Guild Wars 2

I have tried many different builds and playing strategies (pve, dungeons, www). One of my favorite builds was a condition trapper because I felt I contributed a lot in groups and it was also fun in pve. However because of the rather messy trait tree, you are forced to put 30p in skirmishing in order to become a trapper (although condition trapper has nothing to do with precision and crit. dmg!) Further more you have to invest 30p in wilderness survival for the malice. In order to benefit from the condition damage you need something around 1300 in condition damage.This gives you at the same time a decent toughness as well. Others might spend the 30p in Marksmanship instead, but that makes a glass canon build which imho doesn’t do so well and you also lack the condition damage (1300).

Recently I have made a new build which has enough power to be considered as a power build and enough condition damage to be considered as a condition build. At the same time I have enough health to keep my self alive in dungeons.
The best part of this build is that it can be optimized for pve, dungeons or www by only changing the major traits.

Overall stats:
Power: 2,063
Precision: 930
Toughness: 1,230
Vitality: 1,598
Condition damage: 1,300
Armor: 2,294
Health: 21,902

Condition duration: +40%
Bleed duration: +55%

Overall traits for pve, dungeons and www:

Marksmanship 30
Skirmishing 0
Wilderness Survival 30
Nature Magic 0
Beastmastery 10

I strongly believe the most beneficial traits are available in marksmanship, Wilderness Survival and till the first major trait in Beastmastery. Even though I only invested 10 points in Beastmastery, traits from other trees make the pets really good.

Weapons:
Shortbow
condition/power/vitality
(sigil: Superior sigil of Purity, but Force or Earth is also great)

Sword
Power/vitality/toughness (sigil of Force)

Torch
Condition/power/vitality (sigil of battle)

If you need 1 extra evade you can replace torch with dagger. But imho, the sword’s 2 evades are enough. Besides, bonfire + sword and QZ is just amazing!

*Runes: *
5x Superior Rune of the mad king (+165 power, +10% condition duration, +15% bleed duration)

1x Superior rune of the Pirate (+10% MF)

Gear stats:
Condition / power / vitality (carrion prefix)

Accessories:
Condition / power / vitality (chrysocola carrion)

(condition/power/vitality means the highest stat is on condition)
(power/toughness/vitality means the highest stat is on power)

pve oriented build:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fMMQNAsfVlEVCsGZx+Gr1Ax6xeA0faPoEnO/rQrSZUngtUA;TQArSGFsrYKC

In pve i use Call Owl which is Norn only skill (3x bleed, 10sec, 3,225 dmg) but can be swapped with Spike trap.

Dungeon oriented build:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fMMQNAsfVjEVF2RWOWo2Bi1j9QoB1ewJzf+XBalyriCbpA;TQArSGFsrYKC

www oriented build:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fMMQNAsfVjEVF2RWWWo2Bi1j9EoB1ewpMd+XhWlyGiAbpA;TQArSGFsrYKC

(I think you need to copy paste the links)

This build gives you power, condition damage and a lot of evades. F.ex. use Hornet Sting (sword #2) to evade and create gap and change to shortbow!
In dungeons Muddy Terrain is really good to have even though you don’t deal any damage. In www the 6 sec of immunity (Signet of Stone) and Lightning Reflexes keep you alive against even the most sneaky thief out there!

Try the build! You will not regret it!

ps. My intention wasn’t to be disrespectful against other builds, but force other rangers to make better and more effective builds. Feel free to comment, I can take it :-)

Carry on!

There is no “best build” but “my favorite build”

Do you mind explaning to us (or perhaps if you have videos) of how you use this build? I am a glass cannon build who uses conditions like you to burn through foes (30,30,0,0,10) but I traited my equipment for toughness/power/vitality and condition/power/vitality in order to obtain survivability, which allows me to go in with 1h sword or greatsword with shortbow. Since you don’t depend on critical damage to inflict your bleeds/etc, how do you go about applying your conditions? Also why is this the best build again?

I’ve been using this build in sPvP since I started, but with Undead Runes (Cond Damage/Toughness, with 5% of Toughness being converted into extra condition damage). I want to experiment more with other builds though, as I find it hard to flank opponents in 1v1 situations and this build is all about the shortbow bleeds.

As Da Poolp underlined, there is no best build. Also every player prefers a certain play style and therefore must build the character according to the that specific style. If you hate melee you really shouldn’t make a melee build.
Remember, the headline states “probably” :-)

However, with the skills and the traits Anet has given us, I believe this build includes the most favorable. I have made this build by considering what the best skills and traits are (in my opinion!). Lets face it, our good skills and traits are pretty limited.

4 of the 20 (1/5) skills are spirit skills. They are all poor to be honest because the spirits themselves are poor.

You have 4 shouts that have the potential to be good, but they are linked to a pet system that is very unstable. I don’t like to waste a skill slot on something that you can not rely on 100%. I have tested Search and Rescue in dungeons but it’s not as effective as I wished. It’s much easier just to do a fast rescue yourself. Protect Me is nice to have, but in pve most of the time you can manage to stay alive anyway. In dungeons and www the pet looses health to fast to be reliable ( a defeated pet doesn’t do Protect Me). The only shout that might be fun and also beneficial is Sick ’Em. But be warned that you occupy a slot on a skill that relies on you pet!

Then you have 4 traps. I really love the traps but in order to fully take advantage of them you need to have 30p in Skirmishing. I don’t understand why Anet didn’t make ground targeting as default?! If you don’t have 30p in Skirmishing traps are limited. The only 2 traps that (again, imo) do good are Spike Trap and Flame Trap. Viper’s Nest could be one of the best traps but lacks the combo field (Anet please make Viper’s Nest a combo field). Now if you have a torch (more dmg), the Flame Trap is not necessary. So you end up with spike trap. Spike trap is ideal to use when you are in melee and need to evade because of low health. Deploy the Spike Trap, use Hornet Sting (sword #2) and switch to shortbow (you can evade even further now by Quick shot, SB #3). Now you can use healing spring far away from foe (or run away!).

The signet skills are not that bad but I find the cool downs a little too long. Also the active effects are not something that you would get excited about! The Signet of Stone is (imo) a must have in www but it requires Signet of the Beastmaster (30p in Marksmanship). In pve it’s very practical with Signet of the Hunt because of the extra speed (not so much of the active signet). Signet of Renewal cures a condition every 10 seconds. This might be handy if you are in places with a lot of incoming conditions, but every 10 seconds make it unreliable. I need to remove the condition whenever I wish, not in a random moment. The self healing from the Signet of the Wild is just too low to be any good imo.

Finally you have the survival skills. QZ is my favorite skill because of the damage output, faster healing in groups, and it looks awesome :-) Combined with the 2 sec quickness from pet swap, you get 6 sec of glory time! Lightning Reflexes is nice to have in www combined with Shared Anguish in Wilderness Survival. But usually overkill in pve and dungeons. Muddy Terrain is a great control skill in dungeons. You don’t deal any damage, but your group (elementalists and the others with heavy AoE) can take advantage of your skill. Also it gives you the opportunity to flank with shortbow. It has low cool down and is by default ground targeting (good work Anet!)
I had never any difficulties to apply bleed with my shortbow neither in pve nor in dungeons. Therefore I never use Sharpening stone. In pve its quite easy to flank with shortbow ( use pet as bait). In dungeons you can easily position yourself to get bleed if you are not targeted.

After finding the best skills I made a build that would emphasize and strengthen these skills. So that’s how I ended up with this build.
Also the build was made in a matter that it can be used both in pve, dungeons and www by only changing the major traits. A very versatile and flexible build which can perform well in all three instances.
Not built for spvp.

Dealing condition damage in melee is actually straight forward with sword and torch/dagger even though sword is not the typical condition weapon (though it has poison). But remember that with torch you can deal a lot of burn and your pet gets 3-4 stacks of might. Also a build with 2,063 power does decent damage alone without condition. It is not unusual that i have most of the conditions (bleed, burn, poison, vulnerability, cripple) applied on the target right away.

If you are Norn, I recommend to use Become the Snow Leopard as elite in www. The #5 skill makes you invisible. I always manage to run away with this skill!

I know what you wanna mean, but the problem of the title is not the “probably” word but “the best”. It’s because everybody could want a different gameplay there is no “best” build but “favorite” ^^ (or the best for that kind of gameplay)

Hard to take this as a “best” build with a random Pirate rune in there.

NinjaSonic.1392:

Hard to take this as a “best” build with a random Pirate rune in there.

That’s what I thought as well. :P
But that’s obviously a “placeholder”, so put in there what ever you like.
I love Condi/Trap builds, so I will give this one a try during the next days.

IMO a true trap build has to have trap potency from Skirmishing, the diff in damage output is huge. Why arena net would choose to put trap traits in skimishing truly baffles me though, I really wish they’d put them in WS.