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Firstly, I only just noticed that my AR blasters Ignite power accepts Accuracy enhancements - which seems odd because I thought it was auto-hit against any target in the AoE. So far it's never failed to do damage to absolutely anything held immobilse in it's AoE including AV's and GM's. Is this just a mistake on the designers part? (like when Recall Friend used to accept range enhancements) - or would adding Accuracy enhancements actually somehow improve the power?
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I believe Ignite has a very high inherent accuracy, but it isn't autohit.
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Secondly, is it my imagination, or do trip mines now require you to be fairly close to them in order to be detonated by enemies? If so, I'm pretty certain they never used to - not so long ago I'd lay mines with caltrops, aggravate the mobs with my M30, and run away whilst they were picking themselves up, to return after a short while to find all my mines (and the mobs) gone.
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I don't know of any changes - perhaps some long-term AR Blasters can comment?
What many people dont know about trip mines is on missions like dreck before ED whilst a tanker is herding up 6-10 herds a devices blaster could be laying a stupid amount of mines, then disappear whilst the tanker herds the freaks beautifully on the mines. The blaster could come back and all the freaks would die. But the likes of nova or thunderous blast is way less work but the mines more aggro free. Autofire could cut down groups but possibly with loads of aggro
But now its a kind of meh thing to do as a tanker can now only herd so many, take so much and so now its quicker for the tanker to take on one group and the blaster to just open fire now.
What being away from mines is good for is providing you are not caught off guard and/or in an action time is it allows you to back off incase a stray comes along who could set all your mines off. Once hes left the mine field you go back to laying. Having to be close to your mines means you have the risks thats other blasters have with thunderous blasts etc - a shame i know.
If there was a change it was before i4 but for as long as i have known it has been the case.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
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Secondly, is it my imagination, or do trip mines now require you to be fairly close to them in order to be detonated by enemies? If so, I'm pretty certain they never used to - not so long ago I'd lay mines with caltrops, aggravate the mobs with my M30, and run away whilst they were picking themselves up, to return after a short while to find all my mines (and the mobs) gone.
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I don't know of any changes - perhaps some long-term AR Blasters can comment?
[/ QUOTE ]I'd say it might be more useful asking a /Dev blaster 
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I believe Ignite has a very high inherent accuracy, but it isn't autohit.
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That's how I understand it. That said, putting Acc enhancements in it seems somewhat redundant.
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Secondly, is it my imagination, or do trip mines now require you to be fairly close to them in order to be detonated by enemies? If so, I'm pretty certain they never used to - not so long ago I'd lay mines with caltrops, aggravate the mobs with my M30, and run away whilst they were picking themselves up, to return after a short while to find all my mines (and the mobs) gone.
Recently however I've been noticing that if I've backpedalled a fair distance from my trip mines (laced with caltrops, as always) I can actually be watching enemies slow-dancing in my minefield without setting any off - and they only explode if I move closer.
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I think this is just perceptual - Trip Mines don't fire off immediately, they have to 'roll' to notice the mob. Even if you're up close, mobs can run past and through/around a minefield before they detonate - it could just be coincidence that the mines are only detonating as you move forward - but not because you moved forward. I can't comment for certain, as I tend to stay in close range to use the AR cones to finish off injured mobs afterwards, but I'm pretty sure they're not bugged. It could also be something as mundane as a graphical perspective glitch, but that's idle speculation.
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I don't THINK it's just because the added +acc of my target drone is coming into play as I move in
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I can reassure you that it's definitely not this - Trip Mines aren't buffed by TD.
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they can't ALL miss ALL the time, surely?
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They only miss when you're expecting them to hit. 
@Synaesthetix
"Here, take some more bees with you. You may need them."
Union: FU//LoUD
"that Syn is that that" - Mothers Love
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I believe Ignite has a very high inherent accuracy, but it isn't autohit.
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That's how I understand it. That said, putting Acc enhancements in it seems somewhat redundant.
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For sure - as far as I can see, and even if Ignite isn't actually auto-hit, it does seem to be so accurate that I wouldn't even consider adding Accuracy enhancements as things stand.
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Secondly, is it my imagination, or do trip mines now require you to be fairly close to them in order to be detonated by enemies? If so, I'm pretty certain they never used to - not so long ago I'd lay mines with caltrops, aggravate the mobs with my M30, and run away whilst they were picking themselves up, to return after a short while to find all my mines (and the mobs) gone.
Recently however I've been noticing that if I've backpedalled a fair distance from my trip mines (laced with caltrops, as always) I can actually be watching enemies slow-dancing in my minefield without setting any off - and they only explode if I move closer.
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I think this is just perceptual - Trip Mines don't fire off immediately, they have to 'roll' to notice the mob. Even if you're up close, mobs can run past and through/around a minefield before they detonate - it could just be coincidence that the mines are only detonating as you move forward - but not because you moved forward. I can't comment for certain, as I tend to stay in close range to use the AR cones to finish off injured mobs afterwards, but I'm pretty sure they're not bugged. It could also be something as mundane as a graphical perspective glitch, but that's idle speculation.
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From my observations I'm guessing that mines make accuracy checks at regular intervals as long as potential targets keep walking back and forth over them, which is why I always lace them with caltrops. Sometimes a mob will walk into the mines without initially detonating any. Invariably though, as they start milling around in the caltrops, the mines soon go off... unless I happen to be a fair distance away. This may well be just be coincidence or even perceptual. I'd like to try some more controlled tests on this as soon as I can find the right place/mobs and someone who can help me as an observer.
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I don't THINK it's just because the added +acc of my target drone is coming into play as I move in
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I can reassure you that it's definitely not this - Trip Mines aren't buffed by TD.
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No, I didn't think so, though purely from what I've been seeing recently I'm still undecided as to whether my prescence is needed within a certain distance simply for my mines to be active. I notice SHANNON seems to be pretty firmly of the opinion that you do need to be fairly close, and I think there's a certain logic to that.
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they can't ALL miss ALL the time, surely?
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They only miss when you're expecting them to hit.
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Overall I'm very happy with their performance - with 2 Acc SO's they're very reliable. I've never had them fail due to unexpected non-detonation (apart from in the specific examples described above) The only time things tend to go badly wrong is when just one goon runs into the mines well ahead of all his buddies and detonates the lot before the rest arrive. That really sucks, but it's hardly down to the mines, and it's most certainly NOT a non-detonation issue! 
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Secondly, is it my imagination, or do trip mines now require you to be fairly close to them in order to be detonated by enemies? If so, I'm pretty certain they never used to - not so long ago I'd lay mines with caltrops, aggravate the mobs with my M30, and run away whilst they were picking themselves up, to return after a short while to find all my mines (and the mobs) gone.
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Yes this was brought in recently and is to do with the whole debt/reward scheme (yawn!).At one point you could leave a shed load of mines and run away as far as you wanted and they'd still go off. Now however you have to be within a certain range.
Though now this can be exploited too. Leave mines in a huge radius around a certain point and leave the range of them. A tanker pulls a huge mob onto the mines and they don't go off. You then return to range triggering them off for mine armageddon!
Or even simpler Stealth cloak + superspeed = invisibility to most enemies (not ritki drones etc). Get in the middle of the mob and set a trip mine, follow up with an aoe and that's most of their health gone before they've even got a shot out.
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Secondly, is it my imagination, or do trip mines now require you to be fairly close to them in order to be detonated by enemies? If so, I'm pretty certain they never used to - not so long ago I'd lay mines with caltrops, aggravate the mobs with my M30, and run away whilst they were picking themselves up, to return after a short while to find all my mines (and the mobs) gone.
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I don't know of any changes - perhaps some long-term AR Blasters can comment?
[/ QUOTE ]I'd say it might be more useful asking a /Dev blaster
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Oops. 
Thing I dislike about mines isn't only that things can walk by them without them going off but even when they do go off they frequently miss the things standing right on top of them. Looks like two hit checks there...
When they do hit, they do some very decent damage. Pity it takes so long to lay a few though, even with recharge SO's and hasten teams usually gets fed up and charge in before the third mine is down.
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Thing I dislike about mines isn't only that things can walk by them without them going off but even when they do go off they frequently miss the things standing right on top of them. Looks like two hit checks there...
When they do hit, they do some very decent damage. Pity it takes so long to lay a few though, even with recharge SO's and hasten teams usually gets fed up and charge in before the third mine is down.
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Most often by the time you have laid all the mines the enemy could be all dead. I would only lay them before an AV say, if people were waiting for more people to come, or around the reactor of the reactor room whilst waiting for the next wave, other than that its mainly for solo and pvp purposes now.
You do have to be within a certain range of the mines for them to go off - trust me. Exploitable post ED? well Im still looking.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
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Thing I dislike about mines isn't only that things can walk by them without them going off but even when they do go off they frequently miss the things standing right on top of them. Looks like two hit checks there...
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Agreed, I've seen that happen so often (mines detonating without doing any damage) that I'm convinced there must be 2 separate acc checks going on. Now that I slot mine with 2 accuracy SO's I rarely if ever see it happen.
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When they do hit, they do some very decent damage. Pity it takes so long to lay a few though, even with recharge SO's and hasten teams usually gets fed up and charge in before the third mine is down.
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Yup, I consider the damage output excellent, no complaints from me there, and I guess we just have to accept that the time it takes to lay them is the tradeoff we make for the massive potential damage. IMO it just can't work any other way and be balanced -in principle pretty much every damaging power works along the same lines - EITHER you have longer recharge with better damage, OR you have faster recharge with proportionally lower damage. AFAIK no other power allows you to do so much damage in such a short time, AND in most cases (if you're smart/patient) with little or no real risk to yourself - heck, you don't even have to be in sight of your target for them to work.
I would agree, few teams I've been on have had the inclination or patience to let me use my mines effectively (beyond the occasional one-off demonstration) but then, I can't blame them. It's not their power, they didn't choose it, and it is boring standing around waiting for someone else to lay a full minefield even once - never mind before every fight. Whatever, IMO that's more of a team/attitude issue, not a really a shortcoming of the power itself. So, yeah, it's not really a team-friendly power, but IMO it's a fantastic power for a solo. I do play mostly solo, and I'd find it very hard without them. Indeed, I do worry that they've become a crutch I can no longer play without. I'm not sure I could solo effectively post-L40 without them (if at all) and I can't really say that about any of my other powers.
Guys that's what caltrops are for. You set the mines and then chuck some caltrops over the top of them, this groups the mob together for the explosion and ensures enemies don't run straight through them.
I've always popped the 'trops just behind the Mines, personally. Firstly, because it stops the mobs scattering too early, secondly because it allows stragglers to run closer in before the mines get triggered.
@Synaesthetix
"Here, take some more bees with you. You may need them."
Union: FU//LoUD
"that Syn is that that" - Mothers Love
IMO TAILMAN and Synaesthetix are both correct. Depending on the circumstances and what I actually want to achieve, I lay minefields in a number of patterns, although caltrops are always part of my setup.
I'm pretty certain that mines make a fairly frequent periodic acc checks to see if they detonate. Enemies slowed by caltrops cause more acc checks and therefore more chances of detonation because they're spending more time in the danger area. Even when using only one SO acc enhancement I never had any problems with detonation if my mines were covered in caltrops. Sooner or later they do go off.
However, once a successful acc check for detonation has been made, the subsequent acc check for damage is a one-time deal. Caltrops don't help at all here, and targets are hit or not hit for damage irrespective of them. It's this second acc check that extra accuracy enhancements appear to make a big difference to. Since I added a second acc SO failed damage rolls after sucessful detonation have become quite rare.
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I've always popped the 'trops just behind the Mines, personally. Firstly, because it stops the mobs scattering too early, secondly because it allows stragglers to run closer in before the mines get triggered.
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i'm same as syn, but depending on map i maynt even bother as enemy sense of direction can be pretty predictable, i also may lay caltrops to the side of the mines to help guide them along my mined route.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
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Secondly, is it my imagination, or do trip mines now require you to be fairly close to them in order to be detonated by enemies?
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point i picked up on, yes you do and you can make controlled detonations without caltrops, use a tanker, scrapper or any squishie toon phaseshifted to herd.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
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Secondly, is it my imagination, or do trip mines now require you to be fairly close to them in order to be detonated by enemies?
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point i picked up on, yes you do and you can make controlled detonations without caltrops, use a tanker, scrapper or any squishie toon phaseshifted to herd.
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Interesting... though as a solo without the concealment pool, none of those options are open to me. Caltrops all the way then.
well those options are on here for anyone being a community forum.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
Firstly, I only just noticed that my AR blasters Ignite power accepts Accuracy enhancements - which seems odd because I thought it was auto-hit against any target in the AoE. So far it's never failed to do damage to absolutely anything held immobilse in it's AoE including AV's and GM's. Is this just a mistake on the designers part? (like when Recall Friend used to accept range enhancements) - or would adding Accuracy enhancements actually somehow improve the power?
Secondly, is it my imagination, or do trip mines now require you to be fairly close to them in order to be detonated by enemies? If so, I'm pretty certain they never used to - not so long ago I'd lay mines with caltrops, aggravate the mobs with my M30, and run away whilst they were picking themselves up, to return after a short while to find all my mines (and the mobs) gone.
Recently however I've been noticing that if I've backpedalled a fair distance from my trip mines (laced with caltrops, as always) I can actually be watching enemies slow-dancing in my minefield without setting any off - and they only explode if I move closer. I don't THINK it's just because the added +acc of my target drone is coming into play as I move in - my mines currently have 2 Accuracy SO's and yet this happens with what seems so far to be 100% consistency even against groups of much lower level minions (where I'd expect at least some detonations, given multiple lower level targets walking around on multiple mines - they can't ALL miss ALL the time, surely?)
TIA for any comments.