Crab Mines

Overview
Crab Mines is an ability of the Sapper class.


 * "Deploy walking mines that seek out unfriendlies and explode near them. Each ability level creates a mine with a different type of explosion damage. You may have three active mines of each type active simultaneously."

In build 1.6: "Crab Mines: Reduced casting & recovery time." Cast time is about 1 second and recovery time before being able to cast another crab mine is about 0.5 seconds after casting.

In build 1.7 as per |feedback friday 5/09/2008: "They will now generally acquire a target within 0.5 seconds of creation and they will now generally detonate within 0.5 seconds of arriving at their targets’ feet."

As of Deployment 10, Crab Mines has a 'proficiency' bonus -- every pump of this skill you have increases the damage of all pumps by 20%.

Usage
You can have three mines active for each level of skill you have trained. As of the 1.4 patch you can have only 3 crab mines in total active. However, creating a 4th will explode the 1st, and so forth, so as a strategy, one can keep popping mines, letting them move towards a foe, then exploding them through replacement. In this way one can control the detonation timing. You can force movement by moving yourself or knocking back a foe with an ability or weapon hit. Still, there is no guarantee that the mine will detonate. Also, mines have a way of attacking foes waiting for a final blow with no damage given and a waste of the mine. At lower levels, the Incendiary mine is the Sapper's most lethal weapon. A good approach is to drop 3 mines just before an attack at around 60m and then follow them into the target, or, if you have to, lead the target into the mines' agro range.