Guild Wars 2

Hey guys. I want to show you my druid pvp build, that i played in unranked and had quite some fun with it. I will go into it very detailed so prepare for a lot of text. I will also put this into a couple of posts, because it is so long.

I play nekro, ranger, warrior, mesmer and guardian in pvp since launch, im at platin t1 at the moment, though i propably have decay right now, due to playing this in unranked so much and not playing ranked that much during the last week.

Before i might take it into ranked i want to get your feedback. Pls comment and share your thoughts with me, strengths and weaknesses you might see. I hope you can learn something from it and give me good feedback.

Here is the build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAV3fjEqQ7KWuCusAVLWcEsmvVsqDAnUfqZVmAwkryVyxOD-TZRAQB1Y/BOcEA8wFBAAPAANWGAA

The idea behind this build was to find a possibilty to pressure even bunkerish/bruiser builds of point, mostly utilizing unblockable condition pressure, mainly Entangle , FlameTrap and SpikeTrap.
In a meta with lots of blocks, passive defenses and immunities, having a skillset that has more than one heavy hitting unblockable skill can be very strong – so far the idea…

I will go over the offensive skills and utilities, the bursty one and the sustained pressure one first and than follow with some defensive rotations i use.

OFFENSIVE
The insane condition burst this build is capable of requires almost always any form of immobilize or hard CC, so that the enemy is forced to stay in your SpikeTrap, FlameTrap and Bonfire. The most reliable way of maintaining immobilize or hard CC are Entangle or any CC combined with Ancient Seeds, proccing another Entangle.
More situational, but also viable are Shortbow #4 from behind (another immoblize) or chaining the 2 CC´s the electric wyvern has, Lightning Assault and Wing Buffet. It is important to use Lightning Assault first, because the Launch has 0 Range, which leads to the enemy standing in your skills one or two seconds longer.
The last way to put some form of CC and immobilize out, is CA #5, channeling it to the end will lead to another immobilize. I only channel it to the end, when i see enemies not going out of its radius. The slow and damage during the channel is a nice addition, but the main goal is to immobilize the enemy with the last pulse. It shines in teamfights, where it can be easily over seen with all the fields and skills flying around. A lot of times i find myself not even using it in a 1v1, if i feel like the enemy is an okaish player, because they will just run or dodge out, making me a sitting duck while i cast it.

Depending on if the enemy has stability or not, the opening burst is a bit different:
Without stability, drop FlameTrap and SpikeTrap. The CC from Spike Trat will proc AncientSeeds for immobilize and even more bleeds, so dont waste your Entangle, if the enemy has no stability. Time to drop bonfire and add covering conditions, use Axe #3 and Shortbow #2 and #4 for that. Using Axe #2 while very close to the enemy will add another 5 stacks of bleeding, same goes for shortbow #2, which will add 5 stacks of poison at close range.

With stability, you wont be able to proc AncientSeeds from any form of CC, so thats when your entangle comes into play. Use it and drop FlameTrap or Bonfire after that. This time safe SpikeTrap and use it as soon as stability runs out. Add covering conditions as well (see above).

A pretty nice way of dropping either form of aoe burst is to double or single dodge on point, drop/use the relevant skills and Lightning Reflexes back out, making sure you´ll get out nice and easy. Because this will put one of your only two stunbreakers (other being CA) on cooldown, make sure you have CA charged, just in case you get 1ed or focussed.
This can lead to a strong teamfight condi burst, with 5-7 burns, 15 bleeds, poison, and cripple. The immobilize also makes it easier for your team to focus fire, and to burst further.

In 1v1 or 2v2 on side nodes, a lot of ppl will get around your big burst, simple because all your condition bursts (Entangle, Bonfire, FlameTrap, SpikeTrap) have fairly obvious casts.
In this situations, Electric Wyvern with the CC and Shorbow #5 can help, as well as pressuring the enemy with shortbow #1 and #2 and axe/torch #2, #3 and #4. As soon as the start to block they feel safe and 90% of the ppl wont dodge anymore. Time to Entangle or SpikeTrap now (both are unblockable), depending on stability or not (look above). Works great against mesmers, warriors and guardians and okaish against engineers, revenants and thiefs.
Your bristlebacks F2 damage is okaish. Not as good as it would be with power druid stacking might and running Beastmastery, but it is enough to panic some low-life professions and is enough to get your condis going against a Diamond Skin ele. This is also more reliable when fighting 1v1/2v2. With minions, pets and gyros flying around in team fights and the amount of blocks and reflects, F2 barely hits its target. Keep that in mind, before using it. In that situation, just use F1, the passive skills bristleback has add more bleeding and some aoe dmg.

If the enemy tries to run away, there are a lot of options you have. Axe #3 with chill is a very nice one, Shortbow #4 (immob from behind/sides, cripple from the front) and #5 (stun from behind, daze from the front) are also very good options. Shortbow #5 can proc AncientSeeds again, if its not on cooldown. Also just auto-attacking with shortbow can easily lead to 12+ stacks of bleeding, so dont underestimate that , especially if the enemy is low health. Axe/Torch #4 has 1200 range which is also useful to add some range pressure.

An essential part of this build, is Light on your Feet, which makes shortbow even more powerful, also in teamfights, because of piercing projectiles. Even stronger are the increased condition damage and duration after dodge for 4 seconds. This only works infight, so if you feel like you can “waste” a dodge to increase your dmg, go for it.

Thats it for the most important offensive rotations, there are a lot of other ones, depending on playstyle, pets and opponents you have.

DEFENSIVE
This build relies heavily on kiting to stay alive, crippling the enemies with your traps thorugh Trappers Expertise or even immobilizing them on the run with Entangle/SpikeTrap. Dropping a Bonfire while kiting also is advised, because even two stacks of burning can hurt and keep the pressure on yourself low.

I run sigill of energy on both weapon sets, meaning i can dodge alot. Through the minor trait in Wilderness Survival, Natural Vigor your endurance also recharges a lot faster, especially with the vigor boon, you will have from using Lightning Reflexes. Your shortbow #3 skill is an evade as well, it also moves you away a bit from the enemy you are targeting. Shortbow #3 gives you 9 seconds of swiftness wether it hits the target or not, its cooldown is 6 1/2 seconds traited, meaning you can maintain permanent swiftness on yourself, in- and outfight, making it harder for your enemies to get you. You can also use this skill to evade big hit attacks if you are immobilized, the evade will still work, even if you wont move. This is a lifesaver a lot of times.

The defenses of this build rely on crippling and kiting the enemy so he cant get to you. In the meanwhile, your heal Troll Unguent can tick, healing you over time, together with the passive ticks from the rune (Dolyak) and some regeneration you might have from Oakheart Salve or teammates.
Troll Unguent and Dolyak Runes charge your CA really good. Neither pets, nor condi dmg charge it, so you healing is the only real good option for charging you have. Thats why i chose Dolyak runes and Troll Unguent.
Traited survival skills remove two conditions when used, making Troll Unguent, Lightning Reflexes and Entangle your go to condi clears WHEN UNDER LIGHT pressure. If you get condi bombed and focussed down it is better to enter CA to remove all conditions, use CA #3 and exit it right away for stealth and superspeed, allowing you to safely cast Troll Unguent to heal. Dont waste three utilities on condi clear, if you dont have to.
Troll Unguent heals over time, so dont cast it if you are already below 25 % health. I usually cast it somewhere between 50% and 75% health, depending on the situation.

Your dodge rolls give you 2 seconds of protection, giving you some defenses against power bursts, like thief, warrrior or guardian.

All in all, your defenses rely on kiting and letting your passive regen tick, while using your aoe conditions to maintain pressure on the enemy.
This also means, if you are under heavy power pressure, without any possibilities of making it out, you will die quite quickly, because you have little to no burst healing, making heavy bursts your biggest weakness. I´d say power bursts even more than condition ones. Also, you have no access to stability and only two stunbreaks, it comes down to evading a lot.

At last, the teamsupport capabilities this build has are very few. You can stealth rezz some teammates by exiting CA, and you can aoe heal your team a bit with CA #3 and #4, but these are very situational, and might not even be worth it, because the healing is quite small, given this build has no healing power.
I would put it somewhere around the meta guard, thief and warrior, in terms of teamsupport, meaning close to none.

Reflect will luckily not negate your burst condition dmg, but it will cut down your sustained condition pressure quite a bit, because nearly all of your weapons skills are reflectable keep that in mind before happily auto attacking an ele with shortbow…

That is everything i have, please ask me, if you have any further questions, i will be happy to answer them.
And please take it with a grain of salt, i played it in unranked, where a lot of players dont really know what they do.
Please be easy on me, english is not my mother tongue, i will certainly have some grammatical and typign errors somewhere in here

All feedback is welcome.
TheJoker

I love reading detailed guides (a lot of papers in Uni). Guides that go into detail like this help me pick stuff up I probably would have needed a lot of games to understand on my own.

I’ve always been interested in Condi/Trap Ranger back in the core days but I didn’t have the “feel” for offensive roles. That is to say, I’m not great at dueling. However, reading this I’ll probably give it a try – I do like the shotgunning playstyle.

Ralkuth.1456:

That is to say, I’m not great at dueling. However, reading this I’ll probably give it a try – I do like the shotgunning playstyle.

It’s presumptuous to say you’d win 100% of the time, but I’d win 100% of the time against this build. Traps are not good, its just a flawed concept. If anyone can duel me on trap ranger and win I’ll cut the skin off my entire body and mail it to them.

The one thing you can do with traps is play pretend DH and use them on mid, but that’s not a great idea with druid. You’ll kill people but die too easily.

@Fluffball, I see your point, traps are weak, because they require you to get up close and they can be easily avoided. In conquest its a bit different, because it revolves around the point… To play somewhat effective, you will need to be on point sooner or later, making traps a bit better already.
I agree with you, I won’t fight a plain 1v1 with this build, but conquest makes the somewhat viable.
And yes, like you and me said, it’s quite weak against burst damage….
Maybe it works in unranked because it’s unexpected, I will do some further testing in unranked and in ranked off season, to not destroy someones rating…
I’ll update this post regularly.

I played the tSHI out of condi trapper in ranked and unranked. I LOVED trapper. The stealth, the repositioning, the condi bombing potential. It’s a blast, until it’s really not.

I stopped playing because the fun factor did not outweigh the unviability of this build.

IF the traps were power based, this build would be so much b e t t e r !! But alas, that is not the case.

So I am going to WoodenPotatoes your Boots Bad Build you made.

The Good
It looks like you tried to make up for what the build naturally lacks.
You did not go full traps with trapper runes and you have condi removal through wilderness knowledge-heal and lightning reflexes.
The spike condi dmg is high.
You really made the most out of light on your feet, endurance runes and vigor (LR)
There is going to be a lot of dodging.

The Neutral
I think there is a possibility you might be better served through shared anguish as you have no stability and getting locked down is death. It’s debateable.

The Bad
You’re mobility is limited.
You’re survivability is nigh if you get CC’ed.
The condi damage you deal via traps ‘can’ get removed easily.
If you get condi bombed, you’re going to die.

All in all I think you did the best with a subpar build.
On downs in a group setting, this build is hillarious. Add in some DH burning or a Necro and no one is getting rezzed.

Just wanted to point something out also…

I know you are playing at a higher level than me and could probably do more withthis build than I can.

I play very casually, only on weekends. I don’t play sPvP like chess.

I wonder how well this does, in the right hands, because it isn’t meta?
It’s not the typical. Even at a high level of play, as in Plat, I wonder if the opponents you fight know how to counter your build as easily as they do the standard Shoutbow Menders.

Just a thought….

Hey all.
After some further testing with the builds and improvements you guys left me, im coming back for some more feedback here.

The changes “ShadowPass” made to my build (He started the threat “Ranger Questions? Ask here!”) i went into unranked (so take it with a grain of salt) and tried it.

Here is the the original:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAV3fjEqQ7KWuCusAVLWcEsmvVsqDAnUfqZVmAwkryVyxOD-TZRAQB1Y/BOcEA8wFBAAPAANWGAA

Here is the changed build, from ShadowPass:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAV8YjEqQHL2uC2sAVLWMEsm3VwqFAnV/qpVmAwor0VyxOD-TZxHQBXY/hCeEAAwFBwgPAA+VGAA

ShadowPass Pointed out, that i lack a lot of mobility with this build, so he swapped A/T for S/D.
Although mobility is higher with this build and survivability increases through 3 more evades, i feel like a lot of the sustained condi pressure from A/T is missing. S/D is more melee oriented, meaning to do dmg with this weapon set you have to be up close, standing in point and inside of AoEs. The 3 extra dodges you have access to (one of them being the very situational S #2) will be drained quite quickly in melee range.

Having a bit more sustained condi pressure from range, while your traps are on cd (especially in teamfights where other roles can stay on point) seems to be the better solution for me.

The 3 additional evades and the higher mobility S/D offers, dont make up for the need to be in melee range and the lost sustained condition pressure.
A/T offers a bit more mid ranged combat, meaning you wont be in AoEs that much.

The utility changes ShadowPass made are very good, the extra condi clear with Muddy Terrain having a lower cooldown than Lightning Reflexes is very nice and the escapability stays the same. I thought Spike Trap is better, for proccing Ancient Seeds and because it is AoE, meaning it can proc multiple at once.

I tried taking Shared Anguish instead of Ambidexterity as well, it definitely gives more time against classes with a CC opener (insert any class here).

Ty for reading and pls give feedback

I think you shoul add spike trap back into this build, IMO it is one of our best utility skills. I use it all the time for defense as well as offense. It breaks stealth on thief/mes. It is great for resing, drop it at your feet when resing, I also run various runes, pack krait sunless lynx nightmare are my favs depending on team comp but dolyak definitely builds faster.

Yeah, Spike Trap offers nice utility…
I think taking it over another survival skill in a condition build really comes down to personal preference. Like any other utility skills it’s also stronger against certain classes and team comps and weaker against others…

If you want to keep the damage from a/t but still keep the mobility from s/d, why not put a/t instead of shortbow? Imo shortbow doesn’t apply enough pressure to be a great condition weapon for ranger, hence why I prefer the a/t + s/d combo when playing conditions. I also tried to use staff in a condition build but it’s really not that great sadly to me. With torch and your traps you can play around that to kite. Where shortbow truly shines tho is when someone tries to escape.

I’ll try streaming my PvP gameplay of condition druid when I have free time

Skullface.7293:

If you want to keep the damage from a/t but still keep the mobility from s/d, why not put a/t instead of shortbow? Imo shortbow doesn’t apply enough pressure to be a great condition weapon for ranger, hence why I prefer the a/t + s/d combo when playing conditions. I also tried to use staff in a condition build but it’s really not that great sadly to me. With torch and your traps you can play around that to kite. Where shortbow truly shines tho is when someone tries to escape.

I’ll try streaming my PvP gameplay of condition druid when I have free time

That shameless self promotion tho.

Haha, welcome back mate!

I reinstalled the game about a week ago so we’ll see each other around when I get back from vacation.

Skullface.7293:

If you want to keep the damage from a/t but still keep the mobility from s/d, why not put a/t instead of shortbow? Imo shortbow doesn’t apply enough pressure to be a great condition weapon for ranger, hence why I prefer the a/t + s/d combo when playing conditions. I also tried to use staff in a condition build but it’s really not that great sadly to me. With torch and your traps you can play around that to kite. Where shortbow truly shines tho is when someone tries to escape.

I’ll try streaming my PvP gameplay of condition druid when I have free time

Yeah, i played A/T & S/D Condi Trapper Pre-HoT for ages in WvW and it was awesome. That build was hilarious!

I wanted to give shortbow another try, since its been buffed a couple of times now and i think it is not completely useless.
Also, Light on your Feet harmonizes great with shortbow, improving its attacks while flanking, so it becomes better. Sadly only in situations where you are on the offense. You will mostlikely not hit enemies from behind with shortbow, if you are on the defense (although there maybe exceptions).

Mobility and Survivability are not bad with Shortbow in general, its just S/D´s is better…

I will definitely give it a try, although i feel, like i dont need the survivability (at least in unranked…) that S/D adds, so it has little to no value for me here and i prefer the higher sustained dmg output of shortbow.
It definitely comes down to personal preference as well as the skill level of the opponents you face.
In ranked, S/D might be better, i will definitely give that a try.