[3.0] [Sab] Skeleton Trap Dark Pact Miner

INTRODUCTION

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Dark Pact, the new Chaos skill introduced in 3.0, had really intrigued me with its Cast on Skeleton mechanic. However, its immense self-target multiplier (and extra AoE) combined with the Summon Skeleton changes (only 1 summoned per cast) meant that the skeleton focused builds I was hoping for never became super relevant. Furthermore, I'd never played a trapper/miner before, and the new armor Tinkerskin seemed somewhat interesting, if not terribly exciting.


CORE CONCEPT

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Our build focuses on instantly summoning as many skeletons as we possibly can using Summon Skeleton + Trap + Cluster Trap + Multiple Traps . All the less damage modifiers absolutely gut our skeleton damage, but we don't care because we aren't a minion build. This trap setup is combined with Dark Pact mines along with the Saboteur Ascendancy for mine damage and trap QoL bonuses. This build isn't focused around any single unique, though there are some uniques that are fairly useful and one that is highly recommended (Tremor Rod).

Defensively, we're a hybrid setup with both Life and ES (~4k HP and 1.5K ES at the time of writing this), getting chaos resist on gear to survive chaos damage that bypasses our ES pool. We combine this with the Smoke Clouds from Saboteur ascendancy + Jade/Stibnite flasks for another defensive layer (we don't have much eva, but the cloud still helps).

PASSIVES AND ASCENDANCY

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Leveling is somewhat of a chore, I recommend getting either a lifesprig or a +1 fire scepter from recipe and firestorm-ing your way for convenience, or using Fire Trap + Flame Totem + Fire Nova Mines (once you get them) if you're planning on picking trap/mine nodes early on. A tabula helps, but imo Fencoil/Tremor Rod are more convenient and let you survive longer.

PoB build link: https://pastebin.com/4ZJ5SuQu (Level 83 with nice gear and 6L). If you're wondering how such little dps is possibly okay, please remember we deploy 11 mines and 8 skeletons, not just 1 mine and 1 skeleton, and we detonate mines twice (Tremor Rod) or get +2/+3 chaos staff if we skip on the Tremor Rod.

PoB app source: Path of Building is a free tool that allows you to simulate gear, leveling trees and various in game scenarios to more efficiently theorycraft your build. Made by a fellow exile, you can find a link to it on his own thread here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1716360

Current Character: https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Reizen/characters/MarquisDSade
If link doesn't work, look for "MarquisDSade" in my character list.

GEM SETUP

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Gems are listed in descending order of priority.

Offense


Defense


Utility


USEFUL UNIQUES

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Playstyle

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The build unfortunately isn't the fastest, thanks to being a miner. The way it usually works for map clearing is as soon as you see a pack near the edge of your screen, setup mines (usually 6 are enough) and toss your traps towards the pack. As soon as the traps pop, detonate your mines and move on. You can also skip skeleton traps entirely if its just a white/blue pack, the detonate (2x if Tremor Rod) will take care of them.

For bosses, you want to start of with skeleton traps -> place mines -> more skeletons -> detonate to prevent the boss from aggroing you and giving you more space and time to work with. Wither Totem or Detonate Mine Totem + Vaal Clarity works too.

For those times when you find yourself on low life, you have one of two options to heal back up (outside of life flasks) - if you have packs around, start tossing traps willy-nilly. You'll usually get a significant boost from this. If there are none/you want max possible recovery, cast something once (so you aren't on full mana) and then pop Zerphi's Breath and start dropping mines for around 600 HP per cast or Traps for 400-500 HP per cast. If used together, these make you surprisingly resilient.

CURRENT GEAR

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I still need to six socket and at least five link my tinkerskin so I can switch to Alberon's Warpath. You'll note I have a TON of chaos res on jewelry and gear, this is to cap chaos res so that our hybrid setup is actually efficient (plus, none of the offensive mods on jewelry except spell damage even help our case). As for future upgrades - I need to get a crystal belt with Life/ES/Res (expensive), Boots with Regen on Hit enchant (expensive since we want it on unique boots), Dark Pact Helm enchant (you want the 40% damage, expensive).



NOTES

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This build isn't complete yet - I need to resolve a few outstanding issues, that being of mana regeneration and clear speed (a dagger + shield + Carcass Jack would work, but they'd put a lot more stress on gear for dps, namely a six link chest/carcass). As it currently stands, playing without a quicksilver flask feels way too slow.

Furthermore, the highest tier map I've completed so far safely (at level 72) is a Tier 12, and the boss took more time than I'd like (Skeletons died near instantly, so I had to time my detonations carefully). This is probably going to become worse as it goes on, and I'm not sure timing your trap and detonate should be the default solution.

Any suggestions to improving this guide, be it in the presentation or the build itself are very much welcome. This is my first guide, and my first time playing a Saboteur, so I'm not sure it's a very good one.

FUTURE PLANS

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Hi

I'm going for a similar idea as regards the use of skeletons for dark pact. Especially with the skeleton MTX it makes for a unique playstile. As far as my trial i have come to the same conlclusion that skeleton traps is the most versatile way to quickly get the skeletons.

On interesting unique for this is Kongming's Stratagem wich creates smoke coulds on trap trigger. Less dps then tremor rod but more safety.

https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Kongming%27s_Stratagem

Since the elemental penetration node (Explosive's Expert) from Sab ascendancy is useless, I plan on taking Blinding Assault which gives 25% to create smoke cloud on being hit and 25% to create smoke cloud on hit, which hopefully will be alright for evasive purposes. I'm not investing too much into smoke clouds, however, since our base evasion on a hybrid build (Life + ES) isn't too stellar, and instead relying on fortify, Zerphi's and Tinkerskin for suitability. That said, Kongming's + spell crit dagger (or spell crit shield + spell crit dagger) will give you much increased crit and mobility, so it's a viable option.

Very clever. Good job.