Guild Wars 2

So I have 2 major gripes with the dragon hunter.

First, making the virtues have a cast time just feels awful. Please make instant cast again.

Second, the projectile speed of the longbow auto attack is too slow, in PvP it is easy to avoid. Please increase the projectile speed of the LB auto attack.

My 2 cents.

THIS IS MAINLY FROM A PvE PERSPECTIVE:
Virtues: Need to be insta-cast, it really sucks when u interrupt a channeled skill; might just take some getting used to. Cd’s need to be standardized to 20,40,60.

Longbow:
-AA: Feels good could use a velocity increase as it can be sidestepped at 900 range
#2: Balanced, nice dmg and decent cast time+cd
#3: Could use some more base dmg as been expressed previously but overall good
#4: Alright, wish I could drop this skill behind me
#5: Cool skill, cast time is alright but the cd is too long if only by a couple seconds though this might conflict with PvP

HEAL:
Purification: it’s o.k but because of my preference is nowhere near as good as shelter is. Might MIGHT see some use in WvW.

UTILITIES:
Test of Faith: good, strong skill has good synergy with traits.

Fragments of Faith: I can see its use in dungeons and high level fractals but for the open world it’s o.k, retreat feels strong as you can directly apply aegis and swiftness.

Procession of Blades: Was this nerfed? For zerker its kinda meh, but I can see its use with condi or hybrid builds. O.k skill.

Lights Judgement: Got nerfed, but still a strong skill. O.k I could see the cd of this skill going down by a few seconds.

ELITE:
Dragon’s Maw: All in All, its decent. Cd is fine and dmg is fine, but I still find other elites more useful such as Feel My Wrath. They only thing I ever used this skill for and that its great at is stripping defiance stacks.

TRAITS:
For the most part I have no complaints, although (as expressed previously) a longbow trait with 25% increased movement speed would have been really nice. I don’t see it conflicting so much with pvp as there are plenty of gap-closer’s that can catch up to the guardian…still, at least we have wings of resolve now.

Traits are ok for zerker, but it seems that running a hybrid build or even a condi build seems to benefit from them more which is a nice addition to the guardian and a fun new playstyle. For the most part I think the Dragon Hunter is relatively balanced (as guardians are always in a good place) and is fun to play. A bonus is I never have to listen to scepter AA anymore…never…again.

SOME PvP

I did play a couple of pvp games later in the night running a marauder dragon hunter/medi guard combo;

Radiance: 2.1.3
Virtues: 2.2.3
Dragon Hunter: 3.3.3
Weapons: GS (energy+force), LB(energy+force)
Heal: Shelter Utilities: Judges Intervention/Lights Judgement/Contemplation of Purity
Elite: Dragons Maw

Believe it or not I have trouble with thieves. Not having focus #5 seems to be a bit of a handicap to guardians, or I just needed to spent more time Playing Dragon Hunter in pvp. Dragons Maw+Lights Judgement+Spear of Justice is epic. I didn’t try many builds in fear of losing the survive ability of medi guard, but I have read and heard good things from a carrion build that utilizes procession of blades very well and the knock back from LB. I felt safest in team fights and o.k on points by myself as long as people hit my traps but that can be very unreliable if they know you have placed them. The good thing is that you can now pressure on point if they range you. Although if you got caught roaming in between points its a bit deadly as you have no traps placed yet and without a good choke point things get sticky. Virtues not being insta-cast makes them awful to use in many situations especially safe stomps.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: (First Impressions)
Dragon Hunter is fun. Good for solo PvE, good for group PvE, o.k in PvP even though I haven’t tested some cool builds out there. Virtues really need to be insta-cast I cannot stress enough it feels so much like an unnecessary handicap. Bow feels good and some of the traps have their niche uses but I feel that they are mostly overshadowed by retreat/WoR/Purging Flames and many of the support shouts. Not having calculated numbers and trials on DPS for those min/maxers I feel like it might possibly contend for the current GS/Mace+Torch/Focus, but in bursts of dmg rather than consistent dmg for longer fights…maybe. Overall it’s new and fun now if only they could fix the events in Verdant Brink

LB:

1. Auto has the same issue as Scepter Auto, it’s constantly obstructed/out-of-range even when you’re not. I don’t think this will be fixed due to the fact that Scepter has been this way for 3 years.

Traps:

All of them are useless for PvP due to the lack of sustain you gain from any of them.

Traits:

Feels like many of these don’t have much synergy with the skills/utilities.

Overall: Pretty disappointed with the traps, Longbow auto suffers from the Scepter-syndrome, traits lack any real “umph”.

As many have pointed out already
- LB1 feels really awkward (it’s just way too slow for an autoattack).
- LB2 needs to be a bit more flashy since it produces some reasonable damage.
- Traps/Virtues are cool, but you end up giving up a lot of sustain/boons/survivability.

Overall I really liked the DH theme, it’s fun but it’s not THAT fun, it’s not there just yet, a bit tweak is needed here and there, specially with the traps and virtues, a full trap build leaves you really really vulnerable now that you can’t rely on virtues (the DHunter virtues sounded good on concept but they can’t reeplace the current ones efficiently).

Filed a report with you guys about the Dragon Hunter in game, but wanted to see what others thought of it. Here was my take.

Nothing about the dragon hunter makes me feel they could hunt a dragon… The theme feels really off. Why is our virtue of justice a spear when we are using a bow? why not a huge arrow of binding light that chains them to the ground or to you? why are there angel wings on retribution? It feels really out of place… also why would we use this ability to jump forward if we are trying to stay at range and have no close quarter combat abilities? Surely it isn’t to leap forward and try to lay a trap that takes far to long to cast that also wouldn’t help fight a dragon? The only thing I can think of is to use the last virtue to put up a shield for a few seconds and then back up and repeat.

Then arrow bounce, sweet for attacking multiple targets but not for attacking a single dragon the size of a fort. The only way this will help is if you can aim for the head and have it hit the hand and deal full dmg. The pierce shot is meant to hit multiple targets in a line. then the arrow that blinds and destroys incoming projectiles, cool, I guess this ought to reflect or defend against breath weapons. #4 a flaming arrow that leaves a light combo field… I think that ought to be a FIRE combo field for a FIRE arrow. Then #5 a cool AOE that allows you to imprison 5 enemies with arrows….

However, none of these abilities will do anything to dragons in this game. You can’t destroy a breath weapon with #3, you can’t blind a dragon and have it miss, piercing past the hitbox doesn’t do any more damage, and you can’t cage a dragon with AOE. They are immune to all of these effects and it has meh DPS from its abilities. How is this a Dragon hunter?

At least give us a few abilities that make sense to fight dragons. This just feels like it doesn’t know what it is supposed to be. It can’t fight a solo target well, it can’t fight a swarm well. using the abilities feels the same, 2&3 and 4&5 are redundantly feeling abilities that don’t affect combat enough in damage or status effects. I end up sitting there waiting for the long cooldown on my abilities just pressing 1 and seeing it do meh damage and trying to maintain distance from enemies despite having tanky stats. Nothing that makes me feel like a dragon hunter at all.

If this is the class you meant to make, I’d call it something else, if you intended to make a class specialization that could actually fight a dragon I feel its fallen woefully short of the theme. It needs a way to deal more concentrated dmg, or have effects that actually work on bosses. Then they need to look and feel the right size for fighting the dragons of tyria.

I look forward to seeing what you guys do with it.
What did other beta testers think about it today?

Dragonhunter is a different range choice, but other than that, it’s just there. I don’t like how the longbow roots you, and the skills themselves are a little meh. The spear of Justice was fun, but the virtues overall have too long of cooldown for this more active play. Traps were different, but I pretty much gave it a shot and went back to my old build.

I have a few thoughts, good and bad, as a Guard main who spends a lot of time in WvW and was super excited about LB.

Longbow:
This weapon seems like it wants to dip its toes into being a condi weapon, but it won’t commit. We already have a power-range weapon in the scepter, so I think we’d all appreciate a burn-range weapon (without which, a burn Guard will have to return to Judge’s Intervention and Torch). There are several crutches I’ve had to put the Longbow on to try to make the burn happen, and even then it’s hardly impressive:
-Spear of Justice
-Permeating wrath – You would think this would be OP with the volley shot, but the volley doesn’t appear to count on the justice passive (or sometimes do damage at all until the burst; don’t know if bug)
-Cleansing Flames (Because I might as well, as a ranged character)

Virtues:
-The Spear of Justice mechanic is great. However, it feels like it should apply more stacks than it does. More importantly, though, the range is 75% of the LB range. This makes it more difficult to use them together, which is a shame, since the spear is one of the crutches LB is leaning on.
-Wings of Resolve, as stated throughout this thread, could really use a range boost. At 600, there’s almost no point in bothering to aim, which fails to justify the inherent cast time. However, I still like it a lot for what it is, and the wings are pretty stellar (any chance of expanding on the wing graphic?…… pls).
-Shield of Courage: BIG mechanical problem. As a burn Guard, you’re pretty much guaranteed to take Amplified Wrath, whose nifty mechanic is burning enemies whose attacks you block. Shield of Courage’s projected shield does not trigger this (I tried). That absolutely ruins it for me. I don’t feel that that would be broken, on account of the big, obvious, blue shield in front of me (not to mention the difficulty in aiming the thing). If this was fixed, I’d consider all the DH problems 25% solved.

Traps:
I dig ‘em. They’re lots of fun. The Dragon’s Maw could use some love (maybe contain multiple enemies), but that’s okay. The only serious problem with the traps is that you’ve given traps to Gurdians and not a single one of them applies burning. Wat.

The only other issues I can see there might be are balancing issues. The stated Maw issue, the shortness of the reveal trap debuff (with the pulsing application, it’s kinda okay, but a bigger radius is definitely in order if it is designed to be escaped), and the low punishment capability of the trap damage (I won’t complain about that one too much because of the zerg damaging potential).

Overall, this is an amazing concept with a lot of great ideas that I love. A few changes to give me a mechanical reason to use it, and DH will be about my favorite thing in the game.

Traps and Longbow (LB) conflict too much. The weapon and slot skills should work with fluidity; Tempest and Reaper are close-range oriented elite specs and both their weapons and slot skills reflect that. Dragonhunter (DH) traps take too long to set up and have poor range. In quick situations, a DH can’t distance oneself away from traps (disregarding F2) because LB doesn’t have a built in mobility skill.

LB1 is underwhelming. The velocity of the projectile is horridly slow, there aren’t enough bounces to it (increase it by 1), and it shouldn’t be locked to ‘targets behind the first target’.
LB2 needs to be mobile, like everyone else is saying.
LB3 needs a larger radius along the z-axis, to compensate for high arc projectiles.
LB4 is fine.
LB5 is okay. I think it should have a faster cast time (say 1.75-2s), and its barriers should be evade-able, meaning, if someone dodges on the last tick, the barrier won’t appear. I’m not sure if this is already implemented.

F1 and F3 should be instant cast. F2 should break immob and have a lower aftercast delay. F1 tether threshold should be increased to 1200 at least. I think the passive effects of Virtues should be eliminated and the active effects should have lower cooldowns. The active effects of DH virtues are fittingly active/offensive, promoting positioning and mobility, while Guardian virtues are ally oriented and defensive. Increasing the frequency of reward when using Virtues will give DH a truly different feel than the Guardian.

Traits are underwhelming. Most of them could be combined or made baseline and have little effect on DH.
Virtuous Actions: Add “Virtues lose their passive effects and gain a reduced recharge.”
Defender’s Dogma: What benefit does a DH have from reaching a full-charge Justice passive? None.
Pure of Sight: Lazy and uninteresting trait. Reliable, long range damage was needed for a guardian, which means that Guardian does extremely well in melee range. It doesn’t make sense to make a trait line that is useless on those melee ranged weapons.
Piercing Light: Bleeding damage is unrewarding, traps don’t hit often enough, 6s is too short. Also, trap cd’s are too long.
Soaring Devastation: Good. Brings offensive utility, although doesn’t have synergy with LB.
Zealot’s Aggression: Stop with the flat damage increases! How about, deal damage when you apply cripple.
Bulwark: Make it baseline. Replace with “Knock back and cripple nearby enemies when you activate Shield of Courage.” or “Launch enemies in front of you when activating Shield of Courage.” Blast Finisher.
Dulled Senses: Change to “Slow enemies you knock back. ICD = 2x the ICD of ‘Heavy Light’.” Cripple is too abundant and becomes unrewarding with DH. DH has a poor amount of knockbacks available. Will have synergy with ‘Big Game Hunter’.
Hunter’s Determination: Increase to five seconds. Make True Shot mobile. Good.
Big Game Hunter: Spear of Justice is now unblockable, and has a secondary effect. “Pull all enemies tethered by a short distance and cripple them. Unblockable. Pull: 450 units.”.
Heavy Light: Add LB skills have a reduced recharge.
Hunter’s Fortification: The pinnacle of underwhelming. I think this trait would be in a good spot if “Reduces the recharge of virtues” was added.

Virtuous Action and Hunter’s Fortification additional recharges will work similarly to Thief’s Sleight of Hand. With Virtues line, VA, and HF, the combined reduced recharges will sum to 51% reduced recharge. Respectively, the reductions are 15%, 20%, and 25%. Or, 0.85 * 0.80 * 0.75 = 0.51, resulting in clean numbers.
F1 will be 12.75s, F2 will be 25.5s, and F3 will be 38.25s. It seems like a really powerful recharge reduction, but keep in mind that this is the product of two trait lines and a trait that competes with (hopefully) two other powerful traits. The combination will also serve as a way to really revolve one’s DH around its profession mechanic and isn’t limited to the LB so players may choose to improve their LB with Heavy Light. Players will also have to choose whether they want a 12.75 cd Spear of Justice, or 17s cd unblockable pull.

Edit: I hadn’t thought about the traits that affect the Virtues’ passives.

Absolutely agree that Virtues needing to be instant cast. It was the first thing I noticed in practice.

Every single DH skill: Traps, Virtues, its weapon skills, has a cast time. This makes the DH playstyle sluggish and darn near impossible to offer counter play in clutch scenarios.

Lets take the F3 block for example. It takes a second to cast out. That means any skill we were channeling or about to cast, gets canceled and not in a fast way. Not to mention it’ll be interupted all too easily in clutch plays.

F2 engage/disengage feature is more niche than anything. We wont be able to use it during clutch plays such as mesmers or thieves; it doesn’t take us out or in combat any more than Leap of Faith does. It’s like a ninja doing an unnecessary backflip roll when he could have just ran instead. (ok bad analogy)
All the more reason why F3 needs to be instant cast.

F1 will never be activated on a burn/condi Guardian. There’s a different playability in terms of using its activation; it’s wise to activate it before Renewed Focus but considering the cast time, it’s going to be difficult to use under heavy fire. That’s not to say F1 needs to be instant compared to F2 and F3.

TL;DR
It’s the fact certain things felt sluggish when put into practice but this could be a learning curve issue. We’ve always took advantaged of using our Virtues simultaneously with our other skills. I felt F2 and F3 needs to be instant cast while F1’s cast isn’t as prominent, but still an annoyance.

Btw I love the bow’s skill set. As slow of an activation the immobolize #5 takes effect, I still like it. I absolutely love how fast the trap finalizes too – it makes them more viable.

Bug found: Radiance trait – Wrath of Justice doesnt work with Spear of Justice. Should apply 3sec Immobilize. Tested on several mobs. Works normal on a non-beta character with Virtue of Justice.
——————
LB1: as mentioned, projectiles are to slow and can easily be dodged.
LB2: DMG could be increased a bit since we’re unable to move.
LB3: Shouldnt have ground target. Would be nice to add a immobilize like scepter skill 3 has.
LB4: okay
LB5: CD should be reduced to 30sec ( like ranger Lb5 ), the ring should be applied earlier. Targets easily run through the aoe field towards the player before the ring is activated.Only works if Lb5 is the first skill to start a fight with (pve), or in close combat.

F1: Fine
F2: shouldnt have a cast time – should be able use with RF to leap away while casting ( increase survivability )
F3: shouldnt have a cast time. Should be activated instantly to protect oneself. Kinda like focus skill 5.

Fragments of Faith: the aegis should last longer to make use of Honor -Pure of Heart ( aegis heals when you block an attack).

Other traps are okay in my point of view.

DH traits:
Soaring Devastation : Immobilize should be increased back to 2s. As offensive option that the target stays in the traps.
Hunter’s Fortification: should apply another Buff besides 3sec protection. Doesnt feel worth to use this trait since 3sec is not that much and we cant activate the virtues that often. Should be a defensive buff like aegis, regen,retaliation,stability or vigor to support the grp more.

Overall it really makes fun to play the Dragonhunter. But the specialization definetly needs more movability to stay in long range and make use of traits like Pure of Sight. Having more CC’s & instant leap with F2 should ensure that.

Yes, so I will echo the general sense of clunkiness observed by others.

We have a stack of new trap skills that require good mobility to use effectively, longbow skills that encourage you to constantly move in and out of melee range, and re-position for maximum effect.

But not the in-fight mobility to achieve these things.

As well as make F2 insta-cast with a more fluid animation, perhaps also make it spammable consuming 1/4 of your energy bar with each jump ( alternatively 1/2 + evade ). That way at least Symbol of Energy will also be a little more interesting/useful. This would allow for some quick repositioning at the expense of some damage mitigation.

The tether should perhaps last a bit longer, considering you can break it by moving out of range ( or as others have mentioned, make it traitable for extra duration )

Bow skill 3 is pritty useless in my opinion, add to it a fire trial which burn foes and cure condition on allies or something.
Skill 2 should be allowed to cast while moving.
Allow to wear bow whidout taking dragonhunter trait line.
Traps have to long cds.
Those are my first impressions after my first try in pve.

Longbow is awesome: both skills and damage numbers feel right. And it’s fun to use, beats the other 2 ranged weapons in that aspect. Longbow #3 is a bit too situaional, I wouldn’t want more damage on it (already got a lot of damaging skills on tte weapon), but some CC like weakness or mini-daze would be nice. Keep the self-immobiliy on longbow #2, it helps the ranged feel of the weapon.

The master traits lack useful choices, feels like some traits could use moving around, like swapping place between Soaring Devastation and Bulwark.

Dragon’s Maw looks good on paper but is unreliable against mobs. (edit: just learnt how to use it against stonehead dinosaurs – so it is good after all)

With Purification, the reward isn’t larger than the effects on other healing skills, but it has a fair risk attached to it – not worth equipping, too dangerous.

I didn’t find a good situation for Light’s Judgement (I guess I wasn’t around enough many people), but the other 3 utility slot traps had their uses. The bleeds should be mentioned in the tooltips though.

Darknicrofia.2604:

If hunter’s ward procced the end effect at first shot then maybe the 45 sec CD is warranted.

as it currently is, its a 500 damage skill that roots you that no will catch almost no one with its “ward” effect.

this +1

I think Dragonhunter is mostly fine. I do agree some polish is needed (Longbow auto, virtues not being instant, ect).

Really, my biggest issue in general is the Virtue cooldowns are really long feeling. What I would like is to change the Grandmaster minor to something like Renewed Justice. If Dragonhunter’s are suppose to be more offensive then they should be rewarded for using their virtues instead of leaving them on passive. Having your Virtues renewed after killing an enemy would accomplish that. Just put a 10-20 second cooldown on the trait so you can’t potentially spam the abilities in WvW where you get a lot of rapid kills.

I was playing a lot of DH yesterday both in PvE and WvW.

It’s not even remotely comparable to the normal Damage Meta Guardian used in Dungeons so from that perspective it definitely can’t fit in the open world (unless the zerker meta really gets tossed around in HoT).

However, from a WvW perspective I found it to be an amazing backline, the traps I used and mixing in ‘Feel My Wrath’ to help channeling LB 5 and the traps either offensively and defensively really helped make them shine!

…But it could use some work.

Sykper.6583:

However, from a WvW perspective I found it to be an amazing backline, the traps I used and mixing in ‘Feel My Wrath’ to help channeling LB 5 and the traps either offensively and defensively really helped make them shine!

…But it could use some work.

That’s exactly how I feel too – backline playstyle.

I think people are trying to play the class as front line and are utterly disapointed. Is it possible to play the class frontline? By definition, you most definitely can’t with the longbow, but given certain trap usages, it’s possible to make some type of hybrid DH frontline/backline style of play.

I’m quite curious if instant cast Virtues would make us too much… or just right compared to the power creep. At the moment, I feel it would remove the sluggish feel of the DH playstyle.

There is a class with insta cast virtues: Guardian.
Dragonhunter has a downgraded cool looking version.

Lol, I can use Guardian virtues DURING the spinning GS attack.

Sykper.6583:

I was playing a lot of DH yesterday both in PvE and WvW.

It’s not even remotely comparable to the normal Damage Meta Guardian used in Dungeons so from that perspective it definitely can’t fit in the open world (unless the zerker meta really gets tossed around in HoT).

GOOD. If 6 hours of flailing around with a new trait line were comparable to the alpha predator produced by 2+ years of careful tuning something would be terribly, terribly wrong.

However, from a WvW perspective I found it to be an amazing backline, the traps I used and mixing in ‘Feel My Wrath’ to help channeling LB 5 and the traps either offensively and defensively really helped make them shine!

…But it could use some work.

Agreed completely. As long as we all recognize that Elite specs shouldn’t make us do one of the things we already do best even better (power creep). Ideally they should let us do something new very, very well (more diversity).

CandyHearts.6025:

Not going to fill out my full observation of DH just yet but is anyone feeling that we could immensely benefit from finally getting a trait or utility with +25% movespeed?

It could be just me. Just in my opinion if you want to invest in LB play, you aren’t going to invest as much into VIT and Toughness. So being able to be more mobile is almost crucial to DH. This is just my feelings though so far.

I agree on the need for 25% ms too

Although the traps are effective, the channel time is still crippling outside of the Elite Shout, even a 1/4 decrease in channel time would vastly improve the traps across the board.

Also I think if LB3’s projectile went a bit slower, but did a bit more raw damage it would be just about perfect.

LB4 suits well as hybrid damage with support.

Wanted to try trapper runes with DH but alas they are not included I see some potential though after playing in the borderland maps and ruins. However, my trapper Ranger is still more effective.

Will be interesting with next beta rolls out based on feedback. Most of the skirmishes I’ve come out ahead on is more or less the surprise factor. I’m sure by tomorrow that will be gone and these issues will raise its ugly head.

I somehow got Aegis lasting 1 month, 2 weeks, and 5 days by casting Fragments of Faith. XD

Sadly, I don’t know exactly how I got that to happen, since I was just screwing around. Has anybody else seen that bug?

EDIT: Haven’t been able to recreate this again, but I attached proof.

After looking at this screenshot … Please remove that beam of blue light… it looks terrible almost as bad as the Signet’s of Courage effect when you have it equipped (and it looks like you walk without touching the ground; not mentioning how it looks underwater).

There is a cool looking “emblem” on each trap and it gets ruined by this light…

lzboon.9408:

CandyHearts.6025:

Not going to fill out my full observation of DH just yet but is anyone feeling that we could immensely benefit from finally getting a trait or utility with +25% movespeed?

It could be just me. Just in my opinion if you want to invest in LB play, you aren’t going to invest as much into VIT and Toughness. So being able to be more mobile is almost crucial to DH. This is just my feelings though so far.

I agree on the need for 25% ms too

Thank you! Say I want to invest fully into LB which means I’d go for more zerk. I’m such a sitting duck with being rooted and lack of movement speed compared to everyone else. This +25% movement speed for DH would make sense. A hunter’s prowl. It could easily be added to the traits. This would make DH tempting to pick up because we’d no long be that one class stuck with rune of the traveler.

To me and perhaps I am wrong in circumstances of DH. LB means kiting. We need to be able to keep distance from the enemy. Traps bait us to get closer. We need to be able to get in and out a lot faster. 1 600 range leap is SOME help… but not enough to provide valid archery gameplay.

Anyway I still can’t post much else about it. I just feel like it’s clunky, slow, and more slow. My impression is that we’d give LB ranger a fair contest but at this point it’s not EVEN a contest. DH needs a get well soon card. :/

CandyHearts.6025:

lzboon.9408:

CandyHearts.6025:

Not going to fill out my full observation of DH just yet but is anyone feeling that we could immensely benefit from finally getting a trait or utility with +25% movespeed?

It could be just me. Just in my opinion if you want to invest in LB play, you aren’t going to invest as much into VIT and Toughness. So being able to be more mobile is almost crucial to DH. This is just my feelings though so far.

I agree on the need for 25% ms too

Thank you! Say I want to invest fully into LB which means I’d go for more zerk. I’m such a sitting duck with being rooted and lack of movement speed compared to everyone else. This +25% movement speed for DH would make sense. A hunter’s prowl. It could easily be added to the traits. This would make DH tempting to pick up because we’d no long be that one class stuck with rune of the traveler.

To me and perhaps I am wrong in circumstances of DH. LB means kiting. We need to be able to keep distance from the enemy. Traps bait us to get closer. We need to be able to get in and out a lot faster. 1 600 range leap is SOME help… but not enough to provide valid archery gameplay.

Anyway I still can’t post much else about it. I just feel like it’s clunky, slow, and more slow. My impression is that we’d give LB ranger a fair contest but at this point it’s not EVEN a contest. DH needs a get well soon card. :/

That’s an absolutely terrible idea. You need to request something obscene or else you won’t receive it. Remember, craziness gets through, not reason.

I’m not certain if this is an error or intentional, but it would appear that the Dragonhunter can not target or shoot enemies behind themselves. Usually, when you target an enemy behind you with a skill, your character will turn and attack. This is very good for someone who has limited use of their fingers, it keeps the game playable without adding necessary difficulty that makes the new mechanic otherwise unenjoyable.

The number 1 ability, “Puncture Shot” feels too slow.

Cast times for virtues sucks.

Not being able to target mobs behind you and attack sucks. Why can’t I use my numbers 3 through 5 abilities and let the attack auto-turn my character like all other targeting attacks in the game already do for the other classes?

Why do I have line of sight issues when the mob is right in front of my face, eating my face?

ALSO! Please add a stun breaker to one of the traps. A lot of the new abilities that came with the new specializations lack stun breakers. In fact, I can’t remember if any of the new abilities have stun breaks.

A couple of thoughts on the Dragon Hunter (mostly PvE perspective):

1. It definetly does feel different from the “normal” Guardian playstyle, so in that regard I would say that it accomplishes what Elite Specialization are all about.

2. The Traps are mostly fine. I feel like some of them should be tweaked in terms of damage, because otherwise I feel like I have no incentive to use them over my existing utilities.

3. The Longbow is mostly fine as well. However, as has been pointed out already, I feel like the autoattack is a bit too slow, both in terms of cast time and projectile velocity. Skill #2 would be fine if we could move while casting, also the effects could be flashier, seeing that it does quite a bit of damage. Skill #3 I actually like the idea of being a ground targeted skillshot, because we dont have a lot of them in the game. While trying to actually block projectiles with it, I think that the sweet spot for that should actually be increased a bit. Skill Number 4 and 5 should be able to be cast to the back and sides, like the warrior LB skills.

4. and most importantly. The Virtues feel a bit clunky. It might just be because I am used to instant cast times (and I really don’t see why the shield for example has to have a cast time), but I have a couple of suggestions. The spear should have another use other than apply burning. I suggest giving it cripple, because that would syngergize really well with traits. For the wings I think that the range is a bit too low; as has been suggested before, I think increasing the range is necessary.

Still, playing the Dragon Hunter is really fun, but I just don’t see the point in becoming a Dragon Hunter right now.

Let me target hit things behind me!
W/ other professions/weapons, if an enemy is behind you and you press to attack while not moving, your character will turn around and attack. (some skills may go on short cool down and fail).
For the Dragonhunter LB though, nothing happens. You don’t turn around and you get nothing saying its failing. This makes the Longbow awkward to use when an enemy is right next to you.

I really like the overall feel of the Dragonhunter (guess this name is staying), traps are better than I though they would be. Longbow is great as well, aa speed seems ok, people want to speed it up but I don’t think it should be the same speed as current ranger LB, maybe something slightly faster but slower than ranger LB because it can cripple and thematically makes sense that ranger aa is faster. Lastly Virtues, they desperately need cd reduction both DH and Guardian virtues, I feel profession mechanics should be actively used as they define they profession. A simply 10 sec reduction to each virtue would go a long way (maybe even 12 second reduction for VOJ).

That’s it for me for now, overall nice work on the profession it, it really changes the feel of a guardian (now hurry up and release thief spec please)

One thing I wanted to add is a cd reduction is needed on Hunter’s Ward, making it anyway from 35-40 seconds would be nice.

It would be nice if someone could summarize all of our feedback at the begining of the OP considering we all feel the same about almost every aspect of the specIalization. That way it would be esasier for Devs to look at our generalized feedback.

I played both pvp and pve yesterday extensivly and These are my toughts

LB- could use some improvement.
1- auto atack is to slow.
2- skills 2 and 3 dont respect autoatack range.
3- skill 2 shouldnt root you.
4- you should be able to atack behind you with every skill.

TRAPS- not so bad.
1- cast time is to long, if cast time stays the same then make them ground targeted.
2- there should be condi removal and stun breaker built in traps.
3- heal trap is kinda lackluster considering the risk, initial heal should be higher.
4- lights judgement should have a knock down, only 10 invul is not enough.
5- other traps are generaly fine, fragments of faith is my favorite cause it has great synergy with shattered aegis and brings support.

VIRTUES- they absolutely need to be instant.
1- i like the general idea and i think they bring very interesting gameplay but they seriously need some improvements.
1- by not being instant their synergy with virtue line is terrible.
2- spear of justice is awesome in concept but it needs to either deal more dmg or create an imobilize at the end, i often find myself wanting to repress F1 whenever i see the chains going, it would be awesome if it had another effect by repressing F1 but increasing its cd if u use it. (I know of many friends who feel this way).
In order to make this skill instant it should apply a 2 sec window in which every thing you hit gets tethered and limit the max amount of tethered targets to 3 or 5. And increase range to 1200 so it works with LB.
3- spear of justice is not giving might when activating it. Blind, might and retal effects should be applied instantly upon activation.
4- wings of resolve are also a good idea but the leap is to short, it should be 900 range at least and due to the active gameplay it offers it should have a lower cd.
5- wings of resolve effects (condi cleanse, regen, retal and heal) should be instant upon activation and give a 5 sec window to use the leap if you want to.
6- shield of courage is nice but as the other virtues, basic effects including aegis, protection, stability, retal and stunbreak should be instant.
7- it would be awsome if there was a trait to cause shield of courage to deal knock back on activation to synergize with the trait That cripples.
8- shield of courage cd should be lowered.

TRAITS- some of them should be more generalized to work a long with other specs and builds including full melee.
1- piercing light needs some added effect like reducing trap cd or make them remove condis.
2- defenders dogma is lackluster.
3- Bulwark should apply knockback.
4- pure of sight needs to go as it does nothing at all if you are going melee, it should be a 25% movement increase trait.
5- hunters fortification would work so much better with instant virtues and it should give 1 added bonus besides protection or make it last 1 sec longer.
6- heavy light should bring bow 20% cd reduction and a bigger knockback
7- big game hunter is the best trait this line has, i really like it.

That is mainly what i think really needs to be changed but overall i belive DH could have a los of potential if our basic requirements are met. Cheers!!

Changes that would make the DH virtues not having instant cast worth it:

Spear of Justice – needs to become unblockable and gives 3 stacks of burning
Wings of Resolve – needs range increased to 900, break immobilize and evade all attacks while in mid flight.
Shield of Courge – needs to block all attacks and apply AoE knockback and/or stun instead of just blocking projectiles.

Not a whole lot to say, really. Overall, it seems “ok”. My favorite thing by far is Procession of Blades. Perfect.

I like the bow as a potential companion to scepter with a role in dishing some extra aoe damage with 4&5. But the cooldown on bow 5 is much to long for what it is and I would very much like to see the number of individual hits by bow 5 be increased dramatically. From that standpoint it is rather underwhelming.

Arken.3725:

CandyHearts.6025:

lzboon.9408:

CandyHearts.6025:

Not going to fill out my full observation of DH just yet but is anyone feeling that we could immensely benefit from finally getting a trait or utility with +25% movespeed?

It could be just me. Just in my opinion if you want to invest in LB play, you aren’t going to invest as much into VIT and Toughness. So being able to be more mobile is almost crucial to DH. This is just my feelings though so far.

I agree on the need for 25% ms too

Thank you! Say I want to invest fully into LB which means I’d go for more zerk. I’m such a sitting duck with being rooted and lack of movement speed compared to everyone else. This +25% movement speed for DH would make sense. A hunter’s prowl. It could easily be added to the traits. This would make DH tempting to pick up because we’d no long be that one class stuck with rune of the traveler.

To me and perhaps I am wrong in circumstances of DH. LB means kiting. We need to be able to keep distance from the enemy. Traps bait us to get closer. We need to be able to get in and out a lot faster. 1 600 range leap is SOME help… but not enough to provide valid archery gameplay.

Anyway I still can’t post much else about it. I just feel like it’s clunky, slow, and more slow. My impression is that we’d give LB ranger a fair contest but at this point it’s not EVEN a contest. DH needs a get well soon card. :/

That’s an absolutely terrible idea. You need to request something obscene or else you won’t receive it. Remember, craziness gets through, not reason.

DH should get +25% run speed only when they run backwards?

xD

Dragon Hunter has the ground work to be good, but right now it’s an embarrassing epic train-wreck that needs serious fixing.

- Virtues NEED to be instant cast.
- Longbow 1 needs to be heaps faster and hit harder, 2 needs to not root you in place, 3 is garbage and needs replacing, 4 needs to move faster and also fire behind you, 5 needs the cc to proc first not last.
- Traps are garbage, pure 100% garbage.

Traits are hilariously bad. They lack synergy, they are random all over the place mess. Traits need a redesign from the ground up.

Right now there is no reason to go Dragon Hunter. NONE. Scepter/Torch does superior damage and provides better quicker utility. Bow is slow and weak, traps are pathetic, traits are horrible.

But lets be honest, the devs don’t read the Guardian forums. How many years has it been and shield/spirit weapons still suck.

Sigh.

my impressions so faron the Dragonhunter:

Longbow:
– Autoattack projectile speed could be a bit faster, its very easy to sidestep (like scepter)

- True Shot is fine

- Deflecting Shot should reflect projectiles, remove base damage of the skill

- Symbol of Energy shouldn’t cancel if i turn my character around (like the similar skills on warrior/thief)

- Hunters Ward is fine

Traps:
feel a bit out of place but are “fine”, maybe add 1 sec of imob to Dragons Maw and remove 2 conditions on Purification and decrease cast time to 3/4.

Traits:
Minors:
- Virtuous Action make it so that the virtue active triggers at the start – not at the end of the cast

- Defenders Dogma should cause your next attack after blocking to burn for 1 sec

- Pure of Sight should be 10% more damage when endurance is low (which got removed during the trait overhaul)

Majors:
- Piercing Light should also reduce the cd of traps by 20%
Zealots Aggression is fine

- Soaring Devastation should also increase the range to 900 from 600

- Hunters Determination is fine

- Bulwark should be baseline, maybe add another trap trait to make them break stuns/add weakness to foes/remove conditons – some form of defensive utility

- Dulled Senses is fine but also add the cripple if you pull (gs5) and launch (hammer 4)

- Hunters Fortification is kinda boring but alright, remove internal cooldown and increase the radius to 360, maybe add something more

- Heavy Light is fine but should also decrease longbow cd’s by 20%

- Big Game Hunter is fine

Crapgame.6519:

Wanted to try trapper runes with DH but alas they are not included I see some potential though after playing in the borderland maps and ruins. However, my trapper Ranger is still more effective.

Will be interesting with next beta rolls out based on feedback. Most of the skirmishes I’ve come out ahead on is more or less the surprise factor. I’m sure by tomorrow that will be gone and these issues will raise its ugly head.

Put 6 trapper runes in your bank on a non-beta character. Create a new dragonhunter. You’ll have access to them.

Making the DH virtues instant and not breaking any casting would give us a huge reason to play DH!
Just imagine:
-WW with F1
-WW with F3
-JI+Banish+F2 to knock the enemy towards your team…
-F3-RF-F3 for a good amount of party defence
These combos would worth to trait into DH!

The DH traits have no synergy with other lines AT ALL. There is no defensive ability on the Longbow unless traited knockback… There is no other guardian weapon wht lacks a defensive AND CC ability… and no, just do not say LB#3 and #5 are the ones….

And anyway: is the F2 LEAP a leap finisher?

EDIT: shield? our useless weapon could become a beast! Leap wherever you want and heal/blast/knockback there! while chanelling… No more rooting issues as long as you spec into DH!
Hey this is an excellent idea from others… make it real ANET!

I played a longbow greatsword build with traps.

longbow hits like a truck, Greatsword hits like a truck, and rangers would kill for access to something like shelter. Plus you get a free knock back ever 7 seconds.

The traps are great too, especially the reveal trap.

I can’t wait o try out longbow/sword focus.

Your weak in a lot of ways that guards weren’t before, but you’re strong in new ways too. It’s a good trade off.

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Crapgame.6519:

Wanted to try trapper runes with DH but alas they are not included I see some potential though after playing in the borderland maps and ruins. However, my trapper Ranger is still more effective.

Will be interesting with next beta rolls out based on feedback. Most of the skirmishes I’ve come out ahead on is more or less the surprise factor. I’m sure by tomorrow that will be gone and these issues will raise its ugly head.

Put 6 trapper runes in your bank on a non-beta character. Create a new dragonhunter. You’ll have access to them.

Wow, didn’t even think of that…thank high heavens they don’t uninstall automatically for not thinking of something like this.

Thanks, will do that now.

Overall I really like Dragnohunter, after taking it through Fractals it seems pretty solid for PvE at least. But here’s a few technical issues with some of the new moves:

Symbol of Energy – Feels awkward that it can only be placed ahead of you. Should be able to target anywhere within its range around you (like the Thief Shortbow’s Choking Gas).
Spear of Justice – Feels awkward that it can be wasted by activating without successfully targeting something. It should require a valid target to activate.

My thoughts more or less mirror the majority:

- Virtues need to be instant and usable during Renewed Focus.
- Not sure if anyone else has mentioned this yet, but I feel like Virtue of Resolve’s range is too short and overall it makes the skill feel cumbersome and ineffective.
- Longbow seems pretty good all around, but I’m not so sure about the root on skill 2 with the level of damage. I’d say either increase the damage or lose the root.
- Longbow auto projectile speed is a little too slow/misses too often, similar to Scepter. [Update]: Auto attack misses at an insane frequency and the issue with both weapons really needs to be fixed immediately.
- Traps are okay overall, but seriously need an increase to effectiveness. None of them feel particularly strong (Procession of Blades is underwhelming at best) and that includes the elite. I like the effects that are already in play, but think they all need to be a bit stronger.
- I’d like to see traps gain ground targeting (maybe as a combined effect with Piercing Light trait if inborn ground targeting would be too strong).
- Dulled Senses trait is frankly stupid right now because it forces you to take Heavy Light and that makes it feel counterproductive to ANet’s attempts to streamline trait choices (such as they did with Spirit Weapons and Meditations).

That’s more or less where I’m at right now. I plan on dropping some more time into the DH and adding more later. So far I’m feeling underwhelmed and not enjoying the feel of this elite specialization as much as the others (which is sad as I main Guardian and have since 3-day head-start.) I’m concerned Guardian is losing its way with this elite specialization and traveling down an odd choice of path. :/

I’m on the fence about dragon hunter, on one hand I like the long bow despite how slow it is, but some of the traits are really poor, i dont see any reason to use the dragon hunter line over Virtues. i find that its a solid start to what the class can branch off to but with being limited to having to choose the dragon hunter to use the long bow is very limiting.

i think it would be good if we could use all the elite spec’s weapons regardless of picking the specific trait line it would open up so many possibilities for builds. As it stands i dont see myself choosing to use the line just to use the bow. id stick with all of the other weapons i have at my disposal.

My thoughts…

~ Longbow ~

1 – As many have said, it really needs a speed boost. Far too easily dodgeable at range. Wasn’t the longbow added specifically to fix the issue of Guardian not having a reliable ranged weapon? Kind of funny that it has the exact same problem Scepter already did. Also, I see a lot of “no line of sight” pop ups while using it, give that a look perhaps.

2 – Seems fine, though the damage could stand to be upped slightly perhaps.

3 – Could maybe use a slightly shorter cooldown, but other than that I love it. Don’t see why people are complaining about the damage when its clearly not meant to be a damage dealing skill (that’s what #2 is for).

4 – Projectile velocity is atrocious. That does have some perks (like the fact that you can fire off the symbol arrow then start using #5 to lock them in place as the symbol hits) but those perks are few and far between, and don’t make up for how hard it is to actually hit anything at range. Speed it up please.

5 – The cooldown, my god. Its WAY too high. Should be 30 seconds at most. Seems decent enough other than that, though it could maybe stand to be boosted up so that it always cages enemies within the border of the attack even if they dodge the final hit.

~ Virtues ~

Justice – Feels a touch weak compared to the active effect of default Justice, especially in groups (or with spirit weapons). I’d perhaps increase the burn duration or have it inflict 2 stacks per tick. Could use a cooldown reduction to make it less dependent on Renewed Justice, as it basically requires you to use it often to be good (and Renewed Justice would still let you use it even more, so it would still synergize well, just not be next to required). Also, why in god’s name is the range only 900 when Dragonhunter comes packed with a 1200 range weapon? Make it 1200 please. Seems to have major accuracy issues in general, could use some fixing on that end. Also, does not trigger certain traits (off the top of my head I know it doesn’t work with Wrath of Justice for instance). And lastly, making it a projectile finisher would be an extremely minor buff that wouldn’t really amount to much, but it would make a whole lot of sense.
Resolve – Cooldown is WAY too high for what it does. Should be more like 25 seconds untraited. Should also be a leap finisher.
Courage – Pretty nice, especially traited. Like the others, cooldown is a touch high, but not insanely so.

~ Traps ~

Purification – Due to how unwieldly it is, I’d say it needs a cooldown reduction. Sure, you can pre-cast it in get a double-heal in theory, but since it depends on getting the enemy to trigger it when you want I don’t think that’s much of an advantage to make up for the longish cooldown and moderate healing.

Procession of Blades – Should be a whirl finisher. Raw damage could stand to be a bit higher, its great when using the condition trait on a condi build but not so much without.

Test of Faith – I’d like it to proc once on trigger instead of requiring an enemy to step through the blades to get hit at all. Maybe even reduce the damage on the trigger proc if need be.

~ Traits ~

Piercing Light – Should reduce trap cooldowns to give it more use to non-condi builds (and because traps having a cooldown trait would be nice in general).

Wings of Devastation – I’d double the immobilization duration to help set up traps a bit more and just give a little extra “oomph” to the trait in general.

Hunter’s Determination – I flat-out don’t understand this trait. Why stability on a ranged attack? Might be useful if you got stability BEFORE the shot to cover the windup time (perhaps with an ICD if it was changed to that, so that it would cover maybe only 1 in every 3 shots?), but after? I dun’ get it. Also, I’d throw a longbow cooldown reduction onto this trait even if the stability does get changed, I don’t understand why there isn’t one in the Dragonhunter line and this is definitely the best place for it (could put it on Heavy Light, but I don’t like the idea of forcing everyone using Longbow to use Heavy Light as it can be a touch annoying).

i like the traps but not the bow.on the dragonhunter trait line.one of the main traits is meant for the bow i think it should be moved to the optional traits and replaced with something that helps all builds.that and i think the new virtues are sub par to the other ones and shouldn’t be forced to have them.if we just want to play with the traps

Darknicrofia.2604:

Post them here

so far from initial testing, the virtues not being able to be activated while channeling RF feels super awkward and will take some getting used to.

also getting a bunch of “no line of sight” errors while within like 500 range by just being on top of an ant hill of a difference in z axis.

One last thing to add. Bow will not see any real play in PvP due to the loss of sustain you gain from running X/Focus. There are no defensive capabilities attached to this weapon so you’re essentially a sitting duck.

Wow I don’t know what has people been killing with DH, every guardian with that build that I’ve found is one more victim I’ve completely obliterated because of the terrible sustain they have lol, with my hammer/Sc+F medi guardian
And also by how they obvious they are when placing the traps lol.

Oh really, a build you’ve been able to practice on for years and completely optimized for PvP is stomping something obviously untuned/Beta that people have been fiddling with for ONE DAY…

Imagine our surprise.

Arken.3725:

One last thing to add. Bow will not see any real play in PvP due to the loss of sustain you gain from running X/Focus. There are no defensive capabilities attached to this weapon so you’re essentially a sitting duck.

So when the Devs say “The Dragonhunter is designed to serve in the Backline” what did you think that meant?

If we had 8v8 PvP, there’d be a backline, but the rolling shuffle that is 5v5 you pretty much ALWAYS end up with somebody directly in your face… No backline build fairs well in that environment.