Oathshot Trapper

Considering one of the only down points of trapping is that the traps have extremely long recharge times in comparison to all thier other abilities, Oathshot brings an intreting tactic to the table.

When you consider that a ranger with 16 expertise has a 21sec duration on Whirling Defence and around a 16sec blind using Throw dirt, an Oathshot trapper can effectiely disable a large segment of an IWAY team or any Ranger Spike team.

Using this build

16 Expertise
13 Wilderness Survival

Flame Trap
Barbed Trap
Dust Trap
Throw Dirt
Whirling Defence
Oath Shot *elite*
*blank slot* (i use troll unguent)
Res Sig


The premise of this build revolves around using oathshot to recharge Whirling Defence and Throw Dirt, considering that OathShot has a 20sec recharge this allows for the ranger to maintain whirling defence at all times. Throw Dirt pretty much disables all physical damage from Warriors and Rangers and the traps themselves just do AoE damage in other sectors of the battlefield.

The biggest downside to this build is the fact that the damage output is significantly decreased, however the damage denial from blinding 2-6 warriors for 16 seconds every 20 more than makes up for your sacrifice in damage.

However, this build is terrible for Team Arenas.

From your post it sounds like you are making this as a PvP build, which I cannot comment on (PvE only myself); however, I can't imagine it being worthwhile to go to all the trouble of trapping without maxed WS.

Also, looks like you maxed expertise to get longer Whirling Defense? Did you forget that you also have Oath Shot?

Well not sure why you would need max expertise.. go max ws and expertise to the rest... and i use this build for ettin farming, not to great for pvp

It's awful for TA, and I also don't think it would work so great in RA. A single hex mesmer could take you down. I guess that's hit-or-miss though. I've never seen oath trappers in gvg or hoh.

It's my faction farming build . (for more then a month now)

the blind is nasty + it's the best build to trap corpses. (I use 1 barbed and 2 flame traps on monk corpses to prevent them healing teammates for a while)

For TA it won't work well, because there aren't loads of Warriors there. RA and HoH is a different thing altogother. This build can absolutely annihilate a Ranger spike team (which the Monk can ensure he gets close enough by protecting him until he does), or an IWAY team, where he can blind the entire team. And what about Matyr, you ask? Simple! Throw Dirt if they get cured!

iirc you only need 14 expertise to hit the breakpoint so you may as well drop expertise to 14 and boost ws.

Oh and a single trapper cannot "absolutely annihilate a Ranger spike team or an IWAY team"

Just as an FYI condition removal does exist. And if you think you will be disabling a whole ranger spike or IWAY with dust traps and the occasional throw dirt considering both those builds carry martyr, you are sadly mistaken.

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Just for fun, in pve, I like to lay my traps, and since that aoe update all things scramble when they hit a trap... Sooooo, they hit all my traps at once, take off running, I nail oath shot, and trap all over again before they can even get to me. So they run around some more. Its not too effective, wont drop too many enemies, but its fun to watch.

Blackout would be a great fit.

I would say this build is to replace Resolve trapping now they made the energy penalty way too high (at least i think it is anyway).

Obviously Martyr is the end of this trapping build but isnt that the same for all trappers? Why should this 1 be any different?

The lack of Spike Trap is a problem though imo, that was the main trap for hastling casters. That and becuase your using Oath Shot you'd need to be using a bow rather than a staff, which loses you another 15 energy.

Ok, to reply to your concerns

1) Expertise at 16 is required to get Whirling Defence to 21 seconds. Since Oath Shot has a recharge of 20 seconds, this allows for a constant 75% block for the whole game.

2) Damage is not the main concern for the OathShot trapper, its main use is for the constant harrassment of enemy teams in HoH, such as IWAY teams who are considerably damaged from having half their team blind for 16 seconds (another reason for having 16 expertise, because throw dirt is expertise based).

3) Hex Mesmers can of course hinder the oathshot trapper, but hexes can hinder ANY build. The 7th slot of the build can be replaced with an anti-hex skill if need be (such as inspired hex).

4) I have already said in my original post that this build is in no way designed for TA, any ranger spike build would be better in TA/RA

5) Apply poison is also a good idea, however you will rarely find that you have the time to attack while you are either evading or running or trapping. I wont rule it out though as the extra degen is a considerable extra amount of pressure on enemy team monks.

6) This build was made before M-Resolve was nerfed because M-Resolve is one of the most energy intensive stances in the game even before the nerf. If your trap is interrupted because an attack got through whirling defence it does not matter, you still have 2 other traps to cast.

On the other hand, M-Resolve drains all your mana after casting 2-3 traps and you virtually become useless.

7) Martyr can remove the blindness, however most teams that this build would be most effective against wont have martyr (IWAY/Ranger Spike), and all the oathshot trapper is used primarily just to harrass the enemy as opposed to actually causing massive damage.

8) Spike trap is not entirely nessessary, considering that it lacks bleeding. It's not that great an elite, and it can easily be replaced by the damage dealt by casting 6 traps instead of 4 if OathShot were replaced with Spike Trap.

Mantra of Resolve = Stance

Whirling Defense = Stance

Stance can't be stacked.

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