Jupiter Moon's Guide to Thugs/Traps Issue 9

JupiterMoon · 06-24-2007 05:43 PM

cause one doesnt exist

Thugs/Traps

Why Thugs and Traps? Well...why not I say! Traps can go well with all of the primaries really, although it truly shines with primaries that have self healing. Thugs/Traps allows you to really take advantage of the aoe nature of thugs with acid mortar, caltrops, and poison trap, while not ignore it's single target abilities with copious amounts of web grenades. The set will also have more offense than other combinations due to trip mine which can nearl drop an orange con minion on it's own.

My intial reason for making this char was two fold: firstly, i hadnt explored thugs yet. Secondly, i was getting sick of malta and their stuns. stun stun stun..40 seconds and longer. 40 seconds is an eternity. juicer freak sleeps are bad enough at 20 seconds. but FOURTY SECONDS??? and you frequently run into spawns of three mobs that lob them. force field is another option for that particular reason, but i've done force fields to death. i also dont consider force fields an optimal secondary for thugs due to the primarie's lack of any type of control or -regen. everythign runs anymore, and you wont get the most out of your arsonist if you cant keep t hings in the burn patches.

To my surprise, I think i may have stumbled onto what is truly the most powerful primary/secondary combination for us. yes, /poison has the same debuffs and also adds -tohit as well as a single target heal, but it's entirely single target oriented. traps can do nearly the same t hings but to entire groups at the same time.

i have 5 mm's over 40. all have tackled biff as a +2 eb. of all of them, my /traps was the only one to not only not lose a single minion, but to kill him in 30 seconds. i have a feeling this is due to the combination of high dmg from the thugs (the bruiser was churning out 100 dmg jabs, 150 dmg punches, 200 dmg footstopms and 350 dmg knockout blows, and the first two recharge extremely fast),stacked acid mortars for -40% resistance and -40% defense, poison traps -100% regen, and my ability to keep him in place with web grenade and the patron immob powers.

thugs

Pistols - generally, i shy away from mm attacks. you have enough to do managing your pets for most primary/secondary combinations. if you are going to take one, this isnt it

Recommended Slotting: None, or 2 acc if you take it

Call Thugs: The first of your bread and butter abilities. this calls 1-3 thugs depending on level. 1-5, one thug. 6-17, two thugs. 18+ two thugs and an arsonist. the arsonist does some scary dmg and has burn patches much like the assault bot and a /fire brute post 32 upgrade.

Recommended Slotting: 3 acc 3 dmg. they will be -2 to you. they will be -5 to most of what they fight. they need the accuracy pretty badly

Dual Wield: a good attack to take until your patron respec. it will make the lower levels less of a pain, and can be used for puling while maintaining bodyguard.

Recommended Slotting: 2 acc. you wont keep it for long

Equip Thugs: nice upgrade when you first get it. the dps of your tier one thugs nearly triples.

Recommended Slotting: 2 endurance reduction (and possibly one recharge if you forego hasten)

Empty Clips: not a bad power, but an end hog. you really wont have room for more than one attack as a thugs/traps, and room for zero attacks post 40.

Recommended slotting: none

Call Enforcer: the backbone of your set. manuevers, assault, tactics, two aoe attacks and a cone attack all of which recharge faster than anyting bots or mercs has.

Recommended slotting: 2 acc 3 dmg 1 defense buff. less than 3 dmg is not taking advantage of the majority of your aoe potential. one defense buff increases their manuevers from 7.5% each to 9.2% each, or 18% defense total. stacks nicely with FFG

Gang War: a great power for dealing with tough bosses, but as you'll learn later on with /traps it's not needed. take it if you would like, but you will have problems dedicating slots to it later

recommended slotting: 3 acc 3 recahrge. gang war is a distraction ability, and they are all -3 to you. they will need the accuracy

Call Bruiser: this guy is for all intents and purposes, a ss/invuln brute. he does some serious dmg without any of the upgrades by cycling jab and punch very fast. the second upgrade gives him haymaker and handclap - the latter of which will annoy you to no end. the third upgrade gives him knockout blow and hurl. knockout blow has the highest base dmg of any mm pet attack in the game, with a base unenhanced dmg of nearly 110. at level 40 your bruiser will be hitting 200+ normally and approaching 400 if you are fighting fast enough for him to retain some fury.

recommended slotting: 2 acc, 3 dmg, 1 end. i notice the bruiser has accuracy issues sometimes. i dont know what causes it.he's getting an additional 6% accuracy from enforcers but it doesnt seem to help much. i usually keep a yellow inspiration or two on hand for boss fights, when i dont want him whiffing knockout blow

Upgrade Equipment: finally, the second to last milestone of the powerset combination. your t1 get a FAST acting and FAST recharging aoe, enforcers get two more aoe's for a total of 3 along with assault - so all your pets now have a +10% base dmg bonus. and of course, the bruiser gets knockout blow and FOOT STOMP

recommended slotting: 2 end, and one recharge if you dont take hasten

Traps

web grenade: no choice, but an excellent choice.everythign runs in this game now. it's an epidemic. as with dark and ta, your debuffs are placed and you dont want things running away. if you want a real reason to have this power and slot it - Biff. not only did i keep him in place unable to run, but he was unable to run OUT of the poison trap gas, which shuts down his regen. he died in only one application of poison trap as a +2 eb to me - that's 30s to kill a +2 eb - and i didnt use a single trip mine.

recommended slotting: 2 acc 2 immob 1 end.

Caltrops: this power is extremely nice when you first get it for keeping things out of melee range of you. keep them dropped at your feet and you increase your survivability by a huge factor. once yo uget trip mine, use it as the last step before pulling the nasty by dropping it on the minefield so there is no risk of mobs (except werewolves who are immune to all slows and roots) running over and not tripping the mines at all.

recommended slotting: 2 slow, or 5 slot for global recharge slow set late game. 2 is enough to stack on some more sleep resistance

triage beacon: skip this at lower levels. it wont help you much as it's recharge is too long, and you dontd have any io's slotted into it. post 40, it's a great tool. enforcer manuevers coupled with ffg is well over +30% defense for your minions. this allows the beacon to top them off between the few hits they take during tough fights. with three recharge and hasten, you can actually have 2 out at the same time for about 10 seconds.

recommended slotting: 3 health 2 recharge. 5 slots used for doctored wounds IO set. do not slot healing uniques as they wont actually effect you in this power

Acid Mortar: get it at 10 and put the level 11 slots into it immediately. it can miss, although it seems to have a high inherent accuracy. this power is -20% defense and -20% resistances. if you follow the slotting guide and take hasten, you can actually stack them for -40% defense and -40% resistance for nearly 20 seconds.

recommended slotting: 2 acc 3 recharge. yo uwant this up as often as possible

Force Field Generator: the reason i went traps in the first place. i was sick and tired of my other mm's being stunned for 40 seconds ormore by malta post 40. it was ridiculous. i knew my next mm had to be ff or traps. i have a 50 /ff defender and a 42 bots/ff mm, so ff was out simply cause i been there and done that. the base +def on this is 10%, 2.5% higher than disperson bubble. it slots out to 15.8% with three level 50 io's, as well as giving mez protection to holds, immobolize and disorients. even if you get hit with something that this doenst protect you from, it's STILL UP giving it's protection.

recommended slotting: 3 defense. 5 slotting by 50 allows for another global recharge bonus from an io set

Poison Trap: this is a key power for the set. it's a pbaoe sleep and hold. the hold is ok, will hold a minion or lt outright for about 5 seconds. it's the sleep and vomit that are amazing, as most times even bosses are too busy puking their guts out to fight back. it is also an auto hit -100% regen for 30 seconds. with 3 recahrge io's and hasten you can keep it permanent. general useage for me, since i solo relentless misions set for three people, is to run in and immediatly drop this trap. i eat the alpha srtrikein bg mode. i then either drop a caltrops or an acid mortar depending on what i'm fighting. pets mop up, i web runners. by the time i'm done, it's recharged and ready for the second group - and i rarely lose a pet doing this. this method works even for normal newspaper bosses no matter howmuch trash they have with them.

recommended slotting: 3 recharge, one extra for either the neuronic or ghost widow's uniques, which add a chance for 70 psi dmg every 10 seconds while the cloud is active

Seeker Drones: a great power for pulling things to your mine fields or just absorbing the alpha while yo urun in and setup traps. it's also a decent -20% dmg per drone, which can take the sting off of some of the nastier baddies out there. it has a HEFTY endurance cost though, so watch your endurance bar before you use it during a tough fight

recommended slotting: 2 acc. you can also 5 slot it for the disoritent set's +6% global recharge, or slot it 2 acc 2 range one disorient so you can place them out as far as 90 yards away. great for pulling. only the 2 acc is really required

Trip Mine: this power is more fun than function. although it's not necessary to do so, yo ucan destroy any +2 boss with 10 of these and an acid mortar - if you spend that much time setting up. to put that into perspective - i did the black scorpion arc and got a +2 dr. quexetain (sp?) EB. saw the armor and figures 'meh, high lethal i bet'

so popped hasten, dropped three poison traps, 12 trip mines. then played an acid mortar back but in los of him just before he'd hit the traps, and a caltrops on the mines. ran to him, dropped seeker drones and one web grenade to make sure i had hi sattention. ran back to the mines...BOOM! he was at 10% and easy pickings. you arent getting 12 mines out without hasten though before the first one expires. maybe 8 will be up by the time you bring him back.

recommended slotting: 1 acc 3 dmg 2 recahrge. only time it's missed is when i fought some +5's. 6 slot positrons blast for +7.5% global recharge and an additional chance of energy dmg

Detonator: not really a necessary power. a fun power, but it only does more dmg than trip mine if you blow up your bruiser. personally, i adore him too much to blow him up - and the 10 minute base recharge detracts from any possible utility of the power. an entirely personal choice

recommended slotting: none. but if you must, dmg and recharge are the way to go. 2 acc 2 dmg 2 recharge for optimal slotting

pools:

fitness - not necessarily needed, even with hasten. traps dont use much end, and dont recharge fast enough that you can spam anything but web grenade. if you turn off any toggles you have running during a tough fight like a +2 biff, you should have no end issues at all

speed - traps really should always have hasten. it's the only way to keep poison trap perma for it's -regen, and allows you to lay mine fields faster. ss can also be used as a stealth power for running in and dropping that initial trap without being knocked away - making the trap land where your butt now resides.

flight - eh...outside of fly itself not much here benefits you one way or the other.

teleportation - now this one was made for traps. teleport foe is godly. there's a sapper around the corner? lay a trip mine, tp foe it on top of th emine. dead sapper and you still have endurance. teleport itself with two end reduction can take you nearly 2 miles before you start running dry on endurance provided you arent running any other toggles. it is the fastest travel power out there. if your computer normally cant handle gv, tp'ng in gv will prob not be a possibility.

fighting - hotly debated recently, but unless you take stamina you dont have the endurance to maintain any of these toggles, nor do you have the power slots to waste unti post 44 to pick up a useless attack power.

medicine - required, aid other at a minimum. if your primary is bots or mercs with traps this would be entirely optional, but you're thugs. you'll need this or you'll be replacing that arsonist almost as fast as call thugs recharges. i recommend 5 slotting aid other to take advantage of the doctored wounds global recharge bonus

concealment - not really necessary, but for my playstyle it was. stealth + ss means i can run in and drop traps and have th epoison trap detonate before the mob knows what happened - or my ffg takes aggro and it's amazing sturdy in that regard. grant invisibility actually has improved the survivability of my arsonist almost ten fold when i remember to keep it up. more of a utility, but your mileage may vary

leadership - i had this until level 40. without stamina, it was difficult to keep the toggles constantly going with two end reduction and without stamina. although the t1 thugs benefit from tactics, you dont see much if at all any dmg increase from assault, nor much of a survival improvement from manuevers. not recommended, unless you are going for a purely teaming/rsf build.

leaping - you already have immobolization protection from ffg. acrobatics would be nice if you dont take concealment or super speed, as it's prevents knockback and accidentally placing traps in the wrong place as a result. but lets face it, grandville without fly or teleport can be annoying sometimes. if you think you're ok with that then you shoud take sj over teleport. but i've always been a teleporter so i used concealment and super speed to reduce the chance of me eating a knockback to pretty much slim and nearly none.

presence - eh..tankerminding is probably best left to /ff, who really have nothing else better to do :P

Patron pools

all the same, but not the same

of the patron pools. black scorpion allows you pick the aoe immobolize at level 41. the rest you cant grab until 44. because the shields really dont do much for you in pve except suck up endurance as a /traps, i cant recommend getting anything other than the immob. the immob is used with web grenade to lock down and keep bosses and tough opponents in the range of poison trap gas and acid mortar(s). also combined with web grenade it's lack of -kb is a non issue - mobs will stay in the arsonist burn patch for the duration.

IO Sets

i am able to have +51% global recharge from io sets. i got the idea after reading the dominator boards about perma domination. speed boost is +50% recahrge. so it's like always having speed boost up. +50% global recahrge and 3 recharge io's in poison trap and acid mortar bring their recahrges from 90s to 37s. hasten means you can stack t hem easily. this also means an increase in your endurance useage and i have a feeling that once my sets are complete, i'm going to have to drop concealment for fitness.

the recharge is accomplished by 5 slotting the patron and web grenades with enfeebled operation, aid other/triage beacon 5 slot with doctored wounds, caltrops 5 slot with tempered readiness, stealth 6 slot with 5 from red fortune and one luck of the gambler: recharge increase. force field generator 5 slot with red fortune. seeker drones 5 slot with stupefy and trip mine 5 slot with positron's blast for a total of +51.3% global recharge

that seems likea lot of wasted slots to some, but since my level 44 power is recall friend, level 47 is stimulant and 49 is resuscitate, i was able to find the slots easy enough. if i find i have to take stamina for this build, then i'd drop concealment and put 6 in health as well as losing resuscitate.

DocPhotonic · 06-24-2007 08:41 PM

Great guide!

Recently, I rolled up a clown-themed thugs/traps MM myself as a loose homage to the Joker, and have gotten him up to lv 34. I can say that it is indeed a very powerful and fun combo.

I've only played it in PvE though, so I can't speak to its effectiveness in PvP.

Ezoran · 07-01-2007 09:30 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Great guide!

Recently, I rolled up a clown-themed thugs/traps MM myself as a loose homage to the Joker, and have gotten him up to lv 34. I can say that it is indeed a very powerful and fun combo.

I've only played it in PvE though, so I can't speak to its effectiveness in PvP.

[/ QUOTE ]

the guide is a good read. and great idea on the joker theme.

Political correctness is a stench in the nose of God. Yes, your God(s) also.

JupiterMoon · 07-03-2007 02:56 PM

here is what will end up being my final build

as i fleshed out my io sets for recharge, i found myself suckign wind endurance wise on simple +2 boss fights - with no toggles on. which kinda sucked, since i have the kb protection in stealth and could no longer keep it on

i also found that with team teleport, i could just tp us all into a boss and the thugs would never leave range of the enforcers, the ffg, and my edict of the master: defensive aura - the total of which brings them 2 points shy of the 45% defense cap

so..i need stamina. and i was going to drop teleport and use team teleport as my travel power. two slot for end, it's only 4 more end per use than a 2 slot for end regular teleport, and goes the same distance

gang war is only there to hold unique pet io's. same with scorpion shield - needed a self defense toggle to hold kb prot and luck of the gambler

this build has 5% less recharge than my previous - which equates to one second longer on acid mortar and poison trap. from 36s to 37 seconds recharge. HOWEVER - becauseof stamina i can use hasten more often during fights.

there is always the option of 5 slotting health, but meh - the two recovery io's are all it's really good for once you can find them

now some people ask me why the two dmg/end in the t1 thugs. they run out of end quick. if it was possible i'd put one in enforcers too. their cones and aoes cost a lot of endurance, and being thugs/traps or thugs/ff you arent replacing your pets as often as other thugs combinations. so..they run out. this was particularly annoying when i solo'd the black scorpion mission to kill the 4 nemesis mole miners. i had it on relentless. they had 240k hp each. each kill took 20 mins cause all but my bruiser would run out of end extremely fast (plus it has something like 90% lethal resist and 60% to everything else...trip mines were only doing about 80 dmg total WITH positron's blast proc)

this also puts both the bruiser and the t1 thugs at 103% dmg and 95% accuracy. i dunno about the rest of you - but the both of them sure do miss a lot. wh ich is odd, since super strength attacks have accuracy bonuses - 90% base accuracy on most of them.

about the only time i use gang war is when it's a malta hercules boss, or a toxic tarantula and i need or want the distraction. this is becaues neither of those bosses is easy to bring to a mine field of any kind - they either dont bother to follow you after popping your seeker drones, or they get stuck on the environment

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.153
http://www.onthejazz.co.uk/hu/mhd.php

Level 50 Magic Mastermind
Primary Power Set: Thugs
Secondary Power Set: Traps
Power Pool: Medicine
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Teleportation
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Mace Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Call Thugs -- Acc/Dmg-S:40(A), Acc/Dmg-S:40(3), Acc/Dmg-S:50(3), Acc/Dmg-S:50(5), Dmg/EndRdx-S:50(5), Dmg/EndRdx-S:50(7)
Level 1: Web Grenade -- Acc/Immob-S:50(A), EndRdx/Immob-S:50(7), Acc/EndRdx-S:50(9), Immob/Rng-S:50(9), Acc/Immob/Rchg-S:50(11), Stun%-S:30(19)
Level 2: Caltrops -- Acc/Slow-S:50(A), Dmg/Slow-S:50(11), Acc/EndRdx-S:50(19), Rng/Slow-S:50(21), Acc/Dmg/Slow-S:50(21)
Level 4: Triage Beacon -- Heal/EndRdx-S:50(A), EndRdx/Rchg-S:50(23), Heal/Rchg-S:50(23), Heal/EndRdx/Rchg-S:50(25), Heal-S:50(25)
Level 6: Equip Thugs -- EndRdx-I:49(A)
Level 8: Aid Other -- Heal/EndRdx-S:50(A), EndRdx/Rchg-S:50(31), Heal/Rchg-S:50(31), Heal/EndRdx/Rchg-S:50(33), Heal-S:50(33)
Level 10: Acid Mortar -- Acc(A), Acc(33), RechRdx-I:40(34), RechRdx-I:40(34), RechRdx-I:40(34)
Level 12: Call Enforcer -- Acc/Dmg-S:40(A), Acc/Dmg-S:40(13), Acc/Dmg-S:50(13), Acc/Dmg-S:50(15), DefBuff-I:49(15), DefBuff-I:49(17)
Level 14: Swift -- Run-I:49(A)
Level 16: Force Field Generator -- Def/EndRdx-S:50(A), Def/Rchg-S:50(17), EndRdx/Rchg-S:50(36), Def/EndRdx/Rchg-S:50(36), Def-S:50(36)
Level 18: Teleport Foe -- Acc-I:49(A), Acc-I:49(37)
Level 20: Poison Trap -- Dam%-S:50(A), RechRdx-I:49(37), RechRdx-I:49(37), RechRdx-I:49(39)
Level 22: Recall Friend -- Range-I:49(A)
Level 24: Team Teleport -- EndRdx-I:49(A), EndRdx-I:49(39), Range-I:49(48), Range-I:49(48)
Level 26: Call Bruiser -- Acc/Dmg-S:40(A), Acc/Dmg-S:40(27), Acc/Dmg-S:50(27), Acc/Dmg-S:50(29), Dmg/EndRdx-S:50(29), Dmg/EndRdx-S:50(31)
Level 28: Seeker Drones -- Acc/Rchg-S:50(A), EndRdx/Stun-S:50(39), Acc/EndRdx-S:50(40), KB%-S:50(40), Acc/Stun/Rchg-S:50(40)
Level 30: Health -- Rcvry+-S:40(A), Regen/Rcvry+-S:50(43)
Level 32: Upgrade Equipment -- EndRdx-I:50(A)
Level 35: Trip Mine -- Acc/Dmg-S:50(A), Dmg/EndRdx-S:50(45), Dmg/Rchg-S:50(45), Dmg/Rng-S:50(45), Acc/Dmg/EndRdx-S:50(46), Dam%-S:50(46)
Level 38: Stamina -- EndMod-I:49(A), EndMod-I:49(43), EndMod-I:49(46)
Level 41: Web Envelope -- Acc/Rchg-S:50(A), EndRdx/Immob-S:50(42), Acc/EndRdx-S:50(42), Immob/Rng-S:50(42), Acc/Immob/Rchg-S:50(43)
Level 44: Hasten -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(48), RechRdx-I:50(50)
Level 47: Gang War -- PetDef-S:40(A)
Level 49: Scorpion Shield -- EndRdx-I:49(A), Rchg+-S:50(50), ResKB-S:30(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Supremacy
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)

Copy & Paste this data chunk into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build.
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please note that this is a respec build. pre 40, thugs/traps should not take triage beacon (or pre 24 if you can get the 1st respec trial done at the appropriate level) and dual wield will help you more for pulling until you have poison trap slotted out. once you do, run in with ss and stealth and drop the trap immediately. this will hold everything while your pets draw aggro and then mop up. pretty hot - unless it's a 10 spawn of nemesis. that's just suicide. or 10 spawn of malta. that's suicide for all at's.

JupiterMoon · 07-06-2007 04:51 PM

just wanted to add, that the stealth io for teleport is insanely cheap. i got the recipe for 10k off the black market. there were 54 for sale and no bidders

so i no longer feel that concealment would be a required or nice addition to this combination if you take teleport as your power.

New_Era · 07-10-2007 04:40 PM

Pretty good guide. You even convinced me to take the Medicine power pool (I despised it for MMs).

JupiterMoon · 07-10-2007 04:58 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Pretty good guide. You even convinced me to take the Medicine power pool (I despised it for MMs).

[/ QUOTE ]

me too, and to be honest with all the +defense i have it's rarely used when i solo

but i'd rather heal the arsonist than have to resummon then upgrade him again - especially since upgrading thugs and mercs leaves the pet planted in place for 20 seconds (annoying)

JupiterMoon · 07-11-2007 05:02 PM

if any mods see this, i would like this thread deleted from the boards

thanks in advance

Dveight · 10-26-2007 06:24 AM

bring it back

goesto · 11-23-2007 06:30 AM

why do you want it removed Jupiter??

beyeajus · 12-21-2009 03:08 PM

Sweet guide, you got me pumped to play this build! I'll be rockin one on Mercy Island tonight.

gronga · 08-21-2010 01:18 AM

Excellent guide. I for one am glad it did not get pulled.
I made a MM for Preatoria and never used Thugs or Traps before, and this answered several questions of mine.

Even dated (it is 3 years old) it is well written, and I wish more guides were out there like this one.