[2.4] Detonate Dead CI Assassin, Detonate Dead isn't dead

So I really wanted to make a Detonate Dead build this league. I loved playing Fire Trap builds back when Elemental Proliferation still hadn't been nerfed and I've always thought Detonate Dead was a pretty cool skill.

But it just seemed like Detonate Dead had been hit too hard with the nerf hammer. What would it be without Ele Prolif? It only does 6% of the corpse's health! That's nothing!
"Surely, this skill is dead!", you say. Well it's not. It's Detonate Dead, and please don't call me Shirley.

In previous patches there were a few decent builds, mainly ones relying on chaos conversion or the Elementalist's free Ele Prolif. Chaos conversion just isn't ideal anymore since you have to use 2x Consuming Dark to not lose out of a ton of damage and then you can't use Bino's Kitchen Knife to spread the poison.

As for the Elementalist, well, the free Prolif just isn't for me, I want to get tons of AoE and that will only scale Elemental Proliferation's AoE if you use the gem.
Besides, the builds I found on the forum just didn't seem strong enough when it came to the damage.

Now, a DD trapper was still an option. But having tried that out a bit on Standard using some old character during previous leagues I just wasn't impressed. Besides, the Trap Support gem was nerfed this league to no longer double dip on DoT skills.

So how CAN you scale DD to be decent? There's the Concentrated Effect gem but did I mention I like massive AoE? There was only one logical option left... Crit.
With a measly 5% critical strike chance and no "Spell" tag on the gem to help the scaling of critical strike chance, how much could you really get? It would have to be an Assassin.
Upon discussing this some less optimistic guy said to me "DD is not a crit skill! You're stupid!".
I denied neither of these statements, but I'd be damned if I didn't at least try to make this work.

Having played around with a Herald of Ice/Thunder Crit build in the Perandus league I realized this would look almost the same in the tree. Going for as much AoE, Ele dmg and Power Charges as possible.

It was time to make a new character. Name? "BuffDDPls".
In the end the build was beyond all my expectations. Granted they were not very high to begin with...
But this build worked, it was clearing maps fast and the single target dmg was surprisingly good.

TL;DR DD has been nerfed a lot but I managed to make it work very well anyway

Clears maps very fast
You either bop an enemy with a quick Flameblast or place a Desecrate and then cast a fast DD and move on to the next pack. Even most rares should be one-shot by this.

Scales well with monster lvl/increased hp
Since the damage depends on the monsters' hp it scales very well with higher tier maps clearing them as fast as it clears lower level maps.
The increased monster hp map mod won't affect you in any negative way either. It won't increase the boss hp either and therefore just increase your dmg for the boss.

Flexible with map mods
I can only think of 3 map mods I don't run.
Blood Magic - This being a CI character I think this is pretty self explanatory.
Fire Resist - The one thing that really ruins your clear speed.

Reflect immune
Detonate Dead cannot reflect damage back to you. Just don't forget that Flameblast still can.

Strong against bosses
Any boss that has Magic/Rare/Unique enemies that you can detonate around it will die very fast if not even immediately.
I've not had any problems with Atziri or Uber lab either (more on this in the boss section).

Somewhat cheap
With one exception the recommended Uniques are really cheap.
No one plays DD so 20% quality DD gem is going to be cheap.
I found that Desecrate was also pretty cheap with 20% quality.
You don't need any Empower/Enlighten either.

Low mana cost
If you play with a lvl 1 DD gem (which is what I'm doing) the skill will cost very little mana even in a 6-link. I'm pretty much only carrying a mana flask for the no-regen maps.

Ignite immune enemies
The map mod itself isn't too bad, just swap Ele Prolif gem for Elemental Focus. The same for Atziri, it deals enough damage to kill her pretty quickly anyway.

Very reliant on Power Charges
No charges - no damage. An easy way to deal with this in the Gearing section.

You need corpses
Being the one drawback on the skill itself I think it's fine.
This just means you have to kill something to kill everything else OR use Desecrate.
Just keep in mind some corpses can't be detonated. Water Elementals, some Tora mission monsters, Fire Skeletons in the labyrinth and some Unique monsters/bosses.
Why these can't be detonated, I don't understand but as long as you know this you can simply use a Desecrate instead.

Sort of vulnerable
This is due to the nature of ES and components of this build. If an entire pack rushes at you and you are unable to kill them for some reason (no power charges/corpses?) it could potentially be a very bad situation. Proper potion usage can save you in these situations.

Gear dependable
There are some uniques that are more or less required. Since this is also a CI build you will need a bunch of ES on the rest of the gear, not to mention resistances and some stats for requirements.
But don't forget that Essences are your friend.

- We need massive dmg, this gives us a massive amount of Critical Strike Multiplier. You can play without this but we'll have almost full crit chance against Full Life/Low Life enemies anyway. This is also a reason you won't deal any damage without Power Charges.
It's pretty cheap so you could corrupt a bunch. The "+1 Curse"-corruption would be amazing.


- More Crit Multiplier for us. They're also pretty cheap so you could corrupt them or buy a corrupt pair. I recommend getting a pair with the increased Cast Speed corruption or "Elemental Weakness on hit"/"Temporal Chains on hit" if you've got the "+1 Curse" from the tree or your equipment.


- You need a way to deal with stuns as a CI character. Marylene's Fallacy is just so important; you could use Eye of Chayula but you'd lose out on too much dmg IMO.


- Tons of Ele dmg, a bit of Crit and a little leech. The only "expensive" unique that I'm using and it's really not expensive once a league has gone long enough. If you somehow manage to scrape up enough defenses without a shield you could always dual wield two of these. That could save you a bunch of points in the tree or a socket in your main link or even replace the Facebreakers.


- This shield is amazing. Use it in your weapon swap to quickly build up Power Charges at the start of a map or before a boss. Assassin's Mark or Power Charge on Critical will make sure you keep the charges up though.
You can skip this but it's cheap and an easy and reliable way of getting your first Power Charges in the map.

Skyforth - I don't have these but they would clearly be best in slot, free Power Charge generation and a way of dealing with stuns. The potential of this build would increase massively if you manage to acquire these. You could then skip out on the Assassin's Mark curse.

Auxium - Could be good but I prefer a high-res belt and having a flask with anti-freeze mod on.

The Beast Fur Shawl - 10% increased AoE and a pretty good amount of ES. Decent option but if you compare this one 5-linked to another 6-linked ES armor I would go with the 6-link.



- Great for enemies that aren't on Full Life/Low Life or if you haven't got the maximum amount of Power Charges up.


- Low charge usage makes this flask great with an anti-bleed or anti-freeze roll. It's also awesome for when enemies get up in your face.


- I say this is a must-have flask. Mostly for bosses but also for porcupine packs in nasty maps and hard-hitters.



- I bought this one with the enchant for a few chaos and then crafted it. I'm still not sure if the 12% Increased Radius enchant is better or if the 40% Increased Damage enchant is but I went with radius.


- A 5-link will do but a 6-link is highly recommended. I bought this for 2.5 ex and then crafted it with Essences. So you don't have to spend a fortune.


- The enchantment on my boots gives me a little bit of extra life leech, which is nice. Rare boots with resistances is to prefer if you can't easily cap them. The movement speed is very nice though since we'll be 1-shotting almost every pack of enemies.


- These rings can provide a very nice damage increase if you've got enough stats/resistances already. I'm not using this one anymore though.

A 6-link is highly recommended.
Here's the setup I'm using:

Main link
- Detonate Dead, Increased Critical Strikes, Fire Penetration, Increased Critical Damage, Elemental Proliferation, Increased Area of Effect
Gems you can swap in when needed: Concentrated effect, Elemental Focus, Power Charge on Critical

Secondary
- Flameblast, Faster Casting, Increased Critical Strikes, Concentrated Effect
I mainly keep Conc Effect here to be able to swap into the main link. You could replace Conc Effect or Faster Casting with Power Charge on Critical if you feel the need (I don't).

Utility
- Flame Dash, Faster Casting
- Desecrate, Faster Casting
- Discipline
- Assassin's Mark, Blasphemy
- Vaal Haste, Increased Duration, Faster Casting
- Immortal Call, Cast when damage taken, Increased Duration
- Fire Trap (lvl 1), Multiple Traps, Cluster Traps

Flame Dash is fast and feels good to use but since it has a cooldown and limited range you could use a Lightning Warp setup if you'd like.
Keep in mind that Desecrate could be a bottleneck for your damage if you don't level it enough and rely more on it than Flameblast for creating corpses.
Assassin's Mark and Discipline you can link with Enlighten if you have one.
Personally I'm not using Immortal Call however I recommend doing so.
I'm also not using Faster Casting for Vaal Haste because I store my Elemental Focus Gem in the same link.
The Fire Trap is used in your weapon swap with Jaws of Agony to quickly generate Power Charges. It should be level 1 to keep the mana cost as low as possible.

I recommend getting 20% quality gems for Detonate Dead and Desecrate since it will give you increased cast speed for them.
You should also get two DD gems, one to not level and one to level because the mana cost will be more than 4 times as high for the leveled gem and once you have enough damage it won't matter much which gem you use.

Normal Kill them all.
Cruel Help Alira or kill them all (I helped Alira but I think killing all could be better).
Merciless Help Alira, you need 7 Power Charges.

Go Assassin for the Ascendancy.
Deadly Infusion is the most important ascendancy node, sadly it's gated behind Unstable Infusion which is pretty much terrible and offers no synergy with this build (we always want to crit and we want enemies to be on Full Life until we do).
If you want you could get Ambush first, just remember that Assassinate should be the last node you get since you want Deadly Infusion to make the build work.

Current Passive Skill Tree

Some things to note:
* I get a couple of nodes for the Dexterity bonus, Vaal Haste is the thing that requires the most. 40 more than the Desecrate which is the thing that requires the second most. You can use a lower level Vaal Haste or skip it entirely if you want.

* Avatar of Fire is taken to make sure Desecrate deals no damage and doesn't make the enemies not Full Life.

* Chaos Innoculation isn't required but highly recommended, you don't want to die because you didn't pay attention to some chaos damage. While leveling or if you decide to skip it make sure you carry a life flask to save you from any chaos damage.

* Ghost Reaver lets us leach onto our Energy Shield. Despite only having a little bit of leech (0.2% from Doryani's and 0.6% from boots enchantment) I feel this is worth it.

You can find my character here.
Look for the character "BuffDDPls" in the Essence League.

I don't recommend using Detonate Dead until at least level 50 but it's better to wait until something like level 64+. At 75 you can start using Doryani's Catalyst and that's when DD really gets good.
At level 50 you CAN use a weapon with the Decay Essence craft, then Detonate Dead will actually deal damage until you are ready to swap weapon. This craft benefits from AoE dmg (since DD is an AoE skill) from the tree and damage over time nodes if you choose to get those for leveling.
Otherwise get a Scepter with high increased elemental dmg (implicit mod) and increased fire dmg to use for leveling until you can use Doryani's Catalyst

To level up to this point I would go Fire Trap and Spark at first.
Then add in Lightning Trap into the mix at level 12.
You could get Firestorm instead of Lightning Trap as it better follows what kind of spec you get in the tree, however Shadow won't receive this gem from rewards or vendors.
Once you reach level 28 and defeat Gravicius you can start using Flameblast which should be fine to use until you are ready for Detonate Dead.

You can switch from a life based character to a ES/Life Hybrid or CI character once you are able to use some decent ES body armor and shield.
I went hybrid about level 50 and fully CI around 75.

Skill Trees
Note that you might need to grab some 30 Dex/Str nodes to help with gear/gem requirements.
These trees are meant to help you on how to properly progress while leveling this build.

Level ~30 Tree
You can get rid of these trap nodes once you stop using Lightning Trap.

Level ~40 Tree

Level ~50 Hybrid Tree
Grabbing that extra life and ES that you don't need for the earlier leveling.

Level 64 Hybrid Tree
Somewhat what your tree should look like before you make the swap to CI.

Level 64 CI Tree
The earliest point at which I would switch to CI. At this point you could probably start getting some satisfying damage with DD. Otherwise wait with DD until level 75 when you can use Doryani's.

Level 90 Tree

Typically playing this build you will bop and enemy with a short Flameblast and then detonate its corpse.

There will be times when it's better to cast Desecrate instead of using Flameblast however this is slightly slower. IE when you aren't on full charges or there's a single Rare enemy.

Use your Diamond Flask to help you crit against enemies that aren't on Full Life/Low Life or if you don't have full charges.

Once you reach the boss or an enemy trapped in an Essence swap Elemental Proliferation gem for Concentrated Effect if you want to kill them a bit faster. Remember to make use of dead Magic/Rare/Unique monsters to kill the enemies faster.

If you are in a map with Elemental Status immunity swap Elemental Proliferation for Elemental Focus and if you're fighting a boss in such a map or an Ignite immune boss also swap Increased AoE support gem or Increased Critical Damage for Concentrated Effect.

If you are playing a Hexproof map you can swap the Increased AoE gem for the Power Charge on Critical gem and use Arctic Armor instead of your Blasphemy Assassin's Mark.
Just remember to weapon swap and throw traps to help with the Power Charges.

The highest map I've done on this build is T15 because this is the highest map I've had yet this league. I was clearing it as fast as other maps (though I should add that you could slow down just to play a bit safer than I do). I'll talk about the boss in the next section.

Doing Atziri


Doing Uber Lab


Others

Please keep in mind that these videos were recorded while releveling some gems, if Flameblast appears to come out weak at times.

Also, my Graphics card went dead a while back (I have not gotten down to detonating it yet though) so I'm using an older one and therefore game+video is laggy at times as well as being recorded with a bit poor quality.

T12 Shaped Mud Geyser
T11 Wasteland
T13 High Gardens Ignite Immune map. Made two minor mistakes noted in vid.
T11 Chateu (this one has a bit more lag)

Atziri vid and higher tier map videos to be added.