There’s been a billion threads about trappers, how incredibly dangerous they are, how they can shoot through 300 hitmass, from high or low ledges, and through geometry sometimes, how they stop making any noise once you hit Auric intensities… And this has become a well-known annoyance because specials spawn in an uninterrupted conga-line in high difficulties.
‘Hot’ take : getting netted shouldn’t equal being instantly downed (unless a teammate is literally next to where the trapper pulls you over ; but then sticking close to teammates all the time is risky for different reasons because of AOEs attacks and bursters that can only be pushed by their chosen target).
Getting the net off someone is nearly instant but by the time the team realizes, you’ll have taken 2/3 of HP damage (if your team is on point) or you’re just down because even the weakest Auric mook hits hard.
‘Hot’ take n°2 : Trappers are much more threatening than the other disablers (the dog and mutants) but spawn in similar proportions.
Having 2 trappers spawn simultaneously and on top of each other (which is common enough in Auric, and when coordinated strikes happen) means their nets can become almost unavoidable unless one of them is killed in advance.
Their visual and sound profile is not very distinctive. The most common way experienced players have to avoid getting netted in high-intensity situations is to react to the sound of net being shot in the vicinity, and dodge-slide in a direction you hope is perpendicular to it.
You either stagger the trapper before she shoots or you dodge the net : there’s no third option. You cannot destroy the net while it’s in flight. If you don’t have room to dodge sideways, you’re screwed. If you dodge just before getting shot at, you have dodge recovery time, and you’re screwed. If you dodge into enemies, you stop dead in your tracks, and you’re screwed.
But why have trappers been designed this way at all ? When being chewed on by dogs, you don’t get kicked in the nards by other enemies and get instantly downed. Mutants are the same, and even throw you out of trouble more often than not.
A proposition : getting netted should dump all aggro and make you take fixed periodic damage from the electrified net. But getting rid of the net takes much longer.
The gist of my reasoning is this ; at this time, getting netted has a mostly binary outcome. Either you get saved almost immediately by a teammate, or you get downed instantly by the 10 mooks surrouding you right away, meaning you lose a wound or just die.
Compare this to dogs, which can still catch you by surprise if you position yourself badly and give them a run-up for an instant pounce. But the damage they do is fixed, and you can either push them or dodge, your choice. Being surrounded isn’t a death sentence against dogs.
TL;DR : It would put a lot of complaining to rest if getting netted had consequences similar to getting pounced on by a dog.
I think I wouldn’t mind being hit by the net so much if it didn’t mean a seemingly automatic spawn of a burster, bomber or flamer the moment it happens.
this topic had a lot of threads. tl, dr: trappers would be useless if everything blocked their net, but the net should be stopped by a large hitmass, since it’s really dumb and annoying to get caught by a net going through several bulwarks, when the player can’t see it or somehow play against it. ok, one can simply dodge and hope when hearing the sound, but one has to hear it in the first place, which is not always a given.
They are incredible annoying and often lead to unfair situations. Many people try to compare darktide to left 4 dead to justify their existence but it is not the same thing. The ranged disabler in the left 4 dead games have to pull you in with a visible rope, and left 4 dead director doesn’t spam groups of them at the same time a boss shows up when the team is down to the last player . Trappers should function the same way. the net should not instantly jerk players through crowds and a beast of nurgle.
At the very least they should have no stagger resistance, especially to two handed weapons. It’s bad enough they can eat a hammer to the head after jumping from ledges. They should not be able to net players who are hitting them because it’s just flat out unfair for low mobility slow attacking weapons.
You can stagger a trapper after the net is shot and the net will disappear. This doesn’t change that it’s a binary but oh well.
I don’t see a big deal in a specialist being annoying. I hate chaos spawn grab more than net, but I think generally speaking people don’t realize the only reason you eat a net is because you stood still in the kite game.
Tbh in edge cases that ends up with both the trapper being staggered AND you still being caught in a net, thanks to server lag. If the net is already in the air, you really can’t count on the server playing nice
I think they change something about them, because now they just pop the net the moment they are in range, regardless if there is a wall in the way, this can lead to them pre firing and trapping you at corners when you are running and dont notice them.
They are a buggy annoying mess since release, at this point they wont be changed or fixed, or if they will then prob they just become worse, just look at the pox burster…..no one asked for them to be tweaked, not single soul in the warp but they did it anyway, now they hard lock onto players during the jump even more and spawn like twice as often if not more.
Mutant not staggering even basic pox walkers despite being strong enough to grab an ogryn is just the icing on the top, like trapper nets they exist out of space and time.
Many times I’ve had trapper bull sh*t happen and it takes you out of the experience a lot. Absolutely wrecks the otherwise brilliant gameplay when a trapper’s net comes through a mass horde of crushers, bullwarks and even a monstrosity ffs. Amongst that chaos, you can’t hear her net gun get fired to time the dodge, or see the net coming at you until it just materialises in your face after going through all of the above. It’s pathetic and needs amending big time.
Simple fix, just make it so that trapper can’t shoot unless there’s a direct line of sight between her and you. Hounds are the same, they shouldn’t be able to pounce through other larger enemies. It’s like the laws of physics don’t exists for those two enemies
The hounds do a similar thing, where they pounce and they can sort of glide towards you if you side step out of the way, not dodge but are clearly out of their straight line pounce path. It’s as if they have a guidance system strapped to their head and can change course in mid air…
Exactly that. Heck, it could knock a couple of smaller enemies down briefly, like the Muty does when they charge through a horde. Larger enemies like Crushers etc block the net.
All very good points there. Couldn’t agree more, and going by the amount of posts complaining and constructively criticizing the trapper, you’re well and truly not alone in those feelings.
