Guild Wars 2

striker.3704:

a big issue for spirit weapons is that there isn’t a good weapon that both uses symbols and synergizes well with them.

For a spirit weapon build you’re gonna be doing a burning build, which means you’re taking torch as it benefits the most from the radiance tree. However, you’re also gonna need a weapon that you can use with this that has a symbol, because the zeal tree only has minors that benefit that.

This only leaves you with mace as an option. Mace has very little synergy with the spirit weapons build as it’s more of a protection and support weapon, while spirit weapons are more for a DPS type of build. Especially with how the radiance tree is built.

If smite was considered a symbol, or if sword had a symbol, then spirit weapons would be in a better spot. At the moment, there is a big lack of synergy between spirit weapons and the tree they’re put into. Until this changes, the spirit weapons suffer from a tree that really doesn’t synergize with them at all.

Also, why isn’t the bow a heal skill? seriously?

If anything, Mace has the most synergy with SW’s as it’s got the fastest recharge on it’s symbol to take advantage of those sweet symbol traits in Zeal. That’s still not saying much because the GM trait for SW and Symbol damage multiplier are conflicting. I’m still not seeing SW’s very useful.

Dodging a trap you can see? Not likely. I doubt they need rework for that particular reason. I think the reality is that if there is a game mode where laying traps makes sense, they will get used. It’s a map layout lay thing. They will be pretty useless in wide open spaces but no doubt where there is choke points and POI’s, traps will have a place.

Not if they offer a whole new direction of play.

I like it. It makes appealing and enticing options.

JonPeters.5630:

Wanted to run a potential idea past you all. Comments welcome.

Tome of Courage -> Signet of Courage
Passive: PBAoE Heal every 10 seconds.
Active: Light of Deliverance

Tome of Wrath -> “Feel My Wrath”
Shout that grants Quickness and Fury

We like the idea of tomes and if we did this we would hope to bring them back in a future Elite Specialization.

Thoughts? Comments?

Thanks,

Jon

These seem far too focused of an effect and insignificant to be considered elite skills.

Even “Save Yourselves” feels more epic than either of these suggestions.

fadeaway.2807:

I don’t get where you’re coming from Obtena. The backline support option is sans a longbow. The low radius heal support option comes with a longbow. If anything it should be the other way around. You’re choosing lemon cake with ketchup, and bacon rolls with icing sugar. They should be paired the other way around.

I don’t get you either. How is the backline support option without a longbow? Longbow is the ONLY weapon that makes sense as a backline support option. Your backline might need those heals fast along with some offensive push. Hence the knockback on range, cripples, etc… the targetted area heal with rush makes sense to me.

Please tell me … can the thumbpad on the orbweaver be used for ground targeting? I’m buying one tomorrow if that can be programmed.

The traps are an obvious fit with the spec. Other than that, Not much utilities support in DH, though its synergy with Virtues is huge if the current virtue traits still have an effect on the enhanced virtues. Dulled Senses works with a Signet.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

My biggest worry is that this will be a very dps unfriendly spec and that bothers me a lot. My choice is already between selfish single target damage/dps or full on support on my guardian. If the new spec is ranger lite with a side of light fields that everyone still hates then no…not for me.

Very DPS unfriendly? Did you see the extra 25% damage you can get on crippled and speared foes, not to mention the 10% on burn, 20% on symbols and another 10% at ranged? Also the new 25% crit increase on burning targets and the change to RH strength position? The DPS is going to stupid with a DH/Zeal/Rad spec.

heartless.6803:

Sagat.3285:

heartless.6803:

Yeah on ready up they pumped out some huge damage with Dragon Hunter condi build. Because guards can do reliable short duration bleeds and burns and the fact they stack in intensity and not duration got some pretty huge condi damage fairly quickly.

Also, RIP in peace thieves dragon hunters gonna own you.

Hehe sure.

Lights judgement trap, 25 stacks of vuln plus medi guard burst = dead thief almost instantly

Not likely. I don’t think it will be hard to spot a dragon hunter and it’s not a guarantee the thief will hit the trap anyways.

Sungtaro.6493:

Obtena.7952:

Devs have not stated that Dragonhunter is meant to be dishing out support at all. The way I see it, it’s a compromise. You can heal and stick a target or you can heal and cleanse allies. You choose; it’s not a nerf if you decide you would rather have the immobilize than the cleanse.

Well aside from the announcement page for the ready up. But that’s really the PR department so fair enough about the devs not saying the elite specialization is meant to be back line support.

I think the new traits and skills and virtues are interesting and good synergy for new roles, just not the back line support I was hoping for.

Not a big deal really. The old style guardian fulfills that role quite well anyway.

Probably need the make an elementalist or see how the druid looks to see if I can find something that fits better what I want.

I think there is some difference in terms …

When I think of backline support, I think of support that assists the back line. Therefore, the cripples, knockbacks, etc… are ALL backline support. For me, there is absolutely no reason to complain about having a CHOICE between a heal with a warp to the front or a heal with a cleanse with a greater range. One favours backline support, the other favours front line combat.

Vizardlorde.8243:

Where did you read that? cause as far as I know all traits will affect the transformed virtues the same way. If anything radiance is the mandatory traitline to make a condition DH with all the burn/crit traits

It’s not something I read. It’s why I’m asking the questions. Using DH will change the virtues from one thing into another. Does that change how those virtues are affected by traits?

As one example: Supreme Justice will increase burn duration on Virtue of Justice. If you trait DH, you no longer have VoJ, you have Spear of Justice. Will Supreme Justice work the same way on Spear of Justice as it does on Virtue of Justice? It’s not clear it will.

I’m not saying Radiance won’t still be nice with DH, but if it’s minor traits don’t work on Spear of Justice, that’s a big hit.

Put it another way then: Assuming all the current traits for virtues continue to work on the DH line, does the meta change much? Do you see a place for it in PVE? Something like the following with Mace+F/LB and a cripple signet?

http://dulfy.net/2015/05/02/gw2-specialization-calculator-that_shaman/#profession=guardian&traits=%22Dragon%20Hunter%22,2,5,9-%22Zeal%22,2,5,9-%22Radiance%22,3,6,7

It doesn’t really appear that the PVE meta is going to change all that much, if any. I can’t see much reason to use Dragon Hunter and it doesn’t match well with Radiance (two of the minor radiance traits may become useless if using Dragon Hunter). If it doesn’t match well with Radiance, you lose tremendous crit chance and gain little.

It appears that Dragon hunter also negates alot of the Virtue traits since the traits indicate on activation of the specific virtue … maybe that will be changed?

It’s also not clear to me that the new enhanced virtues are affected by the virtue recharge reduction if you spec Virtue line. Can anyone confirm?

Overall some cool things for PVP and stuff in DH line doesn’t appear to mix well with the established traits.

My only real disappointment is that there is clearly a large effort to improve QoL for PVP/WvW.

From a PVE perspective, I don’t see alot to get excited about. I won’t be using traps, I don’t wish to loose my blind on VoJ and recharge so I won’t use the new spec. The best part is LB.

Devs have not stated that Dragonhunter is meant to be dishing out support at all. The way I see it, it’s a compromise. You can heal and stick a target or you can heal and cleanse allies. You choose; it’s not a nerf if you decide you would rather have the immobilize than the cleanse.

Email me ingame … I can send you salt to make eating hats more tolerable.

messiah.1908:

traps as stand alone may be nice for pvp. but not for condi guard.
you can go zerk med with traps and do better

dont forget builds and classes got more ways to cleanse conditions now …

I haven’t seen any indication of more cleansing so I’m not sure that makes condi’s worse off. If anything, the actual changes make condi’s worse off than any suspected global increase to cleansing for professions.

I agree the traps don’t have much synergy for condition builds but they aren’t useless. SO many times I would have loved to cripple an opponent, regardless of what build I was using in PVP. Now I can choose two.

At least 4 of the traps have desirable PVP effects, so I’m not sure how they will be useless for a Guardian PVP build. I can see that they might be hard to place and get to trigger consistently and it’s not clear to me they are ground targeted.

In all fairness, I also see some appealing effects that will change the way people think about PVP on a Guardian in the traits. I can already envision some form of LB/Hammer knockback/cripple lockdown builds.

ErazorZ.5209:

You get my drift?

Completely. Still, a person’s lack of understanding or their complete understanding doesn’t change the reality. This is where my hang up is with threads like this. There is what actually happens, then what a person says happens. People seem to not have faith accepting how it works when ANet tells them how it works, but have NO problem having faith in random guy with no data telling them how it works.

At this point, I think it would be really hard to justify this without hitting sword with a nerf stick in some other area. I doubt ‘fair’ is one of the criteria that Anet uses to implement weapon concepts. If that was the case, we would have seen changes to less-used weapons by now.

Actually I think I missed a few. Can’t keep up.

I tend to agree with the OP about the complaining. We don’t even know what our elite traits are. Frankly, I hope they kick complete kitten so all the people QQing about a name will look ridiculous and crawl into a shame hole.

It’s not odd if the tools we get as a Dragon Hunter excel at hunting dragons. I would actually beg to differ … no one is a dragon hunter. You fight their minions and defeat them, but that doesn’t make people a hunter.

ErazorZ.5209:

Obtena.7952:

The observations in this thread are not statistically relevant.

It is relevant to me and to whom i speak with ingame about it tho. Since i now have more knowledge on how the system works i can better understand it. Instead of guess what seems obvious at the time with less knowledge.

This is why i thank John Smith for his response because the entire notion of ‘mob only DR’ taught me more then i could figure out from what i could find about the topic.

Ofcourse not every question is filled, but i understand just as anyone the devs here dont have all the spare time in the world, so i will save everyone the effort of trying to clarify it all. And i might just see it someday in someone elses questions.

Hence a thank you(again) to John Smith for clarifying and taking the time for this.

You misunderstand my meaning. I get that the content in the thread is significant to you; no argument there. I’m speaking about the statistical relevance of the data that people are using to conclude (again) that there is some massive DR conspiracy theory affecting their accounts.

I like it for what it means for the profession. I don’t think the name Dragon Hunter is particularly inspiring or anything, but the name itself doesn’t matter to me. What it proposed to bring and it’s concept is very telling.

The observations in this thread are not statistically relevant.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

….

Traps ? Why, not like traps are that commonly used by hunters now anyway.

Guardians could have gotten any number of things like

Stances
Physical skills
Banners
Glyphs
Cantrips
Spirits
Mantras
Manipulations
etc…

But guardians got traps…….

Anf for all we know, ‘traps’ could work like any of those other things you list or vice versa. Hung up on names.

Lostwingman.5034:

lol kitten, you could have gone with “Vanquisher” and it would have been a better name.

Maybe, but who’s to say that would fit the concept better than Dragon Hunter? Certainly no one in this forum.

I do get the idea that it’s a new experience for the profession and it will be interesting and possibly even GOOD. People need to get past the ‘names’ thing and forget about what they THINK should be.

Frankly, the move away from ‘Guardian’ stuff is nice and interesting. I’ve been playing the ‘Guardian’ stuff for almost 3 years now. Why not get something a little different, especially if it’s an option. I don’t get the gnashed teeth and wailing going on.

nolop.8095:

HoT is the perfect opportunity to up the stats of exotics to be on par with ascended items.
Having no equipment spiral has always been one of the best things about GW.

So why not take this chance to even out the playing field and adjust the stats to one base level.

Now you might think the stat difference is rather small and has no significant impact. But if you compar it to other games like WoW, wich is pretty much the poster child for an endless gear treadmill, you can see the stat increase is about the same as in WoW, percentage wise.

If ANet comes through with their promises of “truly chalenging PvE content” I can’t help but wonder what this content will be balanced around.

If it’s balanced for exotics the hardcore crowd will just plow through the contend and be disappointed because it’s no challenge.
On the other hand if it’s balanced around ascended gear we will have a hard split in the community, at least in dungeons ect.

I’d be very interested to know how people who have all the ascended stuff would feel about a change like this.

I would think a change like this would be completely stupid because it’s a waste of time to change it, doesn’t affect anyone that doesn’t have Ascended gear, affects those with Ascended gear negatively and defeats the purpose of having Ascended items in the first place.

nexxe.7081:

They should just drop the Dragon name. We’re all technically Dragon Hunters going after Modremoth. Guardians are primarily about protection, so it doesn’t make sense to have them “hunting” in the first place.

See, this is part of the problem with players perception here. I don’t think Anet wants to pigeonhole their profession concepts into things like “Guardians = Protection”, therefore as a profession, Guardians only do protection.

Is Dragon Hunter the best they could do? I don’t know and it doesn’t really matter. What I do know is that specializations are going to allow me to play outside my ‘Guardian = protector" role in the game and crush people’s ideas of what the profession should be. That’s a NICE thing and it’s an important thing because we don’t decide what the professions do; that’s Anet’s job.

Swan.9815:

Morsus.5106:

Except, well, everyone is hunting Dragons, not just the Guardian. Demon Hunter would work because the Guardian has skills that imply a holy nature, such as Consecration, Ward, Meditation, etc.

Are Demon Hunters the only people who fight demons? The Dragons are the evil that is corrupting Tyria, so holy magic would be just as effective against them as it would be against demons.

No, but they might be the only ones with specialized tools to hunt them.

ronpierce.2760:

Obtena.7952:

ronpierce.2760:

Arken.3725:

It’s a fine name honestly. Anything bland such as “Paragon” has no imagination attached to it.

Personally I much prefer “bland”, symbolic and to the point over cliche, personally.

For some reason, Dragonhunter reminds me of like 13 year olds in WoW with character names of like Sephirothlol, XxDragonslayerxX, LegolasX. Stuff like that. Very cringe worthy. x.x

Most people will get over the stigma of a name. I mean, think of all the other dumb names in all the games you’ve played. You shrug it off. Besides, no one is going to stop calling the class the ‘Guardian’ class. If my foresight is working, if the game lasts long enough, we will have access to MANY specializations for each profession. Dragon Hunter may just be one of many for Guardian.

Yeah, DH will be one of several. But I do think people will use its actual class name as they said they will have specific Icons. Icon recognition will secure proper name calling. And sure, it could be shrugged off. But why shrug it off when you can make it better?!

I will reserve my judgement on the name once I experience how the profession fits in the new content. Book by it’s cover and all that stuff you know? I think the name fits quite well. I see how it’s a step up from just Guarding and taking it to the Dragons as hunter with enhanced skills, long range weapon, etc… It’s not some poorly thought out concept, it simply doesn’t follow many people’s predispositions based on traditional ideas.

ronpierce.2760:

Arken.3725:

It’s a fine name honestly. Anything bland such as “Paragon” has no imagination attached to it.

Personally I much prefer “bland”, symbolic and to the point over cliche, personally.

For some reason, Dragonhunter reminds me of like 13 year olds in WoW with character names of like Sephirothlol, XxDragonslayerxX, LegolasX. Stuff like that. Very cringe worthy. x.x

Most people will get over the stigma of a name. I mean, think of all the other dumb names in all the games you’ve played. You shrug it off. Besides, no one is going to stop calling the class the ‘Guardian’ class. If my foresight is working, if the game lasts long enough, we will have access to MANY specializations for each profession. Dragon Hunter may just be one of many for Guardian.

Satenia.9025:

Genesis.8572:

The problem is that the ‘Dragonhunter’ does nothing to evoke the core concepts of the ‘Guardian’ baseclass. The name sounds like it should be a ‘Warrior’ or ‘Ranger’ specialization, but not one for the ‘Guardian.’

Yeah, my feelings as well. Had I just read the name without any further reference, I would have thought of a ranger or a warrior. Certainly not guardian.

I’m also not convinced that they can make bows and traps work in PvE. They are seriously lacking now.

I agree but then again, did anyone here ACTUALLY want a long ranged weapon for PVE? When more details are available, I think it will be evident the LB will be primarily a PVP/WvW weapon. This is what people asked for.

The name is awesome…. anyone advocating dumb stuff like Paragon, etc… has no imagination. People simply can’t break out of the stereotypical ideas in MMO’s, online, computer or on paper.

I do not want to be convinced I’m playing a ‘Paladin-like’ class just because of a name. It’s a pretty smart move because if they did name it something unoriginal like “Paragon”, then you would have hoard of players asking why the class doesn’t have ‘Paragon’ skills or why it’s not more “paragon” feel in it’s play. No one has an expectation for what a Dragon hunter should be, so the concept is free to explore and try things. BRAVO!

Anet, please keep breaking ground and doing what fits with your game concept.

Noktus.8506:

Sagat.3285:

You’re using it as an excuse for mounts O.o there are bigger priorities that could be achieved in less time/investment.

The point being that upgrading to dx 11 would solve performance issues.

Again, another assumption that performance issues are significant enough to address. I don’t think that assumption holds much truth.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Tree.3916:

Step 1. Open Google search engine
Step 2. Type “define permanent”
Step 3. ???
Step 4. Make the realization that Anet hasn’t technically stopped working on a particular area of the game.

Define working

They have stopped producing things for PvE. That’s a fact.
Now if they are working without producing anything that is great, but I am not sure knowing this helps us very much.

That’s a fact? Correct me if wrong but, we’re getting a WHOLE PVE with an expansion. LS is PVE content. I get your disappointment with the lack of dungeon development but … don’t lie. The haven’t STOPPED producing PVE content since the game was released.

One reason is because the demand doesn’t merit the investment necessary.

I don’t understand why it needs a nerf. Getting 100% isn’t a defect in the game. It may be perfectly well intentioned that it can be achieved.

warduke.1780:

GummiBear.2756:

… what? conditions across the board are gonna be MORE useful not less… and ofc condition applying skills will be changed, just like stability applying skills got changed, when they added stackable stabilty…

How will conditions be MORE useful with the advent of condi immunity as a boon? It really seems to me like they want to kill condi roamers altogether.

That’s not enough of an indicator to show they won’t be useful. Try more.

Lendruil.9061:

Derenek.8931:

Windsagio.1340:

The main reason, I’ve usually felt, is that people are aggressive and nasty about pushing min/max attitudes and are severely exclusionary.

It’s not necessarily rational, but nobody likes being excluded, and double nobody likes being insulted (being called bad, foolish, etc) for not playing to some Type-A personality’s version of the game.

Amen brother! Too much l33t attitude being shown by people. It scares away newer and more casual players and keeps the whole community from being friendly. If a player doesn’t play enough to have all ascended berserker gear, it doesn’t mean they should be shunned or insulted. They may actually have a life. Be welcoming to all players and support each other

I guess no1 cares if your gear is exotic or ascended, as long as it is berserker.

Actually, it seems no one cares if you can even play, as long as you have berserker gear.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Obtena.7952:

In the current gamestate, I’m a big sword fan. I consider some of the issues it has minor compared to the more general Guardian drawbacks. It was definitely in heavy rotation when I was rocking my burning spec, which was all about as many hits in as little time as possible. I don’t think it even contends with Mace, though I think it is on par with GS.

After thinking about it, I think Sword will have considerable, increased appeal when the new traits go live. Patience.

True it is great where it is good, but you have to admit it’s problems tend to be bad.

It really makes me worry however given how much several of the new builds (especially zeal line & burning) are tied to symbols.

Would be great if they changed “Zealots Defense” so that it dropped a symbol when activated.

As problematic as sword is, it’s STILL one of the best PVP weapons. Yes, it suffers from some weird effects. I don’t think it will suffer from lacking a symbol in PVP because people will avoid symbols anyways. In PVE, for SURE sword is going to take a big hit in popularity because of losing it’s 10% multiplier and missing out on symbol multiplier.

I do think some minor changes could benefit the sword but I don’t think it will have a significant impact on how it works or ranks unless those changes affect the concept of the weapon.

OP, take whatever advice you wish from the thread. Bottom line is that your going to kill stuff faster with more offensive-focused gear if you can handle yourself without overloading on defensive stats. You can never overload on offensive stats, you can overload on defensive stats if you don’t need them. Many players can do completely without defensive stats on gear in PVE. It simply depends on you.

Also, don’t believe in any hype about how appreciated you will be by your teammates if your using defensive stats gear; the defensive stats on YOUR gear doesn’t impact THEM at all. If your teammates even ask you to use a specific set of stats on your gear, it will most certainly be berzerkers stats.

Your clerics gear has a limited use for extremely hard PVE content that you don’t even have access to yet. You may endeavour to keep it for that but hopefully by then, you’re skills have increased to advance your stats choice beyond it. Even as defensive stats, Clerics is not a very good choice as healing power doesn’t scale well with increased health.

Remember, choose gear based on what benefits YOU the most for the content you want to do, not how good it will be for your team.

Eggs.3142:

Well since we only know the name of one other Elite Spec im gonna go with:

Justicemancer

Haha, Juiceman 2000. Love it.

You know, I’m not a zerker fanatic, but even I can recognize that if a player is capable of using it, they should; NOT for the teams benefit but for their own. The ability to carry/benefit others in a team is an very weak reason to use clerics gear or any gear for that matter.

In fact, the claim it’s good for players not the Guardian makes almost no sense to me whatsoever; How does a defensive stats choice on a Guardian benefit people in a team that aren’t the Guardian? It doesn’t, unless those few stats are the fine line between keeping that Guardian upright and fighting and eating dirt.

Bottom line: There is little reason for people to not use the most offensively oriented gear they can as long as they aren’t dying a whole bunch of time.

SO much could be written on the questions you ask.

Healway was a WvW build. It was in NO way appropriate for PVE. I’m not a WvW expert so your cleric gear could still be relevant there, though I don’t think the healway build is.

PVE has always been about DPS. That’s not something that has changed. The only factor there is how capable a player is; what this means is how well a player uses the defensive skills at their disposal to not need defensive stats. A highly capable Guardian player has more blocks, dodge, heals and blinds than almost any other profession, so it naturally attracts players that are DPS oriented; ironic considering conceptually, we are about supporting team with defensive boons.

I’m not an expert on much other than gathering and roaming Open world and watching TP prices for my collected goods; a TRUE farmer. I don’t recommend that you do that. I understand that there is alot of potential to make money in Silverwastes doing events and in Edge of the Mists. Other route is tried and true dungeon runs, but in Clerics gear, youi might get alot of flack if you don’t learn how to choose teams to join or make your own.

In the current gamestate, I’m a big sword fan. I consider some of the issues it has minor compared to the more general Guardian drawbacks. It was definitely in heavy rotation when I was rocking my burning spec, which was all about as many hits in as little time as possible. I don’t think it even contends with Mace, though I think it is on par with GS.

After thinking about it, I think Sword will have considerable, increased appeal when the new traits go live. Patience.

sorrychief.2563:

My healing turret gets blown up before I can overcharge and pick it up sometimes.

10/10

Kind of the point of the nerf … having to think about how turrets are used instead of just putting the down where ever 4TW.

Frankly, turrets allowed too many damage sources. Drawbacks aside, it was too much up front with little recourse than to overwhelm them with numbers.

Using clerics stats in a general PVE build will be exceptionally painful for you but the good news is that because you haven’t had a taste for what a high DPS build can do, your point of comparison is non-existent. If you must, continue to use it, but I would have to advise you upgrade to zerker ASAP.

Actually, even if you get RARE zerker gear, it’s a step up in damage from zerkers, it’s more affordable and you can salvage for ectos worth some gold or crafting later.

While you are using your cleric’s you can still improve your build by using the weapons/traits appropriate for high DPS and still have some reasonable damage, but not amazing.