Guild Wars 2

Isarii.2804:

This thread is entirely superfluous.

Indeed. It’s terribly both repetitive and redundant

Full Nomads, Druid/Nature Magic/Beastmastery, axe/wh, birds, cats, drakes, or wyvern. Gather up the boons and let the pet go to town.

You can’t just call something you don’t like “trolling”. Expect a 25% movement something eventually in the future. But for the moment, it’s not something we need. Traveler’s and Speed are overrated effects.

Reading back, that’s certainly a possibility. My point still stands, you have to predict projectile travel time when running interrupts. This is the case for any projectile based interrupt, which means reaction based attempts are much harder than prediction based.

Steal is a terrible example of an interruptible skill. 1/4s cast skills are the same. Even in gw1 those are considered impossible without luck. However, any actual skills worth interrupting? You can easily have the Headshot bullet or something else arrive during the cast time. That’s how gw1 worked unless you could react to a 2 second cast time or something.

Blackdeath.2607:

Another reason for a 25% trait is it also themes well with what dragon hunter is meant to be about, hunters must be fast in order to pursue their prey. A hunter is agile also again a 25% run speed trait falls into the dragon hunter theme perfectly.

I’ll mention again that removing defenders dogma and replacing it with a 25% passive run speed trait is the perfect solution to this problem

Trackers need to move fast to chase their quarry.
Hunters sit silently and still, waiting for their prey to walk into their trap (physical or effectual).

If you want to use Scepter and Torch, go ahead. It’s fun.

First, get Zeal and the Scepter trait.
Then, go virtues until you can slot Supreme Justice.
Then get radiance for the Torch trait.
Then go to town. I’m not really sure what adept traits might be best for you in virtues or radiance, but those two master traits are what you want to focus on.

Spirit Weapons literally only need the cooldown to start on cast. Weapon uptime is the main problem those skills face. Considering they’re vulnerable to damage and most already can’t achieve 100% uptime, they become closer to minion style play. Making this change would actually open up a lot of synergy with builds. You could make a build similar to cleric MM necro, make good use of Ranger runes, ect. Sword and Hammer deal damage, shield is mostly utility, and bow is pure support. Have the skills keep their current cooldowns, let sword have 100% uptime, none of the other weapons will be up that long. The counter play is killing the minions, which puts the skills on long cooldowns. Currently they have long cooldowns regardless of if they’re killed or not.

Adjusting when the cooldown starts is really the only necessary change.

I’m kind of surprised, these are really great changes. I should have actually posted about having a VoJ pull be separate from normal Spear. The cooldown seems a little long, unless virtue traits can reduce it. I’m not going to complain through.

Traps are looking fantastic. Instant? That’s crazy. Fragments of Faith is a great trap with its functionality. Test of Faith looks great, Procession of Blades looks alright. I think a whirl finisher and/or bleeding would be more useful than fury, but once again I’m not going to complain. Everything else not mentioned by name looks good. I like the direction we’re moving in.

P.S., 25% speed is 1) unnecessary 2) shouldn’t be on Dragonhunter or any elite spec

The bug that gunflame had was that it would explode for each and every person it pierced through. Extremely clumped people could be hit multiple times by the explosion. It’s now changed to explode only on the first hit.

You can’t interrupt everything on reaction. Most of the interrupting in GW1 was prediction based. Play some mindgames with your opponent and make them use a skull which you can interrupt. See it coming and have the bullet/dagger/whatever be there when it casts.

Just because Longbow has a high damage burst skill it doesn’t mean every weapon needs the exact same thing. Weapons and weapon skills are different for a reason.

Bug fixes are not nerfs.

Isarii.2804:

Vennyhedgie.5369:

There’s literally 5 threads on this ON THE FIRST PAGE already. Please people how hard is it to check.

Probably because of how absurd the situation is.

No, it’s just people not being concise or making good choices. There are as many DH feedback threads when we have a master thread created specifically to contain that feedback. I mean, it’s not like our forums are lacking any hubris.

This isn’t the build I was originally theorycrafting, nor is it the “best” build I considered, but it’s a build I would absolutely be willing to run in pvp.
Shattered Trapper

Apolo.5942:

It is ridiculous beyond belief than some one can suggest that having 2 utilities on constant CD is actually a viable alternative.

For all the times you actually need 25% or greater move speed that isn’t provided by a group, how often do you actually need your utilities?

Someone doesn’t know what viable means

All players who complain about p/p for poor reasons are 37% quieter.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mecha_Legs

I’ll also quote myself on the matter.

…Traits and utilities can be slotted for free, and even if you don’t want Pure of Voice/not taking Honor, you only need 76% swiftness uptime to equate a 25% movement speed. Untraited and without boon duration, Retreat is already 50%.

Runes of the Pack are infinitely more useful in pve and wvw. Traits and utilities can be slotted for free, and even if you don’t want Pure of Voice/not taking Honor, you only need 76% swiftness uptime to equate a 25% movement speed. Untraited and without boon duration, Retreat is already 50%.

Nike.2631:

Ug. I very much lean towards a trait granting “gain 25% movement speed if you have 1 or more signets equipped.” Keeps from stripping out a passive effect someone is using now and lets you choose when one you’re going to carry without locking you in to carrying 5 to get the full effect. Really, only Revenants should have to put up with that kind of anti-diversity to function .

Ah, but you miss the beauty of it. It gives guardians exactly what many have been asking for, but it’s one of the worst possible ways to implement it. Signets really don’t have any internal synergy, and requiring running a full bar of signets just to replace your Rune set? It’s glorious.

S/P rupt thief
I also just kind of tossed a build together. Toss your interrupts out like candy because you get a lot of benefit for interrupting. 2 torment for 7s and at least 1k damage per, perma poison, essentially perma 5 confusion of you’re always interrupting. On demand stealth to get your big heal off, fairly initiative light, heavy evade access, tons of control effect access, multiple condition removals and stun breaks.

Nike.2631:

Could we maybe swap out the un-loved Radiant Retaliation for~

• Unscathed Mobility. gain +25% speed while under the affects of Aegis.

Making it a grandmaster trait might reflect how very badly we wantses it!

I like Radiant Retaliation though. It’s difficult to make a build that actually used it, but I like the idea.

I still don’t think we absolutely need +25% movement. If we were to get it, I think replacing Signet of Wrath’s passive is the best bet. I’ve never seen anyone use SoW specifically for the passive, and I do nothing but look at builds. The speed/immob passive/active dynamic is pretty good. I could dig it.

The best option is to change the light aura on Perfect Inscriptions to “gain 5% movement speed per Signet equipped” that would be absolutely delicious.

JuliannS.4570:

HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO HUNT DRAGONS IF WE’RE SUPER SLOW?!?!

You set a trap and aggro them to you?

Rodzynald.5897:

As I said once, there is already at least one person that is skill capped with each of elite specs

You probably aren’t too far off. There are many different playstyles, and of people would experiment they might find something new that they mesh particularly well with.

Pure of Voice would be better because of the condition conversion from your shouts and reduced cooldowns for more RtL.

Altruistic Healing would be better suited than RA because of all the boons you’re giving away and you likely aren’t going to have super high damage. Can’t support people when you’re dead.

If you want to go super healy then consider taking Virtues instead of Radiance with Battle Presence or Indomitable Courage. If you want to stick to Radiance, then consider taking Perfect Inscriptions and Wrath of Justice. That gives you light aura on VoJ use and iirc each ally that receives VoJ will immobilize on their attack. You also get faster heal ticks and somewhat faster Signet recharges. I don’t know if Signet of Mercy actually procs Protective Reviver, but it would be interesting functionality.

It also might be worth considering grabbing Invigorated Bulwark, Pure of Heart, Communal Defenses, and replacing the focus trait for an Aegis based heal/block build.

Your armor, runes, and nourishment will also affect quite a few things, but it could definitely be an interesting build.

It’s beautiful
Full traps and longbow

Isarii.2804:

(except Ghotistyx, apparently, but he’s a well known troll)

I’ve noticed a trend in people that cannot comprehend that others have a different opinion than they. It usually involves them resorting to petty insults.

Maybe we’ll get a trait like that in another spec. Probably a Zealot/Inquisitor theme similar to Berserker. Rolling around the battlefield and stuff.

But DH? No, we don’t need it now.

Kain Francois.4328:

They should merge the shield trait and Strength in Numbers, since they compete, and both give toughness buffs.

A better idea of to swap focus trait with SD. That way, you can take SD, SiN, and RA for free toughness stacking. Even without RA, being able to take SD and SiN would be big.

There is one condi DH build that uses traps and scepter+torch to create tons of passive VoJ procs. It’s much more of a chokepoint or point defender, but it exists. Other than that, I’d agree DH doesn’t help with conditions much. It definitely does help with applying cc and area denial though. Traps, LB, and cripple help you control space, which ultimately van help many different build styles.

Kuya.6495:

I found DH is best played in pvp when you preset your traps at your location while you snipe at enemies from afar.
I suppose a reason lots of people don’t like the DH spec is because they refuse to preset traps and instead simply want to either use them at melee range or target them like you would consecrations…

The whole point of traps in any context is to have them preset and entice people to run into them. I’m incredibly confused by people who insinuate they should be used otherwise.

brannigan.9831:

You are one of the most annoying trolls on this board. You always take the other side of whatever the op says. Long bow 2 is unacceptable for spvp. Thats fine if A-net doesn’t care about that but I and the vast majority of spvp Guardians will not ever use the elite in spvp. Time will prove I’m right i guarantee you this is one of the elites they will be tweaking long after the expansion goes live. I guess you would tell me DH is fine and there will be plenty of them in ranked pvp? Just tell me yes so I can ignore you forever.

Troll? Please. If I have an opinion and an OP is the opposite of that, of course I’m going to oppose it. This isn’t rocket science. I had a giant post written up, but it’s seriously not with my time to rewrite.

Moral of the story: DH isn’t as kittenome people want you to believe. I don’t know who put a cactus in their cereal, but they seem unnaturally angry about it. People can dislike DH, that’s fine. But don’t go around parroting others’ opinions. If you don’t like DH, make sure it’s for your own reasons, and make sure those reasons are good. Don’t try to pass off opinions as facts.

Now you’re twisting words. Also, your grammar doesn’t help get your point across. I’m not talking about “I don’t speak English like a native” grammar either, but rather “I never left 4th grade in the late 90s” grammar.

The point being, Dragonhunter was never something designed by popular opinion. Nobody took a poll of all Guardian players asking them what they wanted. What they did do, was find an aesthetic inspiration (witch/demon/dragon hunters from fantasy and history) and they found a mechanical inspiration (traps, big game hunting, Monster Hunter). Put those together and make them work in your game’s lore and mechanics, and boom, we’ve got the Dragonhunter.

The elite specs are designed to offer something different than the base class, but no one hired a consultant to ask the population of the game what they wanted. What the elite discussions might’ve missed popularity wise can be made up with a second, or third, or other specializations on the future. And if you notice, this is exactly what this other companies do. They don’t consult their market every single time they try to develop a new product. They get enough ambient feedback that they can make those decisions on their own. They might ask about which feature their market wants first, but development and design are largely decisions made by the producer, not the consumer.

Adam.3716:

This isn’t monster hunter. And he isn’t wrong. There is a consensus in the community that it simply does not fit the class. There will not be a single DH build that will replace current guardian builds in any meta. You could argue that bow had some niche usages but is not optimal in any situation. Even at kiting instances id prefer getting mobility from shouts and using a scepter/focus.

You’re right, this isn’t Monster Hunter. It also isn’t Silent Hill, and yet the inspiration for the Reaper it still is. The concept of Dragonhunter works within Guild War 2’s combat system. Plenty of people have made it work.

On the subject, no, there isn’t a consensus amongst the community. To think so would be blind to almost any thread about the DH. Elite specializations aren’t designed to replace the current meta (for however long that actually lasts). So of course no DH build will replace anything. The whole idea is to add, not replace.

Buran.3796:

A signet or trait that provides 25% enhanced speed while selected.
A ranged weapon which projectiles are comparable in speed to bows, rifles or pistols in other classes. Some form of condition must exist in the auto attack.
Some cripple/chill effects linked to that weapon skils.
A shield which blocks/is viable in the game.

Is that hard?

25% isn’t needed. We’ll probably get it eventually, but now is certainly not the time.
Bow has a RoF equal to engineer’s Hip Shot (Rifle 1)
Longbow cripples on 1 and 5.
Shield has aoe aegis on SoJ (shield 4).

1) It does significant damage at range, pierces natively, and has aa4 second recharge. The cast time isn’t all that long. I mean, the Longbow isn’t meant to be another melee weapon. Having that kind of a tradeoff isn’t a big deal.

2) Ring of Warding roots you during cast and is melee range. Hunter’s Ward is 1200 range, deals damage over multiple hits (VoJ synergy), cripples, and creates 1-5 rings of warding all for the cost of slightly longer cast time and 5s longer recharge. I’d say that’s fair.

3) we absolutely don’t need 25% movement speed. Certainly not with Dragonhunter. I think eventually we might get a trait, but this isn’t that time.

That extremely satisfying p/p and DH on DH action.

Ricochet doesn’t need to come back. Since the changes, p/p has been pushed towards heavy single target damage at range. Especially after the damage buffs of ~25% to the auto and Unload, p/p hits hard.

A particular thing to mention is that with the Daredevil elite spec, you have the option of having a dodge with a leap finisher. You can combine that with Pistol 5 for on-demand stealth. Condi p/p could definitely replace p/d, and that should mean you can create some interesting hybrid and Celestial p/p builds.
Something like this could be very interesting.

(Edited because the filter apparently ignores paragraphs and formatting)

Frontline Reaper
Soldiers stats (power and defense)
Runes of the Wurm+Furious nourishment (Ferocity)
Death Perception+Decimate Defenses (crit chance)
Relentless Pursuit+Lemongrass Poultry Soup (-106% duration on cc conditions)
Infusing Terror (long lasting stability).
Covers pretty much everything you could want in a melee spec.

Why not have Paragon influences in every elite spec, including the one with Spears and Echo/Refrains?

Hunter.4783:

There is this disturbing trend i have been noticing as of late

Only new/bad players seem to like the dragonhunter wheres any moderately skilled or above player hates it with a passive.

I wonder if dragonhunter is supposed to be the entry level PVE endgame class for HoT…

Don’t drown yourself in that hubris

If anyone has ever played Monster Hunter, you’ll see the connection.

Also, don’t speak for me, especially when you’re so blatantly wrong.

Arnath.2319:

The only people who have anything positive to say about the Dragon Hunter are PVP players.

I don’t’ play PVP, i only PVE, and it is overwhelmingly clear that the Dragon hunter is complete garbage.

I predict within three months of HoT launch we will be seeing “No Dragon Hunters or Guardians” in LFG.

“PvE Customer Support here. Have you tried not joining those groups? "

Nike.2631:

Combat is filled with melees who blunder over my traps just as fast as I can drop them.

They turned out to be almost painfully easy to hit people with them. The half second casting time really smoothed out mid-brawl drops.

Arnath.2319:

Traps are disgustingly bad.

[Citation Needed]

Sustain p/p

Basic idea is to do stuff and you get healed. 3 ways to heal on crit, heal on attack, heal on evade, heal on ini use. Grab stealth as needed with P5 and dodge. Multiple stun breaks, blast finishers on call, mobility with SB5. Damage might not be as high as an Executioner based build, but they aren’t healing potentially 3k per Unload.

Back when Hunter’s Determination was made to be as it is now, someone made a similar thread. Here’s a repost of a few builds I theorised.

For these builds, just keep in mind the changes mentioned in the op. Hunters Determination drops a FoF on control effect, and Hunter’s Fortification now removes a condition on block.

Power Shatter
Heal Support
Condi Burn

Considering the changes to Shield, it might be worth replacing Focus with Shield, or replacing the two-handers and have both.

People aren’t necessarily refusing. Dragonhunter could be lots of player’s 2nd or 3rd favorite spec, but if there busy playing their favorite, then of course you ain’t see many DH. Also, DH has been available since the beginning. Other specs (particularly the very shiny druid) are newer. There are tons of reasons why you might not see many DH.

Traps aren’t bad, and no, wells wouldn’t be better.

brannigan.9831:

Lets see some board troll and probably someone who rarely does ranked pvp or one of the better guardians around. I know who I am listening too.

You seem unnecessarily upset. Even top pvp players don’t always make the best balance decisions, otherwise they might find better employment actually being in charge of balance.

Purification could use some native condition clear.
Procession of Blades could use a whirl finisher, maybe native bleeding.
Heavy Light isn’t the best it could be.