Well I can answer a couple of your questions. Traps are very good in PvE, and you can lay down traps as fast as the power recharges, so you can have multiple of the same traps down and of course many different ones down.
As for good powers to go with Traps, not sure myself. I would suggest taking a look at the Guide sticky at the top of the forum and read up on some of the xx/Trap builds 
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IMO
Traps are great solo, not so much on teams. The only time traps is good on a team is when fighting a prolonged battle in fixed position, such as AV's and the like. The problem is that when the team needs you the most (debuffing hard targets), you will be getting pummeled by all the aoe damage that occurs in such a fight. Squishy types are ranged for a reason.
I do like to play mine solo, it's great fun to stack as many traps in one place as you can and pull a mob to your "trap". The problem for me is that Corr/Def are generally team type ATs, if I'm solo why not do it right and hop on my Brute? This is the reason I'm in the process of stripping my fire/traps, and eventually will be deleting him.
Traps is a fun set, and effective solo or teamed. I'm not a fan of slow playstyles, and though most traps are stationary once set (besides seeker drones and FFG), you can easily follow a fast team on a trapper, and even set a fast safe pace using seeker drones to absorb an alpha strike.
I like traps for it's fire-and-forget, tactical nature; spend a few seconds laying traps, and blast away.
---The FFG with always-on defense and mez protection, creates the possibility of softcapping one's own defense with pool powers and IOs. It is a little slow to move sometimes, which can create awkward moments;
---Seekers (as mentioned above) can soak alphas by summoning them into the middle of the mob, decent -to-hit and -dmg besides;
---Acid Mortars draw aggro and can take a hit, in addition to being an excellent debuff, and easily having 2 out for longer fights;
---Caltrops and Poison Trap are good mitigation tools;
---Webnade is a fantastic single-target debuff;
---Tripmine for lawls and effective added damage if you want to take some time to set up.
---Triage Beacon is a decent regen buff...it won't wow anybody, but there's worse power choices.
---Time Bomb, why bother. Unique, but there's a reason it's not really replicated across any other set, and that is that it is difficult to use consistantly due to it's interruptable nature and timed detonation.
I am a huge fan of including stealth in some way on my trappers (either through Concealment or Speed pools and stealth IOs), as that helps me get in range for toebombing, and gives the FFG some time to catch up to me before I'm noticed. I am also a HUGE fan of planning a build so that my def is 45% or higher. It is a gamechanger for a trapper, as it is for any build.
There's my take; have fun
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Currently building:
Any one of half a dozen alts!
You just have to shift gears a bit with traps in a team. Look to what constitutes on of the best alpha absorbing powers in the game (right up there with phantom army) and go from there.
On quicker teams I try to lead the whole brigade by spawning seekers in the spawn, jumping in and toe bombing acid+poison trap.
You 100% absorb the alpha nearly risk free, drop a -res spammer and lay out a mag 3 aoe hold. It's sort of like a downgraded version of if an Illusion controller could pull out phantom army and flash every single spawn.
That isn't nearly all you bring to a team of course, but I find that is my main playbook that I call upon in these "fast" teams that traps supposedly struggles to keep up with.
The only thing that struggles to keep up about the traps set is the ridiculously slow fly speed of FFgen, but you don't need it on you to absorb the alpha so it can take a bit longer to join you in the mix with no negative consequences.. Be really nice if they increased the speed on it though (I've greatly enjoyed the occassional speed boost on it).
Then of course the are the times your team comes across an AV/GM. Some of the fastest LRSF AV encounters I've personally been on are with my trapper.
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Traps is only meh on teams if you make it that way by trying to use the same "set up and pull tactics". Take charge! Absorb the alpha yourself with Seeker Drones, then jump in there and toebomb Poison Trap and Acid Mortar. Maybe see if you can put down a Trip Mine, and even if you can't, you've pretty much neutered that group for the rest of your team.|
Originally Posted by Zmoosh
IMO
Traps are great solo, not so much on teams. The only time traps is good on a team is when fighting a prolonged battle in fixed position, such as AV's and the like. The problem is that when the team needs you the most (debuffing hard targets), you will be getting pummeled by all the aoe damage that occurs in such a fight. Squishy types are ranged for a reason. I do like to play mine solo, it's great fun to stack as many traps in one place as you can and pull a mob to your "trap". The problem for me is that Corr/Def are generally team type ATs, if I'm solo why not do it right and hop on my Brute? This is the reason I'm in the process of stripping my fire/traps, and eventually will be deleting him. |
Traps can be a surprisingly active set if you play it a little more aggressively. It's a powerful set, don't worry about pulling, take the Traps to your enemies.
I do like the alpha soaking ability of the seekers, but on a team it shouldn't be something you have to worry about. I have yet to be on a team without multiple brutes, or a mm or two.
I made Corr to play on teams, and I made a traps just do something besides kin/therm/rad. I'm sure with some adjustments to my play style i could improve the team functionality of traps, but wouldn't another set contribute more with less effort?
It could be the set just didn't "click" with me, it wouldn't be the first time. IMO traps needs a buff/change to keep up with the highly mobile nature of teams, maybe instead of placing traps some sort of following pet the buffs/debuffs like FFG. Another thing that occured to me is the pboe nature of traps, I would like it much better if they were targeted instead.
To the OP, the best advice I can offer is to make one and try it out for yourself.
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It really depends on just what you are looking to "support" the team with. If you have people absorbing the alpha easily then seekers just becomes another run of the mill damage/tohit debuff/-perception/stun power...of course the mill doesn't produce many powers like that, but anyway.|
Originally Posted by Zmoosh
I do like the alpha soaking ability of the seekers, but on a team it shouldn't be something you have to worry about. I have yet to be on a team without multiple brutes, or a mm or two.
I made Corr to play on teams, and I made a traps just do something besides kin/therm/rad. I'm sure with some adjustments to my play style i could improve the team functionality of traps, but wouldn't another set contribute more with less effort? It could be the set just didn't "click" with me, it wouldn't be the first time. IMO traps needs a buff/change to keep up with the highly mobile nature of teams, maybe instead of placing traps some sort of following pet the buffs/debuffs like FFG. Another thing that occured to me is the pboe nature of traps, I would like it much better if they were targeted instead. To the OP, the best advice I can offer is to make one and try it out for yourself. |
seekers produce: (unslotted)
-40% dam
-10% tohit
-180% perception
25% chance of stun X 2 chances.
-ability to cast from around corner
-agro free alpha absorbtion
Compared to something like darkest night (which everyone agrees is great)
(unslotted)
-22.5% dam
-11.3% tohit
So even if you don't need seekers to take an alpha they still contribute a lot.
FFgen is good for about 15% def (all) once enhanced and strong mez protection
Poison trap is a slightly downgraded controller aoe hold that is up nearly every spawn, that also applies -recharge and is the most powerful -regen in the game.
You can also contribute direct damage with by toebombing mines (which can be great on a low damage defender set, or a MM. I never found use for them on my fire/traps).
If traps weren't dropped at your feet and all of them were like seekers in that regard it would make the set so ridiculously overpowered. It would be fun, but crazy powerful.
And unless the traps that were to be granted to ability to move (like acid mortar) were given a very high movement rate they would suffer the same thing as FFgen, but worse as it can fly, and they wouldn't keep up with fast movement either.
The ONLY thing traps doesn't do when people talk about "contributing" to the team (even fast teams) is direct heals.
Like I said maybe it just didn't click with me. I'm not saying traps can't be useful or contribute. I'm saying that other Corr secondaries will provide equal if not more benefit with less effort and risk. YMMV.
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Stick with the first sentence as the last one just begs to be countered...yet again.
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Originally Posted by Zmoosh
Like I said maybe it just didn't click with me. I'm not saying traps can't be useful or contribute. I'm saying that other Corr secondaries will provide equal if not more benefit with less effort and risk.
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If I haven't made it abundantly clear, everything I've said in this post has been my opinion. As for being countered I didn't realize we were playing forum wars, and I fail to see how a differing opinion counters mine.|
Originally Posted by Frosticus
Stick with the first sentence as the last one just begs to be countered...yet again.
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Perhaps I need to add one of those signatures that say something along the lines of my post may include biased opinion. Looking back at my posts I thought I made it clear that I was expressing my opinion of traps for a Corr.
Traps is awesome solo and also on teams. Put another way, traps in teams will suck exactly as much as you do. Just don't be "that guy" who demands time to set up and drag enemies to your forest of death around a corner. Take the alpha with Seekers. Jump in and use PGT. Lay out Acid Mortar. Throw down a proc-filled caltrops field. Skip Time Bomb (do this solo too). Traps doesn't need to be played slow, and can keep up with the fastest teams.
If things are dead before you get to use your traps, that means the team is doing well. The team would probably not be doing any better if you had a different set.
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Yes, they're great on solo and teams (although powers like Trip Mine become kinda useless in fast moving teams, which is basically almost any team in Freedom at least). But solo it's very hit-or-miss, you have to pay a lot of attention, little margin for errors. You can decimate a pink spawn and a little carelessness in a yellow spawn may get you killed fast.|
Originally Posted by Sadron24
I am interested in rolling a toon with traps but am unsure... are they any good? What plays well with them? I assume they are not so great in PVP but I am more interested in PVE. How many traps can you lay down at once? Thanks for your help!
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My trapper is Fire Blast, I believe it's the best for all the damage output and Rain of Fire scourging and its synergy with Caltrops. I use shift+lclick for Caltrops then ctrl+lclick for RoF after I lay down my traps, then its Fire Ball, Fire Breath, etc.
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That's what I thought at first from reading the first two sentences|
Originally Posted by Zmoosh
If I haven't made it abundantly clear, everything I've said in this post has been my opinion. As for being countered I didn't realize we were playing forum wars, and I fail to see how a differing opinion counters mine.
Perhaps I need to add one of those signatures that say something along the lines of my post may include biased opinion. Looking back at my posts I thought I made it clear that I was expressing my opinion of traps for a Corr. |
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Originally Posted by Zmoosh
Like I said maybe it just didn't click with me. I'm not saying traps can't be useful or contribute.
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Quote:
| I'm saying that other Corr secondaries will provide equal if not more benefit with less effort and risk. YMMV. |
I apologize if I read too much into your words, I have a soft spot for traps as it is so often slandered as being a poor teaming set, when in fact if played right it is perhaps one of the best.
No apology necessary, the problem with text communication is that it can be very hard to convey tone and nuance without going on for pages.
I haven't stripped my fire/traps corr yet, so I went back and played him. I tried diff approaches and played solo and team. I have come to the conclusion that what i really don't like about traps is not the powers themselves (they are good), it's the whole place them at my feet thing.
If I could place Triage Beacon, Acid Mortar, and Poison Trap at range it would improve the set immeasurably.
Traps in combination with a rad snipe or the MF SNIPER RIFLE and TP is about as good as you will get in PvP.
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I can't definitely understand that. The requirement to play in melee is not synonymous with the ranged AT that traps is available (obvious exceptions to this generalization are some of the MM pairings).|
Originally Posted by Zmoosh
No apology necessary, the problem with text communication is that it can be very hard to convey tone and nuance without going on for pages.
I haven't stripped my fire/traps corr yet, so I went back and played him. I tried diff approaches and played solo and team. I have come to the conclusion that what i really don't like about traps is not the powers themselves (they are good), it's the whole place them at my feet thing. If I could place Triage Beacon, Acid Mortar, and Poison Trap at range it would improve the set immeasurably. |
When you read the description of corrs you certainly don't expect to have to melee range every single encounter, which for better or worse you do with traps unless played in the very slow pull strategy method.
I have a sneaking suspicion the devs original vision for the set was a "pull strategy", but unfortunately that doesn't mesh with how the game tends to be played.
I think a decent comprimise between that original vision and ingame reality would be to give the traps castings about a 20ft range. I don't think that would really change the functionality of the set, but it would make it a bit more flexible. More would of course be awesome, but I'm not sure being able to easily drop them around corners and from stealth (without suppression) is a good idea if given more range than that.
The main thing I'd personally like to see is the cast times set to what they are supposed to be. Many of them have little pauses at the end that extend their actual time about 30% longer than they should be even when adjusted for Arcanatime. It was playing havok with my paper calculations vs ingame experience for expected damage output. It wasn't till I fraps the set in action that it became clear.
Once that is fixed (been about a year since I sent the info to BaB's) I'd like the cast times sped up a bit ala Trick Arrow style. Get them down in the 1.5 range rather than the 2.2 sec range.
I'll chime in here since I have a level 50 AR/Traps that is about 50% purpleoutedness and uber procs.
When your built for recharge, and have a "tough fight" in front of you (Or a long fight) AND you have a brute that can gather the mobs, your trapper can be the absolute backbone of the team. In these situations I barely use my primary. That is you're shining spot where you have you're best chance of being worshipped, admired and thanked.
Your worst spot is running a team that is just steam rolling everything. But I belive that this is the case with just about any support toon. Here, you just use your primary to assist in damage. At least you're not doing defender level damage! This is the very reason I have the leadership pool. I can run assault to boost the teams damage and have my own damage to boot. Built for recharge I can just alternate flame thrower and full auto in these situations.
Solo is sort of defined by your primary here. I believe that there are fire/traps that have soloed AVs. I doubt my AR could do that. But I'm not softcapped or built for it either. Haven't even come close to trying. My guy is built to team and running his solo missions at the default setting is cake.
I could write a 300 page book about this build.
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Which traps powers specifically seem to take longer to execute than their cast times would suggest?
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Originally Posted by Frosticus
The main thing I'd personally like to see is the cast times set to what they are supposed to be. Many of them have little pauses at the end that extend their actual time about 30% longer than they should be even when adjusted for Arcanatime. It was playing havok with my paper calculations vs ingame experience for expected damage output. It wasn't till I fraps the set in action that it became clear.
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I'd say that there is a bit of an illusion when it comes to casting traps powers. The "delivery" comes off clumsy and it makes people think it takes a long time to cast. You also are exposed a bit more as you are typically subject to both melee and ranged attacks during your delivery. I think this was the primary reason the FFG is built the way it is. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Which traps powers specifically seem to take longer to execute than their cast times would suggest?
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Traps is an odd one and doesn't blend well with some playstlyes. It's not direct, it's not stealthy and it's not defined by any one power in the set.
I do get a little bored though with running up to mobs and then kneeling down. Sorta breaks the immersion a bit. I think this is the reason that I don't use PT and AM very much when solo.
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This. Traps is an incredibly powerful, versatile set but the slow animations get on my nerves. If several of the powers are going to use the exact same animation, it'd be nice if they were sped up. I also have this complaint for Storm Summoning (Snow Storm, Freezing Rain, Lightning Storm).
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Originally Posted by Frosticus
The main thing I'd personally like to see is the cast times set to what they are supposed to be. Many of them have little pauses at the end that extend their actual time about 30% longer than they should be even when adjusted for Arcanatime. It was playing havok with my paper calculations vs ingame experience for expected damage output. It wasn't till I fraps the set in action that it became clear.
Once that is fixed (been about a year since I sent the info to BaB's) I'd like the cast times sped up a bit ala Trick Arrow style. Get them down in the 1.5 range rather than the 2.2 sec range. |
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*This is going from memory as I no longer have the footage.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Which traps powers specifically seem to take longer to execute than their cast times would suggest?
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Specifically which powers? I'm pretty sure it was Poison trap and acid mortar that were sticking out like sore thumbs and prompted me to test.
The sequence I was testing at the time was:
FFgen>Acid Mortar>Posion Trap> Caltrops>Seeker Drones
Fraps and loaded into video editing software that advances at 0.01 second intervals
As a control I also recorded a chain of flares>fireblast>blaze>flares>fireball> rain of fire
and loaded it into the same video software and it resulted in total time within 0.05 seconds of expected Arcanatime, or something like that. Less than 1% off as I remember. Close enough where the software was reasonably accurate for my purposes.
I never proceeded with a power by power analysis of the videos because I sent the initial findings to BaB's and then he asked a question I had already answered in my OP, so I rephrased and answered again, and that was the end of the conversation.
However, I'm reasonably confident that seekers, caltrops, and FFgen were all fine and it was PT and Acid mortar that were the problem. They took closer to 3.25 seconds (again that is just from memory) where they should take 2.376.
I did not have triage beacon to test at the time, but it shares that same animation so I'm guessing it would also have the same after cast pause before you can't do anything.
For clarification it isn't really the "animation time" as they seem accurate, but rather a period where you just stand there unable to activate the next power. At the time I likened it to old broadsword.
*I just jumped on live, but unfortunately I no longer have Fraps at my disposal. But acid mortar and pt are definitely locking me up a lot longer than rain of fire and while RoF should be a tiny bit faster the difference should not be so obviously discernible.
I have an idea of what might be happening, but I'll need to do some extra investigation to be sure. I'll let you know when I find out for certain.
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Quote:
That would be great. You can borrow "crack whip" from my demon MM if it helps you get any fixes implemented.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I have an idea of what might be happening, but I'll need to do some extra investigation to be sure. I'll let you know when I find out for certain.
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One notable attribute of Traps, at least in my experience, is that due to the fact that a number of traps require that you be very near enemies to get their full efficacy, and due to the fact that Seeker Drones makes this (and approaching spawns in general) a great deal safer, it's really hard to evaluate how effective the set is before level 28. It's a set that takes a while to come together.
I have a L26 Dark/Traps right now, a reroll from a L30ish Ice/Traps. I lust after the Drones with a fiery passion.
@SPTrashcan
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I am interested in rolling a toon with traps but am unsure... are they any good? What plays well with them? I assume they are not so great in PVP but I am more interested in PVE. How many traps can you lay down at once? Thanks for your help!