Comparison: Hydro Traps
Hydro traps are a very late-game trap type, but are critical to any hunter’s success starting at the Legendary rank. Fortunately there are not a lot of Hydro traps available, which makes a comparison of the traps pretty straightforward.
To begin, let’s make a blanket statement here: if you have a limited edition hydro trap, you will never need any of the ordinary hydro traps. Feel free to read about the Heat Bath / Double Diamond / Kraken Chaos comparison, but ultimately someone who got one of the toboggans or the Kraken is set, and you can safely skip this page!
However, that’s not much of a comparison, is it. Let’s dig a little deeper, then!
Ordinary Hydro Traps
These are the traps that an ordinary hunter will get during the questing that one does in Mousehunt. To begin, you must collect your first hydro trap on the SS Huntington II. Of course, then the first question arises: Which trap do you use?
Stats: 3,000 power, 7% Power Bonus, 0% Attraction Bonus, 0 Luck, Stale Cheese Effect
3,000 power, 0% Power Bonus, 3% Attraction Bonus, 5 Luck, Stale Cheese Effect
With these two traps you get an interesting duality: do you want the flat-out power of the harpoon gun, or the attraction & luck of the net cannon? The best answer I can give you is that it really doesn’t make much of a difference, but if pressed, I’ve always been in favor of using the Net Cannon on the SS Huntington and the Harpoon Gun at Elub Shore. The reason for this is that the mice on the SS Huntington are weak, which means you don’t need that extra power. You do however need the attraction bonus (small though it may be) as the cheese there is pretty terrible. There’s also the matter that luck helps with loot drops, and you want to get out of that area as fast as you can (given the awful point and gold rewards, there’s nothing redeeming about staying there except getting every mouse).
As for Elub, the mice there are a notch tougher than the hydro mice on the Huntington and so that power will serve you well. You will hopefully move quickly to the Ancient Spear Gun anyway, so it will not matter all that much.
Remember: If you want to switch from one trap to the other, smash the trap and recraft it alone for the harpoon gun, or recraft it with a rope for the net cannon.
Stats: 3,600 power, 5% Power Bonus, 10% Attraction Bonus, 12 Luck, Fresh Cheese Effect
Made in combination with the Ancient Spear Gun dropped by the Elder Mouse, this neatly sweeps both of the other weapons under the rug. More power, attraction and luck- this trap has it all. By far the best option for Legendary and Hero-ranked hunters. At least, those who don’t have a LE trap of some kind! Of course, once you reach the rank of knight, this trap is nothing compared to this next one: the Heat Bath.
Stats: 4,000 power, 5% Power Bonus, 0% Attraction Bonus, 14 Luck, Stale Cheese Effect
And here it is- the best of the normal hydro traps. With a hefty 4,000 power, it’s actually nearly identically useful with the Kraken Chaos and the Double Diamond Adventure, which means that you heat bath owners won’t need either of those Limited Edition traps. However, it comes with a catch- the heat bath requires you to smash two separate guns, and you can’t smash your ancient spear gun. That means you have to buy two more, at 664,000 apiece. Needless to say, this trap is expensive.
BUT WAIT! There’s another catch! The blueprints required to make this trap are only dropped by one mouse- the Dragon Mouse. And it’s also a rare drop from the dragon; only about 1/10 dragon mice drop the blueprints.
That makes this trap an enormous pain in the neck to get. Consequently, many hunters (myself included) wonder: Is the heat bath worth all the trouble, or is the Ancient Spear Gun good enough on its own to just not bother?
The short answer? Yes, the Ancient Spear Gun is good enough. However, those of you who have hunted in the Seasonal Garden know how tough the Winter Season is with the Ancient Spear Gun. Fortunately for now, the seasonal garden is an area that you can selectively hunt in- that is, you can simply choose to skip winter once you’ve gotten the key shard. However, any full-time Seasonal Garden hunters will definitely want the Heat Bath. And if there are any future areas, the Heat Bath may feel a lot more necessary. It is worth bearing in mind that the devs have stated that you shouldn’t need the Heat Bath; it simply provides a very nice improvement to your catch rate in all areas where a Hydro trap is required.
Limited Edition Hydro Traps
Now, for those of you lucky enough to get a limited edition hydro trap, you can pretty safely ignore all of the regular hydro traps, which is rather nice. While they don’t have quite the power that the other traps do, the higher luck more than makes up for it, and you will do very well with any of these traps.
Stats: 3,400 power, 0% power bonus, 0% attraction bonus, 18 luck, Very Stale Cheese Effect
Brought by Ronza in the fall of 2009, the Kraken Chaos was originally downplayed by hunters (especially by The Guide to Mousehunt!) as a neat trap but not any better than the Ancient Spear Gun. However, it didn’t take more than a few days to realize how wrong we were. This trap quite clearly overpowers the ASG, and those who were fortunate enough to get it had an EXCELLENT hydro trap at their disposal. Unfortunately they’re no longer available, but this trap was the golden standard in hydro traps for quite a long time.
Stats: 2,700 power, 14% power bonus, 3% attraction bonus, 16 luck, Extremely Fresh Cheese Effect
Another solid Limited Edition trap.This one not only has good power and luck, but also has a nice power bonus, some attraction, and a nice cheese effect. Put up against the harpoon gun and net cannon, there’s no contest- this is clearly the best option. The power bonus alone gives it more power than the net cannon anyway, and the extra 16 luck over the harpoon gun puts it so far ahead that it’s almost laughable. This is also an excellent trap to catch the elusive Hydra in the lagoon- seeing as you only need 160,000 points to buy it, you should be more than able to get it before you become a grandmaster!
Double Diamond Toboggan Adventure
Stats: 3,500 power, 0% power bonus, 5% attraction bonus, 18 luck, Insanely Fresh Cheese Effect
And then we have the Double Diamond, the upgrade to the Explosive Toboggan Ride. Just a quick glance at its stats compared with the Kraken Chaos will tell you all that you need to know. More power, an attraction bonus and some better cheese effect- clearly, this trap is better than the Kraken Chaos, without question. And if the Kraken Chaos was the best hydro trap before, then that can only mean one thing- this is now the best hydro trap!
Which Hydro Trap to Buy?
All right, so the big question that hangs over all of this is: which of the ultimate hydro traps do you want? The Heat Bath, the Kraken Chaos, or the Double Diamond Toboggan Adventure?
For starters, if you have one of these three traps, you do not need either of the other two. All three are so close to one another in catch rate that you don’t really need to spend the gold to get one of the other ones.
However, everyone of course wants to know which trap is the best. And the answer to that is that the DDTA, with its 18 luck, is more effective against hydro mice than the Heat Bath with its 4,000 power. There is one exception to this rule- if you’re after the Silth Mouse, the power of the Heat Bath will serve you best, and so you should equip the Heat Bath in that situation. However, if you’re in Elub or the Seasonal Garden, the Double Diamond Adventure is the best option.
My advice is that if you have one of these traps already, don’t bother with the other two. However, I would recommend that you collect the parts for the Double Diamond Toboggan Adventure anyway. That way if you decide that you want one later (or if things change and the MH stats guys declare it a much better trap than the other two), you’ll always have the option to make it later.
And that’s it for Hydro traps. Pretty simple, yet a discussion that can get pretty heated at times. You will meet many people who swear by the Heat Bath, and others who wouldn’t touch it with a 39 1/2′ pole. Just remember that no matter what anyone else says, you’ll do just fine with any of those hydro traps. You can even do just fine with the Ancient Spear Gun. Just hunt with whatever you’ve got, and happy hunting!
