Guild Wars 2

Kodiak.3281:

Black Box.9312:

Okay.

Then use it in those specific niche situations, and then don’t use it when you don’t need it.

Wow, that was simple.

Except, it really isn’t. You may have one SPvP match with that in there, next one have none. You can’t afford to half-n-half the gear and with Mallyx you’re either full Condi or not and full condi in the scenario where you face no conditions wasn’t enough. Not really feasible to go half in or half out depending on the scenario, either.

Are you kidding? Hybrid builds are absolutely perfect on Revenant. Just slot a carrion amulet and get some fury uptime and/or Maniacal Persistence and you’re good to go.

Kodiak.3281:

Black Box.9312:

I think the idea was that Mallyx was meant to be more of a counter to high condition damage/low condition removal specs like Condi Engi and Condi Mesmer than just a buffer against conditions in general. Now you can’t really do much against those builds because their condition output will always exceed your resistance uptime.

But that idea was, ultimately, viewed as flawed because (and I’m just going off what Roy said) too niche. It only performed incredibly well in that niche heavy condition scenario. In other scenarios, such as light to no conditions, it was under performing because there wasn’t as much stand-alone condition output (something that was increased). In addition, your own team worked against you in team scenarios where you’d want to pile up heavy conditions onto yourself but any kind of group AOE cleanse would actually hurt your performance because that was less conditions you could transfer. That’s not easily addressed in a team environment because it’s not like you are targeting who is and isn’t affected by your 600 range AOE cleanse.

While there is, somewhat, an argument about the idea of condition management through punishing people who use conditions on you there other ways to achieve it. For example my ideas would be:

1. I would fold Pulsing Pestilence into Embrace the Darkness by default, but leave it at 15% with same ICD.

2. I would replace Pulsing Pestilence with “Mirrored Torment” where anytime you receive a condition (bleed, burn, poison, cripple, chill, torment, weakness, vulnerability)(notice I left some out) a similar condition is also put on the source (5s ICD).

Okay.

Then use it in those specific niche situations, and then don’t use it when you don’t need it.

Wow, that was simple.

Rashagar.8349:

Ragnarox.9601:

Rashagar.8349:

Sankofa Jimiyu.1567:

Am I one of the few that likes traps on a Dragonhunter?
It is a support mechanic on a heavy armor class, and I think that can be confusing in itself, but that’s the Guardian’s bread and butter.
Thematically, Dragonhunters are based on witch hunters. The idea of casting runes to bind opponents works with that.
Currently I have a style with my husband that has my Dragonhunter running support for his Daredevil. It has a nice synergy with the other new specializations, and with group play, but I understand it is a little awkward to play it alone.

I think people saying “the majority dislike traps” are just flat out lying/making baseless sweeping statements/suffering from information selection bias. You’re definitely not alone in liking them. =)

Have fun liking them. Every competitive and smart Guardian won’t replace shouts/meditations/consecrations to them. Srry but traps are bad in every aspect of team/solo play. They are fun because its new stuff but don’t count to be useful.

I intend to have fun =) That is the point after all.

I have no problem with them getting changes/buffs/whatever, but people that are saying “scrap traps completely”, I disagree with.

As an aside, saying that so many of our utilities are already stupidly strong so traps should be replaced with something equally stupidly strong is… kind of stupid. =P

If “every competitive and smart guardian” is so completely averse to playing with new toys because they can’t survive without even one shout/meditation/consecration on their bar, that’s hardly my concern (which I highly doubt you speak for all of them, never mind speaking for any of them, since my definition of a competitive and smart guardian is someone who switches things up and experiments)

Try to remember to have fun out there =)

1. The evidence is there. Not many people play traps on Ranger and even less than that play traps on thief.

2. Your definition of a “competitive” Guardian is incorrect. A competitive Guardian would be a Guardian player that plays the game at a competitive level. That’s not a subjective definition. It means they are literally competitive, and that typically means that they know their stuff based on high-level experience.

Salamander.2504:

Black Box.9312:

Saiyan.1704:

Black Box.9312:

Asmodal.6489:

Black Box.9312:

Berserker has far more potential than Dragonhunter ever will.

said the person that told everyone when burn stacking was anounced, that condi guards will suck.

I said that condi guard is a gimmick, actually, which it is. It just happens to be somewhat effective currently because of burning being too strong of a condition. It has nothing to do with the actual build.

Woh woh, hey hey,
Burn Guardians are not nearly as OP as Cele Ele burns. That’s mainly because Cele Ele can darn near instantly apply 7 burn stacks and spam cast RoF (a huge strategic skill that has the potential to apply 3+++ stacks of burns if used correctly) every 12s.

Every other condi class with burns are balanced. Guardian’s are most definitely balanced. We don’t even make good 1v1 builds.. power guards got us beat in that area.

I was saying that burning as a whole is too strong. Blinding Ashes Eles are annoying. x_x

But anyway, it’s kind of problematic that burn can be used as a burst weapon when it’s meant to be DoT. I don’t mind it doing decent damage on non-condi builds, but they really need to tone down the scaling a bit.

I have to agree with Saiyan; burn guard is poor in 1v1, but excels in teamfights. It’s far from OP, and if burn guard is a “gimmick,” then what’s stopping every build from being a “gimmick” ?_?

I agree with Black Box that d/d ele’s burns are over the top, although I suspect the majority of this issue lies in the fact that you can get an instant 12 burn stacks by being at the edge of the RoF. Anyways, to add a different perspective in response to the bolded quote above, I’ve humbly quoted myself from ~2 weeks ago.

Salamander.2504:

My 2 cents below:

The community has canonically believed that conditions builds are all about a “slow kill” and outlasting your opponent—the attrition standpoint. This is a natural conclusion because of the way condi damage ticks over time.

It is important to note, however, that condition damage is able to be cleansed at the opponents whim, given the right cooldown timings—i.e., condi damage is often cleansed after only a few ticks, or immediately. Given this, it seems logical that condi damage have high burst potential, with the caveat that it can be cleansed easily. In other words, condition builds naturally favor “bursting” to maximize the damage before a cleanse. Even when a condition build baits the opponent’s cleanses by applying condi’s slowly and methodically, they will always try to burst once the opponent’s cleanses are on CD.

Conquest as a game mode favors the quick-kill because: (1) you need the point to tick in your favor to win; (2) ending fights before getting +1’d increases your chance of survival/capping; and (3) allows your rotations to be more flexible, so it should be no surprise that both power and condition builds have the tools necessary to achieve a quick kill. Of course, both power and condi builds can be built for lower dps and higher tankiness, and thus can always be played to be either bursty or attrition-based, as the above posters discuss.

The key with condition builds, however, is that because condition application exceeds condition removal, it becomes a matter of overwhelming your opponent over time by applying more than can be cleansed. Conditions already win in the long run just because of how frequently and easily they can be applied, so there’s no need for them to deal so much damage before any sort of cleanses can be used.

There’s also the problem with the way condition damage scales. In order to deal high burst damage using a power build, you need to sacrifice survivability. There’s a tradeoff involved; you have to kill your opponent quickly, otherwise they will kill you quickly. Because of how well condition damage scales with just one stat instead of needing three like power builds, you see builds that can kill at an alarmingly fast rate without sacrificing any of that survivability. This is why if you ever try to roam in WvW where stats aren’t normalized you see silly builds like dire p/d thief that are near impossible to kill. They have so much condition pressure, but can still take pretty much anything you can dish at them.

Kodiak.3281:

Actually Mallyx didn’t lose any tools to deal with conditions.

1. The primary tool, Resistance, is still there in every form. It’s there as Demonic Resistance and it’s there on Pain Absorption. As always it continues to be the mandatory take for Mallyx/Corruption. This means we lose out on more condi output from Venom Enhancement and more condi “management” from Replenishing Despair. To be honest it should be made base line and the whole line reviewed cause it lacks clear order (IE: Condi offense Trait, Boon trait, Condi defense Trait) in each tier.

2. The copy conditions means we lost condition output off of Darkness cause we no longer copy conditions. However copy conditions never removed conditions (IE: Transfer) it simply copied what you had. You still had to keep them on you.

3. We gained more base conditions because Unyielding Anguish now always applies torment and chill each tick, AOE which will allow us to force dodges for people to get out of it or sit in it and eat Chill/Torment. We also gained an extra stack of Confusion on Banish Enchantment.

4. The heal we got in Malyx just became stronger regardless of condition status. Before it required a lot of Condis to really shine, now it doesn’t, but it also doesn’t shine as much with condis. This makes it a strong alternative to the powerful Jalis heal as well with a more offensive tool set (I personally hate pairing up Shiro/Glint because the two super weak heals and always took Malyx/Jalis with Shiro/Glint).

So our biggest changes were to condition output and not management. Over all I think the net result will end up being we will suffer against high condition opponents compared to previously but do better against lower/no condition opponents because we’re able to stack more Torment now.

I think the idea was that Mallyx was meant to be more of a counter to high condition damage/low condition removal specs like Condi Engi and Condi Mesmer than just a buffer against conditions in general. Now you can’t really do much against those builds because their condition output will always exceed your resistance uptime.

I find the decision to remove the condition copy on the Mallyx elite a bit questionable considering that right now there is a meta build for Necro which is centered around condition transferring. I get how allies with condi removal might make it a little frustrating, but that should hardly deter people from running it anyway considering how much easier it is to apply conditions than it is to remove them from allies.

As it stands now you’ve pretty much effectively removed the Revenant’s best counter to condition builds from classes like Engi and Mesmer.

Sankofa Jimiyu.1567:

Thematically, Dragonhunters are based on witch hunters.

People who still try to make this association clearly have no idea what actual real-life witch hunters were.

Virtue cooldown reduction is nice, but should have just been baseline for the entire class, honestly. And Courage needs the cooldown reduction even more than the other two did.

Bow changes look good, for the most part. A little disappointing that you’re not changing the way the autoattack bounces/applies cripple though. Also while the Deflecting Shot changes look really nice, consider making the projectile barrier it creates linger for a couple of seconds. The slower speed might make it more effective at blocking head-on incoming projectiles, but it’s still not very supportive in cases where you’d want to block for an ally.

I’m still 100% against traps. Lowering the cast time is a good step forward, but they’re still mechanically flawed. This game is just too fast-paced for them to be effective. They need to at least be ground targeted up to 600 range with no root while casting.

Traits are better, but still not very good. The minor traits are still terrible, and while some of the major traits are better (new Zealot’s Aggression and Hunter’s Fortification), it still doesn’t give me the feeling that it’ll be worth giving up one of our existing traitlines. Also the new Hunter’s Determination looks like it’s going to overlap with Retaliatory Subconscious. This makes me worry that the latter might be getting the aegis removed, which would be really upsetting considering that the retal from the trait has very little value in comparison.

Obtena.7952:

Frustrations are due to a lack of understanding and that’s indicative of most hate posts. It’s why you don’t understand that a melee-focused trait doesn’t work in DH or how Anet interacts with players for feedback or even what feedback is relevant.

>Melee-focused.

>Melee inclusive.

These are two different things.

Bean Muncher.5197:

Halan.7931:

Most of the threads here are “Gimme more cool things”
And their daddy Roy is like “Sure darling, you want anything else?”

Yeah, as a thief/ranger I’m jelly.

It’s just worrying that the fate of a professions depends on one person. If he’s passionate about it, then it’s great, if not (and not even communicating) – classes get abandoned. Shouldn’t profession balance be a collective effort of many devs, so they aren’t developed in vacuum?

It’s funny that you mention the thief. Karl McLain seems to be the main dev for the thief, and his lack of imagination is just painful. Just look at two of the elite specs he was responsible for: the Tempest and the Daredevil.
The Tempest tries to force a useless class mechanic on the ele and gives it a substitute for the auramancer signet build that was recently taken away.
The Daredevil reintroduces a fresh, un-nerfed Acrobatics line to the thief, only now with new dodges that are laggy and clunky, because they activate as if they were leap skills.

Both reintroduce one playstyle that was purposefully taken away/nerfed earlier and introduce one broken class mechanic.

Simply put, you can’t have nice things because your main dev is just incapable. Roy is far more capable, which might actually be why he was put in charge of the Revenant, and Karl wasn’t.

Don’t forget the best one of all! The Dragonhunterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Roy Cronacher.1576:

soon™

And then I forgot to read all of the other words.

Adrian Guardian.9480:

Hamartia.3421:

4. Longbow does not come anywhere near close to the DPS OR utility of current Guardian weapon combinations. I can see how it almost does, but it isn’t there yet. I’m not sure it even beats Scepter/torch single-target DPS.

I ran the number (and dummy testing) during BWE1: it does outdamage scepter/torch.

Anyway, I like the OPs direction, suggesting something to separate dragonhunter builds better from current mace/torch gruadian builds while also dealing with longbow’s currently a bit low damage.

Do you have these statistics on hand? Because the thought of longbow doing more DPS than scepter/torch with Radiant Fire has me pretty skeptical, honestly.

Obtena.7952:

Black Box.9312:

People are saying that this trait is a bad idea, and that actually means something. It doesn’t matter what Anet thinks, because while they can definitely choose to keep it in the game if they really want to, that doesn’t make it objectively right.

It’s not good when people don’t recognize the authority … it ONLY matters what Anet thinks. If people don’t get that, then they don’t understand the framework and approach they need to take to influence change. That’s a little bit academic so I’m sure that will mean little to people who simply want to see DH go away, but it’s how this works.

Good thing I’m “academic” enough to be able to catch an attempt at subtle condescension. Nice try.

That aside, it certainly doesn’t only matter what Anet thinks, because the goal is to please the player base enough for them to want to play the game, and use all of the tools that they are given. If one specific aspect of the game is lacking, then it will show through negative feedback. Obviously everything Dragonhunter is receiving quite a lot of negative feedback, so maybe that’s a sign that they’re not doing a very good job with it, and people won’t want to play it.

The reason why people are so frustrated is because of the rather consistent lack of any signs [of] acknowledgment, let alone any response, to the mountains of constructive feedback they’ve received regarding the Guardian class over the course of 3 years. And when they finally do act on something, it ends up being a blundering example of how clearly out of touch they are with their own community (ex.: Guardian shield receiving reduced cooldowns again, even though the first time they reduced the cooldowns they were almost universally told that the cooldowns were never the problem).

Even still, there is plenty of constructive feedback going forward, and it’s being almost completely stonewalled. It took 3 pages from the BWE2 feedback thread for Karl to even tell us that anything had been acknowledged, because the initial feedback post was so off base. It took yet another post after that to detail more late changes, and even after that there was still plenty left unanswered.

There will always be reckless and obnoxious people. That’s a given for any sort of demographic. But this kind of behavior as a whole hardly forms on its own. Anet deserves every bit of anger and frustration that is being directed at them in this case, if you ask me.

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.

zcearo.1897:

i use a shield everyday . . . perhaps it is not the shield that sucks ?

. . . food for thought anyways . . .

No, it’s definitely the shield that sucks. People who still use it for the look even admit that it’s terrible.

Obtena.7952:

You’re right, we did have that … and they changed it because it didn’t fit with concept they wanted for the class. It’s the same reason that this one is not likely to change and even less likely to change to something that a melee Guardian can benefit from; DH spec is focused on ranged abilities. In addition, there are already lots of other traits that melee weapons benefit from, there are no need for more. If anything, we could use MORE traits to flavour up DH, not less.

I agree that Pure isn’t very interesting but it’s intent is clear, which makes me think there was some thought put into what it should do. It’s certainly not going to change to a trait that has little to do with DH as a spec. In otherwords, if people aren’t suggesting ideas that benefit ranged play, you’re not paying attention.

The general consensus is that it needs to be changed to something that works with both the DH and the base class. You don’t seem to realize that while yes, Anet can intend for whatever they want, that’s not going to magically make any choice they make the right one. The entire purpose of criticism is to bring to light issues that the content creator might not have noticed or thought about. Look at any other work of art. If something is poorly drawn, the artist’s “style” making it intentionally look the way it does doesn’t necessarily make it any less poorly drawn. If a musician’s voice croaks for the entire 4 minute duration of a song, their preference for voice cracking doesn’t suddenly make the vocals amazing.

People are saying that this trait is a bad idea, and that actually means something. It doesn’t matter what Anet thinks, because while they can definitely choose to keep it in the game if they really want to, that doesn’t make it objectively right.

Vennyhedgie.5369:

Black Box.9312:

Rune of the Ranger’s 6th bonus is a damage boost when you have an active companion. I think summons count for this, however it’s still pretty class-specific. I wouldn’t rule out something specifically tailored to Revenants.

Only classes who can’t use this are engies and warriors. So I wouldn’t count it as being “pretty class specific”

Guardian – Spirit Weapons could work technically I suppose, but there are better options for a Spirit Weapons build and there are better options than a Spirit Weapons build.

Thief – Thieves’ Guild has what, 150 seconds of downtime? Pretty much a wasted rune set for them.

Ele – I guess this could kinda work if you used the elemental as your elite, but there are much better options here as well.

Mesmer – I could maybe see this working on Mesmer, at least, I’ll give ya that.

Necro – It’d be okay on a minion master build, I guess. Same principle applies here as it does to Guardian though.

Rune of the Ranger really is specifically tailored to rangers, even if it’s not necessarily exclusively for them. I could see them doing something related to legend swap, and maybe having it work for Ele’s attunement swap or Ranger’s pet swap or something. But it’d definitely be something made with Revenant in mind.

Yes, we know shield sucks. Anet has pleaded ignorance on this for 3 years now. Don’t expect it to change.

Obtena.7952:

That trait isn’t limited to LB IIRC. If it was a 10% ONLY on LB, then I would agree that it doesn’t make sense as a minor. It also has a range req … so adding it as baseline to LB changes it’s flavour as well. The intent is pretty clear for this trait actually … the concept for ranged isn’t just to camped ranged weapons, it’s to camp AT range. This trait rewards you for maintaining your range.

There was a great thing we used to have called Scepter Power. It was a flat 10% damage modifier for scepter.

It was also a major trait that you weren’t forced to take.

So yes, this trait is really nothing more than an excuse to not add a baseline 10% damage increase to our ranged weapons, at the cost of a minor trait that could actually be changed to something that a melee guardian (read: the majority of guardian specs) can use.

Saiyan.1704:

Black Box.9312:

Asmodal.6489:

Black Box.9312:

Berserker has far more potential than Dragonhunter ever will.

said the person that told everyone when burn stacking was anounced, that condi guards will suck.

I said that condi guard is a gimmick, actually, which it is. It just happens to be somewhat effective currently because of burning being too strong of a condition. It has nothing to do with the actual build.

Woh woh, hey hey,
Burn Guardians are not nearly as OP as Cele Ele burns. That’s mainly because Cele Ele can darn near instantly apply 7 burn stacks and spam cast RoF (a huge strategic skill that has the potential to apply 3+++ stacks of burns if used correctly) every 12s.

Every other condi class with burns are balanced. Guardian’s are most definitely balanced. We don’t even make good 1v1 builds.. power guards got us beat in that area.

I was saying that burning as a whole is too strong. Blinding Ashes Eles are annoying. x_x

But anyway, it’s kind of problematic that burn can be used as a burst weapon when it’s meant to be DoT. I don’t mind it doing decent damage on non-condi builds, but they really need to tone down the scaling a bit.

It’s completely redundant. Our only current weapon capable of dealing sufficient DPS outside of 600 range is scepter, and even that has a tough time because the projectiles are so slow.

They could have just rolled that extra 10% into the baseline damage of the bow. They could have put something that would actually be useful in the minor GM slot.

But they didn’t. They ripped us off instead.

Rune of the Ranger’s 6th bonus is a damage boost when you have an active companion. I think summons count for this, however it’s still pretty class-specific. I wouldn’t rule out something specifically tailored to Revenants.

Don’t worry, nearly everybody agrees with you. We don’t get it either.

Lokicore.4027:

snoow.1694:

Yeah what you mentioned about every class feeling left aside by Anet is true, I admit that but in my opinion its another thing with guardians. Litterally EVERY guardian is sick of hearing the words “guardian is in a good spot” and seeing nothing but some bigfixes and nerfs on the balance updates. Also you have to admid that the dissatisfaction about the Dragonhunter is by far the strongest. I dont know about you and it may just be me, but ive seen alot of daredevils, chronos, berserks and reapers, while ive seen deahonhunters and tempests very rarely in PvP i tried every elite spec right now and DH just feels like anet rushed it to finish it fast, it feels uncreative and is paradox running a rage class with traps (which i even wouldnt play when they woulf be ground target – traps suck) and thats why Our Guard community is so upset with it. Hearing litterally every balance update “Guard is in a good spot” and getting such an uncreative and rushed elite spec ofc makes this community rage. I personally just want to be viable in HoT PvP, not OP (i dont want any scrub switching to guard) – just viable enough for my team, because at the moment guardian is sure NOT in a good spot

But also i have to say i like your ideas alot too, i thought about the scepter idea too. I can see that you know what you are talking about and understand the class mechanic of guardians very well. Hope Anet considers some of your ideas, they are great

It comes down to a case of indirect nerfing. I’ve seen it many many times in other MMOs and MOBAs. Class X is in a good spot, they are among the favored in game mode 1, 2, 3 and 4. With Class X in a good spot, no real need to work on it, lets help the others “Catch Up”. Class Y and Z get some twinks and reworks. Now I don’t know too in-depth about Anet’s twinking and rework history, but I do know with other devs in other companies, these twinks and reworks tend to overshot the mark. Or what I’ve come to call Knee Jerk. So, now Class Y and Z are a little above, or maybe a little below Class X. A little more work is needed, they’re on a roll. Remember though, Class X is in a good spot, we’ll keep him there as the middle base. With heavier focus on Class Y and Z, their buffs, twinks and reworks have, even though Class X is the middle base, actually nerfed them by not touching them, because now Y and Z have moved up in the favored status and become ‘better’ at the tasks at hand. Before it was, in order from top to bottom, X, Y, Z, now has become Y,Z,X.

What this has created, is the famous Flavor of the Month. Leap frogging through alts while you swing with the meta.

So why can’t you have you have X, Y and Z all on a middle line? Well, as that might be the dream of every Dev, its not possible. If you do, then every class is just the same class with maybe different appearance models. Yay boring. Even then though, you can’t balance players.

One of the biggest things that drew me to this game was they’ve concept of “Bring the player, not the Profession.” I still think GW2 is among the closets MMO to actually reach that goal. The upcoming Raid concept is going to bring in a new chapter though, and there is a lot riding on it and how well that concept is going to hold up. Even today, its still “Bring the player, not the Profession… Except these two Professions.” Yes I’ve heard of certain that even among those exiled professions from whatever game mode they bottom out on, there exist a few that are able to do ‘well’ in it. But, this is more for the community at large. My buddy plays a Necro and has been rejected on several accounts in dungeons because it would make their run 5-10 minutes longer. So sad.

I think the word you’re looking for is “tweak”, not “twink”. Twink means something else entirely. >_>

But you’re right about the “indirect nerfing” part. That’s what’s been plaguing Guardian players since launch. We’ve never been nerfed to the ground (although we have been nerfed), but by assuming that we’re doing just fine Anet has effectively left Guardian players in the dust while other classes have gotten the attention they needed to play catch-up, which then renders the Guardian obsolete.

Asmodal.6489:

Black Box.9312:

Berserker has far more potential than Dragonhunter ever will.

said the person that told everyone when burn stacking was anounced, that condi guards will suck.

I said that condi guard is a gimmick, actually, which it is. It just happens to be somewhat effective currently because of burning being too strong of a condition. It has nothing to do with the actual build.

Ghotistyx.6942:

If that’s your opinion, why continue playing what you think is bad/inferior/ect?

I won’t, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t continue to advocate for what was my favorite class.

Ghotistyx.6942:

It doesn’t mesh better. You’d have to be incompetent to actually think that. But, it does actually synergize.

Non synergy would be something like sword shield, Zeal, Valor, Honor and grabbing AH and symbol traits in apothecary gear. I doubt anyone would actually claim DH offers less than that.

Thanks for the passive-aggressive insult, but the two are close enough in definition that for this purpose they could be interchangeable. So yes, it does “mesh” better.

Salamander.2504:

After extensive theorycrafting and testing, I’ve come up with a unparalleled combination that has less synergy than even the Dragon Hunter. Don’t believe me? Read on.

Altruistic Healing+full signets+Rune of Resistance.

Every signet grants aegis (30s CD), proccing your runes, which procs altruistic healing, providing a minimum of ~70 health, and up to ~350 health in a full group. Every. 30. Seconds. How has no one done this before?

Ironically enough, I think you might need to recheck your definition of “synergy”, because even that meshes together better than DH does with the base class, even if it’s just outright terrible anyway.

I’ve been looking at something like this myself: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQRAsX5sn3geNSuQvJRboJlsP0jS4I6SJ4EtrklTlhNpnmKNgDWwe93nH-TJxHwAr2fwYZAxPBAAnEAA

Carrion hybrid build with Mallyx/Glint. This is all pretty hypothetical since I still haven’t preordered to be able to playtest it, but the idea is for something that deals strong condition damage while still having respectable physical damage as well. I swapped the offhands so that I’d have both a defensive skill and some sort of condition access with each set, and the high boon uptime should help boost damage a bit. Fury alone will increase damage by 14% with combined modifiers along with the 40% crit chance increase, and with this build I should be able to have near permanent uptime on it without having to resort to Glint upkeep while in combat.

The generosity sigils are kind of just placeholder at this time; I figure that the condition transfer might help with some extra damage and cleanse for when I’m not in Mallyx but I might not end up really needing it, in which case I’d probably swap them out for strength or something. Another change that I’m considering would be shield over offhand sword, however that would depend on how effective the 5 skill ends up being, and if the healing/protection would be worth sacrificing extra damage and CC.

ZDragon.3046:

Black Box.9312:

ZDragon.3046:

Black Box.9312:

ZDragon.3046:

posthumecaver.6473:

The trick is normally I don’t feel that weak against conditions, if you take retribution while you have to keep that stability up, you have to dodge alot and condi classes have really hard time placing condi bomb on me. They only manage it during the Crystal Hybernation mainly or Staff 4.

What disturbs me is how effective confusion is on Shiro and Staff because of multi hits but people claim that is because of bug, for ex sword 3 should proc one confusion active damage but it is procing 7 times now, if this is true then Ok then I don’t have too much to complain.

But if the multi hits from Staff and Sword will suffer from confusion then yeah I demand something that reduce that effect otherwise my Revenant will make Harakiri lots of times.

Most confusion condition applications dont last very long. Have you tried simply not attacking and waiting for the stacks to fall off? The three is now an evade which means you can go zipping around without having to worry about aoe damage. I think its prefectly fair to proc 7 times for each attempted strike if you chose to use the skill with confusion on you. Just as how the skill grants might for every time you hit not all 7 might stacks on use. Its fine as it is just don’t go zipping into the fight with confusion on you. If your using shiro then you should be playing like a thief not a warrior.

That defies the entire design of confusion though. Confusion punishes skill activation, whereas retaliation punishes hitting your enemy. Confusion is already much more powerful than retaliation, so there’s really no need for it to be encroaching on retal’s territory.

Its possibly because of the fact that the skill mechanic attempts builds might for every strike thus its possibly counted as using a skill. Retaliation is honestly too weak and its hardly noticeable anyways. Are you suggesting changes be mad to retaliation to yield the same result? Either way right now its a good counter play to a near 2 seconds of evades with good damage. The start up cannot be evaded or blocked making at least a few of your attacks promised to hit if in range. The only way to avoid being hit is to block with some skills not every profession has or burn 2 evades. The skill is very hard to counter right now and for that reason it should stay as it is.
“As you said it punishes activation” you activate the attack with confusion on you (Totally your call on doing so) Its not like confusion can be applied to you during the skill sense you are evading so….. it must have been on you before activation….. then you take 7 hits of confusion.

So really its not defying how confusion works now is it?

No, it’s still defying the mechanics behind confusion because you’re only activating ONE skill. Skills such as Hundred Blades, Whirling Wrath, and Blurred Frenzy are all multi-hit attacks, but they only proc one damage instance of confusion each. This is how it should be.

The proper counterplay you are looking for is with retaliation, not confusion. Retaliation punishes on hit, and confusion punishes on skill activation. Sure, retaliation could use a buff, but changing confusion to do its job instead is not the proper way to go about such a thing.

Those attacks do not evade while you do them. There needs to be a punishable counter to that skill. If it was not evading for nearly 2 full seconds, I could see your reason behind this. But as long as that attack is an evade I simply see the confusion as a counter to its activation.

IF they changed retaliation to actually be more punishing on hitting an enemy with it on I would then fully see your point with this skill. But when you have an attack that cant be countered with anything other than being out of range or condition damage well.. yeah. If you could evade the startup which would cause the attack to fail then I would also be fine with that.

Blurred Frenzy very much does evade as you use it, actually. And yes, the idea I’m going for is that retaliation should be more punishing. Because we don’t want confusion to take its job and render it obsolete entirely.

But either way, confusion should not proc more than once on skill use for any skill at all, including Unrelenting Assault. We’re talking about something that is defying the game’s basic mechanics, not a balancing issue that is up for debate. Your opinion (and anyone else’s, for that matter) is entirely irrelevant here because it’s a bug that needs to be fixed.

Azure.8670:

warriors are forced to take stances and fast hands, and fast hands is basically mandatory for berserker due to the pathetic CD and uptime. Rage skills arent even an option, even though they suck anyway, and we lose not 1 but 2 traitlines to use berserker. please.

Guardians are forced to take Valor for extra sustain along with either shouts for defensive builds or meditations for offensive builds. Better take Virtues too if you want your entire class mechanic to be anything more than borderline useless, especially with those cooldowns. What’s that, want Dragonhunter too? Guess that limits your options, doesn’t (it) (geez this censor is ridiculous)? Especially since the Dragonhunter traitline is full of garbage anyway. At least Berserker traits look like they’ll be worth taking, even if you’re giving up something else for them. Not to mention that all we’re getting is a hardly functioning longbow and traps that can’t possibly be any better than rage skills that can actually be used on demand.

Feel free to think what you want, but I can guarantee you that a good portion of Guardian players here would swap the elite spec they’re getting in a heartbeat. Berserker has far more potential than Dragonhunter ever will.

Guardian is already losing viability in PvP, so it’d be no surprise to me if we’re pushed out of the meta entirely by HoT release. In PvE it should be fine, unless Anet continues with its trend of making enemy projectiles unblockable instead of just changing the way reflects work.

A lot of Guardian players are swapping over; myself included. We’re not too thrilled with the whole idea of getting the Dragonhunter in lieu of something useful.

ZDragon.3046:

Black Box.9312:

ZDragon.3046:

posthumecaver.6473:

The trick is normally I don’t feel that weak against conditions, if you take retribution while you have to keep that stability up, you have to dodge alot and condi classes have really hard time placing condi bomb on me. They only manage it during the Crystal Hybernation mainly or Staff 4.

What disturbs me is how effective confusion is on Shiro and Staff because of multi hits but people claim that is because of bug, for ex sword 3 should proc one confusion active damage but it is procing 7 times now, if this is true then Ok then I don’t have too much to complain.

But if the multi hits from Staff and Sword will suffer from confusion then yeah I demand something that reduce that effect otherwise my Revenant will make Harakiri lots of times.

Most confusion condition applications dont last very long. Have you tried simply not attacking and waiting for the stacks to fall off? The three is now an evade which means you can go zipping around without having to worry about aoe damage. I think its prefectly fair to proc 7 times for each attempted strike if you chose to use the skill with confusion on you. Just as how the skill grants might for every time you hit not all 7 might stacks on use. Its fine as it is just don’t go zipping into the fight with confusion on you. If your using shiro then you should be playing like a thief not a warrior.

That defies the entire design of confusion though. Confusion punishes skill activation, whereas retaliation punishes hitting your enemy. Confusion is already much more powerful than retaliation, so there’s really no need for it to be encroaching on retal’s territory.

Its possibly because of the fact that the skill mechanic attempts builds might for every strike thus its possibly counted as using a skill. Retaliation is honestly too weak and its hardly noticeable anyways. Are you suggesting changes be mad to retaliation to yield the same result? Either way right now its a good counter play to a near 2 seconds of evades with good damage. The start up cannot be evaded or blocked making at least a few of your attacks promised to hit if in range. The only way to avoid being hit is to block with some skills not every profession has or burn 2 evades. The skill is very hard to counter right now and for that reason it should stay as it is.
“As you said it punishes activation” you activate the attack with confusion on you (Totally your call on doing so) Its not like confusion can be applied to you during the skill sense you are evading so….. it must have been on you before activation….. then you take 7 hits of confusion.

So really its not defying how confusion works now is it?

No, it’s still defying the mechanics behind confusion because you’re only activating ONE skill. Skills such as Hundred Blades, Whirling Wrath, and Blurred Frenzy are all multi-hit attacks, but they only proc one damage instance of confusion each. This is how it should be.

The proper counterplay you are looking for is with retaliation, not confusion. Retaliation punishes on hit, and confusion punishes on skill activation. Sure, retaliation could use a buff, but changing confusion to do its job instead is not the proper way to go about such a thing.

ZDragon.3046:

posthumecaver.6473:

The trick is normally I don’t feel that weak against conditions, if you take retribution while you have to keep that stability up, you have to dodge alot and condi classes have really hard time placing condi bomb on me. They only manage it during the Crystal Hybernation mainly or Staff 4.

What disturbs me is how effective confusion is on Shiro and Staff because of multi hits but people claim that is because of bug, for ex sword 3 should proc one confusion active damage but it is procing 7 times now, if this is true then Ok then I don’t have too much to complain.

But if the multi hits from Staff and Sword will suffer from confusion then yeah I demand something that reduce that effect otherwise my Revenant will make Harakiri lots of times.

Most confusion condition applications dont last very long. Have you tried simply not attacking and waiting for the stacks to fall off? The three is now an evade which means you can go zipping around without having to worry about aoe damage. I think its prefectly fair to proc 7 times for each attempted strike if you chose to use the skill with confusion on you. Just as how the skill grants might for every time you hit not all 7 might stacks on use. Its fine as it is just don’t go zipping into the fight with confusion on you. If your using shiro then you should be playing like a thief not a warrior.

That defies the entire design of confusion though. Confusion punishes skill activation, whereas retaliation punishes hitting your enemy. Confusion is already much more powerful than retaliation, so there’s really no need for it to be encroaching on retal’s territory.

Azure.8670:

CandyHearts.6025:

Azure.8670:

Amineo.8951:

Hunter.4783:

people are upset for 2 main reasons.

The elite spec is crap
Most of the updated skills DIDN’T make it into this test
Mechanics we have been asking for years miraculously make it into other elite specs, such as the revi shield

So really, i would say we have a VERY good reason to be upset

Revenant support makes me cringe everytime I look at it, it’s just way better than Guardian and there’s a good chance we might get replaced by Rev for Fractals and some Dungeons when HoT comes out, DH is just bad, traps are useless in all game modes, Longbow skills aren’t good enough to pressure somebody in PvP like Ranger and does not have good DPS compared to Scepter, and Virtues are downgraded when you switch to it…

Also, Shield and Torch skills better on Berserker and Herald…

Berserker is currently worse than DH. watch your tongue

You can’t be serious.

yea im serious.

DH is bad because it has no synergy etc, but if you drop a traitline and use DH, you atleast still have the guardian greatness. You gain a bow, and traps, yippie. They arent that good, at all, but you dont become worthless.

Taking Berserker on Warrior, right now, makes you worthless. No matter what traitline you drop, youre losing damage/utlity/healing/defense/movement speed. It literally has no place anywhere. The condi on it is so weak its almost cry worthy. 15 second up time on a 15s cd… lol. It ONLY supports hybrid builts (which I approve of btw) and it doesnt even do it

Not really.

If you drop Zeal, then you lose out on DPS, particularly with GS and symbol builds. If you drop Radiance, then you’re giving up any chance at a condition-oriented build or any sort of damage without having to pile on extra precision. If you drop Valor and/or Honor, you’re saying goodbye to any potential sustain and a great deal of party support. And if you drop Virtues, you’ll be losing more party support, more condition damage, and you’ll be left with high cooldown virtues with pretty mediocre effects.

No matter what you drop, the DH traitline is a downgrade. At best, you get a bow and some really situational, selfish traits that don’t synergize with any of the above. Not really worth the opportunity cost.

Asmodal.6489:

That is true for any skill in the game.

That is true as well and the downside of traps. no doubt about it.

This applies only when you are actually going 1on1 with an enemy which currently applies only to one gamemode: pvp

So we are indeed talking exclusivly about the pvp meta. I am not trying to put you on the spot because you are one of the few that often enough refers to this but the majority is generalizing the issues.

Maybe the skill is to not let this happen? An Assuming that you are facing pro players 100% of the time is again soemthing taht only applies to pvp and even there 80% of the games population will not have this issue.

All true and of course valid and a problem. However I think its great that you see no value in stopping/destroying clones, phantasms, minios, drones or pets. this is exactly what I am talking about.

… in pvp.

what change? what chance is destroyed? why is there no hope? again exactly my point. Everything is lost the guardian class is doomed.

I think it is important for each of you fighting for change to make sure that you make it way more clear that this gripe comes from a competitive pvp point of view.

I am not so ingorant as to not see your anger as frustation twords what the missed chance what you hope it could/should be and that the passionated opinions are indeed a high form of expressing passion for the class itself. But in the end you all paint the picture darker then it acutally is.

which does NOT mean that there is no need for improvement on the DH

I was actually referring to traps in any game mode, although I suppose you could argue that current PvE mobs are dumb enough that traps could be effective since they’re too simple to know how to avoid damage. That being said, I doubt they will be prevalent in the PvE meta anyway because on-demand aegis, condi clear, reflects, and stability are far more important for a Guardian to bring anyway.

Yes, of course you can evade any skill, but the difference in this case is that with traps the enemy has complete control over the timing involved, which makes it much easier for them. With any player-activated skill, the enemy has a very limited amount of time to analyze and react to what you are using. With traps, an enemy can look at a staircase, think “oh, there’s probably a trap here,” take a deep breath, and then evade over it, nullifying its effects completely. And when that happens, all you’re left able to do is think about how much you wish you didn’t have traps equipped. This is an ENORMOUS downside to using them, which makes them far less appealing, especially in comparison to the utilities we have that actually see regular use.

This really isn’t limited to a 1v1 scenario either. In group settings, it only takes one unit to trigger a trap (again, on their terms, not yours), and even if that unit takes the brunt of the effects instead of avoiding it, if you didn’t hit everybody with it then you’re boned because you have no utilities for the rest of the fight. That is, of course, unless you live long enough for the cooldowns to reset, in which case you can plant the traps at your feet again and pretend that they aren’t looking.

You can’t just “not let that happen”, because you have no control over the traps once they’re placed. You cannot skillfully outplay an opponent with skills that you do not control. It’s logically impossible. If the enemy triggers the trap and does not counterplay despite having the ability and opportunity to, then they messed up. It has nothing to do with you outperforming them. It would be no more skillful than if the AI literally placed the trap for you.

By the way, it doesn’t matter if the majority of players aren’t “pro” players. When you balance a competitive game, the goal should never be to work under the assumption of the lowest common denominator. Balancing around the “casual” crowd leaves little room for improvement and removes skill and strategy from the game, leaving you with equality of results regardless of commitment, talent, and/or effort input. In other words, a skilled player won’t have any advantage over an unskilled player, essentially leaving the game to chance and discouraging practice and further investment into getting better. The NBA wouldn’t be very interesting if the people who made the rules for basketball decided that all hoops should be 3 feet above the ground because that’s the highest point that a team of 5 year olds could shoot.

Even though yes, I tend to speak about the PvP side of things, keep in mind that these are all fundamental flaws with traps that apply to any game mode. It might be more obvious in PvP, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t apply anywhere else. Even then, the goal should be to make skills that are applicable everywhere. Even if something is lacking in just one place, that should be noted and taken into consideration so that proper balancing can be done. Saying “meh, they’re okay in PvE at least” is absolutely not an excuse for the fact that they’re horrendous in PvP and that people don’t want to use them there.

Am I being dramatic about it? Maybe; I wouldn’t doubt it. But I’m not painting the picture darker than it is. I’m not lying about anything. Nobody asked for traps, a very large percentage of us don’t want them, and a lot of people are really kittened off that Anet either doesn’t realize or doesn’t care that they’re terrible and won’t be used, which they very easily could have known just by looking at how little current traps are utilized.

Asmodal.6489:

traps are plain kitten because no one walks in them… oh .. my…. god. this is just the worst arguemnt ever. there is no pvp map without extremely good choke points to place them. you have to go through them. If you dumb enough to let you enemy see you placing them well what can I say… you really dont understand how a trap works.

I think more constructive feedback – which is there – would be the better choice from now on.

Sorry, but no. Traps can literally be rendered useless by an evade or blink. Sure, you can place them ahead of time — But when your enemy avoids them, you’ll be left with no utilities to use. On the other hand, if you try to place them down in combat, the enemy will see where you placed it, and especially if they have a ranged weapon they can easily use that 1s of activation time to pummel you with DPS or CC. In either case, the trap does not do its job and you’ll have effectively wasted your utility skills, which for a Guardian particularly also means you’ll have no sustain.

Traps have an incredibly low skill threshold in this game due to the highly mobile combat system. Every skill slot you take a trap in essentially becomes a wasted slot against a skilled player, because they will outmaneuver you and you will be left with nothing. This has been very clearly outlined by the distinct lack of trap builds being prevalent in the meta for any game mode. We already have trap access on two classes, and neither of those two classes use a single one in any meta compositions. The pacing is just too quick for any sort of delayed action skills to be effective without heavy amounts of CC, which Guardians simply don’t have.

Furthermore, this game’s combat system has a strong emphasis on timing skills properly for maximum reward. When you set and forget a trap, this facet of strategy is completely thrown out the window, because you are no longer timing your skill. You are placing it on the ground and hoping that your enemy is unskilled enough to not only trigger them, but also fail to react to them. Active defense makes it incredibly easy to reactively avoid big hits for players that can time it well enough, meaning that they can use proper timing to best you, and you won’t be able to do the same back to them because you relied on your traps instead of your own skill.

Want more proof of how unreliable traps are? They can be triggered by any enemy unit that touches them. Fighting a Mesmer? Good luck, not only can they blink and teleport but their clones will tank your traps and then you will be dead. Fighting a Ranger? Good luck, their bow is much more powerful in a 1v1 and their pet will tank your traps and then you will be dead. Fighting a Necro? Good luck, they’ll have minions that will tank your traps and then you will be dead. Fighting an Engineer? Good luck, whatever those drones the Forge is getting will probably tank your traps and then you will be dead. Hell, even a Spirit Weapon Guardian will have an advantage over you. By placing a trap, you are almost literally placing your faith in a single spot of terrain and hoping that the first thing that touches it is your actual target. The reality is that that just isn’t going to happen nearly as often as you might think it will.

You wanted more arguments that traps are bad? There, now you have them. But by all means, if you want to use them anyway, go ahead. The rest of us will just be busy NOT falling for them and killing you instead. Meanwhile, my only constructive feedback is that traps be reworked to the point where they’re “not traplike” again, because the moment Anet decided to make such a change they effectively destroyed any chance traps had at being competitive.

ThePaladin.2140:

Been playing DH in both BWE and I did notice something fundamentally wrong with it. First, to be able to make the most use of it, you have to go zerk to be truly effective. With the attacks being very slow, you need to make each shot count thus making Zerk gear pretty much mandatory.
With that said, the most effective way to play the class is to kite. With your virtues getting cast times and your traps having cast times, for fast paced fights you really must move and kite or get your face bashed in. Considering we have a very low health pool, this further adds to the problem. Here’s the kicker, once you start to kite, Longbow2 and longbow5 are now useless since they root you. Longbow3 is a utility anti projectile and longbow 4 with the burns being removed and ground targeted wont do anything to stop an enemy rampaging towards you. Even if you caught him with all your traps, which he would undoubtedly escape anyway, this leaves you 2 things to fight him with, longbow1 and the knockback trait that you MUST have to be effective.
Overall bad design if you ask me. It’s relagated to becoming a pewpew machine, if any attention is paid the dragonhunter during combat, a prayer to all the 6 gods is your only recourse.

One thread per post is plenty. You don’t need to copy and paste the same message across the board.

Perikittenor.1892:

The problem with offering positive feedback is that it is probably read as much as the negative one.

Shield have been bad since start and people have posted ideas how to fix it since release of the game and yet all we have seen is a cool down reduction, bug fixes Duration decrease and a added bug yet to be fixed.

At this point it is either clear that the developers rarely read the forum, or don’t care what is being written.

It was pretty frustrating getting nothing but a second cooldown reduction despite the overwhelming number of responses the first time saying that the cooldowns were not the problem.

Ragnarox.9601:

snoow.1694:

Ragnarox.9601:

traps need to be symbols or new skills: wards. Traps are useless in pve, pvp or wvw.

No, I dont think so. No matter how they change Traps or which effects they add, traps will be nothing more, than another skill class of the guardian which will get never played, which is very sad, since guardian only plays shouts and meditaions because its whole sustain consists of them. as long as Anet doesnt fix these sustain issues with guardians we will never see guardians play something else than medis or shouts and “purging flames”

They can nerf shouts and meditations so we can switch to revenants

They didn’t even need to do that to already convince me to switch to Revenant.

Don’t worry guys, if you find yourself playing Dragonhunter, you’ll already have your F4 command. Just make sure you’re holding Alt when you press it.

Keksmuffin.1450:

Every halfway decent build counters trap ranger.

Pretty much this. Even with ground targeting, Trap Ranger was never really all that good.

That didn’t seem to stop Anet from wanting to make another one for Guardian players though! Oh boy!

zaw.6741:

well, i agree with most of what was said here but…anet will pretend to be deaf/blind to it. they sure know that majority of guardian players hate it. yet all they respond in is: longbow need better sound effects. its sad, but true.
i mean, whoever created this… abomination called dragon hunter… im sorry for him/her.
its terrbile and number tweaks wont fix it.
they wont admit their mistake and at least apoligize to guard players that they failed to deliver us something interesting…after over 2000hours past 900days on guardian..i feel extremely dissapointed. and am looking forward to amazing reaper or herald. who knows what forge may bring?

To be fair, people DID request better sounds for the longbow.

posthumecaver.6473:

I think you interpret Dragon Hunter wrong, Guardian didn’t have a good range DPS weapon, I mean Staff, DPS common?

I think they designed DH to be pure range DPS of Guardian, with old traits and weapons Guardian will be a still awesome Tank/Healer but Revenant will be constant buffer for DPS, with my Reaper I really enjoyed always having Rev around me feeding with constant Fury and Might.

Scepter does fine ranged DPS. All it needs is a little bit more reliability on the autoattack and we’d be fine. I can understand people wanting an alternative ranged weapon, but to say that we didn’t already have a good one is kind of stretching the truth a bit.

As of right now, it still doesn’t look like there really is a definitive idea for what the direction of the Dragonhunter is supposed to be. That’s really the heart of the problem with it; it’s a bit far-fetched of an idea that doesn’t mesh very well with the base class and doesn’t do much to address the issues that we have right now. Traps simply aren’t effective in a game with so much emphasis on mobility in combat, and the traits lack consistency and aren’t very practical. It just feels like the entire concept was hashed together rather haphazardly.

If you ask me, it’s not even a matter of it not fitting the general idea of the elite spec. It’s just an awful, useless trait. Even if you don’t count the fact that it doesn’t have any effect while Spear of Justice is on cooldown, we already have so much access to multi-hit attacks that proc the virtue passive in quick succession that it’s 100% a waste of a minor trait slot. It needs to be scrapped entirely in favor of something that will actually do something noticeable.

Ragnarox.9601:

“We are in a good spot”

This will be on my Guardian’s gravestone.

Defender’s Dogma is about as worthwhile as Signet of Mercy.

The problem with the “giving the class something new” argument is that it just doesn’t work for the Dragonhunter. We didn’t get something new. We got a Ranger wannabe with some light magic flair.

People already didn’t play Trap Ranger. Whatever the hell they were thinking about expanding the same playstyle to Guardian is well beyond me.

I don’t think Revenant is a threat to PvE Guardian, but in PvP and small-scale WvW I can definitely see it being more effective now that you can just bring a Mesmer to provide allied condi cleanse and still have far more DPS output than a Bunker Guard.