Trap

Why would I bother with this when I can just cast the spell normally and get the effect now and for less mana?

At the very least it's invisible in PvP, so good for slow-moving attacks or attacks that are inaccurate at range. Ice nova comes to mind, as does summon skeletons, as does spark.

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pneuma wrote:

At the very least it's invisible in PvP, so good for slow-moving attacks or attacks that are inaccurate at range. Ice nova comes to mind, as does summon skeletons, as does spark.

A good point, but in PvE? Seems lacking to me.

Here is an example GGG provided for as to how this could be used.

That's a pretty limited situation, not a lot of bridges in the game. Not to mention you could just set that up manually, for less mana, and not have to wait for the enemies to walk over to do it.

The skills that are innately traps are decent, I'm just not seeing where a regular skill gets better/more useful by using the Trap support gem. Possibly with multiple projectiles (detonates at point blank, and they get hit by every shot), and Point Blank itself, but only if it works off of their distance to the Trap instead of your character (assuming you can use weapon skills in traps).

It can be better because they can detonate all at the same time. If you think about it, it may be able to deal as much burst damage as diamond flasks or maybe more. It needs more preparation though.

But that's only useful in situations where regeneration is involved, otherwise it's the same amount of time taken, the trap way just does it more impressively all at once. Except for more mana, and if you were using a cold spell, the non-trap user would have been slowing/freezing the enemies keeping itself safer for the same total damage.

The only use I see for this skill is prepping for a boss fight, most notably:
The bandits, where you can set up traps and mines before engaging the fight;
Merveil, to a lesser extent, if you plan on kiting her into the traps, or setting traps for the spawning adds on phase 2;
Presumably the act 2 boss which takes some time to spawn, allowing players to set traps around beforehand;
Captain .. skeleton guy.

I don't see any reason to make a skill into a trap that casts it, costing more and only working if an enemy steps on it. Seems cool for PvP, but in PvE why not just cast the skill yourself? I don't quite get it.

Maybe it is of more use to hc characters. It gives you an option to be more cautios. Always leave some traps (for example cold snap or frost wall) along the way so that you can retreat easier.

Also it could be intresting for an meele evasion/es character since some traps could buy you the time till the regneration of your es.

In general it seems to me pretty useful for situations where you woulnd´t have the time to cast these things infight.