Guild Wars 2

So I love to PvP and WvW, and I love my Ranger
However a class that is pretty common in most matches is Guardian
What are ways to counter a Guardian/Dragonhunter? I can survive awhile and get them close to down a couple of times but inevitably I end up dying.
Another one s Scrapper but nothing to do for them, way too many reflects and CC, I cry seeing one

Engi’s are notoriously weak to CC, and luckily druids have more CC than any other profession. You might struggle to get enough damage off if the engi is full health though. Try to catch them right as their about to heal. It’s not a matchup that is supposed to end quickly though.

Druids hard counter DHs. Don’t fight in their traps and watch for pulls and teleports. Do that and you win. Fight off point, get the quick kill, take point.

Fluffball.8307:

Engi’s are notoriously weak to CC, and luckily druids have more CC than any other profession. You might struggle to get enough damage off if the engi is full health though. Try to catch them right as their about to heal. It’s not a matchup that is supposed to end quickly though.

Druids hard counter DHs. Don’t fight in their traps and watch for pulls and teleports. Do that and you win. Fight off point, get the quick kill, take point.

Okay that makes sense for Engi, I usually panic when seeing one so never thought about it,

And okay so snipe DHs carefully? Gotcha, will try

More than likely when you get the engi low, his elixir S pops, and he LoS kites until he’s 100% health again. The fight will go on forever. But if you do win, it’s going to be through CC and interrupts.

Fluffball.8307:

More than likely when you get the engi low, his elixir S pops, and he LoS kites until he’s 100% health again. The fight will go on forever. But if you do win, it’s going to be through CC and interrupts.

Oh yea for sure the fights def last several minutes usually until another teammate or enemy comes to help

actually, what fluffball said is quite wrong to be honest here. Obviously interrupts are nice, but they are not what will help you kill an engi. what does help however, is retaliation. Luckily for druids, they can pressure twice as hard with retal because pet and person count separate. So get the retal into your rotation (CA2→CA3 or CA2→Staff3 and WHaO immediately after) and then just consistently pressure, it is up to you whether youz want to tank acid bomb damage for more retal damage or not.

As for dragonhunters, a druid should never die to them. against a menders dh you will lose the cap and not kill him ever, so its better to hold the cap as long as possible and then bounce (or call for help to kill). But i dont really know what youre doing or the situations your in, so cannot comment more

Pvt Frosty.6973:

actually, what fluffball said is quite wrong to be honest here. Obviously interrupts are nice, but they are not what will help you kill an engi. what does help however, is retaliation. Luckily for druids, they can pressure twice as hard with retal because pet and person count separate. So get the retal into your rotation (CA2->CA3 or CA2->Staff3 and WHaO immediately after) and then just consistently pressure, it is up to you whether youz want to tank acid bomb damage for more retal damage or not.

As for dragonhunters, a druid should never die to them. against a menders dh you will lose the cap and not kill him ever, so its better to hold the cap as long as possible and then bounce (or call for help to kill). But i dont really know what youre doing or the situations your in, so cannot comment more

Fair enough, I usually just fight until someone dies rather than break off and run when it goes nowhere

Pvt Frosty.6973:

actually, what fluffball said is quite wrong to be honest here. Obviously interrupts are nice, but they are not what will help you kill an engi. what does help however, is retaliation. Luckily for druids, they can pressure twice as hard with retal because pet and person count separate. So get the retal into your rotation (CA2->CA3 or CA2->Staff3 and WHaO immediately after) and then just consistently pressure, it is up to you whether youz want to tank acid bomb damage for more retal damage or not.

As for dragonhunters, a druid should never die to them. against a menders dh you will lose the cap and not kill him ever, so its better to hold the cap as long as possible and then bounce (or call for help to kill). But i dont really know what youre doing or the situations your in, so cannot comment more

But then again I don’t have staff, I use LB/GS or LB/SW+D, and a power build not a bunker like the meta

Pvt Frosty.6973:

actually, what fluffball said is quite wrong to be honest here.

First of all, I am correct. You may have different methods, but what I said is engi’s greatest weakness next to condis, and we don’t use condis at the moment.

Second, your solution of retaliation isn’t even a boon that is readily available for us. A single CA combo is not going to kill a scrapper. Best case scenario, they just kite you for a few seconds and then continue the fight. To kill an engi, you need to use either condis or CC, and CC is our only option at the moment. Passively killing a competent player is never going to work.

Well there is a third option, engis are weak to very high damage, but we don’t have that either.

Fluffball.8307:

Pvt Frosty.6973:

actually, what fluffball said is quite wrong to be honest here.

First of all, I am correct. You may have different methods, but what I said is engi’s greatest weakness next to condis, and we don’t use condis at the moment.

Second, your solution of retaliation isn’t even a boon that is readily available for us. A single CA combo is not going to kill a scrapper. Best case scenario, they just kite you for a few seconds and then continue the fight. To kill an engi, you need to use either condis or CC, and CC is our only option at the moment. Passively killing a competent player is never going to work.

Well there is a third option, engis are weak to very high damage, but we don’t have that either.

I dont know man, imo engies have one of the best stab uptimes in 1v1

Krysard.1364:

I dont know man, imo engies have one of the best stab uptimes in 1v1

They do, but they also lack stun breaks and condi clear for soft CC. Once you start the engi CC chain, it’s pretty easy to keep up.

And to be clear, this isn’t likely to kill an engi in a reasonable amount of time (maybe if you’re running zerk amulet or something), but retal sure as hell isn’t either. Anyone that dies to retal in a PvP match got what they deserve.

Fluffball.8307:

Pvt Frosty.6973:

actually, what fluffball said is quite wrong to be honest here.

First of all, I am correct. You may have different methods, but what I said is engi’s greatest weakness next to condis, and we don’t use condis at the moment.

Second, your solution of retaliation isn’t even a boon that is readily available for us. A single CA combo is not going to kill a scrapper. Best case scenario, they just kite you for a few seconds and then continue the fight. To kill an engi, you need to use either condis or CC, and CC is our only option at the moment. Passively killing a competent player is never going to work.

Well there is a third option, engis are weak to very high damage, but we don’t have that either.

cc isn’t stronger versus engis all of a sudden. the only time where cc really locks down engis is when you cc them right out of elixir s proc, outside of this one moment in a duel, cc is actually stronger versus other classes (invo revs or other druids) and are required to win a duel. against engis it certainly isn’t the key to winning.

You do realise that a single blast of aoe retal followed by a heal results in around 20 seconds of retal on your pet right? yea you only get about 6 or 7 or somekitten like that, but your pet gets TONS which is a HUGE amount of pressure for the constant damage ticks an engi uses. I don’t mind showing you; in game or with a video.

its not about killing with retal, it’s about adding the necessary pressure to be able to kill an engi.

a druid never kills any class on their own if they play well enough. but that’s not what conquest is all about anyway

Pvt Frosty.6973:

cc isn’t stronger versus engis all of a sudden.

I know, it’s always been their weakness, along with the condi clear thing for immob. I was getting the genius title when entangle was still meta and man was that annoying, especially when elixir gun wasn’t meta. Only way out was a movement skill or using heal. Entangle is replaced with ancient seeds now which might be even more annoying.

It’s easy to lock up an engi once the first CC lands. Nothing makes them easy to kill, but necros and engis are very weak to CC.

even then. druid doesn’t have the burst to kill engis. while they are entangled. and the entangle typically only lasts 1 or 2 ticks since by then the roots have been destroyed

I know, that’s my point. You have to lock them up for extended periods to prevent the waterfield blasts and heals. Meta druid has a bunch of CCs, and no matter what type of druid I’m playing I always try to maximize the CC uptime. Wolf, BW, PM, QD, and so on.

Letting them do whatever they want means they’re going to kite and heal anytime they feel mildly threatened, which is like 100% of a match.

Pvt Frosty.6973:

Fluffball.8307:

Pvt Frosty.6973:

actually, what fluffball said is quite wrong to be honest here.

First of all, I am correct. You may have different methods, but what I said is engi’s greatest weakness next to condis, and we don’t use condis at the moment.

Second, your solution of retaliation isn’t even a boon that is readily available for us. A single CA combo is not going to kill a scrapper. Best case scenario, they just kite you for a few seconds and then continue the fight. To kill an engi, you need to use either condis or CC, and CC is our only option at the moment. Passively killing a competent player is never going to work.

Well there is a third option, engis are weak to very high damage, but we don’t have that either.

cc isn’t stronger versus engis all of a sudden. the only time where cc really locks down engis is when you cc them right out of elixir s proc, outside of this one moment in a duel, cc is actually stronger versus other classes (invo revs or other druids) and are required to win a duel. against engis it certainly isn’t the key to winning.

You do realise that a single blast of aoe retal followed by a heal results in around 20 seconds of retal on your pet right? yea you only get about 6 or 7 or somekitten like that, but your pet gets TONS which is a HUGE amount of pressure for the constant damage ticks an engi uses. I don’t mind showing you; in game or with a video.

It also “counters” bristleback reflect, so yep its rly good against engies

Fluffball.8307:

Pvt Frosty.6973:

cc isn’t stronger versus engis all of a sudden.

I know, it’s always been their weakness, along with the condi clear thing for immob. I was getting the genius title when entangle was still meta and man was that annoying, especially when elixir gun wasn’t meta. Only way out was a movement skill or using heal. Entangle is replaced with ancient seeds now which might be even more annoying.

It’s easy to lock up an engi once the first CC lands. Nothing makes them easy to kill, but necros and engis are very weak to CC.

What’s Ancient seeds?

MrThompson.8347:

Fluffball.8307:

Pvt Frosty.6973:

cc isn’t stronger versus engis all of a sudden.

I know, it’s always been their weakness, along with the condi clear thing for immob. I was getting the genius title when entangle was still meta and man was that annoying, especially when elixir gun wasn’t meta. Only way out was a movement skill or using heal. Entangle is replaced with ancient seeds now which might be even more annoying.

It’s easy to lock up an engi once the first CC lands. Nothing makes them easy to kill, but necros and engis are very weak to CC.

What’s Ancient seeds?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ancient_Seeds

MrThompson.8347:

Pvt Frosty.6973:

actually, what fluffball said is quite wrong to be honest here. Obviously interrupts are nice, but they are not what will help you kill an engi. what does help however, is retaliation. Luckily for druids, they can pressure twice as hard with retal because pet and person count separate. So get the retal into your rotation (CA2->CA3 or CA2->Staff3 and WHaO immediately after) and then just consistently pressure, it is up to you whether youz want to tank acid bomb damage for more retal damage or not.

As for dragonhunters, a druid should never die to them. against a menders dh you will lose the cap and not kill him ever, so its better to hold the cap as long as possible and then bounce (or call for help to kill). But i dont really know what youre doing or the situations your in, so cannot comment more

But then again I don’t have staff, I use LB/GS or LB/SW+D, and a power build not a bunker like the meta

Why run Druid then? Running as a ranger power build has worked wonders for me still in PvP, it’s good against a lot of the meta builds too.

Just curious, since Druid generally hurts offensive builds more than it helps.

You could try replacing dagger with an offhand axe. Works nicely against DHs

Durzlla.6295:

Just curious, since Druid generally hurts offensive builds more than it helps.

As long as you have the regen to power CA, things like stealth, superspeed, full condi clears, and even ancient seeds can really supercharge a full offense build.

Druid is usually a straight upgrade to any ranger build IMO, although I see where you’re coming from. There is a slight gray zone on the offensive side of things.

Fluffball.8307:

Durzlla.6295:

Just curious, since Druid generally hurts offensive builds more than it helps.

As long as you have the regen to power CA, things like stealth, superspeed, full condi clears, and even ancient seeds can really supercharge a full offense build.

Druid is usually a straight upgrade to any ranger build IMO, although I see where you’re coming from. There is a slight gray zone on the offensive side of things.

Troll Unguent goes a massive way up for sustain, as well. Every tick counts towards trait procs, in case someone plays mostly solo.
Which mean they get 60% CAF from that single skill alone.

Fluffball.8307:

Durzlla.6295:

Just curious, since Druid generally hurts offensive builds more than it helps.

As long as you have the regen to power CA, things like stealth, superspeed, full condi clears, and even ancient seeds can really supercharge a full offense build.

Druid is usually a straight upgrade to any ranger build IMO, although I see where you’re coming from. There is a slight gray zone on the offensive side of things.

I guess it does provide a good amount of utility, when I go power ranger I tend to go full on kill mode, so Druid hampers that a bit lol.

Ill end this, ranger/druid is the Apex atm. It beats rev because it lacks stability. It beats DH because you can send a pet in to destroy traps, it beats warrior because it has better sustain and it beats scrapper because is the exact same class without a pet.

kdaddy.5431:

Ill end this, ranger/druid is the Apex atm. It beats rev because it lacks stability. It beats DH because you can send a pet in to destroy traps, it beats warrior because it has better sustain and it beats scrapper because is the exact same class without a pet.

….all of those classes on an equal skill level should be able to stalemate Druid at the bare minimum. Rev, DH, and warrior all have the tools to get the kill actually.

Playing poorly against a Druid doesn’t make Druids apex.

jcbroe.4329:

kdaddy.5431:

Ill end this, ranger/druid is the Apex atm. It beats rev because it lacks stability. It beats DH because you can send a pet in to destroy traps, it beats warrior because it has better sustain and it beats scrapper because is the exact same class without a pet.

….all of those classes on an equal skill level should be able to stalemate Druid at the bare minimum. Rev, DH, and warrior all have the tools to get the kill actually.

Playing poorly against a Druid doesn’t make Druids apex.

^
If something makes druid superior to these honorable mentions, it’s mobility. Not fighting potential.

Pretty sure dh has about 0 kill potential vs druid and warrior vs druid is dependent on whether the druid player can reliably dodge skull grinders or not.
Druid definitely is the best 1v1 build atm. It has some stalemates but on paper it actually does not have an unfavorable match up. In practice, warrior forces you off point and full cap if you cannot dodge skull grinders (but that is a ping or l2p issue).

The only reason people think DH has zero kill potential is because its fotm and 99% of the ingame player base only knows how to blow all their cooldowns at one go regardless of who or what they are fighting.

Against a person who actually plays at a high level and knows the intricacies of their class as well as what they are fighting, a good DH players knows how to dodge Bristleback and Smokescale, baits out your Stability, and can then use LB3, F1, Traps to interrupt your heals.

Against the metabuild on metabattle, an equal skilled DH shouldn’t even be dying to it, even if they struggle killing it, but again, most DH are fotm, don’t understand their own class to understand how and when to use defensive cooldowns, and don’t understand what their up against well enough to know to play differently than “apply face to keyboard, complain about class I don’t kill like this on forum.”

Same exact concept applies to Warriors. Most warriors don’t even understand the concept of pressuring Druids into Celestial Form before unloading their big damage, let alone how and when and what to use to apply damage.

Comparing the metabuilds across all the classes, only Scrappers and Tempests really lack kill potential. Besides that, player skill is the main deciding factor, which is inherently balanced. Yes, it’s a “get good” argument, but even if people don’t like the argument, it’s applicable.

I don’t see a DH killing a good druid. At best the DH can force a decap (generally druid is not the best at holding a point, because stealth and mobility are part of the druid’s defense). Imo rev is the only class with true kill potential against druid in 1vs1 (and it can still go either way, personally i can kill most revs, but those are not the best obviously). Some other classes like warrior or dh might be able to “win” by forcing the druid off point, but a good druid should be able to disengage/kite instead of just dieing. Overall it feels like i can take any 1vs1 as druid without being at a disadvantage, and if things go bad, because i f*** up or get outplayed, i can still run away and go somewhere else.

The number of good DHs I’ve run across is exactly 1, and he was an ESL player.

The only good DH, or the only DH, who was better than you?

The only good one. I’ve died to plenty of scrubs.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

I don’t see a DH killing a good druid. At best the DH can force a decap (generally druid is not the best at holding a point, because stealth and mobility are part of the druid’s defense). Imo rev is the only class with true kill potential against druid in 1vs1 (and it can still go either way, personally i can kill most revs, but those are not the best obviously). Some other classes like warrior or dh might be able to “win” by forcing the druid off point, but a good druid should be able to disengage/kite instead of just dieing. Overall it feels like i can take any 1vs1 as druid without being at a disadvantage, and if things go bad, because i f*** up or get outplayed, i can still run away and go somewhere else.

Killing versus kill potential are very different metrics though, and what you’re describing in general is a conquest tactic that separates good from bad players in general, regardless of what class they’re on

Like, to what I was originally stating, having the capacity to leave if things go south doesn’t classify Druid as an apex class that wins all its fights and has no bad matchups. Leaving a matchup because staying would result in a bad outcome for you doesn’t mean the Druid wins the fight, and is, as a matter of fact, the exact opposite of winning.

I still don’t consider those matchups as “bad”, because druid definitely has the tools to win or stalemate those fights, the ability to disengage is an “extra” but not automatically neccessary. It is just not a “guaranteed” win, like it is (almost) vs thief or necro.

jcbroe.4329:

The only reason people think DH has zero kill potential is because its fotm and 99% of the ingame player base only knows how to blow all their cooldowns at one go regardless of who or what they are fighting.
.

Sorry I could not find any better DHs than pro league players, guess they are somewhere hidden in the low mmr

edit: I’ll just put this here.

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.
[…]
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).
[…]
-m00’bs

Its from a thread in the guardian subforum.

Erzian.5218:

jcbroe.4329:

The only reason people think DH has zero kill potential is because its fotm and 99% of the ingame player base only knows how to blow all their cooldowns at one go regardless of who or what they are fighting.
.

Sorry I could not find any better DHs than pro league players, guess they are somewhere hidden in the low mmr

edit: I’ll just put this here.

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.
[…]
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).
[…]
-m00’bs

Its from a thread in the guardian subforum.

lol you think kitten is worth quoting. Paul “fun queues” on DH better. It would be like quoting Gladomer as a ranger expert.

NA ESL players aren’t vastly better than anybody queuing in Legendary/Diamond right now, the only difference between them and players in those brackets is VoIP and some decision making here and there.

So if you’re going to throw quotes at me, make sure you actually quote somebody who has a respectable opinion. But quoting ANYBODY from Never Lucky? You must be trying to kill me, because I almost laughed myself to death.

All of the “high MMR” guardians either left the game, play Revenant, or went mute a long time ago. Not sure what happened to Tage, and Arken might be one of the last respectable Guards on NA but last time I checked he went mute.

PS ESL players don’t have MMR, they have the ability to sign up as a team for ESLs. Literally anybody can do it

Oh ok so pro league players do not have MMR when they play ranked. That’s new to me.
Sorry I am not familiar with NA players. Maybe he is not the mechanically best dh in the game, but nonetheless he is the only person who qualified for WTS and dared to bring a dh. I am pretty sure he is not entirely clueless and he does make some valid points.
Perhaps you should claim less bullkitten and get better on your druid instead, so you don’t have trouble staying alive vs Dhs anymore

Erzian.5218:

Oh ok so pro league players do not have MMR when they play ranked. That’s new to me.
Sorry I am not familiar with NA players. Maybe he is not the mechanically best dh in the game, but nonetheless he is the only person who qualified for WTS and dared to bring a dh. I am pretty sure he is not entirely clueless and he does make some valid points.
Perhaps you should claim less bullkitten and get better on your druid instead, so you don’t have trouble staying alive vs Dhs anymore

The air of the conversation is that Druid is some god tier, unbeatable class, and I’m informing people that balance isn’t out of whack, and that the matchup is being won because of player skill, and not because of poor balance.

At some point that message got lost between all of the people attacking me for suggesting that people are better and outplaying their opponents on Druid, as opposed to DHs lacking the capability to kill Druids, which they do not.

If people really want to continue down the self-destructive path of calling themselves OP against a class that the general population and even the ESL population thinks needs nerfing, then be my guest, but I’ll be here calling every single person on it when they are all crying in the “why did ANet nerf Druid, we weren’t OP” thread.

jcbroe.4329:

The air of the conversation is that Druid is some god tier, unbeatable class, and I’m informing people that balance isn’t out of whack

Although I think druid and rev could need minor nerfs, I agree on that balance is ok overall. I actually think it is the best state of balance that gw2 ever had.

jcbroe.4329:

that the matchup is being won because of player skill, and not because of poor balance.

At some point that message got lost between all of the people attacking me for suggesting that people are better and outplaying their opponents on Druid, as opposed to DHs lacking the capability to kill Druids, which they do not.

I disagree here, DH cannot kill druid (the meta bunker build), unless we are talking about sapphire players or something. Druid does not need to outplay dh in any way to survive and will eventually kill the dh. The exception is, if the dh is on mender but even then the dh has to play a lot better than the druid to stalemate the fight. (Druid has an easier time because their damage is more reliable and their sustain/healing is higher, so they can afford to “waste” more defensive cds without dying because of it)

Erzian.5218:

jcbroe.4329:

The air of the conversation is that Druid is some god tier, unbeatable class, and I’m informing people that balance isn’t out of whack

Although I think druid and rev could need minor nerfs, I agree on that balance is ok overall. I actually think it is the best state of balance that gw2 ever had.

jcbroe.4329:

that the matchup is being won because of player skill, and not because of poor balance.

At some point that message got lost between all of the people attacking me for suggesting that people are better and outplaying their opponents on Druid, as opposed to DHs lacking the capability to kill Druids, which they do not.

I disagree here, DH cannot kill druid (the meta bunker build), unless we are talking about sapphire players or something. Druid does not need to outplay dh in any way to survive and will eventually kill the dh. The exception is, if the dh is on mender but even then the dh has to play a lot better than the druid to stalemate the fight. (Druid has an easier time because their damage is more reliable and their sustain/healing is higher, so they can afford to “waste” more defensive cds without dying because of it)

You just said the DH cannot kill the Druid in a thread asking how to deal with DHs, you know that, right?

So @OP;

What you need to do is watch for key skills, and learn what they look like if you don’t know them already. Avoid getting hit by the Spear (F1), LB3, and the Daze from Traps. Good DHs will use these to try to interrupt your key sustain kills to give themselves the opportunity to kill you, and the only way they can kill you is by getting key interrupts.

Besides that, avoiding their main damage/pressure is also important. You can strafe LB autos easily, so True Shot (LB2) is the main damage skill you need to look to dodge damage wise. Don’t stand in symbols, and when a DH starts casting LB5, either interrupt, move out of the area, or count the first 2 hits and then dodge the 3rd.

If they are in their sword set, move away from sword 3 so you don’t get hit by the channel, and try to proc all of focus 5’s blocks so you don’t have to worry about getting hit with the “explosion” part of the skill, otherwise, you have to wait out the timer of how long the skill lasts and dodge the hit. Beyond that, again, don’t stand in symbols, and try not to let the 3rd chain of the autoattack hit you.

For offense, the 2 biggest things to win fights quickly and easily are to not trigger their heal trap, and to interrupt their F2 leap if possible. When you see them drop their heal trap and they don’t drop it in a way that instantly triggers it, F3 any melee pet so they don’t get kited through it, and range pressure the DH. They rely on that big heal for sustain, so denying them their healing can create an easy opportunity.

For the Mender’s build, it’s a tad bit more difficult to 1v1 against, but a lot of concepts are the same, don’t stand in symbols, kite the scepter autos, etc etc. The real difference is that you have to apply enough pressure to get the DH kiting out of their symbols as well as not getting triggering their trap heal and trying to interrupt the F2 if possible.

Personally, in order to do all of this, I’d recommend the GoE variant of the build that was being run in the most recent WTS. It makes duels and 1v1s much quicker and easier to win, and allows you to setup damage with Ancient Seeds much easier, and that’s on top of all the utility having an insta-cast interrupt has (using it to interrupt stomps without breaking the rez animation, for instance).

One of the biggest takeaways is to never let the DH dictate the pace of the fight or fight on their terms.