Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, I just spend 73 tombs of knowledge on me ranger to get him to lvl 80 (Don’t worry, I have 56 more :P)

Now I’m really wanting to get into WvW and decided upon a condi trapper ranger because with the stealth from runes it would be a nice ‘slowly learn ranger while not dying 24/7’ build

Gonna go 0/6/6/2/0 with self explanatory traits, dire/rabid, axe/dagger and than either SB or sword/torch, triple trap and entangle.

The only thing I can’t decide on is what traps!? Flame and spike are obvious but than either poison or frost trap. I really can’t decide and would like some opinions to make a choice.

Frost: 5 seconds, no damage so you stay in stealth, can be +10 seconds of frost, long CD though, ice field.

Poison: no duration, damage so you can get revealed, good poison duration, shorter CD, short poison duration.

Plz help me! thanks for any input!

Poison. Higher duration bc each pulse stacks duration and shorter cool down. Poison reduces the effectives of healing which also makes foes resing slower. Also you already have a cc with spike trap. A better decision to make would be spike vs frost trap.

I’m not a fan of poison trap because posion is so easily come by, especially as a ranger. I don’t agree with not taking spike, as you can never have too many bleeds.

Another solid option would be something like flame, spike and lightning reflexes or any of the signets (expect probably SotW, the other 3 would help you though.)

I generally only run 2 traps (Spike and Flame) when running a Trapper spec. The 3rd slot usually being filled with either SotH or LR.

It’s old and tired advice but it remains the best… just go and try them all and find which works best for you.

For me I never liked Viper’s Nest for the reason Fluffball mentioned… Rangers have a ton of Poison already it becomes unnessesary (although I use S/D+SB+Spider pets, so I was fully covered on the poison front).

I also tend to prefer Frost Trap over Spike Trap because of the pulse / field it gives. Spike trap often gets dodged or triggered by illusions / pets / summons / random NPCs and whilst you can do a lot to avoid this with good placement, it remains an issue at times.

IMO: take Flame trap and Frost trap. YES spike or poison trap will give you more damaging conditions, but you are NOT revealed from stealth when frost trap goes off, so it can be a good escape tool (this is using “runes of the trapper”). Then i’d make sure to take a stun break. Since you are taking up your utilities with trap skills, Signet of Renewal is a pretty good option (stunbreak AND condi clear).

Oberon Vex.1389:

IMO: take Flame trap and Frost trap. YES spike or poison trap will give you more damaging conditions, but you are NOT revealed from stealth when frost trap goes off, so it can be a good escape tool (this is using “runes of the trapper”). Then i’d make sure to take a stun break. Since you are taking up your utilities with trap skills, Signet of Renewal is a pretty good option (stunbreak AND condi clear).

Trapper runes are a blast and not widely used, at least not out in EBay’s maps. I’ve been using them for some time now but still have yet to find a balance between speed and LB damage. I really like the superior sigil of incapacitation mixed in but it is a on-crit sigil.

I was using Frost, Spike, and Flame traps with somewhat good success. Thief seem to wreck me though but that is just me sucking vs. that melee class

Depends, my preference is to play flame/vipers nest since I run with Sharpened Edges. Frost Trap has an extremely long cooldown for it’s output and because it does no direct damage, it can’t proc Sharpened Edges, making Frost more of a pure utility than anything else.

Some people like it, I just think that between pets and weapons, I have enough soft CC without Frost Trap, and that it just isn’t strong enough to deserve a slot, whereas I don’t think that you can ever get enough poison since the 33% reduced healing is just about the biggest “game changer” you can get from conditions.

But that’s my preference. I have played chill based builds entirely and know from experience that they are effective, they just play differently, so you really have to feel it out for yourself.

Poison trap also does the most physical damage, although it is not much compared to weapon skills.

I just really think running 3 traps for up to 9 secs of stealth/super speed would be the best thing. And with dire/rabid I can outlast bursts to not really need Signets or LR.

^IMO, so this is the build I’ll be aiming at (with poison trap – http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNEQRAsf3YjEq0ua3KmrQ1aADhq9JEslA7AICmAXxbBrSA-TlDEABLoEcGVVKRXA37PoiWhAMRgkSEHeCA5oWBAmwe4EAQlyDnPIACpEKAACA7cnPHkCAmhVA-w

Let me know what you think

I’ve started running the trap build so in my opinion:

1. Voting against the Chill trap. Cooldown is way too long, and zero damage. Sword3 poison is also unreliable. I am running SB, though a 2nd chill might be more useful in the all melee set. I used to run A/D in a condi regen build; Against camp NPCs I think A/D is likely better than SB due to Axe2 piercing, but versus players I think shortbow with on-crit sigils might be better since Axe works best at close distance.

2. Lots of thieves in wvw. Chill affects them less due to initiative system.

3. Bird over dog is an interesting choice. Swiftness is kinda odd with this build. You get some swiftness with weapon swap, shortbow3 if you equip it, traps and bird if you slot one. The thing is you don’t want to waste the traps just for speed as you want to use them for either stealth when you need it or damage or both. I find myself swapping in warhorn and/or SoH when out of combat and sometimes I get stuck with them when I get put in combat. The wonky swiftness is one factor in favor of the chill trap.

4. I find it tough to run without Lightning Reflexes. Immob is a killer and the only quasi-stun break you have is not on demand and on a 90 second cooldown.

5. Not sure about your choice in using Giver’s weapons. Looks similar to rabid in tgerms of damage; you’re going from +50% condi to +60%, so an approx. 7.5% condi damage increase due to duration, but versus players the condis will drop off faster due to cleanses. You are getting extra vitality as opposed to toughness which may be your preference.

Build is fun, but worsens exponentially once you get more enemies (say over 5).