Guild Wars 2

Keep in mind that this is with a somewhat standard condition build.
Total inflicted damage are about the same.

Vipers nest:
Cast time 0.5sec
Duration 3sec
Cooldown 16sec
Up to 3 targets
Condition duration 23sec
-33% Heal effectiveness

Flame Trap:
Cast time 0.5sec
Duration 3sec
Cooldown 12sec
Up to 5 targets
Condition duration 7sec

What would you pick, and why?

If i had to choose three it would spike, viper and flame
If two, then flame and spike.

In sPVP, most people build for condition removal, so you’ll want the trap that does most damage in a short duration. Like flame trap. Spike trap for the immobilize, to keep the person on the traps for longer.

I’d take flame trap too. I prefer its combo field over the poison one.

Which weapons are you using?

Take fire for sure the 600+ tick damage is too good. If you are able to evade well enough take poison because the anti healing to kill bunkers is very handy and a lot of ranger attacks already cause bleeding anyway.

It depends on your battle approach. If you aim to control your target:
3 traps: Spike, Fire, Ice.
2 traps: Ice, Fire.
I think rangers rely a lot on controlling what their target is doing, especially if they choose to come at you melee. So on 2 traps Ice to slow down what they do and their movement, fire for the DPS. On 3 traps I switch between Spike/Ice depending on which one is available to use, or just to create a longer chain of slow downs with fire stuck in between. It allows me to better use my range to attack the target. Plus with the use of shortbow you can make up for the lack of DPS that this trap combination has.

If you wish to compliment your melee combat approach:
3 traps: Spike, Venom, Fire
2 traps: Spike, Fire

Naturally this combination will help keep the DPS damage up while you continuously attack from a melee range, if you manage to survive longer than your opponent that is.

I take frost trap and combine it with ice sigils. Just one trap though. I usually run protect me and stone signet at the same time. I like using my pets as shields ^^ on a 48 second cd that’s not bad.

i think the ice trap would see alot more use if it did any damage at all. but that fact that it does no dmg, and freezing doesnt tick any damage either is a real turn off for most people. i rock spike trap and flame trap. i use stunbreaker for my other utility most of the time but ill sometimes swap in my poison trap as well.

Flame, QZ, and Spike is what I use for any trap build.

As Apophis said, without any damage incorporated, frost trap is just really underwhelming compared to Spike Trap.

From the tests I’ve done, Snake Trap and Flame Trap deal about equal damage, but Snake Trap takes a LOT longer to deal the damage since poison is a lower dps ability. Considering that we can apply so easily with our short bow anyway, I have never seen any reason to take this over other options.

great info,
A lot to take into consideration I see