Extremely basic Rogue question concerning traps

[Mercureal]

I haven't tested it, but it feels to me that spot has a longer range than search. So maybe take another step or two after the spot warning.

Most of the time, though, it's that the control box is on the other side of the trap.

It seems like you're getting the hang of it, but I thought I'd reiterate both of these points in the quoted post. Some traps definitely give you the spot warning while you're outside of search range.

As an additional tip, keep your eye on the trap spot/warning icon - if it's on the screen and then disappears after you search, it means that you've successfully found the box, even if you can't see it immediately.

[nokowi]

Well over the weekend I managed to gear swap my way through a number of quests, and was able to find and disable most of the traps. Because I was soloing, I'm only accountable to myself for how fast/successfully I do it My search could probably still be higher, but the trickiest part seems to be knowing where to stand to ID the trap box.

Things went pretty well, until I was soloing Shan To Kor on Elite and died in an acid trap that I didn't find, whereupon I learned that if you buy a Spirit Cake off the Store and you don't have room in your inventory (I was in the last part of the 3rd quest and had picked up a bunch of junk), you are out of luck unless you want to spend the TP again. Sigh.

Ouch! Well at least you should have a cake in your mail for future use.

[dunklezhan]

For a new player to rogue, swapping each item in a single slot for every trap box is probably a bad idea. Players are already waiting for them because they don't know where the boxes are ahead of time. If you forget to swap search back to spot, you will be very embarrassed when you run into the next trap and die. Blowing a trap box is also an issue when you need to frequently gear swap. I was recommending have 3 dedicated slots to prevent any gear swap at all, except in the case of open lock.

Once trap locations are known and/or player confidence grows, a player can choose more trap gear swapping to have more slots for powerful items. I generally find heroics easy enough that I would rather not have to gear swap all the time.

I disagree that this is the way to go, in as much as I'm a believer that hard lessons teach faster and better.

Getting into the habit of swapping those slots around (FYI OP, I generally use goggles for spot, search and disable with gloves to swap in for lockpicking, just make sure your default gloves aren't your Dex item, suggest you find a ring for that) is part of learning to be an equipment-heavy class like rogue. When new content comes out you won't know where the trap boxes are either. And whether it's traps, UMD, bluff gear or the usual golf bag of weaponry, getting into the habit of swapping your gear around and swapping it back to baseline is crucial for rogues and arties (i.e. the trapfinding & heavy utility classes) as slot competition increases.

No, my advice is to get those habits ingrained early, and sort your hotbar layout into some sort of order (where you don't need to tooltip to know that one is your search and that one is your spot). I believe you'll honestly learn to make it a reflexive habit faster by messing up and getting yourself killed a couple of times. Its not "wasted" time for anyone in the long term if it's improving a "new" player's skills.

In any case, you first have to be by some miracle in a party that waits for you to find traps in the first place rather than zerging/timing on through. If you are, then they'll certainly also wait an extra second or so for you to swap your gear about. If not, they can take their chances with the trap and you can catch them up. Either way when you get it right and don't get yourself killed you're getting the disable bonus XP for them so they shouldn't be complaining. get it wrong and boo hoo they lose a little XP from a death. But its just not that big of a deal and you'll be better off from it provided it serves as a reminder to swap your gear.

[nokowi]

I disagree that this is the way to go, in as much as I'm a believer that hard lessons teach faster and better.

Getting into the habit of swapping those slots around (FYI OP, I generally use goggles for spot, search and disable with gloves to swap in for lockpicking, just make sure your default gloves aren't your Dex item, suggest you find a ring for that) is part of learning to be an equipment-heavy class like rogue. When new content comes out you won't know where the trap boxes are either. And whether it's traps, UMD, bluff gear or the usual golf bag of weaponry, getting into the habit of swapping your gear around and swapping it back to baseline is crucial for rogues and arties (i.e. the trapfinding & heavy utility classes) as slot competition increases.

No, my advice is to get those habits ingrained early, and sort your hotbar layout into some sort of order (where you don't need to tooltip to know that one is your search and that one is your spot). I believe you'll honestly learn to make it a reflexive habit faster by messing up and getting yourself killed a couple of times. Its not "wasted" time for anyone in the long term if it's improving a "new" player's skills.

In any case, you first have to be by some miracle in a party that waits for you to find traps in the first place rather than zerging/timing on through. If you are, then they'll certainly also wait an extra second or so for you to swap your gear about. If not, they can take their chances with the trap and you can catch them up. Either way when you get it right and don't get yourself killed you're getting the disable bonus XP for them so they shouldn't be complaining. get it wrong and boo hoo they lose a little XP from a death. But its just not that big of a deal and you'll be better off from it provided it serves as a reminder to swap your gear.

Sure, If you like swapping gear 3x for every single trap, go ahead. I don't believe its a matter of great skill to do this, but rather an annoyance. IMHO, A good gear set-up prevents you from having to do things exactly like this. (Finding named items with both search + spot). Of course this should also be weighed against the additional items or effects you can get by gear swapping frequently.

[Enoach]

Sure, If you like swapping gear 3x for every single trap, go ahead. I don't believe its a matter of great skill to do this, but rather an annoyance. IMHO, A good gear set-up prevents you from having to do things exactly like this. (Finding named items with both search + spot). Of course this should also be weighed against the additional items or effects you can get by gear swapping frequently.

Having multiple setups to maximize for the task at hand helps fit in more for what you are doing.

While I agree that consolidation of as many as possible is a good thing, for new trappers that are already struggling getting gear it is good to get in the habit of doing the switch. Partly because not all consolidated items are the highest for your level. You might have a +15 Search/Spot item and a +20 Search Item. While the +15 will serve for most content, sometimes switching to the +17 will allow you to find something you could not (or at least reduce the number of attempts to searching it out).

This takes stress off having the best fighting gear vs. best roguish skill gear

I recommend fitting your Spot Item into your "Common" setup as early warning of traps and hidden foe is very helpful. However, Searching, Disabling and Opening Locks is only needed when those options are available. Yes it can be time consuming but it can also ensure you have the best DPS gear on when you fight, best Haggle gear when you sell/buy and the best trapping gear when you trap.

For lower levels I also have my Spot/Search items on the same slot (goggles) and my Disable/Open Locks on the same slot (gloves). I found the trick was to organize my hot bar so that I have the clicking in order ie; search goggles, Search Action, Disable Gloves, Disable Action, Open Lock Gloves, Open Lock Action, Standard Gloves, spot goggles. This setup allows me to quickly do the task is order by clicking from left to right. It also makes it easier to find the appropriate gear.

[EllisDee37]

Of course this should also be weighed against the additional items or effects you can get by gear swapping frequently.

This is where I think swapping frequently greatly outshines dedicated trap gear slots. Especially for new players, whose gear will be underpowered compared to a vet at the same level. Having underpowered gear AND having fewer gear slots to use would too be of a big handicap, IMO.

[dunklezhan]

For lower levels I also have my Spot/Search items on the same slot (goggles) and my Disable/Open Locks on the same slot (gloves). I found the trick was to organize my hot bar so that I have the clicking in order ie; search goggles, Search Action, Disable Gloves, Disable Action, Open Lock Gloves, Open Lock Action, Standard Gloves, spot goggles. This setup allows me to quickly do the task is order by clicking from left to right. It also makes it easier to find the appropriate gear.

Exactly what I meant by sorting your hotbar layout. I do more or less this too.

Getting exactly the right gear is likely to mean getting your hands on exactly the right named gear, which takes time and grind, assuming you have the content packs in the first place. Further, that gear likely requires almost equivalent gear to run the quest to loot the new gear!

Getting your hands on some maxed-for-level lootgen is generally plenty achievable very soon after you start needing it. We're talking about advice for a player new to trapping... telling them to go after exactly the right 'perfect' gear is unlikely to be helpful for them if they haven't got the gear to run the quest to get the gear. 'The right gear' has never been a starting point, it's always, always a goal. The advice on swapping kit around is how you survive until you have reached that goal. For that to work, you need to build up the right habits.

[visibleman]

Sometimes the trap ports are a little lower DCs than the box that controls it. Raising your Search skill even 1 or 2 points many times at that point will reveal the control box. Try a Heroism potion or a Fox's Cunning potion or maybe a skill boost.

Potions of Greater Heroism can be got from Verisgante in House Jorasco.



Oh and an unrelated tip: If you are in a party with a Wizard or Sorcerer, don't bother trying to unlock doors/chests etc unless you know they don't have Unlock spell. Otherwise, your unlocking progress bar gets to ~80%, the Wiz gets impatient, waves his arms and 'click' the door is open. This gets old very fast.

[nokowi]

Exactly what I meant by sorting your hotbar layout. I do more or less this too.

Getting exactly the right gear is likely to mean getting your hands on exactly the right named gear, which takes time and grind, assuming you have the content packs in the first place. Further, that gear likely requires almost equivalent gear to run the quest to loot the new gear!

Getting your hands on some maxed-for-level lootgen is generally plenty achievable very soon after you start needing it. We're talking about advice for a player new to trapping... telling them to go after exactly the right 'perfect' gear is unlikely to be helpful for them if they haven't got the gear to run the quest to get the gear. 'The right gear' has never been a starting point, it's always, always a goal. The advice on swapping kit around is how you survive until you have reached that goal. For that to work, you need to build up the right habits.

A new player will level up past their gear long before they have a good enough set-up to miss the slots. If you want to log onto Sarlona, we can make some first life rogues and run around together and each try our methods. I am willing to bet you won't see any noticeable game play difference by having dedicated slots.

All players learn to swap items (weapons, etc). Having additional swaps without any noticeable benefit seems like a waste of time to me. But to each their own. My advice is not to waste your time trapper gear swapping until you actually have good enough gear that can you notice the difference (likely in the level 10-12 range).

New players are best served by learning to quickly find and disable traps. Once you know trap locations, you can make sure you are in position and take the extra time to gear swap. People will expect you to take care of traps without slowing down the party. This is a skill best learned at low levels. This is the right "habit" to learn.

[EllisDee37]

A new player will level up past their gear long before they have a good enough set-up to miss the slots. If you want to log onto Sarlona, we can make some first life rogues and run around together and each try our methods. I am willing to bet you won't see any noticeable game play difference by having dedicated slots.

I disagree on a couple levels. First is that leveling past their gear is reason to increase their (less effective) slots, not reduce them.

Second, "clean" trapping gear is extremely difficult to find on the AH. By far your best strategy is to get someone to craft it for you. If you're going the crafting-for-hire route, it's far preferable to only do it once. Best to do it once "correctly", instead of an initial "no swap" pass and then later on in the "real" setup.

Consider a hypothetical new player gearset for the early teens:

Head: Deadly
Eyes: Trapping gear (spot +13, search +13, disable +13)
Neck: Nightforge Gorget
Back: Cloak of Invisibility (Resistance)
Wrist: Bracers of Wind
Hand: Strength
Waist: Health
Feet: Speed
Ring: Dexterity, or maybe DR (eg: ring of the djinn, or possibly the mire set)
Ring: False Life
Trinket: Voice of the Master

You're saying it's better to remove two of those items to devote to trapping gear. I'm saying doing so is a tangible loss of player power, and a new player is already behind the curve in terms of power. Reducing power even further by removing two of those items is, IMO, the wrong way to go.

EDIT: Note that a new player trapper can solo-farm a cloak of invisibility once they get to around level 10. (Video)

[nokowi]

I disagree on a couple levels. First is that leveling past their gear is reason to increase their (less effective) slots, not reduce them.

Second, "clean" trapping gear is extremely difficult to find on the AH. By far your best strategy is to get someone to craft it for you. If you're going the crafting-for-hire route, it's far preferable to only do it once. Best to do it once "correctly", instead of an initial "no swap" pass and then later on in the "real" setup.

Consider a hypothetical new player gearset for the early teens:

Head: Deadly
Eyes: Trapping gear (spot +13, search +13, disable +13)
Neck: Nightforge Gorget
Back: Cloak of Invisibility (Resistance)
Wrist: Bracers of Wind
Hand: Strength
Waist: Health
Feet: Speed
Ring: Dexterity, or maybe DR (eg: ring of the djinn, or possibly the mire set)
Ring: False Life
Trinket: Voice of the Master

You're saying it's better to remove two of those items to devote to trapping gear. I'm saying doing so is a tangible loss of player power, and a new player is already behind the curve in terms of power. Reducing power even further by removing two of those items is, IMO, the wrong way to go.

EDIT: Note that a new player trapper can solo-farm a cloak of invisibility once they get to around level 10. (Video)

Thanks for the input. I certainly understand and respect your opinion. Readers can decide how much item swapping they want to do. You can succeed either way, so it is a choice.

[HawkFest]

What do I have to do in order to be able to find the control box? I like to try to Disable some of these traps, but without the control box I seem to be out of luck. Am I just finding traps that happen to be un-disable-able? Or do I have to do something additional to find the box? Or maybe a higher Search skill?

1st off : if you can't find the trap box but found the trap, then more often than never it means that you've actually activated that trap (apart from the detection message you can get).
EDIT - I've just tested in Tangleroot Gorge, running all the quests in Normal difficulty, while my char was at level 4 all along. And yes you're right: after a certain point, the traps can be found but not the box, which happened starting with level 6 quests (from Doom of the Witch-doctor: The Way to Zulkash, up to lvl 7 quests).

INT skill factors in searching, as many said. More over, DEX skill influences your proficiency with Open Lock. After "wearing" all your buffs, drink a potion of heroism. Assuming you have enough skill, If you can't disable a trap, try again it's a dice roll (and make sure to face the box). Of course, as a Rogue you can have Mechanic, but most multi-class characters splashing 1-2 Rogue levels rarely spend their AP over that route (? I don't know really, but I haven't seen multi-class builds doing this on the forums).

Multi-classing with Human Racial feats - As a Human Versatility core ability, Skill Boosts is a good feat to get as it gives +4 to all skills (acting like a potion of heroism for that matter). the Skill Focus Nimble Fingers will specifically help you with Open Lock and Disable Device (Human Versatility is a pre-req). Thus, as a human:

1. Wear all wearables that increase int, dex (if opening a lock), search, eventually Spot so as to get the leads (unless you're already high on wisdom), Open lock/disable stuff
2. Activate Nimble Fingers
3. Activate Skill Boost
4. Drink a Fox's Cunning potion
5. Drink a potion of Greater Heroism.

NOTES from the DDO Wiki:

• A Potion of Greater Heroism adds a +4 morale bonus on skill checks (amongst other buffs), while Skill Boosts is a +2 to +6 bonus to all skills. I don't know how this "literal" difference is relevant, or if they both add to skills check roll the same way.
• Skill Boosts feat is also available via the Ranger's Deepwood Stalker Enhancements, as well as the Rogue class Tier 2 Mechanic enhancement, giving +2 to +6 to all skills.
• Human race Skill Focus Nimble Fingers requires at least one Rogue or Artificer splash so as to be useful.
• Human Versatility is also shared with Half-elves and Purple Dragon Knight races.
• Human Versatility does not share a cool down with other Action Boost abilities.

[HawkFest]

I've made important modifications to the previous post...

[EllisDee37]

Open Lock and Disable Device are both rolls. You roll a d20 and add it to your skill total (including tools) to compare against the lock or trap dc.

Search and Spot are not dice rolls. Either you detect it or you don't.

It's irrelevant whether nimble fingers requires rogue or artificer levels because it only improves skills you can't use unless you have rogue or artificer levels.

[HawkFest]

Open Lock and Disable Device are both rolls. You roll a d20 and add it to your skill total (including tools) to compare against the lock or trap dc. Search and Spot are not dice rolls. Either you detect it or you don't.

Thanks! Removing confirmation requests.

It's irrelevant whether nimble fingers requires rogue or artificer levels because it only improves skills you can't use unless you have rogue or artificer levels.

...In other words. I guess it's displayed in the human Skill focus, but can't be selected (red frame) if not a rogue/artificer? I'll check this on another build.