[Witch Hunter] Dragon Gun

[Marsares]

I don't play a WH, but in Zerg fights it is similar to a WL, and I would argue that you play the WH wrong in a Zerg setting. As a mostly ST class, like a WL, you don't want to stand with your Zerg and smack on tanks in the frontline, neither do you want to suicide in the back lines where you won't have support and insta-die due to random AOE. Instead, you hover on the edges and pick players who have badly positioned themselves outside the AOE bomb or who are on low health and trying to move out of the opposing AOE bomb and are thus somewhat out of their support lines.

ST helps with that, AOE doesn't. Having AOE on a mostly ST class just generates some random fluff damage. If I would play WH, I would prefer ST abilities... very much like I am flabbergasted why they buffed the sole AOE ability on the WL as the class is still pretty useless for big AOE fights, and actually reduces the Build variety for what the class shines in: ST burst.

Not all classes should try to be all to everything, for some classes it's actually better to be somewhat pigeon holed into a niche role, but then be the best at it.

[kryss]

Unfortunately the build you posted is utter crap, and you won't kill anybody with it, solo, in small grps, or in WBs, nor help kill anybody at all. If you want to be useful in parties, you pop, melt somebody (preferably healer with double debuff) and move on, DA away or keep ST dpsing if you are supported.

The point is in your post "if you want to be useful in parties, you pop, melt somebody and move on" you dont do this in wb/zerg/aoe spam fights because engaging alone on the enemy backline is a death sentence, so your option is to stand with your zerg and use what aoe you have (preferably range aoe to stay out of danger) and assist on closest targets with torment spam.
Confession is an aoe focused path, its by no means the fault of the tree that 99% of Wh (and We) play the class to be a solo ganker and the occasional group mdps with the exact same cookie cutter spec.

The spec i listed gives you an aoe heal debuff and self healing when needed, its is by far more useful in wb/zerg/aoe fights then torment spam spec because of 2 reasons, you bring an aoe heal debuff(nor help kill anybody right ) and st damage doesnt win in zerg fights.

In a group fight you do what you are supposed to do, which is DPS big time and apply an incoming heal debuff to your targets, not the meh outgoing one that you would like to use AoE style, which is almost useless alone. In almost every party situation, being small or big, you are not doing your job properly if you can't apply an incoming HD. That's why many WHs use this spec, which is the best you can get for solo or grp:

http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=wh; ... 5:;0:0:0:0:

All the others are subpar and not used much, also because dragon gun is such an horrid ability.

[bloodi]

ST helps with that, AOE doesn't. Having AOE on a mostly ST class just generates some random fluff damage. If I would play WH, I would prefer ST abilities... very much like I am flabbergasted why they buffed the sole AOE ability on the WL as the class is still pretty useless for big AOE fights, and actually reduces the Build variety for what the class shines in: ST burst.

Not all classes should try to be all to everything, for some classes it's actually better to be somewhat pigeon holed into a niche role, but then be the best at it.

You are missing the point imo, is not about what is best, is what they can afford to do.

Picture the following, you are a solo guy riding open wbs when you can and when there isnt spots, you are out of luck, you popping into people alone does nothing, your solo ganks are getting trained on because people are not going alone.

You pick up dragon gun/OYK pop out of stealth and just use it on their healer pack along with outgoing hdebuff, now this is of course not the panacea to all your problems but at least tags them and applies an useful debuff, when they die, you will get credit.

And its the same for farming some mobs, ruin or whatever, having basic aoe is an useful tool in certain situations, as people are poiting out WH already has good ST builds, removing their only aoe skill and making it another ST tool is imo, giving them an alternate path that ultimately is nothing more than a gimmicky build around CDs which a slayer can do better.

So yeah its fluff damage but it helps in certain situations, if you remove it they just have nothing but ST and while ST may be the best option for most situations, there are others where having basic aoe helps and removing it from them is not a good idea imo.

[Morf]

In a group fight you do what you are supposed to do, which is DPS big time and apply an incoming heal debuff to your targets, not the meh outgoing one that you would like to use AoE style, which is almost useless alone. In almost every party situation, being small or big, you are not doing your job properly if you can't apply an incoming HD. That's why many WHs use this spec, which is the best you can get for solo or grp:

http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=wh; ... 5:;0:0:0:0:

All the others are subpar and not used much, also because dragon gun is such an horrid ability.

Nobody is talking about group fights in regards to dragon gun, yes in group fights it sucks as does using whirling axe for wl's, flurry for slayers, blunderbuss for engi, lota choppin for choppas etc etc, you are far better off using ST skills and focusing targets down something that is not done in zerg/aoe fights or done more losely.
As a wh you are more beneficial using dragon gun to get an aoe heal debuff or aoe ini debuff in zerg/aoe fights and then picking the odd close target to torment spam while using shroud of magnus/repel blasphemy so you dont explode to mass aoe damage.

I can understand your points and yes the spec you linked is the spec to play solo and 6 man groups but this is about dragon gun in zerg/aoe fights and it having a use, it has nothing to do with cookie cutter solo/group spec which will always be bound to crit tactic and heal debuff leaving not enough points for the finisher in confession

[Panzerkasper]

Lets look at this from two sides: The Solo and the Group effectivness.

As a solo build with either going for Confession+Inquisition path you will gain a HD and SoD, but you will lose a huge load of damage since you will not have FC tactic and BaL (best WH finisher there is) and miss out the KD. Going for Confession+Judgement might be the better choice (sacrificing HD and SoD).
I personally must say i would still run Inqui+Judge as a solo build, since the damage output is just too damn good.

Looking at this from a group perspective, the WH will land in the same struggle the WE has with her Suffering tree. The Tree is utterly crap except one skill (no its not Witchbrew) and are you willing to sacrifice other tools for it? In a group going Confession+Inqui will be the better choice (if you can spare the HD then Conf+inqui).

All in all i must say i dont think it will change that much. Solo WH will not have more or less kill potential, and its not enough to buff the WH to be really viable for a group since both, WE and WH, classes have other problems in group play.

[kryss]

Lets look at this from two sides: The Solo and the Group effectivness.

As a solo build with either going for Confession+Inquisition path you will gain a HD and SoD, but you will lose a huge load of damage since you will not have FC tactic and BaL (best WH finisher there is) and miss out the KD. Going for Confession+Judgement might be the better choice (sacrificing HD and SoD).
I personally must say i would still run Inqui+Judge as a solo build, since the damage output is just too damn good.

Looking at this from a group perspective, the WH will land in the same struggle the WE has with her Suffering tree. The Tree is utterly crap except one skill (no its not Witchbrew) and are you willing to sacrifice other tools for it? In a group going Confession+Inqui will be the better choice (if you can spare the HD then Conf+inqui).

All in all i must say i dont think it will change that much. Solo WH will not have more or less kill potential, and its not enough to buff the WH to be really viable for a group since both, WE and WH, classes have other problems in group play.

Your analysis is very good and I must say I'll probably keep my BAL/PtF/SoD spec even after the Dragon Gun change, unless it becomes a really, really good skill for which you will be open to lose HD debuff, BaL and Sod (which is a huuuuuuge DPS and killing potential loss). Thing is, you don't want to lose the KD and the crit tactic too, so you are left with very few choices...

[Chaoself]

Considering only SW,WH, Slayer and BW (talking about pure DPS) have an incoming healdebuff that change would not be viable. WH it's a small scale pvp class and it needs the healdebuff since it's a part of his rotation. Speccing for Dragon Gun will help in RvR fights where you fight against random people in random situations, but would not give anything else to a default WH. As WH player, I would never spec that Dragon Gun if I'm going to lose Punish The False, Seal or Destruction or anything else. What WH needs is something like WE crit tactic or Pierce Armor to be useful. Also, consider WE and WH are not viable in RvR due their movility since they needs to be super precise hitters and pull back in the proper time to survive enough to put pressure again. That's not the case in RoR with this RDPS domination forcing you to be kinda far to your main objectives adding they doesn't have a charge, pounce,fetch or TE and the stealth will be easily broken in RvR due the AoE or high ini tanks.

[Spacecraft]

I agree it's so high in that tree even with a buff rework maybe 2% would spec it honestly.

[Vandoles]

I always liked the idea of the aoe tree for WH because it makes a great variety. First tree for group fights (disrupt seal to allow you to go in for longer, aoe skills to cause chaos), second tank buster, third assassin. The issue is you can't make a stealth aoe class properly, when the whole class is oriented to single target and only masteries aoe. I think the tree should focus more on causing havoc and I'd actually like Dragon Gun to have the self-healing element increased to allow a WH to stay in the front lines a little, while seeing the aoe tactic on razor strikes (forgot the name) to be a morale drain. If not, just scale the tree so the damage is comparable to judgement but with less armour penetrstion - making it a more caster killer tree.

[roadkillrobin]

I'm very strongly against this, removing the little utillity the class have for pbaoe bombing. If anything the class should be buffed for this purpose. Like removing the dmg reduction of Sweeping Razor and increasing the range.