Guild Wars 2

I just got back into the game and decided to check out the forum for my favorite profession only to read some rather depressing news regarding dragon hunter. With the consensus being that there is no synergy with previous abilities and traps being useless I got thinking about abilities that I’d like to see replacing the traps. Do you folks think the specialization would be saved if they replaced the traps with something similar to necromancers wells?

I’d love to see pretty much anything that isn’t traps, but don’t expect them to actually do anything about it.

I know its mostly wishful thinking being this close to release but if we all made a consensus on what we want maybe there is hope.

Marks are the quicker easier fix at this point.

Sadly Karl has deliberately ignored all feedback regarding Traps, he refuses to acknowledge that there’s even a problem.

Traps themselves aren’t a problem. The problem is that using traps don’t fit well with the rest of Dragonhunter and actual gameplay.

Here’s what the intent was: You place a trap, then poke a mob with your longbow. You kite backwards, the mob chases you, hits your trap, and takes big damage. You could do multiple traps in this manner.

Here’s the PvE reality: Most mobs are so bad, they can be easily killed from range without kiting. You’d actually want to circle toward the mob so you can loot faster and progress further toward your destination. The trap tactic is only warranted on veteran or higher mobs. However, for elites and champions, you’ll likely be with a group. Those mobs will typically fight nearby players rather than chasing toward the ranged players. So you have to move into melee to place traps, which is the antithesis of the intent.

In PvP, astute players will see you place traps and will just avoid or dodge through them.

Additionally, if you’re a ranged playstyle, you want abilities which can keep allies at range. Traps aren’t very good at that.

If dragonhunter was mid-range or melee, traps would fit a lot better. The utility traps could be good with some core weapon sets and playstyles, but the traits and virtue changes don’t fit so well with those core builds.

Traps could work well but they would need to change the trait so it does an immobilize or stun when triggered & need to change the traps so that they can be remotely detonated with 1 (possibly 2) of the following tacked onto each trap.

1: Condition removal
2: Boon support
3: Condition application
(Varies depending on trap)

After that traps would be fine.

Traps aren’t bad, and no, wells wouldn’t be better.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Traps aren’t bad, and no, wells wouldn’t be better.

Not “bad” per se. Just a niche mechanic that doesn’t fit GW2 gameplay well, which is why Rangers and Thieves rarely use them. It doesn’t matter how much they are buffed either; as long as they operate the way GW2 traps do there will be better choices in 99% of situations.

Still working on testing but thought I would like to share some of my feedback from testing DH traps.

First one thing I’ve noticed between all discussions with elite specs is a common “This doesn’t benefit my current playstyle” or “why would you take elite X over core builds X”. When elite’s were said to provide different playstyle / gameplay to what we currently have access to. Regarding guardians it’s like were locked into meditation or shout build mind set as the only way to provide viable sustainability.

My thoughts are if this is the playstyle / gameplay you like & want well we already have it. I can feel the frustration of wanting improvement & enhancements brought to your playstyle (new toys) through opening up variants but I actually believe were starting to see this for example Harbinger’s Fragments of Faith Med Build.

So first to note I’m actually enjoying a DH trapper playstyle which surprised me. It really feels different to current playstyles found in core guardian. I have been testing a Melee DH Blade Trapper – Sw/Sh & GSw. First the lets discuss the two biggest changes to traps in BWE3:

Reduced Cast Time
At 0.5 sec cast time this has been a massive change, trap placement now feels so much smoother overall & also achievable in melee range through positioning, blinds & aegis use. This has allowed me for example to port in (Sw#2) place Purification while their blinded & have it trigger guaranteeing the full heal. This has allowed for reactive trap gameplay & placement within combat instead of requiring setup prior.

Daze
Traited daze on trigger was a change I was wondering about but have founded I love it. What it’s done is changed DH trap gameplay from condition trapper into a control trapper. So what we get now with trappers are:

• Condition Trapper (Ranger) - All about those conditions.
• Setup Trapper (Thief) - All about setting up your target for what follows (feel this is the gameplay but needs work to become a more viable build).
• Control Trapper (Dragonhunter) - All about battlefield control & interrupting the combat pace of foes.

Two other very important aspect are traps become invisible after placement & cooldown starts recharging after placement. This means areas around a DH become a mine field foes will either not know what’s there or have to remember perfectly where traps were placed & what type contenting with these new dangerous obstacles changing up the battlefield.

The aspect of recharging after placement allows a pre-placement gameplay option without punishing you with a massive window of downtime while still allowing reactive gameplay to combat changes after a window of opportunity foes can take advantage of. This allows setting up of your battlefield pro-actively using all of your traps if wanted which is at the heart of trapper’s gameplay but still provide after a window use of these utility skills which is much need in GW2 fast paced mobile combat.

Off topic abit this reduced cast time & recharge after activation is something I would like to see on Spirit Weapons as they have a similar set up to traps. This would allow players to have there spirit weapons summoned prior to combat & not worrying if a foes going to appear to make use of them before their on cooldown. If Traps were un-viable because of a 1 sec cast time what’s this say about 1.5 sec cast time on spirit weapons. I say please let us test spirit weapons with a similar reduced cast time & recharging after summon & I think will see a great increase in spirit weapons viability.

The largest weakness to trap builds have been stun lock builds & the guardian burn build. With stun lock builds you really need to use your blinds, blocks & positioning to avoid lock down as if locked down early in the rotation it’s typically the end. The issues with burn guard are not so much the burning but the almost instant high stacks that you can’t respond to before a single tick. Other then that through pre-trap placement & staggering trap placement in combat I founded no issues with survivability with the above build.

Lastly to really finish the build off regarding virtues I would love a pull or taunt on SoJ as this was the once virtue I found no use for in trap builds.

GreyWraith.8394:

Ghotistyx.6942:

Traps aren’t bad, and no, wells wouldn’t be better.

Not “bad” per se. Just a niche mechanic that doesn’t fit GW2 gameplay well, which is why Rangers and Thieves rarely use them. It doesn’t matter how much they are buffed either; as long as they operate the way GW2 traps do there will be better choices in 99% of situations.

This, exactly. It doesn’t matter how strong you make the traps, because they represent a playstyle that just doesn’t exist in GW2. Combat is fast. Combat is mobile. Combat is dynamic. Traps, on the other hand, are none of the above.

Black Box.9312:

GreyWraith.8394:

Ghotistyx.6942:

Traps aren’t bad, and no, wells wouldn’t be better.

Not “bad” per se. Just a niche mechanic that doesn’t fit GW2 gameplay well, which is why Rangers and Thieves rarely use them. It doesn’t matter how much they are buffed either; as long as they operate the way GW2 traps do there will be better choices in 99% of situations.

This, exactly. It doesn’t matter how strong you make the traps, because they represent a playstyle that just doesn’t exist in GW2. Combat is fast. Combat is mobile. Combat is dynamic. Traps, on the other hand, are none of the above.

I agree with the fast paced mobile combat but think traps could add an excellent addition to this through “a dynamic battlefield”, making a battlefield to your advantage.

Black Box.9312:

GreyWraith.8394:

Ghotistyx.6942:

Traps aren’t bad, and no, wells wouldn’t be better.

Not “bad” per se. Just a niche mechanic that doesn’t fit GW2 gameplay well, which is why Rangers and Thieves rarely use them. It doesn’t matter how much they are buffed either; as long as they operate the way GW2 traps do there will be better choices in 99% of situations.

This, exactly. It doesn’t matter how strong you make the traps, because they represent a playstyle that just doesn’t exist in GW2. Combat is fast. Combat is mobile. Combat is dynamic. Traps, on the other hand, are none of the above.

Combat is filled with melees who blunder over my traps just as fast as I can drop them.

They turned out to be almost painfully easy to hit people with them. The half second casting time really smoothed out mid-brawl drops.

It’s also so easy to GSw#3 or Sw#2 in blind foes, placing trap & trigger it.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Traps aren’t bad, and no, wells wouldn’t be better.

Traps are disgustingly bad.

Arnath.2319:

Ghotistyx.6942:

Traps aren’t bad, and no, wells wouldn’t be better.

Traps are disgustingly bad.

Well I did my part to load the metrics up with how incredibly easy it is to land them in all modes of play. I’d like a few more whistles and bells on them, but ‘bad’ they demonstrably are not. And the people who need convincing put a lot more weight on what happens in-game than they do on random forum commentary.

Nike.2631:

Combat is filled with melees who blunder over my traps just as fast as I can drop them.

They turned out to be almost painfully easy to hit people with them. The half second casting time really smoothed out mid-brawl drops.

Arnath.2319:

Traps are disgustingly bad.

[Citation Needed]

Traps are situational, but not bad. With the new F3 and traps you gotta really adapt and play completely differently than earlier

I’ve found pvp success. Just drop em in a group in randomly well travelled paths, go to objective, return for someone who got 100-0d instantly. Profit?

All traps should be throwable by default anyways, then maybe someome might use them (and no, they would not turn into matrks if you gave them a small travel time like engi bombs and/or the small delay they need to arm themselves). There is pretty much no other way to make them useful in a game such as GW2, especially on a long ranged build.

Serious Thought.5394:

I’ve found pvp success. Just drop em in a group in randomly well travelled paths, go to objective, return for someone who got 100-0d instantly. Profit?

Not frequent enough to make it worthwhile..

I can’t pre-cast wells, though.

So once the melee furball gets rolling on the control points in PvP traps might as well be shouts – they fire instantly after the half second cast time (1 second arming time seems to have ben removed). It is a thing of beauty.

(And Fragments of Faith rocks like a ting that rocks very much indeed in solo or team throw downs.)

Traps need a little more tuning, some bad traits need to get mugged in a dark alley and LB #5 needs some speed training but all in all I can’t wait to get on with doing my DH-thang on Live with permanent rewards (got an ascended chest in WvW on my DH… that was just a bit agonizing)

To repost from the feedback thread;

Bezagron.7352:

One thing I can no longer agree with is everyone that’s saying trap gameplay is useless & can never work in GW2’s combat. We already have a type of trap gameplay in GW2’s fast dynamic combat & it works.

Marks -These are basically traps with ranged placement.

This has been one of the most requested solutions for “fixing” traps. So instead of adding ranged placement to traps players should be asking for them to be changed to marks if after this. Not an option I’m after as I believe other option exist.

The advantages of current Trap design are:

• AoE effect typically effecting multiply targets.
• Can have stronger effects due to limitations (requires triggering, placed at feet).
• Change battlefield environment to be an advantage to you / disadvantage to foes.
• Skill recharge after placement allowing for pre-combat setup & still having skill available after a window. Effectively can use the skill twice.

Disadvantages are:

• Trap placement a characters feet
• Requires triggering before benefiting from skill.

The solutions I see for current traps to make them a more viable playstyle are

• Access to gap closers – this allows for trap placement beneath targets almost guaranteeing triggering of trap effect.
• Short cast times – This is what can guarantees triggering after a gap closer. To long & they can just walk out of it not requiring an skill uses. Too short and they could be no counter play, require traps effects to be too weak. Also effects how smooth trap gameplay feels & interacts with other skills.
• Access to aegis, blinds, dazes or stuns – These are here to help guarantee placement of traps without getting interrupted though allowing for stronger effects due to the setup.
• Access to Pulls / Taunts – Helps force relocate foes into your traps again helping guaranteeing trigger.

At the moment Dragonhunters have all of these solutions available as build options in that it now becomes more about skill effects, sustain & the survivability traps provide. A traps builds biggest weakness are stun locks & conditions.

Regarding stun locks on a whole I find this to be an acceptable major weakness. I would just want a single stun break on traps as an option to provide some backup for making a mistake. I find (Test of Faith) to be a perfect stun break option as it’s functionality meshes perfectly in the circumstances your looking for when stun breaking (eg. cripple to foes & punishment for crossing ring deterring foe following).

I’ve also found although condition can be a major weakness it’s possible through traits, skills & trap choices to help cover this. The largest condition problem I’ve found is the near instant high stacks of damaging conditions (burning guard main offender) were your unable to respond before the first tick of damage. But this is more of a instant high condition stack problem.

Again lastly my wish for a Pull / Taunt Flip Skill on Spear of Justice as with Wings of Resolve this will always guarantee access to a gap closer for placement of traps beneath foes & a forced relocation of foes into placed traps which is needed for viable Trap play in GW2’s fast dynamic combat.