[feedback] Your trap system needs to be brought on par with 3.0

What i mean is, the current trap system and it's implementation has been around since the early stages of PoE.

In that time i reckon the game has been speed up roughly five-fold of what it originally was.

The trap system, however, has not changed drastically to accompany this speeding up of content.

As a simple example, my current trapper cannot do breaches. The flooding of enemy's is simply to much to handle for him.
(note: i am using the new tinkerskin + cooldown recovery cluster + saboteur ascendancy AND STILL my traps cannot keep up with the amount of enemy's)

Now i am sure, people can do tricks with "duration" based gems like icestorm and firestorm or with things like fire proliferation to extend the aoe damage of a single trap throw, but taking this as the standard of what a trapper should aim for would be simply put "retarded". It would negate around 95% of possible trap scenario's and a few trap based play-styles.

Even when mapping normally and with this amount of trap-based investment (ascendancy/passive tree and items) i still constantly find my character out of traps to throw.

And here comes a second issue trappers struggle with, available 6-links as a constraint towards trap count and cooldown.
What i mean is, just like any other character in PoE a trapper is constricted to one single 6-link or at most two, but that would mean sacrificing a defensive slot which is very important for trappers.
As a result, the cooldown and max count of traps are much more of a burden when the game speeds up around the archaic system that was once implemented to accommodate a play-style suited around 1/5 the speed.

Any normal character is capable of investing all of his power in a single 6-link set-up without constraints as long as the resource cost is met.

A trapper does the same but somehow has constraints attached beyond the resource cost, which quite frankly is absurd when compared to other types of play.
(justified in the old game-state, where traps had high damage potential and reflect immunity, in the current PoE of 2017, simply beyond ludicrous)

Some suggestions

- base mana cost of traps reduced by 20%
- trap support gem get's a mana multiplier of 85%(reduction of cost)
- trap support gem get's the same innate cooldown as hard cast trap gems (2 seconds), making all traps available to a trapper at similar efficiency ratio's for map clearing
- saboteur get's a "gain a trap charge after killing 15 enemy's" added to his trap orientation (fluid map and content clearing, only limited by resource sustain, while still limiting damage unload potential on boss encounters)
- "+1 max trap charge" corruption ability on belts (rather then +1 trap which is useless) and perhaps other sources of this new attribute.

I think traps in the current game state are at such a disadvantage already when it comes to sustain and damage potential with all the speeding up and power-creep that probably all of these changes would be justified and still not make traps all that appealing.(power of sustain during combat is ludicrous in PoE)

But for the love of god, patch trap support gem to a 2 sec cooldown rather then 3 as fast as possible, this alone would be a massive boon to trappers that don't rely on hard-traps and might even appeal
hard-trappers to swap to other interesting skills in the process.(people that might want to, but can't simply because of the shutdown of available traps while clearing when going from 2 sec to 3 sec recharge time)

Feel free to discuss.

Peace,

-Boem-

edit :

Alternative concept for traps in 3.0

step 1 : reduce trap cost to 75% of current value's across the board

step 2 : trap charge can be bypassed at the cost of 300% increased mana cost

This results in mana/resource investment also being a dps increase indirectly, increasing it's efficiency.
My intuitive projection tells me that to bypass the trap charge you would have to pay between 200-300 mana, which to me seems a reasonable price to "hard-load" damage on targets or circumvent swarming scenario's.

This suggestion keeps all the current mechanical interactions of traps intact and still worth-while, while adding an additional layer on-top.

I remember trying traps a couple times. Each time my mana was gone in seconds and still enemies were standing. I've got a unique or two and practically only trap nodes and still clunking about feeling gimped and slow. Never bothered with a trapper past act 2. Quite a gimped playstyle IMO requiring way too much in good uniques and effectively requiring Shadow>Saboteur. All traps definitely need some reworking, especially some help in the mana department. They definitely need some more creative ways to make use of traps, as well, as opposed to just "Trap Support". A few more base traps would be great, like perhaps a physical Cluster Bomb Trap that explodes into shrapnel that forks or into little bombs to create a variety of explosions that can all damage the same target. Making Bear Trap useful would be great. A support gem that attaches to base traps/mines that use a skill on trigger called "Use Skill on Trigger" could be a great way to attach multiple skills to one trap as one potential method to expand them. Another support could be one that causes a trap or mine to trigger twice with some restriction. Regenerating to your max available traps in only one cooldown (slightly increased) would also probably help.

I'd like to use them but they felt weak and clunky every time I tried.

^cheers for the free bump and for proving my point somewhat.

Feel free to list me the advantages of trappers in the current 3.0 game-state if anybody has some?
Never know that i might have neglected something while writing this down.

Peace,

-Boem-

This post is pretty much spot-on. I had a trapper in breach who struggled to keep breaches open in a 6-link and ran into every issue in the post. Trap support being a 3-second cooldown is crazy and one of the reasons why I dismissed using it entirely in favour of ice traps. The only trap that should stay at 3 seconds is Bear Trap because of its immobility effect, everything else should be a maximum of 1.5s.
Reducing the cooldown significantly would also mean that for the first time since they were created, trap throwing speed nodes wouldn't be useless. The limiting factor has always been the cooldown, not how quickly you can throw them - why the fuck would you ever waste valuable points on throwing speed?

I would also support adding a Sire of Shards nova effect to multiple projectiles fired from traps or something, because in a post-shotgunning world adding L/GMP to your projectile traps is a complete waste. Maybe an Additional Trap Projectiles support or something. It shouldn't be reliant on a unique to make projectile traps worth using (other than obvious CA/puncture trap memes).

Rant over, hell has frozen over and I'm agreeing with Boem. Fix it GGG.

Another thing worth mentioning.

If GGG forces resources on parts of the game that yield the most returns, then systems like traps are in a very negative feedback loop.

If the system is archaic and not pleasant to play with, obviously people will be reluctant to try it and data should reflect this.
Overall experiences with traps, except for the few masochists, will be very negative for above mentioned reasons.

If it's not addressed the feedback loop will remain negative as a result.

People will not be convinced to play traps in the current iteration as long as no changes are made to accommodate the 3.0 game-play speed.
(ignoring the other down-sides traps have as a play-style that i no longer feel are justified given how other play-styles have evolved around it in therms of overall damage and reflect issues being close to non-existent for anybody somewhat familiar with the game-systems)

Peace,

-Boem-

I agree. Traps, even at the strongest I could personally make them, felt slower and weaker than many other builds I've made with similar resources and quality of gear.

I liked the pre-patched auto-targetting bladefall traps. I never reached the mega-damage that some reported with doubledipping poison and junk, just basic bladefall traps - the strongest I got was at level 80ish, tree dedicated to traps, no ascendancy, a single volley of multi-traps could take out Voll in Dried Lake, laugh if you want. But ever since they nerfed the auto-target, I felt they were less intuitive to use, less fun overall. I haven't played a trapper since. Instead, I've gone totems (even though their auto-targetting can be infuriating in some boss battles where they'll aim at the trash far away and not the boss I plant the totem right next to!).

Running out of "ammo" in the middle of a swarming screen of trash monsters, and feeling helpless, is not fun. It's like if archers had a quiver of arrows that they had to wait to restock every 3 shots.

The 3 reasons I've played mostly traps/totems:
* previously bad computer, so the automatic targeting nature of them was good during lag.
* immune to reflect (reflect feels like a horrible design feature)
* immune to corrupting blood (perhaps it's just my reaction time, but I never noticed this in time to heal myself up, or too many stacks piled up to overwhelm my flask healing ability)
* (Totems have had the added benefit of being additional targets for enemies to focus on, so they're a minimal layer of occasional defense, and they block enemy projectiles, like the ring of bone projectiles that usually wipe out my other characters quick) Traps do not provide this benefit, so they're even WORSE than totems, that only have mana cost/placement speed/duration issues to contend with.

Traps/totems have never been my choice because of how strong they are.
Traps/totems have never been my choice because I liked the gameplay of them.

HI, just want to give some feedback since I love traps and mechanic with no direct DMG like minions, traps, totems, mines.
For beginning, Im here from Perandus league but that time I don't understand the game mechanic and start to play and know things around in Breach league.

The Saboteur is my favorite build from LEGACY league, made couple of them, the same skill EK but focus on ES or LIFE.
With proper set up ( unique gear) the is no issue with MANA and doing T15 maps, without it the Trapper has issues like mana, cost tons.

The throwing speed for traps is useless I think, because you need the points to spend to survival, no leech possibility, options are specific unique, rare mods but its still not much to survival.
The cooldown for traps, with large portion of mana is the main issue, still cant handle open BREACH portals after T8 maps up.
You need time to kill a single large HP boos, the BREACH and SHAPER don't give it to you, this game is designed for fast clear like the time missions in DM quests and best defence is offence here.

This league Harbinger has new specific armor The Tinkerskin, but from I read up the thread the 30% cooldown for traps is still not enough, don't use it jet cant see it from me experience but, if I have the currency for 6L, I try.
The unige belt Sunblast, change the trapper to grenade trover but the curent state of the game allow it and ist for trappers mandatory, becouse you need it for disabling distrubtors in trials, avoiding huge DMG in area around boos fight, can runn, dodge and regenerate LIFE or ES.
I have tried to use other rare belts and craft with master craft the trap DMG on them, the surivallity of the build like resist, life or ES goes up but the time to deal with large HP boss is way to long and the risk for death goes much higher in time.

So in current state the SABOTEUR build need some work from GGG, the mana issue when using The Tickerskin or rare armors.
The cooldawn from traps.
There is cluster for traps, one down MASTER SAPPER on the right side of the tree.
Don't understand the point of the down cluster it's too far down and not much on the way to pick up, it could be closer like in middle, near SCION character,,,,,,i have writen that before in other thread.
The ascendancy in SABOTEUR need reworkt too, don't understand why have there all elemental DMG bonus and you have skill like, TRAP SUPPORT, with it you dont need to doo elemental DMG, physical DMG from EK, BL and other skills.
You could change the elemental bonus for traps to coolddown or just trap DMG.

I have read that with SUNBLAST are better trappers with ascendancy like , TRICKSTER, or ASSASSIN cant say that, haven't used them, but if I'm looking on SABOTEUR ascendancy, the trap DAMAGE and cooldown are still better with SABOTEUR.
OK, that mine opinion, like to see that other like to play SABOUTERS not many, and have similar thoughts.
If you have something to address this issues that will be nice maibe GGG will consider to look in this.

THX

Perhaps some new unique with a trap specific attribute? Something, I just like the idea of improving the great build diversity in PoE by updating some of the great ideas from the past that could use a little love to make the build more competitive again. Pushing this idea that players have a variety of great build choices that keep us wishing we had more time for gaming, because there are so many different choices for playing different builds.

Caveat: I haven't played a trapper in a long time, since before Jewels existed I think....

How many traps did you have? I remember using GC and Ice Nova with Trap support, and then Fire Trap. I did this for the express purpose of dealing with the cooldown time.

It does certainly sound like trappers need some helpin, a jewel that reduces cooldown times, or adds a use, would probably be a nice help too.

"

Archwizard wrote:

Caveat: I haven't played a trapper in a long time, since before Jewels existed I think....

How many traps did you have? I remember using GC and Ice Nova with Trap support, and then Fire Trap. I did this for the express purpose of dealing with the cooldown time.

It does certainly sound like trappers need some helpin, a jewel that reduces cooldown times, or adds a use, would probably be a nice help too.

The problem that appears at that point is that you need 2x6-links for solid set-ups in high tier maps.

This then again means your locked in a staff, thus movement becomes very restrictive.(movement skills)

It's not impossible per se, it's just limiting and impractical which would be fine if it's the only limitation trappers have but that's not the case.

- We got mana costs to cover
- cooldown/charge limits even with all items/ascendancy available when pitted vs content like breach which has rapid overwhelming spawns at times.

In therms of investment a trapper is already stretched out. Which was fine in the past when reflect and damage output was more of an issue and considered a solid benefit of trappers.

I could see your argument hold ground in the old game-state where trappers actually had actual benefits compared to other viable builds, but i don't consider this to be the case anymore.

Peace,

-Boem-