Guild Wars 2

Also agree with blood red & Reborn, traps need more utility & conditions to make them even worth considering in most cases.

As is I doubt anyone would take them vs shouts, meditations or consecrations for anything in game.

1: Puncture shot really needs to have a lower cast time given the damage it does.

2: Deflecting shot really should do a knock back at base or via heavy light

3: Symbol of energy, please dont take the burn off. It was one of the few nice things the spec had for celestial or condi guardians.

4: Hunters ward, the cast time is so long that outside wvw zerging or mindless pve nothing will likely get caught in it. (perhaps if it had a quick cast time & just immobilized everything in a line like hammer 3 does it would be great, with a similar CD ofc)

5: Purification, really should remove some conditions (say 3+) for the guardian and nearby allies.

6: Test of faith, really needs a reason to make enemies want to leave the radius. (say pulsing AOE burns within its radius)

7: Dragons maw, laughable that it only effects 1 target. Should effect at the very least 3.

8: All of the single hit traps could stand to be made to hit multiple times so as to work better with VOJ.

9: Piercing light. Like the trap Cd reduction but taking the bleeding off of traps hurt condi guardians allot. Also a daze won’t help keep allies in range.
(perhaps if piercing light made all bow hits, trap hits and sword hits apply bleeding in addition to a trap Cd reduction)

10: Heavy light. A random knockback is not a good thing as it cannot be relied upon or predicted. The knockback could also easily be applied to deflecting shot (which would be better for reliability and being countered by smart play.)
(perhaps heavy light could cause traps to immobilize or stun when triggered, deflecting shot should be a knockback anyway)

11: Even with the velocity increase allot of the bow skills can still be strafed & many will not fire on enemies that move behind you as you cast.

12: The first part of the change to hunter’s fortification is nice, but given the sheer amount of abilities that spew conditions in this game perhaps the second part could reduce damage taken while you have a condition on you.

1: Puncture shot really needs to have a lower cast time given the damage it does.

2: Deflecting shot really should do a knock back at base (enough with adding crap onto heavy light)

3: Symbol of energy, why are you taking the bleed off ? It was one of the few nice things the spec had for celestial or condi guardians.

4: Hunters ward, the cast time is so long that outside wvw zerging or mindless pve nothing will likely get caught in it. (perhaps if it had a quick cast time & just immobilized everything in a line like hammer 3 does it would be great, with a similar CD ofc)

5: Purification, really should remove some conditions (say 3+) for the guardian and nearby allies.

6: Test of faith, really needs a reason to make enemies want to leave the radius. (say pulsing AOE burns within its radius)

7: Dragons maw, laughable that it only effects 1 target. Should effect at the very least 3.

8: All of the single hit traps could stand to be made to hit multiple times so as to work better with VOJ.

9: Piercing light. Like the trap Cd reduction but taking the bleeding off of traps hurt condi guardians allot. Also a daze won’t help keep allies in range.
(perhaps if piercing light made all bow hits, trap hits and sword hits apply bleeding in addition to a trap Cd reduction)

10: Heavy light. A random knockback is not a good thing as it cannot be relied upon or predicted. The knockback could also easily be applied to deflecting shot (which would be better for reliability and being countered by smart play.)
(perhaps heavy light could cause traps to immobilize or stun when triggered)

11: Even with the velocity increase allot of the bow skills can still be strafed & many will not fire on enemies that move behind you as you cast.

12: The first part of the change to hunter’s fortification is nice, but given the sheer amount of abilities that spew conditions in this game perhaps the second part could reduce damage taken while you have a condition on you.

Saiyan.1704:

I would use Bane signet if 2 things were changed
-Make it instant cast or at least 1/4 cast.
-Remove the Line of Sight error effect.

The giant Signet on our heads is bad enough…

Personally I think they should make bane signet a 2 second knockdown (instead of 3) then lower the CD to 30 seconds base & make it knock down everything in a line like warrior off hand mace.

Arken.3725:

@ Ragnar

Perfect Inscriptions: Still probably wouldn’t take signet due to the long cd’s and long cast-times.

FoW: So…merge with Pure of Voice?

Battle Presence: Still wouldn’t be nearly strong enough to compete with Pure of Voice but excellent initiative.

Even though Zeal is the (un)official Symbol line, I wish this wasn’t the case and was more akin to Burst. Minors to reflect this would be beneficial.

The FOW change would be more like a choice, you get condi clear and shout CD reduction, or extra vitality & heal on shout use.

Well taking into account the fact that virtues & signets have longer CD’s they could easily make their traits heal for more.

At any rate they really need to do something so competitive guardians don’t feel forced into valor & monks focus.

Perfect Inscriptions: Remove the light aura & passive increase.
Instead make it heal & remove a condition on signet use, in addition to the CD reduction.

Force of Will: Get rid of the passive heal increase to allies.
Instead make it reduce shout CD and grant a self heal on shout use in addition to the vitality increase.

Battle Presence: In addition to the current effect make it give a self heal when you activate any virtue.

As for zeal, move around some of the traits so that fiery wrath becomes a minor (just make symbolic exposure a base line effect), then spirit weapons trait gets knocked down to adept and in its place you move master of consecrations from virtues with 1 little extra that it heals on consecration use.

After that its all about adjusting numbers.

Brutaly.6257:

Saiyan.1704:

Brutaly.6257:

Black Box.9312:

Brutaly.6257:

Black Box.9312:

Brutaly.6257:

Black Box.9312:

In order to make the class competitive without Valor, they’d have to go beyond undoing every healing/sustain nerf we’ve ever received,

All they have to do (an example) is to make passive resolve the same as warrior passive healing from their signet and buff the active to heal for 4k.

If they do that i wont ever again trait into valor for medis, even though i will use medi utilities in my builds when i go for burst builds.

There is nothing wrong with medis as utilities and they are pretty much in balance with both consecrations and shouts. Signets and SW are behind as we all know. Its having more or less 10k instant heals that makes them unbalanced with other lines and utilities.

Make them heal for 1k innate and let monks focus give you swiftness (instead of heals) for 15s when using a medi. That would help both roamers and burst builds greatly.

And this is on topic. I think asking for changes that makes DH in balance with valor or virtues is unrealistic due to the strength they have. Seriously i would need some sort of tactical nuke in DH-traits to ever use it in pvp or wvw, substituted for valor or virtues.

Its much more realistic to ask for one nerf (AH/MF) and one serious buff to innate capabilities. As you your self say Anet isnt known for buffing guardians so why ask for buffs to almost all utilities and all traitlines.

What do you think we have the best chance of achieving?

Adress the issue which is overall survivability due to long cd on heals and low health pool.

I don’t think you’re getting the point here. AH and MF are by no means overpowered to begin with.

No i think you are not getting the point.

Im not saying they are overpowered or even powerful.

I say as long as they are as relatively strong compared to the other utilities and traitlines they prevent build diversity.

If you reply to my posts please at least read them.

Straightforward question:
If virtue of resolve gave you 365 hps passive and 4k heals active and medis gave you 1k heals per use would you be more or less inclined to use other utilities and traitlines? Ofc you would be more inclined and that is actually my point. Not that medi or AH is overpowered.

If you nerf AH/MF, you remove our ability to be competitive running builds that use those traits. If you buff other traits/skills, you have still removed our ability to be competitive running builds that use those traits.

If you’re insisting that you’re not labeling them as OP, then what purpose would nerfing them serve? The best-case scenario would be that they’d just go out of fashion entirely, and then you will have accomplished nothing other than rotating the meta to the next 1-2 builds.

Just don’t cry for nerfs on something when it’s not overpowered. I really don’t see where there is difficulty in understanding this.

If for instance VoR was buffed and MF nerfed the absolute effectiveness of a medi guard compared to other professions would be kept intact.

BUT the relative effectiveness of the medi guard compared to our other utilities would be reduced.

I asked you a straightforward question, why not answer it as Arken did. If you do i believe that you get the point im trying to make.

This scenario reminds me of a AH Rabid build utilizing Zealous Scepter and Zealous Blade for heals.

You’ll gain more sustains throughout the fight but the moment you get bursted down, you wont have that medi burst heals to save you. It’s like this AH Rabid build, it wouldn’t work as well as you think it would.

Further more, once you use AR for condi clears, (usually early in the fight if you or your team gets condi bombed) you’ll no longet gain the passive heals. Kind of sounds counter productive to me.

The numbers are examples to illustrate something. Im sure if anet just gets a push in this direction they could figure it out.

But for the sake of the argument 1k heals on medis would make the guardian loose out on 5k . Imo 200 extra hps and 2+2k extra through VoR is pretty much imo. And it would open up bunker/condi guards.

For each 5s of fight the passive would fully compensate for the reduced heal on medis given the fight last 15 sec and you need all utility 3 medis. If you are used to cleanse with AR twice during that time you loose out on the passive but get two actives which heals you and the team for 8k, 4k being the addon on in my suggestion. I thin this would play out as an absolute buff to medi guardians but a relative nerf to medis.

Btw i use CoP and smite conditions on my burst guard prior to AR. AR being on long cd and i only get to use it twice (refresh thru elite) no matter how long the fight is. SC and sometimes CoP can be used twice. If played like that you would get much more out of the passive and also increased burst heal with back to back VoR.

The above would be further enhanced by traiting absolute resolution.

Imo this could actually inrease the burst healing in medis even though it requires a different rotation.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Short of that however they could somewhat copy the effects of monks focus into other traits in other trait lines.

The problem is that it requires both an adjustment in the traits and that it has to be tied to the utilities. If not the relative power of the medis would remain intact and nothing would actually change.

Well I wouldn’t think it would be that hard to move a couple traits around in each tier and adjust one per tier to give a heal on use.

Give me 5 minutes and I bet I can do it.

RebornbyFire.7913:

@Brutaly and xinkspillx: Actually, I rescind my initial knee-jerk reaction of disagreement; you guys are entirely right. Moving a significant portion of the healing from Monk’s Focus into the baseline Virtue of Resolve (and/or shortening our heal cooldowns, raising their self-heal factor, etc.) would leave Meditation builds still entirely viable and powerful, while opening up a much greater number of alternatives and making the Guardian’s virtues supply more of the sustain and self-help that they were originally intended to. +In fact, I really feel like Resolve and Courage need somewhat of a baseline cooldown reduction, anyway, because their recharges (especially Courage) are ridiculously long — which is another part of what makes running Meditations and Renewed Focus for an elite so necessary: Without that ability to recharge the virtues, their activated abilities are far too weak and their cooldowns far too long for them to function as intended. Even Justice’s active, which can be traited for further effects, is almost never worth it, at least since the update which allows burns to stack.

Further, as an issue relevant to the Dragonhunter, I feel like one of the things which would really give the class some power and interest, as well as bring out the usefulness of its unique take on virtues, would be to allow each specific Virtue-related trait (Soaring Devastation for WoR, and Bulwark for SoC) to offer a 20% cooldown reduction for that particular virtue, and then to have Big Game Hunter allow the player to retain Justice’s passive after activating it. This would make perfect sense for a class which is supposed to both encourage the use of the new virtues and get most of its survival, utility, and sustain, etc. from their actives — But as long as Monk’s Focus retains its current power, it seems unlikely that this will happen, because the concern will always be: “But what if they run full Virtue DH along with Meditations and Monk’s Focus?” — even though that line of reasoning results in leaving any non-meditation/MF Dragonhunters severely under-powered.

Tl/dr: Buff Virtue of Resolve’s baseline passive and active effects. Lower the base cooldown of Resolve (at least slightly) and Courage (seriously? Almost a minute and a half for a single Aegis? This makes SoC on the DH laughable as a reliable mechanic, especially when compared to other classes’ abilities). Nerf the heal on Monk’s Focus accordingly. If lower-CD/higher-powered virtues’ active effects for allies are too powerful, then simply require a trait to make them affect allies.

Completely agree with this.

Short of that however they could somewhat copy the effects of monks focus into other traits in other trait lines.

Either way the guardian wouldn’t feel like it was forced into valor & monks focus.

Been suggesting since launch that they make shield number 5 apply an AOE AEGIS and knockback.

As for the trait it would be awesome if they made it grant resistance on shield skill use

If the guardian had another channeled block that blocked multiple hits then it would be fine to take other heals.

Until then most people will take shelter because damage avoided > damage healed.

Obtena.7952:

Mightymealworm.8409:

Obtena.7952:

Brutaly is right and I’ve seen it time and again in all kinds of MMO’s. As long as Medi is THAT good, that’s all we gonna get and everything else is going to be balanced around that point, ensuring that any build where you don’t use Valor will be subpar in PVP. If you’re satisfied with that, keep denying it needs to be changed. If you’re not, you see why it’s a problem.

I can almost agree with you, but one problem is that Medi is not THAT good. It is just good, and that makes it a better offensive build than our other options.

Regardless of what level of good you want to put it at, it’s still our standard and everything is still balanced around it. Therefore …

I wouldn’t say that valor needs to be changed.

Instead I would say they need to look at the survivability that valor adds via monks focus and apply that to other lines.

For instance

Radiance could do that via having perfect inscriptions changed so that it reduces signet CD, removes a condition on signet use & heals you on signet use (obviously less then monks focus since it also removes a condi but still a decent heal)

Virtues could do something similar with virtue activation.

Honor already has great survivability options so no change needed there.

Dragonhunter could do something similar via a heal, protection & or regeneration with a condi cleanse when a trap is used. (that would make people at least think about using it)

Zeal, well zeal needs a complete shuffling, merging and after a few new traits as it doesn’t make any real sense.

Really not liking the new heavy light.

Having stability & or knock backs tied to RNG and distance from the target is not what this or any class needs.

The trait should just cause deflecting shot to knockback any target it hits & make true shot grant stability.

This would make it more reliable & add some counter play since deflecting shot is easy enough to notice.

Rainbowsand.2438:

Why you insist on bleeding? Guardian traits are all burn focused.

Because the guardian needs another damaging condition.

Complete reliance on a single condition means said condition must

1: Be extremely easy to apply and stack up very vast
&
2: Do a crapton of damage.

And even with it doing those 2 things someone with resistance or a ready source of cleanses will neuter your damage potential.

Having ready access to a second damaging condition means its harder for them to counter your damage potential.

The idea of dragonhunter is nice.

But in practice it was very underwhelming & not just because of the projectile speed.

The main problem was how much utility, condition removal & self healing you give up for just a little bit of damage that can be easily avoided.

Anyone that has played the guardian for very long has noticed that the zeal line tends to heavily favor mace & hammer (so much so you don’t want to use other weapons) due to symbol traits being minors.

Here is a simple solution for how to make the trait line make a bit more sense and work better with all weapon choices.

Step 1: Make symbolic exposure a base effect.

Step 2: Merge symbolic power & symbolic avenger

Step 3: Move wrathful spirit to the second minor slot & make it apply might (2 stacks for 10 seconds) instead of retaliation (guardian already has a ton of retaliation and 3 seconds is laughable)

Step 4: Move binding jeopardy to the last minor slot.

Problem solved, the trait line now works better and you now have room to create two new major traits.

Instead of piercing light causing a daze I think shattered AEGIS would fill that role much better.

Think about it
“Shattered AEGIS” Whenever an AEGIS you applied is broken it deals damage to & dazes the attacker.

Piercing light applying bleeding was a good idea, it just needed to trigger off of more things. You know like sword hits, bow hits and more multi hits traps.

Thaddeus.4891:

That would be nice to add bleed to guardian, but it would really improve the guardian much because Bleed is pretty bad right now. All good condi build rely on burn for a reason.

They would need to increase the duration of bleed by around 15-20% and decrease burning duration by around 15-20% to rebalance things.

True bleeding by itself isn’t that great.

But if each sword hit applied say 4-5 seconds of bleeding the guardian could easily keep up 12-16 stacks of bleeding with sword auto attacks + whatever burning they would also be doing.

And that is before + duration effects are taken into consideration.

That combo could be quite nice and the bleeding would serve to do some damage when burning gets cleansed.

I have been suggesting since DH reveal that they make the trait piercing light effect sword & bow hits as well as traps.

That would make condi guardian rather decent as all the sword/bow hits would apply a 4-5 second bleed.

guildabd.6529:

Karl McLain.5604:

Adept – Piercing Light: The bleeding effect only really benefited a couple traps, where we wanted the effects of this trait to enhance each one in the same way.

• The bleeding functionality has been removed and will now daze enemies for 1 second when traps enter their ‘activating’ state.

Please don’t remove bleeding from this trait. It is good as a cover condition.

This ^.

If anything the bleeding should be applied by more then just traps.

Sword & bow hits make sense since they are sharp pointy things.

And its not like the other traps can’t be made to hit multiple times for smaller amounts each time.

Hey Karl, liking allot of the changes.

There is one thing however. I was really happy to see the guardian possibly getting access to more conditions & thus be more condi viable.

Seeing as piercing light was underwhelming however wouldn’t it be great to have it also apply bleeds with sword & bow hits instead of doing a daze.

Love the ideas & changes so far Reborn.

My only real critique at this point would be that the adept & master for traps could be adjusted a bit.

The adept could stand to make all trap hits, bow hits & sword hits bleed for (say 4 seconds). This would coordinate well with the bow and the sword.

The master seems just a bit overloaded. I and most others would be happy if it just removed (or converted) a set number of conditions (say 2) when a trap is triggered & reduced the cool down of traps by a flat 20-25%.

At any rate appreciate the work & by the six I hope Arena.net looks at it for ideas.

Sigh, looks like thief gets staff.

Was really hoping for a rifle and some type of sniper spec with 1200 range.

Asmodal.6489:

you are spot on with the condi cleanse on the trap trait. I wouldnt even limit it to movement condis. The lack of condi cleanse and stun break on traps is the reason they will see no game play in competitive scenarios and will always remain part of “fun builds”.

This ^.

@ the OP Also really like your idea about making traps create a symbol when triggered.
(hopefully with each trap creating its own corresponding symbol, protection, faith, etc…

Honestly they should just change the trait heavy light to make traps more useful.

Then bake the knockback into deflecting shot.

As for dulled senses, make it trigger off of any knockback, knockdown, stun, daze, fear, float or sink the guardian does.

As for Piercing light, it should cause all attacks with bows, traps and swords to bleed.

Lastly spear of justice should be near instant cast.

Other then that I like your ideas especially the changes to zealot’s aggression & the others.

Even if the traps became ground targeted that still isn’t enough reason to use them.

The only decent trap is fragments of faith because not only does it do damage is grants allies AEGIS.

They either need to apply some cripple/immobilize on enemies when triggered (as well as burns/bleeds at base) or they need secondary helpful effects for allies when triggered.

Otherwise you may as well use meditations or shouts with a hammer/greatsword.
Your would get just as much damage as well as useful boons and healing not to mention condi cleanse.

Like many of you I have been playing the betas. During that time I have been taking notes about the dragon hunter (as well as other classes/specs).

Here is some feedback as well as some suggestions for improvements to the lack luster skills, traits etc…

Starting the virtues

1: Spear of Justice. Make the cast time instant.

2: Wings of Resolve. Make it daze enemies it hits.

Now for the traps

1: Purification. When triggered this ability should remove or convert conditions into boons.

2: Procession of Blades. Cut the CD by 20%, but make each hit apply a 4 second bleed at base.

3: Test of Faith. Make it hit multiple times so that it better interacts with traits. It also needs a reason to make enemies want to leave its radius (how about a 1 second burn per second to enemies within its radius)

4: Lights Judgment. This skill could use a bit more damage, if it did a 1 second burn per pulse it would be great.

5: Fragments of Faith. Make it hit multiple times to better interact with traits.

6: Dragons Maw. Split it into multiple hits to better interact with traits, also Make it effect up to 5 enemies.

Now for the traits

1: Piercing Light. Reduce the bleed duration to 4 seconds, but make it effect all trap, bow & sword hits.

2: Zealot’s Aggression. Given the low amount of ways guardians actually have to apply the cripple condition perhaps this could be changed to trigger off of any condition like the old grandmaster minor radiance trait used to, or if other changes are used just make it trigger off of bleeds.

3: Soaring Devastation. Given the long CD of wings of resolve perhaps this could low the cd slightly in addition to the 1 second immobilize.

4: Dulled Senses. Again given the fact that the guardian has so few ways to cripple perhaps this could be changed up a bit.
If it triggered off of knock backs,launches, knock downs, daze, fear float & sink then it would be awesome. (as well as give some build options)

5: Heavy light. As is this trait is unreliable and knock backs should just be baked into the bow somewhere.
Instead it would be great if it did two things
First cause all traps triggered AOE regeneration (4-5 seconds) on nearby (600 radius) allies when triggered.
And second cause all traps to immobilize (say 1-2 seconds) enemies (within their radius) when triggered.

Lastly for the bow

1: Puncture Shot. Given the damage this ability actually does perhaps the cast time could be lowered to 1/2 second.

2: Deflecting Shot. If this shot were to do a knockback when it hits enemies it would make allot of guardians very happy. (it would also have more counter play then the previous knock back on heavy light had.)

@ Toaster

The problem with your suggestion is that allot of abilities that people make suggestions for are just plain bad.
It won’t matter how low you make the cool downs, the skills themselves will still be bad.

So to sum it up other classes are only any good with traps because

1: They apply allot of conditions.

2: They are on short cool downs.

3: They provide crowd control on pretty much all of them to help keep enemies in them.
&
4: Some of them provide some utility & not just damage making them flexible.

Really the only good traps were fragments of faith and lights judgment (before its damage got neutered) because of the utility they offered & interaction with traits fragments had.

Everything else traps could do is done better by weapon skills or other utilities.

Procession of blades – Had no utility or trait interaction, Whirling wrath can do just as much damage on less then 1/2 the cool down
Smite condition can do as much damage instantly, it can also heal you, grant fury & cleanse a condition

Purification – signet of resolve can heal for just as much & cure conditions every 10 seconds. Shelter can heal reliably and block attacks.

Test of faith – nice in theory but if the enemy doesn’t touch it after triggering it it doesn’t actually do anything (add something to make them want to leave the area and it might be worth taking, say pulsing fire field)

Dragons Maw – would be nice if it effected more then one target. The fact it can be easily gotten out of with stability or a teleport also hurts its usefulness allot (would prefer an AOE stun to be honest as dragons maw doesn’t actually prevent any action.)

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I’m not ready to dismiss traps at all. In fact, I think traps might be more powerful than wells. Why? Well, let me explain.

Traps in WvW and partly in sPVP are used as ambush spots. You’re walking around, then suddenly the world is coming to an end due to the sudden explosion of conditions and control effects that hit you. Rangers have been doing this for awhile, but now thieves are also adopting this playstyle. But, there was a good defense against this in condition cleansing.

Dragonhunter traps aren’t condi traps like ranger and thief traps. They are direct damage traps. Sure, the burns from virtues will still hit, and the trait adds bleeds, but that is on top of their relatively high direct damage. This makes an entire utility of traps become a very large burst of damage that can’t be cleansed away.

While the traps alone might be a bit sub-par (although their damage has just been booted), it won’t be uncommon to be hit by Dragon’s Maw, Procession of Blades, Light of Judgement, Fragments of Faith, and an additional burst skill from the Guard all at the same time. We’re talking about 22 × 6 bleeds, 20 vulnerability, 4 justice procs, revealed and slow status, a trapping barrier, and then an additional combo from the guard itself (for the sake of argument, lets say symbol of energy + hunter’s ward). I don’t have the exact numbers of the damage on each trap, but I imagine that this is quite a lot.

Second, traps can be pre-cast. Its a trick that I use in Silverwastes on my ranger, but it also works in sPVP and WvW. Traps linger in place for a long time, and if placed with enough forethought they can be used twice in a row.

So no, I’m not convinced traps are bad yet. If anything, the activation time for guard traps might be too long, but traps themselves not so much.

The thing is condi traps work on ranger & thief because once the conditions are on you the only way to remove them is via cleanses.
They also do things like cripple, knock down etc… to keep you there for multiple pulses.

Guardian traps dont & their damage is pitiful.

The other classes that use traps also don’t rely as heavily on utility skills for survival & condition cleanse.

This means that by taking traps your sacrificing
self healing,
mobility,
stun breaks
stability
etc…

All for a source of damage that is easily avoided.

And that scenario you mentioned will never be usable anywhere that thinking opponents are because you would be dumping your entire toolkit (which has quite the CD) in one spot and the second someone with stability or teleports comes around they can trigger it then escape it.
Which is turn leaves you useless for a good 40 seconds.

You would be much better off just using meditations or shouts

Besides the damage buff traps also need something defensive or there will be no reason to take them over meditations which are instant, provide as good or better damage and heal you.

Silhouette.5631:

Ragnar. I honestly believe the solution to that would be buffing the traps, not scrapping them entirely. Which buffing them was in the notes for changes for the next BWE wasnt it?

That depends “how” you buff them.

Simply buffing damage numbers (while nice for PvE) wont be enough as their damage is so easily avoided.

Adding more effects onto them both offensively & defensively is the only way they will become worth looking at.

Traps work decently on ranger & thief because they

1: Apply multiple conditions

2: Give access to crowd control.
& in the case of the ranger
3: Healing spring cures conditions & heals every ally around it

Guardians traps pretty much do a crap version of control (dragons maw only effects 1 enemy) and their condition application is limited to a small amount of bleeding and burning.

And by going with traps you lose

1: Condition cleanse
2: Teleports
3: Stun breaks
4: Invulnerability
5: Blocks
6: stability
etc…

So short of redesigning them quite a bit I cant see how they will ever be a viable choice vs shout or meditation builds even with rune of the trapper as a possibility.

As for sigils.

It would definitely be nice to see one that has a chance to apply weakness when you hit an enemy.

Sagat.3285:

Or you know make boon hate more common..

That could work for some classes but others simply don’t have any boon removal.

Though given the amount of crap traits that allot of classes have they could fairly easily tack some PVP/WvW effects onto a few traits that give special effects when you strike a player with boons on them.

I have seen bosses and open world events fail a number of times because of the amount of PPL that are afk leeching.

The best solution is instanced content for groups of 10+ people that can scale as high as needed.

This would give guilds & tight knit groups of friends the hard content they have been wanting while getting rid of the leecher problem because leechers would be able to be kicked.

Other then that the only other solution that is workable is to greatly increase the amount of damage & healing that needs to be done to qualify for loot.

I have actually been suggesting that simple little change for about 3 years.

As for what they could rename it to.

They could call it “Beam of Light” or “Ray of Light” or super mega beam cannon for all I care, as long as it works and cannot be avoided by dancing side to side.

Make it a channeled beam ala mesmer greatsword.

Problem solved.

Michaeas Magister.1589:

Ragnarox.9601:

Cmon guys be realistic LONGBOW IS OP ON GUARDIANS !!

Just hope they can be better and hope is a kitten sometimes

That was an awesome video. Kind of like giving someone a bow without any arrows.

The guardian would basically be better off using a stack of consumable rocks if they were allowed in PvP.
Sure it would cost allot but at least they would likely hit something and travel fast.

Honestly after I read the part about “Longbow being well received” & other things being good I came to the conclusion that 1 of the following is going on.

1: They just dont give a F#$%

2: The people that convey what the community thinks to the devs are lying through their teeth for some reason.

or

3: They are in complete denial and think they can do no wrong.

Add a power, vitality, healing power amulet to that list.

It would also be nice to see a condi, vitality, precision amulet.

They really should compile suggestions then use some.

Heck I have seen (and made) suggestions that allot of people liked and even players of other classes thought would be balanced & fair.

All they would have to do is adjust numbers.

The chances of them fixing anything or reworking any of the long time crap abilities/skills are next to zero though sadly because “guardians are in a good place” AKA it doesn’t matter so many things are crap on that class because they still have enough decentish options & the player base will continue to play it.

As for base guardian stuff.

There are still a good 15 traits that nobody in their right mind will ever pick vs the other options.
Not to mention that the zeal line needs some major work so that it doesn’t pigeon hole you into using mace or hammer to feel like your getting use out of your traits. (symbol minors need swapped or merged with majors)

Then there is also long existing problems with existing guardian weapons that have never been addressed.
Things like
1: Sword auto number 3 often missing targets

2: Sword skill number 3 being extremely easy to avoid, rooting you in place and being a dps loss compared to just auto attacking

3: Scepter auto still being slow enough to outrun if your at 600 range and have swiftness, not that you even need to out run it since you can shuffle back and forth to simply avoid it.

4: Scepter traits being in the zeal line with symbol minors despite the scepter having no symbols.

5: The fact the mace does a good 20% more damage then sword while also doing more healing and defense due to traits.

6: The shield is still useless outside of very niche situations. (also the fact that they said they would fix it then proceeded to simply reduce CD’s.)

7: The fact that with the exception of shield the spirit weapons are still total crap.

Honestly the bow is kinda alright, it could use some tweaks though.

For instance the number 1 could stand to do more damage or have its cast time reduced.

Deflecting shot could stand to be a knock back so that knock backs were more reliable and the trait heavy light could be made into something useful.

The traps are just a complete waste & the reasons why have been talked about everywhere.

The changes to virtues are so so, but need to remain instants.

The traits vary from decent to suckage.

Over all I wonder how much the person designing the elite spec has actually played a guardian.

Kidel.2057:

the whole point of the revenant is that you don’t choose utility skills but you choose the legend set, and to make up for that you get 10 skills instead of 5. /thread
And I don’t really see much lack of choice here. It’s not like every class has only useful skills by the way, 50% of them are unused.

If they allow you to choose skills then there is no point in having 2 legends (people would just camp one of them), energy and so on.

there are many classes out there with customizable utility skills.

While I agree that the legend your using should limit utilities a bit I do think they could expand the utilities each has by at least 2 and let the player decide which 3 of the 5 they use.

Here are the problems I see with DH.

1: Since the virtues are no long instant they cannot be used while casting another ability. (This is a big hit when it comes to survivability and ability to adapt to changing situations)

2: The AA is rather slow given the damage it does (its actually the same damage then the scepter at 3x the cast time. If it had a 1/2 second cast time and a bit more damage it would be perfect)

3: Deflecting Shot feels kinda meh. If it was a knock back in addition to stopping projectiles then it would be excellent. (it would also allow them to change the heavy light trait into something useful)

4: Piercing Light, this trait is very meh. If it caused all hits with the bow to also bleed then it would be worth using.

5: Zealot’s Aggression. Given the the guardian has very few ways to cripple foes & they require trait investment perhaps this would be better suited triggering off of enemies with vulnerability.

6: Soaring Devastation. Given you recently reduced the duration of the immobilize to 1 second perhaps you could add something more on to it (given the CD of the skill and the fact it effects such a small area perhaps it could daze enemies it hits)

7: Dulled Senses. There are only 2 ways to trigger this trait currently, one is with the shield & the other is via getting another trait. Please change it to be triggered by knock downs, knock backs, stuns, dazes, fears etc…

8: Heavy Light. Like I suggested in complain number 1, deflecting shot really should be a knock back. I say that because it would have more counter play & allow for the creating of another trait.
9: The low damage on traps. As is they need to be doing allot more damage before they could ever be considered worth using vs meditations or shouts.

10: Dragons Maw. The pull radius is extremely small & the fact it only effects one person is laughable. It should effect at least 3, if not 5.

11: Traps, & the amount of sustain you give up for damage that can easily be avoided.
Assuming complaint number 1 & 8 where addressed you could easily change the trait heavy light so that it reduced the CD of traps and caused them to do a 1 second immobilize when triggered.

I have said many times they should change deflecting shot in the following ways

1: Make it knock back enemies that it hits (then change the trait heavy light to do something else)

2: Make it count as a block when it stops projectiles.

If you look at the bow its also sub par compared to the scepter in most areas which is just sad.

The scepter immobilize is near instant and at half the CD.
The scepter does more damage.
The scepter also stacks more burning unless an enemy is stupid enough to stand in the bow’s symbol.

The only thing the bow does better is the projectiles are faster.

Alarox.4590:

Seems like it’s fine for map PvE, an alternative for group content, and garbage in PvP.

This. (though you can do PvE nakid and still beat most of it)

The second you come across an enemy that can teleport or use stability the traps are garbage.
You also have to give up a ton of sustain & condition removal to get access to them.

Same happened to me for my 14k achievement