Guild Wars 2

Masterchief.1754:

Well 5 seconds duration and 40 second cooldown is still pretty useless.

Plus why would anyone stack guardians with “lines of warding”.
1. never seen it happen (PVE, PVP, WVW)
2. The wall is not very wide hence no point stacking “line of warding” on same spot as people can easily circumvent the line hence you can’t slice/split mobs very effectively unless you’re blocking a tight entrance.
3. nobody is dumb enough to keep trying to pass thru the wall once they know they cant, hence no point calling it “unlimited knockback” (also it does not actually knocks back like shield skill 5, or hammer skill 4 do)

What I’m saying is it is impractical in its current state.
Though yes its role is supposed be splitting zergs, denying entrance and so on.
But with only 5 second duration and 40 second cooldown is just not worth it.

Well the facts have been laid out to you and no one has agreed with you yet so it is a matter of your opinion, you have probably never seen it used properly since everyone has described multiple places it is useful.

But the answer to your Question as the title is No it is Not Useless: in PvP or WvW.

Even with the three points you brought up in the quote, you can’t do that with shield either so comparing them and asking for buff is not working out for you.

It’s used quite often in PvP securing a Cap by knocking people down at the boundary of the cap.
The difference between the two is line of warding can cause multiple knockdowns if people repeatedly try to walk through it, drawing out a stability in many cases.
Whereas the shield one only causes 1 knockdown as a drawback for being able to move the bubble.(So people can’t repeatedly knockdown foes by backpeddling)

Now whether this is worth the exact cooldown numbers the skills do have, I am not sure, probably 30s cd on Staff 5 would not be unbalanced, by it is definitely Not useless.

PS. It is just a byproduct of the meta: medi has become burn which doesn’t need a support weapon and bunker works better with Mace and Scepter due to heal and ranged immobilize.
I personally still often play Roaming Guardian which needs a lot of swiftness so use GS Staff, SY, SyG and JI, Zeal, Honor, Virtues Sentinels with PermaSwiftness to turn up to places people don’t expect. (I know other classes make better roamers but I enjoy this style)

EDIT: something I forgot, as Soryuju pointed out above me, the long range is also a huge difference between them, making them used in completely different circumstances, I can’t believe that slipped my mind as it is the biggest point.

ozzy.8059:

spirit weapons should not get both invulnerable and cooldown on cast.. thats turret engie all over again only worse, you will have them up permanently with 0 counterplay

If you were replying to me then yes agreed, this was a separate suggestion if they want to keep cooldowns as they are.

But I want to point out that implementing this change would NOT make them “invulnerable with 0 counterplay.”
It would instead require More counterplay: You swap targets and they die really fast. Done. But IF you ignore them then they get value. That is good game design.
They remain weak against good players but punish bad players who are not paying attention and spamming AoEs like 90% of PvP players.(not punished for that currently)

PS. Can’t add that to MM Necro obviously because the minions are so tanky they are able to ignore AoEs anyway.

I am happy then implemented my favorite suggestion for spirit weapons as code in the game now.
Seeing as Spirit Weapons are currently by far the least used minions in the game for PvP, could we get this effect on them for PvP mode also? To make them that special type of almost invulnerable until focus fired. Do you guys think this would be balanced?

Joel Helmich.7398:

Is it possible to get a keybind for toggling autotargeting on and off? It will be especially useful when switching between classes that have a lot of movement skills (and attack without a target), and those that require a target for most skills; or even when doing different things on a single class.

The complexity of this depends on what the keybind will do. If it acts to simply toggle the state of the option for autotargeting (i.e. the state of the checkbox in the options menu), it would legitimately be pretty simple; however, I don’t believe we have precedent for a keybind like that, so it might be an argument waiting to happen. If it instead acts as an override for the usual option, all places in code that reference the state of the autotargeting option would need to be updated to also check for this toggle state, and we would need to be careful about when the override state is preserved vs cleared, etc. It is an on the table™ sort of thing but I can’t give any guarantees.

Hi Joel,

I am not sure if my question on keybind presets fell under “already answered” so I will repost once more since it is similar to this one.(hope you are even the right dev to ask)

Q1: Any work gone into making presets for Keybinds?
For example when swapping classes I want different keybinds (engi kits vs. ele attunements work similar but opposite keybinds) and it would also be useful for ACM for unbinding 1 key etc.

Q2: Any chance it would be possible to make keybinds that change other keybinds?
(set a different preset)
Keybinds that change options are what you talk about here and express doubts so I just wanted to add my voice to this request. Switch on ACM and click another bind to perhaps unbind your 1 skill.

Dirame.8521:

I’m an engie main and I don’t understand why this change was originally made. No one said anything about Gyro cooldowns that I know of and so far, the Gyro CDs have been great.

Probably because Irenio was concerned that gyros were underwhelming, heard that gyros were like SW, did actual research by coming to this sub forum and made informed changes and testing based on 3 years of feedback from guardians.

I also outline above why that was the wrong change for gyros while the right change for Spirit Weapons: Basically Gyros like to die while SW like to stay alive.

I think the opposite way would make more sense, 300 range on first strike, 300 leap, then 150 melee.

Joel Helmich.7398:

Can I rebind left/right click?
I’ve seen this asked a bunch of times, and unfortunately the answer is no, not at this time. That is not to say there is a lack of desire to make it happen, but there are significant complicating factors. Left and right mouse buttons are treated as special snowflakes in our input system and throughout code, and changing that so that people can arbitrarily bind them to other actions was a can of worms I didn’t have time to open. Another consideration I had was to put some action-camera-specific binding selector for right mouse in the options menu; however, I decided pretty early on that I wouldn’t have any options specific to action camera in the options menu for this first release, other than the toggle keybind itself. Generally speaking, we don’t have options that themselves depend on other options, and I didn’t want to unnecessarily ruffle feathers. Anyway, custom rebinding is definitely not off the table™ but it won’t be natively supported for now.

Hi I know I am a bit off topic but Joel you seem like the right dev to ask for this.

Is there any chance we could get keybind presets? I tried to set different key binds for different professions but that was too much maintainance each swap.

Especially if it came with a bind to change you whole key index preset.
Eg. If using kits on engi I sometimes want to swap utilities with toolbelt skills. So I suggest click numpad 7 to swap my f skills with 6-10. Will be very useful.

Bezagron.7352:

To repost from Scrapper:

Due to a design discussion that arose yesterday the recharge on gyros are going back to starting on the death of the gyro.

To help with the recharge going back to the gyro death the recharge themselves are being dramatically reduced. Below is a before and after to help clarify what is happening.

On Cast Medic Gyro CD: 35s
On Cast Medic Gyro Duration: 14s
CD at full duration: 21s
New Medic Gyro CD on Death: 20s

On Cast Purge/Bulwark CD: 35s
On Cast Duration: 15s
CD at full duration: 20s
New Gyro CD on Death: 20s

On Cast Sneak Gyro CD: 45 seconds
On Cast Duration: 30s
CD at full duration: 15s
New Sneak Gyro CD: 20s

---

This amounts to an overall buff to gyro recharge as the net recharge time is reduced on all gyros except sneak gyro, which is effectively a buff if the sneak gyro would have been destroyed anytime before the final five seconds of its duration.

Blast Gyro’s toolbelt skill, Bypass Coating, is going to be a stunbreak.

Looks like instead of CD starting on summon their going for reduced CD on death/desummon. Overall I believe it achieves the same goal & function as on summon CD’s & maybe even better in some circumstances. Even with on summon CDs you would be looking at longer CDs overall to have over lap guaranteeing downtime so why not just have the over lap as the CD. Overall the objective is to have higher summon time of SWs.

I would still like to pursue adjusting the aspect of SWs to be bounded minions that travel with the guardian. Providing a mobile symbol feeling to the gameplay. This would allow for better positional control & Sword & Shields command abilities of SWs. It would also provide a more unique gameplay compared to Necromancers minions other them the timed aspect.

Firstly about your suggestion I do like it but I think it would fit better in a “How to fix SW” thread, this one is more, “Should SW cooldown start at summon since we now know the mechanics are possible” thread.

Now as you linked, our initial point of discussion has been reversed but it is still a valid topic. Through this time Gyros have received effectively twice the buffs while SW are still mathematically proven to be way worse. They bring up the point that by having the cooldown start from summon they need to balance with the thought of the gyro surviving the full duration, while even if a SW survives full duration it is a DPS loss over Bane Signet.

As to why this is still something we would want:
Gyros are front loaded with utility, they are summoned and instantly start whirls, blasts and heals. And gyros have an explode button and a reward for exploding at the correct time: Superspeed on Gyro destruction trait.
So choosing when they die is a skillcap for a scrapper.
Spirit Weapons are not front loaded. All of them do constant dps or hps over its time. And our ways of destroying them for a bigger reward(command skills) were removed.
So keeping the SW alive is a skillcap for a guardian.

For a bit of flavour: Guardian is a class built on working to keep things alive where as Scrappers just want to use their robots for evil like bombs.
So Guardians should get Cooldown on start to reward being able to keep them alive while Scrappers should get cooldown on death to reward using them efficiently then blowing them up.

Hope you agree and we can together convince the devs.

Vizardlorde.8243:

How did you manage to remove traitlines? Usually they give you a preset build when you go into pvp where you have minors affecting some things like symbols.

When you swap they are empty, the minors are probably still there though.

Blackdeath.2607:

all runes are usable by all professions, its simply themed towards dragon hunter, Nike said he was also thinking of some variations to be themed after the other professions as well, certainly looking forward to seeing them.

Ahh they are in the other forums, for example the Tempest one is based around auras.

But that is just borderline alright as every class can achieve auras with leaps, where as if we built one that said give quickness on virtues that would not be useable by any other profession.

That’s the point all of them except the short shield of absorption are point defence so the counter is to kite.

Alright if you wish to make it redirect projectiles to the shield for the duration I am okay, but simply making it move continuously makes it have no counter.

One more thing I forgot to mention in Nike’s objective, the rune should be useable by other professions as well.
1. Requested especially for this spec.
2. Buffs effects common on this spec.
3. Useful for other specs.

And guardian is the profession that only gets access through runes so it feels right to have it as the namesake.

But if you want to design a trap one that is good too but I think less DH would use it due to traps being less than impressive.

Corelion.7460:

Arutha.9874:

It is not a mobile skill, it is a point defence skill.
It creates a safe zone and it is up to you to stay in it.

Says who?

Spirit Weapons are not inmobile, there are not consecrations.

OP is right. Shield tracking should be fixed.

The shield should at most be movable on command but not continuously following you, that would be too strong much longer, and better than the Revenant Ventari’s one.
I am not saying it is fine just your proposal in OP goes too far. Huge size projectile immunity for 20 seconds 0.o

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Honestly before they make more new stuff I would love for them to fix the numerous existing things that need fixed.

Otherwise they will never fix them.

I understand but if they see ideas that can actually inspire them they might be more motivated.
There are enough please fix threads, it is good to branch out to other type threads.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Isarii.2804:

Movement speed is the entire point of the rune in the context of this discussion.

Not necessarily. It’s only a proposed DH based Rune to go along with the profession based runes that currently exist. There’s nothing about the Dragonhunter that requires +25% movement speed. In fact, I’d actually change it to:
Superior Rune of the Dragonhunter
1) +25 Power
2) +10% Cripple Duration
3) +50 Power
4) 25% chance when struck to cause Cripple for 5 seconds. (10s icd)
5) +100 Power
6) +20% Cripple Duration. When you use a Trap skill, you gain 6 seconds of Aegis

Synergy with traps, blocks, and Cripple access feels much much more DH-esque.

Nike’s rune suggestion is attempting to hit the most requested effects that each elite spec is asking for while also playing into the class mechanic.

And regardless of if you think we Need it or not run speed rune with power is something most requested by the guardian community.
(Personally I never see the need and just swift myself wherever I go)

I think of all of Nike’s posts this one does resonate the best for the profession.

Maybe if not OP you could put the run speed on (4) instead of the cripple applier and have +20% cripple duration and +7% damage against cripple on the (6)
But that is just the best of all worlds instead of a reasonable Choice.

It is not a mobile skill, it is a point defence skill.
It creates a safe zone and it is up to you to stay in it.

Nike.2631:

Given Elementalist’s basically non-existant access to Aegis, that seemed like a nice addition to the toolbox and a good solution to being more reliably able to execute an overload in hostile circumstances without stepping on the toes of the stability-while-overloading trait.

Axialbloom.8109:

Every Tempest will have overloads. Not every Tempest will have shouts or even auras. So you should link Aegis to overloading.

Except it’s NOT following the pattern of existing runes to make sets that are unusable for all but one profession .

As I suggested earlier a trigger which says:
Do X when channeling a skill with greater than S second cast time.

This rune would then work for every overload, Meteor Shower and even sceptre air 1 which could be an interesting addition to Fresh Air builds (but they need dps stats)

My recommendation was Stability on greater than 3 seconds 10 second cool down.
I know that is similar to the trait but gives you the option of taking trait, rune or both for double stability. Maybe can give Aegis as you suggest but that is so much less dependable.

And leaves it open for other uses even by other specs for skills that historically got interrupt countered such as the Guardian Full Heal Signet. Perhaps greater than 2 seconds would make this more interesting but then it also open up the floodgates to Rapid Fire by Ranger, and many heal skills such as Ether Renewal, etc. Who knows seems like a fun challenge to balance.

I like your version of Staff, mine was very immobile point defence heavy whereas yours is more like other spirit weapons. I am just scared that daze or interrupt on heal might be a bit too aggressive, both good options

The elite one is probably too open to different versions but I think we will all agree that it should be a spirit weapon skinned humanoid, it will be glorious. Your suggestion was more tanky which could be interesting, maybe it only redirects damage from other SW and full heals them on command? Meaning 90% of the time the spirit weapons are cleaved but when the Ancestral Spirit is up you can actively maintain them and let them do their damage.

Glad we agree on Sanctuary, The prenerf version was just so fitting for elite skill status.
I love your idea for Arena of Courage I might add that to the initial post with credit to you, I like the new buff of protection on consecration, and the access to taunt, and even that Hallowed Ground counters this skill totally. It would need to let players in but not out of the circle.

I am new to the Ele forum mostly Guardian for me but this is my second.

Why would you design a rune set on auras removing conditions when tempest auras are coming from shouts which already have a rune set which removes conditions.

I understand that you would like to have condition removal on weapon skills, utilities, and profession mechanics all from one rune set but are you not being a bit greedy?

Jski you want it to be “at least near the same level as the shout rune” but are actually asking for probably 3 times more condition removal. Especially when you are saying a cool down would be counter productive since you have so much access to auras.

How about:
Gain stability when channeling a skill with greater than 3 second cast time.

Synergise get with the overload instead of auras (feels like auras have enough already for a one profession mechanic) and instead this leaves the rune open for other classes to choose also. For example guardians using the full heal signet. And since there is already a ridiculously heavy aura based rune set Rune of Radiance change the aura duration to something else. They have such tiny durations 15% is probably only half a second anyway.

Obtena.7952:

How is it not possible! SW’s aren’t balanced according to how Gyros work. Do people actually think after 3 years that references to OTHER class tools is a sensible way to request and justify fixes for different classes? That’s not really a sensible way to think because of the intentional differences between classes.

Sorry to pull just one specific paragraph but I do have a point of contention here that you say Spirit Weapons are balanced with downtime in mind. Which may have been true at launch but we can see they have fallen Way below the power curve they were intended for, so much so that even boosting them to 100% uptime is not too much of a buff. We are campaigning for less of a change, one that will reward us for, for example, using aegis skills smartly when spirit weapons are up etc.

And you agree this buff would not be too strong since your other argument is that this buff is not useful at all, and would still be a disappointment. Well the answer to that is still give it to us if it is not too strong and not too much work since the mechanics have been developed already. At minimum this would be 4-5 seconds off the cool down but most importantly it just feels rewarding to use aegis and other tools effectively.

The point you make about it not being enough of a buff is not important because we do not want Overpowered utilities we want ones which fall reasonably close to the power curve and that reward you for good play. Eg. No aoe bosses that last less than 30 seconds you are better off using SW sword than Bane signet (good luck finding such a boss)

Finally I want to point out that the only possible mechanical problem is with spirit weapon overlap, if we take cool down reduction then SW sword is up for 30 seconds with 20 second cool down whereas none of the drones have that possibility even with alacrity counted in. However this is also fine because the re summon button is hidden behind the command button, just need to be sure it doesn’t flip or have weird double casting interactions, I am sure it is easy to code.

One week from launch let us make some fun threads while we wait to retry the balance on Dragon Hunter.

So about 1 year before Expansion launch we got the update that rearranged(/forced) our heals and elites into the predefined utility classes.
Given(pure opinion) that we will be working with an average 2 year cycle from now on,
I think it is healthy to expect a “Mid season” update that will bring new shake ups to the already available skills in a year. (lower production cost than full new utility sets)

So let’s invent some Spirit Weapon and Consecration Heals and Elites :-)
(Signets also as bonus content)

Spirit weapon Staff:
Heal skill that is slow but extremely strong
On cast healing approximately half of Shelter, then summons a staff that stays in place and pulses approximately one Shelter worth of heal split to every second for 8seconds to aoe, approximately PvP cap point size, with 40ish seconds cool down.
Command:
Personally I like condition removal on command but maybe that is too strong.
Traits:
Since the duration trait is gone this won’t scale out of control (could have had interesting interactions) however reducing cool down is already good. On the other hand the burning doesn’t synergise for a heal unless it could also pulse burn within the range to enemies, making it a very strong point defence option (PvP is the focus here because shelter has such dominance)
Counter:
The counter to this is obvious and the same as every other Spirit Weapon, if you push through it or even better focus fire the Spirit Weapon Staff then all of the benefits go away.
Balance Recommendations:
Space for suggestions

Spirit Weapon Companion/Clone/Core/Soul/Shard/etc.
Elite skill that copies your own weapon or whole character in shinny blue flame
This Elite summons a full copy of you that includes all weapon skills for example spin to win and symbols. If possible it would engage the target even if you are not in melee and would preform your weapons auto if nothing else is in queue. Lasting perhaps 20-30 seconds with approx 50% uptime I think is okay. Also 50% damage or balance like that could be required.
Command:
Not sure what to place here, maybe a suicide mechanic, or a “return piece of soul” for healing mechanic, or some play on Popping Virtues since it is a Guardian also.
Traits:
Simple burn on attack and cool down reductions.
Counter:
Not sure if this one is too easy to counter so I add my favorite SW buff idea to this Clone, low health but can only be damaged if it is the primary target of attacks. Meaning if ignored it cannot be cleaved but if noticed and they swap target to it it dies easily. (Raising amount of things you need to be aware of in PvP against a Guardian)
Balance Recommendations:
Space for suggestions

Consecration Heal
Well Shelter is one of only 3 skills in the game that have no category so it is almost a consecration. Now that the ground targeting only on trait has been removed I believe it could be balanced to accept the cool down reduction trait.(a bit over tuned as it is now) And I recently found out that “extend length” traits could work also by using quickness with shelter which means you channel for 3/4 second receive the heal but the block lasts a further 1/2 of a second.

However this thread is open to new ideas for consecration heals, eg. Fire themed burn away conditions, remove 5 conditions but self burn 3 stacks of burning. (us and thieves are the only professions with no on command condi remove on heal skills)
Effects:
Traits:
Counter/Weakness:
Balance Recommendations:

Consecration Elite: Sanctuary
Move Sanctuary to elite spot adding a different consecration utility
Return Sanctaury to its pre nerf size but with high cool down and in the elite slot.
A Ward with a Projectile reflect attached and pulsing healing inside for maximum point defence. Lasts 5 seconds with 180 cool down with (I believe it was approximately) 3/4 Cap Point sized Bubble. The balance is based on Moa, which is an auto win against a single target, while this is a guaranteed delay at defence against any amount of targets.
Traits:
Upping duration to 6 seconds and reducing cool down to 144 is not going to break it.
Counter:
It no longer needs to be this unique “cannot enter” skill, let stability be the easy counter, however providing pulsing knockback that can strip the stability. It is elite after all.
Balance Recommendations:
Space for suggestions

Finally Signet Buff to Signet of Courage
Combine this full heal aspect with the Resurection Signet from Utilities
180 cool down with 4 second cast time, does it seem too much to add a bit more utility to this skill? Perhaps give it a ground targeting circle to balance it similar to warrior ultra banner. (This suggestion is stemming more from our lack of good signet utilities and perhaps one strong utility slot signet could swing that balance, Move speed anyone?)
Traits:
Signets have nothing interesting so balance not an issue.
Counter:
Same as it currently is easy to interrupt, just a little more all in.
Balance Recommendations:
Space for suggestions

It is more of a just stay quiet and ignore the fact that guardian exists mentality that annoys me. I do not get mad when they don’t work on spirit weapons during HoT development but I do get mad if they ignore them when similar work was done elsewhere.
There should have been someone at that meeting that knew the guardian issues and that brought up fixing both at the same time, or at least a post saying we recognise the similarities and we will work on this for guardians after launch.

PS. Core spec interactions with elites are being considered on other elites such as Druid with no staff, whereas ours is not case and point pure sight and longbow. And don’t think that we missed the “kitten they were not satisfied with DH still so let’s give them a blanket 7% damage buff again and lower the pure sight bonus to 6%” reality of the new version of the trait.

Nike.2631:

Keep in mind fixing QoL issues for a new profession is not on the same plane as fixing QoL issues for an established profession.

Then it is just sad that guardian is never brought up during meetings where they are discussing other professions. “Hey guys lets buff Spirit Weapon 2.0” “Great idea but don’t you think we are forgetting something? Anyone have anything to bring up?” Silence

Ideally similar QoL issues should be brought fixed across all professions at the same time.

And yes I agree that after launch, up till Christmas is going to be the last deciding time but I just wish for more presence more soul to this profession.

Alent.4780:

I did, and I agree – I just don’t think it is fair to say that we are “in a good spot”. Not saying you are the only one guilty of it – trust me I agree with all of your points about additional choices and the halfhearted shield changes. I’m just saying that most other classes have more than viable build, which means to me that Guardians are most definitely not in a good spot.

I may have misunderstood you too about your views but I still do not agree that the devs share our views, they do say repeatedly it “is in a good spot” and nothing needs to be changed about the useless utilities.
And ignore our sub forum almost exclusively, or simply do not have good enough PR to reply to the correct threads. Whatever the problem is I am completely reaching the conclusion that the guardian needs a change in management simply due to mistakes.

Alent.4780:

Nike.2631:

The profession as a whole IS in a good spot – and that ’s a mark against buffing the profession as a whole.

Alright, can we stop with this? Clearly the devs do not think Guardians are in a good spot or they wouldn’t be fixing the issues we have been bringing up (or at least other devs for other professions). Tweaking spirit weapons to fall in line with Scrapper (or the AA chain to fall in line with the Rev) isn’t a buff, its a quality of life update to ensure we aren’t relegated to the halls of the Durmond Priory’s “forgotten classes” section.

I am not sure we can understand you Alent.
The devs repeatedly say they think the profession “is in a good spot” and that is why the Are Not fixing anything we bring up in these forums.
You make it sound like you think they are fixing stuff but asking you to count the number of Guardian QoL fixes on one hand would be depressing since one finger is enough.

The other thing that is annoying a lot of us is that other devs see short threads about QoL items and instantly reply or act upon them, for example the Rev and scrapper updates, while we have multiple expansive threads asking for similar updates that have Never been addressed.
It is a matter of response time and we feel like the bottom of the barrel when others are receiving obvious preferential treatment and the rational is that we have A build that works so we don’t need another.
Guardian “is in a good spot” because shout, reflect and aegis sharing was useful in dungeons, I wonder what we will do when that goes away, will they still say we are kings of dungeons so need no updates… Oh wait we will be in a good spot for fractals relax.
We have seen repeatedly that guardians will not get any good utility updates and asking for some reply on forums has been useless.

My favorite suggestions for fixing them in PvP would be immunity to cleave and aoe.
The spirit weapons only take damage when they are the primary target of a skill. This means if a opponent is paying attention then the weapon dies instantly same as before, but if left alone they are effectively immune to damage and can wreck havoc.

Dragon Hunter F4:
Passive:
Gives 25% movement speed.
Active:
Makes your character say “About time!”
0 sec cooldown.
(Perhaps spams guardian official forums also)

I never understand peoples obsession with this problem.

WvW: Perma swiftness in zergs. Roaming you need great awareness always, so you need to practice the weapon and skill swapping methods below to stay at perma swiftness.

PvE: Most specs bring swiftness or you are a max of 20 seconds away from next boss, so you need only 1 swift skill: Retreat.

PvP: You should never take Judge’s Intervention, off your bar that will let you finish most people, on the other hand you should learn to stay on points more, never chase and never fight off points.

PvE and WvW:
Perma swiftness comes from Retreat, Save Yourselves, and Staff give you 112/120(93%) seconds of swiftness(you can try the maths yourself), with Sword, GreatSword and Judge’s Intervention to portal forward. If you get caught with wrong utilities you will struggle ofcourse but with perma swift just run away until you can swap them one by one.

This becomes even easier if you trait Honor for reduced Staff and Shout recharges, then you can play with only Retreat on your utility bar and try to quickly retrait as soon as you see a fight coming. In WvW I tend to just Equip the +300 vitality trait for extra margin of error anyway.

SirMoogie.9263:

I agree that Dragon Hunter took the profession into a place it doesn’t normally go (ranged DPS) and it’s great that you like it. I think the goal for specializations should be to heavily push a class into a certain role in the soft-more-than-just-a-trinity. ^1
1 – Trinity is a bad term as things can go into so many directions; melee-/ranged- DPS, control, healing-/buffing-/damage prevention- support, condition-/direct- DPS,

I would say this is expected, your specialization should push you into a single aspect and if you don’t like it then only swap into it when you really feel like you need it (eg. defending a WvW fort)

The problem with dragon hunter is that it promises a ranged spec and they doesn’t give us one, because the weapon and traits are for ranged but the utilities(what I consider to be the backbone of a spec) are all melee, that is what makes the dragon hunter feel badly designed.

Asmodal.6489:

I have yet to see an example of how other classes have so much superior synergy that actually does not come directly from an extremely strong effect in the new traitline itself. You can argue that DH is underpowered compared to others but the synegy is there.

Well tempest aura sharing in water and scrapper juggernaut come to mind instantly.
As most people point out no other elite spec besides Dragon Hunter and Druid ask you to do something your profession has not been able to do before and only Dragon Hunter contains traits that literally punish you for going back to your standard methods(melee range) and fail to deliver complete gameplay at range due to zero options for ranged utilities.

The V.8759:

I played full zerk with defensive traits and 2 shouts
That actually was new playstyle for me and I loved it.

It may have been a new spec for you but how was that synergising with DH?
Shouts are only 600 range so anti synergy there why was this on dragon hunter then?

So your statement here is that using meditation with a longbow is a new spec?

You start saying that it feels like a sniper, then bring up using blinks(all of ours being forward to melee range blinks) meaning you will only spend perhaps 5 seconds in range, and then you describe the typical meta guardian build.

And claim it is a new build???

You are in describing the fact that there are NO NEW builds just the typical meditations and you will spend just one second in over 600 range then give up and go back into melee.

Hi Karl, I will post a quick edit of my last post from the bwe2 thread because I feel it is super important, I hope to convince you that there is a really problem with utilities for the dragon hunter and it is making the spec feel very poor to play.

Let me tackle the utilities we currently have each with 2 considerations:
1. Do they work at range equally as melee.
2. Are they a competitive slot for a dps or team support perspective.

Spirit Weapons:
1. They are minions that have very little health and a limited lifespan in time. If we cast them at 600-1200 range it will take (no calculations) 6 out of 30 seconds for travel time.
Hence dps is reduced by 20%, or even more likely they get focus fired without even arriving, whereas in melee at least they will get some attacks in on summon.
2. Spirit weapons are grossly undertuned with no representation in DPS specs. That is why some have called for their buff as our ranged utilities, perhaps summon at target.

Shouts:
1. Shouts have a 600 range so of course they are worse at range, in this game there always has to be someone at melee, so at minimum you are losing him as a target, at worst you are alone and then why have it as a shout at all.
2. 3 out of 4 shouts are utilities only used in dungeons for swift and stability. Save Yourselves has never been any use in DPS Builds because it does nearly nothing.

Signets:
1. Granted this probably the Only category that holds some truth because our god awful signets are just stats, however our elite signets is only 300 range on healing, and the buff signet is only 600 range, so if you run a “signet dragon hunter” you still won’t be able to “support from the back line”……
2. Need I say anything here, we have probably the worst stated signets and nearly no trait interactions that I am aware of. God awful…

Consecrations:
1. Finally the category that holds the one skill that is truely equal at range, Purging flames but the rest are utility skills, reflects, and stabilities which you now can’t target your whole team because you are far away.
2. Consecrations are actually pretty competitive and purging flames and wall will probably be the only useful skills on the dragon hunter bar.

Meditiations:
1. Intervention is of course out because it puts you into melee, and while Purity is equal it is neither dps nor support, and Smite Condition’s damage is only melee range.
2. Since JI is out this set has no dps utilities from this distance and while is useful in PvP settings it is not really a dps skill.

Conclusion:
Karl you really need to sit down and write a reply to this topic because:
For 3 years guardians have been Actively discouraged to move outside of 600 range and now creating an elite that asks you to stay outside 600 and then gives you no tools to do that is ridiculous!

Devs asked for well written explainations of problems (please ignore my outbursts) and suggested solutions:
1. Remove the 600+ trait and accept that longbow is just an Option to hit from range but will never be good from there. (Guardian and all its elite specs should Never leave 600 range, most would riot in my honest opinion)
2. Buff at least a few more skills to work Equally and Well from range. Eg. Spirit weapons summoned at range/survivability, signets actives(need massive overhaul buff), 1200 range shouts. (Maybe each of these suggestions could have a trait in the elite line)
3. Give our Dragon Hunter more tools to be at range. So what if they are similar to marks or grenades or other things, let us deploy traps to 900 range is still best solution.
Neither of those play styles is one that the guardians have ever gotten to experience. My suggestion being a trait that reads “when wielding a longbow traps have 900 range” and just copy the longbow 4 animation.

I believe this post contains all the conclusions people have made in the bwe2 thread, I think every suggestion there really does fall into one of the three above categories, but I of course understand that I do not speak for everyone.

PS. I think the longbow is already balanced since much more will make it competitive with melee weapons even discounting the 10% range buff.

TL;DR: Longbow just feels boring to play with no utilities, that is my main concern.
Every Dragon Hunter is still a Guardian and Guardians have to stay within 600 range not due to weapon design but due to utility design. So since Dragon Hunter specific utility is still melee range, Dragon Hunters are left with NO utilities.

draxynnic.3719:

The guardian already has utilities that are useful at range. Consecrations, signets, shouts, and spirit weapons are all useful at range (or at least no less useful at range than in melee, with the exception of a couple of consecrations which still provide some benefit at range).

If longbow as a weapon isn’t worthwhile, then the problem is with the longbow, not with the traps – and that seems to be where Karl’s attention has focused. No profession should have to rely on utilities as their primary offensive weapon. Enhancing and supplementing it, yes, but if the weapon is bad, it’s the weapon that needs to be improved.

Also, even though the bow and minors are focused towards longer ranges, you still get a weaponswap as a dragonhunter, and that weaponswap is likely to be melee on most builds, I expect. You could use the traps as traps, or you could jump in with a melee weapon and treat them effectively as PBAoEs by dropping them at your feet. So you can, in fact, treat the traps just like the ranger does, as long as the longbow is up to scratch.

If the longbow isn’t up to scratch… again, the problem there rests with the weapon being poor, not the utilities.

Hi again I quote your text because there must be some people or devs that share your opinions and I hope to prove you wrong and hopefully convince you why the utilities are where we should focus.

As others have pointed out before me, your statement in defence is very strong:
1. Utilities: consecrations, signets, shouts and spirit weapon all work Equally at range.
2. Implying that either all these are equally powered or at least powerful enough to be balanced. And that we have any dps utilities at all in these categories.

Let me tackle them backwards:
Spirit Weapons:
1. They are minions that have very little health and a limited lifespan in time. If we cast them at 600-1200 range it will take (no calculations) 6 out of 30 seconds for travel time.
Hence dps is reduced by 20%, or even more likely they get focus fired without even arriving, whereas in melee at least they will get some attacks in on summon.
2. Spirit weapons are grossly undertuned with no representation in DPS specs. That is why some have called for their buff as our ranged utilities, perhaps summon at target.

Shouts:
1. The fact that you list this implies you have not done your research, shouts have a 600 range so of course they are worse at range, in this game there always has to be someone at melee, so at minimum you are losing him as a target, at worst you are alone and then why have it as a shout at all.
2. 3 out of 4 shouts are utilities only used in dungeons for swift and stability. Save Yourselves has never been any use in DPS Builds because it does nearly nothing.

Signets:
1. Granted this probably the Only category that holds some truth because our god awful signets are just stats, however our elite signets is only 300 range on healing, and the buff signet is only 600 range, so if you run a “signet dragon hunter” you still won’t be able to “support from the back line”……
2. Need I say anything here, we have probably the worst stated signets and nearly no trait interactions that I am aware of. God awful…

Consecrations:
1. Finally the category that holds the one skill that is truely equal at range, Purging flames but the rest are utility skills, reflects, and stabilities which you now can’t target your whole team because you are far away.
2. Consecrations are actually pretty competitive and purging flames and wall will probably be the only useful skills on the dragon hunter bar.

Conclusion:
You probably didn’t think all the skills through properly when making your statement and for you it is forgivable but for Karl it is not, he needs to sit down and really write a reply to this topic because:
For 3 years guardians have been Actively discouraged to move outside of 600 range and now creating a elite that asks you to stay outside 600 and then gives you no tools to do that is ridiculous!

Devs asked for well written explainations of problems (please ignore my outbursts) and suggested solutions:
1. Remove the 600+ trait and accept that longbow is just an Option to hit from range but will never be good from there. (Guardian and all its elite specs should Never leave 600 range, most would riot in my honest opinion)
2. Buff at least a few more skills to work Equally and Well from range. Eg. Spirit weapons summoned at range/survivability, signets actives(need massive overhaul buff), 1200 range shouts. (Maybe each of these suggestions could have a trait in the elite line)
3. Give our Dragon Hunter more tools to be at range. So what if they are similar to marks or grenades or other things, let us deploy traps to 900 range is still best solution.
Travel time makes them worst than marks, invisibility if not triggered makes them better.
And by restricting accessibility with “traps have 900 range when wielding a longbow” we can make them worse than grenades.

I hope this post contains all the conclusions people have made recently, I think every suggestion here really does fall into one of the three above categories, but I of course understand that I do not speak for everyone.

PS. I think the longbow is already balanced since much more will make it competitive with melee weapons even discounting the 10% range buff.

TL;DR: Longbow just feels boring to play with no utilities, that is my main concern.
Every Dragon Hunter is still a Guardian and Guardians have to stay within 600 range not due to weapon design but due to utility design. So since Dragon Hunter specific utility is still melee range, Dragon Hunters are left with NO utilities.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

SkraM.8794:

Karl McLain.5604:

Oh yeah, I should mention that the auto-targeting stuff has been fixed. We were testing out some new tech with it, but have since pulled that as it wouldn’t allow your character to auto-turn toward your target if they’re behind you. Tech did its job too well.

Karl, please bring us some news about ground target traps please, this change will improve a lot the gameplay with Longbow + Traps

When they took ground targeted traps away from rangers they did so because they said they felt too much like grenades.
In the remote chance they did give them to guardians they would be faced with such a b!%ch fit from thieves and rangers they would likely need to give them ground targeting as well.

Even then several of the traps would not be worth using on guardian.

A much better solution would be to look at each trap individually and give it one or more of the following

1: Utility effects (condi removal, boon removal etc…)
2: Boon support
3: Conditions
4 Combo fields.

Hi I would say that on a ranger with a giant longbow, short bow and many options for ranged damage, yes adding grenades is a bit over the top.
But to a crippled completely melee profession like guardian we need some kind of ranged utility, change traps to grenade type if that is “more true to life” but we need some kind of ranged utility to synergies with LB4 and 5.
Again if there are complaints answer with “you have utilities that work at range, we do not besides a single condi one”

Nike.2631:

This line of utility skills should mesh beautifully with longbow gameplay but has been plagued with problems for a while now (since they became vulnerable to destruction, really). The enduring popularity of Warrior banners should tell you how important having these not die from boss AoE was to their previous desirability.

• All spirit weapons. Skills gain the “Minion” classification. Sprit weapons have no maximum duration and persist until destroyed. Summoning the weapon sets the skill to its flip/command mode. Skill goes on cooldown with the weapon is destroyed. Review the HP & Toughness-per-Level curves of these summons as they are extremely powerful at low levels (mid-20’s) and excessively fragile at Level 80.

I was going to wait till after HoT hoping we could have a thread about this kind of suggestions but here is my way of fixing spirit weapons:

Get a new mechanic worked out that states that spirit weapons(traited or passively) are only hit by aoes and other abilities if they are the primary target of skills. This makes them immune to boss damage and raises the skill cap in PvP where you have to actively target the spirit weapon to kill it.
Imo only these minions and new scrapper drones require this kind of buff as the others are already meat shieldy.

Ezrael.6859:

Arutha your utter hyperbole about the Longbow isn’t helpful.

The Longbow is a viable ranged weapon that needs only a few tweaks, if you could literally do nothing with it during the beta weekends then might I suggest that perhaps the weapon isn’t as much of a problem as the user.

The Longbow and Traps fit a different playstyle, learn to adapt or stick to what works for you, the Elite specs are not meant to mesh with everything, they are meant to offer a totally different playstyle to the base profession.

Alright I will remove that part from my previous post perhaps it was just me, I agree that 1 and 2 are alright but so were sceptre ones. I was more pointing out that the utility longbow skills didn’t have a precise place, 4 buffs or condis more than attacks and 5 immobilises but why? Nothing to synergies with except traps which are Melee but then no damage bonus and why longbow… Looping logic from here.
You will notice I did not suggest buffing damage on any skills in any way I suggest making bow 4 and 5 work better with traps else I have no damaging way to use them.

I however do not agree with you that we should accept “they are for different play styles.”
These are elite specs, you will only ever get to have one equipped, so if we do not get ranged utilities we will never get a way to play full ranged.
And yes they are meant to “add a totally different play style” and the style they promised was ranged Specialization(master of that aspect of play) and you suggest we play melee with traps or ranged with shouts, which are both not optimised (specialised).

PS. “Lack of umpf” is a hyperbole?? I am actually suggesting that longbow needs no more tweaks it just needs synergy with at least 1 utility type that we have.

draxynnic.3719:

All this trap hate…

The game is releasing in a month, a week, and a day. This is not enough time to replace the traps with something different even if they wanted to.

And as for wanting to: It’s fairly clear that dragonhunter is guardian/ranger, likely intended at least in part as something for people who like ranger gameplay but don’t want a pet. Guardian utilities already have many of the functionalities of non-pet-based ranger utilities, with traps being the ranger functionality that guardians don’t have, so that’s what the dragonhunter gets.

If you don’t like the traps, there’s nothing forcing you to use them. Guardian has plenty of other utilities to choose from even if you choose to go dragonhunter, and vanilla guardian is still an option.

I can understand that for many guardian players, it’s disappointing that the elite specialisation they get is essentially a secondary profession rather than a direct expansion of the core guardian playstyle, like chronomancer is an expansion of the mesmer playstyle. I was disappointed too, until I recognised that what we have is in fact a secondary profession.

Personally, I’d rather look forward to a future elite specialisation that is more to our tastes than to gripe about the one that’s been designed. If you really hate the idea of traps that you feel you’ll never ever use them, this may not be the specialisation for you… but other people will enjoy it. The next one may be what you’re waiting for.

Hi sorry for focusing on you, but I have been replying elsewhere to these kinds of rationalisations and would like to post it here for those that hold this opinion, perhaps devs too:

Rangers already have a lot of tools for max range, traps are their powerful melee option. Guardians have NO ranged tools(weapons or utilities) and the longbow currently is not much better than the pixey stick, we need ranged traps to be our ranged utilities.

And there is no point in suggesting we wait for next elite to get ranged utilities because then we can’t equip both elites to wield longbow and those ranged utilities. I doubt we are going to get shortbow.

This is our only chance to get a good ranged spec, so otherwise everyone will re roll revenant if they are tired of melee guard.

To return to the main point you bring up the development time problem and I have tried to address that in my suggestion I will quote below. We have the tech to have ranged traps, effectively just marks (just add a deployment delay) or using the old ranger tech, and we have the animation from longbow 4. There should not be that much dev time, I mean if they can change displace to knock backs on revenant there should be no issue with this.

Arutha.9874:

[…]
Longbow skills and traits like deal more damage when further than 600 range, are not mixing well with physical damage traps at short range. Guardians did not just lack a long range weapon we lacked ability to compete at long range with utilities too.
[…]
Give guardian a unique interaction with traps:
Grandmaster trait: If you have a longbow equipped your trap skills become 1,200 range.
This lets us use traps from 600+ range by using animation similar to skill 4 of longbow.

Now this feels different from other professions like ranger and thief as you might see dragon hunters on the top of WvW keep walls shooting down multiple traps and symbols. One screenshot of this and I think guardians will actually play dragon hunter at launch as right now it seems base guardian or revenant just feel much more epic.
That is what we Guardians always want to feel like, the leaders in attack or defence.

Hi Karl, I know I am not the first but hopefully I can layout this suggestion fully. If I can get some replies from other DH about whether the suggestions below will help balance this unease we have with the spec (I’d like to hear some Ranger and Thief opinions too)

1. The traits Dulled Senses and Heavy Light, although buffed in this post, are pretty useless without being picked together. Longbow and traps have zero other knock backs.
2. Longbow skills and traits like deal more damage when further than 600 range, are not mixing well with physical damage traps at short range. Guardians did not just lack a long range weapon we lacked ability to compete at long range with utilities too.

So my suggestion is to combine the first two traits into one master trait with a longer cool down on longbow knock back and none on the cripple.
This buffs guardian hambow and frees a grandmaster slot for the next suggestion.

Give guardian a unique interaction with traps:
Grandmaster trait: If you have a longbow equipped your trap skills become 1,200 range.
This lets us use traps from 600+ range by using animation similar to skill 4 of longbow.

Now this feels different from other professions like ranger and thief as you might see dragon hunters on the top of WvW keep walls shooting down multiple traps and symbols. One screenshot of this and I think guardians will actually play dragon hunter at launch as right now it seems base guardian or revenant just feel much more epic.
That is what we Guardians always want to feel like, the leaders in attack or defence.