Any in game impressions since patch?

[RUNICBLACK.7630]

Any data or opinions for those of us stuck at work would be appreciated.

[otto.5684]

Opinions. I do not like the heavy handed buff in DH big game hunter. I am not big fan of attaching damage to one skill that may or may not hit in PvP. Soaring Devastation, what is 25% movement speed put on a minor that is not used and tied to not using WoR. Is this is Anet way of trying to have a non-trap PvP build? Could we use valor/rad/DH supposedly with big game hunter and soaring devastation? I will give it a shot, but it does not seem to be well designed. Too many limitations.

 

Zealous Blade, I do not get this at all. I still dunno what the new value of healing is, but why? For PvE it does not matter and PvP Zeal benefited from the consistent heal. Now if you get CCed while using GS2 you lose the only tool in Zeal that provides any sustain. And Zeal is not meta in PvP anyway. This further pushes it out.

 

I have heard that the changes to sword AA is a buff. It is heavy handed, by being tied to completing the chain, and 7% overall damage is not going to make sword a meta PvE weapon anyway.

 

Empowering Might, I guess every patch has to include some trolling pointless change :#

[Arcaedus.7290]

I hopped on during break for some quick tests in the pvp lobby.

 

Some first impressions:

 

1. The new healing from Zealous Blade is an improvement but very poor at 0 healing power. You heal 25 hp per whirl finisher (so 350 hp maximum from hitting all of whirling wrath in a light field) and 141 hp from a leap finisher. Didn't get around to testing out blast finisher, but I imagine it's along that same order of magnitude.

2. So overall sword still feels about the same. If you manage to get through 2-3 full auto attack chains, it starts to pay off. I really have no idea what the devs mean by "attack point" in those patch notes, but it definitely seems like the aftercast of the 3rd strike of auto attack has been decreased which is a dps increase and makes sword feel a lot smoother.

3. The boon changes to firebrand elite mantra really don't do much. Most anyone running a firebrand build is running harrier's or full support, so decreasing the base duration hurts them but not enough to be noticeable.

4. Change to Soaring Devastation is great. It was a well-deserved buff.

5. Trueshot change is in wvw only so I can't speak to it just yet but this change was also well-deserved imo.

6. Change to Big Game Hunter is nice, especially on marauder's amulet but doesn't really feel noticeable or change much. I predict it will be a great trait choice for a sw/sh & sc/f offensive DH build or any DH running GS but those are pretty off-meta picks, so this change is more padding than not.

[Derm.4932]

PvP:

-1h sword changes are a nerf to DH in PvP.

-Soaring devastation changes aren't going to make it used because piercing light is necessary.

-True shot change should be applied to PvP as well.

-Big Game Hunter: ~~Might actually be worth taking now that passive got nerfed awhile back and tether is off CD more often due to defenders dogma changes.~~ Thought it was a master trait.

[Obtena.7952]

I wish I could dig up some old posts from the old forum about how people wouldn't be too excited to get 25% RS as a trait. Here we go ... Now you got what you wanted (albeit, it's way to late) and it's going to cost you heavy to use it ... but here you go.

[Blacksarevok.8104]

well they didn't nerf DH so I guess happy about that?

[Mikau.6920]

I don't know if it is a tooltip problem, but Empowering Might shows the old value (5 secs) instead of the new one (8 secs). I already reported in game with /bug.

[Rhyse.8179]

-Zealous blade still heals per strike, in spite of the patch notes - the combo healing is just a bonus in addition to the per-strike healing. Hopefully this is intended because the new healing is way less then the old. If it worked as the patch notes described, it's a raw nerf.

-Sword is slightly more fluid then it used to be, which is hilarious because it was already the most mobile weapon. Complete attack chains are noticeably quicker, but I didn't test overall DPS. I think (maybe?) that the 3rd attack has longer range, but the tooltip doesn't show it. Even if true, what's the point, it's a melee weapon anyway? The weak point of the weapon is still Skill 3 being immobile, just like always, so I don't see these changes as anything other then tweaking some numbers for the sake of tweaking numbers. Nothing significant seems to have been changed, other then pushing a few % of DPS away from the first two strikes and onto the chain as a whole.

-I use FB elite as a stun break anyway, the stability usually either wore off before it got used anyway, or was useless because a single stack drops like nothing to a CC chain that has any danger to it. So there's no effect that's noticable to my playstyle

[cat.8975]

Zealous Blade: More overall healing if you consistently land your whirling wraths in light fields. The healing is still rather irrelevant though.

 

Sword autos: Overall buff to dps, but it's still worse than scepter.

 

Scepter: Slight nerf

 

DH: Pretty large buff (~6%). This coupled with the nerf to scepter will likely push DH ahead of base guardian in the PvE meta (and effectively put base guard in the trashcan as a result, as it was already rather niche.)

 

Mantras are now reliable.

 

DH now has a 25% movespeed trait.

 

Longbow has some extra damage in WvW.

[Ezrael.6859]

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> I wish I could dig up some old posts from the old forum about how people wouldn't be too excited to get 25% RS as a trait. Here we go ... Now you got what you wanted (albeit, it's way to late) and it's going to cost you heavy to use it ... but here you go.

 

What happened to all your dismissive, condescending and aggressive attitude posts about Guardian never going to get 25% movement speed trait because it doesn't thematically fit the profession and never will?

 

That's a very short post for you, your own foot stuck so far down your throat that most words can't come out?

[Obtena.7952]

> @"Ezrael.6859" said:

> > @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > I wish I could dig up some old posts from the old forum about how people wouldn't be too excited to get 25% RS as a trait. Here we go ... Now you got what you wanted (albeit, it's way to late) and it's going to cost you heavy to use it ... but here you go.

>

> What happened to all your dismissive, condescending and aggressive attitude posts about Guardian never going to get 25% movement speed trait because it doesn't thematically fit the profession and never will?

>

> That's a very short post for you, your own foot stuck so far down your throat that most words can't come out?

 

Why do you think it was buried in a DH trait 6 years after launch? Because it's such an amazing thematic fit for the Guardian profession? :astonished:

 

When those posts were made, the game was different, so they were and still are at least partially relevant. IMO, the only reason Anet released that now is because it's of almost no consequence now and denying the access to it makes no sense because getting around is facilitated by mounts, not RS buffs. I'm still right though if you really want to know what I think ... just look at the feedback already. Exactly what I suspected from the get go all those years ago when I argued against getting it. Actually, even truer now than then. It's just not necessary and the fact it's buried in some Espec at the lowest trait level ... I wasn't far off the mark.

[FtoPScrub.5476]

This was an overall nerf to meditrapper DH. Sword AA changes are a big hit to DH in PvP even with the aftercast reduction. Soaring devastation/BGH are still of no use because they conflict with piercing light/deflecting shot. Only meme specs benefitted from this.