Guild Wars 2

Now that we’ve seen the notes for the Dragonhunter in the next beta, I wanted to put out my own thoughts on the DH and make suggestions for the direction of changes in future betas. In hopes that the devs are watching the forums for feedback, I’ll try to present a clear picture of why so many players are dissatisfied, and potential ways to proceed from here.

I’ve compiled a list of suggested changes in the second post of this topic (basically a TL;DR), but I’m going to start with an analysis of the DH as it stands.

1) Specialization Overview

1. I believe there’s good potential with the DH, but agree with many others that it feels unfinished. Quality of life improvements are needed in many areas, such as letting Longbow users turn around when they try to shoot something behind them.
2. My honest opinion of the most recent changes is that they do not address many of the issues that players raised with the DH, and that boosting numbers was favored over addressing the issues at the root of the complaints.
3. Virtues feel clunky in combat, and their concepts seem underdeveloped. Losing instant casting on them restricts the types of plays we can make and hurts our theme of “active defenses.” Not being able to channel our new Virtues during Renewed Focus also feels like a significant downgrade.
4. Justice is inconsistent, and doesn’t provide enough of a reward for landing the slow cast. The nerfs to the pre-beta duration and the Big Game Hunter trait make it much less appealing, though I do appreciate the recent increase to 1200 range. Condition Guardians will still never want to activate it.
5. Resolve’s benefits are now delayed, leaving you exposed during the leap and making its regular version safer/more efficient. The leap distance also feels short. Just increasing the healing doesn’t fix these issues.
6. Courage has various balance issues. The cast time makes it a spammable stun break. The shield blocks melee attacks for allies, but not the DH (I’m assuming this was actually deliberate rather than a bug, since Guardians don’t need another channeled block/invulnerability skill). It’s lacking polish overall and needs another look.
7. The Longbow seems at odds with the DH’s supportive nature as a Guardian. While the DH was designed to be more selfish than the Guardian, it still has a sizable range of support tools that help to distinguish it from other snipers. Since other Guardian support skills are limited to 600 range, trying use the Longbow’s range to full potential is only feasible when your allies are close and your enemies are far away. This is fine in WvW zergs, but can create conflicts for the DH in other game modes, since we have limited tools for managing our position in fights (few disengages, ground-targeted gap closers, etc.).
8. Lack of mobility/position control is one of the Guardian’s intended weaknesses as a profession, but this makes the DH a ranged attacker that has a hard time kiting. Kiting is one of the most basic defenses for ranged attackers and one of their most sizable advantages over melee foes, but the DH has to rely on inconsistent Cripple skills and the occasional knockback/ward to keep ahead. At this point I’ll be surprised if we ever get a +25% movespeed trait, so if that’s not on the table, we need a solution that at least gives us some sort of reliable position control without giving us too much disengage potential.
9. The Longbow has a number of mechanical issues including Puncture Shot’s slow projectiles, lots of self-rooting on a profession that’s already hurting for mobility, long cast times, and of course, the inability to fire #3 and #4 behind you. These issues only exacerbate the Guardian’s issues with position control, and unlike Warriors, Guardians caught at close range with their Longbow are easy pickings. These issues were ignored in the recent changes.
10. Traps are better now that they’ve gotten cooldown reductions and damage boosts, but they still need lots of work if they’re ever going to do more than fill an empty utility slot in PvE. CDR for Traps should really be baseline, because Traps are one of the least consistent types of utilities, requiring setup, positioning, and often CC on targets to function well. It’s important that Trap builds across all professions have many opportunities to reposition and activate their Traps, and faster cooldowns also have better synergy with Trapper Runes. Activation time for DH Traps should also be brought down to 1/2 second so it’s consistent with other Traps. I’d happily trade some damage for these changes.
11. In PvP scenarios, Traps will remain a gimmick for Guardians until they’re given some form of sustain. Fragments of Faith is nice, but dedicated Trap builds are still going to be hurting for consistent healing, condition cleanse, and stun breaks if they don’t get more support. There are also still issues integrating Traps with Longbow gameplay, but since ground-targeted Traps seem to have been deliberately driven to extinction, the solution here is likely going to have to come back to improving the DH’s position control.
12. Lastly (but perhaps most importantly), DH traits are underwhelming compared to the Reaper’s and Chronomancer’s. Many are too specialized and/or have weak effects. Others are placed awkwardly in the line (e.g. Pure of Sight). There’s also no hint of the themed trait lines that the devs discussed back when they introduced the Reaper, which makes the lack of polish here even more evident. Like its Virtues, the DH’s traits will continue to hold the specialization back if they aren’t revamped.

Specific suggestions for improvement are in the post below.

2) List of Revised Skills and Traits (specific reasoning for changes below)

Note: The emphasis here is on the changes I’ve made to the skills, so if an existing effect isn’t mentioned, it’s probably the same as before.

Virtues

1. Spear of Justice: Instant cast time, improved velocity/accuracy, keep current 1200 range. Related traits apply at the initial point of impact.
2. Wings of Resolve: Evade for the duration of the cast (still 3/4 second), range increased to 900. Personal heal/traited effects apply at the beginning of the leap, while they apply at the end for allies.
3. Shield of Courage: Instant cast, melee block for allies removed. Effect rework: Create a shield in front of you that blocks enemy projectiles for yourself and allies. If foes inside the area of the shield deal damage to another player, they are knocked back (240 distance, 1 second ICD per target).

Longbow

1. Puncture Shot: Increased projectile velocity. Cripples targets for 1 second if they have 2 or more stacks of Burning (instead of crippling on bounce).
2. True Shot: See traits below.
3. Deflecting Shot: See traits below. Can be fired regardless of character facing, blocks projectiles instead of destroying them, projectile velocity decreases as it travels. Cooldown reduced to 8 seconds.
4. Symbol of Energy: Can be fired regardless of character facing. Reduce current Vigor duration to 2s per pulse and increase cooldown to 20 seconds. Add a chain skill, “Lightspeed,” which causes you to teleport to the center of your Symbol of Energy (1/4 second cast time). Chain resets when the Symbol’s duration expires, but SoE continues to recharge while the chain is active.
5. Hunter’s Ward: 2 second cast time (down from 2.75 seconds). Effect Rework: This skill pulses twice. The first pulse deals damage and Cripples enemies for 2 seconds, and the second pulse damages enemies, Cripples them for 5 seconds, and cages them for 5 seconds (down from 6). See traits below.

Traps

1. General: Reduce cast time for Traps to 1/2 second (the same as all other traps in the game) and switch traited CDR for baseline cooldown reduction to all Traps. See traits below.
2. Purification: Heal yourself and set a Trap that pulses 3 seconds of Blind and Burning to foes in its area each second for 2 seconds when it activates. The full heal is now delivered upon setting the Trap instead of when a foe triggers it. Cooldown reduced to 25 seconds.
3. Test of Faith: Rework the effect to pulse 2 seconds of Cripple to foes within the ring every 2 seconds. Damage targets that cross the perimeter. 8 second duration. Cooldown reduced to 20 seconds.
4. Procession of Blades: Now acts as a Whirl Finisher. Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds (tune damage to accommodate this cooldown).
5. Light’s Judgment: Beams of light spread out and follow nearby enemies after the trap is activated. Duration reduced to 6 seconds, cooldown reduced to 30 seconds.
6. Fragments of Faith: Breaks stun when setting the Trap, cooldown reduced to 35 seconds (Keep recent duration changes & adjust if necessary).
7. Dragon’s Maw: Fixed to be unblockable, creates a Fire Field at its location. 5-second duration (keep 60 second cooldown and adjust if necessary).

Traits

Major Trait Line Themes: Longbow, Virtues, Traps

Minor Traits:

Virtuous Action (Adept): Unchanged.

Hunter’s Fortification (Master): Moved from Grandmaster Major. Now only provides protection to the user (tentative change).

Defender’s Dogma (Grandmaster): Moved from Master Minor. Recharge each of your Virtues by 1 second when you successfully block an attack (1s cooldown).

Adept Traits:

1) Dulled Senses: Moved from Master Major tier. Foes that you knock back, knock down, pull, and launch are Crippled for 4 seconds. Deal 7% more damage to Crippled foes.

2) Soaring Devastation: Unchanged.

3) Piercing Light: Damaging a foe beyond 450 range will cast Test of Faith underneath of them (20s cooldown). Traps deal 10% more damage and apply 5 stacks of Bleeding for 10 seconds to nearby foes when activated.

Master Traits:

4. Heavy Light: Deflecting Shot knocks back foes within 300 range of the user (Distance: 180). Your attacks gain a damage bonus based on your distance to foes. (Damage Bonus from Range: 0-300: 3%, 300-600: 7%, 600+: 10%).

5. Bulwark: Shield of Courage is larger and lasts longer. Increase the knockback distance on foes that inflict damage to 300.

6. Dragon’s Blood (New): Apply 3 stacks of Bleeding to nearby foes for 8 seconds when you inflict Burning on a target (360 radius, 8 second cooldown). Critical hit chance is increased by 10% on Bleeding foes.

Grandmaster Traits:

7. Zealot’s March (New): Channeled skills that would root you now allow you to move at 75% of your normal speed. You ignore all other movespeed modifiers while channeling these abilities (affects True Shot, Hunter’s Ward, Ring of Warding, Empower, Zealot’s Defense, Shield of Absorption, and Signet of Courage).

8. Big Game Hunter: Foes tethered by your Spear of Justice take 10% more damage, and striking them inflicts Vulnerability for 10 seconds. You retain your Spear of Justice’s passive effect after activating it.

9. Trapper’s Resolve (New): When you set a Trap in combat, gain 1.5 seconds of Resistance and begin healing over time. When you set a Trap outside of combat, these effects apply when the Trap is activated (Tentative healing values: 5-second healing duration, 400 HP/second).

The reasoning behind these changes is in the following post.

3) Reasoning for Suggested Changes

Virtues

1. DH Virtues are meant to be activated, and they’re going to be a part of every DH build, so making sure they feel smooth and functional is essential to every player’s experience with the DH. I suggested fixes for any parts of each Virtue that felt unresponsive or awkward to use.
2. Spear of Justice needs to be more reliable to be worth activating, and the slow cast isn’t helping. Making it instant, improving its tracking, and designing a number of traits to help improve Justice’s power and consistency (e.g. Defender’s Dogma, Dragon’s Blood, Big Game Hunter) will help keep it relevant. Some changes were also aimed at making it more practical to activate Spear of Justice in condition damage builds.
3. Wings of Resolve leaves you too exposed, since the slower personal healing/cleansing was prone to getting you interrupted/killed in situations where regular Resolve would save you. Receiving your own heal and traited benefits immediately keeps this on par with regular Resolve for personal defense. The 3/4 second cast time remains because no other leap in the game is instant, so I’m not sure the game’s code is built for that. Instead, you now evade during the cast to offset the massive telegraph and prevent yourself from being sniped out of the air.
4. Giving Shield of Courage a conditional knockback synergizes with DH skills and traits and provides more position control. At the same time, removing the melee block deals with potential concerns about the DH receiving full benefits from its own skill, since there’s now an ICD and more options for counterplay.

Longbow

1. Guardians have been asking for a ground-targeted teleport for ages, but Anet’s stated in the past that Guardians aren’t meant to run from fights. My solution is a slow, telegraphed teleport via the new “Lightspeed” chain skill on Symbol of Energy. This will allow a Guardian to disengage from fights, but not immediately, and opposing PvP’ers will know exactly where we’re heading in advance. Alternatively, it can be used to engage from afar and bring the Guardian back into range for supporting allies with Virtues, Shouts, etc. This solves two problems simultaneously without making Judge’s Intervention obsolete.
2. More consistent control options on the Longbow are also critical to offset our poor kiting. Puncture Shot can now cripple in 1v1 situations while remaining effective in teamfights. We can control exactly when we knock opponents back with the Heavy Light trait, and since it slows down as it travels, it’s more likely to actually block projectiles. Hunter’s Ward is more practical to use with its reduced channel time and the Zealot’s March trait, though it trades some damage and 1 second of duration to keep things reasonable.
3. Lots of DH players dislike the frequent roots on the Longbow skills. Zealot’s March allows us to move when using self-rooting skills (also improving many weapons besides Longbow), but these skills still come at some cost. You also can use the effect strategically to help reduce the impact of Cripple and Chill on you, so it’s not all bad, but Swiftness and other speed boosts can’t offset the drawback. On an aesthetic note, I feel like the slowdown will help preserve some of the “dramatic” feel these abilities have while channeling.

Traps

1. Traps are inconsistent utilities that need consistent sustain and some way to deal with conditions in PvP situations. Trapper’s Resolve is my attempt at a solution. The trait’s activation condition changes depending on whether or not you’re in combat, and this helps ensure that you gain the benefit from it whether or not you set up your Traps in advance. The trait’s effects all stack in duration, so the timing of the Traps’ activation is less likely to interfere with your sustain (e.g. it’s okay to set a bunch of Traps when you’re at 90% HP).
   The Resistance uptime may need to be tuned some, since you can be immune to conditions almost 30% of the time with a full bar of traps. As justifications for this uptime, the healing TR provides is somewhat slow and can leave you exposed to physical burst, you lose access to cleansing utilities for each Trap you take, and using Traps for Resistance in reaction to condi bursts may force you to set them at times/places you’d rather not. The healing each Trap provides is similar to a Meditation heal spread out over 5 seconds, though it can be combined with AH. If you go that route, though, you’re giving up Shout utilities, which will reduce your access to defensive boons and your actual healing from AH. Overall, I don’t think it would be out of line, and the numbers on this trait can be altered in a number of ways to adjust it for balance.
2. Piercing Light was reworked to apply Bleeding up front, since only a few traps actually hit multiple times, and opponents aren’t likely to stand in those for the full number of hits. It can also now drop Test of Faith at range to slow down kiting opponents, and between this and the other buffs to Traps/Longbow, I’m hoping that the two styles will mesh more smoothly. I’m going with the assumption that Anet doesn’t want ground-targeting to be a thing again, but that would definitely be the simpler solution if it’s on the table.
3. Purification needs to offer something to compete with Shelter, like all other Guardian heals. I’ve suggested reworking the healing mechanics to match the Ranger’s Healing Spring, making it much more reliable as an active heal. Adding a couple rounds of AoE blind to people standing in the trap gives the skill some additional damage mitigation and utility. It won’t block an infinite number of attacks in those 2 seconds like Shelter, but it can protect allies and gives you a safe-stomp option in PvP that doesn’t require canceling your heal.
4. Some Traps were changed to have better synergy and flexibility. A Whirl Finisher on Procession of Blades can give condi Trappers a boost with Fire Fields (e.g. Purging Flames, Dragon’s Maw) or provide cleansing with Light fields, while power Trap builds get a flat damage bonus on PoB. Test of Faith can now help snare opponents in your other Traps and actually does something if your opponent stays in the ring. Light’s Judgment is now more useful against stealthing and kiting foes while boosting both the power and condition damage of your other Traps. I’m not sure how these would all fare in the PvE DPS race, but I think they’d have better odds than they do currently.
5. A Trap that can break stuns is important for dedicated trap styles, and it makes most sense on Fragments of Faith.
6. I’m omitting most of the recent DPS boosts to Traps and shaving the duration boost on Dragon’s Maw in favor of combo potential, and a number of other new traits I’ve suggested will help make up the difference. Numbers can always be adjusted.

Traits

1. Longbow, Virtues, and Traps were the main themes of the new traits, but most of the traits in each lines were designed to benefit multiple playstyles. A Longbow build doesn’t necessarily have to run 1-1-1, nor does a Trapper always want to run 3-3-3.
2. New minors emphasize using the active effects of Virtues and gaining personal benefit from them. Hunter’s Fortification actually makes for a rather nice minor trait (especially since DH’s crave better defenses), and while it no longer affects allies in a small radius around you, this change can be reverted if the DH still proves underpowered. Defender’s Dogma now helps you use the DH’s fancy new Virtues more often, which makes it a better fit for the specialization overall.
3. Adept tier has a focus on soft CC to help improve the DH’s position control. It features a condensed Dulled Senses trait that’s suitable for all game modes and Soaring Resolve as a solid choice for most builds. Piercing Light can provide extra DPS for both power and condi Trap builds, but it can also be splashed into other builds that want extra damage, chasing power, and area control on a relatively low cooldown.
4. Master tier helps to improve the consistency of your damage and control. Heavy Light makes Deflecting Shot more versatile and your knockbacks more reliable. While the Longbow changes I’ve suggested help the DH to be more effective when it’s not at long range, the trait’s damage bonus also incentivizes keeping your distance when your allies don’t need you close by (though it gives you some benefit at all ranges, unlike the old Pure of Sight). Bulwark simultaneously supplements your defenses and access to knockbacks, and the increased duration now synergizes with Defender’s Dogma to improve Virtue uptime. Dragon’s Blood synergizes with Piercing Light and provides a straight DPS boost for both condition and power builds, including Trap and non-Trap styles. It combos nicely with BGH spikes.
5. Grandmaster tier offers playstyle-defining traits. The new Zealot’s March trait gives DHs the chance to finally move around while using skills like True Shot, Ring of Warding, and Zealot’s Defense. The benefits to the Longbow are especially notable, with its two rooting casts. There’s no way to offset the movespeed reduction on this trait, but it’ll also protect you from soft CC like Cripple and Chill (but not Immobilize).
   ZM’s got stiff competition from Big Game Hunter, however, which now facilitates both power and condi spikes by giving permanent passive Justice. While BGH didn’t receive much of a direct boost for power builds, the new minor traits make Justice’s active inherently more valuable, and Dragon’s Blood can combine with BGH and Radiance traits to set up a large power or condi spike for up to 6 seconds. Condition cleansing can counter most of the spike, though, and the tether is a massive telegraph that gives opponents a chance to avoid/block the incoming burst.
   Lastly, Trapper’s Resolve is mostly a PvP trait for Trap builds, though PvE Power and Condi Trappers still have good options in this tier (particularly BGH). Traps still have their effects split between two traits, but the needs of Traps vary so sharply between game modes that it seemed necessary.

4) Conclusion

I don’t expect to see these changes ever appear in-game, but I believe these sort of fixes were more in line with what the Guardian community was hoping for from the beta feedback, and I do hope that the devs are continuing to watch the forums and take note of the responses here. Feel free to comment on these suggestions below – what you like and dislike about them, what seems overpowered or underpowered, etc. I’m sure there are things I’ve overlooked, but I enjoyed designing these, and I’d love to hear what the community thinks. Thanks for reading!

I like most of these. They actually interest me in trying DH.

Gotta say, amazing in depth analysis on DH. Most of the changes I can agree with, let me list!

Spear of Justice: I’m fine with this but just like LB #1, it needs better tracking since it can be strafe-dodged.

Wings of Resolve: This would be really neat since we have no evasion skills.

Shield of Courage: I personally think this should just be a personal frontal shield that blocks all attacks but that’s just me.

Long Bow: Pretty much agree with all, especially the symbol. Long bow affords zero defensive skills and this would help.

Traps: Unfortunately I ignored only because as I’ve stated many times in other threads, you lose too much sustain when taking them so there’s almost nothing you can do to make them appealing.

Traits:

Hunter’s Fort: I like this change, it will allow Guardian’s to not have to rely completely on Virtue’s for protection access.

Defender’s Dogma: Awesome change too, this helps to utilize your class skill. I’ve said this a million times but traits that discourage you from activating your virtue’s are bad by design.

Zealot’s March: Not a huge fan of this one in particular. It’s a nice suggestion but I don’t think many would take it. Maybe add on that you can’t be CCed while channeling?

Devs need to read this! Well done OP! Also would a 1200 range leap on courage be op? I think that would be nice be I’ll settle for 900 and that symbol port you mentioned. Also about the trait themes both Dragonhunter and Tempest seem to lack this. I believe following the themes will great increase the viability of the specialization and the various traits.

Great analysis, although most of the ideas listed here aren’t breakthrough. I agree with a lot of what you posted, but some did catch my attention:

Symbol of Energy/ Lightspeed would cause some problems with the “No valid path” errors that happen. I wouldn’t expect a DH to scoot toward the symbol if the actual position of the symbol was normally unreachable (fire the symbol on a wall just above the ground in WvW, “Lightspeed”, no valid path, no teleport). Also, the arc of the symbol would interfere with desirable symbol placement, so I recommend that the symbol be placed similar to Staff 3.

Test of Faith: Pulsing cripple seems counter intuitive.

Hunter’s Fortification: Even with your proposed changes, this trait is still crap. All virtues will still have relatively high cool-downs and 3s protection won’t do anything against being focused. It’s like a worse, less versatile, version of the trait “Inspired Virtue” in Virtues.

Defender’s Dogma & Block Related Traits: I don’t know why people think that Guardian has a huge amount of blocks, as if 2 stacks of might, a burn, and -1s CD on virtues is going to make a difference. We only have VoC, Focus 5, Mace 3, “Retreat”, and Shelter. Shield 5, Sword 3, and Sanctuary don’t even function mechanically as blocks.

Dragon’s Blood: Maybe the idea got lost in transcription, but it seems to me more of a front-line trait. “Bleed nearby foes in a 360 radius”. Bleeding damage sucks, and 3 stacks isn’t going to do much.

Zealot’s March: Seems like a lot of work to successfully implement. Just seems like a quality of life improvement for PvEers who hate the immobility. It’s never been a problem that non-LB skills have roots afaik.

Big Game Hunter: Really like this one. Honestly, why can’t the passives remain after use? VoR and VoJ don’t make much a difference, and VoC’s passive effect is near RNG. >3s Time interval mechanics (Signet of Courage, VoC, etc) should just be reworked into something different.

My thoughts on your thoughts;
Virtues:
I feel like everyone complaining about this are just feeling the growing pains of going from instant cast skills to non-instant cast skills. You included. I think we’ll all have to understand that if we want instant cast virtues, we can just play normal Guardian. Dragonhunter feels different and is different. It really requires a different mindset to play it properly.

About removing Melee block from Shield of Courage. I disagree. It was advertised as doing this for a reason and is amazing for it. It will be amazing in WvW and also amazing in PvP. You’re asking them to remove one of the best things about the Dragonhunter. I think that’s a bad idea. (Conditional knockback = crippled foes are knocked back?)

If they haven’t given Wings of Resolve a longer range then, yeah they definitely should.

Skills:
I agree that traps aren’t that great in PvP but in WvW and PvE, they will shine. In PvP though, when you spoke about kiting, I just realised that traps would be great for kiting. Especially the Elite trap. It’s on a 60 second cooldown (48s with the new trait) allowing you to proc things like Krait runes and Rune of Lyssa more reliably, has a nice long CC and slow. Perfect for the class that seemingly lacks kiting skills.

The changes you suggest to traps sound good, will have to try them if they get implemented to give proper feed back.

Traits:
The current traits are bad no doubt about that. I feel the virtue traits all need to be consolidated, just like they’ve done with several other traits on other classes. But that’s just me.

Dirame.8521:

…. traps would be great for kiting. Especially the Elite trap. It’s on a 60 second cooldown (48s with the new trait) allowing you to proc things like Krait runes and Rune of Lyssa more reliably, has a nice long CC and slow. Perfect for the class that seemingly lacks kiting skills.

No…. just no! We don’t need 4.5 extra seconds of bleed durations when a 20% burn duration increase on ANY rune will output more damage. Krait Runes got a nerf in burst damage… Mad Kings will do 2x the damage and this is strictly single target! It does 3x the damage in group scenarios.

For the record, there seems to be a delay between 45(s) CD elite and runes that have a 45(s) CD.
Example: FMW will not proc the bird effect on Mad King runes 100% of the time. There seems to be a lag effect of about 5s on the timer some where.

Lyssa runes will be nice but not on an Elite that takes 1 second to cast. We’ll need to cleanse 5 conditions immediately in clutch scenarios… we can’t wait a second and risk an interrupt. We’re most definitely not going to waste a trap while doing so!

Purging Flames is a better kiting tool than any trap DH has.

• It’s a Target skill.
• Deals Instant Damage.
• Has a bigger radius to further prevent path of direction.
• Takes 2 dodges to go through it rather than 1 dodge on a trap.

When some one is chasing a DH, it’s obvious to know when and where he places the trap because he will place it under his feet. Another reason why Traps needs to be Target based.

Hey Soryu, just wanted to say thank you for putting in your time and effort to propose these changes. Some of your changes are fantastic and sorely needed! Also, you deserve a cookie. Devs should take some notes from your suggestions here

I’m a really big fan of your proposed change to Wings of Resolve:
-Yes, I absolutely agree that this skill should NOT be instant cast. Your logic for this is spot on.
-Traited effects are applied at the beginning of the leap: Eh…? Arguably yes? The idea behind this skill was to heal/affect allies in the area you leap to,whether or not this seems counterintuitive to the whole ranged support idea behind DH.
-Evade while leaping: Yes please! Very welcome addition if implemented. Regen, healing to self/5 allies, damage, immob, and 3 condis cleansed from self/allies should NOT all be thrown down the drain just because some silly mesmer was waiting for you with that daze mantra nonsense.

Some of your changes that I disagree on:

-Shield of Courage knockback: I can’t imagine the logic/physics behind this unless it involved your shield exploding in some way. Personally, I believe Shield of Courage is fine as is, but very desperately NEEDS to be instant cast for a multitude of reasons (the most concerning of which is the 4 second stunbreak).

-Access to the Resistance Boon: Guardians need access to this boon either through virtues, a decent up-time trait (think of ranger’s Protective Ward trait), or through specific skills. Having access to resistance through traps-only might be welcome for a dedicated trapper build, but it pretty much ensures that non-trap guardians (or guardians who aren’t running at least 3 traps) are going to be locked out of having a useful amount of resistance.

-Spear of Justice being Instant cast: It takes time to throw a spear. I think the velocity is fine, I never had problems hitting people with it. Cast time should be 0.25s though.

-Zealot’s March: Very interesting concept, and I’m glad that you took a chance in suggesting this. I think that this trait might make for a coding nightmare though, no? Even if it didn’t, it would have to do something else (gain a break bar after using channeled skills, gain swiftness after using channeled skills). For many DH builds, this would literally only affect Longbow #2, and Longbow #5 and honestly the roots on those skills are totally worth the pay-off. I’m going to have to disagree with you on this even being a trait.

Thanks for the responses! My time is a bit limited right now, so I’m going to do my best to reply, but I may not get to everyone right away. I’ll respond in the order that people posted, and I’ll address issues that were brought up multiple times separately. If I forget anyone, just let me know!

@Exedore: Thanks, glad to hear that you liked them!

@Arken: Thanks! It took a decent while to put together, but it was a good thought exercise, and hopefully others will find the analysis useful. When you said you ignored Traps, I’m not sure if you meant you literally skipped over everything related to Traps, but the Trapper’s Resolve GM trait was my response to their poor sustain, and I made FoF a stun break. I agree that Traps will remain a gimmick until they have a way to consistently heal the Guardian and provide some type of defense against conditions.

@Lyger: Thanks! I’m not really counting on any of these changes seeing the light of day (much as I’d like them to), but maybe if I’m lucky, my topic will catch a dev’s interest, or a forum specialist will pass some of the feedback along. The missing trait themes that you mentioned also really bothered me – when Robert Gee described them for the Reaper, everything about the specialization suddenly seemed more cohesive and purposeful, and I’d love to feel the same way about the DH traits.

@Arricson Krei: Thanks for the feedback! Breakthrough ideas weren’t actually my goal. I wanted most of my suggestions to emphasize simple efficiency, since I figured that the more complicated my suggestions, the less practical they would be to implement and the more prone they would be to balance issues. There are some exceptions, of course – the symbol teleport, Zealot’s March, Trapper’s Resolve, etc., but I tried to keep those types of suggestions to a minimum.

It’s true that there could be pathing issues with “Lightspeed” but unfortunately, that’s going to be true of any teleport until they get the game’s bugs worked out. I left the projectile-based placement of the symbol intact despite potential hangups because of how much the skill can potentially offer to Guardians in PvP and WvW. If it’s too efficient, it’s going to erase one of our profession’s intended weaknesses and overlap heavily with Judge’s Intervention. The idea was that the teleport wouldn’t be the most efficient and would give opponents some time to react, but it would offer you flexibility that you couldn’t have otherwise.

I’m not sure what you mean about pulsing Cripple being counterintuitive – would you mind explaining more? The idea with this rework was that it forces opponents to make a choice – remain crippled in the area of the Trap for its duration, or move slowly to cross the perimeter and take damage/waste a dodge when you do. Regardless of what the opponent decides, the movespeed reduction will make it easier for the DH to maneuver around them and reposition/place more traps.

I actually disagree about Hunter’s Fortification. If you take the Virtues traitline, DH Virtues recharge in roughly 20, 40, and 60 seconds. That’s up to 5 Virtue activations in the space of one minute (not counting Renewed Focus), and Inspired Virtue already gives you 5 seconds of Protection when you activate Courage. You’re not likely to be using all of your Virtues on cooldown all the time, but if you did, you could average out at over 20 seconds of Protection each minute just from these traits. Without Virtues or IV, you get about 22% Protection uptime from using Virtues on cooldown, which is still quite decent coming from a minor trait. None of this accounts for Defender’s Dogma or boon duration, which will only boost these numbers.

Dragon’s Blood isn’t incredibly powerful on its own, but it’s fairly respectable in combination with other effects. Power builds that take Radiance with Dragon’s Blood get 20% extra critical chance when they burn a target, and cleansing one condition still leaves the crit bonus from the other one intact. Bleed is also a nice cover condition that works well with Big Game Hunter, helping you maintain stacks of Burn and Vulnerability on your foes while giving you more crit chance (or just more damage in condition builds using BGH). The stacks themselves can also add onto those procced from a Sigil of Geomancy, which basically allows you to maintain 6 stacks if opponents don’t cleanse them, and if you’re using Piercing Light, you can quickly turn 3 bleeds into 8 when Traps trigger (including the trait’s built-in Test of Faith). It’s not game-changing, but it contributes something useful to a wide range of builds.

General Responses:

Zealot’s March: This one seems to be getting a lukewarm reception, which surprises me a little, considering how many people want the rooting gone from the LB skills and how long people have been asking for things like a mobile Zealot’s Defense. I can understand how only affecting skills on half of the Guardian’s weapons may not be appealing, though, so perhaps adding an effect to benefit other sets could help this one to satisfy a larger crowd. It’s also true that coding for this could be difficult, since it would require redoing certain skill animations, but it would be a significant QoL improvement for certain weapons, so I felt like it would be worth the effort (and it’d be a great excuse to get rid of the awkward Empower animation for human males). I’m open to alternatives, and I’ll look through suggestions as they come up on this thread to see what sort of things people have in mind.

Shield of Courage: The redesign on this was based on the assumption that we’re not going to get another version of Shelter/Renewed Focus on our Virtues. If the lack of personal melee blocks was indeed just a bug, then this change would be less necessary. If it was deliberate and done in the name of “balance” then this suggestion provides a more elegant alternative that has synergy with the DH’s traits and general playstyle.

I’m out of time to reply for now, but I’ll continue to work through the responses on this thread as I’m available. The feedback so far has been great, and I’m looking forward to seeing where the discussion goes!

As someone who has seen very little promise in the Dragonhunter from the beginning, I think these changes would actually do a lot of good. I still probably wouldn’t run traps, but at the very least the bow would provide more viability outside of backline zergs and the traits would be consistent. You’ve provided excellent rationale behind your proposed changes, and while the overall result still feels a little disjointed from the base class, it’s many steps closer than the mess we’ve been given.

Saiyan.1704:

Dirame.8521:

…. traps would be great for kiting. Especially the Elite trap. It’s on a 60 second cooldown (48s with the new trait) allowing you to proc things like Krait runes and Rune of Lyssa more reliably, has a nice long CC and slow. Perfect for the class that seemingly lacks kiting skills.

No…. just no! We don’t need 4.5 extra seconds of bleed durations when a 20% burn duration increase on ANY rune will output more damage. Krait Runes got a nerf in burst damage… Mad Kings will do 2x the damage and this is strictly single target! It does 3x the damage in group scenarios.

For the record, there seems to be a delay between 45(s) CD elite and runes that have a 45(s) CD.
Example: FMW will not proc the bird effect on Mad King runes 100% of the time. There seems to be a lag effect of about 5s on the timer some where.

Lyssa runes will be nice but not on an Elite that takes 1 second to cast. We’ll need to cleanse 5 conditions immediately in clutch scenarios… we can’t wait a second and risk an interrupt. We’re most definitely not going to waste a trap while doing so!

Purging Flames is a better kiting tool than any trap DH has.

• It’s a Target skill.
• Deals Instant Damage.
• Has a bigger radius to further prevent path of direction.
• Takes 2 dodges to go through it rather than 1 dodge on a trap.

When some one is chasing a DH, it’s obvious to know when and where he places the trap because he will place it under his feet. Another reason why Traps needs to be Target based.

First off, I’m talking PvP. And in PvP, it’s not always about damage output, it’s about CC, Condi covers, cleanses, blinds, etc. So if you’re also talking PvP and you’re focusing mainly on damage output when you’re talking about Krait, you’ve got it all wrong.

Second off, Purging flames isn’t an Elite so it’s not even competing with the Elite trap anyway. So you can still have it in your kit.

To be honest, you can argue against the trap all you like, but the Elite trap’s benefits are there.

Arken.3725:

Zealot’s March: Not a huge fan of this one in particular. It’s a nice suggestion but I don’t think many would take it. Maybe add on that you can’t be CCed while channeling?

Defiance/ Break Bar maybe. The LB AA should be like the mesmer AA a channeled beam so things like this never happen again

Replying to a few more!

@Dirame: Some good criticisms here. For cast times on Virtues, I’d be willing to settle for 1/4 second on Justice, but I really think that Resolve needs the evade I suggested, and Courage absolutely needs to be instant cast. WoR is different from Virtue of Resolve in that its positioning is much less flexible, since you can only heal/cleanse allies in a small radius around the area you land. You can break focus with Shelter/RF/line of sight/whatever else as you cast Virtue of Resolve, ensuring your own safety as you support your allies, but if you want to provide support with WoR, it requires you to throw yourself into groups that are already under enough pressure to warrant an emergency heal/cleanse. To make matters worse, WoR has a huge telegraph that coordinated groups in PvP/WvW can exploit, since currently, you’re defenseless during the cast. The tradeoff between WoR and VoR is set up to be that WoR can be a gap-closer with offensive properties, while VoR has a far superior effect radius that will often allow more allies to benefit. Adding unreliability as a factor against WoR tips the scale heavily toward VoR and undermines WoR’s nature as a support tool.

Courage needs to be an instant cast time because of the 4-second stun break exploit. If you want to keep the 1/4 second cast on it, you have to instead make the skill go on its full cooldown every time it’s cancelled or interrupted, and the last thing the DH needs right now are changes that makes its Virtues less player-friendly.

I gave a more detailed response on Shield of Courage above, but by “conditional knockback” I was referring to this:

If foes inside the area of the shield deal damage to another player, they are knocked back (240 distance, 1 second ICD per target).

Enemies who were knocked back could be Crippled if you took Dulled Senses, which is maybe the part that ended up being confusing.

The idea of kiting with Traps is classic to the Ranger archetype in games, but unfortunately, the current implementation doesn’t work very well. One big problem is that most of our Traps don’t actually do much to slow opponents down, especially if the opponent is paying attention and quick to cleanse/dodge/pop Stability (or just walk around it/teleport past it after they see you set it). We currently get one 6-second Cripple on Test of Faith and the pull/ward on Dragon’s Maw. I agree with you that Dragon’s Maw is a neat skill (my suggestions for changing it were pretty minimal), but these two Traps just don’t do enough to consistently keep us away from attackers. If the opponent survives them, we’re left with a few subpar Cripples against their Swiftness and gap-closers. I tried to keep these sort of difficulties in mind when suggesting changes, hence the CDR on Test of Faith and the ability to autocast it with Piercing Light.

@Arcaedus: Thanks for the kind words! For Resolve, I think my meaning may have gotten buried in my walls of text, but the idea is that your personal healing/cleansing is done at the beginning of the leap, while healing/cleansing for allies is done at the end. That way, you’re likely to survive the leap, and you can deliver healing to distant allies in need.

For the shield, I kind of envisioned it flashing or pulsing when someone attacks inside of it, but it could be anything. As mentioned above, I’m mostly suggesting this rework with the assumption that we’re not getting a personal melee block from it, which is rather frustrating. DH is designed as a less-tanky backliner, so if we’re coming up to the front to protect allies, it’d be nice to know that we’re not likely to sacrifice ourselves in doing so.

I do agree that having better access to Resistance would be lovely, but honestly, I see that as an issue that needs to be addressed more with the Guardian as a whole, rather than just the DH specialization. In the scope of this rework, Resistance exists here as something to help incentivize the use of Traps over basic Shouts or Meditations, even if that just means splashing one or two in over things like Smite Condition or an extra Shout utility.

I wouldn’t be opposed to a 1/4 second cast on Justice – it loses synergy with RF, but the cooldown isn’t that long anyways, and it might not be bad to shake RF’s grip on the Guardian’s elite slot in PvP. I do think the velocity is still a concern, though. Check out this video posted on the feedback thread the other day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3mUpxxbM1Y

Thanks again for the responses! I’ll continue replying when I have the chance.

I am not a fan of instant cast on DH virtues. Instant cast would allow you to ‘throw’ a spear in the middle of a dodge roll or while lying on your face from your armpit. 1/4 cast time would be fine, with traited bonuses at start of cast, like might retal condi cleanse etc… To sync it better with renewed focus allow traited bonuses to proc while casting without the active portion taking effect.

Thank you for writing this up. It’s very well put and well thought out. I would love to see all this come to life.

Back for another round!

@Black Box: Glad to hear you think these traits could help the specialization! I’m a little curious about what you mean more specifically with some of your comments, though. You say that you probably still wouldn’t use Traps, for instance – do you think that the loss of ground targeting is too much to compensate for, or is there something else you feel is missing from my suggestions? Also, since you mention that this version of the DH seems much improved, but still a little disjointed, is there anything else in particular you’d still try to polish?

@Noctis: A break bar would definitely be an idea, and it’d certainly be handy to have in teamfights. I’m not fully familiar with break bar mechanics yet, and honestly, I have no idea how to balance that kind of addition to the profession. I might try to do a little brainstorming later and see if I can also come up with some ideas to make the trait have a little more general appeal. Further suggestions here are welcome, of course.

For the auto-attack, I’ve seen similar ideas before and personally wouldn’t mind that sort of thing, though it would be good if the auto-attack still helped with both the DH’s positioning issues and its role as a teamfighter. I think the current version has the right pieces, and they just need to be made a little more useable (and a little more visual flair wouldn’t hurt, either).

@Mightymealworm: Cast times on Justice and Resolve seem all right to me, honestly. After reading the responses here so far, I’d agree with 1/4 second for Justice and the current 3/4 second cast for Resolve, so long as Resolve evades during the cast (reasoning for this in my previous post). Losing a free recharge on Justice during RF is a nerf, sure, but it’s easily offset by the fact that you can slightly extend RF’s invulnerability period by casting Resolve just before RF. Should you opt to take it, Big Game Hunter also reduces the impact of having Justice on cooldown. Avoiding issues with animations is another plus, so I’ll probably end up modifying my suggestion for Justice to incorporate the 1/4 second cast. I still think Courage needs to be instant, though.

@CandyHearts: You’re welcome, and thanks for the support! I’d love to keep gathering responses and refining my suggestions, since a red post over in the Tempest forums indicated that the Tempest devs (who I believe are also the DH devs) were short on time for this iteration. That’s at least partially responsible for the unsatisfying changes the DH received. Source here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Tempest-Changes-for-Next-BWE/page/2#post5391010

I’m not sure if that accounts for everything, since some dev comments on the DH were odd even with that context (Longbow generally well-received?). I’m still a little wary, but we’ll see what happens after the next beta. Hopefully the discussion here can help to clarify for the devs exactly what we’re looking for in the DH, and future iterations will go more smoothly.

Zealot’s March is the main thing I’m considering for revision now, and Justice is likely to go up to a 1/4 second cast. The other issues that people have raised with Courage, the Longbow vs. Traps, and the teleport on Symbol of Energy are still on my mind as well. Lots of the changes also haven’t even been covered in the discussion so far, so I’m curious if there’s any opinion on them.

Dirame.8521:

Saiyan.1704:

Dirame.8521:

…. traps would be great for kiting. Especially the Elite trap. It’s on a 60 second cooldown (48s with the new trait) allowing you to proc things like Krait runes and Rune of Lyssa more reliably, has a nice long CC and slow. Perfect for the class that seemingly lacks kiting skills.

No…. just no! We don’t need 4.5 extra seconds of bleed durations when a 20% burn duration increase on ANY rune will output more damage. Krait Runes got a nerf in burst damage… Mad Kings will do 2x the damage and this is strictly single target! It does 3x the damage in group scenarios.

For the record, there seems to be a delay between 45(s) CD elite and runes that have a 45(s) CD.
Example: FMW will not proc the bird effect on Mad King runes 100% of the time. There seems to be a lag effect of about 5s on the timer some where.

Lyssa runes will be nice but not on an Elite that takes 1 second to cast. We’ll need to cleanse 5 conditions immediately in clutch scenarios… we can’t wait a second and risk an interrupt. We’re most definitely not going to waste a trap while doing so!

Purging Flames is a better kiting tool than any trap DH has.

• It’s a Target skill.
• Deals Instant Damage.
• Has a bigger radius to further prevent path of direction.
• Takes 2 dodges to go through it rather than 1 dodge on a trap.

When some one is chasing a DH, it’s obvious to know when and where he places the trap because he will place it under his feet. Another reason why Traps needs to be Target based.

it’s not always about damage output, it’s about CC, Condi covers, cleanses, blinds, etc. So if you’re also talking PvP and you’re focusing mainly on damage output when you’re talking about Krait, you’ve got it all wrong.

Second off, Purging flames isn’t an Elite so it’s not even competing with the Elite trap anyway. So you can still have it in your kit.

To be honest, you can argue against the trap all you like, but the Elite trap’s benefits are there.

Not sure what you think Krait runes will offer but I guarantee you it’s not going to out perform Balthazar Runes, or even Mad King runes for that matter.

I was not opposing the trap Elite, it was in regards to Lyssa runes being used with the elite. It’s not going to work.
If you need to set up the Elite trap for any reason, you just lost a rune and will be vulnerable to condis for 45(s). Need to cleanse 5 conditions? It’s not going to be immediate thanks to the trap’s 1s cast time. You’ll also be forced to place a trap there but that’s not as detrimental as its cast time.

You said traps are good kiting utilities… I was saying they were not based on the reasons why Purging Flames is. Let me reword my previous post.

• Traps are not a targeting cast skill
• Traps do not deals instant damage.
• Traps have an incredibly small radius to further cover any path of direction.
• Traps take a single dodges to completely prevent damages.

They make for very poor kiting utilities. Saying otherwise tells me you’ve never played a trap DH build in beta or you’ve went up against noobies whove walked in every trap and stayed in it… even after they saw you drop it.

Soryuju.8164:

Back for another round!

@Black Box: Glad to hear you think these traits could help the specialization! I’m a little curious about what you mean more specifically with some of your comments, though. You say that you probably still wouldn’t use Traps, for instance – do you think that the loss of ground targeting is too much to compensate for, or is there something else you feel is missing from my suggestions? Also, since you mention that this version of the DH seems much improved, but still a little disjointed, is there anything else in particular you’d still try to polish?

Traps, just by their inherent design, are poor utilities. Back when they were ground targeted and could activate under someone’s feet instantly they were decent at least, but apparently that wasn’t “traplike” enough. This game is just too fast-paced for a preparation-based skill set to be useful over skills that can actually be used in the heat of battle. Setting a trap costs you valuable time that could be spent doing something with a more immediate payoff, and even when the trap activates a player can simply dodge out of the AoE (or better yet, just not step over it at all) and in doing so entirely neutralize the threat it poses. I quite literally would have taken any other existing utility set over traps, because they’re just bad, bad, bad in this game. Another classic example of Anet trying really hard to make something work when it should be rather clear that it’s not going to work.

As for being disjointed, there’s not really much that can be done about that without scrapping the spec entirely. It’s an extension of the ranger with a slight light magic theme. Furthermore, the longbow, traps, and traits all have little to no synergy with the base class, and nothing short of rebuilding from the ground up is going to solve that. The dev team behind the Dragonhunter just did a terrible job, plain and simple, and although your proposed changes are definitely a step in the right direction, it’s unfortunately still not enough to salvage it IMO.

Giving my support to this well written post.

Have a cookie and a glass of chocolate milk on me.

What if LB3 made one evade backward about 600 units. The entire skill would be similar to Ranger SB3, but the evade bit would be exactly like Ele Staff Fire 4.

Also, I think Signet of Judgement would make a great skill to inherit a blink (say 900 units).

• Signet builds neither aren’t nor wouldn’t be good post-patch.
• It has a decent recharge rate.
• Passive works with all specs and the current Active is not wholly defensive or offensive.
• The stunbreak functionality would pair well with a blink.

Reasons why I picked Signet of Judgement:

• Medis are in a good spot, making Merciful Intervention a ground targeted blink would only further Medis in effectiveness.
• A spirit weapon blink would probably be gimmicky and spirit weapons suck in general.
• Shouts don’t seem feasible to have a blink.
• The only two consecrations that are really lacking (Sanctuary and Hallowed Ground) already have niche effects and very long cd’s, so that doesn’t seem reasonable.

If you’re going to argue this post, please keep it about what skill the blink should go on, and not about “Reasons why I picked Signet of Judgement”.

Great analysis and suggestions. The more and more new specializations and info on HoT in general is released, I fear for the not only the DH but the whole guardian, and this saddens me. I feel like guardians don’t have a rich personality or representation anymore.