Sorcerer seeking advice vs **$#(#& traps

[Fherrit]

Hello;

I'm still a relative newbie to DDO, I've leveled a Ninja Monk to 20 and then parked her to rest as, well, lets just say the prohibitively high cost of TRs had me decide on indulging a interest in the Sorcerer. I'm playing a Drow Sorcerer as I absolutely, positively cannot stand Warforged, no disrespect intended to those who do, but I don't metagame and as I said, can't stand the race in general. I also almost exclusively solo play, my play times often get interrupted for unknown periods of time and it'd be the height of rudeness and arrogance to inflict that on other players through grouping.

I made use of my Veteran lvl 4 perk and cleared all of the Harbor quests of my level and then moved into the marketplace. I was moving along just fine until I went into the halls of Shan-to-kor and there the first glaring weakness nailed me repeatedly...traps. On my Monk, traps were an nuissance at best, only a few actually did so much damage as to kill me and even then it was only if I was already below 50%, I specifically built towards being good at it because I don't particularly like the whole disarm trap playstyle. It strikes me as incredibly dull and annoying to search every few steps and then try to find a box to click on, especially with some of the talk I've heard about how silly high the DCs get with the item farming for Disarm and so on, like I said, incrediably dull and annoying to me.

I'd like to continue playing my Sorcerer, she's at level 5 and its been enjoyable up till the point where i hit these traps. They just utterly destroy me in short order, and I'm wondering what strategies Sorcerers commonly use to cope with them? I've twinked myself with resist gear, everything I have is +15 and I've got every element covered, but as I said, I still get destroyed by these traps. Your advice and council will be greatly appreciated.

Regards;
Mad-Fherrit-Drinks-the-Dew

[voodoogroves]

Most of them in that level range can be avoided w/ careful timing, jumps and haste.

Otherwise, group with a rogue ;-)

Many TR folks who are speed leveling will grab a rogue hire from the store.

[Thalone]

Yes, a couple of the traps at that level start to get brutal. STK3, as you mention, and Redfang poison traps, and the blade traps in Catacombs come to mind.

However, it is not true that it's hard to hit DCs for trap boxes. The overwhelming majority of traps can be disarmed with one arti or rogue level and level-appropriate gear (search/disable, intelligence item, +4/5 tools, good luck, [greater] heroism; spot gear if you don't know where the traps are). You may have to sacrifice build points into intelligence to do this though... and on a first-life/new-player sorcerer this might not be feasible. Since you are just level 5, you could consider restarting as a wizard/rogue instead--lots of skill points for spot/trapping skills, and high intelligence with evasion and insightful reflexes will really help with your survivability. Lots of new players don't like the idea of restarting, but honestly, everyone screws up their first character, and five levels is an absolutely tiny investment in the large scheme of things.

I started a tip thread for trap bypassing/damage mitigation in no-trapper parties last week. Are you playing on elite? As a first-life character who doesn't know the quests, I would advise running on normal or hard, where trap damage is much more forgiving. Avoidance techniques rely heavily on quest knowledge, and if you don't know a trap is coming up, you're 90% of the way to dead already. Most traps in DDO are static: always in the same place. Running through a dungeon once will teach you where they are

[Fherrit]

Yes, a couple of the traps at that level start to get brutal. STK3, as you mention, and Redfang poison traps, and the blade traps in Catacombs come to mind.

However, it is not true that it's hard to hit DCs for trap boxes. The overwhelming majority of traps can be disarmed with one arti or rogue level and level-appropriate gear (search/disable, intelligence item, +4/5 tools, good luck, [greater] heroism; spot gear if you don't know where the traps are). You may have to sacrifice build points into intelligence to do this though... and on a first-life/new-player sorcerer this might not be feasible. Since you are just level 5, you could consider restarting as a wizard/rogue instead--lots of skill points for spot/trapping skills, and high intelligence with evasion and insightful reflexes will really help with your survivability. Lots of new players don't like the idea of restarting, but honestly, everyone screws up their first character, and five levels is an absolutely tiny investment in the large scheme of things.

I started a tip thread for trap bypassing/damage mitigation in no-trapper parties last week. Are you playing on elite? As a first-life character who doesn't know the quests, I would advise running on normal or hard, where trap damage is much more forgiving. Avoidance techniques rely heavily on quest knowledge, and if you don't know a trap is coming up, you're 90% of the way to dead already. Most traps in DDO are static: always in the same place. Running through a dungeon once will teach you where they are

Hello Thalone;

Thank you for your thoughtful and informative reply, I studied the link you embedded and reflected on my experiences with my Monk with some of the traps you mentioned therein. In truth on my Monk I had gotten spoiled rotten concerning traps, besides the standard Monk feat of Improved Evasion, she had several additional Enhancements that further aided her ability to minimize the harm of traps, by the time I hit level 15 (Ninja Build) I virtually didn't notice them anymore, though my hirelings often did. This Sorcerer is a brutal awakening to how deadly traps are even on normal mode, let alone elite. I'm not at the stage yet where I know all the quests due to repetition, I'm basically still a newbie who's managed to get a single character to level 20 and rarely group due to conditions that aren't worth going into. I still love the game, though admittedly the honeymoon is over as various annoyances have revealed themselves with play and time. (again, not worth going into).

My feelings on traps is mixed, on the one hand I understand they're both a staple of AD&D and of course it gives Rogues something to do besides sneak and SA, it even makes them rather important, but the annoyance is that it forces it on players for survival. It'd be completely different if it yielded significant xp bonuses, access to treasures or otherwise difficult to find materials, but to be moving along with reasonable caution and then suddenly bang you're dead, that gets old and infuriating in a hurry. At first I thought if I'd stack resistances and be mindful of having such items in my bag as a defense I'd be gtg, but in Shanta-Kor for example, I had a +25 fire resistance item and still died every bit as quickly as if I had nothing on, I even went so far as to test this by walking into into the mandatory fire field with the resistence gear on, died, and with it off, died.

The solution for me then boils down to either 1 of 3 things, 1) play a class that has Evasion 2) multiclass into Rogue 3) spend money on Tubrine for their hirelings who's AI and abilities are extremely limited and primitive. I say primitive because I have played a great many MMOs and up till DDO, any pet a character could produce had the option to selectively turn auto abilities off or on. I took a FvS hireling into a dungeon once, set to defensive it ran out of SP 1/3 of the way to the first shrine as it constantly aoe'd everything and I had no option other than to set it to passive. Of course hirelings routinely stand about doing nothing, even when set to aggressive, and of late many times they either refuse to use one of their clicked abilities or flip levers. THis behavior on their part pretty much shuts down any desire to buy with points or shards one of Turbine's hirelings since the code will be the same behind the other hirelings, primitive and very limited. I recognize that originally DDO had no such thing as hirelings and they were added to allow soloing and ease play, but in all honesty, the coding behind them is half-arsed and sloppy.

I also realize that none of my grousing has any impact on Turbine and will change nothing. Its either adapt and cope or step away. I've bookmarked your tip thread and will reference it to try and teach myself between it and experience how to adapt and cope. You're right that a reroll at level 5 is pretty minor, even at level 10 its not that huge of a setback other than eating up some of my vacation time. Again thank you for your reply and the work you did on the trap tip post, I appreciate the effort and thought behind it.

Regards;
Mad-Fherrit-Drinks-the-Dew

[Panzermeyer]

Traps are a staple of D&D as well as DDO. They are not going anywhere. And personally I am glad for that, they make quests interesting and make sure the DDO is not just a kill everything as quickly as you can. I would quickly tire and leave the game if it was.

That being said.

You truly do have a number of options.

Part of your problem as a sorc I would have to say is likely low hp as well. There will be a significant difference in the hit points of a low level sorc and a low level melee anything. And not in a good way. But that is part of the cost of playing a caster.

If you purely solo. You have 4 options.
1) yes buy one of those rogue hirelings from the DDO store. Personally my experience with hirelings is that some hirelings have good AI, and some don't. There are some hirelings that I will just not buy with DDO points or plat. cause they are flat out stupid. Others can be relatively reliable. I do not have a list and really trail and error seems to be the way to find out.

2) Splash two levels of monk or rogue for evasion. Make sure you work on your reflex saves a bit and just run through traps.

3) Splash for rogue or arti and disable the traps. The problem with your sorc is that your int is likely going to be a bit low and so at later levels you will get less mileage out of this even with the right gear, just simply due to a lack of skill points. This is be particularly evident with the quests where the traps are random.

4) avoid quests with lots of traps. not the best option, but it is an option.

Those are really your options if you only solo.

Otherwise Pug it. I often through up LFM's when I am in non-trapping lives just to hope to get a trapper to take care of things for me.

But like the Thalone said a lot of traps can be avoided.

Take note that regardless of evasion or not most every trap requires a reflex save. If your dex is a dump stat then likely your reflex save is **** at those levels and so you will be taking full damage every time. And yes they will most definitely hurt.

In building your character you have to plan for traps one way or another. Either through grouping, or through how you build your character. Your playstyle is the next thing to watch. But either or you have to plan for it. Cause at least half the quests have at least one trap, and a few have a lot of traps.

Additionally a note about traps. NEVER time to go through a trap based on the visual it is almost always off. Time going through a trap evasion or no based off SOUND. That is definitely one of the most important thing in getting through not disabled(able) traps.