Need advice on thugs/traps

Hello I'm making a Joker type villain. I need advice on which powers I should get, when, how to slot them, play tips, or builds(SO/generic IOs). I want to be able to solo but I'll also be duoing and teaming. Thanks for any advice.

To quote myself from an earlier thread:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eiko-chan Generally, I view Detonator as completely skipable, and if you're Bots, Seeker Drones as well (Protectors get Drones of their own). Must-haves are Poison Trap, FFG, and Web Grenade. Triage Beacon and Acid Mortar are both very good, and Trip Mine is nice solo, as well as against masses. I personally adore Caltrops, but others see it differently. As for why you want these powers: Web Grenade - you have to take it, but it's a nice immobilise and also has a -recharge component, which can stack if you spam it. Poison Trap is billed as a hold - and it is a nice one, which I'll get to later - but its real benefit is its -regen component. It's also got more -recharge. The real beauty of Poison Trap's hold, by the way, is that it's unresistable. It's not a sure-hold and only has a chance of firing while enemies are in the cloud, but if it hits, it hits anything. Even an AV. Best thing ever was watching Reichsman double over vomiting (the FX of the Hold) from my Poison Trap. Force Field Generator is a very powerful defence tool. Slotted, it's ~15% defence to everything, and that bonus applies to you, your team and your pets. And more importantly, it provides mez protection - Hold, Stun, and Immobilise - to everyone in range as well. If you don't have Bots, Seeker Drones are really nice for two uses - taking alphas and debuffing to-hit and damage. Even without Bots, I still view this power as skipable, because unlike Poison Trap's Hold, the to-hit and -dam can be resisted (by the PToD), which limits its usefulness against AVs and EB where you really need the debuffs. Trip Mine is excellent for setting up ambushes. With a bit of recharge, you can get 14-18 Trip Mines down before they start exploding, and that is enough damage to take down half an EB's health. Triage Beacon is basically a stationary Regeneration Aura. Good way to keep your pets (and team) alive. Caltrops is a slow field, which pairs really well with Bots or Thugs, who both have burn fields. Foes are slower getting out, so they take more damage. Slot in Pace of the Turtle's proc, and it's yet another -recharge power as well. Slot in Positron's Blast's proc and you get exploding Caltrops, and hilarity ensues. Acid Mortar is a nice debuff - both resistance and defence - and can serve well to pull spawns as well. It's an AOE debuff too, which is always nice. You can't target it, though, which is its biggest drawback. So, that's Traps in a nutshell. The combo of Poison Trap, Triage Beacon and Force Field Generator, as well as Acid Mortar, Caltrops, and general MM toughness, is why Traps is generally viewed as one of the primary AV-soloing secondaries. A good opening set of Trip Mines helps too. A little tip on playing /Traps: it is a stationary set. For the most part, a /Traps MM sets up a killing field (Trip Mines, Poison Traps, Acid Mortar, probably some Caltrops) and then lures enemies into it. A /Traps MM makes a fort, then defends that fort. And once the /Traps MM is fully dug in, you're a powerhouse. Moving around a lot really diminishes the power of Traps.

Seeker Drones was the biggest point of disagreement; lots of other folks think it's very worthwhile. If you've got room for it, it's worthwhile.

As for Thugs, the three summons and two upgrades are obvious. The attacks are up to you; at low levels, you'll probably want them, but you might respec out later for other power choices. If you do take an attack, skip Pistols for Dual Wield; there's just no reason to ever take the Tier 1 attack power in a Pet set.

Gang War is a mixed bag. Good as a panic button, and just fun to see a bunch of thugs with bats running around, and it lets you slot the Recharge Intensive auras for further Henchman toughness, but I still view the power as optional. Nice if you have room, but if you have to cull something, it should be on the list as expendable.

Hmm interesting. So any other build suggestions?

Couple of minor corrections:

How to build Thugs / Traps:

1) Take all 3 pet summons and both pet upgrades. Slot Enforcers with two Defense IOs.

2) Take Gang War and slot both 5% pet defense uniques in it.

3) Take Force Field Generator and fully slot it for defense.

4) Keep all the pets close together and within your FFG bubble while fighting.

Congratulations, you now have all your pets softcapped for Ranged, Melee, and AoE Defense. They're as hard to hit as Super Reflexes Scrappers in Elude. They also resist stuns and holds in the rare occasion they get hit by one.

At this point you can use the /Traps powers to speed things up if you want, but really all you have to do is keep yourself alive while the thugs wipe out everything the see. I'd suggest Acid mortar to speed up boss killing and Poison Trap for the -regen on EBs or higher. You might as well slot up Web Grenade too since it's handy for bosses or above to keep them in burn patches. Triage Beacon is also really useful for AV fights to keep the pets healed up from the occasional hit. You can easily skip Detonator and really you can skip Trip Mine since the pets kill things so well anyway. Caltrops are handy to keep enemies away from you (since you personally are a lot easier to hit than the thugs are) and can keep things in burn patches longer, but an AoE immobilize does a better job once you get a patron pool.

Really, you'll just stand there running Leadership toggles (more damage and to-hit is always nice) and occasionally ordering a stray minion back into position most of the time. It's only worth actually dropping traps if there's something that will still be alive when the animation finishes... which is pretty much bosses and up only.

Any other advice?

One thing about building traps: Don't ignore the use of damage proc IOs. In my current build I enjoy using 6 in caltrops, 3 in Poison Trap, 3 in Acid Mortar, -res proc in my Enforcers and 1 in Provoke. (Yes, Provoke!) Just *do not* put procs in Trip Mine, Detonator, or Seeker Drones; based on my experience, they don't work.

Also, get a couple of KB protection IOs, you'll find KB to be really frustrating when you want poison trap/whatever to be here, but you're knocked back so it ends up over there instead. >.<

I'll agree with what's been said about getting +HP set bonuses, not much else to choose from really besides +rech, maybe +def if you can work it. Also, the pet +def and +res IOs also work well in Gang War. Don't be afraid to frankenslot, and don't ignore the HOs! You can work some really nice enhancement %'s which will leave you room for more procs if you use the Hamidon Origin enhancements, especially if you combine them into 50++.

That's my two inf, off the top of my head.

Gaheris