Guild Wars 2

When watching the vid on specializations i noticed they upped strider’s defense missile deflection chance to 50% and that’s fine and dandy, but still this trait is too cryptic, and too RNG based compared to others.

What i suggest is firstly strider’s defense creating a visible gust of air around the ranger (180 -240 radius) that will absorb projectiles for 1s. Something with similar animation to whirling defense’s wind gusts throwing leafs around.

Now that effect would have 100% chance to trigger on melee attack with 3-5s internal cooldown.

OR

Same as above with no Internal cooldown but a different condition:
Each melee attack you execute while under effect of quickness creates gusts of wind absorbing projectiles.

The duration of each gust would be 1s, they would not stack in duration with eachother.

Now we would have a real projectile defense that’s controllable, visible to opponents, and requires some skilled use (do i eat the damage, or do i proc strider’s defense, but at cost of getting exposed for few secs, or burning my quickness skill)

The new sword damage bonus on that trait is nice, but I agree about projectile defense still being too RNG, even at 50%. Making it a 100% during one of the 3 aa skill animations, or a bubble created by serpents strike/hornet, would be preferable. Revenant and dragon hunter are also getting a frontal shield that can move with them (a projectile shield in the case of rev, a full damage shield for guard). Adding that sort of shield to one of the sword skills is a possibility now, since the tech is obviously there.

It can only be added to 1st aa, since #2 and #3 won’t happen unless first one hits something. And since this is a trait for “he’s ranged, I’m melee” scenario, then in most cases the opponent is out of our reach. Strider’s defense is to help us move in without eating too much damage, and then possibly provide some protection from him going ranged again, or getting ranged assist.

I’m pretty keen on SD now that it is 50% chance. That is as good as you can get with no ICD and if it became 100%, it would totally get an ICD. Coupled with the -20% CD on evades on the sword, the extra 10% damage and its pretty great now. It is a BIG damage reduction. At 20% chance it was trash, this is really good.

There is a projectile denial that can be controlled.

It’s called GreatSword #4.

Why are people so skeptical around so powerful 50% RNG? You can swing the weapon even without hitting anything, after all.

Tragic Positive.9356:

There is a projectile denial that can be controlled.

It’s called GreatSword #4.

Why are people so skeptical around so powerful 50% RNG? You can swing the weapon even without hitting anything, after all.

there’s also the unpopular whirling defense that roots you in place

Even with these suggestions (and the coming buff), I still don’t like the trait tbh. It lacks something that even the increased chance can’t fix imho. It’s good that they merged it with sword skills and increased damage, and that’s the primary reason I’d consider it, not the block chance.
I think in order for it to be a little bit more interesting, something should happen when you block (or destroy) a projectile.
I think I would like it more if the projectiles were reflected, and I could go for an even lower chance if that were the case.
Or keep it, but add “on a succesful block, there’s a 25% chance the projectile will be reflected” or “on a succesful block, there’s a 25% chance the projectile will hit your nearest enemy within X range instead”.

Reason i’m not content with 50% strider’s defense is because i have no idea 50% of what exactly is that thing?

Does it block one projectile or all for it’s duration. Just what is it’s block duration. And from what angles? Do i have to time blade swing to hit the incoming projectile?

On top of all that it’s pure RNG. I want something that’s more clear on how it works and when it triggers, for both myself and opponent.

projectile defense is irrelevant. most projectiles are virtually nullified by having a little bit of awareness. and projectiles were never an issue for us. we die from melee and ground-targeted damage. what’s with ANet going bonkers about projectile destruction and blocking for this expansion? at this rate, it will be completely pointless to use projectiles. we (and other profs) already have a huge number of dodges and evades. others have blocks.

best thing to do for Strider’s Defense is to give us 10-15% damage reduction while using sword AA on a target. RNG is silly, and projectile destruction on a weapon with two evades is also silly.

…
I hope you guyz know what you wish for.

I’ll wish you lots of success in your demands.
If Strider’s Defense gets nerfed by half just for a “reliable proc”, I’d be fine with it even.

But if any of you dare to complain about it being nerfed afterwards, you won’t want to bump into me at a discussion again.

It’s design is more for handling a +1 pelting you at range in a sword fight anyways. It’s fine with a 50% chance with no ICD. All Anet has to do is make Whirling Defense moveable and we’re gold.

The new SD is something I actually want to use in a build, much much better compared to the old one
I just wondered if it counts as evading an attack or blocking, or if it really just destroys it. Blocking or evading will work well with some of our new traits and a rune or two.

It just destroys it. Like firing into a Thief’s smokescreen, a projectile will just disappear.

So no synergy with evasion and block runes, yet still it will work for my all melee build in the med sized wvw fights :P

The ONLY problem with it now is that it is competing with Quick Draw, and that is a hard contest to win.

At least the competition isn’t as one-sided as WK and EB.

it absolutely is. one would be foolish not to pick up quickdraw on every build with skirmishing.

Unless of course you plan on camping Sword in dungeons, using PO and SD.

Or using it for front line tankier builds.
People lack imagination with the new HoT traits.

I believe it’s awesome for WvW. Yet people keep bringing out PvE when it comes to that. Everyone believes that Ranger MUST use a Longbow, otherwise he can’t log into the game.

I would personally rather Quick Draw with a tanky build so I can counterattack again after 5s or Sword 2/3.