Kenzorz's Delicious Crit Trapper (~1350 crit multiplier) [Patch 1.0.5]

"

About my previous similar spec characters, read if you want

I've made 3 trappers so far since the start of Domination league (all 3 of them are Scions btw):

* My first trapper, Lvl 88, was a bit of a mess since this was my first character since the majorly rehauled passive tree and I just wanted to try everything that was new and shiny, I ended up going with a dual flame totems crit trapper with enhanced auras lol. Surprisingly the synergy between these things was pretty good considering the enhanced Hatred aura really bumped up my EK/Bear trap damage. I got bored of this character at some point but then came an obvious respec (they introduced Chaos damage nodes) and I ended up respeccing this character to a similar build, trying out mines and respeccing out of them because they're shit. This character ended up using Dual Flame Totems, Crit EK Mines and enhanced auras.

* My second trapper, Lvl 90, was more of a specialised version of the previous one: No auras and dual totem nonsense just pure trap madness. I grew attached to this character (you probably guessed) since everything was working so well but eventually I got bored since my build was pretty much complete by Lvl 90, leveling further would only give me a few unneeded mana or crit nodes, not very motivating considering how long it takes to level.

This character was a AoE Crit Proliferation trapper: I specced 52% increased radius of area nodes and went for spells that would be greatly enhanced by this. I ended up going with:
Lightning Warp with Elemental Proliferation for fast shock stacking on groups.
Cold Snap and Freeze Mine with Elemenetal Proliferation for reliable freezing (and single target damage from Cold Snap, it hits hard).
Fire Trap with Elemental Proliferation as my main source of both single target and AoE damage.
I used Storm Call with Faster Casting and Concentrated Effect for single target damage.

* My third trapper, Lvl 77 is probably my strangest build. It was a DoT trapper whose main source of damage was Poison Arrow mines and Fire Traps. Damage is shit against anything with chaos resist so I didn't bother going any further.

First and second characters Chaos Inoculation builds (since I'm just simply used to CI builds and it made it easy to reroll similar characters as they all use the same sorts of gear), and the third was a life based build.

My current character is specialised in high crit multiplier traps, for big satisfying hits and is based on my second character who was of similar build but was a Scion so I couldn't optimize her tree as well as I could with a Shadow.

He is currently Lvl 82 and using my previous CI character's gear, the build probably works better as a life based character since it has so many points to spare for defensive stats but I didn't feel like playing Path of Shopping again so I just mooched off my previous character's end game gear.

You might have noticed, I like traps (no, not that kind of trap ;) )

"

With this build, a 20% Lvl 20 Increased Critical Damage support gem, the listed gear and Critical Weakness Lvl 20/20% it adds up to around 1350% crit multiplier.

The calculation for maths geeks

From passives: 40% for spells + 180% global
Lvl 20/20% Increased Critical Damage support: 149%
Gear: Maligaro's Virtuousity gloves and a Crit multi amulet: 50% + 60%

= 40 + 180 + 149 + 110
= 479% Increased Crit Multiplier

(and the way its worked out is (1+4.79)*150, since 150% is your base crit multiplier).
= 868% Critical Damage

and Critical Weakness Lvl 20/20% is 79% more critical damage.
= 768 * 1.79 (It's 768 because 100% critical damage is your regular non crit damage, hence not really counted as your critical damage)
= 1374.72% Critical Damage

"

My current build

My current build at Lvl 82. Is CI based.
I recently specced out of Crystal Skin and the Chance to Avoid chill/freeze/shock nodes since I feel ES needs to be a priority at the moment and shock/freeze honestly isn't much of a problem with the right flasks.

Change log

*At Lvl 75, I removed Crystal Skin and the Chance to Avoid Chill/Freeze/Shock nodes to spec into more ES. I feel ES needs to be a priority at this point and that elemental status ailments can be handled easily with the right flasks. This freed up 5 points that I used on the Evasion and Energy Shield nodes.

Core build, 67 points used.
Core build does not mean you need to rush for this build by the time you hit 67 points, use your own judgment and priortise different things such as life and ES if you need them more in your current situation.

Planned build for Lvl 80
Everything I take afterwards is situational (do I need more ES? Is my damage enough? Do I need more spell damage? etc.). Is CI based.

Rough life based version 95 points used.
(208% increased life at lvl 75-76)

Life based at Lvl 84-85, with extra crit chance/multiplier!
(234% increased life)

"

Normal: Kill them all, or help Oak if you're life based.
Cruel: Kill them all
Merciless: Kill them all

"

Supports are ordered in order of priroty.
Any "Trap" support can be replaced if you have Deerstalker unique boots.

Main traps:
* 4L/5L: Ice Nova + Trap + Multiple Traps + Concentrated Effect + Increased Critical Damage
* 4L-6L: Lightning Trap + Multiple Traps + Increased Critical Damage + Added Chaos Damage + Increased Critical Strikes + Added Lightning Damage

Preference traps
* 3L or more: Fire Trap + Concetrated Effect + Increased Area of Effect + Elemental Proliferation + Increased Critical Damage + Increased Burning Damage
* 3L/4L: Bear Trap + Added Fire Damage + Empower + Increased Critical Strikes
* 4L/5L: Cold Snap + Trap + Elemental Proliferation + Concentrated Effect + Cold Penetration
* 4L-6L: Lightning Warp + Trap + Multiple Traps + Lightning Penetration + Elemental Proliferation + Increased Critical Damage
* 4L-6L: Ethereal Knives + Trap + Added Fire Damage + Multiple Traps + Increased Critical Damage + Added Chaos Damage

"

Other skills

Necessary:
*Critical Weakness: This curse multiplies your extra critical damage so that your crits hurt even harder.
*Clarity: You will need clarity to keep your mana up for spamming traps and if you're a life build with the Cloak of Defiance or Mind over Matter, it helps your survivability.

Situational:
*Temporal Chains: Helps with zone control a little more.
*Enfeeble: A curse that is welcome in any situation, ensures you don't get one shotted by any strong monsters or bosses.
*Discipline: If you're a CI build, you will need Discipline to increase your ES, it's like an extra item slot in terms of ES. If you're a life build with Eldritch Battery it increases your mana pool further meaning you can chain more traps and take bigger hits with Mind over Matter.
*Grace: If you're a life build you may consider Grace for the free evasion.
*Flame Totem + Trap: Requires little investment in cast speed to be good and scales extremely well with Crit. Compensates lack of single target damage well.

Why?

Ice Nova: Ice Nova has a decent crit chance, covers a huge area and the freeze duration scales well with a crit multiplier build.

Lightning Trap: The main thing about this skill is the spammability and low cooldown and the fact that it covers a wide area.

Fire Trap: Great base damage means for great crits as well as HUGE burn DoT. Has a decent base crit chance.

Bear Trap: A great skill for control as well as single target damage, it doesn't benefit from spell-related stats unfortunately though. Landing crits with Bear Traps really hurt and since Bear Trap's root duration is based off damage dealt, it will last longer and crits can possibly root bosses.

Cold Snap: Great skill to use when you're in a pinch or just want to help make your party's life easier by freezing the entire screen. It has high base damage so it will freeze for a long time (maximum unmodified freeze duration is ~3.33 sec by the way).

Lightning Warp: A good alternative (or additional) lightning element trap for shock stacking groups. It has a decent base crit chance, high base damage and can potentially hit twice depending on the placement of the warp so it will rack up the shock stacks pretty fast.

Ethereal Knives: High base damage, it deals physical damage, scales with Added Fire Damage and Hatred aura and has a decent base crit chance. If you have both Added Fire Damage and Hatred aura you'll be dealing both ignite DoT and freeze when you crit. :)

Why not?

Shock Nova: The dead zone really makes this annoying to use, Lightning Warp has a higher crit chance and Lightning Trap covers a wider area.

Arctic Breath: Requires investment in increased radius of area to be useful as a trap.

Storm Call: There is too much delay between throwing the trap, the skill delay itself and hitting something. Also has a low base crit chance.

These could work?

Firestorm: Firestorm scales really well with crit multiplier and it hits really hard when it crits...that's if it is hitting anything at all to begin with. Keep in mind your critting for the damage, not for the burn. A common misconception about fire skills is that if they have low base damage, they aren't good with crits at all because they burn for a small value. Yes this is true but people tend to forget the fact that crits actually do damage themselves.

Fireball: Pretty good base damage and high base crit chance.

Spoiler

Keep in mind my gems aren't fully leveled yet and not all of them have quality.

Ice Nova:


Lightning Trap:


Bear Trap:


Fire Trap:


Cold Snap:

"

Ruiner66 wrote:

Can you post your gear/links please?

"

R3v3n4nt wrote:

Hey, what about the bandit quests?
I guess for the CI variant you're not taking the life from helping Oak..

What about the points in Life and mana for the CI variant? Worth it just for the mana?

"

Ruiner66 wrote:

Any reason you aren't using sunblast?