Guild Wars 2

I would especially love feedback from esl players who still post around here.

What i’ve gathered is that:

1. it doesn’t have enough mobility

2. as a function of #1, it’s defensive cooldowns can be exhausted quickly without an option to disengage effectively, such as stealth or superspeed.

3. it could possibly be best at bunking but the meta isn’t set for bunking points right now, leaving it no other role to fill that isn’t already filled by something better (far point: mes, rezzer: engi, rng, healer: ele, dps: rev, necro, +1 roamer: rev, point bruiser: rng)

And depending on why you think dh isn’t competitive at higher skill levels of pvp, what would you change to make it more competitive?

Kuya.6495:

I would especially love feedback from esl players who still post around here.

What i’ve gathered is that:

1. it doesn’t have enough mobility

2. as a function of #1, it’s defensive cooldowns can be exhausted quickly without an option to disengage effectively, such as stealth or superspeed.

3. it could possibly be best at bunking but the meta isn’t set for bunking points right now, leaving it no other role to fill that isn’t already filled by something better (far point: mes, rezzer: engi, rng, healer: ele, dps: rev, necro, +1 roamer: rev, point bruiser: rng)

And depending on why you think dh isn’t competitive at higher skill levels of pvp, what would you change to make it more competitive?

I’d like to know too, because….

1. Mobility is an issue but it’s not the least mobile class out there (it’s actually pretty close to the middle of the totem pole).

2. This is true in a team setting. If 3 people focus a DH, s/he WILL go down in about 20 seconds. In a 1v1 or 2v2 though, the DH can last a very long time, mostly because of how OP purification is, meanwhile dishing out decent burst damage and cc.

3. It’s one of the best in terms of raw 1v1 potential. True, it is soft-countered by certain builds like shout-trooper druids, but in a 2v2 and up, a DH has a slight advantage (more aoe cc and boons) imo.

While it’s arguably supersceded by at least one build in every important aspect, I’d say DH currently has a good distribution of strengths that should make it playable at the esl level by any player who is passionate enough and likes playing guard.

I’m guessing the bad spot that it has been in historically combined with the fact that it likely won’t maintain its current level of power after the next patch is why esl players don’t touch it as much.

To many trade offs compared with some classes.

low health guard, means it is build for damage output, if a players know how to countger DH f3 and its traps, DH cant do much and will lok like a ragdoll, plus this game is to much aoe spam based wich is one of the DH f3 weaknesses.

If we want toughness (sturdiness). that is not good for this class, defense of DH comes from active blocks and dodges, while healing power is a joke and any healing power we invest we are killing the build.. due damage ouput of other classes.
ANd the most reason it is wrong to play on defense is that gw2 is designed for Offense > defense.

If we want vitality, we wont have the damage ouput that other classes have, in terms of surviability we dont gain much either.
DH still rellies in 2 traps to actually hit hard on target.

Guardian DH, have a stats\skill quoficients issue, we sacficice alot for good damage, and we sacrifice damage for barelly hold 2 hits, other classes can still hit hard even if they were on bunker specs while DH/guardian cant.

A few key points that makes DH unpopular in ESL:

Map advantages (not counting the new Coliseum)
DH performs a bit worse in Foefire’s large mid compared to other classes in the meta. We don’t AoE as well as Necro’s and we definitely don’t sustain as well as Engi, Ranger, Ele, Rev in mid.

Players don’t main the class
Alot of players simply don’t main DH. I’ve only ever known Naru, Booms, & Tage main DH in the ESL. Even when Ham builds were meta, esl players didn’t just hop on the bandwagon. The only other player I see using DH is maybe Wakkey buy he hasn’t compete with it yet.

The safe composition
Necro + Engi + Ele is a combo set that’s more favorable. As long as Necro is kept alive, that’s really all the dps & cc you’ll need while also keeping heavy sustains on point.

Lastly, one trick poney playstyles
In spite what the forum SoloQ players are saying, DH has to really play carefully. A poor timed F1 throw and/or ToF means you just lost 1/4 of your cc and dps. If Purification triggers a micro second late (like it always does) then we’ll go down before receiving the heal proc. Repeat the poor dps combo execution after using Renewed focus means we practically lost half our cc and bursts and have maybe 10 seconds to live if we’re lucky.

All honestly, DH can work if players are on the right comp with the right build. With 1-handers (specifically sword #3) I’ve been able to pressure Rev first before he pressured me on point, forcing him to pop defensive cds early. The advantage we have is judges+burst abilities but once they figure you out, it becomes a mind game.

What would you change in order to make dh more viable for esl, saiyan? Particularly, i presume you’d want to address the one trick pony problem.

Or perhaps you don’t think dh needs a change and its current predicament is just a consequence of the current meta? Meaning, that without intervention from anet, the meta will eventually change into something that utilizes dh and its strengths?

If that’s what you meant, perhaps we can elaborate on what the strengths of dh are and what exclusive or special qualities they can contribute to a team at esl? If we know what its strengths are, maybe we can predict what meta favors it.

2.8.2. Roster requirements: each team must have five unique professions represented on their roster during any given pro league match.

This is why. ESL Does not allow you to run with more that one DH, meaning the DH cannot take advantage of their synergy with one another.

m00’bs perspective on the topic:

The main issue with guard at top level is that it can’t kill bunkers (druid engi ele retri rev). A rule of thumb for guard is the longer the fight takes the worse it is for the guard. This forces the guard to take a matchup that is fighting a dps (invo rev mes necro thief) in order to have any good targets. Taking the current meta comp from worlds (ele rev mes druid necro), if guard + support was vs ele + anything but mes, it’s a bad matchup. That’s because ele can force fights to last too long that makes guard use its cds and is not able to kill anything quick enough. The only way to counter this is by putting the guard with another high dps class that can mostly take care of itself, aka invo rev. What that allows is the guard to provide basic support, CC, and damage while the rev goes ham vs anything. Fights are always short with another high DPS basically making it a good matchup. The problem with this is it forces either 1) both sustain to be together or 2) other fights don’t have enough damage to kill anything resulting in either stalemates or eventually losses. 90% of the time in high tier pvp you don’t want the two sustain together. It’s especially bad in the current meta since you can’t force 3 node games due to portals. Furthermore if you were going to group the invo rev and DH together it forces your team to basically RELY on that matchup to be won. We did this during worlds and we won our initial matchups until Denial decided to just let ROM run away from our 2v1 and not equalize with rotations. So basically when ROM saw rev+DH he just kited until one of them left, because the guard doesn’t have enough pressure to quickly kill something off node (or ever tbh). Since that was neutralized the only other way to use guard was to teamfight it with invo rev, support and necro or mes. Our comp had a thief for stupid reasons so we couldn’t test that, but I assume that it would actually work.

TBH the reason you don’t see guard in ESL games is because players don’t know how to properly manage cds throughout the dozens of situations that you might face in PVP. I do think its viable but nobody knows that because I’m on a not-so-good team with a not-so-good comp. Maybe one day I’ll convince people its worth running but we’ll see.

-m00’bs

Kuya.6495:

What would you change in order to make dh more viable for esl, saiyan? Particularly, i presume you’d want to address the one trick pony problem.

Or perhaps you don’t think dh needs a change and its current predicament is just a consequence of the current meta? Meaning, that without intervention from anet, the meta will eventually change into something that utilizes dh and its strengths?

If that’s what you meant, perhaps we can elaborate on what the strengths of dh are and what exclusive or special qualities they can contribute to a team at esl? If we know what its strengths are, maybe we can predict what meta favors it.

That’s difficult for me to answer and I don’t want to pretend to know it. What’s certain is that the degree of complaints on DH that was brought up this season were hardly issues in previous seasons… but that’s a different soloq vs esl discussion.

As for ESl, these are My Opinions

I would not have picked a thief in the team composition Booms was in. Thieves are in a bad spot and are hard to make work in general.

I think 1-handers is more optimized for DH over Longbow. Longbow is too slugish and can get countered easily by pressured cc bursts. You can utilize LB#3 knockback on downs or stomp preventions, the Virtues treeline support traits is picked over Honor, and the LB#3 combo with ToF is dangerous but you wont pull off the combo 100% of the time (I didn’t see a single DH pull it off in the ESL).

• I prefer 1-handers with Virtues instead of Honor because you’ll gain the same support while remain more resilient without sacrificing damages. Everything else can be accomplished the same, if not better, than LB. The biggest drawback with 1-handers is Foefire’s Middle, the Symbol DH can’t keep up with other class’s mobility.

I feel DH viability is untapped; the meta hasn’t been found partly due to a whole lot of players don’t main the class. Now we’ll have to see exactly what Anet plans are in the coming patch notes.

So why would you bring a DH over a plain Guardian?

The base profession has seen steady improvements in several of its weapons, and seemingly the longbow just doesn’t work in skilled play, so why take it at all?

What does a DH bring for group play, control, and damage?

Does another class do it better?
——-

The thing with meta comps in any game is finding out what works optimally. A big caveat to that is a meta comp will not guarantee a win; it just shows that when played correctly with minimal mistakes, you will have a high probability of winning.

GW2 is no different but with any other game, you can win with different comps. Your threshold for mistakes is much lower and requires kitten near perfect play. Time, effort, and energy – is a team willing to expend a lot of those three areas more so than running a meta comp? With money on the line, not entirely.

Nike.2631:

So why would you bring a DH over a plain Guardian?

The base profession has seen steady improvements in several of its weapons, and seemingly the longbow just doesn’t work in skilled play, so why take it at all?

Because LB does not make a DH. It’s the improved Virtues that make DH miles better than the base guardian, as well as the DH traits. How well does Shield of Courage synergize with Hunter’s Fortification?

Traps bring interrupts, and Spear of Justice brings inherent CC. DH just synergizes so well with base guardian.

So the impression i’m getting from -m00’bs and saiyan is that dh is actually competitive for esl as a dps class but it requires the correct comp to make it work.

What would be the ideal comp for a dps dh in esl? Invo rev, mes, ele, necro, druid?

Also, kitten, do you agree with saiyan that scepter/sword might be better than sword/lb? I know you ran lb in wts, but i wanted to know if that matchup changed your opinion.

I am pretty sure that, at esl level, the class suffers from the very same problems that warrior suffers from. It’s damage is very easy to counterplay, while its defensive cool downs are (too) high and the mobility (especially to disengage) is low.

Guardian was designed to perform as a bunker at PvP in the vanilla game.
Along the time his perform as bunker was highly decreased due overbuff of another classes while Guardian did remain mostly the same.
After the expansion the Guardian has 0 use as bunker, and his best build (meditrapper DH) is a dps one. And guess what: is far from being the best at that role.

Yannir.4132:

Because LB does not make a DH. It’s the improved Virtues that make DH miles better than the base guardian

Oh, that is FUN-NY, in light of the endless wailing and gnashing of teeth when we were tuning the spec pre-HOT and people could not shut up about how weak they were because of the cast time. Now people can’t live without them.

as well as the DH traits. How well does Shield of Courage synergize with Hunter’s Fortification?

Traps bring interrupts, and Spear of Justice brings inherent CC. DH just synergizes so well with base guardian.

So well the class has all but vanished from high tier competitive play. After having spent years as a solid presence.

Buran.3796:

Guardian was designed to perform as a bunker at PvP in the vanilla game.
Along the time his perform as bunker was highly decreased due overbuff of another classes while Guardian did remain mostly the same.

As I mentioned, even base Guardian has gotten better with adjustments to the weapons that have been sought after for years. But lagging behind is lagging behind and hopefully can be seen in the metrics on a scale that will motivate the Devs to act.

After the expansion the Guardian has 0 use as bunker, and his best build (meditrapper DH) is a dps one. And guess what: is far from being the best at that role.

Now this makes a certain amount of sense to me. Which suggests what we might have more luck agitating for a return of the relevance of the Guardian Bunker. With the hope that if the base profession is healthy, the variants like DH become more sound too. Less “oh we needz moar DPS” and more “We needs better sustain in the new Wild West shootout environment.”

Which again makes perfect sense when you have a low health-pool, innate regen class. The shorter time to kill gets for everybody, the less that regen mechanic gets to contribute and regen classes (any regen class) spirals down faster than its peers.

Nike.2631:

Yannir.4132:

After the expansion the Guardian has 0 use as bunker, and his best build (meditrapper DH) is a dps one. And guess what: is far from being the best at that role.

Now this makes a certain amount of sense to me. Which suggests what we might have more luck agitating for a return of the relevance of the Guardian Bunker. With the hope that if the base profession is healthy, the variants like DH become more sound too. Less “oh we needz moar DPS” and more “We needs better sustain in the new Wild West shootout environment.”

Which again makes perfect sense when you have a low health-pool, innate regen class. The shorter time to kill gets for everybody, the less that regen mechanic gets to contribute and regen classes (any regen class) spirals down faster than its peers.

Sure we had bunker guard in meta for a time but dps zerker medi lasted for quite a while.

I absolutely agree that DH was the initial “support” class but evolution was around the corner and changes were inevitable. We’re no longer that class type but a “Guard” slash “hunter” instead (in spite heavy criticism for each).

the root of the issue is that DH due to its innate design as a low skill floor spec, has very few high skill ceiling complex mechanical features that allows for highly skilled players to shine.

the things an elite tier thief or mesmer can pull off, your average thief/mesmer has NO CHANCE of pulling off, just by the inherent reaction time and situational awareness required to land the interrupts/combos etc.

most of the things that an elite DH can pull off, your average run of the mill DH can do too, the only difference comes from experience in reading the situation, cooldown management etc

Darknicrofia.2604:

the root of the issue is that DH due to its innate design as a low skill floor spec, has very few high skill ceiling complex mechanical features that allows for highly skilled players to shine.

the things an elite tier thief or mesmer can pull off, your average thief/mesmer has NO CHANCE of pulling off, just by the inherent reaction time and situational awareness required to land the interrupts/combos etc.

most of the things that an elite DH can pull off, your average run of the mill DH can do too, the only difference comes from experience in reading the situation, cooldown management etc

You make a good point here, but couldn’t you replace DH with another class and have that statement still hold true? It’s not always about skill ceiling that makes a class ESL.

Exactly. Necro and ele is pretty straight forward in esl and yet they are still meta there.

Readding the situation and cd management has a massive skill difference regarding top level play imo

Saiyan.1704:

Nike.2631:

Yannir.4132:

After the expansion the Guardian has 0 use as bunker, and his best build (meditrapper DH) is a dps one. And guess what: is far from being the best at that role.

Now this makes a certain amount of sense to me. Which suggests what we might have more luck agitating for a return of the relevance of the Guardian Bunker. With the hope that if the base profession is healthy, the variants like DH become more sound too. Less “oh we needz moar DPS” and more “We needs better sustain in the new Wild West shootout environment.”

Which again makes perfect sense when you have a low health-pool, innate regen class. The shorter time to kill gets for everybody, the less that regen mechanic gets to contribute and regen classes (any regen class) spirals down faster than its peers.

Sure we had bunker guard in meta for a time but dps zerker medi lasted for quite a while.

I absolutely agree that DH was the initial “support” class but evolution was around the corner and changes were inevitable. We’re no longer that class type but a “Guard” slash “hunter” instead (in spite heavy criticism for each).

Please watch your quotes, I never said that.

Contrary to some peoples popular belief DH damage isn’t particularly good and top level players know how to avoid it. The class is slow and contrary to the complaints about all the blocks and invulnerabilities the sustain is not particularly good either. Easily avoidable damage and mediocre sustain and no mobility equals not wanted. Also, you can’t stack classes in pro league DH become problematic when there are multiple covering an area with traps.

Guardian is going to need other classes to get knocked out of the Meta before you can take one.
You have your 4 core classes atm
necro rev(ele/engi)Druid
That leaves only one spot left which is usually taken by a Mesmer with some wiggle room for thief

If Mesmer gets forced out than maybe guardians could see some play,but for now it’s no where near optimal.

Kuya.6495:

I would especially love feedback from esl players who still post around here.

What i’ve gathered is that:

1. it doesn’t have enough mobility

2. as a function of #1, it’s defensive cooldowns can be exhausted quickly without an option to disengage effectively, such as stealth or superspeed.

3. it could possibly be best at bunking but the meta isn’t set for bunking points right now, leaving it no other role to fill that isn’t already filled by something better (far point: mes, rezzer: engi, rng, healer: ele, dps: rev, necro, +1 roamer: rev, point bruiser: rng)

And depending on why you think dh isn’t competitive at higher skill levels of pvp, what would you change to make it more competitive?

I know people like to over-analyze why a class isn’t in the meta but let me point out to you that the Necro has no mobility, it has no disengage, dies quite often and yet is taken in most teams now because it can do 1-thing really well…. strip boons and apply condis.

So let’s look at what the Guardian does really well and let’s see if we can guess why it’s not taken by the competitive teams.

- Guardian/DH has good in-combat mobility;
A leap you practically always have (Wings of Resolve), 2 teleports if you use sword and Judges.

- Guardian/DH can really put the hurt on a point
Hammer, Greatsword, traps, symbols. Guardians are a powerhouse for using your ignorance against you or setting you up to be dead in a few seconds.

- Guardian/DH can consume A LOT of conditions for their team
Save Yourselves + Wings of Resolve. What’s that you say? Necro will corrupt my Save Yourselves? Well, I still got condi removal on block sooo….. say that one more time while I do a little dance.

- Guardians/DH can be Bruisers
Hammer, Sword-Focus, Scepter-Shield, Wings of Resolve, Trap heal, Merciful Intervention, Test of Faith, Procession of Blades etc etc. They’ve got so many ways to heal, so many ways to deal damage you never intended to take, so many ways to survive burst that you can say the DH can be a Bruiser.

So… with all these things in one class…. why isn’t he used in high level matches? It’s simply because, no one has found a good use for it yet and also because, no team has outright trashed anyone whilst using a DH. When they do, you will see teams using it.

The problem is that hitting a relevant amount of melee attacks is hard,when you have base movement speed or 25% ims while everyone else has perma swiftness. Yes, even with 2 ports and a leap.
As a bruiser it is worse than druid, scrapper, rev.
Asa roamer it is worse than rev, thief, mes.
As a team fight support its worse than ele.
As an offensive team fighter it is worse than reaper.
At rezzing it is worse than scrapper, druid.
At filling multiple roles, it is worse than rev, druid.

Dirame.8521:

So… with all these things in one class…. why isn’t he used in high level matches? It’s simply because, no one has found a good use for it yet and also because, no team has outright trashed anyone whilst using a DH. When they do, you will see teams using it.

Nearly every team will be running DH after the next tournament for this reaosn.

ThatNAESLGuard.6238:

Dirame.8521:

So… with all these things in one class…. why isn’t he used in high level matches? It’s simply because, no one has found a good use for it yet and also because, no team has outright trashed anyone whilst using a DH. When they do, you will see teams using it.

Nearly every team will be running DH after the next tournament for this reaosn.

Not true, even if you get that “special comp”, utilizing a DH. Some people simply don’t main the class, it’s half the reason why Ele is used so often – players made it their “mains” when Ele was OP for a year and a half, so it’s their default comp.

That said, teams will slowly hop on the bandwagon if there’s indeed a viable comp (I believe there is) when DH is finally utilized correctly. It just wont happen as quickly as you think it would.

Saiyan.1704:

ThatNAESLGuard.6238:

Dirame.8521:

So… with all these things in one class…. why isn’t he used in high level matches? It’s simply because, no one has found a good use for it yet and also because, no team has outright trashed anyone whilst using a DH. When they do, you will see teams using it.

Nearly every team will be running DH after the next tournament for this reaosn.

Not true, even if you get that “special comp”, utilizing a DH. Some people simply don’t main the class, it’s half the reason why Ele is used so often – players made it their “mains” when Ele was OP for a year and a half, so it’s their default comp.

That said, teams will slowly hop on the bandwagon if there’s indeed a viable comp (I believe there is) when DH is finally utilized correctly. It just wont happen as quickly as you think it would.

Ele is better than engi right now, that’s why its run. But people always flock to the meta if they aren’t already running it once someone wins a tournament with it.

Erzian.5218:

The problem is that hitting a relevant amount of melee attacks is hard,when you have base movement speed or 25% ims while everyone else has perma swiftness. Yes, even with 2 ports and a leap.
As a bruiser it is worse than druid, scrapper, rev.
Asa roamer it is worse than rev, thief, mes.
As a team fight support its worse than ele.
As an offensive team fighter it is worse than reaper.
At rezzing it is worse than scrapper, druid.
At filling multiple roles, it is worse than rev, druid.

It can have those disadvantages but I can bet that once it’s being used successfully in competitive play, there will be 5000 more people who swear by the effectiveness of the Dragonhunter.

Just look at the change on the Dragonhunter rhetoric from before the expansion to release and then from release to now. People are to quick to conclude that something is weak because it’s not being used by top teams.

Dirame.8521:

Just look at the change on the Dragonhunter rhetoric from before the expansion to release and then from release to now. People are to quick to conclude that something is weak because it’s not being used by top teams.

In the Pro Leagues and tournaments the DH didn’t have a chance the whole year. In high level fractals they were a plummet until a few weeks ago when the boon steal from enemies was erased. Arguably, only one trap is truly used (Test of Faith): Purification replaced Shelter because after the expansion every class tramples over blocks like nothing.

The only two reasons due people uses DH over the vanilla Guardian is because the power creep from the expansion turned the classic mediguardian almost irrelevant, and bunker Guard was also ineffective way before HoT arrived. This didn’t change my perception about DH: is arguably one of the weakest, less synergized specs from the expansion, and in fact for me Guardian/DH was replaced as my main for other class in every area of the game.