Guild Wars 2

Yes it has its porting issues and that long cast on the destroy shadowtrap , but one can trait to glean a whole pile of benefits off this thing.

As traited (WvW) i get the following.

15 stacks of might on trigger.
5 stacks vulnerability on enemy on trigger
2 sources of stealth one of 3 seconds one of 6 seconds.
Two Condition cleanses both damaging conditions on trigger one on set.
Fury on trigger.
Stun break on trigger
A long port both without being tripped and on the destroy shadowtrap.
Regen if destroyed.
Unblockable

One of either 2 ini and 6 seconds extra healing on trigger or the ability to steal 2 boons on setting and two more on trigger.

A 36 second cooldown with the potential to reset on a steal via Improv.

The uses in WvW are far reaching, I have used to hasten the repair of walls on structures, catch enemies that are far ahead of me due to a previously set trap, set one as I flee a pack of enemies and then port in behind them to go the opposite direction, set atop dead enemies and porting to them when rez attempted. Set just before a needle trap so it triggers followed by the enemy stepping into the needle so I can port behind for a sneak attack with 20 might on myself and 10 vuln on the foe. Perform this with a steal before that sneak attack and there a devastating cascade of events happening all at once with a high rate of success due to that seeming appearance out of nowhere.

Now I understand its limitations. That stun break is hardly as reliable as that off shadowstep. Some of its capabilities can be duplicated by other skills. A lot of the more useful things it does is predicated on a trap trigger and no block on the port, but its just so very good when it does what it can do to its full potential.

I just like the utility. It fun and effective.

Hey @babazhook, mind posting the build? I’d love to see what you’ve got set up to do all of that, which makes it sound way better than I would have expected.

did you mean shadowtrap?

Yes. Shadowtrap. The title wrong, the body of the text correct. (since corrected)

The build I am currently using posted in another thread.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/WvW-P-d-Condition-with-boon-theft/first#post6386912

Note I decided to go light on the condition cleanse and stun breaks so you should keep this in mind , but that build shows the potential of the skill. It can certainly be tweaked and used in some manner to give benefits to power builds.

The build I use fully leverages this skill with the sneak attack off p/d and the new rending shade utilizing the two stealth sources in the build off the skill.

10k range seems sort of short for such ability on wvw scale, heck its not enough even on some spvp maps

The problem I have always had with shadow trap and all similar ports is the “no valid path” issue. With the 10K range on the shadow trap that port becomes extremely unreliable and unpredictable to where all the benefits became little worth the risk. Very nice skill and I might use it if it was a bit more reliable.

It’s a good skill when you get it to work well. It needs a build and style that work with it, though. Pathing issues and the simple fact I’m never in stealth long enough to cast it without being hit by CC have pushed Infil Signet (with its shorter cooldown and more useful disengage if an opponent doesn’t trigger the trap) as my go-to dedicated engage ability. Shadowstep is absolutely the best, but that doesn’t get me damage :P

When my shadow trap plays work it’s so satisfying. But when I go through a whole fight and they don’t run over the trap once I want to die a little inside.

Sometimes you can make nice confusing plays though by just placing it out of the fight where no one will ever run onto it. Like trolling in front of red keep in EB then teleporting back to the hills outside of the wall about 7000 units away. Then watch the angry pitchfork horde running around in circles for 5 minutes, spamming reveal skills trying to find a thief who is a mile away.

Honestly, the range should be lowered to 5000 and treated like an inferior version of portal (being able to go anywhere portal can but only able to port yourself around places) with a lower recharge than portal.

I used to carry it with me in sPvP. I remember some pretty awesome plays where I could port myself from mid to far/home to decap/cap. I ran a duelist build back in the days that was capable of killing most other decappers, which made it really strong since I could port to them when I saw my trap triggered.

Haven’t used it in two years though. It isn’t reliable enough, which makes it an inferior pick for almost all builds and situations. Can be really fun when it works ^^

I am not sure how it would work in PvP as the maps there different. That said I estimate I get 90 percent of my own uses to “work” in WvW. I adapted gameplay style to those port failures. In the build I linked to, there just not any utilties I would consider superior outside perhaps a venom.

The 15 stacks might and 5 vuln synergizes very well with the build linked to as I can get the conditions on via regular means and then boost the tick damage without attacking further. Just drop this anywhere on the field and respond to a port. Even dropping it direct an an enemy will generate that boost in damage.

This is a significant boost to damage output of those condition tcks and the ones you apply after the might gained.

I am looking at it first and foremost from the perspective of added damage and then seeing the port , stun break and the rest of it as a bonus.

Memser Portal does not do anything BUT port and is on a longer cooldown. For single player play even being less reliable as a port this utility provides much more.

it be kinda cool if they made shadow trap an aoe port allies with you to the target in stealth : )