Thoughts on Traps, Mines and Saboteur
" Ah ofc. Its been so long since i've used puncture trap that i forgot attack+trap even worked :D Makes it somewhat usable at least even tho blind from monsters is quite rare. You just wasted 3 seconds reading this. Last edited by Tian_Yihao on Jul 7, 2017, 8:48:26 AM
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" Very good points, I absolutely agree. Only the Spell Totem - Dotonate Mines thing. I've tried it, and yes, it certainly helps for boss fights. But for general clearing it's just as absurd as spamming the Detonate Mines key yourself in my opinion. Also, depending on my build I'm much more inclined to use other Totems like Scorching Ray or Decoy Totem. In case you referred to how I said Volatile Mines should be an inherent part of the skill so Mines do detonate instantly. By that I mean the 0.2 second cast animation that occurs whenever you detonate mines without having the Volatile Mines keynode. | |
" Tbh i scimmed through some parts of the lower posts in the thread as i didn't feel like reading too much after coming home from work, also reason for a partly half-assed post from me when i could write more indepth and thorough :) I'm glad that someone takes charge of making a solid post about this. I really enjoyed playing with lightning trap, and its very likely i'll play it again soon even if no changes are made to it. I was thinking of mines instantly self-detonating, which i think is a little too good, but not something i would be against really. We would still suffer from no leech as a drawback, and it is truly annoying to click two buttons for 1 "cast" over and over.. The endless detonating is one of the reasons i stopped playing with mines. What you said about volatile mines/clever construct, that should definitely be a part of the skill. If they removed the detonate animation and implemented clever construction into trap/mine, then they would have 2 open slots in the passive clusters to add something interesting or useful for either offense of defense. Another thing i'm slightly disapointed with is that quality on several mine/trap gems are purely QoL bonuses, while instead it could be pretty much anything else, even reduced mana cost would make me happy. On my LT build i had to buy jewels with reduced mana cost just to get it below 100 per trap and that was enough for me to sustain after taking several mana nodes on a CI char.. Thinking now overall on the saboteur ascendancy, i dont understand why i didnt just take assassin instead..Tons of more crit and dmg combined with some more trigger aoe would then compete with roughly 0.3s cooldown per LT. I guess i have a build to play in the new 2W now :D You just wasted 3 seconds reading this.
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" To be fair my posts have become a pretty massive wall of text so I absolutely understand that, even if someone is slightly interested in this topic, would just scim over it to get the idea. I'm a little bit passionate about this topic so I can't really help it but go into detail. " To me the best solution would be to let Mines be triggered the way Traps are triggered. As I already said, the manual detonation is an interesting concept in theory, but in practice I just want a fluid playstyle which isn't disrupted by spamming a single key over and over again. " I'm mostly speaking from the perspective of using Mines here: I'd love some keynodes that would benefit the risky playstyle. I've played a Crit Arc Mine Assassin for a bit and it went pretty well up to red maps, where often enemys would kill me while I placed my Mines. I think there are so many good options available, but somehow GGG's stance on Traps and Mines in general is to just throw more damage in it's way. " Going CI makes Mana management with Traps and Mines a nightmare so I definately agree that there should be an option to reduce it. However, having such high Mana cost can actually be pretty interesting for certain builds. For example you can more easily use Kitava's Thirst with Trap and Mine builds. And here again I can see the opportunity for some interesting solutions. "Gain 400% of Mana spent recently as extra Evasion Rating" could be a very good solution for a Miner's defense. " That's exactly what I'm talking about. The only build where you would ever want to be a Saboteur is Ice Trap. Whereas the Assassin does a much batter job when it comes to playing a crit Mine build. You'd probably always go for Elementalist with Firetrap (or Tripple Ele Trap) while the Raider isn't even a bad choice for non crit Trap builds without Cluster Traps. | |
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Tinkerskin! It's definetly a step in the right direction. It offers alot of things I have been asking for in this thread. I really hope that GGG will follow a similar design if they choose to rework the Saboteur. To be honest this new Body Armour seems to offer more than the entire Saboteur Ascendency for many builds. Here's what I'd like to see next:
-Remove Clever Construction. Traps and Mines should inheritly be indestructable for 5 seconds after placement. -Remove Trap and Mine arming time. It's a stat that you cannot reliably scale and it's very disrupting for the general playstyle. -Saboteur's Chain Reaction should be a keynode. It is the only reason right now to evern play a Saboteur. Making it a keynode would open up the opportunity to completely rework the Saboteur. It would also allow other classes to play Trap builds. -Mines should be able to be triggered by enemies. At least give us a choice here, an item or some sort of passive node. Playing Mines would be so much more smooth. | |
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I was about to create a Saboteur rant thread, but I used search this time =)
Here we go " I would like to have 1-2 seconds inherited and 0.5-1 extras added to some notables or Saboteur ascendancy. " Yes please! I just fail to see what does arming time add... " Both Trap and Mine concepts are from very old times and both were never reevaluated at their core as game's speed grew. So things that were moderately interesting in 2012 (were you actually had time to watch arming animation) are now just clunky. I want to have one contraption that combines both traps and mines. So the question is where should it be dropped, near you or near cursor. My position here is that latter allows more options because you can point a cursor on your character within milliseconds, but you cannot transport your character just as swiftly. Besides, jumping into pack is not the best idea. So in order to unfuck current clunkiness I prefer things that can be thrown. And Detonate button can stay, but I don't think many people would use it. Unfortunately, for some reason GGG shuns from Less is More approach, so above will likely never happen... " Now, Sabo. Let's start with small nodes. Elemental Damage trolls build diversity, trappers have (as also mentioned in this very thread) problems with mana. So I suggest to replace 10% increased Elemental Damage with 15-20% Increased Mana Regeneration Rate on each minor node. Next, let's point on big node that needs no major overhaul. Explosives Expert is ok and at least comparable to, say, Master Fletcher. I'd implement one or both of the following: 4-5% Increased Movement Speed becasue the node's name remindes me countless movie scenes where some guys desperately RUN right into the camera to avoid explosion. Gain 10% of Non-Fire, Non-Chaos Damage as Extra Fire Damage instead of Gain 10% of Physical Damage as Extra Fire Damage Moving on to Blind path. Born in Shadows is ok. It has some damage, a good universal defence and a thematic quirk. So let's leave this one. Blinding Assault is bad because offence nowhere to be found here and defence provided with Blind is very well below what you'd expect from purely defensive Ascendancy notable. Since thematically Shadow is offensive class, I would like to add damage in the following form: Enemies blinded by you or your Smoke Cloud are Intimidated This is existing but uncommon keyword, it adds noticable deeps, is usable in parties and imho fits the Saboteur flavor. Since my English is bad, let me clarify: enemies are NOT permanently Intimidated once you blinded them. They have the debuff ONLY as long as they are blinded by you or your smoke cloud so you need to apply the effect from time to time. Now, the main course: our dear mechanisms. I have a feeling that Saboteur was never realy adapded to 8 ascendancy points. We have 4 pont for either traps and mines, 4 blind-themed points and a generic leftover (ok, it fits poorly as it is, but I already addressed it above) So once UberLab happened, Sabo (especially non-contraptions half) was left in strange place. To address that, I want the non-traps folks to benefit from Bomb Specialist in following manner: 10-15% more Damage if you've Thrown a Trap or Laid a Mine Recently 15-20% increased Area of Effect if you've Thrown a Trap or Laid a Mine Recently It's no good to go for "each trap/mine" here because it will be frustrating for non-sapper to throw/lay more than once in 4 seconds. And additional mines/trap triggers should either be moved further, redistributed to Passive Tree or maybe even removed completely due to damage boosts in non-contraptions part. Finaly, to leave some consistency in this wall of text, please assume that my minimalistic suggestion, if ever implementer, would require more changes than described above. Phew, that was long. I hope to hear more from you guys (and you GGG) on this topic. Thanks for reading. Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way. Last edited by Sarganis87 on Aug 1, 2017, 5:05:56 PM
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" Quoting you here so you'll be notified. I generally agree with you. Especially with your argument of Traps and Mines still being in their very early stages without being mechanically reviseted. I also agree with you when you say that GGG will most likely never make the changes to Mines we're proposing here. But one can dream, right? I think the improvements to the Saboteur class would definetly help him out in the most situations. However, the reason I suggested to make Chain Reaction a keynode on the general Tree was that it allows GGG to completely change Saboteur, basically reinventing the class. Again, your ideas are good and a straight up buff, but I don't think it would bring Sab on par with other Ascendencies. Last edited by kahzin on Aug 1, 2017, 6:35:48 PM
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" Yep. " Yeah, that sounds clearer now in the morning after coffee. GGG can even split the effect onto several notables: When your Traps Trigger, an additional one of your nearby Traps also Trigger It is funny how the information in this thread (especially in wall-of-text posts) kinda draws a roadmap for future development of Sabo and contraptions. The first small step is taken already as described in patch notes (what a pain to quote that buy the way). From there, they should buff and polish Saboteur to give more people incentive to try sapper playstyle which will lead to increased amount of data and feedback (and I guess more people would ask for mechanic rework close to what we both proposed). Then they can move Chain Reaction to main tree and remove Arming animation and rework Sabo com pletely. And about that time they can go nuts and change core mechanics. Kek, looks like a plan! I hope they'd just read this thread... Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way. Last edited by Sarganis87 on Aug 2, 2017, 3:24:19 AM
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The best idea i heard so far was combineing Traps and Mines into one hybrid.
If you use shift + trap, you place a mine and no charge is consumed. If you aim at a distant location you throw a set of traps and a charge is consumed. The scaleing and mechanics would still be the same as it is. If you place a mine it scales by mine nodes and traps by trap nodes. I think this wouldn't be to op. Mine and trap support would be both replaced by a new "demolition charge jewel". This would give saboteur a indicrect buff, since he can scale both traps and mines. Last thing needed is to do something creative with born in the shadows to make it attractive and boost diversity, and a minor to medium buff to explosives expert. | |
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Trap and Mine were considered 1 entity with the same mechanic before 2.4, there were even some modifiers that said for Trap but worked for Mine as well, after that patch though they changed it and also changed Mines visual graphic so they are different now. Considering Saboteur was designed before that time it's pretty much outdated(same goes for other Ascendancies/old skills mechanic) but I don't think they can really do much since their priority is to putting new content instead of fixing old problem.
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