Post by sabregirl on Jul 29, 2009 4:22:46 GMT
Trapping – a how to guide and FAQ
First you might say, why are we talking about traps? I thought they sucked.
Several bugfixes and changes have just been made to make trapping far more attractive.
Why set traps?
SR ignoring damage of ANY damage type. SR ignoring wails, stoning, KD and level draining.
So what does it take to trap?
You can use random drop traps like those found in hells with only your set trap skill. The DC of either random drop or trapmaker traps is equal to half your set trap skill at the time the trap is triggered. So 127 trap skill gets you 63-65 DC. Sounds nice doesn’t it? Note that you’ll have to rest before setting traps and traps will not work if you are amnesiaed.
Who can trap?
Only classes with set trap as a class skill can trap, this includes rangers, rogues and assassins. Disarm trap isn’t necessary to use traps. Craft trap is necessary for the damage trapmakers.
What types of traps are there?
There are plenty of low level traps you can recover or buy and use but these generally do minuscule amounts of damage except at very low levels. There are two main types of traps worth using in legendary areas and beyond – damage and spell like effects. The spell like effect traps are only found in the hells as random items. DCs from these traps are determined in the standard fashion.
Hells Random Traps
Dragon Dance – Knock Down effect – reflex save only – lasts a fairly long time
Touch of the Wight – level drain effect – reflex and fort save
Panic Inflictor – weird type effect – reflex and will save
Al-Dazim’s Vile device – Death effect – reflex and fort
Medusa’s Snare – Stoning effect (not permanent) – reflex and fort
Craft trap is used for the:
Damage Trapmakers
These are just called Trapmaker - *insert name from below*
Divine Burst
Negative Burst
Positive Burst
Magical Burst
Fire Blast
Ice Spray
Acid Blob
Thunder (sonic)
Electrical
Note that the descriptions SAY they eat gold but this has been removed, traps are free!
Damage trapmakers can produce 20 traps of a particular damage type per rest. There are trapmakers for all standard elemental and exotic damage types hidden throughout Higher Ground, though found mostly in pre-legendary areas. Unmodified, these trapmakers can produce at best a devastating trap, which sounds good but isn’t very high in damage when we talk about the hells. To produce legendary and godlike traps you need to use TWO mask gems on (one for legendary and another for godlike) EACH of your trapmakers. That means for the 9 damage types you need 18 gems of mask. But even once you have your trapmakers upgraded you have to have your set and craft trap skills very high to produce a godly trap. Gear with set trap is uncommon but obtainable, the UR ranger armor, and quite a number of rona items are good sources for set trap, also the Uro belt.
Craft trap items are EXTREMELY rare and even harder to wear, (Mafik’s Worksuit and the artificer’s gloves in toyshop) fortunately you only have to have high craft trap when using the trapmakers, but you do need to have high set trap at the same time since the quality of the trap is determined by the sum of the craft and set trap skills. High set trap skill must be maintained until the traps are set off, since this determines the trap’s save DC.
How do I use the traps?
Traps cannot be placed in combat and they appear directly beneath where you are standing. This can make it extremely difficult to use them when parties are running forward and spawning like crazy. Instead spawns must be pulled over your traps. However, if the entire party is in GS you can set them with monsters on the screen, so long as no combat is going on. Using mass GS you can even trap after running into a boss spawn.
You can stack all of your traps on top of each other but you risk having one monster of the wrong type set them all off at once when there’s a whole spawn involved, if it’s a singly boss monster then its fine. I have found it is usually more effective to place a few groups of different type traps far enough apart that once monster won’t set all of them off at once.
Traps are great for areas where random monsters tend to spawn on top of a group, unfortunately you have to guess as to which damage types to use and hope a kb monster doesn’t set them all off at once (another good reason to spread them around). Using grease just in front of the line of traps to bunch up monsters can be a useful technique as well.
Getting your party to cooperate is probably the biggest negative of traps, but there are plenty of situations to use them even without cooperation - it does take some creativity!
Using GS scrolls you can solo- trap pretty easily, spawn in GS then, set all kinds of traps drop a BBod and drag the monsters over your traps. Very effective on runs with long pulls. Unfortunately traps take time so people can get impatient and ruin your little game.
One thing to be very careful about is when setting traps in hells you need to be very aware of spawn points. It's extremely easy to walk too far forward in your trapping and accidentally spawn. This can be bad if you're trying to take advantage of a lul in fighting and someone is afk.
One nice thing about that is as long as you've STARTED trapping before combat starts you'll still be able to finish laying your trap. So if you're dying to lay that wail trap, sometimes you can get away with it, even with a spawn-happy tank.
-S
First you might say, why are we talking about traps? I thought they sucked.
Several bugfixes and changes have just been made to make trapping far more attractive.
Why set traps?
SR ignoring damage of ANY damage type. SR ignoring wails, stoning, KD and level draining.
So what does it take to trap?
You can use random drop traps like those found in hells with only your set trap skill. The DC of either random drop or trapmaker traps is equal to half your set trap skill at the time the trap is triggered. So 127 trap skill gets you 63-65 DC. Sounds nice doesn’t it? Note that you’ll have to rest before setting traps and traps will not work if you are amnesiaed.
Who can trap?
Only classes with set trap as a class skill can trap, this includes rangers, rogues and assassins. Disarm trap isn’t necessary to use traps. Craft trap is necessary for the damage trapmakers.
What types of traps are there?
There are plenty of low level traps you can recover or buy and use but these generally do minuscule amounts of damage except at very low levels. There are two main types of traps worth using in legendary areas and beyond – damage and spell like effects. The spell like effect traps are only found in the hells as random items. DCs from these traps are determined in the standard fashion.
Hells Random Traps
Dragon Dance – Knock Down effect – reflex save only – lasts a fairly long time
Touch of the Wight – level drain effect – reflex and fort save
Panic Inflictor – weird type effect – reflex and will save
Al-Dazim’s Vile device – Death effect – reflex and fort
Medusa’s Snare – Stoning effect (not permanent) – reflex and fort
Craft trap is used for the:
Damage Trapmakers
These are just called Trapmaker - *insert name from below*
Divine Burst
Negative Burst
Positive Burst
Magical Burst
Fire Blast
Ice Spray
Acid Blob
Thunder (sonic)
Electrical
Note that the descriptions SAY they eat gold but this has been removed, traps are free!
Damage trapmakers can produce 20 traps of a particular damage type per rest. There are trapmakers for all standard elemental and exotic damage types hidden throughout Higher Ground, though found mostly in pre-legendary areas. Unmodified, these trapmakers can produce at best a devastating trap, which sounds good but isn’t very high in damage when we talk about the hells. To produce legendary and godlike traps you need to use TWO mask gems on (one for legendary and another for godlike) EACH of your trapmakers. That means for the 9 damage types you need 18 gems of mask. But even once you have your trapmakers upgraded you have to have your set and craft trap skills very high to produce a godly trap. Gear with set trap is uncommon but obtainable, the UR ranger armor, and quite a number of rona items are good sources for set trap, also the Uro belt.
Craft trap items are EXTREMELY rare and even harder to wear, (Mafik’s Worksuit and the artificer’s gloves in toyshop) fortunately you only have to have high craft trap when using the trapmakers, but you do need to have high set trap at the same time since the quality of the trap is determined by the sum of the craft and set trap skills. High set trap skill must be maintained until the traps are set off, since this determines the trap’s save DC.
How do I use the traps?
Traps cannot be placed in combat and they appear directly beneath where you are standing. This can make it extremely difficult to use them when parties are running forward and spawning like crazy. Instead spawns must be pulled over your traps. However, if the entire party is in GS you can set them with monsters on the screen, so long as no combat is going on. Using mass GS you can even trap after running into a boss spawn.
You can stack all of your traps on top of each other but you risk having one monster of the wrong type set them all off at once when there’s a whole spawn involved, if it’s a singly boss monster then its fine. I have found it is usually more effective to place a few groups of different type traps far enough apart that once monster won’t set all of them off at once.
Traps are great for areas where random monsters tend to spawn on top of a group, unfortunately you have to guess as to which damage types to use and hope a kb monster doesn’t set them all off at once (another good reason to spread them around). Using grease just in front of the line of traps to bunch up monsters can be a useful technique as well.
Getting your party to cooperate is probably the biggest negative of traps, but there are plenty of situations to use them even without cooperation - it does take some creativity!
Using GS scrolls you can solo- trap pretty easily, spawn in GS then, set all kinds of traps drop a BBod and drag the monsters over your traps. Very effective on runs with long pulls. Unfortunately traps take time so people can get impatient and ruin your little game.
One thing to be very careful about is when setting traps in hells you need to be very aware of spawn points. It's extremely easy to walk too far forward in your trapping and accidentally spawn. This can be bad if you're trying to take advantage of a lul in fighting and someone is afk.
One nice thing about that is as long as you've STARTED trapping before combat starts you'll still be able to finish laying your trap. So if you're dying to lay that wail trap, sometimes you can get away with it, even with a spawn-happy tank.
-S
