How To Use Traps In Sea Of Thieves

Sea of Thieves Season 14 gives players numerous weapons and tools to create mischief. Traps are one such devious device you can use to trick other players and inflict damage. While some players might already enjoy setting other traps for unsuspecting pirates, such as burying Gunpowder Barrels, traps introduced in Season 14 provide other creative options for plenty of crafty fun in the sandbox. Additionally, knowing how to use traps in Sea of Thieves can offer some defensive benefits, be it helping defend your ship from potential boarders or protecting your hard-earned treasure.

There are also different ways to use traps in Sea of Thieves, including loading traps with other items or burying them in the ground. If you’re eager to know where to find traps in Sea of Thieves and how to use them, this guide has you covered.

How To Get Traps In Sea Of Thieves

To get traps in Sea of Thieves, you can find them typically inside wooden storage barrels as a random collectible item all across the open-world sandbox. However, you may also find them in other storage types like Rowboat Chests.

A trap looks like a metal bear trap and falls into the Throwable category. You can check barrels to grab traps and add them to your inventory like any other collectible storage item, such as fruit, cannonballs, or wood. If you’re struggling to find traps, a good place to start is looking inside barrels on any Sea of Thieves outpost, such as Port Merrick.

You can carry up to
five traps
at a time, so you won’t be able to collect a trap if your inventory is already bursting with Throwables. As such, you may need to pick and choose what you carry to make space for traps.

How To Use Traps In Sea Of Thieves

Setting And Diffusing Traps

Once you have at least one trap in your inventory, use the Item Radial Menu to select it from the Throwables category. To set a trap, press the right trigger button (if playing on Xbox) to throw a trap onto the ground, using your character’s arm to guide the direction of your throw. As soon as the trap hits the ground, it springs open and is ready to catch unaware pirates off-guard, bite off a chunk of their health, and give them a short-lived limp. Be careful not to accidentally step onto these traps, though, as you can trigger them, too.

You can place traps on most flat surfaces, such as in front of ship ladders and inside your crow’s nest. However, it can take a bit of practice to place a trap where you want, and traps can end up in some unintended places, like becoming attached to the helm. Fortunately, you can diffuse traps by crouching and pressing the ‘X’ button next to the trap (for Xbox controllers).

Traps are also loadable with some other nasty surprises and tricks. Of course, other players can also diffuse traps if they spot and avoid stepping on them. You can also activate traps by shooting them, which is another way of disabling them.

Loading Traps With Cannonballs, Throwables, And Fireworks

Traps in Sea of Thieves are also loadable with other items that can trigger different effects and, in some cases, cause additional damage. For instance, you can load traps with certain types of Sea of Theives cannonballs like the Jig Ball, which causes a pirate to dance on the spot when set off, leaving them vulnerable to attack.

Other things you can load into traps include fireworks that shoot in the air and could act as a warning signal. You can even load traps with Throwables like the Bonecaller to summon a gang of skeletons for a surprise attack or Fireballs to inflict extra damage. Items you can load into traps include:

• Blunderbombs
• Bonecallers
• Firebombs
• Fireworks
• Flares
• Green Cursed cannonballs, such as the Jig Ball or Limp Ball

If you want to load traps with various surprises for unsuspecting pirates, you need to crouch like you would when disarming a trap or just before equipping a Chest or Barrel Disguise.

To load a trap, throw it on the ground to set it as usual. Then, press the right stick to crouch. Carefully approach the trap and press the ‘Y’ button (Xbox controllers) next to the trap to open up the trap loader menu, where you can move items from your inventory into the trap loader. Exit the menu to find the item you loaded inside the trap.

If you disarm a trap loaded with another item, the trap effectively dismantles within your inventory, so you’ll have to set it up and re-load it from scratch.

Burying Traps

Similar to burying treasure, it’s possible to bury traps in Sea of Thieves. To bury a trap, throw it down to set it in the usual way, then start digging underneath it using your shovel. Provided you throw a trap onto a surface like sand, grass, or soil, you will be able to bury the trap. However, it will only look partially buried, especially when loaded with other items, so unloaded traps may work best. Buried traps activate when stepped on, but you can also activate them by shooting them from a distance, like other traps.

Trap Commendations

Setting traps in Sea of Thieves is also one way you can work towards completing Pirates of Mischief Commendations. There are five trap-related Commendations to complete, which are as follows:

• Dance Off Danger
• Pitfall Practitioner
• Red Alert Raider
• Secret Snare Setter
• Trap Ease Artist