Poison trap nerf

From the beta patch notes:

• Corruptor Traps/Poison Trap: Decreased the frequency in which the hold portion of this power was being triggered from once every quarter of a second to once every second, but increased the chance the effect would actually trigger slightly.

Nothing about the mastermind version.

They're the same entity (all traps share the same entities which is why the MM versions are the same power as the corrupters) so I assume both are affected.

And Erk!! My Pukey Trap!

Wasn't sure if they were different. Would have been a double kick in the teeth for corruptors if it had been.

I have to ask why? So they take the best power in an otherwise average villain set and nerf it. Meanwhile the 2,103,456th fire/kin enters PI for the first time. Odd.

Who knows. Either they thought "Whoa! hold the front page, this is WAAAAAY more overpowered than anything else". Or maybe its preparation for the next round of powerset proliferation when defenders prolly get it.

I've noticed on test that my Bot/Traps MM's poison trap isn't "slowing down" critters anywhere near as much as it currently does on live. The -runspeed isn't kicking in and the Puke animation is less frequent.

For example, on test I need to place a Poison Trap and Throw down Caltrops in order to keep foes within my Assault Bot's Burn Patches... whereas on live all it takes is a single Poison Trap. It's still a good power, and using it on a horde of enemies still makes them "puke", just not as regularly as currently on live.

Someone exploited procs firing off, to farm or something, no doubt. It can't have been the hordes of Traps Corruptors out there.

Edit: Yeah it sure affects MM's too. And the "compensation" sucks.

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If this is about procs, they should have found another solution, not nerfing the basic abilities of a power in the process. As it stands they weaken a powerset already properly challenged, especially when it comes to Corruptors. But I guess nerfing a flashy effect is so important, dragging the average performance of a struggling set down with the nerf, is of no consequence.

It's after all more important to show the players that they can't go around and do fancy stuff, because the *developers* messed up with the proc effects on this one. A little extra nerfing in the process should put this set right back where it belongs. At the very bottom of the shelf. ;-)


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Having finally had a chance to test this; the changes do seem to have minimal effect.

I am however noticing a few odd things - none of the mobs I tested on seemed to be throwing up anymore and a fair few seemed unnaffected by the -res, did not choke, but stood dead still not animating for 4 or 5 seconds before finally running away.
Has anyone else noticed this as it may be a animation bug?

Struggling set?

*looks at FFG, Poison Gas Trap, Acid Mortar*

Nope, cant see it.

Now TA on the other hand...

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Struggling set?

*looks at FFG, Poison Gas Trap, Acid Mortar*

Nope, cant see it.

Now TA on the other hand...

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Strange, the hordes of happy traps Corruptors with their incredible arsenal of undeniable might is absent on the server I play on. And players never ask for them either.

With this nerf, I am sure your *insert other useless set here* will be perceived as equally stupid to take. No worries. ;-)

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Having finally had a chance to test this; the changes do seem to have minimal effect.

I am however noticing a few odd things - none of the mobs I tested on seemed to be throwing up anymore and a fair few seemed unnaffected by the -res, did not choke, but stood dead still not animating for 4 or 5 seconds before finally running away.
Has anyone else noticed this as it may be a animation bug?

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The puke effect is reduced from a chance of going off 4 times every second at 1%, to a chance of going off once every second at 1%. So they will puke much less than before. The so-called compensation is that instead of a 1% chance of getting a hold 4 times every sec, you now get a 2% chance of getting a hold every sec. Which still leaves the trap worse than before.

If this was done in order to make the procs less powerful, and they seem indeed to do only half the damage in the initial burst, then they also happened to reduce the potency of the Poison Trap in the process. And that is pretty much unforgivable in my book. You don't break a thing by fixing something else. Both puke and hold should have been upped to compensate this. Instead they take, but give little or nothing back.

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Strange, the hordes of happy traps Corruptors with their incredible arsenal of undeniable might is absent on the server I play on. And players never ask for them either.

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Which largely demonstrates the "Incredible Stupidity of the Masses"™ rather than any weakness in /traps.

While i do think its odd that Corruptor traps has the same numbers as the MM version, it is by no means weak. Its strengths are somewhat concealed by its static nature and longish recharges. But don't tell anyone because then we'll start to see the real nerfs

Time bomb still needs sorting though

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Which largely demonstrates the "Incredible Stupidity of the Masses"™ rather than any weakness in /traps.

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Nothing operates in a vacuum, and traps do not fare well against hard boss type encounters (AV's/Heroes), unless you got some ultra-exceptional primary. The puke effect was probably the best damage mitigating effect against such encounters. Yes, the masses do tend to drift towards the perceived "better" options, and yes this create a lot of silly attitudes.

In the end, this set is not incredibly overpowered, or good enough to deserve a nerf. Even if this nerf is a by-product of another nerf, which by itself would be tolerable.

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In the end, this set is not incredibly overpowered, or good enough to deserve a nerf. Even if this nerf is a by-product of another nerf, which by itself would be tolerable.


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In my opinion its a very well balanced set as is.

I have to say, I fail to see why, if the power is now spamming 4 times less often, the chance for hold etc shouldn't be 4 times greater; which would directly preserve functionality.

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In the end, this set is not incredibly overpowered, or good enough to deserve a nerf. Even if this nerf is a by-product of another nerf, which by itself would be tolerable.


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In my opinion its a very well balanced set as is.

I have to say, I fail to see why, if the power is now spamming 4 times less often, the chance for hold etc shouldn't be 4 times greater; which would directly preserve functionality.

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I fail to see why they don't find another way to nerf procs, and leave the Poison Trap as it once was. Or at the very least increase both Aoe Vomit and Hold to 4% per second.

This is unfortunately a game breaker for me. Not because the set is so gimped you can't play, but because they take away, and don't give back. All this because a Purple IO, which was part of a reward for being 50, pushed the Trap procs effect so much, they went back and nerfed it. A direct result of their purples, the ultimate reward.

When the ultimate reward directly or indirectly makes my basic powers more gimpy, even before purples, the game is over. And that's all there is to it. :-)

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I fail to see why they don't find another way to nerf procs, and leave the Poison Trap as it once was. Or at the very least increase both Aoe Vomit and Hold to 4% per second.


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thing is, if they did nerf this to combat something like procs or whatever, its very hard to nerf a certain exploit without nerfing regular use as well. If they'd nerf procs, there'd be more whining from other powersets that use those procs as well. Doesnt mean i agree with them nerfing it. It just hard to nerf a certain small area of exploit without some collateral damage in the process. Just a shame traps became the victim now

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Strange, the hordes of happy traps Corruptors with their incredible arsenal of undeniable might is absent on the server I play on. And players never ask for them either.

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Which largely demonstrates the "Incredible Stupidity of the Masses"™ rather than any weakness in /traps.

While i do think its odd that Corruptor traps has the same numbers as the MM version, it is by no means weak. Its strengths are somewhat concealed by its static nature and longish recharges. But don't tell anyone because then we'll start to see the real nerfs

Time bomb still needs sorting though

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The thing with traps is, that IF you spend enough to plotting the perfect trap, you end up with probably better than any other set there is. Any encounter that starts of with a couple of trip mines, caltrops, poison gas, and an acid mortar chugging out its doom is at an arguably greater advantage than any other secondary set.

Also note that ALL of these are AoE effects, meaning *technically* its a monster in big teams. Add to that the awesomness of FFG in big teams (it really is damm amazing and if a big team doesent worship an AoE mez resistance that can be detoggled aside from giving team +def) it needs its head examining.

TO balance this it really does need some problems. Long recharges, set up times etc.

PS Isnt the Auto Turret getting a fairly major buff anyway? That should compensate for Poison Gas Trap (which will remain a very robust power)

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thing is, if they did nerf this to combat something like procs or whatever, its very hard to nerf a certain exploit without nerfing regular use as well. If they'd nerf procs, there'd be more whining from other powersets that use those procs as well. Doesnt mean i agree with them nerfing it. It just hard to nerf a certain small area of exploit without some collateral damage in the process. Just a shame traps became the victim now

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The truth about the purples finally appear. They are judged as if you had them from level 1, because their effects are so important to nerf, any power you get through levels 1-49 can be changed in an arbitrary way, just in order to affect their level 50 performance.

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PS Isnt the Auto Turret getting a fairly major buff anyway? That should compensate for Poison Gas Trap (which will remain a very robust power)

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Traps doesn't have Auto Turret it has Acid Mortar. I doubt Acid Mortar is being buffed to follow you around.

Poison Trap was one of my favuorite powers in the whole game and i'm really disapointed to see it being nerfed. I agree with Gravitos in that they should boost the chance it has to hold if it's not going to be firing off as often. Surely that cant be too hard to do?

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PS Isnt the Auto Turret getting a fairly major buff anyway? That should compensate for Poison Gas Trap (which will remain a very robust power)

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Heroes get a solid boost, Villains get a big fat nerf.

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PS Isnt the Auto Turret getting a fairly major buff anyway? That should compensate for Poison Gas Trap (which will remain a very robust power)

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Heroes get a solid boost, Villains get a big fat nerf.

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Devs hates villains and this major set-breaking nerf is totally a direct consequence of PvP and farming....obviously.

It's true - us PvP'ers all got together, put some money towards a plane ticket and sent someone over to NCNC to personally voice our disaproval of Poison Gas Trap.

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It's true - us PvP'ers all got together, put some money towards a plane ticket and sent someone over to NCNC to personally voice our disaproval of Poison Gas Trap.

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You FIENDS.


(Anyone else notice that They're fixing Corruptor /traps endurance consumption values? With one hand the Devs giveth, with the other they taketh away... )