Guild Wars 2

I enjoyed the chill damage, because while it did not stack it was consistent. i was doing 600+ damage regularly to all enemies i had chilled (i do think this was too high however). With the new changes to bleed, i can stack bleed damage much higher than with chill, but i find that its mostly burst.

The bleed stacks don’t have the same consistent damage that chill gave, even though the burst is obviously much better due to stacking intensity.

I’m wondering why the chill damage was changed to give bleed on chill. if the chill damage itself was the problem, why not reduce the base damage that chill deals, and/or reduce the scaling that it gets from the condition damage stat?

Necro’s already have sources of bleed damage, and the idea of being able to deal damage with a condition which normally does no damage, is what drove me to level my Necro to 80 after two years of having it as a bank character.

i think nerfing the damage from chill was deserved, due to having 600+ per stack and lots of sources of chill from skills and traits. however, i think the nerf was in the wrong place.

the damage has been nerfed but so has the appeal the Reaper spec. instead of a cool chill-oriented unique damage build, its just a normal bleed build. if i wanted to stack tons of bleed i could use my ranger and give him a shortbow.

dealing chill damage is a unique selling point of the Reaper and this nerf totally kills a great aspect of it. if somebody says what makes the elite spec so interesting, i would say things like dealing chill damage (Reaper) or adding new aspects to yout profession mechanic (Dragonhunter F skills).

tl;dr: removing direct damage from chill and replacing it with bleed removes what is unique about the reaper spec. would reducing the damage from chill itself not be a good enough nerf while keeping the chill-damage theme?

I’ve noticed that when you are using the map, it automatically switches to your current ‘layer’ in the zone you are in, but it also sets the maps in the other zones to be in the same layer too.

for example, the Gilded Hollow guild hall map is underneath Tarir, so uses the underground map layer. but if you want to warp to maps in Tyria, such as Lions Arch, all of the waypoints are on the Surface layer, so waypointing requires you to change the layer before you can select the waypoint.

it would be quite useful to have the zones display the waypoints faded, like it does in the map when you are above or below a waypoint in the same zone as you. that way you can still warp to the Traders Forum (for example) without having to change layers

Selfless Daring now scales directly with healing power.

you get the base heal, which is very small and laughably useless, then your healing power gets added on. all of it. the healing power coefficient is 1.

if you have 100 healing power, it will heal for 257hp (using your example). if you have 1400 healing power (which is how much you get from the cleric amulet in sPvP) then it does 1557 healing per dodge roll.

using items, sigils, runes and food that boost healing power, or outgoing healing also adds on to the effect so you can dodge-heal for over 2000 with the right build.

things i love about Dragonhunter:

1) a reason to use the active effect of Justice. having that immob and pull is really nice. before i would just keep the passive damage ticking over every three strikes since in the long run its more damage than waiting for the 20s cooldown on Justice for the stronger burn.

2) Wings of Resolve. its an 800 range, group target leap. i almost cried tears of joy when i realised it didn’t use AI path checking. its what i always wanted Shadowstepping to be like. the visual effect looks really impressive too.

i took it to Morgans Spiral in Caledon Forest and jumped around from rock to rock for a good few minutes, then while trying AC, i leapt across the platforms during the master Ranger Nente fight to heal allies without needing to run down and up and around. its worth taking Dragonhunter just to use this Virtue imo.

3) Shield of Courage, i haven’t had much use with this yet since i havent played much, but it sounds very useful for leading zergs in WvW. i did a run of Arah and it was quite useful as a second Wall of Reflection when dealing with the Orrian Turrets.

4) the traps are all great. there isnt a single one i don’t like.

i really like Test of Faith, its like a cage-fight trap and the visuals when it triggers are really good-looking. The unblockable cripple when crossing the trap sounds incredible in WvW/PvP to stop shield warriors making dashes for gate portals while blocking with stability. i’m a big fan of this trap.

Lights Intervention has a very impressive effect (think of the Skyhammer laser from PvP) and i like that it keeps Mesmers and Thieves revealed. i havent used this one much since i havent played WvW with Dragonhunter yet, but i can see it having great utility.

Procession of Blades, this is my staple PvE trap. it seems to do a significant amount of damage, making up for the poor DPS of my clerics gear. i like the visual effect, although i think the blades should spin (visually) faster than they currently do.

Fragments of Faith: haven’t used this trap much due to having a shield for Aegis application. seems like another trap that has strong uses in WvW and PvP for dropping mid-fight or to catch an opponent trying to run.

as for the Longbow skills, i’m happy with how they are, and i like that they both look and sound different to the ranger projectiles. the #4 skill (Symbol of Energy) is very useful. its good that #3 (Deflecting Shot) has a blinding attack like the rest of the Guardian weapons.

5) Traits: im not going to go into detail about traits, but from first glance they are impressive. lots of synergy with existing traits as well as great new ones. i can see the traits based on adding additional effects to your virtues (eg immob attack with Wings of Resolve and Justice passive) being very popular in WvW and PvP.

Things i don’t like about the Dragonhunter:

i have no idea what the Longbow #5 does exactly (Hunters Ward), it says it makes barriers, but is that to block projectiles? to hurt or stun enemies? i’m not quite sure on the mechanics of this skill from the tooltip. the 45 second cooldown feels high, but since im not sure what the attack does, ill save my judgement until i have more facts.

some traits are a bit unclear, the second minor trait (Defender’s Dogma) is worded strangely. i think by ‘maximum charge’ it means the resets the cooldown but im not sure. also, its not said what effect the tethering from Spear of Justice does, there is a visual effect but im not sure what that effect means other than ‘tethering’.

Traps are placed at your feet and not ground targeted. i don’t like this aspect of the traps since you have to be somewhere to lay them so it limits their flexibility. you cant lay a trap at range, have it trigger then leap in for a combo finisher, or trap a fleeing enemy.

ranged traps might be a balance issue, but maybe keeping it short range, maybe 600, would make it have more synergy with Wings of Resolve, Leap of Faith, etc. a bit more QoL on top of the QoL Dragonhunter has already.

that said, i’m really impressed by Dragonhunter and i did not expect to be. last beta weekend i played a few minutes and didn’t really get into it, but today i spent the first hour grinning like an idiot and trying all of the skills and utilities in AC, jumping puzzles and Arah.

Now i just have to finish levelling my second Guardian before HoT comes out so i can have two Dragonhunters. i was only going to have the one but if it stays this fun, ill have to have two.

Mental Paradox.3845:

Airship, spam “2”.

im glad someone beat me to the punch.

for the Thresher:

roll backwards twice when he starts to deploy his health steal AoE, this should put you outside the AoE, if not, walk backwards a bit. the animation is pretty easy to spot after a few times. i noticed that either it steals 0 health from Caithe, or such a tiny amount its not worth worrying about. then when the AoE field is gone, go back to melee and continue doing damage and roll out if the thresher deploys it again.

for the the Teragriff:

just use a ranged weapon… sorry…

its going to be pretty hard to switch mid-fight due to you being likely to take lots of hits from the malformed mobs or vines, keeping you in combat. since i didnt have my ranged weapon equipped at the time, i had to wait until the shout phase of the fight. if you make sure to stand outside of the shouting attack AoE you’ll be able to drop out of combat and switch out weapons.

once i equipped my Rifle it was a lot easier since i could just nail the boss as he ran around like a headless chicken. so if you are determined not to leave the instance, try hanging on until the shout attack phase then switch to a ranged weapon.

it took a real mans man to do what he did.

invisible bags are great, i keep a 15 slot one on my ranger since i have a greatsword, sword, axe, torch, warhorn, shortbow and longbow (i carry them all in case i need to swap out weapon sets). it stops me accidentally selling things, as well as keeping the vendor lists neat when i go to sell junk.

its also good for selling on the TP, since it wont show stuff in invisible bags when you are in the sell tab.

Stompy.1387:

Oh and you’d be better off with a corruption sigil anyways, over a perception one.

250 condition damage > 250 precision?

ill definitely stick a condition sigil on my Shortbow then, considering i get 1100+ bleed per second (at effective level 80) if i can flank an enemy and stack up bleed from Crossfire.

Stompy.1387:

Put the Sigil of Earth on your longbow. Longbow is pretty bad for building stacks, and the better strategy is always to build your stacks with one set of weapons, and then, once built, equip a second set. That way you have have both the 250 precision and the bleed on crit.

yeah i put the sigil of earth on the longbow and put the perception sigil in the bank. might swap it with the Sigil of Purity that is on my Shortbow since the purity sigil has a 10s cooldown.

Tzarakiel.7490:

In a few months there will a patch that will make it posssible to put 2 sigils on twohanded weapons so if you can’t choose just wait.

if you have a weapon with one sigil, can you then add a second sigil when that patch hits, or does it have to be an empty weapon? cause running around for a few months with no sigil on an ascended bow… not gonna happen :P

p.s) this is for an Ascended longbow. the reason i dont go Zerker is because my Shortbow does lots of bleed, so im keeping my condition damage up.

ok, so my trait gives me a 60% chance to bleed on crit, with a 46% crit chance. my condition damage is 961, with 30% duration. ive got 6 Superior Krait Runes to give me more condition damage.

i can either keep using the Superior Sigil Of Earth for another 60% chance to bleed on crit, or use a Superior Sigil Of Perception and get 250 bonus Precision with 25 stacks, to boost my crit chance. ill also be adding infusions to boost my precision as well as AR.

i’m thinking that it would be better to keep the two sources of bleed, since if both have 60% chance then thats a pretty solid chance to get bleed stacked up.

does the traited 60% chance work at the same time as the Sigil one? can i have a chance of inflicting double bleed on a crit? if one is overriding the other i would use the precison sigil.

also, protip:

when returning to your home server, make sure that your server is in control of the area that your guested server did. i left the Aurora’s Glade Balthazar Temple and switched back to Fizzure Of Woe… then had to run like mad as Fissure Of Woe did not control the Temple :P

A) yeah… i found that out when i was guesting in another server, it wasn’t actually the altar itself, it was the steps leading up to it. i had read that you needed to do the event so i assumed it was inside the shield :P

B) yeah, luckily it was deactivated when i guested, plus hardly any risen

C) yeah it was that one, but i guested to a second server where it was deactivated. i’ll remember that trick for when my friend is running through Malchor’s Leap though

and i now have 100% completion of the PvE map (including Chantry Of Secrets, which i remembered as being something everyone forgets about). now on to WvWvW whens its back up

that website is doing fine at the moment, managed to grab the two Skill Points that were protected by the Champions as well, since one of them was already killed and the other didn’t spawn fast enough to break my communing so i just grabbed the point and ran

just got the two Lyssa SPs in Malchor’s Leap. that website is wonderful :P

ahh, that’s a very useful website, thanks

i promptly found that one Skill Point Challenge in The Straits Of Devastation seemed to require me to do a world event (Altar Of Betrayal), the other is by a Contested Statue of Melandru and i get crippled while communing, which stops the progress.

in Malchor’s Leap, i am missing 5 Skill Points:

- one at the top of the Cathedral Of Eternal Radiance, which requires me to complete the meta-event before the barrier to the skill point will drop. this is tricky kitten far, i have found very few people online in the later-game areas.

- one at the Plaza of Lights which requires me to kill a Champion and Veteran Risen at the same time (the Veteran i can kill easily on its own, but the Champion kills me very quickly). again, lack of players is a problem.

- one at the Statue Of Dwayna to the south, which i can easily get to, and commune with… except a Champion Risen Knight spawns on my head and downs me with AoE in under a second (not hyperbole). i can’t kill it alone, and the lack of players is again a problem.

- one at the Contested Statue Of Lyssa in the north… i haven’t tried this one yet, but iirc it spams Chaos Storms everywhere. i might be able to complete this one depending on what the Risen have to say about it. im not sure if the Chaos Storms will break communing, but they probably will.

- the last one is at the Statue Of Melandru (Contested… naturally), which is another cripple-spamming statue. so its impossible to commune with due to being staggered by the cripple condition.

ive been able to get all the others done by sneaking/rushing/tanking with a bear but these last ones are really hard to get alone

im on the Fissure Of Woe server (Europe), if anyone knows any people there who do the Lyssa Event, for example, that would be great. or if there are communities on other servers (i can guest to EU servers now, i believe) who do the world events in Orr regularly that would be appreciated

i had this same issue on multiple attempts to complete this mission.

what fixed it for me is letting the NPC soldiers kill everything. do not engage a single Risen and do not let any pets/minions attack them either. simply walk with the group of NPCs until the ambush.

the NPCs will most likely all die during the Ambush, so kill the Risen yourself and revive Trehearne and the other two. once the ambush has been defeated do not attack any more Risen, just let Trehearne run up to the entrance to start the fight with the Abomination barring the way.

again, the NPCs will most likely die, so defeat the Risen yourself and then revive them, it should make Trehearne continue the quest.

give this a shot, i hope it helps