Effectively useful skills and traits versus trash tier

[JorneMormel.9850]

Dear reader,

Having recently returned to GW2 I have been wondering whether 'good' playable options have expanded over the years, and if many skills and traits exist that are either not useful in any given content, or have been overperforming, effectively rendering alternatives underwhelming. Seeing ArenaNet effectively struggling to balance their games, with the most recent balance patch essentially resetting skills' power baseline as a clearcut example, and reminiscing on terms like skills being "Smiter's Boon'ed" and "ANerf" for those who remember the good old GW1 days, I have started wondering whether or not more options have become available over the years, or if the meta has become so clearly defined that in fact less options are viable than ever.

To share an example; there are to my mind few, if at all any builds viable for PvP (and WvW) that do not have the wilderness survival traitline. There are a few reasons for this, but in essence this boils down to the trait Wilderness Knowledge outshining every given alternative for condition removal, to the extent that I would claim that if it was the only trait that could be slotted, wilderness survival would still be unrevokably taken in every competitive ranger's build.

A few more that come to mind are the traits Sharpened Edges and Shared Anguish, these could surely be considered nerfed into obscurity, having fallen victim to unambiguous nerfs recently. Were these traits removed entirely, a fair few rangers would surely see their performance improve.

Thus, I would like to ask for your feedback on traits and skills that don't really fulfill any function. As builds' performances in PvE are easily measured by DPS/eHPS, I intend to keep this thread focussed on the PvP/WvW balance side of things. Are there to your mind any skills or traits that no ranger should take ever and if so, why? How about the opposite, what are options no ranger should go without?

[InsaneQR.7412]

Dagger offhand.It got better but it's still trash.

Signets all of them. Hunt is not bad but to niche.

Spirits just had the worst rework ever.Without ground target and some ammunition they just plainly suck IMO. I miss the Zoo spirits.

Traps (except spike that has atleast some nice utility) and especially for the wirst skill on ranger ever....

...Frost trap.

Not going on traits for today.

[Sasquatch.5436]

@InsaneQR.7412 said:Dagger offhand.It got better but it's still trash.

Signets all of them. Hunt is not bad but to niche.

Spirits just had the worst rework ever.Without ground target and some ammunition they just plainly suck IMO. I miss the Zoo spirits.

Traps (except spike that has atleast some nice utility) and especially for the wirst skill on ranger ever....

...Frost trap.

Not going on traits for today.

Frost trap? You mean one of the major skills for any fractal/raid build? Frost trap is far from useless.

[Krispera.5087]

I'll just post what I find the most glaring ones :

Traits :

• Empathic Bond is the most useless trait. Are we sure it even WORKS ? It's so useless nobody even bothered to look if it's working for real. (This trait does not do anything to Soulbeasts who have merged with their pet.)
• Brutish Seals (Fury is boring and everyone can fart it. All other Signet traits on other profession have an interesting mechanic tied to it, Ranger doesn't)
• Light on your Feet (Weapon shouldn't need a Weapon Trait to make it bearable)
• Natural Healing is only useful to get a tick of CA on Druid. Beside that, it's useless.
• Primal Echoes and Staff in general are useless. Why are everyone and their moms get dome reflects and Druid still get a small tiny wall ? Why is the Vine so narrow ? I can go on and on with Staff, but it's the most outdated weapon of Ranger followed by Shortbow.
• Eternal Bond can bug you of merging and now has 300 secs cooldown.
• Strider's Defense is good on paper, but Quickness has an effect on Skills, like Leaps and Evading skills, such as... Hornet Sting, Serpent's Strike and Mornarch Leap.

Skills :

• Throw Torch : Why is our Torch so bad in comparison to Guardian ? 1 burn ? Are you kidding me ? Guardian is so oppressive with their burning.
• "Guard!" : Why would you even sacrifice your pet ? Just use Dolyak Stance or "Protect Me!". Completely useless. Command utilities needs some kind of identity.
• Signet of the Wild active is useless.
• Spirits : All of them. They need complete rehaul. I don't know why they can't just make them simple and effective ? Every changes they have done to Spirits made them overcomplicated and weaker everytime.

Pets : They keep nerfing Smokescale and Rock Gazelle, but they are still used. Maybe it's time they stop being lazy and rehaul the other pets to make them more competitive and not nerfing the good ones.

---

if at all any builds viable for PvP (and WvW) that do not have the wilderness survival traitline.

They changed Shout to Command so Rangers wouldn't use Superior Rune of the Trooper to get a cleanse. I guess if it's used with WS, it removes too many condis, but at the same time it only made WS more important.

So, now you only have some choices for PvP condi cleanses :

• Signet of Renewal (which sacrifice your pet and need the Sbeast to unmerge in order to use it)
• Healing Spring needs you to sit in the area to get condi cleanse and it's slower than...
• Bear Stance got slapped a 5 secs cooldown to 30 secs.
• Pets : the supportive ones for Resistance, then Jacaranda and Brown Bear.
• Druidic Clarity (Gated by CA generation)
• Verdant Etching which is way to slow to only get 1 condi cleanse.
• Runes + Sigils

Knowing ANet, they will probably nerf WS instead to buff/diversify other trait lines.

[Fluffball.8307]

@InsaneQR.7412 said:Signets all of them. Hunt is not bad but to niche.

What's wrong with SoR and SoS? Been out of the game for... I dunno like 2 years, but they don't look like they've changed any since I left. I've been running both of them in WvW roaming and been pretty consistently beating everyone (although admittedly that may because there's no opponent quality control like in PvP, the handful of equally experienced roamers tend to just stalemate and we mutually agree to leave each other alone.)

I just glanced at metabattle to see what others are running, and it looks like no one is using evasive purity and instead only using WS for condi removal? Seems weird to pass up EP, that's a darn good trait since you're going to be constantly dodging anyway. I have noticed condi revs seem to be the class everyone is annoyed with but I haven't been terribly bothered by them.

[Teratus.2859]

@Fluffball.8307 said:

@InsaneQR.7412 said:Signets all of them. Hunt is not bad but to niche.

What's wrong with SoR and SoS? Been out of the game for... I dunno like 2 years, but they don't look like they've changed any since I left. I've been running both of them in WvW roaming and been pretty consistently beating everyone (although admittedly that may because there's no opponent quality control like in PvP, the handful of equally experienced roamers tend to just stalemate and we mutually agree to leave each other alone.)

I just glanced at metabattle to see what others are running, and it looks like no one is using evasive purity and instead only using WS for condi removal? Seems weird to pass up EP, that's a darn good trait since you're going to be constantly dodging anyway. I have noticed condi revs seem to be the class everyone is annoyed with but I haven't been terribly bothered by them.

Confused by this myself, I've been using Signet of stone and signet of the wild in both PvE and WvW for a while now and they've been very useful, especially signet of stone.That ones gotten me out of multiple jams and allowed me to turn a fight in my favour a number of times.

[InsaneQR.7412]

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Fluffball.8307 said:

@InsaneQR.7412 said:Signets all of them. Hunt is not bad but to niche.

What's wrong with SoR and SoS? Been out of the game for... I dunno like 2 years, but they don't look like they've changed any since I left. I've been running both of them in WvW roaming and been pretty consistently beating everyone (although admittedly that may because there's no opponent quality control like in PvP, the handful of equally experienced roamers tend to just stalemate and we mutually agree to leave each other alone.)

I just glanced at metabattle to see what others are running, and it looks like no one is using evasive purity and instead only using WS for condi removal? Seems weird to pass up EP, that's a darn good trait since you're going to be constantly dodging anyway. I have noticed condi revs seem to be the class everyone is annoyed with but I haven't been terribly bothered by them.

Confused by this myself, I've been using Signet of stone and signet of the wild in both PvE and WvW for a while now and they've been very useful, especially signet of stone.That ones gotten me out of multiple jams and allowed me to turn a fight in my favour a number of times.

Yeah stone is not bad tbh. Just forgot about it.

Wild only is useful for its passive. It's active is kind of a waste (although I really like the animation).

Hunt is just outclassed by other features that grant unblockable.Renewal is just a bad cleanse with too long CD. Although I like the passive.

[InsaneQR.7412]

@scarydogie.3024 said:

@InsaneQR.7412 said:Dagger offhand.It got better but it's still trash.

Signets all of them. Hunt is not bad but to niche.

Spirits just had the worst rework ever.Without ground target and some ammunition they just plainly suck IMO. I miss the Zoo spirits.

Traps (except spike that has atleast some nice utility) and especially for the wirst skill on ranger ever....

...Frost trap.

Not going on traits for today.

Frost trap? You mean one of the major skills for any fractal/raid build? Frost trap is far from useless.

Its just pure dmg. For bosses it's nice but the skill itself is just lack luster (also I forgot that they finally increased its damage some while ago)

[Za Shaloc.3908]

@InsaneQR.7412 said:Dagger offhand.It got better but it's still trash.

Personally I love dagger offhand. One of my favorite weapons on the class.

Spirits just had the worst rework ever.Without ground target and some ammunition they just plainly suck IMO. I miss the Zoo spirits.

It was your idea to make spirits like spirit weapons, yes? I'd honestly love that so much. Frankly I find them so lackluster and would love for their passive buffs to get nuked from orbit so PvE Ranger can be rebalanced accordingly. Would be really nice to have the active effects more controllable though (although Stone Spirit active has too much overlap with Muddy Terrain so I'd like to see it reworked) and for the trait to be more interesting than it currently is. There's so much cool stuff they could do with them honestly. Would love if they got a visual rehaul too...they ugly af.

Traps (except spike that has atleast some nice utility) and especially for the wirst skill on ranger ever....j

Healing Spring is honestly quite nice on the right build, especially now in WvW/PvP with TU and WHaO! getting CD nerfs. Feels good on Druid at least. Has some real nice synergy with CF generation and Windborne Notes. Would be nice to have a radius increase on it but eh, wishful thinking.

It saddens me that Sharpened Edges (and all corresponding traits for other classes) got nerfed the way they did. Souldn't pushing stat diversity away from pure tankiness be encouraged? I dunno, in WvW it just makes stuff like Trailblazer more appealing because there is less incentive in investing in precision now.

Throw Torch is trash for sure. Idea my friend and I came up with: 2x charges, applies blind and 1x burn (reduced to 8s in PvP/WvW). Give the skill some additional utility. Also improve the tracking (not the only Ranger skill that suffers greatly from this...hello core pet merge skills).

Astral Wisp is just...no. What a meme skill. At least it's pretty.

Empathic Bond and Invigorating Bond both feel outdated and neglected.

Every time I try to fit Muddy Terrain into a build, it feels handicapped by its cast time and small radius. Would love for this to become a bit more usable so it could be a nice setup skill and justifiable for the slot. I mean, Child of the Earth feels so much more effective than the skill itself.

[Axl.8924]

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:

@InsaneQR.7412 said:Dagger offhand.It got better but it's still trash.

Personally I love dagger offhand. One of my favorite weapons on the class.

Spirits just had the worst rework ever.Without ground target and some ammunition they just plainly suck IMO. I miss the Zoo spirits.

It was your idea to make spirits like spirit weapons, yes? I'd honestly love that so much. Frankly I find them so lackluster and would love for their passive buffs to get nuked from orbit so PvE Ranger can be rebalanced accordingly. Would be really nice to have the active effects more controllable though (although Stone Spirit active has too much overlap with Muddy Terrain so I'd like to see it reworked) and for the trait to be more interesting than it currently is. There's so much cool stuff they could do with them honestly. Would love if they got a visual rehaul too...they ugly af.

Traps (except spike that has atleast some nice utility) and especially for the wirst skill on ranger ever....j

Healing Spring is honestly quite nice on the right build, especially now in WvW/PvP with TU and WHaO! getting CD nerfs. Feels good on Druid at least. Has some real nice synergy with CF generation and Windborne Notes. Would be nice to have a radius increase on it but eh, wishful thinking.

It saddens me that Sharpened Edges (and all corresponding traits for other classes) got nerfed the way they did. Souldn't pushing stat diversity away from pure tankiness be encouraged? I dunno, in WvW it just makes stuff like Trailblazer more appealing because there is less incentive in investing in precision now.

Throw Torch is trash for sure. Idea my friend and I came up with: 2x charges, applies blind and 1x burn (reduced to 8s in PvP/WvW). Give the skill some additional utility. Also improve the tracking (not the only Ranger skill that suffers greatly from this...hello core pet merge skills).

Astral Wisp is just...no. What a meme skill. At least it's pretty.

Empathic Bond and Invigorating Bond both feel outdated and neglected.

Every time I try to fit Muddy Terrain into a build, it feels handicapped by its cast time and small radius. I would love for this to become a bit more usable so it could be a nice setup skill and justifiable for the slot. I mean, Child of the Earth feels so much more effective than the skill itself.

That's interesting I sometimes was using muddy terrain.

I mainly was using that as a setup for escape or to cc people around the area for a kill, but I'm not good

[Krispera.5087]

@Axl.8924 said:

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:Every time I try to fit Muddy Terrain into a build, it feels handicapped by its cast time and small radius. I would love for this to become a bit more usable so it could be a nice setup skill and justifiable for the slot. I mean, Child of the Earth feels so much more effective than the skill itself.

That's interesting I sometimes was using muddy terrain.

I mainly was using that as a setup for escape or to cc people around the area for a kill, but I'm not good

Muddy Terrain is an interesting choice if traited and with a condi build. I feel the AoE is big enough and Slow is pretty strong. You can use it when people are rezzing, as a set up or just to cleanse conditions. I just wish Traps had their range back, because 900 ranged immob is pretty strong to me, but it's hard to justify it on the Utility slots, because you want stun breaks on a condi build.

[Teratus.2859]

@InsaneQR.7412 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Fluffball.8307 said:

@InsaneQR.7412 said:Signets all of them. Hunt is not bad but to niche.

What's wrong with SoR and SoS? Been out of the game for... I dunno like 2 years, but they don't look like they've changed any since I left. I've been running both of them in WvW roaming and been pretty consistently beating everyone (although admittedly that may because there's no opponent quality control like in PvP, the handful of equally experienced roamers tend to just stalemate and we mutually agree to leave each other alone.)

I just glanced at metabattle to see what others are running, and it looks like no one is using evasive purity and instead only using WS for condi removal? Seems weird to pass up EP, that's a darn good trait since you're going to be constantly dodging anyway. I have noticed condi revs seem to be the class everyone is annoyed with but I haven't been terribly bothered by them.

Confused by this myself, I've been using Signet of stone and signet of the wild in both PvE and WvW for a while now and they've been very useful, especially signet of stone.That ones gotten me out of multiple jams and allowed me to turn a fight in my favour a number of times.

Yeah stone is not bad tbh. Just forgot about it.

Wild only is useful for its passive. It's active is kind of a waste (although I really like the animation).

Hunt is just outclassed by other features that grant unblockable.Renewal is just a bad cleanse with too long CD. Although I like the passive.

Aye I use Wild mostly for the passive but the imob field can be a little useful when enemies get into Melee if you don't run Entangle which I personally don't on my main.Hunt's unblockable isn't bad although since mounts were added I find the need for 25% movement speed signet/trait buffs to be less useful now.. so taking Hunt just for the unblockable doesn't feel as worth it.

[JorneMormel.9850]

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:

@InsaneQR.7412 said:Dagger offhand.It got better but it's still trash.

Personally I love dagger offhand. One of my favorite weapons on the class.

I'm inclined to say that dagger offhand is pretty decent. For instance: comparing the skillset of axe/dagger to shortbow, excluding the different functionality on the auto-attack and the evade range (which hasn't been changed to match other professions' evades), it just outshines shortbow in every single way without the quirky flanking requirement or weapon traits' neccessity. Although I'm not sure if this is to say dagger is actually good, or if the shortbow is just that terrible.

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:

@InsaneQR.7412 said:Spirits just had the worst rework ever.Without ground target and some ammunition they just plainly suck IMO. I miss the Zoo spirits.

It was your idea to make spirits like spirit weapons, yes? I'd honestly love that so much. Frankly I find them so lackluster and would love for their passive buffs to get nuked from orbit so PvE Ranger can be rebalanced accordingly. Would be really nice to have the active effects more controllable though (although Stone Spirit active has too much overlap with Muddy Terrain so I'd like to see it reworked) and for the trait to be more interesting than it currently is. There's so much cool stuff they could do with them honestly. Would love if they got a visual rehaul too...they ugly af.

I can only imagine the massive outcry from PvE players if spirits were changed, as they single-handedly carry rangers in group content. Still, I'd welcome any change that would make them viable in competitive modes.

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:It saddens me that Sharpened Edges (and all corresponding traits for other classes) got nerfed the way they did. Souldn't pushing stat diversity away from pure tankiness be encouraged? I dunno, in WvW it just makes stuff like Trailblazer more appealing because there is less incentive in investing in precision now.

I agree 100%, it'll still find its' way on PvE builds, but it'd been more appropriate to remove the trait from PvP/WvW altogether as it currently only functions as a placeholder, perhaps still fooling the odd player who didn't read the last update or update their build.

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:Throw Torch is trash for sure. Idea my friend and I came up with: 2x charges, applies blind and 1x burn (reduced to 8s in PvP/WvW). Give the skill some additional utility. Also improve the tracking (not the only Ranger skill that suffers greatly from this...hello core pet merge skills).

The only thing this skill has going for it is its' 1200 range, as the burning effectively only helps to prevent players from resetting a fight. Compared to Crippling Talon, atleast the latter helps you to catch up to a target, which solidifies my stance on dagger offhand being somewhat good.

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:Astral Wisp is just...no. What a meme skill. At least it's pretty.

Reason enough to play ranger, yeah? /s

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:Empathic Bond and Invigorating Bond both feel outdated and neglected.

Considering how the latter uses the pet's healing power, not the ranger's, yeah. Haven't had any experience with Empathic Bond in years, I remember it being mandatory as much as Wilderness Knowledge is nowadays, back when condition cleansing was nigh non-existent. All it took was 1 decent alternative and I figure most people haven't looked back since. Whatever moved the condition transfer to duration decrease, I'm not a fan of.

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:Every time I try to fit Muddy Terrain into a build, it feels handicapped by its cast time and small radius. Would love for this to become a bit more usable so it could be a nice setup skill and justifiable for the slot. I mean, Child of the Earth feels so much more effective than the skill itself.

I had moderate success with this skill in WvW to disrupt karma trains' tails, but it's hardly worth it. The only reason I find myself justifying this decision is the importance of stability (Rampage as One), thus being unable to take Entangle.

@Krispera.5087 said:

@Axl.8924 said:

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:Every time I try to fit Muddy Terrain into a build, it feels handicapped by its cast time and small radius. I would love for this to become a bit more usable so it could be a nice setup skill and justifiable for the slot. I mean, Child of the Earth feels so much more effective than the skill itself.

That's interesting I sometimes was using muddy terrain.

I mainly was using that as a setup for escape or to cc people around the area for a kill, but I'm not good

Muddy Terrain is an interesting choice if traited and with a condi build. I feel the AoE is big enough and Slow is pretty strong. You can use it when people are rezzing, as a set up or just to cleanse conditions. I just wish Traps had their range back, because 900 ranged immob is pretty strong to me, but it's hard to justify it on the Utility slots, because you want stun breaks on a condi build.

Slow is pretty strong in combat, but when people converge to resurrect someone isn't where it shines. Especially for condi builds, the condition duration and pulses barely benefit from increased expertise.

[Lazze.9870]

@"Krispera.5087" said:I'll just post what I find the most glaring ones :

Traits :

• Empathic Bond is the most useless trait. Are we sure it even WORKS ? It's so useless nobody even bothered to look if it's working for real. (This trait does not do anything to Soulbeasts who have merged with their pet.)
• Brutish Seals (Fury is boring and everyone can fart it. All other Signet traits on other profession have an interesting mechanic tied to it, Ranger doesn't)
• Light on your Feet (Weapon shouldn't need a Weapon Trait to make it bearable)
• Natural Healing is only useful to get a tick of CA on Druid. Beside that, it's useless.
• Primal Echoes and Staff in general are useless. Why are everyone and their moms get dome reflects and Druid still get a small tiny wall ? Why is the Vine so narrow ? I can go on and on with Staff, but it's the most outdated weapon of Ranger followed by Shortbow.
• Eternal Bond can bug you of merging and now has 300 secs cooldown.
• Strider's Defense is good on paper, but Quickness has an effect on Skills, like Leaps and Evading skills, such as... Hornet Sting, Serpent's Strike and Mornarch Leap.

I would add Invigorating Bond to that list. It's good in conjunction with a supportive pet in beast mode, but that is a niche use at best. Empathic Bond and Invigorating Bond should be completely scrapped, and reworked into proper support skills. A big plus if Druid can run them effectively and push that spec closer to other support builds in competetive modes in a way that doesn't use core ranger traits simply to make druid more "sustain-y". Otherwise I agree 100 %.

Although I will say that the problem with Brutish Seal isn't simply "fury" (although that is indeed boring compared to other professions' signet traits), it's that it is designed for short cooldown, offensive oriented signets that you would combo with Remorseless (hence said fury). Which there is only one of - or two, but Wild's active is a joke. The two other signets would prefer an entirely different trait. There is also something to be said about our signet trait having inherently less potential than other professions' signet traits because ranger is the only profession with four signets, with everyone else at least having a heal signet as well.