Too much micro-management required to make Rime and Frost traps worthwhile?

[Guest]

Trying to think of scenarios in which they would actually be effective. Mostly coming up with the following:

 

Step 1: Set up ambush.

Step 2: Turn off all party AI

Step 3: Send chanter (aka Kana) forward to kite.

Step 4: Pray like crazy that he isn't half-dead from Disengagement attacks by the time he makes it back to safety.

Step 5: Pray like crazy that enough bad guys ran over the tiny traps to make Steps 1-4 worthwhile.

Step 6: Turn AI back on so that anyone other than Kana can join the fight.

 

Am I missing something?

[Boeroer]

Yes. Use the 1st level phrase that gives +1 move speed and the drop trap chant as a pair (or use zealous charge). Use ranged weapons. Form a tight pack with your companions an start the encounter. Run away with all your party members so that they don't fan out (doesn't need to be perfect)- but don't run too far - the enemy shoukd not turn it's back in you but chase you. When the drop trap chant kicks in, all party members will create traps, not only the chanter. This will result in a very dense minefield. All enemies that followed will get hobbled and suffer some serious freeze damage as long as they follow you. It's the high amount of traps that does this. The chanter alone drops not enough of this. This is a easy way to kite and kill mobs that would normally be to string for you. Drop traps (as all hazards) have a very high chance to hit.

 

You can use one single chanter if you stack a lot of move speed on him. Like boots of speed, chant, fast runner, sugar, The Last Tower and so on (up to +7). Then you do the same but run circles or back and forth all the time. With Shot on the Run, dps invocations and summons this is an easy way to do solo runs, too.

 

I never tried out if animal companions also drop traps. If they do, a party of 5 rangers and a chanter (all have "Shot on the Run") would be squeezing the most out of this.

Edited November 28, 2015 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

Sorry - sugar gets suppressed. So it's up to +6. Don't know how Fleet Feet potions would work. But I think they would be a good alternative if you don't want to build your whole chanter around that trap chant.

Edited November 28, 2015 by Boeroer

[Guest]

A couple of thoughts:

1. Increasing movement speed seems to work against you. Enemies are likely to turn around if you don't stay within a certain range. Hobbling slows enemies down, which further increases the likelihood of losing them.Also, traps appear not to stack (i.e. a new "round" of traps are created every few seconds, dissipating any that weren't triggered previously).
2. Kiting with the whole party is a risky proposition. Enemies with ranged weapons and/or attacks are going to target your weakest party member (i.e. priest or mage). The few times that I tried using this strategy, my reward was a barely engaged (but hobbled) enemy that had taken a few points of frost damage, but had nearly killed Durance.
3. Yes, animal companions do generate traps (haven't checked to see if summons do, but I imagine they would, as would charmed/dominated enemies).
4. Your post seems to confirm that a significant amount of micro is required to make this even marginally effective (10-15 freeze damage vs Fortitude doesn't seem that impressive to me...especially after I just watched a mob of skeletons take 2-4 points damage for all my effort).
5. I still can't believe that this is how the devs envisioned this being used. Something has to be missing here.

Thanks for the quick reply. It definitely helped!

[Boeroer]

I don't know if they nerfed it or if the AI responds better now to this tactic. When I used it some time ago, I did the bounty in Valewood only with this thing. I was too weak to do it any other way. I just put the +1 movement chant and the frost trap chant in my songbook, then I ran towards the xaurips/drakes and turned and ran away. My whole party was dropping so many traps that half of the pack was badly injured and hobbled (great for my ranged rogue) when I decided to turn around and face them. I also erased the gleaming society (and deciples of the true flame) with this (added other traps and seals).

About your thoughts:
1.: If you're too fast, they will return, that's true. So if you have an insane movement speed you need to run back and forth or run in circles around them. Also works in Crägholt if you're too weak to face them directly.
Yes, I just realised that new drop traps will replace the old ones - I think this was nerfed in one of the latest patches. The trick would now be to let the enemy step into the traps before new ones are dropped. This needs way more micro and reduces the usefulness of the phrase a lot.

 

2.: Never had such problems - but as I said: Some time passed since I used kiting tactics.

 

3.: Good to know, thanks.

 

4.: I now think they nerfed another viable (not OP) thing so much that it's really crappy now. Sad story

 

p.s.:
I just tested a chanter-barb-combo where the chanter would sing the  minus-10-Concentration phrase and the frightening phrase and casts a "Terrify" after 4 phrases. The barb maxed PER, dual wields Godhanstunyr (0.75 sec interrupt, stunning) and Shatterstar (1.0 sec interrupt) and took Interrupting Blows and Threatening Presence. Works like a charm: interrupt-locking all mobs, regardless if I hit or crit. Damage is whimpy - but who cares if I just can hit forever without being hit.
So you can still make good use of your chanter now... you know... Interrupts.

Edited November 28, 2015 by Boeroer

[aweigh0101]

chanter frost traps were "nerfed" because the game engine wasn't erasing them from the MobileObjects.save file and causing loading time bloat; this is the reason the traps overwrite each other now.

This very same reason is also why chanter summons were "nerfed" and made to expire after a set amount of time on the field; the game engine wasn't erasing instances of summons from the MobileObjects.save file, which is where all of the current game information is stored, and causing massive loading time bloat.

who knows how many more "nerfs" were actually made due to how crappy Unity is versus supposed "balance" reasons? food for thought.

[Boeroer]

I don't know. What has the timer of summons to do with saving? I don't know how Unity works "under the hood", I just toyed around with it a bit. But you can't save your game during combat (thant's when summons appear = instance created) and after combat they disappear (you can remove the instance). Then you save. What's the problem? Before the trap nerf the traps also disappeared after some time. They didn't stay forever. At the moment seals do stay forever, even if you leave the map and come back later they are still there. Doesn't seem to be a pproble, but I think that's not a very clever design. Nobody expects hos seals/traps to stay forever if you leave the map. I get it that if you just instanciate game objects and never remove Thema you will get problems with loading. You should remove thema - but in a smarter way, or not? You don't need to remove the old ones with new ones - you can just remove the old ones when you leave the map, rest, after some time and so on.

Edited November 28, 2015 by Boeroer

[aweigh0101]

https://www.reddit.com/r/projecteternity/comments/313m5k/unofficial_bugfix_how_to_drasticaly_reduce_your/

[Guest]

I don't know if they nerfed it or if the AI responds better now to this tactic. When I used it some time ago, I did the bounty in Valewood only with this thing. I was too weak to do it any other way. I just put the +1 movement chant and the frost trap chant in my songbook, then I ran towards the xaurips/drakes and turned and ran away. My whole party was dropping so many traps that half of the pack was badly injured and hobbled (great for my ranged rogue) when I decided to turn around and face them. I also erased the gleaming society (and deciples of the true flame) with this (added other traps and seals).

 

About your thoughts:

1.: If you're too fast, they will return, that's true. So if you have an insane movement speed you need to run back and forth or run in circles around them. Also works in Crägholt if you're too weak to face them directly.

Yes, I just realised that new drop traps will replace the old ones - I think this was nerfed in one of the latest patches. The trick would now be to let the enemy step into the traps before new ones are dropped. This needs way more micro and reduces the usefulness of the phrase a lot.

 

2.: Never had such problems - but as I said: Some time passed since I used kiting tactics.

 

3.: Good to know, thanks.

 

4.: I now think they nerfed another viable (not OP) thing so much that it's really crappy now. Sad story

 

p.s.:

I just tested a chanter-barb-combo where the chanter would sing the  minus-10-Concentration phrase and the frightening phrase and casts a "Terrify" after 4 phrases. The barb maxed PER, dual wields Godhanstunyr (0.75 sec interrupt, stunning) and Shatterstar (1.0 sec interrupt) and took Interrupting Blows and Threatening Presence. Works like a charm: interrupt-locking all mobs, regardless if I hit or crit. Damage is whimpy - but who cares if I just can hit forever without being hit.

So you can still make good use of your chanter now... you know... Interrupts.

FWIW, xaurips are extremely weak against Freeze damage so your anecdote about that bounty makes perfect sense. And they are just fast enough that maybe a movement speed buff would make sense. Hmm.

 

1. I've been testing this in different scenarios. Slow moving enemies (i.e. oozes, revenants, etc) turn around way too easily, even when the party doesn't have a movement speed buff active. So I don't think we even need to invoke "insane" movement speed to figure out that this is troublesome - normal movement can hose this just fine.
2. Because the traps are cycles so quickly, enemies have to be almost on top of you to trigger them. Again, if the enemy has a ranged weapons or ranged attack, there is almost no scenario in which this is going to work. If the enemy is melee only, then your party is at serious risk of taking disengagment attacks - in which case, unless that enemy is weak against Freeze damage (xaurips), your party is going to take more damage than it dishes out using this tactic. Don't forget you're kiting with AI off at this point which means you're power-gaming. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but still have a hard time believing that dev intentionally built it this way.
3. (response to your 2) I didn't take screenshots, but I tried this tactic twice in the catacombs against oozes. In both scenarios, they stopped, targeted Durance with their spit attacks, and then turned around without ever triggering a frost trap. Like xaurips, they are weak against Freeze damage and would ideal targets for this chant pre-fix. So I repeat: half-dead Durance was all I got for the effort.

re: your post script - yes, I love interrupts and Kana is part of my interrupt tag team

[Boeroer]

So they really nerfed this in a way that it's useless now. Too sad.

Edited November 28, 2015 by Boeroer

[mosspit]

chanter frost traps were "nerfed" because the game engine wasn't erasing them from the MobileObjects.save file and causing loading time bloat; this is the reason the traps overwrite each other now.

 

This very same reason is also why chanter summons were "nerfed" and made to expire after a set amount of time on the field; the game engine wasn't erasing instances of summons from the MobileObjects.save file, which is where all of the current game information is stored, and causing massive loading time bloat.

 

who knows how many more "nerfs" were actually made due to how crappy Unity is versus supposed "balance" reasons? food for thought.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/projecteternity/comments/313m5k/unofficial_bugfix_how_to_drasticaly_reduce_your/

Save file bloat is not related to the decision to nerfs to Rime chant and summons as you think it did.

 

The original thread is this

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/73986-chanter-rime-and-frost-traps-get-saved-causing-mobileobjectssave-to-grow-out-of-control/

 

It basically investigates the fact that the previous codes were inefficient in the sense that destroyed traps and expired summons were not removed completely. The fix that was posted addressed the issue to reduce the save bloat but it does not actually change the duration of active summons and traps. Meaning to say, this can be (and had been) implemented without nerfing the chant and summons. The changes to the chant and summon durations are likely balancing done by obs and not owing to coding inefficiencies.

Edited November 29, 2015 by mosspit

[Boeroer]

That's what I guessed. Thanks for clearing this up.

Edited November 29, 2015 by Boeroer

[Torm51]

Hmmmm Zealous Charge is still my favorite aura cause of the flexibility it gives in Trial of Iron/PoTD runs but its not as fun without rhyme