Guild Wars 2

Shalien.9018:

Nike.2631:

Bullcrap. If at any point you managed to get back up to 2 dodges banked the Daredevil continues to accumulate charge and all other professions are sucking wind.

I’m sorry but I have no idea what you’re trying to say here.

Do you think the Daredevil’s profession mechanic should only be 1 extra dodge per encounter while everyone else gets a whole bunch of new abilities?

It’s only “one per encounter” if you’re burning them as fast as you get them. If you get any lull in the action it can be significantly more dodges per encounter than any other profession gets because the Daredevil has a ‘wider net’ to catch time in. They don’t just have better burst dodge than any other profession, they also have better endurance capacity than any other profession because after getting to two dodges stored they keep gaining endurance in a way no other profession does. That means they can absorb the benefits of vigor 50% longer than any other class.

Here, assume two characters with exactly 2 dodges ready (100 endurance). That happens a lot. Even mid-encounter. Cast vigor on them both. One gets nothing. One gets benefit. Guess which one is the Daredevil?

Tabootrinket.2631:

The point you’re making is up to debate, I agree.
But that’s not really what I was talking about right there.
I’m talking about the quality of the spec as a finished product, not as a powerhouse. What I mean by that is :
- working mechanism.
- polished animation and visual effects.

We are (for now) denied correct animations. Mechanisms are for now clunky and flawed. That’s what needs to be adressed.

And on that front I sincerely hope we see improvement. What redname commentary we’re receiving seems to point to them trying to address those issues.

Bllade.1029:

I understand exactly what you’re saying, but dodges aren’t GM worthy to begin with. These aren’t GM traits, they’re a core defensive mechanic.

Just because they’re in the GM trait line, doesn’t mean they’re GM worthy. So no, we’re asking for our core defensive mechanic and to have GM traits like everyone else.

You can say it, but clearly the people who decide these things don’t agree. We’re seeing some adjustments to what the GM-dodges do, but its perfectly evident they felt those effects were in the GW range of benefit, and were being further leveraged by the Espec’s ability to bank up to three charges.

Shalien.9018:

The ONLY way these could even be considered as grandmaster quality traits is if ANet admits that the entire core mechanic of Daredevil is ONLY 1 extra dodge. Without extra endurance regeneration. Legitimately adding 1 extra dodge per encounter no matter if it’s a 10 second fight or a 10 minute fight. We get only 1 more dodge by taking Daredevil.

Bullcrap. If at any point you managed to get back up to 2 dodges banked the Daredevil continues to accumulate charge and all other professions are sucking wind. Amazing burst dodge on the amazing burst class. Who would’ve thunk it? If you actually believe what you just said, then that pretty much explains why you think everything contingent on that advantage is under-powered.

Wondrouswall.7169:

What interests me more is the Skill Balance Preview at the bottom of Friday. I could care less about the kitten Druid now, I just wanna know what they are going to nerf/buff in the core specs.

Yeah. That little piece of hint dropping made my ears perk up too.

Jerus.4350:

Isn’t class specific stuff something they wanted to avoid, instead focusing on role dependent effects? If the conditions it inflicted were strong enough to warrant wanting a necro for 66% reduced, they’d be strong enough that you’d basically need a necro. If they weren’t that strong you simply don’t take a necro but maybe have someone with boon removal get rid of the extra 25% because it wouldn’t be that hard to work it in.

It’s an example, so the numbers could be tweaked of course – the goal always being to make a profession (every profession…) desirable but not mandatory.

I’m hopeful we’ll also see some raid fights were a well placed portal makes life significantly easier without being absolutely required -> Boom: a clear seat at the table for a Mesmer.

Maybe all uniqueness will eventually bleed out of the profession system as more Especs are added, but right now boon corruption is unique to Necros and can be leveraged to make them desirable but not mandatory in a capacity no other profession can fulfill.

Tabootrinket.2631:

To be honest, the problem you’re mentioning isn’t supposed to be ours.

You’re right. The problem on this side of the fence is having any concept of the level of effectiveness we’re supposed to be receiving. I get it the thief community is feeling a bit downtrodden after ages of being THE most despised of all professions. But GOOD DESIGN gives you a set of options that put you at the middle of the pack, not leapfrogging to the top spot.

It should be good enough a skilled player can win some of the time against other skilled players. That’s it. Not amazing. Sure as hell not stance dancing what they felt were three GMs worth of awesome. Oh, with another GM on top like a cherry.

Disappointment is the distance between bad expectations and reality. The bad expectations running rampant with “Oh, sure, just give us a triple GM and then 3 more GMs to pick from” is raw absurdity.

Could the Daredevil be better. Yes. Should it be better? Maybe, the data is kinda limited. Is it going to get THAT MUCH BETTER? Hell no. What gains are there to be made will be made within the framework we have now.

Give them some feedback and ideas they can use, because “We want 4 GMs instead of one!” doesn’t even pass the laugh test.

You don’t need a tinfoil hat… you need a tinfoil megaphone .

Does ANYONE here think they’re going to give not just one, but all three of the current GrandMaster effects as a freebie (which incidentally you CAN toggle outside of combat — what you can’t do and never will do is dance between 3 GMs mid-match…) and then write up/code/test 3 more Grandmaster scale benefits in the 30 days remaining before launch.

You are describing a fairy tale.

There’s still persuasive arguments and bargains to be made with the Devs in the eternal quest for buffs to a spec you want to play, but that? That ain’t one of them.

Keep enjoying my current Ranger builds?

Shadelang.3012:

• Light’s Judgment. I would actually give this a similar functionality to shadowtrap on the thief. Where the dragonhunter will be able to teleport to the aoe site. (Only while the trap is active) with a one second cast time on the teleport. This will make it useful as a method of convincing a target to back off. (This trap just triggered. There might be a kittened off guy coming through in a second)

• Test of faith. I feel that this skill should be undodgeable and unblockable. It should do what it says. Punish people for crossing it. Similar to how attemtping to dodge roll over a line of warding will knock you down anyway this should apply its damage effect anyway. So they have to stop and consider for a second instead of lol rolling through and ignoring it.

• Procession of blades. This trap I have mixed feelings on. On one hand it could work well with supreme justice/permeating wrath combo. On the other its not that great for a power based build. The damage it actually does in combat is fairly minimal and its threat is easily negated by protection.

• Fragments of Faith. As this is the defensive oriented trap I would actually give this trap half a second of float so it can act as an interrupt as it is its primary method of protecting you actually runs the risk of distracting you mid fight. (oh god wheres the aegis shards I just put out ah kitten that necro over there just cast a signet on me)

• Purification. As strange as this may sound I would push to have purification have a boon strip affect instead of blind. So that it removes 3-4 boons on the enemy that triggers it. That way it feels like a trap for the enemy as well as a heal for the guardian. Traps should be punishing to stand in. And if the guardian is popping his heal odds are you already have the advantage. Having your character reduced to your base mid fight though actually gives the opposing dragonhunter a chance to regain the upper hand.

• Dragon’s Maw. Im actually completely okay with. This is a pretty strong CC elite on a rather short cooldown that does a good job of punishing people that get caught in it. No problems here.

Not the changes I would suggest, but some interesting stuff here.

One of the most strident complaints I’ve seen about traps is that if someone Dodge-rolls over it, the trap is destroyed (sorry, haven’t personally confirmed this behavior). IF that is true, all traps for all professions need to be altered so that they still go off if blocked or evaded, but the blocking/rolling person avoids the consequences for the duration of the block/evade effect rather than the trap fizzling into the ether.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Clarification: Professions have their own MMR tracked, but it is not currently used in matchmaking because players can switch professions after a match is made.

So a loophole is disabling a powerful tool to generate good matches?

I’d, uh, kinda close the loophole…

I’d just like to get back the Guild heavy armor boots I had before the wardrobe change over. They’re NOT the same as the banded boots.

Robert Gee.9246:

A raid boss having defiance doesn’t mean soft-CC won’t be valuable in a raid encounter.

I’ve been thinking on it and there’s an interesting way to make Necromancers uniquely desirable in raids~

Give some raid bosses a unique boon with a small-to-modest benefit that corrupts to a unique condition that’s a fairly serious detriment to the boss. For example a “Hungry” buff that adds 25% to all bleed damage the boss inflicts. It corrupts to “Starved” which reduces all condition damage the boss inflicts by 66%

There are other classes that can strip the boon reducing the boss’ power. There are other classes that can steal the boon for themselves reducing the boss’ power and gaining it themselves. Only a Necromancer can corrupt the boon to trigger the much larger negative effect.

Azure.8670:

Well since you guys are poking fun st druids, I’m here to shed a little light on this thread.

And one sentence in you’ve missed the point entirely.

We’re poking fun at the army of Chicken Littles running loose across the land convinced that the mere existence of Especs will swiftly wash their favorite profession right off the field of play.

Druid is being used because it’s the one Espec that no one can legitimately complain about yet and preemptively making fun of the nonsense comparisons that will be made about it. If there’s any negativity, it’s about the overwhelming sucking void were people’s sense of perspective should be. And we’re channeling maybe just the tiniest bitterness about that, not Druids or any other profession. Just the bad behavior the prospect of change has given rise to.

Tired of all this nonsense negativity around here. I decided to do some datamining myself and found the new op druid traits and baseline buffs, so keep the garbage to yourselves.

Druid pets walk backwards with superspeed when druid is downed.

Pigs have plus 20 toughness for every second druid is downed.

Druids do more damage for every boon on them, as long as pet is walking backwards.

Backwards pets auto res warriors and eles. Druids are not effected by this trait.

Regen now applies to pets. When pets regen, they have a chance to cleave on next attack. ICD 100s

Things are looking good guys

Dang it. You got me. Well played.

Karl McLain.5604:

Additions to the initial notes:

Puncture Shot: Increased damage by 10%.
True Shot: Increased damage by 25% (instead of the 12% increase we had indicated) note: The overall damage potential of the ability wasn’t quite up to where we wanted to test it at, so here we are!

Both changes are appreciated. Still hoping for some visual and sound FX love, but the bow is getting close.

• All longbow skills need to work on targets behind you (this was still an issue for puncture shot IIRC).
• Still hoping symbol is slightly larger to assist from long range. Melees tend to scramble around. Help us help them.
• Still would like to see #5 cage foes simultaneously with the second damage tick instead of the fourth. With that kind of cooldown it needs to be far less polite about announcing itself .

Wings of [Resolve]: Increased leap distance to 800, up from 600. note: This has been in discussion for a bit. Now’s a good time to check it out, being as there’s a lot of conversation on it here already.

-Karl

Well, at 800 we can’t call it a ‘chicken hop’ anymore, but please consider…

You gave use wings! Let us SOAR!!

…I’d like to see more range on this more than any other change you could make. More than the heal (we’re selfish, remember?). More than snare duration (um, not melee, thanks). Put the extra range on the trait if need be (1200 range instead of snare? SOLD). The ability to decisively reposition both in pursuit and for escape will do more for our effectiveness as ranged combatants than any other aspect of this ability. Tune this virtue specifically for the Dragonhunter and not just as a weird echo of the Paragon.

I suspect something like this picture will be a centerpiece of their presentation at Twitchcon.

alemfi.5107:

It has been answered before, however characters keep track of their own MMR, as well as having an account based MMR. Exactly how these two are weighted has not been disclosed.

Awesome. Thank you for the info !

Roy Cronacher.1576:

• It would give you some way to proc Rite of the Great Dwarf like at some percent health trigger or something and then make Rite of the Great Dwarf (both proc and the skill) have reduced condition damage taken as well while allies have the buff.

Let me know what you think.

I think you just said Revenants were supposed to be somewhat vulnerable to conditions.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Your MMR is still volatile since you haven’t played many matches. The more you play, the better matchmaking will become for you. Also remember that ranked and unranked have separate MMRs so if you decide to jump into Ranked when you hit 20, you will have a similar experience until you adjust for that new pool of players.

Question about MMR and that volatility — is MMR tracked per account, per profession, or per character? Because while I have a fair bit of play time in sPvP and map awareness is a transferable skill, I’m much more comfortable and practiced with some professions over others… I think it’d be a courtesy to the people playing with me while I’m flailing around like a newbie on my Elementalist if I was being matched with a more sedate grade of players than when I’m rocking one of my Guardians.

Nemesis.6938:

Im very confident there will be an option in hot to get fast hero points

I’m confident that would defeat the entire purpose of the system and ain’t happening.

Now, now. We all know the Druid is OP… You have to compare it to another profession that’s being hurt because mommy and daddy DON’T love all their children equally…

Robert Gee.9246:

Kraav.8136:

Robert:

Please make the elite “Chilled to the Bone” usable underwater.

Thanks!

Done. Although you might not see it for BWE3 it should be in by launch.

A fine start. Now if we could only get rid of the candy-floss we use to stitch together flesh golems and maybe use twine or something so they stop falling apart when they get wet…

Consider a trait that says “While your current attunement is ready/not on cooldown you gain +10 recharge speed for all weapons.”

Again, trying to make staying in one attunement not an overwhelming lost of casting opportunities compared to freely cycling them.

Karl McLain.5604:

Regarding Latent Stamina and Earthen Proxy: We’d like to change these up a bit, being as they don’t feel all that great and don’t have the best impact yet.

-Karl

Hello Karl, could you give some indication whether we’re talking substantial reformulation or more of a ‘tweaks-and-tuning’ level of adjustment? It’ would really help in setting some outer boundaries on our brainstorming. Thanks!

Personally I’d like to see each of the Tempest’s 4 elements get one trait, spread 2 in the apprentice tier and 2 in the master tier… so a fire-synergy trait, a water-synergy trait, an earth synergy trait, and an air synergy trait. I don’t know that this structure is achievable at this stage, but it seems like it would promote some truly Arcane-free builds, which would immediately put us into new territory vis-à-vis core Elementalists.

TexZero.7910:

• “Druid is a better Pokemon Master, than Ash Ketchum. As proved by the image and your brand NEW AI (Gen 2 pets)”

Now that… That’s just dirty pool. No one is a better PM than ash. No one.

Kailee.8790:

• “Druids will be even more overpowered than Mesmer and thief! Druids will be able to stealth indefinitely with their new skillset giving them an instant disconnect and uninstall! We wont ever be able to see a ranger/druid coming, OP!”

I knew a raid-boss once that had a power to slap players right off the server. A bug of course, but a really funny one despite the chain wipes it caused some nights.

WHHHAAAAP! ((disconnect))

Ehecatl.9172:

• “GG Anet, you just deleted all condi builds. With the druid’s crazy good regen and resistance uptime they can basically stand in a condi field and STILL BE GAINING HEALTH as they do it! That plus their fully automatic heat-seeking bird that can’t be kited because of their OP Taunt makes the druid completely untouchable to condi builds WHILE STILL PUTTING OUT INSANE DAMAGE. This sort of zero counterplay bullkitten is totally unacceptable. And before anyone says “LOLGGL2P SCRUB KILL THE BIRD” YOU KITTEN CAN’T. If you target the bird THEY JUST CHANGE ASPECTS AND BAM! Bird is full kitten healed! Not to mention that with a glyph build the druid basically has 25 KITTEN SKILLS at any given time PLUS the pet. They are even more versatile than D/D eles and EVEN MORE IMMUNE TO CONDI PRESSURE. I’d rather fight a kitten Diamond Skin D/D ele than a druid. Calling it now, druid is the new D/D ele but with a NO SCOPE ONE HIT KILL UNAVOIDABLE TAUNT PET that it can use every 15 kitten seconds."

When I started this thread I truly didn’t know there was such grace and wit still to be had on these boards. Thank you all for playing along .

I See No Tomorrow.7302:

• “Since Druid has staff, the Revenant staff meta will no longer be attainable and Bifrost will drop in price since pets can wield staves now too

• Why would I play a necro minion master if the minions can only wield warhorns and druid pets get staves? Besides, the minion AI doesn’t know how to use utility skill properly and spams blood is power with no cooldown, killing themselves. Meanwhile, ranger pets spam signet of stone which is clearly overpowered"

((rolls around on floor for a bit)) Pets with staves… Genius. Demented, but genius.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

• “Oh my GOD Anet!! They’re fixing pet A.I.!! Why would they DO that, don’t they know it’d make MM Necromancers just completely useless?! Stupid kitteny kitten meowmeowmeow…time to reroll, I suppose…”

I love the self-conflicting insanity that improved AI for player pets would make Necro’s worse. The tin-foil is strong in this one.

Dadnir.5038:

Amazing, you totally lost me here…

I know right? The mark of a truly heroic effort to browbeat the Devs into buffing your preferred profession.

• “What have you done Anet!!! How could you give the druid a staff skill on 6s cool down (Non traited!!!) that grant 1 second blur to their pet? Now their pets are invincible! Who will bother taking a warrior when the Druid have a pet that outclass warrior in every aspect!”

Note that I even use the word “aspect”!

Oh… my sides hurt. Warriors displaced by blurred pets. Oh… it hurts.

Gaebriel.3754:

Okay, here goes. For authentic value, I removed some commas and capital letters to emphasize my rage:

That made me lol. For real. out-loudsies.

omg kitten anet druids are closely associated with roots i just know that anet ignored our class long enough to give much needed perma stability to their new pet class (!!!) instead, kitten anet now scrubs can play faecroll . Thanx 4 inferior disco LB and traps to guardians just to spite us and rub it in that driuds now xcel us in every aspect of teh game they even have lootstick now with staff gg lol. Im not buying hot since even teh jungle reminds guards of druids victory over us kitten message is clear reroll druid well kitten u amateurs im out111!!

Well played, sir. Well played.

Phew. :p

Stressful, huh? Its a miracle people writing these with serious intent haven’t burst a blood vessel or two.

Actually, you may be on to something. Assuming Anet wasn’t lying and they reveal stuff as it becomes ready enough to show, and with Druid having 5 new weapon skills and 6 glyph that each need 3-4 sub-effects both scripted and then tested, it’s quite likely the Druid is simply THE most complicated of all the Especs from a coding standpoint.

Dadnir.5038:

• “Because the druid is heavily focused on regeneration, the healing output totally outshine a mace guardian. Furthermore, the staff utility heal awfully well. There is no more room for any support guardian.”

That’s the spirit!!

“Because it has a staff and better access to fury, now that we have Druids no one will ever play Necro again!”

This one is hilarious though.

Thank you. I could almost feel the tinfoil hat crinkling in my hair as I wrote that.

Of course they have pets. And something that counts as a pet swap.

Direct pet buffs:

• Alpha Training Pets have Opening Strike.
• Expertise Training Pets deal extra condition damage and have their condition durations increased.
• Shared Anguish Incoming disables are transferred to your pet instead.
• Empathic Bond Pets periodically take conditions from you.
• Allies’ Aid When you begin reviving an ally, you use search and rescue on them.
• Vigorous Training Pets grant vigor to nearby allies when activated.
• Invigorating Bond Your pet heals allies in an area when executing a command [F2] ability.
• Pack Alpha Your pet is more powerful, and their skills gain recharge reduction.
• Companion’s Might Your critical hits grant might to your pet. Critical strikes from your pet’s basic attack cause bleeding.
• Go for the Eyes Your pet gains toughness. Your pet’s command [F2] ability causes blindness to foes around it.
• Loud Whistle While your health is above the threshold, your pet deals more damage. Your pet swap gains recharge reduction.
• Natural Healing Your pet gains natural health regeneration and improved healing.
• Wilting Strike Your pet inflicts weakness on their target(s) when executing a command [F2] ability.
• Pet’s Prowess Pets move faster and deal more damage on critical hits.
• Beastly Warden Your pet taunts foes near them when executing a command [F2] ability.

Pet swap procs~

• Clarion Bond Cast Call of the Wild when you swap pets.
• Poison Master After swapping pets, your pet’s first attack will inflict poison; Your poison damage is increased.
• Zephyr’s Speed You and your pet gain might and quickness when you swap pets.

Shared pet buffs~

• Brutish Seals Activating a signet grants might to you and your pet. Signets recharge faster.
• Moment of Clarity Gain an attack of opportunity for you and your pet on interrupting a foe. Daze and stun durations you inflict last longer.
• Predator’s Onslaught You and your pet deal increased damage to disabled or movement-impaired foes.
• Companion´s Defense You and your pet gain protection when you dodge roll.
• Refined Toxins While you are above the health threshold, your strikes inflict poison. While your pet’s health is above the health threshold, its strikes inflict poison.
• Bark Skin You and your pet take less damage while your health is above the threshold.
• Bountiful Hunter You and your pet deal more damage per boon that is on you.
• Fortifying Bond Any boon you get is shared with your pet.
• Lingering Magic Boons applied by you and your pets last longer.

Make no mistake — the only thing about Druid that’s going to be in their prime spot is “We have now revealed all the elite specs for our upcoming expansion!” and a shot of the combined art for the new specs. Probably with some sort of “adventuring has evolved” tag line.

I am entertained. You may continue .

Sadly, you don’t bait people off of a proven winner by improving the rest of the kit so much they shift of their own accord. People only move willingly when it takes them somewhere better, and D/D has lost that maneuvering room.

You could expect some improvements to the Ele’s lowest performing goods to create more variety in where people land, but the peak of the mountain top is gonna get sheered off.

Just for giggles I have a Sylvarii Guardian that runs around with only racial skills slotted in her right-hand tray. It’s like my own personal hardmode, but it’s kinda fun.

So watching the rampant cross-comparisons between the new Especs and existing professions for the completely transparent reason of hoping for buff for your own preferred profession — also known as the ‘Grass is always greener in your frightened mind’ effect — I thought we could get the jump on what profession Druid outshines.

• “Because it has glyphs AND medium armor and good downed skills its obviously a better Elementalist than Elementaist, and its mere existence is gonna shuffle D/D Eles right off the top spot in sPvP.”

Am I doing this utterly senseless fretting right? Wait, wait- let me try again.

• “With Druid adding nothing to the Ranger’s kit for going into stealth, the Druid is far more powerful than any Theif build that relies on stealth for its survivability.

Hold on, I’ve got it!

• “Because it has a staff and better access to fury, now that we have Druids no one will ever play Necro again!”

There, that had the sort of terse, complete nonsense masquerading as logic I’ve come to expect from these threads.

By all means, please fill in your own profession that Druid will obsolete. Because you know an Espec still shackled to the ol’ AI ball and chain is obviously the new top tier threat on the field in every mode…

Transform as elite glyph I can imagine, but I don’t see it in any other slot in the Druid’s kit.

Greek.4396:

Being frustrated in the direction Guardian is heading, Im taking all my ascended gear from my Guard and putting it on my Rev.

Please do. Because that kind of movement in the playerbase is easily tracked by the metrics and the best ammunition imaginable at the Balance Team meeting that Revenant is over-incentivized and that Guard finally needs to be looked at without the “its in a good place” noose around it’s neck. Because a couple of the guard’s less used utility lines really need to have that kind of attention.

No.

I’m a little unclear on the lust for condi damage on traps. The ranger traps rely on condi damage and that’s part of the reason they’re held in such poor regard, while the last set of changes the DH traps got was straight up and substantial buffs to their direct damage. While longbow 4 does some burn, the other skills are all direct damage. Why not stick with a more power/precision based set of traps rather than splitting the stat focus?

Yup, sneaktheif legs and normal shoes are a bit of a favorite of mine too.

Raven.9603:

Best guess?

• Pet stays as is, because screw Rangers, thats why.
• Aspect swap goes on F5. Aspects determine what kind of effect each of our glyphs does, exactly like ele. Why? Because it is the absolute least amount of work.
• Aspects provide an unkillable Aura that applies to us, our pets and nearby allies, just like spirits always f’n should have.
• Traits and glyphs make us the best providers of Resistance boon in the game.
• Staff is a 1200 range weapon. 1- bouncing auto attack like chain lightning, applies some sort of non damaging condi. 2- Spammable aoe, works like a symbol (pulsing dmg to enemies, buffs to allies). 3- directional whirl, evades attacks and immobilizes enemies struck. 4- charge up a devastating attack that fires a heat-seeking vine from you to your target, does damage and a cc based on targets life. 5- large long duration aoe, ala meteor shower, but less damage, causes lots of random knockdowns.
• 1 glyph will be an aspect based transform, another will be an aspect based summon, another will be an aspect based attack proc (just like glyph of elemental power), another will be a aspect based aoe buff (like: stealth or resistance or quickness).

Make it so!

That’s a good prophecy. A single function key to manage aspect makes my junk itch, but it could be set up that way.

I have my doubts about resistance because resistance and taunt feel like they were set up in a box by the folks working Revenant and not actually made available to the other designers until far too late for them to factor it into their designs.

We’re going to have the narrowest possible window after BWE3 to polish the Druid… I hope we can reach some consensus before we all shout pleas to the Devs. The fixes are going to have to be quick and decisive.

Might the glow be another lighthouse? Maybe the one at Claw Island?

Prophet.6257:

I may be mistaken but aren’t elite specializations suppose to be better than standard classes?

Nope. Despite the name ‘elite’, they’re not supposed to make their parent-profession obsolete. They’re an exchange of options.

Substance E.4852:

Whatever they do, it’s a swap mechanic.

Is it like Elementalist attunements? Possibly, as the glyphs would make it lean that way.

It may also be based on what pet type is out. Hopefully this is not the case due to the long pet swap timer and the fact that some pet types are just plain bad in most modes (bears, devourers, pigs). It’s also somewhat unlikely as they would need several different effects which is difficult to keep good but balanced. A smaller pool, say 3 like the leaked art featuring a bird, wolf, and bear, would be much better.

Basically, this isn’t replacing our pet swap. No other class lost it’s mechanic completely. They either got additional functionality added to it (berserker, tempest) or got it changed to a different combat type that worked the same way (dragon hunter, reaper).

No other profession has BEGGED to be able to dump their class mechanic . Aspects were the codename for that during the CDI and I don’t think it’s an accident they’ve used that word in relation to the Druid class mechanic.

Looking at that trait and factoring in the art – I would guess f1, f2, and f3 become fixed attunements (Chirp!, Fido, & Cuddles) and our single pet becomes a lot more autonomous (insert “Druids living in harmony with animals and not commanding them blah blah blah”). Swapping attunements then triggers pet-swap procs. f4 might stick around as the way to activate f2 skills so those proc, but the druid pet might just auto-cast it when it’s on cooldown.

Either way, I hope people’s heal kills are off cooldown, because there’s going to be a detonation this week and the shrapnel is gonna be salty.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

The traps are more more or less crap. (only one people seem to like is fragments of faith)
The traits have very little cohesion with other guardian traits. (especially compared to what other classes got)
The bow is kinda meh. (its getting better but 5 is still a bit off)

Overall the spec feels like
1: It wasn’t thought out
or
2: The people designing it don’t play guardian much if at all and don’t even realize how it plays (The daredevil that Karl worked on feels awesome)
or
3: All of the above.

See, I agree with all of that. But I also know things are still up in the air. Karl made a huge change to Tempest this week to make it more fun and thematic and I think that change is gonna give the Tempest a real unique identity compared to the core profession. I hope Dragonhuter can have a similar ‘a-ha!’ moment before HoT launches.

To me, the longbow is close. All shots need to fire behind you, the symbol needs to be a bit larger to facilitate buffing from the rear line, and #5 needs to cage the targets without multiple ticks of damage warning them what’s coming. That’s skill is pretty much the all-new all-different defining skill for how other players are going to think of the Dragonhunter’s bow, and it needs to fill them with fear. “Oh crap, its a Dragonhunter. I could get caged at any moment…”

The traits aren’t as close as the bow, but they’re close. Pure of Sight needs to get the hell out of the minor slot so Dragonhunter can support melee trappers builds without them getting a dead minor. Triggering a trap causing daze is cute, but that’s all it is: cute. If we’re getting one trap trait, it needs to be dramatic. Like longbow 5 changes – people need to not be laughing at the traps line, they need to fear it. You want people’s hackles going up when they realize they’ve probably just walked into a mine field and one wrong step will get them killed. It also wouldn’t hurt if Dragonhunters had access to a taunt so we could pull people into our traps.

And the traps themselves just aren’t there yet. A judicious sprinkling of cleanses on purification, a stunbeeak somewhere, anywhere in the line, and more light fields to give us a way to start and finish our own cleansing combos when running a ‘pure Dragonhunter’ will give the us some breathing room on an espec that’s still going to take planning, forethought, and some serious skill cap to fully utilize. And Dragon’s Maw needs something (I advocate it kills downed characters, but something). Something again that makes people flinch when they see what they’re up against. Something that puts that little shiver of fear into them. Work with us Karl , ’cause some of us really want to like the Dragonhunter.

Guards who know their business are not threatened by anything we’ve seen from Especs. Some are interesting. Some will take some attention to smash when they are on the other team. Some will make us smile when we team up with them. None of them stop the Guard from being the best at being a Guardian.