Guild Wars 2

Okay, so last weekend I finally took part in the beta for the first time, and I got to try out all the elite specs. I spent more time with some than others, but the ones I spent the most time with were the Daredevil and Dragon Hunter, mostly because Thief and Guardian are the two classes I play the most currently.

I have to say, after seeing all the feedback on Dragon Hunters over the past while, I fully expected that I’d hate the elite spec. I was preparing myself for a lot of groaning and disappointment, but after playing with the class, I actually feel the complete opposite…

Dragon Hunters are actually pretty cool!

Okay, so that’s the thought that came to mind when I played the elite spec. The reason I came to this conclusion was because I felt like the elite spec achieved what it was meant to, and that is to give the guardian an alternative way to play. I found it much more compelling than some of the other elite specs like the Berserker or the Tempest, which really felt like they were giving their respective base classes more of what they already had, rather than something truly new.

Here’s my breakdown on what I thought of each aspect of the Dragon Hunter’s skills:

Traps:

When people see “traps” they tend to immediately start comparing the Dragon Hunter to thieves and rangers and go on about how bad traps are. To be frank, in my opinion, Dragon Hunter traps are VASTLY SUPERIOR to both thief and ranger traps. They actually bring a lot of useful functionality and utility. I even had people complain in PvP about how “OP” they were. The amount of control they give you over a position is quite extreme.

Even in my time in WvW, I found that a lot of players would get downed really fast after setting off my traps. Thieves would use steal or shadow step to gap close and pretty much die on the spot (battles against thieves were basically auto-wins). And even when players expect the traps after falling prey to them once or twice, they’re still forced to carefully dance around or stay at range, under the fear of setting your traps off again.

I’ve heard people complain about a lack of ground targeting, but in my opinion that was a non-issue, and honestly, I feel like traps make a good alternative to meditations in PvP especially.

Longbow

Longbow was good in my opinion. It’s about what you’d expect from a ranged weapon. I did enjoy the burn on Symbol of Energy quite a bit, and even Hunter’s Ward was quite handy in PvP and WvW. I don’t expect it would see as much use in PvE though.

My only real issue was with True Shot, which roots you in place while charging. It really diminishes the guardian’s ability to kite while using the longbow, and I found I basically never used it at all. I think if they let it charge while you’re moving, or at least increase it’s damage to the point of justifying being rooted, then that would be better.

New Virtues

The new virtues were interesting. I actually found them quite useful, especially the directional shield on Shield of Courage, which was very handy in a lot of situations. I like that you can continue to use other skills or revive players while it’s up. I also like that guardians now have a (kinda) escape tool with Wings of Resolve.

My main suggestion for the virtues, however, would be to reduce their cooldowns. Dragon Hunter virtues tend to be a bit more selfish than base Guardian Virtues, so I think the cooldowns should allow for more frequent use to offset that. I’d say base cooldowns of 15, 30, and 45 seconds for Spear of Justice, Wings of Resolve and Shield of Courage respectively would be good, and would incentivize more active use for skills that are basically begging to be used quite actively.

Another useful feature would be to add an F4 skill for guardians that allows us to swap between the two types of virtues (base guardian virtues or dragon hunter virtues) when out of combat, so that those who want to use the longbow or traps without changing the functionality of their virtues can do so.

Closing Notes

At the end of the day, I don’t think Dragon Hunters are the disaster spec that a lot of players have made them out to be. I found them very fun, interesting and different. I know a lot of people ask about how certain Dragon Hunter skills or traits are meant to compete with existing ones, but I’d argue that they are not meant to compete or replace other traits/skills. It’s pointless if the guardian gets skills that fulfill similar roles or functions as the already existing skills we have. The point of an elite spec is to give us something new, that doesn’t clash with what we already have, and I think to some extent, that was achieved with the Dragon Hunter.

There’s certainly room for improvement, especially with some of the animations, but I actually think Dragon Hunters are one of the better elite classes in terms of overall feel. That’s just my opinion of course. XD

Usually, when people say “I’m the only sane one in the crazy world”, likely you just miss things the majority saw, you know, the obvious. You keep comparing “ours” against “theirs” to draw conclusions. No, learn to also compare “ours” against “ours”, and learn to make analysis of how new skills/things blend with existing things. DH are one of the better elite classes? given you admitted you didn’t spend much time with other classes, I suggest you hold all these texts before you spend as much time with other classes. Given you did not even rebut any particular criticism against the DH, which render you to ask “what’s the fuss about”, maybe you should have read what the fuss are first.

Once you have done lvl 50 fractals, raids, ESL pvp, played the class for a few years and posted allot of insightful ideas then played the spec and compared it to other options then will respect your opinion.

Till then however I’m going to assume that your one of the people who either doesn’t really play a guard that much or just tried it out in open world PVE where you can literally run around nakid without traits and still do ok.

PS: All those people that I mentioned above, you know the people who play ESL, high lvl fractals & raids are saying that the DH was crap with the exception of the longbow & a couple traits.=

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Once you have done lvl 50 fractals, raids, ESL pvp, played the class for a few years and posted allot of insightful ideas then played the spec and compared it to other options then will respect your opinion.

Till then however I’m going to assume that your one of the people who either doesn’t really play a guard that much or just tried it out in open world PVE where you can literally run around nakid without traits and still do ok.

PS: All those people that I mentioned above, you know the people who play ESL, high lvl fractals & raids are saying that the DH was crap with the exception of the longbow & a couple traits.=

I played the dragonhunter in both fractals and the raid and had absolutely no problem with it. And I certainly am not gonna let people tell me to enjoy things less because they play their ridiculous kitten competitions

no mention of the DH traits? cuz that’s one of the biggest issue that ppl have with DH; its’ traits detracts from the core guardian builds.

Dragonhunter will be really good at shooting teq at 1600 units away. Dat max range chanp farm meta is strong. Then have staff for trash mop marking. You are now the open world champ farm king. Outside of that….. base guard trait lines synergize together in a way Dragonhunter cannot compete with.

I agree that Dragon Hunter took the profession into a place it doesn’t normally go (ranged DPS) and it’s great that you like it. I think the goal for specializations should be to heavily push a class into a certain role in the soft-more-than-just-a-trinity. ¹ The problem I feel is that Arena Net has made a blunder in releasing specializations before there are more than one option (and no “core” doesn’t count as a specialization). Because of this specializations that go too far into pushing into a role will naturally displease people who don’t want to take on that role. I for one am a melee, tanky-control build and thus ranged-DPS doesn’t interest me in the slightest (only the modifications to virtues do and those aren’t worth losing the trait lines that better support my interests). The other option is for Arena Net to make the specializations work with most players playstyles with the class, but this has the downside of making it generic and what will they do when another specialization comes along? Will it be equally generic? Will they have to do a specialization overhaul and push the existing specialization into a role?

I do like what Arena Net has done with the Dragon Hunter, Scrapper, Reaper, and Druid (especially this one). These provide significant pushes into a role, sometimes one the profession was never very good at. However, the dragon hunter role isn’t for me. I hope future specializations will focus more on my preferred play-style.

¹ – Trinity is a bad term as things can go into so many directions; melee-/ranged- DPS, control, healing-/buffing-/damage prevention- support, condition-/direct- DPS,

SirMoogie.9263:

I agree that Dragon Hunter took the profession into a place it doesn’t normally go (ranged DPS) and it’s great that you like it. I think the goal for specializations should be to heavily push a class into a certain role in the soft-more-than-just-a-trinity. ^1
1 – Trinity is a bad term as things can go into so many directions; melee-/ranged- DPS, control, healing-/buffing-/damage prevention- support, condition-/direct- DPS,

I would say this is expected, your specialization should push you into a single aspect and if you don’t like it then only swap into it when you really feel like you need it (eg. defending a WvW fort)

The problem with dragon hunter is that it promises a ranged spec and they doesn’t give us one, because the weapon and traits are for ranged but the utilities(what I consider to be the backbone of a spec) are all melee, that is what makes the dragon hunter feel badly designed.

Arutha.9874:

but the utilities(what I consider to be the backbone of a spec) are all melee, that is what makes the dragon hunter feel badly designed.

The utilities are not for melee strictly speaking. However, given the current state of PvE they are more suited for ranged play in PvP. They are a ward of sorts, letting knowledgeable players know that if they come into your territory they are going to be hurt, but if they don’t they are also going to be hurt from a far. The AI doesn’t come equipped with this, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use it in PvE with proper kiting, it just means that you or your allies have to coordinate. In GW we had a trapper in our raids prep traps and the puller would always drag the mobs through them.

quaniesan.8497:

Usually, when people say “I’m the only sane one in the crazy world”, likely you just miss things the majority saw, you know, the obvious. You keep comparing “ours” against “theirs” to draw conclusions. No, learn to also compare “ours” against “ours”, and learn to make analysis of how new skills/things blend with existing things. DH are one of the better elite classes? given you admitted you didn’t spend much time with other classes, I suggest you hold all these texts before you spend as much time with other classes. Given you did not even rebut any particular criticism against the DH, which render you to ask “what’s the fuss about”, maybe you should have read what the fuss are first.

Woah. I said I spent more time with some than others. I never said I didn’t spend any time with the others. Perhaps you should read too far into what others are saying, to the point where you start to take what they say out of context. XD

Also, I did read about what all the fuss is about, and I even mentioned some of those points in my post, but I honestly don’t agree with a lot of the fuss. I know the problems people have bought up, but rather than beating a dead horse by bringing them all up again and then trying to rebut them, I decided to focus on what I thought were positive aspects of the elite spec. If you took notice though, my post was not without its criticisms either, and I did make some suggestions as to where I thought the DH could be improved. For example being able to switch between different virtue types addresses some of the complains people made about dragon hunter essentially forcing a change to the functionality of virtues that not everyone wanted.

I also didn’t make out like I was the only one who liked the DH. I just believe it might be getting an overly excessive amount of hate. There’s a big difference.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Once you have done lvl 50 fractals, raids, ESL pvp, played the class for a few years and posted allot of insightful ideas then played the spec and compared it to other options then will respect your opinion.

Till then however I’m going to assume that your one of the people who either doesn’t really play a guard that much or just tried it out in open world PVE where you can literally run around nakid without traits and still do ok.

PS: All those people that I mentioned above, you know the people who play ESL, high lvl fractals & raids are saying that the DH was crap with the exception of the longbow & a couple traits.=

I’m assuming you’re one of those kinds of people that don’t actually take the proper time to read other people’s posts. Because if you did read my post properly, you’d know that:

1: Guard is one of my most played classes, with the other being thief. In fact, I’ve played the class for thousands of hours.
2: I already mentioned that I used the Dragon Hunter in WvW and PvP, not just PvE.

As for your point about fractals and such, I never said the dragon hunter traits were going to be useful in all game modes and in all situations. I think it’s a given that traps will likely find more use in PvP and WvW than they necessarily would in high level fractals where things like active defenses and reflects, etc, are very important.

But tell me, what would you suggest as an alternative to those already useful skills? More active defenses and reflects, whose roles simply overlap what we already have? No, that would be rather useless. I think we should respect the fact that different skills will be useful in different situations or content. Traps may not be the first go to skills in fractals, but they’re certainly great in other aspects of the game.

Anyway, I don’t see why people always have to adopt such a condescending tone when they respond to the feelings of others on a particular point of discussion. Learn to use a bit more tact (tact: the art of making a point without making an enemy). XD

It sucks in spvp you are allowed to disagree of course but I will never play it in rated in it’s current form and I would bet anyone it ends up one of the least played elites in spvp once things shake out a few weeks after the expansion goes live. It’s pretty simple a lot of the damage is easily avoidable and the bow skills are lack luster. The elite also does not synergise all that well with other guardian trait lines and not at all with the strongest pvp Guardian build support bunker. I am not even saying you can’t make it work in pve or WvWvW but spvp is a totally different animal. There are no zergs or buildings to shoot from or doorways people have to cross or highly scripted AI encounters in spvp. People will avoid traps and bow skills 2,4, and 5 easily in spvp.

brannigan.9831:

It sucks in spvp you are allowed to disagree of course but I will never play it in rated in it’s current form and I would bet anyone it ends up one of the least played elites in spvp once things shake out a few weeks after the expansion goes live. It’s pretty simple a lot of the damage is easily avoidable and the bow skills are lack luster. The elite also does not synergise all that well with other guardian trait lines and not at all with the strongest pvp Guardian build support bunker. I am not even saying you can’t make it work in pve or WvWvW but spvp is a totally different animal. There are no zergs or buildings to shoot from or doorways people have to cross or highly scripted AI encounters in spvp. People will avoid traps and bow skills 2,4, and 5 easily in spvp.

I don’t know, I actually found it worked quite well in spvp. I’m mean, obviously we haven’t had weeks or months to play it and test to the limits, or see how people adapt to it in the long run, but I found traps in particular worked perfectly well against other players.

You talk about players avoiding them, but it’s hard for them to avoid what they can’t see. Traps aren’t visible to enemies players all, and thanks to their reasonably large trigger radius, I find they’re quite good at catching people. Layer traps down on a capture point and it becomes that much easier to hold, because if another player runs in to try and contest the point, they walk into a bit of hell and downing them becomes quite easy.

That being said, it is certainly more effective vs melee classes than ranged. And also, against mesmers and rangers traps are not as useful because they can be triggered prematurely by clones or pets. Part of me believes that they should make it so only players can trigger traps in PvP or WvW.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Once you have done lvl 50 fractals, raids, ESL pvp, played the class for a few years and posted allot of insightful ideas then played the spec and compared it to other options then will respect your opinion.

Till then however I’m going to assume that your one of the people who either doesn’t really play a guard that much or just tried it out in open world PVE where you can literally run around nakid without traits and still do ok.

PS: All those people that I mentioned above, you know the people who play ESL, high lvl fractals & raids are saying that the DH was crap with the exception of the longbow & a couple traits.=

I feel you, and I dislike all those ppl defending DH because it is “fun”. Fun is not equal competitive. If you want fun go play spirit weapons or full sigil build. They will eventually come back to competitive builds.

The only problem with DH right now is that there’s a minor trait that doesn’t affect you if you decide you want to go full melee.

Apart from that there’s something in the traits for every build. You want to bunker as a Dragonhunter? You can. You want to burst as a Dragonhunter? You can. You want to do condis as a Dragonhunter? You can. You want to CC like crazy as a Dragonhunter? You can. Traps? You can. Ranged? You bloody well freaking can.

All the people who say DH is bad are just waiting for Donee or Tage or someone with a popular name to show them a build or a montage that they can then claim is the only viable build for the Dragonhunter. I find those people quite frustrating to listen to.

Ragnarox.9601:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Once you have done lvl 50 fractals, raids, ESL pvp, played the class for a few years and posted allot of insightful ideas then played the spec and compared it to other options then will respect your opinion.

Till then however I’m going to assume that your one of the people who either doesn’t really play a guard that much or just tried it out in open world PVE where you can literally run around nakid without traits and still do ok.

PS: All those people that I mentioned above, you know the people who play ESL, high lvl fractals & raids are saying that the DH was crap with the exception of the longbow & a couple traits.=

I feel you, and I dislike all those ppl defending DH because it is “fun”. Fun is not equal competitive. If you want fun go play spirit weapons or full sigil build. They will eventually come back to competitive builds.

But fun is an important factor, really speaking, because this is a game in the end. Balance is something that can be tweaked and refined still, but refining the “fun” factor of a class is more difficult to do without a complete overhaul of its play style. I say this, of course, with the full understanding that fun is a subjective matter.

That being said, I do wish ANet would be a bit more active when it came to balance changes. Sometimes we have to wait months or years for fixes to under-performing skills and usually the trade-off is that other skills are nerfed to the point of becoming non-viable. Your point regarding spirit weapons is rather pertinent (and the sad part is they used to be more viable before they became killable).

DH in PvP:

LB: skill 2 hits hard, but anyone decent enough will dodge that big burst and proceed to pressure the hell out of you because the rest of the skills suck. LB 1 is ok only if you hit multiple people since it constantly cripples, 2 is easy to see and thus avoid, 3 travels fast but I got used to it so it wasn’t bad, 4 makes no sense because you need to use it melee range to get the benefit from vigor, 5 is pure useless due to long cast time and people can easily just walk out of it before it completes animation.

Traps: They are garbage. A person can dodge over them and it ends up doing nothing at all even though they get activated. I don’t know what the devs were thinking putting traps on a guardian; traps were already known to be crap from ranger/thief but they decided to implement them anyway. The elite trap is so bad it targets a single person last I tested it (didnt even bother testing that elite this weekend because we’re pretty much locked into RF – without which medi builds are not nearly as good). Other traps do an okay amount of damage if the enemies are dumb enough to stand in them for the entire duration. In reality, people look at the trap being activated and dodge out instantly; better to have hit them once with an auto attack and it would’ve done the same damage and you’d have saved utility slots and cooldowns.

Traits: Biggest problem is that they don’t go well together with the core guardian’s traits. Virtues have this physical aspect to them, which sounded cool in theory, but they are pretty bad in implementation because the devs feel there should be a cast time to them. Say your DH goes into Radiance for the instant blinds for big plays in PvP. When you do need it though, there is a cast time to it, and you chuck your spear at the enemy and you end up getting hit anyway because the blind was too slow. Moreover, you can’t hit F1 for its blind in the middle of stomp animation, you can’t heal your teammates instantly by pressing F2 (which isn’t great because it doesn’t evade during your leap and cripple/chill does affect you), and F3 cast time prevents you from producing instant blocks. Cast times are bad, DH traits don’t play well with Radiance. Similar problem with Virtues, you can’t use F3 instantly for the stab or stun break, essentially nerfing your GM from Virtues (the only one worth taking in PvP). F3 cooldown needs to be reduced to 50 or 60 seconds. Even the DH traits themselves are not designed that well. The minor on master (Defender’s Dogma) is useful only for burn builds, and the GM minor Pure of Sight is useful only for ranged builds. That’s awfully specific, forcing certain builds on you. All the GMs are underwhelming as well: Hunter’s Fortification should at least make it so that you take less damage when you DO have a condition on you because literally everything in the game now puts out condis almost passively. Heavy Light feels completely RNG based (try fighting a mesmer with it) and not worth taking at all due to its long ICD, and Big Game Hunter is way too conditional to worth having that 10% damage buff (maybe if it was, say, 20% it might be worth it OR if the spear pulled the enemy to you at the end of it along it would be good). Bottom line: DH traits are way too conditional to feel all that useful compared to the core guardian.

The worst part about it all is that they’ve already said that at this point nothing major can be done to the DH even though it was one of the first elite specs to be revealed and people had been talking about changing things from the get-go – and yet only a few minor things were changed and not always for the best. Honestly ever since the talks of guardians started the best change has been the shield’s buff.

If they want people to play DH, they need to them a reason to take the DH line over the base guardian’s because as things stand the base guardian trait lines are better in every role and synergy.

PvE you can do whatever you feel like because it doesn’t really matter what you bring so long as you know how to dodge. WvW guardians are still best suited to bring the regular shout guardian because 1)it’s just so useful and 2)DH isn’t worth bringing because it doesn’t have superior damage or CC compared to other ranged classes. When I think about playing DH in WvW, I just think why should I when I can do a better job by playing a Ranger or Rifle warrior (esp with the berserker spec).

Edit: In regards to “fun,” you’re right in that it’s very subjective. I did not have even a little bit of fun and it was downright frustrating to try to make DH work with the other traits. In order to have fun in PvP, you need to have a build that flows and has synergy with its skills (how much fun would you have taking 2 shouts and 2 medi skills?) so you can be effective. If I know one of my trait lines is ruining another one, and things just don’t work well together, I will not have fun. This past BWE, I played DH to try to make it work but then when I ultimately got tired of it I switched to Rev to have fun.

Vennyhedgie.5369:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Once you have done lvl 50 fractals, raids, ESL pvp, played the class for a few years and posted allot of insightful ideas then played the spec and compared it to other options then will respect your opinion.

Till then however I’m going to assume that your one of the people who either doesn’t really play a guard that much or just tried it out in open world PVE where you can literally run around nakid without traits and still do ok.

PS: All those people that I mentioned above, you know the people who play ESL, high lvl fractals & raids are saying that the DH was crap with the exception of the longbow & a couple traits.=

I played the dragonhunter in both fractals and the raid and had absolutely no problem with it. And I certainly am not gonna let people tell me to enjoy things less because they play their ridiculous kitten competitions

Oh enjoy it all you want.

But when compared to other options it just doesn’t compete in any game mode.

This is due to the problems with traits & trap design.

If they would simply clean up/merge & modify existing traits then give the traps some utility then the spec could be great competitively speaking for any game mode.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Vennyhedgie.5369:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Once you have done lvl 50 fractals, raids, ESL pvp, played the class for a few years and posted allot of insightful ideas then played the spec and compared it to other options then will respect your opinion.

Till then however I’m going to assume that your one of the people who either doesn’t really play a guard that much or just tried it out in open world PVE where you can literally run around nakid without traits and still do ok.

PS: All those people that I mentioned above, you know the people who play ESL, high lvl fractals & raids are saying that the DH was crap with the exception of the longbow & a couple traits.=

I played the dragonhunter in both fractals and the raid and had absolutely no problem with it. And I certainly am not gonna let people tell me to enjoy things less because they play their ridiculous kitten competitions

Oh enjoy it all you want.

But when compared to other options it just doesn’t compete in any game mode.

This is due to the problems with traits & trap design.

If they would simply clean up/merge & modify existing traits then give the traps some utility then the spec could be great competitively speaking for any game mode.

I personally disagree with you. I found DH was competitive in WvW and PvP. As for trap utility in PvE, Both Fragments of Faith and Light of Judgment offer pretty good utility. One gives your party members aegis on a relatively low cooldown (active defenses like blocks are always useful in higher level fractals or dungeons), and the other can pretty much stack up to 25 stacks of vulnurability on enemies in an area, which is basically an instant 25% damage boost for the entire party. The other two non-elite traps are mostly damage dealers, so I guess you could use them against trash mobs if you don’t need reflects, etc.

Of course, any good player is going to rotate between skills an choose the most appropriate for each situation. Traps aren’t going to be useful for every single encounter, but then the same can be said for any guardian utility skill (for example, you’re not going to use wall of reflect against enemies that don’t use projectiles, or stability where there’s no threat of knockdowns, etc). There are some instances, however, where they would be very useful.

The spec could use some improvements sure, but I don’t think it’s as useless or non-competitive as I you believe.

Rabidd.9458:

DH in PvP:

Traits: Biggest problem is that they don’t go well together with the core guardian’s traits. Virtues have this physical aspect to them, which sounded cool in theory, but they are pretty bad in implementation because the devs feel there should be a cast time to them. Say your DH goes into Radiance for the instant blinds for big plays in PvP. When you do need it though, there is a cast time to it, and you chuck your spear at the enemy and you end up getting hit anyway because the blind was too slow. Moreover, you can’t hit F1 for its blind in the middle of stomp animation, you can’t heal your teammates instantly by pressing F2 (which isn’t great because it doesn’t evade during your leap and cripple/chill does affect you), and F3 cast time prevents you from producing instant blocks. Cast times are bad, DH traits don’t play well with Radiance. Similar problem with Virtues, you can’t use F3 instantly for the stab or stun break, essentially nerfing your GM from Virtues (the only one worth taking in PvP). F3 cooldown needs to be reduced to 50 or 60 seconds. Even the DH traits themselves are not designed that well. The minor on master (Defender’s Dogma) is useful only for burn builds, and the GM minor Pure of Sight is useful only for ranged builds. That’s awfully specific, forcing certain builds on you. All the GMs are underwhelming as well: Hunter’s Fortification should at least make it so that you take less damage when you DO have a condition on you because literally everything in the game now puts out condis almost passively. Heavy Light feels completely RNG based (try fighting a mesmer with it) and not worth taking at all due to its long ICD, and Big Game Hunter is way too conditional to worth having that 10% damage buff (maybe if it was, say, 20% it might be worth it OR if the spear pulled the enemy to you at the end of it along it would be good). Bottom line: DH traits are way too conditional to feel all that useful compared to the core guardian.

All your complaints have nothing to do with synergy but rather the fact that Dragonhunter isn’t closer in implementation to the base Guardian. And that’s more personal preference. You can stun break with F3 when you have the virtues trait, I know because I’ve done it. It may look like it’s on cooldown when you’re stunned but you can activate it to stun break. Same thing happens when I use Thumper turret as a stun break on my Engie.

They said they wanted the new Elite specs to require more skill. Dragonhunter is a perfect example of that. Can’t handle the Dragon? Don’t join the hunt.

Dirame.8521:

They said they wanted the new Elite specs to require more skill. Dragonhunter is a perfect example of that. Can’t handle the Dragon? Don’t join the hunt.

Laying down traps and waiting on your enemy to trigger them is not a display of skill. It’s a dependence on a lack thereof from your enemy.

Black Box.9312:

Dirame.8521:

They said they wanted the new Elite specs to require more skill. Dragonhunter is a perfect example of that. Can’t handle the Dragon? Don’t join the hunt.

Laying down traps and waiting on your enemy to trigger them is not a display of skill. It’s a dependence on a lack thereof from your enemy.

You could apply that logic to literaly every single aoe skill in the game.
“Oh I’m not a good player, it’s just the enemy was bad and stood still on my lava font”

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t particularly like the traps either, but that logic is fawed regardless.

Vennyhedgie.5369:

Black Box.9312:

Dirame.8521:

They said they wanted the new Elite specs to require more skill. Dragonhunter is a perfect example of that. Can’t handle the Dragon? Don’t join the hunt.

Laying down traps and waiting on your enemy to trigger them is not a display of skill. It’s a dependence on a lack thereof from your enemy.

You could apply that logic to literaly every single aoe skill in the game.
“Oh I’m not a good player, it’s just the enemy was bad and stood still on my lava font”

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t particularly like the traps either, but that logic is fawed regardless.

No it’s not, because with other AoE skills you can place them underneath their feet on demand. Except for things like symbols, but hey, I guess those are just fine too and don’t require any sort of CC to help make them work.

Ohwait…

Black Box.9312:

Dirame.8521:

They said they wanted the new Elite specs to require more skill. Dragonhunter is a perfect example of that. Can’t handle the Dragon? Don’t join the hunt.

Laying down traps and waiting on your enemy to trigger them is not a display of skill. It’s a dependence on a lack thereof from your enemy.

This is what you call looking at things in a vacuum. The DH is much more than just traps but you’re too busy trying to claim that it’s bad to admit that.

Dirame.8521:

Black Box.9312:

Dirame.8521:

They said they wanted the new Elite specs to require more skill. Dragonhunter is a perfect example of that. Can’t handle the Dragon? Don’t join the hunt.

Laying down traps and waiting on your enemy to trigger them is not a display of skill. It’s a dependence on a lack thereof from your enemy.

This is what you call looking at things in a vacuum. The DH is much more than just traps but you’re too busy trying to claim that it’s bad to admit that.

Good point. It’s not just traps. It also takes away from our vital traitlines in PvP as well as gives us virtues that can be interrupted by skilled opponents, and these virtues don’t remove condi or give their boons until after the cast…

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Dirame.8521:

Black Box.9312:

Dirame.8521:

They said they wanted the new Elite specs to require more skill. Dragonhunter is a perfect example of that. Can’t handle the Dragon? Don’t join the hunt.

Laying down traps and waiting on your enemy to trigger them is not a display of skill. It’s a dependence on a lack thereof from your enemy.

This is what you call looking at things in a vacuum. The DH is much more than just traps but you’re too busy trying to claim that it’s bad to admit that.

Good point. It’s not just traps. It also takes away from our vital traitlines in PvP as well as gives us virtues that can be interrupted by skilled opponents, and these virtues don’t remove condi or give their boons until after the cast…

Allot of us have noticed this and have been advocating for either an evade or CD reduction on resolve.

Personally I would think the evade would be more balanced but something should be done.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Good point. It’s not just traps. It also takes away from our vital traitlines in PvP

Right. If you don’t want to use DH because you think it’s too much of a sacrifice that’s all you.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

as well as gives us virtues that can be interrupted by skilled opponents, and these virtues don’t remove condi or give their boons until after the cast…

That’s where the whole, “requires more skill” thing comes in. I mean sure, I can’t pop my VoR instantly but I can rez whilst nullifying melee downed cleave, I mean yea I can’t use my virtues while stunned but when I’m not stunned I pretty much have two heal skills that heal me for 5k.

Dirame.8521:

Black Box.9312:

Dirame.8521:

They said they wanted the new Elite specs to require more skill. Dragonhunter is a perfect example of that. Can’t handle the Dragon? Don’t join the hunt.

Laying down traps and waiting on your enemy to trigger them is not a display of skill. It’s a dependence on a lack thereof from your enemy.

This is what you call looking at things in a vacuum. The DH is much more than just traps but you’re too busy trying to claim that it’s bad to admit that.

Okay, fine. The traits are garbage too, and range from very little to absolutely zero synergy with the base class. Seeing as it’s impossible to use anything else the elite spec has to offer without taking the traitline, I don’t see a reason to argue any further.

Black Box.9312:

Dirame.8521:

Black Box.9312:

Dirame.8521:

They said they wanted the new Elite specs to require more skill. Dragonhunter is a perfect example of that. Can’t handle the Dragon? Don’t join the hunt.

Laying down traps and waiting on your enemy to trigger them is not a display of skill. It’s a dependence on a lack thereof from your enemy.

This is what you call looking at things in a vacuum. The DH is much more than just traps but you’re too busy trying to claim that it’s bad to admit that.

Okay, fine. The traits are garbage too, and range from very little to absolutely zero synergy with the base class. Seeing as it’s impossible to use anything else the elite spec has to offer without taking the traitline, I don’t see a reason to argue any further.

That’s not true at all. Excluding the traits that affect dragonhunter only abilities (like the traps or wings of resolve traits), the rest of generic traits work with abilities and traits from other traitlines.
All you knockbacks crippling and applying vuln, which we actually have a bunch of with shield and the wards. I’d up the vuln stacks to 3 at least though.
Two of the grandmasters work perfectly fine with the rest of the class, in fact Big game hunter works better with sword and GS than they do with the longbow. And hunters fortification makes every single aegis a condi cleanse. Even defender’s dogma can be a real asset if used right in a burn build, applying Aoe burns and cripples every 3 attacks, or after each block.

I’ll give you Hunters determination, which could just have the boon it gives changed since we already have an aegis on cc trait. Stability would be a good one. I find it stange that guardians dont have stab on cc considering warriors do, and revenants have it on dodge.

Vennyhedgie.5369:

Black Box.9312:

Dirame.8521:

Black Box.9312:

Dirame.8521:

They said they wanted the new Elite specs to require more skill. Dragonhunter is a perfect example of that. Can’t handle the Dragon? Don’t join the hunt.

Laying down traps and waiting on your enemy to trigger them is not a display of skill. It’s a dependence on a lack thereof from your enemy.

This is what you call looking at things in a vacuum. The DH is much more than just traps but you’re too busy trying to claim that it’s bad to admit that.

Okay, fine. The traits are garbage too, and range from very little to absolutely zero synergy with the base class. Seeing as it’s impossible to use anything else the elite spec has to offer without taking the traitline, I don’t see a reason to argue any further.

That’s not true at all. Excluding the traits that affect dragonhunter only abilities (like the traps or wings of resolve traits), the rest of generic traits work with abilities and traits from other traitlines.
All you knockbacks crippling and applying vuln, which we actually have a bunch of with shield and the wards. I’d up the vuln stacks to 3 at least though.
Two of the grandmasters work perfectly fine with the rest of the class, in fact Big game hunter works better with sword and GS than they do with the longbow. And hunters fortification makes every single aegis a condi cleanse. Even defender’s dogma can be a real asset if used right in a burn build, applying Aoe burns and cripples every 3 attacks, or after each block.

I’ll give you Hunters determination, which could just have the boon it gives changed since we already have an aegis on cc trait. Stability would be a good one. I find it stange that guardians dont have stab on cc considering warriors do, and revenants have it on dodge.

What synergy it has is rather minimal, defender dogma is virtually useless outisde of block-heavy + condi build; not to mention, it becomes worthless the moment spear of justice is activated, which means that it does not even gel at all with the trait big game hunter…

As for big game hunter, well, if I’m going the dps route, there are other traitlines with much better options. Sure I could pick zeal or radiance to go along with dragonhunter, but doing so means that I have to give up one of my defensive/survivability traitline.

And dulled senses is mainly meant for kiting builds, knockbacks on hammer and shield are mostly situational.