Guild Wars 2

Overall I am personally happy with Dragonhunter as it stands. It was working exceptionally well as a slightly modified bunker setup for me in high tier PvP. The only changes I want are in regards to Wings of Resolve. For one thing, it is a mobility skill, but it still being impacted by chills and cripples which is DEFINITELY a bug. Another thing is that the skill tooltip states “LEAP to target area” but it does not function as a leap finisher. While I feel the F2 is already in a good place, it would be nice for clarity’s sake to have it function as a leap as well to open up some neat combo potential.

As for core Guardian, I do have 1 fairly important bug to mention since it has existed since the Specilization patch. “Receive the Light!” and “Feel My Wrath!” aren’t working as other shouts do with Runes of the Soldier/Trooper 6 slot bonus. While other shouts immediately remove a condition, these 2 shouts do not remove a condition until their cast animations finish. This may be intended behavior, however because Pure of Voice is activating at the beginning of their cast animations, I would assume the Rune bonus should also happen immediately.

Edit: After some testing, Runes of the Soldier/Trooper work this way with all shouts with cast times. However, I was told at one point that Receive the Light only procs it’s Pure of Voice effect on the very first pulse, so I would assume in at least that case, we should receive the Rune of the Soldier/Trooper effect after the first pulse has gone off.

Small things that really need to change:
1) Virtue of Courage Aegis should trigger as soon as you start the cast as opposed to granting aegis after the 1/2 second cast time. It makes for laggy blocks and is a big detractor from the new virtue.

2) Trueshot rooting of the character is really awkward. When you are fighting an opponent with longbow you really need to keep away from them. We don’t have any escape mechanism like thief SB 3 or Ranger LB 3/4 or Ranger SB 3. So rooting us for that cast is doubly painful.

3) Unless there is some technical difficulty, not having virtues insta-cast anymore is really painful. I can understand with Wings of Resolve, but VoC especially, and to some extent Virtue of Justice (because of the blind) need that insta-cast to make them appealing over the normal virtues

Changes that will make DH more appealing:
1) Option for ranged traps. DH using longbow means you don’t want to get close to someone, if the traps aren’t ranged then they really don’t get much use in PVP situations. In PvE where stacking is prevalent you don’t have that problem as much. Perhaps this could be worked into the trap cd reduction trait.

2) Working passive speed into a trait. Guards have been dying for this forever. We kind of have to keep “Retreat” on our bar for this (helps with Unscathed Contender, but we also bring it so we can get from point A to point. Freeing up our movement will allow us to not feel like we have to constantly have some sort swiftness on our bar.

3) Some form of condi cleanse either on LB or in trait form in DH. Condi meta is increasing, and DH builds lack much condi cleanse. Would be nice to have it in there somewhere.

Hey Karl

As for visuals of True Shot I think it should look something like in this video. Now if it looked like that, that’d be awesome. If it had these visuals the feel, impact and wow factor of True Shot would be amplified many times over.

It’d be cool if when true shot landed it had a cool impact explosion type of animation. hehe please I beg you, give me this and I don’t care about the Root anymore.

As well as like this. As you can see I’m very enthusiastic about this change!

Curiously, I found the DH the favorite of the new elite builds. Now unlike others here, I tend to haunt WvW. I think the traps and LB for range gave me some interesting options, and will be powerful for small havoc groups.

My criticisms are modest and in line with others.

Lack of a 25% trait speed Boost is major limitation

Traps need beefing up. I played a trap ranger very successfully and was very disappointed when we lost ground targeting. DH needs that and/or more damage/and/or other boosts to make them attractive.

Some additional condition clear/evasion-escape options would be useful.

PVE ( for example, dealing with WvW camp guards) is problematic; I was unable to clear camps solo as I can with other Guardian builds. That might be a learning curve issue, but traps were not useful with that sort of task.

I love the concept, and can think of good ways I can get synergy with other classes that could be very useful in WvW and PvP. It needs some beefing up; more so if it is going to be attractive for use in high end PVE play.

My only concern for this class is the classes F2.
The visuals focus on the wings, but the animation does not fit it at all.
You shouldn’t flip in the air, I’d rather a higher jump and have more of a falcon’s decent.

This weekend I spent a significant amount of time with the Dragonhunter, trying a condition build, a power build, a support build, and tanky build and more. After playing it nearly all weekend and trying all DH traits, Traps, etc. these are my current feelings:

Overall – The Dragonhunter that I played this weekend is nothing like the one I played in the two previous betas. This is an elite specialization that may actually have a chance of being useful now. It still leaves a bit to be desired because one of its primary additions is currently nonfunctional (or, rather, painfully difficult to use). I believe with a few changes the Dragonhunter will be worthy of competing when HoT drops at least.

Longbow – Overall, I am much happier with the Longbow this BWE. The changes that have been made make the Longbow a viable option now. I still think damage may be a little low in some areas, but it feels less clunky to use than it did before.

Also, the Longbow should just received a straight up 10% damage increase (at least to AA) and Pure of Sight minor should be merged with Heavy Light for additional damage potential because right now Pure of Sight is just bad. (This would also give us a space for a 25% movement trait!)

Puncture Shot – Certainly better than it was, but I still feel like the bounce should just be to one additional nearby target rather than only an additional target standing behind the primary target.

True Shot – This works fine for me. The damage seems satisfactory. I don’t mind the root at all and the damage/CD seem rather balanced.

Deflecting Shot – I’m also much more satisfied with this skill. It seems to function rather well and the current speed seems appropriate for actually using this as a semi-defensive skill without making it painfully easy to block. I also still feel it’s suitably flashy.

Symbol of Energy – The return of burns to this Symbol is the only reason the Dragonhunter will have a chance of working as a condition build. Overall, I’m also rather happy with this skill.

Hunter’s Ward – I’m a fan of this skill, but to be perfectly honest I don’t believe it to be a powerful enough skill with its current CD. The difficulty of actually trapping a foe makes the CD feel a bit high so if the skill itself isn’t meant to change significantly, than I’d like to just see a bit of a reduction to the CD – say 35 seconds?

Virtues – I’m much happier with these than I once was. Now I feel that they are not only working in a functional manner, but they’re addressing the issues that the basic Guardian Virtues currently have. The Reduced CDs should absolutely be baseline for the Guardian as well and Shield of Courage should not be excluded because 75s CD is laughably bad – cut it WAY down to 45 or 50 seconds. Honestly, Shield of Judgement is a far, far better skill than Shield of Courage now. Other than that, bravo on the virtues! I’ve grown to like them for what they are. Also, Spear of Justice’s active does still feel a touch on the weak side. Could be we see a slight buff please?

Traps – Okay, so here it is . . . please DO NOT listen to the people still saying Traps should be removed and replaced with something else. We will never have diversity in this game unless our weaker offerings are brought up to compete with those that are already in a good place.

Now, I tested Traps more than anything else this weekend because they are my biggest concern with the Dragonhunter (and seem to be the biggest concern for most other players, as well). They are not useless, but the high mobility and emphasis on range that many of the enemies in HoT (and WvW and PvP) exhibit has made Traps ineffective. The addition of a patheticly short daze has not helped.

What I propose is a QoL change to traps that will make them far more functional and no, it’s not ground targeting. While ground targeting would be nice (but never going to happen) what I’d REALLY REALLY REALLY like to see is the ability to remotely detonate traps by pressing the skill a second time in order to catch enemies just outside the trigger range, as many traps have larger areas once activated. Additionally, what I think would make the traps significantly more useful is if instead of a useless Daze on activation, we received a PULL.

I advocate very small changes for the Traps in order to make them functional. These two changes (coupled with a little more balancing of the Traps themselves) would make SO MUCH DIFFERENCE.

Purification – The amount of healing is fine, but without a condition cleanse this trap is still not worth taking over Shelter combined with Hunter’s Fortification. If this trap could be remotely detonated it would actually be quite possible to heal effectively with it, but right now it’s just a death sentence.

Test of Faith – After testing this more, I think the amount of damage this trap produces could be quite fantastic if used appropriately. Like Elementalist’s fire ring, there are always going to be those who don’t know better and cross its exterior repeatedly, but against more skilled players and ranged or immobile enemies, it is beyond useless. A pull on activation would, once again, make this skill MUCH better and force enemies into the center of the ring, guaranteeing at least one strike from it. This could actually make the knockback trait of the Longbow function in a desirable manner, as you could force the enemy over the ring a second time!

Alternatively (additonaly, if we’re being fair), Test of Faith should also have an effect on enemies or allies within the ring. I mentioned once before that perhaps this trap could create a minor field of regeneration for allies inside of it, creating a short duration area to catch their breath against a melee onslaught. Or perhaps it could push enemies out of it on the 4th second and the 8th second, instead.

Fragments of Faith – Still the best Trap, currently. The potential utility of this trait is excellent and I could see it becoming rather useful in Raids. For a patient Guardian/Dragohunter this could create opportunities to decimate enemies without a single scratch. I wouldn’t mind the time the fragments sit on the ground being slightly increased, but I’m happy enough with this skill as it is.

Light’s Judgement – Meh. I’m not a fan of this Trap. The CD seems way too high for the effect it has. Vulnerability is so easily applied by almost every profession in this game that it just seems odd to me here. I would advocate keeping the CD of this Trap the same, but replacing the Vulnerability with Blind. Thematically it would make more sense and would be in line with the strength of Necro’s Well of Darkness. Honestly, this would actually make Dragonhunter have more synergy with Guardian traits and we’d ACTUALLY HAVE A REASON TO TAKE BINDING JEOPARDY.

Procession of Blades – Still far too weak. This is one of the primary reasons I want to see remote detonation and pull with Traps. With a higher CD, lower damage per hit than Whirling Wrath, and no mobility or whirl finisher (which Whirling Wrath ALSO has) it’s an inferior skill in every way. I know that utility skills aren’t typically as powerful as weapon skills but holy crap . . . it’s like this one isn’t even trying.

Either enemies move out of the way with ease, or it does too little damage to even be noticed. PLEASE can we see the damage on this get a little more of an increase? Also, if this is every going to see play it needs to provide at least two whirl finishers (one at the start and one at the finish). Guardian is one of the rare professions that can actually provide combo fields and activate them, don’t limit that with Dragonhunter, please.

Dragon’s Maw – Well, finally, we get to Dragon’s Maw. This skill sounds brilliant in name and even has a nice animation, but next to Light’s Judgement, it is the most underwhelming. For an elite, the damage is no better than Fragments of Faith, a DEFENSIVE Trap. The slow is negligible as far as I’m concerned and the only real redeeming qualities of this Trap are the fact that it already has a Pull and it has a barrier. That being said, I do like the relatively low CD of the Elite.

First, this Trap needs to do MORE DAMAGE. It does not need to do significantly more damage, but enough that enemies actually feel it . . . even the Wild Boars in Verdant Brink shrugged it off. Second, this trap needs to auto-kill 1 downed enemy within its area. If we could have this sort of functionality, this Trap would be significantly more useful. Finally, if this is a DRAGON’s Maw . . . how about burning damage? Otherwise, without Slow, the Pull or the Barrier taking effect on bosses . . . what is this skill even for in PvE!?

Traps don’t need much to actually be viable, but I truly believe that changes like those I’ve suggested would drastically improve them without requiring major overhauls. For the love of all that is Guardian, please, please please, allow us to remote detonate traps and make them Pull on activation!

Traits – Finally, we come to Traits. These have improved significantly over time, but a few of them still certainly leave something to be desired. I’m going to touch on all of them below and outline my general feelings about each.

Defender’s Dogma – This seems unlikely to change any time soon, so could we perhaps ask for an addition to make this trait for more worthwhile? Perhaps in addition to its current effect make it so that when Justice’s passive trigger from this effect, it creates a brief 1s or 2s*fire field* at the target’s location. Otherwise this skill is literally adding nothing of note and adds even less to builds running Virtues specialization.

Pure of Sight – This has got to be the worst trait any of the elite specializations received. It boggles me, completely, that ANYONE would think it was acceptable to make this a minor trait. Having this as a Minor just means that Dragonhunter’s are being robbed of 10% of what should have been their baseline damage when enemies are close. It’s not an addition . . . it functions more as a subtraction as a Minor.

What I suggest is this: give the Dragonhunter a 25% movement speed trait minor in place of Pure of Sight. Now, merge the current effect of Pure of Sight (10% more damage to enemies beyond 360) with Heavy Light. Now Heavy Light is WORTHWHILE.

Piercing Light – If there was one thing I had hoped would make a difference with the Dragonhunter, this was it . . . sadly, the Daze from this Trait was so inconsequential that I actually spent half an hour just testing it to see if it was working AT ALL. Now, at the absolute least, this this Daze should be a Stun or a 2 second Daze minimum. Ideally, however, Piercing Light should allow Guardian’s to remote detonate their traps and pull enemies within a radius slightly larger than the activated trap. We NEED this or Ground Targeting, simple as that.

Dulled Senses – I’m fine with this trait. It gives Guardians a more reliable method of applying vulnerability, but could stand to be a little more exciting.

Soaring Devastation – This is a nice addition and I feel like it goes a long way toward actually making the Dragonhunter feel more aggressive as we were told they should.

Hunter’s Determination – I am generally not a huge fan of these types of traits because they always feel like a bit of a flavorless (although useful) option. That being said, I’m a big fan of this trait! It’s quite powerful even in PvE in HoT.

Zealot’s Aggression – I have no complaints other than the fact that we lose ability to apply cripple on Spear of Justice activation. Still, this is yet another trait to aid the Guardian/Dragonhunter in becoming a master of controlling the area of battle and that makes me rather happy.

Bulwark – This trait would be quite usable and effective if Shield of Courage wasn’t on an overly high CD. Please, once again, reduce the CD of Shield of Courage to 50s!!

Hunter’s Fortification – I know there were many people who had issues with the trait being bugged during the beta, but I actually did manage to see it in action a few times. I can’t be quite sure about its strength in case mine was bugged a bit as well, but I can say that with my Aegis Guardian build, I was very rarely threatened with conditions. Of all the traits this is the one that excites me the most!

Heavy Light – I’m still not sure if I will ever really like the idea of a passive knockback, or see the need for this stability granted by this trait, but if we could see Pure of Sight merged with this trait as I suggested, I would at least feel like there was a substantial reason to take it.

Big Game Hunter – 10% damage increase is nice and makes sense with this skill, however I fail to see what the vulnerability provided by this trait contributes . . . between Light’s Judgement, Dulles Senses, Zealot’s Aggression and even the Longbow Auto . . . this seems a bit redundant as vulnerability is rather easy to stack. Also, this skill doesn’t really work well in combination with Zealot’s Aggression or Dulled Senses as we would LOSE the ability to consistently cripple by activating Spear of Justice. This should not happen. Yes, there are situations that it’s possible to have cripple active alongside this effect, but there’s no benefit to taking this unless it guarantees us the 10% damage on top of the 10% from Zealot’s Aggression.

I propose that the vulnerability provided by this trait be replaced with a new effect such as a boon application on pulse, a short duration weakness on pulse or some other (hopefully creative!) effect to make this trait a bit more desirable.

TL;DR/Closing
Well, there we have it . . . my feeling on the Dragonhunter. Right now Traits, Virtues and Longbow are in a much better place, but Traps are still very lacking and need to be either exceptionally powerful to offset the difficulties imposed by their mechanics, or preferably the ability to remote detonate Traps and pull enemies from just outside the active radius of the Traps.

ok, so I guess I’ll give my feedback now as well.

1. Spear of Justice
Fast animation, fast projectile but then still 1/4s is not instant. At the current state of the guardian in hardcore PvE, you use ure F1 for blinds and the retal, while doing other skills of your rotation. This 1/4s just interrupts you and doesnt fit in on this.

2. Wings of Resolve
Cool animation, smooth movement ability and nice heal but, when you use it together with “Absolute Resolution” the condi cleanse will be at the end of the 1s animation and only around the landing area. No more instant 600 range condi cleanse. As much as I like the animation and everything on this skill, this way of condi cleanse is just bad compared to the normal one.

3. Shield of Courage
Amazing, just amazing. Cant say more about this, I just love it and it really brings me a tear in my eye, that I cant get it, because the disadvantage of the other two virtues is just too high.

4. Longbow
Dont want to go into every single skill, but over all the longbow looks pretty cool. The dmg is fine imo and it will get its spot, where you will use it.

5. Traps
I wont think they will make it in some way in PvE. Maybe the elite one. So I was running around with it in WvW and I can say, it was soooo much fun. They might look a OP, cause you can kinda oneshot people when they walk in all traps without knowing, but then yeah, you are kinda naked when you play like this. It is more like a fun build and for that completely fine. Using single traps over all got get a thing, especially the one with the revealed buff and again the elite one. So overall Im fine with the state of the traps.

6. Traits
As kinda mentioned before, Im a hardcore PvE player, so I like dmg modifier. The modifier on dragonhunter are kinda okayish. Cripple, you will need some help, but with an engi it will be fine for example. So then the other one with the Spear of Justice. For this one, what I said before applies plus, it only lasts for 6s with a 17 1/2s cd. This is fine for short fights, but for some longer fights you have less problems keeping up other modifiers which will result in not picking dragonhunter at all in PvE, what is pretty sad.
Ok, we still have to wait for the release, thing might change, but atm it might be not that easy for the dragonhunter to overtake the normal guardian. At least for the hardcore PvE section.

Ah yeah, one thing at the end, when you use Kudzu, the fancy animation of Deflecting Shot is just gone, what is really sad. Over all, the bow animations are kinda nice, but with Kudzu, all of them are gone. And when Im already talking about that, using Rodgort on guardian is kinda disappointing as well, cause the epic torch throw on #4 is just a small unnoticeable Rodgort. Maybe epic read instead of blue flames could be something.

eleshazar.6902:

…
Changes that will make DH more appealing:
1) Option for ranged traps. DH using longbow means you don’t want to get close to someone, if the traps aren’t ranged then they really don’t get much use in PVP situations. In PvE where stacking is prevalent you don’t have that problem as much. Perhaps this could be worked into the trap cd reduction trait.

2) Working passive speed into a trait. Guards have been dying for this forever. We kind of have to keep “Retreat” on our bar for this (helps with Unscathed Contender, but we also bring it so we can get from point A to point. Freeing up our movement will allow us to not feel like we have to constantly have some sort swiftness on our bar.

3) Some form of condi cleanse either on LB or in trait form in DH. Condi meta is increasing, and DH builds lack much condi cleanse. Would be nice to have it in there somewhere.

Echoing all 3 of these. Unlike Thieves and (I assume) Rangers, Dragonhunters are using more magical Traps, so it could stand to reason that they could set them at range. Making this either baseline or added into the Trap trait would be a HUGE boon to their viability since the Traps and Longbow run rather counter to each other thematically.

Passive speed added to one of the minors (Perhaps the Master Minor?) would be a huge benefit, and make the trait feel a bit better since it’s currently kind of meh if you’re actively using Justice like the changes imply you should) would be a huge help. Guardians are slow as hell, and Chronomancers and Druids are both getting move speed boosts added to their Elite Specs as Minor traits, so why not DH?

Finally, I fully agree that Longbow or a trait needs some kind of condi cleanse. Could possibly add it to Symbol of Energy (Cleanse a condition from the user as well as on the first impact?) in place of the innate Burn (since there’s already a trait to make Symbols inflict Burn).

On a similar note, if no speed boost is added to the Master Minor in particular, that trait really needs a look. Currently it’s only usable if you’ve left Justice to sit and run passively, meanwhile there’s other traits that encourage active use of Justice. So I propose a buff to also add “If Justice is on CD, remove 8s the remaining recharge each time you block, otherwise Justice simply reaches maximum charge.” to the trait.

casius van.5186:

The longbow feels much, much better now the los issues are mostly resolved. Traps feel better, but do still feel purification should changed to a concentration. With a pulsing location heal, or a regen and condi clear. If left as a trap, then the trigger should not be the enemy, but an ally. Which would allow it to compete with recieve the light as a support skill.

Fragments of faith, in fact all the trap damage save lighta judgement and procesion of blades (!? Really, this is the weak sister now?), feel better and are enticing enough one or two traps into a utility slot. But they only work in so, so few situations that its hard to justify keeping there. Eg, drop some traps on rally points or capture points, slot a meditation or suitable concentration one cd is done. The trap will live for another 4 mins.

I actually like this suggestion regarding the heal trap over mine. Make purification trigger not when an enemy crosses but when an ally or you cross it. It would make for very interesting play. You could make the heal trap trigger only when you or an ally cross its radius while below 75% health or something. (the heal trap could be changed to heal up to 5 allies in its radius) The interesting thing about it is that you could plant the heal trap on the home point in pvp, head off to mid, and leave a teammate defending home who can use your heal trap to win a 1vs1.

In addition to that, i think it might be a nice idea if there were some notification when one of your traps gets activated. Perhaps a symbol similar to what appears over your utility slots when virtues are active. When you place a trap, its symbol appears on your UI, when it gets triggered, the symbol disappears, and so you know someone triggered it. It could make for some interesting play in conquest where, you leave some traps near home point, and nobody on your team is on home point to check if it’s being attacked, but an enemy, while trying to decap your home point, triggers your traps, alerting you that someone is going for your home point. Would add an interesting dimension to DH that goes beyond just DPS, but also map control.

Tried DH out over the weekend. It didn’t seem to do anything well.

I felt the bow was pretty basic and boring weapon to run. None of the abilities were fun to use honestly, no button on it had the reaction “sweet!”. For some reason I thought the longbow would have longer range than our Scepter and match the 1500 of a ranger. Was disappoint.. it wasn’t terrible just not fun.

Traps were really situational annoying to use a lot of the time. They also didn’t synergise with the bow at all. I kept trying to use traps and was mostly disappointed from placing them to the effects I got. Fragments was the only trap I liked, it actually had a nice effect, was interesting and useful. But I hear is was bugged and activating too many times. Adding in some bonus effects for trap activation or passive effects for them being slotted may make them more useful and slot worthy..

The new virtues were nice though. I really like the leap heal and aoe block abilities. The spear I never used much honestly. Compared to our current virtues it’s tough though. Currently our virtues are some of our best abilities and the virtue trait line is amazing. We pretty much have to give it up if we want DH virtues. Which sucks.

The DH traits were kinda all over the place and didn’t offer much in the way of focus compared to some of the other new class traits. A speed or movement tweak trait would be welcomed.

Over all I found Dragon Hunter was pretty underwhelming. I hope it gets optimized a bit before launch and made more interesting and fun. Other than some of the new virtues that were done well nothing about DH seemed fun or rewarding.

Ok, gathering feedback from around the forums (including other profession boards where getting blown up by our traps has been very painfully recognized) I’m seeing a small tweak that might add to DH gameplay~

• Spear of Justice. Add, “If target is still tethered at the end of the timer they are pulled to the DH.”

Basically it gives the DH another forced movement skill to get people into their traps while allowing the other player the opportunity to see the pull coming and react.

It also makes the tether-chain animation make more sense and be more intimidating .

As there are rarely any situations where the dragonhunter-trait can be of use in the current meta, besides some niche situations, the only positive feedback that comes to mind is about the core changes:

Shield #4 + #5 – good stuff, very appreciated

Just that tiny addition of aegis on #4 made it insanely viable again.
Some freshman guards seem to have diffuculties getting size of this skill, though.
A little addition to range,- width,-cone,-indicators in the tool-tip could thelp them out.

As for #5, removing the rooting channel was long overdue.
The way you made it now feels very smooth, maybe the duration could be tweaked a bit, since 4sec seems to be quite powerful in WvW fights.

Hope this feedback helps you! I am really excited to play Dragonhunter on release and look forward to seeing the final version.

Traits
These feel a lot better than what they were but there still seems to be a lack of synergy with other trait lines and interesting mechanics as we see in other elite specs.

Swap Pure of sight and Zealots Aggression
Being at greater then 360 range does not synergise with the traps or with most of the Guardians other weapons. It specifically works on a longbow wielding Dragonhunter. It makes sense therefore to place Pure of Sight into the “longbow” line of traits in the middle row. Furthermore Zealot’s Aggression as the GM minor is a natural progression from the master minor Defenders Dogma.

Zealots Aggression – I like the idea of this trait and the cripple on passive is nice for solo play. It does however feel a little bit too narrow. Maybe have it more like the Rangers similar trait “Predator’s Onslaught” and have the bonus apply to anything with a movement impairing condition. This provides synergy with traits such as Glacial Hammer and the variety of Immobilize skills the Guardian has access too as well as conditions a team might apply that aren’t cripple.

Heavy Light – I think a Longbow cooldown reduction should be added here since you would only ever pick this if you were using longbow. If you are worried about True shot being on too short a CD maybe push it to 5 so it goes down to 4 when traited. The semi RNG knockback is recieving a lot of criticism for PvE but with the new break-bars I dont think it would troll people as much as they think it would. Maybe change it back to when only True Shot applied the knockback so we have some control over it?

Big Game Hunter – This was a fun mechanic to use, spearing a target and then going into Whirling Wrath for the big vulnerability stacks. A fun mechanic for this I thought would be to reduce the cooldown on the active by a small % for every hit you land while they are chained (similar to Chaotic Dampening in Mesmer Chaos). I’m aware this is a big change and is probably unrealistic.

Virtues
These feel loads more fun than the standard fare.

Spear of Justice – Feels impactful when traited on a power build and the pulsing burns look like they would be nice on a condi spec. I do think it should be instant cast though, so you don’t screw yourself with skill queueing.

Wings of Resolve – My personal favourite of the bunch at the moment, giving some much needed mobility to Guardian when they don’t have a target to blink to. Helped a lot in the Vale Guardian fight.

Shield of Courage – An extremely powerful skill when used correctly, blocking everything from the front feels so rewarding when shielding an ally. I do think that this also would benefit from instant cast for help with usability.

Traps
I actually like the idea of traps on Guardian a lot. I know largely that they have not been received well by the community so far. A common suggestion I see is just to make the traps be able to be set from range which does gel with the longbow playstyle. However in order to make them appealing to melee playstyles too I think we have to look more in detail at why people don’t feel like they are worth using. I think that the problem is that all of the traps but Fragments of Faith feel too shallow.
For me a great part of Guardian is the duality of their skills, for instance Purging Flames burns your enemies but ALSO cleanses your allies. I feel like the traps could really benefit from this type of thinking.

Receive the Light – Light is released when an enemy triggers it and flies to you for the main part of the heal. Maybe have the flying part of the heal apply to allies around the Dragonhunter when it reaches them. This also gives synergy with Wings of resolve, imagine placing the trap and jumping to an ally when it triggers with the light trailing behind to land together for a big burst heal. This ally heal does seem strong but “Wash the Pain Away” on Tempest provides a full ally heal also.

Procession of Blades – The simplest and most offensive of the traps. In balance with it’s nature maybe it could apply short duration might to allies within it as it spins?

Light’s Judgement – A pillar of light to make your opponent vulnerable and exposed. Maybe for allies this light should serve as a bastion of safety and renewal. My ideas for this were to pulse every 2 seconds or so either Resistance to allies in the beam or simply some condition cleanses.

Test of Faith – An arena of blades meant to test the resolve of enemies. Do they leave and take the damage or stay and risk a melee engagement? In line with this I thought maybe pulsing Retaliation for allies within the trap to reinforce this arena idea.

Fragments of Faith – Feels great, a good mix of support and damage. fun little mini-game with the aegis shards. Possible bug in that it seems to trigger the damage multiple times.

Dragon’s Maw – Uses the tactics of a dragon to control your foes. This one feels pretty good as it is, really strong control effects that protect your allies from your enemies. Maybe add some fury to allies in the trigger radius to really let them know it’s time to go HAM dragon style.

Longbow

Puncture Shot – Feels pretty good in terms of dps but could maybe be slightly higher because of its number of targets limitation. Also possible bug in that it travels further than 1200 to reach its first target.

True Shot – Damage is good now, feels really nice to use. Really satisfying when you line it up on a few enemies. Good job.

Deflecting Shot – Reading other feedback I saw that people seem to have issues with using this one. Personally I found it fine as long as you are positioned well. Did some fractal runs and got Mai Trin’s pistol shot everytime it was aimed in my general direction, be it at me or an ally. Near impossible to cut out a projectile when you are perpendicular to it but I suppose thats unrealistic.

Symbol of Energy – Velocity is good now, can fire it to initiate and charge a true shot to arrive at the same time and still benefit from Zeal damage bonuses. Would benefit a lot from a cooldown trait to synergise with symbol traits.

Hunters Ward – Takes too long to activate, hard to land the final hit generally. Either decreasing the cast time for ease of use or increasing the damage on the final hit to make it a truly back ended burst would help. CDR trait would help a lot here too.

VIRTUES

• Spear of Justice: Almost perfect but there is no real use of the tether effect

• Wings of Resolve: Good player can interrupt you easily, i still feel that the range is too short but i think it just me.
  Solution: Add evade or Reduce the cast time by half (1/2s) and increase the range by 200

• Shield of Courage: It feel amazing and strong but the only bad about it is the CD.
  Solution: Reduce the cd by 10/15s

TRAPS
Here are my 2c to make the traps competitive

• Purification: Swap the heal initial heal with the trigger heal and when it is triggered create a field that blind every sec for 3s and destroy projectile

• Procession of Blades: Whirl finisher or Bleed on each hit, maybe both

• Light’s Judgement: Protection to you or allies in the trap radius

• Test of Faith: When you or allies cross it they will gain swifness for 3s and healed for 800hp (icd 1)

• Dragon’s Maw: increase number of target and add a boon strip (1 boon per sec)

LONGBOW

• LB1: Even with the last change (the damage increase by 10%) i still found it weak compare to the other AA but the problem it is not only the damage but also the unreliable cripple, without Zealot’s Aggression and Supreme Justice, it is almost impossible to maintain the main target crippled in 1 vs 1 situation or even against multiple enemies, it only works against zerks in wvw.
  Solution: You can just change the amount of hit to two instead of just one, so in theory you can apply cripple every three AA with Zealot’s Aggression without the need of Supreme Justice or make it into a third chain allowing that the last chain attack will always cripple the main target by 1,5s

• LB2: I dont know why people are complaining about True Shot damage, I was able to hit within 5k and 8k (using marauder in spvp) i have no problem with the root just because it hit like a truck, it will be nice if you move can slowly for half sec while you are chaging it and then root you for a 1/4s while you are releasing the true shot

• LB3: This skill should block projectiles not destroy them. even with the Projectile Speed reduced it is still too fast. i think that Dshot should be more defensive rather than offensive.
  Solution: Match the Damage Radius with the block radius, increase the block radius by 20% and decrease the projectile speed for 40%.

• LB4: It feel strong when it hit something but it is very hard to actually hit something in pvp (in pve is fine), it is because the cast time and travel time are too high.
  Solution: Reduce the cast time by 1/2s and increase the projectil speed by 20%

• LB5: The damage is Ok but it is super easy to avoid the cage without Quickness (FMW).
  Solution: If Hunter’s Ward hit a tethered enemy (SOJ) the barrier/cage will drop instantly

TRAITS

• Defender’s Dogma: The only real synergy of Defender’s Dogma is with Shield of Courage and Bulwark, because you can block and attack at the same time, it has a ok synergy with Fragments of Faith but the problem is that Shield of Courage and Fragments of Faith have long cd.
  (Add) When SOJ is on CD each time that you block an attack the CD of SOj will be reduce by 1s (1s ICD)

• Pure of Sight: Only works with 50% of all our skills (Utility included).
  (Rework) Flat 10% damage while you are wielding two hand weapons and when you hit a enemy Crippled you will gain Fury for 6s (10s ICD)

• Dulled Senses:This trait is almost completely useless without Heavy Light and Zealot’s Aggression.
  (Add) Pull, Launch and Knockdown to the list

• Zealot’s Aggression: All the Grandmaster traits feel weak in comparison to Zealot’s Aggression, this trait alone can offer more synergy to the guardian in general (Weapons, Trait, Utility) that all the Grandmaster traits combined in one.
  (Change) Swap place with Pure of Sight, nothing more nothing less

• Heavy Light:Honestly I hate the RNG of Heavy Light, we should be able to control when to KB and i would prefer a offensive boon instead of stability.
  (Change) Deflecting Shot now can knockback enemies and you gain 2,5s of quickness when Deflecting Shot Knockback an enemy (10s ICD)

• Big Game Hunter: It is a ok traits but i would prefer more CC instead of just more damage increase.
  (Rework) Tethered enemies will be crippled for 1,25s every 1s until the effect disappears or the chain is broken, and now you can pull all the enemies tethered to you (flip skill)

Weird thing that i noticed

Wings of Resolve: They increase the range by 200 but also they increase the cast time from 3/4 to 1s

Wrath of Justice and SOJ: The Immobilize will apply only on the first enemy that hit instead your main target 1 2

Hunter’s Ward: When you land the barrier on a enemy, you can see the icon of Bow of Truth named “Symbol of Energy”

TEGG.2859:

As for #5, removing the rooting channel was long overdue.
The way you made it now feels very smooth, maybe the duration could be tweaked a bit, since 4sec seems to be quite powerful in WvW fights.

What…..No just no. we get a buff and now you want a nerf? please leave.

Arnath.2319:

Not a single Guardian or Dragon Hunter in the world first raid kill.

I tolled you this would happen, with the constant nerfs to Guardians, the horrible Dragon Hunter, the constant power creep every other profession has received, and the new powerful elite specs others have received, there is no reason to bring us anymore to PVE content.

What is the role of the Dragon Hunter?

It offers less DPS, less group support, less healing, less everything! Our core traits, skills and virtues are far superior in every way! The only reason to go DH is if you want to roleplay or do open world zerg content.

what professions were used?

Azure.8670:

Arnath.2319:

Not a single Guardian or Dragon Hunter in the world first raid kill.

I tolled you this would happen, with the constant nerfs to Guardians, the horrible Dragon Hunter, the constant power creep every other profession has received, and the new powerful elite specs others have received, there is no reason to bring us anymore to PVE content.

What is the role of the Dragon Hunter?

It offers less DPS, less group support, less healing, less everything! Our core traits, skills and virtues are far superior in every way! The only reason to go DH is if you want to roleplay or do open world zerg content.

what professions were used?

“Group comp, 4 Condi Engi (1 tankier hybrid), 3 Revenants, 1 Druid, 1 Chronomancer, 1 Warrior. Everyone was in Berserker, except the Condi Engis of course.”

merchantchuck.4875:

Tom.8976:

Also to add to the discussion, I do not want to see a change to ‘True Shot’ i love that it roots you it gives the longbow that added flavour it needs plus if you are finding the root as a problem i think that is more of a l2p issue than the root being the problem.

Long bow root adds Flavour? what the heck are you smoking?

It adds flavor because instead of being a button you hit every 4 seconds it becomes a choice: do I go for a big hit but let the enemy get closer or do I keep him crippled but over-all deal less damage. It also differentiates the class from Rangers who have a similar high damage skill that feels completely different (Rapid Fire, here the player has to take into account if the enemy can dodge or not, rather then judge if they want them to get closer or not).

Arnath.2319:

Azure.8670:

Arnath.2319:

Not a single Guardian or Dragon Hunter in the world first raid kill.

I tolled you this would happen, with the constant nerfs to Guardians, the horrible Dragon Hunter, the constant power creep every other profession has received, and the new powerful elite specs others have received, there is no reason to bring us anymore to PVE content.

What is the role of the Dragon Hunter?

It offers less DPS, less group support, less healing, less everything! Our core traits, skills and virtues are far superior in every way! The only reason to go DH is if you want to roleplay or do open world zerg content.

what professions were used?

“Group comp, 4 Condi Engi (1 tankier hybrid), 3 Revenants, 1 Druid, 1 Chronomancer, 1 Warrior. Everyone was in Berserker, except the Condi Engis of course.”

So by your logic, Guardians, Necromancers, Elementalists and Thieves are all useless now because they weren’t used in the first ever raid kill and that’s forever gonna change the meta.
GG man you have absolutely no clue how this game works.

So I’ve got a couple suggestions myself for traits and the bow. They’re focused on my experience this weekend with an offensive, “sniper” kinda playstyle so bear that in mind. I have no feedback on traps as I didn’t use those at all, except for the elite which was fine as it is IMO (maaaaybe a bit more daze on the trait).

Puncture shot - This should just be like the thief’s shortbow and bounce regardless of position. It doesn’t do that much damage and while having a soft cc on auto is strong, it only bounces once. So I’d like to see this bounce up to 3 targets, or keep it just two but in a radius instead of on the back.

True shot - Perfect as it is I think. I don’t mind the root, I kinda think it’s necessary for the short CD, but I’ll touch a bit more on this skill later.

Deflecting shot - This one is also fine. I honestly find it strange having this being basically the only skillshot in the game, but it’s actually kinda unique because of that. At first I thought its mechanic was weird, but after the added damage on projectile destruction I’ve gotten some pretty nasty hits with it if I pulled it off right, so I wouldn’t change it.

Symbol of Energy -This is the big one. It’s just a contradictory skill no matter how you look at it. It’s a ranged symbol with a support boon. Who am I supposed to shoot this at? My allies to help them dodge? My enemies to burn them? It does none of those things right honestly. My suggestion is changing the boon on this one to fury.
Here’s why: let’s say you have 50% crit chance. Most of the bow’s damage comes from a single, big hit. Similar to reaper’s Gravedigger, you REALLY want it to crit. With 50% crit chance, using a multi hit like whirling wrath will mean some of its hits will not crit, but you wont lose ALL of your crit damage bonus at once because at least some of them WILL crit. Having just a single, big hit, means low crit chance is a lot riskier, as there’s a flat 50% chance that you will lose all your damage. For example, with the setup I was running this beta my non crit True Shots would hit for a mease 2k, while a crit would hit for 8k, in some circumstances even up to 10k. A WW critting all hits can do as much as 20k (probably even more), a WW will still hit roughly for 12 to 15k if some of its hits dont crit. The diference in damage is huge.
For that reason, I propose giving this symbol fury, as True shot is very crit reliant, and at least this way I can shot the symbol on myself while I’m sitting duck charging up true shot. This will also aliviate the need to go medi for fury and could open up other utility possibilities.

Hunter’s Ward - I like this one as it is, maybe a bit of a damage boost on the barrage. The ward is very strong in zerg play so I understand the long CD, but I found myself interrupting the cast, as there’s a very short window right after you finish the barrage animation (but the channel progress bar is still going) where you can move, thinking the skill is over, and interrupt it, meaning you miss the actual ward creation.

Traits on another post!

Arnath.2319:

Azure.8670:

Arnath.2319:

Not a single Guardian or Dragon Hunter in the world first raid kill.

I tolled you this would happen, with the constant nerfs to Guardians, the horrible Dragon Hunter, the constant power creep every other profession has received, and the new powerful elite specs others have received, there is no reason to bring us anymore to PVE content.

What is the role of the Dragon Hunter?

It offers less DPS, less group support, less healing, less everything! Our core traits, skills and virtues are far superior in every way! The only reason to go DH is if you want to roleplay or do open world zerg content.

what professions were used?

“Group comp, 4 Condi Engi (1 tankier hybrid), 3 Revenants, 1 Druid, 1 Chronomancer, 1 Warrior. Everyone was in Berserker, except the Condi Engis of course.”

This proves nothing about guardian or dragonhunter, just as it proves nothing about thief, elementalist, or necromancer. All it proves is that these guys played better on these professions (or that they prefer these professions). To quote imnotdom from the group who got that world first:

“I’m sure this could be done with an Elementalist, we just went with what we thought would work best for us.”

The operative part there being “we just went with what we thought would work best for us.” This was not some carefully crafted team that they had meticulously theorycrafted, this was just something they threw together.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3nipnp/world_first_vale_guardian_kill/

core traits and utilities, because maybe it will get looked into?
zeal –
Zealous Scepter – why is this in zeal? zeal has alot of symbol synergy, but scepter itself has no symbols. could this be switched around with the mace adept from honor? or somehow moved into radiance, where it is encouraging you to use activate justice

radiance -
Radiant Retaliation – why does this trait exist? no condi guard will take it over amplified wrath because of the burning damage actually matters for condi builds. no power guard will take it ever because it makes no sense.

Valor -
Stalwart Defender – the recharge is pretty good, but it seems weird to also have strength in numbers at the same tier, which is a flat 150 toughness all the time. also focus mastery is adept and provides protection, which is much better than 180 toughness

utilities
Sanctuary – ive never used this once in 3 years. the healing is terrible, the radius is incredibly small and its on a 2min cool-down. with wall of reflection, shield of avenger and even shield5 now, we have plenty of projectile reflection/destruction, so this tiny bubble is only good for the knock-back, which any defiant stacked mob will ignore. maybe we can just drop the healing all together (because its insignificant), make the radius like 360, half the duration and make the recharge like 40-50 seconds?

signet of mercy – the passive may one day be useful in some kind of healing elite spec but the active is awful. 1st off it does not ‘revive’ dead people, which is what most people initially think it would do (and kind of justify the ludicrous cooldown), it instead only heals downed state people. 2nd, if it only heals downstate and it takes nearly 4s to channel that can be easily interrupted, it makes more sense for me to just walk up to them and press F. combine a 150s cooldown with a passive that is currently not useful and an active that is poorly worded and terrible, we get a truly pointless utility. i cannot even begin to think about how this signet could be fixed, and it might as well be completely redesigned.

I’m only playing SPvP and a really discouraged Deflecting shot mechanics.
It doesnt work. The situations, when it will be helpful – too rare. 1 vs 1 range duel with projectiles and perfect timing = +100% dmg for 1 not strong ability! Are you kidding? If you increase velocity this skill – you lost defence potential, but if you decrease – enemy will can easy evading your +100% dmg boost shot. Too difficult and non guaranteed result for TPvP. Pls just give1 fast CC (push, knock, daze, heavy light trait effect or anything else) instead for more successful kite, because otherwise it is impossible.

Hunters ward doesnt work as intended too. Need to boost damage or speed up CC (move to start animation).

P.S. Sory for my English, that was my first message over 3 years, and all this time I’ve been dreaming about normal ranged weapons like a bow at the guard

Turtle Dragon.9241:

And this is why Irenio is amazing. He even considers that Druid could Not run staff, something that was not even(or barely) requested by Ranger player-base.

Meanwhile, Guardians have been pigeonholed into the Longbow(because Pure of Sight Minor trait) and have been asking over and over since before BWE1 feedback thread to have Pure of Sight moved, and our dev has not even addressed why he will not change it.

Dragonhunter forever doomed to be gated behind Longbow because we dont have Irenio.

I think you’re overstating it (“forever doomed”) and, worse, you’re calling out Karl over something that someone else is doing. Not a nice tactic.

That said I would also like to see Pure of Sight changed or moved. Even if it was something like 10% bonus at range, 10% less damage taken in close.

I don’t think the traitline minors should be entirely based on the weapon or slot skills you get with the elite (although you could use this trait with the ping-pong paddlescepter).

I didn’t spend as many hours on DH as I did on Herald this weekend, but here are my thoughts:

- DH feels as though it is in a MUCH better place now. I especially enjoyed how the longbow played and the changes to it.
- I feel that traps seriously need to be able to be casted from range (perhaps add this as a trait option?) as I found placement to be a big issue with these. I wound up not taking them as a result. I also feel that at least one needs to be a stunbreak, whether on placement or trigger.
- I still feel incredibly weird playing the specialization. It just seems SO far outside the core guardian. I understand elite specs should bring something new to a class, but this just isn’t in the same realm, and I don’t see myself ever picking DH as a traitline once HoT drops, despite really liking longbow. The traps and the traitline itself just aren’t nearly as good as what core guard offers.

Overall though, nice changes and was much more fun to play.

The elite needs a little bit more functionality like other traps. Maybe have the elite finish downed targets or remove boons such as stability/protection or apply 20 stacks of vunerablility.

I played the prior BWEs as Rev mostly. I did try out DH right when it came out but it felt flat. I enjoyed it for the most part as I’ve said for years that the only thing the guardian needs for me is a 1200 range and a longbow.

I enjoyed the kitten out of it this past BWE and it swayed me over to the DH camp as a main. I’ll say this about it though; I’m not certain I enjoy the way how the traps are setup (ie at your feet without being able to place them). It’s a little difficult to use for PVE events in particular. sPVP it wouldn’t be a problem when you’re the focus target.

The Longbow skills were great, I enjoyed LB2 and managed to get some serious hard hits. (I used soldier armor with scholar runes). I was in the 6-9k range on crits, it has a 4 second CD as well, it felt pretty hard hitting for the root trade off. (Risk vs Reward)

I’m actually more conflicted on the heal above all else. While it’s very strong. (in my opinion the second strongest heal in the game behind Infusion of Light, A.E.D and heal gyro tk+hammer double leap being tied for first.) In a PVE situation when I’m with a group, there’s no sure-fire chance that I’m going to be able to get a mob to stand on my trap and get the big heal. Not sure how to go around it either, maybe add a passive regen to it?

No clue.

Spent some time with DH and think longbow is in an ok place, the big issue was the traps and lack of synergy between other traitlines. Couple of things I think would improve traps and Dragon Hunter in general:

- Spear of Justice: This should function the same as the guardian greatsword N.5 Binding Blade. When we activate it a second time it should pull tethered enemies towards us. This would allow us to set traps up where we like and pull enemies into them. To offset this increase the cooldown when the pull is activated.

-Traps: For all traps when they activate they should sear a symbol into the ground, this would at least improve traps and give us a way when traiting to improve them, such as with Zeal and Honor

- Heavy Light: Kinda feels meh, possibly change this to boost true shot. such as usable on the move, or hitting an enemy that is tethered with trueshot removes the induction on the next trueshot

- Run Speed: Need access to passive 25% run speed in this line, possibly add 25% run speed passive to Wings of Resolve and then when activated as well as healing allies it gives quickness for 3 seconds

Just to touch again I’ve found Dragon’s Maw a great elite which can be used at a nice pace. To really give it that last little bit I would love to see on trigger it remove all stacks of stability. This would give foes the Oo crap moment where they’ll need to use a skill (stability, teleport) for escaping. IF this becomes to strong with this addition please first look at slight reductions to the barrier time.

To make DH more viable for WvW, we need a trait to make traps remove conditions and maybe do regeneration on activation, like shouts can remove conditions, for example.

This would allow traps to be used during a retreat the way water is now.

Bezagron.7352:

Just to touch again I’ve found Dragon’s Maw a great elite which can be used at a nice pace. To really give it that last little bit I would love to see on trigger it remove all stacks of stability. This would give foes the Oo crap moment where they’ll need to use a skill (stability, teleport) for escaping. IF this becomes to strong with this addition please first look at slight reductions to the barrier time.

This is what I stated or also maybe even finish downed players/provide stacks of vulnerability on the targets trapped.

Feedback Time! So I played a large amount of Dragonhunter this weekend and I just want to preface what I am saying with this: I exclusively played WvW, so all of my coments are in reference to that. It’s the game mode I spend 90% of my time in and the one I have the most experience with these past 3 years.

That being said, I have to say that the Dragonhunter feels a hundred times better this weekend than it did on the previous one. I am very happy with the way Dragonhunter is turning out, and I think the developers have done an awesome job on improving it. Let’s get to the rundown:

Longbow:

The improvements to the autoattack’s speed and targetting for the Deflecting Shot (#3) & Symbol (#4) have done wonders for this weapon. The damage is in a great spot, the weapon feels strong and useful in a variety of situations. I feel it is a valid option in the guardians line up. However, there are 3 things I would like to see looked at.

1.) The first is a simple bug that seems to be occuring with the Hunter’s Ward (#5) ability. Sometimes it does not deal damage until the final strike. I used this ability many times and got zero response from the screen, no “miss” or “block” messages, and certainly no damage. Again, this does not affect the final strike, just the strikes that occur before it. The final strike still hits and the walls still form, but since the ability itself requires a lot of commitment it needs to have every bit of damage squeezed out.

2.) Next I would look at the Hunter’s Ward ability itself. I’ll be honest, at first I was with a majority of the complaints and saw the long CD and casting time as a major hinderance for the ability. However, once I actually used it in combat I can see why this ability is regarded as being so powerful. The ability to put up to 5 stability stripping rings can be devastating against a group of players without enough stability. This becomes even stronger in areas like Stonemist Castle’s hallways or the bridge at the Hills Keep. That being said, I think it would be wise to keep careful observation on this ability, as outside of those niche conditions the power of it can fall drastically. I think any CD reductions on this ability should be done incrementally to reach a good spot. Reducing just the cast time seems like a better option in terms of guarding against making the ability overpowered, at least in my opinion. As it is now it’s extremely useful in a big group setting where you can hide in a sea of players, but as soon as you are in a setting where someone is attacking you personally it falls off. Although, this might be intended as the Ranger LB #5 ability faces a similar issue.

3.) Finally I would look into improving True Shot (#2) in two ways. First, and this is more of a personal feeling, I don’t think the skill is flashy enough. I don’t even mean this in terms of counterplay. I know this ability is strong from the numbers I feel when I use it. I don’t feel that same sense of strength when looking at the ability itself. The Ranger LB #2 ability feels strong because you can see a flurry of arrows ripping into a target. True Shot feels sort of… lackluster for how powerful it is supposed to be. At the very least I would like to see that added swirl effect around the bow while charging, the same effect you see on the Ice Bow #5, Warrior LB #5, or Ranger LB #4. At most I love some of the suggestions to make it similar to Archer’s Caladbolg from Unlimited Blade Works. As for balance issues, I want to draw attention to a particular issue that True Shot seems to uniquely have. That issue is dropoff. Unlike a lot of both Longbow and Shortbow abilities, True Shot has a very hard breaking point where it no longer does anything. The bow abilities that fire some sort of projectile usually begin falling at max range, allowing for the ability to hit a little bit beyond the range. This plays well into a longbow fight style, as you are trying to stay as far away as possible. However, True Shot stops very abruptly at the 1200 mark, making the ability functionally… awkward at times. There are numerous times where I fired True Shot expecting it to hit an enemy and it did nothing. The animation even tickled their nose but no damage. I understand that this is something to get used to, but I feel like this takes away from the power of this ability. This kind of cutoff feels drastic and I think it could be improved. My personal recommendation would be to increase the range of this ability to 1500. I know this might sound like a big change, but I think it can accomodate the full weapon set well. If the range cannot be increased, I’d really like to see the dropoff smoothed a bit, to give the ability more power at full range.

Virtues:

Next up are the virtues, which I think are very strong in their current setting. I will preface this section by saying that I almost felt compelled to run the Virtues trait line for the synergy with the spec. I think this is a problem that the Reaper specilzation will have trouble with as well as these are the only two specilzations that effectively take away your old mechanics and replace it with a new one. And they were heavily utilized mechanics. My Necromancer feels weak without the Soul Reaping line, whether it was a reaper or not. My Dragon Hunter feels just as weak without the Virtues line due to how much I rely on these new virtues. That being said:

Shield of Courage. This ability is in a very good spot. I disagree with the opinion that this ability must have a shorter CD. It is quite a game changer, and is drastically stronger than the regular virtue. If the ability had to be “buffed” I’d rather see a very slight duration increase, maybe 1 or 2 seconds, rather than a CD reduction. This ability should (and does in my opinion) scream at the enemy that you are not the be triffled with. I find it an elite-esque ability with an elite-esque CD. However, I do understand the complaints of some people, as these game changing elites are often seeing shorter and shorter CDs as the power creep moves forward.

Wings of Resolve. I love this ability. This almost feels like a second heal, but this may be due to the Virtues line synergy I talked about earlier. My only complaint about this ability is the sheer amount of times it can fail. It is so easy to stop the effects of this ability, which is something the regular virtues did not have an issue with (since they were instant cast). I understand the need for counterplay, but I feel like this ease with which this ability can be stopped actively encourages not using it to its fullest. Just looking at the ability it would appear it is meant to be used as an either an escape from an enemy dealing damage to me or as a means to heal a group of allies a distance away. As it is now, I feel punished for using this in the midst of a fight where I would benefit from both the healing and the repositioning whenever I get interupted. I can use it before the enemy is close to avoid this chance, but I miss out on all of the healing. The same goes for healing allies. Allies that need healing are usually in the middle of a fight, and trying to jump in on them can sometimes be disasterous as I get interupted, leaving me in the middle without actually having helped anyone. This might just be a WvW issue, I don’t know. Or perhaps it’s all intended counterplay which is fine. If it’s not, I think adding some kind of evade to the skill would be beneficial. It doesn’t need to be the full duration, just something around the end of it to ensure you can land once you are airborn. Of course, I understand if nothing like this is added, as the ability itself it already strong. Just my opinion on getting the fullest effect out of it.

Spear of Justice. I think this ability it in a great place as well. It seems pretty strong, but I can’t say for sure how well the burn works as I only ran power builds. The functionality seems on point though, the spear itself seems fluid and responsive, the chains are noticable and didn’t seem to break easily. I particularly loved the interaction with this and the trait Big Game Hunter, as it allows fast hitting abilities like Sword #3 or GS #2 to rack up a nice amount of vulnerability. My only gripe with this ability is its interaction with the Justice is Blind trait. I know not everything is meant to work perfectly together, but I love the playstyle of running Dragon Hunter with the Radiance line and chuck spears all day. The other two minor traits on this line work great with the Spear, but Justice is Blind does not. Since it occurs in an AoE around the guardian it encourages a short range playstyle, while the Spear itself encourages the opposite. I can see two ways of fixing this. First would be to simply have the AoE occur at the first target you hit. The other would be to have the spear itself blind anyone it damages with no AoE effect (only on the first pass through, not the burn damage). I can’t say for sure which I would like, and I think this is a decision that could use some discussion by smarter people than myself.

Dragonhunter Traits:

As a whole I found the traits to be a large improvement over the previous iteration we saw last beta weekend. I have 3 small complaints.

1.) The middle line. I feel like some of these traits are still in that sort of limbo where they aren’t very useful without the other. This is especially true of the adept trait Dulled Senses. The Guardian has limited access to both knockbacks and cripple, so having this trait without at least 1 of the other 2 middle line traits seems almost useless. I think moving the cripple on knockback to Heavy Light, and the vulnerability on cripple to Zealot’s Aggresion will work both functionally and thematically. And this opens the door for a new trait! (More work though…)

2.) Small little thing about Hunter’s Determination would just be that the Aegis on CC is shared with the Virtues trait Retaliatory Subconscious. Not really a big deal, just wanted to point that out. Perhaps changing Retaliatory Subconscious to Protection and Retaliation and lowering the CD would allieviate this overlap. Like I said, not a huge deal as Hunter’s Determination is strong.

3.) Hunter’s Fortification. I’m sure this has been said a lot, but the requirement of having 0 conditions is pretty harsh. I as a power DH inflicted quite a lot of condis on an opponent. In fact, every build in the game will apply conditions, quite a few of them. This makes the damage reduction almost useless. You reduce perhaps the first couple of strikes but that’s it (and sometimes not even that). The other half of the ability is very strong though, so there’s good with the bad. I think increasing the conditions threshold to say 2 or 3 could help. Otherwise, it might be interesting to buff the damage reduction a bit and turn it into sort of an anti openning shot (your first few hits won’t do much to me). Either way I think a very light change would put this trait in a perfect spot.

Utlities and other Traitlines:

And finally we are at end. Utilities. Traps are getting a lot of flak, but let me just say that all of the traps are quite amazing. They all work well, they all look absolutely beautiful (seriously bravo), and they all do their job very well. But that is the biggest issue. Traps themselves are very limited in scope of what they can do, especially the specific Dragonhunter traps. You’ve got 6 traps in total, with most of them doing large amounts of spike damage. Thats very good and all, but it limits the amount of use that these traps will see. Outside of damage you have 1 reveal, 1 block drop, and 1 heavy CC trap (and the heal trap). No condi cleanse, no buffs, no repositioning, no real interaction with allies. All of these things means traps will not see much use in an organized group setting, at least in WvW. Sure you can have a DH running traps, and he can position them nicely, get some good damage in, even deny certain areas. But you won’t see it in a group going through their players 1 by 1 and picking a setup for them. The traps offer no real incentive to the group, and offer no real survivability to the DH outside of Fragments of Faith. But perhaps that’s intended. Elite specs aren’t supposed to replace things, and shout guards will still be more useful in a group. I just don’t know. I’d love to see more utility on the traps. Things like heals, things like buffs. Something to synergize with the class as a whole.

My biggest problem this weekend was determining which utilities to use. It’s really hard to get synergy going between the traitlines while sacrificing a whole line for DH, and this is especially true for roaming. The DH traitline itself does not encourage a particular utility skill besides traps. Which would be fine if traps worked well in most situations. I tried lots of combos, looking for any particular setup that amplified my utilities. Consecrations were a good one, but even they have limited uses, especially in a roaming setting. I even tried an interesting Radiance/Virtues with Consecrations and Signets build. It seemed alright, but in the end I eventually went back the old meditations. That’s because meditations just have so much utility. They offer damage, condi clear, repositioning, invulnerability, HEALING. So much is given by meditations that it seems almost oppressive. I’m not asking for meditation to be nerfed. Quite the opposite, I want to see these other utilities be more useful. And since Traps are still in development I think they are the best place to start. A healing trap that heals the next ally that steps on it below a threshold and gives you the ability to shadowstep to them. Procession of Blades and Test of Faith somehow combined into one, giving you a crippling high damage trap. A new trap that offers some way to clear conditions. Just.. something.

I think Dragonhunter is so very close to being perfect, it just needs some way to breathe life into the traps. They are amazing, they look amazing and they doing their job amazingly. But their job is so limited, and they will see limited use because of it.

Below are 4 of the builds I ran this weekend:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAT8ensABVdiFdC+CBkdiF/hSO8H/43KA+26MLJqwLE-TVSBABFpELw9HuS5REPBQJ4Nq/giuhFOIAIYiDgLAApAiYLA-w

The first experimental build I did with traps. Works pretty well for high damage roaming, but has big trouble if you can stay away from an enemy. The traps don’t really help them stay away with the amount of mobility most roamers have.
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http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAT8elsAhehYzQwQIQTEL+Dlc5P+xvVA8tPQWSUhXIA-TFSBwAFVidd/R5RknAoE8m6Po0NgwE3iDCAgLAApAiYLA-w

A second kind of small group roaming build that I found pretty interesting. Has some really nice damage. As you can probably tell by this point I REALLY like the radiance line. I think it is so much fun to play. This was trying to make it work.
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http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vdEQFASncTBFpiVXB2aBEqil7iCcBjwAge1j9ZXsg+hcA-ThBEABJ8AAKUJYUK/A4CA0o6PLt/ApAMTZE-e

The final Meditations build I fell back on. I think wall of reflection allows you to be a very effective anti-range ranged character, easily dealing with anyone who won’t come close.
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http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQJATWlsAhahYrQwUIQQELJE11yGAHA2GECpgc1H9XPA-TVSBwAFViRb/hrKPi8EAlg3U/BlugFHCAEm4AcBAIFQEjBA-w

A full shout backline build. I didn’t get to test this as much as I would like. I don’t know how effective it is to replace a frontline guard, or a backline necro/ele.
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TL:DR: Hey, I worked a while on this. Read it

DH Dragon Maw Elite:

Finish downed players would make it an elite worthy of guardian. Either that or ripping stability/protection or applying vulnerability.

I actually really love where the DH is at now, but there are a few changes I would really like to see. Firstly, I really love the idea of SoJ flipping to a pull skill like binding blade. That’d really make the skill feel important and a little different than virtue of justice on base guardian. I would also definitely suggest that traps be ground targeted and have a range of 600 or something, they feel pretty contradictory to the longbow playstyle as they are. Lastly, I feel like having the heavy light knockback attached to either longbow#2 or longbow #3 would be preferable to an internal cooldown on longbow projectiles. Having the knockback function that way feels almost random and i’d much prefer to have some more control over it.

lilz shorty.1879:

DH Dragon Maw Elite:

Finish downed players would make it an elite worthy of guardian. Either that or ripping stability/protection or applying vulnerability.

Been seeing this suggestion being thrown around a lot and I dont think people realise traps dont activate on downed players. Sure you could proc it on someone trying to res a downed player but it still feels completely out of place.
Ripping stability on the other hand sounds great, but it might be borderline op then.

Core changes:

Traits

• Put all Symbol related traits into Zeal. This includes moving Writ of Persistence, Glacial Heart and Invigorated Bulwark traits to Zeal.

• Some traits need to be moved out of Zeal. Binding Jeopardy and Expeditious Spirit (which shouldn’t be a grandmaster) belong in Radiance. Consolidate the retaliation traits (they are weak). Zealous Scepter should be a Virtues trait (instead of Glacial Heart) because it triggers on justice passive.

• Strength of the Fallen trait should not decrease degeneration in downed state. Instead let is decrease initial cool down on recharges (downed skill 2 & 3).

• Make Battle Presence also increase passive radius of virtue to 1200 (weak Grandmaster trait) and let it work when the virtue is activated.

• Some traits are never picked: Wrathful Spirit, Healer’s Retribution, Retributive Armor and Perfect Inscriptions. These need some attention.

Utilities

• Lower cool down on Sanctuary and Hallowed Ground.

• Increase health on Spirit Weapons. Decrease the distance on the leash so they stay close to the guardian. The leash is especially important for Spirit Shield and Spirit Bow.

• Rework Signet of Judgment & Mercy actives.

Vennyhedgie.5369:

lilz shorty.1879:

DH Dragon Maw Elite:

Finish downed players would make it an elite worthy of guardian. Either that or ripping stability/protection or applying vulnerability.

Been seeing this suggestion being thrown around a lot and I dont think people realise traps dont activate on downed players. Sure you could proc it on someone trying to res a downed player but it still feels completely out of place.
Ripping stability on the other hand sounds great, but it might be borderline op then.

I’m the one who suggested it and my intention was once it goes off you have 6 seconds to down them (the duration of the cage). If you do, it finishes them.

It basically makes the animation a flag/magnet for team spikes because if you coordinate around it you get a juicy pay off. The idea wasn’t to make it massively more powerful in the hands of a solo DH but to give it some interesting group functionality. The trap is pretty decent now — I was aiming for a gain in style, not a massive power boost .

(though if you stack a couple traps and get off a nice true shot into the dog-pile, squishier classes may not live long enough to scream…)

lilz shorty.1879:

This is what I stated or also maybe even finish downed players/provide stacks of vulnerability on the targets trapped.

Just thinking about this how cool would it be place trap over downed foe & watch there ally run over to res them only for the maw to snap shut locking them in removing any stability & finishing the downed player. Now you can use downed foes as bait & finish them… Yummy.

Please o please add this it’s just too good so rlol from this idea.

Nike even having it require triggering from another foe to finish I could see this getting use. It be like downed ally can we res them or with me going over is that going to finish them.

It doesn’t help in 1v1 but you should be able to finish them anyway if your downed them.

My biggest issue with DH after BWE3 now are:

• DH minor traits little sync with many DH builds please look at making Zealot’s Aggression & my Aggressive Nature (modded pure of sight including quickness whencrossing within 360 range).
• Missing a stun break, please add to Test of Faith.
• A condition removal please look a Purification.

Hey Karl, is there a possibility for Staff to be examined?

With Druid and Revenants getting really cool healing specs, the Staff Guardian feels really left out in the dust.

It’s be great if Guardian could get its own healing spec too, considering we are supposed to be the successor to monks.

Hi Karl

So I actually like the dragonhunter (I understand I am in the minority but ok.) So I understand what you where going with for the traps. You think you set down the traps, you wait and then when someone gets caught, you just longbow them to death. Got it so I’m not pushing for ground target although I am not opposed. But I feel like you had, in the traits and traps, a synergy for a more conditions build with cripple and it does work with some of the burn traits and vulnerable traits in zeal and virtue. I also really like the longbow. My complaint is that when you reworked the traits you took away the bleed on traps which made them significantly weeaker. I mean with procession of blades that was really fun and it work well with the other traps so please bring that back. Also make dragon’s maw take more than one enemy and just add either in the traps or traits more conditions but use bleed more since bleed does damage and if you stack some of traps together and use them, they work well.

I did end up spending most of the time managed to play during bwe#3 on the dragonhunter and ended only having trouble with reaper(well mostly misha but still, it feels slightly too strong atm) and scrappers (they are just plain broken…).
However sadly the dragonhunter was quite buggy during this bwe which I want to talk about first:

1. Fragments of Faith
This trap as amazing as it felt to play around with it hits more often than it’s tooltip lets u believe. It hits 1 time as soon as an enemy steps on it and 2 more times in a second aoe wave when it actually spawns the aegis fragments.

This trap even when the dmg bug is fixed is still pretty amazing synergy wise since every aegis can trigger shattered aegis and also allows u to sustain nodes quite well even when outnumbered (managed to defend about 1 min against revenant and chrono on node without too much trouble).

2. Shield of Courage
The Skill is amazing in itself however it has 1 very crucial bug that made me furious because it appeared after the specialization patch and stayed for almost 2 month.
The bug in question is Courageous Return (Master Minor in Valor) not working with Shield of Courage as it woudl normally reset the 75s cooldown on this skill when you revive an ally or rally on a 30 ICD.
This is HUGE in PvP as the bug basically punishes u for using ur defense to revive allies, pls try to fix this asap.

This should be enough about the bugs, onto improvement proposals.

1. Fragments of Faith
Really this trap doesn’t need much of buff even when the bug on it is fixed, hwoever it would be a nice quality-of-life improvement to increase the duration of the aegis fragments a bit (the old 15sec duration felt better, but since it seems u deemed it to strong how about 12seconds ?)

2. Hunter’s Ward
This skill felt horrible to use. When managed to lock some people down with it (good luck, its so kitten easy just go out of it) it felt ok, but really the casttime + root is just too much to make it fun (CD is fine given how long the rings last).
So what to do?
Simply reduce the cast time to 2sec OR if u feel simply reducing the casttime is too much for the skill remove the initial small hits and turn the skill in a simply 2 second cast that creates the ring but with a slightly increased impact dmg and cripple application equal to the cripple that the inital hits would have caused (roughly 6sec)

3. Wings of Resolve
These have mainly the problem of being way to easy to interrupt, here as other people have already suggested I think an evade might be easiest fix to this.

4. Dragon’s Maw
The effect of the trap itself is ok (maybe a small inital immob would be nice), however given its an elite skill the dmg feels lackluster.
The damage could easily be upped by 30-50% without making it op.

5. Deflecting Shot
While it does provide extra dmg for blocking enemy projectiles it feels not really great even when blocking stuff with it, therefore I’d propose to add 1 more effect in case the skill blocks an enemy projectile.
“When blocking a projectile the cooldown of this ability is reduced by 50%” or something along those lines (We know Anet has the tech for this).

6. Defenders Dogma (Dragonhunter Master Minor)
Okay I hate to sound harsh, but what the actual kitten. This trait feels bad on pretty much every level, not only does it have very little synergy but it also is counterproductive if u want use of ur f1 at any point promoting not using it at all.
Personally I would love to something like this:

Put the current effect of defenders dogma into the Bulwark(Master major) trait if u really think its worth it.

Now for the actual change there are 2 proposals:

6.1 “Blocking attacks with Shield of Courage reduces virtue cooldowns” (1sec per blocked attack)
This one would be quite fun flavor wise and also promote the skillfull use of Shield of Courage.

6.2 “Blocking attacks reduces virtue cooldowns” (1sec per block//1 sec ICD or 3sec per block// 5-7sec ICD)
Yes this might seem really strong and numbers might need to be adjusted, but it would not only synergies with the virtues in general but also promote to actually build for blocks.

Let’s make sure Dragonhunter doesn’t suck on release \o/

- Kranox

Just quickly is there a change for the Dev’s to post an update of the direction their taking Dragonhunters in from the feedback of BWE3 & onto release.

Bezagron.7352:

Just quickly is there a change for the Dev’s to post an update of the direction their taking Dragonhunters in from the feedback of BWE3 & onto release.

Karl started one for thieves on Tuesday. I imagine we’ll see more pop up over the next day or two.

I hope, 6 pages of feedback and still no comments. Beta ended 2 days ago

Looking forward to catching a glimpse. Also Wishing Arenanet & Dev’s All the Best in this crazy maddening time before release. Try not to work to death.

I have confidence that the reason we’ve yet to hear any responses by the Devs to our most recent feedback is because they’re likely taking time to really think over their decisions. Anything they now do with Dragonhunter will have to be mulled over a bit because of the history of negative reactions to this elite and the looming release date. I’m happy with waiting as long as they’re really thinking things through and not just scanning the feedback. No doubt they have an overwhelming work load right now.

-bow does overall to little damage
-bow 1 does nothing on single target and does laughable damage
-bow 2 does way to little damage and forces you to stand still, damage should be increased by 50% and I am not even joking, it should feel rewarding to play DH and even with a 50% damage increase it woud not keep up with other dps classes right now
-bow 3 should not be a skillshot and should just shoot the selected target as you want to destroy a projectile by the target you are fighting 99% of the time and it takes extra time to be cast this way
-bow 4 and 5 are ok I guess, could deal more damage though

-Traps still suck and therefore should get a ~10% damage increase and the elite trap should get at least a 20% damage increase as it should deal more damage then the normal traps..
-the vultrap should also immobilize maybe as it is the most useless of them atm and will see no play whatsoever in its current form

-to make traps more fun to use and more support the “hunter” kind of gameplay there could be a fun minor trait (as they all are kinda meh right now) that makes you invisible while standing still and having a trap out. maybe merge it into the trap trait.
this would make for some fun moments in pvp

this is all on the Dragon Hunter, will probably see no play as Scepter will still do more damage.
it is my 2nd most disliked elite the way it is right now.
bow should deal much more damage as a bow is the most deadly weapon ever created by humanity. it shouldnt be hundred blades but it should be at least on par with killshot, if warrior is better with a GS then guardian, then let guardian that specalizes in bows at least be better with a bow then warrior with a rifle….

it’s very frustrating to me that the Dragonhunter doesn’t really mesh with the core class.
With the devs responses of “we’ll keep on working on it after launch” it doesn’t inspire too much confidence in the overall idea of the spec that was given to us.

i don’t like to be this negative and overly critical of other peoples work, i just get the feeling when this class was first pitched they had a grand idea of how things would work and an ideal role the Dragonhunter would play. Now it feels like there are so many limits placed on the spec and they’re placing themselves in a box and holding firm to their original design…

there is a massive disconnect between most of if not a majority of players that wish for the guard to branch out into something new and yet familiar and to have things the devs don’t want to or cant give us to appease us.

Sadly for a class that has been the crux of the meta and a very reliant source of support, damage, and sustain for all game modes, most if not the majority of the players must feel as frustrated as i do.

the main issues we keep addressing are common, whether or not we all agree on them they commonly appear in every thread.

1. The Traps: many players don’t feel these offer what we would like them to offer and they feel limiting in the playstyle we perceive the DH to be pursuing and have very long cooldowns. they do not offer supportive options for a class that is mainly support. the control option the devs must have thought up is very reliant on our skill and the unknown subject we are fighting.

if it is a player in a pvp / wvw setting a sharp eye will know how to spot a DH setting a trap and avoid that area. thus we the DH have to find a way around our handicap of fighting a smart opponent. that is the loss of a utility slot for unskilled/ novice players and it makes us feel like we are weak or not in a good spot.

In PvE we are totally dependent on enemy AI to purposely or forcibly walk into or be pushed into a trap. In this setting we are not rewarded for our skill or knowledge or forward planning therefore most players will not see them as rewarding to use because in essence we have just clicked a skill and its effect is just a shiny skill that appears and goes away with no help to anyone around us. Mobs in the case of most traps can give us a 50/50 shot at our effects even activating at all and they can avoid most damage by following us into melee range, or just standing there and attacking at range (test of faith, procession of blade) leaving 2 traits as useless slots.

2. The Damage: with many more build options to be available to us with the zerker meta being “dead” or “sub-optimal” we look at our numbers, the damage we can output is not equal to what other classes we can achieve due to their own class mechanics / traits / and utilities. As a core class we (the players) have been held into the position of support and “OK” damage, if we are to go full damage our level of support drops and the amount of utility we provide is slightly smaller.

We (the players) for the most part, would like to know we are doing well in a fight by being able to “burn down” a boss in a dungeon, kill a group in a WvW zerg, or successfully take down an enemy or group of enemies in PvP with the best respective set up. The Bow offers a mix of support and a perceived “mediocre” damage output, which we have no way to test properly since the expansion has not been released.

The skills we have been given on the bow are an enigma to me as to why we have them in their current form. Some think the bow is fine, others don’t. there is no clear purpose to this weapon unlike the other 2 handed weapons we have. Staff= healing, control. Great sword = Damage, control, sustain (if traited), Hammer: control, damage. What does bow give us? control? in a small way, damage? some would say that’s debatable, Support? again debatable. We’re fighting to give the bow a role in our class missing a role of its own.

3. The 25% speed increase. I have seen this argument a lot in of posts and threads. so far we have more mobility than some but they have long(ish) cooldowns. In competitive play we need a way to disengage from a fight. We may be a heavy armor class but that doesn’t mean we can live forever off of shouts and invulns and healing everything away.

4: The Traits: Simply put most of the players feel the Dragonhunter line doesn’t synergize properly with our other traits, too many traits that don’t do enough, traits that cause competition with other traits or don’t “mesh” well with some. Soaring Devastation, Bulwark, and Big Game Hunter are some examples, of traits i myself feel dont do enough to aid us. they feel boring to me and do not merit slotting in my traits due to the fact i feel that they are boring.

Pure of sight is another such trait that has been left behind as an example of how boring traits such as these were previous to the june 23rd patch where we were shown A-net’s wisdom to roll traits like this into baseline because they weren’t healthy to a trait line. again we see a situational Minor trait that has no use to players that do not run a ranged weapon.

I know this dragged on and I’m very sorry for this long post, but i had to get this off of my chest. Thank you for reading and if i had the time or brainpower left id make a TL;DR but if anyone in the community could help me i’ll give you a +1, thanks :P