Guild Wars 2

I ran a similar build, gear and trait wise, except as DD.
Most damage phases in fire, running to green circles use water overload, and sometimes air for if stuck far away. And by slotting elemental bastion (and frost shout instead of signet of fire) I was the raid healer along with a cleric Guardian tank.

Feedback:
DD works well but if you enjoy sceptre that looks fine since can spend most of the time in Fire. I think you should equip elemental bastion though as added heals never hurt.
And then tailor your play style instead of build to how much pressure the group is taking. Good luck!

Emrahil, we can disagree but you miss the aspect of making it more rewarding to play with high skill. I want it to be difficult to be good because if it is easy to be good then that spec won’t appear in the meta but will only damage the lower brackets, how is that a good thing? Notice most of my suggestions actually lead to a increase if you play properly like the 25% increase to true shot damage if timed exactly right.

Ragnarox.9601:

Arutha.9874:

Encouraging easy gaming specs to be above the power curve is bad for the future.
Examples of what could make DH harder to play and better for top meta players:
1. Adding knockback to skill 3 instead of RNG. (Skill shot that becomes better with Mesmer friend)
2. Traps trigger 10 seconds cooldown on utility when triggered.(placing triggers normal cooldown so you can reposition but if triggered the cd goes to max(10,current_cd) )
3. True shot gives kitten stacking intensity buff that makes next true shot deal 20% more damage, nerf TS by about 25% (stacks up to 5, stack refreshed when next true shot hits)
4. Daze removed and replaced with something thematic instead of hard to get, eg. 3 stacks of torment on trigger instead of on damage, nerf base damage a little (High usability by condi guard and asks the question, do you want to move out of the traps?)

DH don’t need to be harder.
1. Fine by me.
2. Srry but 10 sec cd it too much for fast paced pvp matches.
3. TS is fine because it roots you in place.
4. Torment is useless if you don’t play condi guard. Maybe adding trait for condi dmg but removing daze no.

Traps are fine, DH is fine, ppl just need to learn counterplay. Visual nerf made that road easier.

1. I think everyone agrees on this at this stage.

2. But these are traps you are not supposed to be able to stack them up the way players do at the moment… In my suggestion if you drop a trap and it is triggered instantly there is no change to current mechanics. Yes 10 seconds is long but currently you can have at least 4 traps trigger on a player within 1 second easily. 2 PoB at once is just stupid. Even if it doesn’t happen often it should never be allowed to happen.

3. This was more of an option to show a nerf which leads to more damage if skilled right, could be a nice buff to pve damage for example through a trait.

4. I think this is the part I have the most issue with, explain to me why Daze is a good mechanic for these traps? Is a 5 second daze through all your traps (potentially more due to point 2) really balanced? If you want we can calculate daze uptime vs Mesmer to see…
And the torment suggestion is just extra damage, sure torment numbers aren’t very high but it is still added damage or added thought to clense after triggering. Either way it gives people more of a “hey I can do something” feeling after hitting traps.

Emmrahil.1934:

Not sure if this is the right thread to post it but … reading the forums last weeks made me smile about how people can confuse “strong” with “op”…also made me think how people judge how strong a class is in spvp from solo que and not from meta level of play (which should be the basic place where the fact if a class is op or not should be judged) . Guess what? DH is strong (as he should be) and is not OP at all . The fact some DH owned you in solo que dont make this class OP. Dont get me wrong. DH is ( thanks ArenaNet !! ^.^) strong enough to be part of current spvp meta.That is something good and it is not making DH an OP class. Hopefully developers will make the future patch changes and balances based on the meta level of spvp (if a class is clearly overpowered in meta level is normal to nerf it and if a class is not at all in high level games is normal to boost it -warrior cough cough-) and not based to what people say from their solo que experiance. I hope that since they seem to put great effort in spvp and create pro leagues they will do that insteed of try make everyone who post in forums happy. In my humble opinion no class is OP atm in spvp (not sure about revenant tbh not saying he is just dont know for sure) .Warrior needs a boost and maybe theif needs a small one and that’s it!

I find myself disagreeing with a majority of these types of comments, in my opinion if you balance everything against high level play it becomes extremely boring for us normal people. In a lot of cases forum posters are observers instead of active gamers, I am not sure if that is true in the gw2 ones but these people forget that the game is about making people feel good at all levels of play.

Good specs should be hard to play and easier to avoid. This lets low players have much more “I can’t believe I just did that” moments as oppose to “burn noob” moments.
Dragon hunter is at the moment too easy to play and too hard to counter, this means that top level players can compete but low level players have to struggle and begin hating the game for it. This is exacerbated further as there is no skill splits so dragon hunters are everywhere.

Encouraging easy gaming specs to be above the power curve is bad for the future.
Examples of what could make DH harder to play and better for top meta players:
1. Adding knockback to skill 3 instead of RNG. (Skill shot that becomes better with Mesmer friend)
2. Traps trigger 10 seconds cooldown on utility when triggered.(placing triggers normal cooldown so you can reposition but if triggered the cd goes to max(10,current_cd) )
3. True shot gives kitten stacking intensity buff that makes next true shot deal 20% more damage, nerf TS by about 25% (stacks up to 5, stack refreshed when next true shot hits)
4. Daze removed and replaced with something thematic instead of hard to get, eg. 3 stacks of torment on trigger instead of on damage, nerf base damage a little (High usability by condi guard and asks the question, do you want to move out of the traps?)

The changing second effect thing is interesting Dastion, however your points on artwork don’t make sense because the new art is holding a shield and that is not a baked in aspect of the elite spec either.

Rodzynald.5897:

Masori.3528:

Ghotistyx.6942:

Swiftness > 25%

+ 1

Just run Staff + “Retreat” and you’re settled.

Then get surprise buttsecks around the corner and you can’t fight properly with your build cause you have a staff and retreat shout that you are not spec’ed into.

Well I guess mesmer could wave goodbye to its speed trait in chrono (and they have it in minor grandmaster so they don’t even have to choose) cause they can call upon a swiftness wall that gives you full 45 seconds of speed instead of standing in two traited symbols of swiftness to get 45 seconds stack of speed.

Well you switching out one weapon is a lot easier than switching out 6 pieces of armour for the rune bonus, and you could do a lot worse than retreat.
Imagine for a second that the trait gets placed in Honor, are you going to start using that trait line for your dps roamer, or start advising swapping out the trait line before battle, or just keep complaining that you didn’t get Exactly what you want Again….
Conclusion, staff is more than good enough we do not need a 25% move speed and if we get one I hope it is in the most awkward place possible just to spite all of you ;-)

Ohh also I figure a good condition damage summon weapon skill would be a great upgrade to a sceptre based condition spec, fire axe of underpoweredness is the obvious suggestion for this.

Personally I would add a condition to earth sceptre 2 so you can trade toughness for poison stacks, that might be enough. The strange thing about air is there is no real damaging condition that could be put on skills that makes sense, so maybe a trait that says blinds deal damage similar to retaliation, or maybe adding a few stacks of confusion to end of Arc Lightning?
I think one more thing that sceptre might be missing is a ranged or condi offhand.
Focus is very def, dagger is good melee offence and warhorn is mostly boon share utility but none of them have any poison or ranged bleed on offhand. Maybe at some stage we will get books offhand that can bring the other condis and then will have a choice between defensive focus and the ranged dps item.

With regards to a trap “nerf” I would only request these two:
1. Test of faith initial trigger does not cause the daze, only when passing through the line of swords with no defence you get dazed.(that hard Nerfs the JI→ToF→PoB combo)
2. Triggered traps make the utilities go on short (10s?) cooldown. So people can’t set up full set of traps then 20 seconds later have them triggered and placed and triggered again. I mean a DH defending a point can easily have 5 traps ready to nuke 1 or many opponents, instead should be relying on longbow to kite for at least 10 seconds.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Arutha.9874:

Azure.8670:

Because pvp isnt about killing? If pvp was 1v1 then yea, thats a whole diff story. Then again from your comment you probably dont pvp so I apologize for my comment. PVP is team based and is more so about bunkering and holding points, a “pure killer” spec is good for roamers and dropping people in team fights but its not as valuable as a good point holder. Mesmer at one point was unstoppable in 1v1s and still wasnt meta in pvp

Taking other team PvP games for example Mobas or Overwatch there are classifications of “killers”, “tanks”, “supports” and each character within each group is balanced against the others.
If gw2 PvP is to be considered balanced then DH should be in line with other “killers” not on its own level.
Just like bunkers are balanced against other bunkers and supports against other supports, although they are too weak at the moment to take up 20% of a team.

Whoa, calm down there broskis. You obviously weren’t picking up what I was putting down.
He could’ve meant it was perfect for his playstyle, or perhaps perfect conceptually. He even could’ve meant it had perfect internal balance. He didn’t specify what “perfect killer” actually meant. Just because you forced a definition doesn’t mean it’s the correct one in that instance.

You also haven’t provided any empirical evidence supporting the claim that Dragonhunter is imbalanced to begin with. So until I see some empirical evidence, I’m inclined to dismiss those claims.

Oh I had no problem with your replies Ghost they are ofcourse correct but Azure did put off a tone of “this is the best 1v1 spec(and that is okay) as you can just 3v1 me for balance, and even then good luck avoiding maw burst”
To be honest I don’t think that DH is that amazing and there will be counter specs soon, but I do think that it scaling linearly for the number of opponents is a bit over powered.
It was more that I took offence to his language referring to any spec as “the perfect killer.”

Azure.8670:

Ghotistyx.6942:

Arutha.9874:

How can you call something “THE perfect killer” and not consider it Over Powered?
By definition the perfect killer would be better than anything else, top of the food chain.
While balance would mean they are all on the same level.
Obviously if it observably is “THE perfect killer” it should be nerfed down to the level of the other killers.

Perfect can have multiple definitions (or put more directly, what specific aspect is being called perfect). Therefore, it can be the perfect killer without being out of line.

Because pvp isnt about killing? If pvp was 1v1 then yea, thats a whole diff story. Then again from your comment you probably dont pvp so I apologize for my comment. PVP is team based and is more so about bunkering and holding points, a “pure killer” spec is good for roamers and dropping people in team fights but its not as valuable as a good point holder. Mesmer at one point was unstoppable in 1v1s and still wasnt meta in pvp

Taking other team PvP games for example Mobas or Overwatch there are classifications of “killers”, “tanks”, “supports” and each character within each group is balanced against the others.
If gw2 PvP is to be considered balanced then DH should be in line with other “killers” not on its own level.
Just like bunkers are balanced against other bunkers and supports against other supports, although they are too weak at the moment to take up 20% of a team.

CDUB.1645:

I run D/D Tempest (Perma Prot, Regen,Vigor, Cleanse, Heals) and have great sustain and I am thinking about using it in Raids. However, I would change based on needs of group/guild. I personally dont like how pretty much all WH skills are 30+ CDs (Air skills are 25sec). Too me that should be fix, some may be justified at 30sec but 6 of 8 skills are 30sec+ and the other 2 are 25sec.

Pretty much the build I was planning for however swapping water for fire for the first raid boss as it doesn’t require the condi cleanse and can still provide group wide perma everything through shout auras.

Azure.8670:

DH is perfect. its not op, its none of that imo, its just perfect. Its the one perfect class. Guardian was the ALMOST perfect bunker and DH is THE perfect killer (yes, over Rev and Mesmer). I still think Reaper is the DH weakness overall, especially condi ones, but thats a whole different story. I also think baseline cele necro does fine against DH

How can you call something “THE perfect killer” and not consider it Over Powered?
By definition the perfect killer would be better than anything else, top of the food chain.
While balance would mean they are all on the same level.
Obviously if it observably is “THE perfect killer” it should be nerfed down to the level of the other killers.

Saint Tyrael.5804:

Arutha.9874:

The one word answer to DH is Rabid.
There are very few specs around that use this amulet but if you manage to create one that has high toughness and deals condition damage, especially from range you should be able to tear apart a DH with his zero condi removal.
Hope we will get some of those invading the meta soon, been messing with my engi and Ele recently trying to make Rabid gear work well but seem just a little too susceptible to counter condi pressure.

Umm Medi DH has quite many condition removals. Smite Condition, traited Smite Condition, Contemplation of Purity and traited Wings of Resolve. GL on beating a Medi DH with condi build

Umm I am confused as to how you could, in my eyes, change subject so fast.
It is pretty clear from my text that I am talking about a trapper, who mostly does direct damage through traps, LB and GS hence the toughness stats(JI is exception) who generally goes so full damage that he one shots not prepared builds hence has no utility space for condi removal.
And I closed my post by saying incoming condi pressure would counter a potential rabid meta so yeah if you choose to use a burn medi DH ofcourse it will die.
I believe we were talking primarily about trapper as that is the new meta build as oppose to vanilla medi guard with added Wings of Resolve. Play against that the same way you used to play against medi guards for years.

The one word answer to DH is Rabid.
There are very few specs around that use this amulet but if you manage to create one that has high toughness and deals condition damage, especially from range you should be able to tear apart a DH with his zero condi removal.
Hope we will get some of those invading the meta soon, been messing with my engi and Ele recently trying to make Rabid gear work well but seem just a little too susceptible to counter condi pressure.

He is not confirming, just being pessimistic and realistic.
He and probably most of the non guard community think it should be nerfed so is having fun thinking of places where other things could be buffed.

Laraley.7695:

Arutha.9874:

Laraley.7695:

Arutha.9874:

Laraley.7695:

Sunshine.5014:

Without DS, the Tempest build would be a joke in PvP. Right now most people would rate it at below average, only higher than Berserker.

If you can’t even break through 10% of a Tempest, it’s really your issue. Even on my condi Reaper, I could do it easily.

Then the ele is playing badly. If you cannot stay over 90% hp as a DS ele against a condi build, it’s entierly your fault. See, how can this go both ways?

Because the skilled player wins in that case, that is how PvP games should be.

If you call skill equiping a certain trait, sure.

No you say that a skilled Ele can stay over 90% health, and other say a skilled opponent can break through the top 10% of the health before burst. That means the more skilled one wins the fight. Equipping DS and standing still won’t win you the fight as you yourself stated “If you cannot stay over 90% hp as a DS ele against a condi build, it’s entierly your fault”

I never said a skilled ele can stay over 90% hp. There’s not anything skillful about that and anyone who has at least half of a brain can accomplish that.

And others say that there’s not anything skillful and anyone who has at least half of a brain can accomplish dealing 1.6k direct damage before applying condi burst.

Also replying to your other post, why aren’t you using instant condi appliers then? If he heals back to over 90% his condis aren’t cleared you just can’t apply more, so if you have gotten some condis on him in the instant cast window when he is below 90% then he will naturally drop below 90% again and again.
There is an obvious spite in your replies which makes me think you have never tried DS for yourself only against it, or straight given up as soon as you saw the opponent Ele had it equipped, try it for yourself to see how easily other would counter it, or try the things we suggest in this thread: direct damage first then condi.

Burn guard, don’t JI in, GS leap whirl and then JI Ring of Fire, but you are playing a losing spec anyway against Ele unless he forgot water for some reason.
Condi engi, use your hammer or wrench otherwise you won’t break it.
Tell us if you have another spec I haven’t played that is struggling and I am sure someone will know the answer.

Laraley.7695:

Arutha.9874:

Laraley.7695:

Sunshine.5014:

Without DS, the Tempest build would be a joke in PvP. Right now most people would rate it at below average, only higher than Berserker.

If you can’t even break through 10% of a Tempest, it’s really your issue. Even on my condi Reaper, I could do it easily.

Then the ele is playing badly. If you cannot stay over 90% hp as a DS ele against a condi build, it’s entierly your fault. See, how can this go both ways?

Because the skilled player wins in that case, that is how PvP games should be.

If you call skill equiping a certain trait, sure.

No you say that a skilled Ele can stay over 90% health, and other say a skilled opponent can break through the top 10% of the health before burst. That means the more skilled one wins the fight. Equipping DS and standing still won’t win you the fight as you yourself stated “If you cannot stay over 90% hp as a DS ele against a condi build, it’s entierly your fault”

Laraley.7695:

Sunshine.5014:

Without DS, the Tempest build would be a joke in PvP. Right now most people would rate it at below average, only higher than Berserker.

If you can’t even break through 10% of a Tempest, it’s really your issue. Even on my condi Reaper, I could do it easily.

Then the ele is playing badly. If you cannot stay over 90% hp as a DS ele against a condi build, it’s entierly your fault. See, how can this go both ways?

Because the skilled player wins in that case, that is how PvP games should be.

Laraley.7695:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Thieves being in the game counter every single marauder or zerker build besides Guardians. Some things counter things. Deal with it.

The difference is that if the player on a zerker build can beat a thief if he’s playing way better, can’t say that about diamond skin.

You mean you can’t even do 1600 power damage before doing your condi burst?
Well then you are as bad at build design as someone that chooses no condi removal or stun breaks and complains stuns and condis are broken skills.
Choosing to do power damage skills first followed by condi burst is your “playing way better” in this case.

Koviko.3248:

If the raids are at all challenging like they are supposed to be, D/F will be more useful than D/D. A dead Ele is a useless Ele.

Not true you are thinking from a PvP or dungeon perspective where there are short fights that have specific one time mechanics you need to time right to counter.
In raids for the first boss I can’t think of anything useful focus would bring so might as well do full damage DD. And beyond that why use a long cooldown weapon skill on a 10 minute fight, a selfish invuln that gets the rest of your team killed or a low uptime swirling winds when other classes like Rev can out do you for projectile destruction.
I think DD should see a much better place, RtL is great mobility, fire field and fire grab are still much stronger and you can even get earth skills off reliably.

Use evades to trigger their traps. Rev has a perfect skill using Hammer 3 to trigger all traps and return to safety. Same with scapper leaps skill.

I see it doing the same role as a druid, no bunker stupidity that most people think is required but instead:
Tempest, Air, Fire. Dagger Dagger Full dps, maybe some cele trinkets to survive.
While using Tempest Auras grant regen and vigor to push out perma regen and vigor and sustained healing to the whole team.
Key point Auramancer does not require Water because shout auras are AOE anyway.
Concept DD cele ele from pvp shared to the whole team.

Hi we earlier had an idea which could give the spec some new life.
Instead of:
Signets grant light aura on active.
Make it:
Signets proc a Symbol on active.

Either the GreatSword symbol on all for perma retaliation to keep it similar to light aura.
Or most interestingly a different symbol on each signet:
Heal procs vigor symbol(longbow) at feet
Immob procs swiftness symbol(staff) at feet
Knockdown procs retal symbol(GS) at target
Tanking procs protection symbol(hammer) at target(usually you are at melee anyway)
Res procs regen symbol(mace) on completion ground targeted
Elite procs res symbol(downed) on completion ground targeted

(They could all be standardised to at feet on completion for 4 seconds for simplicity)

PS. The retaliation trait needs some work also and for that my suggestion would be adding retaliation now procs on your attacks as well as when you get attacked.
Now your opponents can’t cleanse this source of condition damage, only boon strip it. (within the realms of balance of course, perhaps a % chance on hit)

Tomiyou.3790:

So, did you beat it? I really wanna know how it generally felt, not just for ele but for others too.

No, the few that did probably don’t hang around the forums, but in terms of suggested builds this was the best I found for Ele, as I was switching classes a lot.

Tomiyou.3790:

I meant just for the first boss, the Vale Guardian, me and my guild just want to try it out and I don’t want to feel useless. This is where I labeled it subpar… Wait I was wrong, yeah we have currently no idea how it will work, I just doubt, that a jack of all trades can be more successful as a min-maxed group composition.
There have been some stationary bosses with big hitbox in the raid trailer, so maybe team comps will drastically change from each encounter. This leads me to my second question, that I forgot to write: will you be able to change class inside the raid. Like, can you do first boss with herald, second with thief, third with ele and so forth?

Missed my posts like :-(
DD was what I had most success with on first boss, maximal movement for an Ele build.
Yeah you can easily swap builds or characters so long as someone stays in the instance, same as in dungeons.

My opinion differs from the person above me with regard to preparation now, practicing every build this class has to offer is a good idea even now, however he is correct to point out that different bosses will have very different mechanics and there won’t be “one build for raiding”.
However that only further reinforces my recommendation to practice and customise a DD build. Good luck!

Try to look into DD Cele Ele builds from PvP, they are for mobile targets so are a good place to learn rotations.
Next consider auras, there are a few threads up right now considering the sustain and clense brought by shouts(which are AoE auras by default)
After that customise your utility and build to either include or remove the ridiculous amount of Regen and Vigor that DD Tempest Eles bring to the melee team.
And finally choose which gear set you are comfortable playing, full dps might need Regen and Protection while part tanky could use different trait lines to boost dps.

Wolfric.9380:

ups … I play rabid gear and shoot condi at range … S/F condi ele. Never had a problem with DH :-). Would love a slight push of condi damage in fire and earth :-)
Same with the LB Rangers. Killed them since i play WvW.

Hey this sounds like great news and I’d like to learn some of your practices to try for myself. Could you link a build and maybe a quick condi stacking rotation as I have never used a sceptre that way.
It is encouraging to hear my thoughts confirmed if ranged rabid really is the extreme DH counter. I thought it just theoretical, and still very skeptical to tell the truth. ;-)

Currently my biggest counter (or everyone’s) is Burst Dragon Hunter.
In my opinion that is because of the lack of Rabid gear in the Meta.
Rabid brings Condi and Toughness, the combination of which would probably destroy a dragon hunter especially if the condi application could be done at range.

Running the risk of suggesting making scepter another super underpowered weapon, like necro and mesmer scepter, I still think the niche that scepter needs is more condi application.
Not saying we should nerf or touch Fresh air burst builds, Fire and Air attunements could remain untouched, but speed up Earth auto to apply sustainable bleed, and or add poison to earth sets also, and perhaps change Dust Devil to be targeted.
Whatever options they choose it would be nice if it ended in Scepter being a good choice against Ranged Power builds that are weak to Condi.(definition of DH)

Outsider.6051:

Arutha.9874:

blubberblasen.3901:

do not use tempest LoL
play classic dd ele
armor of earth -> walk in -> teleport out -> kill him -> gg

Hey just to point out, Tempest has an easier way to do this without needing to use two utilities with a 75 and 40 second cooldowns.
Engage in earth with earth overload which has 3 stacks of stability and swiftness, proc all the traps then leave out of them, and get reflect aura afterwards which likely cleanses his burn stack and heals you back to full.

Never thought of starting fights in earth. Gotten so used to opening fights in air or fire. Maybe the key to playing tempest is forget how to play ele?

Pretty close, Earth Overload for Stability entering fights, Then Air into RoL Updraft into Air Overload hopefully gaining Shocking Aura on completion, if not then Fire Attune for Burning Speed Ring of Fire Firegrab Overload, then back to earth for another fire aura from Leap and might with After Shock, Earthquake, Dodges and Churning Earth if not pressured.
That is ideal dummy PvP rotation I think, with water for extra cleanses.
Also if you feel your being kited too much FGS has superb synergy with Tempest due to good weapon skills and buffed stats affecting overloads and shout damage, while maintaining Regen Vigor and Cleanse.(the backbone to a good cele ele build)

blubberblasen.3901:

do not use tempest LoL
play classic dd ele
armor of earth -> walk in -> teleport out -> kill him -> gg

Hey just to point out, Tempest has an easier way to do this without needing to use two utilities with a 75 and 40 second cooldowns.
Engage in earth with earth overload which has 3 stacks of stability and swiftness, proc all the traps then leave out of them, and get reflect aura afterwards which likely cleanses his burn stack and heals you back to full.

Hi my weight into this conversation would be based only on DD builds since that is all I have experience with. DD Cele Ele has constantly been a melee survival based spec.
In general it used Fire Water and Arcane. Fire for Might and Water for Cleanse and Arcane for Damage while Surviving.

The Key aspect to Cantrip based play is Permanent Regen and Vigor, and Cleanse on Regen. This means dodging a lot to avoid Power damage, Regening consistently whatever damage you take, and cleaning Condi damage every few seconds.
This spec had 3 condi removal on 3 Cantrips, +3 from Cleansing Fire + Not counting Cleanse from Left side bar.

Now If we take Tempest we get the Option to grant Regen and Vigor on Aura/Shout.
This means again Perma Regen and Vigor, meaning the gameplay is almost identical.
However the Bonus of this spec is that the Regen, Vigor and Aura itself is all AOE to all allies, making everyone as tanky as a Cele Ele. (ohh the fear of those days)

Now to tackle the condi clense Problem. I see 2 Options, Soldier Rune or Water traitline(+Radiance rune is good with that), or both.
I like keeping Water trait line and, This is imo the mistake most Tempests make:
Not taking Powerful Aura instead taking Cleansing Water.
Powerful Aura is greedy, Shouts grant AOE auras anyway, so start Cleansing instead.

That gives Tempest 3-5(up to 8 ) cleanse on utility + 4 if you finish an overload + weapon skills + larger heals + access to high levels of strong Prot + more cleanse from non Cantrip based water traits such as Soothing Ice double condi removal every 10 seconds, or Dodge to remove burn if you recognize a burn guard, or cleanse on water attunement.

About damage, I have personally not noticed a loss in Dps except when I focus on team healing of which I have a lot more options. I believe Arcane might be the odd one out and there could be more play with Tempest, Water, Fire that I am missing.

Finally I would like to bring to attention a nice Combo I have found with FGS on Tempest. I have not enjoyed Rebound, so I reslotted FGS and find the gameplay there a lot more interesting since you can play with overloads while maintaining high damage Weapon skills, and your overloads get boosted with the extra stats from FGS very high.

PS. Sure you get interrupted a fair amount during overloads but just keep going to next attunement and overload.

Then your questions are a little over zealous to be honest.
Elite specs (as they are named) are only for level 80 play. Until then you don’t need to think about them.
As a level 1 you will be going through the personal story and doing open world content.
Personal story rewards you with enough gear to sustain you through the leveling process but if you want to check the vendors too that is an option.
I recommend Soldiers stats gear (Power Toughness Vitality) as that will keep you alive as you learn to play the game and not destroy your dps as at low levels only power matters.

The key part is utilities while I do not encourage ignoring specific utilities(you should try whatever you like) I do recommend focusing on swiftness, therefore shouts are your best friend. Really just buy what you want but here is a guide if you want it:

I recommend using a Staff for swiftness and a Greatsword for killing(it is the only weapon we really need) as for skills I recommend going Meditations up to Judges Intervention, then shouts to get Retreat and Save Yourselves! for 100% uptime on swiftness.
Then once you start unlocking traits, maybe Honor first as that that gives more survivability options and also has reduced cooldown on staff and shouts meaning you get one more utility slot back for whatever you want.

As for preparing for hitting 80 I recommend you practice dodging a lot, if you can keep yourself above 90% constantly then you are ready for meta builds.
If you do not like PvP still do some to get a few rewards from a dungeon track to get all your lvl 80 Exotic Weapons ready.
And do some WvW(I recommend Edge of the Mists) as exploring different aspects of the game is good, and if you have over 1000 Badges of Honor(really not more than a few hours of work, and good exp gains during it) when you hit 80 you can get a full lvl 80 Exotic Armor set which is all you need to start endgame.
By 80 you should have an idea of how you want to play I believe with this method you should be able to choose Soldiers, Knights, Zerker or Cleric. Besides that you would probably have to pay higher money for fancy sets like Celestial or Sinister or Zealots or Marauder or Sentinal so don’t forget that you can mix gear as well for your own balance.

Hope that helps!

To answer OP, all though out the betas we complain because of lack of synergy. If you look back at the “BWE changes” threads we Never asked for buffs to damage, instead stating something is underwhelming and asking for changes to functionality.

We constantly complained that there was no Synergy instead the Devs decided to just buff numbers until we were satisfied, that is what caused the salt. Every Beta we got buffs to damage instead of changing functionality, so when it went live we just accepted the cheesiest specs to prove that the design concept is a fail. (Even post BWE3 we got a flat 7% damage buff and Pure Sight reduced to 6% over 600 range, we are not blind)

The frontrunner for this is the Traps for a Ranged class problem. For a Ranger across all MMOs, and even D&D, Traps are their Melee Option! and anyone that states otherwise is misunderstanding or using flawed logic: They use LB to deal consistent damage until people come melee, then swap to melee weapon and spike them out.

Nike.2631:

Having tools for range and tools for in close is FLEXABILITY.

Finally I want to address this quote because it sounds like a good thing but is actually what disappoints me the most.
Guardian core was designed to be bad at ranged with no weapon and no utilities.
Then the Dragon Hunter was announced with the tag line “a ferocious big-game hunter that specializes in ranged combat and back-line support.”
And then they decided to NOT let us fight from the back because Dragon hunter still has consistent but mediocre ranged damage due to Lack of Ranged Utilities.

And this flexibility comes with a cost: Guardian and ALL of its Elite Specs will Forever be horrible at ranged damage because never will we have a ranged weapon with utilities to support it. We kittened up our only chance.

But hey I do play the dragon hunter as a melee class with pleasure and will forever try to run as cheesy as possible because they made me do it.

Dastion.3106:

Amiron.1067:

I would hardly call adding weapon swapping a “lazy fix”. It was a simple and needed fix, and I’m very happy with the change.

If you set out to create a the Heavy armor answer to the Ele and Engineer (single weapon users who make up for it in other ways) and then players complain about lack of nuance or options to their builds and you go back on that design decision in an attempt to add some options rather than addressing the actual design flaws then – yes – that’s the “lazy fix”.

They could have done something like convert the existing Elites (which aren’t really ‘elites’ Impossible Odds is more an elite than Jade Winds is) into Utilities thereby providing options and make the Legendary Elite skills a thematic kit to change your main hand weapons then THAT would be maintaining your design. But they thought having two hard-coded immutable Legends would be enough, were wrong, and went with the easy option of giving you a second weapon set rather than addressing what is still an issue with the profession.

I would have preferred they stick to their initial plans also. My solution would be a 4th utility slot skill per legend that would be like a kit or conjure weapon, you would have to give up one of the core 3 to get the “transform” skill.
Maybe less skills and upkeep to make people not prefer it but have the options.

Real but I have only seen in PvP so don’t know how to get them yet.
Probably craft t6 + maguma lodestones or something like that.

Karl McLain.5604:

There were zero damage reductions to true shot…

Thanks for solid info!
I think they are just scaremongering, nice launch Karl we can see all the hard work!

Only if you have the trait equipped it is a bug/oversight.

Jaxom.7310:

right but cripple application is pretty built into the dragonhunter, w/ or w/o traps. so it could’ve been useful for dh regardless.

this ver is only good for trap builds

Sorry but cripple isn’t if you don’t use longbow though :-P

In my opinion this set is soo bunkery in its gameplay it will have to open a new strategy.
Usually bunkers have to hold until someone arrives to +1 the offence then 2v1 spike out the attacker. Or hold off 2 until the majority of your team arrives to support.

I am afraid in Minstrel the guardian will no longer be able to provide that extra spike to crush the single attacker. He will just stand on the point and basically watch a 1v1 happening in front of him with no dps effect. So the new play mode will depend on the guardian providing disruption effects with soft and hard CCs I guess.

On the other hand good tactics might be to hold off indefinitely, if the Minstrel Guardian can hold off Single or even Dual attackers that could be very strong effectively making the Opp team play one point down 5v4.

Might work but is not just Bunker it is basically a full White House scale Bomb Shelter.

A straight damage modifier would have been nice I guess but his rune having a lot of might application adding extra boons on top of those already on the traps is very good in my opinion. Well done to the designers!

This actually looks like one of the best of the Expansion:

(1): +25 Ferocity
(2): +35 Power
(3): +50 Ferocity
(4): +65 Power
(5): +100 Ferocity
(5): Apply 5 stacks of might for 8 seconds when you place a trap.

Too bad nike did not guess right with the movement speed rune but this is pretty awesome.
Note: if you wish to see them all don’t forget you can in the Mists as they are all available for use.

I hope we get some nice threads next week where we can make these suggestions, I do like what we made of symbol signet guardian.
A real spec I would be excited to have.

And spirit weapons will get their day sometime soon as we are just here to give potential ideas to devs I think we have done a good job.

I wish everyone good luck with the expansion! It will be amazing I do not doubt!!! Hype train has arrived! :-D

Bezagron.7352:

I was thinking about differing symbols for each signet but felt the trait started to get to complex.
Although I won’t be against each signet having it’s own associated symbol.

I think this would be similar to the engi traits Streamlined Kits and Gadgeteer which both give unique additions to multiple skills in a utility type, so I think this would give Signets more build variations since different Signets have different purposes, swift, dps, prot, etc.

I think there’s many advantages to bounded SWs that greatly out weigh the weakness to AoEs.

• Be able to apply symbol boons easier to SWs.
• Targeting noise making it harder to target the guardian.
• SWs count towards AoE target limits mean allies might not receive any damage.
• SWs will act like mobile symbols allowing for better positional control over command ability placement & help focus their damage in one place.

Add in the new changes to minions in PvE with 95% damage reduction if not main target & I think your found a unique gameplay between Necro minions & gyros.

A little greedy imo, we want to go from below power curve to just balanced. I think the 95% reduction on AoE will already make them really powerful without changing anything else about mechanics. (besides the speed and following buffs Gyro got)
And also you list “Targeting noise making it harder to target the guardian.” as an advantage. . . This is the only reason that PvP HATES minion builds, do think about discouraging it more instead of encouraging it. That is the single reason is why I think this is a Bad idea.

I was actually looking at basically keeping the core function of Shelter & buff it so the blocking part could be used on allies at a distance if needed.

Finally I think you are missing some interactions that will change the skill to something very different.
The skill has a 2 second cast time, with the heal only at the end, so you couldn’t cast other things during it.
If the Block is ground targeted you couldn’t move while casting the heal, and if you mean anyone in the circle gets the Block shield attached to them, then that would be a way overbuff.

Bezagron.7352:

I think the questions we need to answer are;

• What play style do we want with Signets & Radiance?
• What play style do we want with Spirit Weapons & Zeal?
• What play style do we want with Consecrations & Virtues?

If we can come to a common consensus I think this would greatly help Arenanet.

Signets – In Combat Mobility & Symbols
My idea for Signets was a more sustain combat mobility through multiply sources of swiftness making boon strip less effective. It was also looking at adding making signets the utilities of choice for symbol builds. To achieve this I was looking at replacing Perfect Inscription’s Light Aura with creating a Symbol of Swiftness on signet activation. With Writ of Persistence this would provide some extra health sustain.

This would also tie in nicely with knockdown & immobilise providing a speed boost to help close that gap if foes are trying to run. Also if used to set up for a spike this would add extra damage, vulnerability (with Zeal) & give speed to either stick to them or more on to next objective.

---

Spirit Weapons – Burning & Bounded Minions
First of all this all depends on Cast Time & CD functionality improvements which provide reasonable summon up time & summon ability in melee combat. The largest change is SW are no longer self mobile but bounded to & move with the guardian. The benefits are the player directly controls the mobile position of SWs. Leaving it up to the player to remove them from AoE’s. Another aspect is the bound range would place SW within symbols allowing them to receive full benefit from symbols.

Now as SWs are bounded to the guardian they can only apply their benefit locally around the guardian making them more like a mobile symbol. To enhance SWs as a viable burning build option I would look at adjusting Expeditious Spirit so it has a use with Bow of Truth, Shield of the Avenger & any future SW heal or elite. So:

Expeditious Spirit
Spirit weapons burn foes they strike. When summoned & commanded spirit weapons remove burning from the guardian. If burning is removed the spirit weapon applies burning to nearby foes. Spirit weapon summon and command skills have reduced recharge.

---

Consecrations – Back Line Support
I feel what’s holding consecrations back are the CDs on Hallowed Ground & Sanctuary which are way to long to be practical. I would be very interested in how these play with a CD reduction. Another confusing fact is for a utility set tied to the Virtue Specialisation they provide very little benefit to boon or virtues game play with actually Shouts being a better fit for this game play.

I also feel Shelter could be a great option as a heal for consecrations. Consecrations & Shelter also feel very close in theme & functional gameplay which I feel could place shelter nicely into this skill category. An idea is a small adjustment to Shelter turning it into a back line support option as well. The idea is to separate the heal & the block.

Shelter (40 sec)
Consecration: Heal self & consecrate the target area blocking all attacks to allies inside.
Healing: 4,545
Number of Targets: 5
Block Duration: 2 sec
Radius: 120
Combo Field: Light
Range: 900

Hello again, trying to keep distracted from total Hype :-)

I like the idea of making signets the go to for symbol builds it would actually give quite a lot of synergy. Then zeal, radiance, honor could be a real guardian signet build.
I will support you on this if they bring up a core suggestion thread.
But how about each symbol is unique to the signet?

Heal -> Symbol of Energy at feet. (Long Bow) Vigor added to heal not game breaking.
Immobilise -> Symbol of Swiftness at feet. (Staff) 12/30s Our movement signet.
Knockdown -> Symbol of Wrath at target. (GS) DPS signet that KD to guarantee DPS.
Dam Reduction -> Symbol of Protection at target. (Hammer) Lose 10% gain Protection.
Resurrection -> Symbol of Faith at ground target. (Mace) Regen for health after res.
Elite -> Symbol of Judgement at ground target and at cast time. (Downed)
Worst thing about the full heal is it doesn’t res people but if played right this symbol could res ally then full heal them right as they stand up. And access to this powerful symbol is still restricted because of the cast time.(may need thought on cancel casting…)

Shorter on the other suggestions:
While I am not a big fan of attaching spirit weapons to the guardian, (unless they become untargettable non minion more like aura effects(due to targeting issues)) instead suggest that they bring the PvE invulnerability to AoE to all SW and add Stun break to Bow.
I do agree something should be done about Expeditious Spirit’s burn not working with utility spirit weapons. I like the transfer burn idea, it makes guardian its own counter, which could lead to hilariously high stacks of burn.

And on consecrations I described previously that I think Sanctuary should be unnerfed and made an elite instead with some other utility taking its spot. (check Spirit Weapon Heal and Other Elites thread) However about Shelter I would recommend not changing much as it is such a core staple of guardian gameplay across all forms of gameplay. Consecrations no longer have a trait related to ground targeting so Shelter is no longer the odd one out, it should remain cast on self. The only problem of making it a consecration now would be giving it a further buff of +20% duration and -20% cd.
So my recommendation is nerfing non traited Shelter(thereby buffing other heals) in a way that leaves traited shelter basically the same. 40s(32s) cooldown and 2s(2.5s) block.

Calcifire.1864:

For “mechanic” I’ve been going off the minor adept trait in the elite specializations (eg, I consider both FoN, and LDS to be our mechanic as they are specifically named in the Herald Adept Minor trait)

Last time as the rest seems opinion at this point :-)

Revenant:
You can now equip a shield, use legendary dragon stance skills, and gain access to the facet of nature.

Druid:
You can equip staves and gain access to glyphs. You can become a celestial avatar once you gain enough astral force. Generate astral force by healing allies and damaging foes.

Daredevil:
Gain access to the physical skill category and staff weapon type. Your maximum endurance threshold is increased.

Reaper:
You can equip greatswords and use reaper shouts. Death shroud is replaced with reaper’s shroud, which has more melee oriented skills.

All from Wiki. So most of them follow the:
1. Weapon 2. Utility Skills 3. Profession Mechanic formula.
Granted some of the other professions have weird ones like DH forgetting to mention LB, etc.

Calcifire.1864:

I would personally agree that eles should get Earth unlocked with the rest of their attunements, it’s stupid that they don’t, then again I’m one of the people that despises the NPE and thinks everything should be unlockable based on the player’s choice like at release.

my complaint isn’t a complaint, nor is it a debate.

it’s asking for clarification: due to our unique utility switching mechanics will we be at a disadvantage compared to other elite specs because of our lack of utilities, and if so, what is being done to mitigate that? (for example, giving us the skills baseline but making other things more expensive, or by moving our skills to the front of the reward path as we rely on them far more than other classes rely on theirs) otherwise our new class mechanic is useless until we get the skills unlocked, a limitation that no other class shares (a reaper can still use reaper shroud without shouts).

I have no idea why people then decided to spout offtopic things like workarounds or to be happy that I can use knowledge tomes to skip leveling, or tried to make it a debate, but sadly there is no way to contact a dev directly other than the forums.

Good to hear focused reply, but I disagree, Unique Quirks between classes mechanics should not be discouraged. Especially if they converge to balanced points later.
You might as well complain that guardian has access to swiftness from lvl 3 due to staff 4 while no other class has swiftness. If you agree again with my example and we keep going down this rabbit hole we will end up with only 1 profession in GW2.

I also hope you will recognize that Heralds New class mechanic is NOT Legendary Dragon Stance it is instead Facet of Nature.
Legendary Dragon Stance == Shouts for Reaper, which they do not have access to after 60 points.
Facet of Nature == Reaper Shroud, both of which are available after 60 points.

Calcifire.1864:

Haralin.1473:

It is a new class so be happy to use tome of knowledge on them and not need to level it to 80.

“just be happy that revenants are allowed to use waypoints”

consistency of standard mechanics is expected and not something to count as a positive, and certainly not something that should be counted against other complaints.

I don’t understand any more what is your complaint?
When anyone unlocks an elite spec they get the mechanic and weapon, so do revenants.
If they want to use them they have to slot the empty trait line, as do revenants.
If they haven’t unlocked the utility they want, they slot some other skills, as do revenants by not equipping Legendary Dragon stance.
(You have brought up all of these “arguments” in this thread. So agreed? They are all not supporting you?)

(assuming heal is first unlock)
Now the only inequality I see is both unlock heal and you as Revenant want to use Glints OP heal together with Shiro, then you are punished by having no utilities on half your bar. But it is SO late to complain about that, revenants have less utility build variety, that is their core profession mechanic that we have known about for 9 months, and in return you get twice the heal skills, twice the utilities and twice the elites.
It is not an inequality that is brought up by elite specs costing a lot it is like says Eles are worst class because it takes them 20 levels to unlock earth attunement(iirc) so they are compromised.

Imo light aura should include a condi clense as base line. Whirling a light field gives cleansing projectiles while leaping gives self clense, I think the only other access to light aura is the rune and this signet trait.
Then perhaps adding a Active effects are better to the GM is required also as every single one could use a buff, Immobilise on 30s, and knockdown on 40s cooldown is pretty pathetic and the tanking one could use protection also.

TheLastNobody.8319:

The guard’s whole schtick is that it can help negate damage that would normally wipe a party off the face of tyria with reflects, projectile blocks, and aegis. But if there is enough unblock able attacks, then a guardian will start to be nothing more than an active spectator…..dear Grenth i hope this doesn’t sound hostile, truly don’t mean it to if it does. Just wanting to make a point, and Hopefully I’m dead wrong.

I know you are already admitting that you are likely wrong but to anyone that does think this kind of thing:
It is just unreasonable to even consider that every boss will be doing unblockable, unreflectable skills and attacking quickly and like a wet noodle. There will be bosses that need guardians, it is just that guardians are usually Useless Or All Important due to the fact that they 100% mitigate effects.

Take Auras for example, traited for heals and protection, that doesn’t depend on the boss at all and if balanced correctly would be useful for any and every fight.
Then take Aegis, if a boss hits once every 10 seconds we can Block 100% of the damage. Or Reflects, if a bosses damage is only projectile than a Guardian or 2 will block 100% of his damage(or even kill him extra quick with returned damage)
Our Mechanics depend on the boss a lot more.

I am sure there will be bosses that require these mechanics, maybe in very complicated ways like relfected projectiles heal boss, but have to reflect, so have to angle away, then 1 or 2 Guardians will be required. Maybe we will take the Boonstrip mesmers place after first boss as that won’t be needed, maybe we will take the aggro tankers place as that boss won’t have aggro mechanics, maybe might will be corrupted so Revs are out….. So Many Possibilities . . . Take a deep breath and relax.