Guild Wars 2

I’ve been looking over the new Guardian traits for a while for theory-crafting some builds. While I’m not very excited for a lot of what Dragonhunter has to offer, I do like how the traits are laid out… mostly.

Each trait choice feels really heavy toward builds, which can be a good thing. Each of the adept-tier traits heavily change the way you approach your build. While the master-tier and grandmaster-tier are similar, I (personally) see two problem traits: Hunter’s Determination and Hunter’s Fortification. The latter, Hunter’s Fortification, has already been mentioned by the developers as being redundant with other traits (Virtues’ first trait adds Protection on Virtue of Courage). I don’t personally have a suggestion for it.

Needless to say, Hunter’s Determination is my concern. Guardians already have access to a Longbow trait, Heavy Light. We’ve already seen traits merged together before, and even more will be merged when the specializations update arrives. Hunter’s Determination is not only a Longbow trait, but a very specific Longbow trait useful only with a single ability in only a handful of situations (usually dealing with groups of enemies/players).

• True Shot grants Stability for each enemy struck. (presumably up to 5 targets)

I propose a somewhat simple suggestion:

• Spear of Justice grants Stability for each enemy struck.

Spear of Justice, like True Shot, is a piercing attack only hitting (again, presumably) up to 5 enemies in a line. Yes, players will have what is essentially four times the cooldown in comparison(observed to be 16.25 seconds… why?), but it be used with any weapon including Longbow. It also plays a similar role of the Virtues tree offering empowerment to a single Virtue by sacrificing empowering a different Virtue (see: Permeating Wrath/Battle Presence/Indomitable Courage).

Viralseed.9362:

I’ve been looking over the new Guardian traits for a while for theory-crafting some builds. While I’m not very excited for a lot of what Dragonhunter has to offer, I do like how the traits are laid out… mostly.

Each trait choice feels really heavy toward builds, which can be a good thing. Each of the adept-tier traits heavily change the way you approach your build. While the master-tier and grandmaster-tier are similar, I (personally) see two problem traits: Hunter’s Determination and Hunter’s Fortification. The latter, Hunter’s Fortification, has already been mentioned by the developers as being redundant with other traits (Virtues’ first trait adds Protection on Virtue of Courage). I don’t personally have a suggestion for it.

Needless to say, Hunter’s Determination is my concern. Guardians already have access to a Longbow trait, Heavy Light. We’ve already seen traits merged together before, and even more will be merged when the specializations update arrives. Hunter’s Determination is not only a Longbow trait, but a very specific Longbow trait useful only with a single ability in only a handful of situations (usually dealing with groups of enemies/players).

• True Shot grants Stability for each enemy struck. (presumably up to 5 targets)

I propose a somewhat simple suggestion:

• Spear of Justice grants Stability for each enemy struck.

Spear of Justice, like True Shot, is a piercing attack only hitting (again, presumably) up to 5 enemies in a line. Yes, players will have what is essentially four times the cooldown in comparison(observed to be 16.25 seconds… why?), but it be used with any weapon including Longbow. It also plays a similar role of the Virtues tree offering empowerment to a single Virtue by sacrificing empowering a different Virtue (see: Permeating Wrath/Battle Presence/Indomitable Courage).

In PVE, your F1 is refreshed instantly anytime you kill a foe, so basically you’d have infinite stability if they change to your proposed version.

VoJ’s trait in the DH line is Big Game Hunter, so you’d be doubling up on traits for VoJ compared to others, and put it at contention with the VoC trait. Stab on True Shot is a lot more attractive, as you can almost keep it up indefinitely just through true shot. Much better than less than 1/4 uptime imo. I do see your point about doubling down on Longbow traits, but I’m not really sure what to change about Heavy Light that would make it more general.

As for Hunter’s Fortification, I also don’t know what exactly to turn that trait into. I don’t really see a missing piece that needs to be hit, so the trait is more of a luxury selection (which generally makes them harder to brainstorm for). However, I have had the idea to split the “on virtue activation” and add it to Piercing Light, allowing virtue activation to remove ~5s from trap recharge.

Toxsa.2701:

In PVE, your F1 is refreshed instantly anytime you kill a foe, so basically you’d have infinite stability if they change to your proposed version.

I had completely forgot about Renewed Justice. Truthfully, I can’t recall any situation where you would be killing mobs rapidly and need Stability to do so. I believe there could be issues. A short, internal cooldown (around 5 seconds) could prevent this.

Ghotistyx.6942:

VoJ’s trait in the DH line is Big Game Hunter, so you’d be doubling up on traits for VoJ compared to others, and put it at contention with the VoC trait.

After reviewing the traits, yes, I do see the issue here. You could potentially take the Wings of Resolve, Shield of Courage, and Spear of Justice traits buffing your Virtues exclusively. Combined with the Virtues specialization, this could prove very potent.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Stab on True Shot is a lot more attractive, as you can almost keep it up indefinitely just through true shot. Much better than less than 1/4 uptime imo.

Having near-permanent Stability would be a huge issue, especially since each enemy adds a stack. Without any Boon Duration, a Dragonhunter could maintain Stability 63% of the time (cooldown + casting time) assuming the targets do not evade or block the attack. As Toxsa mentioned, even Stability on Spear of Justice could create problems with Renewed Justice having near-permanent Stability as well. An internal cooldown could deny either from having permanence. Besides, with the changes to runes (and Vigor-related traits), ArenaNet somewhat denied Guardians from having permanent upkeep for a number of Boons without heavily building for it.

Viralseed.9362:

Toxsa.2701:

In PVE, your F1 is refreshed instantly anytime you kill a foe, so basically you’d have infinite stability if they change to your proposed version.

I had completely forgot about Renewed Justice. Truthfully, I can’t recall any situation where you would be killing mobs rapidly and need Stability to do so. I believe there could be issues. A short, internal cooldown (around 5 seconds) could prevent this.

Some stages of FOTM and Aetherblade have the exact situation like these.
For example, dredges path, aetherblade path, Colosus path, molten faculty, Lava path.
Basically most fotm/ dungeon situation where there’re alot of mobs that do immense CC and quite powerful at the same time.

Toxsa.2701:

Viralseed.9362:

Toxsa.2701:

In PVE, your F1 is refreshed instantly anytime you kill a foe, so basically you’d have infinite stability if they change to your proposed version.

I had completely forgot about Renewed Justice. Truthfully, I can’t recall any situation where you would be killing mobs rapidly and need Stability to do so. I believe there could be issues. A short, internal cooldown (around 5 seconds) could prevent this.

Some stages of FOTM and Aetherblade have the exact situation like these.
For example, dredges path, aetherblade path, Colosus path, molten faculty, Lava path.
Basically most fotm/ dungeon situation where there’re alot of mobs that do immense CC and quite powerful at the same time.

And that’s because we still don’t know what kind of mobs HoT will bring. Anet said it will reflect the very traits that each class receives when they uncover them.

Toxsa.2701:

Some stages of FOTM and Aetherblade have the exact situation like these.
For example, dredges path, aetherblade path, Colosus path, molten faculty, Lava path.
Basically most fotm/ dungeon situation where there’re alot of mobs that do immense CC and quite powerful at the same time.

Fair enough. I still believe an internal cooldown could be used to prevent Stability spam through Renewed Justice but still allow weapons other than the Longbow to be used. It would come down to whether or not ArenaNet wants to have two Spear of Justice traits while other Virtues only have one.

Eh when it comes to the DH longbow & traits I think they should do the following.

Puncture Shot, Split it into a 2 hit attack with each hit doing 55-60% of the current single hit’s damage.
(Would result in faster VOJ triggers & more crit chances)

Deflecting Shot, slow down the speed of the projectile by about 25-30%, make it wider (say 180 units across) & make it knock back at base.
(would make it avoidable if your good, would also make it better vs projectiles)

Symbol of Energy, Change it to a ranged symbol of wrath (make the 2 second burn per pulse a base effect for all symbols)
(Vigor at the cost of standing still is kinda useless, retaliation however; is not)

As for the traits

Piercing Light, Make it effect symbols as well but lower the duration of the bleed to 4-5 seconds.
(better for condition builds, symbol weapons are not high on mobility however so that balances it out)

Hunters Ward, Lower the ring duration to 3-4 seconds but lower the CD to 30-35 seconds.
(the extreme CD of 60 seconds is way to long, lowering the CD but also the ward balances it)

Dulled Senses, Change it completely.
Rename it “Seared Tendons”, Make it cripple foes that you burn (3-4 second cripple with a 10-12 second Cd per target)
(makes it better any way you look at it)

Heavy Light, Change it so that it reduces the CD of traps by 25-30% and causes each trap to grant nearby allies a boon (specific to the trap) when triggered.
(helps make traps viable for PvP where they will likely not be vs meditations/shouts)

Hunters Fortification, change it to apply weakness to nearby enemies (4 seconds, 240 radius) when you activate a virtue.
(As is it’s like inspired virtue but better. This gives it an offensive theme but still lets it reduce incoming damage)

That would be broken in wvw. Do you know how often people die refreshing VoJ in a zerg vs zerg? Guards would have permananent stability

Toxsa.2701:

In PVE, your F1 is refreshed instantly anytime you kill a foe, so basically you’d have infinite stability if they change to your proposed version.

True shot has a CD of 4 seconds. the trait gives you 3 sec of stability so if you can hit up to 5 enemies with it thats 15 sec of stability.

So unless there is an internal cooldown you can already get permanent stability with the trait.

rajule.8054:

Toxsa.2701:

In PVE, your F1 is refreshed instantly anytime you kill a foe, so basically you’d have infinite stability if they change to your proposed version.

True shot has a CD of 4 seconds. the trait gives you 3 sec of stability so if you can hit up to 5 enemies with it thats 15 sec of stability.

So unless there is an internal cooldown you can already get permanent stability with the trait.

Stability does not stack in duration anymore.