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Blade trap I’ve never used beyond a few tests a long time ago, OFF I use on most arcanist builds because it’s just so easy to use and doesn’t require many points to be effective.
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OFF is too easy to use and too effective on trash not to take it, it deals very well with all the super fast trash in the game and particularly AoM (those wendigos are so fast why not just give them a teleport, no difference).
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BT is just, well, terrible. Lacks AoE to be useful against trash and it just doesn’t work on anything you would want it to. Why would I invest lots of points to get a skill that doesn’t work on bosses? I honestly do not understand the design of this skill, sorry. Candidate for worst skill in the game.
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No contest, OFF all day long.
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Sure, OFF is a big help in slowing the hordes of super fast trash down, even if freeze resist is high, the interruption is useful as well.
Just because you dont know how to do something doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. I kite plenty of bosses in hardcore with my a prm battlemage, just takes a bit of practice.
The main downside to Blade Trap is that a tonne of enemies have alternative ranged attacks which are usually just as lethal.
When Blade Trap hits an enemy it will skill disrupt them. Once they recover from skill disruption they remain trapped and will try and attack you with ranged skills. I Blade Trapped 5 Rage Hulks in the Flames of Valbury and was perma-stunned by their subsequent “ground pound” wrath.
2 suggestions. Either lower enemy damage output when entrapped or have entrapped enemies be permanently skill disrupted for the duration of the skill.
Wait so they don’t need to be in close range to use those?
Then why the fuck do they charge before doing the stun thing. Is their AI retarded?
Does skill disruption affect the likes of Loxmere?
Never really used Blade Trap but have found OFF very effective on an AAR arcanist - at rank 12 it hits 3/4 the screen or so and is capable of taking down the weakest of the trash…which freed me up to beam down the real threats - a great match.
As for making one or both useable on bosses I really loved the way the Cornicopia mod handled this. Basically both skills were changed to a debuff that applied their damage effects 1/sec and their CC effects 1/sec for 1 sec (and brought the DA/fire res reductions in-line with similar skills obviously). Made it so that OFF still wasn’t a great boss killer but at least it’d land and do some cold damage as well as apply the 2nd nodes frostburn/slow and RR the boss some.
Around mid range they do it. If they’re too far, they just stand there looking at you. Problem is they usually initiate with a running shoulder charge. If you Blade Trap them late they will immediately ground pound. etc etc.
Not sure about Loxmere. The skill disruption is only upon impact of Blade Trap. It doesn’t last for very long.
Don’t even get me started on when the blade trap glitches and the enemies move the blade trap while entrapped :eek:
This is a known bug on spawning enemies and happens on OFF as well. Yep it sucks
I still hope they add something like Ill Omen to Arcanist cause I am sure modifying Olexra would cause of a lot of backlash. A new skill like Ill Omen to proc devotions and for skill mods would be perfect.
Otherwise everyArcanist RR mod currently is going to waste on Olexra
As for Blade Trap, I’d say re-designing it into a Pierce version of Kalastor with high CC is nice. Otherwise turn it into another debuff skill we could use one for Blademasters :rolleyes:
Olaxra’s Flash Freeze is pretty much a must have for any ranged Arcanist, it is my first skill I tap when I am surrounded by enemies. If they survive longer and damage me, that’s when I escalate to Mirror of Eorectes. So yeah, I think it is pretty useful.
Blade Trap I tried with my Blademaster, but since it just makes enemies immobile but does not stop them from attacking, it is rather useless for a melee character. For a ranged Nightblade, I can see it being useful. I certainly know how impotent the traps of Bloodsingers and Obsidian Ravagers can make my melee characters, for sure. 
The only enemy that it does not freezes and which is annoying are Flesh Hulks, IMHO. As for Harbringers, they float around sooo slow a pirate with 2 peg legs can outrun them… so not sure why they would be a problem. They are only dangerous due to their curses and their %life explosion when they die.
Titan Quest had I think… Tear of Reality? It was a Dream skill that did vitality/lightning damage and petrified everything in a large area around you. Had a long recharge so more of a “last resorts” skill. I had a pet build Ritualist and I only used it to freeze problematic enemies for a while.
GD has an amulet that grants petrify as a skill: http://www.grimtools.com/db/items/900
Also, most Petrify skills (even those of enemies) have a secondary “X% slower attacks for X seconds” effect. I could see such a skill being useful against bosses just by slowing them down.
Hulk AI works like this:
- Charge the closest enemy
- Do a few melee attacks
- Do the ground-pound aether wave
- GOTO 1.
It is frankly OK because Hulks are a melee enemy, and against pets this is pretty devastating - by the time they get to the aether wave, all the pets are gathered around the Hulk and he catches them all in there.
But as the OP said, yep, this is mainly why Blade Trap is a double-edged sword, many enemies are simply not worth snaring with it since their ranged attacks are just as deadly.
i usually put 1 point in OFF with most of my arcanist-something builds for CC, should i need it, since works on many heroes and some strong mobs like taskmasters or the new aetherial fat guys too.
The RR on the skill are both basically useless because they don’t work on bosses. Another problem the skill has is that if you bind a devotion skill to it, it won’t proc if the target cannot be freezed.
I’ll lower the fire resistence reduction and make it work independenty from the freeze effect, and same for the phys RR. For the latter, i’ll change it in % too, so it can sinergize with war cry for better battlemages. Devotion procs too should work independently from the freeze effect.
Blade trap is just useless as it is, and that’s a shame.
I hope they do something about Blade Trap when the find the time of course,
As for Olexra considering how many people use it, I am unsure if it’d be wise to modify the skill in anyway. Making the debuff independent of freeze could work. But I’m guessing they don’t want Arcanist to have any RR debuff skill mainly cause of Arcanist is already pretty solid
I still think adding a useless skill like Ill Omen to proc devotions and to add RR skill mods would be nice. Currently RR skill mods are tied to OFF and are going to waste
It doesn’t have to be a new skill, they can replace Nullification’s template with something else. If I am not mistaken Grava Nullifies through his Annihilation Orb maybe they could use that template, provided devotions can be bound to it amd skill mods work with it