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[Discussion] What should we change about DH to improve it, but not make it OP?


mrauls.6519

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I think LB #2 shouldn't freeze us in place. It's not like it's holosmith's kamehameha (elite skill). I think the slow duration from the trap trait should be 2 seconds. F3 should go from 3 seconds to 4 seconds. Most importantly, there should be a minor trait that gives us 25% movement speed... I read a while back that the devs think Guardian should be "slow". Why? Being slow is annoying asf

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i think they need to buff trap effectiveness in general but give them a faint visual que to enemies (something you wouldn't notice unless you were looking for it) and allow enemies to trigger them without taking damage (which you probably already can but it's been a while for me).

also let allies trigger supportive traps? (since they seem the less popular ones)

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Remove casting from skill2 and had it's cast time to it's CD. Doing this you have an instant skill but with a longer CD on it .If not referring to the bow skills, then improve traits and trap effectiveness, like it was at the start. DH was needed right on the first patch on its release.Boss should also activate traps, like tequatl worm, and many others that have static fight. Because they still do not activate them when you place them on the boss.

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@LetoII.3782 said:

@"mrauls.6519" said:I read a while back that the devs think Guardian should be "slow". Why? Being slow is annoying asfSame here, and it seems odd, I mentally pictured warriors flying around behind him as he said heavy armor should feel heavy.

Wayyyyyyy back in the day, the concept was that Guardian was slow, but is loaded with damage blocks and healing. Neither is true nowadays, but Anet refuses to updated the outdated concepts. Not that guardian sustainability is bad, it is just middle of the pack.

As for DH, it does not have sustainability issues, but damage issues. LB damage across the board is weak. DH is too immobile. Fixing these 2 areas should make DH meta.

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@otto.5684 said: LB damage across the board is weak.

^^ This right here ^^

If you're going to have a weapon that roots you for skill 2 and skill 5 and has a slow auto attack, it should at least hit hard to reward you for your patience and timing you put in to get the hit. Giving the LB more damage also won't make the class too OP because there's counterplay already built into it. Buffing the longbow isn't just adding a big burst of damage because all of the skills are slow and have numerous opportunities for you to dodge/block/avoid the attack. In order for the player to make use of that added damage it would require timing and ensuring you really land your big hits by protecting yourself with aegis or F3, positioning yourself well, using other skills like judge's intervention to combo, and ensuring your opponent is exposed. You take a risk by having to sit still (skills 2 and 5) or use a slow moving projectile (skills 4, 3, and to a lesser extent 1), but should be rewarded if you play smart and land the hits. Adding damage to the LB wouldn't inherently make the class OP but instead would encourage patient, thoughtful, and skilled play and counterplay.

The kind of buff that would make DH too OP would be adding a ton of damage to traps. The people who hated DHs back in the day hated how frustrating it was to get trap spammed whenever they walked onto a point. I do think the traps need some attention, but the LB is far more desperately in need.

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True Shot needs about an 80% damage increase to be a true burst skill. It's a bit ridiculous that the mesmer shield phantasm does more damage than True Shot.Also Puncture Shot needs around 15 - 20 % more damage.Hunter's Ward should hit 150% harder during the barrage(excluding the final damage).

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It seems really unlikely they'll buff true shot tbh. (Not that it doesn't need it.) Because it was hammered down to where it is recently, and it'd seem like a regression to roll those nerfs back.As to what else could be buffed.... Heck ToF gets whined about too... And that's the problem really, DH is those two things essentialy and the general community howled for nerf after nerf, and got them.

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I'd like to see hunter's verdict on a 20 second cooldown as well as animations sped up for spear of justice and wings of resolve, longbow damage buffed to atleast be closer to scepter/torch and the trait heavy light to be baseline with a trait to place traps like targeted aoe in it's spot, as it is now it feel's weird having a ranged weapon specific to the class but it's skills be aoe the player drops at their feet.

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I think a lot of the buffs guard needs are on some core traits/skills/weapons (like the entire staff skill set). Here are some DH-specific buffs accompanied by reasoning as to why:

  • EITHER make trueshot deal 20% more damage, or reduce the cd to 5 seconds or make the skill usable while moving. It's one of the weakest burst/power skills on a power-based weapon in the game right now. No matter what your vision for DH longbow, any of these buffs could fit that vision, I promise.
  • Buff the channeling damage of Hunter's Ward. Right now the overpoweredness of the CC is balanced by the underpoweredness of the long cast time and obvious animation. BUT nothing balances out the underpoweredness of the very long cooldown. Best would be to buff the damage imo. Right now HW is essentially just an aoe trueshot with almost 4x the cast time.
  • Rework Defender's Dogma: This is an extremely oddball trait and not very useful. It's essentially a throwaway trait. I can't think of any condi-based elite specs that are given minor traits completely useless to their build or really any power-based elite specs that are also forced into condi-only options like this so DH shouldn't get short-handed either. The recharging justice effect could be shifted to a major trait so the few people who actually like this trait wouldn't be shorthanded.
  • Rework f2 so that it doesn't actually have a vertical component. As is right now, you cannot teleport while using f2. This actually killed one of the most creative and powerful bursts DH had around HoT release: Soaring devestation (traited f2 for damage) + JI. This burst didn't make DH overpowered at all since other bursts with JI are equally or more powerful, so give us this one back! More options = more fun.
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  • 2 weeks later...

In my view improving the Longbow for DragonHunter

  • -- increase firing speed of the longbowThe currently the rate of firing Speed is low compared to other shortbow and longbow, just look at ranger's longbow. In comparsion DH LB takes too long to do anything. Making the skills slightly faster would help out on DPS. It's one of our elite weapons, so it SHOULD be decent in terms of DPS but isnt.

  • -- Get rid of Heavy Light and make it standard on the longbowThe 3rd Longbow skill SHOULD ALWAYS have knockback, I don't see a point for this trait, again comparing it to Ranger whose longbow by deafult has knockback, I don't see a reason why DH has to have a trait that gives it knockback when Ranger doesn't, it makes it feel like DH's LB is inferior to ranger despite the LB being our Elite weapon.If Heavy light is put onto the longbow this would make room for a new triat maybe one that could be used to power up the longbow or DH in general.

  • Replace Heavy Light for a new passive condi triatReplacing Heavy light with a triat to give a Poison on ALL longbow skills as i said above i think "Heavy light" that should be on the longbow by default.We could call it "Vemonous Tripped arrows" or something.This would mean that all LB skills inflcts poison on damage which could be used and tuned for a dual poison burn condi build. It'll help out with DPS a bit. Even if you are running a power based build the added passive posion with passive burn ontop would help out a bit.The reason for this is that, firstly, The Elite portrayed is a "hunter". As a hunter, wouldn't it use Poison as a way of weakening it's tragets. so where are the posion on skills or traits?Secondary Firebrand got "Bleed" on their Axe, so why can't DragonHunter get a different condi on it's Longbow. I doesn't have to poison but it fits theme of a hunter, bleed would work too. Just something else to help out with DPS and damage.

  • Improve TrueShotTrueShot needs to be able to used whilst moving and a needs a slight power increase, (maybe 10-25% more power)Firebrand can move while chanting Mantras and Ranger's Longbow skills except 5th one it can move around while doing son.This is a bit of weird one as to why it stops you but i feel like it shouldnt stop you place, It just makes you feel vulernable, making DH feel slower and sluggish

  • Dodge on Wings of ResolveI know its off topic but I didnt want to make a need topic about this.I feel like This skill SHOULD have a in built dodge many other skills in the game have an evade for half a second or breaks stun but this one doesn't.You are literally leaping into the air so by all means this SHOULD count as dodging but doesn't.Soaring Devastation Should give Wings of Resolve complete dodge untiil you land in addition to its other effect, mostly due to the fact when i do use the move it leaves you vulernable for a sec, so being able to dodge something while you do the move should help.

What do you think of my ideas?

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@"mrauls.6519" said:Dodge on Wings of Resolve would be a godsend

Exactly,look at Daredevil, it has a trait that turns its dodges into another one that extends the lenght of dodges.Mesmar's distortion is a dodge and it can have multiple, on top of all the other things.They can atleast let Dragonhunter just have this one dodge on Wings of Resolve.

To be honest it needs it, because you have to land for it to heal, and 9/10 times when you use it on low health... you end up getting downed before you land.

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Dragonhunter definitely needs to be tuned to have a place in the current meta.

This elite specs introduces first and only 1200 long range weapon for Guardian which is currently useless. Scepter has very high damage and the Might pumping utility on #2 is great, but it's not a long range weapon. It's hard to hit anyone from 900 range due to low projectile speed. I would really like to see improvements to longbow so we could finally counter shade spamming Scourges via range pressure.

My notes on the topic:

  • What is the role of Longbow DH? I think that damage numbers on #1, #2, #3 skills are mostly fine. Compared to Deadeye both range and damage are not so impressive but we have to remember that Guardian end especially DH has a lot of blocks and CrowdControl skills. When I look at the overall class design I see that DH is not meant to deal heavy range damage (Deadeye level) but to be annoying. Constant 2k-4k poke damage, Cripple and Slow.
  • Hunter's Ward could have its initial damage greatly improved. It's really easy to dodge the final impact. Also most of the elite specs have wide access to stability which makes this skill uselss (3 seconds of casting, result: 2k damage & 1 stack of Stability stripped).
  • Dulled Senses is garbage. After testing it I have to say it's hard to reach 5 stacks of Vulerbility. On average this trait applies 2-3 stacks. It's a very underwheling trait.
  • Heavy Light is yet another underwhelming trait and it's a grandmaster one. I like the knockback, but Stability on knockback is useless. This trait grants Stability when we don't need it. It's like getting Swiftness when Downed... What is more this trait is being overshadowed by Hunter's Determination. Which grant's you Stability when you actually need it.
  • I don't think that tuning only numbers will make longbow viable. Both Dulled Senses and Heavy Light have to be reworked.

Heavy LightDeflecting Shot knocks back enemies on each hit. Gain stability when knocking back, launching, or pulling an enemy.Puncture Shot becomes a guaranteed combo finisher.

Dulled SensesEnemies you knock back are crippled. Enemies you cripple are also inflicted with vulnerability.Striking crippled enemies inflicts Vulnerbility (2 stacks, 1s ICD). Striking enemies with Vulnerbility over the threshold (5) inflicts Torment INSTEAD (1 stack 1s ICD).

Hunter's WardIncrease the Initial damage skill coefficient from 0,25 to 0,35. Decrease the ward duration to 4s. That should increase the initial damage by ~40% if I'm not mistaken.

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After trying DH for the first time this week I was really disappointed in this spec, it was a huge letdown. As a Warrior main I remember fighting the more powerful version of this spec in the past, the current version is nowhere near what it once was.

It used to feel like a close match-up, now its not even close. I just steamroll DH's now. When I played it that is exactly what happened to me.

I could slap a Longbow on my Core Warrior and grab a random 2nd weapon(s), and do much better. DH needs a buff.

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@"mrauls.6519" said:Dodge on Wings of Resolve would be a godsend

Or maybe it does not go on full CD if it is interrupted. You lose the active heal, around 3.2k, the passive heal and the condi cleanse. All with one interrupt. Half the meta classes can cast CCs back to back..

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@Darknicrofia.2604 said:

Both of these past nerfs were deserved

No it wasn't, it turned a B tier spec into useless. It was an overreaction to WvW zerglings getting CC'd. It was dropped on the same patch as the stability change, aka it double nerfed LB5 and made it even worse than barrage, aka the worst skill in the game.

Additionally, I'm pretty sure a lot of the DH nerfs were in part due to some dev getting wrecked by a DH roamer. DH longbow and traps were NOT used in a zerg setting beyond the initial HoT release, so nerfs were made in wvw solely to hurt DH roamers. Guard finally gets a decent build that can be used for roaming, and of course it gets nerfed because apparently only highly mobile stealth classes should be allowed to consistently avoid the nerfbat and roam viably.

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