Cluster Trap

I would like to use cluster trap with trap passive skill gem and mirror arrow active skill gem combined, but it doesn't want to work properly, because it lays only 4 traps at a time, and i can only repeat this one more time, so i can only put 8 traps in total. Although the description of the cluster trap skill gem says i can lay 5 traps 3 times, which makes 15 traps in total. I don't understand why its working this way, maybe i missed something out, but i hope not, and it will be fixed in the future, so i can clone myself 15 times :D

I have several questions about the mechanics of Cluster Traps:

1) What is the base radius within which traps are randomly dispersed?

2) How does increased area of effect (as provided by Carcass Jack or other equipment, the Increased Area of Effect support gem, passives, etc.) affect Cluster Traps?

* If the traps within the cluster are AOE, does increased AOE increase the AOE of individual traps within the cluster? If so, is this effect the same as if the trap were not in a cluster?

* Does the radius within which traps are randomly dispersed increase with increased area of effect?

3) How are critical hits applied? Is there one critical hit roll for the entire cluster in which case all traps in the cluster either crit or do not, or are critical hits separately rolled for each trap in the cluster, in which case, some traps in the cluster may crit while others may not?

"

Csabie wrote:

I would like to use cluster trap with trap passive skill gem and mirror arrow active skill gem combined, but it doesn't want to work properly, because it lays only 4 traps at a time, and i can only repeat this one more time, so i can only put 8 traps in total. Although the description of the cluster trap skill gem says i can lay 5 traps 3 times, which makes 15 traps in total. I don't understand why its working this way, maybe i missed something out, but i hope not, and it will be fixed in the future, so i can clone myself 15 times :D

old post. But this was never answered so..

Default max traps at one time is 3.
And you throw one at a time.

Cluster trap allows 5 more traps at one time, for 5+3base= 8 max.
And throws +3 traps, for 4 thrown at one time.

So, you can throw 4x4=8 traps.


With mirror arrow trap, you can throw again after first 8 activate, for 12 mirrors. (and with trap cd/MA duration, 16...20.. clones..)

Preparing for the Flashback event i was leveling a trapper saboteur to figure out what i wanna build up and once i've gathered my thoughts on the Cluster Traps usage i want to share them. I am not going to consider the very endgame situations, mostly i am going to cover the leveling process and realistic early to casual mapping without min/maxing.

So for leveling i was mainly using two setups:
Fire nova mine - Minefield - Trap and Mine Damage
and
Lightning trap - Cluster Traps - Added Lightning Damage - Elemental Focus

During whole leveling process i was constantly comparing those two to see which has which pros and cons for myself, and i felt that Cluster Traps was making traps feel undeservedly so much worse than any mine build. To be exact, the spread is what making it very clunky and ineffective in my opinion.

The big deal is that Minefield makes you place 3 mines exactly in the same pattern every time and very close to each other so you get a very concentrated point of your damage source you can just get in action with one click. Aoe skills (like FNM) in this case are very clear to see how much do they cover and also they leave no blind spots; targeting skills (like GC or Arc for example) also feel good both on the packs, covering them quite well, and on single target, no matter where the mob (or boss) is standing.

However Cluster Traps spreads four traps in a random pattern you can not predict at all, and traps quite often are just so far away from each other that mobs in a pack don't trigger all of them, or (which happens not often, but it's not a very rare case) they don't even trigger any of them.
While that can be fixed by either having the Chain Reaction ascendancy node or picking up "increased Trap Trigger Area of Effect" nodes (which have very very very weird positions on the tree and result in a huge damage loss), you will have a lot of points invested into that and before you can afford it, leveling with traps is extremely painful.

Other thing I would like to touch upon is boss/fat rares fighting. Using a single-thrown trap skill is a joke since it's not always possible to hit with it and the damage is absurd compared to what you can get with a 3L fire nova mine setup on single target (which is more powerful than any trap setup you can get in both single target and clearing until maybe endgame jk gc mines scaling with statsticks). So we decide to use Cluster Traps. Even if we bypass the issue of triggering all traps by either way, it's still very weak because of the immense trap spread of Cluster Traps which results in only 1-2 traps hitting the mob. While lightning trap is most likely to hit the target with projectiles from each of the traps (but still in 1 out of 3 packs it leaves 1-2 mobs not hit and alive), using other trap skills like Fire or Ice trap is terrible since it simply hits with 1-2 traps in average due to low skill aoe. Can be fixed by increasing aoe, but those nodes are exactly on the opposite side of the tree from the trigger aoe nodes. More investment into fixing the support gem clunkiness quality of life instead of damage or survivability
Linking spells with a Trap Support to get something that can deal with the spread to do more damage, actually gets you bottlenecked by the huge trap cooldown and is not improving the situation, so in the end there is no reason to do that over using Remote Mine. Remote mine with minefield is just better than any trap skill with cluster traps.

To summarize everything above:
-to kill packs you need to invest a lot of points in trigger aoe (lose damage and survivability on the tree) or get the Chain reaction (which is possible only around lvl55);
-single target with any trap other than a lightning one doesn't work well until you get a lot of "inc aoe" to make most (if not all) traps in a cluster to hit the target;
-leveling with traps is undisputably extremely painful, and mapping depends on pack density and cluster rng way too much.

Cluster spread makes you need a lot of quality of life investment on low levels and thus leaves you behind other builds on both damage and survivability which slows you down drastically. And that quality of life doesn't help out as much as you could expect, but leveling up does. So it makes no sense to invest into those nodes, because as soon as you get this done, you can spec out. It is simply better to use a mine skill without changing anything on your tree.




Update: exact comfort spot that fixes the described issues is getting chain reaction and 60% of inc trigger aoe at "high explosives" notable. But that is really a long path of pain to finishing the cruel lab. Thinking of it, might be a better thing to swap Chain Reaction and Perfect Crime ascendancy nodes to make leveling with traps more viable, and leave the gem as it is right now.

"Cluster Trap Support" is now useless!

Please bring "cluster trap support" in line with "multiple trap support" now that they are nearly identical.

Cluster trap has a higher "less damage" penalty and mana cost penalty than "multiple traps" but now gives nearly the same functionality. The additional total traps for cluster trap is inconsequential while the damage penalty makes it a useless support now.

traps not fun anymore.
you soulda bring back additional trap and throwing speed then nerf saboteur ascendancy.
we have to wait buff traps take another few years? no way.

"

DeMechanist wrote:

"Cluster Trap Support" is now useless!

Please bring "cluster trap support" in line with "multiple trap support" now that they are nearly identical.

Cluster trap has a higher "less damage" penalty and mana cost penalty than "multiple traps" but now gives nearly the same functionality. The additional total traps for cluster trap is inconsequential while the damage penalty makes it a useless support now.

I agree.

Current Cluster Trap is not worth to use completely.
Traps with Cluster Trap Support are throwed random point, but AoE trap like Fire trap and Explosive Trap is hard to overlap because distance is far. The support to throw three traps extensively is enough only Multiple Trap.

Cluster Trap should be thrown more densely to be differentiated from Multiple Trap. In exchange for overlap-able by high dense, it has more damage reduction and mana cost increase than Multiple Trap.

I understand that it needed to nerf Cluster Trap for balancing, but the way of current fixing is that Cluster Trap was just changed to weaker Multiple Trap.

This gem is completely gutted

The Gem is actually very strong still.
People don't understand Traps so they think well verses multi its bad.
I can get an easy 24 traps out at a time while holding down throwing (without the 20% reactivation proc from Sab). If you are using Multi trap the most you can have out is 21 (that is 15+3[tree]+2[cheap construction]. Without sunblasting its 19. Thats a massive dps loss just because your max allowed traps is too low. Now you might say well don't get throw speed or +1 gloves. But when looking at increasing your DPS an 8% throw speed jewel is awesome. (An double multi crit damage is also good but one costs 10c and the other 1+ ex and still isn't as good). Belts and weapons also can get a 12% craft which is pretty much unbeatable. 0.26-0.34 throwing speed is easy to hit.

Someone on reddit once said the arming delay is 0.93 This doesn't appear accurate. But maybe it is, but i can tell you i for sure hit 24 traps up at that speed. With the extra rearm of 20% from Sab, i would need a max of ~29 traps to not lose damage!!

So in this case what we see is that throw speed, +1 gloves, unique trap gloves, in combination with the cluster support gem. Now without crazy throwing speed or +1 gloves you get 18 traps in the same time which is under the general cap of 23 needing about 22 max to avoid losing damage from Sab. Which is perfect.

In short, you shouldn't uses +1 gloves or slavershand's with cluster support as you rarely gain dps (under 61% throw speed you will have 20 out at a time and with Sab that is 24 and your max is 23 so you lose a small amount a bit over 4% some). Multi trap should never be used as it only adds 2 to max trap limit.

What this doesn't account for is non sustained damage.

So do you want to just throw 2 traps, not use +1 gloves, or avoid throw speed?

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Avoiding throw speed feels bad, that 0.26 toss and run feels good.

Because of how nerffed cluster trap is, people sat its 156 or some dps multi, nahh once you account for the +1 its actually ~10% less dps than a 42% more damage gem. In short, at that point its about a ~32% damage mod... pretty bad. But it does allow great trap placement.

The thing that this fails to recognize is that cluster trap will place 4 traps pretty much on top of a boss to hit it spot on. It also covers a good circular pattern good for clearing. So that is another factor to account for.

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To +1 or Cluster Trap?

This largely depends on the skill you are using. Most favor cluster trap. Concentrated support is typically bad with all trap gems (10-16% more damage verses higher clear speed and for sure all hits on boss). Even ice trap with is pretty good radius might not do well with just to traps thrown.

Furthermore, when you throw 2 traps at max range they separate like multi trap. But up close they stack.


Skills themselves. EK with threshold jewels could 2 trap it to great effect, as their range is great and you gain damage from doing so. Purifying Flame as it has this odd 75% damage wave (which typically only occurs after the first trap group has exploded ... the concentrated ground isn't instant.) Still this works alright. And any other really high radius or projectile gems. (lightning trap does this very well.. once in a while the projectile direction line up and you miss stuff).

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That is about it i really wish GGG would give us the Arming time / Trap formula so we could figure this out instead of guessing at it. (Or reduce arming time/something.)

Most people playing traps are nerffing their damage with +1 gloves or cluster trap and they don't even know it as a result of this largely unrecognized aspect.

Thank you all, please feel free to provide feedback.