Guild Wars 2

I find the ranger to be a pretty fun class, but I’m never sure what sort of armour I should be aiming to get, so I figured I should ask the people with a few more hours than me in the rangering business.

Are traps only really useful if I have geared myself with condition damage, and are traps viable in dungeons?

Also, does a ranger geared/traited for conditions do comparable damage to a berserker ranger using whatever traits/skills a berserker ranger uses?

Thanks!

Hello, Thermkin! I can’t answer all of your questions, but I do have a few nuggets of personal experience you might be interested in.

Hmm. Well, I run with mostly Knights gear, with a few Cavalier and Valkyrie trinkets. I don’t have any condition damage other than what I get from my traits, and I use Fire and Frost traps.

For the most part, I find my traps quite useful. Fire Trap does do good damage on its own, even without condition damage and Frost Trap helps me immensely with kiting. It’s much better than Muddy Terrain, if traited, especially because Chilled is awesome.

With these, I use Lightning Reflexes for escape and Healing Spring. My weapons are Axe/Torch or Warhorn and Greatsword. To put it simply: Combo Fields! I make lots of ‘em. It’s good for groups and I can do a few neat things with them, myself.

tl;dr No, you don’t need to go condition damage to make good use of traps. Your damage will just be allocated elsewhere. You can be zerker and use traps if you wanted to, but if I had to pick just one: Frost Trap because Chilled.

Spike trap, muddy terrain (not a trap really), and frost trap are great for slowing down the enemy. You won’t need to invest into condition damage either if you want to use them for kiting. If you’re crit heavy you could get the trap grandmaster trait which increases the condition duration as well. But you should get some defensive utility as well. Lightning reflexes is great unless you’re immobilized.

Use Burn, Bleed and Frost traps for fast and hard group fights. Use a combination of pure carrion (armor) and ?+rabid (trinkets) gear. Weapons can be either though I would suggest carrion. Atm I use rampager and they’re ok.

Hello,
I have speced for trap damage and while I enjoy them they are frustrating at times. It either requires you to get in close to the target to drop the trap or hope they wander into the small area you have set said trap. I do not use the ground targeting trait so that could be part of the issue.

Flametrap is my staple trap due to the short cool down, with my secondary being spike trap. I rarely use the viper or frost trap although jumping through the frost trap is kinda fun to get the aura.

EDIT:
I am using carrion armor, with runes of the undead and cant recall the jewlery I have…other than the guild assasins backpack of the zerker just becuase I didnt recall seeing a condition backpack and have not gone back to look.

Bailey, use the ground targetting trait. It gets rid of the problem you’re experiencing quite well, as then you can simply throw the traps onto the enemy.

Traps are useful even without traits, though you use them more as a tool than as a straight attack/defense. Traited they’re really fun.

I find it easy to drop Spike and Fire traps right on my target without ground targeting, but I play with GS/Sword-Dagger/Axe, so I’m in melee to do it. Fire is great because of it’s short cooldown, combo field potential (especially if you use GS to Swoop through, or Axe), and Spike trap is great for stacking bleeds.

They are very viable in dungeons because you can bounce in, drop two or three traps, and if your group keeps trash mobs tight, you can control the area and burn them down. I don’t really bother with traps other than Flame on bosses – dropping a combo field at the foot of a boss is handy for all the ranger or Guardian/Ranger/Warrior leaping going on.

Frost trap is invaluable, too, once you learn it. Chill is one of the best conditions in the game, and it’s one of the few on demand frost fields. Like Flame trap, it’s great to have the Frost combo field to grab Frost Aura or chill procs, and it chills the target in the first place.

If you trait for ground targeting, it’s even more creatively viable. And the trait to double the condi duration and size is very awesome. You don’t need these, though, they do work decently on their own.

Viper trap is alright, but I don’t use it much. Since it’s not a field and it doesn’t cripple, I don’t value it as much as the other traps, and with Sword Dagger I have enough poison application. If there’s a good use for it, I haven’t read about one yet.