Hey all.
Pre HoT, a trap-condi-ranger with rune of the trapper was pretty kitten strong, if played right.
Seeing the buffs shortbow got, i tried my old condi ranger for roaming in wvw and its amazing.
I have HoT, but the druid traitline is not required for this one and would end up in loosing some dmg for more sustain/healing. Because i felt like my sustain/survivability is high enough, i chose beastmastery instead of druid.
The build im using is pretty self explaining, its all about maximizing your condi dmg:
The condition dmg output is really high, realistic condi dmg outputs infight are somewhere between 2k-4k constantly, burst is way higher than that. In Heart of the mists, 25+ bleed stacks, 13 posion, and 15 burning stacks are possible.
Fire Trap has the lowest cooldown, i am using it to stealth pre fight in order to place my traps without enemies seeing where. Axe2 does the highest dmg, if all 5 blades hit, so you need to be very close. this is not required, dont sacrifice too much health, just for hitting with all 5.
I keep Torch4 and Dagger5 ready for a bit more ranged pressure, because a lot of your skills require you to be close.
Although the condition dmg is really high, you lack defenses a lot.
Dire-Gear gives you the amount of toughness and vitality you need to eat some enemy bursts.
A lot of your survivability comes from avoiding dmg all along. Rune of the trapper provides you with stealth, so you can drop traps without the enemy knowing where they are, so you can lure them in. Axe/Torch will be your offensive weapon set, since axe3 got buffed it provides nice ranged dmg. Sword/Dagger with 3 different evades is your defensive weapon set, although it can sustain some condi pressure through sword3 and dagger4+5.
In fight, running away goes suprisingly well. Runes of the trapper provide you with superspeed, and all your (offensive) traps apply crippled. Weapon switch applies swiftness, so keep your traps on cooldown and keep switching weapons.
Keep in mind, that your offensive traps will do dmg, meaning they will apply revealed to you, if you drop them and endmies are standing inside. Use healing spring to stealth inside enemies.
Pets are kind of a Panik Button, dont waste their F2 mindlessly. If you are being stunned (remember, you dont have stunbreaks) and expect a burst, use their taunt to CC the enemy. The pet will take the dmg and you keep cool. Although you can take a hit, be careful with what you want to dodge and what to tank.
Wolf provides you with a Taunt-Fear combo, that lasts 4 seconds, because taunt is applied at the start of the cast, and fear at the end, which is very nice for classes with low stability uptime, while the Lynx leaps towards the enemy, meaning it is almost everytime a hit.
You can switch Sword/dagger for Shortbow. This is gives you a slight advantage over melee classes, but a bit of a disadvantage over ranged, because their dmg on range will be higher and shortbow is more of a kiting weapon to me.
i hope you have fun with this build, if you want to try it. This is how i like to play it, it is in no way perfect and im happy for feedback.
There might be a lot of grammatical mistakes and unexact sentences, because im not a native english speaker. i still hope you could understand what i wrote and have fun with this.
for more questions feel free to write me ingame or answer to this Tonic
Joker