How do I kill strong stuff?

On the last mission of SSA. Darren Wade shows up, 1 shots 4 of my pets. I got heal other as my only heal. I'm lv48 but fully IO'd except for 1 set and assault skill, but the pets just don't do enough damage with no upgrades(because I keep having to resummon) to kill him. In fact this pretty much happens on all EB/AVs, and the only way I've been beating them is if they have 0 aoe or I gimmick them with caltrops (hurr).

How do I deal with this crap?

Also acid mortar = every eb running around the map like crazy for no reason and my pets chase them.

Is bots/traps really the godly combo I'm hearing about?

Something sounds VERY strange. Were you in BG mode? If so posting your build might ID any issues.

Do you have a way to immo/hold the AV?

If no, then you better find a way to do it, The whole running away have happend to me a lot and the only way for me to deal with it is to MEZZ,MEZZ,MEzz

Do poison Trap got nerf and it don't perma hold AV?

I used to have issue like this when i used Ninjas and using Poison for my secondary.

I stopped having issues when I realized that Henchmen are not the end all of meat shields nor are they the end all of damage...that really they are are very young children that you need to help alot.

To this end....i ended up getting powers like grant invisibility and i found utilizing my other command abilities was the key.

I found on 99% of the AVs and Elites you run into....they all have one problem....and thats in your face attacks....as in they are programmed to either hit in melee or ranged and dont usualy use both at the same time.

So my way of tackling those enemies, has been to:

1. set my pets on passive
2. turn them all invisible.
3. cast whatever other buffs on them
4. command them to stand on top of the archvillain or whatever
5. get back
6. tell them to attack my target

At that point i use whatever debuffs or whatever i also have like attacks and things...on the target as well.

yes some henchmen die....but with that preparation...most of the pet summons are recharged.

So the result is...I take out the Archviallians/Elties Alpha strike....and still have henchmen fighting so i can send more....at close range the elites and archvillains will normaly try to use close range atatcks only....thus they wont be using long range attacks which some have that are very deadly.

Also dont forget you can give your pets inspirations too.....drag and drop one onto your pet list name.....sometimes takes a moment before they take them...but you can heal and buff that way too....and you can make one bogus tough with enough purples or oranges....so you can have a temporary meat shield.

if the archvillains and elites are the stupid ones...they will come after you only...and ignore your pets...which means...they will be beating on them...while the enemy shoots at you only.....fix for that is purples and orange inspirations with a few greens mixed in.

I dont know if this will help the OP or anyone else...its simply what i do...which seams to work on everything.....if they run...thats even better...as all i have to do is stay with in range a bit and my henchmen keep attacking.

For the OP though.....If those turrets are making them run thats a good thing.....it means they got hit.....and also you said you had caltrops....you know nothing stops you from throwing those at the exit points.....enmies tend to try to avoid them....thus you can block exits with damage that way.

Here's my build. It's pretty standard I think. Soft cap positions with protector bot bubble. SS w/stealth for mine/trap shenanigans. The only thing I don't have are the dmg/acc HOs.

I respeced out of caltrops today actually. I hate the fact I need to rely on a AI gimmick to beat stuff.

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Drop repair and pick up taunt?

So if you're traps, you should be able to keep the EB/AV from running away with the Web Grenade power (spam it on the EB/AV).

Usually Poison Trap from the Traps set can hold an EB pretty easily (you solo'ing with or without AVs on?)....that should also stop 'em from running.


Like someone already said, give your bots (at least the Assault bot and maybe 1 of the lieutenant bots) 4 small purple inspirations each. That should definitely keep them alive for a while at least.

Email yourself some inspirations if it helps.


And if you really want to lay the smack down, get some Shivans from Bloody Bay...or nukes from Warburg.

The secret to soloing EBs, AVs, and GMs lies in Provoke. Provoke them, debuff them, jump around and make sure you are never near your pets.

As a bot/trap, Wade should have extreme trouble hitting your pets anyhow. He isn't even an AV. With max difficulty he still only qualifies as EB, which I found odd, as Ghost Widow was an AV

If things get to hard for you, Bring some friend along, get people to Debuff him and buff you up, also if thing get too hard lower you Difficulty Settings a little bit.

Don't see any reason to go for the single target, but I also use Provoke in normal fights.

If you can spare the powers, going Concealment - Grant Invisibility - Ethereal shift can be really handy on /traps. When ethereal shift is up, all of your henchmen shift with you, so can heal them, buff them, even summon more of them over that 30 seconds, all the while totally immune to attack.

For traps, it's even more awesome because you can set up your acid mortar and poison trap, and maybe a landmine or two.

If you can't afford it, or it doesn't appeal to you, you can always buy the temp power on Wentworth's. Also another very important temp for killing AV is poison dagger.

Reroll a Mercs/Storm MM, problem solved. Kidding of course.


I died once against him and lost Lord Recluse during the first try. But I quickly got right back up, resummoned my pets, and quickly dispatched him before his regen kicked in. (I was level shifted and he was an EB)

Ok I passed the SSA. Basically the webnade helped alot since it stopped him from floatin around the map randomly. I also dropped Medicine for Presence and it also seems to help. Except you need to constantly spam it. However not having a decent heal for my pets really hurts, now that I'm in DA. Because apparently everyone and their mom has aoes. I don't recall ever going through this with my thug/dark

yeah I got repair. But it's horrid. triage beacon is pretty horrid too. The recharge on these skills are just redic for something that's barely mediocre. And I don't have teleport. My pools are, speed, leadership, fighting, presence and epic force armor.

I might head back to my thugs/dark soon, that combo seems to be a much more 54x8 melter than bot/traps. I can do it on bot/traps but it's alot more planning and stuff dying and re summoning than thugs/dark, which is just tar pit, anchor debuff on a boss, heal on auto till everything's dead. The only beef I have with thugs/dark is their inability to solo GMs without temps or lore.

Maybe I'm playing the combo wrong, I'm trying to find a video of people soloing 54x8 on bot/traps to see how it should be played.

Its your build slotting.

Best I can explain it is from Robots you should have the 3 pets and 2 upgrades and that is it. From Traps have everything but Time Bomb.

Get Provoke.

Work your build to get as much Recharge and Regeneration as you can.

Basically you starting a fight with you laying down all your traps. Triage Beacon is usually behind you. Your pets are behind the Triage Beacon, but in range to benefit from it. The last thing you should put out is acid mortar as it will auto attack anything in range. So its usually Provoke drop acid mortar or the opposite. Once the mobs start coming your pets will respond but will start moving forward you will have to spam all pets stay. You should be using the number keypad binds for this.

Your intention is have mobs run towards you blow up from trip mine and then run off from caltrops. Then drop another trip mine or whatever is available to you and provoke them back. While your doing all of this you need to spam all pets stay or even get out of BG mode to have them attack if needed. This is something you need to feel out. Basically the pets are like gun turrets and you try to keep them away from the mobs by provoking mobs onto you and building aggro with Trip mine and your other powers. You want to keep YOU between the Mobs and your pets.. You DO NOT want to have your pets mix it up with the mobs.

Personally I use Oppressive Gloom to stun all the minions so all I have to deal with is the bosses. But you could take the same build and just pick anything from the patron pools as it has not effect on the build.Eventually you will have out 2 Triage Beacons that will pump out about 800% regeneration for you and 600% regen for anyone else, which is nothing to complain about.

Here is my new build. I am capped without the pets as you will notice and eating one purple inspiration just about caps me for incarnate stuff. So I can run around without the pets if needed. If you do the math the pets are around 40% defenses which means they are almost capped as well now. Again nothing to complain about.

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Uhh I looked at your build and you don't have either of the pet procs. So I don't know how your pets can be at 40% def, unless you mean only AOE? I also don't see the value of building for regen with probably the lowest base HP in the game which is one of the beef I have with triage beacon, wouldn't building for max hp be better?

But using soul is kind of cool, I might try that out one day. So far I've shelved bot/traps and went back to my thugs/dark and the performance is just night and day to me.

Strangely enough, I've had the exact same experience with bots/traps. I know it's supposed to rock and I build for all of the right things like defense, recharge, hp, and provoke, but it always seems to pale against my thugs/dark (or thugs/time or bots/time). Especially in DA where defenses tend to melt quicker, traps's lack of healing seems really noticeable to me. Maybe it just takes elaborate play like what Plainguy is describing. The other sets just seem much simpler and easily just as effective. It's a shame for me because I want to love traps, but I can't get it to work and compared to time or dark, just seems lackluster.

My blog has a guide for this kind of thing, and my bots/traps build.