Through Norm with a Trapper

[Rataxes]

Well, I think I would've preferred somewhat less damage in return for the old range. Part of it is just that I have to get used to the new range, at first I was missing some of my targets that I expected to be hit.

Must be that. Can't say I've experienced the v1.09 range of Fire blast, but 3.3 yards is still good enough to cause some major mass destruction against tightly packed enemies :) At least it wasn't nerfed to the near-useless 1 yard radius that Fireball now has.

Fire Blast can NEVER be shopped for because by the time you can get Hand Scythes, the first claw with +skills, it is already to late for level 1 skills. Even if Katars could get +skills, I don't think that +1 trap skills would show up in time.

Oh, then the Arreat Summit must be incorrect. It states that Scissors Katar can get +skills. I shopped for a decent claw for 30 minutes after Anya returned and never once saw any +skills on the hundreds of Scissors Katars I saw, so it makes sense I guess :) Got a nice pair of Blade Talons with 20% IAS and +1 Assy skills though.

Another good Runeword early is Leaf for the +3 fire skills. But even in a short staff, you will be spamming quite a bit slower - unless you pump BoS a ton.

Pumping BoS is out of the question since I need every point I can spare in the trap tree, didn't even look at the discipline tree before I had maxed FB. So no Leaf for me.

If nothing else works, I'd just throw down 5 traps (of whatever type you decide on), then run away until the traps are exhausted, rinse and repeat.

I was playing at Players 8 at that time, and my second most damaging trap besides FB hit for 1-5 pts of damage :D So it'd probably take a few hours before Duriels life bar changed. In the end, I took him out with hit and runs with FB. Was quite a pain when I was frozen just about all the time and a single triple-hit Jab would zap 1/4 of my life bulb, not to mention that it took like 500 Fire blasts to kill him. Think I refilled my inventory with health potions 10 times.

I've begun pumping Shock Web now, not sure whether it'll be my main trap next to FB, but it does look like it could have some real AoE damage potential if you get a few synergestic bonuses. Haven't been able to kill a soul with it yet (not that I've had to, still in normal), but I think it could viable, and it is quite a cool spell as well. Almost like FB, but hurling a dozen little lightning grenades instead of just one :)

As far as Fire/Lightning immunes, how are you going to even get the first corpse if it is an entire group? If it's a boss, actually CE might work well, if you can hit it with all of its minion's corpses. Me, I might just avoid Fire/Lightning immunes like the plague, but if you are going to fight them, one point in Blade Sentinel or Blade Fury with a good weapon switch probably could do the trick eventually, or get the first corpse for the DS

Yep, getting the first corpse would be a problem. I'll probably end up avoiding dual-immunes like the plague anyway. What worries me is that dual-immunes are both going to be more common, and more wide-spread, making it very difficult to avoid them by stimpy sticking to certain areas.