If you can’t bring a boss to IS, bring IS to the boss.
On a previous post I said that except for Ela and Dorothy, Trapmasters lean mostly towards support and utility with some kind of damage.
Ela has utility, but her main uses are usually burst damage. Dorothy has utility and provides support, but has map-wide damage that can clear mob waves and even selected elites.
The new Trapmaster, Wang, feels like a mirrored Dorothy, whereas Dorothy can be considered 75% control and 25% damage, Wang feels like 75% damage and 25% control.
On another previous post I mentioned Wang is, on debut, the most “efficient” Trapmaster, but looking at his talents that’s not unconditional.
His first talent (considering potential 1) says that he can hold up to 7 traps and deploys at most 6. When a trap is deployed manually, Wang will deploy another next to it. If, for some reason, Wang doesn’t deploy a trap next to it, that single trap won’t be activated until another is placed next to it.
His second talent (increased with his module) says that when a trap is activated, for every trap in the same straight chain, all traps within that chain deal an additional 13% damage and ignore 12 RES (stacks up to 3 times)
When equipped with Skill 1, once a trap is triggered, a single enemy is Slowed and receives 135% of Wang's ATK as Arts damage every second for 6.5s (7 damage instances. Since it’s damage over time, it benefits from Tin Man’s talent)
His skill 1 is all about damage and slight single target crowd control. Slow from his trap will only affect one enemy, but since it’s his highest single target damage you’re probably expected to use against some elites and bosses, like Alistair in that first video, where he’s also taking the damage from chaining 3 traps in a line, vertically and horizontally. That method, however, reduces the amount of traps you really use, because almost half are being retreated. It’s funny that this skill setup is the closest thing to his boss mechanic we got.
Skill 2 makes it so that when a trap is triggered, deals 580% ATK as Arts damage to all enemies within 3 tiles, but only in directions where the trap is connected to another trap, and reduces their Movement Speed by 50% for 6s.
This is the best crowd-control skill his kit will have. If 2 traps hit an enemy, their movement speed falls to its minimum (no matter what, movement speed can’t be reduced beyond a minimum speed though).
Most enemies don’t have some resistance to movement speed reduction, but some do.
If you connect these traps both vertically and horizontally at any point, the detonations will become cross shaped like you see above.
Very satisfying to use against some Collapsals and other “runners”.
By the way, did you notice how Wang didn’t die from reflect damage when those traps hit the chest? That’s because the traps you deploy are consideres sourceless damage, while the traps Wang deploys are damage tied to him.
Because of that you can prevent reflect damage by deploying traps on top of those Wang himself deploys.
Keep in mind that could affect how you deal with some enemies. Witch King isn’t taking damage here because his shield nullifies damage coming from the other side of it.
What about skill 3?
Its passive effect gives every trap an AoE same as Texas (vanguard) or Flametail (both on skill 2). Traps deal 380% of Wang’s damage as arts damage. When you activate, Wang stops attacking, his attack range increases to 5x5, he’s able to place traps on tiles occupied by enemies (that is, if you can deploy an operator you can deploy a trap. Spires of Epoch, the crystals from IS5, and other enemies like that won’t allow you to do that on their tiles). If you deploy one trap, Wang will deploy 3 more besides the one from his talent (total:4, which surround the one you deploy from every side), making sure the traps on skill within range always fully benefit from Wang’s talent 2. Skill will grant 8 traps and 20 ammo and can be manually deactivated, but there’s a catch: you only gain traps from this skill activation or if you deactivate while there’s still ammo left. Remaining ammo will be converted into traps.
These traps are coded in a way that, if an enemy that could die from a single trap damage enters the range of multiple traps, only a single trap will be activated (or just the sufficient amount). This prevents wasted damage/effect. Something Ela’s traps don’t have…
Optimally you’d want to use this skill, place traps as needed, then deactivate it if
•If you notice Wang has 8 ammo left.
•If you deployed enough traps to handle what comes through during his long downtime and no enemies are coming.
Since remaining ammo is converted into traps, it’s wise not to spend all ammo.
That last part takes me to points where Wang falls short. That IS3 stage is called Sanguinarch’s Legacy. Most enemies in that stage have Physical and Arts damage reduction.
No matter if Wang has high multipliers, no matter if he has Resistance ignore… Enemies with Damage Reduction and/or high HP will walk through multiple of his traps without dying, like you see those enemies doing. Skill 3 has no crowd control like slow, bind etc to prevent enemies from advancing.
Invisible enemies will still ignore his traps and enemies that have global range may attack him 2-3 times and he will die.
On skill 3 it can become hard to handle reflect damage. No other Trapmaster before Wang had such issues with reflect damage.
But also no other Trapmaster had traps that could hit aerial enemies.
Before Wang, Trapmasters had one arts damage option. Dorothy Skill 3, among a total of 12 skills.
Wang also brings high damage over time and the ability to deploy traps on tiles occupied by enemies, directly (skill 3) and indirectly (through his talent).
The traps he himself deploys next to yours will prioritize tiles with enemies, if no enemy is nearby, undeployable tiles, then available melee tiles and only then will Wang himself place a trap on a ranged tile. Through each of these steps he will follow the order of ↑, →, ↓, ←.
Wang brings some satisfying things to Trapmasters. Despite the fact he himself doesn’t offer much crowd control, he’s pretty versatile to use in many situations.
He does set a new high for arts damage but… I can’t say I’m optimistic about this part. Damage is, once again, the most replaceable part of any operator’s kit. Today his damage seems absurd, but eventually a Wiš'adel outdamages a Typhon, who outdamaged a Pozëmka earlier… Only to give Lemuen the meta throne.
Trapmasters require active gameplay and even Wang doesn’t escape the need for planning. Eventually another arts damage with less active effort may take his place.
That said, nothing stops you from using Pozëmka these days if you like her, right?
If you got Wang I hope you can enjoy his gameplay style for a long time. Same goes for Chen Trilogy.
I still hope to talk about him in some future posts.
