Trap tier/ranking

[asmodeal]

Is there a general concensus as to which traps are better. I know it is going to be a lot dependent on the playstyle and character but still do you think there are better traps?

Here is how I will order them.

Mystical ground (Top is better):
* Icicle field: No weakness no strength, does a good job at delaying waves and doing a little damage.
* Portal glyph: High risk high reward, when it works and depending on the map setup it is really good, especially with the lighting vulnebarilty for the witch.
* Lava grill: Strength against horde is something that seems useless most of the time, I think there are some good synergy with burning monsters depending on your equipment but I don't really like this trap.
* Abyss crater: I have not played with it much but I don't like the random chance and the Essence penalty
* Statis trap: Another trap I have not used much since it seems so underpowered and useless.

Mechanical ground (in this category all traps are good with essence trap top tier):
* Essence trap: A good essence trap in a choke makes for trivial maps, plus it has bonuses if you wish to research it as well.
* Spear trap: Good no joking damage that synergies well when you can block a monster on it.
* Acid Geyser: I don't play with it but I imagine the vulnerability against physical to be really good with a good setup.
* Spring trap: It seems pretty much like a lesser spear trap that shines when put in a strategic place
* Trick mine dispenser: I have been experimentating with it a lot but I still don't know if it is good or if it sucks. According to the description this can be really good early on a path to set up a wave later on a choke but I find the bomb grabbing chance to be really low.

Mystical tower (Top is better):
* Olympus pillar: Highest range of traps, it is really good but it suffers when the strike goes on summoned critters instead of summoners.
* Phoenix pillar: I don't use it but I think the knockback effect is really strong and can be use to delay waves in places you don't have access to a ground trap.
* Frost pilar: A strong tower to slow down individual monsters which I tend to overlook in end game as maps get really crowded
* Lighting pillar: I have not used it much, it seems a little lackluster
* Enthropic pillar: I guess this one really comes down to your playstyle, damage looks low and it is single target, it feels as if it is not really good but I don't play with it.

Mechnical tower (Top is better):
* Gun sentry: The bread and butter tower that does very well to delay waves and thin them out with its splash damage.
* Voltaron coil: A really good tower that deals dammage everywhere in its reach and help in chokes to reduce dammage, even better if you have lightening vulnerability buffs.
* Razor launcher: It seems incredibly strong with a nice corridor setup, I have not played with it though.
* Blast Furnace: I have no idea if this tower is any good but strength against horde and fire is not really something I need for my witch.
* Canon sentry: Strong against horde which I don't need or like, I have not used it much, not sure if it is really good or not, it would have been better if it had no weakness or strength I think.

Summoning trap (I think all are decent):
* Monster cage: Good to hold pesky harpies, not that great to hold too many monsters at once.
* Reanimator pit: I don't use it but it is really good on choke where you kill a lot of monster and the constant ghoul spawning helps obstructating a path.
* Archer post: I don't ofen use this trap, I think it is decent to help you against horde/special or bosses.
* Suicide swarm nest: A trap I really like that delays waves and then does a good amount of dammage.
* Winter queen sigil: I have not tried it much but it seems to do a good damage and deal with waves pretty well.

[31415926535897932384]

Interesting list but I would have ranked them in a largely different way. Cannon sentry is one of my favourite traps. And I think where you say flying you mean horde enemies. The cannon sentrys large range/AOE/damage with a decent chance of knockback is really quite good. Enthropic pillar can be upgraded for a chance to hit multiple enemies and the healing aspect of it is where it really shines. Try placing it near summons traps for the full effect. Most traps are useful in certain situations at least. Some do seem to outshine others most of the time though.

[asmodeal]

Oh my, I think I got the game wrong all along. Indeed I thought it was flying monsters and not horde, I guess since you cannot go over with your mouse and I could not decipher what the drawing was I did not understand that well enough.

[31415926535897932384]

I was quite confused about that as well until I opened up encyclopedia. It helped clarify a lot for me.

[strigvir]

Originally posted by asmodeal:

* Icicle field: No weakness no strength, does a good job at delaying waves and doing a little dammage.

No strength you say? -90% ice resistance is pretty damn good (basically makes ice damage equivalent to "strong versus armored") and it's very bad at dealing a damage on its own, but so are all ground traps.

Originally posted by asmodeal:

* Lava grill: Strenght against horde is something that seems useless most of the time, I think there are some good synergy with burning monsters depending on your equipment but I don't really like this trap.

The problem is icicle field+any aoe tower is way better at killing hordes than 2x bonus damage against them.

Originally posted by asmodeal:

* Abyss crater: I have not played with it much but I don't like the random chance and the Essence penalty
* Statis trap: Another trap I have not used much since it seems so underpowered and useless.

They are useless against enemies higher than "normal" type and it just happens that most irritating monsters are "armored" and onwards.

Originally posted by asmodeal:

* Spear trap: Good no joking damage that synergies well when you can block a monster on it.
* Acid Geyser: I don't play with it but I imagine the vulnerability against physical to be really good with a good setup.

Why did you put AG higher than Spear? AG+Razor is better for dealing with armored enemies (the only reason you would've use Spear trap in the first place).

Originally posted by asmodeal:

* Spring trap: It seems pretty much like a lesser spear trap that shines when put in a strategic place

It has a ridiculous fire resistance penalty which could work pretty good in conjuction with blast furnace and icicle field. But alas we don't have a dedicated piromaniac class yet to benefit from it.

Originally posted by asmodeal:

* Phoenix pillar: I don't use it but I think the knockback effect is really strong and can be use to delay waves in places you don't have access to a ground trap.

The only enemies which it can knockback are horde ones.

Originally posted by asmodeal:

* Frost pilar: A strong tower to slow down individual monsters which I tend to overlook in end game as maps get really crowded

It is pretty good versus giants, but gets overshadowed by gun sentry in terms of damage, attack speed and AoE slow. I imagine it would be super useful if it switched to non-frozen enemies to freeze them, but it doesn't and so is irrelevant.

Originally posted by asmodeal:

* Voltaron coil: A really good tower that deals dammage everywhere in its reach and help in chokes to reduce dammage, even better if you have lightening vulnerability buffs.

Is this a joke? Its required range like 3 meters which is pretty laughable for tower, just because it attacks everyone doesn't mean it is good at it. Gun Sentry + Olympus is better at delivering lighting damage to enemies.

Originally posted by asmodeal:

* Razor launcher: It seems incredibly strong with a nice corridor setup, I have not played with it though.

Seeing as it's the only tower capable of AoE shooting gargoyles with acceptable damage you HAVE to use it versus armored enemies, unless you like to kill every one of them by hand.

Originally posted by asmodeal:

(I think all are decent):

They aren't. Winter Queen is THE summoning trap, paired with icicle field she can choke even armored monsters. Werewolves are good at parking enemies near towers but nothing more. Archers are quite good at sniping giant enemies... when they attack them or even shoot at all. 45% damage avoidance is good in theory but almost all giants do AoE damage.
Suicide Nest is just lol, werewolves + any towers will do more damage than these exlosive nothings. And Reanimator Pits requires corpses to provide more less consistent defence. But if you can provide a lot of corpses why bother with reanimations then?

[anramses]

Voltron coil is by far the best of the towers if the pathing is favorable. Pair it with a monster pit and only bosses get throuugh.

[asmodeal]

Originally posted by strigvir:

Originally posted by asmodeal:

...

Thanks for the details.
I wrote the topic more to probe for advice rather than declare I had the right order or understanding of their usefulness.
I tend to kill a lot of stuff manually and I have not really looked/bothered into how to better deal with armored enemies but I see how the Icicle trap and the summoning of winter queen synergize very well or how the acid geyser is also more useful than i had imagined.
BTW when I said Iicle field had no strength I mean it is neither weak/strong against horde/giant mobs but I know it is pretty useful and even more now you are pointing me towards the ice debuff.

It is true that Voltron coil reach is incredibly small but it usually suit my purpose when I need to create a choke point with an essence trap. I don't know for sure if it is better DPS/dmg on a zone overall if you use its help to hold a choke point than the gun sentry trap but it looks like it is more powerful.

[lol scv rush]

I've tried using Acid Geyser but haven't gotten great effects out of it. Perhaps I'm not combo-ing the trap properly or simply expecting too much when compared to what a spear trap will do. I've also found the Lava Grill to be fairly lackluster. You really need someone to stay on that grill for a significant period of time for it to be worthwhile and even if they do, you might as well use a spear trap which does far more damage (and to the enemies that count).

[CyberDown]

Two things i noticed here.

One the ranking is based on how you play, which is understandable, however other characters/classes/people might do different things and have a setup of traps based on that.

Second, some of the traps you ranked poorly do really well when other ground traps are used prior to it. You mentioned one turret being great except when it targets horde trash, then say another ground trap is useless because its great for horde which are not an issue (they arnt)

However putting a hord slaughtering ground trap prior to some single target traps great for high HP targets, you get a very good chance it wont be wasted on trash, and then you dont need to baby sit it clearing the junk so your defenses can work on the important stuff. Sometimes i like putting lava grilles first thing in front of the spawns, just to clear the trash spam, if possible, and then i can have my turrets closer to base dealing with slowing and damaging larger targets.

My marksman has all sorts of global poision stuff, making traps that do poision work beter, damage over time buffs that work on traps, global poision vulnerablilites....ill take the poision traps that are cheap anyday, but for another character, they might suck, especially if they are much better at dealing with highly armored enemies, which i seem to have sort of issue with some times.

[Valen]

I dont think its possible to tier the traps as you cannot just fill the map with a singular trap, and they mostly evovle around synergies with one another. Example, you say Statis Traps as underpowered and useless, I enjoying using them as they are pretty much a wall without being a wall (because enemy collision), which makes it great and easier for say Canon Sentry just to blast away 15+ guys with one shell. Same with Acid Gysers vul with Spear Traps.

[Metalacil]

I stopped reading after "* Acid Geyser: I don't play with it but I imagine..."
To make a decent gudie you ahve to actively use all traps i noticed reading before that 2traps you dont use because either random chance or seems underpowered.
To see if it is you actually have to max trap points in it because that is a big gamechanger.

Otherwise for me it would be lava grill, spear trap, phoenix/olympus tower, gun sentry and werewolves. and my opinion is all others especially AG is weak...
I prefer using werewolves to make things stuck especially fi a spear trap or lava is infront of it.

The queen seems redundant to me as marksman as i pretty much kill alot myself just too many at multiple points.

+ better traps for all characters, marksman, sorc or merc? as you say yourself everything has own playstyle. So would be good to mention what you played sicne that makes up your decision.

[strigvir]

Originally posted by Metalacil:

To see if it is you actually have to max trap points in it because that is a big gamechanger.

If the tower is useless until you put max points in it, i.e. get to 100 level, then it is the definiton of "underpowered". But you are playing as hunter so I can see why you are okay with that curve.

Originally posted by Metalacil:

+ better traps for all characters, marksman, sorc or merc? as you say yourself everything has own playstyle. So would be good to mention what you played sicne that makes up your decision.

Everyone has own playstyle but some are superior to others. There is a reason you went "dps hunter" instead of poison one.

[BlowFish]

I quite like Gun Sentry with Acid Geyser and Icicle Field though there's lots I still haven't tried. I'd like to see more opinions from people with more experience of stuff.