Scout Archive

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Zanti-the-Bothan wrote:

To expand upon my earlier comment, if traps are keyed to combat level in terms of effectiveness, it means that there is absolutely no reason to retain trapping skills if you move 10 levels beyond your highest trap. Any trap you throw will be ineffective. With any other weapon, it dosen't become broken if you move up combat levels. A level 54 master pistoleer can still use a level 30 qualified Jawa Ion Pistol for its elemental damage ability, even if he doesn't get the same damage output that he would with say a republic blaster. The scout, on the other hand, is stripped of his tools in an arbitrary way by the level system.

So, a master scout who choses NOT to pursue ranger traps (say he takes ranger for tracking, not an uncommon notion among CHs with a combat profession) will increase his level to the point of pursuing carbines or swords to the point where the traps he used to advance become useless, and his combat power is diminished and made less diverse. Traps are used to impose states. This system actually DISCOURAGES the tactical innovation in combat, ramming everyone into the same cookie-cutter mold.

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The traps will not become broken - you just cannot use them on the higher level creatures. It was like this pre-CU as well if I remember correctly. You could only trap what your trapping mod allowed you to trap, just as you could only maskscent successfully against the creatures your mod allowed you to mask against etc.

I understand your point, but if a Master Scout is able to trap as well as a Master Ranger - what would be the point of becoming a Master Ranger? The specials you get in the Marksman tree are very much weaker than the shots in, say, the Rifleman tree. If you want to go after an Ancient Krayt you are going to have a long road bringing him down with just placed shot. That gives you the incentive to level up the elite combat trees. Similarly the ability to trap higher level creatures gives you the incentive to level the Ranger trap line.

Paks, this goes beyond the XP issue. It deals directly with whether the trap works at all. Tazz can't use ANY trap for any reason right now, because his combat level is too high for them to stick on ANYTHING. He can craft pdarts as he has Trapping III of the scout line, but if he throws one at ANYTHING he gets a "trap was ineffective" message.

But because his combat level is too high and his trapping skills are not atthe same combat level, traps are utterly useless.Tazz can't use them now against wild mobs (not mission lairs) of the appropriate level. He tosses a basic trap at a gnort, and it's ineffective, not due tohistrapping skill, but due to his combat level.

Yet master rangers can effectively use pdarts RIGHT AND LEFT, something that is some 40 levels below them in combat power if they're a master BH/master rifleman or whatever because they've got higher level trapping skills.

If the Trapping levels worked right, pdarts would be utterly ineffective for them, too, The weaponwould beobsoleted by moving up the tree, because higher level targets aren't affected by them.If the logic held. But it doesn't.The master ranger wouldhave to use some higher level trap instead. But they don't...and they dont have to. One of the common ranger complaints is that they don't get new traps moving up the tree with new effects. Well, now ranger trapping skills are needed just to use basic traps as your combat level goes up. If you don't invest SP in trapping as your combat level improves, traps are taken away from you completely as an effective combat tool. As Neutrineaux notes, a master BH/master pistoleer can use a CDEF if they want to and it still works, albeit with less damage than a DX-10 or a proton carbine. Tazz as a master pistoleer can still use a CDEF pistol to apply a stopping shot or an intimidate shot on a target.

So, there's no practical reason for Tazz to invest ANY SP in trapping unless he goes all the way up ranger and devote the SP to it as his combat level grows higher. Traps at the higher combat levels are exclusively the province of master rangers. ANY trap at all. Ldarts and wire mesh, if they choose to use them, can be used with some effectiveness. For a level 80 character with only Trapping III, those combat multipliers are totally unavailable. You can toss them all day and they'll have no effect. Not even my (Zanti's) dweezel (+21 trapping, avaliable on Ahazi at my vendor see sig below paid advt) can help a scout with Trapping III if his combat level is too high.

Tazz used to use pdarts and glow wires against sharnaffs on Corellia all the time when he was a master scout, even though his template was master scout/masterCH/master medic with marksman pistols IV. His combat level under thecurrent system would be somewhere in the 60s now, and he would be unable to use the tools NOW that he could under the old combat system, when the level of the trap was keyed to the level of the creature he was using it on and its inherent statistics, NOT on the artificial combat level of the player.

Also, note that under the old system, the level of missions could be changed by equipping a less powerful weapon or grouping with a pet. Same true with other players. Now grouping changes the number of lair guardians, not the level of them. Grouping before got you higher level missions, and higher payoffs. It might also change the number of lair guardians. Now, grouping does NOTHING to change the base payoff of the mission. A level 80 mission has a 8k to 9k payoff. In fact, sometimes level 82 missions pay LESS than level 78 missions. It's pretty much random. What IS consistent is that if you take it on alone, you'll have 2 or 3 lair guardians. If you take it on with 4 players, you'll have 8-10 lair guardians.

Message Edited by Zanti-the-Bothan on 07-02-2005 08:29 AM

under the new system, you'll get XP based on the creatures' level...not it's relative level.

For example, a Master Ranger will get the same XP for sticking a trap on a durni that a novice scout will. That way, there should never be a time that you'll get 1XP. You'll always get the same trap XP for a certain level creature. But you won't be able to land traps on the bigger creatures. So as you progress, you'll be able to trap higher level creatures. and as you trap higher level creatures, you'll get more XP.

easy and not broken.

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Keatsnam wrote:
Sweet Baby Jeebus... Red Names addressing both pets AND traps... It really IS Christmas in July!

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Was going to say something along the lines of Holy Hoppin Hawtpants or some such but I suppose that will do too....

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GreenMarine wrote:
Trapping XP is broken and not working as intended. Success to hit with a trap is based on your trapping skill vs the level of the target. If you hit, XP is then (currently) granted based on your combat level vs the level of the target. This is in error. XP should be granted on a successful hit based on the level of the target, regardless of your combat level. This will be fixed in publish 20.

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Well,

I personally am very happy to hear rangers are getting fixed up a bit, as I plan on starting one (and did start one a bit, got my Pdarts and was having alot of fun with them )

But I sure hope adhesive mesh isn't some crappy 3 second root after all this experience with the uberfun P-dart And I hope the other traps are such huge jokes.... but I suppose the fix is only to the bugged ones

But yay!

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Bonestrand wrote:

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GreenMarine wrote:
Trapping XP is broken and not working as intended. Success to hit with a trap is based on your trapping skill vs the level of the target. If you hit, XP is then (currently) granted based on your combat level vs the level of the target. This is in error. XP should be granted on a successful hit based on the level of the target, regardless of your combat level. This will be fixed in publish 20.

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this is all after spending 4 days grinding scout and level 1 traping in ranger......after droping from level 80 to level 1 just to do so..... wonderful =(

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If it makes you feel any better, I'm a former oldschool master ranger that wasted his respec token because I couldn't reclaim Scout trapping I.

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Defcon2006 wrote:
I'm going to use this thread as my trapping xp guide to master ranger... lol

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get some dweezle (sp?) if your combat level is not too far abouve your trapping level. i got +18 dweezle, which with master scout, allowed me to use traps as a ranger with enough effect that i could go ahead and master. without it, traps did not work at all for me.

Sorry I did not get back to this right away - I was doing 4th of July with the family. Ok, the way I think you are suggesting traps should work is that the benefit you get as you level up trapping would be better and better traps as you move up the line. Thus you could land the traps you are certed for on any creature that matched your combat level. You would want to move up the tree because you would weant the better traps.

However, consider that, even though they were ours first, snares and roots are now the territory of the elite combat professions. Why would you spend all those points for a snare attack when you could just spend a few points in trapping?

If we push for things to go this way I forsee at best a LOT of FOTM players templating trapping IV into their template, and at worst the devs would remove adhesive mesh and the P-Dart from Scout and put them up in the Ranger tree.

I think that Scout is a beginner profession, and I think that Adhesive Mesh and P-Dart are very useful for the beginning player - I would hate to see us loose these traps and have them replaced with a less useful state effect.

In my opinion, leveling up your combat level does not mean you loose the ability to root or snare - you simply have to pick up the elite version, either in the elite combat professions or in Ranger. But for the record, I believe Green Marine is still following this thread (and I will make sure to direct his attention back to it if I can) so continue to post your alternate view points so he and the team can consider them!

Message Edited by Vorpaks on 07-04-2005 08:30 PM

I think a scout need to be able trap at any level regardless of their CL.

The solution to preventing Trapping from becoming a FOTM is to move the traps around.

So as trapping increase traps become more usefule.

So trapping 1. Dizzy state

Trapping 2. Stun

Trapping 3 Blind

Trapping 4 Dizzy and Stun

Master Scout Stun and Blind

Novice Ranger: Snare

Ranger trapping 1 Root

And so on. This way a CL80 with Master Scout can still chuck traps

If I remember correctly, pre-CU I could never land a trap on an Ancient Krayt because the level was too high for my trapping mod. I was rarely able to land traps on Ancient Bull Rancors or Stoneskin Hanadaks (but when I did it was a nice 2000 trapping xp), and I was pretty high up the Ranger trapping tree.

Am I remembering this incorrectly?

Certainly seems to tally with what I'm remembering from preCU.

Am also able to stick traps as a CL50, CL69 and CL75 toon all with roughly the same scout/novice ranger trapping level, but only on creatures at to +10 of my trapping level.

Another toon, CL30 with TL50 is getting decent trap XP off every kill. Well, when I say decent, if he's solo and hits with two traps of any type, its a max of 1270XP off a CL30 gualama which will still give +2k scout XP on harvesting and 3-5k weapons XP. Hit with one trap, 650XP. So you really don't get that trap XP at anything like the level you get all the rest.*














*numbers gathered during 2xp period