Guild Wars 2

The fact that he isn’t facing “good” players doesn’t detract from the fact that he’s playing DH to its near full potential. He’s got good rotations, decent reflexes and does a great job of managing distance between himself and the targets. Also he was indeed being focused plenty but the enemy team never did a great job of ccing first before the burst (rauls either avoided it or popped a stunbreak).

From my experience I’d agree though: a scrapper and/or tempest really throws a monkey wrench at DH’s viability.

Have you tried standing inside of your target? If you do, it shouldn’t matter which direction the projectile is launched, so all 7 projectile hits should successfully land.

Otherwise refer to what Saiyan said. It’s baffling that they have not fixed this bug…

First video: The fight around 2 minutes against the scrapper and rev was a fantastic display of your skill and the potential that DH has! Also, you in general make excellent use of JI. I’m actually kind of inspired to pick it back up myself haha (CoP has spoiled me).

Couple of questions for you if you don’t mind answering:
1. Toget to diamond division, how often did you solo queue vs. duo queue vs. team queue?

2. What are your thoughts on DH’s capabilities in conquest vs. stronghold?

As accurate as this is, I don’t think a sarcastic call to action is going to reach any of the devs

Razor.9872:

]

Can you explain to me what this “kappa” inside joke is? I feel like I missed where it came from at some point, and now I just don’t have any idea of what it means.

All is Vain.

It’s a poor adaptation of a face/icon used on twitch stream chats to indicate sarcasm. Just search “twitch kappa” and you’ll learn all you need to learn.

DH is in a fine spot in terms of damage and survivability; it’s other classes that are way over the top right now. Many classes have skills that do way too much for a single button press with the biggest offenders being scrapper, revenant and chronomancer.

The meta classes right now bring way too much to the table in a single build (damage, sustain, cc, condi, general utility). The options are to either nerf all of them or buff us. Just because it’s easier to buff us does not mean that it’s the right thing to do. Nerfing needs to be done. Not just numbers, but also functionality. Many over-the-top skills and traits need a nerf-bat to the face yet ANET is reluctant to do this for a multitude of understandble reasons. They ARE nerfing, this last ptch has been more nerfs than buffs. The problem is that they are nerfing too slowly.

Eval.2371:

odstninja.1468:

Does condi even have any real counters? Besides druid.

Even druid doesnt really work anymore. You can only cleanse so many bursts of condi before your out of tools. Even more so now that our condi clear on seeds was halfed.

As to all the people going on " you just slot condi clear it’s not that hard" I play druid with solider runes and seeds, which is one of the class builds that people go on about being anti condi, and I constantly get overloaded with and eventually overwhelmed. I couldn’t imagine playing thief or warrior with the few tools they have to deal with condi.

The issue right now is there is just simply too much condi application all around in aoe format and in large stacks, Teams are running pure condi damage nothing else, and when your in those kinds of matchups there is nothing you can do but blow your clears, and get melted anyways.

All the classes need some access to some resistance, we need a reduction on application for aoe skills, and to be frank we need toughness and protections reductions normalized to affect conditions. Then I think conditions could be healthy.

Absolutely agreed. I run a guard build with more condi clear than you can shake a stick at and all it takes are 2 condi classes (or one very skilled condi mesmer) to overwhelm my condi clear. I would love some resistnce on guard, especially if it was granted through some of our less used skills like signets, certin shouts or consecrations.

phokus.8934:

The skill floor is really low while the ceiling is extremely high for Dragonhunter.

You really have to time your dodges, know when to use Courage and Resolve and really know when to get out of a fight.

The one thing that Guardians don’t have going for them, and I’ve said it before, is an “oh kitten ” button. They don’t have Endure Pain, Blink, Stealth – staples of most classes that can get out of a situation when needed. And Dragon’s Maw is leaps and bounds better than Renewed Focus.

DH burst and damage and control is really high with traps and longbow but to play DH at a really high level you have to be spot on with every move. You can’t really spam one ability and call it a day unlike with say, Revenant.

So I don’t necessarily think other classes can do it better it’s just that the other classes have a lower skill ceiling and can make mistakes and still get out when needed. You have to play it kitten near perfect every game but for most people, they’ll get brain fatigued and switch off to something less demanding but almost equally as rewarding.

All of this is my opinion gathered from gameplay.

Dragon’s maw is definitely not better than RF in any sense and we have decent “oh shi-” buttons.

I’m still pretty salty about the fact that Rev sword auto attack 3 was a projectile and got fixed nearly immediately whereas they completely ignored and didn’t even address our problem (which is literally the exact same problem). This is one of those few cases where it struck me as intentional balancing/fixing with the intention of selling more xpacs.

Hmm I’m curious why you say mesmer is a counter to us. Condition mesmer is a HUGE pain in the kitten for us and I could agree that it’s a hard counter but a DH vs power shatter chrono matchup tends to favor DH most of the time from my experience.

Perhaps it is because of the use of hammer? Hammer has trouble against anyone who kites well and has very little tools for dealing with mesmer outside of MB.

This is exactly the build I’ve been using since the patch that buffed CoP, except 9 times out of 10 I use GS instead of hammer. It’s extremely effective and can go toe to toe with most condi builds in a 1v1. It works a lot better in soloq. In team/ranked I find the classic medi trapper build to be more effective.

Also I disagree that power ele/tempest counters this build in a 1v1. I have yet to be beaten by one in either 1v1-like scenarios in pvp, a duel, or wvw roaming while using this build (have fought at least a dozen mediocre to good ones).

Great post! Your assesment of the build is pretty spot on and I hope people start to see the magic of smite condi + ToF + CoP utility combo. JI is great and very useful, but it makes you feel more like a +1er than a strong on-point duelist which is what your build excels at.

Ok, rangers deserved the kitten out of the bristleback nerf. Was gettin sick of fighting 3000+ armor druids doing all of their damage through bristleback f2 and smokescale. And it was about time smokescale’s takedown became blockable. Not really seeing why the other skills were nerfed. Were they a bit overtuned? Maybe, but ANET should have prioritized other things imo.

I’m opposed to this. I hate immobilize more than any other condition (hmmm, except for maybe confusion). It’s already always the last condition to be removed during cleansing (can give multiple actual examples of this) and making it even harder to remove would give me a much worse experience.

I think a better solution, if any is even needed, would be to create a somewhat arbitrary priority algorithm for condition removal that factors in: # of stacks, duration of the condition and the actual condition effect. While difficult to design, I’d be willing to wager that most players would be pleased by it and in MOST cases it wouldn’t really hurt condi builds too much (except for builds that rely on 1 or 2 conditions).

From a pvp/WvW perspective:
DH has quite a slew of problems, but I honestly don’t think we’re that far off from balance. Over the past 3 weeks I’ve been learning to appreciate the trueshot nerf and am only disappointed by the fact that other OP skills/traits from other classes weren’t also nerfed. In terms of damage I think the best/most effective builds are in a great spot. If they would fix spirit weapons, signets and about 20% of our traits we’d be in an excellent spot. From my experience:

- We have a very solid 1v1. DH isn’t #1,but we’re up there. An intermediate player with a bit of skill and practice can go toe to toe with just about any other person on any other class of equal skill level.
- DH still has pretty decent overall damage. Our burst capabilities got nerfed, but we still have excellent dps in pvp.
- We have decent area denial. We also have some of the best on-demand CC when compared to other classes.
- Fair sustain. It’s not fantastic but it would be in a good spot if they nerfed certain other classes as they should have.

Arguably the biggest problem is that we play like bruisers yet don’t have the sustain that they normally do. In this sense, other classes surpass us in many fields and often times surpass us in all fields important to spvp (such as shiro/glint revs). I think this has more to do with toning down these other classes rather than buffing us though. It’s too bad that ANET is so slow in bringing about that change.

Zelulose.8695:

Guardian can trait for health. The only classes that need a hp boost are elementalists and thief by around 5k so they don’t get one shot for using a berserk amulet.

It’s barely 3k hp, and you aren’t going to be running a solid damage guard if you run honor traitline.

As a guard, I’d actually be happy with the medium base hp (15.9k I think). If the enemy team doesn’t have more than 1 burst class, I’d be willing enough to roll zerker amulet. Anything under 15k hp is too little though.

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Just remove rune of perplexity and tone down mesmer condition application. Simple fixes that would improve the health of small scale combat SO much, and not affect large scale combat.

This. So much. That rune is seriously easy mode, and I lack respect for any duelers who use it.

Couple of anecdotes:

1. I win a slight majority of my 1v1s (and duels) against semi-skilled to skilled condi based roamers as a power-based guard roamer. I have practically the maximum amount of condi cleanse anyone could hope for:
-Smite condition (2 condi/16s)
-Contemplation of purity (all condis/32s)
-wings of resolve (3 condi/27s)
-traited heal (2 condi/25s)
-elite replenishes my wings (3 condi/75 s)
-focus #4… It’s less reliable, but (1-2 condi/ 22s)
-light field + whirl or projectile finisher (extremely unreliable but I actually try with these and average to remove 1 condi/50s)
*note: some of those cds look weird, i’m just factoring in cast time.

Even after all of that, I still crumble to high condi pressure over time (particularly perplexity mesmers).

2. Dueled my necro friend in wvw 9 times about 2 months ago. The first 4 times he was using nightmare runes. I beat him all 4 times with ease. The next 5 times, he used perplexity runes to prove a point to me. Otherwise, our builds remained exactly the same. He proceeded to beat me 3/5 times, and the 2 times I won were extremely close if not lucky. My second win, both of us got single-downed, but he downed first, so that wasn’t really even a win.

Unfortunately, balancing around roaming or small-scale wvw fights is last on ANET’s priority list for balancing :/

StickerHappy.8052:

Another complain thread from the OP as usual.

Is this really a normal sight in the PvP forums? Everything based on 1v1/solo q perspective?

Balancing around 1v1 is a lot more important than you think. Also, having a class which is completely broken in 1v1, but completely useless in team-fights is not balanced. No specific build should be completely unbeatable in a 1v1, assuming = skill level of the participants (there should be at lost some rock-paper-scissors). OP simply perceives this thief to be that unbeatable class in 1v1 which it probably isn’t.

Warning: Wall of Text

It depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. In general, I don’t see many guards who aren’t medi guards. Most guards are medi but replace one of the 3 utilities with a trap, or bane signet (for additional damage). Stat-wise, most roaming guards tend to be fairly bursty and power oriented with 2500 or less armor and 17k or less hp. Can’t really speak on condi-guards though.

1v1 duels/solo roaming only: I find LB & Sw/focus to be most effective. You have an excellent balance of offence and defence (against both burst and condis).

Group roaming, and 1vX: LB&GS. As bland as you think it is, it’s very effective! Your survivability is still alright, but emphasis is placed on downing opponents and eliminating them quickly to stay alive in a 1vX.

**Optionally: Longbow & Sw/Shield works well too in a group, especially if you’re harassing a much larger group as you will be getting heat from projectiles. You trade your melee-range cleaving for group support. You can still get decent single-target burst with JI + trueshot or JI + sword 3.

Heal, Utilities, Elite:
For group roaming, you’re going to want high burst potential and mobility, I highly recommend having some build that utilizes Judge’s Intervention. Use shelter and RI for your heal/elite respectively. If fighting in a narrow choke, you might actually want to go with Purification, and include a trap or two amongst your utilities/elite.

For dueling/solo-roaming I think it’s actually a much better idea to AVOID judge’s intervention. An experienced opponent is easily going to be able to deal with any JI combo you can pull off. I usually run CoP, Smite condi, 1 trap, for my 3 utilities. Also, as a solo-roamer, sustain is more often more important than sudden burst-mitigation (you still have plenty of burst mitigation through your f3 and dodges imo). As such, go with Purification over Shelter (in most cases). Shelter may be more useful against ranger/druid longbow, non-hammer scrappers and revenants though. For elites, I still prefer RI as a solo roamer, but if you are fighting in a narrow area, consider using Dragon’s Maw.

Traits: Most of your trait variation comes throught he DH line. If you’re using Sw/Shield, you’ll want to run Stalwart Defender in Valor though.

In the DH line:

Adept: run Piercing Light if you have 2 or more traps (especially if you’re running Purification + ToF, or Purification + PoB).

Master: Almost always Hunter’s Determination. The extra stun-break (+ damage and cripple) is just too dang good! If you’re part of a group that has group stun-break (like revenants with Jalis elite, or tempests with the air shout), then it might be okay to go over to Bulwark to give your team more support.

Grandmaster: Use Heavy Light if you’re running longbow, and don’t know what other trait to use. Heavy Light works well if you’re using the ToF trap as it gives you another way to knock people across the ring. Heavy Light is a solid choice if you’re also running full medis, and just are using a longbow. Use Big Game Hunter if you’re part of a group and are either calling targets, or responsible for putting out huge burst damage. F1 tether + JI + GS2 is a fantastic combo and sets the target up for further damage too. Use Hunter’s Fortification if you’re up against heavy condi pressure, and are running Shelter as your heal. Hunter’s Fortification is more important in a group setting imo. In a duel, or solo-roaming, it’s more important to have increased access to CC (therefor, use Heavy Light instead).

Sigils/Runes/Food: Runes of the Traveler, hands down. They greatly help while in combat too. If you really are against using those, Rune of the Pack will serve you well while in combat, just don’t expect to keep up with your group while traversing the map.

For sigils, I recommend having energy on one or both of your weapons. Use sigil of accuracy on longbow if it would bump you up to >50% crit chance (you REALLY want to be critting on those trueshots). Sigil of air, fire and blood are all good choices to tack onto longbow as well. For greatsword/sword/scepter/mace , I would recommend one of the following: air, fire, blood, leeching, hydromancy, mischief, generosity, bloodlust (this one more for group-roaming, not so much dueling).

For food, it widely varies from roamer to roamer. I personally prefer to use food to fill out my stats (especially vitality, as guards have low vit). If you want to run power/precision food, be wary of the price. These are the most expensive foods as they’re the most in demand. Definitely don’t make a build which depends on precision food to meet a certain crit % mark. Personally, I prefer toughness/vitality food as they’re cheap, and I simply build all my armor/weapon stats as more offence oriented. For utilities, Master/Superior-level is affordable and effective for oil/stones respectively. A lot of roamers like Furious oil/stones, but those are impractically expensive and inconvenient to obtain.

Hope this helps!

As much as I agree with OP, I very highly doubt that balancing will ever be done from a small-group or wvw roaming perspective.

If you check the patch notes for 4/19, trueshot was nerfed as ANET thought it provided too much ranged damage with little counterplay in WvW (which is a totally untrue statement….).

Trust me, the nerf to true-shot was definitely needed, but the problem is that other high damage skills really should have been cut down too, namely Coalescence of Ruin (rev hammer 2) as it now does more damage and can’t be reflected while maintaining the same cooldown and range as trueshot.

Ragnarox.9601:

Ok video. but…
you can use variety of weapons and do kitten tons of dmg in Eotm. Try that with full geared 80lv ppl, they gonna rekt you :P

Some of his duels were against fully-geared level 80s (and some likely roamers). You can tell Dente is a pretty good guard, s/he has excellent knowledge of how each skill works in a pvp setting. Additionally, Dente uses multiple different builds (usually just slight variations) which shows that s/he adapts the build to the situation, the mark of an experienced wvw roamer. Even without using an optimal dueling/roaming build, Dente rakes in the wins (eotm aside), I’d call that pretty impressive!

X T D.6458:

I wouldnt mind if they took the root off this skill, but it was a little to strong, they did buff the damage of the 3 and 4 skill to compensate. CoR is very difficult to use on uneven surfaces, the damage is a little high, but its not always usable. Most of the time a rev using a hammer is just auto attacking.

I think a lot of guardians would actually be happy with the nerf if they took the root off. You’re right, they did buff LB3 and LB4. Lets be honest though, the LB4 buff doesn’t get anywhere close to making up for the true shot nerf. The LB3 buff is nice though.

I understand CoR has terrain problems, but that’s not a valid argument for why it’s balanced compared to TS. It isn’t meant to have those terrain problems.

Terrahero.9358:

Absolutely. I don’t understand what anets fascination was with short cd high damage skills in HoT, and if you ask me a few more should go on the chopping block. Most notably CoR.

Agreed. Really wish they would have looked at some other skills along with true shot. CoR stood out as an extremely obvious choice and I honestly don’t think I would have made this thread had it also been nerfed.

Salamander.2504:

@Arcaedus, a 20% nerf to true shot is not a 20% nerf to dps. Not even close.

I meant true-shot dps. I realize the other skills were buffed, but lets be real, the only one of those you stand a chance of landing against someone in a pvp setting is deflecting shot.

See title, please discuss! I would love to see a variety of points of view here.

I’m posting this thread here as I noticed the following in the 4/19 patch notes:

“Damage Changes
These damage modifiers were reduced, as they applied too much spike damage to targets at range and didn’t allow for enough counterplay. We do want to keep ranged combat viable in WvW scenarios, but we don’t want it to be the best option in open-field combat. As with the other changes, we’ll continue to watch and make adjustments where it’s deemed necessary.

True Shot: The damage of this skill has been reduced by 20%."

So in other words, this nerf was largely influenced by true Shot’s performance in WvW. In my opinion, the change was not warranted. Did anyone even complain about true shot? True shot wasn’t a problem in WvW as I recall. It quite literally only took two tempests to make an entire zerg of longbow DHs useless. True shot certainly and easily did “allow for enough counterplay,” unlike the patch notes say.

If we’re going to talk ranged spike damage with little counterplay in WvW, lets compare true-shot to a very similar skill, Coalescence of Ruin. Both true shot and CoR have the same range and cast time, but….

-True shot can be reflected or blocked by projectile bubbles, CoR cannot.
-True shot does less damage now, AND has worse dps.
-True shot is a much narrower attack and is less capable of hitting all 5 (target limit).
-True shot is a bit faster than CoR (well, here’s like the ONE pro it has).
-True shot roots the attacker, CoR does not.

I’ll admit, true shot did do quite a bit of damage to anyone with around 2500 armor or less. I found myself consistently hitting 9-10k against the squishier roamers which in my opinion is too much on a 4 second cool-down. True shot needed a nerf, especially for spvp reasons, but 20% was too much in my opinion.

So did we really need a 20% nerf to this skill? It’s now far too weak of a skill to use unless you’re a glass canon of a guardian. At least before this nerf, a tanky or even half-tanky guardian could get okay damage out of the skill. There is no reason for a front-liner, condi, or otherwise non-full zerker guardian to use this skill with its current damage. I think there’s a good middle ground we can achieve though – a good fix for true shot could involve one of the following:

-Only a 10% damage nerf
-Keep the damage as it was, but increase the cooldown to 6 seconds.
-A mix of the two: 7% damage nerf, cool down increased to 5 seconds.
-The dark horse: Keep this 20% nerf, but add some sort of functionality to true shot so that it’s useful outside of being a damage spike. Perhaps landing true shot could grant the user a boon, or gain stability while casting true-shot.

I honestly don’t know why they nerfed it like they did… Unless you’re built really well, trueshot doesn’t hit very hard at all now. Outside of my nearly glass canon roamer, I don’t find much use for longbow anymore.

Some better changes they could have made (one or the other, from 2 different perspectives) :

Was trueshot deemed op in pve? I don’t think so, but the cooldown could have simply been pushed up to 5 seconds. This is essentially a 20% nerf to dps, but doesnt upset the pvp population too much.

Was trueshot deemed op in pvp? A little bit yes. Nerf damage by 10%.

The 20% nerf was excessive imo. They claimed in the patchnotes that trueshot was problematic in wvw as it had little counterplay. I think they mistook a 3/4 cast time telegraphed, self-rooting, reflectable projectile with a mobile wider aoe, ranged, short cd high damage skill that can’t be reflected (revenant hammer 2).

Sublime Peasant.8092:

I felt very confortable to 1v1 mesmer on a Meditation DH (Heal trap, smithe condition, Ji, CoP, RF), but that was post patch..

This works very well against power-shatter, but condi mes can very easily deal with med guards.

In general, I’m finding that when fighting in a 2v2 and up against mes, wait for the mes to blink (or use f4) then lay on the hurt. 1v1 you have to kite a condi mes; they hurt too much if you fight them head-on.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Arcaedus.7290:

In wvw, I’m consistently landing 3-6k trueshots on my roamer. I think trueshot is in a pretty good spot considering the other nerfs out there. While I’m going to miss my consistent 7k+ crits against squishies, I am happy with the consistent 4-5k deflecting shot crits.

Most NPC’s don’t have any toughness beyond base lvl.

Those are numbers I’m getting against other players. I can still hit 7.5kish crits vs. thieves and mes and also seem to be dishing out 5-6k trueshot crits with Big Game Hunter traited + my target tethered and >600 range from me.

Saiyan.1704:

My initial impression was just as the forum threads read. Why the heck is our TPvP balances governed by our effectiveness in WvW?? I wish I hadn’t read that quote in the balance changes…

Things I like
We’re not so reliant on 1 skill for damages so sure, I can accept the trueshot nerf with minor buffs elsewhere. What I absolutely dissagree with is how LB#5 can be entirely negated by a single Block..

Changes We Need
Make it so that these triggered LB#5 traps are unpassable when other enemy players run through them. No One should be able to cross it once they’re up… just add a 10man knockdown cap to it like everything else.

DH vs Necro
Prepatch Guards had little issues with necros. Now, it’s a 50/50 matchup with Necros (the good ones) in favor. I like how close these dueling matches (can be) are now.

DH vs Mesmer
Same as the above. Match is 50/50 for the most part, but usually Mesmers are in favor of winning the 1v1.

DH vs War
DH is in favor but Warriors can have surprise bursts & ccs to down us. The matchup is closer balanced than prepatch.

Everything else
Thieves can kill us now in 1v1 but the matchup will last for awhile.

We’re pretty useless vs Druids.. more than ever.

Haven’t fought any revs or engis yet but the ones I have, I was able to burst them down in a 1v1. I’m sure we’ll likely never beat a good Rev though.

The only thing keeping us above water is the AoE burst damages and aoe cc we can potentially bring. As oppose to the single target bursts Revs, Druids, Thieves & Wars can offer. My biggest concern is that our conpensation buffs will mean diddly squat amongst these 4 power-houses in a team fight… DH will get downed fast and have issues landing burst attacks. Mean while other classes are better in focus target damages and can sync well in a group to achieve the same end results.

We’re more reliant on our team to pull off… well… everything, and I absolutely hate that.

I agree with your assessment of Longbow 5… It’s pretty annoying that it only blocks the struck player from crossing.

Honestly I have no idea why they nerfed trueshot based on its results in wvw… it honestly wasn’t at all a problem in zerg vs. zerg as an organized group can very easily deal with projectiles. In fact, everytime I was up against zergs with 2+ good tempests, I felt very useless on my DH as my trueshots would fail to hit anyone whereas Rev hammer 2 on the other hand…. Lets be honest though, trueshot was a bit overtuned and carried many guardians to victory. It really shouldn’t be critting any higher than maybe 6-7k against a squishy considering it’s a ranged attack on 4s cool down. I think 10-12% damage nerf would have been adequate though.

Matchups (small scale wvw, or 1v1/2v2 in pvp):

DH vs. Reaper: Yeah, it’s a lot more in our favor now. A reaper who gets the jump on a DH, chills and sticks to them like glue still has an advantage which is as it should be imo.

DH vs. Warrior: I’d say it’s still heavily in our favor. Takes a bit longer to kill warrior, but on the other hand warrior can’t suprise you that much unless you mess up on your stun-breaks. Gun-flame is doing a lot less damage too, so that cheese build is a lot less effective against us.

DH vs. thief: Takes longer to kill a good thief 1v1. Thief still utimately loses if they are dumb enough to try and butt heads with you without running/kiting. In pvp, they get a good advantage of being able to hold out against us longer to wait for ally back up though.

DH vs. mes: Condi mes are considerably more dangerous now (instantaneous scepter auto attack + even more damage for condi hybrids). I’ve gone back to full medi utilities + heal trap (more health/time) to deal with these, but I honestly don’t think DH has the damage to take out even a partial dire-geared condi mes in wvw at least.

DH vs. druid: A good druid has always held the advantage over us, and now its even more in their favor. Their burst is similar in power to ours, but they have about 1.5x as much sustain.

DH vs. scrapper: Against the scrapper who uses the pre 4/19 build, it’s a lot more in our favor now (I’d say 70/30). You can keep pace with their damage, and actually wear them out now since 1. they have less health/second, and 2. it’s harder for them to reactively apply protection (healing turret nerf) to counter bursts.

DH vs. rev: not much has changed. You can still kill a good one with a bit of luck but it’s mostly in rev’s favor still.

DH vs. Ele: Haven’t had any encounters yet, but I’ll bet not much has changed. Fresh air builds got a slight buff so we may be more susceptible to burst from an ele but these aren’t that common.

In wvw, I’m consistently landing 3-6k trueshots on my roamer. I think trueshot is in a pretty good spot considering the other nerfs out there. While I’m going to miss my consistent 7k+ crits against squishies, I am happy with the consistent 4-5k deflecting shot crits.

King Cephalopod.7942:

By this logic DD is super op because they get an extra dodge, and as far as I know there is no “unevadable” effect.

Wards

I struggled to fight condi-mes for the longest time, even on guard which supposedly does very well against them. The fact is, a good condi mes is very difficult to down and excels at 1v1s. They CAN be beaten though, but the method you use to 1v1 some or most classes usually fails against condi mes.

Here are some things I’ve learned that may help you:

-First and foremost, make a mes, learn how to play it, and practice the burst. Once you get a feel for how it plays, you get a better feel for how to play against it. This is ESPECIALLY true if you take it into pvp and see how other people counter you. Also, this is good advice for any time you struggle to fight a class.

-When a condi mes goes invisible, you as a druid have one of two good options:
1. Kite/move AWAY from where they stealthed. They don’t move very fast.
2. Count the seconds they have been stealthed. After about 2-3 seconds, they will usually attack again. Dodge.

-You can NOT face-tank a condi mes, and fighting one usually takes excellent kiting and timing of your CC/big damage. They will outlast all of your condi clear if they’re any good.

-Watch your condi-bar. Don’t keep spamming attacks when you have 4+ stacks of confusion on you; it hurts. Torment hurts too, but it’s the lesser of the two evils if you ask me. Condi cleanse after they use shatters.

-Keep your distance and dodge INTO the illusions when the mes uses shatters.

-Keep track of their blink. If they use blink to chase or burst you, now is a good time to cleanse and burst back. Condi mes can really only sustain actively through stealth and blink.

-If all else fails, kite them. Condi mes are terrible at chasing players and excel when you try to stand your ground and fight.

Hendrix.9763:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Turk.5460:

As silly as OP sounds, I actually agree that we need a cast time on par with thief and ranger traps.

The only traps that do not have a cast time are test of faith & fragments of faith.

All of the guardian traps can be dodged as well_(also have a very telling 1/2 second daze before any damage is done)_

Conversely ranger & thief traps cannot be avoided by anything short of an evade effect going of at the exact same time they are triggered.

Given all this guardian traps are more or less fine as is. If they were going to do anything they should do all of the following

1: Reduce the damage & cool down on procession of blades. (say 25% less Cd and 20% less damage)

2: Make traps share any boons granted with nearby allies

3: Tack some bleeding onto procession of blades (say 2 stacks for 5 seconds per hit)

This would mean the traps would be less likely to instantly nuke people but would still have good spike.
As an addition any boons granted would be shared & procession of blades would also apply some condition pressure for those willing to utilize it.

See buts that’s the thing, even though you dodge them, they still cast and affect anybody in them. E.g. you dodge procession of blades, it doesn’t get disarmed, it just misses the first few hits.

If you dodge thief’s traps it disarms them and they literally do NOTHING.

This needs to be fixed.

I disagree, our traps are of a different flavor than either thief or ranger traps. If you wanna talk balance, lets be real here: there are only two traps that give an even slightly skilled player any trouble and those are Test of Faith and Dragon’s Maw.

I think these two traps should be balanced and reworked slightly. ToF needs a short cast time to it (and perhaps a small damage buff to crossing the barrier), and Dragon’s Maw could be reworked such that it punishes you much harder (than it currently does) for staying inside the entire time by dealing its damage in multiple hits, but doesn’t do a lot of up-front damage. I think this would be a good change as it would be more condi-build friendly. These changes wouldn’t hurt a tactical player’s use of the traps, and would also lead to less steponatrapandinstantlyblowup-type situations for other classes.

mrauls.6519:

Hi All,

I recently posted the below change recommendations in “Q:[Suggestion] Guardian Balance”, but I want people to see solely my ideas in one thread. I don’t think my recommendations are irrational or over the top.

What Guardian needs right now is more sustainability, condition removal and resistance, and damage mitigation. I want to hear what the Guardian community has to say regarding my recommendations. Guardian needs to be reworked, and I’m here to voice my opinion.

Profession mechanic

• Virtues: They should pulse a boon with a slight delay, similar to Herald’s facets.
F1 = might; F2 = regeneration; F3 = protection

• Wings of Resolve: Extend its range from 800 to 1,200. While airborne players should receive Resistance until they land. It should innately remove one condition

Weapons

• Greatsword: Greatsword’s second hit in its auto attack chain should apply cripple for ½ a second

• Longbow: Reduce the cast time of Hunter’s Ward from 2 ¾ seconds to 2 seconds

Utility

Meditations

• Combine Contemplation of Purity and Smite Condition together. This new meditation skill should convert all conditions on the player to boons and should deal damage based on if a condition was converted or not. Give it a cooldown of 30 seconds

• Judge’s Intervention: Reduce the cooldown from 45 seconds to 35 seconds

Elite

• Dragon’s Maw: Players trapped inside the maw should lose a boon every second

Core Specialization

Virtues

• Inspired Virtue: Boons should be applied on key release

• Absolute Resolution: While F2 is passive, resistance should be applied for 2 seconds every 10 seconds

• Indomitable Courage: It should allow aegis to stack up to two times. While F3 is passive and a player does not have aegis, the player should receive protection for 2 seconds every 10 seconds. The timer should start after the player is without aegis

I’ll critique your changes from a pvp/wvw perspective.

Roughly in order of what you posted:

Our virtues do not need to be reworked to resemble revenant facets. They are a unique class function. If anything, the base virtues need a cooldown reduction (perhaps 18, 30, and 50 seconds respectively).

Range increase is not the kind of buff wings of resolve needs. I like that it has counterplay in being interruptible. IMO, one of your later changes, receive boons instantly when casting a virtue, would address a lot of the complaints guardians have on getting interrupted.

Your change to greatsword is nice. I also think the projectile speed of GS 5 (binding blades) should be increased. Overall, this seems like a slightly weaker and slower cc compared to other options out there.

I’d be in favor of your change to longbow. Their priority should be fixing visibility issues on the ward though. Also, given that this is a fairly strong, ranged aoe cc, I think the ward duration should be reduced to 4 seconds.

Your changes to meditations: Nope, I rather like being able to smite condition someone once per 16 seconds. There are skills in the game that need balancing, but SC is lower on the list if you ask me.

I somewhat agree to your change for judge’s intervention. While I think other skill-types we have should be buffed first, if we were to fix meditations, I’d like merciful intervention to be fixed. It’s not a very useful skill compared to the other meditations. It could perhaps use a cool-down reduction, or a heavy redesign (perhaps add some boon functionality to it).

Your changes to Absolute Resolution and Indomitable Courage: These are already great trait-choices and are not what is in need of buffing. We do need access to resistance, but should receive it through some other method imo (perhaps consecrations, signets or shouts). As for your change to indomitable courage, I’d say this is a no go. It doesn’t seem like a very balanced buff. Perhaps a future elite specialization could play around with aegis a bit more, but we already have great access to this boon and don’t need a buff like this.

Eremite, you did a good job of playing to your strengths. In general, I’d say power reaper vs. DH is either neutral, or in DH’s favor. Power reaper’s best chance of winning is dodging big blows early on, and then sticking to the DH like glue. Between your application of weakness, blind on shroud 2, chills and huge damage output, you will always beat a DH in melee range.

The DH you fought weren’t that great and seemed to be new to the class (as roamer/duelers). A good DH would kite you like crazy and would only stay in melee range to hit off certain attacks (immob you + GS 2, GS 5, or GS auto when you’re out of shroud). You may struggle against DH due to their high block uptime, but they go down quickly once they run out of blocks, and you demonstrated this nicely in your 2 fights. I noticed that you didn’t seem to be dodging big blows a lot (true shot, mostly) and instead seemed to face-tank a lot of DH’s damage. Luckily, they did the same to you, so your damage in melee range won out.

Here are some tips for you:
-Familiarize yourself with DH’s strongest attacks, and watch for/always dodge them. I especially am referring to Longbow 2 (Trueshot) and GS 2 (whirling wrath).
-If a DH leaps on you with wings, and you become immobilized, this means a big attack is coming. Condi cleanse and dodge. This still works out well for you as the DH is now in your melee range.
-Consider carrying around a warhorn. Warhorn 4 does wonders when fighting guardians, especially if they use shelter as their heal.
-If you see a DH lay traps/you pop them, be sure to go reaper shroud, and pop your stab. DHs almost always burst right after traps activate.
-Boon corrupt DH when you see them pop their shield. Not only will it interrupt them (corrupts stab), but it will likely give them weakness (corrupting might) which ruins their burst.

fost.9167:

On my DH I went traveler runes.

Same as on any characters I have that don’t have innate 25%+ runspeed.

Quality of life

^This

Yep, I’ve said this before: I resisted using rune of the traveler for the longest time as a roamer in wvw. I ran with the next best thing in terms of min-maxing, and getting at least some swiftness (rune of the pack). I tried traveler runes once when their price dropped, just to see if they were really so great. The qol improvement was amazing, and I doubt I’ll ever go back

^ totally not an infomercial, try em out yourself!

I’ve noticed this too in both spvp, and wvw (zerg and roam). Generally I seem to camp longbow, and choose my secondary melee weapon based on what I feel I need (extra burst damage, cc, mobility, condi clear, team support). Well OP is right about one thing: melee does seem to be turning into a secondary function for us.

It’s difficult to approach balancing this though. One thing that’s been suggested is to add some damage-dampening for shield while channeling the bubble. Smaller additions/changes like this are about all that could be done for us without majorly changing the current balance.

This is true; hence why ranger, engi and mes make better use of that 6th bonus. However it’s mostly not an issue as any half decent guardian should be lasting >30 seconds in a fight. If you’re in such a fight that doesn’t allow this, then it’s unlikely the rune would have helped much anyways.

This has more to do with HoT elite specs getting love rather than preferrential class treatment.

Rev’s 3rd strike of sword auto attack was a projectile. Anet fixed this fairly quickly as a 3rd auto attack on a melee weapon shouldn’t be reflectable , yet guardian’s 3rd strike of sword auto attack still remains a projectile and reflectable.

But yes, +1 to fixing scorpion wire. I hope ANet doesn’t forget about all the little things in game like this that need fine-tuning, bug fixing and overall qol improvements.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it appears to be a roaming build that is designed to support a small group more so than either zerging or solo-roaming.

I used to run defender runes pre-HoT. The extra sustain from the 6th rune effect is fantastic. The major problem with this rune though is that you really lack mobility by not taking traveler’s runes.

Pros of your build:
-Fantastic personal sustain
-Good condi-clear; on par with a regular DH roamer.
-Great damage, although predictable, you can combo together some high damage combos like JI —> LB 2 —> f1 (pull) —> f2 leap —>auto x2, wait for target to condi clear and dodge —> LB 2 again.

Cons of your build:
-Low mobility. This will hurt you in some scenarios. Will have difficulty landing hits with sword.
-What support you do provide is only marginally better than what a normal DH roamer can provide without defender runes, or your traits.
-Will be weak vs. condi burst (chill necro, condi-shatter mes, condi revs). Having traited virtue of resolve does help quite a bit.

Suggestions if you roam with this build: Roam with a herald revenant, you need that swiftness. Also, consider traiting Bulwark instead of Hunter’s Determination. That extra 2 seconds could clear 1 more condi, plus the bigger f3 makes blocking attacks for allies much easier.

Overall though, the best kind of support a DH provides to a smaller group is CC, strong burst and decent dps for target focusing. Since you lack in the CC department and instead go for the group-support, I argue you get that group support enough through f3, shield 4 and 5. You could honestly support your group equally well with this same build, but with traveler runes instead of defender runes. The mobility bonus can actually equate to extra sustain itself!

One thing we might want to add to the list:

increase projectile velocity of Greatsword #5 (binding blades).

Even for our weapons that work perfectly well across many scenarios, they still seem to be lacking and have out-dated features (some more than others). I really hope the devs read and consider the qol improvements in this thread. They would definitely make playing guard more fun!

Indure.5410:

Not all DH’s are exactly the same so the amount of condi clear can vary dramatically, but in general you are most likely going to go against Smite Condition and Wings of Resolve (traited); while also often facing Contemplation of Purity and Hunter’s Fortification.

Smite Condition is a low cooldown (16s) utility and removes 2 conditions. There is nothing you can do to stop this. You can try to bait a DH to use it early with CC, since it is the best way to clear CC.

Wings of Resolved (traited) removes 3 conditions, and its animation looks like an angel jumping. I don’t think you can stop the cleanse, but you really want to stop the rest of the ability because it heals for 4k and will go on full cooldown even if the skill fails.

Contemplation of Purity, is similar to Smite in that it is instant cast, but it converts all conditions to corresponding boons. You really can’t stop this as well, but if you have boon corruption you will want to use it directly after CoP. Just be careful because chill gets converted to 2s of resistance.

The Dragon Hunter’s Grandmaster trait is a draw between Hunter’s Fortification (removes a condition every time you block an attack) and Light Heavy (knock back with bow). So if you don’t get knocked back by a bow assume Hunter’s Fortification. Which means don’t attack them when they are using shelter, focus 5, or Shield of Courage because you are just helping a guardian out.

The most common heal in pvp currently is Purification (trap heal). It heals for a lot if your opponent sets off the trap. So if a guardian is low on health do not get close to them because they will try to trap heal.

Best advice I can give you against a guardian is CC, especially near the end of the fight. Guardians have a hard time fitting much stability in their builds and can be easy to lock down once they have used Shield of Courage.

Would just like to point out some things here:

-Immobilize is a great way to get a DH or guardian to blow SC from afar and early on. Often times, a really fervent DH will SC and immediately dodge.If you condi bomb a DH, and stand close to them, they most likely will use SC asap. This is a good way to bait it without taking the hit, but overall SC is a pretty unstoppable skill.

-You can stop wings of resolve’s condi cleanse as far as I’m aware. The condi cleanse and heal occur at the end of the leap. It DOES remove immobilize at the beginning of the leap though. Absolutely try to interrupt this skill, it’s a great way to hurt DH sustain.

-CoP: Is a great tool against necros. In a drawn-out fight, a smart DH is honestly probably going to use this skill very effectively. In a burst scenario, something you can do is condi-bomb the DH, CC him/her, and then DH will use CoP if they have it. Follow this up with a boon corrupt! I’ve been beaten by good condi-necros before who save their boon corrupt all the way until I use CoP.

-When a guardian uses Purification (trap heal), you’ll see/hear smite condition being casted as well due to the adept trait in Valor line. At this point you know the guard has casted Purification. If possible, avoid stepping on it. Switch to staff and turn it into a bit of a ranged fight if you can. If you think the DH may pull you onto it, try to poison the DH to hurt the heal.

lil devils x.6071:

Arcaedus.7290:

lil devils x.6071:

I agree the map does not need to be " flat" , flatter than the DBL, but not entirely" flat". I think you misunderstood. They need to understand clearly, however, that it is not adding fun to the game to make people fall off ledges then have to run a mile back to the fight only to get there just in time to miss the fight. That is just adding reasons not to play the map, rather than adding to the enjoyment. It is part of what keep players out of PvP action, rather than in it. The goal of a WvW map should be to keep players in the PvP action the majority of the time they are on the map, if it fails to do that, it fails to be a good map for a PvP game mode.

If a player only has a couple of hours to play WvW when they come home from work, they want to spend that time they have in the PvP action, not spend the entire time running around trying to get to it.
They need to make these changes, they need to make sure they do them in the right order to save the game mode. It does them no good to try to pour sugar ( rewards) on a rotten plate of food and wonder why no one will eat it.

Exactly this…. One path that really frustrates me in DBL is going from the Southeastern-most camp to the shrine directly south of air keep. They look fairly close together on the map, and if you stand on the cliff by the camp you can see the shrine. Should be fairly easy to get to this shrine right? [insert “WRONNNGGGGG” gif here] . The path is unnecessarily long and confusing and is reminiscent of the 3D complexity you experience in games like Dark Souls. While a spectacle to behold, I absolutely despise having to put up with this for wvw. This is not what wvw is about. Having 3D complexity and “pve-like” events is great, but taking 5 minutes (and often times getting lost) to travel between two of the closest points on the map is unacceptable.

Yes it just makes players waste their time running around and not actually feel like they have been able to play the game when they add this nonsense to the battlefield. PvE players may enjoy the added the scenic routes, but that does not apply to WvW.

As someone who enjoys both pve and WvW, I think they did a fine job with the fire-keep/western side of the map. It does have a tad too many environmental barriers that aren’t conducive to fights, but it’s not unnecessarily winding, or confusing to navigate.

Speaking on map design, It’s possible to have the scenic views, but still have an area be conducive to fights (I think the area north of the fire keep does a good job of this). Additionally, larger-more open routes should be very apparent and obvious for groups wishing to navigate from point A to B…. unlike the air keep/eastern side of the map.

TheBravery.9615:

ronpierce.2760:

Erm, I STRONGLY do not support removal of Smiter’s Boon for a WVW fall trait… Strongly. :S

It got merged into healer’s retribution in radiance

Still no, smiter’s boon is definitely fine in the valor line. Perhaps consider switching it for a master-tier trait in Valor (forcing guards to choose between team utility, and personal benefit), but otherwise it’s fine where it is.

Also, I want to say thank you for taking the time to make this. You have both good and bad ideas here, but I don’t have much to say that hasn’t already been said by Ragnar above.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

If they would do the following to hammer I and many others would gladly use it.

1: Reduce the cast time of the last AA to 1/2 second and get rid of the after cast, but take 1 pulse off of symbol of protection. (this would effectively keep the damage and protection uptime the same while making the AA much faster)

2: Reduce the cast time of the number 3 & 4, as is their way too slow.

3: Make it so you can move while casting the Number 5.

Until then its just something you have to bring while your bored to death spamming 1.

^This all the way. In spvp, our hammer has really fallen behind the times and needs to be brought up to par with other weapons. I like these changes, but would propose some other changes as alternatives:

#1: Agreed, I like your change.

#2: base damage increase (should be pretty close to true-shot), OR a very slight range increase (perhaps 400 units would put it in a good spot without making it op). Hammer is more utility focused, so I’d prefer the latter.

-Changes aside, this skill should be changed to have the vertical movement component removed (like thief’s heartseaker) so we can combo this with JI like we used to be able to do. No one uses this skill to traverse the map anyways….

#3: Cast time decrease like you said, but also slightly increased projectile velocity and decreased after-cast. It’s fairly unreliable once targets get past around 700 to 750 range. This skill would still be balanced and very dodgeable with higher projectile velocity.

#4: I like the cast time of this skill. I think what could be buffed though: reduce the CD to 20 seconds, and allow this attack to strike up to 3 targets rather than just 1. This skill is too slow to only affect one target.

#5: Agreed, I like your change.

I really hope we get some hammer-love. I think the above changes would be perfect:
-They don’t hurt hammer dps in pve
-They maintain the theme of our hammer being a utility/CC/team support weapon
-They would make the hammer a more reliable weapon in spvp.
-These buffs/changes don’t make the hammer over-powered by any means.

lil devils x.6071:

I agree the map does not need to be " flat" , flatter than the DBL, but not entirely" flat". I think you misunderstood. They need to understand clearly, however, that it is not adding fun to the game to make people fall off ledges then have to run a mile back to the fight only to get there just in time to miss the fight. That is just adding reasons not to play the map, rather than adding to the enjoyment. It is part of what keep players out of PvP action, rather than in it. The goal of a WvW map should be to keep players in the PvP action the majority of the time they are on the map, if it fails to do that, it fails to be a good map for a PvP game mode.

If a player only has a couple of hours to play WvW when they come home from work, they want to spend that time they have in the PvP action, not spend the entire time running around trying to get to it.
They need to make these changes, they need to make sure they do them in the right order to save the game mode. It does them no good to try to pour sugar ( rewards) on a rotten plate of food and wonder why no one will eat it.

Exactly this…. One path that really frustrates me in DBL is going from the Southeastern-most camp to the shrine directly south of air keep. They look fairly close together on the map, and if you stand on the cliff by the camp you can see the shrine. Should be fairly easy to get to this shrine right? [insert “WRONNNGGGGG” gif here] . The path is unnecessarily long and confusing and is reminiscent of the 3D complexity you experience in games like Dark Souls. While a spectacle to behold, I absolutely despise having to put up with this for wvw. This is not what wvw is about. Having 3D complexity and “pve-like” events is great, but taking 5 minutes (and often times getting lost) to travel between two of the closest points on the map is unacceptable.

Kuya.6495:

Hambow DH with palladin’s amulet has thus far been fantastic in ranked. Sometimes, depending on enemy skill, you can even hold down two targets at once. Ring of warding, Hunter’s ward is excellent for locking down a target for team burst. I concur with what was said that palladin’s amulet gives you those extra seconds you need to have your heals off cooldown, allowing you to stay in the fight longer.

I use condi cleanse sigils and hunter’s fort when i see more than one necro, so condis have not been an issue for me. In fact, you’ll probably be the only one in your team that can survive condi bursts. Only threat i’ve seen thus far is a good druid, because that can probably beat you in a 1vs1.

Fun hammer fact: If you manage to get someone inside of a ToF and pull them outside of the ring (for example, JI + ToF, f1, pull), then banish them back into it, they will cross the ring twice (once going in, and once going out the other side) since they move slowly enough during banish allowing that 1/4s minimum re-crossing time to pass. This gives you a fairly meaty 3-hit combo with ToF. Enjoy

Keksmuffin.1450:

It really depends against what you play. Against multiple revs paladins amulet will be really nice to have, against a bunch of necros it will not help you at all. You should always look at the oposing comp before deciding for an amulet imo.

That being said I played marauder hambow and it’s going alright. I’m almost never losing unless I’m up against stacked premades. Might just be me getting carried from duoQing with pro league players though.

That being said I probably wouldn’t play DH in a more serious enviroment and I would probably already have rerolled if I would still play in ESLs. I really don’t think it’s anywhere near viable beyond random ranked games.

It really turns into some game theory then, huh? You have a clear best choice between marauder’s vs. paladin amulet depending on what the enemy team is running. I played around a bit with paladin and marauder’s amulet yesterday. I didn’t go up against any excellent premades and most of my fights were smaller XvX, or 1v1 so this is a bit biased, but I noticed:

Paladin is much better vs. scrapper, druid (power based), rev (power based), tempest and other DH. In general, very close/similar matches with marauder amulet but paladin gives you more room for error.

Marauder is much better vs. classes running condi builds: Chill reaper, condi mes, mallyx revs, condi berserkers. Marauder can fare well against tempest as long as you interrupt air overload.

Both seem to be equally effective against: bunkers, thieves, shatter mesmer, scrapper (in a 1v1), power rev (in a 1v1) and warriors.

If you assume my assertions above are correct, and are mostly playing soloq, enemy team comps more likely than not will favor you going marauder’s rather than paladin. I think if I was to go up against a premade though, paladin would be the superior choice.

Would be a great way to completely kill off the remaining wvw population though lol.

ronpierce.2760:

Hello everyone, I had a question about shield and community preferences, and wanted to strike up a discussion. I’m mostly speaking about Shield #5. I’ve seen some say they’d prefer if it had a personal block element attached to it (be it for improving bunker guardian, giving Guardians better escapes, or what have you as the meta has shifted and abilities have generally gotten stronger). So my questions are:

1. As a Guardian/DH, do you think Shield 5 should also sport a personal block in addition to the team-projectile absorb?

2a. If No, why specifically?

2b. If Yes, in what ways would you change it to be “fair”?

1. No, shield is in a good spot for now.

2a. While I do like your proposed change quite a bit, our “block” for shield is given through shield 4. True, it doesn’t block nearly as much as other shield skills out there, but it is a team-oriented weapon (and team oriented skill) whereas most other shields are not. Additionally, I like that our shield block is given through aegis which is very symbolic of the guardian, and synergizes with traits. For personal defence, we already have focus.

I think a better change would be for us to change the master-tier trait for shield. Instead of adding toughness (which is redundant), the trait should improve the functionality of our shield 5. Since our shield is designed to be a team-support weapon, I think there should be more benefit to keeping the dome up. So the trait could be something like this:

Allies affected by Shield of Absorption have the damage dealt to them and the duration of conditions applied to them reduced:
-Damage reduction: 25%
-Condition duration reduction: -66% (does not affect conditions already on you)
Shield Recharges reduced by 20%

Your change to:

smite condition: No. SC is not part of the power creep and has been something we’ve had to deal with since forever.

Sword: absolutely. I’m rather annoyed that they fixed the issue for rev but not for us.

Greatsword: projectile speed on gs 5 would be very nice. It’s about time imo, this skill has fallen behind compared to many other ccs out there. Ms increase to GS2 isn’t necessary though.

Lets not forget that our torch offhand needs love too.

Longbow: Trueshot is essentially on 5s cd. It takes 3/4 s to cast it, plus we don’t use this ability on clockworks (at least not in a pvp scenario). If anything, trueshot should have 5s cd, but no more; 6 would ruin its dps in pve. Also, trueshot shouldn’t be nerfed unless Rev hammer 2 gets nerfed as well as that ability is far more problematic and powerful while still having only 4s cd.

Traits: I agree with your decision about Heavy Light, this is essentially what most guards want. The rng knockback aint cool. I think Piercing Light should be changed, with the daze on trap rolled into one or 2 traps (Light’s judgement and procession of blades). Some traps already cripple, and light’s judgement already gives swiftness though, so I think adding condi functionality to all traps would be a better idea.

Also, I think spear of justice (throw) should only be blockable if we either maintain daze on trap, or get Heavy Light proccing only on LB3.