped or additional CC conditions need to be added. I would really argue for more CC skills to be added.

Test of Faith is just bad. Leaving the trap doesn’t do enough damage to justify even considering it’s purpose, which I gather is supposed to be an indirect CC. My suggestion, foes in the trap are burned, and leaving torments or bleeds.

Dragon’s Maw feels underwhelming. I mean you’re summoning the appearance of a dragon it should cause awe and fear. I suggest having it actually fear foes around a target. Also, make a blast finisher.

Test of Faith, the blades feel like they need to spin faster. It would be cool, and again I might have missed this in the description, if it were a whirl finisher.

Purification I have written about before. It probably the worst of the traps. It needs to be a stronger heal, either give regen, protection, or strip condition. If you want it more offensive I think it would be great if it knocked down or boon stripped.

There is currently zero incentive to run an all trap utility line.
- Purification being made better would be the one I would focus on
- provide traps with more CC or punishing conditions

One thing that could help in the trait line is, if you don’t want to do ground targeting, create a trait that increases the trigger radius of the traps and makes them unblockable. OR switch the proc knockback longbow trait to a proc knockdown trait for traps.

Not sure why no one else is talking about this.

Fought some burning DHs (as my bunker guard) and the common tactic I noticed was to spam traps as soon as they are off cooldown…I In this case they can very deadly on a point especially when you’re snared with either bow 5, dragon’s maw, and test of faith.

I also find the heavy light trait synergizes very well with dulled senses and even the traps as the cripple makes it a lot easier to keep me in pinned in traps.

I’ll be honest it felt like I was fighting against a gimmick. Traps can be dodged and projectiles can be blocked/reflected. Basically I feel as “DH” is just a guardian with “traps and a bow.” Kinda like a self-gimp?

Certainly the DH “feels” strong if you toss all your eggs in one basket but you can’t go very far being a one-trick pony.

First of all, i’d like to say that i’m loving the Dragonhunter. Great job all around balancing it. There are a couple of things that are really bothering me though and i’ll talk about one of them here. Wings of Resolve.

I love the idea of this ability and to me it is not at all a downgrade from Virtue of Resolve, as long as it gets the tweak it needs.

Right now, Wings of Resolve’s heal only gets applied at the end of the leap, which can be interrupted and go in full cooldown. That makes the heal A LOT LESS reliable. There are a few things you can do to fix it though. In order of ~personal~ preference:

1) Make Wings of Resolve evade attacks during it’s animation.
2) Add one stack os stability when the skill is activated.
3) Change it so the heal is applied at the beggining of the cast.

Absolute Resolution (Virtues Master 2) is having the same problem, being applied at the end of the cast, which makes the trait unreliable to use on a skill that can be canceled. This trait effect should take place at the beggining of the cast. One extra second of heavy burning or bleed stacks can change the tides of a fight and that delay is making this trait extremely less efficient on Wings of Resolve rather than Virtue of Resolve.

These changes will allow the skill to be more reliable as not only a mobility skill but as a healing ability.

Also, one more thing is really bothering me: Chill/Creaple is affecting Wings of Resolve’s travel distance. I’m not sure if this is a glitch or if it’s intended but recent patches changed so that mobility skills would not me affected by such soft cc conditions.

And as for last, Soaring Devastation (Dragonhunter Adept 3) is a little unreliable aswell. The attack isnt always applied at the landing spot. Terrain differences such as slopes will cause the impact to take place in midair, negating the damage/immobilize of the ability. Also, if you cast it at max range the impact and the animation are placed behind your character after the landing.

The concept of the Dragonhunter is extremely pleasing to me and despite of the Judge’s Intervention nerf (which to me was uncalled for, but let’s not get into that) it feels like it has a huge potential, as long as these glitches on the CORE mechanic of the specialization are fixed. The other virtues are working extremely well as intended (at least to me).

- Longbow is almost perfect. I wouldn’t have minded some healing a la Ice Bow, but it’s been perfectly clear that Dragonhunter basically has to sacrifice support. Kind of a shame really, since longbow would’ve been an ideal long range support weapon.

- The name still sucks. Everything that has to be said on this matter has been said, I know it won’t change, but that’s how I feel on the matter. It’s a very specialised theme and it just doesn’t fit a lot of characters.

- Heavy Light is still an awful idea. For the past three years, players have complained about longbow rangers misusing their knockback and messing up fights… so we get a trait that does this as soon as it comes off cooldown with no control whatsoever? Please make it unlock an instant-cast F4 skill with the same cooldown that simply applies a knockback to our next attack. Let us choose when to use it, so we don’t knock enemies out of AoE fields or away from our melee users!

- Traps in general are a flawed concept. I’m not a PvPer, but I can understand how they will be almost completely useless there. As for PvE, I’d never touch them.

- Following on from the last point, I don’t want to use traps, so the traits punish me heavily for this. A lot of the other elite specialisations have traits that synergise with the core profession and allow them to get something out of other weapons, utilities and such. When I look at the Dragonhunter traits, I feel as though I’m being told “You, you have to use this exact set up, whether you like it or not!”. I’d like to be able to use my shouts and not feel punished by an awful line up of traits that do absolutely nothing for my build.

That’s just me though. I’ve always wanted to use a longbow on my Guardian, and now I can. However, I get a name and an icon that completely breaks everything my character is about; I have to sacrifice a traitline I really enjoy for a bunch of stuff that only suits one or two builds and I’m given a bunch of utilities and mechanics I have no interest in whatsoever – while other elite specialisations get some pretty neat stuff.

To summarise: love the bow, still dislike everything else – the name, concept, utilities, traits and synergy. I’m happy to take the bow, but I feel that it’s been wasted and will always be tied to an awful elite specialisation.

After testing DH for 8.5hours this beta weekend. Overall DH has got a bit better but there’s still a lot room for improvement, movement is still a issue and traps still are not useful from range in melee however they work well (for PVE), DH ability to apply cripple still seems really low overall.

Anyway here is some of my thoughts/feedback:

Defender’s Dogma : remove and change to Thrill of the Hunt which gives 25% movement speed whilst wielding ranged weapons.

my reasons for this : this change is beyond vital for dragon hunter to succeed, our movement in its current state is very poor and guardians are now the only Profession without any true form of passive movement speed increases so it would be very unbalanced for guardians to not have this now. After all a true hunter is fast on their feet or they can never keep up with their prey.

Defender’s Dogma in all my testing proved to be utterly useless it doesn’t work when justice (F1) is on cool down, it also would not trigger from (F3) active (even f justice wasn’t on cool down) , even if it did this trait was never something dragon hunter needed nor do any guardians want it. In its current state is this trait is a waste and offers nothing to the dragon hunter spec.

I am sorry if i seem harsh but defender’s dogma is literally that bad and useless.

Overall with out a 25% movement speed trait dragon hunter will never be truly passable. It was near impossible to even get out of melee range against risen npc’s yet alone other players.

Spear of Justice (F1) : make the active inflict 2 seconds of cripple to every target it hits (initial impact) or allow the passive effect to still work after its been activated.

My reason for asking this is zealots aggression while the change was nice it does nothing for those using big game hunter.

Puncture Shot: Remove the requirement of 2nd target having to be behind the 1st target for this attack to bounce, considering its slow cast id prefer if it also had 2 bounces not 1 but make it so it can’t hit the same target twice or reduce the cast time to 0.5 seconds.

my reasons for this is the bounce requirement is annoying and it greatly reduces the usefulness of this attack, while longbow does have a fair amount of AOE skills it becomes our main weapon as DH and puncture shot feels very lacking when your against larger groups.

True shot: allow us to move whilst casting this ability but at a slower pace similar to whirling wrath but please don’t increase the cool down of true shot as that would be detrimental.

deflecting shot : seems to be in a good place right now.

Symbol of Energy: the projectile speed of this skill is a bit slow still.

Hunter’s Ward: reduce cast time to 2 seconds and increase the cripple duration to 3seconds.

bug: hunters ward still has a great tendency to miss on the 1st impacts and not apply the cripple, I’ve also had times where the final impact misses all targets even when they were clearly within the impact zone.

Traps : change traps so once they have been placed down the guardian can activate the trap to spawn at their current targets location.

my reason for this is going back into melee range just to lay down a trap(s) was not only a hassle but counter productive. a change like would allow players to have the choice between using trap skills defensively and offensively, trap skills are also not effective in wvw so this change would finally give DH the ability for back line play as it was intended.

I also feel that a change like this would be more useful and less hassle then adding ground targeting to all traps.

Purification (Heal) : increase the damage and change this trap to cure 2 or 3 conditions, i think this would be a more suitable effect for the trap considering its name. Purification in its current state doesn’t compete with other heals such as signet of resolve or shelter

radiance traits:

Retribution: this really needs to be changed to 10% damage v targets with a condition.

my reasons for this change is retribution restricts what utility skills guardian use not mention is rather difficult to maintain. This trait will prove even more difficult for DH to benefit from as DH virtues are not instant, it would be nice to be able to use 2 traps along with bane signet rather then 1, currently i use save yourselves simply because it applies 10secs of retaliation which feels rather counter productive to me.

Anyway I am looking forward to see how dragon hunter turns out when heart of thorns goes live.

Here we go. In general the addition of Specializations seem to have given Guardians a substantial nerf, not to power, but to gameplay and overall fun. “We” (guardians) still seem to have the same decent build paths which we’ve had for the last couple of months now, but Dragon Hunter will see little play after a month or two of people trying to find effective builds, to no avail of course, because it is in Dragon Hunter’s inherent nature to collide rather than synergize with Guardian’s current gameplay.

Our longbow doesn’t seem to be as effective as that of other professions, and I believe it’s because of the limited mobility while using most of its abilities, as well as its ironically short range. We do get rewarded for hitting enemies who are lined up behind one another, but that isn’t practical and will almost never happen against players who have any idea how to play the game. Overall longbow is just “okay” and does not quite shine as the new weapons for other elite specializations do.

As for traps, they seem really good to me for melee specs such as Greatsword & Hammer or Greatsword & Scepter/Focus, but by no means do traps synergize with the bow, which isn’t really an issue at all, just odd in my opinion. Dragon’s Maw was really well designed by the way.

Wings of Resolve needs an increase in range, or else it’s no better than the current Virtue of Resolve, as the distance it travels can be matched by a quick sprint and activation of VoR.

Finally, all the Dragon Hunter Grandmasters seem just as effective as Master traits from other trait lines, which can’t be a good sign, right?

Just reposting for feedback into this thread;

Bezagron.7352:

Still working on testing but thought I would like to share some of my feedback from testing DH traps.

First one thing I’ve noticed between all discussions with elite specs is a common “This doesn’t benefit my current playstyle” or “why would you take elite X over core builds X”. When elite’s were said to provide different playstyle / gameplay to what we currently have access to. Regarding guardians it’s like were locked into meditation or shout build mind set as the only way to provide viable sustainability.

My thoughts are if this is the playstyle / gameplay you like & want well we already have it. I can feel the frustration of wanting improvement & enhancements brought to your playstyle (new toys) through opening up variants but I actually believe were starting to see this for example Harbinger’s Fragments of Faith Med Build.

So first to note I’m actually enjoying a DH trapper playstyle which surprised me. It really feels different to current playstyles found in core guardian. I have been testing a Melee DH Blade Trapper – Sw/Sh & GSw. First the lets discuss the two biggest changes to traps in BWE3:

Reduced Cast Time
At 0.5 sec cast time this has been a massive change, trap placement now feels so much smoother overall & also achievable in melee range through positioning, blinds & aegis use. This has allowed me for example to port in (Sw#2) place Purification while their blinded & have it trigger guaranteeing the full heal. This has allowed for reactive trap gameplay & placement within combat instead of requiring setup prior.

Daze
Traited daze on trigger was a change I was wondering about but have founded I love it. What it’s done is changed DH trap gameplay from condition trapper into a control trapper. So what we get now with trappers are:

• Condition Trapper (Ranger) - All about those conditions.
• Setup Trapper (Thief) - All about setting up your target for what follows (feel this is the gameplay but needs work to become a more viable build).
• Control Trapper (Dragonhunter) - All about battlefield control & interrupting the combat pace of foes.

Two other very important aspect are traps become invisible after placement & cooldown starts recharging after placement. This means areas around a DH become a mine field foes will either not know what’s there or have to remember perfectly where traps were placed & what type contenting with these new dangerous obstacles changing up the battlefield.

The aspect of recharging after placement allows a pre-placement gameplay option without punishing you with a massive window of downtime while still allowing reactive gameplay to combat changes after a window of opportunity foes can take advantage of. This allows setting up of your battlefield pro-actively using all of your traps if wanted which is at the heart of trapper’s gameplay but still provide after a window use of these utility skills which is much need in GW2 fast paced mobile combat.

Off topic abit this reduced cast time & recharge after activation is something I would like to see on Spirit Weapons as they have a similar set up to traps. This would allow players to have there spirit weapons summoned prior to combat & not worrying if a foes going to appear to make use of them before their on cooldown. If Traps were un-viable because of a 1 sec cast time what’s this say about 1.5 sec cast time on spirit weapons. I say please let us test spirit weapons with a similar reduced cast time & recharging after summon & I think will see a great increase in spirit weapons viability.

The largest weakness to trap builds have been stun lock builds & the guardian burn build. With stun lock builds you really need to use your blinds, blocks & positioning to avoid lock down as if locked down early in the rotation it’s typically the end. The issues with burn guard are not so much the burning but the almost instant high stacks that you can’t respond to before a single tick. Other then that through pre-trap placement & staggering trap placement in combat I founded no issues with survivability with the above build.

Lastly to really finish the build off regarding virtues I would love a pull or taunt on SoJ as this was the once virtue I found no use for in trap builds.

Have now played in all modes and gotta say I’m having a great time.

Traps synergize more with greatsword than bow – but anyone who has actually played a range class in this game knows you can’t keep at range forever so the GS/traps portion of the fight is coming. For all I’ve been told over and over players will avoid them… they don’t. Same notes as before – need cleanse on Purification drop and trigger, stunbreak and light field on Test of Faith, and MORE COWBELL on Dragon’s Maw. Whirl finishers on first and final pulse of Spin-to-Win would also add style.

New puncture shot arrows look better but could still use a light trail like Focus #4. There was also some discussion of letting them bounce freely like Thief shortbow one. This could make it a lot easier to use in the chaos of a small sPvP fight. Yes, the new tech is cute but the reward is not commiserate with the hassle.

Longbow 5… I’ve landed it on players now, but they had to be really, really preoccupied with another player up in their grill. This has to land the CC component faster.

I’m trying on not just laugh in the face of people saying true shot needs to be mobile. It works great if you plan far enough ahead. Pick your firing position with care and reap the rewards. IF for some reason this still seems under-tuned the most interesting suggestion I’ve heard put forward is to make it unblockable. Could also use a deeper sound and (much) larger arrow, just as a courtesy to the poor shmuck downrange. And to let them know, “yeah, I DID get that off, self-root and all. Eat it.”

Like the strategy required to use the cast-time virtues. Less spaz/twitch gameplay and more evil scheming. Still wish Wings of Resolve had more range. Or at least more range when traited. f3 needs shorter cooldown. No news on that front.

Traits. Bit of a mess in there. You can pick your way through the minefield but the KB-on-LB-shot is not a winner and the traits hanging off of it are similarly meh.

Even with this weekend’s feedback, I don’t see Dragonhunter getting a perfect launch for my tastes, but it’s fun and playable already. Work out what you really want the LB-traits to do and simplify the dependencies between those traits. Get Pure of Sight out of the mandatory and into the optional path… Its a great trait if you’re running longbow (and some of the optional LB-orient traits are not great, so win-win)but it’s something we should be able to skip if we want to double down on a melee/trapper setup.

Clock is winding down. Lets see how far the final push can take us .

I am a top tier sPvP guardian who plays the bunker guard “The Big Damage” for team radioactive.

Here is my DH feedback:
The style of Dragon Hunter I tried to play was a bunker guard variant for use in high level sPvP tournaments. The duties of a bunker guard include clearing conditions from allies, healing and buffing them, holding a point, as well as providing stability for res and stomp.

Hunter’s Fortification, this needs to be changed from “cure a condition on block with a 1 sec icd” to “cure a condition on Aegis block” so that it gives the group condi clear that makes up for dropping the Honor line to take this specialization. This would also create tremendous synergy with Shattered Aegis and Pure of Heart, please consider this. Also, if you make this change, remove the ICD.

Firebird.8324:

I am a top tier sPvP guardian who plays the bunker guard “The Big Damage” for team radioactive.

Here is my DH feedback:
The style of Dragon Hunter I tried to play was a bunker guard variant for use in high level sPvP tournaments. The duties of a bunker guard include clearing conditions from allies, healing and buffing them, holding a point, as well as providing stability for res and stomp.

Hunter’s Fortification, this needs to be changed from “cure a condition on block with a 1 sec icd” to “cure a condition on Aegis block” so that it gives the group condi clear that makes up for dropping the Honor line to take this specialization. This would also create tremendous synergy with Shattered Aegis and Pure of Heart, please consider this. Also, if you make this change, remove the ICD.

Firebird just wondering as most guardian blocks are single hit blocks bar shelter could we keep the block component for self & add the aegis removal as well? Or would this be too powerful?

Bezagron.7352:

Firebird.8324:

I am a top tier sPvP guardian who plays the bunker guard “The Big Damage” for team radioactive.

Here is my DH feedback:
The style of Dragon Hunter I tried to play was a bunker guard variant for use in high level sPvP tournaments. The duties of a bunker guard include clearing conditions from allies, healing and buffing them, holding a point, as well as providing stability for res and stomp.

Hunter’s Fortification, this needs to be changed from “cure a condition on block with a 1 sec icd” to “cure a condition on Aegis block” so that it gives the group condi clear that makes up for dropping the Honor line to take this specialization. This would also create tremendous synergy with Shattered Aegis and Pure of Heart, please consider this. Also, if you make this change, remove the ICD.

Firebird just wondering as most guardian blocks are single hit blocks bar shelter could we keep the block component for self & add the aegis removal as well? Or would this be too powerful?

I think it would be a good trade-off if the ICD were taken away, so if I get condi bombed I can stand on a bunch of aegis to get them removed. Also, it would be hard to calculate how that 1 sec ICD would factor in if you give an aegis to person A and person B and then person A just blocked… etc.

I have played every profession now til satisfaction and ever other profession besides the Berserker, which felt just ok, was amazing. The Synergy of all the new Elite traitlines was so fun, everything fits in. The Dragonhunter has nothing of it and im not exaggerating if i say, it is the reason why there are almost no Dragonhunters out on this BWE and the reason why noone will use it when it comes out. Even every streamer so far says, Dragonhunter is the absolute failure, the worst thing ever made… literally, go watch some.

I already adressed a few things, but here are some more.
-Why has the Guardian no 25% speed buff, when every other class has it, can obtain it and some of them have even perma swiftness with absolute ease? The Guardians perma swiftness comes with immense drawbacks
-Signet if Courage is so far not even worth thinking about
-Sword 2 skill has no use without a target, while every other teleport skill can be used by just beein smart if they are like the mesmer staff 2 for example
-The longbow has absolutely no synergy with the rest of the guardians abilitys and no defense whatsoever, it is very clunky and dps are way to low for it
-the dragonhunter traitline is almost exclusively designed for the longbow, which makes it just even worse, instead of making everything have profits from it. Why do i ask?!
-the role of a Dragonhunter is not even existing, there is absolutely no need whatsoever for this profession,because everything he does, can be done better by another profession

It sounds really harsh, but that is how it is. I had a blast with every profession, yet berserker was fun, but the Dragonhunter is frustrating!! It reflects everything what is wrong the the Guardians developing (which is no suprise, because the paladin class is like this in every mmo) and with the new expansion, things just came to light. I love Guardian but there is no need for something which is left out over and over again.

Firebird.8324:

I think it would be a good trade-off if the ICD were taken away, so if I get condi bombed I can stand on a bunch of aegis to get them removed. Also, it would be hard to calculate how that 1 sec ICD would factor in if you give an aegis to person A and person B and then person A just blocked… etc.

I was thinking the ICD was still tied to blocks (eg. channelled blocks – shelter) so it wasn’t to strong with these & aegis just removed a condition on end (seperate condi removal from block so no ICD).

Firebird.8324:

I am a top tier sPvP guardian who plays the bunker guard “The Big Damage” for team radioactive.

Here is my DH feedback:
The style of Dragon Hunter I tried to play was a bunker guard variant for use in high level sPvP tournaments. The duties of a bunker guard include clearing conditions from allies, healing and buffing them, holding a point, as well as providing stability for res and stomp.

Hunter’s Fortification, this needs to be changed from “cure a condition on block with a 1 sec icd” to “cure a condition on Aegis block” so that it gives the group condi clear that makes up for dropping the Honor line to take this specialization. This would also create tremendous synergy with Shattered Aegis and Pure of Heart, please consider this. Also, if you make this change, remove the ICD.

Sorry but, No.

The Dragonhunter is meant to be a totally different playstyle and a selfish offensive style for the Guardian. It’s not intended to mesh with the bunker Guardian role.

The bunker Guardian has been absolutely fine with Honour, Valour and Virtues and has had a place in the tPvP meta for 3 years.
It needs no consideration with regards to the Dragonhunter. It’s meta, it works.

The Dragonhunter needs to work for personal offense and survival that meshes with our existing offensive style.
The ability to add a little team support through Virtue traits or take Shouts is enough of a hybrid already.

Bezagron.7352:

Firebird.8324:

I think it would be a good trade-off if the ICD were taken away, so if I get condi bombed I can stand on a bunch of aegis to get them removed. Also, it would be hard to calculate how that 1 sec ICD would factor in if you give an aegis to person A and person B and then person A just blocked… etc.

I was thinking the ICD was still tied to blocks (eg. channelled blocks – shelter) so it wasn’t to strong with these & aegis just removed a condition on end (seperate condi removal from block so no ICD).

I think that that would make it a strong, well balanced trait; however, that would also make the trait a bit overly complicated and people could get confused. When it comes right down to it, I believe that there needs to be a remove condi on Aegis however it may be implemented.

Ezrael.6859:

Firebird.8324:

I am a top tier sPvP guardian who plays the bunker guard “The Big Damage” for team radioactive.

Here is my DH feedback:
The style of Dragon Hunter I tried to play was a bunker guard variant for use in high level sPvP tournaments. The duties of a bunker guard include clearing conditions from allies, healing and buffing them, holding a point, as well as providing stability for res and stomp.

Hunter’s Fortification, this needs to be changed from “cure a condition on block with a 1 sec icd” to “cure a condition on Aegis block” so that it gives the group condi clear that makes up for dropping the Honor line to take this specialization. This would also create tremendous synergy with Shattered Aegis and Pure of Heart, please consider this. Also, if you make this change, remove the ICD.

Sorry but, No.

The Dragonhunter is meant to be a totally different playstyle and a selfish offensive style for the Guardian. It’s not intended to mesh with the bunker Guardian role.

The bunker Guardian has been absolutely fine with Honour, Valour and Virtues and has had a place in the tPvP meta for 3 years.
It needs no consideration with regards to the Dragonhunter. It’s meta, it works.

The Dragonhunter needs to work for personal offense and survival that meshes with our existing offensive style.
The ability to add a little team support through Virtue traits or take Shouts is enough of a hybrid already.

Hey, buddy, not sure if you noticed but with things like a trap that makes it so ANYONE on your team can pick up an Aegis and get healed by it, or a shield of courage that blocks for ANYONE behind you, or a wings of resolve that gives a MASSIVE aoe 5k heal, it DEFINITELY meshes well with bunker traits. Saying “sorry, but no” and then stating that YOU know exactly how Dragon hunter is supposed to be used is narrow-minded naivete.

Amaya.1483:

I have played every profession now til satisfaction and ever other profession besides the Berserker, which felt just ok, was amazing. The Synergy of all the new Elite traitlines was so fun, everything fits in.

Really? You found 8 out of 9 Especs suit you perfectly? That’s amazing. Sound’s like HoT is a HUGE SUCCESS then, assuming you’re the center of the universe.

I’m shocked you played them all and didn’t notice a single issue regularly being reported… Sure, Herald is grossly overpowered (I’ve come to expect that from its lead dev…) and therefore amusing/fun. But lets get a little more non-farcical lay of the land.

• Elementalist/Tempest. Horn skills are limp, Overload mechanic runs counter to everything about the class’ fast cycling attunements, Worst Elite skill of any Espec hands down… Twice. And is rightly accused of bringing nothing new to an already flexible and potent class.
• Engineer/Scrapper. They got spirit weapons… Let me say that again… they got spirit weapons. We’re talking the worst of the worst of Guardian tools. If you think that’s cause for celebration over there, you’re mad.
• Necromancer/Reaper. Largely entertaining as a chill/tank but not a single Necro player thinks its going to make them more popular in group activities. Its just another melee class with terrible team support.
• Ranger/Druid. You could power a small city on the nerdrage surrounding a pure healer role being thrust on players that have been trying to be taken seriously as ranged DPS for three years. Synergy between lines you say? I DEFY YOU to point at how anything in the druid works with the Ranger class mechanic of having a pet.
• Thief/Daredevil. The complaining about the lack of increased endurance inflow LITERALLY NEVER STOPS.
• Warrior/Berseker. SSDD — same skill, different day, Heck their new utility line is a re-paint of a line they already have.
• Mesmer. Ok, there is one existing profession that’s sitting there like a cat with a feather poking out of the corner of its mouth. Good for them. Something to do now that they broke PU’s neck.

This grass is greener crap needs to STOP. The funny thing about being in a good place? It means our branch/sub-classes should not be better, and given only a few hours of play had better be a bit worse than our most highly tuned alpha predator builds. Dragonhunter is shaping up and with practice will be a deadly competitor in every mode. If you don’t want to play it, FINE. But quit fantasizing that you represent the center of some universe that’s dragging the rest of the playerbase along in its wake.

Nike.2631:

Amaya.1483:

I have played every profession now til satisfaction and ever other profession besides the Berserker, which felt just ok, was amazing. The Synergy of all the new Elite traitlines was so fun, everything fits in.

Dragonhunter is shaping up and with practice will be a deadly competitor in every mode.

Except PVE.

Dragon Hunter is easily the worst elite spec out of all of them, yes other elite specs have their problems, but the Dragon Hunter is a epic train-wreck that only kinda works in PVP in rare circumstances.

People need to stop saying “Dragon Hunter will be good with practice, you’re just a noob” this has nothing to do with lack of experience, this elite spec is just pure garbage. We are educated adults who have played this game for three years, we know when something is good/viable or not.

((shrug)) What PvE is hard? DH still has access to the utilities that make Guardians desirable in fractals and no one has seen the raids yet in meaningful fashion. So what PvE are you saying Dragonhunter sucks at?

Nike.2631:

Amaya.1483:

I have played every profession now til satisfaction and ever other profession besides the Berserker, which felt just ok, was amazing. The Synergy of all the new Elite traitlines was so fun, everything fits in.

Really? You found 8 out of 9 Especs suit you perfectly? That’s amazing. Sound’s like HoT is a HUGE SUCCESS then, assuming you’re the center of the universe.

I’m shocked you played them all and didn’t notice a single issue regularly being reported… Sure, Herald is grossly overpowered (I’ve come to expect that from its lead dev…) and therefore amusing/fun. But lets get a little more non-farcical lay of the land.

• Elementalist/Tempest. Horn skills are limp, Overload mechanic runs counter to everything about the class’ fast cycling attunements, Worst Elite skill of any Espec hands down… Twice. And is rightly accused of bringing nothing new to an already flexible and potent class.
• Engineer/Scrapper. They got spirit weapons… Let me say that again… they got spirit weapons. We’re talking the worst of the worst of Guardian tools. If you think that’s cause for celebration over there, you’re mad.
• Necromancer/Reaper. Largely entertaining as a chill/tank but not a single Necro player thinks its going to make them more popular in group activities. Its just another melee class with terrible team support.
• Ranger/Druid. You could power a small city on the nerdrage surrounding a pure healer role being thrust on players that have been trying to be taken seriously as ranged DPS for three years. Synergy between lines you say? I DEFY YOU to point at how anything in the druid works with the Ranger class mechanic of having a pet.
• Thief/Daredevil. The complaining about the lack of increased endurance inflow LITERALLY NEVER STOPS.
• Warrior/Berseker. SSDD — same skill, different day, Heck their new utility line is a re-paint of a line they already have.
• Mesmer. Ok, there is one existing profession that’s sitting there like a cat with a feather poking out of the corner of its mouth. Good for them. Something to do now that they broke PU’s neck.

This grass is greener crap needs to STOP. The funny thing about being in a good place? It means our branch/sub-classes should not be better, and given only a few hours of play had better be a bit worse than our most highly tuned alpha predator builds. Dragonhunter is shaping up and with practice will be a deadly competitor in every mode. If you don’t want to play it, FINE. But quit fantasizing that you represent the center of some universe that’s dragging the rest of the playerbase along in its wake.

Well, i dont know if you are dumb or just want to pick up a fight, nvm. I said i played them til satisfaction and had really much fun, i dindnt say they were perfect or whatever and i dont even care about it. They are much better than the DH and this is a fact, that is it. You probably just need some agression training and see what other players are able to do with the new professions and how they (almost) all react to a common thing … ^^

Edit : forgot one thing, picking one sentence and adressing your whole point on it without relation to the rest i wrote, answers my question if you are d…. calm down.. real.

Nike.2631:

((shrug)) What PvE is hard? DH still has access to the utilities that make Guardians desirable in fractals and no one has seen the raids yet in meaningful fashion. So what PvE are you saying Dragonhunter sucks at?

The GUARDIAN has it all, Dragonhunter is literally not needed whatsoever… iam pretty sure he meant that.

Traps need to be ground targeted, this isn’t up for debate, in order for Traps to be even remotely viable they must be ranged.

Purification- Triggers from allies not enemies. Heals 5 allies in the blast radius, removing conditions and granting Resistance.

Fragments of Faith- Triggers from allies not enemies. Grants 5 allies aegis in the blast radius, also scatters 5 aegis fragments.

Procession of Blades- Triggers from enemies. Whirl Finisher. Hits apply bleed.

Traits also need major changes. Start with replacing ‘Defenders Dogma’ and ‘Pure of Sight’.

Defenders Dogma- Aegis applied to yourself also gives Swiftness.

Pure of Sight- Bonus damage while wielding a two-handed weapon.

Also Virtues have to be instant cast, if the cast time remains come Traits are completely useless.

Deflecting Shot needs to be slower. Symbol velocity needs to be faster. The CC on Hunters Ward need to be applied at the start not the end.

Change ‘Symbol of Energy’ to ‘Symbol of Judgment’.

BUG
Skill: Renewed Justice
Problem: This trait is not refreshing Virtue of Justice on mob kill.
Location: The Silverwastes
Test 1: Used Dragonhunter F1 and Longbow 1 to kill a hyena. F1 did not recharge on kill.
Test 2: Swapped Dragonhunter for Zeal (untraited) and activated F1 and Staff 1 to kill a hyena. F1 did not recharge on kill.

Loving Dragonhunter. Procession of Blades is crazy strong. Test of Faith is a little finnicky though, since it doesn’t damage a foe unless they move on the edge.

Dragonhunter needs a bit more efficient ways of causing cripple.

Aside from that, I think it’s in a fairly good place.

I am unhappy about the fact that shield of courage (our f3) can be interrupted which negates all the boons, and the shield itself. Having a cast time is fine, but having this skill be interruptable really ruins the experience. My suggestion on how to fix this involves a change to both core guardian and DH mechanics:

-Virtue of Courage (base guardian): Buff the aegis and retaliation/protection/stability uptime (when traited to virtues) up by 1/4 a second to make up for the cast time of Shield of Courage.
-Shield of Courage (DH): boons and the stunbreak (from Indomitable courage) activate immediately upon pressing F3, the shield does not manifest until the 1/4 second cast time is complete.

On this note, we may want to get wings of resolve looked at too as it essentially suffers from the same issue.

Please… stop crying or we will have a flood.
Traps are only bad in 1v1, if you have it harder elsewhere, then that’s too bad.
Seriously during team fights you put a bunch of traps while everyone is distracted and BOOM, done. When you are focused during a 1v1 fight then it gets a little bit underwhelming but we can’t get out of our good spot, we can’t be too good you know

Virtues

F1 – Should have a Pulsing cripple. At the moment its useless for anything thats not a burn guard, and burn guard should not take the DH line.

F2 – Should not go on full cooldown if interrupted (it only removes immob, but that means you dont get your heal and cleanse if traited with absolute resolution)

F3 – You shouldn’t have to be forced to cover your stability. If your cast is interrupted in its 1/4s cast time, you dont get any stability, and it goes on full cooldown.

Virtues unusable while invulnerable? something has to be done about that :\. In high tier, a guardian can be forced into invuln so quickly if theyre marauder or any other dps amulet

Longbow

#1 – Really polished right now, perfect.
#2 – People are suggesting to remove the ‘rooting’ effect, but the root is fine, considering how powerful the skill is
#3 – I enjoy where this skill is at right now, the skill-shot part of it is actually cool, and you are able to interrupt blocks with it if you aim it correctly, and you still have your Heavy Light passive.
#4 – This skill’s cast time is a little too long for my liking, it really needs to be quicker, and even a little bit larger of a radius. Sometimes just spamming auto attacks is better than wasting your time using this symbol.
#5 – This skill is really powerful where it is at. It’s damage is really poor, but that’s not why the skill is great. Problem is sometimes the rings do not spawn if an enemy is a bit too far away, or something? Not entirely sure, but the rings aren’t consistent.

Traps

Fragments of Faith – This trap is currently bugged when taking the “Piercing Light Trait” and will hit for 1 extra time than intended. Other than that, this trap is actually still very powerful, and worth the utility slot.

Test of Faith – I actually enjoy this trap too, however its a little bit lack luster. It needs to do damage initially, and have some sort of effect when standing inside. Too easily is this trap rendered useless

Procession of Blades – Terrible trap…..Won’t ever be using this.

Light’s Judgement – A very situational trap that is also not worth the utility spot. Other professions have a more reliable reveal that they also have easier access to (Engi Tools Analyse, and toolbelt on gyro, and revenant)

Overall Dragonhunter still needs to be refined a little more, mainly in the virtues aspect. Elite virtues should not be worse than standard virtues. At least make them just as useful.

The longbow feels really nice and packs a punch, its a bit of a practice thing with what second weapon to pick and what to do, as the moment you swap of longbow your playstyle changes a lot. The traps are okay for the most part, they could use a bit more power, except for the Dragons maw, that one is very powerfull and scary.

I have to admit, I am enjoying the DH now – at least more than last BWE. The damage is quite nice at a distance (ty so much for the velocity), and I felt this is something I could use in PvE, however I don’t believe I will ever use DH+traps in PvP. I’ve been playing least 15 matches through this event so far, and I havent seen one guardian using traps, which reason I feel is justified by many already.
I played some PvE events/storyline using LB and my overall ‘usual utility skills’, that being Shouts or mixture. But I can’t seem to get my head around these traps. Just feel the CD is too long and the fact you have to wait for mobs to run into these traps which doesn’t feel like my time worth. I’m still against traps and I most likely will be in the future. Though I will use LB – whenever it may require in fights.

TLDR: Lonbow is awesome now (GJ Karl), traps still blows > I will pretend LB is the only thing NEW that came with guardian into HoT.

One thing I can no longer agree with is everyone that’s saying trap gameplay is useless & can never work in GW2’s combat. We already have a type of trap gameplay in GW2’s fast dynamic combat & it works.

Marks -These are basically traps with ranged placement.

This has been one of the most requested solutions for “fixing” traps. So instead of adding ranged placement to traps players should be asking for them to be changed to marks if after this. Not an option I’m after as I believe other option exist.

The advantages of current Trap design are:

• AoE effect typically effecting multiply targets.
• Can have stronger effects due to limitations (requires triggering, placed at feet).
• Change battlefield environment to be an advantage to you / disadvantage to foes.
• Skill recharge after placement allowing for pre-combat setup & still having skill available after a window. Effectively can use the skill twice.

Disadvantages are:

• Trap placement a characters feet
• Requires triggering before benefiting from skill.

The solutions I see for current traps to make them a more viable playstyle are

• Access to gap closers – this allows for trap placement beneath targets almost guaranteeing triggering of trap effect.
• Short cast times – This is what can guarantees triggering after a gap closer. To long & they can just walk out of it not requiring an skill uses. Too short and they could be no counter play, require traps effects to be too weak. Also effects how smooth trap gameplay feels & interacts with other skills.
• Access to aegis, blinds, dazes or stuns – These are here to help guarantee placement of traps without getting interrupted though allowing for stronger effects due to the setup.
• Access to Pulls / Taunts – Helps force relocate foes into your traps again helping guaranteeing trigger.

At the moment Dragonhunters have all of these solutions available as build options in that it now becomes more about skill effects, sustain & the survivability traps provide. A traps builds biggest weakness are stun locks & conditions.

Regarding stun locks on a whole I find this to be an acceptable major weakness. I would just want a single stun break on traps as an option to provide some backup for making a mistake. I find (Test of Faith) to be a perfect stun break option as it’s functionality meshes perfectly in the circumstances your looking for when stun breaking (eg. cripple to foes & punishment for crossing ring deterring foe following).

I’ve also found although condition can be a major weakness it’s possible through traits, skills & trap choices to help cover this. The largest condition problem I’ve found is the near instant high stacks of damaging conditions (burning guard main offender) were your unable to respond before the first tick of damage. But this is more of a instant high condition stack problem.

Again lastly my wish for a Pull / Taunt Flip Skill on Spear of Justice as with Wings of Resolve this will always guarantee access to a gap closer for placement of traps beneath foes & a forced relocation of foes into placed traps which is needed for viable Trap play in GW2’s fast dynamic combat.

Dear ANET game devs,

I’m quite happy with DH! It’s performance in pve, pvp and wvw is an interesting new flavor, is very visually appealing (sound FX, and visual FX are spot on, very happy!!) and it has really developed into a fun, playable spec (aside from maybe the traps) thanks to your willingness to listen to our feed-back. Thank you!

That being said, here is a very long and fairly comprehensive feedback on DH in its current state. I go over nearly every facet of DH from a pvp and wvw point of view (I didn’t test it out in pve that much).

Virtues: Very happy with them! Cooldown reductions to f1 and f2 have put them in a great place! F1’s velocity and damage boost are great. Here are a couple issues I have though:
-Cast time: Both f2 and f3 can be interrupted causing you to receive no boons, no activated skill, and full cd. This seriously ruins your day and feels unfair ?
Here are some suggested fixes:
Evade on f2, instant-receive boons on f3 if traited (still can’t use f3 while casting something though). Maybe nerf the healing of f2 slightly to compensate. Also the 75s base cd of f3 seems a bit too long.

Longbow: #2 hits like a TRUCK now though, so we might need to consider toning down the damage. It should hit about 1.3 to 1.5x harder than mighty blow, but not 2x! Despite every1 complaining about the rooting on #2, I like this mechanic, and urge you to keep it as the damage more than makes up for it.
My only complaint has to deal with the trait.

Traps: Still not up to par with other skill-types in my opinion. I’m seeing a bit more play of Fragments of Faith (FF) which is nice, but not so much the other traps. What other people have said applies here: Let Purity cleanse 2-3 condis, and let one of the traps break stun. We need more sustain on the traps. I like the trait-placement for the traps, and like the dazes! ?

Traits: Lot to say here, I’ll try to keep it short.

-At the adept level, soaring devestation still takes the cake…. And the icing….and the whole cake store. Don’t nerf it (maybe nerf to 2.5s immob); buff the other adepts! For example: the third adept could additionally apply weakness (3s, 8s icd) when striking foe with 2+ stacks vuln and trap trait could be 1.5s daze + adds a burning blast when triggering a trap.

-REALLY like Hunter’s Determination (drop FF trap when cced), and Hunter’s Fortification (condi cleanse on block).

-Minor Traits: Not a big fan of our two minor traits.
Defender’s Dogma doesn’t feel very impactful at all. Even if you build around a blocking DH build, this minor goes unnoticed. Not to mention it encourages us to not use our f1.
Pure of Sight is okay, and really makes Trueshot hit hard now but is otherwise a very poor trait in my opinion.

Some suggested fixes:
Defender’s Dogma: Could change it so that blocking an attack reduces the recharge of virtues by a static amount (1s internal cd). This would really encourage us to use our f3!
Pure of Sight: Honestly I’d say redesign this minor. It almost exclusively affects longbow, and we shouldn’t be funneled into using longbow just because we play DH.

Last but not Least: Heavy Light. I really like this trait, and it makes using the longbow for roaming/spvp/skirmish situations REALLY powerful. Two minor complaints though:

-I dislike the current iteration. The previous iteration worked better in my opinion (stability on true-shot). A better way for this trait to work would be for us to gain stability on lb rooting attacks (2 and 5). This thematically and logically makes sense (assume a balanced footing so you can aim a powerful arrow).
-Second complaint: The icd. I’d suggest 8s. 7 was too little, but 10 feels like too much.

Now on to the trap feedback:

Purification – Been finding I have great health sustain through this skill so long as I can guarantee trigger (Typically gap close & placement at foes feet is enough). But feel so at odds with the name like many others… Why Oo why doesn’t it remove any conditions with a name like Purification. To really make this an attractive heal that completes with the others please include:

• Removes 2 conditions on placement.

This will provide some much needed condition protection for trap builds also opening up more variant build options as your not locked into trying to cover this major weakness through all other choices.

Procession of Blades – Weakest feeling trap of them all. But it has decent damage on a short cooldown. This short cooldown allows for greater benefit from the traited daze & trap rune effects. The only change I would like to see is for this to be changed to a whirl finisher.

Test of Faith – One of my favour traps, although weak if not crossed or only crossed once or twice it provides a unblockable damaging environmental map change that foes must be aware of otherwise multiply crossing are going to be punished. It also has the benefit of no target limit (PvE hordes & WvW Zerg 20-50 foes all running through it).

The only change I would like is to change this skill to a stun break instant cast. This would provide an escape from stun locks again slightly opening up build variants allowing to other trait & skill choices.

Light’s Judgement – Mechanical an interesting skill. Provides counter play to stealth ambushes by revealing foes that sneak up on you. The large stack of reapplying vulnerability help increase all damage to foes & enhance that this is an area you want to get out of. Sadly the damage is to small for much benefit.

There are two modifications I would like done to this skill.

1. Increase the revealed time to that of the base revealed (4 sec) but make it so that each pulse only resets revealed back up to 4 seconds max. This makes no change for foes within the trap but allows for a window of opportunity that the defender can take advantage of (please note for most benefit this trap is typically not placed directly near you so you wouldn’t be able to respond within that 1 sec window currently provided).
2. Add a 1 sec immobilise on trigger. I feel this would play great with the stealth defend & the setting up of the target for greater damage of this trap. Providing two alternate game plays options with this trap; ambush sneak defence or damage set up.

Fragments of Faith – One of the best & most interesting skills mainly because of the sync with aegis. This skill just works & as such I feel needs no changes to improve functionality. I would love an increase to the fragments duration to 15 sec but can live without it. But wouldn’t go below 10 sec.

Dragon’s maw – Overall I’ve have good experiences with DM. Visually it has that elite feel to it, does nice damage when considering the Maw barrier & the added bonus of a shortish cooldown which can take advantage of rune effects. My only frustration with this elite is when I trap foes with stability.

So the only modification I would love to complete this feeling of getting eaten by a dragon is the removal of all stability stacks when triggered. This guarantee entrapment & the requirement of another skill use to escape giving a more elite feeling to the function of this skill.

Lastly how many targets does this effect? Is the maw unlimited warding all foes within but if so how does this effect the damage & other skill effects. The maw’s ward feels like is should be unlimited acting like all other wards. Maybe it only pulls in 5 targets applying all skill effects but after that functions like a ward for all targets locked in the inner area & any person walking into it from outside.

That covers all of the traps. With the reduced cast time I’ve been having a blast with DH trap gameplay & how smoother trap placement is. Again to finish would love the addition of a Pull/Taunt Flip skill to Spear of Justice as this would complete a DH trapper.