Guild Wars 2

Hello,

I know right below there are threads dedicated both to the Trapper in sPvP and WvW roaming, but the thing that concerns me is a mix of these two topics. After years of playing I decided to dust off my ranger and finally give WvW a shot. Running in a zerg doesn’t sound fun and I’ve had enough big damage numbers in PvE, so I settled on playing a conditions-using roamer, and spamming traps seemed like a fine idea.

Alas, after reading the guide and the comments, I failed to find any recent videos and discussions on the matter. Which is sad, because the short bow got buffed significantly on October 18th, and now seems like a viable choice. All older guides/posts/videos ignored the weapon altogether, pointing to A/T and S/D as only viable sets.

So here’s the question – in light of these changes, would a combo of SB and A/D (and Dire gear, and Water Spring instead of Troll Unguent) be a fine choice for an inexperienced roamer that wants to learn and be able to contribute in WvW? I never liked Sword in Mainhand, finding skills #2 and #3 too awkward to use. To make up for the lack of additional evades I would be running Dagger instead of the Torch, though – unless the burning is superimportant?

Also – what is the condition (ha) of WvW roaming these days? Last night I joined WvW on my PvE character and I only saw large blobs of people bashing against the castle walls, with nobody dueling over small camps or whatever. It wasn’t encouraging, to be honest.

depends tier 1 theres some, but most think roaming is groups of 10 or more there. There still plenty oldschool roamers but its not as respected as it once was (no body goes to os for duels anymore after reset, zergs will go out of their way to run you over and it seems like people try to delberlty mess up your duels now adays.

however its not all doom and gloom late night by south camp any tier there’s usually duelers, Ive still found plenty small fights and peeps willing to duel.

daggers nice but if you can trap some one in yitour fire feid and keep em pined with you sb boom its over.

Sword/torch is something you pair with either axe/dagger or shortbow. Running axe/dagger & shortbow together is bad as they are practically the same weapon sets that bring no new utility to the build.

I think you should at least try s/t. The torch skills are easy and very powerful. For the sword, use the 2 skill preemptively at first, just use to to create space or get out of the way of huge attacks you know are about to come, like if a warrior charges you, just move somewhere out of his melee range and don’t worry if you technically evaded something.

Sword 3 is pretty straight forward and not that different from the dagger evade you want.

Right, thank you for the answers. So, if we assume I grit my teeth and try to get used to that S/T dance, what would be the better choice, SB or A/D? Both have a single evade, though the one coming from D is longer, and it can also cripple from 1200 units away. Thanks to the Axe, I’d get also an access to Chill and Weakness, which are not present on SB. On the other hand the SB allows one to daze (or stun), and is a source of Speed paired with Immobilizing the chased enemies. I’m unsure what’s better in WvW environment these days, after SB got buffed with bleeds on all Auto Attacks etc.

Edgewalker.5963:

Right, thank you for the answers. So, if we assume I grit my teeth and try to get used to that S/T dance, what would be the better choice, SB or A/D? Both have a single evade, though the one coming from D is longer, and it can also cripple from 1200 units away. Thanks to the Axe, I’d get also an access to Chill and Weakness, which are not present on SB. On the other hand the SB allows one to daze (or stun), and is a source of Speed paired with Immobilizing the chased enemies. I’m unsure what’s better in WvW environment these days, after SB got buffed with bleeds on all Auto Attacks etc.

projectiles are ify nowadays with all the blocks, eflects ect. but I think sb would be better over axe, you can also give yourself perma swiftenss and quite some mobilty by using the about face hot key and spaming the jump evades shot

I’d take shortbow nowadays with its easy application of pressure, swiftness and stun. I would also rewrite that PvEr designed build for something not so tryhard,

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAV8fjMqQ7KWuCusAVLWYEM4m6Utr2Mu2AhAmCwlLAUi0PD-T1SFQBJ4gAQtDgQyugArTDyCV+BgHEQ/U/5a7P0OdHeUJIDOCBBAQAm5MTmlZZOzZOzjX8iX8iX8MzZOzZOzZWKgFlGB-w

Just something I wanted to show you before dedicating yourself to a trapper build and why I posted an altered build. That metabattle trapper build is so super vulnerable to every other longbow ranger out there its not even funny. I even did the guy a favor by being an idiot and double dodgerolling onto his trap pile and eating it all, lf/qz and I was 100% purged and he was down state before I even recovered from my stupidity.

https://youtu.be/XU8Hxj09Fnw

Yay, thanks a lot for the input (and the upload!).

I have to say that the video screams the build is not very viable in such scenarios. Hopefully against shorter range opponents (and with a proper setup – I’m not sure Marksmanship the guy was using was optimal for a trapper, perhaps his armor was not good either) it’d be better.

As I was trying to figue out the weaknesses MetaBattle trapper has (on paper), I assumed the lack of conditions cleanse/gap closers/ways to have ranged opponents fall into our traps would be major issues… and that’s the case apparently.

So I guess I have to choose between running a less traps-focused build, or following entirely different route.

Sword / torch is fun, and provides a nice combo. Short bow isn’t too bad since the last changes. What sort of roaming are you trying to do? Scout, flipping camps, sentries, NPC camps, etc? Or are you just a dueler?

Personally I have two builds I rotate through depending on the server match up or group I’m in. More often than not I’m either solo or in a small party. If we are picking off the stragglers of the zerg then I’m running a full LB/GS berserker build with WS, Marks, and Druid traits slotted. On the other hand if I’m solo roaming then I’ll switch over to amore safety net build which is NM, BM, and Druid with heavy toughness and healing. I’ll bore them to death until they leave or wear them down because they forget about my pet. Timing burst and CC is key and I find I can manage out numbered fights unless they are better players.

Pre-HoT trapper runes rocked. Now, not so much post nerf. That is what happens when you cross PvE and sPvP.

Right, so a little update/BUMP. I’ve been trying the more typical zerkerish shoutbow build, similar to the ones shown in the two recent “outnumbered/roaming” threads, as I had similar gear already available. They’re fine, as far as I – a scrub – can tell, so I have something to get better at.

However, I would still like to try some condition trapper roaming, so I took Justine’s build (linked above) as a base and checked the prices of gear and availability of trinkets (didn’t even know pure Dire accesories or the 4-attribute ones require either raiding or farming LS3 maps!).

Here’s what I have come up with:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAV8fjMqQ5K2uCusAVLWcEM4k6UNryEAmcVumvVsqDUi0PD-TVSFQBET5360Nct9Ho2BBYkKBBwDAYBHBAao+zAuAAkCYRxWA-w

Now, Exotic Dire armor is there due to the lower price (full set costs ~13g, which is equivalent to a single exotic Sinister/Viper item or 1/3 of a Trailblazer’s piece), and Sinister accesories are used because I can get them with Laurels. I can craft the ascended weapons and I have an unused ascended backpiece, so they’d be either Viper/Trailblazer ones. Not sure if I want more Power/Precision, or more survivability.

And to respond to Crapgame – I’m new to the mode as a whole, and I’m playing at off times, so it’s hard for me to join an organised group other than a zerg. I would like to be able to move quickly around the map mostly as a solo player, so probably flipping small camps and killing other solo/duo players I encounter.

Once again, thanks a lot, everyone. I really appreciate how the GW2 forums look with people taking time to respond and not just limit themselves to a few half-sentences with ten exclamation marks and twice as many emotes.

Make sure you play some ranked spvp to get some easy ascended weapons/armor.

I would switch natural stride to celestial shadow. SB has more than perma swiftness on it already, and CS is the single best trait we have for roaming.