Guild Wars 2

So, I went back to trapper cause I’ve started to find the spirit playstyle a little boring, but I really think it needs a buff/revamp. If I compare the 2 standards builds: 10/30/30/0/0 vs 0/10/30/30/0, both played with Rabid gear and Shortbow + Sword/Torch (Dagger, Horn, w/e), the main differences are on the utilities:

since no one sits 3 seconds on a trap, the Sun spirit wins hands down against a flame trap. Party-passive recast 10s vs 12s + aoe blind. It is applied by the weapon itself so it also wins on the range of application (900 vs 600 of a traited trap).

Storm spirit can crit for more than 4k, on a 20s cooldown. Compared to Viper’s Nest or Frost trap, again, it wins hands down since I can apply poison easily enough with my weapons.

Spike trap brings a little more condition and control over a Stone spirit Quicksands, but the protection uptime is notable.

All in all, I just can’t find a reason to play trapper over spirit right now, both in solo and even more for party purpose. That’s too bad cause I really liked that role/playstyle. What you guys think?

I’ve run trapper since release, and have run into more than a few spirit ranges, and I usually come out on top, 1v1. While all that you say is true, you can’t see traps, kill traps, avoid traps or block traps…and you can’t set spirits up away from you, or take advantage of recast skipping and double-application of effect with a pre-placed and newly thrown down put on a target one after the other…

Spirits may be better in certain specific situations, but I find traps to be better in terms of overall utility in a broader range of situations.

That said, I do think traps could use some changes…Viper’s Nest should create a poison field, much like Frost and Fire do. Fire needs to be persistent as the other traps are and not disappear. Frost…if it applied it’s chill duration at once instead of through pulses, it would be a bit better.

A lot depends on what game mode you’re referring to as well though. When you said solo or party, do you mean PvE, WvW or xPvP?

Anthrage.2519:

I’ve run trapper since release, and have run into more than a few spirit ranges, and I usually come out on top, 1v1. While all that you say is true, you can’t see traps, kill traps, avoid traps or block traps…and you can’t set spirits up away from you, or take advantage of recast skipping and double-application of effect with a pre-placed and newly thrown down put on a target one after the other…

Spirits may be better in certain specific situations, but I find traps to be better in terms of overall utility in a broader range of situations.

That said, I do think traps could use some changes…Viper’s Nest should create a poison field, much like Frost and Fire do. Fire needs to be persistent as the other traps are and not disappear. Frost…if it applied it’s chill duration at once instead of through pulses, it would be a bit better.

A lot depends on what game mode you’re referring to as well though. When you said solo or party, do you mean PvE, WvW or xPvP?

I see your points tho in my experience it’s the other way around. I happen to duel with a ranger friend sometimes and while I do usually come on top with spirit 1v1, that’s not the case with trapper.

In pvp I don’t use trapper, cause if I need a roamer I just pick another class, and if I have to bunker I either go spirit or beastmaster.

For dungeon purpose I just find power/spirit build better.

Thing is, you have pretty much the identical utilities: a source of burning, control and dps/debuff utilities, but one is just better/easier and is also accessible by your party. I’d probably like to have more diversity in builds/playstyles.

I suppose it depends a bit on playstyle as well. For a conquest game, traps are pretty effective, and as mentioned, spirits can be killed or avoided. The CC/debuffs with traps are far superior as well, and in PvP CC often makes the difference. When someone who knows what they are doing encounters as spirit ranger, they aren’t all that hard to counter.

No question that DPS is higher on Spirit Ranger however. I think it boils down to what trait line you want to be forced down, and which more strongly dictates how you must play as a result. Spirit build may well be more effective in some areas, but I find it less versatile than Trapper, and in my view, versatility is one of the Rangers few strengths, so I find playing into it works well.

More diversity is definitely a good thing, probably why I prefer trapper to spirit.

TBH the old school rabid trapper isn’t that good. That doesn’t mean traps are bad, it just means you need to approach your build different.

I’m having huge success with 30/30/10 with a mix of zerker, rampager and celestial gear.

Here’s the reasoning; having a defensive stat as primary means you need to have it backed up with skills. Stun breaks and easy stability access. Well if you got traps and entangling vines, you don’t have either.

Second, shortbow and traps lend themselves to hybrid damage stats. Traps do physical damage and cond damage. So does the short bow. AND there just happens to be a celestial shortbow now, Stardust which I got. I still have about 2400 armor and 18k HP, but I also have 2900 atk, 750 cond dmg and 70% crit dmg.

I know this build works. I’ve won fights with this build I never could have won with other ‘glass’ builds.

I’d disagree with the above, the “tradition” rabid trapper still works fantastically. I’ve played it for weeks and just this evening raoming in WvW I’ve won multiple 2v1s, nearly won a 3v1 and not lost a single 1v1. OK maybe you dont come across the best players in the game whilst roaming in WvW, but none the less the build can work nicely.

That said I’m interested abotu this celestial build.. When I first started making a trap build I did mix in celestial ascended trinkets but moved away from it because at the the time there was no celestial armour and with just a few trinkets it made no real difference to my direct damage… Maybe I should go try it again.

Time to start making those crystal thingys

While I do agree that traps remain perfectly viable in WvW and in pvp, in the higher levels of play traps are beaten by spirits. The difference between them is enough that traps will rarely beat spirits on equal levels.

Just take flame trap vs sun spirit. One is 12s CD 2-5s burn while the other is 10s CD 6s burn (pet) while also having blind and additional burn per ally.

I’m not a fan of Rabid on a Trapper, in PvP I always go Carrion with a Shaman’s Jewel, and in WvW, I run with 22k HP, 1700+ Toughness and 1500 in everything else. Works fine in both in my experience, and just because you run traps does not mean you need to run 3 of them.

Trapper vs Spirits trapper will win just about every situation, trapper is AoE, which counters spirits, not to mention, as someone out above, you can’t really avoid traps, but spirits are pretty freaking simple to avoid, sure you -could- crit for 4k from storm spirit… Or I can just PBS it or evade it, or better yet, blind it and has become useless.

I do think traps need some love though, they’re kinda lacking in the “Utility” department, they feel too much like damage skills and not enough like utility skills, I’d LOVE to see the cripple from spike trap last longer, frost trap to be a larger radius (or apply all its chill upfront but is much prefer making it a REALLY big field like the staff ele Ice field) and viper nest needs something else, I personally think it should apply blind and/or weakness (snakes can blind prey with their venom, and it’s not uncommon for a poison to weaken somebody), flame I feel is ok, it’s short enough in CD that where it lacks makes sense and it’s clearly meant to be the most offensive of the traps, just like on GW1.

Durzlla.6295:

Trapper vs Spirits trapper will win just about every situation, trapper is AoE, which counters spirits, not to mention, as someone out above, you can’t really avoid traps, but spirits are pretty freaking simple to avoid, sure you -could- crit for 4k from storm spirit… Or I can just PBS it or evade it, or better yet, blind it and has become useless.

I do think traps need some love though, they’re kinda lacking in the “Utility” department, they feel too much like damage skills and not enough like utility skills, I’d LOVE to see the cripple from spike trap last longer, frost trap to be a larger radius (or apply all its chill upfront but is much prefer making it a REALLY big field like the staff ele Ice field) and viper nest needs something else, I personally think it should apply blind and/or weakness (snakes can blind prey with their venom, and it’s not uncommon for a poison to weaken somebody), flame I feel is ok, it’s short enough in CD that where it lacks makes sense and it’s clearly meant to be the most offensive of the traps, just like on GW1.

WTB- Dust Trap

They killed trapping so hard in this game though. Makes me sad.

I want my smoke trap back =(, come back insanely large duration of daze and blind!! I MISS YOU!!

I wouldn’t want traps to gain more utility at the cost of damage though. Fire trap and spike trap are fine. Frost trap needs its radius and duration increased. Snake trap needs to be a poison field and if it applied weakness too that would be awesome.

Yeah the celestial is great, trap ranger is one of the few builds in game that can put every single stat in the game to good use. That may be why Stardust is a shortbow and not a longbow…

Lorelei.3918:

I wouldn’t want traps to gain more utility at the cost of damage though. Fire trap and spike trap are fine. Frost trap needs its radius and duration increased. Snake trap needs to be a poison field and if it applied weakness too that would be awesome.

Yeah the celestial is great, trap ranger is one of the few builds in game that can put every single stat in the game to good use. That may be why Stardust is a shortbow and not a longbow…

Vipers nest doesn’t make sense to be a poison field, and it’s not like we’re lacking in the poison field department… We have that one devourer, and then every spider, and the Murellow. If it were like a poison cloud or something it’d make sense for a poison field… Not so much for how it is currently.

I know my friend said he wants it to be like in WoW where it actually spawns a kitten load of snakes that spit conditions at the enemies and give you minor AoE protection (due to all the bodies) which would be cool if you ask me.

To anyone who just started to dabble in traps, remember that if you carry torch on one of your off-hands, flame trap is redundant. It’s kind of a newbie mistake that I only figured out many weeks after working out a rotation for pvp.

Kolisch.4691:

To anyone who just started to dabble in traps, remember that if you carry torch on one of your off-hands, flame trap is redundant. It’s kind of a newbie mistake that I only figured out many weeks after working out a rotation for pvp.

Except bonfire is not a trap and does not have ground targeting. Better off with a Axe/warhorn for the new blast finisher, or Axe offhand for the 100%phys projectile and whirl finisher.

I would argue that in a build with flame trap and torch, you should drop flame trap before you drop torch. Torch has the ability to perma-burn AND an area denial. You can just as easily get away with running just vipers nest and spike trap, and then open up the third utility to a stun breaker or something else that suits the user’s preference.

I wouldn’t say traps aren’t viable, they just don’t have the staying power that spirits do. 3k extra hp and 30% boon uptime aren’t anything to scoff at, and if you’re running stone spirit, that’s just more protection uptime that traps don’t have.

jcbroe.4329:

I would argue that in a build with flame trap and torch, you should drop flame trap before you drop torch. Torch has the ability to perma-burn AND an area denial. You can just as easily get away with running just vipers nest and spike trap, and then open up the third utility to a stun breaker or something else that suits the user’s preference.

I wouldn’t say traps aren’t viable, they just don’t have the staying power that spirits do. 3k extra hp and 30% boon uptime aren’t anything to scoff at, and if you’re running stone spirit, that’s just more protection uptime that traps don’t have.

Lots of interesting and differing opinions, tho I’m with Jcbroe on this one. In my experience spirit just comes on top in 1v1 situations, cause you just take advantage of the better vitality/boon uptime/passive cond application while staying at max range. With spirit body blocking the trapper will be half dead by the time he starts doing damage.

With 30 Wilderness Survival mandatory in any pvp build, you invest pretty much all the remaning points to use trap so I do believe they could be buffed/revamped.

Lorelei.3918:

I wouldn’t want traps to gain more utility at the cost of damage though. Fire trap and spike trap are fine. Frost trap needs its radius and duration increased. Snake trap needs to be a poison field and if it applied weakness too that would be awesome.

Yeah the celestial is great, trap ranger is one of the few builds in game that can put every single stat in the game to good use. That may be why Stardust is a shortbow and not a longbow…

Or decrease the cool down of the frost trap, I would love to use frost trap more often but given the current state its just not worth it

Lorian.4028:

Kolisch.4691:

To anyone who just started to dabble in traps, remember that if you carry torch on one of your off-hands, flame trap is redundant. It’s kind of a newbie mistake that I only figured out many weeks after working out a rotation for pvp.

Except bonfire is not a trap and does not have ground targeting. Better off with a Axe/warhorn for the new blast finisher, or Axe offhand for the 100%phys projectile and whirl finisher.

Or you could just use dagger offhand which Increases your poison up-time to 100% on both weapon sets while giving you an extra dodge (increased survivability) adding an additional cripple (if you double dog it is quite a high cripple percentage). which means you can drop viper’s nest and take sun spirit (untraited so you have to learn to actually hide it) and you will see 100% burn uptime as well, while increasing your bleed stacks at the same time and losing… pretty much nothing.

Sun spirit can’t manage 100% burning up time, the effect recharge is 10 seconds, the base burn is 4 seconds. Even with 100% duration that is only 8 seconds, and you sacrifice a lot to get 100% burn duration in rune slots or money (Cond duration food is getting pricey).

Fire trap or Torch will get you 100% burn up time with very little sacrifice. Personally I prefer Fire trap and Dagger vs Torch and Snake Pit.

Lorelei.3918:

Sun spirit can’t manage 100% burning up time, the effect recharge is 10 seconds, the base burn is 4 seconds. Even with 100% duration that is only 8 seconds, and you sacrifice a lot to get 100% burn duration in rune slots or money (Cond duration food is getting pricey).

Fire trap or Torch will get you 100% burn up time with very little sacrifice. Personally I prefer Fire trap and Dagger vs Torch and Snake Pit.

8s* you have a pet, that’s 2 sources, not to mention if you had a torch, which can already maintain fairly easy burning uptime, especially if you have a sword and can get flame shield or a dagger/axe for the 100% combo.

That being said i personally go Fire, Snake, Ice traps when i’m going with a trap build, i just find spike so underwhelming… it’s only 3 bleeding and like a 3s cripple.

I really like you point – Traps should be devastatingly powerful, as they need some kind of preparation for fights, what should pay off once the real fight starts. Stacking Traps onto each other to nuke down the unlucky enemies that step on them is actually not possible – a condition remove and you’re done. Trapping was already back in GW1 one of my favorites, where it actually did damage. As any good player will probably run with some kind of condition removal, i feel like it got really inefficient by now.. Seems like everybody has to run Ghost Build haha

How about you use some utility pets to make people sit in it?

try spiders, canines, even muddy terrain or frost trap.
dont complain about lack of CC if you just pick damage utilities/Pets.

@Pegaasus: Nopes, it’s just seems a lot easier to constantly complain instead of adapting.
I rock with what I have, I don’t need to QQ.
Not saying everything is perfect, there IS room for improvement.
But unlike you, I don’t complain 24/7 about it.
I checked your forum history, there is not much else in there.

Ranger is in no way “bad”, we have some good builds and people start complaining about them already.
We may not be a top tPvP class, but we are most certainly not useless.

In addition, I don’t understand how your post helps the OP with his problem.

For a trapper it’s essencial to have CC for traps to gain maximum effectiveness.
Building a trap build without any is like having a full zerker condibuild.
Once again: get CC Pet’s, sacrifice 1 damage trap for a CC trap / utility and utilize the weaponsets you are given.

@Aeri seeing as how there’s only 4 traps and 2 of them bring utility I doubt you’d really be able to run an effective trap build without some sort of utility trap, I mean hell, most people go Spike, Flame, Viper with canines so I doubt there’s -that- much issue getting people to stay in it.

the OP complained about people running out, so this is the solution.

I’ve been playing trap ranger since i started my ranger, it’s good.

As far as improvements going, maybe the frost trap should be increased a 2s default chill (that’s 4s with trap potency). And maybe with spike trap, make it a pulse effect, similar to caltrops. I would say, lasts for 3 seconds, applies 3 bleeds per pulse, pulses once per second, and after the initial immobilize, the second and third pulse apply a 1s cripple. I mean, you are walking on spikes here.

Alternatively, double the amount of bleeds on spike trap to 6 stacks. I mean, splitblades (the axe skill) is 5 bleeds on a less than 10 second cooldown, and offhand dagger can potentially be 3 bleeds on a 12s cooldown. Make spike trap worthwhile for it’s cooldown.