Trapper needs a buff
Trapper at the moment is on his way to becoming even weaker than Legion due to his excessive weaknesses and mediocrity. Therefore, it only makes sense that there should be some plans to upgrade Trapper in the future. So, I will be explaining a couple weaknesses that either need tweaking, removing, or counterplay.
So the first of the weaknesses is actually disarming traps. Trapper is the only killer in the game in which his power can be completely countered without solid strengths. For example, Nurse may be able to blink on the whim of the person playing her, but the survivor can juke the killer. The teleport is not taken away from Nurse and cannot be taken away (without a flashlight). This is in contrast to Trapper who's traps can be disarmed and rendered useless until he comes back to rearm or carry the trap, abandoning the gen patrol, to place down the trap that is likely only a deterrent.
There is also no penalty to disarming a trap. A survivor who disarms a trap across the map is completely safe while also severely damaging the Trapper's ability. Even Plague gets Corrupt Purge from people cleansing fountains.
Now, there is also the fact that there is no chase potential at the early game. When Trapper spawns, he needs to put down traps and they'll be put down somewhere nearest to a loop near him. Here is the problem: when the Trapper goes to find a survivor, he doesn't have any deterrents at the loop closest to them. This often makes him reliant on perks like Enduring and Spirit Fury to cut down the early chase. Then, after the first hook, gens are likely to be popped and Trapper can either play defensively or gamble on survivors using certain loops. To summarize, Trapper doesn't have anything that is applicable in the chase at the start of the match and is susceptible to being gen rushed due to the lack of pressure.
Adding on to chase mechanics, Trappers traps can actually be avoided entirely by a survivor. Why? There is no reason why a survivor should be able narrowly avoid traps by running in a slanted manner when Trapper is meant to be area control killer. Even Clown's ability prevents this, so why Trapper? Dead Hard is fine because its a second chance perk, however survivors should not get this oppurtunity for free.
And finally, Trapper's traps are easy to both find and locate. Not only is it hard for Trapper to find areas for him to trap, having a survivor follow him defeats the purpose of a trap. If a trap is meant to catch survivors off guard, then why give him no tracking tools whatsoever to find his those watching him? He relies on Whispers and his terror radius is a dead give away to his location.
So, with that out of the way, here are some buffs that could help Trapper:
·Disarming traps now injures the survivor. Injured survivor's disarming Traps are inflicted with deep wounds. Helps put pressure across the map.
·Terror Radius is 24 meters to set traps and help close the distance on survivors and actually catch them off guard.
·Obtain traps from lockers, to a maximum of 9 traps across the map (not carried) without add-ons. Oldest traps are recollected if limit is reached. Allows Trapper to patrol gens and collect traps.
· Slightly increase width of trap. Trap outline stays visible when not being able to be placed down, although it changes colour (to be determined by user for visibility). Confirms a trap's effectiveness and quality of life change.
·Traps now have a set escape time of 12 seconds. This allows Trapper to make it to a survivor in a Trap from across the map more easily and consistently secure a hook.
·Traps can be redeployed to how they were before. Quality of life change.
Thoughts?
Comments
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I played Trapper last night, one of my grievances with him is that you have to be a big brain genius and place Traps that screw survivors over, if you don't Survivors gonna screw you.
This makes balancing Trapper hard because some Killers here are geniuses while others like us are kinda stupid, and change good for us, could be devastating for others. The only easier solution is to spread Trapper Knowledge and help all Trappers become big boy geniuses.
BUT I would like to see an addon that put Traps set in devious places around the map, spending less time setting things up and it could also be used to inspire Baby Trappers.
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@Emeal That's true. I'm no Trapper main myself, however I am worried about Trapper having the least amount of support from his ability than any other killer until you get the game moving. Personally I just want base Trapper to be better for more versatility, but who knows, this post could be crazy and I just need a prescription of Git Gud.
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@WaffleFalafel Everyone can always benefit from getting better.
But it's good you express that you feel him lacking if your trap placement fails. That's what feedback is about.
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A lot of things that Trapper doesn't have going for him is time efficiency. He spends too much time finding his traps, setting them up and then later resetting them.
Like you mentioned in your post, if Trapper could spend less time to access his arsenal he'd be much more of a killer.
Having access to all his traps via lockers (until all of them are out in play) could be a thing but also letting Trapper reset his traps without having to pick them up first.. both are really strong changes to him.
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·Disarming traps now injures the survivor. Injured survivor's disarming Traps are inflicted with deep wounds. Helps put pressure across the map.
There is already addon for this... red quality sadly.
·Traps now have a set escape time of 12 seconds. This allows Trapper to make it to a survivor in a Trap from across the map more easily and consistently secure a hook.
I like this idea, right now its entirely luck based which is not ok, neither for survivors who can be entirely screwed up by rng, or for trapper who can never reach trapped survivors.
You don't have to be a genius to play a trapper, you just have to to be smarter than survivors... or so stupid that they will never understand why are you placing traps like this, simply because you don't even know.
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They need to rework his traps imo. Ever play siege? Frost has 'welcome mats' which are the size of welcome mats. Trapper needs these so he can shut down loops more effectively.
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Trapper could use a buff or two but I disagree with some of the changes you proposed. Like for the first change you presented, I've once proposed that disarming traps have to have a skillcheck completed or else the survivor gets injured which would also compliment Trapper's base perk Unnerving Presence.
I also don't think that his terror radius needs to be adjusted. Placing traps effectively all depends on timing and routing. For example. Sometimes it's best to get that first swing on the survivor and watch where they run and then once they're out of sight, place a trap somewhere on the route they've chosen to take to run from you. That Trap will more than likely get them if they chose to run that route again.
The locker idea is actually one that I am uncertain if I agree or not. It would help with collecting traps but the part I know that I don't like for a fact is the automatic recollecting of earlier traps placed since I've had that first trap I placed at the start be the last trap to finish the match time and time again.
I do agree with the traps being wider. Especially since they used to be wider until the devs 'accidentally' made them smaller.
The last one that I disagree with is the 12 second lock-in for being trapped. 12 seconds is a huge chunk of time when every moment counts. The one thing I'd change is to make sure that the survivor couldn't get out on their first attempt but to what extent I can't say.
It's nice to see people addressing the imbalance that hurts the OG and face of the game Killer. Especially when he's my main on top of that too. You have some interesting ideas here though. Keep it up.
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I do agree with what others have said that disarming traps injuring is an Addon already, but I do think making it default would be a good idea. Hell, it'd allow for a buff to Slippery Meat, where at Tier 2 you don't get the Deep Wounds, and Tier 3 you don't get injured. Obviously, the perk is still obscure and wouldn't see lots of play, but if you're tired of bear traps injuring you all the time...
Thicker Traps, I whole heartedly agree. nothing more to be said.
Although I like the idea of gathering Bear Traps from lockers, you shouldn't be able to collect ones on the field. Say a bear trap gets sabo'd, THEN you can get a new one from a locker. Part of his ability is the counterplay that he's a defensive killer, he defends his territory. Making it so that his traps get sabo'd and appear in lockers is a good change though.
The major problem (which is shared with Pig) is RNG reliance. Once trapped, it's RNG whether you get out fast or not. I like the idea of the timer, but I feel that 12 seconds is too long. If you put say 1.5 extra seconds of screaming in pain, then a 7 second removal of the trap (solo), you'd be good. This could also allow some addons to change the timer, say oily coil causes it to tremendously increase removal time, tremendously being 4 seconds. Now with an Addon, it's 11 seconds of trap removal. Even without addon, it'll still suck as survivor, but it needs to be somewhat rough, because part of getting trapped is the "well #########" moment. Same moment as when you get Billy Sniped from across the map, ect.
I think his addons just need a pass of balance as it is anyway. All of his Addons feel kinda meh compared to other killers (Oh cool, I can insta-Trap, I can be just like Billy with his Insta-Saw! oh wait...) When Addons like Logwood Dye and Tar Bottle really only work if you're going to macmillan estate or Azarov's, they're not worth a damn. Perhaps instead of Darkening, change the word to "Blend" and allow them to look very similar to the terrain they're laid upon? This way, even in The Game, Trapper will still feel like his traps are difficult to spot. Like mentioned above, allow the coils to make it difficult to free themself, change Wax Brick to make disarming a trap deafen you for 6 seconds (random, but felt it'd be an interesting mechanic).
Also, and maybe this is just me, but I feel like there should be a purple/green addon that causes his traps to be "pre-armed" at the start of the match. I don't know, I feel this would be cool.
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So I've been playing DBD for about three years now, about 2 and a half on xbox and recently switched to PC. Generally I am a survivor main "mostly due to issues with frame rate drop on console taking the fun from killer", but have put countless hours into playing the Trapper almost exclusively as killer over the years. To me he is by far the most fun killer to play requiring a player to constantly weigh risk vs. reward and outthink the survivors by using foresight when setting up a kill zone. As much as I love playing him there are just too many drawbacks as of late that make him simply underwhelming compared to most other killers. Personally I see three major areas of concern I'd like to see QOL improvements on:
- First is the fact that unless you run ruin or corrupt intervention say goodbye to at least two gens early game and almost exclusively do I have to adhere to the three gen strategy. Simply put unless you have traps readily available your a M1 killer and cannot facilitate early game pressure unless luck of the spawn is on your side.
- Second is the time spent traversing the map to get to some of those far out traps if its even worth the time, since time spent acquiring = time lost applying pressure again risk vs reward.
- And last involves the traps themselves. By design their intent is to obstruct a survivors path and either divert them or trap them. In theory it sounds great until 1 the survivor hit box allows them to simply by pass the trap and as killer your mile wide box ends up trapping you. 2 being the fact that it makes no sense that when an injured survivor steps in a trap they aren't downed after escaping.
I've seen plenty of interesting ideas on this forum in regards to Trapper buffs. Some of them I think are great but others I have to disagree because they would make him way too op. Here is my two cents for what its worth:
- I disagree with having the trapper spawn with all traps on hand mainly because trap happy trappers like myself would instantly lock down three gens and it would become damn near impossible for survivors, even though I play a lot of survivor I still hate to listen to their bitching. Instead I like the idea of having the brown add on for speed and the trap bag standard, this would both speed his setting up and give a bit more leverage early game when setting up.
- The locker is a good idea but with a bit of a modification. Allow two traps max carry (unless add-ons) and every time you go to a locker with a cool down it replenishes x amount of traps up to a total of 8 being able to be in play on the map at any given time. After 30 sec or so disarmed traps are reverted back to the locker and are able to be retrieved.
- Increase the size of the traps allowing slightly better loop coverage and elimination that by the will of god slip trough. Also considered creating an add on that allows the trapper to by pass his own traps but I feel that that's a double edged sword, for the fact that unaware killers should be punished for negligence on their part. Perhaps only when carrying survivors or vise versa.
- Finally I believe that injured survivors should be put in a downed state if trapped. Skill checks should be implemented as part of the escape mechanic either rewarding the survivor or punishing them for failure. Trapped survivors that escape after failing a skill check receive the mangled status effect while successful skill checks simply leave the survivor injured. Last is when disarming a trap within the killers terror radius should render the survivor in the oblivious state.
There are a lot of great ideas out there and again these ideas are the ones I see as the best potential Buffs to the Trapper. They would help reduce time and allow more pressure and feel they would be fair to both sides keeping him from becoming too op but not letting him be a push over. I still play a lot of trapper and have a lot of when I do.
A bit about my playstyle, Currently when I play I use the following perks : Whispers, agitation, enduring, and Bitter murmur. I don't like using ruin even though when I get to red ranks I do, switching it for BM. Most of the perks are self explanatory i.e. whispers etc... The reason I use bitter is for two reasons, first it allows me to see the survivors main priorities like gen. direction or hook save following a repair, second which gate they are planning on rushing to and how many to be expecting. I use this insight when modifying my strategy mid game and reallocating my traps according to their disposition. I know there are a lot of other better perks but oddly enough this one works well for me for the time, any suggestions on an alternative would be greatly appreciated. Thanks everyone and have a good one!
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I think trapper is a relatively good killer, he's enjoyable to play and it's satisfying to catch a survivor with a well placed trap. The only changes I would reccomend is allowing him to carry two or three traps as part of base kit and/or make trap hotboxes a big bigger, allowing players who don't know exactly where to put a trap better.
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Great Ideas I definitely agree with a lot of these. Well done those are some genius ideas but if you really see this post as a helpful change to DBD then upvote the original post and any other comments that sound like good ideas because this post needs to get exposure in the first place for these to even be thought of.
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I completely agree with all these changes except the one about the deep wound status effect. I honestly think this change could be tweaked a bit to do something else. For example we could give trapper a 20 second aura reading on the survivor who broke the trap and is canceled either when the time runs out or when the trappers is within 40 meters of that survivor. Another effect BHVR could implement instead of the aura is an exposed status effect set for 30 seconds denying that survivor from playing aggressive. These changes could even work together like the exposed status effect being applied based on the health state and if they're injured then apply the aura reading ability. The last idea I have in mind is just allow him to carry 2 traps at once in his base kit because the fact that he has to place 1 trap by 1 is very tedious and wasteful because those traps end up getting sabo'd anyways and gens pop. I think all of the changes mentioned above and this one incorporated to trappers kit could definitely make him an A tier killer and would bring relevancy to interesting strategies that are beyond an average player. Who knows we might even get the next highest skill level killer and the highest potential for profit.
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If downing injured survivors with a trap is too "unfun" or strong, how about adding other injured-penalties:
- Deep wounds after an injured survivor escapes
- Slightly longer escape time (+ 3-6 seconds)
- Automatic herrmophage/mangled//hindered etc debuffs
- There are many possible things.
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