Dragonhunter - Radiant Trapper Roamer

The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good

Focused on: Strike damage, Mobility and Control

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on February 15, 2025 and is up to date for the March 11, 2025 patch.

Overview

A high damage glass-cannon Power Dragonhunter build for WvW roaming. DH works just as well in melee with Traps as it does at range with a Longbow. The damage is quite high but the sustain heavily depends on CDs, which means the build favors shorter fights.

Skill Bar

Longbow

Sword/Shield

Utility

Skill Variants

Heal

• Signet of Resolve
  - better defense against conditions. The signet can also be more convenient in some matchups (especially against ranged targets) because it doesn't rely on enemies triggering a trap for you to get healed.

Elite

• Dragon's Maw
  - it's a CC that could secure kills for you especially when combined with
  Procession of Blades
  . Most builds however have an answer to this skill and
  Renewed Focus
  lets you stay in the fight longer which makes Dragon's Maw the less popular option. On the other hand time doesn't favor you when facing tanky Cele builds, so sometimes your best option is to go all in with the traps and hope for a quick kill.

Template Code

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Equipment

Head
Marauder

Shoulders
Marauder

Chest
Marauder

Hands
Marauder

Legs
Marauder

Feet
Marauder

Backpiece
Dragon

Accessory
Dragon

Accessory
Dragon

Amulet
Dragon

Ring
Dragon

Ring
Dragon

Longbow
Marauder

Sigil

Sigil

Sword
Marauder

Shield
Marauder

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

Relics

• Relic of the Defender
  - defensive option that could be useful in longer fights, providing plenty of extra healing thanks to the many Aegis sources in the build.

Runes

If you don't care about the mobility provided by Surging, other viable options include:

• Superior Rune of the Scholar
  - better burst damage.

• Superior Rune of the Dragonhunter
  - it's very close to Scholar in terms of damage, use whichever is cheaper if you're trying to save gold.

• Superior Rune of Durability
  - defensive and beginner-friendly option but lowers your damage.

Sigils

• Superior Sigil of Agility
  on Longbow - the brief Quickness is just enough to speed up
  True Shot
  right after swapping to Longbow. Could replace either sigils depending on the tradeoff you want: replacing Vision makes your burst combo less consistent when you don't have both Resolution and Fury, while replacing Air gives up a strong damage proc.

• Superior Sigil of Bloodlust
  over Cleansing - further increases your damage if you don't mind putting some extra effort into building stacks and giving up some defense against conditions.

Consumables

Food

• Peppercorn-Crusted Sous-Vide Steak
  - considered to be the optimal food, strong mix of sustain and damage but requires a cooking skill of 500 to craft.

• Slice of Candied Dragon Roll
  or
  Omnomberry Ghost
  - extra precision with an armor ignoring damage proc that also heals you.

• Fried Oyster Sandwich
  - defensive option.

• Bowl of Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup
  - offensive option.

Utility

• Superior Sharpening Stone

Usage

General

• Try to stay in range, keep your distance whenever possible.

• Test of Faith
  is an excellent defensive skill because it's an instant source of Protection that can also be used while CC'd.

• Deflecting Shot
  is unblockable and may even be used to interrupt blocking skills.

• Wings of Resolve
  removes conditions and provides a substantial amount of healing for you and your teammates. It's also an excellent mobility tool in combat and a good way of repositioning yourself.

• Shield of Courage
  breaks stun and blocks all attacks in front of you, use it to relieve pressure from yourself and your team - for example, you can stand facing foes attempting to cleave downed teammates while you or your team is reviving them.

• Try to burn through all of your virtues before resorting to
  Renewed Focus
  . RF is a great panic button when you're being focused by the enemy team and you don't have any CDs left, but Dragonhunter virtues have cast times so any virtues you didn't use before RF will go to waste.

Damage

• The ring created by
  Test of Faith
  deals more damage than the initial trigger, and a significant portion of your burst damage comes from pulling/pushing foes through it.

• You deal extra damage to enemies affected by
  Spear of Justice
  , so consider using it before hard hitting skills like
  True Shot
  .

• There's a delay on
  Hunter's Ward
  , the final strike doesn't go off immediately after you finish channeling the skill. You could even pull targets in with
  Hunter's Verdict
  to make sure they get it and can't dodge or move out right before rings appear. The final strike of this skill does heavy damage.
  • Tip: when facing another DH it's very important to dodge the final strike of
    Hunter's Ward
    . If you do that the cages won't spawn and you avoid most of the damage.

Burst combo examples

Hunter's Ward + traps from range

1. Place
   Procession of Blades
2. Spear of Justice
   the target.
3. Hunter's Ward
   on your position.
4. Immediately pull in the target with
   Hunter's Verdict
   . The goal is to drag them into melee where they'll be hit and caged by the last strike of Hunter's Ward, while preventing them from dodging it. The cage will then force them to tank Procession of Blades and any other AoE skills you decide to throw into the mix.
5. Symbol of Energy
6. Weapon swap, follow up with
   Symbol of Blades
   and
   Zealot's Defense
   .

Test of Faith push/pull

1. Cast
   Spear of Justice
   on your target, we'll need its chain skill later. If the spear misses you might want to skip this combo for now, especially if the target was outside melee range.
2. Drop
   Test of Faith
   preferably at your target's feet so that they spring it immediately, as ideally CC should be used to make them cross the already active trap, not to activate the trap. Consider jumping in with
   Symbol of Blades
   if they are far away before dropping ToF.
3. Use either
   Deflecting Shot
   or
   Shield of Absorption
   to push them out of the ring.
4. Pull them back in with
   Hunter's Verdict
   (chain skill of
   Spear of Justice
   ).
5. If possible, swap weapons and use the remaining knockback skill too that you didn't use at step 3.
6. Note: if you couldn't start this combo in melee range that's still fine, but you'll only be able to proc ToF once. In that case simply drop ToF, pull them in, push them out and end the chain with True Shot if you can.

Ranged burst

1. Hunter's Ward
2. Spear of Justice
   immediately (should land before the cages spawn) and keep it attached for extra damage, don't pull the target.
3. True Shot
   - your target should be trapped inside a cage from Hunter's Ward by now.
4. Symbol of Energy

Sword/Shield

• This is the defensive set of the build, but still has some hard hitting skills.

• The main source of burst damage here comes from
  Zealot's Defense
  . Note that the projectiles can be very unreliable in anything but melee range.

• Symbol of Blades
  has many uses: vertical mobility via teleportation, symbol for cleaving, or a combo field which can be used for AoE cleansing by executing a blast finisher in it.

• Use
  Shield of Judgment
  when you or an ally is about to be focused by the enemy, or if you're already pressured. It also applies boons in a cone, try to aim it at as many allies as possible.

• As mentioned above,
  Shield of Absorption
  is mainly a combo tool, but you can also use it for general CC or to defend against some ranged attacks. It forms a dome around you for a couple of seconds, blocking projectiles. You can choose to detonate the dome with its chain skill, which will cause a bit of AoE healing.

Related Builds

• Dragonhunter - Turbo Trapper - Conquest PvP version of the build.