Guild Wars 2

Did some tests yesterday. not conclusive yet but I did not feel that soldier power increase was worth losing 25% crit chance and 35% critdamage. the extra vialtiy and toughness wasnt a factor either but I only lost one game yesterday so I might have had some MMR luck.

breaking down my stats with celestial only 15% of my self healing comes from AH which was kind of disappointing. need to check my logs a little further. I would need 40+ Aegis procs as well to surpass AH which seems a lot it does heal quite well for teammates.

What I am sure of is that the heal trap is the way to go. Shelter is just not cutting it any more for me.

I did not need the rune of leadership in my current division but I think it will be the better choice advancing further. Taking Staff mastery would lift me to 100% boon duration with a Herald in team which would cause some serious uptime on several boons.

Intersting thoughts on the rune choice butI fear the amulet will only shift suviveability to dps.

RF and Merciful interention are not good choice imo. with that rune set you would want to use that 6 bonus as often as possible which works well with FMW.

I will give it a try

Hi all,

I am testing a PvP DH bunker at the moment and having a quite successfull time with it – mind you in amber league but I would say I cleared that quite fast only had a 3 losses streak at the beginning and some single losses in between.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAW5en8cCtChVdCmCBEEhlEi6qACgDArBygUQe5j+rH-TJxHABffRACf/BAeCAFVGAA

Basically a Celestial Build with Runes of Durability. I also ran Sigil of agility for quite a while and found it very useful for getting a little headstart on stomps and some skills. the swiftness added to staff symbol closes the gap of Retreat ensuring 100% swiftness in combat. I might change it for Intelligence though.
Durability of course is nice with AH and portection is always good the added Thoughness and Vitality is creating a sweet spot for me. 20% boon duration has quite a good value in this build as well. simply a perfect rune.

I ended up with Test of Faith trap instead of Fragments of Faith which I only use if I expect heavy Hard CC. The beauty with test of faith is that people tend to keep their distance for its duration. Laying it on point is also quite good because of the protection right from the start of an engagement. Pushing and pulling people through with shield and F1 is a nice synergy. But really any trap works swapping retreat for another one is an option too bu I felt that the additional on demand condi cleanse + heal is much better in almost any situation.

I had 0 problems holding a point 1vs1 and even made 1v3 work for a lot longer than it should. Damage of course is kind flat yet I did win quite the a lot 1v1 as well.

FMW and Empower is my favorite support combo to set up burst or to heal up really quick in team fights.

Having all boons available is just the icing on the cake. ;-)
Would like to hear some thoughts.

Drayos.8759:

as far as i have seen Guardians are only taken as a Tank, due to Dragonhunters being currently one of the lowest DPS Speccs i nthe game currently?…

dont know about that but burn guard sure as hell is not. iirc DnT placed it a little lower than condi engi and nearly on par fighting trash – asuming you keep your SW (which is not happening in Raids afaik?).

also: who cares about raids?
there are 9 classes and 9 elite specs. there will always be drop outs. from what I see guard or DH are often taken as tanks for the Vale Guardian.

I wouldnt change it. Its a good weapon overall.

Viralseed.9362:

snip.

you are 100% right.
ou also assume soothing mist uptime 100% which is not likely if you calculate a blast finisher every 1.2 secs (or am I missing something here) however I would never debate that eles can heal much better. getting exact numbers is quite the work and I think the roughly estimates show well enough what it looks like on paper. and even though it sounds impressi 2.4k HP /sec is not that great.

If you want to be might dealer as a guard – which is questionable to begin with this would work much better:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAS5dlsAhmhYxQwWIQQEH1D1NAShXAXD3XUk3ijMFB-TJBFABiXGok9HW4JAAwFBAA

having a blast finisher on a 4 sec CD and two reasonably long fire fields should do the trick. hallowed Ground is good for 3 blasts and PF is good for 2 … you do not even need the reduction to mak that work (you need the Focus blast finisher as well). On top you can run empowering might with a decent duration. which could provide you with a steady 10-12 stacks of might as well. On top you can just sumply look for any combo field out there and use them to the fullest. basically spreading boons much more eficiently and take advantage of AH.

i do not think Vigilant Amulet is feasible in any build.

emkelly.2371:

your traps last for 1 minute, but their cool downs are less. so likely when the fight begins

the last five minutes … enjoy.

I do not really pvp at the moment just wanted to leave my current condi builds here that I run in open world and do all the HoT and story content. Since the guard build is basically the Obals Dps build with some dps cuts because I am obsessed with rune of the mad king this works quite well in dugeons too – although why would you run those now?

Dragonhunter:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQJATRn8cCddiNdCODBEEhlAiSe77+z3KAeg3MbIawJE-ThiAQBQU9HAt/w1U+gOTIYUJEkUCCgnAAA1FQhLAAHOEABAOAY3ApAgYZF-e

somtimes I run Dragons Maw too. Dropping three traps plus elite on a group of 3-5 mobs will cause mayhem and produce an easy 20+ stacks of burn in around 2-3 seconds on all targets. PF is a swap depending on encounter. Put in WoR and watch thos bristlebacks veterans + 2 adds light up in 6 seconds.

Guardian
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNArfRlsAhqgYRQwQIQQEHyDVNCyyAw+BtQjmDjVMGB-ThiAQBQU9HAt/wEOBAXT5D6MhgRlQQSJIAeCAAUfAHOEABAOAY3ApAgYZF-e

SW are awsome to do HP for some extra map currency or to help out others. The signet is for breakbars which together with Hammer SW command and auto does a wonderful job. depending on the encounter its a swap.

I do have a Condi Berserker as well and truth be told: The true king of fires is the Dragonhunter.

so non pvp state of DH/Guard:
Imo better than ever!

to 1: I actually think the CD is not an issue at the moment for all SW. Hammer and GS are fine imo. Shield and Bow are a little lackluster because of their longer cooldowns and ability recharges. A cahnge would be good but a reduced CD would work well also.

to 2: The CD recution benfits all SW, yet you point is valid and seeing no.1 just the reduction on still very long cds is very weak and not worth taking.

to 3: we are actually not in a special spot. not all utilites catagories have a heal and warrior and mesmer have an unclassified heal as well. Teher are alos only 4 elites on all classes so I am afraid this will not happen.

So in short:
yes to 1+2

Personally I see some mechanic changes as far more important.

A) Summon on target
If you have a target GS and Hammer are summoned at location. If you dont they behave like it is.

B) GS Command blink
The command of GS should feature a blink since its animation and delay will never hit a moving target. Hammer travels a short distance fast so its okay.

C) Bow: Pulsing condi cleanse
The way the condi cleanse works now is just not reliable. for a purely defensiv spell it should pulse condi cleanse on a 5 sec pulse.

*D) Shield instant and no delay
The command is stin break which is absolutely worthless because its locked behind a castime. so it is only effective if you have the shield out. doule tapping the shield would mean that you have a stunbreak + aegis. Imo the bubble should appear immediately on activation. pre casting it when you expect projectiles just lowers the uptime and efficiency of the utility.

Suggestion on trait:
Personally I would like to see a trait that rewards using multiple weapons.

Suggestion on builds:
SW would be a cool if you could trait them and use Shatterd aegis. it could create a build that focuses on tending the SW through virtues and weapon skills while they deal the damage.

you can build DH to be a very good healer imo. It is still questionable though if others are not better fit for the job. (note that i do take about 25%+ heling effectiveness into account)

lets look at the good stuff:

Selfless Daring
pumping out 2.2k+ heals on dodge is quite possible which means you would want to use sigils that refill your endurance on dodge or kill. it takes 13 seconds to recharge an empty endurance bar (with vigor) so lets round up sigil of energy to
400 sec/hp

Empower
3.5k heals on a 16 sec CD + might which are not that well liked since they are short
218hp/sec

Wings of resolve
6k heal on a 26 sec CD + 2k over 6 seconds regeneration
300hp/sec

Recieve the light
8k heal if you hit you friends
200hp/sec

F2 passiv
up to 250hp/sec if traited

Writ of perisistance
up to 240hp/sec if traited

Regeneration
with mace easyily 100% uptime of 350hp/sec

signet of Courage
170hp/sec … pretty underwhelming but okay

Faithful Strike
300 hp/sec

adding time:
Around 2.400 hp/sec is possible

I have no clue how this compares to druid or elementalist. I would say it works but you will not do anything else besides healing. Personally I think that if you can chain 3 dodges and a wings o resolve you have the means to creat a good burst heal of around 12-14k. thats not to shabby. while you are able to do good sustained healing.

Counting the long cast of signet of courage as viable and pairing those two options with the shield of courage and we are looking at 2 possible full burst heals on top of that.

in addition to aegis which helps a team rcover as well.

so you can make it count if you ask me.

HOWEVER:
just checking druids avatar form briefly tells you that they will outburst and sustain heal you in no time.

so the impressiv numbers on guard are kinda worthless if you see the massiv numbers of druid. if you want to heal roll druid – its a lot of fun.

If you try it with DH you need to focus on getting the heals to stick and make true recoveries through your blocks which other do not have.

solid advice and reasoning. I do think the blocks are valuable but I can still ake advantage of that while shifting stats away from healing to more dps.

valor is basically a variant anyways. zeal and virtues for more dps (and utility in case of virtues).

thanks mate

Darknicrofia.2604:

you can’t build a tank like you would a traditional mmo, you still need to be able to pump out respectable damage.

the role of a tank in GW2 raids is simply positioning the boss to favorable spots, your high toughness isn’t needed because you’re face tanking the damage, its needed to maintain aggro.

there’s really only room in the group for 1 pure healing build in a raid, the rest need to be damage dealers.

hmm I do not find that really convincing yet. looking at the meta build draft for DH celestial tank on metabattle as well as several PoV DH tank raid vids I am not sure we are on the same page.

I basically mimic’d the stats but gaining about 200 power 10% crit chance and losing 30% crit damage in exchange for 50%boon duration – which comes only with thoughness. The healing is not for me but for pure of heart which bnefits largely from even a little.

the build is far away rom being a dedicated healer build.
what it does it optimizes my sustain by having 100% uptie of regeneraation and vigor and having acces to the maximum number of aegis.

maybe what is considered meta has already changed?

Hi,

I thought a little about a making a raid DH tank and came up with this which I feel does what it should quite well. However I have not had the chance yet to play as the tank so I would like to know if the general thought behindit might work well:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQRApe5dnsABlChFdCOCBEEhl6h6KAW0fArGCipQe+z//H-TBSBQB3T/glUlBKK/M4+DVQJ4BVbwcm/AwDAgUABO1C-e

The idea
Achieving 100% boon duration with herald and therefor:

- providing a longlasting aegis (+ healing 850 a pop)
- 50% flat damage mitigation with protection up and no conditions
- providing 100% uptime regeneration (maybe not needed)
- 10 sec quickness
- 100% vigor uptime
- 35% uptime protection for 5 other targets

I do feel that having 100% boon duration is something worht achieving since communal defense and shield of judgement aegis duration is quite low. the prolonged duration will guarantee a blocked attack and therefore the heal before the boon runs out. on top I will generate longlasting might stacks myself.

I lose out on quite a bit of damage modifiers.

Hammer is of course another good choice however I feel a bit naked when running it.

Thoughts?

Brutaly.6257:

Well the easisest way to determine that is how many seconds of burning you get from a skill.

lets say you get 3,5 s from passive VoJ. This means the skill will only tick 3 times even though you invested in 0,5 more seconds in duration. Either you invest more or you invest less. Im a bit unsure about the specifics after they changed burning as a condition so i wont swear on it but the general idea is correct. Just invest enough to get a new tick, no more and no less.

Ofc you need to make this decision based on the other skills you are using (burn on block, JI, Purging flames etc) and intuitively decide what is a good balance. Imo in a perfect world each skill should generate an exact time of burning and this would mean no investment you made in gear/food is wasted.

If you do this check you might find that sigil of smoldering isnt needed to maintain the same burn duration as with balthazar runes alone.

I havent checked this but i suspect i could remove the smoldering sigils and use something else and still have 19,8k burning on JI and PF while still having 4s burning on passive VoJ.

I believe that this is old information.

Burn stack also tick for fractions of their remaining duration after a full tick. if this checks out (which it does imo) it basically does not matter where you stop with burn duration.

I also would advise on getting to 100% if you are running Condi gear. The duration does hep more dps vise except if you would find a way to apply a lot more stacks like runes of the mad king which are awsome for bursts in scenarios where you have moren than two opponents close to each other and if you are running permeating wrath.

there really is no bunker build anymore.

but tons of dps varaints that bring high defenseive an group support abilities.
mitigation and control is key and we do quite well with that even outside DH.

Hi all,

first off I know nothing about good berserker dps builds. what I do know is to theorycraft themed builds that turn out garbage. and here is the newst:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQNBhSD7kpDonUsmUwNEgoUsUEYKlhWXUwYA8ACAvD3k70F-TlCCQB35iAQPdDMUpG3m6QQ1fcgSQqokAAPBA8t/AFVGQKgAnaB-w

So before I – again – collect all the stuff. please tell me why it is not a good idea.
The build is pure fun open world orientated. So if you are a minmaxer do not take it too serious.

but maybe it has soemthing to it. you tell me.

The Build

General idea:
100% boon duration + breakbarbreaker

basic goal is to have 100% quickness up at all times, thus generating faster adrenaline and killing stuff. While doing so you generate might overload.

Side bonuses
- 12sec resistance boon
- 100% vigor uptime
- 100% swiftness uptime

open up with a nice head but, stun break with frenzy, wild blow , leap in, 100 blades…

well basically hack and slay at its finest.

of course for group situations this will switch to phalanx

adding to Ghost:

you realy overshot 100% crit chance already in every secanrio in which the target burns due to radiant power.

Kindled zel really does nothing and even blinding jeopardy would be a better choice. having perfect inscriptions is as well a waste imo. The signet is okay at best but third in line of heals Shelter and heal trap are a lot better. especially since you have to traits catering to them.

I understand you thought and needing high uptime of retal to take advantage of the damage modifier but the signet is not doing that.

you basically swap an easy 7% damage modifier of burn fo a 10% modifier that might excel if you get hit a lot which will not happen or shouldnt with that HP pool and all the aegis. if you see shattered aegis as a conrern stone of your build but not the retal the followin suggetions is not for you but this would max out precision and damage modifiers:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQJATRnsABFChddCWkittendilAiSu87+13KAy23MLBfwIE-TRCBABGqhphLAwoqhUpqHnpEUiDBAW7PK/A4JAknugAAIAbcjpxNGwv9tv9tv9NpACcYF-e

active F1 + LB#4 gives you the 20% fury + 10% crit chance on burn+ retaliation+might+ 10% big game hunter + 10% cripple modifier + 20% UC+ 5%+ from PoV + vurnability stacks. all on 100% crit if you got all the stacks.

but it really depends on your main goals for the build. retal is just not that cool on a DH(Guard).

Well I think it would be hard for a ranger to give up some LB skills. DH has a good set imo as well but the feel to each is quite different. DH puts everything in single punches where Ranger has more defensive options.

In PVE DH is by no means the higehs DPS choice but a fun one that still can bring some hurt.

I moved to DnT condi guardian build yesterday, tweaked it a bit to my likeing and its pretty sick.

so if you want to shine in pve he longbow is not that of a good choice if you plan on camping it.

first of fI would not call our F2 a disengage. Its a good repositioning but you do not escape anything with it. The heal and shorter cooldown are a very good.

I am nowhere near of a top or even meidum tier pvper andI can safely say that there hasnt been a class that wasnt able to hand my kitten to me – hard. I always knew what I did wrong after but when I try to fix it they simply adapted and killed me again 1on1.

On the other hand I did the same to others which basically shows me – from a ver subjective standpoint – that this game offers a lot of room for skilled play and rewards it.

Weakness to DH
- skilled player

There has to be one class that has the lowest skill floor to faceroll people. And guess what for the next couple of weeks its our turn.

Deal with it.

Hammer can work very well in theory. The numbers are a little weak at the moment.

I found that a very strong combo is:

- Soaring Devestation
- Glacial Heart
- Air+Fire Sigil
- JI
- Mighty blow
- Test of Faith + banish + F1 and pull back.

If they would fix / redo the JI nerf you have a very mobile burst scenario. The could fit very well in the meta meditrapper without focusing on the LB and too many traps.

right now the damage on LB and Traps are simply to good to go down that route.

Increased Boon Duration does not work on some traps:

Dragons Maw
Procession of Blades

They do not benefit from boon duration increase. The tooltip does not change and the actually boon duration is not increased. The other traps work fine.

Easy to test with rune of Durability in pvp.

mrauls.6519:

Indure.5410:

Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think there is any reason to take Retaliatory Subconscious (RS), if you also take Hunter’s Determination (HD) since they overlap and RS will only give a little of retaliation.

Can someone explain the benefit of going into the Valor line and getting Monk’s focus if you’re running this set-up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9v90He3J5o

I used to think the same thing, but honestly the cooldown on RS is shorter, so after a while there may not be as much overlap. It’s honestly hard to benefit from Unscathed Contender in PvP since it just takes 1 hit to remove aegis. Might as well run double aegis.

this.
however it only comes into play in longer or back to back fights. UC is not worth it in my build as much because I am not sniping from afar. If you run the Meditrapper meta
then I would definitely take UC too.

Well to be honest if we are still top tier at something its power rezzer.

F3 + Focus 5 + FMW + Virtues GM3 is very strong since you shield the downed person from damage too. and of course a succesful rez recharges F3.

however I feel at the moment bunker is not the way to go.

the great thing is that it does not matter… let them dodge I got three more traps sitting scattered on the point and 4 more on my utility bar ready to drop all at once when the dodges. blinks and stability is al thrown out… hunters need patience.

in addition trpas are awsome to secure stomps or rezzes. pop F3 put down 2 traps. no one is gonna touch you. best part: recharged F3 after sucessful rezz.

Hi there,

well there were some situations where you could have turned things faster. From what I saw you hesitate to use Dragons Maw and your F2 (could have saved the lord and the game maybe… ) and you camp LB 95% of the time. If you do that you might as well run a second one to take benefit from some swapping effects. A GS leap with a Spin attached still does wonders. Also iirc you have never used your F1 to get people back in your trap. Placing the spinning trap and not making sure they stay in there reduces the damage of that trap quite a lot. Of course a running target is also a good defense.

I did like your movement choices overall because I think this is one of the most important things in pvp. you do not have to be a button mashing god if you make the right decisions.

my own take on the meta

I did play the meta meditrapper build and did not like it and you showcased why. you do not even need to get focused to get downed. Better opponents will seek you out immediately if you are in a groupfight.

So what I did was simple. I swapped some offense for defense. Forget GS >> I use M/F and focus mastery. If you get attacked best case sceanrio you can say thank you for 10-12 stacks of might. And strike back with force. I also ditched JI for reveal trap. getting tht one off with DM and its 20might + 20vurn in your favor.

Rune choice: you might wann check out Rune of Durability. its kittening amazing. Vitality and toughness + boons + boon duration.

To be honest i also ditched the LB and took S/S as secondary + Valor GM. And took Hunters Determination instead. this basically gives you kitten tons of blocks. and low CD defense abilities. you will find yourself with perma protection in fights. passiv condi cleanse and 18k hp+2.8k toughness while still maintaining 2k power, 50% crit, 200% crit damage.

Dropping test of faith, pulling someone in and through it just to knock him back with shield 5, blink to him and drop, three traps is glorious and still extremely strong.
plus this setup lets you secure stomps way better.

Ragnarox.9601:

DH is great against noob ppl who dont even know their classes. But its mediocre vs skilled ppl. It shines in good skilled hands.

which is true for every class out there…

i think the biggest misconception was that traps are bad. They were not as good as they are now but by far were they as horrible as people made them to be.

In conquest and if they are traited you basically enter fights with two full bars of utilites. The biggest fun I have with them are the mind games you can play.

The numbers backin BWE2 where lower and that was the reason to say DH is bad and has bad mechanics. I argued multiple times that this is bullkitten and if the numbers where higher it would be cosnidered strong/OP/awsome.

All this talk that the trap theme does not fit the guardian made some people salty but I believe only for some this was actually an honest opinion. the rest just band waggoned.

Rollmole.4567:

Hello everyone,

thanks for the awesome feedback, I better understand the burn guardians style of play and what is required of it. I really like seeing all these build for guardian, especially the hybrid variations! Thanks to all of those who shared their ideas and insight.

Now down to business. I have made my own burning build for dungeons (more so fractals) and general free roam. I realised I hit the burn duration cap quite some time ago and changed some sigils and armour pieces out. Which leaves me wondering…

Can anyone tell me if Sigil of Earth counts as a strike towards VoJ proccing?

If so it would help immensely. If not maybe Geomancy can take its place.
Build is as follows
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAsfRlsAhqgYzQwSIQQEHxDVNA2yBwuBvwjmTxWcGB-TRCFAB+rShH7PEwTAoYlfAcCAcXfgAHCghVXRLlgkCAm1AA-e

Kind regards and thanks again!

it does not. it applies the effect when you crit without dealing an additional hit.
geomancy does work twords it.

however at the moment I would not recommend on or the other. From what I see you are going for 100% burn duration which is nice as is. basically geomancy will offer you only on additional stack of burn. thats quite low. and other options could work better imo. Forget sigil of earth I would rather run sigil of malice, or fragility(sp?), or even sigil of Air/fire on both weapons. Fire sigil is actually better when it hits more targets. so I take that any day over sigil of air.

Also I think the SW GS is not that good of a choice. I use it sometimes myself and with the change to damage taken its not half bad but in most situations its just too slow of an attack speed. in addition the swings of the GS do NOT count twoards F1 passiv proc which sucks.

otherwise it would be awsome! It still is a quite sustainable dps boost and with FMW the choice is overall solid. The downtime just aggrevates me.

knight.8926:

if you pair the longbow with traps then its good. But bow alone will pretty much leave you helpless without any other utilities. maybe you can use shouts to help kite. honestly i feel super slow i might end up with runes of traveler and theres no getaway card with DH like with ranger

that depends entirely on the content you plan to do. If you go full glass on the bow and pick you fights right it is completly viable. If we are talking about open world pve I think DH and LB is absolutly facerolling in the dps area.

Just startet testing yesterday but the only challenge are defiant bar mobs in HoT everything else just melts away after five seconds.

doing 3.8k AA attacks and another 9k on a 4 sec CD with multiple ways to keep does at distance is just crazy and I fell it will get toned down.

and this is without any utilities DH lets you grab a crazy amount of damage modifiers. Our F2 is a great escape tool, simply because its enough to add in another true shot.

I do not know yet if it is my style because it might get rahter boring and I like taking 4+ enemies on at once (open world) but I have to play a little more with it.

Lewis Burnell.2493:

glaphen.5230:

No point in making this thread, DH players don’t know, they just don’t want their class nerfed.

Well I play revenant and scrapper and have to say the dragonhunter is easy to deal with: it’s predictable what they’ll do so just save your dodges/stun breaks and avoid their true shot. It’s rather easy, really.

see! this guy knows whats up. nothing to see here.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Someone summon obal to lay down some cold hard facts

on it…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMnKH7Po3Xs

Great fights. Great skill. At least in my book.

I like it…

but again its really great to have this piece of armor covered by a shield or aegis ALL THE TIME.

not a big fan of the trap runes, force of will, the heavy use of knights gear and elite signet. other than that … why not!

Hi,

I dont know too much about thief to give any tips how to counter DH however I do understand that theives have a tough time.

I could imagine however that the biggest difficulty lies within two traits. Trap mastery like you mentioned and Hunters Determination which places a trap on cc and provides aegis.

so basically you want to avoid that situation. engaging with a hard cc without stability on will take away your engaging advantage completely and give the DH time to react to you.

so basically i would advise on fainting a burst. prepare dodges, time them well let the DH blow CD on traps, reposition and engage again. you are probably better of trying to take a chunk off the hp from distance. If you run in traps that you have seen place its your fault. thieve has enough blinks, shadowsteps back evades to nullify traps.

The standard thieve cookie cutter strategy doesnt work on DH no more as is.

the incoming daze is a pointer when to dodge also I think its pretty challenging to react to that.

personally I would ditch valor for honor 1/2/1(2)

if needed you got two on demand cleanses or more uptime on symbols, which probably should even out the lost ferocity. on top the heal fro aegis will keep you above those 90% a bit better. yes you are missing a group aegis every 15 secs and potentially some dps but sinceyou cant control communa defense and it has a short duration I would say its not a big loss.

but well the optionisonly a klick away and is probably better if you are not in a group.

I like it.

@Toaster Messiah: well in this case you are right. Single dps zerker is always better.

@unknown: I do not think you disagree totally. Against single target there are other things that come into play, that is for sure. I agree with you that a DH does not offer anything to aid in the damage besides dulled senses but it still has its defensiv potential and really no downside. You need virtues and radiance for damage. Medi guards can only produce 3 stacks easier through JI but thats it.

Truth is however my favorite combo just needs radiance and it does not matter if I am at DH or not – but it does not hurt either. The bow is a waste in those situations- you are completly right with tha. But did not bring it up. (did I?)

I run scepter/torch + sword/shield if I want to hit the full single potential, keeping in mind that I run close to a hybrid burn build with abput 1200 condidamage but with 100% condi duration.

rotations work like this:
Torch#4, Scepter#3, #2, Torch #4, PF … swap … #F2 or enemy just ran twords me, Shield#5, Sword#3, Sword#2.

Talking stacks: 9 from PF, 6 from torch, 3-4 from scepter, 2-3 from sword. so best case scenario I hit those 6k single target as well but still have two traps for 2+ enemies which would be a harder to deal with. working in LJ also provide a 25% damage boost on your burns which is pretty kitten hugh.

glaphen.5230:

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Just watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EedZ5kFAvSw

glaphen.5230:

choovanski.5462:

http://youtu.be/EedZ5kFAvSw

watch this. you’ll feel a bit silly when you realise how easy the traps are to avoid.

This video is a load of bullkitten. 1, none of this is on points, you can avoid the traps all you want but the traps are still there besides Fragments which is still there giving him 5 stacks of Aegis. He says the daze is an identifier but never actually shows it once in the entire video. He only dodges the maw because he knows it’s coming, he doesn’t dodge the maw animation, he dodges any trap animation, good thing the DH wasn’t hitting him with his weapons at the same time or any allies at all on the map. He says melee pressure but hurrpy durrpy durrp the only problem is the weak kitten traps and daze spam and knockbacks at melee range. You go ranged and his weapon is better than the rest of the range weapons since True Shot has low cooldown compared to volleys, a projectile destroying attack every 10 seconds and more basic attack damage the rest of weapons besides 1k plus range Ranger LB that does around the same.

actually all he does is show it but personally I do not have the reflexes to ract on that. of course you can not no which trap a DH layed down but you pretty much should ahve an idea when the meta settles. so if you know where the trap is at you can simply time you next dodge to evade true shot and release the trap. on anonterh note it makes no difference what he dodges with dragons maw. the damage component hurts yes but getting stuck and having kitten slow is pretty much a game changer.

i could go now to other elite spacs that are even more OP. I mean look at druid. 1200 port/evade with a 3k heal on a kittening 8 sec CD if you play it right the can basically tank and kite you forever.

Scrappers Perfectly Weighted can pretty much negate DH bow completely on top of kittenting on traps as well. not to speak of mesmers and what not.

go back three weeks on this board and you will realize traps are stupid and no one runs into them.

i love these threads… makes me think back three four weeks and all the unfounded DH bashing just to see now that we get one after another QQ thread and have already hit by the nerf bat.

OT:
F3 is probably DH strongest asset at the moment so I would want to wait a litle bit on discussing any toning down. IF we reduce the druation the trait needs to increase it A LOT. having it add 1 second would render the trait useless the size increase is nice but the other options are already superior if you go support or dps.

its anyoing as hell. Please fix this anet. #5 is not working 80% of the time for me.

toaster messiah.7320:

Dragonhunter traits have great damage modifiers. If you take DH for condi, you are kind of wasting the potential.

Condi build is better than what it used to be, but power builds recieved great buffs, which made it even better than condi, making the gap between them bigger.

The wasting potential part is complete nonsense.

Traps in burn builds are extremely powerful especially in HoT where you are likely to fight multiple enemies. Permeating Wrath + Supreme justice + PoB + LJ extremely powerful and gets stronger the more enemies you fight at once. I myself add rune of the mad king which – with any – elite brings this setup so far over the top that you face roll 90% of the content. toss in a GS#2 and 15-20 stacks are pretty much common – on every target!

DHs F3 is a perfect to survive the onslaught of 5+ enemies while they are hit with 4k+ a sec on top of your direct damage dps. in PVE the trap daze is a stun which increases your survivability even more. so anything that is good for the dps variant is also good for burn guard, too. If Hunters Ward wouldnt be so buggy to sometimes only deal damage on the last impact it owuld be even better because you deal serious aoe burn damage from range.

you can go full glass burn and stack vurnability up to 20 stacks without LJ Trap.
I have full berserker and a full sinsiter (converting it to viper atm) set. IMO burn guard outperforms DD guard in HoT by a great margin.

so to OP:
I would say yes! its totally worth it. The more enemies you fight the better burn guard will be. Single target DPS will be better.

This is what I am using whle exploring HoT.

This build can take on large numbers of enemies. Dropping all traps and FMW on a group of 5+ will melt most stuf pretty quick. Normally I just pull all mobs in range and wait till they are on me. drop everything collect aegis and just watch things die.

dependingon the encounter I switch either virtues or honor for radiance and the shield for torch to get more single target dps.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAT5ensABNdiddCGdCEEhlHiCLAagPQ+3L+lPr9iv7D-TFiAABAu/wMaGuW5HkKBB4JAE9BB0BQxFAoa1fIFAELrA-w

ElPewPew.6784:

Asmodal.6489:

if you use propper food you can achieve 95% burn without sigil of smoldering freein up a space there. you are misjudging sigil of fire here. you do not take that for the damage itself but for the activation of your burn aoes. see if you fight 5 targets the sigil proc causes 2stacks on all targets (best case scenario) that adds up to 15k damage. the sigil iteslf will only cause about 3000 damage each target, 4500 if each hit crits. so i would never give up that sigil of fire. the more targets you fight the stronger it gets. even fighting two targets the damage will be superior from burn procs than the sigil iteslf.

if you like the intelligence sigil stick with it. but teh smoldering needs to go if you keep runes of balthazar.

you can check out the new stats on armor that also gives condi duration. Could be really good.

OMG I did not know that Sigil of Fire procs burns and in multiple targets?

So if I proc the Sigil it procs the Virtue’s passive? And since I’m traited with the Grandmaster that makes it AOE this would mean it applies the number of stacks to all in the blast?

I’ve been playing with a Rampager DH during my time with the expansion and I’ve been having some sucess with it.

If I don’t wanna go full damage (Viper/Sinister) what pieces could I swap for some defensive stats? Rabid/Dire/Carrion?

Would Giver’s weapon help with the build?

any attack you land except for spirit weapons counts twords the proccing passiv F1.
just to bes sure sigil of fire does not. But since the fire sigil needs a crit to trigger it needs a hit and the aoe can hit up to 5 targets. so in total 6 hits which can lead to 2 stacks of burn on each target best case sceanrio.

so the answer is yes.

If yu want to go for defensiv stats I would always stick with carrion. Dire is an okay chocie but you are actually becoming too tanky for mos encouters. WVWvW is a different issue of course.

hmm really do not get that either. If you trait for it DH degenerates break bars without even trying. perma cripple on target, dazes, pulls, knock backs, wards.

Just keep in mind that the grey bar can not be broken. only the blue ones.

InsidiousWaffle.7086:

-Sentinel earrings because they add approx. 3k health and I wanted a little more vitality

but they dont. they add 1.1k hp compared to ascended carrion or the dire option which in return would provide 220 condition damage …

InsidiousWaffle.7086:

-Signet of wrath increases burning damage

.. which is only 180. so basically you lost 1.100 hp got 40 condi damage more and a free utility slot.

InsidiousWaffle.7086:

-Hounds open with a flame blast, which can hit for up to 4k each

compared to your options this I find this rather weak on a hugh CD. it is a cool skill though.

InsidiousWaffle.7086:

- Unscathed contender is there because you will ideally be staying at range and kiting

but you got no power … +20% damage on 0 damage is not really an efficient trait choice. yes exaggurated but still. masters of consecrations would be a lot better for.

InsidiousWaffle.7086:

- Intellegence gives me garunteed crits, which translates into me getting the zealots flame proc more often

well if you would take right hand strength and fmw fro fury you find yourself at 66% crit chance. you do not need the sigil. the deleay on activation is minimal yes. you can do the double damage trick better but I find that not worth it. People do not hold still for that to work after it did the first time.

InsidiousWaffle.7086:

- Big game hunter is in place because I find myself using spear of justice a whole lot, and 10% damage is a pretty good buff

it really is not in you case. you lose the passiv activation of your F1 which you actually traited for in virtues. the 10% damage (30% with UC) on a build with 1300 power is nothing that puts preassure on anything. on top you are at a hugh disadvantage after 6 seconds dps wise. The only reason to use this is for the pull to drag the enemy twice through your PF to finish him.

InsidiousWaffle.7086:

This is a valid issue, I suppose that an easy solution is equipping sigils of hydromancy and geomancy on one of each weapon would be pretty ample, although I would have to replace Sigil of intelligence(which hurts, but that’s the point of scepter 2 anyways)
and also Sigil of fire, which is really just for a little more overall damage

if you use propper food you can achieve 95% burn without sigil of smoldering freein up a space there. you are misjudging sigil of fire here. you do not take that for the damage itself but for the activation of your burn aoes. see if you fight 5 targets the sigil proc causes 2stacks on all targets (best case scenario) that adds up to 15k damage. the sigil iteslf will only cause about 3000 damage each target, 4500 if each hit crits. so i would never give up that sigil of fire. the more targets you fight the stronger it gets. even fighting two targets the damage will be superior from burn procs than the sigil iteslf.

if you like the intelligence sigil stick with it. but teh smoldering needs to go if you keep runes of balthazar.

you can check out the new stats on armor that also gives condi duration. Could be really good.

InsidiousWaffle.7086:

Firstly, what is the standard(ish) amount of burn stacks that guardian usually applies?
(I actually don’t know what it is)

Depends on sigils and weapon. just AA it will be around 2-4 stacks on most weapons if you have 75%+ condi duration. Burst burn is a whol different story.

For single target you are on the right track for mutiple targets you are going the wrong way. My burn build can stack up to 20 burns on 3-5 targets at once however they need enough HP to surivive long enough.

InsidiousWaffle.7086:

Here is the optimal build imo
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVEQNAT7flsAhmhY5QwSIQwGLBEl83H+rvVA8AvZWC2gTIA-TRiAABws/gGHBAmViBwDBIadDUcBAOV9HJVCKmyDCB8YNA-e

I dont get that build in some areas. First why Sentinel Earings? Signet of Wrath? Hounds of balthazar? UC? big game hunter? sigil of intelligence? a lot of these choices make no sense to me.

InsidiousWaffle.7086:

This equals:
17 stacks of burning, for a total of 40,097 burning damage per burst. this isn’t even counting how burning stacks intensity(I couldn’t find a calculator that calculated burning damage)

you have like zero cover conditions to make the 17 burn stacks stick. one cleanse and your burst combo is gone. on top you have no no condicleanse if you use PF offensively so for WvWvW this seems not working.

For open world your are incredibly tanky. but actually you would still do well with carrion/sinister mix.

I m not that convinced taht you use you full potential here to be honest.
stats and utilites aside this is more where you want to be:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVEQNAT7fn8cCNDhlDBedCEEhlAiSu87+03KAeg3MbIawJE-TxhAABUcFAgZ/hrV+dq6PSqEEgHCQ06GIFAELrA-e

does not solve the cleansing issue

Ragnarox.9601:

If you bring it down to 16 sec traited and curing 1 condition ppl might use it over Shelter.

I use it constantly at the momentin pve since the heal + blind + daze is just to good when fighting multiple enemies. its my heal of choice when soloing heropoints.

ebslike.1852:

The nerf is definitely called for in my opinion, traps are very strong and with the low cooldown they are almost always available when you need them (and they still will be). I don’t really get why people are complaining, (burst)damage is not going down. Obviously DPS is going down a little bit, but we are not reliant on traps for DPS.

of course it is. we lost a two second window to make use of the trap in addition to the ICD this is a pretty heavy hit in actual gameplay.

I feel that test of faith and Dragon Maw went well over the top i can live the the procession of blades but the first two are not okay.

test of faith has now a shorter lifespan and an internal CD?? Is that per target or for all targets? If the latter it seriously got shafted. making se of the trap was one of the funnest things ever. push, pull in and out 3-5 times was awsome and took a lot of skills and CDs.

Seeing arkens video this nerf is even more unjustified.

Dragons Maw is as many pointed out not that great of a trap. it is a situational trap as well so I feel 60secs was plenty