To be an effective Trap Account, you should understand the Enemy’s strategy. There are both Solo Traps and Rally Traps, named after the type of hit they are designed to take. If you are a Solo Trap, you should understand the basic essentials of attacking a Solo Trap so that you can make your account appear attractive to an enemy, but still protect yourself. The factors that make a Trap a likely target are:
Use these factors to your advantage in creating your Trap! The same principles apply to Rally Traps.
Things I would do if I was going to attack your Solo Trap:
Things I would do if I was going to attack your Rally Trap:
Have the other players in the Rally scout bomb you before I March to confuse you and try to take advantage of the game lag.
Baiting is one of the most successful (and popular) Strategies for Trapping. The premise behind Baiting is to look like a player that logged off in non-defensive Gear without shielding. Then, when you get attacked (either Solo or Rally), you switch Gear at the last second and destroy the incoming War or Rally March. Because this method can be so successful, it is very popular…which means that Attackers are wise to it. Your job as a Trap is to get them to hit anyways.
Trapping is much more effective with Hero Presets. It can be done without them, but it’s much more difficult. It is also more effective with Cores, especially if you are a Rally Trap. Again, Cores aren’t necessary, but they do help a lot. If you want to be an effective Trap, you should understand an Attacker’s strategy.
Once you have your account prepared, begin baiting (waiting) … The locations you wait in have their strategic advantages.
A checklist of some items you won’t want to forget are:
When I am Solo Attacking, if you are under 300M power I will use Cores and send Full Marches of individual Strategic Troops without looking at your Hero Gear…unless you have over 20M kills. The higher your Power and kill count, the more likely I am to check your Gear. In Article 2 of this series, I used 850M as an upper limit for a Trap Account because either myself or people I know will regularly Solo Strongholds up to 850M. I have seen people Solo players up to 6B (literally) with the right Gear on. Under 500M, most players won’t check your Gear when sending a March…but they will use as many March Speed Boosts as they can to make sure they get the hit in before you shield.
Baiting a Rally is different. Rally Leaders will want to be absolutely sure you are off line. There are many ways to do this. The most common is watching your Helps Count, which will increase every time you push the “Help Button.” Many people know this, and can avoid hitting it. I usually watch Loyalty Points…because not opening Gifts is more difficult, for some reason.
Play dead and don’t touch your account if you want someone to hit you!
If you have trouble spotting trap accounts, or you want to make sure your trap is as difficult to spot as possible, read this post on "How To Spot A Trap Account".For me, the most effective method to avoid giving myself away is to turn the Auto-Lock (under Settings) on my device to “Never.” Then I set the device down where I can see it and do something else. It makes the waiting more tolerable. After deciding you aren’t online, Rally Leaders will port to you and set the Rally.
Attackers have their own strategies to not give away their Attack (which Troops they are sending, etc). What I do when the Rally is full is: apply Boosts (usually Attack, Defense Debuff, and March Speed), then near the one minute mark I will Equip Cores. After these two things, I will send the March. Remember there isn’t an exact way to know how fast the incoming Rally March will be. But, it will probably be much faster than you expecting (unless you have a lot of experience, of course). You can counter this in a few ways: March Speed Debuff Gear, Great Wave Gems if you have researched Fourth Gem Spot (in Crafting), or with distance (setting yourself in the middle of a Hive, or somewhere else an Attacker can’t port directly next to you). Attacker’s know these tricks, so if you are over 1.5B, many players won’t Rally you if you are too far.
Rally Leaders will often send fake Marches before sending the Rally March in an attempt to get you to change Gear and give away the fact that you are online. If you switch early, they will cancel. If you don’t, they will send the Rally March. Rally groups will assign multiple players to monitor your Gear and warn the Leader to cancel if you change early. To be successful, you will need to wait patiently to change Gear until the last second before a real Rally March hits.
Warning: While Baiting in non-Defense Gear, set your Hero Skills appropriately to limit the damage you take if you miss your Gear change.
Once your Hospital beds are exhausted, activate those Shields. It's better to protect your wall, your own troops, and your Hero for the next battle. If you have the Resources and Speed Ups Required, take whatever time you need to rebuild, change your Stronghold name and Hero name, and get back out in the fight!
Remember to think like about what an attacker is looking for. If they see Marches out, they may time their attacks while your Marches are away. Send your Siege, or small amounts of troops off to gather from tiles. Make them believe you don’t have your Hero home.
When the Outlander’s attack is about to hit - switch from Anti-Scout to a Troop Attack or Troop Defense bonus.
People are obsessed with stats, and I am as guilty as anyone else when it comes to this. During Fantasy Football Season, for example, I can recite specific numbers for Offense, Defense, and most individual players in the NFL. It’s a little ridiculous. Game of War, in many ways, is also a game of stats…and people can be inordinately proud about their KDR, the number of Heroes they’ve executed, the number of times their Hero has been Captured, or any number of other things.
As a Trapper, you need to avoid this way of thinking. So-called “good stats” can be a killer (in the wrong way). As I mentioned before, stats are one of the first things most Attackers will check. If you insist on having a KDR of 26, I can almost guarantee you won’t get hit that often. KDR is “A ratio of the total number of Troops you killed to the number of Troops you have lost.” A very good KDR for an attacker is 2.0. Traps generally kill many more Troops than they lose, since they generally have a good amount of Hospital space. A KDR much higher than 2.0 gives you away as a Trap almost instantly. That means you won’t get kills, and you won’t get points. Basically, you will not be a successful trap. A good Trap, though, will always kill many more Troops than they lose. So, if you are a good trap how do you avoid the inevitable rise in your KDR?
In the comments section of the first article, I revised a statement I made to say I don’t like T1 Troops for beginning Trappers. I stand by that. If you don’t have much Trapping experience, I think higher Tier Troops are much more effective and you probably won't have to worry about the nerf. However, T1 have their place…especially once you’ve taken a few hits and gotten your feet wet. I’ve already mentioned some of their benefits. One that I didn’t is the fact that they die easily…which is a desirable quality if you understand it and use it to your advantage. Losing T1 Troops can actually be a good strategy to protect your KDR. As another player pointed out in the comments, with the 500% Troop Queue Bonus training T1 can now be done relatively economically.
To highlight the point I was trying to make, a friend sent me screen shots recently of a T1 Trap he had hit. The Trap began with close to 90M T1, with another 10M or so assorted T3 and T4. My friend killed just over 37M T1 with his Rally. All 3M T4 in the Rally died. If it would have been during an event, would he have lost on points? Sure, but the Trap lost THIRTY-SEVEN MILLION T1!!
There’s two ways you can use T1 to recover a better KDR:
A smart Trap player will disguise their Gear in any way possible. What I mean by that is, if you are a Cavalry-Type Solo Trap, the Fire Age Cavalry Set might not be your best choice…even though it looks cool and has the best Cav stats.
It might be better, for example, to Craft Fire Age Infantry Gear and then Embed Cavalry Gems and set your Hero Skills similarly. This example would likely lead to Ranged Marches being sent at your Trap…which would then be decimated by your Cavalry even with the lower stats from using Infantry Gear.
Another method would be to avoid common Hero Gear: there are insane amounts of Event Hero Gear. Most players will be familiar the strengths and weaknesses of common Set Gear, but very few will have even seen many of the Event Gear pieces, let alone being able to identify its stats at a glance. The Hero Gear Tool is indispensable for this! Other ideas include: using Purple (or another color) of Gear, Gemming Monster or General’s Sets for war, or using Hades Gems (hides the piece of gear this gem is embedded in) to disguise your Gear.
Pure Strategy on Rally Traps contributed by T Me, Creed XS, and Navi
Article 1: What are Trap Accounts and Why Are They Important? Article 2: The Two Types of Trap Accounts Article 3: The Latest Requirements For A Flawless Trap Account Article 4: 5 Advanced Trap Account Strategies Article 5: Build A Perfect Trap With Only $200 Article 6: Best Trap Account Builds Article 7: 7 Ways to Spot a Trap Account Article 8: 4 Piece Cores Strategy for Traps Article 9: Comparing Troop Attack vs. Trap Attack for Trap Accounts
