Guild Wars 2

Since everyone is fairly occupied at discussing Druid I would like to bring Traps and the Skirmishing line into attention.

The Dragonhunter has shown us that traps can have added defensive perks and utility while still remaining true to fluff, AoE denial skills. However, by very old design, the Ranger and to some degree the Thief traps are rather one dimensional and are, simply put, just bad. It is not that they do what they do poorly, it is just that they do too little to mandate a place on the utility bar in any sort of serious environment.

There are two major issues with traps, as I see it:
- extremely niche roles
- conflicting trait slots for traits that were always mandatory for a successful trapper build

To start off with the niche roles…. We have actually only two good traps that see proper use be it PvP, WvW or PvE. The healing spring and the Fire trap. While there is nothing complicated about them they are fairy good at fulfilling those roles and I feel that neither deserves a buff. HS is a long water field and provides condition cleanse AoE and regeneration and burning is such a strong condition at the moment and the Fire trap provides it on a very short CD.

My focus is primarily on Vipers nest, Frost trap and Spiked trap.

- Vipers nest is a pretty solid skill, but I feel it needs to be improved. Poison is nowhere near the potency of burning even with its reduced healing effect. Furthermore the trap has a longer CD. My solution would be to add a 1s AoE pulsing weakness effect to the trap. It also makes thematic sense, being bitten by snakes and all that.

- Spike trap has 3 issues in my mind. First, its base damage is super low and thus you are pigeon holed into condition. So the first order of busyness would be to increase its activation damage to reasonable levels. Nothing fancy just reasonable, perhaps to the level of Glyph of the Tides.
The second problem is that its CD is long. 45 seconds is way too long for the effects it provides and thus should probably be reduced somewhat. I feel 35-40 seconds would be reasonable.
And lastly, the KD effect does not get improved by MoC. Quite honestly they could change the KD into a stun and thus allow synergy with MoC.
All 3 changes I have suggest would make a power trapper build a reality by virtue of changing the Spike trap.

- Frost trap – The biggest offender here. It does absolutely nothing. A long time ago when chill was rare one could argue that it is ok..ish. But the trap does nothing and it provides nothing and there is zero reason to take it on your bar. I think this one is a prime candidate for the defensive utility slot in the trap family. I think all of these need to happen to it.
a) Cast time removed
b) Made into a stun breaker
c) Added a pulsating resistance boon, 2s on activation and 1s from the second pulse onward. *
These changes would round up the trap family like pretty much all skill types are rounded up across every class, Core or Elite. It would open up power play to traps and it would also add the needed synergy between traps and a myriad of other traits and skills.

More on the Skirmishing line later..

I, personally, don’t mind that our traps are condi instead of power, it differentiates them from what they’ve done with DH. That being said though I think the conditions stacks on the traps need to be brought up to bring the damage in line with what you get from fire. also each trap should provide, instead of boons like DH, a cover condition of its own like spike trap.

I like your idea of pulsing weakness with poison trap and the cd of spike should be lowered a lot to make it worthwhile competition for fire.

a stunbreak alone wouldn’t make me slot frost trap. if it was a stunbreak + multi boon strip then i’d be forced to consider it.

Dh traps are more effective imo bc of two reasons. First is the cc. The damage can be dealt with, but the cc is, how do you say, lame for a point holding game type. Yes they also give boons and stuff, but it’s the cc/pure area denial that’s killer.

If Rangers were to get like an elite trap that dazed enemies and created a barrier like Maw does then we could pump out more damage.

Second, as it is, if you are running traps you are going to be condi specced. We do not have good ranged condi options. Compare that to DH traps which are power based. Speccing power makes their traps like nukes, but it also makes lb a serious threat, which is important bc DH traps can force ranged skirmishes. If Rangers force you to ranged from traps, their pressure significantly decreases because of condi spec.

I think that the biggest help we could get would be if short bow gets revamped into an actually good ranged condi option. Or throwable traps as well. Shame that was taken away.

Raise condition damage and lower the cooldowns.

Shortbow range buff and adding stun break to a trap or two or even an elite skill slot stun break would go a long way toward making trap ranger competitive instead of a gimmick.

Agreed, the cooldown on spike trap is too long. It should be 30-35s to make it worthwhile. Pulsing weakness on poison trap sounds good as well.

Personally I found the knockdown on the bleed trap to not be worth the cooldown increase (not to mention it’s a weird effect). With all of the cleanses in this game you need to have ongoing pressure to have any hope of winning a condition based fight (at least on ranger). I’d halve the cooldown and tack a 1s stun personally. I particularly agree with the frost trap, too. There’s something I’ve never used.

Shortbow is kind of garbage.

~ Kovu

Give us back ground targeting please.

You have some good ideas here.

Too bad the designer of DH and Ranger is of different people. The one we got do not care/ listen to the community and probably would ignore traps for another 3 yrs.
In fact, they promised of good traps back in June, but all they did is make them not throwable and increase their CD and improve almost nothing. (I’d argue they make them even worse).

On the other hand, the one Guardian got listens to the community and got straight buff and improvement.

Aomine.5012:

Too bad the designer of DH and Ranger is of different people.

True, but same company. One would think they would bump into one another over coffee, soda, or pee break. /rollseyes

oshilator.4681:

Give us back ground targeting please.

I don’t think that that’s a good idea. Better to buff the traps, give them a stunbreak, boon stripping, lower cooldowns, and make shortbow a good condi weapon at range. Dragonhunters would still have advantages that we wouldn’t, like the ability to pull enemies onto their traps and their virtues, which are essentially utility skills in their own right.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

oshilator.4681:

Give us back ground targeting please.

I don’t think that that’s a good idea. Better to buff the traps, give them a stunbreak, boon stripping, lower cooldowns, and make shortbow a good condi weapon at range. Dragonhunters would still have advantages that we wouldn’t, like the ability to pull enemies onto their traps and their virtues, which are essentially utility skills in their own right.

that’s a pretty good point there, one i didn’t even think of. ranger has no mechanic that would let us force an opponent into our traps. I doubt they’ll ever give us ground targetting back but if we could go back to the 1200 range shortbow we used to have it wouldn’t be so bad.

Buffing SB range would be a step in the right direction. Another issue is the conflicting sharpened edges and trap trait. You should be able to take both. Also, hidden barbs is kind of crappy.

Prophet.1584:

Unholy Pillager.3791:

oshilator.4681:

Give us back ground targeting please.

I don’t think that that’s a good idea. Better to buff the traps, give them a stunbreak, boon stripping, lower cooldowns, and make shortbow a good condi weapon at range. Dragonhunters would still have advantages that we wouldn’t, like the ability to pull enemies onto their traps and their virtues, which are essentially utility skills in their own right.

that’s a pretty good point there, one i didn’t even think of. ranger has no mechanic that would let us force an opponent into our traps. I doubt they’ll ever give us ground targetting back but if we could go back to the 1200 range shortbow we used to have it wouldn’t be so bad.

the only few decent Abilities that force players into our traps are a .
1. postioned Wolf fear
2. point blank shot (postioned again)
3. Pig
4. slow wyvern ( like pig hard to hit very slow though i;d choose a pig over this pet)
5. Path of scars pulling them back in but has a very small range difference when used on the edge of a trap and the pull back distance is short, so it would have to be used nearly instantly to force them onto the trap.
6. Taunt (though this isn’t realy a pull just a chance to lay a load of traps down)

all require timing / postioning and cooldown of trap management with the pets location.

unlike a dh which just Pulls, the only thing he has to worry about is the Range on the tooltip.

i’d like to see Hidden barbs merged into Sharpen edges and create a new master trap trait.

i;ve mentioned it before its in my forum post history but now they have added trapper runes to spvp well my idea of having traps apply Cracked armour at 2% per trap and each trap applying 1x stability for 3seconds is just gone as that adds too much survival now.

( would of been great with healing spring, team mates could trigger it and gain the tempory stability to use blasts ect before they get CC hammered_)

though it would of been a good answer for improving traps and reducing a players armour it makes bunkers Vunrable to traps.

though i also agree the traps need some form of Utility , if they made a elite trap which was a Stunbreak and gained stability it would cover what a ranger trapper needs.

No class needs more “cover” conditions than they already have. condi spam has been outta control for waay to long. I like your ideas, but weakness on snake trap is only going to worsen the condi spam problem.

For starters: Remove the Direct Damage component from ALL of these traps, so they synergize more fluently with the now nerfed (lol?) trappers runes.

Agree on cd and stun changes to Spike trap. Make this crap work with Ancient Seeds and MoC. 40sec CD (32 traited) on a stun is FINE, just ask mesmers.

For Viper’s Nest, just up the stacks. Upping the stacks also makes Poison Master less garbage, a reasonable feat considering someone using healing spring and trap utils is less likely to rely on Wilderness Knowledge for condi clear.

For Frost Trap, give it a daze and a stun break and up the duration a little so we have something to kite around. Players now have 2 good CC choices for traps, one that adds damage (spiketrap) or one that can save their lives (frost trap).

Add an Elite Trap that blind spams like black powder, smoke field. Lasts a solid amount of time. Oh look, traps are wanted in a team fight.

The issue with traps is not conditions coverage, it is the lack of utility. The DH traps have shown that traps can both have damage, be it power or condition, and utility.

I think that the biggest issue is the skrimishing trait line, I think its the worst trait line we have ATM. The minors siftness/fury is so outdated now that movment speend and fury are everywhere. Also, several major borken traits, 2 useless GM traits and one good but clunky. Making traps build unable to take sharpened edges is a slap in the face of trap build, as our “speical” trap mechanic is the pulsing.

I think, swiftness and fury should be changed to 3 sec super speed and 3 sec 2-stability. Stability on swap will make gret reason for druids to actually spec into skrimishing(not to get insta interupt on heal). On major traits they should do tons of work, but thats for another topic.

Traps need to be designed in such a way where anyone who steps on it, with a bit of co-ordination with your pet (or a teammate), will be blown up to kingdom come. If you decide to load up all traps on your utility bar, the enemy should be able to punish you for this though. For the most part this is simply true regarding their arm time and point blank cast range. I like the stunbreak idea on frost trap, but maybe that’s too strong. Frost trap’s appeal is the cold field. The raw damage increase on the other traps would be nice though.

Frost Trap deserves the attention, just like spike trap.

Simply because they waste the cripple benefit from Trapper’s Expertise trait.
There’s nothing to benefit from when it comes to these 2 traps. Chill already limits the movement and you can’t move when Knocked.

Frost Trap applying +15 vulnerability, anyone? Makes sense when you think about it. Kiting purposes, being frozen does make things easier to break, would make a nice trap if you ask me.

Spike Trap with 36 sec cooldown (trait) is okay considering all the CC we can get via Druid. But I might increase the KD duration to 1,5 seconds up from 1 so you can actually make the enemy pay for triggering the trap. 1 second is way too short for you to even turn around not to mention using any damage ability.

Traps could just get an extra condition on their pulses that would make them more trapworthy. Blind on flame, weakness on vipers, vuln/slow on frost, spike already has the bleed and kd.

Mrocha, that’s actually a pretty good idea. The danger from it is condi spam though. Yet still its hard to complain about ranger traps since they have the arm time.

Immobilaze, knock down or stun from Trapper’s expertise instead instead of cripple would be nice.

Chicago Jack.5647:

Mrocha, that’s actually a pretty good idea. The danger from it is condi spam though. Yet still its hard to complain about ranger traps since they have the arm time.

I understand that, I still think traps are supposed to be condi heavy and if an enemy doesn’t stand in the trap then they won’t be getting the condition spam(basically the argument surrounding dh traps atm).

These are utility skills, I think they should provide some sort of utility actually. 3 of them cause one condition and that’s it. I compare them to sharpening stone but slightly better because of the reduced cd and their fields. They’re just not very effective at area denial as they should be imo.

Trapper runes are ruining trap balance, IMO. Ranger traps have to be balanced with those around so that the extra utility (stealth + speed) you get from the runes is taken into account, but balancing them around the rune set forces you to take that rune set to be effective.

This is the same problem ranger used to have with traits. If we didn’t take specific grandmaster traits in the past, certain utilities (signets, spirits) were almost worthless. Ranger traps need to be good on their own with no required traits or runes, and traits and runes should be built on top of the already good traps to add flavor instead of being necessary for effectiveness.

Orion, that is not really true though. DH traps are perfectly fine without trapper runes. So it would be fine if ranger traps were solid without them.

Chokolata.1870:

Orion, that is not really true though. DH traps are perfectly fine without trapper runes. So it would be fine if ranger traps were solid without them.

I wish Anet would use your logic, but Ranger weapon skills are still subpar compared to every other class because they are not balanced against other classes without first considering the whole picture (our pets). I was trying to appeal to Anet logic, and also note that trapper runes are designed for condition-based traps and do not really apply to Guardian traps well.

Chokolata.1870:

Orion, that is not really true though. DH traps are perfectly fine without trapper runes. So it would be fine if ranger traps were solid without them.

Trapper runes are relatively new all things considered. I agree though in that traps should work with or without the runes.

Runes, sigils, and food augment stats.

Maybe the developers forgot that, I don’t know.

I think you should create a seperate thread for your upcoming skirmishing feedback

About traps, I agree they are still a bit underwhelming. The traited traps aren’t too good either, the cripple effect is very redundant especially for Frost as you mentionned.

An idea I suggested way back was to add a unique on trigger effect for all traps when traited, and of course some tweaks to base traps.

Spike Trap

Core

• Up the base direct damage by 10-20%
• Reduce the base cooldown to 30/35s
• Have the launch effect work with Ancient Seeds trait

Traited

• Cripple for 4s on trigger (1s is ‘wasted’ on the launch duration so its effectively a 3s cripple)

Flame Trap

Core

• Really fine as it is.

Traited

• 4s Blind on trigger

Viper’s Nest

Core

• Buff base direct damage by 20%
• Apply 2 poison stacks per pulse

Traited

• Apply 4s weakness on trigger

Frost Trap

Core

• Make it a stunbreaker (instant, but keep arming time of the trap)
• Lower base cooldown from 30s to 25ss

Traited

• Apply 5 stacks of vulnerability for 8s on trigger

Other suggestions were to Boon strip foes when traited, or transfer one condition from player to foe on trigger when traited, or condition damage reduction when standing on own trap.