[1.1 SC/Ambush] High DPS Trapper with Reliable Shocking

Like the concept of this build set up.
Waiting to see a vid before giving it a try :D

Can you please post your searing touch update? I am using one and not sure which direction to go at lvl 60. Having a blast though!

Non-crit Searing Touch variant
You could do this build without any crit and use the Searing Touch unique staff instead. The play style wouldn't change, including the gems used. Surprisingly, the damage is almost the same. I'll summarize the other changes:

Changes to gear: ditch the weapon/shield and use searing touch. Don't get crit on the gear, which gives you more flexibility in those item slots and you can go for spell/fire damage mods instead.

Changes to passives: Take away all the crit-related passives. I would put them into the templar fire/ele nodes and witch spell damage/increased AoE nodes instead, if you want damage. Or you can just get more life instead. I'd also get the Shaper node. Here's what the tree could look like with the same number of skill points:


Changes to DPS: Here's the damage I calculate with crit and non crit variants. Non-crit is with Searing Touch 5L with 3/4 to top rolls. This is the average burning damage (not initial hit damage) with a level 19 firetrap with 5L on a target that's been triple shocked, cursed, and EE'd:
Crit: 78397
Non-crit: 80184
I knew it would be close but I was surprised to see that it's actually slightly higher without crit.

So, the benefit to doing the non-crit build would be 20% more AoE radius, more life/mana regen, more flexible gear (you can ditch Maligaro's for something more useful, for example) and much more consistent damage (with the passives I proposed). The benefit to crit is having a shield and possibly better damage to bosses because the shock nova can crit and actually shock the high-hp high-res targets while without crit it wouldn't be enough damage to do so.

Definitely worth trying out IMO. Maybe even the superior variant. Those crit multiplier nerfs hit hard.

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I_I_I wrote:

The benefit to crit is having a shield and possibly better damage to bosses because the shock nova can crit and actually shock the high-hp high-res targets while without crit it wouldn't be enough damage to do so.

Your OP was great at explaining many of the mechanics, but I still don't understand the importance of crit. I assume with fire trap crit is needed to ignite? With shock nova at 20Q and 20% from tree, wouldn't you have a 50% chance to shock regardless of the nova's damage/crit?

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MatrixFactor wrote:

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I_I_I wrote:

The benefit to crit is having a shield and possibly better damage to bosses because the shock nova can crit and actually shock the high-hp high-res targets while without crit it wouldn't be enough damage to do so.

Your OP was great at explaining many of the mechanics, but I still don't understand the importance of crit. I assume with fire trap crit is needed to ignite? With shock nova at 20Q and 20% from tree, wouldn't you have a 50% chance to shock regardless of the nova's damage/crit?

Well, crit isn't really that important (though you do kind of have to choose whether to go all-out crit or none at all). With fire trap, crit is normally needed to ignite, but we use the Chance to Ignite gem anyway, so crit isn't actually needed for that. It increases the chance, but the chance is quite high if used against packs anyway because the chance given from the gem is rolled on each target hit by the fire trap individually, and then the burn proliferates to everything nearby as long as one is ignited. And yes, shock nova also doesn't need crit to shock due to the 50% chance to shock without it.

The quote you replied to was just me comparing and contrasting the crit vs non-crit build and listing one of the possible benefits to crit. Without crit, the shock nova won't do enough damage to some (most? not sure) bosses directly to actually shock them for long enough, since shock duration is based on damage done by the shock nova. The benefit to the crit build is that sometimes during a boss fight, you should end up getting a crit with the shock nova, which should do enough damage with the crit to actually shock the boss, which is helpful.

That's what I was trying to get at, but it's really not a huge benefit in practice. In practice, you'll shock bosses by shocking the easy mobs near them and getting prolif to spread the shock to the boss. That's the main reason why bosses go down fast in packs. But with just a lone boss and nothing near it, it takes much longer to kill it.

The reason why I went crit to begin with is because traditionally a crit trapper build did more damage than a non-crit build (same applies to pretty much any build, really). But as I eventually discovered, in the current state of the game, non-crit can do just as much damage on the fire traps.

hey. i got those deerskin trap boots and elemental equilibrium. not sure i'm understanding how the rotation goes.

i tried what you recommended: shock nova (they usually miss targets especially if standing still) -> fire trap (1 only or spam all 3?) -> flammability -> fire trap (1 or whatever is left on cooldown?) -> shock nova.

is this correct? when i drop nova, it usually misses, so i'm not doing well with getting the "vulnerable to fire" after i drop the fire trap.

Recently, I've been using cold snap first then dropping my fire traps.
could you give advice on what i could improve on here? thanks!

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kpshyazn wrote:

hey. i got those deerskin trap boots and elemental equilibrium. not sure i'm understanding how the rotation goes.

i tried what you recommended: shock nova (they usually miss targets especially if standing still) -> fire trap (1 only or spam all 3?) -> flammability -> fire trap (1 or whatever is left on cooldown?) -> shock nova.

is this correct? when i drop nova, it usually misses, so i'm not doing well with getting the "vulnerable to fire" after i drop the fire trap.

Recently, I've been using cold snap first then dropping my fire traps.
could you give advice on what i could improve on here? thanks!

Are you using the multitrap support gem on shock nova? If so, they'll cover a big area with no dead spots. If no multitrap, you'll have a hard time hitting things. Also, you need to have the shock nova links in Deerstalker, need Reduced Mana gem in that link, and you need to wear Sunblast belt too. If you do that, your shock novas will go off right away when you throw them so you can hit when you need to, even if the traps don't land on any enemies.

Shock nova -> 1 fire trap -> flammability (immediately, before the fire trap blows up). You can follow that up with either a cold snap or shock nova to apply EE again and wait until things die while moving on.

yea, i have multi-traps, shock nova, elemental prof and reduced duration (is it supposed to be reduced mana?) in the deerskin unique.

do the gems have to be +quality? my damage is really high - just trying to maximize the EE effects.

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kpshyazn wrote:

yea, i have multi-traps, shock nova, elemental prof and reduced duration (is it supposed to be reduced mana?) in the deerskin unique.

do the gems have to be +quality? my damage is really high - just trying to maximize the EE effects.

Nope, that seems right. Are you wearing the Sunblast belt though? You didn't mention that yet, and it's needed. If so, there should be no trouble hitting things with it, the novas cover like half the screen at once.

I've been trying the new Arc for a bit instead of Shock Nova and it actually works quite well. I think I would recommend it now. Same links and everything, just swap shock nova for arc (quality ideally). It likely hits more things overall, does more damage at the same level, and will hit single targets more times than shock nova will.