[3.8] What a Shocking Tri-Element Trapper! [Fire/Ice Trap build][UberAtziri/Shaper Video]

That would be nice, if we can use other classes to play trap builds.
Please share if you know the reason :)

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Is cant say much about the new traps atm.

But didnt they say burning buff and no Stacks on flametraps? Then pure fire trapper would be great. Also all big streamers told me..that they would go for elementalist with a 3.3 trapper. Didnt get it why..

There is supposed to come a buff that causes Fire Trap to deal more damage agaisnt burning enemies (if that is what you mean), as well as causing the burning damage to deal its damage quicker, as in deal more damage per second but last shorter, as well as a damage buff. So yes, a pure Fire Trapper may be useful!
I just wish that they also buff Ice Trap, since it will be worse in every single stat than Fire Trap after the patch, as it has a 2 second cooldown (which gets removed from Fire Trap) it already deals less damage on hit past level 20, does not add a neat lil' effect after activation and does not get any increase in AoE when leveled up.

And as of why Streamers go Elementalist, I can't say for sure. Maybe they jsut want to try out something new. Elementalist Witch can use Traps, sure, and maaaaay deal a little bit more damage while Elemental Damage buff of Pendulum of Destruction is active and will have (sometimes) Shock on hit with all Elemental Traps, but will they will have no way to properly substain herself other than Flasks (something that I, granted, also did before 3.2), nor will they have that nifty Blinding effect. Maybe they will rely on Siphoning Trap to do the job, but I doubt it will even come close to the regeneration Pyromaniac offers. All in all, you sacrifice a big chunk of survivability for a lil' bit more damage, unless I'm missing something.

Now, since 3.2, if you get yourself Sunblast, one can easily go Elementalist and still take full advantage of Cluster Traps, so maybe that has something to do with it (Granted, if you weren't using Cluster Trap, you already could go Elementalist). Personally, I don't watch Streamers, so I don't know the answer myself. Perhaps they just try out something new. Don't see any builds on here already planning the same, so I dunno.

ia going pure fire traper and hope it is better then now. but ty for your insane comment

Noob question maybe, but what if use Life leech gem as sixth link with fire trap? Can it help with surviving map bosses?

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Frankie_Z wrote:

Noob question maybe, but what if use Life leech gem as sixth link with fire trap? Can it help with surviving map bosses?

I'm sure your traps would be happy they can leech life, if they weren't dead already :D

But seriously, you can't leech with traps, you're not the caster, your trap is.

Oh,I see

Patch Notes are finally out, and dear me, they are far less stellar as I first hoped. Let's go through the changes of the Passive Tree and the main skills used in this build first.

Passive Tree
Overall, I'd say one can now expect a bit more damage from his or her traps. One node has been cramped between Assassination and Elemental Focus, a new one added for more Crit at the big Trap tree, you now no longer need to decide between Physical or Elemental Traps and Master Sapper has been moved up quite a bit closer to the Shadow (possibly close enough for me to consider getting it depending on how well Charged Traps Support generates Frenzy Charges). Trap throwing speed has been reduced, but really not too much (and it wasn't that important of a stat, anyways) and Trap recovery rate has been halved across the board (now utterly useless for this build). One a side-note, the base maximum of active Traps was increased to 15 (up from 3). With enough Cluster Trap skills, you can crank up your damage output quite a bit via Perfect Crime that way!

Fire Trap
Can't say if the changes made it better or worse for this build. The base damage has been significantly nerfed, 410-616 damage, down from 513 to 770 at level 20. Clearly, this was done due to the removal of the cooldown and the additional damage increasing effects. Since this build usually bypassed the cooldown of all three skills it uses, I can't say I am too happy about these changes. Considering how massively the damage increased of this skill after level 20, I'm afraid it won't keep that quirk. Let's hope it will.
It also got a huge Damage Effectiveness of 200% ow (something this build sadly doesn't take advantage of), meaning all flat added fire damage added to it gets doubled. The burning ground is now much short but also deals a lot more damage and is also affected by spell damage now and Fire Trap deals more damage to targets that burn (as in, those standing in the fire ground). Whether these changes make it stronger or not needs to be seen.

Ice Trap
Oh boy. Ice Trap is now, without a shred of doubt, worse than Fire Trap in any aspect. Even before the patch, Ice Trap was generally considered worse than Fire Trap, but now this is truly fact. Ice Trap has a lower critical chance (5% compared to Fire Trap's 6%), a lower Damage Effectiveness (110% compared to Fire Trap's new 200%). The cooldown rate is now an non-issue, as both have non now, the slightly higher damage Ice Trap has is insignificantly small and is easily outperformed by Fire Traps new various quirks, and hell, maybe Fire Trap will still deal even higher base damage than Ice Trap at level 21 as it did before 3.3 anyways! They reduced the Mana Cost to 22 at level 20, but that is only 2 lower than that of Fire Trap. And since nothing has been mentioned about its AoE, I will guess it is still small.
Bottom line, from the looks of it, Ice Trap got nerfed significantly without having a single unique bone in its structure.

GGG, if one of you are reading this over, I beg of you to please revisit Ice Trap. It is now utterly outclassed by its brother Fire Trap in terms of damage, flexibility and uniqueness.

It either needs a really useful secondary effect and more damage or just a significant boost in damage. If you do the latter, I would be very much fine if you reduced the AoE even more and ramp up the damage a lot so it may be a sort of single-target-splash skill (sorta like Magma Orb, more or less). Of course, I don't know if Ice Trap will perform better or worse after the patch, but is it still worse in every sense than Fire Trap.

Trap Support
Skills supported by this now also have no cooldown (Great!), but they also no longer gain the increased Trap Damage (Damn it!). It also adds Trap throwing speed now and has a much lower Mana multiplier. I'd say it's a decent change overall.

Trap and Mine Damage Support had its 'more Trap damage' increased by a whopping 10%. That's a lot more than you might think!

Elemental Proliferation had its range increased, but I feel like I will drop it in favor of Charged Traps Support or more damage (to balance out the damage lost due to Trap Support losing its additional damage), we'll see.

My conclusion is that I am worried about my build. The removal of the cooldown of every Trap used in this build should be awesome, but due to the way Ice Trap had been just crippled and left in the dust by these changes, well, I really don't think a third element is needed in this build. The only reason to even consider an Ice Skill in this build between Shock Nova and Fire Trap would be for it (like right now) deal quite a bit more damage than the Shock Nova link, otherwise one can simply rotate between Shock Nova Trap and Fire Trap. I don't like that at all. This is a Tri-Element Trapper, not a Dual-Element Trapper, damn it! I really hope they will grant Ice Trap some much needed love in a future patch. I shall still use Ice Trap, mostly just to see how it now performs, but I very much fear for my build. Regardless, a Path of Building link for the 3.3 Passive Tree (consider it in beta for now, however. Things might change) should be up. I will remove the other (including the progression picture) for now and update it later on.

Hey played your build last 3 days of flashback event and loved it, the fact that we can take full advantage of Elemental Equilibrium and the only mods that really hurt us are no regen and chance to evade elemental aligments is awsome, also this build has the best survivability, a decent amount of life and ES so thank you for making this build. Now that the patch notes are out are you going to update it to take advantage of the now increased burning damage from fire trap and find another skill gem that could replace ice trap?

I do plan on using this build as league starter for 3.3 but with some ajustments, however i do not know much about how traps and its support gems interact, can you please tell me what you think about them?

-First,would changing elemental focus for the new combustion support gem increase fire trap damage, since the gem has been buffed to deal increased burning damage and increased damage against burning enemies?

-What about switching the setup from Shock Nova traps for the new Lightning Spire trap, it has the AoE keyword and would benefit from increased area and area damage effects. In this cas you wouldn't need a shaped/elder item with "socked gems are supported by level # traps". The skill also hits every 0.3 seconds, this would reset EE to resist lightning damage and vulnerability to cold and fire contantly.

-As a replacement for ice trap, what about "Cold Snap" supported by a shaped/elder item with traps, i don't know how the cooldown or damage would turn out neither if i can generate frenzy charges myself, since they would be on traps support, if we do generate frenzy charges, that means more trap throwing right?

-What about the new "Siphoning Trap" the numbers are out today, so if we sum the 324 life regen and 17 mana regen it gives ut, we would have an absurd amount of sustain, not much damage tho.

-Another option i though about was making this a double elemental trap build, replacing the ice trap build for the new "Bear Trap", which slows bosses and increases damage done by all traps, it would be linked with cluster traps, increased duration and something else. This would kill the essence of the build no more tri-trap, but it would still be a viable build since "Lightning Spire Trap" would reset EE to fire vulnerability, this would leave me with only 2 damage skills so i would need to switch the trap and mine damage with cluster traps when dealing with bosses or mapping.

Hey there! Thing is, I can't say anything for sure now, since the patch itself isn't out yet, but I do shall make a couple assumptions.

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metacarpoo wrote:

-First,would changing elemental focus for the new combustion support gem increase fire trap damage, since the gem has been buffed to deal increased burning damage and increased damage against burning enemies?

Hard question. Yes, it has been buffed, but it adds additional Fire Penetration. This build already got plenty of that, and Elemental Penetration reduces in effectiveness the higher it goes. And since they want to nerf the resistances of The Shaper/Guardians, it may not be all that useful. The other thing is, Elemental Focus actually increases the damage of the burning ground effect of Fire Trap, and since Ignite only tends to be okay (maybe now also great) if you focus on it, I am going to assume Elemental Focus will still be the better choice. I shall test it myself coming patch, though.

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metacarpoo wrote:

-What about switching the setup from Shock Nova traps for the new Lightning Spire trap, it has the AoE keyword and would benefit from increased area and area damage effects. In this cas you wouldn't need a shaped/elder item with "socked gems are supported by level # traps". The skill also hits every 0.3 seconds, this would reset EE to resist lightning damage and vulnerability to cold and fire contantly.

I actually only today noticed that Lightning Spire trap has a base chance to shock of 20%. I will actually try to use it instead of Shock Nova. Since you don't need to connect it with anything for it to hit plenty Enemies (Like Cluster Trap or Increase Area of Effect) it probably will reach higher damage than Shock Nova (especially since the additional damage a Trap Support link offered got removed). Your observation is true, but it will most definitely hit multiple times in a row and thus lower its own effectiveness, as it will hit a foe over and over before another trap may have hit it. And, since it has an 8 second cooldown (something removed from Trap Support), it may offer too bothersome. AAAAND Charged Traps probably won't work too swell with it (something I wanted to try out with Shock Nova Trap, but we'll see about that) However, I don't know for sure. As I said, I shall try it out!

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metacarpoo wrote:

-As a replacement for ice trap, what about "Cold Snap" supported by a shaped/elder item with traps, i don't know how the cooldown or damage would turn out neither if i can generate frenzy charges myself, since they would be on traps support, if we do generate frenzy charges, that means more trap throwing right?

Not sure if Cold Snap is going to be a good choice. It doesn't deal that much more damage than the neutered Ice Trap and really is there for build focusing on Freezing/Chilling. Also, it requires a Power Charge (of which you should get plenty) to bypass the cooldown, not a Frenzy Charge. The only two skills I can think of that might work are good ol' Ice Nova or even Vortex. Vortex should work if one uses Lightning Spire Trap. Would also be funny to have two Damage over Time ground Effects stacked all the time.

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metacarpoo wrote:

-What about the new "Siphoning Trap" the numbers are out today, so if we sum the 324 life regen and 17 mana regen it gives ut, we would have an absurd amount of sustain, not much damage tho.

Siphoning Trap is a nice option for your second weapon slot! Just combine it with Increased Duration and Advanced Traps/Culling Strike, switch to your second weapon slot, throw one, and switch back! Since it is Damage over Time, it shouldn't activate Elemental Equilibrium. It's absolutely trash to be used as a main damage skill, though, since it has a 4 second cooldown and zero charges, so you have to wait before you can throw a second one.

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metacarpoo wrote:

-Another option i though about was making this a double elemental trap build, replacing the ice trap build for the new "Bear Trap", which slows bosses and increases damage done by all traps, it would be linked with cluster traps, increased duration and something else. This would kill the essence of the build no more tri-trap, but it would still be a viable build since "Lightning Spire Trap" would reset EE to fire vulnerability, this would leave me with only 2 damage skills so i would need to switch the trap and mine damage with cluster traps when dealing with bosses or mapping.

Indeed, simply using Lightning Spire Trap and then Spam Fire Trap appears to be the most reasonable option out there right now for this build. Alas, this will kill the Tri and turn it into a Dual. It makes me sad. The only way possible for this to still stick as a Tri-Element build if to find an Ice Skill which works far better for single target than Fire Trap, thus turning Fire Trap into the Trash killer and Ice Trap into the single target monster. Another way a third Element might be required is of Lightning Spire Trap has too much of a cooldown with too little duration, thus forcing you to stick to another skill if you don't want to miss out on that EE bonus. Buuut we will see about that, too.

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MrMoho wrote:

I actually only today noticed that Lightning Spire trap has a base chance to shock of 20%. I will actually try to use it instead of Shock Nova. Since you don't need to connect it with anything for it to hit plenty Enemies (Like Cluster Trap or Increase Area of Effect) it probably will reach higher damage than Shock Nova (especially since the additional damage a Trap Support link offered got removed). Your observation is true, but it will most definitely hit multiple times in a row and thus lower its own effectiveness, as it will hit a foe over and over before another trap may have hit it. And, since it has an 8 second cooldown (something removed from Trap Support), it may offer too bothersome. AAAAND Charged Traps probably won't work too swell with it (something I wanted to try out with Shock Nova Trap, but we'll see about that) However, I don't know for sure. As I said, I shall try it out!

Just now realized the cooldown issue, thanks for pointing that. Another thing to notice is that by chosing to go Lightning Spire Trap we will no longer get that many life regen from pyromaniac ascendency compared the clustered shock nova traps, since it wouldn't be linked with cluster traps right?

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MrMoho wrote:

Not sure if Cold Snap is going to be a good choice. It doesn't deal that much more damage than the neutered Ice Trap and really is there for build focusing on Freezing/Chilling. Also, it requires a Power Charge (of which you should get plenty) to bypass the cooldown, not a Frenzy Charge. The only two skills I can think of that might work are good ol' Ice Nova or even Vortex. Vortex should work if one uses Lightning Spire Trap. Would also be funny to have two Damage over Time ground Effects stacked all the time.

The idea of maintaining 2 AoE DoT effects sounds really cool, but between the two options you gave wouldn't ice nove deal more damage thus making it more suitable for killing the trash mobs? also assuming i go with vortex traps which seems better for filling the time gap between lightning spire traps cooldoown when fighting a boss, do you think should be linked to a cluster traps? if we decide to use lightning spire and vortex not linked to cluster traps woudn't that hurt even more the pyromaniac life regen?

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MrMoho wrote:

Siphoning Trap is a nice option for your second weapon slot! Just combine it with Increased Duration and Advanced Traps/Culling Strike, switch to your second weapon slot, throw one, and switch back! Since it is Damage over Time, it shouldn't activate Elemental Equilibrium. It's absolutely trash to be used as a main damage skill, though, since it has a 4 second cooldown and zero charges, so you have to wait before you can throw a second one.

Very nice, using jaws as the switch shield also gives the bear trap gem level 20, correct me if im mistaken, buut if we get, Blue-Red-Green links on jaws of agony, then socket, siphoning trap, increased duration and cluster traps will the effects of the two support gems apply to the two trap skill gems? If so thats a good switch setup, whenever you feel like you need some regen, slow the enemie with bear trap and throw siphoning trap, as both will be clustered traps we can get a lof from pyromancer + siphoning trap combo, while the bear trap slow gives us some time to regen popperly.

Thanks for the awnser, and looking foward for any future updates for this build!