[3.4] Fire Nova Mine - Perfect League Starter - Low Budget - FAST - HC Viable

Nothing too exciting this patch.
20% more dmg with FNM at all levels but then again 16% less dmg with minefield. So overall a tiny buff.

Attackspeed from your weapon doesn't apply to Shield Charge anymore, which is kinda sad.
Not sure if Shield Charge is worth using anymore, maybe flame dash ( -faster cast-reduced duration) + 2 quicksilver flasks during flamedash cd, is better.

Although GGG said they would change detonating mines to work while running, they didn't mention it in the patch notes anymore. This would be an insane quality of life buff but I guess we have to wait...

3.3

Overall damage is a bit higher than before + the new Crit Nodes at Clever Construction are insane!
Trap and Mine Damage support received a nice more damage buff so you really wanna get that juicy 6 Link at some point.

There is some mine laying speed at clever construction , if you feel your damage is sufficient for the content you do, you can also skill into those and leave out some mine damage nodes.

Attack in Place is finally coming, so please make sure to use it for FNM and Shield Charge.


3.2

Ascendancies got buffed in Damage (20% Area Damage) , Utility (20% AoE) and insanely in Survivability due to the Pyromaniac Node.

* IMMUNE TO IGNITE
* IMMUNE TO SHOCK
* around 8 - 10% LIFEREG FOR FREE ALL THE TIME
* 25% REDUCED MANA COST (Life cost with covenant chest)

This is quite an insane buff since Life Reg is one of the stats we were really hunting for because of the terrible high mana cost of FNM and us using Blood Magic via the covenant chest. Especially while you were below 5k life you noticed a significant drop in life when spamming FNM. Now we will pretty much always have 8-10% Lifereg with 8-10 Mines being triggered recently.



Ascendancy new skill order:

Bomb Specialist -> Demolition Specialist -> Born in the Shadows -> Pyromaniac

Take Born in the shadows first if you play HC since this gives you sooo much survivability.
It's like a 3 seconds buffer until mobs start hitting you when you run into a group.

Skill Tree:

Updated Skill trees for 3.2 on Path of building.


HC - Lifereg route (changed):

Removed obvious mistakes like the two nodes leading to a power charge (HC = noncrit version) and changed the 3 crit nodes (Assassasination) in the shadow start to the elemental nodes.

Instead of going deep into the Marauder for a few percent of lifereg we now head to the life 'wheel' for an extra gem slot and 24% increased life. Going from 203% Life to 227% Life !!
The Ascendancy changes should give us more than enough life reg at all times.


Softcore tree didn't change, i've gone through the nodes and couldn't find any differences, if you find something that changed for us please let me know ;)

The PoB links have been updated and lead you to the newest version which is ready for 3.2.


3.1

Nerfhammer successfully dodged, maybe we are lucky and even get a slight buff? Let's wait for the full patch notes.


Patch Notes have arrived:
Absolutely no changes to FNM. Everything stays exactly the same - so we can officially call this guide a 3.1 guide now (was hoping for a little saboteur buff, but that might come with later patches).

As far as I've seen, the new support gems don't help us either.

FNM seems to be really good for the Abyss League mechanic since you can place your mines along the floor cracks even before you've seen any mobs, once they pop out you can easily destroy them, just like strong boxes, breaches etc. Pretty good, gonna play FNM myself this league and keep you updated with my current gear.



3.0

ALL CHANGES THAT AFFECT US FROM THE OFFICIAL PATCH NOTES 3.0 :


"Fire Nova Mine's damage multiplier is now restricted to hits and ailments."

Only important for On-Hit effects (decay) which doesn't affect us. :)



Power Charges now grant 40% increased Critical Strike Chance per Charge (down from 50%).

We have up to 4 charges which means 40% less crit while on maximum Power Charges, not a big deal tbh. Just try to get critchance for spells on Shield and Weapon.



"You can now queue up a 'detonate' action for Mines while they are arming to detonate them as soon as they have finished arming."

Thats really good ! Bit more quality of life !



"Traps and Mines are now invulnerable while they are arming and invulnerable while they are casting their skill. This means a trap thrown directly onto a monster who will detonate it cannot be destroyed before it detonates."

Good for leveling until you have Clever Construction.



The Covenant: Increased Energy Shield has been reduced to 210-250%.

Was already in the Beta, was expected. Not a huge deal for us.


Bisco's Collar: Now grants 50-100% increased Quantity of Items from slain Normal monsters, and 100-150% increased Rarity of Items from slain Magic monsters."

There are now ranges , well ..... still worth it :)


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Added a Map Run Video with only a 5l and No Helmet enchantment, so you can see how this build looks like with really no currency invested at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-dntkHVRC0&feature=youtu.be

So I saw in a Pohx video that Blasphemy Curse AoE got pretty much doubled; if that's true that would be amazing for our defenses.


UPDATE ON LEVELING GUIDE: PLS MULE MARAUDER INSTEAD OF TEMPLAR (that way you get decoy totem directly as a quest reward instead of having to buy it from nessa)

https://pastebin.com/GZymkibx (3.4 pastebin code!)

Main Setup (in Chest):

FNM - Minefield - Elemental Focus - Fire Pen - Increased Critical Strikes - Trap and Mine Damage


Movement Setup:

Shield Charge - Leap Slam - Faster Attacks - Fortify


Cwdt Setup:

Cast when Damage Taken (lvl 3) - Vortex (lvl 6) - Immortal Call (lvl 5) - increased Duration (max lvl)

Curse Setup:

Temporal Chains - Enfeeble - Blasphemy


Utility 1 Setup:

Vaal Clarity - Decoy Totem - Increased Duration - Faster Casting


Utility 2 Setup:

Stone Golem - Portal - Faster Casting

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2040911

Glacial Cascade Mines vs FNM ?

So GC Mines are really strong, especially for boss killing, but I like the clearspeed of FNM over GC since it covers more area, you also play GC Mines with a Tremor Rod , so you are not able to shield charge

To sum it up:

Boss Killing: GCM > FNM
Overall Map Clearspeed: FNM > GCM

What about using Tremor Rod + Kaom's Heart?

While you certainly would deal more damage with this setup you would also totally gimp your ability to move around very fast. So you would have to sacrifice Shield Charge. I personally wouldn't do it because I think once you get a 6 Link and the Helmet enchantment your damage will be more than sufficient to clear T1-T15 with ease.

What about going Mind over Matter

I know MoM is very meta right now and everybody and their mom uses it. It could work for FNM aswell, I haven't tested it yet. I've played MoM builds in the past and I am not a fan of it. Let me tell you why: Let's say you enter a boss room and he deals a lot of damage. What you wanna do now is plant mines as fast as possible to kill him, well guess what you can't, because your mana dropped to 0 since he dealt a ton of damage already. Happened quite often and it feels shitty.

Also going MoM would probably mean to give up our double defensive curse setup which is more than half of our defense.

I just started mapping and I feel very squishy / die too often, what can I do?

Most important is to make good use of your decoy totem, it is your best friend and tanks all the damage for you, use it on cooldown! Try to get life (50+) on ring / amulet and 90+ on the rest of your gear (except on unique items ofc) , if you got temp chains + enfeeble running you should be safe, in the beginning while you dont have a lot of life dont charge in the middle of a pack but go around them, plant some mines next to them and kill them that way (later on you can just facetank all mobs except bosses).


Why cast speed for Mines ? Isn't that useless?

No it's not useless, Fire Nova Mines profits from cast speed unlike any other mine.
Here is a quote from the Wiki.

"Casting Speed - Fire Nova Mine is one of the only mines that is heavily influenced by player casting speed. As with all traps/mines/totems, Fire Nova Mine uses the casting speed and other stats of the player that placed the mine when it casts its skill. This means that the higher the casting speed modifier that the player has, the shorter the amount of time it takes for Fire Nova Mine to repeat its casts. This makes the support gem Faster Casting Support inventory icon.pngFaster Casting Support a very useful support gem as it causes Fire Nova Mine to hit targets within its specified range with the repeated Nova casts faster, and lowers the potential for enemies to escape the area between Nova casts."


Hey what about using Doryani's as a weapon of choice?

In path of building I included Doryani's Catalyst and once you put it on you see that the Damage won't be higher than with a 5-10c rare sceptre. This weapon is just way too expensive for what it provides in damage.

Fire Nova Mine scales insanely well with flat elemental damage to spells. Go get as much as possible of that!


Why do I have to wear a crappy unique called "Doedre's Damning" ?

As soon as you switch to crit you need as many spare points as possible, that's the only way crit makes sense - if you go all in on it. Therefore we need the +1 curse somewhere on our equip so we can spec out of the "Whispers of Doom" - Node in the passive tree.

There are 3 possibilities on how to get +1 curse on your gear.


1) Doedres Damning http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Doedre%27s_Damning
Sacrifice one ring slot. In my opinion the best solution since it's not too hard to get res capped anyways. The disadvantage is that you can't equip two diamond rings then, the bit of extra crit could have helped.

2) Wind Scream Boots http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Windscream
Also a very nice solution. It is totally up to personal preference if you use doedre's or wind scream. What I don't like about windscream is that you lose 15% movement speed, which also slows your shield charge.

3) Corrupted amulet with +1 curse implicit

So to be honest. This is by far the best solution, but ... you have to be insanely rich or insanely lucky to corrupt one yourself. This can be done by using a Vaal Orb on a yellow amulet. So you could have a super nice yellow amulet and only lose the implicit stat.

If you use corrupted amulet , keep in mind you won't be able to use voll's vision since it negates the life and liferegen on it. You could still just use another helmet though.

How do we generate Power Charges?

Blast Cascade (skill tree): 15 % chance to gain a power charge when your mine is detonated targeting an enemy


What Items should I get? aka Where is the damn Items section?
You can check out the Items via the path of building tool, in the video guide I talk about every single Item slot. The video was a lot of work and you can just skip to the Item section by clicking on the right time code in the description. :)

If you want me to check your gear, please make sure to make your character profile visible for others. You can do that, by clicking on your name and go to the bottom right side, there you see "Privacy Settings". Remove the check mark from "Hide character tab"