Guild Wars 2

Fashion Mage.3712:

morrolan.9608:

Fashion Mage.3712:

What Blackbox said. The first thing I thought when reading about the elite spec was "It’s kind of ironic that this “backline spec” with a longbow is getting close-ranged virtues".

And non ground targeted traps.

I had just assumed the traps would be ground targeted when I read about the spec the first time. :p

It seems like Anet is very wishy-washy about the spec in general, honestly. They want it to be a backline support, but they’re making the virtues less supportive, and they’re trying to justify an obviously divisive name for it by saying that it’s inspired by witch hunters who actively seek to purify evil by destroying dragons, but yet it’s still supposed to be supportive and stay in the backlines and let other people do the grunt work, but then they’re giving us traps that aren’t ground targeted that you can only drop right in front of you, even though you’re supposed to be on the backlines and also actively chasing the enemy to vanquish evil.

That’s why I’m pretty peeved about the whole thing. It’s very scatterbrained and just feels poorly planned out.

MiniEquine.6014:

Black Box.9312:

MiniEquine.6014:

Ragnarox.9601:

MiniEquine.6014:

SeriusBlack.1963:

I was just about to open my own post, so i just leave my opinion here!

I would be very happy if guardian could get one himself. We could rename the Minor grandmaster to " On the Hunt" and make it give swiftness on certain things, or just flat 25% movementspeed, like for the chronomancer. With the chronomancer change *guardian will be only class without permanent movespeed, veven engi got it with Kit swaps. *
I think changing the mino grandmaster for dragonhunter is nessecary anyway, since it only really benefits longbow users, it should be changed to something that benefits more build, since there will be people that pick dragonhunter but dont want to use the Longbow.

Guardians absolutely have permanent swiftness capability. Take “Retreat!” and a staff. Bam, unlimited swiftness.

You miss the point. Staff + Retreat – thats a weapon (you must stand in symbol for 4,5 sec to get full amount of speed) and 1 skill vs 1 trait. Trait gives more diversity plus its passive so noone can strip it away from you like swiftness boon.

I agree, but it’s false to say that we don’t have the capability of permanent swiftness. I think it would be nice if we had the 25% boost, but that would mean we might feel forced to take traits in a line that we otherwise wouldn’t have. That’s the main reason engineers take Speedy Kits instead of their 25% move speed trait.

Still, you don’t have to stay in the symbol of swiftness AoE for too long to maintain perma-swift. Balancing that placement with “Retreat!”s will give you it even if you just run through it.

Nobody running meditations, or any other potential offensive build for that matter, will ever run with a staff and Retreat. The cost of doing so far outweighs the benefit.

I don’t disagree. However, do you think that Medi Guards (I’m assuming you’re referring to sPvP) are going to take the 25% movement speed trait instead of what they build right now? For all non-medi guards, though, it’s not a bad option.

Yes? Being able to have extra movespeed in a trait will eliminate the tradeoff between mobility and damage for rune sets, which means you’d finally be able to run strength/pack/hoelbrak runes and still be able to keep up with the enemy.

MiniEquine.6014:

Black Box.9312:

Gosh, I wish. Nope, you’ll have to trait into the elite spec in order to use the bow, sadly.

Why, exactly, is that a bad thing? All of the traits that improve the longbow are in the elite trait line. If it’s exclusively because of the name, then that’s a pretty shallow reason; the name doesn’t effect gameplay.

Because I’d rather be able to run Zeal/Radiance/Valor but still have access to some decent CC. And seeing as every guardian build will continue to be pigeonholed into Valor, I’ll have to sacrifice quite a bit of DPS from Zeal or Radiance to take the DH traitline which has nothing that I want, aside from maybe the immobilize leap from VoR.

Gosh, I wish. Nope, you’ll have to trait into the elite spec in order to use the bow, sadly.

The wells vs. traps argument is moot, because mesmer needed better area denial and we did not. Even if chronomancer had gotten traps and we had gotten wells, they still would have won out overall.

That being said, however, traps are really just an awful skillset in general.

Dinks.2478:

We already have a ton of ground placed kitten on this class that don’t have a useless deploy and arming time. Traps are useless, idk why anet keeps pushing for them.

Exactly this. Guardian already has arguably the best set of area denial skills in the game. Giving us more of them over mobile damage/CC was a stupid idea.

MiniEquine.6014:

Ragnarox.9601:

MiniEquine.6014:

SeriusBlack.1963:

I was just about to open my own post, so i just leave my opinion here!

I would be very happy if guardian could get one himself. We could rename the Minor grandmaster to " On the Hunt" and make it give swiftness on certain things, or just flat 25% movementspeed, like for the chronomancer. With the chronomancer change *guardian will be only class without permanent movespeed, veven engi got it with Kit swaps. *
I think changing the mino grandmaster for dragonhunter is nessecary anyway, since it only really benefits longbow users, it should be changed to something that benefits more build, since there will be people that pick dragonhunter but dont want to use the Longbow.

Guardians absolutely have permanent swiftness capability. Take “Retreat!” and a staff. Bam, unlimited swiftness.

You miss the point. Staff + Retreat – thats a weapon (you must stand in symbol for 4,5 sec to get full amount of speed) and 1 skill vs 1 trait. Trait gives more diversity plus its passive so noone can strip it away from you like swiftness boon.

I agree, but it’s false to say that we don’t have the capability of permanent swiftness. I think it would be nice if we had the 25% boost, but that would mean we might feel forced to take traits in a line that we otherwise wouldn’t have. That’s the main reason engineers take Speedy Kits instead of their 25% move speed trait.

Still, you don’t have to stay in the symbol of swiftness AoE for too long to maintain perma-swift. Balancing that placement with “Retreat!”s will give you it even if you just run through it.

Nobody running meditations, or any other potential offensive build for that matter, will ever run with a staff and Retreat. The cost of doing so far outweighs the benefit.

RabbitUp.8294:

Black Box.9312:

See what I did there?

Missed the point?

Huh, I guess you didn’t. Oh well.

RabbitUp.8294:

Black Box.9312:

You just pulled that statistic straight out of your kitten . How is that at all any more constructive?

No, I actually counted each and every post and did the math. Because I care that much.

I was responding to a certain person about a certain matter. It’s safe to say, my reply was in the context of that discussion.

Even if you actually did count them all, it’s still based on your subjective opinion, so therefore it’s worthless.

See what I did there?

Obtena.7952:

Apparently so, because it’s not that hard to get. Dragon Hunter. I’m going to guess and say … has something to do with hunting dragons. Where youi are wrong is that it’s not a highly complex theme. It’s brain dead easy, like most other things in this game. People just trying to overthink it because they don’t like the name.

But how does their aim of a “backline support” spec match up with their idea of a “big game hunter that actively seeks the dragons to destroy them”? It’s completely contradictory.

RabbitUp.8294:

Black Box.9312:

How is 80% of the feedback whining without reasoning? Have you taken a look at all of the constructive input as to why people disagree with the name choice? Obviously anything that asks for someone’s opinion is going to lead to subjective answers, so that aside, there’s a lot of stuff people have had to say about why they feel the way they do, and it’s certainly not baseless complaining.

The constructive input is the 20%. Yes, there really were some well-thought-out posts. But, have you not seen countless of posts consisting of nothing more than “Dragonhunter sucks, name it Sentinel/Arbiter/whichever-word-I-think-sounds-cool instead?”.

Here’s a summary of that feedback: http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/guardian

You just pulled that statistic straight out of your kitten . How is that at all any more constructive?

But lol guardian gets staff and shout swiftness, so just sacrifice all of your damage and offensive utility for those, right?!

/trololol

RabbitUp.8294:

Harvest.2506:

RabbitUp.8294:

Gibson.4036:

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

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

Just an observation.

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

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

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

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

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

How is 80% of the feedback whining without reasoning? Have you taken a look at all of the constructive input as to why people disagree with the name choice? Obviously anything that asks for someone’s opinion is going to lead to subjective answers, so that aside, there’s a lot of stuff people have had to say about why they feel the way they do, and it’s certainly not baseless complaining.

Dondagora.9645:

Watch ANet come in here and go all “After seeing all the criticism for Chronomancer and the support to new names, we have decided to change Chronomancer’s name to Clock Blocker. Thank you for your feedback in this matter”.

I’ll laugh.

“Dragonhunter will remain unchanged. Thanks guys!”

Inimicus.7162:

Invictus.1503:

@OP – you just posted the exact same post in another thread talking about Revenant weapons and is on the front page at the time of this posting. This new thread seems a plea for attention at best. The topic is found here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Revenant-Weapon-speculation/first#post5054260

As to the topic, the primary point I can see is that you believe that the only viable “melee staff” is a plain stick. Although I do not disagree with you, there are a number of appropriate staff skins to be wielded. However the primary opposing argument to this is simple:
- Look at the existing skins we have for GS and Sword. Most of them are extremely awkwardly balanced to the point of being completely useless in combat (and some are wooden or even rubber).
-There are a large number of bows that could not function within the laws of physics.
-There are a few dagger skins that are held backwards (meaning all attacks would hit the enemy with the hilt).
- Many of the more decorative skins across the board look like they’d shatter if ever used properly (The Moot comes to mind as one).
- Finally, don’t get me started on how I can fire an obvious six-shooter hundreds of times without ever reloading.

I’m not saying all of these things are horrible or should be changed. I’m just saying that if you want to limit one weapon (melee staff) to realism and physics, then you can’t exclude all the other weapons from such logic. Personally I’m all for these things in a game, including the melee staff.

After writing it there, I felt it was important enough to be made into it’s own thread.

There are joke weapon skins that I don’t even consider when asking things like this, this includes The Moot, in spite of it’s legendary status.

I can’t explain people’s fascination with designing (and using) 10′×2′ butter knives that happen to carry the greatsword classification, in fact I personally lump these into the joke weapon category also. Absolute nonsense. However, I could make the argument that many of them, if scaled back to more reasonable sizes would actually be within the realms of plausible if you could make an IRL counterpart to them. While I don’t like them in the least, I can tolerate their presence as being an RPG culture thing since the “Buster Sword” first appeared.

The bows… yea, to go with armor and many other things… For those, as long as they are bow shaped, and not turned backwards and used like those klingon crescent sword things, I don’t mind them existing. I see gw2 staves being used in melee in this same light actually, though if they made a polearm weapon type, the moves might actually be close enough to add that silly klingon thing there. (Tho i’d rather not, only point out it’s possible)

Holding daggers underhanded is “cool looking” but outside of some specific circumstances, you will better served to carry your blade overhand. This applies to swords too. (I’m looking at YOU GW1 Tengu…)

As to the decorative skins… This is the hardest one to answer tbh. Yes, the more realistic but decorative skins would not stand up in combat, but then again a lot of us run around with not 1 scar or bruise, half naked, wearing flowing pink and/or snow-white garments that never get dirty, bright pink and purple hair/eyes, play non-human characters, create and play magazine quality models, and some of us can go into total stealth, in the middle of combat, while people are watching and while our torches and incinerators are still very much lit……

I understand there is a great degree of fantasy and artistic license in all this. I’m not asking for full on realism, as that would be rather ugly and boring. But given the role of the items we are speaking of, I do feel a deep desire for the things to have a visual identity that generally matches that roll, or comes close enough. In this specific case, staves as we have them now, being used as polearms or possibly hammer stand-ins, is nonsensical enough that I can’t readily write off just how weird this is going to look. If it comes to pass, and I say again, I hope they hold on this until they have something that can look more fitting doing it.

Sorry for breaking your immersion, but I’m going to continue killing people with my planetarium scepter and eagerly await the use of staff as a melee weapon.

As for my actual guess: Warrior and Thief are the only two left that we have no confirmed information on, and we’ve already covered a light armor class and a heavy armor class, so my guess goes to Thief.

Out of the three utility types guardians have that could potentially be used offensively (meditations, signets, and spirit weapons), meditations is the only one that isn’t terribly underwhelming currently.

Gibson.4036:

My order guess:

1. Chronomancer (Will be renamed “Time Changer” soon)
2. Dragon Hunter
3. Stealth Rifle
4. Death Hacker
5. OP Guy
6. Nature Caster (“Druid” was working title)
7. Weather Wizard (“Tempest” a little too punchy)
8. Rivet Hammerer
9. Glint Channeler

10/10 would play “OP Guy”.

Ezrael.6859:

Not change the name of a traitline based on the whining of an incredibly small vocal minority.

Give everyone that created a whine thread the in-game title: Dragonhunter.

Why do you have such a personal vendetta against anyone who disagrees with your opinion on the subject? I think you need to calm down a bit.

RabbitUp.8294:

Black Box.9312:

Yes…? If you’re going to fall down the moral scale, I’d like to think that you’d try to seek power in darker magic. It’s all figurative, of course, but it still makes more sense that way to me.

GW doesn’t really embrace the concept of white and black magic. Guardians are not inherently good and Necromancers are not inherently evil.

Why would a guardian need to change the school of magic they subscribe to according to which foe they face or what state of mind they are in while fighting said foe. If you can use light magic to kills centaurs and whatnot as a vanilla guardian, you can use light magic to commit a Sylvari genocide as a Dragonhunter.

Regardless of the effects, my point is that a “backline support” spec that relies on a bow and defensive traps hardly fits the idea of a darker theme for the class.

RabbitUp.8294:

Black Box.9312:

cerulean moth.2743:

Exactly! There’s a lot of room for “Dragon Hunter” to be an excellent addition to the game, and people seem to be ignoring those possibilities. It’s clear the name signifies a more radical/ruthless approach to dragon extermination. I’m hopeful it matches the dark tone that HoT seems to set.

If the name is meant to evoke a darker theme, then it misses the mark, because there’s nothing “dark” about the actual spec. It’s still a light-wielding battlemage that just happens to use a bow and “traps”. It just doesn’t fit.

It’s darker morality-wise. Do you expect a guardian’s power to visually become darker if they behave more ruthlessly?

Yes…? If you’re going to fall down the moral scale, I’d like to think that you’d try to seek power in darker magic. It’s all figurative, of course, but it still makes more sense that way to me.

I still don’t like “dragonhunter” at all, but I’ll admit that this thread gave me a good laugh.

cerulean moth.2743:

Exactly! There’s a lot of room for “Dragon Hunter” to be an excellent addition to the game, and people seem to be ignoring those possibilities. It’s clear the name signifies a more radical/ruthless approach to dragon extermination. I’m hopeful it matches the dark tone that HoT seems to set.

If the name is meant to evoke a darker theme, then it misses the mark, because there’s nothing “dark” about the actual spec. It’s still a light-wielding battlemage that just happens to use a bow and “traps”. It just doesn’t fit.

Dewzie.7015:

JonPeters.5630:

A couple notes on Dragonhunter. We went with this name because we felt it was evocative of the medieval witch hunters. Guardians consider themselves protectors of the innocent. Followers of their faith be it in honor, valor, etc. The origin of the dragonhunter is a more subtle nuanced version of this. Guardians fight for justice and the dragonhunter faction believes justice is the eradication of dragons and their minions. I understand this is a lot more high concept than Mesmer but at the end of the day we felt like we wanted to try and push a more mature theme here. I hope this helps explain our thinking. We had other generic names in mind but felt like it was important to have a mix of spec names that are generic fantasy, more Tyrian fantasy, and more high concept. This one falls more in the third category.

Thanks,

Jon

Thank you for the clarification but did I miss something? I’ve always considered witch hunting to be one of the most unjust activities in human history. How is the slaughtering of innocents in any way something that should be idolized or considered heroic?

Even if this is alluding to the dragons being “good” and we’re wrongfully trying to stop them, I still don’t like the idea of my character being branded a religious extremist or big game poacher. I took down Zhaitan to protect the only world I had left. I didn’t do it because I’m some nutter who wants to commit genocide.

The main problem I have with the name is the story being forced into it. When the dragons are all dead what happens to Dragonhunters? Chronomancers can still Chronomance. What do Dragonhunters do? If they can still use their skills to go after other “prey” then why can’t they have a less specific name to begin with?

Just based on the skills we’ve been shown I think Warden would make the most sense.

Warden
- A person responsible for the supervision of a particular place (traps) and enforcing the regulations associated with it (justice etc).

Yes, it’s likely nothing will change but at least the feedback from the Dragonhunter can be taken into account when it comes to future specialisations. Unless you’re content with sitting back and letting Warrior become Drakeslayer and Thief become Harpyslapper.

I think this is a good point that I hadn’t really considered. Witch hunting seems like it’d be just and valiant on paper, but you have to consider the fact that REAL witch hunting in the 17th century was horrendous and resulted in the deaths of many innocent people. People actively seeking the punishment of witches were very misguided at best and sadistic murderers at worst, because spoiler alert: there weren’t actually any witches.

Between this and the contradictory “big game hunter” theme, Jon’s justification here fails on two fronts.

Renshu.5329:

Isn’t it only a massive nerf if you spec into dragonhunter? The virtue changes only happen if you spec into it

I think that’s the point, though. Anet is trying to stress backline support play for the new spec, but people aren’t going to want to take it if they plan to use their virtues for team support because the radius of the leap heal is 1/5 that of the regular VoR heal radius, not to mention that you’re also sacrificing an instant cast for a targeted leap.

Ghotistyx.6942:

You’ll just have to be smart about trap placement. In pvp you’ve got conquest points/chokes, the Courtyard center, or Stronghold gates, supply depot, and Hero channeling thing.

In wvw, trappers will be great at objective defense. Place em right behind a door and when they bust through, oh snap its a trap! Consider Piercing Light, Supreme Justice, and Permeating Wrath with Procession of Blades and Light’s Judgement. If the 4.5k burn ticks on Svanir(?) made you squeamish, a zerg running through that with you nearby will make Trogdor need to lie down for a second and sip some ginger ale.

Many of these traps are long duration. Compared to Thief (npc for 20s or 1 pulse) and Ranger (1, 3, or 5 pulses), these will have a long uptime of area denial. Put just one of the pulsers on a point and you’ve got 10 seconds to /sleep or /readabook while an enemy now has to make some important life decisions.

Now after saying all this, I’m not 100% satisfied myself with how traits are going to look. I think Procession of Blades (the meat grinder) needs to be a whirl finisher, and Fragements of Faith (the aegis one) could be a blast finisher at least. I also don’t like the cooldowns on the traps either, but considering their movement towards active play cooldown reduction, we could add “Reduce recharge of Traps by X seconds when activating a virtue” functionality to Piercing Light (bleed on trap hit trait).

I just don’t agree, honestly. Even if you can find spots where they’d work, you’re sacrificing too much sustain, condi clear, mobility, etc. for a set of skills that are situational at best. The only way to really ensure that a point could be properly locked down would be to place all of your traps in the same spot, but if you put all your eggs in one basket…

This game already features princess wands and rubber scimitars as weapons. I think “realism” as far as weapon design goes went out the window a long time ago.

Frostfang.5109:

I just find it strange, how u can eb´ven leave feedback on something u have not even played yet….

For traps at least, it’s because we already have classes that have traps in this game. Their effectiveness in a fight is inversely proportional to the intelligence/skill of your enemy.

CaboSoul.1204:

Zalladi.4652:

I fail to see how ‘Chronomancer’ fits in this ‘Jungle Theme’.

RabbitUp.8294:

Black Box.9312:

The chronomancer and druid both make sense, because they define what the spec is and what it does. A chronomancer is a manipulator of time, and a druid is a mage of nature. But dragonhunter just feels wrong because it has little to no relation to what the spec is or how it works.

If you didn’t know that mesmers have that one time related elite skill, chronomancer wouldn’t make sense either. Creating illusions and causing hallucinations is not exactly related to controlling the flow of time.

You could make an entire Guardian elite spec based on Marvel’s Human Torch based on such a connection, since Guardians have a skill that sets themselves on fire.

As for how describing what the spec does, how does “hunter” not hint at the introduction of bow and traps?

Even without thinking of time warp, I could have easily made the connection for the chronomancer. Mesmers are already based around the idea of using magic to distort reality. Extending their control to that of time as well is hardly a stretch, and yet at the same time it adds an entirely new dimension to the class. It still feels distinctly like a mesmer, but it’s a mesmer spun in a new direction. Better still, the use of alacrity and their new F5 shatter bring an entirely new way to play the game that you can’t even come close to replicating with what we currently have.

With the dragonhunter, Anet appears to have taken the idea of a guardian and just flipped it entirely on its head. Using both a bow AND traps AND giving it the theme of being a “hunter” gives the impression that it’s little more than a wannabe ranger, and other than the blue effects it hardly feels like a guardian at all, let alone a new playstyle for one.

It’s really frustrating to me that for nearly 3 years guardians have been shafted in terms of balancing (damage being primarily centered around ground-based AoE and the use of slow-moving projectiles, very little soft CC to prevent enemies from avoiding the aforementioned damage, virtually no disengage, defensive builds being almost entirely reliant on allies for effectiveness, etc.) because of the theme, and then suddenly with this new spec they decide to do a complete turnaround and break the theme because OMG BOW. There were so many suggestions by so many people on how they could have given the class a long ranged, CC oriented spec while still staying true to what separates a guardian from other classes, as well as creating a unique playstyle that introduces new mechanics and added dimension to the game. Instead, they decided to copy/paste ranger mechanics and throw in some light magic visuals and call it good.

Ezrael.6859:

Death.1654:

Ezrael.6859:

I like Dragonhunter.

I don’t like the sense of vocal minority entitlement on these forums.

How is it vocal minority entitlement? We were literally asked to provide feedback and to keep the feedback of the specialization name to this thread. If anything it is rather entitled to think that just because people disagree with you about the name (no matter how popular their opinion is or isn’t) they shouldn’t voice their opinions here. I don’t like the name but I am not going to call the people who do like it the ‘vocal minority’ or ‘entitled.’

The sense of entitlement that you think you can start a whine thread about the name of the Guardian specialisation.

What if someone wants to play a Guardian in GW2 but they want the class to be called a Paladin because it better fits their RPG stereotypes in the head, should they start whine threads about that?

What if they want the Guardian specialisation to use Pistol, Shortbow, Rifle or Sword-offhand instead, should they also create a whine thread with a biased poll that says what weapon do you want the Dragonhunter to have?

Why does the specialisation name even matter? Do you currently call yourself a Zeal Honor Virtues Guardian. Or will you actually just end up saying Bowguard anyway.

For someone complaining about entitlement, you seem to be on quite a high horse.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Seared Tendons: Cripple (3-4 seconds) foes that you burn
(cool down of 10 seconds per target)

You’re welcome for the idea. :/

But anyway, if it were up to me I’d scrap the traps in favor of something that we can use on the move. We’d also need either a low cooldown heal skill or a sustain-based trait in DH for it to be competitive without the need to spec into valor.

I just don’t get where the connection is. If I’d been told to think of a “dragonhunter” without knowing that it was the name of the guardian’s elite spec, I would have come up with something completely different from what we have. Not only does it seem like a terribly juvenile name in my opinion, but it just doesn’t fit. Other than the name of the elite trap, there is nothing descriptive about the name that you can associate with the spec.

The chronomancer and druid both make sense, because they define what the spec is and what it does. A chronomancer is a manipulator of time, and a druid is a mage of nature. But dragonhunter just feels wrong because it has little to no relation to what the spec is or how it works.

Coldtart.4785:

Test of faith hits when crossing its boundary like the stun lines that have no aoe limits. Get enough guards to spread them around strategic locations in a wvw fight then enjoy watching the enemy team have to choose between standing still and getting shot up or walking through the trap spam and instantly dying.

This is really the only one I admittedly liked of the bunch, because it looks like it’d be a good way to hold an enemy in place. Unless they rework them, every other trap will be completely negated simply by dodging over them.

If this is true, then that’s pretty disappointing. I’d rather have just seen them bump up the ICD if it turned out to be too powerful as it was.

Oh well. Guess I’ll just be running the VoJ immobilize instead.

Justine.6351:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Quintuplebeta.3914:

I really think that the trap LB guard will be super OP. After watching the ready up, I noticed that you could combo traps and traits to almost insta kill somebody. You could use the dragons maw, the whirling blade trap and the revel trap in combo with some traits to absolutely destroy anybody who walks over it. Personally as a thief I am terrified of this. I can just imagine that i’m roaming in WvW and I walk over where a guard set his traps.

To do that however you give up condition cleanses, stun breaks, stability & allot of other boons.

After doing it your also useless for 45 seconds while they all recharge.

Cause you don’t use 5 traps…

Not every skill/skill set needs to revolve around the top 1% pvpers and their wannabes. I think that’s why some are mad. They didn’t get more augmentation to their current play. Instead something new was introduced.

“OMG we can’t do symbol medi shout trap guardian!”

But the problem is that it’s not REALLY something new. We already have a kittenton of area denial between symbols and weapon skills such as smite and ring of warding. Traps are just about the last thing the class needed, to be honest.

This is an idea that I’ve supported for a really long time. While the proposed changes into a shout and a signet would be fine with me, I’d LOVE to see tomes become kit-style skills that can be used freely, with increased cooldowns on the individual skills to compensate.

Should be no more than 30/45/60 base IMO.

Sure, they have fancy visual effects and can deal decent damage, but people seem to be forgetting that half the reason why meditations are meta currently is because of the sustain they provide. Once the novelty factor wears off, people will realize that trap builds will have no sustain or condi removal and will just go back to what they were doing before.

Traps, in their current iteration, are just an awful skillset in general and should be reworked to promote more active play.

Nike.2631:

Future.8641:

JonPeters.5630:

I understand this is a lot more high concept than Mesmer but at the end of the day we felt like we wanted to try and push a more mature theme here. I hope this helps explain our thinking.

Dragonhunter.. doesn’t feel in any way “mature”. It’s what a five year old would say if you asked him what he wants to be when he’s all grown up. Only by that time he’s an accountant.

And yet plenty of the adults in the room like it.

Might want to find a better lever than “nya nya I think you’re immature!” if you want to move this rock. Calling Devs something akin to five-year olds doesn’t work real well in my experience.

Neither does the devs insinuating that their player base isn’t mature enough to grasp the concept behind an obviously divisive name. Maybe it wasn’t meant as an insult, but reading it without prior context sure as hell made it seem like one.

Swizzle.7982:

JonPeters.5630:

high concept
a more mature theme

You do realise you called it Dragonhunter right?

D hunter sucks and no amount of trying to weasel your way into presenting it as a super mature, deep and complex name is going to change that.

Yeah sorry, but I’m gonna have to agree here. When I first read it I instantly had the impression that someone brought their 7 year old kid to work and asked them to name the guardian elite specialization. It has a very juvenile vibe; it doesn’t sound mature at all.

Yeah, I noticed this as well. Nobody is going to use VoR as a support skill anymore.

MiniEquine.6014:

Black Box.9312:

MiniEquine.6014:

Feral.3609:

I absolutely hate this idea, the name, and even the weapon choice.

Played my guardian from day 1 of release because it was a front line fighter with supportive buffs to allies – kind of like a templar or paladin. Now they turn it into a fairy ranger. Really upset with this choice! Looks like I’ll have to find a new main.

I would be happier if they even forgo giving guardians a longbow (which doesn’t even match this class) and just fix our broken/useless traitlines/skills (zeal/radiance/spirit weapons). That would be my version of a new specialization.

I hope they give necromancer a rifle and kitten them off to.

Find a new main? What, are you serious? This doesn’t change the base class at all, this is just the specialization. You will still be able to play the Guardian exactly as you always have been.

For some, like myself, the base class is getting a bit stale, and we were looking for something new to renew our interest. The fact that this is essentially a trap ranger tacked onto guardian profession mechanics makes it feel like the proverbial nail in the coffin because it’s not new at all, and certainly not what we were hoping for.

The revenant looks like it’s more of what I wanted guardian to be anyway, to be honest.

Well, there is new stuff, but some of it might not appeal to what you like in certain classes anymore. I primarily use my Guardian and Engineer, and I personally think that I might enjoy what this specialization has to offer. It’s not what I was expecting, I must admit, but it is new and they will talk about that in 3 hours and 45 minutes. If it’s not new at all, I’ll be right there with you wielding the torches and pitchforks. I just think there’s more to this than meets the eye with the relatively nondescript preview post they did.

It’s just going to have to have traps and traits that function nothing like ranger traps and traits to hold my interest, and sadly I don’t think they’re going to make the traps work any differently than current trap builds. It just really saddens me that they’re rehashing something we already have instead of coming up with something new like they did with the chronomancer.

Invictus.1503:

Shiki.7148:

none.9681:

I don’t get the hate against traps. They’re basically the same thing as wells (except that their effect only starts once enemy is on them – which is a plus, not a minus) and nobody complained about Chronomancer’s wells.

Compare them to “Marks” instead. Cause they are really just that.

Thank you! It has been driving me nuts that people have been comparing to wells, when traps are exactly the same as marks. I guess necromancer is just such an under played and underwhelming class that most players don’t know anything about marks.

From what we’ve heard in one of the recent developer livestreams, traps will now require an activation time and won’t be able to proc simply by laying it down under someone’s feet. Even if this isn’t the case for guardian traps, I just don’t see myself ever wanting to take them over meditations for an offensive build or consecrations/shouts for a defensive build.

Awful name aside, this thematically feels way too close to a trap ranger. It seems very uninspired and lacks the vibe of originality and novelty that the chronomancer brought to the table.

Sure, it fills the gap in terms of giving a more reliable ranged weapon and access to condition builds, but traps are just another form of area denial (and a rather unreliable one at that), which is exactly what we didn’t need more of. I can’t help but think that there could have been far better ways to do that while still staying true to the guardian’s playstyle and theme.

MiniEquine.6014:

Feral.3609:

I absolutely hate this idea, the name, and even the weapon choice.

Played my guardian from day 1 of release because it was a front line fighter with supportive buffs to allies – kind of like a templar or paladin. Now they turn it into a fairy ranger. Really upset with this choice! Looks like I’ll have to find a new main.

I would be happier if they even forgo giving guardians a longbow (which doesn’t even match this class) and just fix our broken/useless traitlines/skills (zeal/radiance/spirit weapons). That would be my version of a new specialization.

I hope they give necromancer a rifle and kitten them off to.

Find a new main? What, are you serious? This doesn’t change the base class at all, this is just the specialization. You will still be able to play the Guardian exactly as you always have been.

For some, like myself, the base class is getting a bit stale, and we were looking for something new to renew our interest. The fact that this is essentially a trap ranger tacked onto guardian profession mechanics makes it feel like the proverbial nail in the coffin because it’s not new at all, and certainly not what we were hoping for.

The revenant looks like it’s more of what I wanted guardian to be anyway, to be honest.

Arken.3725:

Traps are inherently stationary which lends to the argument of why it was given to the Guardian in the first place. We already have Symbols/Consecrations for Area-denial, why another set of the same skills? I was hoping to get mantras

I think this is my biggest issue with the whole “traps” thing as well. Even if they ARE good (which, let’s be honest, current trap skills make that a rather large if), it’s still just more area denial, which is the one thing we DON’T need more of on guardians. Between symbols, consecrations, and other area-based attacks (smite, ring of warding, etc.), our problem has never been applying pressure to an area. The problem is ensuring that the enemy can’t just avoid the area, which traps do NOTHING to solve. Outside of conquest in sPvP, which is likely going to lose popularity once Stronghold releases anyway, there’s just no use for ground-based AoE if the enemy can simply run out of it.

Darkness.9732:

Now dragonhunter reminds a ranger in its mechanics…..SOOO Why do you complain then ?

Because if I wanted to play a ranger, I’d play my ranger.

I was looking for something NEW with the elite spec. Not something that is already available in the game currently without having to shell out a single dime for the expansion.

Aaron.4807:

I don’t think the problem people have is with getting a freaking longbow. Guardians wanted a longbow and it will be usefull. The problem is traps are generally really bad (muddy terrain is the only one I see used at all tbh) and the devs already said they are getting nerfed to have a “warm up” period so they are going to get worse.

Combine this with cheesy name and the whole thing feels like whoever developed this did the least amount of work possible and just tacked on crappy mechanics that don’t fit in any way with the guardian profession.

TL;DR People that main Guardian feel this specialization shows a supreme amount of lazyness from Anet.

Ironically enough, Muddy Terrain is not a trap, but a survival skill.

That aside, I also have to agree that this feels lazy. The chronomancer feels different from anything else, yet despite the mechanical and thematic differences it still feels distinctly mesmer.

The Dragonhunter gives the vibe that Anet just had a conversation that probably played out a bit like this:
“Okay, these guys want ranged weapons and conditions. How can we give that to them?”
“Rangers have ranged weapons and conditions. Let’s take stuff from them and give it to guardians!”

It feels SO out of place, and way too similar to what we already have with rangers. Having blue light effects instead of spikes is not going to change the fact that it’s still a bow build with traps, which is something we can already play without having to play a dragonhunter.

When people said that they wanted guardians to have good ranged capabilities and condition builds, I’m pretty sure the idea in most peoples’ heads was something that would still feel distinctly like a guardian. From what we’ve seen so far, this looks more like a ranger than a guardian, and I don’t think any guardian players really wanted that. Maybe some will embrace the direction being taken, but I doubt it’s truly what anyone was looking for in regards to the new spec.

Azzer.8137:

This just shows how freaking privileged Guardians is as a profession, not only are they good in all 3 aspects of the game with some of the best utility and weapons but their main concern is the kittening name??? that’s privilige man.

What the kitten is this kitten? GUARDIAN PRIVILEGE? Are you kittening kidding me? Is Tumblr invading suddenly?

I think I might need to go lie down now.