Let's talk about Dragonhunter

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

@"faytte.1057" said:

it is not about "forcing" people to use traps. it is about people combining traps with other things.

Whats wrong with this? Engineers combine kits with non kit utility?

nothing wrong with just combining things together - it is just that devs need to look at how these things stack

it is about being overly cautious about giving to the same build a good short range dps and long range dps. if traps were brokenly OP (maybe they are maybe they are not) then adding ontop onto the sape spec a highly damaging long range weapon would leave a class with no engagement range where it would be vulnerable and that does not sound right. at least that's how I understood the guy's line of thinking. I could be wrong ;)

The prevailing HOLO Pdos kit uses rifles as their primary weapon, and have access to melee utility (their spinny blades of death) and use ranged damage kits as well. No is saying that staying in Bow should yield the dps of a great sword, but we are saying it should do as well as scepter/torth (which are ranged weapons anyways).

and last time I checked holosmith had other vulnerabilities to compensate for that. but then to continue the discuss on wether or not bow required to be nerfed in favour of traps you'd need that other guy as he was making the claim - I was just explaining my understanding of his point to that other person whom have seem unable to understnd dude's point ;)

[Obtena.7952]

@faytte.1057 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:Again, not everything is about DPS ... and LBow fits that category. If you were disappointed you 'weren't' supposed to use your new weapon as a DH, it's probably because you had some expectation for what it does that doesn't match it's intended use.

But Longbow falls behind on the condition and utility of scepter/xx offhand? It basically has no perks over other ranged combinations other than extra range, which only matters in PvP, at which point it kind of stinks as a ranged weapon? No one says LB should be the king all of weapons, but it should at least do more dps (or the same) as scepter/torch for a DH, given its lack of might gain, condi removal, no-requirements-needed snares.

I also think its a bit much that 'you' know what the intended use of LB is from the developers? Like when the weapon was released it did a ton of damage, so clearly their intention was to have it be a damaging weapon, then when it was nerfed to cut down on how powerful it was. The argument then being, was it over nerfed, or was this tehir 'intention', which is something only ANET could answer.

Whatever the situation is, this is a weapon that sees almost no use, not even in WvW. That isn't a good thing.

Great ... if that's how you feel, don't use it. I would disagree with that assessment, for reasons not worth arguing about. It has a use, it's just not relevant to the current meta. Chasing meta doesn't work, especially if you can choose weapons that ARE relevant in the current game state. That's the whole point of having choices. Just because Lbow falls behind on condition and utility of scepter ... shouldn't make ANYONE conclude adding more damage to it will address that (which isn't a problem in the first place BTW).

[Yannir.4132]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@faytte.1057 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:Again, not everything is about DPS ... and LBow fits that category. If you were disappointed you 'weren't' supposed to use your new weapon as a DH, it's probably because you had some expectation for what it does that doesn't match it's intended use.

But Longbow falls behind on the condition and utility of scepter/xx offhand? It basically has no perks over other ranged combinations other than extra range, which only matters in PvP, at which point it kind of stinks as a ranged weapon? No one says LB should be the king all of weapons, but it should at least do more dps (or the same) as scepter/torch for a DH, given its lack of might gain, condi removal, no-requirements-needed snares.

I also think its a bit much that 'you' know what the intended use of LB is from the developers? Like when the weapon was released it did a ton of damage, so clearly their intention was to have it be a damaging weapon, then when it was nerfed to cut down on how powerful it was. The argument then being, was it over nerfed, or was this tehir 'intention', which is something only ANET could answer.

Whatever the situation is, this is a weapon that sees almost no use, not even in WvW. That isn't a good thing.

Great ... if that's how you feel, don't use it. I would disagree with that assessment, for reasons not worth arguing about. It has a use, it's just not relevant to the current meta. Chasing meta doesn't work, especially if you can choose weapons that ARE relevant in the current game state. That's the whole point of having choices. Just because Lbow falls behind on condition and utility of scepter ... shouldn't make ANYONE conclude adding more damage to it will address that (which isn't a problem in the first place BTW).

You would make a fine politician. This comment has absolutely 0 substance.How META changes is ANet implementing changes that affect it. Be that buffing underused things or nerfing overperforming things makes little difference. Unless they overdo it. None of my proposed changes are overdoing it. That's the bottom line.

[Arcaedus.7290]

@Yannir.4132 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@faytte.1057 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:Again, not everything is about DPS ... and LBow fits that category. If you were disappointed you 'weren't' supposed to use your new weapon as a DH, it's probably because you had some expectation for what it does that doesn't match it's intended use.

But Longbow falls behind on the condition and utility of scepter/xx offhand? It basically has no perks over other ranged combinations other than extra range, which only matters in PvP, at which point it kind of stinks as a ranged weapon? No one says LB should be the king all of weapons, but it should at least do more dps (or the same) as scepter/torch for a DH, given its lack of might gain, condi removal, no-requirements-needed snares.

I also think its a bit much that 'you' know what the intended use of LB is from the developers? Like when the weapon was released it did a ton of damage, so clearly their intention was to have it be a damaging weapon, then when it was nerfed to cut down on how powerful it was. The argument then being, was it over nerfed, or was this tehir 'intention', which is something only ANET could answer.

Whatever the situation is, this is a weapon that sees almost no use, not even in WvW. That isn't a good thing.

Great ... if that's how you feel, don't use it. I would disagree with that assessment, for reasons not worth arguing about. It has a use, it's just not relevant to the current meta. Chasing meta doesn't work, especially if you can choose weapons that ARE relevant in the current game state. That's the whole point of having choices. Just because Lbow falls behind on condition and utility of scepter ... shouldn't make ANYONE conclude adding more damage to it will address that (which isn't a problem in the first place BTW).

You would make a fine politician. This comment has absolutely 0 substance.How META changes is ANet implementing changes that affect it. Be that buffing underused things or nerfing overperforming things makes little difference. Unless they overdo it. None of my proposed changes are overdoing it. That's the bottom line.

I normally avoid ad hominem arguments, but I'm starting to think otto is right on this one; Obtena tends to argue against any changes/buffs that are proposed here just for the sake of playing devil's advocate. I recall back before sword and scepter were given symbols, there were a few of us arguing on the forums for this change as well as many others (some of which were verbatim implemented into the game) and Obtena was arguing against us on many of these points, seemingly because he disapproved. Then the changes were implemented and there was nary a peep from him (translation: his agenda wasn't actually to prevent the buffs, nor did he seem to think guardian was OP after the buffs).

That being said, I don't think anyone has actually ever taken the time and asked, so @Obtena.7952 , what is your current stance on the meta? pve? pvp? wvw?

[Obtena.7952]

@Yannir.4132 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@faytte.1057 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:Again, not everything is about DPS ... and LBow fits that category. If you were disappointed you 'weren't' supposed to use your new weapon as a DH, it's probably because you had some expectation for what it does that doesn't match it's intended use.

But Longbow falls behind on the condition and utility of scepter/xx offhand? It basically has no perks over other ranged combinations other than extra range, which only matters in PvP, at which point it kind of stinks as a ranged weapon? No one says LB should be the king all of weapons, but it should at least do more dps (or the same) as scepter/torch for a DH, given its lack of might gain, condi removal, no-requirements-needed snares.

I also think its a bit much that 'you' know what the intended use of LB is from the developers? Like when the weapon was released it did a ton of damage, so clearly their intention was to have it be a damaging weapon, then when it was nerfed to cut down on how powerful it was. The argument then being, was it over nerfed, or was this tehir 'intention', which is something only ANET could answer.

Whatever the situation is, this is a weapon that sees almost no use, not even in WvW. That isn't a good thing.

Great ... if that's how you feel, don't use it. I would disagree with that assessment, for reasons not worth arguing about. It has a use, it's just not relevant to the current meta. Chasing meta doesn't work, especially if you can choose weapons that ARE relevant in the current game state. That's the whole point of having choices. Just because Lbow falls behind on condition and utility of scepter ... shouldn't make ANYONE conclude adding more damage to it will address that (which isn't a problem in the first place BTW).

You would make a fine politician. This comment has absolutely 0 substance.How META changes is ANet implementing changes that affect it. Be that buffing underused things or nerfing overperforming things makes little difference. Unless they overdo it. None of my proposed changes are overdoing it. That's the bottom line.

There is nothing political here. Anet trying to chase a moving target for Meta by buffing specific features on specific skills/specs is a waste of their time. It's not about over or under doing. It's about the return on the time they would take to implement the changes and the impact it would have on the game. Since the meta changes, the impact changing something that is affected by the meta, is effectively zero.

My post is only zero substance to someone that doesn't understand that there is more to choosing a weapon than the damage it does. If you ignore the theme, then you could only be lucky to make improvement suggestions relevant to the skills in question.

@Arcaedus.7290 said:That being said, I don't think anyone has actually ever taken the time and asked, so @Obtena.7952 , what is your current stance on the meta? pve? pvp? wvw?

Fair and relevant question: Meta is here, it's not leaving the game, so we have to accept it. It's also fluid and changes ... much faster than anything Anet can do to keep up with it. This is why it's nonsense for anyone to propose changing something for reasons of 'it's not good anymore' because changing it doesn't guarentee it won't stop being good in the future ... the meta dictates what's good, not the skills on the weapons. Chasing meta is simply a waste of Anet's time. The second factor is choice; not every choice we have must be at the same level of performance as every other choice. That's just NOT how the game has EVER worked. Arguments that are based on equivalent performance are contradictory, because they are based on the fact that we have choices, which people use at their greatest convenience to argue FOR change ... but somehow are loathe to use that choice to get the optimal performance they want. The third factor is that even if Anet does do a change like increase LBow damage, then the meta changes because of that ... then that's just another reason for someone else to complain that other choices aren't meta anymore either .... this is not a game Anet can win. The fact that the game has meta means there are fundamentally optimal choices depending on the game conditions. 'fixing DPS' can't address that.

Now, If someone had a strong argument to explain why LBow is supposed to be a a really good DPS, long range weapon and should have it's DPS maintained at the higher level, based on the theme of DH (because it's theme that is relevant), then there is some point for discussion. But if the best retort to the challenge of 'LBow is bad' is 'I want more damage', that's just not compelling.

[phokus.8934]

Simply put ANet dictates the meta based on balance passes and new elite traitlines.

As it stands today, longbow has no place for optimal gameplay in any mode. That’s the root problem with it and something any sane person is advocating change for.

At this point I don’t have much hope in them changing it but keeping it visible is the best we can do.

[Arcaedus.7290]

@"Obtena.7952" said:Fair and relevant question: Meta is here, it's not leaving the game, so we have to accept it. It's also fluid and changes ... much faster than anything Anet can do to keep up with it. This is why it's nonsense for anyone to propose changing something for reasons of 'it's not good anymore' because changing it doesn't guarentee it won't stop being good in the future ... the meta dictates what's good, not the skills on the weapons. Chasing meta is simply a waste of Anet's time. The other factor is choice; not every choice we have must be at the same level of performance as every other choice. That's just NOT how the game has EVERY worked. Arguments that are based on equivalent performance are contradictory, because they are based on the fact that we have choices ... but somehow are loathe to use that choice.

Now, If someone had a strong argument to explain why LBow is supposed to be a a really good DPS, long range weapon and should have it's DPS maintained at the higher level, based on the theme of DH (because it's theme that is relevant), then there is some point for discussion. But if the best retort to the challenge of 'LBow is bad' is 'I want more damage', that's just not compelling.

1. Ok, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm interpreting your viewpoint as simply that Anet should not make changes to individual skills/traits to make them relevant to the current meta since that doesn't drive changes in the game, only wastes theirs (and our) time since these skills/traits may fall out of the meta again in the future.

2. You also believe that not every choice of a build should perform at the peak efficacy for each game mode.

Alright, lets start with point 1: I don't necessarily agree with you here. To an extent you're right and there are good examples of time being wasted (such as on spirit weapons). However, ideologically I would have to disagree. Your argument is the same as saying "why ban hackers, they're just going to buy another account and start over again and continue hacking, it would be a waste of time."

The point of buffing these skills/traits is to make them useful/fun somewhere in the game, even if only for some period of time. This kind of ties in to your second point about choice, but it's really not fair that one class gets less choices than another class (even if only a few of those choices are the maximum potential for whatever game mode). What I mean by less choices is lets say we have an optional trait/skill that is just so poor that people don't use it in any game mode. This trait/skill can't even be considered a choice at this point. I don't think it has to be buffed so that it's competitive with other trait/skills for a given build/given meta, but it should be buffed so that it's at least comparable (maybe 95% as good as the obvious "best choice") and at least fun to use. Otherwise the skill/trait is literally just a waste of space and we may as well remove it from the game.

My argument may be a little hard to follow since I'm talking about individual skills/traits as "choices" and also referring to an entire build as a "choice" as well but those individual skills/traits can define the build so I think the argument still holds.

About point 2: I agree with you on point 2, but I think the issue is a bit more complex. If we define the goal (for any one game mode) as to be as successful as possible, the obvious answer for achieving the goal is to use the best build possible to play. You know what that would lead to? Everyone playing one build on one or a few classes (at least in pvp/wvw). The whole point of buffing stuff that's underperforming is to make the game less homogenous. We can take this argument one level further: the point of buffing individual skills/traits is to make playing just one class less homogenous. It's not necessarily about me being able to play guardian on build A and performing just as well as me playing guardian on build B, but rather, me being able to counter certain scenarios on build B that I can't handle on build A, and vice versa. I think for a player to have those options makes the game more entertaining for them.

The entire reason I push for certain buffs/changes on the forums here is to hopefully get Anet to reach that state where different builds can be the best for a specific scenario. This is what truly gives you a rock-paper-scissors balance that many mmos try to achieve. There are also other changes (like buffing longbow) that I think are necessary but those have more to do with guardian (as a whole) underperforming relative to another class given the same role in a game mode.

[Obtena.7952]

That's fair and when you say these arguments are hard to follow ... they are, because it's not just one reason it's good, or one reason it's bad ... it's a balance of things that all need to be considered with their appropriate weights; there aren't many people that show they are capable of assessing the value of their idea from the multitude of considerations available; they simply defend it from the one factor they consider most significant. Now, maybe I'm thinking way too much about it and maybe Anet isn't that complicated in their approach. OK, but if that's the case, we see very clearly from the history of the game, and specifically from the history of how they have handled DH, what is within reason for this espec.

The theme is clear and the evidence lies with the kinds of effects we have access to on LBow and DH traits. For example, but not limited to, cripple on Auto and #5, the knockback on #4, and the most telling ... the intentional change to Piercing Light to give Slow condition instead of Daze. The majority of the effects we are getting access to as a DH are related to locking down opponents to a ranged position, or in a trap if you're lucky.

I'm not against LBow getting DPS but 1) we have history to suggest that's not how Anet is aligning the spec to their vision of the class and 2) I think that the request for more DPS is just a thinly veiled disguise for what people REALLY want ... for Anet to FORCE Lbow to be meta on DH (I think someone even said as much ... LBow SHOULD be meta on DH). Even if people got ... 5% more DPS overall, do you honestly think people would call it case closed here? That's not the goal of the OP, or anyone else that has supported the idea of more DPS on DH. Forcing meta isn't an option; it goes against the idea that you can play how you want. Anet chasing meta is them literally acknowledging that not only is there optimal play, but THEY are going to tell you want that optimal play is. That's just a step too far from 'playing how you want' for me.

To be honest, I generally find it difficult to push for much of the ideas that people are making because they are primarily made out of emotional arguments, not ones based on the realities of how the game works or the concepts and themes that Anet have used as their roadmap to develop the game. I don't blame anyone for that because it's not explicit, but if you observe and understand how things evolved, you can see it. I get your 'rock/scissor/paper' analogy and it would be great if that could happen. I'm of the belief that it's either a) a goal Anet is not trying to achieve or b) it's a goal they can't achieve. Providing even 2 or 3 builds for each class that have equivalent performance but play differently for each of PVP and WvW to get that rock/paper/scissors is ... not possible in this game with Anet at the helm.

I don't think LBow is actually improved by increasing it's damage, but let me clarify

... I don't think that given the context of DH and how it appears Anet intends people to get optimal play from it when it uses LBow ... that increasing its damage will improve it significantly.

[Arcaedus.7290]

Actually from a pve perspective (raids and fractals for me mostly), I absolutely agree with you on DH's longbow. Also I think it's obvious that the longbow wasn't intended to be a best-in-slot for either dps or burst damage based on overall design and continuing buffs/nerfs. At HoT launch it actually was part of a GS/Longbow dps rotation, but that was very quickly fixed.

However, many arguments for buffing any one aspect of guard are from strictly a pvp/wvw perspective. I can't speak for everyone here, but I was definitely proposing buffs to DH longbow from a pvp/wvw standpoint. Minor numerical buffs or qol-type changes to LB would keep it consistent with the concept/themes of DH like you mentioned and would at the same time make it a little more competitive and even more fun to play because as we stand right now, DH can't contend with some of the other power-based builds in pvp when played at the skill ceiling and in fact, if DH can't, nothing else on guard really can since DH is that local maxima for build efficacy.

I prefer to talk actual examples than theory, so take these DH-specific buffs that have been proposed. I think these are some of the very best that keep the DH theme/concept intact and overall improve gameplay for guardian players:

1. Trueshot: Can be buffed/changed in many ways. The two most popular: 1. increase damage (5-10% damage buff seems fair) or 2. Keep trueshot as is currently, but remove the self-root on cast.
2. The DH minor trait Defender's Dogma should be removed. Instead, replace it entirely with a new trait. The best suggestion I've seen is to make it so that activating a virtue grants 5s swiftness/minor healing.
3. Hunter's Ward: Can be buffed/changed in many ways. 1. Decrease cd from 40 to 35. 2 Keep total damage the same but decrease the cast time/number of impacts. or 3. Increase the damage while channeling.
4. For the Heavy Light GM trait, replace stability with 1.5s quickness.
5. For the Piercing Light adept trait, replace slow with cripple.

I think one or more of these changes if implemented would overall be beneficial for pvp/wvw balance and wouldn't drastically change how DH functions or how it feels thematically. I can't honestly look at any of these changes and say that if they were implemented, that they'd bring DH or LB into the meta. They may appear to be "meta-chasing" but only so far as matching what other classes do given similar skills/concepts. Part of my argument for these buffs is fairness, but just by themselves, I think these changes would make the class more fun without having an unintended big picture consequence.

[Obtena.7952]

Those buffs aren't unreasonable for what the LBow does with DH, and I don't believe them to be meta chasing because they are thought out in accordance to the theme of DH, not what LBoW "doesn't do" or "isn't meta" or "compares to". My expressed displeasure was mainly aimed at the DPS buffs that people recommending. From what I can tell, these are rather minor changes, which superficially won't appeal to someone wanting to force DH/LBow to be meta in PVP/WvW.