Guild Wars 2

So my m8 told me ranger,s traits were a mess so i decided to roll one and go spvp . Wow now i fully understand all the QQ i feel bad for rangers i quickly deleted and re-rolled thief

The funny thing is this is one of the things almost no one ever complains about. People complain about far simpler things like useless skills and mostly pets.

You are right the trait lines are a pretty big mess but the solution to that is far more complicated. I don’t think most rangers have gotten past the more superficial issues to realize (or care) about the problems with traits yet.

My biggest complaint for a long time has been the traps which are all condition damage (or just condition with frost trap) have the traits (that’s right, two of them to make traps good) buried in the precision and crit damage line. You need at least the ground targeting to make traps worth a utility slot (or this would be true if other utilities were worth a kitten . No condition duration or damage that could actually, you know, improve the traps. Also most of the good pet traits are not in the beastmastery line because it’s filled with a bunch of species specific traits and other mostly useless junk (e.g. Master’s Bond).

Unspecified.9142:

My biggest complaint for a long time has been the traps which are all condition damage (or just condition with frost trap) have the traits (that’s right, two of them to make traps good) buried in the precision and crit damage line.

Ya, I’ve wondered about why all the trap traits are under skirmishing when they would make way more sense in Wilderness Survival; draw a question mark every time though.

Pet synergies could be way better too and dumping everything on them is kind of lame condition removal.

Pets themselves could be way better too, seeing as how broken they are currently (sure they do decent damage against normal mobs that just stand there, but moving targets make them pretty much useless since they seem to completely stop to attack). I also wish pets had a even a little bit of dodging ability, as any boss fight that has large AOEs will almost always kill them, even when you can dodge every single one of them; my pets just often sit there and let themselves die unless I run so far away that they follow me completely outside of the bosses range and to the other side of Tyria. Their buffing skills are often random and unreliable, making them useless. Thinking about the problems with pets at the moment gives me a headache…

agree with you Unspecified on trap traits & BM traits. they both need revision.

all the family-specific traits in BM need to be addressed, with the possible exception of birds granting vigor. cats should be putting up bleeds on all crits, not just basic attack. canine/spider is alright, but most of these activated abilities are already crowd control, so it is overlapping control instead of sequencing. boars being unstoppable would be good if boars weren’t really poor pets ( bad stats & borked abilities ), same with bears for pvp at least.

yep, master’s bond is also bad. just a terribly designed trait, since it causes the ranger to avoid using a core mechanic of the class just to gain benefit from it. should be re-worked to give the buff to either pet, so long as both pets stay alive.

swap the trap traits with ones from the condi line. the most obvious one is cooldown reduction of swords, which fits better in the crit line than condi.

we have overall good traits outside of BM imo, they are just jumbled up a bit too much which messes with our stats.

The only trouble with shifting traps into survival line is that the WS line has some of the best traits for ranger. Now you can build a trap ranger with great defensive traits and the traps traits and it synergizes well with the rabid amulet, but the precision and crit damage are wasted. Maybe if the traps were in the nature magic or marks line it would make more sense. I mean, name wise traps fit with “skirmishing” but stat wise the other two are a better fit.

I don’t know why it’s not brought up more often but I think everyone knows the traits are a mess. Maybe it’s one of those “where do I start” scenarios because so much of it is bad. It’s more than just a skill or something. It’s the whole thing.

I’m sure all rangers know that the trait tree is a mess. But it’s maybe too complicated to correct them. It’s much easier to fix e.g. dmg output or arrow speeds etc. These are only numbers that have to be changed. But fixing the traits might need more work, and may take longer time to achieve. I totally agree though, Anet must re-consider the ranger trait tree. Personally I would love to see the trap traits in Wilderness Survival tree. They are after all condition based. God knows why Anet decided to put traps traits in a tree where Precision and Prowess are. Neither have anything to do with traps! Am I wrong, Anet???

Yasha.5963:

The only trouble with shifting traps into survival line is that the WS line has some of the best traits for ranger. Now you can build a trap ranger with great defensive traits and the traps traits and it synergizes well with the rabid amulet, but the precision and crit damage are wasted. Maybe if the traps were in the nature magic or marks line it would make more sense. I mean, name wise traps fit with “skirmishing” but stat wise the other two are a better fit.

There is no way that they fit with nature magic… that’s all about boons (spirits give boons), traps are condi so they should either go in wilderness survival or marks, although i can see why they’d go in skirmishing….

@Other people, masters bond is fine, keep it, it’s a REALLY good trait (especially for a minor) seeing as how it sky rockets your pets stats at the higher ends, and it doesn’t “stop you form using our class mechanic.” our class mechanic is Pets, not pet swapping, and frankly when you have 25 stacks of masters bond you don’t -need- to pet swap very often, if at all (boars and bears i’m looking at you!) However, all those species traits just make me look at my favorite line (stat wise) with disgust, i don’t use 2 pets that’d fit in the families most of the time so that just turns out to be a worthless trait 50% of the time, which essentially means i just pick up another adept trait. They should just make it so it affects ALL families, or at least have some overlap going on! I mean cmon, a drakes F2 doesn’t cause intimidation but a spiders F2 does?

EDIT: Who else thinks they should swap the Trap traits in skirmishing with the Signet traits in Marksman? That’d make more sense period, because if you’re skirmishing you’d likely be a bit better of a beastmaster/have more of a bond with your pet seeing as how you’re both dancing around the enemy as you either cut him to pieces or put more arrows in him, and the traps for marksman just makes sense, i mean cmon, you throw them at your enemy to distract them as you turn them into a pincussion or place them somewhere and wait for the poor kitten to trip them so you can put arrows all over them, plus the whole 2 of the traps are combo fields AND marks gives condi duration….

The traits are a quite all-over-the-place. The pet ones sort-of make sense, with powerful ‘base’ ones in beastmaster while other specific ones go into trees that reflect it (eg, critical damage goes in the critical tree) except for the fact many of the beastmaster ones are… crap. Simply.
It’s definitely the same with others; ones you would expect in the condition damage tree (Sharpened edges when you’re at 75% health for example) are in the… power tree.

This thread speaks the horrible truth about the trait lines. Personally I would fix the traits that give certain species better F2 skills, and instead make it so ALL pets gain a new ability with their F2, fitting their playstyle. For example, the Fern Hound’s Regenerate could also give Vigor or Protection, the Jaguar’s stealth could affect up to 5 people nearby, etc. You know, an actual upgrade.

Loki.4871:

The traits are a quite all-over-the-place. The pet ones sort-of make sense, with powerful ‘base’ ones in beastmaster while other specific ones go into trees that reflect it (eg, critical damage goes in the critical tree) except for the fact many of the beastmaster ones are… crap. Simply.
It’s definitely the same with others; ones you would expect in the condition damage tree (Sharpened edges when you’re at 75% health for example) are in the… power tree.

Sharpened edges is a relic trait, there -used- to be a trait where you did more damage against bleeding people waaaaaaaaaaaaaay back when, either in alpha or BWE1 but was later replaced with opening strikes (for good reason), rangers and eles got the least amount of trait love pre launch, and it really shows… (i don’t even play ele but looking at their traits i cringe about as much as i do with the ranger one, but at least theirs is organized better)

I think Traps make sense when you’re skirmishing, but I don’t think they make too sense in the Skirmishing trait line.

That is to say, beyond Tail Wind and Hunter’s Tactics, there’s not much in the Skirmishing trait line that seems to make itself exclusive to the playstyle of skirmishing. It’s more like ‘the critical hits related trait line’, than it is the ‘dart around an enemy and expertly land blows with skillful agility’ trait line.

So you really could just pack traps into marksmenship and signets into skirmishing.

….but something about that isn’t quite right either.
If you really stop to think about it, Signets with the human component trait are more the stuff of Wilderness Survival than Marksmanship or Skirmishing. An invulnerability with toughness, a cleanse, a regen with stability. It’s survival all over. But signet traits just can’t hold a candle to all the other awesome things packed in that trait line. You could rationally pack Signet traits into Beastmaster, but being that there’s a player invulnerability on there it’ll put some emphasis on taking Beastmastery for PvP which is sure to ruffle some feathers.

That’s not even touching Nature Magic. But before you can even consider messing with that the Spirit utilities themselves need to get to a good place.

I think this is why people don’t discuss this topic.
There’s not much to say about it other than pointing out the oddities and shrugging your shoulders helplessly, but you could still babble on for hours doing just that.