Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing with a build pretty similar to this for about the last 6 months. In that build, I have Hide in Plain Sight and Shared Anguish as my only stun breaks. What happens in that build is that I can usually recover from a warriors stun fest if it’s just 1v1. But if there are multiple opponents, I will typically not survive if I get caught in a stun chain.

In that build, I currently only have Empathic Bond as condi removal, so getting immobilized at the wrong time is also really tough.

It’s definitely the weak point of this build, but I’m hoping the toughness and vitality will get me through. We’ll see…

Thx for the feedback. Since taunt has a 15sec cooldown, I was shooting for pets that would be around that timing on their F2 skill. With the drake, the part that looks fun to me is that the opponent should get pulled into the breath attack

I can definitely see a scenario of dropping traps, swapping the pet to get it next to you and using the F2 to pull in the opponent

On the quickdraw, I see a couple of good choices:
- 2 splitblades about 2 seconds apart
- 2 torch throws possibly only 3 seconds apart (depends on how the 20% stacks)
- Maybe a faster concussion shot on the bow when swapping that way – I like disrupting the opponent

Thx again for all the suggestions. I took all your changes and updated the build (plus found a build calculator with all the updates).

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-30;3sHkD0s3oI-K0;9;4789;0147036248;41SW8X;1bUytbUytq-kev4rJ;33d38wc48xc58DFWF72o;572;9;9;9;9;9;2V6s5c

Putting warhorn and banhsee’s wail in makes me feel justified in going back to the perplexity runes

I swapped in some rabid armor, so health goes down a bit. But crit chance goes up to help make sure I can proc Plague Sending.

Thx Fluff – nice to have everything in one place.

This is what the build should look like. Other than the stunbreak issue, see anything that looks like a problem?

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-J;4wEFy-x2gEF-0;9-6Y;1Z_b;0256136036;4a-17X;1mAjwmAjwq-k5f2IJ;3ycy7zcz7-d-8DFWF72o;572;9;9;9;9;9;2V6s5M

For added mobility, I swap in warhorn and greatsword (swoop) when running around the map.

Here’s what I’m planning based on the changes announced yesterday. I’d love feedback.

Going from Hide in Plain Sight plus Shared Anguish in my current build to no stunbreakers at all feels really risky, but I want to give it a shot.

As much as having a brown bear pet might generate a few laughs, I think having the three condis (blind, weakness and taunt) plus 2 condi removals every 20 seconds is a good adjustment to what I think will be a world with more conditions.

I would love any feedback or suggestions!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAnfVjMq0ua3KmrQ1CS5VjIqVA-TFyCABWcIAA4BAAo+gw3fwT1fm4MAkoSwsU+RIgFrBA-w

Skirmishing
- Trapper’s Expertise: Boons and conditions caused by your traps last 60% longer. Your traps recharge 20% faster and your offensive traps cause 2s of cripple.
- Hidden Barbs: Bleeding you cause deals 33% more damage.
- Quick Draw: Combat only. Upon swapping weapons, your next ranger weapon skill used has 66% reduced recharge. This trait has a 9 second internal cooldown. (maybe the short bow skill, but probably not)

Wilderness Survival
- Oakheart Salve: Gain 5s of regeneration when you suffer from bleeding, poison or burning. While under the effects of regeneration you take 5% less damage. This trait has a 10 second internal cooldown.
- Ambidexterity: Gain up to 150 condition damage when wielding a torch or dagger. Your torch and dagger skills recharge 20% faster. (need to see how this combos with quick draw 66% reduction)
- Empathic Bond: Pets take 3 conditions from you every 10 seconds.

Beastmastery
- Go For The Eyes: Your pet gains up to 300 toughness. Your pet’s command [[f2]] ability causes 5s of blindness to foes around it.
- Wilting Strike: Your pet inflicts 4s weakness when you activate its command [[f2]] ability.
- Beastly Warden: Your pet’s command [[f2]] ability causes 2s of taunt to foes around it. This trait has a 15 second internal cooldown.

Thx very much!

Feels like I’ll need to mix in some more precision gear versus my pure dire setup if I want to get some of crit-based benefits.

After the June update announcements today, I think this might be a good approach. I would love feedback – thx!

Lots of health and toughness. Very high condition damage, but not too many conditions

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNArYWjc00UbbN+1weDA-TVyCABA8AAAUfwDnAAh2fwT1fm4IAkoSQJOEAZp8jQALWDA-w

Then specializations are curses, death magic, and blood magic.

Curses
- Chilling Darkness: Blinding a foe inflicts chill on them for 2 seconds.
- Master of Corruption: Reduces recharge of corruption skills by 33% but causes corruption skills to apply additional conditions to you when cast. (Condition applied varies per skill.) NOTE: Seems rough to take a trait for only one skill
- Parasitic Contagion: You are healed for 10% of your outgoing condition damage.

Death Magic:
- Flesh of the Master: Minions have 50% more health and grant you 20 toughness for each one you control. All your minions are destroyed if this trait is reassigned while you have active minions.
- Necromantic Corruption: Increases minion damage by 25%. Every 10 seconds your minions will take one condition from you. Minions transfer conditions when they hit with attacks (this can only occur once every 10 seconds per minion).
- Death Nova: Minions explode when they die in a cloud of poison. This effect also occurs if you are downed. When you kill a foe summon a jagged horror (this effect can only occur once every 15 seconds).

Blood Magic
- Quickening Thirst: Reduces recharge of dagger skills by 33% if used while you are over 75% health. Move 25% faster while wielding at least one dagger.
- Vampiric Presense: You and allies near you siphon health with attacks (combat only). This effect stacks with the siphoning granted by Vampiric.
- Unholy Martyr: When you first enter shroud and every 3 seconds afterwards, draw 1 condition from a nearby ally to yourself. Whenever a condition is drawn in this way gain 10% lifeforce. Fixed a bug that caused this trait to function inconsistently with multiple allies.

Hey Sticker – you can find all the changes here
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/June-23-Specialization-Changes

All traps get a 0.5 second activation
All offensive traps get 2 second cripple
Spike trap gets a knockdown
Healing Spring is now a trap

Thx much.

For a few weeks now, conditions have done partial damage for their partial ticks (it either gets added at the beginning or end of the duration). I just didn’t know if this applied to Terror.

- Was there any mention of increasing condition duration cap over 100%?
- Does Parasitic Contagion heal when you’re in Death Shroud (doesn’t seem to be mentioned)?
- How do Fear and Terror work with partial seconds of duration (e.g. if you cause 1.5 seconds of Fear with the Terror trait, what happens?)

Thx!

Read too fast the first time…

Lingering Curse is now 100% duration on scepter skills only… not 100% condi duration on all conditions

I guess it was too good to be true

Consume conditions got nerfed. Maybe enough that I will try something else…?

Minion builds can now have both necromatic corruption and death nova!

I might have to rethink my use of war horn because it’s trait is now in blood magic.

Lingering curses is still 100% condi duration, so I’m definitely designing around that.

Having played trapper ranger for basically the last six months, there are certainly some really fun things that will be gone now:
- Getting under people fighting on stairs, walkways, etc and throwing traps up at them
- Putting traps on the walls of a tower to keep defenders away or even kill them
- Being able to toss a trap to the side with trappers runes so that the opponent DID NOT run over it so that I could keep my stealth
- Being able to put traps on hills or walls in PVE content to just let me run through more quickly and avoid hitting creatures (again using the super speed and stealth of trapper runes)
- Standing beside a doorway and tossing traps into the opening

You can argue whether those uses are actually “being traps” or not. But they allowed a bit of learning and creativity in the use of a skill that I will miss.

Too bad Twitch had a bad day. But I just wanted to say thanks for sharing the info you were able to get out today. I know it takes a ton of time, and you’re probably right in crunch time as you try to finish up and release this massive set of changes.

Thanks for taking the time out of your day to chat with us and good luck with this update!

Thx much for all the feedback!

Here’s a little bit on where I’m coming from and why I want to try this out. I have probably about 1000 hours doing WvW roaming as a mesmer. I played a phantasm build with a lot of focus on interrupts. For about the last 500 hours of WvW, I’ve been playing a trapper ranger build. The trapper build is really amazing. I can easily solo towers, and I can win a little less than half of the 1 v 2 fights I get against fairly experienced players (bronze, silver).

I originally only looked at necro to help out my son. He loves minions, so I focused on those builds. But as I looked at the changes coming with specialization, I got more interested in trying to do a condi plus minion build. I totally agree that if I just played passively and tried to have the minions do the majority of damage, it would be pretty boring. What I’m trying to do with this build is mix in some interrupts to add more skill challenge (and more damage output from perplexity). I’m also working to try to use the minions to body block, and use their skills wisely to set up other attacks.

It may be just that I’m new to the profession, but it feels like there’s still a long ways for me to go in improving my skill and the potential output. If I played a pure condi build, it seems like I would replace the minions with corrupt boon and maybe a couple of wells. I’m not sure that would challenge me in terms of improving my skill as a player than maximizing the minions and nailing my interrupts.

Hopefully it turns out to be both interesting and effective. Thx again!

Thx very much, Bhawb.

I can see how bone minions would be better than Shadow Fiend. It was a long time ago when I tested them. Sometimes they wouldn’t stay close to the opponent, so I had trouble exploding them for damage. I’ll do more testing.

I’m really hoping we see the changes in 8 days

Thx – I really appreciate the insight.

The concept that I’m going for in this build is to try to focus on condition damage. I’m hoping for 1300 or so dps from the minions. Most of that is from the flesh golem (around 700) and the flesh wurm (300).

So the way I’m thinking about this build is that the minions are really more for utility and support of the condi damage strategy. I don’t know exactly how the Necromatic Corruption trait will work, but I’ve been playing with Empathic Bond as a ranger for a while. Assuming the minions are pulling one condi every ten seconds and trying to transfer a condition to the opponent every ten seconds, it feels like a really nice passive condi management (4 conditions removed every 10 seconds is better than I was getting with empathic bond). Since they are putting the conditions back on the opponent on their attack, all I really need is for the minion to hit fairly often. (If the minions actually transfer conditions on every attack, then Shadow Fiend is even better since it attacks pretty frequently.)

Even if they aren’t transferring a ton of damaging conditions, just putting covering conditions on at steady pace is really helpful. Bone fiend and flesh golem seem to keep cripple up very steadily.

I see that shadow fiend does wait longer than I thought before it attacks. I’ve only done a couple fights against human opponents in WvW, so I don’t know how much that’s going to bother me.

Thx again for all the help!

Thx very much for the feedback, Bhawb. Even though I leveled my necro to 80, I’ve probably spent more time looking at things on paper than validating them in the game.

I agree Path of Corruption looks really tempting. I was trying to get 100% swiftness for WvW, and I was trying to give myself more frequent warhorn dazes to proc perplexity runes. But I can see path corruption being more important.

I don’t understand what’s wrong with Shadow Fiend. When I fire his skill, he waits about a second but then it seems to work fine. Does this fail with bad terrain or something?

The last comment is probably most important. What I’m trying to do with this build is have very high defense. So all dire gear and a lot of condi removal with the minions, consume conditions, and dagger. It feels like all that combined with death shroud should keep me alive for a pretty long time. What would I be doing when I’m not in DS to keep up the minions? (Re-summoning them?)

I realize I need some real fighting experience against other players to understand how a fight will typically go. I’ve been holding off on testing until the specialization changes come because I can’t easily test the whole build.

Thx again for the help!

Thx for all the help. I’m not trying to rant about necro. I actually think necro has some of the most interesting build possibilities of any profession after the changes.

In this case, I was just trying to see if the interrupt issue might be a known problem.

It would be fun to make perplexity runes work with a necro because it feels like it would increase the skill ceiling on a build like I’m trying

It feels like all professions are going to be more dangerous after the update. If I find that I don’t have to go too defensive, I’ll do this.
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgUFlAJ4A7Q~

With trapper runes, healing spring (now, hopefully a trap), and marsh and river drakes. It will be fun to see opponents walking into the breath attack of the drakes because of the taunt trait…

If I need to go more defensive, I’ll do this
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgUEWAJ4A7Q~

Protective Ward just looked amazingly strong when they did the livestream

I forgot to add two other possible issues.
- Stunbreak – reaper’s protection gives something like a stun break every 60 seconds, otherwise there’s just the flesh worm and the chance that Last Gasp breaks a stun
- Few dodges – there’s nothing that brings back endurance faster (I did consider the 40% endurance regen food)

Thanks much for any help!

I completely get why normal minion attacks don’t proc sigils or runes.

Charge is a skill. It happens to be implemented via a minion, but there are tons of skills that are implemented via ranger pets, mesmer illusions, engi turrets, etc.

Charge has a 40 second cooldown and a 3/4 second cast time. Plus there’s a very big tell to the flesh golem using the skill.

It’s hard to see how it’s OP for this skill to proc a rune on the chance that you actually manage to get an interrupt.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been trying to learn necromancer and come up with a conditions plus minions build for when the specialization changes happen. Originally, I was designing around having the reaper elite, but I think this approach is better. I’m hoping to use this for roaming in WvW.

http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQCtANoBWw~
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBLRDbkjm+abrxrG2bAA-TFyCABAcQAO+BAAoehHOBALv/gnq/koSwsU+RIgJrBA-w

I would love any feedback on what you think will be the issues. Here’s what I think are the strengths:
- High condition damage (high base stat, plus lots of vulnerability)
- Can apply every condition. Rapid re-application of conditions.
- Constant 100% condition duration
- Assuming minions work okay, base damage output should be pretty good (several bleed stacks, poison, minion damage)
- Good mobility (nearly 100% swiftness uptime)
- Great toughness and vitality
- Good condition defense (minions, dagger 4, consume conditions)

Here are the things that I think are possible issues but don’t know enough about playing necro:
- Not sure how I’ll handle thieves
- Limited gap-closing
- Tricky to create burst (stacking 13-14 bleeds is very doable, but getting confusion or torment plus burning at the same time is going to be tough)
- Will it generate life force quickly enough

Any feedback would be great – thx!

It seems to me that the GM traits are now meant to be “traits to design your build around”. So at the GM level, they are trying to have choices that are significant.

The 100% condi duration clearly makes LC one of those types of choices. Yes, there is some “lost” value in some other traits, but it gives you a concept that can let you can use as the centerpiece of a build design – letting you choose food, runes, other traits, etc.

It’s really hard to get perfect synergy out of every trait in every trait line.

Thx for the help. From what I read in the wiki, the minions inherit condition damage and condition duration.

I played mesmer for a long time, and there’s a shatter skill for a mesmer that causes the illusions to run to the opponent and do a daze. That skill procs interrupt traits for the mesmer.

So it feels like this is a case where necro is not getting credit. The player choose when to use the skill. From my testing so far, it’s pretty tough to land interrupts with the flesh golem, so it seems like a reasonable thing to reward.

I’m testing a build idea using perplexity runes. When I interrupt a foe using the flesh golem charge, it does not trigger the runes even though the combat log says “you interrupt…”

Here’s a short video with a golem interrupt that does not proc and an interrupt with wail of doom that gets the 5 stacks of confusion. https://youtu.be/fR98LW-8CEE

Is this a bug?

Thx!

Thx much for the help. I’ll get my utilities set right and try it out

I’ve been experimenting with builds that are a combination of minions and conditions in preparation for the upcoming changes.

Any recommendations on utilities to use for underwater?

In general, what do minion mancer builds do with water? I’m learning to try to avoid it since it’s a pain to resummon everything.

Just adding a covering condition could be nice.

Would be fun to add the new slow condition, but I get the sense that no HoT conditions will get added to pre-HoT weapons.

I don’t do much pvp, but I had a lot of fun in the Stronghold beta with a modified version of the Survival Condition build. Having warhorn was great for getting around and blasting in healing spring.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNBlODbkRlOWbZxmFqWDYIUtbh3tqZFAu3hX4qvYlRiA-TZRHwAEuAABeCAJLDA4gAEa/BA

What did everyone else use?

I recorded one of my games starting from right after coming back from mid with supply and deciding to go defend our doors. http://youtu.be/MIjnt-tx1Ro

I’m sure the biggest thing that stands out is that most players are pretty new to pvp (including me). But I spend most of this game fighting other players. I waste some time checking defenses unnecessarily, and I didn’t understand how hero channeling worked at first.

But this wasn’t a boring game for me. Hopefully people don’t judge this too quickly

I have a different perspective than most of the other posts. Prior to GW2, I basically never played anything pvp. In GW2, I’ve been doing WvW roaming for about a 1.5 years and putting in a ton of time at that. I feel comfortable roaming and accumulated over 1000 ranks with most of it being by myself or with one or two others.

But I didn’t really like pvp much before today. I’ve had a bit of trouble adapting the builds I like for WvW to something that actually works, and I was originally lost on the maps. So many of the practice fights were really unbalanced that it was hard to separate times I played poorly from times where I just didn’t understand the map or had an unbalanced team.

Today, I got to play four games of stronghold so far. I may be biased because my team happened to win all four. Certainly there are a lot of people playing today who don’t spend a ton of time doing pvp. But in my games, I tried everything except trebbing. I ran some supply and had fights at mid. I escorted attackers and fought to take down the lord. I helped defend my lord. I interrupted channeling a hero. I tried to channel a hero for my team.

In any case, I had fun. I look forward to this being in game. And I’m hopeful there’s a way to play this and not accidentally get put into a conquest map.

What build were you using, Sticker?

I’m horrible at pvp, but I’m interested in Stronghold. I love playing a trapper ranger in WvW, but I haven’t found a build that I think I’ll like for Stronghold.

The reaper elite spec gives access to greatsword, shouts, reaper shroud and traits. To me, it looks like the last two things are the most valuable and make it worth taking the elite just for them.

So I’m looking at at build that only takes advantage of the traits and shroud. Not planning to use greatsword or the shouts right now.

Thx. Were you locked into a single build, or did you have choices about traits, utilities, etc?

There were a zillion revenants in the streams I saw. Just curious if anyone tried with necro and noticed any differences.

I keep evolving the Condi-Minion Reaper that I think my son will play.

After listening to the But of Corpse podcast, I am less excited about the shouts. But I’m still hopeful that minion AI gets better in HoT. So here’s an all-minion version.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRQQRArY7djM00XbbNe1webichQ647aoCi+KKE-TFyCABA8AAAU/gQ7P4p6PJqEkhTCQWK/k4IAQGgq1A-w

http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQG5ALkA3g~

With flesh wurm in the mix, I dropped Reapers Protection and picked up Deadly Strength. This is definitely a condi build, but with the power gets to over 1550 in reaper’s shroud, and there should be plenty of might stacks.

Damage may not be stellar, but with 100% condition duration and a base condition damage over 2050 (before corruption and might stacks), it feels like the bleeds and poisons will do a lot beyond what the minions add.

I suspect that if he uses this in WvW, other players will take out the Blood Fiend right away, so he might need to switch that heal. But he will like having five minions, and the condition removal and covering condition application should be great with Necromatic Corruption.

Thx much!

I was wondering if this was any evidence that they would avoid the “stand around and look at the scenery” behavior.

Doesn’t sound like there’s enough in the video to support that hope

I went back to re-watch the reaper elite walkthrough video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2362&v=DjOrs5krQRw

At about the 38 minute point, they show the Rise shout. The AI for the Jagged Horrors seems to follow these rules:
- If the necro is not currently attacking anything, move to the necro
- If the necro is currently attacking any target, attack the selected target (the one with the “ring” around it – it doesn’t matter if the necro happens to be damaging some other target)

Questions:
- Is this different than how Jagged Horrors currently work? (i.e. is it evidence of any AI improvement)
- Do all minions currently use the same AI rules? (i.e. if this is changed for the better, it should apply to all)

Thx!

Condi-Minion Reaper
PVE and WvW (roaming or havoc)

http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQC5ANoBmQ~
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRQQRArY7djc0UcbbNe1webichQ647aoCi+KKE-TFyCABAcEAAU/gnq/koSQGOJAZp8Tv9Hk4BAQGgq1A-w

Replace consume conditions with healing shout.
Replace spectral walk with “rise” (jagged horror summon) shout.

If condition duration cap is increased above 100%, could swap in different runes/food.

Does anyone know what happens if you have more than 100% in bonuses and you attack a target that has condition duration reduction?

For example, if you had 100% from curses scepter trait plus 20% chill duration from Reaper trait and you attack a target with -20% condition duration from runes, what happens?

Do all bonuses and negatives get added up and you still are at 100%? Or do all the bonuses get added, then restricted to 100% and then negatives are applied and the result is +80%? Or something else?

Thx!

Are these available for downloading as audio podcasts anywhere?

Thx!

I’ve had so much fun helping my son make his MM, I made my own necro. I’m totally new to the profession, so only a couple suggestions. These will hopefully help and make minions a bit more “active”

- Activating the minion skill (even if it’s on cooldown) will act like Ranger’s F1

- Hitting with minion special attacks gives a small bonus to skill cooldown

- Teach flesh golem to swim

I’m hopeful the AI improves in HoT. That one thing would be huge.

What I take away from all of these updates is that Arenanet really cares. They want to make all the professions fun to play and allow all professions to be played in different ways. They aren’t trying to make every profession do everything, and they are trying to keep the flavor for each profession.

It looks like a ton of hard work. I really appreciate it. And I know my son is excited to try out the new specializations. Thanks very much, Robert!

Just watched the live stream – I think my son is going to be very happy

Looks like the build I laid out is just fine. http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQGqALkA2g~

In Reaper, you take Augury of Death to recharge shouts faster. Chilling Force to generate might on every hit on a chilled target (with apparently no cooldown…) And Blighter’s Boon gives life force or heal every time you hit a target that is chilled (because you get might).

The might-stacking potential means it might be worthwhile to take Aristrocracy runes.

Definitely do the shout heal because it hits lots of opponents and can help recharge the rise shout (I think it works that way – any shout hit causes reduced recharge)

I think he will really like this

There’s definitely some kind of variant that doesn’t involve the reaping line that’s still a condi MM build. Something like this, for example where you add Dhuumfire to the mix for damage.
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQFbAKkA2g~

In this case, you don’t have Rise but there are lots of great utilities like you mentioned.
You also don’t have the benefits of extra defense for chilled enemies.

But the thing that really stands out to me is that the 100% condi duration on scepter is just hugely powerful. Minions apparently inherit condi duration and damage from the necro, so the flesh golem is probably maintaining permanent cripple (especially if you also have bone fiends). The bone fiend immobilize is close to 5 seconds long… So it feels like you can really keep an opponent in a tough spot in terms of mobility and have a pretty steady level of covering conditions

I know there’s much more to learn about the Reaper specialization, but I wanted to theorycraft a new approach to a minion build. My son has been playing MM for months, and loves it. He mostly plays PVE but sometimes joins me for roaming in WvW.

So the specializations would be something like this:
http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQGqALkA2g~

The keys are Lingering Curse which gives 100% condi duration wielding a scepter and Necromatic Corruption which has minions pull condis from you and put them on opponents. It almost doesn’t matter what traits the reaper gets based on what we already know.

Gear is all dire stats
scepter/dagger
scepter/focus
sigils are probably corruption/doom on the two scepters and ice on both dagger and focus
runes are probably tormenting (could be grenth if more chill is needed)

Heal is either blood fiend or the new shout. Utilities are Rise! shout, shadow fiend, bone fiend, and flesh golem.

Play style is pretty simple. Get the minions out. Use all the weapon skills and then stay in auto-attack. Swap periodically. With veggie pizza food, it seems like scepter by itself could maintain 8 bleed stacks and 3 poison stacks. I’m assuming in HoT that monsters will have meaningful attack skills, so keeping them under constant chill will be valuable for everyone.

I’m looking forward to seeing the full story on reaper today.

All comparisons that try to show one skill versus another fall down because you need to look at the whole picture.

Ranger traps are clearly condition damage. So you’re going to be looking at weapons, armor, sigils and runes that complement them. If you’re trying to use all traps, you’ll take traits to deal with things like condi removal and stun breaking because those are usually utilities. It turns out, rangers have all those things.

When I looked at trying to make a guardian trapper, it seemed like I would have to keep at least one utility slot open for a condi clear. And when you look at the trap damage, it’s a hybrid of physical and condi. So you may end up with hybrid (cele?) gear to be most effective. That’s not a downside per se – it just means that comparing the final damage is tricky. And while it’s true that guardian traps could get 10 bleeds, it would require forcing the opponent to stay in place for quite a while.

The long cooldowns on the traps and the fact that guardians don’t have ready access to easily apply a lot of condis quickly means that the condi part of the guardian damage is more easily cleansed.

At least that’s the way it looks to me.

I wouldn’t mind getting some boost to traps if their effectiveness is being hurt by the arming mechanism. Mostly, I hope that trapper runes continue to function reasonably well after the changes.