[2.4] Mines over Matter - Lightning Warp Finally Viable!

That's an excellent question, which menhowca asked back on page 4, but you are phrasing it better. The fact that this came up again means I need to be more clear.

The short version

The short answer is that detonated mine travel time, combined with mine re-arming time, means I get zero extra damage from Tremor Rod's second detonation, when detonating mines by totem. None. With Minefield, or without.

The long version:

Lets compare 3-link setups:

Minefield set
Level Ω Lightning Warp: deals exactly 1,000 damage
Level 10 Remote Mine: 1.39x more damage (Native to Tremor Rod)
Level 20 Less Duration: 1.29x more damage, minimizes mine travel time
Level 20 Minefield: 2.37x more damage (1-0.21x more damage multiplied by 3 mines per drop) +2 maximum active mines
9 Maximum active mines total

Elemental Focus Set
Level Ω Lightning Warp: deals exactly 1,000 damage
Level 10 Remote Mine: 1.39x more damage (Native to Tremor Rod)
Level 20 Less Duration: 1.29x more damage, minimizes mine travel time
Level 20 Elemental Focus: 1.49x more damage
7 Maximum active mines total

Shared stats:

0.5 base seconds per mine, or 2 mines per second before modifiers

100% Increased mine-laying speed (60% on Tremor Rod, 40% on skill tree)
0.25 second mine laying speed, or, 4 drops per second, after modifiers

7 maximum active mines (+2 from skill tree)

0% increased damage (makes things simpler, since both sets would have the same value anyway)
0% gem quality (Would only matter for Elemental Focus, also the above)
0% Shock, crit, or other form of damage increase

??? seconds of mine travel time
??? seconds of mine re-arming time (second detonation of Tremor Rod)

Now, if we completely ignore the second detonation, the damage looks like this:

Minefield set, per mine: 1,000 * 1.39 * 1.29 * (1 - 0.21) = 1,416.549 damage per mine
Minefield DPS: 1416.549 damage * 4 mines per second * 3 mines per drop = 16,998.588 damage per second

Elemental Focus set, per mine: 1,000 * 1.39 * 1.29 * 1.49 = 2,671.719 damage per mine
Elemental Focus DPS: 2,671.719 damage * 4 mines per second * 1 mine per drop = 10,686.876 damage per second

So, without a second detonation, Minefield is the clear winner, as expected, dealing about 60% more damage than Focus. I chose Elemental Focus as its the gem with the single highest multiplier for single mine damage, something like Cluster Traps just adds too much delay.

So, what about with second detonation? If there was no maximum mine count, all laid mines would detonate a second time after they traveled and re-armed. There is, however, a maximum mine count, so the question becomes:

Which comes first, mine saturation or second detonation?

Minefield: (9 max mines / 3 mines per drop) * 0.25 seconds per mine = 0.75 seconds to saturate
Elemental Focus: (7 max mines / 1 mine per drop) * 0.25 seconds per mine = 1.75 seconds to saturate

Minefield will always saturate before detonating twice, baring your totem getting frozen.
So, the question becomes, how long does a second detonation take for the Elemental Focus case? What is the mine travel time, and what is the mine re-activation time? Travel time of course can vary, though there is a minimum, which is being reduced by skill tree and reduced duration passives, re-activation time is unknown. So, we need empirical testing to actually figure out how long does the re-activation take. I did that testing.

Test method:
Equipped only low level LW and reduced duration for low damage, 100% mine lay speed, all the reduced skill duration I normally use, 7 max active mines, no minefield.
Ran out into dried lake, got surrounded by enemies, dropped a totem, dropped mines, and then watched the rate at which the active mine count went up.
What I was looking for, was for my active mine count to jump up at an irregular interval. That irregular increase would indicate a second detonation.

Since there is no possibility of a mine detonating twice before the first mine is laid, I can ignore the first .25 seconds of the time to max mines. So, the question is, would I get a second detonation within 1.5 seconds of the first mine detonating. After 1.5 seconds mine saturation is reached, and re-detonation possibility is lost.

Did I get a second detonation before saturating mine count?

I did not.

The combined travel time and re-arming time for Lightning Warp mines, even with the Less Duration gem, and at or below minimum target distance, is greater than 1.5 seconds, the time required to saturate the active mine count.

I have said it time, time, and time again that the second detonation on Tremor Rod is worthless while dumping with a totem up. This illustrates exactly why. The absolute lowest possible mine-laying speed you can get with a Tremor Rod and +2 max mines from tree is 48%, and even then it means slowing mine laying speed in order to get a second detonation on your sixth or seventh mine of seven.

As I said back on page 5 to menhowca:

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pieceofsoap wrote:

If you aren't saturating your active mine count, you are going way too slow.

So put Minefield back in, and go fast. Tremor Rod is wonderful, and while that second detonation is worthless with a detonate mine totem, it is phenomenal for all the times when detonating manually is quicker or safer than placing a totem.

Nice write-up!

Like you said, I've noticed that when I can focus on putting down mines (instead of dodging/running/etc), it's pretty easy to reach what you call 'mine saturation'.

My point was: if you can also reach said saturation with a non-minefield setup (2nd detonation would make this easier to reach, but might not even be necessary), it should be stronger, right?

Maybe I'm missing something here. Is there a good way to test dps vs a boss or something?

There's no way to test DPS until we know what mine activation and travel time is.
And right now, the only thing I can think of for testing that is by recording video at a very high framerate, and then watching the enemy's HP, noting which frame it drops on, and counting frames until the next drop. Its a method that's still less precise than I would like, though it would answer some questions, and be used to compare movement speed gear vs less duration vs increased duration. I can do it, but it would be painful.

That said, lets look at this in a timeline, assuming exactly 1.49 second travel time. This will cause it to detonate immediately before the 7th mine goes off. Obviously this is not possible with the values given, and is very generously favoring 2nd det.

Example of detonation timeline



Given infinite time, 100% mine placement speed, and a completely unrealistic combined mine re-activation time of 1.499999 repeating seconds, Elemental focus and second detonation are 25% better than Minefield.

Math falls apart when faced with reality.
We don't have infinite time, and that setup only equals Minefield after 3.75 seconds of standing in place spamming. The minimum time elapsed between travel and reactivation is longer than 1.5 seconds, and mine travel time itself is variable with target distance.

So, even if we know the minimum re-activation time exactly, in the absolute best scenario we would be standing in place for 4-5 seconds just to break even, and then watch the whole system break when a mine decides to track an enemy outside of point-blank range. At that point mine count saturates, second detonations are aborted, and its another 1.5-2 seconds before you reach the damage output you were at.

tldr;
Use minefield and a totem for sustained damage, only use second detonation when totem is down.

Ever thought about using doryani's fist in this build?

Or considered an ES build?

Sorry for the late replies, currently posting from a phone while on vacation in New Zealand.

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Dupstre wrote:

Ever thought about using doryani's fist or Energy Shield in this build?

Dorian's fist is a neat piece, but it has no place in the build, for the same reason that non-staff weapons have no place in the build.

As for Energy Shield, there are two factors working against it in the current build. First, acrobatics cripples it, second, Mind Over Matter only protects life, not Energy Shield. Going ES means completely changing the Build's defenses.

That's not to think that I have not considered ES. From the beginning I have wanted to do a crit Chaos Inoculation build and take advantage of the power charge on mine drop node, I just have yet to balance offensive and defensive nodes to my satisfaction. Someday that will happen. More likely is that I will do an Aylardex version of the existing build next, though that will probably not be until next league, due to my current vacation.

Do you think this would work as a crit low life build with shavs? Obviously you lose the dodge stuff but you get to take advantage of the ES from trickster, as well as 30% more multi from pain attunement. I was thinking focus more on curses and auras instead of dodge to make up for survival, stacking curse effect with temp chains for crazy survival and also easier mine targets. There are so many great crit nodes near shadow start and all the good crit nodes for mine so i was thinking about testing this build with those, minus possibly the since I could just reserve all mana.

any update for 2.4?

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polilemiusz wrote:

any update for 2.4?

Build works fine in 2.4, nothing broke. Maybe there's a new unique or two to play with, I really cant say.

Sorry I haven't been active in maintaining the thread, IRL has kept me quite busy, and I've barely scratched the start of wedding planning.

i did this build in psc and it was awesome stupidly fun. its was like star wars when warp just going everywhere. this build needs love...congrats for ur wedding.