Caltrops?

[KennonGL]

So I'm playing around with new build ideas.

For my Bots/Traps MM, I like Caltrops
-- it's a nice "don't cross this line" or a "get out of my melee zone" power

I'm wondering what folks think is the best slotting for Caltrops though.
Note: I'm not worried about set bonuses, just the best for Caltrops as a singular power.

1) Recharge?
2) Damage and Recharge?
3) Slow? (if I remember right, 80% was as low as you could drop a mob's movement anyway)
4) The 2 available Damage Procs [and/or additional IOs]?

I have enough slots open to use anywhere from 1 to 4 slots in the power.

[Power Gamer]

I never bothered with damage on caltrops.

But I did want to use them often and make sure they really slowed the target.
Damage was a tertiary consideration.

[indiramourning]

Definitely Slow.  The secondary effect of Caltrops (which always hits) is slowing.  Definitely slot slows and maybe one recharge.

[KennonGL]

Slotting Slows:  am I remembering wrong?

My brain says that 80% was the soft-cap on how far you could slow a MoB down.

Caltrops is already at 80%, so slotting slows would only be useful for MoBs with slow resistance.

Hmm, maybe just a Slow/Recharge and a Recharge and leave it at that. 

[Ankhammon]

the kdown IO was a good  choice.  Made it a mini ice slick kind of thing with damage.

[ryuplaneswalker]

3 Recharge and 3 Procs, up often and triggering many effects.

[Microcosm]

Damage was not necessarily bad if you were going to use it against something that couldn't otherwise move, like a pylon. Generally recharge is what I went with though.

[SerialBeggar]

I never had spare slots to allocate to Caltrops.  But I do recall reading some threads in the old Forums going on that the new Proc mechanics made Caltrops amazing.  Was the Proc damage bypassing Defense?  I can't remember now.

[Burnt Toast]

I always just put an Endurance/Recharge/Slow from Tempered Readiness set and call it a day.

[Ankhammon]

Damage was not necessarily bad if you were going to use it against something that couldn't otherwise move, like a pylon. Generally recharge is what I went with though.

Would you people quit it. Now I really want to go play my old Ice/Thorn Dom. That's another alt I want to make when/if we get back.

Love throwing trops over an ice patch. Not sure if it was completely worth it cuz of all the other aoe fun I was throwing out too, but it looked like I knew what I was doing.

[Nightmarer]

A dmg proc in default slot is what I always used. I have to admit Synapse got me concerned when he announced proc change for I24 but since CoH, when back, will still be I23, I'd still go for a dmg proc, the Positron's Blast chance for energy dmg was the one I used to slot.

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

Proctrops. Not as good as procs in Volcanic Gasses, but still pretty good. Maybe one or two recharges depending on what your global recharge is, but usually i just tossed  proc or two in them and called it good.

[crashpositron]

Maybe we'll get the Knives of Artemis version of caltrops this time.  Suckers lasted forever and HURT!

[Shenku]

Maybe we'll get the Knives of Artemis version of caltrops this time.  Suckers lasted forever and HURT!

Unless you had Super Reflexes, Quickness + Fitness: Swift + Sprint/Ninja Run (and if needed) + Elude and + Super Speed, and the slows were negligible unless there were 6+ stacked over one spot

Or any character with Teleport or Hover (usually both).

Caltrops were easy for players to negate, and I hardly ever had issues with Knives of Artemis unless I really wasn't paying attention (With my Scrapper mentality I never stayed still long enough for them to stack the caltrops up too badly to begin with). NPCs however didn't know how to get the heck off the buggers, which made them loads more useful as player powers than NPC powers...

[Eoraptor]

As others have said ad nauseum, slotting damage is like giving a bee a stainless steel stinger... at the end of the day its still just a bee. load up on recharge so you can create veritable sandtraps of caltrops and the NPCs will just blunder into them.

[Super Firebug]

I have to add another Recharge voice. For my ranged toons who could get them, few things took attackers' minds off of melee like a handful of caltrops, so I wanted to have them available as much as possible.

[KennonGL]

Unless you had Super Reflexes, Quickness + Fitness: Swift + Sprint/Ninja Run (and if needed) + Elude and + Super Speed, and the slows were negligible unless there were 6+ stacked over one spot

Or any character with Teleport or Hover (usually both).

Caltrops were easy for players to negate, and I hardly ever had issues with Knives of Artemis unless I really wasn't paying attention (With my Scrapper mentality I never stayed still long enough for them to stack the caltrops up too badly to begin with). NPCs however didn't know how to get the heck off the buggers, which made them loads more useful as player powers than NPC powers...

Heh, or an Ice Tank -- who has 100% Resistance to Slows and could basically just completely ignore
the fact that there are 6 stacked sets of caltrops on the ground.

Thanks for everyone's inputs. 

After tweaking the build a bit in Mid's, I've finally settled on 1 Recharge IO and 1 Damage Proc IO.  I used the other 2 available slots to add in the special Pet Procs that I somehow missed slotting in the first time through.

[Noyjitat]

Caltrops...haha oh what fun they were before the incarnate proc was nerfed.

[blacksly]

The main purpose of Caltrops is to play keep-away, so you want some Recharge in them.
After that, they do good damage over a lengthy time period, so slotting damage and/or procs is not a bad idea, but you rarely get even half the potential damage out of them (the damage is over 45 seconds, I think, so the mob would have to last 20 seconds to get even about half damage). So put extra slots in it only if you have them to spare (I rarely do).

[Ankhammon]

The main purpose of Caltrops is to play keep-away, so you want some Recharge in them.
After that, they do good damage over a lengthy time period, so slotting damage and/or procs is not a bad idea, but you rarely get even half the potential damage out of them (the damage is over 45 seconds, I think, so the mob would have to last 20 seconds to get even about half damage). So put extra slots in it only if you have them to spare (I rarely do).

Rarely, maybe.

Then again think about a dominator with /thorns. Most of them could use thorntrops (a 'trop by any other name) and ensure that they would get good use out of them. An Earth/ or Dark/ could get multiple ones out and ensure every bit of damage was given to the intended target(s) as long as their lengthy holds lasted.
An Earth/Thorn should be able to get 2 trops out for the full duration and about 4 out total just using Volcanic Gases. I'm guessing a bit but it should work out to about 750-800 pts of damage during that time. So a lazy man could technically farm that way... almost.

The mag 50 skiert in caltrops was very good at placing a do not cross barrier in place, but if you could hold or immob them then the damage was slow but very nice.