Snake Trap

Snake Trap
Snake Trap Hunter ability 9% of base mana 30 sec cooldown Instant Place a trap that will release several venomous snakes to attack the first enemy to approach. The snakes will die after 15 seconds. Trap will exist for 30 seconds. Only one trap can be active at a time.
Properties
Class	Hunter
School	Fire
Cooldown	30 sec
Improvements	Resourcefulness, [Clever Traps]

[[Category:hunter abilities]][[Category:hunter abilities]]

 [Snakes. Why'd It Have To Be Snakes?] Snake Trap is a hunter trap, learned at level 68.

Rank table

Level	Cost
68	15

Details

The snakes have 3 rogue-style poisons:

• [Crippling Poison]: Enemy movement speed is reduced by 50%.
• [Mind-Numbing Poison]: Enemy spell-casting speed is decreased by 50%.
• [Deadly Poison]: Enemy gets 15 nature damage over 12 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times.

Snakes apply poisons with spit, not a melee attack (about 8 foot range). Also, if there are unpoisoned targets nearby, snakes will not melee, but will instead spit more poisons on that target, making snakes an excellent AoE boost. For example, if the hunter knows where a mage's AoE will be, they can place a snake trap there and most mobs at this location will get poisoned.

When the trap is activated, snakes start to attack the nearest targets. It is possible that some snakes will attack one target and some will attack other. After the target is dead, snakes attacks next target (in close range).

Tips and tactics

• It is possible to use the Snake Trap to gain distance while kiting. Place the trap as you are kiting a mob, then as the snakes release and begin to hit the mob, you can feign death. This allows you to gain distance from the mob as it kills your snakes. Be aware of the speed that the mob kills your snakes, since if you haven't landed a dot or damaging ability on the mob before the snakes all die, it will deaggro you completely.
• Place trap where Mage or Warlock will do their AoE to add some damage and to slow targets (thanks to Crippling Poison).
• If two or more targets are tanked at the same time, place trap under the tank.
• Snake Trap can proc [Entrapment].
• During random aggro boss fights, such as Shade of Aran and Julianne from the Opera Event.
• Snakes have their own aggro, therefore this trap has no effect on the hunter's aggro rating.

Notes

• The snakes are very easy to kill with a normal AoE (frost nova for example). Moreover, they can be feared.
• Snakes have a surprisingly large aggro radius and should generally only be used when you know that either their 15 second effect will not outlast the target mob(s) or when you have a lot of room to work. If there are any snakes left after you kill your primary target, and there is another valid target within ~23 feet, they will run off and attack them for you.
• If the hunter is killed while the snakes are active the snakes will also die.
• It appears that if the snake trap is triggered by a mob, the snakes will attack members of the opposite faction if they are within the snakes' attack range, whether or not either character is marked for PvP. Furthermore, the snakes will force that player's PvP flags up if they fight back regardless of what their flags are set to, allowing other players to force PvP on unwilling members of the opposite faction, in essence, a loophole. This is supposedly fixed in patch 2.4.0
• After the changes introduced with 3.0.0 the snake trap's use has been reduced. Since now all classes have a decent AOE to clear the snakes very quickly, and since the casting has been changed in regard to delay from damage received, this trap's effectiveness in pvp has been heavily resized. It retains all its usefulness in situations where providing a large number of targets can trick the enemy, such as in certain boss fights where some attacks are random-targeted, provided that splash damage isn't involved (since that would wipe all snakes in a blink).
• Can be useful in situations in PvP against people who target using the Tab key instead of clicking.

Patch changes

• Patch 3.2.0 (2009-08-04): The Mind-numbing Poison effect has been reduced to a 30% increase in casting time, down from 50% to match similar effects.
  

External links

• Wowhead
• WoWDB