Guild Wars 2

So we’ve all seen the complaints about DH in it’s current state, and then there’s the red post about upcoming changes, but either I’m just not understanding it, or the biggest issue with DH I’m not seeing talked about.

Guardian has always been melee focused, in the thick of it, aegis and rings at your feet to corral and stay close range. Now we have a longbow, which is a long range weapon as our elite specialization. During the BWE i spent a good long time trying to figure out how the LB could work with and just it feels like there’s no synergy.

With traps you have to place at your feet, you have to stay close to make them work, but mace and GS are better suited for close than using a LB. So if you fall back to using the LB only, lackluster damage and locked movements (I know they’re being addressed, maybe…) but that removes your entire secondary weapon swap unless you’re running scepter. so ther’es this weird middle ground where nothing ends up being effective if you take DH as a spec since it feels like nothing really meshes well with the original weaponset.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not seeing the point. Why introduce a long range weapon to a melee-oriented class? it just feels odd and incredibly out of place, even for just PVE stuff. So can anybody explain it, or am I hitting in the ballpark of how it feels in general?

(yes I know skills are being buffed and worked on, but this doesnt address the overall problem I’m seeing of, you have have a LB or you can stay melee)

Amen.

I thought, i’m alone in this.

The Dragonhunter add nothing to the old guardian builds, DH focus on Change the roleplay and the gamestyle of the guardian, making it more able to be a ranged class, expecially a backline supporter (LB+Staff?).

About LB and traps that’s right, the synergy is more or less 0 why traps need to become ground targeting to make you able to use it.
I really hope they make Traps GT skills.

The Dragonhunter focus on change all the playstyle of the Guardian, that make also it’s weapon and traits lesser useful for a lot of actual builds. That is supposed to happen.

That is also more or less the only way Devs had to change “drastically” the guardian , making the new specializzation totally different by the actual class.

The only specializzation actually revealed that don’t really focus to make anything totally new and can be really used to power up every single build of the main class is the Chronomancer, that possibly will make the Mesmer more powerfull than it actually is. And devs also made a new condition all for them… (slow)

Reaper focus on a firstline melee fight (a bad thing for a class that totally lack of defensive skills, but it’s ok in pve), Tempest focus on support (also can stack burn in a insane way but it’s not been the first thing anet thinked about making it), Herald is a pure support specializzation, Berserker is a condition specializzation (with some really goos application in direct damage builds, but still focus on Burn).

Actually almost all the specializzation try to focus the class on a New Playstyle.

Thje guardian has always been a Melee class why we never had a good ranged weapon!
Now we’ll be able to have one. Let’s see how it will change the guardian playstyle.

At last it will increase the build diversity by a lot.

Even if the traps became ground targeted that still isn’t enough reason to use them.

The only decent trap is fragments of faith because not only does it do damage is grants allies AEGIS.

They either need to apply some cripple/immobilize on enemies when triggered (as well as burns/bleeds at base) or they need secondary helpful effects for allies when triggered.

Otherwise you may as well use meditations or shouts with a hammer/greatsword.
Your would get just as much damage as well as useful boons and healing not to mention condi cleanse.

Silv.9207:

The Dragonhunter add nothing to the old guardian builds, DH focus on Change the roleplay and the gamestyle of the guardian, making it more able to be a ranged class, expecially a backline supporter (LB+Staff?).

About LB and traps that’s right, the synergy is more or less 0 why traps need to become ground targeting to make you able to use it.
I really hope they make Traps GT skills.

The Dragonhunter focus on change all the playstyle of the Guardian, that make also it’s weapon and traits lesser useful for a lot of actual builds. That is supposed to happen.

That is also more or less the only way Devs had to change “drastically” the guardian , making the new specializzation totally different by the actual class.

The only specializzation actually revealed that don’t really focus to make anything totally new and can be really used to power up every single build of the main class is the Chronomancer, that possibly will make the Mesmer more powerfull than it actually is. And devs also made a new condition all for them… (slow)

Reaper focus on a firstline melee fight (a bad thing for a class that totally lack of defensive skills, but it’s ok in pve), Tempest focus on support (also can stack burn in a insane way but it’s not been the first thing anet thinked about making it), Herald is a pure support specializzation, Berserker is a condition specializzation (with some really goos application in direct damage builds, but still focus on Burn).

Actually almost all the specializzation try to focus the class on a New Playstyle.

Thje guardian has always been a Melee class why we never had a good ranged weapon!
Now we’ll be able to have one. Let’s see how it will change the guardian playstyle.

At last it will increase the build diversity by a lot.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for build diversity and expanding on the class. My biggest problem is how the rest of our traitlines are practically worthless if you take the DH spec. Unless the rest of the traits are adjusted to synergize with the spec itself I just dont see it being viable. As it stands, if you take DH, you’re basically getting a single trait line and then forced to fill out the other two lines with things that don’t support the build in order to get maybe 2 or three traits extra that could potentially work, versus a full three line build that is actually designed to work with itself. I think that’s the biggest issue I’m having and why I cant get my head around it, we’ll see as more BWE happens, but unless the traits themselves are reworked to fit LB builds, DH will always be bottom of the barrel.

Long-range isn’t the problem with DH. In terms of range, its problem is that half of it is ranged (longbow), and half of it is melee (traps, DH virtues), although it has a lot more issues than that (it being a badly named ranger wannabe for example). To be perfectly honest, I always found the idea of guardians being range restricted to be pretty stupid. So I’m glad that’s going out the window, and the next elite spec will be ranged as well if they bring back tomes (assuming they don’t get butchered in development).

RollFzzlbeef.4092:

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not seeing the point. Why introduce a long range weapon to a melee-oriented class? it just feels odd and incredibly out of place, even for just PVE stuff. So can anybody explain it, or am I hitting in the ballpark of how it feels in general?

Elite Specializations are supposed to supply a new play-style that would be unique to the core profession with the aide of the corresponding weapon.

Necromancer’s core profession mechanic, the Death Shroud, is ranged while Reaper’s Reaper Shroud is melee. To supplement this melee play-style, Reapers were given a set of melee oriented weapon skills through the Greatsword and a set of offensive PBAoE shouts.

However, by looking at the other professions’ elite specializations, the developers haven’t figured out how to really emphasize the particular play-style of each Elite Specialization: Dragonhunter got a long ranged weapon, delayed AoE deployed at one’s feet, and it’s profession mechanic still reflects the melee nature of Guardian.

It may only seem so ‘out of place’ because DH still has that melee Guardian feel. If DH got wells, marks, arcane skills – anything remotely long range and dps oriented, – then the different feel would be more apparent. Wing of Resolve needs a more meaningful gap closer/opener, and Shield of Courage needs to have a long range active. The developers haven’t done much to the DH virtues and they still feel like signets, signets that we’ve had for the past three years.

Sorry man, wish I could help. Only the dervs and God know what’s going on.

RollFzzlbeef.4092:

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not seeing the point. Why introduce a long range weapon to a melee-oriented class? it just feels odd and incredibly out of place, even for just PVE stuff. So can anybody explain it, or am I hitting in the ballpark of how it feels in general?

It’s simple; Elite specs are about giving you a new way to play your character. There isn’t anything new about giving us more melee-focused stuff. DH does that for Guardian.

I think the apparent disconnect is from a misunderstanding of what Anet was trying to accomplish with the Dragonhunter design.

One of the Guardians greatest weaknesses was being kited while they were on a point. Even though this was a very spvp oriented idea, it still very much applied to pve and wvw in certain cases. Now what Dragonhunter brings, is a weapon with a fast (with the recently talked about changes) projectile to ensure a way to combat kiting. This weapon brings (again, once polished) some heavy damage in its #2, some utility and synergy in its #3 and #4, and a very nasty ward in #5. It’s functionality is very much right in line with weapons like Hammer and Staff.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I very much think Dragonhunter was at least partly inspired by Monster Hunter games. The basic premise is to fight rather gigantic and powerful monsters (Elder Dragons and champions) and either kill or capture them with traps. In this regard there are many similarities between the Dragonhunter design and Monster Hunter.

Dragonhunter as a whole has a few ways (in addition to sigils, runes, etc that are always available) to apply cripple, which help us keep enemies in the kill zone. Many traits and skills are designed around fighting singular important enemies (Big Game Hunter for sure and Spear of Justice, True Shot, Deflecting Shot, Shield of Courage, etc). Traps are also interesting. Looking back at the Guardians weaknesses, kiting was one of them, neither able to kite or prevent being kited. In Monster Hunter, you would fight a monster and try to bring it to one of your placed traps (either to capture or further weaken it). Guardians now have a method and a reason to kite. The traps give players interesting choices to make. Lights Judgement destroys defenses, prepping for a spike. Test of Faith encourages enemies to stay still or suffer. Procession of Blades pushes enemies out of an area (through damage of course), and Fragments of Faith tells the enemy it could be dangerous to prolong the fight. Purification is interesting, but follows along the lines of FoF. Dragons Maw literally keeps a foe from moving period, which is the most “capture” centric of all the traps.

Much of the design is in some way related to this idea of hunting specific targets. Whether it’s a boss in dungeons or open world, commanders/high value targets in wvw, or individuals in spvp, the Dragonhunter is intended to let you reach out and touch something, harassing it until overwhelmed. You can lay traps and play mind games (particularly useful in spvp or chokepoints), deal heavy damage from afar, or anything else you might determine from your specializations. The exact abilities and perceived usefulness of the specialization will be determined by the current and pending balance changes, but the core concepts aren’t bad. They definitely provide a way for guardian to play differently than before. But let’s also not forget, this is still development time. There’s still plenty of opportunity for things to change and become polished. There’s no need to complain about the fine details or unintended functionality. There’s also no use in complaining something is useless just because you don’t like it (that’s not really directed at anyone in particular, just something I wanted to point out).