[2.5/2.6] Almost-lvl100 HC viable Fire Trap Elementalist

life and resists mostly. you will need a little dex to use lvl 21 fire trap, and some mana regen to throw fire traps in succession.

just check out my gear and you should get a decent idea

I leveled using firestorm with a passive tree similar to this. after this point in the passives I'd start heading over to shadow.

for firestorm links, you definitely want conc effect with the aoe nodes I picked up, and then some combination of controlled destruction, fire pen, elemental focus (just keep in mind you won't be able to proc elemental overload with this gem linked) depending on how many links you have. if you're leveling with tabula i'm sure you can figure out the other links :^)

I leveled with firestorm on day1 of breach HC league because it works pretty well without much gear investment. I switched to fire trap as soon as I got a 5-link staff and normal and cruel lab done for the prolif ascendancy node. at later points in the league you can use a 5L staff at a lower level than I was able to--I would recommend switching as soon as you have the prolif ascendancy and a 5L staff, because firestorm really fell off in act3 merciless onwards, and was really quite slow in low level maps compared to fire trap.

when you head to shadow, if you're still firestorming then go into shadow start for elemental focus, trickery, and blood siphon. otherwise, if you're switching to fire trap already then go for hasty reconstruction and head down for clever construction and get blood siphon after that.

pick up acro much later on once you have the trap notable nodes. acro is only really needed once you get to yellow maps, until then a granite+basalt flask is good enough. once you pick up acro, drop the granite for a quartz flask.

for fire trap to be good you will also want EE for better single target, and clever construction so your traps don't get destroyed by monsters breathing on them.

firestorm might not be the best leveling option. I'm not sure what the best way is. some people who tried the build leveled used lightning trap for aoe and fire trap (with conc, chance to ignite, fire pen) for single target, and rushed the shadow trap nodes instead of going to templar first. I'm not sure what links you'd use or if it's better than firestorm. if someone tries both, let me know how they compare!

you want to swap in conc effect for almost all bosses, especially ones that are lone targets with no adds around them, such as Springs map's Oak and Shrine's Piety. you may also want to swap in conc effect for the beyond boss Tzteosh because he's ignite immune, so you have to kill him with initial hits and burning ground.

here's how EE works:
- hit the monster with lightning damage (vaal lightning trap, or orb of storms aka OOS), it will receive a -50 fire res debuff.
- hit the monster with a fire trap (hopefully it ignites), it will start burning
- hit the monster with lightning damage again (OOS will already do this automatically if you have one cast near the monster), they will receive the -50 fire res debuff again and start burning for KWAYZEE damage.

so, do you need to use OOS before every fire trap? the answer is no. for all white packs and most blue packs in maps, throwing a fire trap and no orb of storms is sufficient. you WILL need to cast OOS at least every 10 seconds to maintain Mastermind of Discord (elementalist node), and every 8 seconds to maintain Elemental Overload.

also, you don't have to cast OOS before the fire trap - because fire trap takes a short moment to hit the ground, you can throw fire trap, then cast OOS immediately after and it will hit the monster with lightning damage before the fire trap hits the ground.

if the map has '+x% Monster Elemental Resistance' then you will need to use orb of storms more often to proc EE. if the map has beyond monsters spawning, then casting orb of storms at large packs while you run to the next pack will cause the beyond mobs to be cursed with flammability, EE'd, and almost certainly die to the prolif (this often includes any beyond bosses that spawn, too)

even though I only have 62% ignite chance, 1 fire trap is sufficient for every pack because only 1 monster in a pack needs to be ignited for the burn to spread to nearby monsters with prolif. but for bosses (single targets) you might need to throw a few traps to get an ignite on them.

it's possible to play the build without it. I did for the first 5-6 or so days of the league. but in certain maps that are very dense (strand, shore, or tropical island with sextant mods that increase monster density) you will be waiting for the trap cooldown even with the helm enchant. so basically the clearspeed of the build is limited by the trap cooldown. if you don't care too much about going a little slower in maps than I was, then the helm enchant is not that important. it's a pretty rare enchant on the market because not many lab runners keep it to sell, they will reroll over it for more meta enchants. buying a hubris with the enchant and rolling it will be one of the more expensive parts of the build, so if you enjoy the gearing process then this will be something you will want to aim for.

while saboteur is designed for many trap builds, it's best used when you want cluster trap in your links and want to overlap trap explosions for poison stacking or giving skills like ice trap some extra damage. with an ignite build, however, you don't want to use cluster trap because this splits your initial hit into several smaller hits, which means your burn will do significantly less damage (burns don't stack unless you have Emberwake).

further, the entire point of the build is to throw one fire trap that hits really hard and spreads an ignite with prolif. to this end, elementalist is by far the best choice, it gives you prolif with no less damage penalty (unlike the support gem- the less damage penalty on the gem double dips with the burn making it a really poor choice), and gives you some extra goodies like occasional guaranteed shock, some elemental damage, and some fire penetration.

I used Xoph's Heart, I think it's the best choice because of the life, damage, and covered in ash proc which makes the monsters take 20% increased fire damage (which is essentially a more multiplier to our damage that stacks additively with shock)

Ngamahu Tiki is a good budget alternative until you can afford Xoph's Heart.

Xoph's Blood, the upgraded version of Xoph's Heart, is an option but you have to drop EE (won't work with Avatar of Fire), which will halve your single target burn damage. I used this for a few levels but I wouldn't recommend this amulet.

not overly. controlled destruction is the weakest gem out of the ones I used because the %more spell damage only increases the initial hit and not the burn damage as well. you will be able to run this build just fine in lower red maps with a 5L.

a +3 fire staff with 60+ spell damage and 30+ fire damage is very slightly better, but it's a much bigger currency investment and pretty rare to get those stats. +3 fire alone (no spell or fire damage) is not better than searing touch.

Realm Ender is a little worse than searing touch but is a decent alternative.

a 5-link staff, which you can easily get from The Flora's Gift divination cards, is sufficient to start the build with. at the start of the league I didn't have many alterations so I wasn't able to roll +2 fire gems, mine had like 30 spell damage and that's it, and I was able to be competitive on the ladder in yellow maps.

yes, kaom's is best in slot for HC and I wouldn't recommend trying to continue in tier12+ maps without one. I used a rare chest with life until kaom's, but alternatives include carcass jack (for softcore) and belly of the beast (for hardcore). don't bother linking your chest because you will want to run kaom's eventually.

ideally you'd want an 'additional curse' corrupted implicit on xoph's heart but it's too expensive/rare. the way i play i just throw a trap, orb of storms and run, and any beyond monsters that spawn behind me outside of blasphemy range get cursed with flammability and EE'd and die to the prolif. blasphemy temporal chains takes priority over the flammability which is what I want in close-quarters combat for safety.

additionally, having flammability linked to orb of storms helps if you need to kite a lot against some bosses, like the tier16 minotaur guardian or shrine piety.

I did minotaur early in the league to unlock it on the atlas. it was a really scary fight the first time and I almost died on the second attempt so I gave up with farming it. HOWEVER, the reason it was sketchy is because the fight took a long time, and the reason for that is I was using Xoph's Blood which meant I didn't have EE. this means I basically had half the single target damage that I would normally have. I did attempt minotaur again on standard after dying, with the normal setup, and the fight took much less time but it was still pretty rippy.. I think if you're playing HC you can die pretty easily to minotaur if you eat a few rocks in a row (unlucky dodges) or misplay. so I wouldn't recommend farming him on HC.

phoenix is out of the question because he's ignite immune.

I've never fought chimera before but I know that the fight has a ton of burst physical damage, which is a weak point of this build, especially in sustained boss fights (because we rely on potions for healing). I would never attempt him with this build on HC.

hydra is pretty easy with this character. I did him on standard after dying (and uploaded a video, check the videos section below), and found him to be a complete joke. I think he's farmable on HC if you're able to dodge everything in the fight, which isn't too hard because you only have to throw traps every few seconds, the rest of the time you can focus on dodging. the kill in the video was only my second ever attempt at hydra, so I guess it's pretty easy to dodge stuff with a build like this where you don't really have to attack him all that much.

I have no idea about shaper, never done him. but I really doubt this build is suitable for shaper, you simply rely on potions too much for healing to be safe in such long fights. most map bosses, by comparison, die in a single fire trap within 5 seconds...

if you decide to run a +3 staff with spell damage and fire damage, then empower is potentially better than fire pen and/or controlled destruction. fire pen is really useful for maps that buff the monsters' resists and for bosses so you might want to consider keeping it and dropping controlled destruction for empower in that case. but I'm not sure what the best option is. if you're min-maxing the build that much I'm sure you can figure it out for yourself. try using Path of Building if you want to theorycraft/min-max the build some more

EE and shock.
each of these double the burn damage. this is why I run vaal lightning trap over other vaal skills, and why Xoph's Blood is kinda poopy.

completely avoid:
- Monsters have x% chance to Avoid Elemental Status Ailments - this is 90% avoidance in red maps which basically kills the build.
- Players cannot Regenerate Life, Mana or Energy Shield - you will be forced to drop clarity and a utility flask for a mana flask and will have to rely on life flasks way more to heal even small amounts of damage. do not run this mod in HC, it's too unsafe with this build
- Monsters are Hexproof - even though we only really run temporal chains as our curse, not having it greatly reduces our survivability because we can't kite the monsters anymore. if you do run this (e.g. if you get a zana map that has vuln+ele weakness+hexproof), then be prepared to take 2-3 times as many hits as normal.
- Monsters cannot be slowed below base speed. Monsters cannot be Taunted - basically the same as hexproof for this build, because it means we can't slow the monsters with temp chains. ideally you'd want to run this but swap blasphemy-temp chains for blasphemy-enfeeble but it would require socket recolouring.
- Monsters deal x% extra Damage as Fire/Cold/Lightning combined with -x% maximum Player Resistances - you WILL die to volatiles in these maps. avoid completely on HC.

annoying, but runnable mods:
- 75% less effect of Curses on Monsters - similar to hexproof, but we can still slow the monsters a little bit with temporal chains. avoid this mod if there are 2+ damage mods, especially if there is a fleeting map mod (monster attack, cast, movespeed)
- Players have x% less Area of Effect - gives packsize so you want to keep it most of the time, but if you're only running the maps blue then skip this mod for sure. this basically means you clear the map with the radius you have when conc effect is in, even when you are using increased aoe. you will be forced to throw twice as many traps to clear packs and will halve your clearspeed. I only ran this when there were other packsize rolls and the map didn't have too many damage mods.
- Players are Cursed with Temporal Chains - most players hate this mod but run it anyway because it gives packsize. in this build's case it greatly reduces our ability to kite monsters so it actually reduces our survivability a great deal. run it if there aren't too many other damage mods and there are other packsize rolls, but keep in mind this will make many boss fights significantly more difficult.

this "shitty" breach ring gives me 4 essential stats:
- dexterity - I needed some dex to equip level 21 fire trap
- mana regen - i need a little bit on gear to be able to throw several fire traps in succession
- life
- chaos resist

and because it's a breach ring, I get extra chaos res while in breaches which made the chayula breaches a complete non-issue (in fact, the cold ones (Tul) were the hardest, even after they were nerfed). prior to stacking chaos res, when I had -40 chaos res, the chayula breaches were absolutely terrifying and I had some of my closest calls in them.

I also get a bunch of extra rarity which is awesome for getting good uniques in the breaches (I found a shavs, two severed in sleep, two skin of the loyal, and a bunch of other random good unqiues while in breaches)