Let’s Talk About Trapper
As you can tell from my profile picture, I have a deep love of the Trapper. The satisfaction of a survivor landing in one of your traps is probably my favorite experience in this game, which is why survivors getting out on the first try, getting an injury they immediately self-care, or stepping around a carefully placed trap altogether is incredibly disheartening. The PTB buff is a step in the right direction for the Trapper, but he still has a long way to go before he could be considered a ‘strong’ killer.
The Problems
Setting the Trap
Why does Trapper struggle in the first place? His overview states “The Trapper is an area-control Killer, able to apply pressure across the Map by placing deadly Bear Traps for Survivors to step into.” This, for the most part, is true. However, to apply that pressure the Trapper requires you to spend the beginning of the game running from one corner of the map to the other collecting all of your traps and placing them in strategic positions, allowing the survivors to do as they please. If you choose to ignore your traps instead and begin chasing immediately you become a baseline killer with no power. Not to mention that in order to maintain that pressure you will need to reset all of your traps at some point during the game.
Catching Survivors
There are two ways for a survivor to get caught by a trap: Being inattentive and walking into one on accident or being chased into one. The former is highly unlikely against experienced survivors, as the traps have always been easy to spot. To counteract this, the Trapper must rely on grass, a map effect that is only sparsely spread throughout the level. Bear Traps are quite difficult to see in grass if you aren’t looking for them, but once survivors are aware they are facing a Trapper they will immediately become suspicious of grass and will walk cautiously with an eye out for the Disarm Trap action to appear.
Besides trapping high traffic areas of grass, the Trapper is far more successful trapping escape routes like windows, pallets, or loop corners. In this case the trap can be spotted by a survivor and still be effective, as they will be forced to change course and potentially give the Trapper a free hit. However, the trap is rather small and can easily be sidestepped in many circumstances.
Caught! But now what?
Once you take the time to set up your trap network we run into the second problem: the “deadly” Bear Traps. Once trapped, a survivor can attempt to escape or have a friend rescue them. Unlike the hook, however, the RNG is much more balanced towards the survivor. In most cases the survivor escapes almost immediately or is stuck for an obscene amount of time. If you do escape the trap, you only get off with an injury that can’t put you into the dying state. If you look at the trap simply as a means to injure survivors at a distance, the Huntress is a far superior choice.
The Trapper vs. The Hag
Another trapping killer, it is only right that we analyze the Hag and her relation to the Trapper. With her Phantasm Traps spawning in her inventory, having 10 traps base(as opposed to Trapper’s base 6), a wider trigger radius, and the ability to instantaneously reappear in her inventory once tripped, The Hag currently outclasses the Trapper in every way.
By not having to travel the map to gather all of her traps Hag’s setup time is drastically reduced.
She has even more map pressure than Trapper by having 4 more traps available.
It is far easier to trigger a Phantasm Trap (They’re even more camouflaged!)
Hag also needs to reset her traps mid-match, but since that she doesn’t have to pick them up and move them (and her crazy PTB buff) this not a problem.
You could argue that Trapper has the ability to instantly stop a chase by catching a survivor, but you’ll find that instantly teleporting when a trap is triggered as Hag and attacking will produce a similar effect.
The Solution
Now that Trapper’s problems have been laid out we can start to fix them. In short, he needs to be rewarded for taking the time to use his power by making his traps useful, worthwhile, and dangerous; sacrifice less time to maintaining his power so it doesn’t become a hindrance; be differentiated from the Hag and give killers a reason to play him instead of her without making one more viable than the other. Here are my suggestions:
The Trapper should start the game with all of his traps in his inventory. This puts him in line with the Hag and increases his early game pressure. The traps will not pop back into his inventory once tripped or destroyed however, and the ability to carry multiple traps at once will reduce the awkwardness of having to shuffle traps around to get them into the position you want. This is why nearly all high-rank Trappers run Stitched Bag.
Bear Traps by default should reset themselves after 30 seconds. I liked the idea of the Iridescent Stone in the PTB, but it doesn’t go far enough, especially for a pink add-on. This change allows the Trapper to keep up the pressure mid-game by resetting his traps for him while also offering a different playstyle than the Hag. If he wants to move a trap to a more effective spot he will still need to manually pick it up and set it in the new location. (Note that unlike the Iridescent Stone add-on each trap will have it’s own 30 second timer as opposed to all traps having to wait 30 seconds for one to be randomly set. As I stated the add-on doesn’t go far enough)
Traps should have a wider trigger radius. Not as large as a Phantasm Trap, but large enough that survivors cannot sidestep them in certain openings. This will increase the effectiveness of the trap and make it more reliable.
Instead of using the escape attempt system the traps currently use, there should instead be a progress bar of 10 seconds that can be affected by add-ons and perks like Thanatophobia or Leader. This will reduce some of the chance element inherent in the trap’s design and offer the survivor a fair chance to escape while offering the Trapper a fair chance to pick them up.
Traps by default should trigger the dying state upon release of the survivor. With it being as difficult as it is to trap survivors the trapper should be rewarded with more than just an injury. This change will make traps a serious threat to survivors again.
Last and slightly least, traps should be better hidden. Either through the traps themselves being slightly darker, the add-ons Logwood Dye and Tar Bottle being map-specific in their coloring, or just more grass being added to the maps. (Especially Léry’s Memorial Institute and Gideon Meat Plant) As of now, a trap without cover is a joke to a survivor who knows to watch the ground against trapper and will simply be farmed for bloodpoints. This change will offer trapper some more versatility on where he can place his traps and not make him so map-dependent.
Overall, these changes will make Trapper a killer who requires some time at the beginning of the game to set up, but would be at his most powerful in the mid game, only stopping to reset useless traps. The Hag’s traps will be easier to trigger and will have let Hag start a chase from across the map (with add-ons), and the Trapper will have fewer, less versatile traps that severely punish whoever steps in it. Hag keeps up pressure through teleporting when a survivor messes up, Trapper is faster and doesn’t have to worry about resetting his traps unless they’re in a bad position.
Let me know your thoughts on this version of the Trapper; I’m open to suggestions if you think I went too far in some aspects or not far enough in others. There should be only one tier for killers, and I hope this post is a step along that path.
Comments
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i agree there should be no tier for killers. and i'm a fan of the trapper. good luck. i hope you get some rework and such....
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He desperately needs the extra trap capacity +1 from his base kit. He is still extremely relying on add-ons in the PTB version
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