[2.5] The Critfall Trapper | Life/CI/LL | Insane 2M+ DPS (Uber / Uber Lab) | twitch.tv/Dygnity
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Hey guys, its Dygnity and I am back with another great build I would love to share with you! I have been running this in Essence (Life then CI) and on Standard (LowLife) with amazing success. The build has an extremely fun and active playstyle with great to exceptional DPS. Whether you are looking for an affordable build with great performance or a higher budget build with insane output- you've come to the right place!
This build is largely unaffected by the changes in 2.5! It will be just as strong for the duration of Breach :) Catch this build and many other in action live! You can catch me streaming daily at: www.twitch.tv/Dygnity  Lets start with a brief overview of the strengths and weaknesses: - Pros * Really Fun play-style. * High DPS output, lots of HOLY F&%# moments. * Extremely cheap as Life and CI (Uber down with 1ex budget). * Bladefall and Traps have excellent synergy with Poison. * Levels extremely quickly. * Exceptional AoE and single target. * Moderate to High mobility. * Highly flexible on gearing. * Scales insanely well with moderate investment to Lowlife. * Easy power charge generation / upkeep. * High ES pool, can soak solid hits. * Immune to reflect. * Can do most all map mods. - Cons * ES is not ideal for Labs. * You do not leech. * Mana regen as Life and CI is not quite enough, mana flask easiest solution. * You can take hits but you are NOT a tank. * As Lowlife you are not immune to chaos- it tickles. * CI and Lowlife need stun immunity via gear/flask source. This build uses Trap to support Bladefull turning it into a booby trap of pain. Because of the way Bladefall functions, it can apply damage multiple times to enemies per trap. We use Concentrated Effect to reduce the size of the Bladefall AoE so enemies are hit by multiple waves as often as possible. Combine this with Cluster Traps, and your throwing 4 AoEs all overlapping damage and applying poison. We are fortunate that many of the modifiers use to scale Bladefall and Trap damage also scale the poison we inflict. We use the Saboteur ascendancy because Chain Reaction is extremely important in ensuring all of your traps explode. Add in 6-8 power charges, some crit multi, and some more multipliers and boom Bobs your uncle... well your dead uncle if he stepped on your traps :) 9 Power Charges + Flasks + Min/Max Tree for DPS O_O 
VIDEOS
Videos here as I upload them to Youtube!
F.A.Q.
I have gotten a lot of questions and comments about different areas of this build, so I have compiled the most common ones here!
Dude, WTF IS THIS DEX?!
There are 2 main areas of concern for Dexterity: Skill gems need 157-161 Dex, and Bows can reach 212. If you are not using a bow, the dex requirements are not that difficult to hit. I try to get a T1 or T2 dex roll on my gloves for 40-55; equivalent to 1.25-1.5 dex keystones or 4 to 5.5 points of highway dex. You can also master dex onto gloves or boots and it is worth remastering until you get +30. Dex is not hard to get or master onto jewelry, Eye of Chalupa is onyx base offering up 16. If you are using a bow, I HIGHLY SUGGEST BUYING A BOW WITH A LOW DEXTERITY REQUIREMENT. Trying to get to 212 Dex is a serious pain, and requires Dex on gear, the tree, and even jewels. I was super fortunate and rolled lower attribute requirements on a 212 Dex bow bringing it down to 150ish, saving my ass.
Dude, WTF IS THIS MANA?!
When leveling you will be using a Mana flask even with clarity once you get Deerstalkers. I personally HATE giving up a flask slot for mana, however the linked cost of traps just gets too high. I also do not wish to dump points into mana regen. Running a high level clarity gives me enough mana regen to throw 6L'd traps on cooldown, but as Life and CI this comes at the cost of a curse or dps aura depending on your setup. As much as it pains me, I suggest staying with a Mana flask or dropping an aura for clarity as life and CI. As Low-Life this becomes a non-issue, as you can run 2 curses + disc on mana and clarity + herald on life. If you decide to go with additional trap cooldown recovery (breaches for example), you may still need a mana flask in order to freely spam.
How do I handle Breaches?!?
I have read a few comments from people who are not clearing breaches fast enough. While most of this guide shows you min/maxed dps options mainly aimed at bosses, that does not mean a couple changes wont have you slaughtering breaches. I HIGHLY SUGGEST A DECAY BOW FOR YOUR BREACHING EXPERIENCE. While Decay was nerfed, it still scales with almost every single modifier we using, including the trap modifiers since our application method for Decay is traps. You should be able to throw a 4 Bladefall traps which apply individual stacks of Decay for each volley of each trap thrown- This could be 20 stacks of concurrent decay damage in a perfect scenario. You can also change your links up to include Void Manipulation and Trap Cooldown Recovery to give you more traps for more applications of decay that do more damage. However, keep in mind that you will lose a bit of the bursty DPS feel, but you'll have more traps to throw. If you are mapping and breaching, you SHOULD be running a Vaal Ice Nova trap in atleast a 4L. You should be able to toss 1-3+ of these per Breach, this applies decay, and can literally level entire waves of breaches off screen. This is amazing for that moment when you start to get over-whelmed. One or 2 traps into most rares should wreck them and a few more for bosses. Small adjustments will take you a long way in breaches.
Where the poison at?
We use Coated Shrapnel jewels to apply poison. I prefer to use 2, however you may use 3 or 4 if you wish. Each jewel gives each trap you throw a 25% chance individually to poison.
Bro you have to be joking with these colors... GGGGBB ON ES WTF?!
To be fair, getting GGGGBB on Shavs or Vaal Regalia may take many many chroms. You may prefer to buy one with those colors rolled for a bit of extra currency. This is included in the higher budget versions of the build for this reason. However, GGGGBB is easy as pie to roll on a bow. It is also VERY easy to roll on a Hybrid ES/EV Chest that can still offer 450-600 ES. If you are using a 6L bow, it is not required for you to have these colors on chest, or even a 6L chest at all. If using bow, a chest opens up a 4L to 6L vaal ice nova trap for breaches :)
My traps dont always trigger, sometimes BOOOOM, and sometimes literally nothing. WTF?!?
I explain many times specifically that you need all your traps to trigger every throw for consistent and reliable dps. We can do this through Chain Reaction in the Saboteur ascendancy, or via the Sunblast belt. You can also spec into Trap Trigger Radius, which is extremely effective for mapping but can be less consistent against bosses in some cases (Smaller hitboxes, little or erratic movement, etc).
Damage
The tooltip of our skill only tells part of our damage. The number displayed is the Bladefall dps per trap. Since we throw 4 traps at a time, multiply that by 4. We can have 8 total traps out, so factor that in for burst. You also do not see the poison dps, which is scaled by most of the modifiers we use. It about doubles our total DPS. It also does not account for mobs being hit by multiple waves of the same bladefall, per trap. You get the idea.
Life and CI
The damage difference between Life based and CI is noticeable but still pretty close. When you transition into CI you'll drop HP nodes for more damage and jewel sockets, bring the DPS up. Since I have already left behind the Life version, I have the CI damage to display. Reduce it a little bit for the Life DPS numbers. Base DPS  6 Power Charge DPS  6 Power Charge + Atziri Flask DPS  I dont have a taste of hate on essence to test dps with, but it would be really strong ~5-7k more tooltip.
Lowlife
The damage difference between CI and Lowlife is incredible. The overall damage is 3-5x higher in total. The difference between no charges and full charges with double void batteries is impressive. I currently have 9 power charges without skyforth, reduce dps by about 8-10% for 8 power charges. With skyforths opening up a ring slot its possible to hit 100k+ dps per trap! Base DPS  9 Power Charges  9 Power Charges + ToH + Atziri (Witchfire brew doesnt impact tooltip) 
Costs
I just wanted to be up front about what you can expect to invest. I use no mirrored gear, the DPS you see is real for the budgets here. If you are lucky or experienced, you can find or craft most of the Life and CI gear yourself. You only need key uniques ($) when you progress into Lowlife. Life Based: .5-1ex or less. CI: 1-2ex or less. LowLife: Cheapest probably 20-25ex with the ability to invest significantly more. However you can start with Shavs and basic CI gear and easily put the pieces together- each one will be significantly more dps!
Ascendancy
In my opinion you have 2 options for choosing your Ascendancy. Saboteur has Chain Reaction, which causes your traps to also trigger nearby traps when they are triggered. You also pick up 10% fire damage based on your physical, which is decent because we are Bladefall. Bomb Specialist allows your traps to trigger an additional time, but that 10% chance is rolled for each individual trap. However the 8% damage per trap x9 total traps is 5-10k+ dps at higher gear levels. The last node to take is Blinding Assault, which drops a smoke cloud on your character when hit and gives you 25% chance to blind on hit. Bomb Specialist > Chain Reaction > Explosives Expert > Blinding Assault Occultist provides probably higher DPS and a bit better defense than Saboteur. If you have void battery(ies) then the +1 power charge is 5-10k+ DPS. Malediction offers another curse, which would be easy to place into our Heretics or possibly corrupted on hit gloves. We would also gain 12% damage as chaos damage per kill while mapping, which is great. We path though Profane Bloom, giving us 10% damage and 20% chance for mobs to explode dealing AoE damage- again great for mapping. Lastly we go for Wicked Ward, which gives us nice base ES and uninterrupted ES regen- This is really strong especially in labs and high-end content. The only problem with Occultist is you are forced into a Sunblast belt in order to make sure all your traps explode each cast. Otherwise only the traps actually stepped on will be triggered and you risk losing the majority of your dps due to traps not activating.
Bandits
If you plan on transitioning into CI or Lowlife: Passive > Passive > Power Charge Kill All > Kill All > Help Alira If you plan on staying life: HP > Passive > Power Charge Help Oak > Kill all > Help Alira
Gear
Life Based (No Budget)
The life based version of this build is extremely easy to gear for and play. Since you level as Life, this is the first stop on your progression. CI and Lowlife offer much better dps scaling and defense, so investing in either of those 2 options is better than min-maxing the life based unless you really want to. I am also showing example gear that is self-found or cheaply purchased. You can scale the life based damage decently high if you have nice gear. The biggest thing to point out is the Trapper Boots, Deerskin. They are insanely cheap and offers a 5 link trap in the boots slot. This is what I use for Normal Atziri and low-mid tier mapping until I buy a 6L chest or bow. The next step up is a 5L or 6L chest. I would suggest high HP chests with resistances, EV based. For your helm and gloves just cap your resistances and stack HP. Until you get Chain Reaction with 4 ascendancy points, Sunblast is probably the best option. Once you have Chain Reaction, a solid rare belt with life, resists, and maybe room for Trap and Mine damage master mod is ideal. If you can get a Rustic with it even better, and Atziri Belt is also a great option. If you aren't resist capped, get life and res jewelry. If you are capped, then try to get life, crit, spell damage, and mana regen. Your weapon can be almost anything you want that has spell damage, or a bow. Divinarius is decent, a spell damage dagger or wand that you craft yourself, etc. You can use a linked bow and an Essence of Woe to get a spell damage based bow and use a crit + crit multi + life quiver (and bow movement skills!)
CI Gear (1ex Budget)
CI is extremely affordable to gear for and offers Uber Atziri / Uber Lab level dps and survivability. For about 1ex I was able to get Uber down. You have options when it comes to your weapon, you can 1hand and shield or spell damage bow and quiver. You can run both using weapon swaps for smooth transitioning. A lot of this gear you can also craft yourself, very important for early league. The gear I used for Uber in Essence around level 82: For a helm just run a rare hubris with 300ish+ ES. Another option is the Heretics Veil if you prefer. If you go 1h/shield, then a 5L/6L chest is needed. If you go with a 5L or 6L bow, your chest can be 4L/2L or 3L/3L. You want high ES and resists, as much as your budget will allow. Easy to craft your own with essences too! Gloves should be high ES gloves with resistance. If you are using a high dexterity bow, dex might need to be here (atleast open slot to master dex). Very easy to craft 200es gloves yourself. Boots should be high ES boots with move speed and resists. Deaths door is also an option for labs. Skyforths if you're a baller. With CI you have some options for jewelry, but cheap options include Eye of Chayula or Valyrium Ring to sort out stun immunity. You can wear Valyrium and a +1 curse amulet or just a +1 curse Eye of Chayula to gain a curse and sort stun (its worth). Unless of course you're a baller and have Skyforths. Use the second ring slot to sort resists or both ring slots if you use Chayula. If you can get good resists and ES on diamond rings thats ideal. For a belt, try to get a crystal or chain with good ES/resists and hopefully room for trap damage. You can choose a 1hand and Shield, Bow and quiver, or to dual wield. With CI you have very high ES even without shield or ES quiver. Dual daggers/wands with crit multi, spell damage, crit for spells really make a difference. Double void battery is probably the best outside of mirrored weapons, and the extra power charges really help.
Lowlife (High Budget)
The Lowlife version of this build offers the most insane dps output and also resolves the mana struggle. The price you pay to get into this build is a bit higher however. Compared to many builds however this is still relatively cheap for a high end build- No mirrored gear, some gear flexibility, and not the most expensive uniques required. My current high budget setup is this, and I will make changes when I chance Skyforth: For the helm Heretics Veil does wonders. The ES is good, but the reservation + 5th link blasphemy lets us slot in discipline where blasphemy should go. The result with Enlighten3/4 is 2 curses and discipline on our mana pool with enough left to cast a full rotation of traps. FeelsGoodMan For the chest Shavs is required. You cannot go lowlife with it. The colors can be easy or hard to get depending on your RNG. For gloves you have 2 options and high ES rare gloves are a solid choice. You could also slot in facebreakers here for the multi if you have resists covered elsewhere. Boots can be high ES rare boots or Skyforths. Deaths Door for Uber Lab if you prefer. For a belt get a solid crystal belt with high ES. Room for trap damage ideal. Jewelry can be flexible. With Skyforths you have free choice of accessories. With Eye of Chayula you open up both ring slots. With Valyrium you open up 1 ring slot and the amulet slot. My personal set up is Valyrium and +1 curse amulet. If you go Eye of Chayula, youll need to corrupt +1 curse :) For weapons you can go with many options. Double void battery is insane dps. I expect mirrored spell damage daggers would be too. Void Battery + Shield is really solid as well. Void Batteries are also a pretty cheap option now as far as end game weapons are concerned. For flasks I use ToH, Atziri, and Witchfire Brew for dps. Basalt or Rumi's for defense. Quicksilver with remove bleed for mobility. I swap the Basalt or Rumi's for Resist flasks whenever needed.
Jewels
The build needs 2 Coated Shrapnel jewels to apply poison. This allows us to remove poison from our skill gem links and insert another more multiplier. You should also use Energy from Within at the jewel socket by the Melding Cluster for a really strong ES conversion. After that, your jewels should focus on: Ideal: Damage Trap Damage Area Damage Spell Damage Spell Damage with (Shield, Dual Wielding) Really Good: Life Energy Shield Global Crit Global Crit Multi Spell Crit Physical Damage Situational: Attributes Resistances Damage over Time It is worth noting that crafting your own jewels for this build can be very easy, however most of these jewels are not very expensive at the moment.
Leveling
Leveling with this build is extremely easy and fast. I was able to kill stuff nearly instantly on 2 player scaling 10 zones above me. Blade vortex is super strong, and so is Bladefall in a trap. Use BV until around 28 then use both self-cast BV and BF trap. Get cluster traps at 31 and its smooth sailing. Hatred, Herald of Ash, Herald of Ice, Clarity are all really solid. If you dont use clarity, run a mana flask. Try to get a Vaal Ice Nova trap going with increased AoE and whatever else you like. Multitrap and Cluster trap do not support Vaal Ice Nova. In Dried Lake you can push over 300M/hour xp and both traps will clear the screen. You can find the leveling Trees and an overview of them in the Trees section below!
Trees
Leveling Trees
Start out with Blade Vortex and a Fire Trap. These will carry you to Bladefall trap, and you can continue using BV as long as you like. BF Trap outdamages it however. Keep in mind that you are leveling life and should have enough free refund points to spec into CI when you are ready.
23 Point Tree
I choose to path a bit after getting out of the shadow start. By the time I hit the 40s I like to have almost all the traveling done so the rest of the points are spent on clusters and keystone nodes. Getting over to the witch start and picking up life along the way is my focus. Trap nodes are not important yet because you wont have BF trap going.
41 Point Tree
Next I start to get trap nodes since Bladefall Trap should be up and running on a 4L. Because you already traveled every level adds a nice chunk of dps. Make sure to get the Hasty Reconstruction cluster by CI because the cooldown recovery speeds up your clear immensely.
61 Point Tree
My next investment goes into spell crit, power charges, and jewels. Bring them online and the build starts to take flight hard. You can easily go for power charges earlier but thats up to you. Try to slot in some Coated Shrapnel if you have them, or applicable jewels if you dont.
81 Point Tree
After this I journey down to True Strike and grab a little more life and trap damage. This is the point where you should be transitioning into CI and leaving life behind.
100 Point Tree
CI Trees
Depending on your gear and setup, there are a couple trees you can choose from. CI can have extremely high ES 10-12k, and extremely high damage. It is worth pointing out that you do sacrifice a bit of one to get a lot of the other. I also prefer to run 2 curses and you may want to only use 1. I have trees for both. With a +1 curse necklace you can also tri-curse but you'll have to sacrifice Discipline- which may be just fine depending on your gear.
Lv92 CI Build
Lv93 CI Build (+1 curse necklace)
Lv92 CI Build w/ +1 Curse
Lv92 CI Build w/ +1 Curse and +Multi
Lowlife Trees
Like CI, the trees are flexible based on how you gear and how you play. Lowlife has generally less ES than CI, but the damage O_O I would highly suggest picking up a second curse in the tree or on your necklace, its a game changer. You may want to go more damage scaling at lower gear levels and then swap it for crit multi as your gear improves. I would only take 2 charges if I didnt have double void batteries and would not extend to the left side of the tree unless you are getting the curse above witch- then I would stop at Arcane Potency.
CURRENT LEVEL 97 TREE (+1 curse neck)
Lv97 Tree w/ +1 Curse
Lv91 Tree (+1 curse neck)
Lv91 Tree w/ +1 Curse
The middle of the tree by True Strike and the center ES wheel is where I would go without Void Batteries or if I was still short on Dex. When you upgrade your gear and reach higher levels, you can travel for the extra power charge and more crit multi. I would HIGHLY suggest using a +1 curse neck so you can stop pathing at the witch power charge.
Lv97 Tree (+1 Curse Necklace)
Links
The links are pretty manageable on this build. Enlighten is nice but not critical if you cant get ahold of it early. Everything else you can easily level yourself or buy for a few chaos. You should 5L or 6L Bladefall trap, either in your chest or on your bow. Bladefall > Trap > Trap and Mine Damage > Cluster Traps > Concentrated Effect > Controlled Destruction Not only are these links the highest DPS for our Bladefall, but they all impact our poison scaling as well. For defense I prefer to use: Cast When Damage Taken > Immortal Call > Phase Run > Golem Phase run is huge, and a golem is also much better than Increased Duration. This helps you speed away and lose threat after taking damage, and spawn something else for mobs to focus on. For mobility I use: Lightning Warp > Faster Casting > Less Duration Even then, its still kinda slow. Always good to have. You can easily use Fortify > Whirling Blades > Faster Attacks if you are using a dagger setup. In Heretics I run: Temporal Chains > Vulnerability > Discipline > Enlighten3/4 For my auras on health I run: Blood Magic > Herald of Ash > Clarity20 > Vaal Lightning Trap For charge generation I use: Orb of Storms > Power Charge on Crit > Blind / Increased Critical Strikes / Faster Casting / Please feel free to leave any comments, questions, gear checks, or suggestions- I will be happy to assist however I can. I would also like to give a huge shout out to all my viewers, I could not have done it without my #StreamTeam <3 Last edited by styyled#2839 on Dec 13, 2016, 10:21:34 PM Last bumped on Jul 13, 2017, 3:22:48 PM
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Reserved!
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Unless I missed it (used control+f to search) there's no section about Ascendancy points. You mention two, in a paragraph, but I couldn't see the other two taken.
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Hi,
I'm lvling a bladefall trapper as well, with some variations (life-based, non-crit, more convenient for the stuff and pretty low budget I have available), so i've studied a bit all the trees stuff and links possible, but haven't been able to test it at high lvl yet. First thing, why not 4 coated shrapnel ? Now you only have 50% to poison, and with all the multiplier you have, wouldn't it be worthy to get to 100% ? And the flat damage to traps is pretty nice too. Second, why the witchfire ? You already have vulnerability, and only 50% to poison, so the 60% increased dot seems a bit wasted. Have you tried the diamond flask ? You're at 50% crit chance, you'd reach 75% with it. With 400% crit mult., that's 50% MORE damage. Assassin ? It can be really nice with all those power charges, you could reach the 95% crit chance and double your damage. Is chain reaction that important ? Saboteur minor passive skill give %ele dmg, you'd scale a lot more with the %crit nodes from assassin as well. Finally, is Controlled Destruction really that good ? You lose some crits, and the %more spell dmg doesn't scale with poison. A Void Manipulation might be better no ? More poison dmg, more crit, scales with atiri's flask too. I probably said some stupid things here, i still haven't tried it in game, but i'd like to correct my future gear. " I'd go for Blinding Assault and born in the shadow. the dmg penetrates elemental res is a bit wasted, only ele dmg is taste of hate. The extra fire dmg is nice, but doesn't scale with poison. Last edited by Frugalité#4967 on Nov 22, 2016, 1:54:16 PM
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" Ive played with 4 coated and I dont really see a massive difference in dps at 2- it feels the same. Each trap rolls for poison individually, and everything is always poisoned. I have strong jewels in the other slots that I really dont want to trade. I would suggest trying out 4 in your build (even as you level) and then trying out 2 and seeing which one you think performs better. Maybe youll come to the same conclusion or maybe you find different results than me. I think its fair to say that 100% poison application might be more consistent dps at higher gear levels because of the amount of the trap damage. I also think its important to note that it is not 50% damage applied to poison, it is 50% chance to apply a full poison effect per trap. Witchfire is redundant on the vuln, but important for the poison. I also like the smoke cloud for uber and other spiky fights in particular. You definitely have flexibility in you flask choices, but ToH and Atziri flask are really strong. The crit might be higher in Assassin but you run into the same problem as Occultist where you are forced into the Sunblast itemization because you need to ensure your traps are triggered. I think it is viable however if you wanted to go that route. Occultist is also very strong. Again flexible on flasks based on both your playstyle and the content youre doing. Resistance flasks for certain fights, etc etc. I can test Void but you will lose a significant amount of initial damage which may cause less poison damage overall even after the more multiplier. I hope this gives you some insight into my logic and I will let you know what I find with void. Updated main post to include Ascendancy section! Dyg Last edited by styyled#2839 on Nov 22, 2016, 9:57:13 PM
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Is this build guardian and maybe shaper viable?
Maybe i will play it next league, first time a trapper. I can not decide for this build or this flameblast: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1744618 What are the cons and pros of the builds compared to each other? Thanks. Edit: Sorry for my glory english |
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Great written guide, i plan to start breach league following this guide. I'm excited for it.
Can you add in which order to take the ascendancy passives? Would help a ton for a noob like me ^^ |
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Hey man, just checking out your guide and I'm wondering if you think Spell Dmg bow over Decay bow? I know decay is crazy strong, but not sure if spell dmg will still out scale it.
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" I have killed all guardians. I have come very close on shaper but my ping makes it a very difficult fight. You would need to play well. The other build looks pretty cheese as well, probably a good one to try. Both builds seem really strong and you would need to decide if you wnat to play traps or not. My build is much more active, but does take a strong investment to gear it out. |
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" Added! |
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