I’ve decided to take the time to open a post to make clear how bad the ranger class needs work in terms of traits. The best way to do that, is to give a quick note and feedback on all ranger traits, so here we go.
Your reactions are welcome.
Marksmanship
Minor traits
- Opening Strike 2/5 5 stacks of vulnerability is good, but you have to go OOC to recharge it, and that’s really bad.
- Alpha Training 1/5 Pretty disappointing trait to have to wait for your pet to do the exact same thing you get in an Adept trait. Highly unreliable and pretty random.
- Precise Strike 4/5 The trait itself is great, in practice you don’t see it very often considering how rare it is to land an opening strike.
Adept
- Steady Focus 3/5 This trait gets that many points because it’s good in PvE where the only objective is to do more damage (and who dodges in PvE anyway ?). In most PvP/WvW circumstances, it’s bad.
- Malicious Training 1/5 Conditions from pets are worthless, with the exceptions of soft CCs (Immobilize/Fear/Chill). Is that worth traiting into ? I don’t think so.
- Keen Edge 2/5 At least you have something to do with 2 extra trait points for condi builds, but how good are 5 bleed stacks every 45 seconds, in all honesty ?
- Signet Mastery 4/5 A good Adept trait, especially now some signets are fairly useful.
- Predator’s Instinct 0/5 No use.
- Beastmaster’s Bond 0/5 Idiotic cooldown on such a heavily limited access to 3 might for 10 seconds.
Master
- Spotter 4/5 Another one that gets its points thanks to PvE, where it’s really good. Nobody cares about this in PvP/WvW.
- Piercing Arrow 2/5 Pretty good trait in many open-world PvE situtations, giving you access to powerful AoEs. The problem is that the “path” of the arrows is a bit unreliable, especially on uneven terrain or very close to the target.
- Beastmaster’s Might 1/5 The recently buffed ranger signets are good now, the active effects are worth considering now. The problem is that the recharge time of those signets are so big that you won’t “waste” their effect “on cooldown” to artificially stack 3 might.
- Eagle Eye 5/5 This is the first trait that defines longbow rangers. Added damage AND range ? Yes please !
Grandmaster
- Predator’s Onslaught 2/5 Situational and unimpressive, but can see some use in PvE.
- Remorseless 0/5 Trash tier, opening strikes aren’t worth a grandmaster dedication. On top of this, your only reliable access to stealth is on longbow, and in that case the other two traits are better.
- Read the wind 4/5 This trait made longbow ranger viable in PvP/WvW. Your arrow finally hit your targets. Why does a weapon need a trait to work, i don’t know, but at least now it does.
Overall
Average : 2,18/5.
I think the Marksmanship line is a good line for rangers, even if it’s only useful for longbow users and PvE players. More usage & synergy for opening strikes would be good.
The score is a bit low but is brought down by utter trash traits nobody will ever touch. The other traits though, are worth traiting into, which is already something.