My Role as a Traps/DP?

Hey all!

Let me just say, I don't play defenders often. I'm used to affecting the outcome of a fight - be it with damage or control - by directly attacking the many fiendish foes! Because of this, I'm having a bit of an issue with my defender.

Bulletmonk is a level 47 Traps/Dual Pistols defender. He's soft-capped with Melee, Ranged and AoE defenses and has all of his primary and secondary powers except time bomb. He also has all of the leadership powers.

My question is: what is my role on teams? His DPS seems lower than necessary to be effective, and traps take a while to deploy. When teaming with 50's (especially incarnate ones), his presence seems moot. I know the combination isn't ideal and he'll never be any sort of min-max character, but how would YOU play the character? What strategies would you use in a team? Which ammo type would you use?

Any insight would be appreciated. Right now, I mostly toggle on all of the leadership toggles and keep forcefield generator deploy. If a mob is large, I might drop poison trap. If it's an AV, I'll drop acid mortar, too. Otherwise, I just unleash all my AoEs and go from there.

I would primarily stick to chem rounds to debuff the spawns damage. Pairs well with seekers as well.

If I am not the first in the spawn, I am slacking. I will wait for the tank to grab aggro if it is +3's or over. Less, or if he is slow I setup. Drop a poison trap, jump back, lay down an acid mortar, drop a triage beacon if the squishies need it, if not, start firing until my traps recharge.

Av's. Recycle your traps and fire, keep tossing out seekers as well, the -damage really does help.

I pretty much agree with Adeon.

I have a Traps toon in every arch type that can. If I am running anything less then 3/8 I don't do much since much does not hit me or heals up before the next attack. It doesn't mean I don't lay down a trip mine or a Triage beacon. I just don't drop everything down for every fight.

But if I am running 3/8 or 4/8 then I drop everything down. I just do not think there is nothing you cannot do that will not help out the team. You can debuff mobs your aiding with DPS. You can drop a Trip mine at will because your defense capped. FFG is very helpful to everyones defenses.

Heck you can drop FFG into a group to get aggro run in benefit from defenses and aggro it picked up and then lay down all your traps and AOE and then resummon a new FFG after you have aggro.

Just so many little tricks you can do with Traps.

I stick with Fire with my DP Trap Corruptor unless against an AV.

Most of the advice in incredibly sound. My only suggestion is to pay attention to how much damage your team is taking. If they are taking more than you want switch to chem rounds. The -dam is a very effective mitigation technique. If not fire rounds help with damage.

As to the powers recharging, you have 4 powers that can take Kin feedback +rech proc. Use em if you can spare the slots. They help quite a bit and gives you a real rational for keeping the blasting going.

Traps is my latest maturing defender set. I too feel like the team speed leaves behind or makes superfluous a lot of the trapping.

I pray for large spawns, big groups, close together. The tank tackles the first group, then, I run THROUGH the first group and place acid mortar halfway between the current and next spawns. This works quite often favorably.

I usually save the poison gas trap for chewy mobs. I drop seekers as soon as available. Caltrops I drop in slow dying spawns. That gets hard to judge because incarnates will use an AoE nuke. (I need to convince my teammates to use ventrilo/skype.)

I use dark blast, some cones, AoEs; tenebrous tentacles is more useful than you might think on AVs. I run leadership, too. I think even at break-neck pace, my trapper has a lot to offer.

On my Traps/DP, Dreadtek, I am typically the first in. I put down the Poison Gas Trap first, toss out Caltrops because it's fast, then drop a mortar. After the mortar is down I'm using the T9 blast. Hail of Bullets? I forget. Very gun-mojo power. Most stuff is dead by now.

For AV fights I put down the seekers to bring the AV's damage down to near zero, put down the poison gas traps & mortars, and rock their socks with some toxic ammo if the seekers missed.

To the OP I'd say you're highly under-rating your character. My only 50 + 3 incarnate is a Traps/DP and she's perhaps my favorite to play. I know she adds something to every team.

As to your question on your role on teams, with Traps you get to define that yourself. Personally, I probably play similarly to some tactics already discussed above - Seekers, drop one or 2 of the stationary debuff pets, start shooting. I do believe Traps requires a higher situational awareness than other sets though. Keep in mind, if your team is demolishing reguarl mobs spawn-to-spawn, it's not that you're "under-performing" for that, it's that it just doesn't matter, substituting a Traps/DP for something will do what, reduce spawn kill time from 8 seconds to 7? I don't think so. Where you'll shine is the harder scenarios.

As for ammo types, there are 3 questions I ask, in order:

1. Does the team need additional mitigation? If so, then Chemical Rounds.
2. Are holds required? This is basically on for Mending Mitos on LGTF, then use Chemical.
3. Everything else? Fire away, with incendiary.

I would like to ask the other DP users when they find cryo ammo to be appropriate in actual gameplay. I haven't found a use for it yet.

Anyway, OP I hope you can find your Traps inspiration. It's probably my favorite because it's a "thinking" set, at least as much of one as you get in this game.

A Traps Defender's role on teams is generally going to be to keep as many people as possible in your FFG bubble, dump Seeker Drones on groups when you can, and drop an Acid Mortar and Poison Trap any time it looks like a fight will actually last a while. Aside from that I'd suggest shooting stuff a lot, using Incendiary ammo if things are going smoothly or Chem ammo if you can actually use a bit of -damage (even on a Defender I don't consider the Cryo ammo's slow to be strong enough to fool with and the KB in standard ammo is probably not needed). You can also use Suppressing Fire to hold Sappers or other annoying targets but in most cases you probably won't need to.

Oh, and don't forget the Triage Beacon in AV fights. The silly thing is almost useless for normal spawns unless there are several right next to each other but in long fights it actually helps.

I lead with Seekers, then jump in with PGT, AM, Optional Mine, Optional Caltrops, AoEs.

• Seekers take the alpha and distract things while you drop PGT.
• PGT, slotted equivalent to a lockdown set, is almost never wasted, but it's also "just long enough" to break a spawn. It's the just perfect power to lock things down just long enough for the team to blow them away, or for you to get your defensive powers out, so the mobs don't blow you away. It's perfect regardless.
• AM is also, almost never wasted. However, if the team moves very very fast, it can be optional as well. After all, if a spawn is only living 10 seconds without AM, what's the difference between 10 seconds without AM and 8 seconds with AM ? On teams like that, you're packing so much offense that debuff of any kind will be almost irrelevant, and it doesn't really matter which debuff set you are, you'll be equally irrelevant; suck it up and be glad you brought your FFG.
• If I'm on the leading edge, or fights are lasting a longer duration, I'll drop the mine, otherwise I'll skip to the AoEs. If everything is dead by the time I've fired my AoEs, I didn't need the Mine. If not, next spawn I'll drop the mine. The idea is to balance damage and time such that at the end of my first round of AoEs, everything should be dead.
• If it's extra hard content and we need the defense, I'll drop the Caltrops. I use caltrops as a rain dancer defense effect, where mobs that are dancing in the rain aren't hitting anyone.
• If I had Triage, this is where/when I'd drop it, assuming I don't stealth drop it at range prior to starting the fight. It has a very large radius, a radius almost as big as the pool/fountain in Oroborous, much much larger than most people realize. That very large radius gives you several options on how to use it. But on very very fast moving teams, you'll get fewer opportunities to leverage it effectively. Regardless, even if it's only in range for 20 seconds, that's still equivalent to a Healing Aura or similar power. For any fight lasting longer it's definitely useful, even if it's not as "dramatic" as giant green numbers floating over your head.

Things like Caltrops and Trip Mine will shine a lot more when you are letting the villains come to you. Traps (And Devices, to a lesser extent) really shine in spots liek the first Terra Volta trial and the BAF Incarnate Trial where you have time to lay down traps and let the mobs come to you.