Why do rangers have such terrible condition removal? One of our three heals does it, one signet that only removes one every 10 seconds (and has an insane cool down on it’s active), one pet skill to remove it and an elite active skill. Aside from that ranger has two condition removal traits – both are grand master traits (seems really unfair) and one only works on poison and blindness. We can run 30 points in nature magic to lose poison and blindness every 10 seconds on a dodge roll. Seriously? A crazy 30 points for only two specific conditions, limited to a dodge roll and with a 10 second cool down? Empathic Bond does one condition without a dodge roll and it works on every condition in the game. That should be a minor trait or major trait at best, certainly not a grandmaster. Next we have a a trait to periodically (every 10 seconds) transfer them to our pets for 30 points in Wilderness Survival (Empathic Bond). Only one condition every 10 seconds, and we still have to see our pets stuffer through it.
Compare these with the thief’s trait to lose any condition every 3 seconds while stealthed (fought any perma stealthed thieves lately?). That’s just crazy OP and makes sticking conditions on them very difficult. Meanwhile rangers invest very heavily into less than desirable trait trees for very average traits which are worse than this thief one which is an adept major trait. Only 10 points for something that is functionally superior to every form of condition removal our class has. Guardians have an adept major trait to lose a conditon every 10 seconds (in addition to the condition they lose from their healing signet which is like Heal as One with a passive effect and traitable in several ways making it compatible with several builds). For only 10 points they can do what we do with a grand master trait, only better (the condition is gone, it’s not transferred to our pet who now suffers). There are also several other interesting and powerful condition removal traits, two of which are not 30 point traits.
Why, when our class was so good at condition removal in GW1, is the ranger so crap at condition removal in GW2? Why do we have a scout/skirmish/survival class that is so utterly inferior to other classes in the game when it comes to condition removal? Why do we have to put 30 points into two unpopular trees with several garbage/filler traits when these traits are so weak compared to other classes’ counterparts?
I know evasive purity was nerfed pre-launch, but it’s terrible now, and so many of the ranger traits are just bad. I believe the class has such terrible grandmaster traits because they are better than the other traits we can choose from, but not necessarily deserving of 30 points. If you look at the myriad interesting ways and builds for other classes to trait and build around condition removal into a build, the ranger is seriously lacking.