You’d have to nerf Meditations down to 1k heals and increase Resolve to a level of around 250hp a second traited for this to work.
But you still run into the issue of Guardian hp being balanced on a passive heal per second and are now seriously discouraged from activating it. Terrible mechanics really.
The Virtues Minor Grandmaster trait should make the Virtues retain their passive effects even after activation.
Then we would have the kind of mechanics we could look at using to help this profession diversify and create several usable builds instead of pigeonholing into Monk’s Focus Mediations and Altruistic Healing Shouts Empower.
The problem Guardian has is that so many effects like Shouts and Virtues can also be applied to allies, so they are all balanced to be distributed to 5 people during a group fight. Which makes them utterly terrible when it comes to a 1v1 stand point.
Resolve can be shared with allies so it will never be buffed up to give us better solo survivability and build diversity unless we remove Battle Presence.
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Considering the burst some other professions can put out, I think 2 hits per target will be fine. Test of Faith hits 5-7k and can hit several times if enemies are running around.
Plus if you are blind the FoF fragments miss, they are affected by Weakness too.
Get rid of the useless renewing Justice passive trait with Defender’s Dogma.
Give us +25% run speed.
I am a top tier sPvP guardian who plays the bunker guard “The Big Damage” for team radioactive.
Here is my DH feedback:
The style of Dragon Hunter I tried to play was a bunker guard variant for use in high level sPvP tournaments. The duties of a bunker guard include clearing conditions from allies, healing and buffing them, holding a point, as well as providing stability for res and stomp.Hunter’s Fortification, this needs to be changed from “cure a condition on block with a 1 sec icd” to “cure a condition on Aegis block” so that it gives the group condi clear that makes up for dropping the Honor line to take this specialization. This would also create tremendous synergy with Shattered Aegis and Pure of Heart, please consider this. Also, if you make this change, remove the ICD.
Sorry but, No.
The Dragonhunter is meant to be a totally different playstyle and a selfish offensive style for the Guardian. It’s not intended to mesh with the bunker Guardian role.
The bunker Guardian has been absolutely fine with Honour, Valour and Virtues and has had a place in the tPvP meta for 3 years.
It needs no consideration with regards to the Dragonhunter. It’s meta, it works.The Dragonhunter needs to work for personal offense and survival that meshes with our existing offensive style.
The ability to add a little team support through Virtue traits or take Shouts is enough of a hybrid already.Hey, buddy, not sure if you noticed but with things like a trap that makes it so ANYONE on your team can pick up an Aegis and get healed by it, or a shield of courage that blocks for ANYONE behind you, or a wings of resolve that gives a MASSIVE aoe 5k heal, it DEFINITELY meshes well with bunker traits. Saying “sorry, but no” and then stating that YOU know exactly how Dragon hunter is supposed to be used is narrow-minded naivete.
Bunker Guard has never been so strong now you can take 3 full lines with Honour Valour and Virtues. It’s been meta for 3 years and always had a place in top team comps for tournaments.
Of all the Guardian specs people might play, bunker Guard needs the least additions and considerations from the elite spec, bunker works and has done reliably for 3 years. Damage Guardian is a dream that lasts for a few months at a time but is quickly swept away by other more powerful specs from other professions.
If you can make some aspect of DH work for bunker then fine, but no changes need to be made to the elite spec with the bunker Guardian in mind.
True Shot aims at an opponents feet, meaning it either gets obstructed or simply hits terrain in many situations.
The auto-attack however flies in an arc and it also aims for the center of an opponent, meaning it hits much more reliably.
Male characters crouch down to fire this shot, female character stand up straight the same as firing any other attack including the regular auto-attack.
This leads to a much clearer attack tell against male characters with the Longbow, for a game all about animation tells I don’t see how there can be such a discrepancy as this.
It’s encouraging people to play female in competitive game modes for a less obvious tell.
Either make them both crouch or make both stand to fire.
I am a top tier sPvP guardian who plays the bunker guard “The Big Damage” for team radioactive.
Here is my DH feedback:
The style of Dragon Hunter I tried to play was a bunker guard variant for use in high level sPvP tournaments. The duties of a bunker guard include clearing conditions from allies, healing and buffing them, holding a point, as well as providing stability for res and stomp.Hunter’s Fortification, this needs to be changed from “cure a condition on block with a 1 sec icd” to “cure a condition on Aegis block” so that it gives the group condi clear that makes up for dropping the Honor line to take this specialization. This would also create tremendous synergy with Shattered Aegis and Pure of Heart, please consider this. Also, if you make this change, remove the ICD.
Sorry but, No.
The Dragonhunter is meant to be a totally different playstyle and a selfish offensive style for the Guardian. It’s not intended to mesh with the bunker Guardian role.
The bunker Guardian has been absolutely fine with Honour, Valour and Virtues and has had a place in the tPvP meta for 3 years.
It needs no consideration with regards to the Dragonhunter. It’s meta, it works.
The Dragonhunter needs to work for personal offense and survival that meshes with our existing offensive style.
The ability to add a little team support through Virtue traits or take Shouts is enough of a hybrid already.
Interruption putting the skill on full cooldown is bad.
It either needs a regular interruption timer or a 1s Evade during the leap to avoid this.
Absolute Resolution isn’t increasing the passive also.
After the range increase the impact graphic is now behind the player in the wrong place also.
Shield of Courage currently doesn’t recharge when you revive an ally or when you rally while you have the Valor trait Courageous Return.
I keep getting interrupted with Wings of Resolve, which puts it on a full cooldown, no heal, no condi clear, and next to no distance traveled.
1s Evade?
Shield of Courage cooldown is still high for the short 5s duration and small area covered by the blocks.
True Shot – unusable against anyone moving away from you as they are out of range by the time the shot gets there, huge liability in small skirmishes with the rooting effect.
The block effect on Hunter’s Fortification is great but the passive is utterly pointless. There are 13 conditions in this game and they are plastered over all weapon and utility skills, some causing multiple conditions each time.
There are more skills flying around that inflict conditions than don’t, it’s literally impossible to find yourself in a fight and not under the effects of a condition if you are taking damage.
This passive part of this trait needs to change to a 10% condition damage reduction to be worthwhile.
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DH needs a reliable stun break. F3 has a cast time so if you get focused and locked down you’re dead. Contemplation of purity is our main condi cleanse, can’t waste that trying to stun break. None of the traps are stun breaks. So where’s our stun break? This is crucial especially since dragonhunter is an offensive line and we need the survivability. Anyone who is going to take shouts to stun break would rather go honor line than dragonhunter. So yea, give us a stun break. Whats the point of having our stun break/stab(f3) if it has a cast time, how does that even make sense.Dragonhunters will be locked down and killed so easily without it.
Shield of Courage with Indomitable Courage stun breaks instantly then casts the shield and boons.
What’s the point of checking your facts before posting on a forum? It saves you from making an incorrect post.
You don’t heal yourself more when healing more targets, you just see their heal numbers.
The double heal bug was fixed long ago Dirame.
In light of the Druid reveal and the very strong Astral Grace weapon skill as a 1200 range (12s / 9.5s cd) targeted traverse with an ally heal at the end it’s time to properly address this utterly unused utility skill with its amusing 50s cd and poor mechanics.
Let it teleport anywhere, not just onto an allied target, make it a transverse too if it’s required for balancing. Just let it target anywhere.
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Light’s Judgment is 139 damage 8 times over 8 seconds.
10 Vulnerability for 2s per pulse.
1s of Revealed per pulse.
Of all the skills to reveal stealth it is the worst for 1v1 by far, it’s meant to reveal a large group of enemies that can’t quickly re-stealth (like a WvW zerg that veiled).
As for stealth counters, stealth is massively powerful in this game, it’s easily accessible and quick to be able to re-enter even after being revealed. You can stealth in combat with any stealth ability unlike other games.
And when you mess up or get countered during stealth like someone Blinding, Blocking or Dodging your Backstabs it doesn’t matter, you can just push 1 till it connects for massive damage as you don’t get revealed! So easy.
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- Still hoping symbol is slightly larger to assist from long range. Melees tend to scramble around. Help us help them.
To be honest, I think all Symbols need to become 240 radius as baseline, like the same love Necro Marks got with the June patch. Combat is far too paced now for these tiny 180 Symbols, even in sPvP and standing in circles the gamemode, people are still hugely mobile in combat and only stick around when it’s all over.
Something needs to compensate Writ of Persistence though, maybe make the boons 2s per pulse.
As Ring of Warding is a ward it could be thematically possible to make this a Lightning Field.
It would be nice to have some variety and Blast / Leap options beyond endless Light Fields and Retaliation.
Plus some different Swiftness access options.
Ring of Warding – Lightning Field.
Mighty Blow – 450 range.
Symbol of Protection – 3/4s cast time, remove one pulse of the symbol.Would make the Hammer lovely.
More like Light field.
We currently have 15 ways to access Light Fields.
Line of Warding
Ring of Warding
Shield of Absorption
Symbol of Faith
Symbol of Protection
Symbol of Swiftness
Symbol of Wrath
Refraction
Spear Wall
Sanctuary
Wall of Reflection
Symbol of Judgment
Retaliatory Subconscious
Protector’s Impact
Zealot’s Speed
And another coming with the Longbow
Do you not think a little variety and less Retaliation might be a good idea?
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They are very different actually, Heavy Armor, Shouts, Condi Removal, Medi’s, damage prevention, the list goes on.
Engi’s might be more useful now for large group play, if you think for 1 second that you’re going to see Guardians disappear and Engi’s all over the place you’re sadly mistaken. Guardians are and will be for the foreseeable future, the backbone of groups.
Heavy armour vs Medium armour, a difference of 150. Which is worth about a 4% damage reduction that is laughable compared to the 4300 hp difference.
Engi just got an easily accessible 500 Toughness stacking trait (worth around 15%) on top of a flat 20% condition damage reduction.
Engineer has a lot more Vigor uptime, various ranged damage options, access to a 3s Block on a 20s cooldown and can mitigate a huge amount of damage that way.
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Glacial Heart, Hydromancy, Sigil of Ice.
Wouldn’t be very effective.
Just play a GS Reaper.
The game has developed a lot more movement and ranged combat since the beta weekends. Guardian sustainability isn’t what it was back then either.
Arutha your utter hyperbole about the Longbow isn’t helpful.
The Longbow is a viable ranged weapon that needs only a few tweaks, if you could literally do nothing with it during the beta weekends then might I suggest that perhaps the weapon isn’t as much of a problem as the user.
The Longbow and Traps fit a different playstyle, learn to adapt or stick to what works for you, the Elite specs are not meant to mesh with everything, they are meant to offer a totally different playstyle to the base profession.
As Ring of Warding is a ward it could be thematically possible to make this a Lightning Field.
It would be nice to have some variety and Blast / Leap options beyond endless Light Fields and Retaliation.
Plus some different Swiftness access options.
Ring of Warding – Lightning Field.
Mighty Blow – 450 range.
Symbol of Protection – 3/4s cast time, remove one pulse of the symbol.
Would make the Hammer lovely.
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Both aspects of it are utterly random and poorly designed.
A random knockback on the next attack you happen to make within 300 range is poor design as we have little control over it.
Gaining Stability after knocking someone back is incredibly poor timing. Just why?
The knockback and the Stability need player control.
Move the Stability back to True Shot and move the knockback onto Deflecting Shot.
The timing is already lined up.
I’d like to see 1/2 a second removed from the cast time of Symbol of Protection then take away 1 pulse of the symbol and adjust any damage values to compensate.
Little quality of life change for the combat flow with the weapon.
Mighty Blow – Possible increase to 450 range? With the delay before jumping you don’t actually gain any distance with this leap compared to anyone moving away from you.
Zealot’s Embrace is ok, but the chain could use a slight velocity increase.
For a single target knockback Banish is a little slow, perhaps 3/4 because it’s not as powerful as something like Backbreaker where the target is immediately going to receive huge damage while knocked down, Banish is more control.
Ring of Warding – I’d like to see get the same love as Staggering Blow got a while back by being cast while moving.
People asking for Traps to change to a different skill type need to be realistic. It’s not going to happen.
Focus your efforts on making Traps better, that’s what we are getting.
Perhaps Purification could have a Water Field.
Fragments of Faith could be Lightning field.
Lights Deliverance could be a Blast Finisher.
Procession of Blades a Whirl Finisher.
And Test of Faith a Fire field.
Dragon’s Maw could be a Stun Breaker and grant Stability.
Wings of Resolve should remove Immobilized and act as a Leap Finisher as it currently doesn’t function at all if you are Immobilized, a huge flaw when it can be traited to remove 3 conditions but can’t do this because you can’t leap when Immobilized.
As the iconic specialization leap it should probably Evade too due to it’s very short distance.
Purification needs to lose the trap heal portion, that’s just an utterly terrible idea which will see it never used.
Make all the healing initial and then have it create a Water Field if an enemy triggers the trap area within 5s.
Random knockbacks and gaining Stability when getting a random knockback are both terrible mechanics with the recent Heavy Light trait ideas.
The knockback should come from Deflecting Shot given it’s defensive nature, make it knockback by 240 range when it hits a target that is 360 range or closer.
Stability should stay on True Shot usage like the original mechanics.
Shield of Courage should either block all melee attacks within the cone and also apply block procs, or at least apply block procs to ranged attacks and apply Weakness to enemies that strike you from inside the shield area.
True Shot needs to do significant damage due to the way it roots you, especially considering how powerful the Berserker’s Gun Flame is by comparison with 10k+ AoE hits.
Supposedly it’s been buffed internally or at least we have some patch notes for BWE3 that say it has.
I really hope so as I was seeing pitiful, slow, easily strafed 400 damage auto-attacks against Rangers and Thieves while using Marauder’s in PvP.
Wings of Resolve is completely nullified by Immobilize.
Doesn’t matter that you have Absolute Resolution traited to remove 3 conditions, you can’t leap so you just sit there, unable to clear conditions on you or allies, unable to burst heal yourself or allies.
Also, the heal range is pathetically small, using it on moving players is impossible, by the time you leap the ally has moved out of the tiny heal range…
Wings of Resolve is a huge downgrade and nerf compared to even basic Resolve, never mind the traited versions.
Absolute Resolution needs to instantly clear conditions and then Wings of Resolve attempt to Leap, if you are still Immobilized it should just heal on the spot.
Or make Wings of Resolve clear Immobilize on the Guardian by default
This trait is pointless. What DH needs is some mobility and this trait can be changed to help sort that problem out.
Either via a passive speed boost or via Swiftness on skill use. (Could be from Longbow or Virtues).
Some ideas:
Gain 5s of Swiftness + Justice reaches it’s maximum charge on weapon swap in combat.
Critical hits grant Swiftness 3s (50% chance)
Bug: The Courageous Return trait doesn’t function with Shield of Courage.
Self rally or rezzing another player
(Courage is renewed when rallying or reviving another player 30s icd)
All existing traits were said to also work with the new Dragonhunter Virtues during the reveal.
On another note Shield of Courage needs melee help to aid in filling the flaws with Longbow defense issues, either block melee attacks or inflict Weakness on any melee range attacker that strikes you while SoC is up.
Block and an actual Block on ranged or melee hits that SoC negates would be ideal and give us some synergy with our block traits. It won’t be overpowered as both existing traits and the idea for the DH 3rd one are all balanced with 1s icds.
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No changes to auto attack arrow velocity.
No changes to auto-attack / Deflecting Shot’s lack of auto-face when standing still.
Symbol of Energy still can’t be fired behind. No change to velocity.
What’s the point in having 3 developer posts of changes and none of them seem to be made for the beta testing and feedback? Why rely on internal feedback from a small group of “we’re in a good place” testers.
We should have the changes in to test in full, at least the promised Longbow changes that were said to be coming with this beta weekend, never mind the two posts of trait changes that have been proposed.
Hunter’s Fortification is a step in the right direction, a little funny after the Daredevil release and the way Thief is going to be untouchable by Power damage through constant evades and untouchable by conditions by cleansing one with every evade, but ah well. We’re in a good place right.
The 10% damage reduction when not affected by a condition is out of place, and in a game with thirteen conditions, most of which are applied by weapon skills this is just not gonna happen in combat, PvE or PvP.
It should either change to 10% reduced incoming condition damage on the Guardian.
Or 10% reduced incoming condition duration on the Guardian.
And I would hope to see Shield of Courage block incoming melee attacks for the Guardian and actually block them to proc our mechanics. Not as Karl said because the skill has a cast time but rather because it’s very short duration and a 75 second cooldown skill!
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Confusion is more powerful than Retaliation because of stacking, and it works at 60% damage when your target isn’t even doing anything…
Also, not to mention that LoW beeing a medi, and smite condition too, LoW gives 4k hp to nearby allies, this is a hell of a support skill
You seem to have quite a few misunderstandings about a few skills.
Firstly the trait Smiter’s Boon works with any heal, so Shelter also procs Smite Condition and gains 4s Fury and an extra 2k heal.
Meditations do not heal allies.
The Fury that Meditations grant is shared with allies within a 240 range, that’s all.
Not the heals.
300 damage, low duration, stacking 1-5 stacks per ability / trait etc.
Ticks from each damaging condition stack too.
Burn stacking made condi Guard a thing.
It’s seen multiple plays in the recent tournaments.
What more do you want?
People playing DH like Scepter/X will do poorly and whine that it’s bad.
Ignore them, then kill them with your Longbow.
Fashion Mage – Support in this game isn’t just healing and boons.
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I agree with the Evade during the leap of Wings of Resolve, it would also be hugely beneficial if it would be mechanically possible to have the condition cleanse apply to the Guardian on activation and to surrounding allies on landing.
I like your ideas with actually having themes across trait lines, the Dragonhunter traits are a random mess right now. Cripple on Knockback as a single Master trait is very weak and should probably join with Heavy Light.
Defender’s Dogma is an uninspiring and weak trait currently.
I’d like to see – Movement speed is increased by 25% or at least while wielding a Longbow.
I think Shield of Courage should block melee for the Dragonhunter too, but a knockback on each foe when they are blocked is too strong in my opinion.
We don’t have much access to Weakness, perhaps if Shield of Courage blocking melee is too strong it could apply Weakness to enemies that strike you in melee while active. No ICD but only low duration like 2-3 seconds per attack.
Direct Damage
7/10 We will see how the proposed changes pan out.
Condition Damage
4/10 AoE Cripple and Burn are useful, Cripple on skill 1 we will see if it changes.
Support
7/10 In the right group setting it has both offensive and defensive support
Defense
2/10 A skillshot Blind
Control
5/10 There’s potential, but the channeled skills leave you very vulnerable while applying the control with 5, so it’s a double-edged sword. If Shield of Courage was changed to block melee attacks also then we would have better defensive options while channeling and vulnerable.
You don’t feel a single target 10-12k hit or an AoE 6k hit warrant a telegraphed charge-up?
Have you considered using other weapon or utility mechanics available to you to aid in securing this huge hit?
Stop running in and out of the Purging Flames, you did this to yourself with a lack of awareness.
That’s not how Purging Flames works.
You cast it once, and upon casting, it inflicts burning in the area and cleanses conditions. After that it just decreases condition duration.Actually you are the one who is incorrect, Purging flames does all that but it also summons a ring of fire. Crossing the ring gives 3 stacks of burning just like the ele skill.
That’s correct and incorrect at the same time:
Purging flames inflict 3 stack of burn when casted on the enemy and when the enemy cross it. BUT if the enemy is affected by it one time it will no more be affected by it.
You cast PF on a enemy and he can move in, out and cross the firefield like he want why he already received the 3 stack of burn. The same if it’s aleady there and he cross it.PF actually can’t inflict more than 3 stack of burn.
It can be a unfixed bug or there can be a really high internal cooldown that we don’t know.
This is completely wrong, you really need to do some testing or gain awareness of our skills before writing disinformation like this.
Purging will apply 3 stacks of Burning to anyone that crosses it, in or out. No ICD.
If you start inside it +3, walk out +3 and walk back in +3 you will have 9 stacks.
Did Silv and Fashion Mage not see the video of the Golem + Purging Flames + Mallyx displacement?…
Stop running in and out of the Purging Flames, you did this to yourself with a lack of awareness.
New F4 skill for the Dragonhunter – unlocked with Virtuous Action minor adept trait.
2 Stances:
Zealot’s Stance
You have access to Dragonhunter Virtues
You move 25% faster while wielding a Longbow
Protector’s Stance
You have access to Guardian Virtues
The duration of incoming movement-impairing conditions is reduced by 25%
Stance switching would be instant and have a 1 second cooldown.
You could activate Renewed Focus and stance switch to Protector’s to burst all regular Virtues while channeling.
The 3 Virtues would share cooldowns with their Dragonhunter counterparts so as not to be utterly overpowered when fully traited.
This would allow the Guardian to pick when they wanted the wider range of the instant group condition cleanse for example, or the leap and larger heal of Wings of Resolve.
Or access the instant Aegis and Stability with Virtue of Courage for stomping.
It would also help to add mobility to the Guardian’s ranged elite specialization but in a very limited form when using our new weapon only.
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Puncture Shot projectile and Spear of Justice need a velocity increase if they are gonna hit moving targets at around 1200 range.
Puncture Shot and Deflecting Shot need to auto-face the target when used while the player is standing still.
Symbol of Energy needs to be able to be used behind the player, this precedent has already been set with the Warrior Longbow and Thief Shortbow.
The immobilize on True Shot is still a little out of place when Rangers have a 100% velocity increased 1500 range piercing Rapid Fire that they can use while moving and pursuing targets.
Either increase the damage multiplier or remove the need to be stationary when casting.
While these changes are nice and justified for where they impact, there is still a gaping hole in the Dragonhunter spec, and that is with the issues that the Longbow has, fundamental mechanics issues.
Auto-attack (Puncture Shot) the projectile is far too slow and it has issues landing on moving targets, especially the same strafe issue that Scepter has faced for 3 years.
Puncture Shot and Deflecting Shot need to auto-turn when activated and you are standing still – you know, like every other weapon skill in the game. The fact that 3! doesn’t is a horrible joke, it’s already the only skillshot projectile and it doesn’t even auto-face while you skillshot it…
Symbol of Energy needs to fire behind, this precedent has been set by several skills on the Warrior’s Longbow and the Thief’s Shortbow.
It’s a little worrying that you think the Longbow was generally well received, I think every feedback post mentioned issues with the auto-attack projectile speed, Deflecting Shot’s lack of auto-turn and Symbol’s tiny firing arc.
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Robert Gee is far more in touch with his communities through Necro and Mesmer, he also seems to know the classes much better, he really understands the changes he’s making and the big picture of how things go together.
Karl seems utterly lost, he never posts here, totally out of touch with the community and if you saw the footage from HoT PvP he doesn’t seem to understand Guardian well, especially DPS Guardian.
For F2 the traited effects like the condition clear need to happen the instant you push the button, so that if you are caught in an immobilize you first break it with Absolute Resolution and then leap away.
So basically the Shield works well but it’s not correctly applying the buff to the Guardian also.
Or it needs to be changed so that this is also the mechanic.
There’s not much point being able to block cleave for all allies in front of you during the fast paced melee combat we have, only to receive all the cleave yourself and just die.
The worst is the sound when your auto-attack strikes 2 targets and procs the Cripple, it sounds like the Empower sound effect playing on repeat, incredibly annoying and out of place.
Based on it’s nature as the only projectile skill-shot and the very small path it runs along, it needs more.
Either more damage, reflect projectiles or a quick daze when it connects.