Guild Wars 2

Mentioning an idea I saw in an old thread: Turn ranger traps into a kit, all of them in 1 utility. Remove the invisibility and unblockable aspect, these 2 traits are, most of the time, useless (well ok the invis can be handy, but still will trade lol) and I suspect its part of the reason trait and utility investment is so high. Traps also need to have a 900 unit range.
Freeing up 2 utility spots, the added range and condition (chill) would allow for much needed survivability and perhaps make a trap ranger a valid choice for team q (or at least soloq, putting them roughly on par with cond engineers) instead of a barely passable hotjoin spec.

do not like the idea.. the Unblockable part is the best part.

Traps are fine as utitily they just need more power / conditions

or to be moved to a different tree

Unblockable can be good, very situational though and even with the invis aspect, not enough for trap rangers in competitive areas of pvp. As to adding more damage, that seems to the route the devs take with any build that dosent see much play. Guardians need some soft cc to stay on target ? Here have moar damage (kewl i can now kill a glass thief with an aura lol). Ele’s need some sustain? Again they just gave more damage so that an ele can insta gib other proff’s but still dies to a stiff breeze. The underlying problems are not addressed.
The trap rangers problems imo are that its damage is too easy to avoid coupled with low survivability. The easy to avoid part may be rectified to some extent when they adjust the pet f2 abilities to function when pressed (allowing for more soft cc) but wont do much for general survivability, hence the 2 free utility spots, extra range and an added frost trap. As to the auto attack when trap kit equipped, i hadn’t really considered it. Im not sure how that would work, as long as it dosen’t cause me to lose control of character while it auto attacks ill be happy lol

Grr…my post didn’t post

Ok, in brief, I loved GW trap rangers because you could bring a full complement of traps with lower cooldowns and still have open slots for utility and ranged damage. In GW2 however, a trap ranger requires heavy trait investment and bringing 3 means you now have no utility for escape or stun break.

While I like the idea of a trap kit (engi main here) I think it’d be too similar to engi’s unique mechanic and too dissimilar from the rest of ranger’s utilities. What I’d rather see are traps attached to weapon skills and possibly thru traits. For instance, a trait making all evade skills not on autoattack drop a spike trap with an ICD. Or a redesign on some weapons (that people have been asking for anyhow) to put a trap on the #4 or #5 skill.

Seras.5702:

Grr…my post didn’t post

Ctrl+A before every post

The best part about invis traps is the possibility to set-up a burst…
Noone is gonna walk in your traps if they see it… they’ll just dodge on them to activate them (that’s what we for necro marks), and there you go, useless!
The only redeeming quality of traps, you want to take off, to give ranger a mechanic close to staff necro…
Hint: staff necro is what you want… or engie… not ranger…

Addition of stun break on (ice trap) and of condi cleanse on (spike trap), or on any traps would be more respectful of what ranger is about, while giving trappers utilities they need to survive.
OR
Better range on traps would help rangers stay farther from the fight, thus being less likely to need stunbreaks and condi cleanses..
OR
any other idea that respect what ranger is…

Ghotistyx.6942:

Seras.5702:

Grr…my post didn’t post

Ctrl+A before every post

That wouldn’t be enough.

Has to be Ctrl+A followed by Ctrl+C. You can select the text all you want, but unless you copy it to clipboard, it’s still lost.

@Seras
I would worry about being forced into a specific weapon set, but if they made them available across all sets then traps attached to weapon traits would be pretty cool, if hard to balance (see pistol whip with its evade/ high damage and cc lol).
@Jocksy
I dont see why your changes are more respectful while my changes mean I should be changing proffs lol. That being said, added traits for traps would help, though imo if they are going to add a stunbreak and cond cleanse for rangers it should be one that’s on demand, not tied into tripping another ability (we have too much reliance on passive proc’s imo). As far as the invis aspect, yea i know what you mean, but its really only helpful the first time. After that a melee opponent knows where they are (under your feet probly) and a ranged will see you coming at them and kite. Atm, all we usually get is 1 tick of the trap anyway, (barring invulnerabilities, immunities , evasions, in which case we may get none lol and with so much ionvested into trap damage we are then in big trouble)

It would step way too much on engineers. There can be other ways to buff traps.

Well idk,
Its possible that any weapon skills that basically requires the opponent to stand in a little circle for any period of time without lots of cc is doomed. Kind of too bad, mechanically its a pretty fun build, with more (potential) burst and skill shots than any other ranger option atm.

I was one of whos suggested the kit trap. Engis have 5 bombs or nades for 1 slot while we have only 1. I think its not a nice thing.

dylan.5409:

@Seras

@Jocksy
I dont see why your changes are more respectful while my changes mean I should be changing proffs lol. That being said, added traits for traps would help, though imo if they are going to add a stunbreak and cond cleanse for rangers it should be one that’s on demand, not tied into tripping another ability (we have too much reliance on passive proc’s imo). As far as the invis aspect, yea i know what you mean, but its really only helpful the first time. After that a melee opponent knows where they are (under your feet probly) and a ranged will see you coming at them and kite. Atm, all we usually get is 1 tick of the trap anyway, (barring invulnerabilities, immunities , evasions, in which case we may get none lol and with so much ionvested into trap damage we are then in big trouble)

Not saying these are changes I would like to see, just that I read about them and find them more in line with what the ranger is about, according to the devs phylosophy…
A skirmisher prepares the terrain to get the best out of whatever situation.
In this case, placing the traps in advance (eg:spike/fire/another) means the foe that you lure into this spot, is going to stay there at least one tick. If you played wisely, your traps are off cd, so you can again throw spike, then fire… few classes have enough cleanse to get rid of everything at once.
after that, I admit, for someone playing melee, against a melee players, traps invis doesn’t do much…
But in any melee vs ranged situation, if they were visible, they would be totally useless…

Now about my saying that adding effects to traps would be more _ respectful of what ranger is about_ is because we are not engies nor necros. Taking things from one class to give to another is not keeping in the ways the later works.
I’m not against novelties, but they have to be mindful of what we are in ourselves, not about picking what we like about other classes…
When I see suggestions that are not about “well, but that other class haz it, why can’t I have it”, the only reasonnable answer is that we are not the other class, and that if it is a mechanic that the person likes, well… nothing ties him/her to ranger.
I do not want rangers to become a sub-any class that takes from all, but does not better in anything. I do not feel that it is anything that would solve any real problems…

Rangers need to stay unique, linked with nature, and I do not think that taking things out of its backpack is in line with the concept…

Jocksy.3415:

Hint: staff necro is what you want…

dylan.5409:

Well idk,
Its possible that any weapon skills that basically requires the opponent to stand in a little circle for any period of time without lots of cc is doomed.

So these made me think…

While marks are somewhat different than traps, the essence is similar. And they’re attached to a weapon, which can be swapped, and still has access to 3 utility skills.

And Guardians have Symbols . They are essentially a small area denial or immediately popped trap under an enemy’s feet. So they can absolutely be tied to weapons.

And both Necro marks and Guardian symbols have related traits.

I just want to have access to useful traps and not be hog-tied by having no other utilities or limited traits.

@Seras
True, the thing with marks is they provide front loaded damage, step on 1 and you get the full output; unlike traps that require 3 pulses (3seconds) for full damage output. I honestly don’t know how they could make this work without giving us more on demand soft cc, either through working pet f2, through utilities (for which we have 0 room), weapon skills or a combination thereof and that would still leave a very squishy trapper.

dylan.5409:

@Seras
True, the thing with marks is they provide front loaded damage, step on 1 and you get the full output; unlike traps that require 3 pulses (3seconds) for full damage output. I honestly don’t know how they could make this work without giving us more on demand soft cc, either through working pet f2, through utilities (for which we have 0 room), weapon skills or a combination thereof and that would still leave a very squishy trapper.

Optimally, I’d like to see it done through our pets. As it is, their AI is wonky, they can’t hit moving targets, and they account for 40% of our damage output. Instead, they should have a more support role. Let them redirect damage, spread boons, debuff targets, block attacks, cleanse conditions, swap positions for escapes, etc.

This way, we could bring 3 traps and still have some utility via our pet choices.