[2.3][Saboteur] Theros' MoM/Acro Kinetic Blast Wonderminer

THIS BUILD IS DEAD WITH 2.4: RIP. FROSTWALL INTERACTIONS NO LONGER WORK, THIS BUILD HAS NO SINGLETARGET DAMAGE, DO NOT TRY IT

Introduction

I'm going to keep this short and to the point: if you've ever wanted to play an elemental Kinetic Blast character, but generating power charges and avoiding reflect was too much, this is the build for you. Meet the Wonderminer - the abomination against nature that nobody asked for, but still somehow works.

Videos

Timecodes for interesting bits in the videos are in the Youtube descriptions.

A quick Normal Atziri run.
A run-through of a corrupted, rare unID Wasteland.

Core Build Concept

The core of the build is to use mines with a wand attack skill to get the best of both worlds. Mine skills generally lack a high base crit chance, which would normally lead to a large amount of crit that would need to be made up on the tree/gear, but using a wand with a high base crit chance allows us to avoid that entirely. Additionally, mines can shore up the weakness of wand builds as well - the wands with highest base crit tend to be the slowest, which makes them less usable when you are attacking normally. Additionally, mines can provide some elemental penetration and power charges through nodes on the tree, rather than strictly needing curses or support gems for those effects. The synergy goes even further with Kinetic Blast in particular, as KB works very well with large amounts of Frost Walls, which can be generated en masse through traps. Furthermore, by ascending into Saboteur, Kinetic Blast gains an additional 4% increased AoE radius per mine laid, meaning that once you've laid a full field of mines, they explode with what is effectively a free, cheap, and easy Increased Area of Effect gem.

Gem Setups

Kinetic Blast

The Kinetic Blast setup serves as the bread and butter of this build; it will work in a 5-link, but you miss out on a lot of damage without the Weapon Elemental Damage gem. You could maybe get the build to work in a 4-link without Pierce, but the loss of singletarget would be very significant.

Frost Wall

The Frost Wall setup allows the use of Kinetic Blast mines as a singletarget, concentrated damage burst by taking a large number of hits once an enemy steps on one or more of the traps. The Multitrap support isn't extremely critical in this setup, but it does contribute to the number of Frost Walls that you can set up quickly for extra damage.

Detonate Mines Totem

This is a simple utility setup, mostly used for automatically detonating mines for multi-stage bosses like Atziri or when opening boxes.

Wrath and Anger

Wrath and Anger go otherwise unsupported into a pair of Essence Worms, leaving the mana pool completely open for Mind over Matter and the large casting costs this build incurs. This is discussed a bit further in the Gear section.

Defensive Setup

This is a fairly simple CwDT defensive setup; note that, rather than using Blasphemy for Enfeeble, it's attached to this setup so that it doesn't reserve mana.

Mobility/Golem/Utility

For a utility setup, we have either Vaal Clarity or Rallying Cry linked up to Increased Duration. I'd say that using both is probably overkill, and personally I'm partial to Vaal Clarity, but Rallying Cry is just as functional and grants a small amount of increased damage in exchange for less uptime per cast. In general, the utility is just something you throw down every so often to allow your mana to recover after a lot of casts or taking a lot of damage.


Last, we have the mobility skill and the golem. These can be linked to Faster Casting or Minion Life if you want to make them more usable, but they're just fine on their own.

Gear



'Required' Uniques

Cloak of Defiance both provides the large amount of mana and mana regen necessary to maintain a decent clearspeed without constantly spamming Vaal Clarity, and gives a bit of damage mitigation through that extra life. You could potentially replace this with a Coil or a Kintsugi, although the former makes the build much more expensive and the latter gets you in trouble with subsequent hits, and neither provide the extra mana regeneration to help keep the build going.

Essence Worms let us have a completely free mana pool while also having the boatload of extra damage from Anger and Wrath. If you want to replace the Cloak, it would also be a good idea to swap these out and try to make do with a most of your mana reserved.

Your Wand
In general, you want to prioritize your wand's crit chance, then flat elemental damage, then accuracy, then extra stats like mana/mana regen. You don't need attack speed on your wand for this build due to the mines, which makes shopping much easier. If you can't find a decent wand, look for a Piscator's Vigil - it's not as good as a wand with lots of flat elemental damage, but it's better than just using a blue wand with crit chance on it.

Jewels
The tree below is lacking somewhat in life, which I generally make up for in jewels. Additionally, I try to make up for the lack of flat life on my rings and chestpiece by using Anatomical Knowledge jewels in a few slots, which provide both flat life and percentage life to kill two birds with one stone. If you choose to use rare jewels, however, I'd recommend getting life on as many as you can.

Otherwise, you can get benefit out of a wide range of jewel damage mods with this build - mine damage, projectile damage, and area damage all apply here. Alternatively, you could pick up jewels with a little bit of resistance to make the rest of your life easier.

Other Gear
In general, you want to have life, then resistances prioritized on the rest of your gear. The one exception to this would be your shield - shields tend to have much larger amounts of resistance thanks to the Kiteshield basetype, and as such they're the best place to try to get large amounts of resistances on a single piece of gear.

If, by some miracle, you've managed to get high-end life rolls and cap your resistances with the rest of your gear and still have space for extra mods, then you want to shoot for % weapon elemental damage rolls, added flat elemental damage rolls, accuracy, and evasion.

Flasks
For flasks, I generally won't run without at least one instant Divine life flask and one slowly-consumed Eternal life flask. I also like having a Quicksilver to run faster, but that's my personal choice - you can swap the Quicksilver for a Jade or Stibnite if you feel you need more defense. There's also an instant mana flask, in case I make the mistake of chewing up too much mana while my mana utility skill is on cooldown (or if I'm saving it for whatever reason), and a Basalt flask to help against physical burst.

Tree and Node Choice when Leveling

Click here for the current level 90 tree I'm using. Bandits are Oak in Normal, kill 'em all in Cruel, and Alira in Merciless.

In general, when leveling, you want to path to Clever Construction first, grabbing the life and jewel nodes you pass on the way, then Blast Cascade (again, grabbing life/jewel nodes on the way), then go down to Piercing Shots and Acro before pathing up further into the Witch area. Hardcore players will, of course, want to be grabbing more life nodes as they go along.

For Ascendancy points, you want to grab Bomb Specialist, then Demolitions Specialist, then Blinding Assault. The jury's still out on what you should do with the fourth set of Ascendancy points, mostly depending on your playstyle and gear - if you think the build needs more defense, you can take Born in the Shadows; if you want more general damage, take Explosives Expert; and if you want to make your Frost Wall traps for singletarget more consistent, take Chain Reaction. However, having not yet unlocked the Uber lab in Standard (where the finished version of this build is) due to mostly playing in Prophecy, it works just fine with the six points you get from Normal/Cruel/Merciless.

Gameplay Style

This build is pretty simple to play - you see enemies, you drop a few Kinetic Blast mines, then you trigger the mines. This kills the enemies. For enemies with lots of health, like bosses, you throw some Frost Wall traps at them first, then detonate your Kinetic Blast mines. For bosses or enemies that take their time showing up, you can lay down lots of mines and traps along with the Detonate Mines totem for a gigantic surge of burst damage.

Conclusion

I've had a lot of fun with this build, and I'm excited to share it with you all. I'm happy to take further questions and add to this guide as needed - let me know if there's anything I'm missing!

Lets face it: I'm impressed!

Great work and a really nice niche build. :D

I may test it in the future.

Nice build.

I am planning a similar concept now with physical damage, those Coated shrapnel jewels and maybe a different defensive route.

Really like mine/trap/totem builds since they have an easy time with most mapmods

"

Milkyslice wrote:

Nice build.

I am planning a similar concept now with physical damage, those Coated shrapnel jewels and maybe a different defensive route.

Really like mine/trap/totem builds since they have an easy time with most mapmods

Heh, that's actually along the lines of what I've been up to in Prophecy. Those jewels work wonders with a Doomfletch's Prism and Lightning Arrow, although that character's not quite leveled enough (or geared anywhere near well enough) for a guide of its own.

can u tell us dps/avg ?

Wow thats a pretty nice build. I played a Bladefall Miner this league and really enjoyed the playstyle. But one thing i found pretty meh was overall clearspeed in maps. How is your build doing in red maps from a clearspeed/survivability perspective? Really looking forward to play this char next league.

"

TherosPherae wrote:

"

Milkyslice wrote:

Nice build.

I am planning a similar concept now with physical damage, those Coated shrapnel jewels and maybe a different defensive route.

Really like mine/trap/totem builds since they have an easy time with most mapmods

Heh, that's actually along the lines of what I've been up to in Prophecy. Those jewels work wonders with a Doomfletch's Prism and Lightning Arrow, although that character's not quite leveled enough (or geared anywhere near well enough) for a guide of its own.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAYBALDYrounK3X91EKEb4_6DXy3de4V6rpSKVXgWFqEolnwEJIyMtmGvG9MjgeZDlxFfmr618_5N--ISbGMNrQMLR-VIGwIXfKJ03BSKgtqjPVvyBROnwZwen_ssIwLuXzrYxEvKwrQ0NteUDAgbu_r0B_B86KjxSgQe8EA2xq-OvVLVmOGrhXXO3wPxLjK8uFjQ36wdm_YVHBRcLsWv76KytOhL53ZoEMjXxHCUlOX9JeVEVA1uR1PBbXC7EyzS64bJdlbbWy0xUW5VGKEdyy_8YrpAuwYigbw-QjUc23b50lR8NW1SFsmGo1_--d0kycOSH_GbRkqW3n2QzZS7BGWwcVHBj1fotkAAA==

This would be my phys version. Cut 2 jewels and poison nodes for realistic levels ;)


Since i made a doomfletchs buildguide i know how strong it is (on top with those coated). I will try it, creating a character for this build today ;) Would require another ascendancy, assassin is sadly not so great for doomfletch like for a phys wander..

2 coated are enough since the assassin has 40% poison against bleeding enemys (which is with >9000 explosions always the case) + 50% from jewels and potential 10% from the poisonnode.

CI is the way to go for me with one blasphemy temp chains + Disci OR cwdt enfeeble/temp + Grace.

- With a good wand and spelldmg shield crown of eyes seems reasonable.
- 2x coated shrapnel
- jaws of agony in 2nd slot for pcharge generation before a big fight
- brinerot whalers
- obliteration wand to start into gg rare wand

- KB + Remote mine + minefield + gmp + pierce + ppad or aoe or chaos dmg
- Frostwall + trap + multitrap + clustertrap
- Vaal Disci + duration + cwdt + immo
- spelltotem + remote mine + faster casting/duration/totem resi
- ice golem + faster casting + flamedash
- temp chains + blasphemy + disci + vulnerability. Temp for trashmobs, vulnerability for multistage bosses like atziri/uber izaro. No dualcurse.


Assassin seems better (for phys) in bossfights, saboteur has the sweet aoe and is better for an ele focus (doomfletch, this build).

"

maclarca wrote:

can u tell us dps/avg ?

DPS is kind of a pain in the ass to properly calculate, as mines deal all their damage in bursts. At full steam with power charges/golem/ascendancy temporary buffs, I get around 12.5k damage per projectile, per mine, along with 64% increased mine laying speed. That amounts to being roughly equivalent to dropping 37.5k damage bursts every .3 seconds, so a sustainted DPS equivalent to a GMP Kinetic Blast with 150k tooltip. You'll probably never actually need that, though; most situations get cleared out just fine with .6 seconds worth of mine-dropping, or they're something like Atziri where they nicely give you extra time to drop a whole boatload of mines and traps for maximum damage output which is about nine million damage; 10 mines dealing 12.5k damage each, times the amount of times each mine hits one of the twelve frost walls (which is about the number of frost walls times the number of projectiles) so that's 12.5k*10 mines*12 walls*5 projectiles. Of course, the actual number is currently much lower than that, since getting all 12 walls up requires those last two Ascendancy points from Uber, and you probably won't get all of the projectiles hitting all of the frost walls, and there's elemental resistances to factor in, but it's probably safe to say it does a lot of damage.

"

Steifoss wrote:

Wow thats a pretty nice build. I played a Bladefall Miner this league and really enjoyed the playstyle. But one thing i found pretty meh was overall clearspeed in maps. How is your build doing in red maps from a clearspeed/survivability perspective? Really looking forward to play this char next league.

I didn't get to play red maps too much because I'm cheap, but from what I did play it cleared fairly well; there were a couple circumstances where I had to drop 3 sets of mines per pack instead of the usual 1 or 2 in high-res + life maps, but it worked alright. Comes with the benefit of being able to run pretty much every mod except BM and noregen as well; and noregen might even be doable if you spam Vaal Clarity hard enough.

"

Milkyslice wrote:

"

TherosPherae wrote:

"

Milkyslice wrote:

Nice build.

I am planning a similar concept now with physical damage, those Coated shrapnel jewels and maybe a different defensive route.

Really like mine/trap/totem builds since they have an easy time with most mapmods

Heh, that's actually along the lines of what I've been up to in Prophecy. Those jewels work wonders with a Doomfletch's Prism and Lightning Arrow, although that character's not quite leveled enough (or geared anywhere near well enough) for a guide of its own.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAYBALDYrounK3X91EKEb4_6DXy3de4V6rpSKVXgWFqEolnwEJIyMtmGvG9MjgeZDlxFfmr618_5N--ISbGMNrQMLR-VIGwIXfKJ03BSKgtqjPVvyBROnwZwen_ssIwLuXzrYxEvKwrQ0NteUDAgbu_r0B_B86KjxSgQe8EA2xq-OvVLVmOGrhXXO3wPxLjK8uFjQ36wdm_YVHBRcLsWv76KytOhL53ZoEMjXxHCUlOX9JeVEVA1uR1PBbXC7EyzS64bJdlbbWy0xUW5VGKEdyy_8YrpAuwYigbw-QjUc23b50lR8NW1SFsmGo1_--d0kycOSH_GbRkqW3n2QzZS7BGWwcVHBj1fotkAAA==

This would be my phys version. Cut 2 jewels and poison nodes for realistic levels ;)


Since i made a doomfletchs buildguide i know how strong it is (on top with those coated). I will try it, creating a character for this build today ;) Would require another ascendancy, assassin is sadly not so great for doomfletch like for a phys wander..

2 coated are enough since the assassin has 40% poison against bleeding enemys (which is with >9000 explosions always the case) + 50% from jewels and potential 10% from the poisonnode.

CI is the way to go for me with one blasphemy temp chains + Disci OR cwdt enfeeble/temp + Grace.

- With a good wand and spelldmg shield crown of eyes seems reasonable.
- 2x coated shrapnel
- jaws of agony in 2nd slot for pcharge generation before a big fight
- brinerot whalers
- obliteration wand to start into gg rare wand

- KB + Remote mine + minefield + gmp + pierce + ppad or aoe or chaos dmg
- Frostwall + trap + multitrap + clustertrap
- Vaal Disci + duration + cwdt + immo
- spelltotem + remote mine + faster casting/duration/totem resi
- ice golem + faster casting + flamedash
- temp chains + blasphemy + disci + vulnerability. Temp for trashmobs, vulnerability for multistage bosses like atziri/uber izaro. No dualcurse.


Assassin seems better (for phys) in bossfights, saboteur has the sweet aoe and is better for an ele focus (doomfletch, this build).

Looks solid; I don't know if you'd need Jaws of Agony, though, since Blast Cascade tends to do an amazing job of generating charges on its own. Even if you're going into a big fight, you just need to toss down a few sets of Frost Wall traps on whatever you're up against and you've got most of your power charges right there.

This build looks fucking amazing, especially in a new league when u start with a support and a carry who makes leveling not a problem.

"

Looks solid; I don't know if you'd need Jaws of Agony, though, since Blast Cascade tends to do an amazing job of generating charges on its own. Even if you're going into a big fight, you just need to toss down a few sets of Frost Wall traps on whatever you're up against and you've got most of your power charges right there.

Probably with traps and mines combined. From my past trapchars i learned that blast cascade is pretty unreliable, but with traps + mines combined it might be better.
For me its safer to just weaponswap, throw those traps on izaro, have full charges, swap back to the mainsetup and done.
Bladefall mines are already retarded, but frostwall + kb/la is batshitcrazy, too. combining both with all the doubledipping seems gross :D