Guild Wars 2

TL:DR – Traps would become instant cast, 1,200 range ground targets, but with an Arming Time that scales between 1 to 3 seconds based on the distance thrown. They would be visible during their Arming Time and invisible afterward. Trap Placing abilities would go on a 5 second cool-down when triggered to prevent double-trap stacking

I think many Dragon Hunter mains are truly awaiting the fretful day in which our traps get nerfed at some point due to the constant griping by several PVP players who do not know how to adapt to them.

If we take this as an eventuality, what are some healthy ways to adjust traps to make them both fair, functional, and truly “trappy” rather than just close range AOE attacks?

There are a few complaints about traps that I do agree are warranted:

• The “Invisible Ring Ward” on Dragon’s Maw needs to be addressed. This is a bug, and should be visible at all times when triggered. (likely a bug with Trapper Rune)
• The ability to use Judge’s Intervention to instantly face-drop a Dragon’s Maw / Test of Faith combo is clearly not intended behavior for “traps” and I agree that this is a big too punishing currently.
• Traps being “double used” if they have existed past their recharge time, since they can be immediately dropped again after their trigger.
• No “visual” to tell which trap has been placed, even if foe witnesses the placement.

Additionally, several Rangers, Thieves, and now Dragon Hunters would very much appreciate reintroducing ranged trap placement to ease the play style of placing traps in preparation or while up on a high vantage.

This leads to the suggestion I’ve been building up to, which would hopefully address all of the above concerns:

• All Traps would now be able to be placed up to 1,200 range from the user, in which case they are tossed as a long range “bundle bag” for Thief or Ranger, or an arching orb of light that creates the symbol for the Dragon Hunter.
• All Traps would become Instant Cast.
• The Arming Time of traps scales based on the distance the trap is spawned by the trap placer. This ranges from 1 second in melee range to 3 seconds at maximum range.
• While traps are Arming, they are visible to all foes.
• All trap placement abilities have a 5 second recharge timer imposed upon their existing traps triggering, which means there is at least a 5 second “gap” between traps being “reused” after a trigger.
• For interaction purposes with Teleports, traps will use the original distance from the ground targeted location of the ability use. This means that, for example, a DH launching Dragon’s Maw from 1,200 range then using Judge’s Intervention onto this foe as the trap hits would NOT reduce its Arming Time from 3 seconds to 1 second.

For an example, Dragon’s Maw would read as follows:

“Deploy a trap from range that pulls enemies and creates a barrier which holds them in. The trap takes longer to arm the further it is placed, and is visible to foes while arming.”

Damage Damage: 638
10 Might on Trap Trigger (8s): +300 Power, +300 Condition Damage
Slow (4s): Skills and actions are slower.
Maw Barrier Duration: 6s
Trigger Radius: 180
Attack Radius: 240
Maw Barrier Radius: 90
Range: 1,200
Arming Time: 1s Close to 3s Max Deploy Range.

Benefits for Trap Users:

• Being instant cast means they are no longer interrupt-able. The counter play for foes is to leave the area of the trap before it arms, which is now visible to them. This also means deploying a huge amount of traps at once is possible.
• 1,200 range placement allows for traps to be placed from high vantage points, and allows safer placement in dangerous situations, at the cost of a longer Arming time.

Benefits for Trapped Foes:

• Traps would no longer be able to be used back-to-back if they existed long enough for their recharge to come back up, but they still would be up again fairly quickly, but would give the opponent at least a 5 second window to breath.
• Traps would now visibly display for foes, allowing them some counter play options if they recognize the types of trap. This is likely healthier for the competitive element of traps, and improves the “fairness” factor, which allows traps to still maintain their potency at the cost of more readability.
• Traps would not be as effective with “teleporting” skills to make them instantly fire. They would, at best, only take effect 1 second after a teleport skill and could no longer be pre-cast before teleports. This is a huge benefit for opponents, as unless you know this is coming, there simply is not time to avoid it in a reasonable environment. This also prevents some of the complains of “Dragon Hunters just poping in and instantly demolishing team fights.”

Let me know what you guys think of this compromise. I personally think this would greatly improve traps for their actual, intended purpose of using them premptively, and for how I personally prefer to use my traps (area denial at key locations in PVP and PVE) it would be a significant improvement to have the option to Deploy traps from range at the cost of them being visible while having a longer Arming time. The instant cast would certainly help set up the battle field faster as well.

Eager to hear the opinions of Dragon Hunters AND our prey

What your suggesting would basically make traps into necro marks.
In that case why not go the full distance and truly make them so (can be seen by anybody, but hits just as hard or harder & has either reduced Cd or condition application as well.)
(as marks their radius for triggering & effect would also be larger)

If traps get the nerf its because of low end players, noobs & idiots crying.

Higher end players avoid the damage so easily its laughable.

Same goes for ranger traps.

Clearly experiencing players in sPvP dodging my traps more often now – even the Judges intervention / Trap combo.
Then we have the DH that chooses to guard a node, and setup his traps.. Again dodge in/out is your friend.

People adapt and learn from new challenges, give it more time and then we can talk about nerfing/buffing etc.

people are slowly adapting. Anet doing quick nerfs is not the way to go. As mentioned above people are beginning to adapt to DH traps now.

If I’m hunting a dragon with those conditions I wouldnt be called a “dragonhunter” I’d be “dead meat”

Overall this just seems to be: add arming timers to traps to make them worthless against any competent opponent during active combat, but at least we can still stack 4 traps preemptively and hope for the best (or better yet play sheep herder and use a lot of CC to push and pull them into the traps).

The buffs to max range/instant casts would be completely overshadowed by arming timers especially ones that are 3s long. I get you want to make traps feel more like “traps,” but the part I think the community is upset about is the 1 hit KO potential of a fire and forget utility combo. Your solution seems like it promotes traps only being use out of combat, since even a dumb enemy is not going to die if they know exactly where your traps are.

That being said I could see Maw getting 1s arming timer to prevent the JI combo, but I don’t think any other trap needs one.

My biggest problem after spending quite a long time using traps is I can’t fathom why ArenaNet put the cooldown of traps on placement instead of activation. Changing this would have little effect on PVE unless you want to spend and extra 60s to cheese content, but would dramatically effect PVP trappers giving them a much higher risk/reward for pre-placing traps.

“hey guys while I’m fighting you I’m gonna arm this trap that takes 2-3 seconds, make sure not to interupt or attack me okay?” is what I’m getting from this

Indure.5410:

My biggest problem after spending quite a long time using traps is I can’t fathom why ArenaNet put the cooldown of traps on placement instead of activation. .

because sometimes you drop a trap and other players move the mob away from your trap for various reasons. With your suggestion there is no way for me to set another trap until some mob runs over it or the 5 min timer runs out. Thats terrible

Spartacus.3192:

Indure.5410:

My biggest problem after spending quite a long time using traps is I can’t fathom why ArenaNet put the cooldown of traps on placement instead of activation. .

because sometimes you drop a trap and other players move the mob away from your trap for various reasons. With your suggestion there is no way for me to set another trap until some mob runs over it or the 5 min timer runs out. Thats terrible

I agree, if traps had their cooldown set to activation instead, they would need to have a termination ability, for example repressing the activate button similar to commanding the old spirit weapons.

knight.8926:

“hey guys while I’m fighting you I’m gonna arm this trap that takes 2-3 seconds, make sure not to interupt or attack me okay?” is what I’m getting from this

Perhaps I did not explain myself well as you and many others appear to not understand what the arming time details.

Currently, mosy traps to my knowledge have a universal halfsecond arming time, which is a delay after placing the trap before it fires. Additionally, most traps also have a casting time in addition to this arming time.

As such, by making all traps instant cast, the 1 second minimum arming time is at most only a .25 delayed increase, as you would no longer have a cast time and a delay time.

Furthermore, you would be able to place all 5 traps simultaneously since they would be instant cast, which means a player could perform their set up much, much faster than currently able.

Laslty, each trap player would now have the option of lobbing traps much farther at the cost of increasing the arm time. Couppled with the instant cast change, this would make it significantly easier to trap up a locations in situations where this would currently be impossible to use, such as on top of a gate in wvw or from up near the treb in stronghold.

Th is would significantly improve traps as an arena denial tool and offer opponents at least some forenotice if you are lobbing traps from afar or if attempting to teleport onto someone to trap under them.

The arming time would begin on skill use, including thr time it takes for the projectile thrown trap to hit the ground, just to be clear. So after throwing a trap from 1200 range, it would arm 3 seconds after the button press, only being visible for around 1 to 1.5 seconds depending on how fast they make the projectile.

Think about longbow 4 for example for an idea of travel time, maybe slightly faster.

Swiftwynd.1685:

Currently, mosy traps to my knowledge have a universal halfsecond arming time, which is a delay after placing the trap before it fires. Additionally, most traps also have a casting time in addition to this arming time.

As such, by making all traps instant cast, the 1 second minimum arming time is at most only a .25 delayed increase, as you would no longer have a cast time and a delay time.

According to gw2 wiki (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trap) traps do have kitten arming time, but " Traps will trigger at once if laid on top of an enemy." So this would be a large nerf and even the visual change would be a deal breaker. There’s a big difference between having a .25s animation of kneeling and a .25s activation of the trap (total .5s), compared to an instant drop, 1s visible glowing symbol at my feet that also has a .25s activation time (total 1.25s). If I’m in melee using the trap, 1.25s is more than enough time to walk out of the trap and even if I don’t a good player will naturally be able to internally time it and know when to dodge away.

Keep in mind that currently the Guardian has half their traps laid instantly already so it would just be 1s increase for those skills.

@Indure.5410

The dragonhunter’s traps are considerably different from anything the guardian currently has access to and can make life very difficult for enemies who blunder into them. There’s an arming time for the traps and also a brief activation time after an enemy trips them. While enemies can see the dragonhunter arming a trap, the trap itself will be invisible to them. Dragonhunters excel at creating combos and stacking vulnerability, and they possess plenty of skills to control territory and enemy movement. Staggering and combining traps can force foes into making unpleasant choices, leaving them nowhere safe to run.

and that is why DH traps can be easily avoided with a evade roll…
Source