Guild Wars 2

Preemtive TL;DR — I propose that Trap Potency be modified to boost direct damage in addition to condition duration, but to reduce the boost amount to +75% instead of the current +100%. I also propose to add a new Utility skill, a trap, that is based on direct damage rather than condition damage, and has Knockdown, but no combo field. The intention is to make a viable option for Ranger Power/Crit to be capable of ranged AoE damage if they wish to, while maintaining balance (insofar as the game is currently balanced), and with minimal impact on the potential of the current Conditions Trapper builds. Adding the new Utility skill to the Ranger class would justify adding one new Utility skill to each of the other classes, but I have no proposal for that aspect. Reasoning behind the proposal, and details of possible implementation and game impact are given in the long version below.

It is well known at this point that one particularly effective and viable Ranger build has been the Condition Trapper. This is improved now that Rangers have the option of their own Blast Finisher to interact with trap combo fields. The thing that has always bothered me about it, however, is that the damage traps (Flame, Viper’s, Spike) are all considerably more powerful for a Condition Damage build than for a Power/Crit build, to the extent that a Condition Damage build will deal roughly twice as much damage with traps as a Power/Crit build would (assuming both are geared glass cannon). This is even more the case due to the effects of Trap Potency, because that trait increases the Condition Duration from traps by +100% of base, but does not modify direct damage except to speed up recharge rate.

This isn’t wholly unexpected. The nature and names of the traps are suggestive that they would be primarily condition based attack skills. Even in GW1 the traps were predominantly condition damage skills. The problem is that this limits the ranger’s viable build options for AoE damage, if that is the direction the player wants to go. For high AoE damage output we can go melee with Greatsword with a Power/Crit build, or we can try to go Longbow and use Barrage, but that being only one skill and with a long cooldown isn’t exactly powerful for sustained AoE (plus the retaliation issue), or we can take Condition Trapper. If a player wants to use Ranger because they like the flavor of the class, and they want to remain ranged because they don’t like melee play style, but they still want effective AoE damage output (not spectacular necessarily, but acceptably decent), then that really only leaves them with the Condition Trapper as a build choice.

What I would like to see is an increase to the viarety of viable builds for a Ranger that wants to be able to do AoE at range. Again, I’m not talking about OP AoE, I’m only talking about moderate AoE for build variety. Following are a couple of suggestions that I think could work to make that happen.

First, Trap Potency should be modified to increase direct damage in addition to condition duration. Along with this I propose reducing both benefits down to +75% instead of +100%. Frost Trap Cill would, for example have a duration of only 1.75 seconds instead of 2 seconds.

My second suggestion would be to add a new Utility skill, a trap, that is predominantly direct damage rather than condition, plus a Knockdown effect. Let’s say we call this new skill something like “Concussion Trap”, “Sonic Trap”, or “Seismic Trap” (I don’t really like those names, but they reflect the direction I’m thinking). This new trap would deal 3 ticks of direct damage, with a Knockdown on the last tick (last tick instead of first to prevent the knockdown from causing victims to automatically suffer all three damage pulses). Direct damage per pulse from the trap would be a bludgeoning/blunt force sort of damage, so no damage contition such as bleed is conceptually justified, but the knockdown is justified. The trap would have standard trap range and radius, 20 second cooldown, no combo field (none are conceptually justified, and Rangers would have to choose to take the trade-off of direct damage and knockdown in place of a combo field), damage per pulse of perhaps 188 base (level 80, 916 Power) and untraited, and Knockdown duration of 2 seconds (this is the average duration for currently existant knockdown effects).

So let’s look at some numbers for basic trap skills, and please note that these are not completely exact. I have tried to use reasonably valid numbers and calculations, but there are some minor approximations. My goal is not to give a fully exact breakdown, but instead to give a close approximation in order to show a general relative view of the possibilities.

First, let’s address some basic assumptions for these calculations. Assume a glass cannon build for both Condi and Power/Crit. Assume the Condi build has 1916 Condition Damage stat, 966 Power, 41% Crit Chance, 30% Crit Dmg (full rabid, undead runes). Assume that the Power/Crit build has 0 Condition Damage, 2551 Power, 64% Crit Chance, 104% Crit Damage (full zerk, ranger runes). Assume average damage increase for direct damage pulses due to crit. Assume that the Power/Crit build is 30/30 build so add +30% Condition Duration. Assume that all durations are rounded to nearest 0.25 seconds. Assume 2600 AR on the target (so numbers are roughly consistent with tooltips). And finally, assume that target(s) are hit by all pulses (best case scenario).

Now then, let’s show numbers for the condition build first. Please note that I did not take fully into account the way condition duration modifiers apply from, say Sigil of Agony, and as such these figures are approximate (actual condition damage numers are probably slightly lower than indicated).

Effect                                             Flame          Viper's          Spike          Frost          Seismic
Direct Dmg (untraited)               307               203                68              N/A            789
Condi Dmg (untraited)               807              1102                 2904         N/A            N/A
Total Dmg (untraited)                1114            1305               2972          N/A            789
Direct Dmg (traited)                  307               203                68              N/A            789
Condi Dmg (traited)                   1614            2204              5808          N/A             N/A
Total Dmg (traited)                     1921            2407              5876          N/A             789
Direct Dmg (mod traited)           537              355               119             N/A            1381
Condi Dmg (mod traited)          1412            1928              5082           N/A            N/A
Total Dmg (mod traited)            1949            2283              5201           N/A           1381
CC Duration (untraited)             N/A            N/A               2                 1                 2
CC Duration (traited)                  N/A             N/A              4                  2                4
CC Duration (mod traited)         N/A             N/A              3.5               1.75            3.5
Combo Field                                  Fire              Poison         N/A             Ice              N/A

Now the numbers for the Power/Crit build. Again, I did not take fully into account the way condition duration modifiers apply from, say Sigil of Agony, and as such these figures are approximate (actual condition damage numbers are probably not affected in this case for the Power build, as no such duration modifiers are used).

Effect                                             Flame          Viper's          Spike          Frost          Seismic
Direct Dmg (untraited)              1080             723               241              N/A           2649
Condi Dmg (untraited)               328              252               765              N/A           N/A
Total Dmg (untraited)                1400             975               1006            N/A           2649
Direct Dmg (traited)                  1080             723               241              N/A           2649
Condi Dmg (traited)                   656               504              1530             N/A           N/A
Total Dmg (traited)                     1736            1227             1771            N/A           2649
Direct Dmg (mod traited)         1890            1265              422              N/A           4636
Condi Dmg (mod traited)          574              441               1339            N/A           N/A
Total Dmg (mod traited)            2464            1706             1761            N/A           4636
CC Duration (untraited)            N/A             N/A              2.5               1.25            2
CC Duration (traited)                N/A             N/A              4.5                2.25           4
CC Duration (mod traited)       N/A             N/A              4                  2                3.5

Now if we assume that we modify Trap Potency as I’ve recommended, that we get the new “Seismic Trap” as well, and that a trap ranger (either build type) takes the two most damaging traps available to them, plus Frost Trap, then we get the following total approximate damage per trap set (ignoring DPS calculations related to recharge/cooldown times).

Current Condition Trapper (traited):          8283
Current Power/Crit Trapper (traited):        3507
Modified Condition Trapper (traited):        7484
Modified Power/Crit Trapper (traited):      7100

Based on this, it would suggest that using my modifications would result in a slight damage decrease for Condition Trappers (about 10% reduction to total damage). These numbers also suggest that the Power/Crit build with these changes could then deal total damage roughly on par with the new damage output of the Conditions Trapper (only 1.3% lower damage output).

Now remeber that the above calculations assume 2600 AR on the target. If the target has different AR, then the direct damage numbers will change. Particularly, against a target with lower AR the Power/Crit build would deal a larger amount of direct damage. For example, let’s say that a target has only 1900 AR instead of 2600. In such a case the damage for the Condition Trapper would increase, but only a minimal amount, while the Power/Crit build would have a Seismic Trap that could deal up to 6344 damage by itself instead of the 4636 calculated above. If we assume that the average medium level of AR at end-game is approximately 2200, then we would want to aim for a total damage output from Power/Crit Trapper to be approximately 7500 give or take a couple hundred to balance with the Condition Trapper build. Using the base value of 188, the build would do approximately 7943 against a target with 2200 AR. This being the case, a slight decrease to the base value for Seismic Trap may be justified (perhaps a 177 base instead of 188). In any case, some fine-tuning of the numbers would be required to make these changes fully balanced to the current game meta.

Currently, the game has exactly 20 Utility Slot skills for each class. Adding this new trap for Ranger would push them to having 21 such skills, so it may be reasonable to remove a differnt Utility skill, or to consolidate two utility skills together. Unfortunately, I cannot think of a single current Utility Skill that would be reasonable to remove, nor can I think of any two such skills that I think could be reasonably consolidated without making the new skill OP. So the question then becomes, is it really such an issue to have 21 available Utility skills, instead of the normal 20? In practice, the only real differnece is that the additional skill gives the Ranger just a little bit more possible variety for workable builds, but other classes would not be granted the same minor increase to build variety, and players would not be happy with such a disparity. As such, I think the better choice would be to try to find ways to create a new Utility skill for each class that would be balanced, but would increase potential build variety, and intorduce those new skills at the same time as my proposed changes. I do not have any proposals to make regarding the sorts of Utility skills that might be warranted or welcome for other classes, but I am sure that those who regularly play those other classes could come up with some ideas.

So, that’s my 2cp worth of suggestion. Of course, improvements to Ranger Pet AI should be, in my opinion, a higher priority.

TL;DR? Go back to the top and read the very first paragraph for a basic summary.

Sorry for poor formatting. If anyone knows how to do better formatting on these boards, please PM me with some tips. Thanks.

No one has anything to say to this at all? Not even a “this idea sucks, I hate it”?

I should have posted in Ranger forum… would have at least gotten a flame or a troll.

there is just one thing your forgetting to take into account atleast if we go to wvw or spvp. Thats the fact the condition trapper does a lot less damage, given the fact that conditions stay on the target less, curing with aktive skills and/or automated skills that cleans each 10 sec, so much of the condition damage is lost but the direct damage is not lost there.
So it will kill the conditions alot compared to pure damage then

Korsbaek.9803:

there is just one thing your forgetting to take into account atleast if we go to wvw or spvp. Thats the fact the condition trapper does a lot less damage, given the fact that conditions stay on the target less, curing with aktive skills and/or automated skills that cleans each 10 sec, so much of the condition damage is lost but the direct damage is not lost there.
So it will kill the conditions a lot compared to pure damage then

That’s actually a good point that I hadn’t considered because I don’t do sPvP or WvWvW very often. But the problem of balancing for the different gameplay modes is that each gameplay mode has its own meta, and balancing perfectly for one often means making things unbalanced for another (either OP or UP).

So then, taking into account the potential for more significantly reduced condition damage vs. direct damage, it would probably be best to split the trap skills, especially the proposed “Seismic Trap” or whatever, and make it so that the base direct damage is less in sPvP and WvWvW gameplay modes, especially when traited. It may be possible to simply split the trait itself, so that in sPvP and WvWvW the trait boosts direct damage less than it boosts condition damage.

As I said, the numbers would probably have to be tweaked a bit, especially if splitting the skills and/or the trait. But excellent point, and thank you for bringing it up.