The State of Dragonhunter in sPvP...

Why is this spec allowed to remain so bad in sPvP??? It's a 1v1 spec that has poor 1v1 matchups. It brings almost no utility and is a below average teamfighter. And worst of all it's been like this for almost a year with zero impactful changes to it. The spec itself doesn't require extensive reworks like Renegade, it can be made viable again purely by buffs to numbers... it wouldn't require a large amount of resources spent buffing it. People have been asking for DH buffs for awhile now and as each balance patch comes and go there isn't a single mention of DH. At least Reaper/Scrapper gets a number of class specific changes that actually are of use...

A very easy way to give DH more viability it to just revert some of the nerfs that are no longer appropriate given the very different state of balance that has existed since PoF

• Revert: Wings of Resolve - Base healing of this skill has been reduced by 24% in PvP only.
• Revert: True Shot - The damage of this skill has been reduced by 20%.
• Revert: Purification - The trap heal on this skill has been reduced by approximately 16% in PvP only.
• Spear of Justice - The casting time on the skill has been lowered from .75 seconds to .5 seconds

These changes aren't going to make DH meta anytime soon because it'll still be Spellbreaker/Ranger/Mirage food but it'll at least give it some more viability plus they would be very easy to implement as opposed to trait/skill reworks that have been suggested in the past.

I already wrote 2 comments on this, neither of which were helpful, productive or constructive.

When the general idea was just to give this a thumbs up. DH needs to be looked at.

I agree with OP that just numerical buffs could bring DH up to viability again, but considering the treatment scrapper and reaper got (additional functionality was added to their traits/weapon skills), I think DH deserves a little functionality change as well.

Once again, I'll reiterate in case a dev reads this, but here are some great changes I've seen proposed over the past few months that would make DH more fun and wouldn't terribly upset balance in any game mode:

• Completely rework the minor trait Defender's Dogma such that activating a virtue grants swiftness and a small amount of healing.
• Change trueshot such that it can be used while moving.
• Buff trueshot damage by 5-10%
• Add a 1/2s evade to Wings of Resolve (the landing is still interruptable like Daredevil staff 5). This buff could be attached to Soaring Devastation instead.
• Change Heavy Light so that instead of granting stability, it grants quickness.

While I do not think DH has sustainability issues, it most definitely is lacking in the damage department. There were million suggestions over the last year and a half. I think anet does not want DH to be useable in sPvP. Cuz if they are doing any level of monitoring, there is no fucking way they came to a conclusion it is competitive (it is barely useable).

I personally gave up. But that is the case for all guardian builds btw, except FB. Anet does not seem to be interested in making anything but FB support strong in PvP.

@FtoPScrub.5476 said:Why is this spec allowed to remain so bad in sPvP??? It's a 1v1 spec that has poor 1v1 matchups. It brings almost no utility and is a below average teamfighter. And worst of all it's been like this for almost a year with zero impactful changes to it. The spec itself doesn't require extensive reworks like Renegade, it can be made viable again purely by buffs to numbers... it wouldn't require a large amount of resources spent buffing it. People have been asking for DH buffs for awhile now and as each balance patch comes and go there isn't a single mention of DH. At least Reaper/Scrapper gets a number of class specific changes that actually are of use...

A very easy way to give DH more viability it to just revert some of the nerfs that are no longer appropriate given the very different state of balance that has existed since PoF

• Revert: Wings of Resolve - Base healing of this skill has been reduced by 24% in PvP only.
• Revert: True Shot - The damage of this skill has been reduced by 20%.
• Revert: Purification - The trap heal on this skill has been reduced by approximately 16% in PvP only.
• Spear of Justice - The casting time on the skill has been lowered from .75 seconds to .5 seconds

These changes aren't going to make DH meta anytime soon because it'll still be Spellbreaker/Ranger/Mirage food but it'll at least give it some more viability plus they would be very easy to implement as opposed to trait/skill reworks that have been suggested in the past.

@"mrauls.6519" made a post about this a while back, was a productive thread imo.

definitely agree with the suggestions in this thread, some DH specific buffs are definitely needed. Particularly activating the virtues (more healing and evade on wings of resolve, etc.), longbow damage (true shot damage buff, etc.), and changes to underused traits. The fact that we have to use a grandmaster trait to get knock-back on our bow when rangers and renegades get knock-back or knockdown on their bows for no trait cost is also baffling to me, I'd love to see knockback come standard on LB skill 3 and heavy light should be reworked.

I made a thread about this a while ago in the pvp section. I would like to see the trait soaring devastation implemented into the actual ability and replaced with something such as:

Increase the damage of longbow abilities by 10-15%. True shot can now be cast while moving

Also deflecting shot should already include the knock back. Replace that trait with:

deflecting shot grants 2 seconds of quickness

My 2¢

@Alex.4982 said:I'd love to see knockback come standard on LB skill 3 and heavy light should be reworked.

Thissss

How bad is it? I recently rolled up a Guardian and started playing Dragonhunter in PvP and it seems to work ok for me. Not the best of the best but I'm also not the best of the best players. But I do win about half my matchups using the Elite, with it becoming one of the stronger professions I can seem to win with in PvP. Or am I just getting lucky in my matchups and playing against players who happen to be worse than me?

@Dace.8173 said:How bad is it? I recently rolled up a Guardian and started playing Dragonhunter in PvP and it seems to work ok for me. Not the best of the best but I'm also not the best of the best players. But I do win about half my matchups using the Elite, with it becoming one of the stronger professions I can seem to win with in PvP. Or am I just getting lucky in my matchups and playing against players who happen to be worse than me?

You can still be effective and have fun with it but against the more experienced and skilled crowd, you'll feel a bit useless on DH. It just doesn't bring enough to the table and for the role it plays, there are many other builds on other classes that do a better job.

@Arcaedus.7290 said:

@Dace.8173 said:How bad is it? I recently rolled up a Guardian and started playing Dragonhunter in PvP and it seems to work ok for me. Not the best of the best but I'm also not the best of the best players. But I do win about half my matchups using the Elite, with it becoming one of the stronger professions I can seem to win with in PvP. Or am I just getting lucky in my matchups and playing against players who happen to be worse than me?

What role is it good at? Or supposed to be good at?

@Dace.8173 said:

@Arcaedus.7290 said:

@Dace.8173 said:How bad is it? I recently rolled up a Guardian and started playing Dragonhunter in PvP and it seems to work ok for me. Not the best of the best but I'm also not the best of the best players. But I do win about half my matchups using the Elite, with it becoming one of the stronger professions I can seem to win with in PvP. Or am I just getting lucky in my matchups and playing against players who happen to be worse than me?

Once upon a time DH was the king of node holding (from a non bunker perspective) and burst damage. This is when longbow & traps were good and Mirage didn't exist yet. They were a very versitile class, although their skill ceiling had a certain cap to it and didn't see a lot of high tier play outside of Moobs.

@Dace.8173 said:

@Arcaedus.7290 said:

@Dace.8173 said:How bad is it? I recently rolled up a Guardian and started playing Dragonhunter in PvP and it seems to work ok for me. Not the best of the best but I'm also not the best of the best players. But I do win about half my matchups using the Elite, with it becoming one of the stronger professions I can seem to win with in PvP. Or am I just getting lucky in my matchups and playing against players who happen to be worse than me?

Medi trapper DH is supposed to function as a +1 roamer with some potential as a bruiser in smaller fights. It doesn't do particularly well at this though since it's over-reliant on landing the Test of Faith combo to do any real damage.

Aaah I see. I tried giving Firebrand a try but I didn't find it as fun as Dragonhunter. It's a pity that DH isn't as good of an Elite anymore. :( Still I'm likely to keep at it, I prefer fun over being op after all.

@Dace.8173 said:Aaah I see. I tried giving Firebrand a try but I didn't find it as fun as Dragonhunter. It's a pity that DH isn't as good of an Elite anymore. :( Still I'm likely to keep at it, I prefer fun over being op after all.

I've found the core Radiant Hammer build does the same job as DH but better. It has a lot of good damage options, and the synergy between the 3 used traitlines is huge. Unfortunately it doesn't work for DH because you DO need all 3 of the traitlines in order for it to work. Arguably you could drop Valor but that means you also lose Fury-access, and most of your sustain.

@Yannir.4132 said:

@Dace.8173 said:Aaah I see. I tried giving Firebrand a try but I didn't find it as fun as Dragonhunter. It's a pity that DH isn't as good of an Elite anymore. :( Still I'm likely to keep at it, I prefer fun over being op after all.

In conquest pvp it does. It is completely outclassed by DH when it comes to wvw roaming and duels though.

@Yannir.4132 said:

@Dace.8173 said:Aaah I see. I tried giving Firebrand a try but I didn't find it as fun as Dragonhunter. It's a pity that DH isn't as good of an Elite anymore. :( Still I'm likely to keep at it, I prefer fun over being op after all.

You cannot drop valor. Though, you can drop virtues for zeal. Outside or ranked I typically play GS, sword/shield using radiance, zeal and valor. The damage is hilarious.

@Arcaedus.7290 said:

@Yannir.4132 said:

@Dace.8173 said:Aaah I see. I tried giving Firebrand a try but I didn't find it as fun as Dragonhunter. It's a pity that DH isn't as good of an Elite anymore. :( Still I'm likely to keep at it, I prefer fun over being op after all.

Umm yes, that's what was being talked about. Not those whatever they are non-sPvP things. :wink:

Yeah, DH is kind of pathetic right now, was playing against a Holo one of this days and I didnt even need to work on pulls/knock backs from Test of Faith, he keep crossing the trap on his free will without any major problems lol, had to play 10 times better then him to achieven the win...considering this meta, i would say that DH is high skill/low reward...longbow 3 being a skill shoot(you have to aim at least) does so little when compared to others similar skills, come on Anet, I have to trait it just to get a knockback? Trap heal in team fights will most of the time get interrupted thanks to so much CC flying around and you will a get a full cooldown heal without getting healead, and F2 suffers from the same problem.

@Felipe.1807 said:Yeah, DH is kind of pathetic right now, was playing against a Holo one of this days and I didnt even need to work on pulls/knock backs from Test of Faith, he keep crossing the trap on his free will without any major problems lol, had to play 10 times better then him to achieven the win...considering this meta, i would say that DH is high skill/low reward...longbow 3 being a skill shoot(you have to aim at least) does so little when compared to others similar skills, come on Anet, I have to trait it just to get a knockback? Trap heal in team fights will most of the time get interrupted thanks to so much CC flying around and you will a get a full cooldown heal without getting healead, and F2 suffers from the same problem.

I wouldn't say DH is high skill by any means but you're right, you have to enormously outplay your opponent to get a win since DH's damage is nearly nonexistent without ToF and nearly everyone knows how to play around ToF now.

@Arcaedus.7290 said:

@Felipe.1807 said:Yeah, DH is kind of pathetic right now, was playing against a Holo one of this days and I didnt even need to work on pulls/knock backs from Test of Faith, he keep crossing the trap on his free will without any major problems lol, had to play 10 times better then him to achieven the win...considering this meta, i would say that DH is high skill/low reward...longbow 3 being a skill shoot(you have to aim at least) does so little when compared to others similar skills, come on Anet, I have to trait it just to get a knockback? Trap heal in team fights will most of the time get interrupted thanks to so much CC flying around and you will a get a full cooldown heal without getting healead, and F2 suffers from the same problem.

I wouldnt say that DH is a spec that requires high to be played to, but considering SB/Holos/Mirages you defnetly need to work way harder to hope to achieve the same results...i know people who can make DH work, but its not even fun how much they have to outplay in order to be relevant on the match.

@Felipe.1807 said:

@Arcaedus.7290 said:

@Felipe.1807 said:Yeah, DH is kind of pathetic right now, was playing against a Holo one of this days and I didnt even need to work on pulls/knock backs from Test of Faith, he keep crossing the trap on his free will without any major problems lol, had to play 10 times better then him to achieven the win...considering this meta, i would say that DH is high skill/low reward...longbow 3 being a skill shoot(you have to aim at least) does so little when compared to others similar skills, come on Anet, I have to trait it just to get a knockback? Trap heal in team fights will most of the time get interrupted thanks to so much CC flying around and you will a get a full cooldown heal without getting healead, and F2 suffers from the same problem.

Just a personal anecdote:

A few weeks ago while playing DH and doin some pvp, I caught a power-reaper in essentially a 1v1. This dude wasn't very good but his faceroll rotation was solid. I think the fight lasted somewhere between 40 and 60 seconds. I hit him with about 80% or more of my LB #3s, avoided all the big hits (GS 2, 4 and 5, Reaper 4 and 5, most Reaper 2s), got him with my first and third ToF comboes, never had my heal or leap interrupted and still barely won that fight. The only things that he consistently hit me with were the aoe boon corrupt upon going into shroud, and the traited auto-proc spinal shivers, both of which have zero counterplay. I had to essentially outplay this guy at every turn to barely squeeze out a win and even then it took almost a minute.

Not to bash on reaper, but this is how it feels to play DH against fairly decent players playing any of the meta specs right now.

@Arcaedus.7290 said:

@Felipe.1807 said:

@Arcaedus.7290 said:

@Felipe.1807 said:Yeah, DH is kind of pathetic right now, was playing against a Holo one of this days and I didnt even need to work on pulls/knock backs from Test of Faith, he keep crossing the trap on his free will without any major problems lol, had to play 10 times better then him to achieven the win...considering this meta, i would say that DH is high skill/low reward...longbow 3 being a skill shoot(you have to aim at least) does so little when compared to others similar skills, come on Anet, I have to trait it just to get a knockback? Trap heal in team fights will most of the time get interrupted thanks to so much CC flying around and you will a get a full cooldown heal without getting healead, and F2 suffers from the same problem.

That's why DH traps were super strong when spec was released, class was design to win by using its powercreep momentum from traps being triggered, has i tend to joke, traps were designed to be DH main weapon rather than the bow lol, the ammount of work on needs to strive for when its a more gimmickly build with strong results.

And also the reason i never liked DH, traps were a bat bet for it...

@Arcaedus.7290 said:

@Felipe.1807 said:

@Arcaedus.7290 said:

@Felipe.1807 said:Yeah, DH is kind of pathetic right now, was playing against a Holo one of this days and I didnt even need to work on pulls/knock backs from Test of Faith, he keep crossing the trap on his free will without any major problems lol, had to play 10 times better then him to achieven the win...considering this meta, i would say that DH is high skill/low reward...longbow 3 being a skill shoot(you have to aim at least) does so little when compared to others similar skills, come on Anet, I have to trait it just to get a knockback? Trap heal in team fights will most of the time get interrupted thanks to so much CC flying around and you will a get a full cooldown heal without getting healead, and F2 suffers from the same problem.

???

Shroud from 100% while taking no damage lasts at best 20s with Axe 2 and GS 3 only providing a total of +5s (rounded up) per rotation of both skills combined.

Either that reaper is a lot better than you think he is or you made some serious misplays in order to give him magnitudes more life force than he should have had for the fight to last that long, considering one good combo should strip his LF from 100-0 within a few seconds. The same is said about him 100-0'ing you with shroud available as reaper can be built to completely dumpster any guard build.

Overall this thread just kinda shows how broken PoF has made classes, though.

HoT was powercreep enough for a huge portion of the playerbase, and DH was seen as the free-win class because it was so strong and generally easy to pick up.For PoF to make it statistically super weak kinda emphasizes how broken the new specs are.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/97we6w/can_we_get_some_love_for_dragon_hunter_longbow/

Relevant thread on reddit. Hopefully this issue gets more traction. It's definitely not just a small subsection of the guardian forum that agrees to buffs