[3.10] Ice Trap Saboteur | Great Clear Speed & Boss Killer | Multiple Videos

It's a fun Ice Trap build with good clear speed and boss killing potential. Any improvements that you can see please let me know!

Game Play Videos:
- Level 20 Simulacrum & Kosis - Deathless: https://youtu.be/dQRzfgdTzsI
- T16 Map Clear speed: https://youtu.be/yvAyQdjdYss
- Elder fight: https://youtu.be/78mtSeyAJ5I


Simulacrum Level 20 Kosis

Clear Speed:
With 5 million DPS and 240% Area of Effect on an already great AOE, you can clear 2/3's of a screen per cast even going off screen (see screenshot at the top). With your cluster jewels, belt, shield and flasks, you are moving at over 120% movement speed which makes for very fun game play.



Advantages:
- Area of Effect on Ice Trap is insane, 240%
- Good damage, 5 million effective DPS, 3 million Shaper DPS
- Consistent damage, 144% Cold Penetration and 95% Cold Penetration against Shaper/Elder.
- Decent health, 5k Life & 3k energy shield
- Lots of traps, 130% increased trap throwing speed (w/ 5 frenzy charges) throwing at least 13 traps per second.
- 68% base movement speed, 128% with flasks
- Traps go off instantly (-100% duration) so you're always doing full damage.

Disadvantages:
- You cannot see the ground, which makes it hard to avoid some attacks.

Simplicity:
- Auto triggers both Frostbite & Elemental Weakness curses on hit
- Auto triggers Arcane Surge (Arcane Pyrotechnics)
- Enemies automatically take an additional 50% damage (30% damage from Bonechill*Pandemonious + 20% shock from Skitterbots aura)
- Auto triggers Elemental Overload (from orb of storms in trigger on skill use weapon)

Survivability:
- Enemies are blind & 10% reduced damage taken from blinded enemies
- 8% reduced area damage taken
- Flasks apply to energy shield

Cost:
Ice Trap is very cheap to build around. To get started with this build and get to 2 million DPS it is one exalt and 70 levels. To get all the gear that I have for the final version of this build it costs 30 exalts.

Bosses:
If you are ok with the hit and run play style, this build can handle Kosis if you take advantage of the self refilling life flasks in the Simulacrum. He's a tough fight, but if you're conservative it isn't a big issue. Shaper and Elder are non-death easy fights.

How to take down level 20 Kosis in Simulacrum [3.10] without dieing:

Spoiler

Step 1: Get your damage per second, DPS, up to a minimum of 1 million. You'll need at least 1 million DPS to get through the shields of Kosis while he uses his abilities, this video shows 5 million DPS.

Step 2: Minimum health pool I recommend is 8,000, energy shield and life. This will allow you to take a couple hits without being instantly killed.

Step 3: Get the self refilling flasks pantheon. During the fight take breaks and allow your flasks to refill and return to the fight. It will save you portals and allow you to safely complete the fight without dieing.

Step 4: In the fight lure Kosis into creating a black holes, while he is creating the black hole do as much damage as you can.

Step 5: In the fight lure Kosis into destroying his own black holes with his AOE attack by fighting in proximity of the black holes.


Heal - Repeat - Win

Tree and Ascendancy:
Spoiler
You can check out the skill tree on Path of Building here:
https://pastebin.com/Lrnt46eQ

I cannot stress enough how important it is to get reduced mana costs. It will make game play more fun, sustainable, and enable the insane throw rate that you will have late game. Get as many jewel sockets as you can and put "reduced mana cost" on every single one of them.




When selecting your ascendancy, I prefer building for safer strategies. So going for things which will decrease damage taken, blind, and enhances health regeneration is recommended. Additionally, due to the -100% trap time means you don't have to get "chain reaction" because all of your traps are already exploding.

Pyromaniac -> Born in Shadows -> Explosives Expert -> Perfect Crime


Also, you will want to get a Timeless Jewel which allows your flasks to apply to energy shield, as well as getting additional spell damage (seen below).
https://i.imgur.com/rrQcjPW.mp4

Cluster Jewels:
Spoiler

Cluster Jewels are very important to this build. You will need at least 4 jewels with "Set and Forget" to get the 100% reduced trap time for the fastest damage. Also recommended to get Arcane Pyrotechnics and Corrosive Elements for additional damage and cold penetration.




Damage:
Spoiler
Average Trap Hit: 400k
Traps per throw: 3
Base trap throwing speed: .5 seconds = 2 per second
Trap throwing speed: +130% = 2*(1+1.3) = 4.6 throws per second
Total traps thrown per second: 4.6*3 = 13.8
Total DPS = 400k * 13.8 = 5.5 million DPS

Shaper/Elder Damage:
Average Trap Hit: 215k
Total DPS = 215k * 13.8 = 3 million DPS

*Note: These calculations do not include the enemies extra damage taken (30%) from the combination of Bonechill and the Pandemonious Amulet.

Explanation of damage for the build:
The damage comes from three different aspects.
1.) Increasing Ice Traps base damage:
- Make sure Ice Trap is penetrating cold resistances as much as possible. The ascendancy can give you a base penetration of 10%, plus an additional 10% from the helm enchant, and an additional 24% from the Pandemonious Amulet yielding a base penetration of 44%.

- Use the cluster jewel for "Corrosive Elements" so all enemies will have cold exposure, giving them -25% cold resistance.
- We also are running double curses on hit which are buffed 20% from our shield so Frostbite (38%) and Elemental Weakness (37%) yield an additional 75% cold penetration.

In total we are talking 44% + 25% + 75% = 144% Cold penetration.

- The jewel set up should focus on increasing trap throwing speed, and decreasing mana costs. An example of a type of jewel you can use is:


This combined with Advanced Traps 50% (x5 Frenzy Charges) increased trap throwing speed, and cluster jewels will add up to a speed modifier of 130%, sustainable without an intense mana consumption. Utilizing the current set up it costs 26 mana per cast of Ice Trap which is sustainable with your mana regeneration rate.

- The gem set up is interchangeable, but I recommend using something with reduced mana costs, #% increased maximum health, and #% increased trap throwing speed. While individually each gem isn't significant, together they have a great impact on throwing speed which balances out the mana consumption.

2.) Maximizing your combat damage
To maximize ice traps combat damage you will want to make sure you are activating elemental overload utilizing a "trigger" based mechanism. Orb of Storm is a great way to automatically always have Elemental Overload going and highly recommended. Connecting with BoneChill will increase cold damage taken by 30% because all chills are at maximum effect of 30% due to the Pandemonious amulet. If possible, find a cluster jewel which has Arcane Pyrotechnics as it will constantly be giving you Arcane Surge for a good boost in combat damage. Lastly, because you will be throwing out so many traps, your ascendancy "Perfect Crime" will yield you nice temporary increases in damage per trap thrown which is 13.8 traps per second,giving a good bonus increased damage.

3.) Increasing enemies damaged taken
- We increase the damage taken on enemies in two different ways, including skitterbots shocking (20% when buffed), the Pandemonious causing orb of storms to chill for 30% combined with Bonechill to make enemies take an increased 30% cold damage for a total of 50% increased damage taken.


Gear:
Spoiler





If you want the extra 30% more damage, it is highly recommended to utilize a low life damage boost with Pain Attunement, utilizing these two items. You can play the entire game without them, however the extra damage makes boss fighting significantly quicker. Not being effected by curses also makes mapping much easier.



Gem Set Up:
Spoiler

My current set up is:
Ice Trap + Trap Damage + Awakened Increased Area of Effect + Multiple Traps + Charged Traps + Controlled Destruction.

I prefer the trade off of damage for the 55% increased area of effect from the "Awakened Increased Area of Effect Support. However if you are more boss focused, feel free to substitute this out with Hypothermia for an increase of 40% more damage.

Also, if you want to automatically trigger Elemental Overload, you'll want to have something like this where you can automatically cast Orb of Storms which will count as the critical strike. Note that Traps cannot inherently trigger Elemental Overload because they count as an independent entity. That is why this auto-cast tactic is required. Bonechill supporting both Cold Snap & Orb of Storms combined with the 30% Chill effect from the Pandemonious Amulet in effect causes enemies to take 30% increased cold damage which is not included in the calculations.

If we include this 30% increased cold damage taken, enemies are actually taking well over the 5 million DPS per second.

Leveling:
Spoiler

Early game, you'll have fun with a little bit of damage, and increased throwing speed. This was what I recommend.

Later we'll see that mana has become an issue, so we'll move towards reduced mana costs as fast as possible.

Later we'll respec some points and end up with a tree similar to what we see below. Green is early, yellow is mid game, and red is late game.



Any questions feel free to ask!
Last edited by Elite_Armada on May 29, 2020, 9:19:00 AM
Last bumped on Jul 22, 2020, 1:31:14 PM
Looks real fun. Suggested leveling route?
Good point, I've added a section on leveling.

Leveling:
Spoiler
Early game, you'll have fun with a little bit of damage, and increased throwing speed. This was what I recommend.

Later we'll see that mana has become an issue, so we'll move towards reduced mana costs as fast as possible.

Later we'll respec some points and end up with a tree similar to what we see below. Green is early, yellow is mid game, and red is late game.
Why do you run explosive runes in the tree
A timeless Jewel is used nearby which allows your flasks to apply to energy shield directly, changing the notables nearby allowing additional spell damage (seen below).
https://i.imgur.com/rrQcjPW.mp4

The Explosive Runes are not actually used, with the Timeless Jewel it actually gives 80% increased spell damage.

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