Trap Assassin Tips?

[Dixen Andomiel]

- Your best bet is to pick two traps and stick with them. Personally, I prefer Lightning Sentry over Death sentry, but that's me. For one, Lightning Sentry has higher damage from the lightning. For another, it has 10 shots, instead of 5. For a third, it arrives sooner, and thus gets stronger more quickly. However, Death Sentry DOES add a much-needed element to your arsenal: Physical damage, or more accurately, a third damage type. Its corpse explosion ability is very useful for going up against Shaman and Ancient Horadrim, as well as any other corpse-user. And, it can deal significant damage, as well, making it a viable alternative. My main problem with it is its low number of uses, and coupled with its lower lightning damage, I just prefer Lightning Sentry over Death Sentry. But, again, that's a personal choice, as both are VERY viable. Wake of Inferno is a must-have, and will be dishing out the bulk of your damage. It takes a little getting used to, due to the nature of how the trap fires, but it's high damage rate, coupled with 10 shots per trap, make it the only choice for Fire damage. ;)

I checked the AS on the dmgs for LS and DS about a week ago and went back just now to compare notes. The dmg on LS doesn't really start to go much higher (say like 1 or 2 points) until after level 10... but with that kind of point investment I best know what I'm going to be using, eh?

I'm wondering if the difference in "shoots 10 times" vs. "shoots 5 times" is really that different. Now, I've only really been able to use Charged Bolt Sentry up til now, although Wake of Fire has been fun too ... both only shoot 5 times. Obviously one that shoots more often will be more efficient on mana usage, but when it comes to making it through Hell Difficulty wouldn't the dual damage DS be the way to go?

- Shadow Master is typically a better choice for a minion than Shadow Warrior. Why? Shadow Warrior uses the same skills you do. Normally, this can be beneficial, as it allows you to control EXACTLY what your minion uses. However, this actually works AGAINST you with Traps. Since there can only be 5 Traps on the screen at any given time, per owner, whenever your Minion casts a trap, it eats into that limit. If you have your 5 traps placed around monsters already, and your Shadow Warrior decides to cast a trap, the oldest trap you created gets destroyed. Sometimes this won't be an issue, as it may cast it in relatively the same place. But, more often than not, your Warrior will wander off in search of monsters, and fire off a Trap at monsters you aren't currently engaging. This can be, at best, extremely annoying, and at worst downright lethal. For this reason, it's better to stick with a Shadow Master. Plus, your Master will have better stats, and have a much greater variety of skills (such as Mind Blast and Venom), making your team that much more versatile.

I was under the impression that the Shadow Warrior's traps added to your own... When I searched the archive (before posting this thread) I found 13 total threads and I'm quite certain it was mentioned in a number of them that this was case, or it was at least eluded to. In fact, I think it was even mentioned by Elric in one of the 3 threads that were pointed out earlier in this thread. Can anyone clarify... or I can test it with a slvl 1 SW in a few levels.

Thanks for the post Roland... you covered a number of things that I hadn't already seen and gave me a few ideas that I hadn't thought of as well. Thanks, again.