Are you guys kidding?! The exploding trap will knock out opponents unless they succeed at a save vs. spell with an incredible -10 penalty! Plus it is AoE and party friendly! How can that amount of sheer disrupting capability NOT be useful?
My opinion: Spike Trap: Pure Damage (that is magical and not piercing for some reason). Only single target trap... At least it has exceptional damage though.
Exploding Trap: AoE damage that is party friendly. Disrupts almost everything! Damage is lacking, but disruption is usually better than damage.
Time Trap: Still haven't figured out what this is good for...
Normal Trap: Don't count this one out. Pretty sweet damage combined with some nasty effects depending on your level. AoE and party friendly. Definitely good even in high levels, and maybe even better than the HLA traps.
Bounty Hunter Trap: AoE and party friendly. Only trap that can be set at a range (awesome!). Moves from disruption and damage (which is good) to just pure disruption (which is not so good). Almost gets worse at high levels (ORS?! Screw that!). AoE Maze can be quite nice, but would be better if combined with damage... (hmm, mod idea!)
Exploding Traps are quite excellent at disabling mages at the start of battle, but the unconsciouness effect, as I recall, only lasts 3 seconds. It's not a proper disabler.
Time Traps don't let a thief do much besides use DEX drain with the Chaos Blade, dispel with Carsomyr, or land a backstab, perhaps with Assassination. But those are all excellent options IF you make the most of those 10 precious seconds. With multiple Time Traps, you can also run out enemy prebuffs in SCS.
But most prefer Spike Traps for the guaranteed ~70 damage. The others are toolkit options; Spike Trap is for raw damage... Which actually is kind of overrated. Sometimes, 3 seconds of free action for your party, or 10 seconds for one party member, can get you a lot more leverage than 70 damage.
Exploding Traps are quite excellent at disabling mages at the start of battle, but the unconsciouness effect, as I recall, only lasts 3 seconds. It's not a proper disabler..
Hence why I said "disrupt" and not "disable". It also pushes stuff back with a wing buffet effect.
Too cute. Gotta have them numbers! Numbers are everything. Numbers are life. If you can't bulldoze it into the ground with damage, you're doing it wrong!
Time traps are a good option for F/T. Besides that, they are not so good. Spike traps are there to one shot enemies Just plant 4 of them and any enemy walking by will be killed. However, basic traps might do the same job pretty well. Exploding traps are just good at disrupting mages (large groups of enemies hardly being a danger once you reach HLA due to your mage having Dragon breath of ADHW), take a couple of them and that's enough IMHO
Time Trap: Still haven't figured out what this is good for...
Very abusive for multiclass thieves, read some of the hardcore challenge power-gamer runs around here for some ideas. Think of what a fighter with HLAs could do in 10 seconds. Straight thief doesn't seem so strong (though just 10 seconds to heal up, lay other HL traps, or put up a few backstabs should be pretty powerful) but with multiclass it has a lot more potential.
@hispls : typically, a IH warrior thief with GM and scarlet ninja-to (10APR) using assassination, delivering an express 10* backstab. That's about 1500 damage in one round
In my latest run through the game on insane with SCS using a FMT I have used traps to my advantage many times. They are not constantly useful but they have made some really tough fights much easier. Watchers keep and Sendai's area constantly allow the smart placement of traps throughout. In watcher's keep I used a time stop trap on the fifth floor in the area where you use the magical balls to unlock increasingly difficult enemies. Each time you use a ball it will teleport some badies to a set location in the room. Two litches teleported in and set off the time stop trap. They didn't even have time to get SCS protections up. I ran over to each and bashed them both to death before the 10 seconds were up.
Exploding trap worked great in Sendai's lair in the mind flayer area. I set an exploding trap outside the door of the final room and when I opened the door it went off and knocked everyone back. All of my hasted fighters rushed into the room and started blasting on the knocked out mages. Very good start to the fight.
Spike trap is great for many fights. Setting them outside the doors in hell at the end of SOA took Irenicus down to near death before the fight even started.
If you are using a FMT like Gotural mentioned then you can really cause some chaos if you cast mislead and improved haste on yourself. Then set a timestop trap. As soon as the enemy triggers the timestop you can use critical strike HLA and to do 10 quintuple backstabs with double damage in a single round. It could land you 2000-3000 damage before the fight even starts. The problem is that many enemies will have massive protections up but even then it will give you time to cast some de-buffs or use the holy avenger's dispel combo for some serious damage. You can also stack multiple timestop traps if you really want to take advantage...
At the moment I am level 17/16/21 at about 7 million XP. I think I will be able to finish the BG trilogy in the next couple of days. Just in time for Pillars of Eternity.
Time Traps are by far my favorite. My F/M/T can deal more than a thousand damages in 10 seconds.
I waited until the 1.3 patch for SOA before I played through the entire saga with the FMT that you convinced me to try out. I must say it has been a really fun playthrough. I am almost finished with the game actually. I have Abizigal and the final battle left to do.
While I have always used RTS to the max to finish off opponents as quickly as possible with a 6 man team I have to admit It is stunning how powerful the FMT can be by himself. For example, I walked up to Saladrex the dragon in watchers keep and beat him to death with my FMT while the rest of my party sat off to the side just to see if he could do it. I didn't cast a single spell on the dragon. I cast about 5 pre-buff spells on myself and walked up to him and killed him toe to toe with brute force. It may have taken longer to do it with a single character but it required less effort because you only had to worry about the FMT and he couldn't really be damaged. While my opinions have always been based around my own play style I must admit at times the FMT by himself can be more useful then a party.
Are you guys kidding?! The exploding trap will knock out opponents unless they succeed at a save vs. spell with an incredible -10 penalty! Plus it is AoE and party friendly! How can that amount of sheer disrupting capability NOT be useful?
Where does it say that? I've never heard of that trap having such a stiff penalty to save against it.
@Flashburn my money is on the HLA files - not everything is spelled out in the spell/ability description, so Tresset probably just looked it up in NearInfinity or DLTCEP and checked the save penalty.
Same goes with magic resistance actually - nowhere does it say that Fire Storm, Implosion or Dragon Breath ignore MR but a quick look at the files and voila, here they are.
out of the HLA i love using time trap the most, just because they stack. 5 time traps = a 50 second timestop and thats more that enough time for Haer'Dalis or your CHARNAME to beat pretty much anything to death.
Since thats not a option, I'll go with the spike trap for the non elemental burst dmg.
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It has insane damage, and it's non-elemental, meaning it'll hit pretty much anything.
My opinion:
Spike Trap: Pure Damage (that is magical and not piercing for some reason). Only single target trap... At least it has exceptional damage though.
Exploding Trap: AoE damage that is party friendly. Disrupts almost everything! Damage is lacking, but disruption is usually better than damage.
Time Trap: Still haven't figured out what this is good for...
Normal Trap: Don't count this one out. Pretty sweet damage combined with some nasty effects depending on your level. AoE and party friendly. Definitely good even in high levels, and maybe even better than the HLA traps.
Bounty Hunter Trap: AoE and party friendly. Only trap that can be set at a range (awesome!). Moves from disruption and damage (which is good) to just pure disruption (which is not so good). Almost gets worse at high levels (ORS?! Screw that!). AoE Maze can be quite nice, but would be better if combined with damage... (hmm, mod idea!)
Time Traps don't let a thief do much besides use DEX drain with the Chaos Blade, dispel with Carsomyr, or land a backstab, perhaps with Assassination. But those are all excellent options IF you make the most of those 10 precious seconds. With multiple Time Traps, you can also run out enemy prebuffs in SCS.
But most prefer Spike Traps for the guaranteed ~70 damage. The others are toolkit options; Spike Trap is for raw damage... Which actually is kind of overrated. Sometimes, 3 seconds of free action for your party, or 10 seconds for one party member, can get you a lot more leverage than 70 damage.
Spike traps are there to one shot enemies Just plant 4 of them and any enemy walking by will be killed. However, basic traps might do the same job pretty well.
Exploding traps are just good at disrupting mages (large groups of enemies hardly being a danger once you reach HLA due to your mage having Dragon breath of ADHW), take a couple of them and that's enough IMHO
Exploding trap worked great in Sendai's lair in the mind flayer area. I set an exploding trap outside the door of the final room and when I opened the door it went off and knocked everyone back. All of my hasted fighters rushed into the room and started blasting on the knocked out mages. Very good start to the fight.
Spike trap is great for many fights. Setting them outside the doors in hell at the end of SOA took Irenicus down to near death before the fight even started.
If you are using a FMT like Gotural mentioned then you can really cause some chaos if you cast mislead and improved haste on yourself. Then set a timestop trap. As soon as the enemy triggers the timestop you can use critical strike HLA and to do 10 quintuple backstabs with double damage in a single round. It could land you 2000-3000 damage before the fight even starts. The problem is that many enemies will have massive protections up but even then it will give you time to cast some de-buffs or use the holy avenger's dispel combo for some serious damage. You can also stack multiple timestop traps if you really want to take advantage...
At the moment I am level 17/16/21 at about 7 million XP. I think I will be able to finish the BG trilogy in the next couple of days. Just in time for Pillars of Eternity.
I waited until the 1.3 patch for SOA before I played through the entire saga with the FMT that you convinced me to try out. I must say it has been a really fun playthrough. I am almost finished with the game actually. I have Abizigal and the final battle left to do.
While I have always used RTS to the max to finish off opponents as quickly as possible with a 6 man team I have to admit It is stunning how powerful the FMT can be by himself. For example, I walked up to Saladrex the dragon in watchers keep and beat him to death with my FMT while the rest of my party sat off to the side just to see if he could do it. I didn't cast a single spell on the dragon. I cast about 5 pre-buff spells on myself and walked up to him and killed him toe to toe with brute force. It may have taken longer to do it with a single character but it required less effort because you only had to worry about the FMT and he couldn't really be damaged. While my opinions have always been based around my own play style I must admit at times the FMT by himself can be more useful then a party.
Same goes with magic resistance actually - nowhere does it say that Fire Storm, Implosion or Dragon Breath ignore MR but a quick look at the files and voila, here they are.
Since thats not a option, I'll go with the spike trap for the non elemental burst dmg.