Bots/traps tricks of the trade.
By
Deacon_NA,
Posted on: 2009-10-01 20:55 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
This is all personally, btw, just things I have found useful.
Skip over Seeker drones. Your Protector bots get them later on anway, effectively for free.
Whatever you do, get the minion powers asap. You can also, if you want, skip over all the attack powers. I didnt myself (I like shooting things) but your minions pour out so much firepower in the end that you can get away with it.
Bots at lvl 1
Upgrade at lvl 6
Protectors at lvl 12
Assault bot at 26, upgrade at 32.
Traps wise, acid mortar and FF gen are both exceedingly useful bits of kit. Triage beacon is only more useful on teams, bots tend to run around a bit too much (as do all MM pets) and get punted around a bit. Has its uses though.
Trip mine and Poison trap, get 'em both. Those things used in concert are lethal.
For travel, I can reccomend hover/fly. Useful for keeping out of range while your bots blast stuff. And, if you wind up with spare gaps at the end, group fly with bots gives the jets. Very cool looking, and useful for dropping them on people 
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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The Seeker drones will stack with the p-bots seeker drones which is why i wouldnt advise anyone to skip em.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Skip over Seeker drones.
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Also you can use them to take the alpha.
I would also very much advice against skipping one of the most useful powers on the set. Seeker Drones can be used the soak the alpha as the previous posted said, and they can also be stacked on harder targets to floor their damage. The -res from the Acid Mortar and the -dam from Seeker Drones have an excellent synergy that you should use at every oportunity
I love Seeker drones. You lay a nice set of traps, send the seekers in, run back to your trap, seekers pull bad guys and BOOM!
They are skippable if you need the room.
"Sorry bucko, but CoH and CoV are the same game." -BackAlleyBrawler
"Silly villain, CoX is for Heroes!" -Saicho
-shrug- Again, just how I've played through.
Personally I find most things tend to die, regardless of what they are, when faced by a mass volley of lasers, missiles and incendiary round
Bots/Traps: Awesome
Exclamation: Stop!
Current Time Equal to: Hammer!
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Quote:
I always wondered what MC Hammer would sound like as a Rikti.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Bots/Traps: Awesome
Exclamation: Stop! Current Time Equal to: Hammer! |
...
...
Ok, not really.
There I was between a rock and a hard place. Then I thought, "What am I doing on this side of the rock?"
I agree with everyone else, Seeker Drones is almost a must take. The prot bots do have them, but they summon them randomly and they move very slowly, so they almost always get left behind.
Also you cant use the prot bot ones to take alphas, and stacking debuffs is always good
"An army is a team. It lives, eats, sleeps, fights as a team. This individuality stuff is a bunch of BS." -General George Patton
-Lord Azazel
Bots/Traps is my favorite character. I'm busy running x8 malta, CoT, and carnie missions with him for leet lewt.
I'm not going to say this is the only way to do things. I'm not even going to say it's a good way. I will say that this is what I do, and it has gotten me this far.
I took no personal attacks. Not even air superiority or something like that. I do have Mu lightning cages though, and use them frequently.
I took every trap except detonator. I use them all. Caltrops has four damage procs, one proc for knockdown, and a recharge enhancer. I used to have detonator, but ever since I got myself and the bots softcapped, I haven't had any near death to use it on. Triage beacon is perma, and I find it invaluable. The acid mortar has an Achilles proc for -resist.
My pools are teleportation, presence, leadership, and speed. Notice I don't have stamina. I run all three leadership toggles all the time. I don't have endurance problems. Speed's only there for hasten, and really only as a "panic button."
My bots are always in bodyguard mode. I taunt like your sixth grade bully. I have a macro set up that commands just the Assbot and protectors to attack, but I've never used it.
Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
Not to be a broken record, but I used Seekers to open just about all my battles. Summon them inside the mob, rush in as the seekers are attacked and drop your Poision Trap, followed by Acid Mortar. Throw down caltrops if you like, or just sit back and watch your Bots decimate the debilitated spawn. I threw some Provoke around for good measure to keep the attention on my bodyguarded self.
Well, I finally decided what to do with that empty second build I had kicking around, at any rate!
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Triage Beacon is very handy for soloing Elite Boss or higher enemies. If you take a taunt power (I prefer Challenge myself) you can tank tough enemies by immobilizing them with Web Grenade and taunting. You don't have to keep the bots in Defensive Follow to get Bodyguard... Defensive Stay and Defensive Goto also work as long as they are within 60 feet of you and in line of sight. That means you can drop a Triage Beacon, park your bots on one side of it in Defensive Stay, and stand on the other side spamming Web Grenade and Challenge / Provoke. The EB / AV will attack you, Bodyguard plus your high Ranged defense will protect you, and the Triage Beacon will heal the Bodyguard damage while the bots stay safely out of AoE splash radius.|
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Triage beacon is only more useful on teams, bots tend to run around a bit too much (as do all MM pets) and get punted around a bit. Has its uses though.
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Get your Ranged defense to 40% or so and you should be able to use this method on pretty much any EB and a lot of AVs. Even without IOs you'll have enough Ranged defense from FFG and your Protector Bots to help a lot, and with IOs you can easily get into the high 30s or even softcap if you don't mind spending some extra inf.
As far as key powers, I'd say aside from the obvious (all pets and upgrades), the big ones are:
Web Grenade: you have to take it, but you want to slot it well (and be sure to include good end reduction since you'll be spamming it)
Force Field Generator: the defining power of /Traps. Get it, slot it, love it. All you need are three defense SOs or equivalent.
Acid Mortar: the 2nd best power in /Traps. Really helps speed up killing bosses or higher. Probably a waste to drop one for Lts / minions, they die too fast for it to matter. Great with an Achilles' Heel proc.
Poison Trap: really handy for EBs or higher due to the -regen. Slot it for recharge first, then worry about the hold component (or don't, it's the -regen that really matters).
Provoke or Challenge: really helps in AV or EB fights as stated above.
Aid Other: much better for healing your bots than Repair. Repair is a full heal, but it's very slow to recharge. Aid Other can be used every few seconds.
Aid Self: you won't take a lot of damage, but you will take some and you'll already have Aid Other so you may as well take Aid Self.
Maneuvers: combine it with the 5% pet defense aura IO for very hard to hit bots.
Tactics: handy against +3 or +4 mobs to keep the pets hitting (especially the Battle Drones).
Caltrops and Trip Mines can be extremely important or almost useless, depending on your playstyle. I personally like them but they're high on the list of things I'd skip if I needed to free up room. Seeker Drones are another power that can be very important or very skippable: they have a handy -damage debuff and you can drop them on top of a mob to draw it's alpha strike, but with near-softcapped defense on both you and your bots you can also just steamroll things.
Maneuvers is OK if you can find room for it (both Maneuvers and Repair are good picks for your level 49 power since they don't need extra slots). One thing about Bots / Traps is that you do not need Stamina if you skip the personal attacks. Mastermind attacks use a lot of endurance, so if you use them regularly you'll want Stamina or significant +recovery from IOs. If you don't use the attacks and you have good endurance slotting you can skip Stamina and still run Leadership toggles (you'll want a couple blues for AV fights and you won't want to run your toggles right after summoning and upgrading, but it's workable). Just be sure to slot a couple of end reduction SOs or IOs in each upgrade power... they use a ton on endurance.
Cascade, level 50 Blaster (NRG/NRG since before it was cool)
Mechmeister, level 50 Bots / Traps MM
FAR too many non-50 alts to name
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I now wonder why it never occured to me to wonder this very thing that you are sarcastically refering to. Only in my version I actually would have wondered about it, if it had occured to me to do so.|
Originally Posted by Twisted Toon
I always wondered what MC Hammer would sound like as a Rikti.
... ... Ok, not really. |
Oh and brb, rollin a rappin rikti.
I have two, related tips for "Bots tricks of the trade"
1) Micromanage where your bots are. Look for the supremacy buff icon, or a leadership buff. You'll need something to give you a quick indication of who is not nearby
2) Take Recall Friend. When you see a bot away from you, using 1) above, your choice is to either teleport him or dismiss/resummon. Occasionally, even TPing them won't help, they either run back where they were or they just can't be ported.
This doesn't appear to be a "stuck behind seeker drones" issue. Sometimes a bot just gets stuck at an elevator door. This is actually what I see the most and it's infuriating.
Global = Hedgefund (or some derivation thereof)
I've been posting over on the MM forums, but this one seems to get more traffic from more people. I'll be starting a bots/traps MM in the coming week, and I'm looking for some little tricks people have picked up along the way. Particularly helpful bits of information that people wish they had thought of/knew when they started their's.
What secrets and stratagems can you guys tell me?