Help with Traps/ Defender

[Dragonsworn]

I played Poison/Pistols all the way up and loved it - played it for several years now.  Had an idea.  Decided to go with it, since Poison is so strong on defenders, what about traps?

but.

I know that slotting and pseudopets are... odd.

So I had some questions, and I've looked through ~10 pages on the forum here without doing much more searches...

...what's WORTH slotting in Traps/ ?

Acid Mortar can get -res procs out reliably with good rech - but how should it be slotted for that?

What about slotting time bomb?  Toe Bomb?  Caltrops?  In Poison my Poison Trap hit like a hammer when procced out - but I can't slot damage in the traps version?

It's going to be a Traps/Assault Rifle (but I'm leaving out ignite and flamethrower for thematic reasons), and I was thinking adrenal booster or Unrelenting, Tough/Weave, Maneuvers/Assault and charged armor/energize or Scorp Shield/Focused Acc/Spiderbot.

I want him to play like an offender who's softcapped with some mez protection.

[wRECk69]

Just to get you a quick response, here's a good starting point for Traps slottings:

 

 

Caltrops have a very low proc rate, as I recall.  I will try to post my build later as well.  That should give you some general ideas to work from.  I apologize, as I don't have time this morning to respond to all your questions at length.  

[Uun]

I don't bother with -res procs in Acid Mortar and focus on recharge (as you can summon more than one at a time). That said, -res procs are a reasonable choice if you have the slots to spare but %dmg procs don't have great returns.

 

I've tried several options in Caltrops. I'm currently using 5x Ice Mistral's Torment (including the proc). Alternatively, 1 dmg or slow IO in the base slot is also valid.

 

Traps/Poison Trap accepts Hold set %dmg procs (of which there are 4). My preferred slotting is 5x Unbreakable Constraint (including the proc) plus a second %dmg proc. This gives you good recharge on the power and allows you to use it every spawn, as well as maximizing the hold duration.

 

Seeker Drones are worth 1-2 slots at best, the most efficient being Lysosomes. I don't bother slotting for damage (which is minimal) and %dmg procs don't work. 

 

%dmg procs don't work in Trip Mine, although Force Feedback +recharge does work.

 

My Trapper is a MM so I don't have experience with Temporal Bomb.

[Psyonico]

5 hours ago, Dragonsworn said:

but I'm leaving out ignite and flamethrower for thematic reasons

 

You're skipping probably the 2 best powers in AR, BTW.

 

I 6 slot temporal bomb with 5x synapses shock and the OF kb->KD IO. 

 

For Seeker Drones, I usually do 4x the level 30 accurate ToHit debuff set for the global recharge, but if you have enough global recharge already, you can probably limit slots here if needed.

 

I personally prefer web grenade over caltrops because web grenade is good at preventing AVs from running, but YMMV.

 

An important thing is to make sure you have really high accuracy in Acid Mortar.  It won't benefit from global accuracy buffs or from incarnate shifts, so it needs the accuracy in the power.

[Jacke]

6 hours ago, Dragonsworn said:

It's going to be a Traps/Assault Rifle (but I'm leaving out ignite and flamethrower for thematic reasons), and I was thinking adrenal booster or Unrelenting, Tough/Weave, Maneuvers/Assault and charged armor/energize or Scorp Shield/Focused Acc/Spiderbot.

 

As @Psyonico said, skipping Ignite and Flamethrower from Assault Rifle is skipping 2 of the best Powers from that Powerset that also provide Fire Damage.  Ignite is a ST attack that takes TAoE Enhancements and like Buckshot and Flamethrower, works great with a full 6-set of Artillery; it also leaves a fire patch that will damage other mobs that move through it.  Flamethrower is a great cone attack that works well with Buckshot in a BS-FT-BS cone AoE sequence.

 

A key things to know about Traps is that besides Web Grenade, all the other Powers work through Pets.  Like the vast majority of Pets, they do not benefit from the Toon's Global buffs like Global Accuracy and Global ToHit.  This is a massive bug in Mids Reborn (MRB) that is so fundamental it's impossible to fix.

 

If important Pet attacks are not autohit, here's the 2 rules I use to avoid having to re-calculate over and over again.

• The Pet Summons Power should be slotted with ED-capped Accuracy.
• If important Pet attacks don't have a Base Accuracy of less than 1.2:
  • The build should also have Tactics or a good source of -Def.

So that in +4 content (which the Pets will see as +4), the Pet final ToHit against mobs will be close to or at 95%.

 

Traps has good -Def in AR's Burst and Traps Acid Grenade.  Burst is good to apply to a main target and Acid Grenade, as soon as it fires a grenade that hits a target, will have that -Def for the succeeding grenades and other Powers.  The important effects in Poison Trap are autohit so I don't bother with Accuracy in it.

 

Here's the build for my Traps/AR Defender.  Seaker Drones is actually slotted in a legal position, at L18; that's a bug in the latest MRB that will be fixed in the next release.  For travel, the Toon uses Prestige Power Surge (where I put the Celerity Stealth Proc) and Athletic Run as well as Void Skiff for non-combat flying and the Holiday Rocket Pack from S.T.A.R.T. vendors for combat flying.  From the Primary and Secondary Powersets, only skip Beanbag as it has the least utility with its shorter Range (and like all non-autohit attacks will miss at least 5% of the time); I use the other attacks and Traps Powers instead.

 

Defender Traps-AR.20250520.MuM [i28p1] @Jacke - Jacke Ambush.mbd

 

 

Edited yesterday at 05:25 PM by Jacke