fullflavor
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FullFlavor's Hoto/Spirit Trapper PVM Guide
After taking a long break from the game, I came back with a vengeance and what better to start off the adventure with a speedy trapper who can solo every part of the game bar ubers.
First off all this is not a definitive guide most trappers use claws for more skills and pre-buffs which I only see the need for them in PvP which this guide is not about.
Now, right lets get to the point.
Our primary damage is coming from Lightning Sentry and Fire Blast, Death Sentry as a dessert for our meals to pop out the dead bodies.
This build uses very tight point skills distribution. You need to pre-plan the points. Obviously we have 5 main traps to be maxed out. This leaves little points to spend on shadow tree. On the bright side shadow tree is all 1 point wonders especially with +skill items boosting it up.
Trap Tree
Fire Blast max 20 points
Shockweb max 20 points
Charged Bolt Sentry max 20 points
Lightning Sentry max 20 points
Death Sentry max 20 points
Shadow Tree
Claw Mastery 1 point
Physhic Hammer 1 point
Burst of Speed 1 point
Cloak of Shadows 1 point
Mind Blast 1 point
This is the basic build for a total of whopping 105 points used ,which means its complete at lvl94 assuming you completed all your skills quests.
Most efficient way to distrubute points is to get all shadow tree skills as soon as possible. For trap tree, the order which i find the most suitable is to max lightning sentry first, followed by death sentry then Fire blast and Shockweb. I left charged bolt sentry to last. Most leave shockweb or fireblast to last which i find it weird.
Most of the time left mouse button is always ready to fireblast. In case of fire immunes shockweb is hotkeyed for left mousebutton. This is why i prefer leaving charged bolt to last as it will only override your existing traps on the ground which we don’t want to and gives you additional bonus damage to handle fire immunes when your main traps are already on the ground.
Back to shadow tree, i left out weapon block, shadow master/warrior and fade.
Wepon block: since we will use hoto/shield its no use to us as we wont be wielding claws.
Fade: Since we will use hoto/shield and they got massive resists, and we will hit 75 cap on hell i see no reason to invest here, and we never want it to cancel out BoS as it gives faster trap laying speed and you run faster then your screen refreshes.
Shadow Master/Warrior: Now this is up for debate, some love them some hate them. I hate them. They have their uses but most of the time they are more annoyance to myself and my party.
Especially master with her addiction to use mind blast is just pure non-sense as most of the time she actually slows me down with converted monsters.
Warrior on the other hand could be more usefull, as she only uses whats set on your mouse buttons to be used. If i decided to lvl a bit more then 94 then i could go for this minion. But she is not a must in this build.
Possible another skill could be dragon talon. Another 1 point wonder that could really shine with your massive +skills and you will get a lot of strength and high dmg boots so its again possible. But i would rather use fireblast or shockweb then talon and stay safe in distance as i won’t be having much damage reduce .
Gear section:
Amulet: Maras
Helm: Shako (sockatable)
Armor: Enigma
Weapon: Slot 1: Hoto slot2: CTA
Shield: slot1: Spirit 35%FCR slot2: Spirit any %FCR
Glove: magefist
Belt: Arachnids
Rings: 2x SoJ
Boots: Shadow Dancers
Stash: Assa Torch, Anni and 9x Trapper grand charms preferably with life. Rest small charms with mods such as resistances,life .
Reasoning for the gear selection:
Now, for a pure trapper we would need to maximise on all plus skills available to us. Whilst there are other sources to pump more skills like pure trapper claws we would loose out on other major aspects such as resistances, faster cast rate and faster hit recovery.
Now the eye catching gears on the list above is probably spirit which can be done only on monarch and shadow dancers. They both require huge strength to wear.
There are other alternatives available but are they worth sacrifice to save points on strength? After looking at bonuses of spirit and shadow dancers. Clearly not. Skills,fcr,fhr, massive vita and mana boost makes it a must in my opinion. And we want shadow dancers as well in case we spend a odd point on dragon talon and skills to shadow tree won't hurt us.
Only part in this gear we can socket is shako. Now you got many choices on shako to socket. Most use um for more resistance. But, I prefer to not to be frozen, as I can cover most of my resist from gear or small charms. So I prefer with cham. If you are frozen, you can't lay traps fast, you can't throw traps such as fireblast fast and you can't retreat fast.
The gear above gives:
+19 all stats
+21 to shadow skills
+28 to light traps
+29 to fire blast
As well you reach a very good faster cast rate, recovery rate and resistances to make you an all rounder in PvM game play.
Stat points:
Strength: around 80 to 100 to base depends on your torch and anni stats.
Dex: nothing
Vita: rest
Energy: nothing
Our highest strength gear would be boots with 167 and shield with 156. So we need the bonus of torch, anni, shako,maras and enigma to boost us to 167at least. Dont go overboard 167 is to aim for.
Since this is not a pvp build altough can be used for pvp too, we dont need to invest everthing on vita or dex. We dont need to block with shield, we are trappers most monsters should not reach us. We got high dmg traps, mercenary and crowd control utilities such as mindblast and cloak of shadows.
Mercenary:
Act2 desert mercenaries are just awesome for a trapper.
Since our trapper is light damage and fire damage. We need a good physical damage just in case we encounter immunes for both elements. Rare but happens.
I chose holy freeze from nightmare defensive. Equipped him with an infinity etheral polearm for good damage and that awesome conviction aura to help out my elemental damage. Gave him etheral andy helm plus chains of honor armor for life leach and good resists.
He can kill fast. Perfect assistant with 2 sweet auras for us, conviction and holy freeze. What more can a trapper ask for from a mercenary?
Style is everything:
Now, we got the gear,merc,talents and stats sorted out. How to play?
Burst of speed should always be on. Lightning sentry is our main killer fire blast second and death sentry is our creme de la creme talent.
Left mouse button: fire blast and shockweb (if you get dragon talon use it on left)
Right mouse button: light sentry,death sentry, BoS,MB,CoS,teleport, battle order things from CTA.
Hotkey them.
This needs practie to get into groove hotkey them on what you use the most and how you find easy to press to activate them.
Light sentry should dispose almost every monster pretty easy providing its not light immune and it has long range we can lay down 5 traps, they serve as a good alarm system as well place them on the edge of your visual area and it will fire if there are monsters. It pierces as well so it can do a lot of damage to multiple monsters.
Their weak point is you can't control who they fire at, and it fires in a straight line. So it's not advicable to place them next to each other in a straight horizantal line.
Seperate them out, cover the angles.
Learn to use mind blast and cloak of shadows efficiently. They serve very good ultimate defensive meausures. Especialy if a monster broke through your offensive spells and mercenary and coming at you.
Chaos sanctuary is a nightmare for merc with oblivion knights cursing us with iron maiden. Not a problem for a trapper but mercenary will die very fast. To avoid it, you need to save your cloak of shadows for them as long as they are effected, no curses they will give. Learn the sound of that curse and symbol and if you see your merc has it retreat using teleport from enigma and mercenary will teleport with you. And wait till it wears off. Killing speed will be slower but at least it's better then getting you bankrupted.
Conclusion:
Well folks that was it. Remember, this guide is not for the average player,its' pretty rich in build. Will cost you loads of pgems and tons of trading. But overall, once you get them, you would love it. You cover all monsters all immunity problems you can solo eveywhere everything. Hell baal rushes are easy and fast. Only a hammerdin is faster but then they are very boring as well.
Many people use different builds variants of trappers. I’m not claiming to have the best set up, but what I promise is raw speed and effectiveness on all parts of the PvM game. I had no trouble rushing people in 8 player games. Speed is slower but doable.
For PvP, better ask other people about it as I gave up on pvp after people abusing the duel system with absorbs and pot using.
After taking a long break from the game, I came back with a vengeance and what better to start off the adventure with a speedy trapper who can solo every part of the game bar ubers.
First off all this is not a definitive guide most trappers use claws for more skills and pre-buffs which I only see the need for them in PvP which this guide is not about.
Now, right lets get to the point.
Our primary damage is coming from Lightning Sentry and Fire Blast, Death Sentry as a dessert for our meals to pop out the dead bodies.
This build uses very tight point skills distribution. You need to pre-plan the points. Obviously we have 5 main traps to be maxed out. This leaves little points to spend on shadow tree. On the bright side shadow tree is all 1 point wonders especially with +skill items boosting it up.
Trap Tree
Fire Blast max 20 points
Shockweb max 20 points
Charged Bolt Sentry max 20 points
Lightning Sentry max 20 points
Death Sentry max 20 points
Shadow Tree
Claw Mastery 1 point
Physhic Hammer 1 point
Burst of Speed 1 point
Cloak of Shadows 1 point
Mind Blast 1 point
This is the basic build for a total of whopping 105 points used ,which means its complete at lvl94 assuming you completed all your skills quests.
Most efficient way to distrubute points is to get all shadow tree skills as soon as possible. For trap tree, the order which i find the most suitable is to max lightning sentry first, followed by death sentry then Fire blast and Shockweb. I left charged bolt sentry to last. Most leave shockweb or fireblast to last which i find it weird.
Most of the time left mouse button is always ready to fireblast. In case of fire immunes shockweb is hotkeyed for left mousebutton. This is why i prefer leaving charged bolt to last as it will only override your existing traps on the ground which we don’t want to and gives you additional bonus damage to handle fire immunes when your main traps are already on the ground.
Back to shadow tree, i left out weapon block, shadow master/warrior and fade.
Wepon block: since we will use hoto/shield its no use to us as we wont be wielding claws.
Fade: Since we will use hoto/shield and they got massive resists, and we will hit 75 cap on hell i see no reason to invest here, and we never want it to cancel out BoS as it gives faster trap laying speed and you run faster then your screen refreshes.
Shadow Master/Warrior: Now this is up for debate, some love them some hate them. I hate them. They have their uses but most of the time they are more annoyance to myself and my party.
Especially master with her addiction to use mind blast is just pure non-sense as most of the time she actually slows me down with converted monsters.
Warrior on the other hand could be more usefull, as she only uses whats set on your mouse buttons to be used. If i decided to lvl a bit more then 94 then i could go for this minion. But she is not a must in this build.
Possible another skill could be dragon talon. Another 1 point wonder that could really shine with your massive +skills and you will get a lot of strength and high dmg boots so its again possible. But i would rather use fireblast or shockweb then talon and stay safe in distance as i won’t be having much damage reduce .
Gear section:
Amulet: Maras
Helm: Shako (sockatable)
Armor: Enigma
Weapon: Slot 1: Hoto slot2: CTA
Shield: slot1: Spirit 35%FCR slot2: Spirit any %FCR
Glove: magefist
Belt: Arachnids
Rings: 2x SoJ
Boots: Shadow Dancers
Stash: Assa Torch, Anni and 9x Trapper grand charms preferably with life. Rest small charms with mods such as resistances,life .
Reasoning for the gear selection:
Now, for a pure trapper we would need to maximise on all plus skills available to us. Whilst there are other sources to pump more skills like pure trapper claws we would loose out on other major aspects such as resistances, faster cast rate and faster hit recovery.
Now the eye catching gears on the list above is probably spirit which can be done only on monarch and shadow dancers. They both require huge strength to wear.
There are other alternatives available but are they worth sacrifice to save points on strength? After looking at bonuses of spirit and shadow dancers. Clearly not. Skills,fcr,fhr, massive vita and mana boost makes it a must in my opinion. And we want shadow dancers as well in case we spend a odd point on dragon talon and skills to shadow tree won't hurt us.
Only part in this gear we can socket is shako. Now you got many choices on shako to socket. Most use um for more resistance. But, I prefer to not to be frozen, as I can cover most of my resist from gear or small charms. So I prefer with cham. If you are frozen, you can't lay traps fast, you can't throw traps such as fireblast fast and you can't retreat fast.
The gear above gives:
+19 all stats
+21 to shadow skills
+28 to light traps
+29 to fire blast
As well you reach a very good faster cast rate, recovery rate and resistances to make you an all rounder in PvM game play.
Stat points:
Strength: around 80 to 100 to base depends on your torch and anni stats.
Dex: nothing
Vita: rest
Energy: nothing
Our highest strength gear would be boots with 167 and shield with 156. So we need the bonus of torch, anni, shako,maras and enigma to boost us to 167at least. Dont go overboard 167 is to aim for.
Since this is not a pvp build altough can be used for pvp too, we dont need to invest everthing on vita or dex. We dont need to block with shield, we are trappers most monsters should not reach us. We got high dmg traps, mercenary and crowd control utilities such as mindblast and cloak of shadows.
Mercenary:
Act2 desert mercenaries are just awesome for a trapper.
Since our trapper is light damage and fire damage. We need a good physical damage just in case we encounter immunes for both elements. Rare but happens.
I chose holy freeze from nightmare defensive. Equipped him with an infinity etheral polearm for good damage and that awesome conviction aura to help out my elemental damage. Gave him etheral andy helm plus chains of honor armor for life leach and good resists.
He can kill fast. Perfect assistant with 2 sweet auras for us, conviction and holy freeze. What more can a trapper ask for from a mercenary?
Style is everything:
Now, we got the gear,merc,talents and stats sorted out. How to play?
Burst of speed should always be on. Lightning sentry is our main killer fire blast second and death sentry is our creme de la creme talent.
Left mouse button: fire blast and shockweb (if you get dragon talon use it on left)
Right mouse button: light sentry,death sentry, BoS,MB,CoS,teleport, battle order things from CTA.
Hotkey them.
This needs practie to get into groove hotkey them on what you use the most and how you find easy to press to activate them.
Light sentry should dispose almost every monster pretty easy providing its not light immune and it has long range we can lay down 5 traps, they serve as a good alarm system as well place them on the edge of your visual area and it will fire if there are monsters. It pierces as well so it can do a lot of damage to multiple monsters.
Their weak point is you can't control who they fire at, and it fires in a straight line. So it's not advicable to place them next to each other in a straight horizantal line.
Seperate them out, cover the angles.
Learn to use mind blast and cloak of shadows efficiently. They serve very good ultimate defensive meausures. Especialy if a monster broke through your offensive spells and mercenary and coming at you.
Chaos sanctuary is a nightmare for merc with oblivion knights cursing us with iron maiden. Not a problem for a trapper but mercenary will die very fast. To avoid it, you need to save your cloak of shadows for them as long as they are effected, no curses they will give. Learn the sound of that curse and symbol and if you see your merc has it retreat using teleport from enigma and mercenary will teleport with you. And wait till it wears off. Killing speed will be slower but at least it's better then getting you bankrupted.
Conclusion:
Well folks that was it. Remember, this guide is not for the average player,its' pretty rich in build. Will cost you loads of pgems and tons of trading. But overall, once you get them, you would love it. You cover all monsters all immunity problems you can solo eveywhere everything. Hell baal rushes are easy and fast. Only a hammerdin is faster but then they are very boring as well.
Many people use different builds variants of trappers. I’m not claiming to have the best set up, but what I promise is raw speed and effectiveness on all parts of the PvM game. I had no trouble rushing people in 8 player games. Speed is slower but doable.
For PvP, better ask other people about it as I gave up on pvp after people abusing the duel system with absorbs and pot using.
(especially when a melee skill is concerned - which is not the case here - as shift + left click seem to miss a lot, while holding down right click makes you move and attack anyone in range)
my bad...
