So, who do we thank for NPC Caltrops change?

Nitpick, Skyraider FF Gens stay until you destroy them. They don't give a hang if you grind the Engineer that summoned them into mulch for your garden.

@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too

Fine, then. Replace that example with the IDF's orbs. I know they splode when you kill their summoner.

I hope your joking right? Seriously caltrops were never ever a threat just a huge annoyance. I pretty much skip all knives content because if it. I really hate being slowed to a crawl. Furthermore its really annoying on those hostage missions there the hostage will not move until the psuedo pet caltrops despawn despite all the the knives being dead. Samething happens with the decoy phantasm in carnies missions. If anything I see that the npcs hostage usually die in caltrops while waiting them to despawn before they even get a chance to move. That in itself is reason enough they dont need to stack anymore.

Sounds like you got straight out played by the AI. His defence is debuffed and he's trying to run! Caltrops!

I was on a DB/Regen. The character has a Winter's Gift slow resist slotted, but believe me, that's never stopped me from hitting the move speed floor soloing at x8. The difference was immediately noticeable.

Edit: Besides, as I mentioned in my post, I compared the effect of a single patch (summoned by a solitary KoA) to the effect of many patches (those summoned by a full x8 spawn), and saw the same speed debuff number in my Combat Attributes display.

This can't be correct for some of the examples, at least. The Phantasm summoned by MIs stays even if the MI is defeated, and the Decoy Phantasm stays even if the summoning Phantasm is destroyed. The aforementioned FF Generator also is definitely not summoned at the player.

Also, follow the link I pasted in my OP, above. It shows the KoA summoning the Caltrops directly. They are not giving the player a power that summons it. (This would be somewhat obvious in the game - no matter the level of the foes, the thing summoned would be the level of the affected player, meaning low-level critters like Tsoo could cause the summoning of level 50 Caltrops.)

The thing that annoyed me most with Caltrops was how high you had to hover for them not to effect you.

I'm 18 feet off the ground, I shouldn't be taking damage from caltrops!


Phew! Glad to get that off my chest

You can thank lolPVP for this. Caltrops used to only affect people on the ground... until Issue 12.

True, but I think I do recall something from a dev long ago about critter AI not being able to use ground targeted patches effectively, so I believe what they have is special versions that target a foe (i.e. us) rather than a spot on the ground. Thus you will only ever see things like quicksand, freezing rain and caltrops pop up centered on something they can target. I haven't specifically tested this, though.

*and Dark Servant until it times out, which is thankfully on a shorter timer than the defender/MM/Corruptor version.

Apologies for pedantry, but I enjoy pummeling carnies and I've become possibly far too familiar with their quirks...

Heh, yeah it was kind of ridiculous. My general rule of thumb is to keep my feet over the ladies' heads and then I was usually maybe safe.

It depends on how the "pet" is summoned. Some pets, are summoned by the NPC itself. Illusionist's, Turrets, etc. Others are summoned by targeting specific enemies. (Thank you Scientist for catching that error on my part.)

In the event of the first then it dies on NPC death, in the event of the second it dies on target death.

Again, I am not 100% on this and welcome anyone with more knowledge on the actual mechanics to correct me.