Guild Wars 2

I think most people in PvP are overly concerned with the damage of the traps and longbow, but the real culprit in my view is clarity. Opponents should be able to SEE what a DH is using, and be able to react. The damage is fine, if counter-play exists.

When Trueshot is being charged up, or when the traps are being placed, the opponent currently does not have sufficient visual cues to alert them to the incoming damage or what trap is being used, especially instant cast traps that deploy instantly.

I’d honestly really hope Anet takes the time to adjust the animations and mechanics of traps and Trueshot while maintain their damage. Longbow and Traps need to remain as highly threatening abilities that NEED to be avoided/interrupted/mitigated and otherwise played around.

I fear Anet will simply take the path of least resistance and development time, which is to “simply lower their damage to the point of being crap.”

Here are some of many options Arenanet could do, with hopefully minimal development effort, to introduce more clarity and counter-play into the DH trapper kit, while also filling in some QoL issues with the DH as well:

Traps:

1.) Make traps visible when placed, and give them a minimum of a 1 second Arming time in which they will be visible to the foe before going invisible. Once the Arming time is up, the traps would be trigger-able. This prevents the “teleport and trap” instant gimping with Judge’s Intervention. Traps could all become instant cast with this change, allowing easier trap placement set up, but preventing the “instant trap damage” combos, since there would always be the 1 second delay.

2.) PLEASE fix the visual bug glitch on Dragon’s Maw, in which the Barrier is NOT animating for any player. This causes a host of confusion to new players. For balance, maybe lower its duration by a second or so, but it NEEDS visual clarity to let players know they are trapped in a ring ward, and thus dodging will NOT get them out of it.

3.) Consider letting us deploy our traps from long range, but increase the Arming Time before they go invisible and are able to be triggered based on how far we deployed them. If I could toss a trap from 1,200 range, but would have to wait 3 seconds for it to become active, that would be a very balanced and good QoL buff for actually using the traps preemptively.

Longbow:

1.) Increase the cast time of Trueshot to 1 second AND make its visual much more noticeable. Give it a visual-audio “charge up” sound and animation. In return, consider giving it increased “actual” range after being fired, so that if someone moves out of it’s 1,200 range, it would “follow through” to hit up to 1,500 range. They damage is absolutely fine, players just need the opportunity to see it coming and react to it with dodges, defenses, or CC to interrupt the DH.

2.) Change the trait that causes a random knock-back to instead work only on Deflecting shot. It would be much easier to understand for both the DH and the foe, and would remove the RNG nature of the current trait. Could consider base-lining this and making a new, interesting trait.

3.) Reduce casting time of 5th ability to 2 seconds or less, improve its ability to hit along the Z axis during channel, and reduce the total duration of the Ward effect slightly, and reduce its cool-down appropriately to 30 seconds or so.

Virtues:

1.) Consider doing something with the F1. As much as I love the pull, I think the ability to “instantly” activate it after tethering someone is a bit strong. Give it a 1 or 2 second internal cool-down before it can be activated for the pull after landing the hit, and reduce the tether distance to 1,500, giving players the opportunity to “run away” to break the tether, thus negating the chance of being pulled.

2.) Consider improving the F1, F2, and F3 abilities to perform their traited effects upon use, rather than on completion

3.) Consider giving F2 a weaker base heal and much better scaling. Currently, it heals for over 4k on a pure berserker build, but doesn’t heal quite as well as it should on a full support healing power build. This inflates the DH’s innate durability when going full offensive stats. In return, give us the much requested Evade frames during the leap, making in more of a skillful avoidance ability rather than a default amazing heal. Also, PLEASE fix the reintroduced bug: Chill and Cripple are reducing the leap range currently.

4.) If Virtues are interrupted by actions from the opponent, they need to go on the 5 second recharge timer, NOT their full timer.

Closing Comments:

With all of the above said, if a player is hit by my full combo of F1 theater, symbol placed beneath them, runs into a stack of my traps to get 25 vuln and give me 10 Might, AND I still have Aegis up and land a Trueshot, this SHOULD take out all but the talkiest bruiser and bunker builds.

If Trueshot and Traps do not have sufficiently punishing damage for extreme misplays, then DH will absolutely not have a place in PvP or PvE. With that said, I agree that the current situation is not “fair enough” with allowing opponents a reasonable time to react to, and be visually aware of, their impending doom.

If some or many of the above suggestions are considered, then I firmly believe that DH will be fair and balanced in PvP as extreme area deniers, particularly effective in choke points and in situations where they can maintain the high ground.

Does anyone believe the any of the above suggestions are completely unwarranted, or are there other areas in which you think the DH should have better counter play? Do you feel their existing counter-play is sufficient?

Lets hear your feedback!

Sounds good. Exept placing traps at 1200 range feels to much.

Wolfric.9380:

Sounds good. Exept placing traps at 1200 range feels to much.

Well, the full suggestion is basically “the father you deploy them, the longer they take before they activate, which also means they are visible longer to alert foes if they happen to see them before they activate.”

It would basically allow DH, Rangers, and Thieves to deploy their traps from afar to ease the time to takes to set up traps (and make them more user friendly for range builds) at the cost of increasing their counter play.

Swiftwynd.1685:

When Trueshot is being charged up, or when the traps are being placed, the opponent currently does not have sufficient visual cues to alert them to the incoming damage or what trap is being used, especially instant cast traps that deploy instantly.

You can easily see a Trueshot coming, what do you need more than the current animation?

Heimdallr.7021:

Swiftwynd.1685:

When Trueshot is being charged up, or when the traps are being placed, the opponent currently does not have sufficient visual cues to alert them to the incoming damage or what trap is being used, especially instant cast traps that deploy instantly.

You can easily see a Trueshot coming, what do you need more than the current animation?

I’ve been on the dishing out and receiving end of Trueshot and the animation time and visual, particularly for female models, is not distinct enough in my honest opinion.

If any adjustments happen to Trueshot id love these to be explored before nerfing its damage potential. With the volume of complaints i have no doubt something will be changed, and id rather a healthy, sensible change than read “reduced trueshots damage by 20%” in Tuesdays patch.

With regards to a trap “nerf” I would only request these two:
1. Test of faith initial trigger does not cause the daze, only when passing through the line of swords with no defence you get dazed.(that hard Nerfs the JI→ToF→PoB combo)
2. Triggered traps make the utilities go on short (10s?) cooldown. So people can’t set up full set of traps then 20 seconds later have them triggered and placed and triggered again. I mean a DH defending a point can easily have 5 traps ready to nuke 1 or many opponents, instead should be relying on longbow to kite for at least 10 seconds.

Yeah, this seems about right, although 1200 range on traps? nah, no traps should be anged in my opinion….unrealistic.
INcrease cast time on true shot, same damage yeah, sounds good.
F1 is fine in my opinion.
F2’heal should heal maybe 500 less or so base, and scale better. (or remove the self regeneration factor)
F3 needs a shorter shield duration.
Reduce cast time on longbow 5 yeah it sucks at the moment.

Swiftwynd.1685:

I’ve been on the dishing out and receiving end of Trueshot and the animation time and visual, particularly for female models, is not distinct enough in my honest opinion.

I disagree on this but i’ve not seen the animation on female characters.
I think that 1vs1 it’s pretty obvious, in a team fight you can miss the animation if not paying attention but i still think it doesn’t need to be changed.

No these are awful. DH is fine the way it is.

It’s good seeing that someone else understands the DH issues and isn’t just saying “OMG nerf traps”. Better DHs are only using two traps anyway: Purification and Test of Faith.

One other thing to put on the list is the healing of Purification. It’s 8500 + 1300 from regeneration with 0 healing power on a 30 (24) second cooldown. Consider reducing the overall for more initial heal or some effect on trigger besides a direct heal.

Sounds reasonable, but let’s see what they got waiting for us, I bet their easiest solution is to throw cooldowns and damage reductions everywhere and then buff up them again slowly afterwards

Heimdallr.7021:

Swiftwynd.1685:

I’ve been on the dishing out and receiving end of Trueshot and the animation time and visual, particularly for female models, is not distinct enough in my honest opinion.

I disagree on this but i’ve not seen the animation on female characters.
I think that 1vs1 it’s pretty obvious, in a team fight you can miss the animation if not paying attention but i still think it doesn’t need to be changed.

It’s 100% true about female models. It looks exactly like their auto-attack, only they’re standing still. This is absurd and frankly I can’t believe how lazy it is. Their animation should be updated to match the male model, which is fine.

Just wait for ranked to come back so you can set the stock model option back on.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Just wait for ranked to come back so you can set the stock model option back on.

While I’m absolutely 100% on board with this, I highly suspect that Anet will adjust things before giving stuff its fair time to shake out in a truly balanced, competitive environment.

We’ve already seen higher end players learn to adjust and counter DH trapper builds without issue.

The problem is that Anet will, based on previous experiences, simply cater to the common player’s cry of frustration and will likely adjust damage, recharges, and cast times rather than really focus on keeping them deadly but with counter play.

Which is beyond frustrating, since we can almost be assured that:

1.) This will make the play style unviable in higher ranked play than it already is.

2.) Will most likely NOT be split for PVE and PVP, which will directly gut the style for PVE, which is only moderately good at the moment and still cannot truly compete with the class’s own condi damage options NOR the berserker damage options for other professions.

The only benefit to using the Longbow-Trapper in PvE currently is it provides great damage while offering very good area effect control. Gut the damage, and you completely remove one half of why a PvE Dragonhunter might be used over an Ele/Tempest or Daredevil.

Skyline Crash.6254:

No these are awful. DH is fine the way it is.

Elaborate.

while we’re at it can we also get an obvious “tell” or animation when a thief or mesmer is about to hit me from stealth. Cos you know there is hardly any counter play when I’m happily running around in pvp and boom i get hit from stealth for half my HP.

That would be great thanks.

All “semi” kidding aside i do think something needs to be done i just hope its not heavy handed.

Actually, by seeing them go into stealth, you are being made aware that a burst is likely incoming.

Also, there are increasingly prevalent Reveal options being added to the game, which adds more direct counters to Stealth.

I think the Warrior’s Kill Shot is a better analogy, even though it does higher damage potentially and has increased range, its considered balanced or under-powered due to how GOOD the tell and cast time are to give the opponent time to react.

I know I’ve been hit my some impressive 15k+ Gunflames recently on my super glass cannon Dragonhunter

Swiftwynd.1685:

Actually, by seeing them go into stealth, you are being made aware that a burst is likely incoming.

Great thieves doing the the ol, look at me go stealth move.

I have been saying for a while that they frankly just need to turn traps into marks.

That would come with a trade off

1: They would be visible to everyone (people stupid enough to stumble into them have nothing but their own stupidity to blame.)

2: They wouldn’t last as long once placed.

3: They with the exception of being cast by trait effect would all have a cast time.

But

4: They would become ranged.

5: The boons granted would also be given to nearby allies (with a possible reduced duration for allies)

The bow is more or less alright.

They could reduce the damage of true shot slightly if they were to make it not root you & give it some added utility.

It would also be fantastic if they worked on the number 5. As is the cast time is so slow it only really works if a target is standing still or under CC already.

(I suggested during beta they turn it into a cone attack that cripples & applies multiple stacks of bleeds all enemies it hits with the duration & strength of the effects varying with how wide & fast the cone attack is)

I don’t play traps cause these are for dummies, and those who die to them (while not being CC-tanked of course or without stab) are dummies as well.
Just dodge the heck out of it, even dragon maw shows its teeth for 0.5 second before shutting so it’s easy to spot it (unless kitten tons of AoE’s everywhere so only asian kids with cyborg’s perception shall see it).
Once you dodge the traps, and DH is below 50% hp then don’t come near them cause they pop purification for sure. Pets and minions are both a blessing and a curse when they force traps but also might force purification which is a strong heal on low CD if traited.