[1.0.2] Tri Element Trapper

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Shoraki wrote:

With lvl 20 Q20% Ele Weakness, lvl 20 Fire pen, Ele Equalibrium, High Explosives, and 3x shock... thats -154 Resist to fire on top of +90% damage.

You forgot High Explosives.

EDIT: Lol, my bad, you didn't forget it. I even included it in the quote.

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Shoraki wrote:

So I was thinking about the build again... Wouldn't it be amazing late game if you dropped bear trap, grabbed a searing touch and put all your fire trap gems in it and then put your shock nova gems in your carcass jack... You could potentially Curse-1-2-3 almost anything in the game with An ele weakness, ShockNova x3 shock, Fire Trap, Ice Nova. There would be almost no need for bear trap anymore unless you wanted to keep your culling + rarity going. With lvl 20 Q20% Ele Weakness, lvl 20 Fire pen, Ele Equalibrium, High Explosives, and 3x shock... thats -154 Resist to fire on top of +90% damage. HOLY CRAP.

I thought about it, but here's why I chose not to do it.

The Divinarius and Shield are the two items I would have to give up for a Searing Touch. The two biggest losses are the Crit from the dagger, and the 264 ES from the shield, let alone the HP and Resists.

The ~140% crit is roughly 7% for Fire Trap and Ice Nova, and 5.5% for Shock Nova. Granted, Shock Nova would still have an extremely high chance to shock stack, however losing about 1/4 of my total Crit chance on Fire Trap would be rough. Igniting enemies is what causes the most damage, and I think removing that much crit would offset the extra damage Fire Trap would receive from Searing Touch.

The shield...264 ES. I currently have 2223 total mana. I took the shield off for accurate numbers...1648 ES. That's just about 600 total mana lost. That's quite a bit considering how important Mind Over Matter is for this build.

As for putting my Shock Nova in the Carcass Jack for a 6L, it's already 5L with 5 of the gems I would use in a Carcass, the only thing Shock Nova would gain is Lightning Pen.

Also remember, you wrote +90% spell damage, that's assuming a perfect Searing Touch. Even if my the Grace of God I got a perfect Searing Touch, it's only +20% spell damage for fire, and -20% spell damage for Shock/Ice Nova. Remember that Divinarius has 70% spell dmg.

All in all, here's the comparison:

Gains
+20 Fire Damage
+2 Levels of Fire Gems
+70% Burning Damage
Lightning Pen Gem linked to Shock Nova
+20% All Resist (Depending on what boots you replace Deerstalkers with)
+30-40 Base HP (Again, depending on boots)
+200 Mana (Still, depending on what EV/ES boots you get)

Losses
-20% Lit/Ice Damage
-140% Crit Chance
-10% AoE Size
-600+ Mana (264 ES is not nearly as high as hybrid shields can go)
-80+ Base HP
-20%+ All Resists (Depending on your shield)
-200+ Evasion (Again, depending on your shield)
-18% Trap Throwing Speed from Deerstalkers (This highly helps with mobility)

So I've hit level 85, and I'm "done" with my planned build. In the past, around this level I got bored with a character and was ready to reroll something new. I'm just having too much damn fun with this character and not a bone in my body wants to roll something new. That being said, that means I'm going to gain more levels, and more passive points. Where that ends, who knows, but I figure I should at least start thinking about what I'm going to do with my next 5 points (level 90).

The easy and obvious answer is more HP. I'm directly connected to 12x 8% HP nodes (2x Left of Scion, 4x btwn Scion and Iron Reflexes, and 2x "3-packs" above Shadow). The reason I'm making this post is for feedback. I've received great ideas about this build from others, using Shock Nova instead of Lightning Trap or the 3 points on Nullification instead of the all resist nodes, and figured it would be worth throwing it out there to see if anyone can come up with any interesting twists or turns.

My first idea was to spend the 2 points it would take to get "Elusiveness" in that big evasion cluster near Scion. That would give me 40% increased evasion, causing my HP and MP through Mind Over Matter to be more "effective" through more damage reduction. I could then slam in a bunch of the 8% HP nodes after that.

I was also thinking of spending the 1 point on "Clear Mind" for 16% Chaos resist. Taking a little less Chaos damage is never a bad thing.

Lastly, spending the 4 points for "Cleaver Construction". That ends up being 6% Trap Laying Speed, 18% damage, and immunity to traps for pesky things like leap slam, cyclone, etc. However, I don't really think I'm going to take this route but figured I'd write it to see what you all say.

My initial knee jerk reaction is to spend the 2 points for "Elusiveness" then just pour in the HP nodes, possibly spending a point on "Clear Mind" in the middle of it all. However, I figured I'd toss this out there to see if anyone else can come up with something interesting that I'm not seeing.

In no particular order, these are the things I'd consider:

-HP would likely be the safest for hardcore.

-There are the crit chance nodes near Bloodthirst. There's also 3 close to the Scion area.

-Leadership for party play.

-Pain Attunement is 1 point (not sure if this is good though).

-Skill Duration south of Scion.

-There's a movement speed node right underneath the Shadow start point.

-Charisma gives you a bunch of mana.

-Ondar's Guile if projectile attacks are a problem.

-There are some flask nodes in the Witch area that you might consider (think about the times when a flask saved your life). You get some more mana as well.

Out of interest what are your trap dps looking like now.

I'm 67 with my gems at lvl 16 (only 4L on fire)
Shock is 1022dps
fire 764
ice nova 675
bear 2890


Ps. still can't RGBB my Deerstalker /weep!

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netherall wrote:

Out of interest what are your trap dps looking like now.

I'm 67 with my gems at lvl 16 (only 4L on fire)
Shock is 1022dps
fire 764
ice nova 675
bear 2890


Ps. still can't RGBB my Deerstalker /weep!

DPS on traps is a bad thing to go by. First off, cast speed, and not trap laying speed is factored into that number. Second, Bear Trap includes a whole bunch of things in it that don't factor into it's actual dps. The best thing to do is look at your damage range, because those are accurate. Even if DPS was calculated right for traps, it would still be a misleading number. We're not some cleave or cyclone build that hits stuff 100 times a second in hopes of destroying them, we throw traps in a pattern and with intent.

Shock Nova (Level 15) - 59-1122 (Per trap, I throw 3 of these)
Fire Trap (Level 19) - 761-1142 (Same as above)
Ice Nova (Level 17) - 531-832
Bear Trap (Level 19) - 2292-4091 physical // 1177-1648 fire

Just to show an example of how screwy the DPS number for traps is:

My Fire Trap shown DPS is 1395. If I take my Ele Prolif gem out, and put a level 1 Faster Casting in, my DPS shoots up to an impressive 1658. Wow! A 16% DPS increase for a level 1 Faster Casting, good thing Faster Casting in reality does absolutely nothing for Traps. Always look at your base damages because they're far more important than the DPS number.

5968 DPS on Bear Trap, take out Item Rarity and put in Faster Casting...7105...woo boy, increase the deeps! Oh wait, nevermind...no it doesn't...

Due to some bad Chromatic colorings, I was short on red gem slots and had to take out my Reduced Duration gems. Apparently they are quite good. Not only do they reduce the time it takes for your traps to go off, they also reduce the amount of time it takes to restock your traps.

Before I took them out, I could lay a set of traps every 2 seconds. Without them, it feels like I can only lay a set on an average of every 3 seconds. Although the status ailment duration might be decreased, it's made up by the fact that you can throw more traps to reapply the status ailments. The only reason I can think of to not level Reduced Duration is if your mana pool can't keep up.

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DisRuptive1 wrote:

Due to some bad Chromatic colorings, I was short on red gem slots and had to take out my Reduced Duration gems. Apparently they are quite good. Not only do they reduce the time it takes for your traps to go off, they also reduce the amount of time it takes to restock your traps.

Before I took them out, I could lay a set of traps every 2 seconds. Without them, it feels like I can only lay a set on an average of every 3 seconds. Although the status ailment duration might be decreased, it's made up by the fact that you can throw more traps to reapply the status ailments. The only reason I can think of to not level Reduced Duration is if your mana pool can't keep up.

If they reduce the refresh rate of traps, that'd be friggin amazing. I wish there was more info out there about how the Reduced Duration gems work. If they do indeed change the refresh rate, and do not affect status ailments, I'm leveling them bitches up like fast.

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arkon9944 wrote:

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DisRuptive1 wrote:

Due to some bad Chromatic colorings, I was short on red gem slots and had to take out my Reduced Duration gems. Apparently they are quite good. Not only do they reduce the time it takes for your traps to go off, they also reduce the amount of time it takes to restock your traps.

Before I took them out, I could lay a set of traps every 2 seconds. Without them, it feels like I can only lay a set on an average of every 3 seconds. Although the status ailment duration might be decreased, it's made up by the fact that you can throw more traps to reapply the status ailments. The only reason I can think of to not level Reduced Duration is if your mana pool can't keep up.

If they reduce the refresh rate of traps, that'd be friggin amazing. I wish there was more info out there about how the Reduced Duration gems work. If they do indeed change the refresh rate, and do not affect status ailments, I'm leveling them bitches up like fast.

I had a level 17 Reduced Duration sitting in my stash. I tossed a Shock Nova trap, which is a 4 sec reload, without any reduced duration gems. It took 4 sec

I then put in the level 17 Reduced Duration, which is 41% reduction, and it still took 4 secs. Trap refresh is not affected by the gem.

I'm still not sure about status ailments, and tend to believe they are NOT affected by it, but I'm still gonna be safe and use level 1s.

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arkon9944 wrote:

Trap refresh is not affected by the gem.

That's strange, because it felt like I was always running out of traps to throw when I had Reduced Duration gems. It could be due to me waiting for the Ice Nova to go off before starting another rotation which happened quicker with the Reduced Duration gems.