Guild Wars 2

AESOkami.1072:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Ephemiel.5694:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Ephemiel.5694:

I would dare say i hate how we killed Mordremoth even more than how we killed Zhaitan. At least with Zhaitan, we HAD to use cannons specifically designed to kill Elder Dragons [notice how this cannon tech doesn’t seem to exist now, i guess Zojja forgot].

If you recall, their entire fleet was shot down, including the cannons before they knew what was happening. You know that airship in Verdant Brink with the glowing aura coming out of a ‘core’? That’s the main airship of the fleet. Mordremoth took them out before they could fire the cannons. Meaning we lost our highest tech stuff in this fiasco.

And yet we STILL killed Mordremoth, who is supposed to be far stronger than Zhaitan, much more easily. In fact, we, almost literally, beat him with nothing but swords.

In his mind. He had the most unstoppable body, but his mind was his weakness. If we had a battle against his body we never would have won.

That reminds me. Just how exactly do we know that Mordy’s true weakness is his mind? We don’t even look around for researched proof in Rata Novus for it. We just assume that his brain is his Achille’s heel and jump straight in.
Kind of reminds me of that one quest in the PS where we just thought that a certain spot in a tomb was the center of Orr, but it was not so we had to ask for help to find it. (Arenanet just might be repeating that here.)

’’Mordremoth’s weakness is his mind.‘’ says the corrupted-looking sylvari that’s been captured for a few days and may have had that thought planted into his mind while the dragon is listening in.
“SEEMS LEGIT. LET’S GO.”

Either it is a trap, or it is crap.
I really hope it was Mordremoth manipulating us, and not a really bad deus ex machina.

I agree with most of it. I only have different interpretations on some details.
Like Mordremoth’s weakness. He’s the dragon of plants and mind. We’ve been told that during season 2. This dragon IS the jungle, and he’s completely immobile because of that. The only way he can expand his influence on the world is through his mind and his vines. He has to have an incredibly powerful mind. He has to be able to trick us, and to prevent us from killing his mind through the Dream thanks to a simple and weak Sylvari that is nothing more than his own creation. It was stupid to make his mind his weakness. It was just a really bad deus ex machina to end the story a lot quicker than it should !
The dragon has a real body somewhere. We saw his mouth after Scarlet’s death. He has a body that is immobilized. His weakness has to be his real body, not his mind. His mind is his best tool and weapon. We should have found his body burried deep in the jungle, found his real heart, the HEART OF THORNS, and destroyed it ! I want this story to finish with the death of a real big impressive dragon, not a plump lizard walking on two legs.

I’m really hoping this is not the end. Everything HAS to be pushed further in this story. It can’t stay like that, this is clearly not satisfying.
There are 16 chapters I believe. I felt like I was half way through the story during chapter 14. Not only because it felt way too short for an entire expansion story, but mostly because the 2 last chapters are like “let’s finish this quickly !” when nothing is actually resolved (hence the deus ex machina) And all this only because ANet wanted to kill Mordremoth at the end of the expansion, which wasn’t necessary at all. The story lost a lot of its credibility and epicness because of that and feels sketchy.

I want to see a plot twist in the next living story season that shows us we’ve been manipulated and the only thing we did was to kill Trahearne. It was all part of Mordremoth’s plan to make us believe we killed him so now he can prepare his next big attack (like attacking Rata Sum which is right next to him) without being disturbed by the races of Tyria fighting him.

In my opinion WoodenPotatoes sums up all the problems HoT story has (sadly they are many) in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL-8bSUothk
He’s a big GW lore nerd and his opinions are always very interesting and very well thought. And he’s followed closely by the devs so I expect them to react if it’s not the case already.

Okay guys, no matter how much assumptions, deductions, approximations or sophisms you can make, those things following will stay facts :

• GW druids are NOT the druis of the real life ! You should stop drawing too many parallels between them because in GW they already had their own lore ! And that’s the whole problem of this question : even Arenanet ignored what they had previously designed for the druids.

• Saying that the stars are part of nature is not a good argument in the context of Maguuma druids (the only druids GW ever had, and the ones who inspired this spec). They were humans who retired in the jungle to be closer to nature, they’re suspected to be worshipers of Melandru.
  First the jungle is clearly not the best habitat to observe the stars and become astrologists. It’s also completely stupid to implement references to the moon and the tides. Tides in the jungle ? Really ? LOL
  Secondly when you hear about humans retiring in an hostile environment to be closer to nature, you don’t think about people watching the stars, you think about people adopting a more natural way of life, closer to the earth and other living beings. That’s what the druids were about !
  And last but not least; Melandru is the human goddess of earth, nature, plants, animals, not sky and celestial objects.

• The druid “civilisation” disappeared even before the events of GW1. But some of them stayed in the jungle as spirits of nature, becoming one with the jungle. That’s what should have been chosen instead of the celestial avatar ! It carries the same idea of transcending yourself but most importantly, it was already implemented in the lore unlike the celestial avatar coming out of nowhere !
  We interacted with them in the first game, they’re one of the most interesting mysteries of the jungle and it seems they have completely been ignored.
  The link between them and the Maguuma jungle, its fauna and flora is very strong. A great choice for an expansion that takes place in this jungle. But this link is completely broken with the celestial theme !

• Rangers have always had a strong link with nature. They create special connections with wild animals, summon spirits of nature, use nature magic etc. All of this made a great link between the Ranger and the Druid (not to mention that Melandru is the goddess of the rangers in GW1). A Ranger that choses to become an expert in those aspects of the nature could totally become a Druid. Isn’t that how a specialization is supposed to work by definition ? But now this link is so tenuous !
  Remember when Druid was announced, a lot of people didn’t understand why a Ranger would become a Druid. So we had to tell them about all the lore, the presence of nature magic in the Ranger’s core spec, his special connection with nature… And now all of this have been put aside ! Most of the obvious reasons that made the Druid a very good extension of the Ranger are completely
  invisible now !

• The celestial theme was already a big part of Canthan lore. It feels very unappropriate to reuse it in this context. Not to mention that a future spec actually based on stars, astonomy or astromancy would have been really great ! But now we can forget about it…

• The first presentation of the Druid plus the lore that we knew about gave us a very untruthful image of what the spec actually is. It was a very legitimate expectation to have believed that the Druid would look like what I described above. So it is pretty normal to have bad reactions to the actual Druid we have now.

I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be any space for the sky and stars, but they should be a minority. Not 80% of what makes the Druid ! The celestial theme completely overshadows all the rest. The Druids we will play are completely ignoring their legacy.
All this is nothing more than bad design. The only reasons we ended up with the Druid we have now are disrespect of the lore and chosing superficial image over true meaningful sense. It’s not the first time I feel like Arenanet is sabotaging their own lore.
What’s a shame particularly is that they had the perfect plan ready to be completed, but instead of following it they went arbitrarily for something else without having any convincing explanation.
Most people who like the Druid as it is today are probably ignoring most of what I just said, just like Arenanet did, and I can’t consider their arguments valid. But that’s just my opinion.

Your vision of the Druid applies to the real world druids.

You don’t even know that Druids already have a specific lore from GW1 and that’s what people are referring to when they say the Druid spec shouldn’t be so heavily focused on the ceslestial aspect. Not to mention that all the theme we were expecting to see with the Druid was partly present in the Ranger (not the astral stuff) which would have been a great (and probably the only) way to make a strong link between the profession and its specialization. I am curious to know how you can efficiently explain why Rangers could become Druids through the celestial theme !
Also the astral/celestial theme is already very important in Canthan lore.
Mixing those two things kills both of them at the same time.

Before trying to “educate” people you should make sure that you really know what you’re talking about.

YAY ! Let’s do stuff because it looks cool, not because it makes sense !
Why not put some flames and bright light effects on the Reaper ? I’m pretty sure it will look super cool too !

Pffff…

Dark Saviour.9410:

The biggest issue with going, “No, you see; if you look at it this way and think about these gaps in what we knew, it can fit without contradicting anything!” is that it still leaves the concept as something that must be justified rather than just feeling obvious or natural.

Exactly !

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Ojyh.9842:

I am sure it’s been revealed last because they had to rework it. It should have been revealed between the Reaper and the Tempest, but they had to rework it.

I thought they would come with something super innovative, they had to take time to make something new that takes a lot of efforts, with unique mechanics, improving the pets etc…
But no. Obviously they just didn’t know what they wanted to do with that spec, that’s why it took them so long. In the end we have a spec that has nothing really innovative machanically, they just added healing healing healing on everything, they completely missed the nature, plants and animals theme…

It has clearly been rushed. If it hasn’t been rushed, then it’s even worse because it means they put a lot of efforts into something they didn’t manage to make good !

How does it feel rushed when it makes the class greatelly desirable?

Druid is by far the best healer in game. Only ventari can compete and that only in sustain healing maybe, still not a better healer than druid. Raids will require druid(s). WvW will require druids. PvP will require Druid. Even in open world pve/fractals/dungs druids will be of great help, might even be needed (healers not druids in general, but you get the picture) if they make the game actually challenging by updating the current dungs/fracts.

I didn’t think they’d make druids solid healers, but I’d rather have it as it is now, than have it as a shapeshifting damage dealer that would be all show and nothing actual useful to the table.

Stop complaining. Rangers just got a VIP ticket straight to the top of the meta. First class and all.

Nothing makes it particularly desirable to me.
The best healer ? What’s the point if we don’t need it ? We can already get a lot of heals without any healer specialized character, and even more effective active defensive skills, boons etc.
Arenanet will make sure we’re not obliged to have one specific profession or specialization to complete content anyway. But I do admit he might be useful anyway.

It doesn’t change the fact that nothing in this spec is particularly new, fun or creative, and I don’t like the astral theme they went for.

That’s a legitimate question !

I’m not sure there’s any link.
On one hand i’d like to see it being a thing, so it could bring a little bit of sense to this very odd astral theme they chose instead of nature theme. But on the other hand I think it would be a very far-fetched link between very different civilisations that probably never had any contact. Also, I can’t see why a Ranger would have the right to suddenly become Weh no Su, when everybody is supposed to be able to do that if they perform the right ritual (which is currently unaccessible to us).

Would have been a cool concept for an entirely different spec…

So yeah, I just think it’s just a pretty random choice made by people who are not precise and exigent enough because they thought it looked cool.

xadine.7069:

Ok, I didn’t read everything but for what I understood, lots of players are unhappy with the druid design.

druid name
Personnaly I find it surprising but not wrong. In GW lore druids where connected to plants indeed. But the celestial lore always was very important in GW too. I agree a bit more “planty” would have been nice, but I really find the celestial form cool.
Ofc those who discover druids with wow are disapointed, but this is gw and this druid desing isn’t wrong when it comes to gw lore.
But I think another name would have better suit this spec indeed, but druid isn’t the only one in that situation^^.

Well you should have read a little bit more :p
I said (maybe others too) that there is no lore behind this. We don’t know if Druids have anything related to the stars or celestial objetcs, but we know they have a strong link with biological part of the nature. So why would you design a Druid spec almost entirely on the astral aspect ?
The original Druids were suspected to be worshipers of Melandru, and this goddes is all about nature in the sense of plants, animals, earth, seasons… All those things we find in the Ranger actually. Not stars and astrology.
The name itself is not a problem, I think everybody is fine with this one. It’s just that the character itself is not reflecting the image of what a Druid is in the lore of GW.

Until a dev comes here to specifically tell us that now the Druids have an important link with the stars, it will stay wrong to consider them this way.
And even if a dev does that, it will stay a bad choice to have supplanted the original lore by this, because it made a lot more sense for a Ranger and for the jungle.

I am sure it’s been revealed last because they had to rework it. It should have been revealed between the Reaper and the Tempest, but they had to rework it.

I thought they would come with something super innovative, they had to take time to make something new that takes a lot of efforts, with unique mechanics, improving the pets etc…
But no. Obviously they just didn’t know what they wanted to do with that spec, that’s why it took them so long. In the end we have a spec that has nothing really innovative machanically, they just added healing healing healing on everything, they completely missed the nature, plants and animals theme…

It has clearly been rushed. If it hasn’t been rushed, then it’s even worse because it means they put a lot of efforts into something they didn’t manage to make good !

Orpheal.8263:

I’m currently at a love hate relation with the druid… parts of it I love, other parts I hate, and to make it short about what I hate, is basically just broken down, that anet messed up the ration between nature theme and astral theme for my taste..

Thie concept looks on paper like 80% astral and 20% nature.
The whole concept would work and come over for my opinion alot better, if the design of this Elite-Specialization would have been more like a 50/50 thing, balanced between both themes, so that the player can decide for his/herself, what kind of theme they like more…

Under the current design, this specissame as worse as like the Dragonhunter, just only that it has a good fitting name instead that is actually worth it to be called a profession, where Dragonhunter is nothing but a generic title that everyone wears and not a specialized profession…

I personally expected the design to be more biologically theme, more about true NATURE MAGIC, that fits to a jungle!!!
its in the design, yes, but as said for my taste way too much underrepresentated in comparison to the superior celestial part of the whole design.

I can accept astral powers based on the sun, moon and stars as being part of the nature in a higher concept, but from a lore perspective, this whole design screams just massively out loud FAIL, what wouldnt just be the case, if the design around this Spec would be more mixed in a 50/50 ratio.
It all comes down again like with the Dragonhunter due to the reason of ANte making terrible naming decicions (for trying hard to make everything look over unique) and trying to mix multiple themes into one spec, which seem to look like black and white with each other (Trapper + Witchhunter + Paragon + Dragon Design Elite to just justify the terible name as a cover for the sole reason of existance for this design being Brahams revenge for Eirs death being forced upon our throatsfor why he becomes a DH, where thank god the Druid is just story neutral like all other E-Specs except the DH…)

I would have expected persionally a kind of Astrologist E-Spec rather under the Mesmer as a kind of Visionary for the maybe next round of E-Specs, because it would fit them imo alot better, instead of that theme beign merged into tzhe nature part of the Druid (where it makes thematically sense yes, but as i would compare it with the DH, sometimes is simly less just more, less try hard over uniqueness would suit here just better to the whole game)

How that could look like will I post later in the ranger forums

I just said it differently, but basically we have the same opinion.

Just forgot to talk about the fact that glyphs feel a lot like elementalist spells !

Well, even if nothing states that moon cycles (or whatever it is) are not a Druid thing, nothing says it is. By the way, nothing says that warriors can’t hit people with a toothbrush, so it would be ok to have a Dentist Warrior elite spec ?

Actually it wouldn’t bother me so much if it was just a little touch they added to give a little more depth to the character. But where’s the added depth when instead of adding more aspects to the Druid you just replace them by something else ?
Sadly it looks like instead of creating a wider variety of abilities for the Druid, they just completely replaced the old references with some new things coming out of the blue, sometimes deliberately ignoring great lore references. It doesn’t feel right.

They’ve gone too far in my opinion. To me it looks likes instead of making a druid with some celestial powers, they made a celestial spec with some druidic powers. It could be named something completely different. I don’t think that’s good.

Being original just for the sake of being original is not good, we need a meaning behind all this. An official meaning, not deductions and approximations.
Also there should be no confusion between originality and weirdness.

Fashion Mage.3712:

It’s more like a somewhat nature-flavoured monk than what a druid typically is, in my opinion.

I don’t need you to tell me that, I can see it by myself :p
The problem is that this fact is exactly what bothers me !

Just to make the last part a little bit clearer…

I am complaining about the Druid here, but it’s just one of the symptoms of a bigger problem in my opinion : Arenanet struggles (and occasionally fails) at making good and coherent specialization concepts !
No need to talk about the sadly famous Guardian elite spec (that I can’t even dare name once more), there’s a giant thread about this one in which we all said what we think about him.
Oh and what about the Tempest ? One of the most underwhelming specs that barely has any relation with actual tempests ? In other words, that barely has any relation with its name ?
Some elite specs are fine or even really good although they’re not perfect so you can forget about little mistakes here and there. But when the mistakes are too big they just destroy the character.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

The cycles of the moon and stars is a common theme in druidic or other natural systems of magic. Lunar/celestial effects show up all the time. C’mon, man. Chillax. Could be worse – they could’ve been shapeshifters. That would’ve been a real disaster.

Not in GW. It has never been like that. They can’t just ignore the lore and recreate based on IRL facts that don’t apply to Tyria. Doesn’t fit to the Ranger either.
Not to mention the problem of the professions becoming similar when they used to have their own identity.

Isn’t there a problem with the Druid ? Maybe I’m missing something. But really my opinion is that it’s just poorly designed !
I’m going to tell you in details what bothers me. If anybody has an official explanation, tell me. I need to appease my soul after seeing that Druid revelation ! (no, i’m not happy with what I saw)

Disclaimer : It’s not a problem if they want it to be a healer, I’m ok with that. I just want the concept to be coherent ! I also want them to respect their own lore ! That’s what I’m going to discuss in this topic. Not gameplay or balance or roles or whatever, many of those things can be changed at any moment anyway, even after launch through balance patches (so please, if you’re the kind of person who thinks it doesn’t matter as long as gameplay is fine, just leave and go to another thread). The things I am going to talk about can only be changed now.

I am sure that everyone was expecting this elite spec to have a lot to do with nature, plants and animals. That was a perfectly legitimate expectation ! Unfortunately it’s not really the case (or not so much)
This is a major mistake when you consider what Druids were in GW1 and the fact that we’re going into the jungle, where the old Druids lived. You have to see the link between the spec and GW1 lore. In fact Colin Johanson talked about that when he announced the Druid in january.
Nature, plants and animals are a big part of what makes the Ranger. The jungle is also the perfect setting, and the ranger is the perfect profession to introduce a spec with such a theme. So this nature theme was just PERFECT. I don’t know why they chose to leave it behind !

This logical and coherent nature theme has been mostly replaced by a celestial/astonomical absurdity.
The ceslestial form should be a vegetal/spiritual form ! It would have been so much better to really make this link between the spec and the druids lore considering Druids transformed into natural spirits in GW1 !
Everything was SO PERFECT ! How did they missed that ?!?! I can’t understand ! It’s like they had the perfect plan but they decided not to follow it !

And don’t forget that the celestial theme already has a strong meaning in the Canthan lore that makes it even less compatible with the Druids !

The Ventari Revenant looks a lot more like an actual support Druid than the Druid himself !!
The Druid is using a lot of light and healing/support skills, and the celestial form has a lot of blue effects. It doesn’t remind you of anything ? No ? Really ?
That’s what the GUARDIAN is supposed to be ! Not only the Dragonhunter is a Ranger wannabe, but the Druid is now a Guardian wannabe ? Come on ! He just supports allies from distance with light ! This is nothing more than Arenanet’s description of the Dragonghunter ! (And the best part is the Dragonhunter is not even good at that LOL)
They made so much efforts to make the professions feel distinct visually and thematically, and now they’re just trampling on their own work !

It’s so stupid ! The Druid could stay exactly as it is, just changing some skills effects and names and it will be fine !
Again, giving a healer role to the Druid is okay, but just do that the Druid way (with a lot of plants, animals, and green effects) not the Guardian way !!!

One more thing :
Arenanet seems to have a pretty hard time designing good concepts already. So what will happen when they will run out of cool concepts after butchering them all ? Will we have a game full Dragonhunter-like specs ?
They’re making some strange hybrid concepts just for the sake of being original, but they’re killing good concepts at the same time.
Be aware of that : we will NEVER have a Druid spec that looks like what it should be, in other words a proper druid. Just like we will never have a cool sentinel Guardian with a bow or an Elementalist that actually summons tempests with a warhorn and shouts. All cool concepts, all poorly executed on different levels.
I also used to have a cool idea for a future spec that just got destroyed with the Druid. I was expecting to see the celestial theme used some day for an Astronomer (engi spec ?) or Astromancer (ele spec ?).
They just destroyed two concepts at once. One shot, two kills !

I don’t know what you think about that folks, but I think it needs some thematic rework.

EDIT :
People talking about roles, gameplay or mechanics only are OFF-TOPIC !
People discussing what Druids were or were not IRL are OFF-TOPIC somehow, since the Druids of Tyria have their own lore and this lore is quite different from what we know about real druids ! If they wanted something original and unique, then following the lore created for GW1 was a good solution actually !

Jerus.4350:

If they want to put it on the shoulder they’d need new animations. They’d also need to change the name to bazooka.

They already have something similar in the game.
https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/126473/horrik.jpg

People who already have the core game should get like 800 gems so we can buy a character slot, or anything else if we don’t care about character slots.
I mean, if we consider they’re not making us pay for the core game, just offering it to new players, why the others wouldn’t get anything ? 800gems cost even less than the core game. Even with the 75% sales it’s still approximately the same price right ?

Genesis.8572:

And you know what? That’s sad that so much work in such poor quality. I recognize that a lot of work went into such a poor concept. But just because a lot of work went into the concept does not mean that the result materialized as quality. I think that that thought they had a real “crowd pleaser” but it turned out that just having a guardian plus a bow and a thinly spread concept was not a crowd pleaser. I think that ArenaNet can do better. I trust that ArenaNet can do better. I know that ArenaNet can do better. ‘Dragonhunter’ is not the best they can produce as a concept. And that’s the ArenaNet that I want and expect. Not some half-effort product, but ArenaNet at its best. An ArenaNet that wants to inspire its constituency into fantastical game play.

My personal opinion is that they probably didn’t work on the name and the theme that goes with the DH more than 10 minutes. I could be wrong though, but I prefer to believe they scamped that instead of thinking they really worked hard for such a clunky result. In other words, I prefer to believe it was just a mistake and they’re still able to make something better instead of considering they’re just bad at this anyway.
I don’t want to insult anyone, but that’s really how I feel about the DH.

Kentrey.3251:

Why is this still such a big issue? I don’t know what happened that made gaming communities (especially mmo communities) feel so freaking entitled. A book doesn’t drop and the main character die and you see everyone crying on forums for them to rewrite books. People don’t die and movies and people say refilm it.

Poor comparison here.
You can hardly redo a film or a book, but you can easily bring some changes to a video game. Especially when it is still in development. However, it may happen that some films have alternative endings or that sort of things, and books get reedited with some changes.
Anyway we’re not talking about the entire game. Games, mostly MMOs, give us that great possibility to go back on almost anything, even after launch. Since it is just a detail that is probably not even finished, I can’t see how they couldn’t change it.
It’s nothing like redoing the whole game and selling it a second time in a “reworked” version.

Kentrey.3251:

Do you know why they don’t?
Because its their creative vision made into their chosen medium. Its not your call. If there are balancing changes, bugs, or exploits you want to bring to their attention that is what the forums are for, they should fix that but the

“We don’t like this you should change it because……well because we said so” Is so dumb and not only negative to this game, but to every game made as well as our culture in general.

I think we gave enough arguments. It’s not “because we said so”. Anyway, if a large amount of people dislike something, it is probably the n°1 reason to change that thing. Arguments are just there to give more weight, not the reasons to make the change happen. And the fact that you are personally responsive to them or not doesn’t matter.

You shouldn’t tell us what we have the right to discuss or not. Gameplay, content, story etc… all are things we can discuss and we have the right to suggest changes.
Feel free to beliebve that only bugs, exploits and balance have to be touched. But there is no reason we shouldn’t talk about the rest too.

Kentrey.3251:

You are very much welcome to bring back your input about if you did or didn’t like the name but the expectation that because you or how ever many people didn’t like it that they should change it is absurd.

Well, if we think something is bad, we can tell them, right ?
Now if they’re actually asking for feedback, we have the right to judge what they did.
And since everything is still in development, it is certainly not absurd to expect some things to change. Because that’s what feedback is for.

Kentrey.3251:

It wasn’t too long ago that devs going against the grain was praised for their fresh idea and i personally am not a huge fan of dragon hunter but i also don’t want rehashed sentinels, paragons, paladin, crusader, ect ect I would personally prefer the chance to let the name grow on me.

There’s a huge gap between making something quite original, well made and coherent, and something definitely new but inconsistent and absolutely not in the same vein as what they did before.

Relentliss.2170:

Wish you guys would stop whinging about the name and instead help the Developers improve the actual concept or skills. It’s really a silly waste of time.

That’s nothing but your own personal opinion.

Also it’s not like it is a huge thing to change. It can be done quickly. Don’t worry, it won’t make your expansion release late or anything like that…

Tachenon.5270:

Nike.2631:

Tachenon.5270:

Why would they have to change anything but the name?

Because the name, the armor, the weapon, and in some cases the skill FX work together. The are not independent parts of the design process.

Would wells be so readily accepted as the Chronomancer’s new skill type if they didn’t look like big clock faces?

There’s nothing about the spec that makes it specifically a ‘dragonhunter’. Not the bow, not the traps, not the anything. The spec is fine. The name is silly and is incompatible with the setting.

That’s true ! The visuals of the DH, despite the elite skill FX, are not related to dragons, and not really to hunting.
As an example : the chronomancer’s wells look like clocks to evoke time magic, the DH traps look like magic spells (not even traditionnal traps a hunter would use) but in this case they just evoke the magical aspect of the Guardian, nothing about hunting, dragons or hunting dragons.
We don’t even need to change what the skills look like (except dragon’s maw maybe) because they don’t have any specific visual identity. They’re nothing more than basic Guardian skills. That’s also one of the reasons why the name feels like a misfit.
We could just change their names, and it’s done !

Hey Nike ! you know that the armor they showed on the DH is already in the game right ? Only the gloves are new.
The Chronomancer only got new shoulders. The Reaper a new hat. The DH new gloves. Nothing more.
Gloves + Bow : it’s not that much to change. They even might have something ready to replace them already considering they probably have abandonned concept arts or models they never used before and that could fit.

Mikhail.4961:

Nike.2631:

Genesis.8572:

Inquisitor?

No less terrible than last time it came up . Torturers and murderers aren’t generally a heroic archetype. Tyria had them before and seems to largely be glad to be rid of them.

Neither were witch hunters, but ANet is trying to draw parallels to them and the Dragonhunter: the specialization of their perhaps most “selfless/heroic” class.

Legit question now: has there been any other statements since Peters’ post about the name?

I can’t see anything they could say for now.

I think that if they had already taken a negative decision they would have told us.
But if they’re okay to change the name I believe they will wait a bit more. Maybe after all the spec reveals, because maybe some others will be problematic… And then it would be better to see everything at once.
Or maybe they just want to keep the DH as long as possible so it will be easier for us to accept the other names while we’re concentrated on this one.

But I think they’re not even sure right now. They certainly prefer to keep DH as it is, it’s always annoying to go back on something they already did and announced. It only depends on how the feedback will keep going. Will we convince them or not ?

In other words… we’re probably still at the same point since the begining :p

Ezrael.6859:

They literally did, JP came out and explained how they settled on the name and what it evokes for their design.
It’s as good as saying, we’re not looking to change it, and why should they.

That’s normal to try to explain things first. It doesn’t mean “we don’t care, it won’t change”, it means “we just want to be sure you understand our point before criticizing”
Of course they never designed the thing with the idea of changing it afterwards (even if it really feels like it does to me, DH sounds like a placeholder name they never replaced), but it can happen depending on the feedback.
That’s how changes to mechanics, balance or anything happen. Why not for a spec name ? Because YOU personally don’t care ? Then you can stay out of the discussion, it doesn’t matter to you anyway right ?

Ezrael.6859:

But the old men role-playing girl guardians just can’t handle it.

Panites.6798:

Was about to post the same thing, guardian side of the forum has turned to kitten just like the rest of it due to people whinging about tiny things.

Arrk.4102:

Arrk.4102:

It’s just a tiny amount of people whining, get the kitten over it.

And you’re one of them. Maybe if you keep fueling the RP namewars whine threads, the name will change!

Its just a name, get the kitten over it.

lol
It’s nothing about RP, how can people think that ? We don’t need to be into RP to have that kind of discussion. Anyway anybody can do whatever they want with RP, the classes in a game have rarely been a barrier to any RPers.
Would you stop discrediting people for the opinions they have or the way they play ?

Oh well, maybe you’re just coming in the middle of a long discussion without knowing what we’ve been saying…
Or maybe you’re just that kind of persons who are always saying “I don’t care, it’s just about gameplay”
But how legitimate is your participation then ? If you don’t care, I don’t know why you even bother clicking on that kind of thread. Whatever will happen about this name won’t change anything for you. And if you don’t want to talk about that, well… Guess what ? Nobody is forcing you ! But don’t tell us what we should or shouldn’t say.

Nike.2631:

Ojyh.9842:

Personally I can’t accept Dragonbane more than Dragonhunter.

Nothing wrong with that. But when you say you’d like to see the theme changed – and by theme I’m getting the impression you mean the whole decision to give them trap skills… You do know that’s a request WAY beyond just swapping out a name string and almost 100% certain to be something they won’t go for, yes?

There will be other E-specs for every profession. Odds seem pretty good the next one for Guardians won’t be getting traps again .

Leo G.4501:

Changing the theme might be beyond the scope of change the devs are willing to make. Don’t get me wrong, I want them to alter the theme as well but I’m pretty open to what kind of alteration is made. I personally think just removing any link to big game hunters would be the easiest to me.

The other thing I’d personally choose to change is the traps. Simply call them marks. And you can even change the Runes of the Trapper to include marks if one must :P I just don’t think the traps fulfill any kind of big game hunter type of motif (they likely don’t work all that well on big targets anyway) and they seem far too magical and smite-y to be called traps.

But yeah, some changes are more likely than others.

No I think traps and bows are fine ! Well, traps are not that good as a gameplay mechanic right now, that’s the problem… But that’s not the topic.

I can definitely see a Guardian using traps without being a hunter. You know traps can be used as defensive mechanisms ! Just think about the typical abandonned ancient temple with traps all around. They’re not there to hunt (Ranger traps !) or for ambushes (Thief traps !), but to protect something/someone, dissuade, block and punish ennemies/intruders (very Guardian-ish isn’t it ?)
Also the way they look tells they’re magical things. They’re not the traditionnal traps that traditionnal hunters use. To me they’re more like latent spells you leave somewhere waiting to be triggered. Well, they’re just traps… but a version of traps that goes well with the Guardian, and not really with a hunter.

When i’m talking about the theme I mean what defines the character in general. This whole idea of big game hunter, dragon killer specialist etc… I don’t like that part. We could keep the spec exactly as it is, just changing some names and definitions to make it a REAL ranged protector, though aggressive, instead of a banal hunter (which would suit the Ranger better). Maybe some FX (the only one I see is Dragon’s maw) and obviously the skins in the e-spec reward track. It’s not that much to do in the end.

My opinion is that Arenanet won’t change anything until all e-specs are revealed. So yeah, why not discuss all the names then ?
But to me DH is the only that really needs to be discussed for now.

Even leaving the big game hunter thing aside, to me it is stupid to consider the DH as a Guardian spec just because it can be one… Because basically any profession could be a DH, so I can’t see how guardians should be the only ones, thus I can’t see why it should be a specialization (not only for Guardians but for any profession).

The explanation given by Jon Peters integrates ideals of justice and things like that to make things hold together. But it’s nothing more than excuses. You can rewrite his argument the same way, just using some warrior, ranger, engi or revenant related words and you still obtain a DH in the end. This is something you can hardly do with Reaper, and that you can’t do at all with Chronomancer and Druid.

It’s not that a Guardian shouldn’t be a DH at all, it’s just that there is no way they can be better suited for that role.
The idea of Guardians forming a faction of Dragonhunters can’t make sense, especially when you consider that we already have the Pact which is the 3 orders allied together against the dragons. How aren’t they a faction of Dragonhunters already ? And they gathered all the races, all the professions, and even things that are not considered as professions… There is no way a little amount of Guardians could have any weight in the fight against dragons compared to this extremely diversified (in terms of nature and abilities of its members) but in the same time highly specialized (in their big fundamental goal) enormous military organization

DH seems to be justified by its goals and ambitions. But you can find similar goals and ambitions in every character, not only Guardians, that’s why DH can’t be a specialization. It is easy to apply it to anyone.
Anyway goals and ambitions are not what describe a spec ! It is described by how you fight, what you’re using against your ennemies, what is your style. And DH doesn’t tell that, it just gives big goals to your character. But what if someday your Guardian has to do something completely different from fighting dragons ? Because obviously there are not only dragons to deal with in Tyria, and probably we will get rid of them one day. Will you stop using bows and traps, because your Guardian can’t be DH anymore since their goals have changed ? That would make no sense…
_________________
EDIT HERE : Compare with Chronomancers : they’re just Mesmers who chose to use one specific type of magic. But they could totally decide to use time magic to eradicate dragons and their minions, turning them into dragon hunters.
Reapers are a bit more abstract as a concept, but it can be applied to them too.
_________________

Also, remember that specializations are swappable. You can change your equipment or adapt your fighting style, but you can’t change your ambitions everytime you wanna use a different weapon ! That’s silly.
Your goals and ambitions are defined by your story (and we know how Arenanet always kept professions away from the story, that’s why we’re called legionnaire, valiant, commander… never Ranger, Warrior etc) and basically, every player character has approximately the same story in this game. We’re all commander of the Pact, commanding to the biggest army ever raised against the dragons and ONLY dragons ! We’re all dragon hunters since a long time already, indenpently of our professions and specialities, because we all have that same goal.

I’m not saying they can’t be Dragonhunters, they can ALREADY be Dragonhunters without specializing, just like anyone else. So they can’t call themselves specialists in dragon hunt, that would be ridiculous.

EDIT : I guess we already said that a lot of times but I feel like people tend to forget it quicker than they should.

As others said before me :
- Dragonbane is not resolving most of the problems we have with DH
- The “hunter” part of the name is based on the idea the DH uses bows and traps. Although I find this association of ideas really uncreative and disrespectful of what the Guardian is, it gives a LITTLE HINT of consistency to the character that is lost when you turn the name into Dragonbane.

So we have a name that subjectively sounds better.
The theme is unchanged (many of us want it to be changed)
And we’re losing the hunting aspect some of us hate but that still makes the thing a little more coherent.

Personally I can’t accept Dragonbane more than Dragonhunter.

zenleto.6179:

Ephemiel.5694:

zenleto.6179:

Genesis.8572:

They are never connected to the dragons

Well, they are now. It could even be the genesis something bigger!

We’re all connected to the Dragons, especially Sylvari. Aren’t the ones not affected by Mordremoth, for whatever reason, dragonhunters? Like i said, i’m a Sylvari Thief that has fought dragons, aren’t i a Dragonhunter myself?

No, you’re a Thief that fights dragons. The Guardian I create in the beta will still be a Guardian that has a specialisation in Dragonhunter.

Do you realize that you can’t use as an argument the thing that is actually being discussed ? :p

Obtena.7952:

What lore? Dude, open a book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George_and_the_Dragon

What’s even more funny … people have suggested Crusader as an appropriate name for the elite spec. The link between Guardian and Dragons is NOT as outlandish as people suggest it is.

LOL
What is that ?
Man you can find ANYTHING you want in myths and legends. You can’t base your whole argumentation on one thing like that.
Taking some examples from other sources can be good to make some parallels or have some references, but it is the professions’ coherence in Tyria that is being discussed. Don’t go too far…

By the way St George can be seen as one particular hero, not the representative of a particular kind of soldier specialized in hunting dragons.

DragonflyDusk.6582:

MattyP.6954:

Obtena.7952:

So we all come to a name that everyone agrees with? No? Anyone get that point?

Nope, it’s just QQ because Anet developers made a creative decision that isn’t everybody’s favorite.

Everyone is allowed to have opinions, until they disagree with yours, and then suddenly it’s QQ. Some people complain simply to complain on both sides of this naming fence, and now the whole thread is going in circles.

The thing about this topic that I find interesting is that I don’t see that many people arguing that they actually like the name, but rather simply arguing with the people who don’t like it on whether or not it fits. Like it’s some nasty tasting medicine we should all have to swallow because Arenanet said so. I don’t think anyone should be abusive to the creative team here, but I don’t think it’s wrong to question them about their decisions.

I agree with that.

Just see how some people, who don’t necessarily like the name themselves, are there to contradict us, not to defend DH, just because they’re annoyed by the fact we’re discussing the name. And this way they tend to force everyone into some off topic discussions.

In my opinion this is the reason why the thread is circling like that. We’re always feeling the need to justify our opinions or our reasons to discuss when in fact we should just have the right to do so without having to fight against each other, even less against people who don’t even want to see a discussion being a thing.

Personally I’m not against people who want to keep DH as a name. I’m against the name itself. But I really feel like some here are against the anti-DH guys as a matter of principle…

Ephemiel.5694:

Please don’t defend the abomination that is Dragonhunter by saying it makes sense for them to be Hunters because they use all of their defensive zeal and focus on the offensive.

Yeah, I agree.
I can see why he’s saying that though. But it’s not working, because it would mean that we can consider a Necromancer as some kind of defensive archetype because he’s able to kill and control ennemies… And so does a double axe/hammer Warrior. Not it’s not what we can call a supportive archetype.
The Dragonhunter actually has that supportive aspect mechanically, but it’s clearly not reflected by its name and its theme.

Come on Rabbit… I could take every of your posts and find at least one thing that, to me (and others considering how they’re replying), is incredibly wrong. And sometimes even objectively wrong.
The more I read what you say, the more I realize you just have different ways of thinking. VERY different sometimes. Just an example : don’t expect to convince us that the Reaper is as much ftting Necromancer as Dragonhunter fits Guardian. None of your arguments about that feel right to me.
But guess what ? That’s not a problem, it’s fine.

You’ve been saying that we should try to be objective, so you’re trying to make your own arguments look objective. But they’re not that much. It’s all about your personal way of understanding things. And you know what ? There’s no problem about that !
The whole point of the thread is to tell if we like the name (and the theme, because they’re linked together) or not, and then give our reasons IF we want to. Because giving reasons lets Arenanet identify where things maybe went wrong, or what doesn’t please us. But it’s not about giving 100% objective arguments !
The most important thing is to tell how you feel about that name. Then feel free to explain why… Everybody will have his own explanation and way of thinking. There are some people here who are against the name and theme, just like me, but for quite different reasons sometimes.

But please, stop believing you’re giving perfectly objective and irrefutable arguments…

Also, don’t go into mechanical discussions too much, because we’re not discussing how the spec works, it’s quite off topic.

Ephemiel.5694:

You can’t use the name “Inquisitor” since that would imply every Inquisitor is that class. They’d need to use a name that isn’t in the game or that other characters already have.

I agree.
But since spec names are probably more important than some rare NPCs, titles, or anything that 99% of players don’t even remember, my opinion is they should change those names to free some space for spec names.
That’s what they did for the Revenant.

They HAVE to consider this option, they will inevitably run out of possibilities when we will have 3 or more specs for each profession.
It may lead us to a situation where we will have more and more Dragonhunter-like names… Ugly and with a far-fetched and twisted unfitting theme. Especially when you think about the fact that those names can overlap others that should fit something else. Dragonhunter overlaps the basic Hunter theme which could have been great for a Ranger. Or a better made draconic spec also (I already had some ideas about this one).

Not only they will run out of classical names but also strange names can close some doors and force them to go for even more bizarre names and themes. Vicious circle…

Myrden.2456:

I am not a fan of the name either, but 1600+ posts about it??? Does anyone think it will actually change?

Well, we know the devs are reading the thread, and nobody said a change was out of the question so it’s still possible.

Part 2 :

Now considering the witch-hunter idea still could be good, why wouldn’t they keep it and let the spec be a Dragonhunter ?

• First, there are not only dragons to fight. We could totally use this spec without fighting dragons and their minions. Anyway it will happen to all Dragonhunters one day or another, as dragons will be eradicated. Will they stop to use their bows and traps then ? Of course not, that would make no sense…
  Hunting dragons and their minions is not the only thing Dragonhunters do, so why giving them such a precise name when their goals can be so much larger ? It is too specific.
  So if we try to find a similar concept just search for something that represents a person who wants to impose his ideals of justice, and destroy evil forces (NOT ONLY DRAGONS) : we have Inquisitors, or Zealots (other ideas ?) They’re tied to the concept of the Guardian and respect the role of a witch-hunter.
  But where is the support aspect ? A.Net told it’s supposed to be an important part of the spec ! But that’s not reflected in Dragonhunter, in big game hunter, or even in witch-hunter and all the similar archetypes I mentioned.
  So if you take something like Inquisitor and give it a more supportive aspect, something that can directly help people (not only by eradicating or “hunting” ennemies, anyone can do that, even Necromancers !) you could have a Purifier, or Purificator.
  I don’t really see how bows and traps are particularly fitting here, but at least they’re not completely misplaced, it still works.
  If you really want something that has a stronger link with the bow and traps, closer to a real hunter and less to witch-hunter, then Sentinels or Watchers would fit greatly to what the character does while staying in the Guardian theme.

• Secondly, the argument that says that everyone is a dragon hunter is not a bad one. Dragonhunter and dragon hunter aren’t different enough ! Of course I can see in which way they are, but isn’t that a bit confusing ? And we know how A.Net hates to confuse people…
  I think we’ve talked enough about the Pact, everybody wanting to fight dragons, Guardians who have no reasons to be better at this than others and who can’t realistically form one unique faction to fight dragons when there are a lot bigger and more powerful organizations that already exist for that etc…
  But even more important : I’m not only saying that anybody can be dragon hunter, I say that anybody can be a Dragonhunter ! So the concept is both too specific, and too general.
  Let’s see what Jon has to say… :
  “Guardians consider themselves protectors of the innocent. Followers of their faith be it in honor, valor, etc. The origin of the dragonhunter is a more subtle nuanced version of this. Guardians fight for justice and the dragonhunter faction believes justice is the eradication of dragons and their minions.”
  Now my turn ! : “Warriors consider themselves the best fighters against any types of ennemies. They’re masters of warfare, weapons, martial disciplines etc. The origin of the dragonhunter is a more subtle nuanced version of this. Warriors are the mightiest soldiers and the dragonhunter faction belives they’re the most capable of fitghting dragons and their minions using all their martial knowledge and abilities.”
  “Rangers can be condisered as the best hunters of Tyria. Fighting, knowing and using nature in every of its aspects. The origin of dragonhunter is a more subtle nuanced version of this. Rangers are the best when it comes to fight for, with or against nature and the dragonhunter faction believes they are the best candidates to track down and annihilate dragons and their minions to protect the world.”
  I could do it with Thieves, Revenants, or Engineers. Scholars will be harder… But just try to write some short description of Chronomancers, Reapers, and Druids including anything else than their core professions. It will be quite hard.
  It’s probably not the best argument since we could do the same thing for some professions and maybe some future specs (not the ones we know for now though), but if the other aspects are fine, I think I could close my eyes on one little slip like this.
  The problem with Dragonhunter is that they have too many things going wrong, everywhere.

But in the end, as you can see it is not only that the name is quite bad. It is also that we can easily find better ones !

Ok… Since some people are still having troubles understanding some arguments or simply how we feel about Dragonhunter I make my own personal recap…

Part 1 :

The link between a Guardian and a big game hunter doesn’t make sense, let’s be honnest. It would be like saying a Thief could be a guard in a city while still keeping the archetype of a thief. We’re not going to discuss that, that’s not the point.
The only thing that makes sense is the witch-hunter concept, which at first glance is not that bad ! But it has way too many flaws.

The only real explanation we got was Jon Peters’ intervention. It is the only time they mentioned the witch-hunter. But it wasn’t convincing in the end. Aside from the fact the pretended “high concept” of the Dragonhunter actually corresponds to a “low concept” (go see definitions), here’s why it’s not working :

• The introduction of the Dragonhunter (blog article and Ready Up) never mentioned anything like a witch-hunter.
  A witch-hunter archetype (or anything resembling) has nothing to do with a big game hunter or any kind of traditionnal hunter with bows and traps. Only common point is the word hunter itself but conceptually they are totally different things.
  Considering Jon Peters talked about the witch-hunter a while after discussions about the spec’s name started, plus the fact that it had never been mentioned before, and because it has no clear link with the previous concept of the big game hunter, I suspect it to be only an excuse. They tried to find some other concept at the last minute trying to make things feel a bit more consistent. It wouldn’t be the first time A.Net tries to find excuses when they realize they made a mistake instead of admitting there is something wrong somehow.
• If it is actually the case, then we should see that nothing has been made around the idea of a witch-hunter archetype or anything related. And that’s precisely how things are.
  When you look at the skills and traits names you realize they only named things with the big game hunter in mind (and also light magic aspect, the only thing that feels Guardian-ish).
  The Dragonhunter is a bottom-up design, which means they decided what would be the mechanics before having a concept and a name. I can see how they can draw a parallel between a Guardian with bow and traps and a classical hunter (even though there is no good reason to link them together as I said earlier), but there is clearly no reason to have interpreted it as a witch-hunter at this point. They just thought hunter because of bows and traps, then added dragons because reasons which made them think about a big game hunter because you know… dragons are big (not all minions btw !)… And made the connection between big game hunter and witch-hunter afterwards.

So now you can see that the only conceptual explanation that could be valid is not even properly integrated into the Dragonhunter ! They went 100% for the big game hunter idea (just as the reveal video showed) and then tried to justify this nonsense with a better fitting concept that is not really a part of the character they developped and doesn’t even fits with the first concept.

Ok, let’s summarize Vlamir’s intervention :
“You are close minded because reasons. Thus you’re wrong in everything you could say. That’s all Whatever you say I won’t bother taking it into consideration or even respond, because I decided you are all wrong despite 30 pages of arguments that I don’t want to hear about anyway”

You know, that’s not how you’re supposed to argue if you want to make your idea stands out…

Ghotistyx.6942:

AikunFelcis.7258:

Ojyh.9842:

Black Box.9312:

40 pages of essentially the same names saying it is or is not a problem doesn’t really seal the deal for me. Even if every page was full of unique posts purely against the name, it would still constitute a very small minority of players, but as we know that’s not the case. We have the same people posting many, many times, and posting both for and against. I don’t think we can constitute forum activity as proof there’s a problem. I’ll leave it to the Devs to determine if its A) A problem and A problem worth caring about.

Like, what are you planning on doing if they don’t cave to your demands? Not play the game because of a name? or maybe you don’t like the DH aesthetics either. You still have 8 other professions to spend your time with. Are you not going to eat at a restaurant because they serve waffle fries? “Uhh… I don’t like the name waffle fries as they don’t really fit with the theme here, and uhh… waffles are a breakfast item, not something that you eat for lunch or dinner like fries normally are, so you really need to like, completely redesign the whole thing you’ve got going here. I suggest the name change to something more appropriate like square-hole flapjack fries”.

Well, if you bothered reading a bit more of those posts you would know that the name itself is not the only problem.
As if we couldn’t play the game anymore just because of that… (although it disgusts some players enough to not want to use the spec or play their Guardian, which is a bit overdone even for me…)
At least the devs will know what we like and what we don’t. That’s always useful for future specs. Speaking about future specs, they will probably become numerous at some point. But you can already see that it will be hard to have any well done dragon related spec or any well done hunter spec because of Dragonhunter that will overlap those concepts. If they do that for every spec they will quickly run out of possibilities and they will have to create even more twisted and inconsistent concepts.

Obtena.7952:

Ojyh.9842:

We have to explain why we have that bad feeling.

If you don’t put forth the effort to understand my point, don’t bother responding to me.

WAW !.. You know what ? That’s exactly what I should say to YOU.
I know what you mean, okay ? But I am trying to explain that you missed the point of our argument. But instead of trying to understand you stay focused on the fact that we don’t accept what you’re saying… Don’t worry we understand what you mean, we just disagree and we try to make you understand what WE are saying.

So first, we already responded to Jon’s explanations, and basically we were not satisfyed with them. I don’t think we need to do it again and again everytime someone new enters the discussion.

Secondly, I already told that every spec name speaks for itself. Not only the themes are clearly pointed out, but they make sense as expansions of the core profession and the names they have fit into the theme. Which, in our opinion, is not the case of the Dragonshunter.

Lastly, we never said that if there is an explanation it means the name is bad, that would be completely stupid ! But the fact they feel that Dragonhunter needs more justifications while the others didn’t indicates that they missed something in their spec’s theme and coherence, otherwise we would feel that the name fits just as well as the others do.

Obtena.7952:

Actually, I bet EVERY profession elite special has such a justification. It’s just that we don’t see them. The fact that Jon came and explained this is NOT an indicator of how bad the name is.

You don’t get it.
Of course every spec probably has some kind of justification behind it. But every spec name we know speaks for itself, the Dragonhunter doesn’t. If they have to make a specific intervention to explain the name it means that many people felt there was something incoherent in that name.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Just because some vocal people make a stink about something, doesn’t mean its actually a problem. Just because your group is loudest doesn’t make it correct.

How can you know it is just “some vocal people” ?
This thread is pretty big already, but the one on the expansion sub-forum has almost 1500 replies !
You can also see in every video, every article that speaks about Dragonhunter, and also on reddit that a lot of people want this name to be changed.
I believe you don’t really know what you’re talking about.

reapex.8546:

1) “Marketing ? I can’t really see what kind of marketing there can be behind a spec name…” There have been several game magazines, youtube videos, blog post, and more all covering The Dragonhunter. That is spreading press and news about the class, this is marking to others.
2) "Delay the expansion for a name change ? How ridiculous is that :p " I agree, its high ridiculous that is why Anet more than likely won’t change it. It isn’t worth changing a name and going through the localization all over again.
3) "By the way, profession names never appear anywhere in the story. " You haven’t played all of HoT Story missions to know this.

1) How is that even important ?
All those people who are relaying information are happy as long as they have something to talk about. It gives them more clicks and views anyway.
While on this subject, if you take time to read some articles or watch some videos you will realize that most them are unenthused by the Dragonhunter name (some more than others)
Also it’s not uncommon to see changes during game development, even for something that has already been announced.
2) You didn’t get it…
I meant that it is ridiculous to think a name change could delay the release of the expansion. It’s not that much to do.
Localization is made by profesionnals. If you give them a word, they can find instantly what will be the best translation depending on the context. Since there aren’t many words to change… (another proof that the theme hasn’t been very well thought)
3) But I played everything since then. I can’t see any reason for them to emphasiss the presence of profession names in the game, and even less for the spec names. At least for the player characters.
Then considering the NPCs… What would be the point ? It never happened anyway. Maybe ONE NPC will represent that spec, but he will be called by his name like every others, not by his profession/spec.

Obtena.7952:

That still doesn’t make it a bad name. I get people don’t like the name, but they can be much smarter about the way they complain about it. The name is not bad because we were given an explanation. That’s just dumb. IF people want Anet to take this name business seriously, then don’t waste time with “bad name because <explanation>”

I quote myself :
“Even when a name looks/sounds bad it is easier to accept it when we feel that it is a good thematic choice. This is something many people can’t find in the Dragonhunter. And there is no need to discuss it actually, that’s just how people feel about it and the feeling is important. This is something A.Net worked on a lot when they created their core professions, so why are they destroying this continuity of profession-feeling ?

We have to explain why we have that bad feeling. Because it’s useful to identify where the things went wrong. But we don’t need to explain it to argument or give any weight to what we say. It’s not about knowing who is objectively right or wrong. Nobody is. The simple fact that we don’t like it and we say it feels wrong should be enough to make the devs react.
That’s one of the reasons why giving a high concept aspect to the name with a specific background can’t work as a good argument, because it won’t change the feeling we have."

reapex.8546:

Aeolus.3615:

humm dragonhunter… do we tame dragons as pets o.O?… Do we fly a dragon with a 600 range as gap closer?… If all classes killed a dragon does that mean they are also dragonhunters??

O.o?

For sure they will change the name ^^, hope so…

Think it is too late for a name change, they wouldn’t change all of the marketing and in game references to Dragonhunter that easily. I would rather for Heart of Thorns to come out and not be delayed due to a name change.

Marketing ? I can’t really see what kind of marketing there can be behind a spec name…

Delay the expansion for a name change ? How ridiculous is that :p
I’m not trying to make fun of you. But do you realize that only balancing that can already represent a LOT of work, and it is clearly not done so they will keep working on it for a while. This will clearly last longer than changing a name, which wouldn’t represent more than a day of work once they made the final decision in my opinion.

By the way, profession names never appear anywhere in the story. So spec names, which are facultative because you can choose not to equip them, will probably never be refered anywhere.
Then why is it so important ? Well, it is for some people. It is for A.Net also, otherwise they wouldn’t bother giving names. Important enough to matter, but if it’s not very present in game then it will be easy to change.

So they recently revealed the Reaper.

For those who said that the community is always whining anyway and that the devs shouldn’t pay attention to the “Dragonhunter issue”, or that all those threads and comments are a vocal minority (I wonder how they could know that by the way) just look at the general reaction to the Reaper. Remember the general reaction to the Chronomancer. Compare it with the general reaction to the Dragonhunter.
The difference is quite obvious. It definitely tells that an important part of the community dislikes or even hates that name.
There are people who don’t like the Reaper and/or the Chronomancer. But they’re quite rare. They’re probably that percentage of the community that we can expect to be complaining in any situation. It is different for the Dragonhunter, it clearly doesn’t take the same proportions.

We already talked about the french translation of Dragonhunter. Some believe it sounds better. It is indeed closer to what we can expect for a spec/profession name in GW naming conventions. It has this unique-and-efficient-word-that-sounds-cool aspect (although it is not really better than Dragonhunter on a thematic point of view)
The literal translation for Reaper should be Faucheur or Moissoneur (but this one sounds a bit more agricultural just like Harvester would in english).
But instead of that, we have Fauchemort. It would be Deathreaper or Reapdeath or whatever… You see how they built it the same way they built Dragonhunter, and it has the same uncreative and childish effect. People are complaining about that right now. Although I agree with them I’m not going to bring this discussion here, that’s not the point.

You can see how the meaning of the name could take a little deviation with this translation.
BUT Fauchemort is still better accepted than Dragonhunter is.
Why is it ? Because Fauchemort still fits into the Necromancer’s theme !
It is coherent with what the character does, how it plays, how it feels, what it looks like and stays integrated into the Necromancer’s concept. So we can still feel the consistency this name has.

It clearly shows that it’s not only about the name. Even when a name looks/sounds bad it is easier to accept it when we feel that it is a good thematic choice. This is something many people can’t find in the Dragonhunter. And there is no need to discuss it actually, that’s just how people feel about it and the feeling is important. This is something A.Net worked on a lot when they created their core professions, so why are they destroying this continuity of profession-feeling ?

We have to explain why we have that bad feeling. Because it’s useful to identify where the things went wrong. But we don’t need to explain it to argument or give any weight to what we say. It’s not about knowing who is objectively right or wrong. Nobody is. The simple fact that we don’t like it and we say it feels wrong should be enough to make the devs react.
That’s one of the reasons why giving a high concept aspect to the name with a specific background can’t work as a good argument, because it won’t change the feeling we have.

You can’t say [merged] if it is not actually merged by a moderator.

Reaper is good. Nothing to say about that. A bit bit generic maybe, but whatever… It works.

I thought a bit more about all that… And I believe the idea of a witch-hunter is not that bad actually. But you couldn’t replace Dragonhunter with witch-hunter as some people suggested, it wouldn’t make sense in Tyria’s lore, and it’s not exactly what the character is anyway.

They should have found a name that keeps this idea of a zealous warrior who’s specialized in the elimination of his ennemies and purification of Tyria without choosing such cliche and cheesy theme and name, just keeping the Guardian’s theme.
Oh and again, they shouldn’t make our character a member of a faction or give him big goals like "I dedicate my life to Dragonhunting !’ just because we chose a playstyle, that’s two different things.

The problem is not only the name. It is a whole bunch of things that are quite wrong and incoherent with the way A.Net usually build their archetypes, and within the archetype itself.

It will be quite hard, but we can conciliate the idea of the “witch-hunter concept” (that is not a hunter in the sense of a big game hunter or anything like that, this part has to be purely erased) with the Guardian theme. Now I feel like Arbiter, Paragon, etc are not really working.

One problem stays : where is the support aspect in that ?
To resolve this problem we have to go back on the theme and make it change. Then a Watcher or a Sentinel would totally work with the Guardian theme and also with what the spec does and looks like !
Then just change the name and theme. It’s not that much to do.
Now if they don’t want to integrate the support aspect in the theme (which would be a bit sad…) they can still go for the zealous eradicator theme, but it fits less with what the character actually does !

In the end you can see that I changed my way of thinking this spec and I tried to integrate what A.Net have already decided for it. But still I come back to the same conclusions.

MiniEquine.6014:

This elite spec is quite far from the base design, but could it be closer to one of the other elite specs? Like:

Guardian — ? — ? — Dragonhunter — ???

Maybe it’s a scale of variations. I’m assuming the Thief will gain elite specs that are very support-y, and the Warriors might even find themselves using magic at some point. I think, even though it doesn’t make sense right now, that it could be pretty cool later on when everything is fleshed out.

Looking through the weapons a Guardian cannot use (they are tied with the warrior for the most useable weapons), here are some possibilities:

Axe – A brutal skirmisher/crusader

Dagger – A stealthy assassin of light

Pistol – Unlikely (but who knows?)

Warhorn – A rallying commander with extra defensive boosts

Rifle – Light Lasers! (also somewhat unlikely. Guns don’t seem to be a Guardian thing, but who knows?)

Short Bow – Maybe tied with the Dagger Assassin?

Not many of the rest of the weapons seem very protective as the Guardian can already use all of the weapons that are. The only way for it to go seems into a more aggressive role, especially if it’s at the tip of the “defense” section of the scale (despite Medi Guardian offensive strength).

You mean that they have a long term bigger plan ? I don’t think so… But if they do, I can’t see how it can be good if it implies more specs like this one. I prefere to warn them now and tell them to stop while it is still possible.

The first and biggest error A.Net made with the DH was to believe that because of the longbow a Guardian should turn into a Hunter. I would prefere not to encourage them in that way by saying he could be an assassin or something like that.
Your suggestions would make the existence of professions useless. It would mean being able to play every kind of archetype with any character, just changing its appearance.
The very first idea behind the GW2 profession designs was to make every profession clearly identifiable and have their own unique style, but giving the possibility to any character to fulfill any role in a party. That sounded good. In the end it wasn’t in every aspects… But now they’re even going back on the style and identity of the professions.
That’s quite sad.

On the topic of lore, story, characters and professions, we probably need to clarify some points.

The origins of the professions are somewhat mysterious in the lore… Actually we could say that they have none that is clear.

In GW2, as opposed to Gw1, not every creature has a profession. In Gw1 even a simple devourer had a profession. What’s the concept behind that ? only a gamedesign choice.

The NPCs that are supposed to be identical to us (same races, same cultures), often have different skills and weapons/armor combinations. As if they were mixing professions. But it’s not really that, it’s more like professions don’t really exist !
Even though their names exist in Tyria (but you RARELY hear or see them) we can say that they only refer to something resembling closely to the professions, and the word profession itself is (almost) never used. So basically anybody can grab any weapons or learn any magic and do whatever he wants with it.
Sometimes those characters are just different enough to evoke nothing more than something like a “specialization”, but having no name for them they’re recognized as what appears to be their core profession, because this is what strikes people first. They won’t search any twisted concept, a Guardian with a dagger would just be a Guardian with a dagger if it is clear enough that he’s a Guardian. Otherwise you would call it… probably nothing. If it goes too far from that core concept then we don’t know how to consider it : it has no clear profession, so it is probably something else. But it’s just that professions don’t actually exist for them.

Now that means one important thing : the professions we have as players are a purely fictive gamedesign barriers. They can’t be defined clearly in the lore. We can identify them by a general theme, but not by what makes them on a gameplay point of view. It means that if a Guardian has a long bow it doesn’t make him something else than a Guardian. Actually any character that can be considered as a Guardian in the lore have always been able to use bows, just as any person would in reality. But WE as players are restricted for balance and *gameplay *reasons.

So…
Professions are only limited concepts. They make sense as a whole, but they’re not clearly defined by lore and they’re basically there only for the players and the devs to put some limits to what they can do with a character. That technical limit has always been followed by a thematic limit that is not as strict as the gameplay limitations. The specializations have to expand the gameplay possibilities while staying in the thematic limits.
The only thing that matters is how consistent those limits are when you compare professions between them, to make sure a profession is not crossing the concept of another one. This is something that has been very well made when A.Net created their core professions.
Dragonhunter is crossing the line by going beyond the thematic limits, which is as bad as going beyond gameplay limits to me (and many others). The identity of the profession disappears. That’s why having a spec name that stays in the thematic limits makes more sense.

A context in the lore is a good thing for a spec (but lore has never been a good thing to explain the archetypes in that franchise). Anyway it shouldn’t change the identity of the character, especially not when it is tied to a very specific story of one particular NPC only (this is for the Braham argument).
Now one particular character could eventually be a Guardian Dragonhunter… But it’s not his fighting style and his abilities that will define that, it’s his personal ambitions and his personal story. NPCs with their own personal story, their own identity are everywhere in the game. It doesns’t mean their characteristics all fit to the player characters. It would be leading your character by force into a context you never chose as a player, and doesn’t necessarily fit to the style of the core profession defined by the limits.
If a spec does something like putting you in a specific faction or giving you specific ambitions it feels wrong compared to what we usually have. That’s not what professions and spec are about.
A.Net always clearly stated that story and profession shouldn’t interact. You never choose your character for its story, you choose it for its fighting style and its look.
As your profession doesn’t even influence your story, why the story of anoter character should influence your profession ?

In the end, the lore and the story can’t really be an argument to make your character change. It is just a support to give a context to this change, but the change itself has to be made inside the defined limits. Also, the devs always failed to make decent lore about professions to the point that there is pratically none today so it’s not a reliable thing in this franchise/universe. A global theme is more adapted.

Red Jay.2516:

People are now just complaining for the sake of complaining. What is next? Dragonhunter killed my puppy?

Well, at first it was a pretty interesting and formal feedback thread (past the first shock), but what led us into complicated discussions is nothing more than us feeling obliged to justify anything we would say in front of people like you constantly questionning our reasons to not like Dragonhunter or even to discuss. When actually, not liking it is the only good reason to tell the devs that we… well… just don’t like it.

Of course it is always good to explain why you don’t like something. But it’s too bad that we have to explain every bit of our reasonings to feel like we have the right to say something, especially when we always have someone to ask us to explain our explanations and so on…

Anyway if the discussion doesn’t interest you why are you there ? Just let us be, it won’t change anything for you.

RabbitUp.8294:

Harvest.2506:

RabbitUp.8294:

Gibson.4036:

I’ve noticed an inverse correlation between developer participation and player harshness.

In threads where a developer shows up and joins the dialogue, the snark and rage simmers right down and people get more respectful (there are always stand out bad apples). You’ll see this in economic discussions with Mr. Smith, or the CDIs. Or when Gaile pops in for a little back and forth.

Just an observation.

The discussion turned a lot more aggressive after Jon posted. Just because people misunderstood a specific term they could have easily googled for.

This is just how forums should be, if your idea cannot stand to scrutiny it will be shut down by others. You shouldn’t need 4 years of post- secondary to be taught that.

Its common sense when you construct a presentation to keep it clear, and concise. Emphasis should be given to a theme that is unifying to the subject. In the case of the Dragonhunter name however, This is polarizing to the classes, and generic to the masses at the same time, with no clear direction.

80% of the feedback was limited to “wah wah change the name to one that meets my subjective criteria and fits my personal taste”. That’s the part we could all live without.

The reaction to the dev post was actually humorous, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. People accusing Jon of implying they wouldn’t understand the reasoning behind the name choice, when in reality those people don’t understand a specific term used.

Who would understand something that is not obvious and that barely make sense ?
I could have spend my whole life searching the link without finding it because there is none that is really satisfying. (maybe exagerating a little bit, but well…)

But implying that we’re not ABLE to understand is insulting. When a teacher is bad at teaching don’t say the student is an idiot. Actually there are more chances that the teacher is one because he’s not able to correctly do what he has to.

Just take away both the name and the background of Dragonhunter. Now what’s left of the Dragonhunter in the spec ?
Nothing.
The name supports the background, that is itself supported by the name which is supported by the background… etc
Then you understand that giving a background (even if it was well done, which is NOT the case) can’t be a satisfying solution to give sense to the name. The character has to be somehow linked to them by itself, without any explanation.

If you throw them (name and background) away at the same time, you have nothing concrete enough that is left to support the idea of a Dragonhunter.
The only thing left is a Guardian with a bow shooting rays of light and some magical traps of light and spirit weapon like things. (remember that traps can be used to defend or protect something that we don’t want to be taken by the ennemies, it fits to the defensive aspect of the Guardian without having a hunting connotation)

Now give a name to that Guardian.
Only judging by what it does (not only the spec aspect but the specialized Guardian as a whole) and what it looks like. You have no preconceived ideas on what it should be other than what the original Guardian was.
Now you see that there is no reason you could come to the idea of a Dragonhunter. That’s why it doesn’t fit. That’s why many people feel like it’s not right. That’s why we say it can’t be a GUARDIAN spec.
It would be pulling this idea out of nowhere, or twisting the concept of the Guardian into something that it is not. Because if the idea of a purifyer that wants to eliminate bad guys etc could work, there is no reason to come up with the idea of a hunter considering what the Guardian already is.
And the dragon part ? It’s just the cheesy detail made up trhough the lame background.

Obtena.7952:

I’m most amused that it’s not even a class name; It’s simply the name of a trait line. You’re still a Guardian, you’re just using the DH traits. It’s akin to QQing about the name of Zeal traitline.

Nope. It seems it doesn’t work this way. You will get a different icon and your elite spec name will actually appear somewhere. You will be recognized as someone who’s using that specific specialization.

Also, I wonder what planet you’re coming from to not immediately understand what Chronomancer stands for.

Bloodchild.2680:

Look, the name isn’t changing. Get over it. We’re all going to be calling them DH anyway.

- Main Guardian

Who are you to decide that ?
It won’t change if we don’t ask. Now we’re asking for a change, so there’s a chance.

Btw even if it was impossible, we have the right to give feedback and say whatever we want as long as it respects the rules of the forums. YOU have to get over it.