[2.2]Kongming's Cheapass Blinding Fire/Bear/Ice Trapping Singular Spine Saboteur AKA THE FLASHBANG

Hi All!

First off, Blind is an amazing mechanic. It debuffs enemies with 50% LESS Chance To Hit. But that doesn't help with mitigating Spell Damage. This is a large reason why investing heavily in blind hasn't been too ideal in the past.

BUT! The new unique, Kongming's Stratagem, provides us with 30% Reduced Spell Damage Taken. This addresses the problems we've had with mitigating spell damage!

However, the item is clearly meant to be used with Fire Trap socketed inside of it, which creates a new problem, because it's only a 3-link and that would be highly inefficient. So we have a dilemma of how to make an efficient build. That's where my build comes in!

For Defense:
We're going to stack Evasion, Spell Dodge, Dodge, Blind, Hinder, Reduced Damage Taken From Blinded Enemies, Stibnite Flasks, Fortify, Freeze, and several CWDT links to increase our survivability. We will engage enemies by tossing down smoke first. Since traps don't require a lot of support gems to reach endgame damage, we can also reserve a 5-6L for defensive CWDT!

For Offense (Single Target):
We will be stacking the damage buffs against Blinded/Hindered enemies from the Saboteur passives and Kongming's along with the elemental pen and fire damage scaling of both again. We do this by throwing a Fire Trap to burn and blind our enemy before throwing Bear Traps to DPS.

For Offense (Multi-Target):
We will be stacking the damage buffs from the shotgunning effects of a clustered Ice Trap with elemental penetration and also with our weapon swap to buff the ice damage further. To help with making shotgunning reliable, we'll be using Sunblast and 2x Cheap Construction to focus immediate detonation of all traps at once. We can use Ice Trap directly against weak mobs, or Fire Trap first before Ice Trap against smaller tough packs.]

NOTE:
It's impossible to correctly reflect the true mitigation I'm getting from the 25% Chance To Create a Smoke Cloud and 50% Less Chance To Hit from Blind, as well as the constant Freezing from Ice Trap/Spine and the AOE slow inside the Smoke Clouds with Singularity. Then on top of that there's the 6% Reduced Damage Taken From Blinded Enemies, and another 30% Reduced Spell Damage from Kongming's. But I will admit one of the issues with this build is that despite grabbing every life node from Shadow to Duelist, and grabbing life on all gear, it's hard to increase life by all that much. Shadow is just a squishy class in general. The main issue here is the lack of good strength nodes or readily available strength paths as you move through the ranger area.

NOTE:
It's almost impossible to correctly display the true amounts of damage I'm doing here because of the context-dependent damage buffs. All these displayed values are WITHOUT taking into account the following:

1) Buff against Blinded enemies is applied (From Ascendancy Points and Kongming's Stratagem)
2) Buff against Hindered enemies is applied (From Singularity)
3) Buff against Frozen enemies is applied (From Spine of the First Claimant)
4) Cluster Ice Trap shotgun effect

Which represents MASSIVE chunk of our sources of damage.

For reference, I kill Voll in Dried Lake with 3 Fire Traps and 9 Bear Traps. KABOOM! Gone. I also instagib all other packs in Dried Lake with Ice Trap within 2-3 throws per pack, and kill all resistant rares with 1 Fire Trap and 1-2 Bear Traps. Most rares die along with the rest of the trash with my Ice Trap throws already.

Bear Trap


Fire Trap


Ice Trap

Blinding Assault

1 in 4 hits taken will Blind nearby enemies! Applies that crazy 50% Less Chance to be hit. Procs the 30% reduced Spell Damage Taken from Kongming's! Also, more damage synergy from our Kongming's and other passives!

Born in the Shadows

More damage against those Blinded enemies, Reduced Attack and Spell Damage Taken! Longer Blind!

Explosives Expert

We take this over Bomb Specialist (which you could also choose to take) because as a trapper we really don't need all that much more damage against packs. What we really need is damage against single tough mobs. 10% MORE Fire Damage that further scales our Bear Trap and Kongming's buff against rares/unique bosses is great. That and the MORE modifier is better than Bomb Specialist's INCREASED modifier. Also, since we instantly detonate traps, they don't stick around each other for the buff to fully affect each other, so our build can't maximize Bomb Specialist anyway. 8% Elemental Resistance Penetration is even better and helps with rare mob mods and maps, and also scales our multi-target too. Also, less trap/mine damage taken from those rare rogue exiles, labyrinth, ghosts, and weird unique enemies is always nice. Bear Trap Exiles and Fire Nova Mine Ghosts hurt.

REASONING:

Here we focus mainly on survivability.
What's key to remember are:

Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics - For the Dodge and Spell Dodge. No-brainer.

Clever Construction - Helps with levelling and preventing trap failure. Even though we use instant detonation traps, without this node traps can bug out and still fail.

Hasty Reconstruction - Lets us spam those traps.

3x Jewel Sockets - We need to put in 3 jewels: 2x Cheap Construction, 1x Conqueror's longevity

About 2 mana + mana regeneration notables and 1 aura cluster to sustain our skills.

Focus everything else on Life, Strength, Life Regeneration, Evasion, Resists, and if you can spare any points, Trap Damage/Trigger Radius.

As trappers, we don't need much damage investment, since traps do insane damage by themselves.

LINK:

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAYDAAUtBbUNjQ5IES8RlhPfFfAZtCP2JJ0miCepKwouUy9vMHEyATY9Nxc6QkIsQzFFfEd-Sn1LeEz_TZJOKlO7VEdVS1uvXfJeRWHiYetiWmKsZKplTWo2apNsCGyMbmlwUXC7dO12b3pTfXV-sH_GhNmHdow2jb-S85XMl5ebJpuGnaqexKB5o4qmvrIZtDi0xbcwt3W9Nr6nv9XBxcLszerPetNv037UI9X42FTZE9rB2-fdqOOf5RnoWujW62PsGO0_7g7uFe968Yr2n_lj-uv79fzF_Ur-ug==

THIS BUILD HAS NO ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED ITEMS (NOT EVEN KONGMING'S!)

Total Estimated Optimal Gear Cost: 69.5 Chaos

Total Estimated Budget Gear Cost: 30 Chaos

HELMET:


Evasion, Life, Chaos resistance, 1-2 (2 preferred) elemental resistances. Mine is linked for reference. About 5 chaos.

AMULET:


Life, Chaos resistance, 1-2 (2 preferred) elemental resistances. Mine is linked for reference. About 3 chaos.

CHEST:


We get this mainly for the good chunk of evasion, the upper middle roll of life, and the chance to dodge attacks. Onslaught also helps us escape more easily with our movement skill when we do take damage. Honestly if you could get the right colors on a Hyrri's Ire, you should use that for the 10/10 dodge. But it's damn near impossible to get those colors, at least for the way this specific CWDT gem setup is planned. Again, this isn't required and a solid evasion chest can suffice but then again as before you lose out on the whole point of this build, which is to stack many different forms of damage prevention. Costs around 1 chaos unlinked, 30 chaos 5-linked. I ran with a Tabula until level 80.

BELT:


To make sure our traps explode right away so our clear speed and dps increases, and so that there aren't any wasted traps lying around. We use it for the shotgun. Not absolutely required, but you gimp your dps severely without it so do get it. About 1 chaos.

GLOVES:


Evasion, Life, Chaos resistance, 1-2 (2 preferred) elemental resistances. Mine are linked for reference. About 5 chaos.

RINGS:


Evasion, Life, Chaos resistance, 2-3 elemental resistances. Mine are linked for reference. About 8 chaos each.

SHIELD (Swap 1&2):


Obviously. This will be used to apply blind, buff our damage, and reduce damage taken. Honestly it's not required to make a generic dodge/evasion trapper build work but it's the whole point of this build and you lose a lot of survivability, utility, and damage without it. There's no reason not to use it. Costs around 1 fuse.

WEAPON (Swap 1):


This is for Single Target damage, as well as for defense in the form of kiting bosses or dangerous packs. We use this primarily for the slow and also the generic increased damage modifier. Also helps somewhat with melee range multi-target. Not entirely required but it's part of the whole theme of stacking mitigation of damage so do get it. Costs around 5 chaos.

WEAPON (Swap 2):


This is for Multi Target damage, to buff Ice Trap against packs. Carry it in weapon swap, and switch to it for DPS mode as you see fit. Not required, and a decent rare can replace it. But the extra freeze chance is really nice, and since ice trap shotguns like crazy and we throw 3-4 volleys of 4 traps, you will often find yourself freezing whole packs from the sheer number of explosions that all have a freeze chance. Again, goes along with the whole defensive idea of the build. Costs about 1 chaos.

BOOTS:


BIS for the spell dodge. Nothing else even comes close. Also not required as the other items, but well... you get the point. Darkray Vectors, Blood Dance, or good rares also work. But keep in mind you probably won't get the frenzy charges you need for the first two of those unless you modify your build to use Blood Rage. Costs about 1 chaos.

JEWELS:


Two, for the instant detonation of the traps. Not required, but makes your life so much easier that I would just get it. About 1 fuse each.


For the additional dodge chance. Not required, but every little bit helps. About 1 chaos.

FLASKS:



Pretty standard. You want to be able to unfreeze yourself.


Pretty standard. You need anti-bleed.


Pretty standard. You want to go fast.


We use this to buff our evasion and make more smoke clouds for more blind!


We use this to buff our Dodge chance, and also since we have capped chaos resist, it's a free, massive instant heal without any noticeable degen.

Chest:

5L:

This is our mitigation CWDT 5L. As an Evasion/Dodge build there aren't really any CWDT spells that synergize well, but we should use them anyway. Molten Shell for Armour, Chaos Golem for much-needed Physical Reduction, Immortal Call to survive physical hits, Enfeeble to further reduce damage taken. You can drop most of these links before you can afford a 5L. Pretty much only Immortal Call borders on required, but the rest I never leave home without in higher-level content. It all really adds up to be super-effective. We can do this because traps deal ludicrous damage and do not require more than a 4L.

6s slot:


For the Evasion. Pretty standard for an Evasion character.

OR


For the high mana cost of traps. We need to use mana, since using the Blood Magic gem would take away too much damage for us due to the opportunity cost of losing Trap And Mine Damage.

Gloves/Helm/Boots:

Which 4L/3L4S goes in which gear piece is entirely interchangeable here.

1st 4L:


This is our Single Target skill against tough rares and unique bosses. Added fire is key here for the elemental damage scaling. Trap Cooldown is used to allow us to spam.

2nd 4L:

This is our Multi-Target skill for pack clearing. Cluster Trap is key here for shotgunning. Trap Cooldown allows us to spam these shotgun blasts.

3rd 4L:

3L:

This is our movement/fortify/blind skill.

4s slot:

OR

Whichever one you didn't put into your 6S chest slot.

Shield (Swap 1&2):

3L:

We put both fire trap and our movement skill for getting over ledges and obstacles here. We use Lightning Warp since both it and Fire Trap synergize with Less Duration. Less Duration has a MORE damage modifier, which greatly boosts the base damage of Fire Trap, which we typically unload all 3 charges of onto a boss at once to apply the blind damage buff and nice DOT damage before piling on the Bear Traps. Use this in both shields. We need to have Fire Trap in the Kongming's Shield or the smoke cloud won't proc.

Weapon(Swap 1&2):

3L:

We use this just as a counterattack stat-stick. We don't have block chance so we can't use Reckoning, so we just put in Vengeance and Life Gain On Hit for passive heal. Enduring Cry is used for more tankiness and synergy with Daresso's Defiance. Use this in both weapon swaps.

This section will be updated as needed.

Is this build HC viable?

It's Evasion-based, so categorically I don't think it's a good idea. But I didn't die once levelling up to late merciless and pretty much 1-shot all of the bosses on spawn because Kongming's is such a good levelling unique. So you could probably do it.

Seems like you need to throw a lot of traps to kill one boss...

We're going for the equivalent of feeling like an echo caster. We're not focusing on single, large damage blasts here. We're going for a fluid gameplay experience where your character can and does throw multiple sets of traps at an enemy for more coverage and to make up for missing. My character throws 3 charges in the same time most other trappers throw one, and yet achieves pretty much the same desired effect, which is a dead enemy. Many trapper builds go for more damage as opposed to using Trap Cooldown. I choose to focus on the latter, because constantly running out of traps and waiting for them to recharge is no fun.

Why did you write this build?

Kratosian, someone I met in Dried Lake, thought my build was really interesting and wanted a write-up. So here it is.