Let's talk about Dragonhunter

I'm going to start this off by saying that DH isn't in the worst place but neither in a great place either. Secondly, this is going to be mainly from a PvP point of view, but also I don't mind if you bring out things it would need for other game modes. I'm just not well in touch with things outside PvP atm. My goal is to improve DH's performance in PvP without taking away from the other modes.What the Dragonhunter specialization gives Guardian is selfish defense and DPS, with a little more mobility and CC thrown on top. Problem is with regards to PvP that the damage is hard to land, in some cases weak and inconsistent. What I would like to do is improve on that offensive capability while also emphasizing mobility and soft CC a bit more. Try to keep in mind these are meant to be DH buffs, not guardian buffs which is why I'm not touching anything else here.

First of all I'd like to address a logical inconsistency in the DH specialization. Dragonhunter is supposed to be using it's Virtues actively, and there is an offender in this regard. Namely, Defender's Dogma. Changes as follows:Defender's Dogma - Removed current functionality of this trait. This trait will now grant Swiftness(5 seconds) and health(270 hp) when activating virtues.

I've thought about some other (unused in some cases) trait changes to improve upon them and make them (more) viable choices.

1. Piercing Light - This trait now also applies Cripple for 2 seconds upon Trap activation.
2. Soaring Devastation - Wings of Resolve now also evades attacks. Evasion duration three quarter-seconds. This would give you more reliable results on WoR but opponents would still have a small window for counterplay. I also like this idea as a trait because as a baseline ability it would be too strong IMO.3. Heavy Light - Knockbacks, pulls and launches also strip 1 stack of Stability from affected foes. This functionality is under the 10 sec ICD of the trait but will only trigger when the opponent has Stability. Retracted.

Next on my list is the longbow. Quite simply it just needs some damage buffs, as DH lacks quite a bit of ranged pressure when compared to other classes on similar roles.

1. True Shot - Base damage increased by 25%. This is a burst skill, so it should hit hard. Especially given how vulnerable it makes the DH when casting it.
2. Hunter's Ward - Increased damage on all parts of the skill by 10%. The first impact of this skill now inflicts Immobilize(1 sec) instead of Cripple.

Lastly, I have Traps. My goal is mainly to buff under-used traps.

1. Light's Judgment - Increase the damage by 50% and make it instant-cast so it can be used while stunned.
2. Fragments of Faith - Increase the damage of this Trap by 25%. This doesn't apply to the traited Trap, Shards of Faith.
3. Purification - Reduced the cooldown from 30 seconds to 25. This change is mainly because of the new Soaring Devastation trait, which Meditrappers will likely pick over Piercing Light because they can double up the evade with RF. Full trappers will likely still pick PL.
4. 1 general change, all trap skills now share their boons with allies in the radius of the traps. Maximum number of allies is 4.

Alright, thanks for reading, have at it.

Dragonhunter is meant to be a bunker. The longbows' damage isn't supposed to deal a lot of damage, but instead to keep foes of capture points.

I don't think that increasing the longbows' damage and the traps' damage would make the Dragonhunter better. If anything it would make him unstoppable which even for a bunker shouldn't be the case. A slight damage increase on the traps is fine, but the longbow is not meant to be a weapon that deals a lot of damage.

True Shot 20% damage buff + your defender's dogma sugestion sounds pretty nice. The Soaring Devastation suggestion sounds too much, i love that trait and i don't think it needs 3/4 dodge on it. Maybe increase the flight speed by 20%? The trap suggestions sounds too much too, traps arent healthy for sPvP imo but they do need buffs.

@Hoodie.1045 said:Dragonhunter is meant to be a bunker. The longbows' damage isn't supposed to deal a lot of damage, but instead to keep foes of capture points.

DH is not meant to be a bunker. How can it when it doesn't bring anything bunker-ish to the table aside from F3? DH works more in the same space as holosmith and soulbeast, a teamfight DPS role that can sidenode to some extent as well. And how are you supposed to keep enemies off point without damage? CC on its own is useless.

I don't think that increasing the longbows' damage and the traps' damage would make the Dragonhunter better. If anything it would make him unstoppable which even for a bunker shouldn't be the case. A slight damage increase on the traps is fine, but the longbow is not meant to be a weapon that deals a lot of damage.

That's why I'm suggesting damage buffs to the traps that don't see a lot of use and are more defensive in nature, especially Fragments. Offense is the best defense after all. Anyway, I'm not as adamant on the damage buffs as the other 2 later changes.A question: To which tier of viability would you rank DH into?Personally I'd rank them into the D tier, where Support Firebrand is A tier and Radiant Core Hammer is B tier. So not unviable but certainly far below meta. My suggestions might make it a strong C tier but no more than that. Personally I rarely lose to DH's as long as I remember to not port into their traps.

@Alehin.3746 said:True Shot 20% damage buff + your defender's dogma sugestion sounds pretty nice. The Soaring Devastation suggestion sounds too much, i love that trait and i don't think it needs 3/4 dodge on it. Maybe increase the flight speed by 20%? The trap suggestions sounds too much too, traps arent healthy for sPvP imo but they do need buffs.

The community has been asking for Wings to get an evade straight up which would be even stronger than what I'm suggesting. This way you would have to make a trade-off in order to get it but ultimately you would be a bit stronger for it.You are one of the few people I've heard of using Soaring Devastation, personally I consider it rather useless, even if it has a fun flavor.

@"Alehin.3746" said:True Shot 20% damage buff + your defender's dogma sugestion sounds pretty nice. The Soaring Devastation suggestion sounds too much, i love that trait and i don't think it needs 3/4 dodge on it. Maybe increase the flight speed by 20%? The trap suggestions sounds too much too, traps arent healthy for sPvP imo but they do need buffs.

3 second imob + big damage. It's not useless, just not better than piercing light if you're using traps. I climbed to high plat more than once with my own build that uses the trait, so it worked pretty well for me. Giving Soaring Devastation a dodge would make the trait way too strong, they would probably nerf the imob, the healing or the damage and i don't want that. I rather get a % flight speed increase on the skill itself or maybe put the dodge on Dulled Senses instead so you have to choose betwen offense and defense. No point getting all those buffs "the comunity wants" at the same time to watch it get nerfed to hell after a season or two, i rather take 20% true shot buff + another minor buff instead and then try the class out for a season before making more changes, it's way more healthy for the game.

@Alehin.3746 said:

@Alehin.3746 said:True Shot 20% damage buff + your defender's dogma sugestion sounds pretty nice. The Soaring Devastation suggestion sounds too much, i love that trait and i don't think it needs 3/4 dodge on it. Maybe increase the flight speed by 20%? The trap suggestions sounds too much too, traps arent healthy for sPvP imo but they do need buffs.

Alright, fair enough. I'm not disputing what you're saying, I just haven't considered it as a pivotal part of any build.What I am disputing though is whether that would be too strong, and in this particular case the community isn't entirely off base as that skill is way too easy to interrupt. I mean traits like Bulwark, Force of Will and Righteous Instincts are strong traits, yet one of these traits is barely ever used, other ones in very specific builds. I mean that dodge would be shorter than a single Distortion from Mesmer with 0 clones. Yet you are right in that the resulting trait would have too many things going on, as it could be used for both defensive and offensive purposes. Guess it isn't meant to be.So what you mean by Flight Speed reduction is basically a casting time reduction? Shaving it down to 0,75 seconds with the trait?

All DH needs:1) 25% movement speed.2) Traps instead of slow do cripple (with ToF possibly changed to 1 sec root). The slow is useless.3) Unroot True Shot.4) Hunters ward, the damage is allocated over the cast duration, instead of being mostly on the last cast.

@"Yannir.4132" said:

3. Heavy Light - Knockbacks, pulls and launches also strip 1 stack of Stability from affected foes. This functionality is under the 10 sec ICD of the trait but will only trigger when the opponent has Stability.

Am I missing something? Isn't that already how Stability functions?

@JDub.1530 said:

@"Yannir.4132" said:

3. Heavy Light - Knockbacks, pulls and launches also strip 1 stack of Stability from affected foes.
   This functionality is under the 10 sec ICD of the trait but will only trigger when the opponent has Stability.

It can remove an extra stack of stability. So on hit it will remove two stacks. Rev has a trait that does so.

Anyway, it was a pointless suggestion.

@Yannir.4132 said:

@Alehin.3746 said:

@Alehin.3746 said:True Shot 20% damage buff + your defender's dogma sugestion sounds pretty nice. The Soaring Devastation suggestion sounds too much, i love that trait and i don't think it needs 3/4 dodge on it. Maybe increase the flight speed by 20%? The trap suggestions sounds too much too, traps arent healthy for sPvP imo but they do need buffs.

Yeah something like that, make the guard go FAST so it's harder to interrupt but still doable. That sounds pretty fair for both sides imo.

@otto.5684 said:

@JDub.1530 said:

@"Yannir.4132" said:

3. Heavy Light - Knockbacks, pulls and launches also strip 1 stack of Stability from affected foes.
   This functionality is under the 10 sec ICD of the trait but will only trigger when the opponent has Stability.

Thanks, but you have no authority on what's pointless or not.

I failed to explain it on the original post but the Stability removal would apply before the CC, so it would essentially ignore single stacks of Stab. Would allow you to blow through a Firebrand's Elite Mantra(if only stacked once) or a mesmer's traited Stab on shatters.Double Stability removal would also give you a fighting chance against Warriors, as Rampage for example only applies 2 stacks of stab. You could blow a CC to remove both the stacks, and then proceed pull him/push into or out of your ToF.

Edit: Wait, nevermind. I just realized this idea is stupid. We want to reduce CC, not add to it.

@otto.5684 said:All DH needs:1) 25% movement speed.

I considered this and I wanted to input it but couldn't find a natural place for it to fit in. What eventually came out of it was the changes I made to Defender's Dogma because that would atleast improve DH's in-combat mobility.Ofc, you could just slam it in the same place but I wanted to keep some flavor of the previous trait.

2) Traps instead of slow do cripple (with ToF possibly changed to 1 sec root). The slow is useless.

Removing the Slow outright would screw over DH's Breakbar damage(which is one reason why DH is still viable in raiding despite mediocre DPS) in raids. Slow does over 3x more Breakbar damage than Cripple does. That's why I suggested adding, not replacing.

I'm lukewarm on the last 2 suggestions you had, and don't really think they'd do anything significant.

@Yannir.4132 said:

@otto.5684 said:2) Traps instead of slow do cripple (with ToF possibly changed to 1 sec root). The slow is useless.

Indeed, cripple for PvE is worthless, since it's always applied in something that's close to minutes of duration. I'd trade away the slow for regaining daze (cripple can come in addition), but that's not likely to happen. For PvE, I believe it would be sufficient to buff Fiery Wrath to 10% and Pure of Sight (3rd DH minor) to range-dependent 10/15% damage boosts to make DH good again. I assume that the impact of such changes towards PvP or PvD would be negligible.

@CptAurellian.9537 said:

I would like buffing Pure of Sight but it is pretty consistent with other similar traits from other professions, so I don't see it as a reasonable/fair change. For example, Ranger's Master trait in Marksmanship called Farsighted only buffs damage by 5/10% with the same range threshold, and they have to pick this trait over 2 others. Technically, PoS is a tier higher on DH as a trait than Farsighted is for Ranger, so it is alright. But buffing it higher would be a bit on the nose of the premier range class.Fiery Wrath buffs seems okay-ish but it is outside the scope of the current conversation, being a core guard trait and all.

@Yannir.4132 said:I would like buffing Pure of Sight but it is pretty consistent with other similar traits from other professions, so I don't see it as a reasonable/fair change. For example, Ranger's Master trait in Marksmanship called Farsighted only buffs damage by 5/10% with the same range threshold, and they have to pick this trait over 2 others. Technically, PoS is a tier higher on DH as a trait than Farsighted is for Ranger, so it is alright. But buffing it higher would be a bit on the nose of the premier range class.Fiery Wrath buffs seems okay-ish but it is outside the scope of the current conversation, being a core guard trait and all.Cross-class comparisons imho aren't fruitful. There's a ton of traits or skills that have comparable effects at substantially different power levels.

I don't think that simply by adding +25% movement speed trait and improvpving damage of LB skills DH can be fixed.

Dragonhunter has some questionable traits: Dulled Senses, Heavy Light, Bulwark, Defender's Fortification.

• Defender's Fortification Remove additional condition when blocking attacks with Aegis.
• Soaring Devastation Add evade skill fact. In its current iteration Soaring Devastation & Dulled Senses cannot compete with Piercing Light. I would like ANet to explore othr aspects of DH. Icentivise players to resign from picking passives: +10% dmg, -20% trap recharge etc. and to go for more active gameplay.
• Dulled Senses This trait is very weak. It applies ~ 3 Vulnerability. I think this trait should be merged with Heavy Light. Stability on a successful CC is the last thing we need. Just replace it with Dulled Senses functionality.
• Dulled Senses Attacks knockdown and burn enemies simultaneously inflicted with cripple and blind. 20s ICD

There are a lot of neat thoughts in this discussion. I'd say focusing on Longbow buffs is the safest way to buff DH. People hated getting blown up by traps right when heart of thorns came out and made claims about playing the class being brain-dead trap spam. I'm not sure I totally agree with all of that, but I can sympathize and think that longbow buffs encourage more active and skilled gameplay. The DH needs to be able to offer serious ranged damage in order to set it apart from core guard and firebrand. I'd like to see the knockback on longbow skill 3 become standard. Rangers longbow 4 gets an easy access knockback and rev gets an easy access knockdown on shortbow 5, but we have to take a grandmaster trait to get our knockdown. I also really liked the the comments about evades on wings of resolve and some of the other trait suggestions. Traits could be another good place to buff DH, help it fulfill some kind of role, without it becoming op.

@Assic.2746 said:

• Defender's Fortification Remove additional condition when blocking attacks with Aegis.

I'm not against this but I don't think Defender's Fortification needs any help. It's a strong trait pick on certain builds, just not the ones that are currently being played.

• Soaring Devastation Add evade skill fact. In its current iteration Soaring Devastation & Dulled Senses cannot compete with Piercing Light. I would like ANet to explore othr aspects of DH. Icentivise players to resign from picking passives: +10% dmg, -20% trap recharge etc. and to go for more active gameplay.

We've covered this extensively in the thread already.

• Dulled Senses This trait is very weak. It applies ~ 3 Vulnerability. I think this trait should be merged with Heavy Light. Stability on a successful CC is the last thing we need. Just replace it with Dulled Senses functionality.
• Dulled Senses Attacks knockdown and burn enemies simultaneously inflicted with cripple and blind. 20s ICD

I do agree Dulled Senses is underwhelming but I don't approve of your solution.A. Burning does nothing for Dragonhunter specifically. Core Guard has synergy for it but can also cover it pretty handily.B. The way you suggest this to work would make it a passive. Nobody likes passives.C. You know what inflicts Cripple and Blind at the same time? Spear of Justice. Then when you try to pull your opponent into your trap, they are instead knocked down because the passive overwrites the pull. Not helpful.

C. You know what inflicts Cripple and Blind at the same time? Spear of Justice. Then when you try to pull your opponent into your trap, they are instead knocked down because the passive overwrites the pull. Not helpful.

No, it doesn't. Spear of Justice which applies blind & cripple and Hunter's Verdict (pull) are two different skills. So First you knock down your opponent and then you can pull.

@Assic.2746 said:

C. You know what inflicts Cripple and Blind at the same time? Spear of Justice. Then when you try to pull your opponent into your trap, they are instead knocked down because the passive overwrites the pull. Not helpful.

You need to check your wording, I'm not a mind reader. I was under the impression it wasn't the attack that inflicts Blind and Cripple that does the knockdown but the next attack on the same target. Which would make it Hunter's Verdict(or another attack if you don't pull right away).

@Yannir.4132 said:

@Assic.2746 said:

C. You know what inflicts Cripple and Blind at the same time? Spear of Justice. Then when you try to pull your opponent into your trap, they are instead knocked down because the passive overwrites the pull. Not helpful.

Indeed the next attack will be a knockdown but Hunter's Verdict does not deal any damage.

@Assic.2746 said:Hunter's Verdict does not deal any damage.

Wharever. My first 2 points still stand even if the third one is shaky.

If you are going to ask for stuff to get added to DH, you better have a suggestion about what is going to get removed; even though there are deficiencies, DH isn't a hard-done-by elite spec by any means. Even though it's 4-5 years ago, the reasoning Anet provided for why Guardian doesn't have 25% movement speed buff was related to the concept of the class. That's probably still relevant.

The main thing it needs is the 25% movespeed and Longbow buffs.More HP wouldn't hurt either

I guess you mean for PVP? The 25% movespeed is an intended deficiency that isn't just related to DH ... though to be fair, Dh handles that better than core Guardian does by improved ranged options and access to cripple. LBow damage was nerfed in the past, I suspect for PVP reasons, so I think the idea it gets buffed for damage is unlikely. HP is always the achilles heal, though that's a general Guardian deficieny (intended BTW), not just a DH one.

If there is a reasonable approach, it's a look at improvements to a significant impact on the opponent's ability to move around. This would also lessen the need for DH to have a speed buff. To be fair, a LB DH has some of these ingredients already. Not having PVPed on Guardian for a while now, what do people currently consider to be meta for PVP? Is the DH still the go to?