Guild Wars 2

Since the meta has shifted recently for PvP a lot of things have changed to increase the amount of condition removal available. Most notably on warriors. When playing a trap build we MUST trait x/30/30/x/x. However, traps leave rangers with no defense whatsoever. Which leads me to my suggestion:

Move Trap Potency and Trapper’s Expertise and Trapper’s Defense into the Wilderness Survival Traitline.

• Merge, Healer’s celerity with Trapper’s defense (losing the switfness gained)
• Get rid of Oakheart Salve
• Get rid of Barkskin
• Make a new adept trait for skirmishing: Transfer a condition when you interrupt a foe.
• Make a new master trait for skirmishing: Immobilize target if they have more than 20 stacks of vulnerability on them (2s).
• Make a new grand master trait: Remove 3 conditions when you gain quickness.

I just thought up the skirmishing trait changes to show that something would have to go into skirmishing to fill the void. Sadly, this would leave empathic bond out of the build which is really key to survivability so some condition removal in some other traitline would have to become available. (Something like remove x conditions on pet swap) would be nice.

The big issue is that traps just aren’t viable. They are strong because they can be precast but things like berserker’s stance make traps kind of useless. But more than that. This is my biggest pet peeve about the game. Why the hell would you put condition damage utility with no defense into the precision and crit damage line?

Thoughts?

I don’t think that you gain Quickness often enough to remove conditions well enough to benefit a build over just running Empathic Bond.

With the proposed changes, on a trap build, I have a tough time figuring out where the condition removal would come from other than SoR and maybe taking QZ as a third utility. With the pet swap quickness now being a 30 point BM trait, I’m just having a hard time seeing how the proposed changes can compete with Empathic Bond.

I like the direction you’re suggesting though, don’t get me wrong. I think the main problem rangers suffer from is Empathic Bond. It can be a hard option to give up at times, but it’s also a hard trait to propose changes around, because any additional cleansing added to the game has the potential to be run with empathic bond, making rangers far too good defensively.

So I like that Trap Potency has to compete with Empathic Bond in this scenario, but I don’t like that for that particular trap build, condition removal would become much more scarce compared to the output of conditions the game has.

I’d rather see your adept and master skirmishing suggestions switched around, and then the transfer condition amount be increased to 2 or even 3. The weapons cooldowns on their skills and the skill it takes to actually land an interrupt versus just throwing it out and hope it interrupts something is enough to justify more potency.

Honestly, the Skirmishing grandmaster slot could be “activating signets removes 3 conditions” though I know I’m not thinking through all of the permutations of how it could be run. I’m only thinking of how it would compliment the Marksmanship line.

Sorry for the ramblings. I shouldn’t, as well all have ideas as to how to make the game better. I could think the ideas are too tame, and you could think my ideas are too extreme haha.

No to everything. The second you said that traps leave Rangers with no defense, you proved you don’t know what you’re talking about to me. Traps ARE our defense. Spike Trap, Frost Trap, Muddy Terrain (while not a trap, it feels the same as one to me), and Entangle all prevent the enemy from getting to us. The only other defensive ability we have as a Ranger for slot skills is Lightning Reflexes.

Plus getting rid of Bark Skin? Do you know how often that thing saves my life?

Going off your idea Eura.

Move Trap Potency to Wilderness Survival and replace Bark Skin.
Move Trapper’s Expertise to Wilderness Survival and replace Oakheart Salve.

Remove Circle of Life effect and replace with lose a 1 condition every 10 seconds.

Current condition remove Healing Spring – Signet of Renewal – Evasive Purity, by removing Circle of Life effect and adding in the extra condition remove every 10 seconds, opens different versions of the trapper build. You wouldn’t need Empathic Bond.

Removing Circle of Life wouldn’t effect any of our current builds making them overpowered. If anything you will see builds getting around with to much condition remove and lack damage output.

New build options would be along the lines. 20/0/30/20 – 0/30/30/10/0 – 30/0/30/10/0 – 0/0/30/20/20 – 10/0/30/10/20 – 0/0/30/10/30 as you can see the options and versions are far greater then our current options. Meaning we would have the options for what roll your trap ranger will be playing. Mid fight you could take less condition remove and spec into the roll it will be playing, where as if you are homepoint bunker you could invest into more durable tank while keeping your traps.

But it doesn’t stop there, by adding a trait as simple as 1 condition remove every 10 seconds opens new builds not only for trap’s but for new versions of power spec’s beastmaster spec’s.

The new trait would come inline with other classes as well. You want good build diversity we need better condition remove as it plays at the core of all ranger builds. Our tank comes from Condition Remove – Dodge (weapons) – High Toughness – Regeneration. Unlike other classes who can stealth – blocks – blinds.

Now our GS and LB might full into the line where we have stealth blocks but they are nothing compared to other classes.

Well that my 2 cents worth.

RyuDragnier.9476:

No to everything. The second you said that traps leave Rangers with no defense, you proved you don’t know what you’re talking about to me. Traps ARE our defense. Spike Trap, Frost Trap, Muddy Terrain (while not a trap, it feels the same as one to me), and Entangle all prevent the enemy from getting to us. The only other defensive ability we have as a Ranger for slot skills is Lightning Reflexes.

Plus getting rid of Bark Skin? Do you know how often that thing saves my life?

I would consider Eura to be one of the best ranger’s in the game, so when Eura says something he knows what he is talking about. Sure I don’t agree with all his idea’s but Bark Skin is a worthless Trait, conditions go right throw it. Maybe in PvE vs a DPS with NO CONDITION DAMGE AT ALL, but in SPvP its worthless and should never be used.

And yes Trapper build can not survive in this meta and will never become a viable build again outside of WvW and PvE. Also vs the current viable ranger builds its at the bottom of the food chain.

The second you mentioned sPvP Sol, I facepalmed hard. Sure, let’s make MORE changes around the least popular part of the game, just like the infamous pet damage nerf, the SB range nerf, the pet leash nerf…need I go on? Why people suggest changes around sPvP to hit THE ENTIRE GAME makes no sense to me, when it’ll only hurt our entire profession worse than it is now.

RyuDragnier.9476:

The second you mentioned sPvP Sol, I facepalmed hard. Sure, let’s make MORE changes around the least popular part of the game, just like the infamous pet damage nerf, the SB range nerf, the pet leash nerf…need I go on? Why people suggest changes around sPvP to hit THE ENTIRE GAME makes no sense to me, when it’ll only hurt our entire profession worse than it is now.

It’s called skill split which they already do so keep smacking yourself in the face. Your offering no constructive idea’s just whinny posts, so maybe rather then complain there bad idea’s , maybe counter debate?

@ Ryu…

Because moving the trap traits (which do condition damage) out of the precision and crit damage line into the Wilderness Survival (condition damage line that provides toughness and protection dodge roll for free) line is gonna hurt rangers in PvE and WvW… I’m trying to give you an extra 30 trait points here…

From personal experience I don’t find traps very defensive because things like, mesmer illusions, ranger pets, spirit weapons, ranger spirits, elementals, and necro minions can proc my “defense” that is apparently supposed to protect me from 2 people coming from 2 different locations arriving at my trapped location at 2 different times. Which renders my trap “defenses” useless.

The trap traits are in a bad line. Trap utilities provide no damage mitigation.

For the bark skin. I’m gonna guess… once. If you don’t have high vitality you will already be dead under 25% (low hp pool). If you have high vitality you have low toughness so even with -30% damage reduction under 25% health that last 6k HP (almost max vitality) is gonna go by pretty fast. If you have both high toughness and high vitality then you aren’t using condition damage which is inefficient for you to be traiting into WS if you aren’t going to use EB (unless you have Dire stats but thats new and doesn’t count :p). Also, the amount of damage empathic bond mitigates is way higher than bark skin would in any situation.

@ jcbroe

Like I said the replacement traits were just spurr of the moment type thing. However, the more I think about the quickness removing conditions the more I it. Going 0/30/10/0/30 would give 3 conditions removed every 15 seconds, then with QZ another on demand condition removal, then with say Orrian runes or runes of balthazar and a sigil of rage would be a lot of condition removal. (not to mention timewarp is 1s quickness intervals which would give condi immunity for 10s). In fact, with sigil of rage, QZ, and pet swap quickness you would be removing potentially 18 conditions every minute. Currently, with empatchic bond you can potentially remove 18 conditions every minute but it provides no input from the player making it less effective as the Quickness condi removal would be. I actually thing this would be an awesome change.

@ Sol.

Not bad ideas but the game needs more active condi clear and less passive condi clear.

I’m not understanding the whole push to move Traps over to Wilderness Survival.

Skirmishing Line is actually a fairly good line for Traps, as the second you add things like sigil of earth and sharpened edges to your build, you increase all your Traps effectiveness making Rabid a Fairly nice set for Traps.

Wilderness Ends up being your Defensive Tree (if you moved Trap Traits over for example, you instantly lose the ability to get Offhand Training and EB like you said)

None of the suggestions actually fix what Trap Spec Rangers have trouble with, and that’s high CC builds, and the reason they have trouble with it, is because they have to invest 3 utility slots into the actual spec itself. Leaving out for example, Stun Breakers and Immunities.

Xsorus.2507:

I’m not understanding the whole push to move Traps over to Wilderness Survival.

Skirmishing Line is actually a fairly good line for Traps, as the second you add things like sigil of earth and sharpened edges to your build, you increase all your Traps effectiveness making Rabid a Fairly nice set for Traps.

Wilderness Ends up being your Defensive Tree (if you moved Trap Traits over for example, you instantly lose the ability to get Offhand Training and EB like you said)

None of the suggestions actually fix what Trap Spec Rangers have trouble with, and that’s high CC builds, and the reason they have trouble with it, is because they have to invest 3 utility slots into the actual spec itself. Leaving out for example, Stun Breakers and Immunities.

Most likely, people wouldn’t take the rez trait and would take shared anguish instead. Losing access to offhand training and empathic bond is big but ideally there would be trap trait merges along the way. Also, I would only want this if there was other condition removal options applied in other trait lines to balance out being forced to give up empathic bond.

With the rate of crits one is doing with the precision of rabid gear already and accounting for the icd of sigil of earth and sharpened edges I believe it would almost be at maxed efficiency with only 10 in skirmishing.

Moving the traps does help a bit because it can allow you to trait for more healing power or vitality so you can eat more damage (kind of a kittenty way to deal with it). But if CC is your problem then pretty much have to take RaO with a trap build. But this goes for a lot of ranger builds.

I am honestly quite happy with traps where they are, I feel like 10/30/30 is our strongest build.

If you wanted to rework traits then do it for power builds, and around the power/ws lines.

Sube Dai.8496:

I am honestly quite happy with traps where they are, I feel like 10/30/30 is our strongest build.

If you wanted to rework traits then do it for power builds, and around the power/ws lines.

Ya? Them trap crits really bring out the damage don’t they. Trap builds = engineer 1 utility (bombs or nades) = necro 1 weapon set (staff). Only redeemable thing is that you get swiftness with your trap build. Also you should be using RaO in small skirmishes so that gives you swiftness and fury, so that is even more reason to get that traits moved. Could even trait into boon duration with that extra 30 points so you can have those boons last longer…

There is very little downside to moving the traits. You lose precision for getting your sharpened edges and sigil of earth procs but the precision from your rabid gear alone is enough to get like 90% efficiency (<- assumption) out of those things because of their ICDs.

As for power builds. Power builds are fine, they just lack a bit of condi removal, vigor, swiftness, and most importantly a way to lockdown targets which is remedied with good pet control (could be better remedied by full pet control). Well fine-ish, things could be ironed out like longbow trait consolidations.

Unless you meant move trap traits into the power line… which kind of makes sense but not as much as moving them into the WS line.

As an aside. I believe 10/30/30 to be our worst VIABLE build.

I’m not sure Sharpened Edges and Sigil of Earth even have an ICD Eurantien, I’ve easily hit 15 stacks of bleeds from split blade alone when running the setup.

Eurantien.4632:

Move Trap Potency and Trapper’s Expertise and Trapper’s Defense into the Wilderness Survival Traitline.

+1 +1 +1
Yes please.

I don’t understand the use of the new master trait but all other new traits fill exactly the gap that I fell the Ranger has.

Xsorus.2507:

I’m not sure Sharpened Edges and Sigil of Earth even have an ICD Eurantien, I’ve easily hit 15 stacks of bleeds from split blade alone when running the setup.

There is no way you can get 15 stacks of bleed just off Split blade with just Sharpened Edges and the Sigil of Earth the max you can get is 12 and that means every single axe hits and procs the Sharpened Edges 5x, also there has been internal cooldown on Sigil of Earth for very long time its 2 seconds.

Sol.4310:

Xsorus.2507:

I’m not sure Sharpened Edges and Sigil of Earth even have an ICD Eurantien, I’ve easily hit 15 stacks of bleeds from split blade alone when running the setup.

There is no way you can get 15 stacks of bleed just off Split blade with just Sharpened Edges and the Sigil of Earth the max you can get is 12 and that means every single axe hits and procs the Sharpened Edges 5x, also there has been internal cooldown on Sigil of Earth for very long time its 2 seconds.

You could be right, I’ll throw on my rampager gear and splitblade a bunch of mobs today to see if I can get 15 stacks again.

I never did notice a cooldown though on Sigil of Earth.

Xsorus.2507:

I’m not understanding the whole push to move Traps over to Wilderness Survival.

Skirmishing Line is actually a fairly good line for Traps, as the second you add things like sigil of earth and sharpened edges to your build, you increase all your Traps effectiveness making Rabid a Fairly nice set for Traps.

Wilderness Ends up being your Defensive Tree (if you moved Trap Traits over for example, you instantly lose the ability to get Offhand Training and EB like you said)

None of the suggestions actually fix what Trap Spec Rangers have trouble with, and that’s high CC builds, and the reason they have trouble with it, is because they have to invest 3 utility slots into the actual spec itself. Leaving out for example, Stun Breakers and Immunities.

This is exactly how I feel about it. Plus our main problem with conditions is that we have almost 0 active condition cleansing abilities on the class in general, it’s all passive. Which is the main reason why I do not take them, as I find the condition removal to take too long, usually with my pet getting killed before it procs for most of it (Signet of Renewal is the only one I’ll accept).

I really hope that when they add new weapons, we get a staff that acts as support, probably with abilities that help remove conditions and heal. I’d gladly put my Axe and warhorn out to pasture if such a thing occurred.

@Euratien;

Ah, I see how that works out then, I didn’t factor in the strength of the suggested traits in combination with the runes that could be used with it.

I do stand by the transfer suggestion needing to transfer more conditions than just one though, since I think the shortest cooldown on interrupt is the 15 second untraited knockback, and it takes more skill to interrupt an opponent and thereby transfer the conditions than it does for most opponents (Engi, Necro, etc) to apply conditions.

Then again, that can be addressed by a patch that tones down the power creep, as opposed to my suggestion of feeding the power creep.

Eurantien.4632:

Since the meta has shifted recently for PvP a lot of things have changed to increase the amount of condition removal available. Most notably on warriors. When playing a trap build we MUST trait x/30/30/x/x. However, traps leave rangers with no defense whatsoever. Which leads me to my suggestion:

Move Trap Potency and Trapper’s Expertise and Trapper’s Defense into the Wilderness Survival Traitline.

• Merge, Healer’s celerity with Trapper’s defense (losing the switfness gained)
• Get rid of Oakheart Salve
• Get rid of Barkskin
• Make a new adept trait for skirmishing: Transfer a condition when you interrupt a foe.
• Make a new master trait for skirmishing: Immobilize target if they have more than 20 stacks of vulnerability on them (2s).
• Make a new grand master trait: Remove 3 conditions when you gain quickness.

I just thought up the skirmishing trait changes to show that something would have to go into skirmishing to fill the void. Sadly, this would leave empathic bond out of the build which is really key to survivability so some condition removal in some other traitline would have to become available. (Something like remove x conditions on pet swap) would be nice.

The big issue is that traps just aren’t viable. They are strong because they can be precast but things like berserker’s stance make traps kind of useless. But more than that. This is my biggest pet peeve about the game. Why the hell would you put condition damage utility with no defense into the precision and crit damage line?

Thoughts?

DONT YOU DARE TOUCH MY BARK SKIN OR ILL SHOVE MY MURWELLOW DOWN YOUR THROAT. TRAITOR!!!! ENEMY OF ALL RANGERS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Empathic bond > bark skin in all situations of PvP and WvW. Bark skin sucks because it triggers when you are under 4-4.5k health on most tanky ranger. For those with more vitality (maxed) it triggers at 7kish hp. But that means you don’t have much toughness or damage, depending on your gear so you will still be killed before you kill them. Empathic bond on the other hand can cure you of conditions which either A. Save you from damage like burning, torment, bleeding. or B. Save you from incoming damage by removing immo, poison, cripple at all hp threshholds effectively preventing more than 4k damage for sure and probably upwards of 7k.

Making Empathic Bond > Bark Skin.

Eurantien.4632:

Empathic bond > bark skin in all situations of PvP and WvW. Bark skin sucks because it triggers when you are under 4-4.5k health on most tanky ranger. For those with more vitality (maxed) it triggers at 7kish hp. But that means you don’t have much toughness or damage, depending on your gear so you will still be killed before you kill them. Empathic bond on the other hand can cure you of conditions which either A. Save you from damage like burning, torment, bleeding. or B. Save you from incoming damage by removing immo, poison, cripple at all hp threshholds effectively preventing more than 4k damage for sure and probably upwards of 7k.

Making Empathic Bond > Bark Skin.

Empathic Bond is only ever useful if you dont give two kitten s about your pet.
3 conditions gets transfered to your pet… good luck with that in this condition spam meta. Pet will die faster, more often, and be less useful then ever before thanks to that. Sure it sucks that you loose the condition removal, however, since the pet actually MATTERS in terms of utility and DPS, its a greater loss in terms of overall performance. And that Brown Bear will be nearly as efficient as Empathic Bond is, but on the upside, it also clears allies.

Bark Skin, is THE best protection against thieves that we got. Right when we are in heartseeker “range”, that skill will make a 3 hit kill combo become a 4-kitten combo at the very LEAST.
It also offers unprecedented survival on zerg frontlines, given as it acts as a extra layer of protection, meaning that when you get low in the frontlines, if you run PVT, at around 5k HP, you will have 97% damage reduction granted that the guardians around you is providing protection.
PLEASE TELL ME HOW EMPATHIC BOND BEATS THAT, IM SORELY LOOKING FOR A GOOD ANSWER.

Also, 3 conditions every 10 seconds. Most condition spam classes can apply 4-6 conditions in the time that skill would clear 3. In a more understandable sense – Condition nr 1-3 kills your pet, the rest kills you. End Game.

Eurantien.4632:

Sube Dai.8496:

I am honestly quite happy with traps where they are, I feel like 10/30/30 is our strongest build.

If you wanted to rework traits then do it for power builds, and around the power/ws lines.

Ya? Them trap crits really bring out the damage don’t they. Trap builds = engineer 1 utility (bombs or nades) = necro 1 weapon set (staff). Only redeemable thing is that you get swiftness with your trap build. Also you should be using RaO in small skirmishes so that gives you swiftness and fury, so that is even more reason to get that traits moved. Could even trait into boon duration with that extra 30 points so you can have those boons last longer…

There is very little downside to moving the traits. You lose precision for getting your sharpened edges and sigil of earth procs but the precision from your rabid gear alone is enough to get like 90% efficiency (<- assumption) out of those things because of their ICDs.

As for power builds. Power builds are fine, they just lack a bit of condi removal, vigor, swiftness, and most importantly a way to lockdown targets which is remedied with good pet control (could be better remedied by full pet control). Well fine-ish, things could be ironed out like longbow trait consolidations.

Unless you meant move trap traits into the power line… which kind of makes sense but not as much as moving them into the WS line.

As an aside. I believe 10/30/30 to be our worst VIABLE build.

I suppose they could swap the trap and spirit traits. And then swap boon duration and condition duration.

But bleed on crit synergises well with condition/trap builds so you lose out there.

Prysin.8542:

Eurantien.4632:

Empathic bond > bark skin in all situations of PvP and WvW. Bark skin sucks because it triggers when you are under 4-4.5k health on most tanky ranger. For those with more vitality (maxed) it triggers at 7kish hp. But that means you don’t have much toughness or damage, depending on your gear so you will still be killed before you kill them. Empathic bond on the other hand can cure you of conditions which either A. Save you from damage like burning, torment, bleeding. or B. Save you from incoming damage by removing immo, poison, cripple at all hp threshholds effectively preventing more than 4k damage for sure and probably upwards of 7k.

Making Empathic Bond > Bark Skin.

Empathic Bond is only ever useful if you dont give two kitten s about your pet.
3 conditions gets transfered to your pet… good luck with that in this condition spam meta. Pet will die faster, more often, and be less useful then ever before thanks to that. Sure it sucks that you loose the condition removal, however, since the pet actually MATTERS in terms of utility and DPS, its a greater loss in terms of overall performance. And that Brown Bear will be nearly as efficient as Empathic Bond is, but on the upside, it also clears allies.

Bark Skin, is THE best protection against thieves that we got. Right when we are in heartseeker “range”, that skill will make a 3 hit kill combo become a 4-kitten combo at the very LEAST.
It also offers unprecedented survival on zerg frontlines, given as it acts as a extra layer of protection, meaning that when you get low in the frontlines, if you run PVT, at around 5k HP, you will have 97% damage reduction granted that the guardians around you is providing protection.
PLEASE TELL ME HOW EMPATHIC BOND BEATS THAT, IM SORELY LOOKING FOR A GOOD ANSWER.

Also, 3 conditions every 10 seconds. Most condition spam classes can apply 4-6 conditions in the time that skill would clear 3. In a more understandable sense – Condition nr 1-3 kills your pet, the rest kills you. End Game.

If you have no condition removal you will be dead anyway in small scale fights. Advantage: Empathic Bond.

If your pet dies you die. Advantage: Bark skin.

Zerg v zerg. You are dead either way because their is too much damage being dished out. Advantage: neither.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Discussion-Thief-backstab-damage-against-toughness-W/first#post3075758
This is a thread with a thief in sPvP hitting a 3k armored warrior for a 3k heartseeker. Therefore, in WvW with better stats you are dead in 2 heartseekers regardless of bark skin. So you are better off taking empathic bond.

There is a boon called protection which has more damage reduction than bark skin at all health thresholds. Take that instead. Bark skin is not a grand master worthy trait and should be removed from the game (if not then the line).

Bark skin gives us a passive protection when we hit 25%, that stacks WITH PROTECTION. Meaning we can have a 66% damage reduction while under 25% health. You can’t beat that, you can NEVER beat that. Plus in PvP, I’m not dying to conditions, I’m dying to the regular attacks. WvW, I’m dying to regular attacks. The conditions help, but it’s easier to survive the conditions than the actual direct damage.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Plus in PvP, I’m not dying to conditions

Empathic bond is better than bark skin in PvP. That is a fact. If you are not dying to conditions you must be in some other game. Conditions rule PvP. For WvW you might have a case for bark skin but only in zergs. Small fights, empathic bond is better. A lot of skills in this game will just ignore that last 25% of health you have and take you from 26% to 0 making it a worthless trait. I could see it being good fighting a bunch of upleveled players solo but 1 condition class and you’re dead where as empathic bond will help you against power and condition classes.

I don’t understand how you guys don’t get that. For example cleansing an immo or a chill, allows me to out distance a heartseeker saving 4k hp. So I already saved myself 4k damage by cleansing that condi and I’m still at full health while bark skin would have had me eat it. In that case alone empathic bond is now better than bark skin. That is math. Sadly, Empathic bond is not on demand so you might just eat that heartseeker anyway. But there are other things, curing condi saves you from that 6 stacks of bleeds that condi war just put on with his longbow saving you 6k hp. Or instead, it cleanses the same thing from a different longbow warr allowing you to get out of his immo and avoiding the 3 skill or earthshaker saving you 5k hp. Still above 75% health too. Again, showing how empathic bond reduces more damage than bark skin. Again again, it is random but odds are it will cleanse something important. Poison cleanse is also way better than barkskin because when you heal you save yourself from taking the equivalent of 3kish damage.

I don’t get how Bark Skin is even in the debate. Generally speaking, if an enemy is capable of getting you down to 25% health, then they will be able to kill you from 25% heath even with 25% damage reduction, not to mention conditions that aren’t affected by Bark Skin and still doing full damage.

Empathic Bond is always active (and not conditionally active) and therefore always reducing a form of incoming damage and/or CC that can lead to damage, therefore being a more constant damage mitigation.

Combined with all of the dodges and evasion frames rangers have access to, and now you’re capable of defending yourself from both forms of incoming damage better than leaving yourself almost completely susceptible to conditions with Bark Skin.

Honestly, don’t want to hear anymore about Bark Skin, you clearly don’t have good understanding about PvP as a ranger.

Eura’s idea to move the Trapper trait’s are single handily the best ranger idea to date, why stop and have good look at all the option it would open for ranger’s in terms of build diversity.

Now all they need to do is give us better counter remove outside of Empathic Bond.

Few idea’s to improve power builds.

- Elite: Rampage As One – Cooldown redused to 90 seconds.
- Signets: Signet of Renewal – Cooldown redused to 50 seconds.
- Greatsword: Maul Range incressed to 300.
- Trait Improvement: Beastmaster’s Might, removes 2 conditions and 3 stacks of might while activating.

You want this traitline change because YOU’RE IN PVP. Do you know how badly this would hurt us in PvE and WvW? So my answer is NO. We do not need anymore nerfs caused by the one mode most players don’t even touch.

And before you even throw out “oh they can change it just for sPvP”, remember, how many times has Anet NOT done this for the Ranger class? How many times have they nerfed us across the board because of complaints for only PvP?

RyuDragnier.9476:

You want this traitline change because YOU’RE IN PVP. Do you know how badly this would hurt us in PvE and WvW? So my answer is NO. We do not need anymore nerfs caused by the one mode most players don’t even touch.

And before you even throw out “oh they can change it just for sPvP”, remember, how many times has Anet NOT done this for the Ranger class? How many times have they nerfed us across the board because of complaints for only PvP?

How are you getting nerfed by this change? Only nerf is you cannot grab Empathic bond. But I said this would be accompanied with some active condition removal somewhere else to compensate. So I do not understand, how you would be getting nerfed by this suggested change. Please, enlighten me.

DesertRose.2031:

Eurantien.4632:

Move Trap Potency and Trapper’s Expertise and Trapper’s Defense into the Wilderness Survival Traitline.

+1 +1 +1
Yes please.

I don’t understand the use of the new master trait but all other new traits fill exactly the gap that I fell the Ranger has.

The new master trait would help give a power ranger a bit more defense by giving more vigor. As would quickness removing conditions… But again those were just spurr of the moment examples of things that could be done.

Eurantien.4632:

RyuDragnier.9476:

You want this traitline change because YOU’RE IN PVP. Do you know how badly this would hurt us in PvE and WvW? So my answer is NO. We do not need anymore nerfs caused by the one mode most players don’t even touch.

And before you even throw out “oh they can change it just for sPvP”, remember, how many times has Anet NOT done this for the Ranger class? How many times have they nerfed us across the board because of complaints for only PvP?

How are you getting nerfed by this change? Only nerf is you cannot grab Empathic bond. But I said this would be accompanied with some active condition removal somewhere else to compensate. So I do not understand, how you would be getting nerfed by this suggested change. Please, enlighten me.

I have to choose between various traits that help group support and survival or sacrifice it all for the traps. That’s nerfing the trap build in WvW and PvE, because as it stands now we can trait for traps and be able to group support at the same time.

For the other suggested traits, we have maybe 3 moves that can interrupt the enemy, so that trait would be worthless. We have 1 trait and 1 skill that give us quickness. That would be worthless too. We can’t pull on 20 stacks of vulnerability easily. That trait is worthless.

The only idea I like here is the Healer’s Celerity merge. Oakheart Salve…I agree that one is worthless, but it could be changed to where the condition duration of those is lowered by 50%.

Basically, you’d be getting rid of a few good traits and just giving us worthless crap that no Ranger will ever use. We need LESS bad traits, not more of them!

RyuDragnier.9476:

You want this traitline change because YOU’RE IN PVP. Do you know how badly this would hurt us in PvE and WvW? So my answer is NO. We do not need anymore nerfs caused by the one mode most players don’t even touch.

These changes would be a flat-out buff for PvE.
Useless traits get removed or improved (yes, Bark Skin is useless in PvE), the trap traits get moved to the trait line where they should have been from the beginning, and we get some condition remove, something a Ranger is seriously lacking.

Eurantien.4632:

The new master trait would help give a power ranger a bit more defense by giving more vigor.

I’m not following you. What does Immobilize have to do with Vigor?

No Desert, Bark Skin isn’t useless in PvE. 70% of the time when you die, it’s not due to conditions, it’s due to direct damage. At least it’s that way for me. I find the skill too good not to take. Empathetic Bond is borderline useless because it requires your pet to be alive and then it kills it with the conditions. A worthless trait because it gimps your pet, and won’t work unless the pet is dead. If Empathetic Bond had the pet take the condition and then cured it, I wouldn’t bash it. But since most of our passive condition cures put it on the pet, they’re worthless.

DesertRose.2031:

RyuDragnier.9476:

You want this traitline change because YOU’RE IN PVP. Do you know how badly this would hurt us in PvE and WvW? So my answer is NO. We do not need anymore nerfs caused by the one mode most players don’t even touch.

These changes would be a flat-out buff for PvE.
Useless traits get removed or improved (yes, Bark Skin is useless in PvE), the trap traits get moved to the trait line where they should have been from the beginning, and we get some condition remove, something a Ranger is seriously lacking.

Eurantien.4632:

The new master trait would help give a power ranger a bit more defense by giving more vigor.

I’m not following you. What does Immobilize have to do with Vigor?

OH! that one would help power rangers land their damage since there isn’t much of a way to lock down the target besides amazing pet control or luck.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Eurantien.4632:

RyuDragnier.9476:

You want this traitline change because YOU’RE IN PVP. Do you know how badly this would hurt us in PvE and WvW? So my answer is NO. We do not need anymore nerfs caused by the one mode most players don’t even touch.

And before you even throw out “oh they can change it just for sPvP”, remember, how many times has Anet NOT done this for the Ranger class? How many times have they nerfed us across the board because of complaints for only PvP?

How are you getting nerfed by this change? Only nerf is you cannot grab Empathic bond. But I said this would be accompanied with some active condition removal somewhere else to compensate. So I do not understand, how you would be getting nerfed by this suggested change. Please, enlighten me.

I have to choose between various traits that help group support and survival or sacrifice it all for the traps. That’s nerfing the trap build in WvW and PvE, because as it stands now we can trait for traps and be able to group support at the same time.

For the other suggested traits, we have maybe 3 moves that can interrupt the enemy, so that trait would be worthless. We have 1 trait and 1 skill that give us quickness. That would be worthless too. We can’t pull on 20 stacks of vulnerability easily. That trait is worthless.

The only idea I like here is the Healer’s Celerity merge. Oakheart Salve…I agree that one is worthless, but it could be changed to where the condition duration of those is lowered by 50%.

Basically, you’d be getting rid of a few good traits and just giving us worthless crap that no Ranger will ever use. We need LESS bad traits, not more of them!

Well, with the quickness trait and 30 in BM with QZ we would remove 15 condis every minute on demand (where as EB is 18 per minute if you happen to have condis on you at the time of the pulse). 20 stacks of vulnerability would be very easy with longbow and attack of opportunity, especially with remorseless trait. The vuln would be a buff to power rangers, the quickness a buff all around for those either going 0/30/0/0/30, those with rage sigil, orrian runes, runes of balthazar, or those going 30/30 to get an extra condi removal besides SoR

You say, “having to choose to get traps or group support” there is no group support in WS besides off hand training… kind of, but you are just giving up your fire field duration for a larger fire field via the trap… the warhorn won’t affect too much. So that is hardly a nerf.

Oakheart salve is actually very popular for regen ranger builds so i would expect some QQ builds (though for its duration and ICD it is a bad master trait compared to other classes/traits).

Group support builds come from NM not WS. So It seems I have nerfed trap ranger warhorn, and torch by some seconds and Bark Skin for some PvE-ers who cannot dodge it seems? While buffing some less played builds like power ranger, and offensive power BM. Seems almost like a win – win to me.

Oh I can dodge well, you forget we don’t have infinite dodge. You have to choose what you dodge, namely the heavy hitting moves. Everything else WILL connect, and I really shake my head at anybody who realistically believes we can dodge everything.

You also have to remember that this doesn’t fix our main problem…that we have to COMPLETELY trait in a line to get the best results. All you’ve done is changed the traitlines, and nerfed several builds, ACROSS THE kitten BOARD. You haven’t fixed a kitten thing, and only seem to want us to have more useless traits, along with making our lives harder in PvE and WvW. Just stop what you’re doing and stop suggesting things that hurt us more than help us. We’re already bottom of the barrel in PvE, and are hurting badly in WvW. Compared to which we’re just fine in PvP. You’re stabbing somebody to divert pain from a broken ankle.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Oh I can dodge well, you forget we don’t have infinite dodge. You have to choose what you dodge, namely the heavy hitting moves. Everything else WILL connect, and I really shake my head at anybody who realistically believes we can dodge everything.

You also have to remember that this doesn’t fix our main problem…that we have to COMPLETELY trait in a line to get the best results. All you’ve done is changed the traitlines, and nerfed several builds, ACROSS THE kitten BOARD. You haven’t fixed a kitten thing, and only seem to want us to have more useless traits, along with making our lives harder in PvE and WvW. Just stop what you’re doing and stop suggesting things that hurt us more than help us. We’re already bottom of the barrel in PvE, and are hurting badly in WvW. Compared to which we’re just fine in PvP. You’re stabbing somebody to divert pain from a broken ankle.

Moving traps increases DPS and/or increases survivability on trap builds while opening up options in skirmishing lines to buff things that aren’t so great like power ranger to promote build diversity. Therefore, It seems buffing power ranger is good for PvP and PvE and WvW and moving traps, buffs damage or surivabiliy therefore benefiting PvE and WvW and PvP for both of those types of play. You lose bark skin you either gain 30 points in BM so you have more healing power and DPS, or 30 points in NM so you have more vit and boon duration which probably counter acts bark skin. So It is a win- win. All i have actually done is move some traits and buff SEVERAL builds across the board while lowering the condi application of a rabid trap ranger by like 10% (but now they can have increased condi duration and damage so that’s a win!).

Please, point out what builds i am nerfing because I only see buffs.

Only thing you’ve said that makes sense is that EB sucks for PvE (which it does).

You’re nerfing trap build because we use the criticals to help proc anything that activates on a critical. You could add more bleeds, cause an AoE Fire, cure your own conditions, remove the opponent’s boons, etc. The precision is better for trap build than the points in BM (which is a horrible traitline btw since it’s only helping the AI aspect survive longer, which really doesn’t help condition builds), Nature Magic (while a good traitline for just buffing health, a lot of the traits are pretty subpar), or Marksmanship (which is just to kill things faster, it does nothing for conditions or traps).

Face it, the idea is horrible for PvE and WvW, and those are the two parts of the game that the majority plays. I understand you want to make it better for PvP, but you have to remember, PvP is the least played part of the game, and it’s only a single mode, Capture. You can’t properly balance for PvP when anything that doesn’t help capture and keep points is worthless.

The only thing that hurts the current trap spec is losing 20 points in skirmishing line. You will still have a very high crit chance so you will get criticals to proc sharpened edges and sigil of earth and since those both have an internal cooldown you are being inefficient with the extra precision making my suggested change a buff. You say that getting the extra 20 points to move around isn’t worth it but it is because pet does more DPS, you survive longer, and you kill things faster which all seems like buffs to the current trap spec (especially since you aren’t losing much DPS because of Internal cooldowns on sigil of earth and sharpened edges). If you think that extra precision helps you can STILL trait into that line…. So again, buffs all around. Buffs to PvE (increased damage and/or survivability), WvW for same reasons, and PvP for same reasons.

So where are these nerfs? I’m still not seeing them.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Oh I can dodge well, you forget we don’t have infinite dodge. You have to choose what you dodge, namely the heavy hitting moves. Everything else WILL connect, and I really shake my head at anybody who realistically believes we can dodge everything.

You also have to remember that this doesn’t fix our main problem…that we have to COMPLETELY trait in a line to get the best results. All you’ve done is changed the traitlines, and nerfed several builds, ACROSS THE kitten BOARD. You haven’t fixed a kitten thing, and only seem to want us to have more useless traits, along with making our lives harder in PvE and WvW. Just stop what you’re doing and stop suggesting things that hurt us more than help us. We’re already bottom of the barrel in PvE, and are hurting badly in WvW. Compared to which we’re just fine in PvP. You’re stabbing somebody to divert pain from a broken ankle.

If you had any idea about how WvW was you understand that Trapper in WvW with these changes would improve us greatly, do you need me to write up all the different builds it would open up to the ranger? Beastmaster/trapper Trapper/Spirits Trapper/Power, just a few we might be able for once to make trapper build with 30 points into our condition duration. Did you even stop to think of how effect the changes would be to so many builds. Not only Trapper builds.

I honestly wish you would stop and think, your acting like I was back 9 month’s ago before I learn’t the trait lines and every single build we have. Down the track I can be my bottom dollar on it your mind will change. Eura idea’s are great and I hope the Dev’s listen to him and change our trait line’s so we have some viable builds rather then sub-par builds.

Eurantien.4632:

The only thing that hurts the current trap spec is losing 20 points in skirmishing line. You will still have a very high crit chance so you will get criticals to proc sharpened edges and sigil of earth and since those both have an internal cooldown you are being inefficient with the extra precision making my suggested change a buff. You say that getting the extra 20 points to move around isn’t worth it but it is because pet does more DPS, you survive longer, and you kill things faster which all seems like buffs to the current trap spec (especially since you aren’t losing much DPS because of Internal cooldowns on sigil of earth and sharpened edges). If you think that extra precision helps you can STILL trait into that line…. So again, buffs all around. Buffs to PvE (increased damage and/or survivability), WvW for same reasons, and PvP for same reasons.

So where are these nerfs? I’m still not seeing them.

If you’re not seeing them, then you really don’t understand Trap rangers as well as you THINK you do. It’s the closest build we have to perfect, and you want to mess with how it works. I know it sounds like I’m overreacting, but here’s the thing, the suggestions may sound good on paper, but they could open up a whole new amount of problems for the Ranger class.

The only real suggestions I could make to help with Trap build would be merging the trap traits into the 20 point trait. That would give us 10 more points to work with, and would adjust it so instead of just 10/30/30/0/0 or 0/30/30/10/0 or any other variation of that, it could adjust it so we could have 20/20/30/0/0, 10/20/30/10/0, etc. Basically it adjusts it so we have 10 more points to spend on something else. I think that would help more than anything.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Eurantien.4632:

The only thing that hurts the current trap spec is losing 20 points in skirmishing line. You will still have a very high crit chance so you will get criticals to proc sharpened edges and sigil of earth and since those both have an internal cooldown you are being inefficient with the extra precision making my suggested change a buff. You say that getting the extra 20 points to move around isn’t worth it but it is because pet does more DPS, you survive longer, and you kill things faster which all seems like buffs to the current trap spec (especially since you aren’t losing much DPS because of Internal cooldowns on sigil of earth and sharpened edges). If you think that extra precision helps you can STILL trait into that line…. So again, buffs all around. Buffs to PvE (increased damage and/or survivability), WvW for same reasons, and PvP for same reasons.

So where are these nerfs? I’m still not seeing them.

If you’re not seeing them, then you really don’t understand Trap rangers as well as you THINK you do. It’s the closest build we have to perfect, and you want to mess with how it works. I know it sounds like I’m overreacting, but here’s the thing, the suggestions may sound good on paper, but they could open up a whole new amount of problems for the Ranger class.

The only real suggestions I could make to help with Trap build would be merging the trap traits into the 20 point trait. That would give us 10 more points to work with, and would adjust it so instead of just 10/30/30/0/0 or 0/30/30/10/0 or any other variation of that, it could adjust it so we could have 20/20/30/0/0, 10/20/30/10/0, etc. Basically it adjusts it so we have 10 more points to spend on something else. I think that would help more than anything.

Open your eye’s, the current problem is you need to invest into a trait line that give’s you Precision, now this where problem starts. Your going to put your build at disadvantage by not using Rabid, also the base damage of traps scale on Power. So by moving the trait line you have the options to invest into every trait line, even with your idea its still the same, you have to no matters what invest 0/20/30/0/0 leaves you with 20 points.

By moving the traits you only need to invest 30 points, so then its 0/0/30/0/0. Now look at the options it opens for you. You can invest in any Trait line depending on what style of build you want to run. You can finally make a different build for every single trait line.

E.g. you could go 0/0/30/30/10, you could take traps with Regen/Swiftness Support so you would take 2x trap with 1 shout. Do you know see how majorly the change will effect the class.

30/0/30/10/0. Axe/Dagger – Sword/Torch, the hole build would be based around base damage and duration making it one hell of trap build.

0/0/30/10/30. Beastmaster/trap build. Now this would be a deadly build for SPvP/PvE/WvW. You can take 2x trap and Signet of the Wild. With E.g. 2x burst pet’s so now you can really be effective.

0/30/30/10/0. Same old trap build but now you can setup your shortbow to be more effective.

10/0/30/30/0 Hybrid Spirit/Trap build. You could take 2 Traps 1 Spirit with Spirit Elite. So now you offer team support + crow control.

The options are far out way the cons. Hopefully you now see why moving the trait line is so vital.

0/0/30/30/10. Spike Trap/Storm Spirit/Sic’em – You would take Axe/Axe – Sword/Torch combo and pull your target into your Spike trap then Storm spirit them followed with pet burst, while you combo chain your weapon sets.

Man I could keep going with how many different builds it would open up and how effective they would be.

I use Dire equipment on my Ranger, despite being 10/30/30/0/0. I focus on survival and conditions for the main equipment, because that is where my build is based. I have a set of Berserker’s as my accessories, amulet, rings, and whatnot, because I do not go full out into one build, I also boost the parts where my traits do not boost (save for healing power, which I find useless in general, sadly). I do this so my build isn’t pigeon-holed into just conditions or bust, it can kill things you cannot use conditions against well.

Also, I could list a bunch of different builds easily made with my suggestion, but it wouldn’t mean you’d take it into consideration. I think at this point we can agree to disagree.

RyuDragnier.9476:

I use Dire equipment on my Ranger, despite being 10/30/30/0/0. I focus on survival and conditions for the main equipment, because that is where my build is based. I have a set of Berserker’s as my accessories, amulet, rings, and whatnot, because I do not go full out into one build, I also boost the parts where my traits do not boost (save for healing power, which I find useless in general, sadly). I do this so my build isn’t pigeon-holed into just conditions or bust, it can kill things you cannot use conditions against well.

Also, I could list a bunch of different builds easily made with my suggestion, but it wouldn’t mean you’d take it into consideration. I think at this point we can agree to disagree.

By using your idea you are pigeon-holed, bunch of bad builds yes none which will ever be viable, your missing the hole point of why.

Your so focused on keeping your bad Trait Bark Skin, that you refuse to let go of something that is not viable at all.

Did you know the current way trap ranger is forced to setup isn’t viable, its a alright build, a good player vs a good player you will lose.

You want to know why Trap ranger is in the state it is now, nothing has been nerft with the build at all, reason being other classes got bug fixes and buffs which completely counter our trap ranger.

You can’t block traps but you can dodge roll over them making them void, every single good player does it, if you bring the current trap ranger to team fight your putting your team at all loss. Your CC is to little to be effect, I used to play trap ranger like a boss now I don’t cause I was sick of being hard countered by almost every single build in the game.

One of the biggest problem’s I had was my pet’s I was forced to take tanky pet’s with CC, which isn’t a bad idea but they lacked damage, now every single class has decent condition remove and knows to dodge traps where is the damage coming from?

I just want more options, I’m sick of being limited to very small amount of viable builds and traps isn’t viable. Fighting zergs in WvW traps are not your best option, LB/GS is so you have escape + large amount of deeps. Roaming traps is once again at the bottom of our viable builds, you get clipped by one player and your good as dead.

I would love to see you beat a warrior or even mesmer using traps a decent one, you can’t unless there uttly stupid.

So please don’t say agree to disagree when that is out of the question, you need to understand before you can disagree.

Again Sol, PvP does not equal WvW nor PvE. The current traitlines work in both of those fields. I don’t know whether or not you play WvW or even touch PvE, but those are the fields I want us to work well in, especially since it’s what most of the playerbase touches. I don’t want to say “tough luck” to the PvP players, but I don’t think we can ever really call PvP balanced until there is more than just Capture mode, since for Capture mode it’s impossible for most builds to be declared useful in just that mode.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Again Sol, PvP does not equal WvW nor PvE. The current traitlines work in both of those fields. I don’t know whether or not you play WvW or even touch PvE, but those are the fields I want us to work well in, especially since it’s what most of the playerbase touches. I don’t want to say “tough luck” to the PvP players, but I don’t think we can ever really call PvP balanced until there is more than just Capture mode, since for Capture mode it’s impossible for most builds to be declared useful in just that mode.

Do I need to link a years worth of WvW roaming videos? I used to be known as Karlesi a WvW Roamer who never did SPvP at all all my videos I posted for WvW are mainly Trapper builds none which are Beastmaster maybe a few odd ones here and there. Then I got bored with how underpowered our WvW builds are compared to everyone so I went to SPvP to master that, I now go by the name Sazio Sol cause I liked the name and Karlesi didn’t match the sex change I got my Ranger. I understand trapper very well due to fact I almost played every version of trap in WvW to point of no return.

I do fair amount of PvE, I can make 4 ascended weapons right now for my guardian. And don’t talk about SPvP do, you even SPvP at all I’m talking Team Que? where the balance mainly comes from Solo Que is a mess.

Sorry if I’m coming across as rather rude, just I’m so sick of the state the ranger is in. I’ve spent allot of time playing this class and just drives me nuts when you can see the problems but they just aren’t getting fixed.

I understand Sol, I feel the same way about us in PvE. I really hope they do something to just fix it for all modes at the same time. I’d prefer if they found some middle ground that just fixed everything. Sadly I don’t think that’ll happen, but we can dream.

One of the biggest problems is the fact the condition damage traps are in the wrong trait line.

This is a thread: where two top rangers point out how good it would be to move the trap traits into a better line (very similar to this thread) https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Trap-Traitline-Reconfiguration/first#post3083673

Sadly, they have someone arguing against them because they are afraid of change. So it clouds up a lot of the wisdom that has been suggested.

Why not make the Snake Pit remove conditions with the idea of “anti-venom” from the snakes? Every pulse or two, the trap could remove 1 condition from the Ranger while he/she stands in it.