AR and Traps don't have any real synergy at the best of times. But the big issue with it right now is the overall weakness of /Traps at the moment. With the current weakness in Poison Gas Trap (It was, admitedly too strong, but now it's too weak) 1/3 of the real power the set had in total is gone. The remaining powers don't make up for the lack.
I'm honestly certain the Dev's will eventually get around to re-balancing Traps again. However, at this poing, it may not be until after Issue 15 is finished.
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I still enjoy my 50 AR/Traps. I never used any procs in Poison Trap, so I have no idea what I was missing before they changed it. I do notice the hold doesn;t last as long, but I still use it.
I am big on character concept so I think AR/Traps is a blast.
You will still get a lot of mileage and team benefit out of the other traps.
Acid Mortar: great def/res debuff and an aggro grabber
Seeker Drones: Good for absorbing that first hit as well as a decent -acc/-dam debuff if they both detonate.
FF Generator: nice defense buff and team hold/stun protection.
Triage Beacon: not the strongest regen power in the game, but I can definitely tell a difference on larger teams fighting tough mobs when I lay this down.
Trip Mines: If you have some patience it makes soloing tough bosses or larger mobs easier. Drop a few of these then lure mob/boss to the minefield....BOOM. On teams I use it to run in and toe bomb mobs when others have aggro.
Just run your FF generator, and drop your traps then open fire. You'll have fun. Not the fastest soloer by any means but still a good concept IMO.
I know there is a whole contingency on these forums that refuses to say anything good about Traps in the hope that the devs make a change. Believe me, I agree that it needs a boost, but I still think it's fun to play.
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I've been hearing various reports on the forums about how AR/traps doesn't have much synergy..but is the set still playable?..I want to use it for concept reasons, but I also want to be able to preform moderately well...am I COMPLETELY gimp here...or just alittle? 
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For soloing? A solid to good combination. Traps is excellent for soloing with a +Def/Status Protection power that affects the Corruptor, that's huge when soloing. It's weak AoE debuffs/controls aren't that much handicap when soloing.
For teaming, AR is excellent due to lots of good AoEs. Traps is not that great, with relatively weak controls, debuffs, and team buffs. It does do a lot of good stuff, with Acid Mortar, PGT, Seeker Drones, and FFG, but most of it is not at impressive buff/debuff values. And the mines aren't useful on teams.
So, soloing, Traps is good and the mines are good. Teaming, AR is good. Overall, you can do fine, but on a team you will be there more for AoE damage than for buffs/debuffs, so take powers and slot appropriately.
Thanks for the help all, does anyone have a viable leveling build?...not so good with those ^_^;
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I've been hearing various reports on the forums about how AR/traps doesn't have much synergy..but is the set still playable?..I want to use it for concept reasons, but I also want to be able to preform moderately well...am I COMPLETELY gimp here...or just alittle?
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I think at the lower levels, AR/Trap is less "playable" now than in the past. Traps got it's nerf of course. But the increased recharge time nerf to ignite really hurt AR for people just starting AR.
Additionally, both AR and Traps mature very late with basicly no powers that are great right out of the box.
Full Auto, flamethrower, PT and AM, while all very good powers, all need to be slotted signifcantly to be worth the time to use them.
However, the difficulties of AR/trap is what makes it fun I think. It's a thinking-mans build. I think it takes a certain personality to handle the build in it's cutrent form...particularly for someone who plans on soloing.
instead of ar/traps, you might as well just play a mm that has a gun if its for concept. that way you have bodyguard mode and damage that doesnt require you to redraw your gun every few seconds.
Before, Web Grenade + Ignite was a decent combo.
With Ignite at 20s, I don't think there's much synergy between AR/Trap besides "concept".
I think they nerfed Poison Trap a bit too much and Time Bomb is still one of the most useless lvl 38 powers.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
AR/Traps is oddly still fun to me even though I've trashed the combo in the past. I currently have a level 41 that I got back into playing just randomly. I was on a team doing those oh-so-popular rikti LT farm type MA missions. I respec'd into a completely different play style and I seem to have fun. Of course it's not a traditional play style but that's ok.
I dumped P.Trap and Ignite like a bad habit. In it's place I took seeker drones, fighting pool for weave, and focused on slotting up my cones. I have Burst, Slug, Sniper, Buckshot, F.Thrower and Full Auto from AR. From Traps I have W.grenade, Acid Mortar, Seekers, FFG and trip mine. I get about 30% positional defense.
My strategy was to be right behind the brutes/Night Widow/whatever and let them grab the aggro right before I was in the middle of the spawn. I'd place a trip mine, which would usually work since my defense is fairly high and I wasn't pulling aggro, and as soon as it was placed I'd quickly take a few jumps back and shoot off Full Auto before the mine exploded and scattered everything.
I was laying down TONS of AoE damage this way. I'd follow up with FT and Buckshot when needed and I'd use Sniper to cap runners. Yeah I'm neglecting the majority of the /traps set, but to be honest, things died so fast why waste time using AM or even bothering having a crappy P.Trap that would just annoy me every time I used it and saw how crappy it is now.
For flavor, I have Full Auto frankenslotted to have ED capped damage, about 40% extra accuracy, 70-some-odd % recharge, and 2 full level 40 common range IOs in it. I can spray stuff from REALLY far away, and I only lose about 10 seconds of recharge time on it.
So, yeah AR/Traps is still playable, and it's still not that great of a combo, and nope, it doesn't synergize well with itself at all, but I found a way to make it fun for myself. After getting scorp shield I should be just about capped to smashing/lethal, high 30's to energy, and around 30% to everything else.
I started a AR/TRAPS and 2 days later my dog died.
DON"T PLAY IT.
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For soloing? A solid to good combination. Traps is excellent for soloing with a +Def/Status Protection power that affects the Corruptor, that's huge when soloing. It's weak AoE debuffs/controls aren't that much handicap when soloing.
For teaming, AR is excellent due to lots of good AoEs. Traps is not that great, with relatively weak controls, debuffs, and team buffs. It does do a lot of good stuff, with Acid Mortar, PGT, Seeker Drones, and FFG, but most of it is not at impressive buff/debuff values. And the mines aren't useful on teams.
So, soloing, Traps is good and the mines are good. Teaming, AR is good. Overall, you can do fine, but on a team you will be there more for AoE damage than for buffs/debuffs, so take powers and slot appropriately.
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QFT
One thing I do like about AR/Traps is that you can do things in your secondary PRIOR to pulling out the gun. Trap, plant, toss, whatever, then whip out the big gun and blast away. Redraw isn't much of an issue.
BTW, Bean Bag and Seeker=stunned boss. Synergy.
Web Grenade + Ignite=crispy critter. More synergy.
Black Scorpion is of course the patron to get, with Web Envelope and Scorpion Shield.
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Before, Web Grenade + Ignite was a decent combo.
With Ignite at 20s, I don't think there's much synergy between AR/Trap besides "concept".
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Still is. Just because you need to put more slots into it to get a good roast doesn't mean it doesn't work anymore.
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I think they nerfed Poison Trap a bit too much and Time Bomb is still one of the most useless lvl 38 powers.
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No debate on that score. Time bomb has been effectively worthless for how many years?
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I think at the lower levels, AR/Trap is less "playable" now than in the past. Traps got it's nerf of course. But the increased recharge time nerf to ignite really hurt AR for people just starting AR.
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Ignite isn't available to 26. Not exactly hurting those "just starting AR".
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Additionally, both AR and Traps mature very late with basicly no powers that are great right out of the box.
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I dunno, Acid Mortar works pretty well "out of the box". FFGen is great @16, and a real gem with slots.
None of the primary blasts seem to work better or worse then any other primary w/o slotting.
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Full Auto, flamethrower, PT and AM, while all very good powers, all need to be slotted signifcantly to be worth the time to use them.
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Wow, powers that are worth using as much as possible need slots to maximize their effectiveness? Wow, I'm sure glad that none of my other corruptor's powers don't need slots to be effective. Otherwise I might have to take slots out of Swift to make sure Twilight Grasp works.
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However, the difficulties of AR/trap is what makes it fun I think. It's a thinking-mans build. I think it takes a certain personality to handle the build in it's cutrent form...particularly for someone who plans on soloing.
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It ain't a brute, that's for sure! 
QR
OMG...I had to go to page 8 before a title mentioned /traps!
/cry...
"Hi, my name is Ail. I make people sick."
A partial selection from my 50's on Freedom: Ail = Ice/Traps, Luck = Street Justice/Super Reflexes Stalker, Mist = Bane, Pixy = Trick Arrow/Archery, Pure = Gravity/Energy, Smoke = Fire/Fire Dominator
Seeker Drones+Beanbag
Ignite+Caltrops (+Acid Mortar)
Acid Mortar+Full Auto
Acid Mortar+Flame Thrower
Acid Mortar/Burst+Achilles Heel procs
using Sniper Rifle to pull targets into traps set safely from a distance.
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
AR = Snooze Fest. Please drive through.
I have been having fun with it. Pulling EBs from Scirocco's arc onto 15 trip mines and "one shotting" them, is pretty entertaining. That damn Silver Mantis is the only one I couldn't kill with that. On teams it does well. My basic strategy is to follow the brute, let them grab the aggro, and immediately start dropping a mine. Jump back right as it is set and shoot Full Auto. Does good damage.
You have to pretty much accept that you're not going to be playing this character in any way that you are used to playing a character. It's more of a set where you want to be in the mind set that you have these fun little toys to play with.
Of course the last time I played there was a damn shockwave spamming Stalker that would shockwave EVERY damn group while I was setting a mine and make me waste it.
It's funny that /Dark was used as an example of hard slotting because Twilight's Grasp and Fearsome Stare are the only powers that need slotting in that set to be effective. Every other power in /Dark is decent out of the box, and only gets better when you slot it.
Traps though is worse because it relies heavily on IOing in order to be effective. Proc slotting is the best way to play traps. PGT is much better with procs even in the new world order. Caltrops is an excellent proc tool and Acid Mortar is an amazing proc beast.
I'm no traps corruptor player, but if I was going to give a traps recommendation, I'd suggest dark blast. You have a self heal, tohit debuffs to help FFG work, and some mez too. If that's too far outside your concept, what about electric blast, or even AR/Rad or something?
Or of course, you could make a Mercs/Traps mastermind as suggested elsewhere, which is a lot better than an AR/Traps.
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AR = Snooze Fest. Please drive through.
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lawls Mine has FullAuto up every 20 seconds. Aint no snooze fest there
If you want the feel of AR on villianside but not the suck, I suggest Huntsman build.
Very fun and like 100 times more effective imo.
When something good happens to me, I can never enjoy it....
I am always too busy looking for the inevitable punchline...
BEHOLD THE POWER OF CHEESE!
I've been hearing various reports on the forums about how AR/traps doesn't have much synergy..but is the set still playable?..I want to use it for concept reasons, but I also want to be able to preform moderately well...am I COMPLETELY gimp here...or just alittle?