I've never used Time Bomb as it seems very tricky with getting the timing right. Trip Bomb can be fun though. It's definitely not a fast-paced tactic, but it appeals to a person who likes to solo and have fun setting up traps and such.
With smoke bomb, mobs won't see you until you get close. With cloaking device running, then you can walk right up to them after you smoke bomb them. If you have a stealth IO and cloaking device, you don't even need smoke bomb.
If you lay down a trip mine at someone's feet, it'll explode a moment later. There's no time to lay down more. Generally, trip mines can take a chunk out of mobs' health, toss them around, and make it easier. If you want to maintain a faster pace, you'd probably consider just placing one trip mine and then opening up with your attacks so that when mobs run up to you, they get bombed. If you have a particularly tough opponent like an EB, then you can take the time to lay down a bunch of trip mines and pull him towards them. They do draw aggro towards you, and they do quite a bit of damage, though not enough to kill lieutenants, if I remember correctly. It would take a couple to take out lieutenants, several to take out a boss, and quite a few to really hurt an EB. But if you put the time into laying them, they can make an otherwise tough battle much much easier.
Smoke bomb has a to-hit debuff. It's not large, but it can be enhanced to be upwards of 7%. If you already have some defense from IO bonuses or buffs from teammates, this will complement it and could make a very visible difference.
Arc ID#30821, A Clean Break
The only problem with defeating the Tsoo is that an hour later, you want to defeat them again!
"Life is just better boosted!" -- LadyMage
"I'm a big believer in Personal Force Field on a blaster. ... It's your happy place." -- Fulmens
Thanks Barata. So even with Caltrops and Web Grenade it's hard to get enemies at the right place at the right time for Time Bomb to be affective? That is disappointing to hear. If you sneak up to an unaggroed mob though that are just standing around in a small area, couldn't you lay the time bomb and walk away?
My thinking was to place a few trip mines away from a mob, go place a time bomb on the unaggroed mob and then run back to your trip mines to hide and wait for the survivors to come after you.
You are correct Time Bomb just needs a double shot of stealth so you can move among the unaggroed mobs undetected and lay the mine.
Using Trip Mines to protect your fall back position is also a sound strategy. Id just suggest throwing caltrops down on the Trip Mines to keep the aggroed mobs from running too quickly through the mine.
-Largo
Founder of A.G.O.N.Y. Supergroup on Victory
Member of Thought Sanctum VG on Victory
Member of St0rm Batallion SG on Guardian
Sound like good stuff. I don't know why devices gets a bum wrap. Sounds like alot of fun and more strategy than most sets. Should be fun...now I just need Dual Pistols to hurry up and get here.
Another question I had...I've been messing around on Mids trying to come up with a IO'd out build that would have lots of defense and HP. I have about 32% defense to everything in this build. My question is with that much defense, how big a difference is the -tohit from smoke bomb going to make? I ask because I plan on using Cloaking device and having a stealth IO slotted, so I might not need Smoke bomb in a very tight build.
The -perception in smoke bomb is auto hit. The acc debuff requires a to hit check roll.
You can enhance the acc debuff up to about 7.5% and that's what you get against even con minions. The higher rank and higher level the mob the more the debuff is affected by purple patch. +3/4s are going to be dropping it down into the 3% range.
Also make sure that you don't slot any kind of a proc in smoke bomb. Procs notify the mob(s) even if it doesn't actually proc on them. That ruins the -perception part of the power.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
Appreciate the pointer. I had actually planned on slotting four Dark Watcher's despair in smoke grenade, but wasn't sure if I wanted to put the Chance for Recharge Slow in there or not.....definetly won't be now.
As far as the accuracy debuff goes, I like to fight +2s and +3s most the time, so I'm not so sure it is worth the trouble. I might just take it early and respec out of it later on for my final build.
Oh how I love my AR/Dev Blaster...
Favorite tactic...
Lay 4-6 Trip Mines in a circle...TP Foe into the circle...KABOOOOOM!!! 
If you're really good and you think you can pull off the Time Bomb in the center even better...Trip Mines will set off the Time Bomb...(Sigh...brings a tear to my eye thinking of the good times....) 
Takes some time to set up, and you definetly need to slot your Trip Mines with some -Rch (Got mine down to about 8 sec rch 6 sloted Obliteration...woot!), but who cares...hahahahah...
(Added Note: If this happenes to you, while your cruising around in RV on the Pinnacle Server...Your welcome...heheheh 
)
"Now remember, things look bad and it looks like you're not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. 'Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That's just the way it is." Josey Wales
I love it! Didn't even think about that tactic. I don't use the TP pool very much, but I might need to role a dual build just for the sole purpose of doing that! What is the limit on trip mines you can lay at one time? How long do they last if noone trips them before they disappear?
I play bumper pool with EBs that don't resist KB. Drop about a dozen mines in a big pile then plant time bomb behind the EB but inline with the mine pile.
Time bomb goes off, EB flies into the pile, Boom dead EB.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
Stacked Trip Mines, Gun Drone, Caltrops, and Teleport Foe.
Stack Smoke Grenades on a mob and load Trip Mines in front of it, then throw Caltrops behind the mines. Shoot the mob from a safe position where you can duck around a corner and ditch the alpha strike, and then giggle when the mob sets off your traps. Drop your Gun Drone from around the corner follow it aroud the corner after it's been fired on. Shoot the survivors from a distance while continuing to stack Smoke Grenades to keep up the ToHit debuff.
Too many alts to list.
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Trip Mines will set off the Time Bomb...
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Really? I'd be surprised if anything other than the 15-second (I think that's the length) timer caused it to detonate.
If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
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The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
<Disclaimer: I have never played a high level /Dev blaster>
If you read the long description for Time Bomb, I remember that there is some line about how if the bomb takes enough damage it will blow up before the 15s count down, and will still fry anything within its radius. The bomb should ordinarily not draw much (any?) fire itself, but if you were standing nearby and it caught a big AoE volley, it'd blow. I'm not sure if the trip mines would activate it, but I could believe it.
Rule number six of an empathy defender is NEVER underestimate a blaster's ability to die. I don't care if he has CM, Fort, both RAs, bubbles (both FF and Sonic), and is fighting next to a Storm defender with hurricane on. If there is a way to die in that situation, the blaster will find it.
So far my favorite /Dev tactic is something I do during the Terra Volta Respec Trial. When in that last room (the one where the enemies spawn at the numbered doors) I ten to Trip Mine all the doors, and Caltrops as many as I can. That way I'm not only doing damage no matter where the enemies appear, but my team mates have a better chance of seeing/hearing where they're coming from.
Of course you have to be careful doing this since there's always the chance the enemies will spawn on you while you're setting up the mines.
@Aoide Muse
Arc IDs: #3571 Digital Love, #182068 The Rikti Roll, #334016 The Null Earth Saga: A Reflected Web
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<Disclaimer: I have never played a high level /Dev blaster>
If you read the long description for Time Bomb, I remember that there is some line about how if the bomb takes enough damage it will blow up before the 15s count down, and will still fry anything within its radius. The bomb should ordinarily not draw much (any?) fire itself, but if you were standing nearby and it caught a big AoE volley, it'd blow. I'm not sure if the trip mines would activate it, but I could believe it.
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I've been trying to confirm this all morning with my 50 AR/Dev, fighting Warhulk+FakeNemesis Boss combos in PI.
First I set a Time Bomb then a TripMine right on top of it. The Trip Mine goes off, alerting them, the Warhulk hits me with his flamethrower, and the Time Bomb never detonates early. I've had this AR/Dev at 50 for 4 years and I've never seen the TimeBomb go off early....of course this is the first time I'm actually looking for it. It looks to me so far, that this myth is BUSTED. 
-Largo
Founder of A.G.O.N.Y. Supergroup on Victory
Member of Thought Sanctum VG on Victory
Member of St0rm Batallion SG on Guardian
I have 3 standard strategies with my archery/dev blaster. As an aside - she has cloaking device + a stealth IO so she can stealth right up to anything but rikti drones and the like. At lower levels I did the same thing with CD + smoke grenade.
1) Small group (1 LT or 3 minions) - go up to foot of group, plant trip mine. As you finish planting the trip mine leap back and unload AE's (for minions) or webnade + single target attacks on LT to finish him off. With the minions if you have one in the back targetted when you plant the trip mine and spring back and fire as soon as the trip mine animation finishes you will get them all in your AE before they are blown out of it by the trip mine.
2) Medium groups (multiple LT's, spread out minions, easy bosses): Stealth into cone range, plant trip mine at feet, throw caltrop patch at feet, Aim + RoA + Fistfull + Explosive Arrow. Finish off LT's/Bosses with single target attacks. The trip mine at your feet gives you a nice defiance boost (26% for 11 seconds) and if any mobs make it through the caltrops to close with you it blows up.
3) Tough bosses: Plant 1-2 trip mines between myself and boss, back up a bit from that mine patch and plant another at my feet along with caltrops. Aim+RoA+.... Basically same as tactic 2 except I might plant an extra trip mine or two - rarely more than that though, while it can be fun to see a stack of 6 trip mines blowing up a boss the time it takes to drop them is rarely worth it and more often than not a minion will blow the whole stack before the boss gets there - so 1 out in front, 1 at your feet, go for it.
I used to plant mine fields and reap insane havok but I realized that even at a high recharge on trip mine it took FOREVER to do this and I could kill faster with 1-2 mines total. The real benefit of trip mine is the defiance boost and the extra protection of having anything that closes to melee blown away from you.
Globals: @Midnight Mystique/@Magik13
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back up a bit from that mine patch and plant another at my feet along with caltrops.
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That last one is what I call the "safety mine."
If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
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The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
So can you stack Caltrops ontop of your own caltrops?
Just for the record...
My Trip Mine + Time Bomb tactic is based on timeing the TP Foe correctly, additionally I usually layed a layer of Caltrops over the "Circle of Death" site also, so even if the Time Bomb was not set of by the initial Trips exploding the person TP'd wasn't going anywhere fast enough to avoid the Timer going off...I did mention that "If you think you can pull it off" + "Lay 4-6 Trip Mines in a circle" I time my big hits like this down to 2-5 secs of Time Bomb going off... 
So I should have amended my original post to say that Trip Mines may set off the Time Bomb...It might just be that the toons I have snaged with this tactic had Damaging Auras coming off them but I'm not sure...I actually respec'd out of Time Bomb a while ago because IMO Trips do the job just fine... 
Oh and as a answer to the OP's question...;
I can get 5-6 Trips down + find a target + TP Foe before I worry about the 1st one going off from timer (Throw your Caltrops somewhere before the last mine is set to max productivity...hehe...I usually settle with a 4-5 Trips circle before I try to find a target...Remember I usually use this for PvP zone fun...
Additional Tips;
1. Add some [+Rng] & [+Acc] to your TP Foe...especially if you're going to try this in PvP.
2. Try 2[-Rech] 2[+Acc] & 2[+Dam] in Trip Mine or do what I did and go with a good PBAoE set...
3. Be prepaired to fight after you do this because it REEEAAALLLLYYY pisses people off in PvP...hahah
"Now remember, things look bad and it looks like you're not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. 'Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That's just the way it is." Josey Wales
Time Bomb is FANTASTIC.
I find if you stealth into a group, lay the Time Bomb and wait for the flashing light to speed up, and hit Trip Mine, they should end up going off at the same time.
Minions are obliterated and very few Lt's can survive the blast... and those poor bosses are prone on the ground, ready to be turned into hamburger.
"I want Johnny Sonata to open his Moon Casino so we can have some damn Wailers on the Moon." - Johnny_Butane
"The vet reward for 1200 months of play is we move the servers into your house." - BackAlleyBrawler
I haven't played many blasters in my time here, but I am planning on making a Dual Pistols/ Devices Blaster asap when Going Rogue comes out...so I'm trying to do a little research and have some questions.
Can you throw a smoke bomb walk right up to a mob undetected (with cloaking device on) lay a time bomb and trip mine, then run away and watch the mob get pwnd? If so, do the time bomb and trip mine act as thier own attacker, or do they draw aggro to you? Just wondering if this is a viable strategy on devices.
Thanks for any input or advice for what will be my first lvl 50 Blaster.