Guild Wars 2

Keksmuffin.1450:

Traps are useless but every class has its useless utilties and you’re not forced to run them on DH so whatever.

Sorry, but I have a huge beef with this statement. This is not how you go about balancing a game. Literally half of our current utility skills already fall under the “useless” category and are very rarely used. We don’t need more that won’t see any play. Furthermore, adding skills that are useless is about as counterproductive as you can get. It just ends up in wasted effort that could have instead been put toward making utilities that aren’t traps that might actually be better than useless.

Oh joy, more band-aid fixes!

Ghotistyx.6942:

One could assume that if a good player ends up taking a trap, then it’s probably one of the better skills to take for their expected situation. It’s not entirely about skills being outright better than others, but rather taking the skills for the given situation you’re putting yourself in.

It’s a hypothetical response to a proposition that assumes that a good player would take traps in the first place. The good player could take the traps, but in practice the good player won’t take the traps.

draxynnic.3719:

Stunbreaks that have activation times break the stun as soon as they start activating, and you can start moving from there. Trust me, I used Rite of the Great Dwarf as a stunbreak back when it had a 2.5s activation.

Black Box.9312:

The problem is that the utilities are poor, though. Traps are, from a mechanical standpoint, the worst utility skill set in the game.

Also, it’s kind of funny that you put signets and spirit weapons in the category of “useful”. I don’t think you’ll see very much agreement with that.

No, I put them in the category of “at least no less useful at range than in melee”. Just how useful they actually are varies.

As for traps being the worst utility type: There are people who like them, and can make effective use of them. ArenaNet is planning on making more than one specialisation per profession, so it’s not a disaster if this one isn’t everything you wanted.

Of course a good player can make traps useful. Any player who’s good enough can make something bad work. The point is that any player good enough to make traps useful would still be better off taking something else. Traps are mechanically defunct in this game; they rely on an opponent that will trigger and then fail to react to them. When you use a trap you are literally depending on your enemies to kill themselves. This game’s combat is too mobile and fast-paced for something so slow and static, and we already have trap builds that go largely unused that prove this.

Asmodal.6489:

Black Box.9312:

Asmodal.6489:

Black Box.9312:

Asmodal.6489:

Black Box.9312:

The shield trait, granting180 self-toughness only while shield is out, is in direct competition with a trait that gives 150 toughness to yourself AND nearby allies AT ALL TIMES while in combat.

The trait is terrible.

fixed

No, not fixed. Even with Strength in Numbers aside, I’d still take a different trait over it.

might wanna work on you train of thought then. you only pointd out how its in competition with another trait. that does not make a trait terrible. its not a really good trait but its a lot more solid then several other traits that have zero takers.

I used Strength in Numbers purely as reference. Even without it, I still think it’s a terrible trait in general. They were supposed to have done away with the boring “gain X bonus stat when this weapon is equipped” with the specialization update, and if you look at any other weapon-based trait you’ll see that the additional effects they bring are far superior.

well, not on the guardian class

but you are right. except for our sword CD reduction trait I find most “side effect” underwhelming shield being the worst of all. I think its the nature of passivs.

just browsed through warrior weapons traits. We really do have the short end of the stick in several aspects.

Even other Guardian weapon-based traits are more enticing. GS gives you extra damage and heal per hit (although those could use increased numbers), staff gives you bonus boon duration, hammer gives you chill on crit, sword gives you +15% crit chance with ANY one handed weapon, mace gives you healing power per block, focus gives you protection on skill use, and torch gives you extra burn duration AND an extra proc of Zealot’s Flame/Fire. The only one missing is scepter, which has a trait but it doesn’t reduce cooldowns and suffers from directly competing with Fiery Wrath anyway.

Asmodal.6489:

Black Box.9312:

Asmodal.6489:

Black Box.9312:

The shield trait, granting180 self-toughness only while shield is out, is in direct competition with a trait that gives 150 toughness to yourself AND nearby allies AT ALL TIMES while in combat.

The trait is terrible.

fixed

No, not fixed. Even with Strength in Numbers aside, I’d still take a different trait over it.

might wanna work on you train of thought then. you only pointd out how its in competition with another trait. that does not make a trait terrible. its not a really good trait but its a lot more solid then several other traits that have zero takers.

I used Strength in Numbers purely as reference. Even without it, I still think it’s a terrible trait in general. They were supposed to have done away with the boring “gain X bonus stat when this weapon is equipped” with the specialization update, and if you look at any other weapon-based trait you’ll see that the additional effects they bring are far superior.

draxynnic.3719:

Arutha.9874:

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.

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.

The problem is that the utilities are poor, though. Traps are, from a mechanical standpoint, the worst utility skill set in the game.

Also, it’s kind of funny that you put signets and spirit weapons in the category of “useful”. I don’t think you’ll see very much agreement with that.

Asmodal.6489:

Black Box.9312:

The shield trait, granting180 self-toughness only while shield is out, is in direct competition with a trait that gives 150 toughness to yourself AND nearby allies AT ALL TIMES while in combat.

The trait is terrible.

fixed

No, not fixed. Even with Strength in Numbers aside, I’d still take a different trait over it.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Silberfisch.3046:

But thinking in PvE tems, a short duration block like that is most useful to react to a telegraphed attack. That usually leaves you with a very short reaction window though. And a 1/2 second cast makes the Shield of Judgement not entirely feasible for that task.
I would propose to reduce the cast time to 1/4 of a second or even remove it entirely. The latter might prove too strong though, which is why I included the 1/4 second suggestion.

It just requires a better knowledge of your encounter. In PvE, that’s something you can learn and predict. In pvp, it’s already prediction mindgames anyway.

Nike.2631:

Arcaedus.7290:

In terms of “fixing” shield, I think the next place we should turn our attention to is the trait. It’s honestly not very useful, and is redundant considering shields already provide additional toughness.

Yeah, agreed: the trait needs some attention. Only Item left I want for the Shield itself is 900 range on #4. That would let you pull some mad-skill saves on allies from the rear line.

The trait itself isn’t too terrible. It’s effectively 241 toughness (shield+trait) if you don’t need Communal Defenses, which helps if you’re running something like Marauders, or allows you to replace a Toughness based armor piece with something without any toughness.

But don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see something knew there, but I’m not complaining about the free Armor with reduced cooldowns.

The shield trait, granting180 self-toughness only while shield is out, is in direct competition with a trait that gives 150 toughness to yourself AND nearby allies AT ALL TIMES while in combat.

The trait is terrible.

Kuurde.5837:

On a serious note: what’s so bad about the Dragon Hunter? I’m a returning player and haven’t caught up yet with all the new specializations.

People are extremely unhappy with it. Everything from the gimmicky theme to the lack of synergy with the base class to the awful traits to the fact that we’re getting the worst utility skill set in the game has people upset, and for good reason if you ask me.

Ghotistyx.6942:

You can dodge while dazed. Maybe something actually threatening would be more impactful.

That doesn’t support your argument in any way though…?

1. Chronomancer – A seamless addition to the Mesmer that brings massive utility to the table. It also looks like it has a very high skill ceiling, which is fantastic. The game needs more high skill requirement builds like this.

2. Reaper – Not quite as viable as the Chronomancer, but still a very strong and welcome addition to a class that sorely needed something new. The Reaper not only feels like an extension of the Necro, but an intimidating one. I don’t even play Necro currently and I have multiple build plans for this.

3. Herald – Hard to really judge this against the others due to the lack of introduction to the base class beforehand, but it looks like it will be very useful in both team and solo scenarios. AoE boon support is always good, and the fury upkeep will work very well with Invocation builds as well.

4. Scrapper – Despite this getting the spirit weapon treatment, I think it will work better with the Engi because of toolbelt skills and the option to run gyros alongside kits. Taking gyros shouldn’t be nearly as much of a sacrifice to Engi as spirit weapons are to Guardian. The hammer and traits also look really strong.

5. Druid – I’m a little bit on the fence with this one due to the fact that healing builds aren’t very effective in the current meta for each game mode, but if the changes they’re proposing elsewhere hold true, it could be a very powerful support spec that provides some good team utility, which is something that Ranger has always gotten a bit of a short stick with. The potential for Beastmaster builds with this is huge, as well.

6. Berserker – Really the same old song and dance for Warrior. Not necessarily a bad thing; I can see the potential for effective hybrid/condi builds and that rifle burst looks scary as hell, but it doesn’t seem to really bring anything to the class that it didn’t already have.

7. Daredevil – Let’s be honest: This is a slap in the face to anyone who used to play Acrobatics builds on their Thief. Sure, it looks like it could be cool, but it’s kind of obnoxious for an existing traitline to get the nerfbat only to have something that encourages the exact same playstyle be reintroduced behind a paygate.

8. Tempest – I think that honestly, this might only suffer from the fact that it’s just too difficult to make something that tops what the Elementalist currently has. Then again, it doesn’t really help that it contrasts against the base class mechanic in the first place and suffers from being based around rather easy to interrupt channeling times. It’s also just another dagger-based playstyle, and as someone who likes scepter I’m a bit peeved that they didn’t do anything to encourage more scepter play.

9. Dragonhunter – I cry evrytiem.

They seem to be pretty set in their ways on DH. Best you can do is just kick anyone from your dungeon/raid group that’s foolish enough to try to run it with the bow knockback trait in PvE, and hope that enough QQ will result that Anet will realize how undesirable it is.

Jackums.3496:

Guardian possesses vastly superior AoE boon support, which is infinitely more valuable than healing in most game modes where focused healing isn’t needed or good.

That said, I don’t know where this mass delusion has come from amongst the Ele and Guardian players who think “their role” has been stolen. Neither class was ever a healer, and neither class does or should own such a role. Both classes will continue to offer greater group boon support, as well as being immensely more capable of dealing with focus fire in PvP game modes (which Ranger will continue to be mediocre at).

Following the release of HoT, Herald will be superior at providing every boon other than Aegis.

This thread delivers.

Mercurias.1826:

Dragon Hunter gives Guadians multiple ways to be better at the same things they were already good at.

Name 2 things that Dragonhunter has that improve the base class enough to sacrifice an existing traitline.

Good luck. You’re gonna need it.

It’s always been pretty weak by default, but just scales really well with healing power. It’s been nerfed slightly, but can still be pretty effective. The only problem is that healing power isn’t good for anything else.

Saiyan.1704:

Black Box.9312:

Obtena.7952:

I don’t get the relevance really; why would anyone expect DH to be any good for PVE in the first place? Was there ever any doubt that it had a heavy flavour as a PVP spec? I don’t think a lack of endorsement by Obal indicates anything other than we already have an optimal DPS spec for PVE.

I’m gonna go ahead and say that it should be safe to assume that it’s not going to be any good in PvP either.

Like when you said Burn Guard was going to be bad?
Hehe, i’m not going to let that one go!

Again, I said that it was gimmicky, and again you’re trying to twist my words to make me look like a fool.

Don’t do that.

Poop-flavored ice cream.

That’s the most fitting metaphor to the Dragonhunter I’ve seen yet.

Kicast.1459:

Black Box.9312:

Shield 5 isn’t really a buff. Movement is nice, but having a 1.5s channel was already bad. Now they expect having to hold it for 4 seconds to be worthwhile? Even if you don’t have any better skills off cooldown, that’s just begging for an interruption.

I may not have understood…but longer chanel is much better as long as you can move.
You will be able to absorb projectiles much longer and of course you shoul be able to detonate sooner if needed.

I think you consider that the bubble will come after 4 sec.
I think the bubble will come as quick as now but will last longer.

Because 4 seconds of channeling is also 4 seconds of not being able to use other skills while channeling. And it’s also a 4 second window of opportunity to be interrupted by any non-projectile attack. It’s great that you get to move around, but it’s not so great that you’ll easily get hit with a 3k Power Block proc followed by a shatter burst.

With a channeling period that long people are still going to use it exclusively for the knockback, and not care about the bubble because it’s just not worth channeling, even while moving.

Obtena.7952:

I don’t get the relevance really; why would anyone expect DH to be any good for PVE in the first place? Was there ever any doubt that it had a heavy flavour as a PVP spec? I don’t think a lack of endorsement by Obal indicates anything other than we already have an optimal DPS spec for PVE.

I’m gonna go ahead and say that it should be safe to assume that it’s not going to be any good in PvP either.

Honestly, I think it should just detonate automatically when it hits the target, with a cooldown of 6 seconds.

Saiyan.1704:

If you choose Guardian because you think you’ll do more healing than class A B C… .. Then you misunderstood what the Guardian is.

We prevent X amount of damage while, as a bonus, also aiding in damage output.
We’ll still grab that sword and enter battle by your side… better yet… we’ll be front line!!!

We Are Not not going to put a bandaid on you and say that things are going to be better – The Druid

- If people are looking for a Healer Class, Druid is your calling.

- If people are looking for a class that’ll offer “support” while also deal damage, Guardian or Dragonhunter is your calling. It isn’t hard to wrap your head around – Guardian isn’t the ‘Kings of Support!’ class.

I have no issues with another profession offering more heal than I do. However, I DO have issues with a class mitigating more damages then me!

My problem isn’t necessarily that other classes can do healing better than we can. It’s that despite that we still have half of our loadout dedicated to weak allied heals on high cooldowns.

If they don’t want Guardians to be masters of healing, then fine. If that’s the case though, then get rid of useless allied heals that aren’t worthwhile such as Merciful Intervention, Sanctuary, Bow of Truth, Signet of Mercy, Faithful Strike (the mace autoattack heal), Orb of Light and Empower on staff, Shield of Absorption on shield, Virtue of Resolve active (without Absolute Resolution), Zealous Blade, Battle Presence, etc. If we’re not meant to be able to spec for our allied healing, then give us new abilities with our skills that we can put to better use. Or, at the very least, they need to make these skills actually scale significantly with healing power, so that people who do want to run healer builds on their Guardian can do so and actually be effective at it.

Our class has too many skills and traits that were nerfed for fear of power creep long ago that haven’t been adjusted to match a changing meta. Given the number of skills we have that are dedicated to healing allies, it just doesn’t make sense for Anet to be introducing other classes and specs that can be really good at healing allies while still leaving us with so many skills that will continue to be unused because of how completely obsolete they are.

Exedore.6320:

Ragnarox.9601:

We are in a good spot, worst elite spec.

Don’t tell that the to the elementalists; they got Tempest.

Tempest > Dragonhunter.

Failing that, Ele is already at the top of the meta in every game mode anyway, whereas Guardian is being pushed out pretty much everywhere except for WvW zergs.

rajule.8054:

Black Box.9312:

Shield 4 got buffed. Shield 5 got nerfed.

All in all, we’ve gained zero ground on this. I’m glad we’re finally getting a block with our shield, but I was hoping for something better with the bubble.

is shield 4 for sure buffed? all i saw in the notes was that they normalized the protection duration to 4 secs which is squat. I saw some claim it will also apply aegis, if thats true thats good.

even with the ability to move during shield 5 with such a huge cut in duration they better also reduced the cd by a significant amount.

Shield 4 better be granting aegis now. And shield 5 didn’t get a duration reduction. They just bumped up the channel to the full 4 second duration, proving that yet again they have no idea what the problem is.

Don’t expect much from the Dragonhunter. If you want to play something similar to the Guardian playstyle (or at least what it was meant to be), pick up either a Revenant or a Druid Ranger. You’re far less likely to be disappointed.

Shield 4 got buffed. Shield 5 got nerfed.

All in all, we’ve gained zero ground on this. I’m glad we’re finally getting a block with our shield, but I was hoping for something better with the bubble.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Unless they changed something I didn’t hear about, just pop the bubble when you don’t need it anymore. It makes the pop mechanic have a much more distinct place in the world.

If you’re going to pop the bubble right away, then you might as well not have it to begin with. This doesn’t solve the problem.

Gaaroth.2567:

DiogoSilva.7089:

I haven’t gotten the time to test the spear in BW2, but I’m personally not a fan of a weapon with two auto-attacks that tries to do two different things altogether for the sake of an old restriction that no longer exists.

While the whole idea is pretty cool m, i agree with you

Yeah, I’m with these guys. It’s a cool idea on paper, but it really shouldn’t have stayed when weapon swap was added back in.

I read that the pet taunt now can be avoided…

Shield 5 isn’t really a buff. Movement is nice, but having a 1.5s channel was already bad. Now they expect having to hold it for 4 seconds to be worthwhile? Even if you don’t have any better skills off cooldown, that’s just begging for an interruption.

FMW really does need a nerf, to be honest. Even with a (45) second cooldown, it’s still going to be very strong.

That being said though, aegis on shield 4 is nice, but I was really hoping we could just, y’know, get rid of the channel on the bubble? I’m not going to waste 4 seconds holding that up when I could be doing something more valuable with my time. Being able to move isn’t going to change this.

I’d say that I was expecting more, but we’ve gone through this enough for me to know better by now.

Raven.9603:

Mostly a Ranger here. If I could give you Celestial Avatar (its yours thematically) I would in a heart beat.

Guardians signed up to be guardians. Rangers signed up to be rangers. Now look at us

The problem is that the Ranger playstyle is still not viable, so Rangers are basically getting a more refined version of the only thing Guardian players had going for them while most Guardian players will just ignore the wasted potential we’re being given.

Tarkan.5609:

Treetoptrickster.4205:

OH Sword’s block can be used while moving and has a lower recharge and chains into an aoe immob.

I got two problems with Sword OH:

• #4 costs 20 Energy in order to get the immobilize off, which is quite a bit
• #5 is really hard to land and is actually way worse than #2 on Sword

Sword 5 is hard CC, unlike sword 2. You won’t be interrupting any stomps with chill.

Asura and charr are the best.

Revealed counterplay is just fine IMO. There is currently no downside to camping stealth, which really goes against the idea behind it in the first place. It should be used to set up attacks or to temporarily disorient your opponent, not as an escape or a primary form of defense.

Anet made a big mistake in choosing not to rework traits that reward you for staying in stealth (like Shadow Rejuvenation and Prismatic Understanding). Bonuses should only be provided upon entering/leaving.

Litany of Wrath is good for Medi Guard now. Shelter is still probably the best option otherwise, even though it got a pretty hefty nerf to the counterplay it can provide through block procs. Signet is a strong heal, but it’s too obvious of an animation and has too long of a cooldown to really be worthwhile. Receive the Light is just pretty poorly designed in general. It shares the cooldown with Signet, but has an even more obvious animation, heals for less on yourself, and is hard to land on allies.

Even with a 30s cooldown on Shelter, Guardians still need to take AH or MF for sustain just to remain competitive. Right now our heal skill selection alone just isn’t enough to stay alive.

Shadow Dragon Bob.7160:

I know it was given up on a long time ago, but still the most limiting thing of Dragon Hunter is that trait mechanics did not stack into the new f1 f2 and f3 abilities. That wrecks so many things and I HATE that we spend more time arguing about traps when the fact of the matter is that Guardian has some great utility abilities already. In PVE I could see use of them being important in certain situations, that doesn’t make them bad. In PVP I’d like to try some out and honestly they could potentially merit two places on my skill bar.

Seriously though, TRAITS NEED TO CROSS INTO THE ELITE SPEC. Please consider this. My Sovereign Longbow is ready to rock, but I want my newfound abilities to be as versatile as those old ones. Otherwise, give the option to switch out of combat between the two types.

People are angry about traps because we are already limited on utilities. We have 2 good utility sets (only one per build though, mind you), one decent one, and two that are just flat out awful. Sure, we could just not use them, but that’d be glossing right over the entire point of us needing better utility variety and not getting them with traps because of how subpar they are from a mechanical standpoint.

Agemnon.4608:

Guardians have (or at least should have) high defense and good healing so their damage for balancing purposes should be lower compared to other classes.

No.

OH sword has CC and mobility, which are two things that shield is distinctly lacking.

They’ll both see use in various builds, I’m sure.

Ghotistyx.6942:

All I have to say, is that I’m glad the majority of you in this thread are not in charge of making any sort of decisions towards the directions classes go.

All I have to say, is that I’m glad that you aren’t either.

Asmodal.6489:

Black Box.9312:

Yes, and how much cripple access does a Guardian have? Oh right, none. Outside of taking DH and keeping your VoJ on passive, but then OH WAIT you can’t get the damage bonus from Big Game Hunter! BRAVO, bravo. Well played, Anet.

what the kitten does it matter if we have access to cripple outside DH if the damage modifier for it sits in DH? that argument doesnt even make sense. Is big game Hunter a waste for steady dps – yes. is it for a 6 second burst? to rack up 25 stacks of vurnability fast to increase overall self and group dps – no.

Black Box.9312:

Also, with the new Radiance you can have a total of 10% more critical chance than was previously possible. But only while burning is up. Awesome. So much better than losing raw damage.

yes because in the meatime we did not get meditations buffed and/or access to haste and a 50%+ fury uptime increase overall. all these things do not matter when I look at a specific trait and cry about a 3% damage nerf.

just picking on single issues and not putting them in perspective as a whole is really easy. yes it sucks that they keep making decisions that completely cater to keeping F2 passiv. so what? rahter then complaining about that I would argue for an increased effect on the active. make it hurt so people see a benefit of sacrificing the passiv.

1. Yes, having cripple access outside of DH matters a lot because DH will make up at most 1/3 of a build. So that leaves 2/3 of your build that doesn’t get to take advantage of anything having to do with cripple. I want things that will work with all of my build, not just a piece of it. When you have one ability that can only provide small, short duration stacks of cripple, you don’t really have much of an opportunity to capitalize on it. Can you use it with cripple applied by other classes? Yes, but Guardian players are clearly looking for more self-sufficiency, and this is not how you go about providing self-sufficiency. Not even close.

2. The idea with a burst build is to optimize your burst potential. Having 2 damage modifiers but only being able to use one at a time is a waste because you can’t take advantage of any sort of window of opportunity when both of them will be active. You might as well just have one damage modifier and be done with it.

3. Meditations weren’t buffed, other than Litany (and arguably the addition of Smiter’s Boon). The traits involving them were condensed, but every single ability that Monk’s Focus now gives was already previously existent somewhere else in the old Valor line. We already had fury, and fury doesn’t stack in intensity with fury, so I don’t really know what your point is there. As for quickness, yeah, you get quickness, but it’s at the cost of taking FMW instead of RF, which for a Medi Guard is a pretty significant tradeoff. I’d rather have the extra survivability, honestly.

4. You completely glossed over the part where I specifically mentioned that it was more than just a 3% damage nerf; I recommend that you re-read that part.

5. I also explained in rather acute detail how all of the nerfs we received actually took a rather large, singular hit on our offensive potential. If you want to call that nitpicking, that’s okay, but in that case I suggest you pick up a dictionary and do some studying tonight.

Asmodal.6489:

Black Box.9312:

DPS builds are not going to give up Fiery Wrath for Pure of Sight.

I hope you mean zealots aggression.

again its geat that you only shine hte light at things that matter to you. everything was better in the old days, right?. Traits that no one used are now relevant because you had them in a build.

you only see the glass half empty. it is a fact that you can take the radiance traitline and have higher overall crit chance with any wepaon now then before the changes. but you just focus on the sword and call it a hard nerf.

there are lots of others example in you post just along this line. taht does not mean they are invalid. and ned to be looked at. but overall I feel Guardian is now a lot more powerful then before. stronger then others? maybe not.

Yes, and how much cripple access does a Guardian have? Oh right, none. Outside of taking DH and keeping your VoJ on passive, but then OH WAIT you can’t get the damage bonus from Big Game Hunter! BRAVO, bravo. Well played, Anet.

Also, with the new Radiance you can have a total of 10% more critical chance than was previously possible. But only while burning is up. Awesome. So much better than losing raw damage.

We are worse off than we were previously as far as damage output is concerned, and DH is not going to help with that because you’ll have to sacrifice more utility for modifiers that won’t even be active half the time.

Sykper.6583:

Black Box.9312:

Sykper.6583:

However. Something to not about Dragonhunter is that the feedback concerning the spec should be catered strictly towards making that line useful, the balance of Guardian in general should be its own topic. That’s a whole other discussion.

The whole point that many people are making is that the Dragonhunter already feels like an entirely separate identity. It has very little synergy with the base class. So it really actually is kind of important that we talk about the balance of the class as a whole, because if some base Guardian things (like Spirit Weapons, for example) were fixed, then maybe it would be a little more desirable to play a backline ranged support build.

To be honest I am a bit jealous given just how different your elite specialization is compared to some of the others which seem like just slight improvements or trade-offs. But I get your point in terms with how the base profession’s mechanics might not synergize well just because they are poor. Almost seems like Spirit Bow for instance would be something DH could use for instance in this regard.

Just don’t want the entire discussion to shift over to ‘Can we get Medi-Guard more viable’ and not talk about anything DH related.

It’s not just that the base class mechanics are bad, it’s that the ones we are going to get being bad as well. Say what you will about the theme being a different flavor (it is, although I don’t like the theme either, but that’s a different argument entirely), it still just doesn’t do anything to improve on what we have, and vice versa. It’s just too different, and clashes not only with the theme of the base class but the mechanics as well. It really does seem like somebody just wanted to play Ranger with their heavy armor character, all while conveniently forgetting that the standalone Guardian plays nothing like a Ranger.

I think having an option in settings to change double-tapping a key to cast a ground-targeted skill at your feet would be fair.

They better not remove ground-targeting from consecrations as a whole, though. I’m already peeved enough with traps as it is.

Sykper.6583:

However. Something to not about Dragonhunter is that the feedback concerning the spec should be catered strictly towards making that line useful, the balance of Guardian in general should be its own topic. That’s a whole other discussion.

The whole point that many people are making is that the Dragonhunter already feels like an entirely separate identity. It has very little synergy with the base class. So it really actually is kind of important that we talk about the balance of the class as a whole, because if some base Guardian things (like Spirit Weapons, for example) were fixed, then maybe it would be a little more desirable to play a backline ranged support build.

Asmodal.6489:

Black Box.9312:

You missed my point entirely. Zeal had a pretty easily accessible +10% damage modifier, but it was deemed “too powerful”, so it got the nerfbat. Meanwhile, they’re trying to make the DH traitline look more appealing by putting some of our lost damage there instead.

It’s not working, and people like me are kittened off that they’d do something so obnoxious. Just ask any Thief player.

So I missed you point entirely from this …

Black Box.9312:

Zeal did.

But then lol nerfed.

Next time maybe make a point?

So now that you have actually made one. I think we getting to the root of the problem. You think that a 3% damage nerf to an easy 10% damage modifer is a scheme to make a
DH look better which uses the exact same mechanic.

So its not working for you. because you can not trait zeal and DH together? At least make the point that this is actually only a valid for our lost honor, scepter or sword damage trait.

I get (now) what you are saying. However I do not agree with you.
- The 3% are a non issue
- The lost honor 10% are not really an issue since you wouldnt spec that traitline if you would go for a high dps build anyway. if it was still there you probably would go for DH anyways. if you are not running shout honor is waste. (which is a whole different story)
- scepter trait has seen as much game play as spirit weapons. It actually benefits from DH because of the additional 10% damage modifier in there. IF you want to play scepter DH will be the go to traitline for dps builds. as it can provide a 35% damage multiplier alone.

So all in all we lost the 10% sword mastery, which only applies IF you use these weapons (which however would be likely for sword). That is an issue. but instead of embracing a traitline that can add 25% damage modifiers to a burst with any weapon, you gripe about a 3% damage nerf.

I will gripe about damage nerfs because they were completely unjustified.

-There was no reason to nerf Fiery Wrath. Overall burning uptime was already reduced anyway with the rework (especially in PvE), so although it’s only -3% directly, it’s actually considerably less powerful than the original iteration. Even then, the competition post-nerf still doesn’t come anywhere close to being as desirable.

-I actually used the scepter trait in one of my old builds. The new trait is inferior, in direct competition with Fiery Wrath, and does not stack with existing might. It’s a nerf to a weapon that already needs more QoL fixes as is.

-The removal of the sword trait was also entirely unnecessary. Sword is another weapon of ours that needs QoL fixes rather than nerfs, so there was no reason at all to get rid of the trait that made it actually worth using.

-The change to Radiant Power was also unnecessary. Had it stayed at +25% critical chance against burning targets, then maybe it might have been roughly as effective as the flat +10% damage increase, but lowering it to +10% critical chance is a hard nerf, since it now only works with burning instead of any condition, and as I said above, burning uptime is much harder to maintain.

-Elusive Power was the only source of extra damage that Bunker Guardians had, which makes it especially baffling that they’d get rid of it considering how little damage Bunker Guardian does anyway. It was also very nice for offensive builds that took Honor, which, news flash, some people actually did do. Yet another unjustified nerf.

-I’ll throw in an honorable mention here and add Symbolic Avenger getting cut in half before it could even be field tested. Looking at how many damage modifiers they already stole away, it makes no sense that they’d do something so drastic to a GM trait that is already contingent upon the enemy staying in our symbols that we have no CC to hold them in. Dumb change.

There are some pretty significant problems with our damage modifiers being moved to the Dragonhunter traitline. First, it forces players to abandon a traitline with other utility traits that may be more worthwhile for offensive builds just to get some extra conditional damage modifiers, which is compounded by the fact that these new modifiers have stupid requirements like staying beyond 600 range with a primarily melee class. Second, this eliminates any chance of us taking this extra damage with any future elite spec that comes out that may be more appealing. Since DH is pretty awful, there are going to be a lot of people that will be unhappy with this if they want to take the elite spec. Third, did I mention that DH traits are awful? Because they’re awful. Condition builds are not going to sacrifice Radiance for the likes of Defender’s Dogma. DPS builds are not going to give up Fiery Wrath for Pure of Sight. These traits are bad, and whoever designed them should feel bad.

So yeah, I’m a bit peeved that they’re trying to pawn our own stolen merchandise to us. It only makes it look worse that they basically shoved it in the dirt first.

Delgotta.3817:

its kinda funny, there are 6 traits involving aegis, and 8 involving blocking. 6 involving retaliation. if you AVOID all of these traits, you end up with most meta builds. rebuilding the guardian traits is like playing sudoku with book pages instead of numbers but not knowing what the story is about.

That’s because Anet is too afraid of some sort of power creep to actually make any of these traits work at an effective level. If you look at some update history, you’ll notice that many of those traits were much stronger when they were originally proposed, but were then nerfed hard before even getting much of a chance to be tested. It’s quite sad, really, because if most of them weren’t so useless you could actually make a pretty effective, unique build that would make players have to pay attention or else risk getting punished.

Nike.2631:

It interacts poorly with the my-god-touch-nothing meditation meta build. There’s lots of other things Guards do that have enough flex to them that you can shuffling things and have something interesting to work with. I’m not kidding when I say this constant “but it’s not exactly like medi-meta!” is going to get medi-meta nerfed.

Except people aren’t arguing that it’s just “not as good as medi”. They’re arguing that it’s just terrible in comparison to anything that is currently played at the competitive level.

It would be a different story if Guardians were dominating the meta. But Medi Guard is all but dead, and Bunker Guard is slowly being pushed out the door again by more self-sufficient classes that can function without the need for significant allied support. We’re not asking for the world. We’re just asking for something that can actually effectively work with the game we’ve been given.

Asmodal.6489:

Black Box.9312:

Asmodal.6489:

DH offers an easy to maintain 10% damage modifier across all weapon sets. which other line does that?

Zeal did.

But then lol nerfed.

exactly. which would make DH actually the got to DPS line in conjunction with Zealot’s Aggression and Dulled Senses. you can expect a steady 10%+5% damage increase. heck get 50% condiduration in and we are looking at 20% with a little ramp up time.

What also needs to be cleared up if Dulled senses actually procs 3 stack of vurnability if you hit the target with torch or purging flames. if it does it would be even better.

yes the minors are questionable in function and placement. But the traitline offers a definite dps option esepcially if you are not running GS – with a very good GM Trait that helps.

@ Karl:
looking at other classes and I get the feeling some of their devs tend to get a little overboard with the chance of getting nerfs later on. You seem to me like a guy that wants to avoid that. however sometimes its good to aim a little higher to land where you want. So I am okay with tiny steps. How about making hunters fortification covnert condis into boons. ;-)

You missed my point entirely. Zeal had a pretty easily accessible +10% damage modifier, but it was deemed “too powerful”, so it got the nerfbat. Meanwhile, they’re trying to make the DH traitline look more appealing by putting some of our lost damage there instead.

It’s not working, and people like me are kittened off that they’d do something so obnoxious. Just ask any Thief player.