The Traps

[tiger_eye]

You're wrong there, SageAcrin.

Late game traps can top out at 500-700 damage, iirc (without damage mods and without boosting category mastery). Poison Gas can do more, I believe, because it can stack with itself as it does damage over time. That's nothing to scoff at, and I've killed plenty of dangerous melee High Peak guardians using traps. In open levels, the AoE traps (Explosion, Poison Gas) are your main ones to use. Who cares if you "only" do 500 damage if you do it to a bunch of enemies? If you're fighting a large mob in an open area, you probably want to run someplace safer anyway (or try to kill 'em quickly). Setting a couple traps as you run away does serious damage (Trap Launcher is a must, imo). If you duck around a corner (and even open levels have corners), then any trap that does damage is your friend, because NPCs are virtually assured to step on it.

I'm not just saying traps are viable. Heh, goodness knows a bunch of funky builds are "viable". I'm saying traps are great. Really. All game. Even if you have strikes that can deal thousands of damage, traps add versatility, AoE, and tactical planning.

I'm eager to try out the changes to traps in v1.0.1.

[cttw]

I loved the traps when I first explored Rogue, and tried many times to use them. I ended up giving up on them for the many reasons listed here. I won't even put one point into them unless they get a dramatic change like making them instant and critical-able, thou they probably need a scaling multiplier increase as well.

You have to set the trap, move out of the way, get out of range from the trap damage and then make the enemy step on it. It's like trying to tango with an unwilling partner. On this forum I've seen stepping out of the way of an arrow being described as taking a different hit and doing no damage in return. The way I see traps is the same, times 3 or 4 turns you actually need to set it up.

[sofocles]

cctw, the thing is: you want to remove what makes traps , traps...

they are , by definition: prepared damage... so they can never be as fast as other types of dmg.
it adds a lot of depth to the game if done properly: they should do a ton of dmg, but on a tight situation , there isnt enough time to prepare them...
maybe this means that you only use them on tough mobs.. there are tons of spells and abilities that we only use on tough mobs.

I do feel the reward for preparing should be bigger though... havent tried 1.0.1

[SageAcrin]

You're wrong there, SageAcrin.

Late game traps can top out at 500-700 damage, iirc (without damage mods and without boosting category mastery).

From a debug mode 100 Cunning/L50/capped Trap Mastery Rogue:

Explosion Trap: 550 damage
Nightshade Trap: 475 damage
Disarming Trap: 550 damage
Bear Trap: 99 bleed damage each turn for 5 turns

There aren't a lot of massive Cunning boosters, so I'm not sure assuming over 100 is fair. Maybe a lucky Rogue will get that, but not every. That's closer to my figure than yours, I think, considering that it's quite possible to be in the Prides with 80-90 Cunning.

Poison Gas can do more, I believe, because it can stack with itself as it does damage over time.

Poison Gas Trap: 345 damage over time for four turns, stacking.

Definitely better than the admittedly, but it's also a DoT. For a frame of reference here, though; Deadly Poison does 27 damage over time for 12 turns, stacking. It's not as fast, but the raw damage is comparable(given the multiple strikes a Rogue gets every attack) and it's purely bonus.

Deadly Poison also isn't that good. I'd rather have one of the disabling poisons, straight out, because they are really good, and increase survivability.

Poison Gas Trap also suffers from the usual problem-every enemy has a status cure lategame, and if you're trying to use a single solitary status option as crowd control, it very often falls flat when all the Orcs pop their racial skills.

In open levels, the AoE traps (Explosion, Poison Gas) are your main ones to use. Who cares if you "only" do 500 damage if you do it to a bunch of enemies? If you're fighting a large mob in an open area, you probably want to run someplace safer anyway (or try to kill 'em quickly). Setting a couple traps as you run away does serious damage (Trap Launcher is a must, imo).

Weren't you saying it was a good cheap investment? How many mobs of enemies can easily be kited, lategame, without them simply Rushing, using Lightning Speed, summoning, or using ranged attacks, with L1/2 Trap Launcher? 4 range is quite short and, as mentioned, the lategame runs towards open areas.

5 Trap Launcher could certainly make it into an okay ranged weakener, but you have to ask how often a class that has one of the best bump attacks in the game, and some nasty damage skills/Momentum, really needs to weaken enemies before engaging them.

I'm not just saying traps are viable. Heh, goodness knows a bunch of funky builds are "viable". I'm saying traps are great. Really. All game. Even if you have strikes that can deal thousands of damage, traps add versatility, AoE, and tactical planning.

And I'm saying I found them pretty much useless, despite trying to give them a solid go. And I strongly suspect the reason why is because I picked them up past L30.

I don't think I'm bad at tactical planning, either-I tend to tactically engage enemies with summons constantly, use DoT damage effectively...evidently far more than most players, from what I've heard of people's bad opinions of DoTs, and I even have a tendency not to autocast a ton of skills that most people seem to find natural auto-casts, because I'd prefer to be in control of all of my options.

I think a lot about tactics, and I did try to tactically use traps, on anything that wasn't one of those Rush/Lightning Speed/summoning/spellcaster types, only to find that what I'd usually bothered to use them on wasn't worth my time. The AoE traps are useless at close range, because they aren't friendly fire. And if I was placing traps out of stealth, I was risking blowing a Shadowstrike that would have killed a given enemy.

As you said, if you're facing down a group of enemies, you're in trouble and should run. But why are you out of Stealth? Why are they following you at all? If you're playing heavy stealth, it hurts the skills even more-perhaps this is part of my low opinion, I did definitely play heavy Stealth. It's nearly impossible to get the enemy to reliably stumble into traps, due to how Stealth functions.

If you're not playing Stealth at all-something I still consider, after having cleared both Shadowblade and Rogue, and done a non-Stealth Shadowblade, mostly to be pointless for Rogue-you should have Rush unlocked. There's no need to conserve category points by not grabbing it, and using skills to snipe with, when you have multiple mobility skills and far better damage up close, seems to be pointless. If, again, there were a lot of threats that didn't constantly either ranged assault while standing still, or close the distance using skills, it'd be one thing, but there aren't.

(Thinking on it, many of the exceptions that do neither tend to resist poison, incidentally. Undead for instance. Maybe that's why I don't respect Poison Gas Trap as much as the on-paper suggests?)

Basically, I still am not seeing how it's especially useful. Playable, yes...but the melee Archmage comparison wasn't made casually. A staff swinging Archmage tends to actually deal more damage than a normal one, and if you're bringing Channel Staff into things, there are clear builds that can be designed around a no cooldown skill, thanks to the high speed that Essence of Speed grants. A massive wall of sustains, utilizing a cheap skill constantly, isn't totally useless...but at the same time, you're losing so much utility that the gain is largely academic. In other words, arguments can be made for builds that are, pretty cleanly, not optimal.

This is sorta the reverse-a gain of utility you don't really need, in exchange for a loss of 10+ points in areas that you almost certainly can make moderate gains in, that will help you survive at the melee range that Rogue excels at.

[cttw]

I do feel the reward for preparing should be bigger though... havent tried 1.0.1

I agree with you here! Maybe my trap suggestions aren't the best, but they can't stay as they are. They are more awkward to use than combining archmage heal and shield-on-heal sustain until they both critical and you get a monster shield. At least then you get a reward.

In "reality", a prepared trap, like an IED, can be extremelly dangerous, to the point where there is nothing left of the victim. In Tome, the fire trap is somewhat useful in the first couple of dungeons, and then they don't really scale and you get more damage and even more safety by bumping them with high defense. Then at around lvl 15 when traps basically cease to exist, you wonder why you wasted your points and restart a character with no points in traps.

[tiger_eye]

That's closer to my figure than yours, I think

Um, no? Late game rogues often have Cun of 100 - 120. 120 are the lucky ones or the ones that sacrifice other gear for Cun gear. Your damage for Disarming Trap is wrong. Should be 645 (the tooltip is wrong and needs fixed). Hence, for 100 Cun and using your other numbers, traps have a range of 475 to 645. For 110 Cun, the range is 520 to 703. So, uh, whose numbers are these closer to again?

And I'm saying I found them pretty much useless, despite trying to give them a solid go. And I strongly suspect the reason why is because I picked them up past L30.

Fair 'nuff. I would agree that traps are best before level 30. Earlier in this thread, there were many suggestions for other traps. I think picking up another trap or two in the Far East that would be suitable for the late game would be an appropriate way to buff traps to make 'em more fun and useful.

As for buffing damage, increasing the damage a bit for traps that affect a single enemy could be good.

I loved the traps when I first explored Rogue, and tried many times to use them.

Heh, I was the reverse. I didn't think I'd like 'em or find 'em useful, but experience changed my mind.

[SageAcrin]

As for buffing damage, increasing the damage a bit for traps that affect a single enemy could be good.

Yeah, I can see that. The traps I did use were definitely the multiple target ones, particularly Poison Gas.

[tiger_eye]

Another brainstorming idea: have "Trap Launcher" talent increase the speed at which traps are deployed by TalentLevelRaw * 20%. Hence, at 5/5 investment, the character could deploy two traps during a single normal "game turn".

Heh, the description says: "Allows you to create self deploying traps...". Self-deploying traps certainly sound much faster to set up to me! This is the final talent in the tree, so I think it's alright to be good.

Thoughts? Is the speed increase enough to make 'em more worthwhile to invest in? Are you like DGrey and don't like mucking around with speeds?

[TheRani]

Another brainstorming idea: have "Trap Launcher" talent increase the speed at which traps are deployed by TalentLevelRaw * 20%. Hence, at 5/5 investment, the character could deploy two traps during a single normal "game turn".

Heh, the description says: "Allows you to create self deploying traps...". Self-deploying traps certainly sound much faster to set up to me! This is the final talent in the tree, so I think it's alright to be good.

Thoughts? Is the speed increase enough to make 'em more worthwhile to invest in? Are you like DGrey and don't like mucking around with speeds?

Would that make them instant like glyphs at Talent level 5? That would be cool.

[CaptainTrips]

Maybe not Trap Launcher (it is pretty powerful/indispensable as is), but this is exactly the sort of thing I could see going in an 'advanced trapping' tree.

[tylor]

Traps should be at least as powerful as mage's bolts, with same stat value (cunning and magic, respectively). Bolts can hit many enemies, easier to use, and can be easily buffed with staves.

[SageAcrin]

Another brainstorming idea: have "Trap Launcher" talent increase the speed at which traps are deployed by TalentLevelRaw * 20%. Hence, at 5/5 investment, the character could deploy two traps during a single normal "game turn".

Heh, the description says: "Allows you to create self deploying traps...". Self-deploying traps certainly sound much faster to set up to me! This is the final talent in the tree, so I think it's alright to be good.

Thoughts? Is the speed increase enough to make 'em more worthwhile to invest in? Are you like DGrey and don't like mucking around with speeds?

I like this idea quite a bit. I personally think that speed changes are a neat function of the system, so long as they're easy to grasp(which 20% gains that end in instant are).

[wobbly]

I also like this idea. Most of my problems come from being a target whilst setting up the traps. Once there there you can usually get behind cover.

[sofocles]

Lets think about dmg reward,vs difficulty of success:

a) There should be a single mob, no launching ,big recast, 1000 dmg trap (could even get higher)<- the whole point of this one should be the difficulty of the mob stepping on it.
(AND a great way to think about it would be - spending alchemist gems to decide the power of the trap) <- already in game
a2) same as a but with less dmg but nasty effects

b)Area dmg (fire for example) that gets the benefits of your %+dmg to that element) and that can be detonated AFTER a few turns (not inmediatly after or maybe if you go 5/5 ) so you could plant bomb, teleport , press button, KABOOM.<-maybe with range limit

c) corridor rolling stone <-make your own launcher !

d) step on trap big area 9x9 to step it instead of 1. (less dmg but still not bad)

e)reusable trap (every enemy that steps on it)