So, who do we thank for NPC Caltrops change?

I'm a bit of a masochist in that I occasionally run some of my melees through high team size Knives of Artemis missions, such as the "Extract Sister Jocasta!" hero tip mission. Normally, I have to be careful to try and position my character ASAP where I want them in the resulting spawns, because once the Caltrops start flying, I don't get to move much. Playing these missions on x8 gets you a *lot* of Caltrops. (I've had 20 stacked on me.) Standing in a lot of Caltrops can add up to noticeable DPS, but the real problem is that you really can't move. That can be dangerous in the fight, but it's mostly just annoying afterward, when you're just trying to move down the hallway.

Imagine my surprise when I played the Sister Jocasta mission today and I wasn't being slowed to a crawl. I wondered for a while if the KoA Caltrops were just plain broken, but a quick visit to the Combat Attributes screen showed that I was, indeed being slowed by Caltrops. But I was only being slowed the same amount no matter how many Caltrops patches there were. I compared on patch to that applied to me by a full x8 mob, and there was only one entry for "Caltrops" and the number was always the same. Apparently, KoA Caltrops doesn't stack any more, even from multiple casters.

Now, here's the kicker. If I'm right about this, it might affect everyone's Caltrops, including that of player characters. On City of Data, KoA are listed as summoning the same Caltrops entity most everyone else does. It's that entity (the "pseudo pet") that applies the slow on targets. CoD is not up to date with the very latest patches, though it was updated pretty recently, so it's impossible to say if something changed about the common Caltrops pseudo pet, or if the KoA now have their own version.

Or maybe something else is going on here.

PS: There's another change. The Caltrops icon is no longer showing up in my status tray. I can no longer tell how many I'm standing in. I can just tell when the floor is so thick with them that it creates interference patterns in the patch image.

They nerfed Caltrops?

NPC or player this change was unecessary as I rather enjoyed tackling these mobs with the danger of the layered debuff.

I hope its a bug and it will be changed back.

If it's true, and intentional, thank god! This along with Carnie illusionists is at the top of the most freaking annoying aspects of the game. A long overdue change IMHO.

I've always hated this mission even on my well over capped /SR scrapper.. And she has plenty of -slow and +move and is as close to capped to DDR as you can get.. I just hate getting reduced to a crawl. It's no threat at all, but still...

I guess I won't be calling them Caltrops of Artemis anymore.
I wouldnt mind if they let caltrops stack, but then they dissappear when the caster dies.

I hated those damned Caltrops. Thank you for whoever fixed this.

I noticed this too, though I had just put it down to taking a level in awesome. I hope it's intentional, because it makes them a lot less obnoxious.

Count me in the "they should expire when their caster does"

Add my voice to the general consensus. If all my pets and pseudo pets disappear or at least have their effects suppressed when I die or even get mezzed, the caltrops and other similar effects should disappear when their caster dies. Having them do otherwise isn't fun, and it isn't a challenge really to have them linger, it's just a pain in the backside and a needless annoyance.

Yes, pseudopets should die when the caster dies. It does for some, but not all. The list includes:

• Caltrops
• Earthquake
• Phantasm
• Turret

but at least surviving death is what ghosts do best

I just hover'd over them with either Hover or a Jetpack. No big deal really, but I guess I'm glad for the change~