Guild Wars 2

I’ve been heavily critical of the Dragonhunter so far and my faith in the Guardian has been shaken for some time. I decided to take a deep dive with some of the things that will remain generally the same for the next BWE and subject them to multiple situations and incorporation in various builds. I took the future potential of the elite specialization into account as well, particularly in regards to the upcoming changes for next BWE. Here are my opinions on what I’ve explored so far:

Spear of Justice: Much better with the new increase to range. This has mad the skill significantly more usable, even if I’m still not a fan of any cast time whatsoever for the virtues.

Wings of Resolve Recently I have been advocating an increase to the active heal of Virtue of Resolve. Wings of Resolve now has the level of healing I wish to see baseline for VoR as well and after testing it I am absolutely certain that this needs to be the case. The benefit of having the increased healing from this skill makes surviving just a touch easier than it was before and helps make up for the lack of active defense or sustain on many of our skills. I still feel as if a longer range for this skill would help, however.

Defender’s Dogma: Perhaps I’m crazy, but I’ve tried testing every possible effect this minor could be referring to and I’ve seen nothing. Either the impact of this ability is generally rather negligible, or it’s utterly broken. I’ve tested this in multiple situations with varying combinations of effects and virtue states and I’ve really not seen anything of note.

Pure of Sight: I’m undecided on this trait. On one hand, yes 10% damage increase is nice. On the other hand, this seems like perhaps it should have been found elsewhere. If the trait absolutely has to stay as it is now, I would like to see the range threshold reduced to 300 instead of 360 so that we’ll see the effect with more weapons.

Ideally, I’d rather see Pure of Sight take the place of Heavy Light altogether, but with an additional effect. A 20% Longbow skills CD reduction comes to mind, but with rather low CDs already I think that’s unnecessary. Regardless, the newly suggested idea of causing the passive effect of Justice to cripple feels 10000x more appropriate as a grandmaster minor and would give a greater reason to run Dragonhunter for those who don’t wish to use the Longbow.

Piercing Light: Although it does leave condi Guardians twisting in the wind, the removal of Bleeds was a smart idea, as they really don’t add anything to Traps. The idea of adding daze to Traps is so much more appropriate, however it’s still not going to be enough. We need to see that daze become a legitimate Stun, or else enemies will still be able to dodge right out of traps. Stunning them would make the potential effectiveness of the traps increase significantly. 20% Trap CD reduction also feels just right. I wasn’t happy about the CDs at first, and while they could be a bit lower, they’re plenty usable.

Heavy Light: I generally make a habit of never saying I hate something, especially when looking at a game in development. I still won’t say that here, but I’d be lying if that wasn’t one of my greater reactions to this trait. I will never take this. The idea of a passive knockback is fundamentally flawed and works against the idea of Traps. The fact that we run the risk of accidentally knocking the enemy away from the brunt of our traps is astonishingly bad planning. If this trait triggered at the wrong moment, we could save our enemies from the damage of Procession of Blades. Really? Let’s just lose this trait already. It’s bad. The stability makes no sense either. We need something else.

Alright, that being said, here are some general notes about the DH:

Longbow: Right now I’m not feeling the auto. It’s weak, for starters, but my biggest issue is actually the bounce mechanic. Yes, I recognize that this is really supposed to be a way of making positioning more important, but while other skills are about YOUR positioning, this skill’s special effect only relies on getting lucky and having enemies line up. Can’t we just have a standard ricochet instead of one that relies on the position of the enemy?

True Shot‘s root doesn’t bother me, but it does mess up the flow of battle a little bit.

Symbol of Energy concerns me. I like this skill right now, but feel absolutely certain it will be weak next BWE without the burn effect. If they would just increase the damage a little further than the 10% they already proposed it would be fine.

Hunter’s Ward I actually like. I really would love to see a trait somewhere that gives Wards a special effect of some sort, just to show them some more love.

Traps: The damage increases to the traps makes them actually usable now.

Fragments of Faith is a great utility and one that I see myself running frequently as long as I won’t be giving up too much for the Dragonhunter. I expect with the newly suggested condi cleanse on block, this skill will have a strong following. If the other traps were designed as well as this one, I would be a Dragonhunter acolyte.

Procession of Blades is a much better trap now that it does more damage. Maybe it could use a small further increase to damage, but it’s leaps and bounds more useful than it was.

Test of Faith is rather useless unless the enemy is dumb enough and fast enough to run back and forth across the swords multiple times. There are fights I don’t even see the enemy who triggers this Trap get hit with its effect. I think this trap could be quite fantastic if we kept the effect the same, but added something like a small 250 or 200 heal on pulse to allies inside every 1s for its duration. While Fragments of Faith provides a great option for defense, this could accompany that and create a balance among the traps so that two would provide additional defensive effects and two would be very aggressive. If this were the case I could see traps being a rather viable option!

Light’s Judgement: This trap seems fine. I like that it seems to be designed to create an opening and counter stealthy or defensive enemies. I can see this being a usable alternative depending on the situation, but still don’t feel like I’ve tested this enough to be sure.

Dragon’s Maw is still underwhelming me. The CD is okay, I guess, but it still doesn’t seem to do enough damage and doesn’t feel Elite. The length of the Slow feels kind of insulting when compared with the Daredevil’s Impairing Daggers. This skill just kind of still feels “meh” to me.

Purification: Let’s be honest, for the amount of health we receive from this, it’s a bit of a pain to have to wait for it to be triggered, especially in melee range. I think the heal would be fine as it is with my suggestion to give Test of Faith a little more support., however. Regardless, Purification absolutely should cleanse 1 condition with the initial heal and cleanse 1 or 2 more with the second heal. If we could get a change like this, I would be FAR more inclined to run traps.

Notes: So, with all that being said, I’m quite fine with Traps not being ground targeted. At first I was unsure, but I feel like Longbow actually works quite well with them. In PvE in particular, dropping longbow #5 on an enemy, dropping traps and kiting them in then dropping Symbol of Vigor to aid my retreat worked quite well and often kept me from any real harm. Obviously this wouldn’t be quite the case in PvP, but the potential is still there.

What makes me most excited about the Dragonhunter, however, is the fact that after some recent testing of a few traits (Guardian and Dragonhunter both) I previously considered somewhat weak, there is strong potential in a Guardian taking advantage of what the Dragonhunter brings to blocking. The Dragonhunter may actually be able to give us the last piece of the puzzle for a very effective block-centric build. With the possibility of burning, healing, granting might, granting aegis and/or healing conditions on block, the elite spec may even be worthwhile for anyone not interested in the bow.

All in all, I think the Dragonhunter is moving forward, but slowly. I’m still not completely sold on it, but if the suggestions I made (or something similar) were implemented (especially with the traps!!), I would have some of my lost faith restored. Right now I still think the Guardian has a boatload of issues, but the Dragonhunter could help fill in some of the gaps if these, or similar, changes were made.

But seriously, please give Purification condi cleanse and Test of Faith a pulsing heal . . . that would make everything so much better . . . Other elite specs have skills with multiple effects . . . why can’t we? O_O

Mightymealworm.8409:

xinkspillx: Please don’t assume my mini rant was targeted at you. While we we may not fully agree, your posts have been very level headed and good discussion.

As I stated much earlier, I can ALMOST agree with the concept of moving sustain from Valor to some place else. The only problem I run into is that valor only really helps our two most viable utility sets.

One of the assumptions I see thrown around is that Devs are withholding balancing our other skills and traits properly because Valor is too strong. Have any Devs actually hinted at this? If we move that sustain to other build variants are we trying to encouraging builds that run poor skills and punishing builds that run properly designed skills?

I love that Shouts and Meditation builds have a unique ‘flavor’ to them, with Shouts/AH being a gradual regen play style that finds its strength in groups, and Medi/MF builds being relatively glassy burst damage/burst heal trade off. Altering sustain from MF and adding more gradual regen changes the way Medi’s function. Regen is far less important to burst builds, and as Medis are already middle of the road, it could push them out of pvp (the only place where they really do well anyway).

I think there is gradual hope that our utilities will be improved. Every large update I see some small attempts to tweak a few things. Anet can be very slow and cautious about balance, and sometimes they can focus in on things and drastically change them. Lets hope for the latter, like they did for meditations so long ago.

Yeah, sorry for assuming that was more directed at me then you intended. I just know I’ve been really active on this thread lately haha.

I definitely agree that if Meditations or AH builds were pushed out of PvP usage it wouldn’t help us in the least. The end goal is only to see other builds brought up in viability to provide worthwhile alternatives to MF and AH. If they were casualties then we’d absolutely be no better off.

Steps like the introduction of the new DH grandmaster that provides cleanse on block is a step in the right direction, but I think it’s undeniable that the core weakness of the Guardian still lies with the skills themselves. I share your hope that they’re willing to make changes that rectify that.

Saiyan.1704:

I like the idea. The biggest inquiries I have are mobility.

Most classes with regens can peel away and gradually regain their health. Guardians have virtually 0 mobility. We wont have enough time to peel off and gradually regain health. If we’re being pressured, a higher regen gain from F2 isn’t going to make a huge difference.

That’s not to say a non-medi build wont feel that 200 more regens per second. I just don’t think that’s necessarily the right approach to address Guardian’s non medi build variants.

If more mobility could help rectify the problem that would be great. No matter how much we hope for things like that or a buff to VoR, Mightymealworm is right in that it ultimately does come down to the quality of (or lack thereof) our utilities.

@Mightymealworm
The fact that you cherry-picked your way through multiple comments (some on different focuses in this thread) from different people and stuck them all together to make it sound like we’ve all been advocating for each and every one of those changes makes me inclined to disregard your entire post. Then again, I really don’t want to be that guy and it would be pretty dumb of me to even be on the forums if I did. xD

As for myself personally, my recent posts have been advocating what seems to be a less difficult idea for a fix (or band-aid, I suppose) to make Guardian less dependent on Meditations. If it wasn’t for the healing MF provides they would not be run nearly as much as they are now, so clearly the appeal is in the additional sustain those skills provide.

No one ever claimed it was a magic fix, but it attempts to go a lot farther toward the goal of balancing out the Guardian and giving currently sub-par builds a shot at viability.

As for increasing the base health pool of Guardian, I don’t know which post you pulled that from, but I do agree that’s a change that shouldn’t happen. You are right that active defenses are Guardian’s thing and VoR is one of those layers.

If the devs want to go through and tweak all the skills to spare any modification to Meditations than great, all the power to them, but I live in reality and know that’s not going to happen. At least having a little more survival through VoR begins to level the playing field. Does Spirit Weapon AI still suck? Yes, absolutely. Are Signets optimal? No, they aren’t, but at least giving us a greater chance at survival through our profession mechanic makes up for the nearly complete lack of active defenses these skills provide.

For the record, I also think I should clarify that I don’t really support the notion that MF and AH are holding us back. I haven’t said so in previous posts and I won’t make that claim here. I would only advocate a reduction on MF heal in the event of a buff to VoR, but only for the sake of balance. Regardless of the suggestion, if it truly nerfed Meditations it would be a failure, absolutely, but at least we’re trying to generate ideas.

Virtue of Justice may be in a fine place right now, but VoR and VoC are mediocre without taking Virtues as a specialization. They need to be able to stand on their own a little more and the Devs know it. That’s obvious from the Dragonhunter.

P.S. As for my previous post referencing Warrior, Daredevil and Chronomancer, that was mostly concerning the underwhelming nature of traps and the necessity for improvement to ensure the Dragonhunter isn’t a bust. So if that partly fueled your post, please don’t get the wrong idea about my intent.

Edit: Honestly, if anyone has other suggestions that are better or seem like something that the devs might actually consider I’m down for trying them. We just need something. If the devs were willing to systematically go through utility sets one at a time and give them some love, I’d probably cry tears of joy, to be honest haha.

Black Box.9312:

I’m not “having trouble wrapping my head around it”. I just flat out don’t agree that it will do what you think it will do. At best, you’ll have a class that has a built in Healing Signet that will become the scourge of the PvP community and will inevitably get nerfed back into place. At worst, you’ll have rendered our best traits ineffective with no apparent gain.

So what? We just suck it up and deal with it as it is? At least we’re actively trying to think of solutions to the problem. I hardly see how it would become the scourge of the PvP community since we’re not suggesting increasing the passive heal beyond what’s already available through Virtues.

If AoE active healing power is the issue, than a limit to the heal it provides to allies like I suggested would solve that. Not to mention a 4k self heal that removes our passive regeneration for 43 to 50 seconds is far from overpowered. Our main healing skills aren’t exactly beefy, either.

Edit: In fact, with the recent posts on changes to the Dragonhunter, they’re playing around with a 4k active heal for WoR already.

I also fail to see the logic behind the idea that if the devs tried this idea and it didn’t work they’d just leave MF nerfed without compensating . . . that’s ridiculous.

Black Box.9312:

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.

I did answer your question. It would incentivize the use of other builds, but it would come at the cost of rendering current builds ineffective. You’d be doing nothing but taking all of our eggs out of one basket and placing them in another. Both AH and MF do a very good job of supporting their respective builds. The goal should be to bring other builds up to par with that, so that AH and MF are still good options, but just not the only options.

I have to back Brutaly here. Please don’t take this as offensive or insulting as it’s in no way meant to be either, but I think you’re just having some trouble wrapping your head around the overarching impact of Brutaly’s suggested changes.

Yes, MF would see a reduction in healing per skill, but 1k is a suggested example and the actual strength of the heal could easily be adjusted to avoid seriously sapping Meditations viability.

Giving the Guardian greater sustain through Virtues would be nothing but positive for the overall health of the profession. Heck, even Meditations could see a potential buff in healing because of synergy with the increased power of VoR.

As they are now with MF, 3 Utility Meditiations, 1 Elite Meditation and 2 active uses of VoR would equal 11,200 healing, or 13,200 with Merciful Intervention.

With the suggested changes to MF providing 1k healing and the active of VoR providing something more like a 4k heal to make it’s current CD more worthwhile:

3 Utility Meditations, 1 Elite Meditation and 2 active uses of VoR would equal 12,000 healing, or 14,000 with Merciful Intervention.

This is with rounding down or up to the nearest hundred before multiplication just to simplify things.

So, yes, the healing per skill would be reduced, but the VoR passive effect would pick up quite a bit of that slack (and do so without using CDs) and whatever it didn’t could be accounted for through use of its buffed active. This would instead give Meditations greater passive sustain, while keeping the bursty potential of its heals intact.

Edit: I realize how potentially overpowered an AoE 4k heal could be with Virtue of Resolve, but I should think amending the skill to produce a somewhat lesser heal for allies wouldn’t be that difficult. Adjustments can always be made.

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.

Thank you for taking the time to post this. I really think Brutaly made an excellent suggestion and the more of us that get behind this idea, the better.

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.

These are pretty good suggestions as well. I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels the CDs on (at least two) of our virtues is a little too high for the quality of the active effects versus being so long without the passives. While I recognize it’s meant to be a trade-off, it feels somewhat skewed at the moment.

The idea of allowing us to pick and choose 20% CD reductions to our virtues is definitely a curious one. My gut reaction is one in favor of something like this, but it would definitely need to be tested. I’m excited by the idea though.

I don’t see a 48 second CD when running Virtues spec with Dragonhunter being overpowered for SoC, but if the changes to passive WoR were implemented than a 32 second CD might be a little imbalanced. Likewise, a 16 second CD for SoJ could also be a little overly strong. I think with WoR and SoJ it could go either way. Then again, in comparison to the potential CD reduction of Reaper’s Augury of Death trait, it wouldn’t be that abnormal. I can’t help but keep remembering something I’ve seen a few times in the Guardian forums though: “if it’s overpowered for the Guardian, it’s balanced for everyone else” haha.

I don’t think SoJ need to retain its passive on use, however, as it already applies burning periodically and with a potential CD reduction to 16 seconds that really would make it too powerful.

As far as I’m aware, I didn’t notice SoJ being effected by Supreme Justice, but if we could see both that trait and Permeating Wrath effect the burns on SoJ activation I should think the skill would be more useful. It would at least begin to make up for the damage nerf our Symbol of Energy received with the removal of burning (I don’t believe a 10% base damage increase was a satisfactory replacement for the burns). Trait support like that may be too powerful though, especially with a reduced CD.

Regardless, it’s clear we need something to give our Virtues the oomph they need to balance us a bit better.

Saiyan.1704:

xinkspillx.3914:

@everyone :P

If we could move some of the sustain that chains us to Meditations and Monk’s Focus to our profession mechanic, it would have a wide-reaching impact. Dropping the amount on the heal MF provides wouldn’t be nerfing Guardian if Virtue of Resolve was enhanced to compensate. Yes, it would still technically be a nerf to Meditations, but ultimately they would remain just as effective as they were because the removed sustain would be coming from the always present profession mechanic.

That wont happen because of Battle Presence. It would give everyone else more healing. Another reason why the healing on Battle Presence needs to be merged in with SoC. SoC could really use it imo.

When using both Battle Presence and Absolute Resolution together allies already receive increased healing so no, it wouldn’t increase the amount of healing to outside sources passively. Yes, the active heal would be an increase, but with the CD taken into consideration (along with the loss of the passive heal during said CD), it would hardly be overpowered.

@Brutaly

I think your suggestion to increase the active and passive heals of VoR is right on the money.

@everyone :P

If we could move some of the sustain that chains us to Meditations and Monk’s Focus to our profession mechanic, it would have a wide-reaching impact. Dropping the amount on the heal MF provides wouldn’t be nerfing Guardian if Virtue of Resolve was enhanced to compensate. Yes, it would still technically be a nerf to Meditations, but ultimately they would remain just as effective as they were because the removed sustain would be coming from the always present profession mechanic.

Were Absolute Resolution to become baseline for VoR (perhaps only removing 1 condi for balance sake) along with increasing the active heal to 4k that would be great. It’s obvious Guardians need this sustain to make up for a low health pool and low mobility, so why shouldn’t it accessible for the sake of build variety?

This would even make Signets more usable. O_O

The devs could leave Absolute Resolution where it is, but cause it to convert the VoR’s new baseline 1 condi cleanse to 3 condis and give an additional small effect like a tiny bit of Resistance or Vigor (not sure exactly, but might need something).

While they’re at it, the devs should seriously swap Glacial Heart’s place with Pure of Heart’s place. This would make sooooooooo much difference for both of those traits.

Having Glacial Heart in the same trait line with Writ Persistance would be far more synergistic. The only problem would be having Staff and Hammer competing, but I don’t know many builds that run both of those traits at once.

Pure of Heart being in Virtues would synergize with Unscathed Contender and Indomitable Courage and, most important of all, it would make the Aegis traits less spread out and ultimately far more effective.

RebornbyFire.7913:

However, your idea concerning wards fits in much the same way, and if it’s a cool trait that gives added synergy, functionality, power, and unique interest to the traps, I’m all for it. The issue here is, while symbols apply a variety of boons, are light fields, deal pulsing damage, and can be traited for various other defensive or offensive benefits, wards so far only do one thing: place walls that prevent enemies from moving past them. Since it seems pretty unlikely that we will be allowed to trait all our traps to have KB-inducing walls around then (although I still think Test of Faith should have that for base functionality), as you’ve also mentioned, in what manner do you recommend we introduce the idea or mechanic of “warding” to the traps? It sounds like it could be a cool idea (and serve to bring out an under-used skill type) — I’d love to read some more about it.

I’m actually a big fan of Symbols and run Hammer rather frequently. It’s because I like Symbols so much and view Wards as another side of the same coin that I suggested a trait for them instead.

Typically, Symbols, despite a few boons, are skills that punish enemies who enter their areas through pulsing damage, vuln, burning, increased damagr from the Guardian, etc.

I think I would like to see Guardian’s have more support for Wards as something that keeps the intention of binding an enemy in a specific area or blocking their advance, but gives the Guardian a reason to remain behind and keep fighting.

If Wards granted some sustain to Guardians and didn’t just act as CC barriers, it would absolutely reinforce the Guardian as “first in, last out.”

That’s why something like Condi Cleanse, Regeneration, Retaliation, Protection, or some other effect along those lines would improve Wards greatly.

They could be used in tandem with Symbols, allowing the Guardian to create a temporary Killing field, but one which would be very infrequent given the CD of the barrier Ward skills.

To keep this from being overpowered, I would therefore suggest that Traps don’t create barriers on activation, but count as Wards for the sake of granting the Guardian the passive sustain bonuses. Dragon’s Maw already forms a barrier and would then function like the Wards on Longbow, Hammer and Shield.

This could really help define the Guardian again and introduce some much needed potential variety while giving you a reason to let enemies close in. Like I said, “first in, last out” just like the devs always told us Guardian was meant to be.

YuiRS.8129:

Welcome to Zealot’s Defense. Except with that skill you actually can’t move…

This. FF is basically a beefed up copy of ZD anyways so it’s gonna have the same weakness as well. Berserker can use Guardian sword skills better than a Guardian now. xD

I’m strongly considering it. I’ve played a Guardian for 3 years and have a serious attachment to the class, but with every passing day it feels more and more like it’s lost touch with what it was and could have been thematically.

The issues with Dragonhunter have pushed me to the limits of my patience so if things don’t improve on that end dramatically, I’ll be welcoming a Rev into the fold as my new persona.

Gonna suck to need a name-change contract and total make-over kit (for the exclusives) to remake my desired character though. :/

RebornbyFire.7913:

1. And finally, a Grandmaster trait which: Causes each trap to spawn a symbol on activation.

While I don’t agree that traps are almost powerful, I think your ideas are heading in the right direction for the most part. I cannot, however, agree that Traps should spawn symbols, be counted as symbols, or anything of that sort as it would give far too much of a reason to focus entirely on Symbol based builds (especially in comparison to the other DH traits).

Previously in this forum and in another I suggested instead that we should see a trait that concerns Wards. For example, making activated Traps count as Wards and Wards provide a slight amount of healing, or Retaliation or some other sustain or supportive effect. I’m not suggesting every trap forms a barrier, however.

Rather than just piling more onto the heap of symbol traits, this would instead create synergy with Symbols in an indirect method by affecting Longbow, Staff and Hammer, as each of these weapons has both a Ward and a Symbol.

Dragon’s Maw already functions similarly to a Ward with its barrier so it wouldn’t be a great leap to see this sort of functionality. If anything, this would reinforce the idea of the Dragonhunter being able to manipulate the field of battle and give us more incentive to lure enemies into our traps.

I’m excited about nearly everything so far, except for one thing . . . so I guess that would make my hope: “I hope Dragonhunter becomes an elite specialization and not a disappointment.”

After giving it some more thought and taking the time to review the other elite specs before posting this, I can honestly say that the excitement I did feel for the changes posted in this thread has completely disappeared.

While the changes being made to the DH are a step forward, I realize that they’re still only barely making this elite spec passable at best. I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to balance the Guardian, but the issues previous posts have brought up around the topic of MF and AH proves we’re not “in a good place.”

In all facets the Dragonhunter remains underwhelming and that only becomes clearer when compared to the other elite specs, especially those with a very clear focus and purpose like the Berserker and Daredevil. (Honestly, I can’t even begin to express my rage over the BS of Flaming Furry being nothing more than a significantly improved version of Zealot’s Defense – that is beyond insulting.)

At first I was excited by the new condi removal on block just because it seemed so much better than what we had before. It still is better, but how can that be justified as effective in comparison to a condi cleanse on evade from a e-spec that’s dripping with endurance and an extra dodge? Yes, we have access to a decent number of blocks, but not matching the frequency with which the Daredevil seems to be able to dodge. Maybe if Guardians had access to an additional 1s block and 2s knockdown every 10 seconds it would be a different story . . . oh, right . . . someone else got that skill.

For that matter, how can Traps even compared to Daredevil’s Distracting Daggers or Berserker’s Shattering Blow? (Bleeding, damage adrenaline generation and reflecting missiles is a lot of effects for a single skill, especially when we couldn’t even get Distracting Strike bumped up to a reflect). Actually, as I think about it . . . Distracting Daggers is almost better than Dragon’s Maw, at this point.

No, I’m not just focusing on Daredevil and Berserker either. Even comparing something like Test of Faith and Mesmer’s Well of Calamity you can see that Dragonhunter is lacking. Oooh, less damage than the well, no weakness but 4 seconds more cripple (those are clearly even in strength), with a base CD of 10 second more and WITHOUT the removal of 2 conditions when traited? With such a low health pool Guardian’s can’t afford skills that rob us of cleanses and sustain, that’s part of the reason why Signets and Spirit Weapons suck. The only way to make these two skills comparable would be for the Guardian to take three different traits compared to the Mesmer only needing 1.

I’m sure I’ll probably get counterarguments about each class needing to be balanced individually, or how they might be better in application, but I direct you to the previous (and more on-topic than they seem) posts about the the balancing issues of the Guardian and the situation with AH and MF.

I could go on and on and point out even more reasons why this elite specialization is underwhelming, but suffice it to say, longer CDs on most Guardian skills than the other elite specs (except Tempest) with lesser effects and damage potential is the reason why Dragonhunter is lagging behind in last place. (I didn’t count the length of the CDs for Chrono and Reaper because of their mechanics that effect reduction of CD). At least Tempest improves Auramancer builds, even if it doesn’t bring a new role to the Ele.

With only 1 beta to go with which we can even hope to try any of the even somewhat effective changes to the Dragonhunter (because they didn’t make it into the beta this weekend), I have currently 0 faith that this elite specialization will be worth it.

TL;DR: From every standpoint the Dragonhunter is in last place. With utilities that can’t hope to compare to the other elite specs and traits that are only very slightly increasing in effectiveness with each update we get, my optimism about this elite is gone. This has gone from my most anticipated element following the announcement of Heart of Thorns, to the only reason I’m disappointed. :/

I suggested having skill 5 function more like Sanctuary just based on the idea of having it heal allies while the bubble is up because at that point the only effect it wouldn’t share with Sanctuary is keeping enemies out.

I think it’s the 5 skill that’s the tricky part. Skill 4 is definitely modest, but if skill 5 was significantly more useful I think 4 would be a non issue with its current balance.

I’m all for having darker and more treacherous nights, but they already stated that they will likely never make nights that dark because of the sheer number real life environmental factors that can ruin an experience like that. For example . . . desktop lamps, natural ambient lighting, etc. Yes, somemplayers could certainly shut off lamps or other lights sources they have control over, but this isn’t an option for everyone as it can exacerbate eye strain (trust me) or make it difficult for people with unlit keyboards.

I should think they could at least make it a bit darker than it is now, though. >.>

Rather than working like a traditional MMO that invalidates months of work gearing your character, ANet chose instead to give us a method of progressiom that will work by giving us new tools with which to experience content. Progression is necessary for an MMO and if we’re not working toward gaining something it’s not progression. Masteries simply allow us to keep building our repetoir of skills in a cumulative manner, whereas most MMOs force you to basically start from scratch each time the level cap increases.

Electro.4173:

People are already trying to predict the next weapons, really? Didn’t you learn from the last batch that you can’t predict Anet’s choices? You’re only setting yourself up for disappointment, especially if you’re predicting a bunch of “most wanted mainhand / 2H weapons”.

I think this thread is more for fun than anything. It’s pretty cool to wonder at the possibilities, but it doesn’t hurt to have a reminder not to get too focused on any one idea.

Conncept.7638:

Guardian: Rifle – HOLY BOLTS, have a neat idea for a sort of long range siege guardian, think Alexander from Final Fantasy.

Okay, nevermind, I take back what I said. That would be fantastic but only if the projectiles were noticeably NOT plain bullets. Guardians fit Alexander surprisingly well haha.

I have to admit . . . I was really skeptical clicking on this thread but I think the idea of reinforcing the Shield roll fits really well. Leaving aside the fact that it feels kind of like the devs should have just swapped the focus skills with the shield skills way back before the game released . . . I’d be pleased to see the shield get changes like this.

I have to say a big yes to the idea of Shield Skills granting Vigor. It seems very much like a Guardian to have a skill that roots them while granting Vigor to allies and creating a barrier against ranged attacks. I wasn’t sold on the idea of the push being on the skills activation, but the way you explain it actually makes a lot of sense. I think I would rather personally like to see the bubble function like Sanctuary and keep enemies from entering, but I don’t see that being likely to happen and it would also invalidate push on activation. Then again, I’m just thinking that a change like that could make running Consecrations with a Shield an excellent way of supporting allies and creating actual bunkers for the sake of guarding allies haha.

I like Shield of Judgement but still think maybe it need a little more oomph! to get it right. I don’t think a damage increase is the way to go though. Perhaps just increasing the range of this skill or giving it a quick 1s block duration on first activation would make it infinitely more useful.

But still . . . Vigor from shield skills would be pretty great.

merchantchuck.4875:

I just had an idea in another thread and figured i’d post it here as well.

using spirit weapons as a mix between minions and kits. while they’re on your utility bar they follow you around and provide support through damage and healing, then if you ‘activate the kit’ by pressing the skill you can then physically equip the spirit weapon and gain a new set of skills to play around with.

This might sound overpowered in that they would be active at all times but i’m sure there could be some sort of solution or change that could enable it to work. Maybe a cool down if they are destroyed while in minion form. I dont know, seems like a cool way to retain the idea of spirit weapons aiding you independently while also introducing the ability to use them actively.

Pretty good idea. As long as they retain some sort of minion quality I’d be down for it. I think the best way to handle that would be to make the spirit weapons have a duration limit, but maybe not a usage limit so that they can’t be held indefinitely like Engi kits, but neither do they run out too quickly without being traited like Conjured weapons. I could see a 30 second time window to make use of the skills before the weapon goes on CD. I like that idea quite well.

Sadly I can’t see the devs being willing to give a class like Guardian access to 4 full kits unless it was through an elite spec that removed weapon swap. :/

What if instead of spirit weapons having command skills they were combo attack skills with the Guardian of some sort? Perhaps activating the command skill would cause the Guardian to perform a leap attack in tandem with the hammer or a whirl to compliment the sword’s thrust. Maybe these skills could even make use of dual combo finisher effects like leap or blast or something? Could be a way of introducing passive support through condi cleanses by smartly creating and using fields.

Or what if instead of Command skills the activated skill of a Spirit Weapon augmented the Guardian’s auto attack for a brief time? I could see them giving the Guardian an effect akin to venoms, but obviously thematically more appropriate. Such as activating Spirit Bow would make the next few Guardian attacks produce a small heal or condi cleanse in the immediate area (could combo with Mace quite well for support!) or activating sword to give damage increase for the next few attacks, etc. Depending on the effects given, this could seriously make up for the lack of defensive and sustain abilities available to the Guardian on taking Spirit Weapons over just about anything else.

Just my two cents.

AnClar.1304:

And so it begins…despite whatever measures Anet have put in place, yesterday alone I got two goldseller whispers. I don’t mind the f2p players who are on to see whether or not they want to invest in the full game, but if, as it apperars, we now have to put up with a new epidemic of unwanted and annoying spam goldseller whispers it will make the GW2 experience that much less enjoyable.

To be fair, I was getting whispers from goldsellers not infrequently before they even made this announcement. >.>

Entitlement is a serious issue here, it seems. After reading just a few pages of this thread I can’t help feeling cynical and question the integrity of most of the people posting here. How selfish can you people be? Thousands of hours of gameplay for a price of $10 to even $100+ over the last few years (including content f2p users will never see) and you still think you’re being cheated, or worse, that ANet owes you something? I can’t even fathom it. Price cuts happen all the time. You don’t hear massive outcry when a game goes on sale for $1, but the second it’s FREE but heavily restricted it’s a crime? That’s nonsense.

Free to play is not taking anything away from what you purchased. You are losing nothing and the free accounts still do not have all of the access that paid accounts do so this should be a non-issue.

As a side note (although one that is still very much related): I think one of the worst parts of this whole thing is just the general ignorance of the gaming community at large as in the past f2p switches usually only occur with games that are circling the drain. It’s sad to see a lot of gamers that don’t play the game take this as a signal of defeat from GW2. >.>

Pretty good guesses, I’d say.
I’m guessing something like this:

Elementalist: Sword (Huge fan support for this, no doubt this’ll be next).
Engineer: Mace (seems likely)
Guardian: Axe or more likely an offhand Mace or Sword, I think. (Guns do not fit, imo).
Mesmer: Main hand pistol, offhand dagger or maybe a bow?
Necromancer: Offhand Axe, or shield. (I’m guessing offhand of some sort next).
Thief: Rifle (pretty clear fans demand this haha)
Revenant: Greatsword (Also a very likely choice)
Ranger: Hammer, scepter or maybe focus? (Could see more magic based e-specs)
Warrior: Pistol or Staff (though pistol seems more likely)

Personally I’d more like to see these options though:

Elementalist: Sword (This one sound cool for the future – melee Ele could be sweet).
Engineer: Dagger (off hand or main – commando lives! Close combat could be great!)
Guardian: Axe, or offhand mace or preferably offhand sword (no guns please o.o).
Mesmer: Longbow or Shortbow (amazing possibilities) or maybe axe?
Necromancer: Torch (like a lantern of the dead sort of thing).
Thief: Rifle (Assassin/Sniper does feel appropriate).
Revenant: Greatsword or Longbow (Koss (burns) or Pyre Fierceshot, respectively)
Ranger: Hammer, Scepter or Focus (I can see future specs being mystical)
Warrior: Unarmed! xD (hey, it could happen)

Dragon Ruler X.8512:

I know this is a bit of a stretch considering how outfits seem to work, but can we have a “Helmet Toggle”?

Currently I don’t like the helmet involved with this outfit, but I love everything else about it. I like the face I put on this character, but I’d like a “battle-mode” version using my helm that I have selected for my normal skin.

Could this be a feature in the future?

You can actually toggle off outfit helmets by toggling off your actual armor helmet.

zaced.7948:

i just saw on reddit that the dailies will be restricted to HoT accounts. what about any person that has bought gw2 properly (years ago) and doesn’t upgrade? won’t they be able to receive the dailies? that would be a major kittenmove.

This isn’t quite accurate. Paid base game accounts will also receive login rewards. Only f2p accounts will not.

The developers seem to be taking a lot of pains to ensure this change won’t wreck what makes the community great and it’s appreciated. With the main focus of the (PvE) game likely shifting to another area soon, this really will help keep the base game populated and thriving so that it remains appealing to play.

Perhaps because of the fact that I’ve been playing since GW2’s 3-day head start, I don’t feel like compensation is necessary. Haven’t purchases of the base game not been possible through the ANet store for some time? I recognize that some people who have purchased the game through third parties may be frustrated, but refunds in those cases aren’t really something ANet is set up to handle.

With the restrictions that f2p accounts will have they aren’t exactly getting the same experience as it is. Sure, we may see a greater number of low level maps being filled up with players, but it’s already not uncommon to see even high level maps have this issue. We’d just see more players spill out onto a second (or third, etc.) version of the map and that wouldn’t really be a bad thing as it would just increase the odds of that map completing the boss as well.

Kormeg.2469:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Kormeg.2469:

xinkspillx.3914:

Agent Noun.7350:

xinkspillx.3914:

Giving f2p accounts log-in rewards is a serious slap in the face. :/
We need an official statement about this that includes all the details.

That’s why THEY DON’T GET THEM.

https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/95982157

I posted my comment BEFORE that went live.

Then why rush on the forums to post that? What exactly was the point of your post?

Because there was a blog post that detailed “all” of the restriction and yet made no mention of that?

Why rush to accuse him? What is the point of your post?

Point out where I accused anyone. Please.

And the point of my post was to figure why exactly he, and others, are doomsaying before they know what is even going on.

Ah yeah, sorry that’s my bad then. Didn’t mean to sound like I was doomsaying. I’m down for f2p, I just didn’t feel like login rewards were something that should be part of it and wanted the details that didn’t seem to be forthcoming. Sure, I jumped the gun a little maybe . . but I did wait 15 minutes before I posted. ^.^

But for the record, if you’re trying to bring attention to something general, it’s best not to pinpoint ONE poster.

Kormeg.2469:

xinkspillx.3914:

Agent Noun.7350:

xinkspillx.3914:

Giving f2p accounts log-in rewards is a serious slap in the face. :/
We need an official statement about this that includes all the details.

That’s why THEY DON’T GET THEM.

https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/95982157

I posted my comment BEFORE that went live.

Then why rush on the forums to post that? What exactly was the point of your post?

Because I’m human and like typing I guess? I’m not sure I deserve to be persecuted for stating that we needed that information sooner rather than later when at the time that information wasn’t available. >.>

Agent Noun.7350:

xinkspillx.3914:

Giving f2p accounts log-in rewards is a serious slap in the face. :/
We need an official statement about this that includes all the details.

That’s why THEY DON’T GET THEM.

https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/95982157

I posted my comment BEFORE that went live.

Yeah, a CD reduction is all we’ve really seen. It helps, but still isn’t quite enough. If the weapon had a legitimate block or some other supportive or defensive layers it would be significantly more effective. To my knowledge there hasn’t been any comments on reworking it in some time, however I do know the Reaper devs mentioned taking a look at Necro Scepter and Axe at some point (I think) and maybe giving them a little love so we could luck out and see that sort of thing happen with Guadian Sword and Shield.

Just for clarity – 1:30 EST

I think the nice thing about what ANet has set up is that even if we never get another full profession (which I’d actually be cool with), the concept behind Elite Specializations would be a way for us to see ideas like this implemented later on. Sure, they wouldn’t have multiple sets of utilities and weapons with unique implementation, but we certainly could still touch on these sorts of idea.

I don’t think the Dragonhunter is horrible, but it just hasn’t felt like part of the Guardian to me (yet) although aesthetically I think the traps and longbow skills fit fairly well. Then again, with things like Spirit Weapons being unwieldy rather than iconic, the Guardian has been feeling a bit unfocused for some time.

On a skill and trait based level it debuted as something rather underwhelming, but that’s something Karl and the team are already making quite a lot of progress on rectifying.

If I had one thing to really convey to the dev team, it’s that they should take the passionate responses to the Dragonhunter as a symbol of how much people love the Guardian profession and want to see it further elevated.

Yeah, I think many players are of the opinion that Dragonhunter doesn’t yet feel right, but the latest batch of changes to the elite spec seem to suggest it’s finally going in a much more appropriate direction and I, for one, am feeling significantly more optimistic.

EDIT: After reviewing the other elite specializations I’ve changed my mind. Dragonhunter is awful right now and even the trait and skill changes they’ve made so far are nowhere near effective enough to redeem this “elite” specialization. Compared to the others it’s a joke right now

I was a progression raider in WoW for a few years but quit because it began to feel like a job. I’ve been very apprehensive about trying it in other games because I’ve grown so weary of power creeps and the pressure that can come with them, but I’m excited to see Raids coming to Guild Wars 2.

I have faith in the ANet team to stick to the foundations and promises they’ve laid down and provide us with a different way of raiding. A greater focus on large scale content sounds good to me, since I’m a big fan of World Bosses already. I’m curious of the scale of these raids.

Two things could make or break Raids though, reward quality (a wealth of new skins, please!) being better than the horrible RNG the game already has, and ensuring that Raids don’t become the be-all-end-all of endgame content . . . other alternatives need to be maintained and worthwhile.

Other than that, I’m super anxious to hear what they have to say!

I feel as if either the duration limit needs to go, or the weapons need to be much much harder to kill or just straight up immune to damage while they’re up. The biggest problem I have right now with the skills (beyond the bad AI) is the overly long CDs that make it necessary to stand around between every battle unless you wish you run in with them still recharging or on the verge of running out of time. They feel clunky and weak and the amount of time they’re dead or on CD make the damage or other effects they provide worthless in comparison to Meditations or other alternatives (except Signets, they kind of have the same issue).

I mentioned elsewhere in a thread I made that what we need to see is some sort of better interplay between the Guardian and the spirit weapons. I’ve seen suggestions that perhaps they should offer some sort of more reliable condi cleanse, healing or defensive abilities to make them a worthwhile alternative, rather than a serious weakening to the Guardian’s survival.

AI is definitely something that needs reworking with the Spirit Weapons, but there are so many other things that could be done to make them viable even while we wait for such a fix.

I think OP is on the right path suggesting some reworks like this (I think the more posts we have on the topic, the better, honestly, as it seems to have been a very low priority for the dev team for a long time). However, I’m not sure such a complicated CD structure is necessary. I think just dropping the regular CD a bit and giving the weapons additional effects (and not, you know, making them splatter in an instant) when traited would go a very long ways toward making them usable.

As I posted in my own thread on the topic, Spirit Weapons were the reason I was attracted to this profession in the first place and a great amount of that appeal feels as if it’s missing these days. :/

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Hopefully Anet goes about this in a smart way. There is no problem with f2p accounts, but they need to have certain restrictions in order to maintain a healthy game. Until you purchase the game you should not be allowed to access the following imo:

1. No TP access at all
2. No daily log in rewards
3. No map chat access
4. No whisper access
5. No LFG access
6. No Ranked PvP access

With those simple restrictions they can enjoy all aspects of the game, but without ruining the economy, community, or experience for others.

Anything less than those restrictions will be a death sentence for this game.

This. 1000x This. Also as others have said with EotM access but no WvWvW access.
I like to think I’m a generally pretty accepting player, but one of the absolute greatest strengths (and reasons I play) Guild Wars 2 is the quality of the community being above average.
I’m all for having new players and giving them access to the game, but without heavy restrictions we’ll see more bad than good introduced to the game through vitriolic behavior and language, gold spamming, inflation, etc.
I’m not the type that would drop a comment like “I’m uninstalling” but depending on how this is handled that could be a very real possibility for me. I absolutely love this game and played Guild Wars off and on since its release to the release of GW2. I like to think I’ve invested a lot in this game and don’t want to see its quality of life decline over something like this that could be handled properly from the start.

x indigo x.6981:

Arken.3725:

Dulled Senses: While it’s a nice addition to have the vuln, is it possible to consider changing it to something else? With how inconsistent it is to keep someone kbed even a few times, this is hardly any vulnerability to take advantage of. Instead of vuln, grant the Guardian swiftness?

I really really like this idea .. Switching the appliction of vaulnrability on applying cripple to be gain swiftness when you apply cripple would make much much more sense when the concept of dragon hunt relies on range.

I also would still like to emphasize the importance of making the trigger of cripple on virtue of justice passive become aoe when traited into Permeating Wrath GM in virtues. .. I would even go as far as to say the swiftness gain becoming aoe as well to allies would be really nice but that might be pushing it too far.

Summery: swiftness on cripple application makes more sense than vulnrability on cripple application since ranged is the context here.

Both this post and your previous one about not nerfing Meditations and AH fill me with so much joy. You hit everything bang on (including Signets and Spirit Weapons) and the idea of swiftness on cripple is phenomenal. Well done, Sir or Madame.
This is the kind of thinking we need to see more of from the devs.

Kill Bill Skill xD (At least in regards to Pulmonary Impact haha)

These are the kinds of changes I’ve been looking for. They’re not quite there yet, but leaps and bounds close than anything we’ve seen so far!

Deflecting Shot update is great, this is exactly what I was hoping for!

Changes to Symbol of Energy are fine by me, but could we maybe see a slight CD reduction as well? It doesn’t sound like 10% damage increase is equal to what the burns were providing, especially considering burning can still deal damage even when the enemy has left the symbol.

Virtue Changes are very welcome, but I also feel like Resolve still needs a serious increase to range. Right now it’s absurd only leaping a very short distance . . . it makes the wings seem like visual fluff instead of giving a sense of soaring forward. I’m still wondering if the virtues shouldn’t just be instant cast as well.

Although I’ll be sad to see the potential for a little extra damage from bleeds for a Condi guard go away, the Piercing Light update feels much more on target for the aesthetic of the class. That little bit of a daze seems like a nice contribution to the idea of Guardian controlling the field of play.

Dulled Sense and Hunter’s Determination updates both seem good to me so far. Maybe a little dull, but far superior to what was there before.

Zealot’s Aggression trait is a nice change. The activation of cripple on passive virtue of justice proc sounds like something I can really get behind.

Hunter’s Fortification: Yes, 1000x yes to this in place of what it was before. I still think this trait could use a little more oomph, maybe, but since Guardians have such huge condition removal potential the damage bonus is great. I’m really really loving the ongoing efforts to make blocking an even more integral aspect of the Guardian. This is what the class was meant to be from day one. This trait really feels like the Dragonhunter is back on track (at least to me). I was worried for a while . . .

Heavy Light – yeah . . . it’s nice to see this getting a little more attention, but this fix seems pretty underwhelming. I rarely see the stability on this being worthwhile and even then only in pvp, really. I’ll let this one slide for now just because I’m so happy with some of these changes . . . but I’m keep my eye on this one. I’m still not sold on passive knockback.

I’m really happy with the direction a lot of these changes are going in. I’m starting to feel like Dragonhunter is feeling more like part of the Guardian again.

That being said, I’d still really LOVE to see a trait on the dragonhunter that gives Wards a little something extra. I suggested it one another thread similar to this one, but Longbow is the third weapon to receive a Ward skill and I think they’re so underrated. I think Dragonhunter with its emphasis on controlling the battlefield would be the perfect place to implement a trait to give Wards a little something extra!

Well I made a bad choice coming here. xD I was browsing IGN’s feed and saw that they had posted a GW2 Trailer about the base game going F2P and assumed that was all the tweet had included as well . . . haha whoops, guess not. They’ve since taken the trailer down as well, but it seems like someone there has screwed up rather big time. This is starting to become a regular occurrence for them, it seems. I could have sworn they did this with MGS:V sometime this year as well.

Ah well, even if I spoiled it for myself, I’m no less excited. Can’t wait to see those details! Shouldn’t this thread be shut down soon, though? >.>

Seems with the latest fixes posted in the Dragonhunter BWE changes thread, Dragonhunter’s will be gaining the ability to deliver Vuln when they cripple and one trait in particular will make Justice’s passive cripple . . . soo we could see a good deal more Vuln potential from Guardian in the coming days.

Jaxom.7310:

i see, that seems pretty reasonable. clearly since no one uses spirit weapons they are in need of something.

Indeed. I don’t expect them to become an optimal build for the Guardian, but I’d like to at least feel like they aren’t completely useless. It was Spirit Weapons that made me roll Guardian day one of GW2’s early release.

Jaxom.7310:

wat did they fix. why is it usable now. how could it be applied to spirit weapons.

none of these ?’s were actually answered in your post

Yeah, sorry, I’ll edit it and clear up what I meant. The fix to Necro Minions made them target properly instead of just kind of . . . sitting there. What I really was driving at was wanting to see Spirit Weapons not instantly melt or have some other beneficial interplay with the Guardian like we see with Minions. Minions when traited are rather tanky fellows and the added bonuses of things like Death Nova, life siphon, etc. make them all the more useful. Spirit Weapons, despite being a summoned ally, really don’t have anything special going on beyond the addition of burning damage and a CD reduction that still barely makes their short duration worthwhile.

So basically, the bug fix to Minions isn’t what I think should be applied to Spirit Weapons, rather something like an infinite duration and a wee bit more health. Yeah, the AI needs reworking, but at least a fix like this would make them a bit more usable while the devs work toward a proper rework.

Maybe it’s a little far fetched, but if implemented well I think any weapon could be justifiably used by any profession. :P Immediately the Caster Gun from the Outlaw Star anime I used to watch when I was a kid comes to mind. Outlandish? Absolutely, but it’s still pretty cool!

I’m all for balancing, but I really hope any changes made don’t severely weaken conditions again.

Before the update to traits I could stack Vuln as a Guardian with Sword/Focus. Not 25 stacks worth, but a decent chunk without a great deal of effort. It seems to me that every profession has the ability to maintain at least a decent chunk of Vuln.

As some may be aware already, yesterday a fix was introduced for Necromancers that actually made minions quite usable. To my knowledge this fix was to the Minions’ targeting so they no longer tend to stand around and do nothing. I’ve tested them quite a bit since the update and have been very impressed by the results (especially in comparison to how useless they were before).

What I don’t understand is why we can’t see Spirit Weapons function in a manner similar to Minions? I’m hoping this is something they’re working on, but so far to my knowledge there has been no word about it. Nearly all of the elements are there, but they’re still very lacking (particularly in regards to CD and how incredibly fast they die). Sure, even with a decent fix they may not be optimal, but they’re still pretty freaking sweet looking.

It took nearly 3 years for the Minions to receive an update to make them usable and it’s been nearly that long for Spirit Weapons. It may be a vain hope, but maybe we’ll see an update when HoT drops that will rectify the bad AI. As for now I’d be happy just to see a few minor changes to the skills like QoL tweaks to make Spirit Weapons at least somewhat more usable while we wait.

I’m thinking something along the lines of infinite duration and a wee bit more health for the time being. The biggest problem I have with even running them for fun is the huge downtime between fights even if they didn’t die. I can handle the CDs as they are now if the things would stop disappearing. xD

As cool as elite specializations may be, shouldn’t ensuring the functionality of what each profession already has be a top priority? I hope it is, but also recognize just how much work the devs are putting in already.

Edited this for clarity, sorry about how it was before.

TL;DR: While we wait for an AI rework, wouldn’t it be nice to at least see Spirit Weapons receive improvements toward making them somewhat less cumbersome like infinite duration and a wee bit more health? I can live with the CDs if I don’t have to recast them between battles even when they DON’T die.

Mikau.6920:

The minuion build is so much fun now. THANK YOU ANET FOR FINALLY FIX THIS.

I cant wait to Spirit Weapons to be viable as well.

As much as I don’t like minions in other games, I really like them and want them to work so badly here and this fix is wonderful! I totally agree Spirit Weapons need the same love though. If all minions (and pets) got a nice update I’d be a super duper happy camper.