Guild Wars 2

Hey Ranger community, I was just looking for some opinions on my elite skill for the trap build I’ve been running recently. I’ve always used entangle, but I was just wondering if there was a viable alternative. Entangle just seems a little too ineffective, many times only trapping the enemy for 1-3 seconds. I also have the sylvari racial elites to choose from. Thanks!

Spirit of renewal dies too quickly. You can kind of use it to self res but I find that it’s not worth the monumental cooldown, squishyness, and short duration. I’ve never seen it last longer than 15-20 seconds in a real fight.

Rampage as one is okay I guess, but it has a long cooldown for that mere 20 seconds of stability (and a bit of might, which goes well with the high cond damage, but as far as might stacking goes it’s a really inefficient method).

I generally find entangle the best because it scales with your own condition damage. The thing about entangle is that you have to use it as a good time. Can’t just run up to a bunch of people and entangle, because there are a million different ways to counter it – condition removal, blinding you, etc. I cringe every time I blow entangle while blinded. Best practice is to hold people in place with spike trap first (to prevent someone dodging it), and to use it at a time when most of their condition removal is blown. A warrior, for example, can easily escape it with the use of Mobile Strikes, so it’s best to use it right after they bulls charge or savage leap or whatever they’re running. If you can, use it when damaging attacks like Whirling Wrath are down too. It’s best not used as initiation because of how easy it is to counter for these reasons, I like to save it until the fight is midway, because if you entangle a group of people and then chuck down traps on top of that it can be a fight turner.

Also, wait until the class you’re fighting uses any kind of adds, because the adds don’t move out of it and they’ll eventually die. Good counter to Thieves Guild, for example.

Take Root is another option if you really hate entangle, it’s probably the best racial I can think of outside of Pain Inverter, strong counter to burst, and all the little plants apply bleeds – not sure if those bleeds scale with condition damage or not though, couldn’t tell you.

The spirit, Entangle and Rampage as One all have their uses.

I usually run with the spirit if I’m doing dungeons, because it’s a nice way to revive people without having to stop and paint a target on yourself – the heal is decent as well, and in PvE it tends to stay alive.

WvW, I’ll switch between Rampage and Entangle purely depending on the size of the fight I’m in, and how likely it is for my pet to stay alive during it.