Ranger Archive
Thread: Traps Honestly...
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DWolfe
Sun Mar 07, 2004 1:54 pm
#14
Master Ranger, working on Master Rifleman (MRx2) here. My observations...
For the longest time I figured traps as useless. I was a rifleman, and every trap I had didn't do much except piss off the enemy, and required me to be closer than I wanted to be to my prey. I ground trapping on Endor until I mastered Scout, then threw like, 3 total as a Ranger. I was trying to decide if I wanted to keep Medic, or Master Ranger and Rifleman both. The Ranger traps were worse than useless, and the Rescue skill didn't make much sense as a wookiee rifleman. The LAST place I want my enemy is in my face saying hello.
Then I came here. My desire to become a Master Ranger waxed stronger, but my misgivings about traps were still powerful. Then I started reading about how Phec. Dartand Adhesive Mesh could be used to save a long-range fighter's life... So I decided to try it. I'd never used an Adhesive Mesh before because I'd never had any polymer. I'd only rarely used P. Dart because I hadn't always had a lot of metal to blow, and because ofmy former misgivings. So I acquired a small portion of polymer, and made a couple of each type of trap, and gave up some valuable toolbar space for them, then went a-huntin' on Endor..
I noticed that suddenly, I'm kiting my prey with headshots. I'mmaintaining contact and living, rather than jumping on my bike and fleeing while waiting for my bleeds to take my prey down. It's not 100% effective, but it's much more effective than I'd previously thought..
My doubts are gone. I decide that medics gonna go, and I'm going up the trapping line, based entirely on the virtue of those two traps. I play with the others for a bit, re-establish their basic uselessness, and continue on.
Useless? Nah. Most of them are useless, but those two traps are life-savers, though less-so when grouped. Most people aren't trained to take advantage of slowed or rooted prey.
I also notice.. as a Master Ranger, I have a decent chance of making my traps stick to rancors. Perhaps not bull rancors, mutant rancors or what have you, but the CL ~55 I have a decent chance. Am I just lucky, or what?
I'm all for more traps added to Ranger, and the whole dual-line improved to be more useful, though. We all need a bit more love in this line.
dhcpSilicon
Sun Mar 07, 2004 8:14 pm
#15
This could all be fixed if traps worked on BIG creatures, like Peko Peko Albatrosses and even the mighty Krayt Dragon. What's the point in throwing traps at something - stacking all of them can take upwards of 12 seconds - when it dies right after you're done anyway?
Ariven
Mon Mar 08, 2004 7:21 am
#16
Hatch_Hazard wrote:
Is it just me, or has anyone else ever said to themselves, "I sure wish my traps were more effective." Mind you, I dont mean "I wish they'd hit more" effective, just....EFFECTIVE. Given that traps are an entire tree in both scout /and/ ranger, shouldn't you be able to point to two different encounters, one with traps and one without, and say "See how much easier it was with the traps?" I can't do that now. It seems traps are litteraly there just so I can throw them until trap boxes are full. Anyone agree?
After getting berated by my mentor because I like to hunt buffed... some nonsense about tactics being more important, I decided to listen to him and -think- about my encounters a bit more than just thinking "Ok, I'm going to kill that next" and stand there shooting..
Now when soloing I have Phecnacine darts hot keyed and lead off with that... in many cases the creature is dead before it gets within reach of me, and if not they are low enough that I can run in circles around them and take them down in relatively short order.
I picked up some polymer recently to try out the adhesive mesh, and that one is nice too, except it doesn't stick long enough, and (like someone else mentioned) the 2 per stack is kinda annoying.. hard to work a whole lair if I have to keep stoping to reload a trap into my toolbar.
The point to my ramble is that yes, traps DO help, and in my case help a lot.... but you have to use tactical thinking about what it is you want to accomplish before you just start shooting or throwing traps.
Hmm... thinking back to trapping in the real world, maybe we should get a harvest bonus on a creature we "trapped"
since theoretically the trapping is to help us as scout/ranger in harvesting resources anyway...
Calculus_Entropy
Mon Mar 08, 2004 8:25 am
#17
DWolfe wrote:
My doubts are gone. I decide that medics gonna go, and I'm going up the trapping line, based entirely on the virtue of those two traps. I play with the others for a bit, re-establish their basic uselessness, and continue on.
Ahhh...yet another Ranger sold on the SCOUT traps. Something must be done for our line. We need to start a new push for the devs to look at the SotP and The Outdoorsman.
Fred_Skinner
Mon Mar 08, 2004 9:17 am
#18
I've been using MR/MRM
DWolfe wrote:
Master Ranger, working on Master Rifleman (MRx2) here. My observations...
...snip...
Message Edited by Fred_Skinner on 03-08-2004 11:18 AM
DWolfe
Mon Mar 08, 2004 10:36 am
#19
Yes, I'm sold on the SCOUT traps.. But that means I'm sold that traps can be useful, which I wasn't before. Ours.. aren't. They need to be better than the best two scout traps.. because, in theory, we're better at this whole outdoors/animal hunting thing than scouts are, or else, why do we spend more points?
I forgot to mention that I support the idea of faster throwing that was mentioned earlier. It makes a lot of sense to me.
Matsubaa
Mon Mar 08, 2004 1:08 pm
#20
I use my traps religiously. I run massive factory runs of glow-wire traps and phenc darts. As a Master CH/Master Ranger/Novice Carbineer I have use for the melee *and* ranged debuffing. I use phenc darts mostly for pulling targets when I want them to move away from where they are but don't necessarily want them to actually reach me.
Adhesive Mesh traps only come out in stacks of 2, so I feel like I'm getting cheated if I make them instead of the phenc dart but they're useful in much the same manner of preventing a mob from getting from point a to point b, if they stick at all.
I've been using the flash bombs lately and getting a decent success rate on them, I just don't know what is the point of blinding creatures other than pissing them off. They do a miniscule amount less damage to my tank and that's about it. I use them instead of bone spurs if I'm in a group and can handle taking the extra agro the AoE produces.
Lecepanine dart traps are absolutely useless. The dizzy effect on creatures does nothing and we can't trap humanoids so I don't even bother making them.
Sonic pulse traps have never worked for me whatsoever. I don't think I've ever had a single effect stick on this particular trap.
Any other traps are mostly not notable. They work well enough, for what they do, but what they do isn't enough to be worth my while.
Volcun
Mon Mar 08, 2004 11:03 pm
#21
I think this is something people commanly overlook, but While the Ranger traping tree doesn't add any new usful traps. The bonus you get to your trapping skill allows your Pdarts to stick to things larger than Whomp Rats.
Ever seen a scout trap a rancor?
Not to say Ranger traps are good or anything but I felt there needed to be some positive vibes in the thread 8)
DFH
Tue Mar 09, 2004 10:48 am
#22
It has been claimed that the Trapping skill does not actually improve ability to land traps on larger mobs. It only serves as a limit on the complexity of trap that can be used.
I haven't tested this claim for myself so I can't testify as to its veracity.
I haven't tested this claim for myself so I can't testify as to its veracity.
GoldMemberBria
Tue Mar 09, 2004 3:12 pm
#23
Nope, he's too busy mowing the rancor down with his TKA/Sword skills that he aquired with the skill points we dumb dumbs are wasting on traps.
Volcun wrote:
Ever seen a scout trap a rancor?
Lorell
Tue Mar 09, 2004 3:16 pm
#24
I agree that the scout traps are more effective and hopefully this will be addressed as part of our outdoorsman proposal. Scout traps are great and I really hope the Ranger ones get the upgrade they desperately need.
PadiOne
Wed Mar 10, 2004 1:19 am
#25
I was testing out the usefulness of traps last night, before I even realized that this thread existed. Here's what I found:
As a Master Rifleman wearing 50% composite armor, I could take down a Gurk and lose about 1/2 of my health(800). If I started the battle by throwing a bone spur(blind) or a sonic pulse(stun), I would lose only about 1/10 of my health. The gurk didn't die any faster, maybe even a bit slower since I had to take the time to throw the trap. All shooting was done via autofire (no specials).
If I threw glow juice at him, I found that i took him down faster, but that he still did about 1/3 dmg to my health bar.
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