[3.5] LL /Shattering Arc Mines\ - Up to 10M DPS [Endgame build]

Hi everyone !

This build started as I followed DerFun's Volatile Dead Mines guide, but with successive changes and personalization I made, it evolved into it's own thing and I feel it is worth sharing separately.

IMPORTANT
/!\ This is an endgame build (lvl 80+ & Saboteur Ascendancy is build enabling), there are certain thresholds required to be met (mana cost/mana-ES regen) and a lot of fine tuning to make it work. There is no leveling guide provided.
Also please note that as I am only playing Standard, some of the gear I have is legacy and can be very expensive, but it is pretty much maxed out and there as an example but this level of gear is not necessary to make it work and enjoyable, you just need 3 uniques to get started (5L min)/!\

How it works

So this build is a Low life Arc Mines combo using Scold's Bridle and converting the lightning damage into cold, to be able to freeze and chill while retaining the ability to shock. This provides a good defensive layer on top of immense damage.

The necessary items and core mechanics :


This helm is the center piece, it is used to inflict to ourselves physical damage based on mana spent, 4x the mana cost. That mana cost has to be at least 132 to trigger Cast When Damage Taken at level 1 which then detonates mines as soon as we lay them. We then need to get enough ES regen to counter the damage we take. More details about that in section 2.
I'm using a shock corruption because ailments are a big part of the build but an Arc chains +1 time enchant is great to have also.



The other CWDT setups (defensive) :

This setup is made to regularly inflict us with damage over time from Blood Rage and stop it briefly with Immortal Call to trigger Soul of Arakaali (Major Pantheon power) which gives us 50% increased ES recovery rate.
Make sure to put them in that order, with Immortal Call after Blood Rage.


This setup regularly casts Temporal chains on the ennemies to slow them down and increase the duration of the ailments we inflict. Cold Snap is used as both offensive and defensive, providing frenzy charges on kill.


Shavronne's Wrappings as usual to be able to stay low life while not worrying about chaos damage going through.
Use Empower level 4 only if you can afford a +1 to gems corrupted Shavs, otherwise use

If you use a similar setup the mana cost should be around 110, which is insufficient to trigger CwDT every time.


Which leads us to these gloves, bringing the mana cost up to meet the threshold (and providing good damage increase at the same time - the corruption is just a nice bonus to have)
Another possibility is using these with a low increased mana cost roll

but with a 6L they raise the mana cost more than the Doedre's Malevolence. Either of them make it possible to work on a 5L.

Non essential items

These items are not build enabling so it will work without them if you struggle balancing every aspect (pools, regens, resists) but they bring the last touch.

Dual Call of the Brotherhood are used to convert all our lightning damage to cold. Current versions have 40%, which is not a big deal because it will just lower the effectiveness of cold ailments a bit.


Yoke of Suffering is used to retain the ability to shock at full potential.



How to deal with ES regen and mana regen
Now that we have established the prerequisites, we have to find a way to counter the physical damage we deal to oursleves via the helm and get enough mana regen to be able to spam.

To give you a rough idea of the mana regen needed, with a 0.3s mine laying speed for example and a 155 mana cost like I have, you have to regen about 515 mana per second.

The saboteur ascendancy provides most of the regen we need (20%) when converted to ES with Zealot's Oath in the passive tree. The 4L CwDT setup detailed in the previous section increases the recovery by 50% (making it an effective 30% regen) On top of it we can increase the recovery rate with these 2 items

This Watcher's Eye is pretty much the best you can get to recover both ES and mana quicker (with the mana mods being more important). The Flow Untethered is a very good belt to have also for the 20% increased action speed.

Placed in the Witch area this jewel gives 3.6% ES regen.

The boots enchant Regenerate 2% of life and mana per second if you were hit recently is a must have for both purposes.
Another multipurpose jewel I use :


Linking these two will also help with mana regen :


Other than that try to get mana/mana regen on your shield and weapon, adjust in the tree according to your needs.


The Passive Tree & PoB
https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAYDAAhnCNQNfA_EEQ8T3xcvGDwYVhslHNwdFB1PJ6ko-ixGLR8tfTIYNbk7DTt8PL1BlkIsQktFuUcGSbFLrkyzUEJSKVMxUzVUR1RiVdZV4FfJWFpca18qYk9knWTnahtsCG0ZcFFwUnNtdFV7135Zfq9_xoCkgseESIR3hcWJ04w2jmSPGo9Gj_qTJ5M6lPGVIJuam6GgQ6B5oS-io6a-pyusmK6zswO0DLWFtvq4k7jKuQa9J72CvorBtMHFwfPDbckGytPQH9DQ0PXXz9lb2-ffit--6QLquuv17BjvUO-I7-vw-fGK8h33pvfB99f5N_no-tL9Sv6z?accountName=Xanvast&characterName=Brentorg
(at level 95)
PoB : https://pastebin.com/ZGGjMqN5
=> Alira is the best bandit reward for this build.

Notes : Jewel sockets are used to get us more mine laying speed, cover our lack of resistances from gear and add stats if needed.
Take more ES/mana nodes according to your personal pool to have at least 6k ES and enough mana/mana regen, adjust according to your mana cost and mine laying speed.
The reduced mana reserved nodes are necessary for me to have 4 auras and 1 herald while keeping enough pool to be able to cast uninterruptedly. One of these auras is Purity of fire as I lacked fire resist.
With this configuration I have 108% increased shock and 30% chill effectiveness, so that ailments could be applied to the strongest bosses.


Damage Calculation
(after the first update)


Endgame Gear & Gem Setups




Notes : The Wise Oak flask is a pain with balancing resists but just make so that cold resist is your highest.
If you have problems with mana reservation drop herald of thunder in priority as it is the least impactful.
Try to get a weapon with critical strike chance for spells/% of elemental damage as extra chaos/resist penetration.
% of elemental damage as extra chaos is very impactful with the damage conversion as it takes 20% from both lightning and cold.


Alternatives

Here are some items you can use as good alternatives :

Don't use the sword with The Flow Untethered, you can have only 1 Harbinger at a time.
These can be used to modify the physical damage you take, more or less depending on what you need :

Use a belt like that for example if you lack resists

If you need mana regen until you can do without it :


Strengths and Weaknesses

+ Fairly safe, decent defences (if you don't go melee)
+ Freeze, Chill and shatter everthing
+ Can do all the content of the game
+ Extremely high damage potential (~2s Shaper Guardians kill)
+ Fast clearing speed and high range
+ Reasonable requirements to get started
---
- But expensive to be fully working & maximize
- Cannot do no regen maps, endangered in 60% less regen and vulnerability maps
- No defenses against high damage spikes
- A lot of fine tuning to do to get everything right


Showcase : Maze of the Minotaur T16 map

Thanks for reading !
Not playing anymore - Support and replies on my build thread are discontinued
Last edited by Xanvast on Jan 6, 2019, 5:29:50 PM
Last bumped on Feb 13, 2019, 1:22:51 AM
I made an update to the build already, I found a way to optimize it further.
I also noticed a mistake in the previous damage calculation so I replaced it and the PoB with the corrected updated version. The video was added to the main post earlier.

Here is the detail of the changes :

Herald of Thunder has been dropped and Clarity is moved to the 4L, leaving the slot for a golem. The reduced mana reserved nodes and some mana/mana regen nodes above the witch were discarded in favor of crit/multi and mine laying speed.
These improvements allowed it to reach ~10M dps.



Edit : This is possible mostly because of the Watcher's Eye great mods for mana regen, don't take this tree as base unless you have 600+ mana regen.
Not playing anymore - Support and replies on my build thread are discontinued
Last edited by Xanvast on Dec 20, 2018, 10:03:12 PM
Just an FYI,

Checking the "shocked" box in POB is a no go. It doesn't give an accurate number of what your damage really is.
I see what you mean but I can consistently shock everything at 50% effectiveness with this build so it is accurate in this case.
Not playing anymore - Support and replies on my build thread are discontinued
With the shock effectiveness you have and the yoke you need to atleast 7.75% of the targets health in a single hit of elemental damage to apply a 50% shock. In a perfect situation you have quite a bit of your damage as chaos (Rough estimate looks to be about 37ish %). Even if you get the highest rolled hit you won't shock a guardian for 50%. Most map bosses probably.
You are right on that I overlooked the chaos damage portion in the total but on another hand with 108% shock effectiveness I only need 4.81% of the target's health not 7.75% which translates to roughly 600k hp on a 12.4M hp guardian, and that's within reach of a high roll elemental damage even prior to any shock applied.
Not playing anymore - Support and replies on my build thread are discontinued
Ill have to look again. I think I only saw 45% shock effectiveness.
Saw the 45% on Tree and missed skald's
can do this on life base ?
The reason Scold's Bridle is used in VD build is to cast another spell to create bodies.
You use Arc, try ur best to counter the self damage from the helmet just to not pressing D?
On the other hand, life or es base Arc mine with average gears can kill guardians in 2s

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