Master the trapper class in Evolve with our step-by-step guide

If being a constant pain in the giant ass of a 30-foot monster sounds like fun, then Evolve’s trapper class is for you.

Evolve is an asymmetric shooter set in a sci-fi universe in which the trapper and his teammates — a medic, an assault, and a support — do battle against a giant monster on various maps. The trapper is my absolute favorite class because its careful control of the monster and the map allows my teammates to accomplish their goals with less hassle.

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This entry will be the first in a series of guides on the ins and outs of each Evolve class. Be sure to keep a look out for future editions.

Check out my Evolve review for explanations of its combat, the game’s strengths and weaknesses, and the objective of each game mode.

First, let’s establish some basic rules for all hunters. Most of these are common sense, but I’ve seen plenty of people ignore them and end up as monster chow.

The basics

• Stay with your team at all times. Even if your fellow squad mates don’t know what they are doing or where they are going, stay with them. Your guile and hunting prowess may be impressive, but you will be murdered if you are alone when you find the creature.
• Practice in solo mode. Evolve’s single-player modes feature some reasonably intelligent bots. Get the lay of the land, learn what the neutral wildlife — creatures that will attack hunters and the monster — does (check out the bestiary on the Evolve Wiki for some great insight), and learn what each team member’s skills are before venturing into a multiplayer game. Your companions will thank you.
• Coordinate your skills with teammates. Synergy is important. Coordinate your skills with your teammates’ for the best effect.
• Talk. Voice chat is essential in Evolve.
• Know when to bail. If your medic is instantly gored by a monster with full armor and health, it’s probably time to leave. Players make mistakes, and skilled monsters capitalize. If the situation looks bad, run away and wait out the respawn clock. Hunters will come back to life with diminished maximum health once this timer — which is between 30 seconds and two minutes — runs out.
• Beware of the monster’s stages. Monsters begin as weaklings, so try to engage them early and often while they are in stage one. The goal of the monster is to eat enough neutral wildlife and live long enough to evolve into two stronger stages. When they evolve to stage two, pick and choose your engagements. At stage three, set up traps and ambushes at the power relay and pray you damaged it enough in the earlier stages to take it down now. The power relay spawns when the monster hits stage three, and the monster will win the game if it destroys it.

Let’s move on to the trapper class. These tips are useful for all three trappers — Maggie, Griffin, and Abe.

Trapping 101

• Prioritize your snares. Your team does rely on your damage, but your main goals are proper mobile arena use and a liberal application of your slow/snare skills. Each trapper has one move that keeps the monster from moving properly, and good use of these skills will keep your teammates safe and keep the monster from escaping.
• Lead the team. Trappers have skills built on finding the monster. You should be setting the pace of the hunt. Follow the tracks, listen for birds flocking to a monster’s fresh kill, and use your unique talents to captain the search.
• Choose your perks wisely. I prefer the jetpack-recharge perk. It allows for maximum mobility, which is important for tracking the monster. The increased damage or health regeneration perks certainly aren’t bad choices, either. Experiment and find a perk that fits your play style.

Finally, here are some tips for each of the trapper’s four skills. Every hunter in Evolve has four slotted skills: the primary (top slot), the secondary (bottom slot), the equipment (left slot), and the ability (right slot).

The primary

• Maggie — Maggie’s primary slot is a simple machine gun. Point and shoot.
• Griffin — It is basically the same as Maggie’s.
• Abe — Abe’s combat shotgun takes a little more skill to use. If you are pretty close to the monster, just unload the shotgun into it as much as possible. If you are farther away, use single, controlled shots for better accuracy. The combat shotgun has poor range, so take that into account when positioning yourself.

The secondary

• Maggie — Maggie’s secondary slot is the harpoon trap gun. It fires single traps onto the ground that will ensnare the monster when it runs by one. You can have up to five on the ground at once. Make sure you always have five down — even if you are just firing the traps mindlessly into the ground as you chase the creature. When engaging the monster, I like to set up harpoon traps in pairs. Two traps will pretty much stop the beast in its tracks briefly, giving you more time to escape, heal, or deal additional damage. Try to put snares on the top of ledges or in bushes on the ground. Then, goad the monster into them. If you are playing with a Markov assault player, coordinate your traps and Markov’s mines.
• Griffin — Griffin’s secondary slot is the harpoon gun. Players must fire it at the monster from very close range and hold the fire button to keep the creature ensnared. It is extremely difficult to use. It doesn’t seem to hit every time it should. When it does hit, the monster tends to turn, break the tether, and eat your face. Griffin is the most difficult trapper for this reason so be careful. Try your best to harpoon the monster from behind, and stand on high ground while you do it. This will keep you relatively safe.
• Abe — Abe’s secondary slot is the stasis grenade. This delightful little explosive is amazing. Grenades will break on impact or rest in the target area for a little while. The monster can’t really do anything to stop them beyond not running into them, so toss them often to mess with the poor creature. I like to follow a simple pattern: Toss a stasis grenade, empty my combat shotgun into the monster, repeat. Stasis grenades will automatically explode after a few seconds, so keep throwing them.

The equipment

• Maggie — Maggie has Daisy, an A.I. pet that chases the monster and will revive fallen teammates. Daisy is wonderful. Make sure you follow her. That’s about it.
• Griffin — Griffin uses sound spikes, beacons placed in the ground that will notify the team if the monster is passing them. They are extremely useful, and it’s paramount that you keep five on the ground at all times. Because their range isn’t enough to cover an entire map, I like to spread my sound spikes out and cover major choke points. Check out the following screenshot to see an example.
  

  Above: The minimap on the left shows the range of each sound spike. The claw with the red squiggly line indicates the monster’s position

  Image Credit: Rory Appleton/GamesBeat

   

• Abe — Abe uses the tracking pistol, which allows players to tag the monster and neutral wildlife. It seems to have unlimited range, and it fires quickly. As a result, I like to keep it out while chasing the monster. Fire it at every neutral creature you see, and unload that thing if you see any signs of the beast. If the monster eats a tagged neutral animal, it will also become tagged. During fights, keep the tracking pistol in its holster until the monster starts to flee. Give it one quick shot. Then, switch back to your stasis grenades, and try to keep it from getting away.

The ability

The mobile arena fills the ability slot for all trappers.

• Know your mobile arena. This is by far your most important job as a trapper. The mobile arena is a giant force-field bubble that is impenetrable for monsters. Once the monster is caught in the dome, it can’t escape until the skill’s timer runs out or the trapper takes the barrier down. The arena has a radius of 60 meters, so make sure you are pretty close to the monster before using the ability. It lasts for a minute, and it is on a one-minute cooldown. When you throw the arena, it will take four seconds to fully unfold into Thunderdome, aka The Love Bubble. Take all of this into account when using it.
• Know when to use the mobile arena. Generally, you want to trap the monster inside The Love Bubble whenever you can. It will keep the beast from escaping and regenerating its armor from the wildlife on the map. When you spot the monster, use the mark-waypoint button on it. That will tell you how many meters away from you it is, so you can gauge if the arena’s 60-meter radius will trap it. If you are waiting for your teammates to respawn while the monster is after you, use the arena defensively to keep the beast out of your space. If you are defending the power relay, wait for the monster to turn and run before throwing the arena.

That’s it for the trapper class. Hopefully, you are all experts at pestering the monster. Stay tuned for future guides on the other Evolve character classes.