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Posted by: xinkspillx.3914

xinkspillx.3914

I’m not “having trouble wrapping my head around it”. I just flat out don’t agree that it will do what you think it will do. At best, you’ll have a class that has a built in Healing Signet that will become the scourge of the PvP community and will inevitably get nerfed back into place. At worst, you’ll have rendered our best traits ineffective with no apparent gain.

So what? We just suck it up and deal with it as it is? At least we’re actively trying to think of solutions to the problem. I hardly see how it would become the scourge of the PvP community since we’re not suggesting increasing the passive heal beyond what’s already available through Virtues.

If AoE active healing power is the issue, than a limit to the heal it provides to allies like I suggested would solve that. Not to mention a 4k self heal that removes our passive regeneration for 43 to 50 seconds is far from overpowered. Our main healing skills aren’t exactly beefy, either.

Edit: In fact, with the recent posts on changes to the Dragonhunter, they’re playing around with a 4k active heal for WoR already.

I also fail to see the logic behind the idea that if the devs tried this idea and it didn’t work they’d just leave MF nerfed without compensating . . . that’s ridiculous.

(edited by xinkspillx.3914)

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Posted by: Mightymealworm.8409

Mightymealworm.8409

Sooo… let me get this strait. You guys want warrior level health pool, warrior level healing and reduce our active sustain to warrior level skills. If you haven’t noticed, we are usually (not always) universally in a better place than warrior, so I can’t agree with you there.

There is a mechanic in place for Guardians already, and it is (or should be) strong active skills and boons to supplement relatively rather poor health pool, low mobility and less available cc. Yes it’s true that Guardians only have two real skill sets that can be used in full (shouts/meditations) but boosting our passive and inert sustain and nerfing AH/MH will not magically make our bad skills good, or even better.

If you had more sustain do you seriously think you would run with Signet of Mercy? Bow of Truth? Radiant Retaliation? Healers Retribution? Receive the Light? Nope, didn’t think so. There is plenty of room to improve our other utility sets and our other grand masters.

The argument that MH/AH are holding us back from balance is blatantly false. If signets get turned into useful skills that compliment our strengths and help to cover our weaknesses, you would take Signet Mastery in a signet build, not MF or even AH (signets aren’t known for granting boons). You also wouldn’t take a lot of meditations or shouts because you would be running with more signets. See how that balances out without effecting MF/AH?

I know I know, “but we could solve all our problems with just 1 core change instead of asking for a lot of skill changes”. Yup, just 1 change to health pool. Then one more for virtue for resolve passive healing. Oh, and another one for the active. And don’t forget to adjust AH accordingly. Ah, and of course the MF healing reduction. And I almost forgot the Dragonhunter Wings of Resolve would have to be looked at. And our healing skills would need a boost to cover that bigger health pool. And maybe shave protection duration/accessibility so we aren’t pure sustain monsters. And a lot of our traits and skills STILL aren’t any good so lets balance those too….

There is no magic simple fix. Devs just need to pick a new skill set to turn into viable build/play style. They gave us shouts at launch, and started meditations by the end of the first year. After meds got to a good spot they took a break, and worked on trying to make Burn Guard a thing. Now I think they want to make traps work. I think. But they will have to find a way for traps to overcome our inherent weakness to pull it off. Good Luck.

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Posted by: xinkspillx.3914

xinkspillx.3914

@Mightymealworm
The fact that you cherry-picked your way through multiple comments (some on different focuses in this thread) from different people and stuck them all together to make it sound like we’ve all been advocating for each and every one of those changes makes me inclined to disregard your entire post. Then again, I really don’t want to be that guy and it would be pretty dumb of me to even be on the forums if I did. xD

As for myself personally, my recent posts have been advocating what seems to be a less difficult idea for a fix (or band-aid, I suppose) to make Guardian less dependent on Meditations. If it wasn’t for the healing MF provides they would not be run nearly as much as they are now, so clearly the appeal is in the additional sustain those skills provide.

No one ever claimed it was a magic fix, but it attempts to go a lot farther toward the goal of balancing out the Guardian and giving currently sub-par builds a shot at viability.

As for increasing the base health pool of Guardian, I don’t know which post you pulled that from, but I do agree that’s a change that shouldn’t happen. You are right that active defenses are Guardian’s thing and VoR is one of those layers.

If the devs want to go through and tweak all the skills to spare any modification to Meditations than great, all the power to them, but I live in reality and know that’s not going to happen. At least having a little more survival through VoR begins to level the playing field. Does Spirit Weapon AI still suck? Yes, absolutely. Are Signets optimal? No, they aren’t, but at least giving us a greater chance at survival through our profession mechanic makes up for the nearly complete lack of active defenses these skills provide.

For the record, I also think I should clarify that I don’t really support the notion that MF and AH are holding us back. I haven’t said so in previous posts and I won’t make that claim here. I would only advocate a reduction on MF heal in the event of a buff to VoR, but only for the sake of balance. Regardless of the suggestion, if it truly nerfed Meditations it would be a failure, absolutely, but at least we’re trying to generate ideas.

Virtue of Justice may be in a fine place right now, but VoR and VoC are mediocre without taking Virtues as a specialization. They need to be able to stand on their own a little more and the Devs know it. That’s obvious from the Dragonhunter.

P.S. As for my previous post referencing Warrior, Daredevil and Chronomancer, that was mostly concerning the underwhelming nature of traps and the necessity for improvement to ensure the Dragonhunter isn’t a bust. So if that partly fueled your post, please don’t get the wrong idea about my intent.

Edit: Honestly, if anyone has other suggestions that are better or seem like something that the devs might actually consider I’m down for trying them. We just need something. If the devs were willing to systematically go through utility sets one at a time and give them some love, I’d probably cry tears of joy, to be honest haha.

(edited by xinkspillx.3914)

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Posted by: Saiyan.1704

Saiyan.1704

I like the idea. The biggest inquiries I have are mobility.

Most classes with regens can peel away and gradually regain their health. Guardians have virtually 0 mobility. We wont have enough time to peel off and gradually regain health. If we’re being pressured, a higher regen gain from F2 isn’t going to make a huge difference.

That’s not to say a non-medi build wont feel that 200 more regens per second. I just don’t think that’s necessarily the right approach to address Guardian’s non medi build variants.

aka FalseLights
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(edited by Saiyan.1704)

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Posted by: xinkspillx.3914

xinkspillx.3914

I like the idea. The biggest inquiries I have are mobility.

Most classes with regens can peel away and gradually regain their health. Guardians have virtually 0 mobility. We wont have enough time to peel off and gradually regain health. If we’re being pressured, a higher regen gain from F2 isn’t going to make a huge difference.

That’s not to say a non-medi build wont feel that 200 more regens per second. I just don’t think that’s necessarily the right approach to address Guardian’s non medi build variants.

If more mobility could help rectify the problem that would be great. No matter how much we hope for things like that or a buff to VoR, Mightymealworm is right in that it ultimately does come down to the quality of (or lack thereof) our utilities.

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Posted by: Mightymealworm.8409

Mightymealworm.8409

xinkspillx: Please don’t assume my mini rant was targeted at you. While we we may not fully agree, your posts have been very level headed and good discussion.

As I stated much earlier, I can ALMOST agree with the concept of moving sustain from Valor to some place else. The only problem I run into is that valor only really helps our two most viable utility sets.

One of the assumptions I see thrown around is that Devs are withholding balancing our other skills and traits properly because Valor is too strong. Have any Devs actually hinted at this? If we move that sustain to other build variants are we trying to encouraging builds that run poor skills and punishing builds that run properly designed skills?

I love that Shouts and Meditation builds have a unique ‘flavor’ to them, with Shouts/AH being a gradual regen play style that finds its strength in groups, and Medi/MF builds being relatively glassy burst damage/burst heal trade off. Altering sustain from MF and adding more gradual regen changes the way Medi’s function. Regen is far less important to burst builds, and as Medis are already middle of the road, it could push them out of pvp (the only place where they really do well anyway).

I think there is gradual hope that our utilities will be improved. Every large update I see some small attempts to tweak a few things. Anet can be very slow and cautious about balance, and sometimes they can focus in on things and drastically change them. Lets hope for the latter, like they did for meditations so long ago.

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Posted by: xinkspillx.3914

xinkspillx.3914

xinkspillx: Please don’t assume my mini rant was targeted at you. While we we may not fully agree, your posts have been very level headed and good discussion.

As I stated much earlier, I can ALMOST agree with the concept of moving sustain from Valor to some place else. The only problem I run into is that valor only really helps our two most viable utility sets.

One of the assumptions I see thrown around is that Devs are withholding balancing our other skills and traits properly because Valor is too strong. Have any Devs actually hinted at this? If we move that sustain to other build variants are we trying to encouraging builds that run poor skills and punishing builds that run properly designed skills?

I love that Shouts and Meditation builds have a unique ‘flavor’ to them, with Shouts/AH being a gradual regen play style that finds its strength in groups, and Medi/MF builds being relatively glassy burst damage/burst heal trade off. Altering sustain from MF and adding more gradual regen changes the way Medi’s function. Regen is far less important to burst builds, and as Medis are already middle of the road, it could push them out of pvp (the only place where they really do well anyway).

I think there is gradual hope that our utilities will be improved. Every large update I see some small attempts to tweak a few things. Anet can be very slow and cautious about balance, and sometimes they can focus in on things and drastically change them. Lets hope for the latter, like they did for meditations so long ago.

Yeah, sorry for assuming that was more directed at me then you intended. I just know I’ve been really active on this thread lately haha.

I definitely agree that if Meditations or AH builds were pushed out of PvP usage it wouldn’t help us in the least. The end goal is only to see other builds brought up in viability to provide worthwhile alternatives to MF and AH. If they were casualties then we’d absolutely be no better off.

Steps like the introduction of the new DH grandmaster that provides cleanse on block is a step in the right direction, but I think it’s undeniable that the core weakness of the Guardian still lies with the skills themselves. I share your hope that they’re willing to make changes that rectify that.

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Posted by: Ragnar the Rock.3174

Ragnar the Rock.3174

In order to make the class competitive without Valor, they’d have to go beyond undoing every healing/sustain nerf we’ve ever received,

All they have to do (an example) is to make passive resolve the same as warrior passive healing from their signet and buff the active to heal for 4k.

If they do that i wont ever again trait into valor for medis, even though i will use medi utilities in my builds when i go for burst builds.

There is nothing wrong with medis as utilities and they are pretty much in balance with both consecrations and shouts. Signets and SW are behind as we all know. Its having more or less 10k instant heals that makes them unbalanced with other lines and utilities.

Make them heal for 1k innate and let monks focus give you swiftness (instead of heals) for 15s when using a medi. That would help both roamers and burst builds greatly.

And this is on topic. I think asking for changes that makes DH in balance with valor or virtues is unrealistic due to the strength they have. Seriously i would need some sort of tactical nuke in DH-traits to ever use it in pvp or wvw, substituted for valor or virtues.

Its much more realistic to ask for one nerf (AH/MF) and one serious buff to innate capabilities. As you your self say Anet isnt known for buffing guardians so why ask for buffs to almost all utilities and all traitlines.

What do you think we have the best chance of achieving?

Adress the issue which is overall survivability due to long cd on heals and low health pool.

I don’t think you’re getting the point here. AH and MF are by no means overpowered to begin with.

No i think you are not getting the point.

Im not saying they are overpowered or even powerful.

I say as long as they are as relatively strong compared to the other utilities and traitlines they prevent build diversity.

If you reply to my posts please at least read them.

Straightforward question:
If virtue of resolve gave you 365 hps passive and 4k heals active and medis gave you 1k heals per use would you be more or less inclined to use other utilities and traitlines? Ofc you would be more inclined and that is actually my point. Not that medi or AH is overpowered.

If you nerf AH/MF, you remove our ability to be competitive running builds that use those traits. If you buff other traits/skills, you have still removed our ability to be competitive running builds that use those traits.

If you’re insisting that you’re not labeling them as OP, then what purpose would nerfing them serve? The best-case scenario would be that they’d just go out of fashion entirely, and then you will have accomplished nothing other than rotating the meta to the next 1-2 builds.

Just don’t cry for nerfs on something when it’s not overpowered. I really don’t see where there is difficulty in understanding this.

If for instance VoR was buffed and MF nerfed the absolute effectiveness of a medi guard compared to other professions would be kept intact.

BUT the relative effectiveness of the medi guard compared to our other utilities would be reduced.

I asked you a straightforward question, why not answer it as Arken did. If you do i believe that you get the point im trying to make.

This scenario reminds me of a AH Rabid build utilizing Zealous Scepter and Zealous Blade for heals.

You’ll gain more sustains throughout the fight but the moment you get bursted down, you wont have that medi burst heals to save you. It’s like this AH Rabid build, it wouldn’t work as well as you think it would.

Further more, once you use AR for condi clears, (usually early in the fight if you or your team gets condi bombed) you’ll no longet gain the passive heals. Kind of sounds counter productive to me.

The numbers are examples to illustrate something. Im sure if anet just gets a push in this direction they could figure it out.

But for the sake of the argument 1k heals on medis would make the guardian loose out on 5k . Imo 200 extra hps and 2+2k extra through VoR is pretty much imo. And it would open up bunker/condi guards.

For each 5s of fight the passive would fully compensate for the reduced heal on medis given the fight last 15 sec and you need all utility 3 medis. If you are used to cleanse with AR twice during that time you loose out on the passive but get two actives which heals you and the team for 8k, 4k being the addon on in my suggestion. I thin this would play out as an absolute buff to medi guardians but a relative nerf to medis.

Btw i use CoP and smite conditions on my burst guard prior to AR. AR being on long cd and i only get to use it twice (refresh thru elite) no matter how long the fight is. SC and sometimes CoP can be used twice. If played like that you would get much more out of the passive and also increased burst heal with back to back VoR.

The above would be further enhanced by traiting absolute resolution.

Imo this could actually inrease the burst healing in medis even though it requires a different rotation.

Short of that however they could somewhat copy the effects of monks focus into other traits in other trait lines.

The problem is that it requires both an adjustment in the traits and that it has to be tied to the utilities. If not the relative power of the medis would remain intact and nothing would actually change.

Well I wouldn’t think it would be that hard to move a couple traits around in each tier and adjust one per tier to give a heal on use.

Give me 5 minutes and I bet I can do it.

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Posted by: Ragnar the Rock.3174

Ragnar the Rock.3174

Perfect Inscriptions: Remove the light aura & passive increase.
Instead make it heal & remove a condition on signet use, in addition to the CD reduction.

Force of Will: Get rid of the passive heal increase to allies.
Instead make it reduce shout CD and grant a self heal on shout use in addition to the vitality increase.

Battle Presence: In addition to the current effect make it give a self heal when you activate any virtue.

As for zeal, move around some of the traits so that fiery wrath becomes a minor (just make symbolic exposure a base line effect), then spirit weapons trait gets knocked down to adept and in its place you move master of consecrations from virtues with 1 little extra that it heals on consecration use.

After that its all about adjusting numbers.

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Posted by: Arken.3725

Arken.3725

@ Ragnar

Perfect Inscriptions: Still probably wouldn’t take signet due to the long cd’s and long cast-times.

FoW: So…merge with Pure of Voice?

Battle Presence: Still wouldn’t be nearly strong enough to compete with Pure of Voice but excellent initiative.

Even though Zeal is the (un)official Symbol line, I wish this wasn’t the case and was more akin to Burst. Minors to reflect this would be beneficial.

Edit to be on topic: I just want to reiterate some suggestions people here have made as well as ones i’d like to see!

Spear of Justice/Soaring Devastation/Shield of Courage: Possible GM to retain the passive’s after utilizing the active.

Shield of Courage: Shield either KB’s those close to you or closer to the Guardian to actually block all frontal damage.

Hunter’s Fortification: This one is tough but if say the ICD was removed, one could spec outside of Meditations for condition removal and have a viable build utilizing blocks. Also, change the 10% dmg reduction when you have a condition on you.

Just a couple off the top of my head.

(edited by Arken.3725)

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Posted by: Ragnar the Rock.3174

Ragnar the Rock.3174

@ Ragnar

Perfect Inscriptions: Still probably wouldn’t take signet due to the long cd’s and long cast-times.

FoW: So…merge with Pure of Voice?

Battle Presence: Still wouldn’t be nearly strong enough to compete with Pure of Voice but excellent initiative.

Even though Zeal is the (un)official Symbol line, I wish this wasn’t the case and was more akin to Burst. Minors to reflect this would be beneficial.

The FOW change would be more like a choice, you get condi clear and shout CD reduction, or extra vitality & heal on shout use.

Well taking into account the fact that virtues & signets have longer CD’s they could easily make their traits heal for more.

At any rate they really need to do something so competitive guardians don’t feel forced into valor & monks focus.

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Posted by: Arken.3725

Arken.3725

I that’d be neat to have 2 different types of Shout builds. Never really occurred to me really.

The issue I have with signets is that they’re both not strong enough offensively or self-empowering(Dolyak signet for example) to consider usage. I like where you’re headed just the signets themselves are a bit meh.

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Posted by: Nike.2631

Nike.2631

Hey all. Following up on what we talked about last week. Here’s a few more things that we’re looking at doing:

Please keep in mind that (as before) these things won’t be in the next BWE, but in a future update. As always, thanks for your constructive feedback!

Cheers,
-Karl

Karl, another avenue to consider:

I’m already planning to run at least one of my Guards as a longbow-wielding Dragonhunter with Sword of Justice and/or Hammer of Wisdom in my utility tray. Both of these skills let a Guardian project force down range and they will happily chase/harass crippled or warded targets. Having them also adds Superior Runes of the Ranger to the list of Runes you might consider playing with. The synergy with the Dragonhunter longbow skills is there, but the Spirit Weapon skills need some attention. Can we please have them classified as “minions” using the same general rules as Necromancer with unlimited duration and going into cooldown when they die? Necro minions have also seen some improvements in AI aggressiveness that I sincerely hope can be ported to the offensive spirit weapons. This is an under-utilized skill group that could be updated to bring new competitive options to the Guardian and the Dragonhunter using existing code.

I also wanted to check – does Pure of Sight increase the damage of the Spirit Weapons when the target is 600+ units away? If not, does the tech exist to make it work that way?

“You keep saying ‘its unfair.’
I wonder what your basis for comparison is…”
- Jareth, King of Goblins.

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Posted by: RebornbyFire.7913

RebornbyFire.7913

Re: The ongoing MF/Meditations/Survivability Discussion:

Really, I think the first step to take would be to look at the Virtue cooldowns, and the active effect of Justice. Resolve and especially Courage have rather prohibitively long cooldowns, especially when compared to other classes’ various abilities and unique mechanics. This is actually kind of a theme, it seems, throughout the majority of the Guardian’s skills, with overly-long recharge rates. So I would love to see some CD reduction here. Justice needs its active looked at because it hasn’t been updated since the condition rework, and since the active still only applies one stack of burning (albeit for a couple seconds longer), it’s almost never worth using compared to having the passive available.

As regards the various ideas to put healing/condi removal/etc. on all other trait lines/skill types, so that all of them function basically just like mediations, that really seems a silly, redundant, and boring way to fix everything. If all of the skills and traits do the same thing, we won’t have more builds, we’ll just have different names for the same build. Signets, Spirit Weapons, etc., do need their own survivability/utility mechanics in order to be useful, but they don’t all need the same survivability/utility mechanics. Honestly, Light Aura on signet use is not necessarily a bad idea, since you could always take some toughness on your armor, take Virtues and some other traits, and run a semi-tanky retaliation/control build, or something. Retaliation and control (one signet has immob and another has knockdown) is a means of utility/survival, if used right — the only problem with it right now is that there isn’t a decent low-cooldown heal to help you stay alive. But then, there may be ways around that. The numbers might need to be tuned (CD, cast time, damage, duration of the traited Light Aura, etc.), and certainly there could be some more interesting traits added/modified, like regenerating health while under the effects of retaliation, or faster virtue recharge while under retaliation, or increased retal. damage, or heal when you gain/lose Light Aura, or whatever, but we really don’t need signet, SW, and shout traits to be copies of MF — that would just be boring.

Anyway, the point is, not everything needs to heal/cleanse for the same amount, in the same amount of time, in the same way. Everything does need to be useful and have some synergy or a viable play-style that it supports. Spirit Weapons, for instance, could get a start by having reduced cooldowns and remaining alive until killed, like Necro Minions (not really the most ideal, unique fix, but at least it would make them more usable). Their command skills already have utility. Sure, they’ll never do for you in a glass cannon melee build what Meditations will, but if their AI were a little better and they didn’t unsummon themselves and go on prohibitively long cooldowns right when you need them, they’d be great for ranged builds or for tankier melee burning builds.

Just a couple thoughts. Keep asking for everything to be made viable, powerful, useful, etc. — but just remember, please, that everything doesn’t need to be, isn’t supposed to be, and absolutely should not be all the same.

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Posted by: Black Box.9312

Black Box.9312

I was never pledging to have everything work the same way that AH and MF work. I was simply saying that the other skills should be brought up to their level rather than have them nerfed to be “made up for” elsewhere.

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Posted by: RebornbyFire.7913

RebornbyFire.7913

Honestly, I don’t remember who, specifically, it was; it just seems to have been an idea batted around by a few various posters that the means of “bringing other skills up to the same level” (as meditations/Monk’s Focus) was basically to have them all heal and remove conditions to the same degree — which just seems ridiculous and counter-productive. It wasn’t meant as an insulting or personal post towards anyone; only as a general contribution to the discussion.

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Posted by: Saiyan.1704

Saiyan.1704

I have to agree with Black Box on this one.

An example of a balanced utility: Everything that Smite Condition brings is nice, but if you’re a burn guardian you can replace it with Purging Flames because you’re basically trading (in a 32s time frame) that fury, 4k heals, 2k dmg and 2 condi cleanse utility for a higher damaging utility with minor supporting aspects. The trade off is there.

Spirit Weapons and Signets is not a fair trade off. I’d rather not buff the passive effects of these items as passive play is discouraged, but Signet active effects could be better utilized. Bane Signet needs a 1/4 cast time and Line of Sight removed. I rather Spirit Weapons be more glassy (they’re pretty glassy already..) but their active effects deal 3x more damage and their cast time cut in half.

Shouts work if you’re specialized for them so they get a pass. The other specialized build variants like Signets and Spirit Weapons don’t seem all that great and it has nothing to do with Monk’s Focus.

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Posted by: Bezagron.7352

Bezagron.7352

The one thing I find many mentioning is the addition of heals & or condition protection (cleanses, resistance). If the other utilities require these to be competitive with mediations & shouts it’s this more of an indication that there is an issues with the bases guardian’s survivability that all utilities require extra heals & condition protection to be viable & competitive.

If this is the case wouldn’t it be better to shift a proportion of this required survivability into the base virtues. This shouldn’t change the current strong builds & they should still end up with the same level of survivability & strength they currently have but now providing a little extra survivability to all utilities.

Actually I would be very interested in how shifting some of this survivability & not changing anything else would effect & playout on the guardian & I wonder if we had this improve base survivability would we need to modify / improve existing DH Traps.

Lastly with regards to traps as a utility I believe the introduction of an ability to reliable relocate a foe to cause them to trigger a trap would greatly help in making traps a more reliable gameplay in mobile combat.

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Posted by: Saiyan.1704

Saiyan.1704

The one thing I find many mentioning is the addition of heals & or condition protection (cleanses, resistance). If the other utilities require these to be competitive with mediations & shouts it’s this more of an indication that there is an issues with the bases guardian’s survivability that all utilities require extra heals & condition protection to be viable & competitive.

If this is the case wouldn’t it be better to shift a proportion of this required survivability into the base virtues. This shouldn’t change the current strong builds & they should still end up with the same level of survivability & strength they currently have but now providing a little extra survivability to all utilities.

Actually I would be very interested in how shifting some of this survivability & not changing anything else would effect & playout on the guardian & I wonder if we had this improve base survivability would we need to modify / improve existing DH Traps.

Lastly with regards to traps as a utility I believe the introduction of an ability to reliable relocate a foe to cause them to trigger a trap would greatly help in making traps a more reliable gameplay in mobile combat.

We’re basically comparing the sustains (in some cases, dmg too) from MF medi skills to other utilities.

Lets take Signets as an example. These items don’t function better than MF meditations. You don’t gained increased dmg, defenses or additional CC; at least, not in a way that competes with MF meditations.

Transfering what MF has to these other utilities is not going to make these utilities better. That’s not the route we should go; these other utility skills need a buff in functionality. Traps is an example of this functionality. If I’m losing essential surviving tools, you better believe I’m going to gaining more damage or control/support items via traps.

Im theory, lets see how the next bwe goes. Hope the trap dmg increase is enough.

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Posted by: Darknicrofia.2604

Darknicrofia.2604

has the long bow projectile speed increase been actually implemented? it feels just as slow and strafe-able as BWE1

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Posted by: Saiyan.1704

Saiyan.1704

has the long bow projectile speed increase been actually implemented? it feels just as slow and strafe-able as BWE1

I’m pretty sure they said the new features wont be implemented until later but don’t quote me on that!

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Posted by: Entrea Sumatae.7830

Entrea Sumatae.7830

Longbow update

Deflecting Shot: The last time I posted, the note I had on this was a vague ‘damage increase’ thing, which met with fair opposition. We’ve had a little more time to look into the ability and have tweaked it a fair amount so that it can retain its primary defensive functionality and still reward you for reactive play. Here’s what we’ve got -

  • Reduced missile velocity by 25% (it traveled too fast to really block much). Reduced after-cast by 300 milliseconds. Increased base damage by 13%. Destroying a projectile with this ability increases the damage it deals by 100%. Increased the blocking radius by 33%. The attack radius of this ability has not been increased.
  • Symbol of Energy: Removed the burning on impact (no other symbol has an additional effect, so this felt weird). Increased damage dealt by 10%.

Deflecting Shot has a bit of an issue where many high-arcing projectiles will soar right over the arrow, and I don’t think a 33% range increase will make the arrow hit lobbed projectiles. I feel like something needs to be done to allow the arrow to block projectiles above it (a vertical spread of arrows perhaps?) in order to make it useful against those types of skills.

As for Symbol of Energy, the on-hit effect is not unique. Symbol of Protection, the other symbol that is placed by an attack, also has an additional effect (the hammer strike). I feel like the initial burning both makes sense with that context, and provides a nice bonus for actually being able to land the skill properly.

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Posted by: Saiyan.1704

Saiyan.1704

Longbow update

Deflecting Shot: The last time I posted, the note I had on this was a vague ‘damage increase’ thing, which met with fair opposition. We’ve had a little more time to look into the ability and have tweaked it a fair amount so that it can retain its primary defensive functionality and still reward you for reactive play. Here’s what we’ve got -

  • Reduced missile velocity by 25% (it traveled too fast to really block much). Reduced after-cast by 300 milliseconds. Increased base damage by 13%. Destroying a projectile with this ability increases the damage it deals by 100%. Increased the blocking radius by 33%. The attack radius of this ability has not been increased.
  • Symbol of Energy: Removed the burning on impact (no other symbol has an additional effect, so this felt weird). Increased damage dealt by 10%.

Deflecting Shot has a bit of an issue where many high-arcing projectiles will soar right over the arrow, and I don’t think a 33% range increase will make the arrow hit lobbed projectiles. I feel like something needs to be done to allow the arrow to block projectiles above it (a vertical spread of arrows perhaps?) in order to make it useful against those types of skills.

As for Symbol of Energy, the on-hit effect is not unique. Symbol of Protection, the other symbol that is placed by an attack, also has an additional effect (the hammer strike). I feel like the initial burning both makes sense with that context, and provides a nice bonus for actually being able to land the skill properly.

I’d really like the symbol to have more hits, say, 8 or 10, so burn guardians have something to work with than its initial effect.

Edit: I’m bias, i’m sure people prefer some kind of boon buff >.>

aka FalseLights
Rank: Top 250 since Season 2
#5 best gerdien in wurld

(edited by Saiyan.1704)

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Posted by: Bezagron.7352

Bezagron.7352

We’re basically comparing the sustains (in some cases, dmg too) from MF medi skills to other utilities.

Transfering what MF has to these other utilities is not going to make these utilities better. That’s not the route we should go; these other utility skills need a buff in functionality. Traps is an example of this functionality. If I’m losing essential surviving tools, you better believe I’m going to gaining more damage or control/support items via traps.

Im theory, lets see how the next bwe goes. Hope the trap dmg increase is enough.

And it’s a proportion of this sustain I’ll like to move into the base Guardian. The problem for guardian sustain as I see it resolves around the guardians low health pool (Which is the last thing I want changed, as I feel it provides an interesting constraint which produces interesting gameplay solutions).

First what helps protect the guardians health pool:

  • Invulnerabilities / Blinds / Blocks / Aegis: Receive no “white damage” & no application on conditions.
  • Armour / Toughness / Protection: Receive less incoming “white damage” no protection from conditions.
  • Condition Removal: Clears condition stopping them from causing any more health loss.
  • Burst Healing: Needed to return health to a safe level were you can take another burst (white or condition).
  • Heals over Time: Recovers health to safe levels for burst damage (white or condition) if able to kite & also counter acts low stacks of damaging conditions by recovering what’s lost (zero sum).

Note: as of yet no access to resistance.

The largest problems for sustain with the guardains low health pools are Burst damage, Conditions & Kiting Abilities.

Burst Damage – (White or condition)
Having a low health pool (approx. 11,000) means at most you can survive 2 burst if lucky with one placing you in a critical condition. This place guardians straight away on the back foot unless you can recover to safe levels or apply the same level of pressure to your foe.

Conditions – (DoT & Burst)
One of the first points is condition by pass armour & are not effected by protection. This means they have a greater impact on low health pools, as once applied your only protection is your health pool. Next with the last patch condition burst became an option & this is a greater threat to low health pools purely because your not only going to receive a single strike but the next tick & the next for how every long the duration is.

Kiting
Overall this is a theme limitation placed on guardians – In till the End. Now I’m happy with the idea First in Last Out, as it plays to the guardian mind set, but this greatly reduces the effectiveness of heals over time primarily because your still typically taking more damage. I actually don’t want greater in combat mobility but would prefer greater options to resist, block all damage to provide windows were “HoT” have increased effectiveness.


Now this is only looking at the issues, what we need is for the mechanics to help counter act / resist these issues providing the sustain. Mediations provide this through “Burst Healing” providing the sustain needed to apply your “DPS Pressure”. Shouts & AH provide the means to “maintain you health at safe levels” & “remove those damaging conditions” before they become a greater threat.

A critical component for both Meditations & Shouts is the increased ability to recovery to safe levels of health. As this is an important aspect to sustain with low health pools why not shift a proportion of this safe health level recovery back into the base guardian. This then provide this to our other utility set & future elites. The best way I saw was through our base virtues which all guardians no matter what build, elite have.

This is one option which I felt like others is the easiest option & have the greatest effect for all skills then rebalancing / adjusting all utility sets to provide a similar level of sustain available to meditations & shouts.

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Posted by: Ghotistyx.6942

Ghotistyx.6942

As I read some of these comments, it definitely sounds like we don’t really know what we want. We might have a vague idea, but we aren’t really good at articulating what we’re missing. Even if we got everything we asked for, I’d be willing to bet we’d still be unhappy.

Fishsticks

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Posted by: creepmatic.9435

creepmatic.9435

As I read some of these comments, it definitely sounds like we don’t really know what we want. We might have a vague idea, but we aren’t really good at articulating what we’re missing. Even if we got everything we asked for, I’d be willing to bet we’d still be unhappy.

Well, this is kind of true sadly. Let’s take a break for a bit and reflect upon what the creators of this “Guardian” have said when designing it.

Behind the scenes with the GW2 Guardian (interview):
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/31/behind-the-scenes-with-the-guild-wars-2-guardian-massivelys-in/

And a dev forum conversation of how the guardian is NOT a tank:
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/11088-guardian-tank-or-warrior-tank/page__st__210

Edit: I’ve found a lot of contradiction in there. It’s weird and annoying.

(edited by creepmatic.9435)

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Posted by: Saiyan.1704

Saiyan.1704

As I read some of these comments, it definitely sounds like we don’t really know what we want. We might have a vague idea, but we aren’t really good at articulating what we’re missing. Even if we got everything we asked for, I’d be willing to bet we’d still be unhappy.

Well, this is kind of true sadly. Let’s take a break for a bit and reflect upon what the creators of this “Guardian” have said when designing it.

Behind the scenes with the GW2 Guardian (interview):
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/31/behind-the-scenes-with-the-guild-wars-2-guardian-massivelys-in/

And a dev forum conversation of how the guardian is NOT a tank:
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/11088-guardian-tank-or-warrior-tank/page__st__210

+1
The last link is mainly semantics, though.

This caught my interest,

“They are not tied to a particular race, philosophy, or group of Gods but rather to a larger concept of proactive defense, of taking the fight to a foe and protecting those you fight alongside while appealing equally to humanity’s defensive nature and the Charr’s desire to rule the battlefield.”

In that regards, yes, the Dragonhunter is indeed a high concept name in accordance to what the Devs were implying. That’s not to say that it couldn’t have been some other name with the same concept. (it personally doesn’t bother me either way)

A lot of Guardian players don’t realize that they need to take it slow when playing the class. We’re not Warriors, we shouldn’t rush into things right off the bat. The burst on Focus #5 is a clear example of that along with certain ‘burst’ aspects of Burn Guardian. Sometimes it works… sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t work, people need to realize that that’s not the sole purpose of the Guardian class. It’s just a very risky prevalent (made popular) aspect of the mechanic that just happens to be there.

Thanks for the link!

aka FalseLights
Rank: Top 250 since Season 2
#5 best gerdien in wurld

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Posted by: Daniel Handler.4816

Daniel Handler.4816

The entirety of the trap burst relies on them having bleed. Please don’t neuter the traps.

“Kentigem”-chief. Born cycle of Dusk. Wyld Hunt:
Learn as much mending and medical info as possible so that it can be added to the Dream.
Become the first Chief of Mending and guide the newly awaken as well as those who want to learn.

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Posted by: Black Box.9312

Black Box.9312

As I read some of these comments, it definitely sounds like we don’t really know what we want. We might have a vague idea, but we aren’t really good at articulating what we’re missing. Even if we got everything we asked for, I’d be willing to bet we’d still be unhappy.

I can tell you for certain people would be a lot less unhappy than they are now, at least.

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Posted by: xinkspillx.3914

xinkspillx.3914

I’ve been heavily critical of the Dragonhunter so far and my faith in the Guardian has been shaken for some time. I decided to take a deep dive with some of the things that will remain generally the same for the next BWE and subject them to multiple situations and incorporation in various builds. I took the future potential of the elite specialization into account as well, particularly in regards to the upcoming changes for next BWE. Here are my opinions on what I’ve explored so far:

Spear of Justice: Much better with the new increase to range. This has mad the skill significantly more usable, even if I’m still not a fan of any cast time whatsoever for the virtues.

Wings of Resolve Recently I have been advocating an increase to the active heal of Virtue of Resolve. Wings of Resolve now has the level of healing I wish to see baseline for VoR as well and after testing it I am absolutely certain that this needs to be the case. The benefit of having the increased healing from this skill makes surviving just a touch easier than it was before and helps make up for the lack of active defense or sustain on many of our skills. I still feel as if a longer range for this skill would help, however.

Defender’s Dogma: Perhaps I’m crazy, but I’ve tried testing every possible effect this minor could be referring to and I’ve seen nothing. Either the impact of this ability is generally rather negligible, or it’s utterly broken. I’ve tested this in multiple situations with varying combinations of effects and virtue states and I’ve really not seen anything of note.

Pure of Sight: I’m undecided on this trait. On one hand, yes 10% damage increase is nice. On the other hand, this seems like perhaps it should have been found elsewhere. If the trait absolutely has to stay as it is now, I would like to see the range threshold reduced to 300 instead of 360 so that we’ll see the effect with more weapons.

Ideally, I’d rather see Pure of Sight take the place of Heavy Light altogether, but with an additional effect. A 20% Longbow skills CD reduction comes to mind, but with rather low CDs already I think that’s unnecessary. Regardless, the newly suggested idea of causing the passive effect of Justice to cripple feels 10000x more appropriate as a grandmaster minor and would give a greater reason to run Dragonhunter for those who don’t wish to use the Longbow.

Piercing Light: Although it does leave condi Guardians twisting in the wind, the removal of Bleeds was a smart idea, as they really don’t add anything to Traps. The idea of adding daze to Traps is so much more appropriate, however it’s still not going to be enough. We need to see that daze become a legitimate Stun, or else enemies will still be able to dodge right out of traps. Stunning them would make the potential effectiveness of the traps increase significantly. 20% Trap CD reduction also feels just right. I wasn’t happy about the CDs at first, and while they could be a bit lower, they’re plenty usable.

Heavy Light: I generally make a habit of never saying I hate something, especially when looking at a game in development. I still won’t say that here, but I’d be lying if that wasn’t one of my greater reactions to this trait. I will never take this. The idea of a passive knockback is fundamentally flawed and works against the idea of Traps. The fact that we run the risk of accidentally knocking the enemy away from the brunt of our traps is astonishingly bad planning. If this trait triggered at the wrong moment, we could save our enemies from the damage of Procession of Blades. Really? Let’s just lose this trait already. It’s bad. The stability makes no sense either. We need something else.

Alright, that being said, here are some general notes about the DH:

Longbow: Right now I’m not feeling the auto. It’s weak, for starters, but my biggest issue is actually the bounce mechanic. Yes, I recognize that this is really supposed to be a way of making positioning more important, but while other skills are about YOUR positioning, this skill’s special effect only relies on getting lucky and having enemies line up. Can’t we just have a standard ricochet instead of one that relies on the position of the enemy?

True Shot‘s root doesn’t bother me, but it does mess up the flow of battle a little bit.

Symbol of Energy concerns me. I like this skill right now, but feel absolutely certain it will be weak next BWE without the burn effect. If they would just increase the damage a little further than the 10% they already proposed it would be fine.

Hunter’s Ward I actually like. I really would love to see a trait somewhere that gives Wards a special effect of some sort, just to show them some more love.

Traps: The damage increases to the traps makes them actually usable now.

Fragments of Faith is a great utility and one that I see myself running frequently as long as I won’t be giving up too much for the Dragonhunter. I expect with the newly suggested condi cleanse on block, this skill will have a strong following. If the other traps were designed as well as this one, I would be a Dragonhunter acolyte.

Procession of Blades is a much better trap now that it does more damage. Maybe it could use a small further increase to damage, but it’s leaps and bounds more useful than it was.

Test of Faith is rather useless unless the enemy is dumb enough and fast enough to run back and forth across the swords multiple times. There are fights I don’t even see the enemy who triggers this Trap get hit with its effect. I think this trap could be quite fantastic if we kept the effect the same, but added something like a small 250 or 200 heal on pulse to allies inside every 1s for its duration. While Fragments of Faith provides a great option for defense, this could accompany that and create a balance among the traps so that two would provide additional defensive effects and two would be very aggressive. If this were the case I could see traps being a rather viable option!

Light’s Judgement: This trap seems fine. I like that it seems to be designed to create an opening and counter stealthy or defensive enemies. I can see this being a usable alternative depending on the situation, but still don’t feel like I’ve tested this enough to be sure.

Dragon’s Maw is still underwhelming me. The CD is okay, I guess, but it still doesn’t seem to do enough damage and doesn’t feel Elite. The length of the Slow feels kind of insulting when compared with the Daredevil’s Impairing Daggers. This skill just kind of still feels “meh” to me.

Purification: Let’s be honest, for the amount of health we receive from this, it’s a bit of a pain to have to wait for it to be triggered, especially in melee range. I think the heal would be fine as it is with my suggestion to give Test of Faith a little more support., however. Regardless, Purification absolutely should cleanse 1 condition with the initial heal and cleanse 1 or 2 more with the second heal. If we could get a change like this, I would be FAR more inclined to run traps.

Notes: So, with all that being said, I’m quite fine with Traps not being ground targeted. At first I was unsure, but I feel like Longbow actually works quite well with them. In PvE in particular, dropping longbow #5 on an enemy, dropping traps and kiting them in then dropping Symbol of Vigor to aid my retreat worked quite well and often kept me from any real harm. Obviously this wouldn’t be quite the case in PvP, but the potential is still there.

What makes me most excited about the Dragonhunter, however, is the fact that after some recent testing of a few traits (Guardian and Dragonhunter both) I previously considered somewhat weak, there is strong potential in a Guardian taking advantage of what the Dragonhunter brings to blocking. The Dragonhunter may actually be able to give us the last piece of the puzzle for a very effective block-centric build. With the possibility of burning, healing, granting might, granting aegis and/or healing conditions on block, the elite spec may even be worthwhile for anyone not interested in the bow.

All in all, I think the Dragonhunter is moving forward, but slowly. I’m still not completely sold on it, but if the suggestions I made (or something similar) were implemented (especially with the traps!!), I would have some of my lost faith restored. Right now I still think the Guardian has a boatload of issues, but the Dragonhunter could help fill in some of the gaps if these, or similar, changes were made.

But seriously, please give Purification condi cleanse and Test of Faith a pulsing heal . . . that would make everything so much better . . . Other elite specs have skills with multiple effects . . . why can’t we? O_O

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Posted by: Ghotistyx.6942

Ghotistyx.6942

I really like xinkspillx’s comments. Even if I might not agree with everything, it’s at least reasonable commentary. It’s certainly much better than the doomsday complaining that would put chicken little to shame.

Here’s some additional thoughts I’d like to add:

  • Purification
    Really seems like it should remove conditions purely (fully intended) based on name. I really like the idea of having it act like Consumer Conditions. Drop the secondary heal by 33-50% and have it heal ~200-400 per condition removed.
  • Test of Faith
    It shouldn’t heal. It’s in an interesting position, acting like a physical counterpart to Purging Flames. Now, Purging Flames has a secondary and tertiary effect, condition removal and -20% condition duration. Healing isn’kitten but Test of Faith definitely needs another effect that isn’t given by traits.
  • Heavy Light
    The knockback has to be intentional, not based on proccing whenever the icd is off. I was thinking putting the knockback on Deflecting Shot. The Stability has to stay on True Shot like it is during this bwe. That got me thinking, why not have a multi effect trait like one of the shatter traits for mesmer or Evasive Arcana for ele. With stability on True Shot and a knockback on Deflecting Shot, you can re-add some burning to Symbol of Energy and something like a blind or chill on Hunter’s Ward. That would make for a pretty involved trait, but it would certainly be grandmaster worthy. Or we could just move Zealot’s Aggression to GM, make sure it does aoe cripple when combined with Permeating Wrath, and put Heavy Light to Master and just leave the Stability on True Shot.

Everything else that’s been mentioned by the devs is very welcome. I’m excited to see what the final results are.

Fishsticks

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Posted by: xinkspillx.3914

xinkspillx.3914

@Ghotistyx
Thanks for taking the time to read all of that, haha.

I like the idea of a heal per condition removed on Purification. That would be a great way to balance it while still getting what we want. It would also fill a niche the Guardian doesn’t really have anywhere else.

As for Test of Faith, I’m not married to the idea of healing. It was just the example I ran with. I would preferably like to see something a tad bit defensive to gel with the Aegis from Fragments of Faith, but I’d be happy with them adding anything to make it more usable at this point.

I really like your suggestion for a multi-effect trait to give the Longbow some love and it would certainly be a better way to implement the knockback. I worry that adding knockback to Deflecting Shot would go against the intended defensive nature of the skill, though. Perhaps True Shot would be the better candidate for the knockback addition, but one with an ICD so it occurs every other shot to keep it balanced. I figure if this was the case they could more or less keep the Stability on knockback idea.

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Posted by: Ragnar the Rock.3174

Ragnar the Rock.3174

1: Puncture shot really needs to have a lower cast time given the damage it does.

2: Deflecting shot really should do a knock back at base (enough with adding crap onto heavy light)

3: Symbol of energy, why are you taking the bleed off ? It was one of the few nice things the spec had for celestial or condi guardians.

4: Hunters ward, the cast time is so long that outside wvw zerging or mindless pve nothing will likely get caught in it. (perhaps if it had a quick cast time & just immobilized everything in a line like hammer 3 does it would be great, with a similar CD ofc)

5: Purification, really should remove some conditions (say 3+) for the guardian and nearby allies.

6: Test of faith, really needs a reason to make enemies want to leave the radius. (say pulsing AOE burns within its radius)

7: Dragons maw, laughable that it only effects 1 target. Should effect at the very least 3.

8: All of the single hit traps could stand to be made to hit multiple times so as to work better with VOJ.

9: Piercing light. Like the trap Cd reduction but taking the bleeding off of traps hurt condi guardians allot. Also a daze won’t help keep allies in range.
(perhaps if piercing light made all bow hits, trap hits and sword hits apply bleeding in addition to a trap Cd reduction)

10: Heavy light. A random knockback is not a good thing as it cannot be relied upon or predicted. The knockback could also easily be applied to deflecting shot (which would be better for reliability and being countered by smart play.)
(perhaps heavy light could cause traps to immobilize or stun when triggered)

11: Even with the velocity increase allot of the bow skills can still be strafed & many will not fire on enemies that move behind you as you cast.

12: The first part of the change to hunter’s fortification is nice, but given the sheer amount of abilities that spew conditions in this game perhaps the second part could reduce damage taken while you have a condition on you.

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Posted by: Nike.2631

Nike.2631

Looking over some of the new tech used in the (very fun!) Daredevil Espec… Would it be possible to make our elite trap Dragon’s Maw a finisher with its final damage pulse KILLING downed characters/players?

Its a real corner case and unlikely to happen without carefully planning but it would be a way to help make the skill feel more elite and fearsome without a bunch of buffs to damage.

“You keep saying ‘its unfair.’
I wonder what your basis for comparison is…”
- Jareth, King of Goblins.

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Posted by: Ragnar the Rock.3174

Ragnar the Rock.3174

Really they should just make purification a copy paste of healing spring (minus the water field).

Make it do a heal for the guardian on use, a condi clear for all allies within 300 radius when triggered by an ally then pulse 2-3 seconds of regeneration every second for 10 seconds to all allies within 300 units.

I think allot of guardians would consider using it then.

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Posted by: Hunter.4783

Hunter.4783

Here are some current problems that will persist even despete the suggested changes

1: Longbow mechanics are too clunky. You need to auto turn on bow #1. Bow #1 needs to do more damage. I am hitting things in HOT mats for 600 and crit for 1500 whereas i get to crit for 5k with my rev on auto attacks. There is something extremely wrong with that.

2: Get rid of rooting in Longbow #2, its silly

3: Longbow #3 is nice on theory but very very poorly executed. consider slowing the projectile 2-3x and increase the width 3-4x

4: Retain symbol burn mechanics

5: Traps are worthless, and rely on enemy making mistakes (ie, walking over them, not dodging, etc) rather than on your skill. Traps need to be changed either into wells, symbols, or SOMETHING else. Traps also need to be range targeted.

consider adding an F4 which removely activates all the traps

6. traits are a mess and do virtually nothing to alterate gameplay, not to mention being extremely weak. As it stands, the class would be much better of turning the longbow into a default weapon and do away with the entire dragonhunter traitline.
Core traitlines are much much stronger

7. New virtues are clunky and worthless. i would much rather be offered the choice of retaining my old virtues when speccing DH. At the VERY least they must all be insta cast.
- F1 needs to throw spears to all enemies close range in a 180 degree arc, insta cast
- F2 needs to be instant and give evade frames, else its worthless and default F2 is MUCH MUCH stronger
- F3 the cast time on F3 is a complete joke and removes the option of safe stomping completely

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Posted by: Ghotistyx.6942

Ghotistyx.6942

Y’know what? I think I like Ragnar’s idea better. If Pure of Sight is indeed going to be 360 range, then let’s just give a base knockback to True Shot to foes within 360 range. Even if Pure stays at 600, I wouldn’t be opposed to a short knockback on very close range enemies every True Shot.

Fishsticks

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Posted by: Saiyan.1704

Saiyan.1704

Y’know what? I think I like Ragnar’s idea better. If Pure of Sight is indeed going to be 360 range, then let’s just give a base knockback to True Shot to foes within 360 range. Even if Pure stays at 600, I wouldn’t be opposed to a short knockback on very close range enemies every True Shot.

Could have sworn that’s been said before but ya, giving that skill a baseline kb effect would do the bow nicely.

But honestly, F3 being used intermittently while you have the bow is equipped is equally as effective. And/or having F3 block attacks for the guardian instead of just projectiles.

It’s a matter of what’s easier for the Dev.

aka FalseLights
Rank: Top 250 since Season 2
#5 best gerdien in wurld

(edited by Saiyan.1704)

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Posted by: Ragnar the Rock.3174

Ragnar the Rock.3174

Y’know what? I think I like Ragnar’s idea better. If Pure of Sight is indeed going to be 360 range, then let’s just give a base knockback to True Shot to foes within 360 range. Even if Pure stays at 600, I wouldn’t be opposed to a short knockback on very close range enemies every True Shot.

Actually I have been suggesting deflecting shot get the knock back.

The Cd on it is already 10 seconds and it looks kinda like a wave so it would be perfectly balanced even if it did a knockback regardless of the targets range.

True shot is a bit low CD wise to be getting a knock back.

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Posted by: Ghotistyx.6942

Ghotistyx.6942

The key to that idea was the distance the knockback starts from. Considering the root and heavy tell, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have a knockback every 4s at symbol or cannon radius. Deflecting Shot could also work at least at 600 range. I feel like the concept of heavy light is okay, and that the stability on True Shot and cripple in knockback (or knockback in general, if it was a traited effect for Deflecting Shot) fit the concept. I think most might agree the knockback on any attack, on 10s icd, and stability based on the knockback doesn’t really make the best trait. The concept behind it is fine though, so it’s just hammering out a good functionality.

Fishsticks

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Posted by: Hunter.4783

Hunter.4783

Anything is better than the current random knock back auto attacks. I like this idea a lot actually. Also goes with the theme behind the skill

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Posted by: Mysticjedi.6053

Mysticjedi.6053

Been doing some thinking about traps, and I think I would like to see them more as the offensive opposite of consecration. I use purging flames as an example. Purging flames has an initial effect 3 stacks of burning and removes conditions from allies. It has a secondary effect which is conditions are reduced by -20%, and it has a third effect too. Leaving or entering the ring of fire puts additional stacks.

I think traps should look like this, but be more geared toward offense like pulsing Weakness and making them different fields for combo purposes.

Also please consider making Knock back on the long bow an actually skill and not some random proc given through traits.

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Posted by: RebornbyFire.7913

RebornbyFire.7913

I’d really love to see Deflecting Shot move fairly rapidly but leave behind a light trail for a couple seconds that also reflects projectiles. Then the Knockback on Heavy Light could apply only to Deflecting Shot and its trail, so that we would have a reliable/predictable knockback and also a much more interesting skill with a myriad of play options, whether traited or not.

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Posted by: Ghotistyx.6942

Ghotistyx.6942

Purging Flames and Test of Faith are very easy to compare. They both have a damage component upon crossing the ring (3 stacks burn/physical damage). They also both have a secondary effect (3 conditions removed/6s? cripple). Purging Flames also has a tertiary effect (-33% condition duration). When traited, Test of Faith gains a stun on activation, which actually better pairs with the condition removal. The cripple can then be matched with the lesser condition duration.

Most traps offer something like this. The only things I would really change with traps are adding a whirl finished to Procession of Blades and slightly changing Purification., probably adding a condition removal aspect (purifying is a naming convention used often for removing conditions).

Fishsticks

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Posted by: Nike.2631

Nike.2631

Hey all. Following up on what we talked about last week. Here’s a few more things that we’re looking at doing:

-Karl

So, we missed the chance to test any of that. Any updates on traps or what we might see in the next beta weekend?

“You keep saying ‘its unfair.’
I wonder what your basis for comparison is…”
- Jareth, King of Goblins.

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Posted by: Nike.2631

Nike.2631

Found another area where a bug-fix finally getting pushed through would help make Traps and Dragonhunters more appealing:

Super Speed needs to actually WORK. So that Runes of the Trapper 4 piece set bonus works. So that Dragonhunters using them work better .

“You keep saying ‘its unfair.’
I wonder what your basis for comparison is…”
- Jareth, King of Goblins.

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Posted by: Saiyan.1704

Saiyan.1704

Purging Flames and Test of Faith are very easy to compare. They both have a damage component upon crossing the ring (3 stacks burn/physical damage). They also both have a secondary effect (3 conditions removed/6s? cripple). Purging Flames also has a tertiary effect (-33% condition duration). When traited, Test of Faith gains a stun on activation, which actually better pairs with the condition removal. The cripple can then be matched with the lesser condition duration.

Most traps offer something like this. The only things I would really change with traps are adding a whirl finished to Procession of Blades and slightly changing Purification., probably adding a condition removal aspect (purifying is a naming convention used often for removing conditions).

I really love the idea of Test of Faith, more so than Procession of Blades and i’m a huge fan of PoB. It could be a very damaging utility in groups, like a second Whirling Wrath. I’m hoping the Cripple and Stun would push Test of Faith (traps in general) to PF’s level of effectiveness.

Considering power and crit is needed for it to do max damage potential, it may not be utilized on burn guardians /sadface
(still think damages should be higher for this weapon – it’s reliant on crit)

aka FalseLights
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(edited by Saiyan.1704)

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Posted by: Gwaihir.1745

Gwaihir.1745

What I see as good suggestions:
1. Some sort of 25% movement speed, maybe on an F4.
2. Make LB2 slow you down similar to whirling wrath instead of rooting.
3. Change/reduce virtue Cd/cast.
IDEA TO SYNERGIZE LB AND TRAPS:
On trap placement we gain a flip that is a 400-600 range shadowstep, could be targetable or backwards only. Would allow a new type of semi skirmish bow kiting.
Edit: Would only trigger shadowstep in combat to avoid pic mobility exploitation.
Fixes needed:
1. Strafe able auto attack projectile speed.
2. Deflecting shot being shot over top of.

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Posted by: Nike.2631

Nike.2631

Huh. Unstickied… without a fresh update from the designer.

“You keep saying ‘its unfair.’
I wonder what your basis for comparison is…”
- Jareth, King of Goblins.

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Posted by: Darkened.4076

Darkened.4076

Devs please read the feedback thread that was created that you wanted us to use - Finally, I would prefer no response, them take time and come back with something decent than give a quick response that says kitten all.

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