[1.0.5] Cuddles' DoT Trapper (Poison Arrow, Fire Trap, Detonate Dead, w/ Puncture@ 213k+ dps)

YO DAWG, I HERD YOU LIEK LOTS O' DAMAEG, SO WE PUT MORE DAMAGE ON TOP OF DAMAEG YOU'LL KILL THEM SO BAD THEY'LL DIE TO DEATH

This is a mostly a concept build and is not yet optimized for HC league use (READ: GLASS CANNON). I've solo leveled mine up to 75 as of writing without major issues or resorting to zerging bosses.

I've been quite a fan of DoT builds since the early open beta and fiddled around with a number of poison/firetrap/puncture builds but they always ended up lackluster and often underpowered as compared to direct damage builds. 1.02 DoT changes obviously brought me back to try this junk once again and after some while theorycrafting i ended up making this needlessly complicated but rewarding build despite a majority of people calling 1.0.2 a DoT nerf because of the rescaling.

The main concept for this is for a build that utilizes Puncture which is an attack skill that adds a physical DoT bleed effect (which is now greatly boosted increased physical damage due to a double dip effect since it increases the initial hit damage AND the DoT component afterwards). Seems simple right? But wait there's more!

This build utilizes Puncture with Remote mine and trap supports that boosts damage multiplicatively because of MORE Damage (and in theory double dips to the DoT component as well). AoE damage is dealt by the other notable DoTs that got BUFFED (yes, even PA got buffed guys) in patch 1.0.2.

1.0.3 has rolled in and DoT passives are available and incorporated into build. Why just the Entropy node you ask? Because the trap/mine nodes are a higher priority due to double dipping (initial hit+DoT component) as opposed to DoT passives just boosting DoT.

1.0.5 nerfed Freeze Mine and you will have to work a bit more to shut down mobs but this is still a somewhat viable tactic

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Pros:
+Reflect is now a free monster affix you can mostly ignore
+Respectable damage potential (puncture double/triple dips through the numerous multipliers)
+Multiple damage sources (not much frustration over curse immune elem resist mobs)
+No need for expensive 6links, build is fine with 4link equips
+Melts faces, especially rares/uniques that you can herd into walking
+Has the option to go IR armor for defenses (use the left path to get to Ondar's Guile)
+FUN

Cons:
-No Life leech/gain on hit
-Still dependent on a good weapon damage for puncture, unlike other trappers
-Clunky mechanics (so many buttons to push which can be a plus if you don't want to be bored) and silly targeting with puncture (bugged?). I should probably stress out that this can get to extremely frustrating levels that you can't hit a singular target no matter how you shift positions because of how stupid the targeting system works.
-Glass cannon-ish (Freeze mine CC helps a lot but spells can still rape you hard) [2.3k hp current]
-No shield as you'll be stuck using a bow for trap/mines support to work
-Cannot into MF, degen kills are still unaffected by MF increases afaik

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Equipment notes:
Broadstroke for the 30% phys double dip
Sunblast for trap damage is excellent at raising dps but i prefer to use a defensive Rustic sash though since my other gear isn't great-tier yet to hold me without a good def belt
Deerstalker is essentially a 5-link boot with a lvl 11 capped trap support, use this if you don't have a 5l yet but ideally you should get proper defensive boots and a top leveled Trap gem for max damage
Heavy damage bow, attack speed is of no consequence so find the hardest hitting bow

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Passives:


Bandits:
Normal: Oak
Cruel: Oak
Merciless: Kill all

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Skills:

AoE solution:
3l
>Freeze mine CC (Elemental Proliferation+Cold penetration),
4l
>Poison Arrow (Mine+Trap+Slower Projectile),
3l (share w/ freeze mine on bow/chest slots?)
>Fire Trap (Inc. Burning+Mine)
>optional Rain of Arrows (Mine+Trap+Point Blank+Conc. Effect) but since this creates a mine that spawns a trap directly where you put the mine it's kinda hard to use when kiting.
>optional Detonate Dead (Mine+Trap+Chance to Ignite+Fire Penetration), clunky target corpse bombs full of hurt


Single target:
5l or deerstalker 4l
>Puncture (Point Blank+Mine+Trap+Physical Projectile Attack Damage), while it takes some practice and luck to hit a particular target in a group it really dishes out when it finally hits. See the mathcraft section for details.

Misc:
>Vulnerability curse is of course highly beneficial and if you do decide to take up those expensive curse passives, you can make use of temporal chains for longer CC/DoTs. You can also opt to add Conc. effect on your AoE for more damage especially if you have a Carcass Jack on hand.

I run Grace and Clarity (chugging mana pots is always an option though) auras since the damage auras are not going to be hugely beneficial. The build is very mana-hungry (around 50-80 mana per cast and you're casting a whole lot of mines) so multiple 60% auras are out of the question.

With just this, the core build is complete. You can opt to grab a CoWaDooTy defence setup for the remaining gemslots, a frost wall totem (traps can be tossed over it right?), RoA with LGoH+life/mana leech sustain button or whatever you want.

Gameplay flow:
Always keep a fast hand on that instant heal potion, prioritize freeze mine over damage if you're getting stunned/frozen, reposition as needed (boss telegraph nukes).

Standard packs:
Run into pack>Freeze mine>Detonate>Freeze mine>PA>FT>Vuln>Detonate>Freeze mine>RoAx3>Detonate>Freeze mine>Puncture tough stragglers>Detonate

Multiple tough rares/magical mobs:
Precast 2 patches of PA/FT>lure part of pack onto patches>Freeze mine and treat divided packs as standard pack

Bosses:
Puncture all the way, do not freeze mine (to promote walking damage) unless minions get overwhelming.

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Mathcrafting section:
*do correct me if my take on the mechanics is wrong, these values seem very outrageous even to me*

Relevant passive bonuses:

+Oak 18% physical damage bonus

Bleed damage
*Placeholder values for lvl 20 Puncture: 25.9% Base +129.3% Mobile [inferred that progression was nerfed by 2 levels in 1.0.2]

Assuming a 5l, gem details:
Puncture (level 20): 155.2% mobile base bleed
Remote Mine (level 20): 49% (x)
Trap (level 20): 34% (x)
Ranged Physical Attack Damage: not relevant to DoT
Point Blank: not relevant to DoT

q20 Vulnerability (20): 44% more physical (x) and 40% increased DoT targetside calculation (x) *this treated a multiplier because the effect is changing the damage values on the target's damage taken side rather than on the player output as per the wiki statement


Increased damage (+) from passives:
151 + 153 + 39 + 53 + 18 = 396%
Increased damage (+) from gear:
30 (broadstroke) + 24 (rustic sash) = 54%
Total increased damage (+) mods = 468%

(155.2 {Base Mobile Bleed} * (5.50 {additive mods})) * 1.49{mine} * 1.34{trap} * 1.44{vuln phys} * 1.4 {vuln DoT}
= 3548.3107516416% Bleed coefficient! (full potential with this build)

Sample damage input:

if we consider that we take the average 6020 initial hit (due to point blank (150%) and vulnerability (144%)) is very achievable past levels 65: 6020 * 3548.3107516416% = 213608.30724882432 Mobile Physical Bleed DPS!
OUCH TWO HUNDRED THIRTEEN THOUSAND DAMAGE PER SECOND

Practical Lower level Example (current level 70 damage):


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Gameplay Video Clips:
Crematorium Piety at lvl64
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXFbU5cNwVc
do note that she didn't even move after she got punctured

Gravysauce
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv3IH2xdsl4

Luna Piety EZPZ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5el7QGrUsTE

Catacombs grind run (to show standard skill use against regular mobs)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8jPb9-G7PE

Dominus kill ~2hits per form (I'll be honest, I died a couple of times before i started rolling the clip because i was trying to lure him out of the top corner for a better view and less minions)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBP9Z1sAxlQ

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Gear Report:
My gear as of last update [level 75]


*Continuing progress*

To add:
Searing Bond with trap/mine support
Calculate Poison Arrow and Fire Trap end values

I heard elsewhere that puncture was untouched by the 1.0.2 changes. Is that incorrect?

It is rather hard for me to prove you otherwise but anecdotally i have been able to down a beefy rare with a single puncture application that only took roughly 5-10% from the initial hit. [edit: retested and i can drop rares hit for around said 10% in 1-2 seconds if they moved and cursed with vulnerability, got no vids though sorry]

With GGG being rather cryptic as to how DoTs now work and users having no reliable means to test it out thoroughly, I would like to look at it on a positive note that if ever my assumptions that puncture was buffed in 1.02 turned out entirely false then it would mean that it would even be more powerful should GGG decide to buff it in line with the other DoTs. Puncture damage scaling has been redone/nerfed in 1.02, though not as much as burn/chaos DoT skills were so it could be a good indicator that there is some sense to believe that it was indeed buffed.

edit2: i just powered through merc vaal. 5 puncture applications (he doesn't walk/run lol) and the standard AoE DoTs from PA and FT is all it took me and this is with a listed 1095-2668 puncture damage tooltip. have a screenie:

and here are some screenies of how much my PA damage does at just gem level 15 without conc. effect:
note how much trap and mine support gems amplify the damage and try to apply the same for puncture's DoT?

1482 life? You're a madman!

"

DoomyDoom wrote:

1482 life? You're a madman!

I probably am but i don't need to facetank most mobs anyways. Frost mine handles most mobs and if i can't permafreeze them i just kite in circles until they die to DoT. If that's also not an option (such as with quick cold resist mobs with high health), i just pop a few puncture traps and herd them carefully. Puncture damage kills them even before they reach me most of the time.

1) This is like " life on a battery ". Quite low life, it is gonna be an instant death from a hard hit.
2) The second curse is kind of a waste , you may use:

if you insist and get some survivability instead.
3) I guess there are way too many evasion passives,but may combine with IR though

The second curse isn't really needed, 8 points is quite a silly investment to something non-essential to the build. I'm going to update the passive tree once 1.03 hits to redirect some to the new DoT/chaos passives too. Thanks for the critique :)


progress update:
ima put up a current passive relevant to my level in the op

edit: video added :)

any useful videos with killing speed of some monster packs, not just boss?

Niiice
I feel I'm going to switch from elemental trapper.

"

Jirkis wrote:

any useful videos with killing speed of some monster packs, not just boss?

I should but I didn't know which packs would be useful to benchmark on. First thing that came to mind were bosses because they usually had pretty high hp even compared to rares. I'll try to compile a vid for standard monsters in a bit...



I'm currently grinding out catacombs and i've slowed down a bit because my gear is getting too far behind to keep me alive with tough mobs.