Guild Wars 2

Trap masters… are they still viable like they used to be? And if so what builds in particular?

Used to play trap masters in everything except fractals and it did amazing. Is that still the case now?

I personally would say yes, they are still quite good, but I have been playing the same condition-based trap build since the BWEs, with a few minor modifications. The key to a trap build’s success is how you use it, and that does and pretty much has to vary depending on what game mode you are playing – PVE, WvW and sPvP/tPvP.

If you’ve played a trap build then you know what you’re doing no doubt, but there are a few things I’d like to mention that are either new or perhaps not known but those who aren’t into traps.

Previously there was a so-called bug where a trap you’d placed in a distant choke-point for example would go off and ‘teleport’ to your location. This was actually very useful for PvP contexts in the sense that it served as an alarm system, so that even if you were far away and could not see the area your trap was covering, you would be alerted when it was tripped via the sound. You could even have multiple traps and know which trap and thus which entry point was breached, by the different sound…all without looking. In some situations that is hugely valuable and was a useful consequence of that mechanic.

This bug now has been fixed, and traps no longer teleport giving you those cues. You can still use them in this way as alarms however, by paying attention to the appearance of damage numbers in your field of view in the distance. Range is limited of course but it does still work. This use of traps is again very important when several seconds of advance notice of incoming, as well as the location or direction of said incoming, can make a significant difference in the outcome, allowing a port before a WP becomes contested, or to get to and man siege before the hostiles get on you, or even give you just a bit of advanced warning so you get to a sPvP point in time to prevent it from being capped or neutralized. In some game modes, literal seconds of difference are vital.

Another fairly recent addition to the game, Ballista Spread Shot, is supported very well by a traited trap build. Good placement and usage of Frost Trap, with it’s pulses and long duration Chill, especially combined with an offset Spike trap, can net you some pretty impressive kill clusters in fixed-position fighting breach points, lord rooms or supply camps. The front entry of Vale is an especially good example of how and where that can be done to good effect.

The last significant thing that has changed is the addition of a Blast Finisher on Horn 5, and how this can be used with ranged traps. During a group engagement, Frost Armor or Might can be pretty useful to your forces in close contact – useful in all game modes.

With the addition of the new condition, and a greater degree of condition usage in general, traps gain somewhat in their usage simply through the application of more conditions and more stacks, in terms of forcing or effecting cleansing. Unblockable application of 3-5 conditions is always a good thing in that regard. While traps have not been changed at all, other game changes, to other classes or to ranger, have in these small ways, helped the trapper out.

There are a lot of cool things you can do with traps that are not entirely obvious, I will be putting a video up on my channel shortly detailing some of the things described above as well as some other things you can do – such as taking advantage of how pulses work when placing more than 1 trap; what you place where in cluster can give you significantly different results.

A Trap Master may not put up huge numbers or be overly glamorous, but they can do things no-one else can and if done well, can be the difference in a fight. I’d say they are more than viable.

I play traps at the moment and have no real complaints. I win most 1v1s (stuggling most against good memsers) and I do feel at least a bit useful in zerg battles too.

I use what I think is a fairly standard build:

10/30/30/0/0 full rabid.

I like SB + Axe/Dagger (dagger for roaming, warhorn for running with my guild) but any combination of sword/dagger/axe/torch/warhorn/SB can work fine.

Cufufalating.8479:

I play traps at the moment and have no real complaints. I win most 1v1s (stuggling most against good memsers) and I do feel at least a bit useful in zerg battles too.

I use what I think is a fairly standard build:

10/30/30/0/0 full rabid.

I like SB + Axe/Dagger (dagger for roaming, warhorn for running with my guild) but any combination of sword/dagger/axe/torch/warhorn/SB can work fine.

I run this build (axe/dagger & sword/torch instead) and can fully agree. Your only two enemies that you will ever have trouble killing 1v1 are A ) Very good mesmers because of all the boon stripping, cc, and burst (use your weapon evades well!) B ) Bunker meditation/shout guardians because of the sheer amount of condition cleansing and healing they can do to themselves+boons.

Necros and engis do what trap masters can do, but much better.

It’s why trap rangers disappeared from tpvp.

In all honesty i don’t think they are, I was matched in a 1v1 against a trap ranger as a spirit ranger and even though he had the edge on my with all his aoe I was still able to out heal him, i used to love my trap ranger so i really hope anet buffs em!

I don’t recall ever lost to trap master with my BM build in wvw. I tried the build myself and it’s great in taking camp, but whenever I encounter thief or mesmer, it’s gg to me. Maybe I am not used to it or they are better in PvP due to the size of the map.

I’m testing out a trap build in WvW. The build I’m trying is 30/30/10, Shortbow/Longbow. I’m still gearing but eventually I will have all Celestial trinkets and bow. Armor will be zerker with maybe 5 Adventure runes and a Rabid crest. I would go rampager armor but I like the look I got too much to change it.

So far I’ve won a 3v1 with the help of a sentry guard. It was against a thief, mesmer and someone else. I also won some 1v1s against various classes.

I’m used to playing all offense. A dead enemy = 100% reduction in damage taken =D

i used to run sb/sword+x, either torch or dagger. generally, I could win just about any fight where I was set up and waiting (I would camp camps, sentries, ruins, etc) because the traps would already be off cd and ready to drop again. on the other hand, the build is dramatically weaker when being surprised (obviously, you are losing out on the free pre-placed round of damage).

Because you are taking 2-3 traps, that in itself is going to give you some glaring weaknesses. do you take a stun breaker like LR, a condition clear to deal with necro’s like SoR (yes a stun breaker, but a bit long of a cd for that purpose), or SotW for the sustain to stay alive? What about run speed without SotH? Trappers sacrifice utility just to be trappers.

With the recent warrior/necro buffs, I couldn’t give up most of my utility slots for traps, and with the shortbow nerf, I felt like I no longer had a weapon to compliment the trapper playstyle. they also introduced a bug where flame trap disappears after a minute or so (while other traps last 1hr). then there was the immediate counter-necro meta, where tons of people started running -65-98% condition duration… it was time to change.

I’ve been running a trap ranger with great success in wvw for about three weeks. Thieves are a piece of cake with this build and aside from some guardians and memsers (phantons trigger traps) i’ve had no problems with any classes/builds.

I run Axe/torch + Sword/Warhorn, it might seem to make more sense to run sword/torch but the axe is a weapon that excels at close range anyway, it’s nice to get up close hit them with all five splitblades attacks and the torch 5 aoe. The warhorn on the sword makes it great for chasing down or finishing off with warhorn 4 attack which easily gets six stacks of bleeds and follows them.

The best strategy as mentioned above is to place traps before hand so your traps are off cooldown by the time the fight is underway and people have a tendency to run through all three traps this way, they don’t turn around and run back through the trap they just triggered but instead run past you usually trigging the other two.

You do need toughness to run this effectively so i’d recommend some armour and trinkets with toughness as a minor atleast, I run full rabid armour and trinkets, with the trait in Skirmishing for chance of bleeds on crits, as well the Sigil (forgotten the name) that gives a 60% chance to bleed on crit and the 47% crit chance full rabid provides, you dish out some decent damage with the autoattack and are able to apply and reapply conditions really fast, so don’t worry too much about condition cleansing.

^What rune are you running, good sir?

Superior runes of the Undead, I also trait 0/30/30/10/0 and use Chrysocola jewels on my trinkets, this puts me at like 2950 armour and 17.5k health which is enough to keep you alive while you whittle them down with conditions.