[3.15]Fire&Flamethrower Traps Saboteur/Strongest Combo in the Game/League starter+Boss farmer

There are now alternate quality effects for all gems in the game.I will list the good ones that worth considering in the gem section below.

Some "Critical Multiplier" values have been lowered to nerf all kind of crit builds in the game so we also lost some crit multi overall.This is a nerf to every kind of crit build in the game so we have to deal with it :)
Following this, some values also have been nerfed on cluster jewels but i only use clusters on 1 of my variants(Shadow Energy Shield) so it doesn't matter that much.
Agnostic have been added to talent tree so Scion doesn't have to equip a Timeless Jewel anymore.(This a big upgrade for us because it was hard to get that jewel at league start.)

No changes to traps,saboteur or anything related.Fossil crafting has changed so i will change some parts about crafting.That's all.Good luck in Delirium!

No changes to saboteur,fire trap or anything that we use.But there are lots of changes to item crafting and some of those are important for us.I updated gear section because of this.

Summary
+ Fire trap got buffed again.(Last time was in delve league) I have really no idea why they are buffing this skill again.It is one of the highest damage traps in the game already.
- Pyromaniac regeneration is halved now(from %20 to %10).You should start pushing that flask button more often :)

Legion league is heavily focused on melee but there are some stuff that needs our attention.Talent tree is same except they changed the location of Master Sapper.Because of this i had to drop Devotion(left side of templar) but instead we got Revenge of the Hunted.This results in a little life loss ( 100-150 life) but it's no big deal.Build already has 7k+ life on fire trap only(3.6patch) version and 5.5-6k on fire&flamethrower(3.3 patch) version so we have enough life.

Here are the gems that can be useful for the build:

Dash


Immortal Call


Steelskin

Patch notes

No changes to saboteur,trap,fire trap or flamethrower trap.Still good to go.If you haven't tried this build yet,i recommend you to try it as a league starter or boss killer.It is a reliable build which won't fail you :) The only place i'm not comfortable with is the delving.

Base damage from the initial explosion increased by 40%, and the base damage over time increased by 20% at all gem levels.
So fire trap received a huge buff in both initial and damage over time.But traps got nerfed overall because of cluster trap nerf(you can now throw 2 additional instead of 3 traps)I never used shaper gloves with "throw 1 additional trap" so maybe this is the time to use one and it means this build got buffed a lot.I already had ridiculously high damage with bugdet gear and my end game gear is even cheap(less than 5exa) and cleared everything including uber elder.

3.12 Heist Video Guide
Everything in one video:Full build guide+Gameplay (3.12 patch/Shadow Saboteur)
This is the strongest one so far! Video contains full build guide,lots of high tier mapping,all conquerers and guardians,Shaper,Uber Elder,Sirus,Cortex,Aul and more. Everything was recorded in Awakening lvl 8 obviously.I also updated the entire guide according to this.
(3.12 Heist league,12/11/2020)

3.10 Delirium league (Energy shield version)

Older videos(Watch these if you want to see how the build was 2 years ago)

+Excellent league starter with low budget requirement.
+Traps aren't meta so some gems and items are extremely cheap!
+You can help your friends' boss kills and boost them in Uber Labyrinth if their league starters are bad ;)
+Can kill AL8 Conquerers,Shaper guardians in a blink of an eye.
+You don't have to roll your maps cause traps can do everything.But some mods are dangerous which i will explain later.
+Extremely satisfying to watch flamethrowers burn everything to ashes.Pyromaniac detected :)

-Physical mitigation is low due to being a dodge character.
-You can’t tank everything and need to learn your character’s limits.
-It takes some time to get used to the playstyle.
-Traps aren't the fastest mappers right now.But still has respectable clear time thanks to flamethrower traps.

-5500+ hp (7k+life high budget option with bow+quiver+kaom's heart unique body armour)
-%40 attack dodge
-%30+ spell dodge(even more with rare boots)
-some evasion and armour(this depends on your gear and flasks)
-Ignite and shock immune
-Blind nearby enemies (lowers enemies’ hit and critical chance)
-Up to %10 bonus life regen if you keep using traps in the past 4 seconds(this is the main source of healing for trappers)
-Endurance charge generation thanks to Slavedriver's hand gloves.
-%10 elemental damage reduction with the Wise Oak flask if you balance your resists.
-Aspect of the spider buff that slows and reduces the damage of enemies

Fire traps and flamethrower traps have both something in common.They deal bonus damage to burning enemies.

What does burning mean?
Burning is a term used for any kind of fire damage over time.This can be a burning ground effect like the one fire trap leaves on ground,or it can be an ignite which can be applied from a fire source.
Let's talk about fire trap for a moment.Once the trap is activated,it deals some burst fire damage to the targets and then leaves a burning ground on the floor for couple of seconds.This is a crit spell build so that burst damage will do most of the work.But since we have high crit chance and also we are using "Combustion support" on fire traps,that burst damage can easily ignite the target.Even if it fails to ignite,it will leave that burning ground effect on the floor which also counts as burning effect.So fire trap always apply that burning condition no matter what.

If we talk about flamethrower traps,they don't have any kind of burning ground effect.But it is another burst damage spell so it can ignite with crits.Since fire traps can ignite/burn easily,we don't have to do that with our flamethrower traps.So we can use support gems like "Elemental focus" to get some insane damage numbers.With elemental focus,flamethrowers can no longer ignite but we don't need that because fire traps will help us with that.

How to dps bosses?
You just learned that we need targets to be burning so our traps can deal more damage.When you are fighting a map boss,a T16 Guardian,Shaper,Sirus or any kind of other big dps required target,you have to use a couple of fire traps otherwise you'll lose a lot of dps.So always throw some fire traps along with flamethrowers.

Bear Trap
This is another trap that has some benefits especially against bigger targets.
"Enemies take 15% increased Damage from Trap or Mine Hits
Enemies have 80% less Movement Speed when the Debuff starts"

You only want to use this at very beefy targets like T16 Guardians,Conquerers,Sirus etc. Just throw 1 bear trap along with your other traps and that's it.Bear trap also slows the enemy a lot so it is very helpful at bosses like Guardian of the Phoenix.

Shadow / Using both fire&flamethrower traps

Gear explanation,crafting and other recommendations

- Zealotry: More spell damage.Combined with Watcher's eye jewel,zealotry gives a lot of damage.
- Summon Skitterbots - There are 2 robots.One chills enemies(basically slows),other shocks(17% increased damage taken).On top of these,if you are using Saboteur ascendancy's "Explosives Expert" passive,you get %10 penetration against chilled enemies and 80%increased critical strike chance against shocked enemies.So these two little guys provide lots of dps overall.
- Aspect of the Spider:Bestiary is now in core game so you should buy the beast(Fenumus, First of the Night) and craft it on a rare gear that you are wearing(it is a suffix so the item you are crafting it on must have an open suffix slot)I recommend crafting it on a ring,amulet or belt.Otherwise if you decide to craft in on a gear with sockets,some support gems might effect Aspect of the spider and its mana reserve gets higher so you can't use it.I'm not sure which supports can effect it so can't say anything about.
If you don't have Slavedriver's Hand yet,skip Aspect of Spider.You also need lvl 4 enlighten otherwise you need to use Enlighten lvl3 and get %4mana reservation from talent tree(near hasty reconstruction).Or you can annoint your amulet with a mana reserve reduction passive.

3.12 Heist Update:They added different qualities for all gems in the game.If you can't find/buy it,simply use the normal version.

Flamethrower traps
6-Link body armour:

Flamethrower traps - Trap and Mine Damage - Fire Penetration - Empower - Elemental Focus - Increased Area of Effect / Concentrated Effect
First of all,let's talk about Flamethrower traps real quick.Anomalous FTT has cooldown reduction so that helps a lot in maps.However,it also reduces the duration of the trap so it's actually a dps loss.In the end,once you have enough gear,that dps loss won't mean anything because you are gonna kill everything in the game in a couple of seconds.For this reason,you can start with normal flamethrowers first,then switch to anomalous once you have decent gear.
You may want to swap Increased AoE for Concentrated effect at big boss fights like Conquerers,Guardians,Uber Elder etc.
If you have the currency,buy Awakened Increased Area of Effect.It has more damage multiplier unlike the normal one so provides some good dps.Fire penetration and elemental focus also has Awakened versions so if you're trying to min max this build,you also need to buy those.
You can't find empower at league start so you should use something else until you get empower lvl3 or 4.(Combustion support,Increased Critical Strike,Increased Critical Damage etc.) Check your own PoB to see which gem provides better dps to you.

Fire traps
Goes into 4-linked helmet(essence of horror craft)

Fire Trap - Cluster Traps - Charged Traps - Combustion
As long as you have flamethrower trap cooldown available,those should be your #1 priority BUT there are some important things about fire traps.
First of all,we are using "Charged traps Support" on our fire traps so they help us generate power and frenzy charges.If you are playing with Void Batteries like i do,without power charges you will lose tons of damage.So it is crucial to throw fire traps from time to time so you can maintain those 8 stacks of power charges.Frenzy charges also provide 4% more damage per charge so they are also good for dps.
Another thing about fire traps are that we also use "Combustion support".Because of this,whenever fire traps' ignite a target,that target's fire resistance will be lowered.This is a dps buff to both fire and flamethrower traps.You already know that both fire and flamethrower traps deal more damage against burning enemies by default(this is written in both gems' description already) and combustion is just another reason to use couple of fire traps at a boss fight.If you don't throw fire traps at bosses,you'll lose a lot of dps.

3-link weapons

Mobility setup;

Dash - Second Wind - Arcane Surge
You have to lock your Dash at low level because you won't have enough mana to use it if you level it too high.Make sure it has quality so it means better cooldown time.
I highly suggest you to get Divergent Arcane Surge.It adds +2 extra seconds to Arcane surge buff.(from 4 seconds to 6 seconds)

Other weapon;

Bear Trap - Vaal Righteous Fire - Increased Duration
Anomalous Bear Trap has increased skill effect duration so the debuff it leaves on the enemy will last longer.

4-socket Gloves and Boots
You can put these gem groups in your boots or gloves.It doesn't matter.

2-linked:

Cast When Damage Taken(lvl 1) - Immortal Call(lvl 2)
Immortal Call is a guard skill and once it gets triggered via CWDT,it provides less physical and elemental damage taken.If you also have endurance charges,it will also consume those to increase physical mitigation even more.We sometimes generate endurance charges thanks to Slavedriver's Hand gloves.

3-linked:

Zealotry - Summon Skitterbots - Enlighten
These are our buffs and auras.You need at least lvl 3 enlighten.If you don't have lvl 4,you must annoint your amulet with a mana reserve notable on talent tree or you can just take 4% mana reserve reduction under the notable "Influence" by just using 2 points.

1 socket:

Wave of Conviction
So first of all,you can absolutely skip and don't use WoC. I only use it at big bosses and even forget to use it sometimes.
Secondly,your WoC must deal higher fire damage than lightning damage.Normally WoC deals lightning and fire damage equally and applies lightning exposure by default.To compensate this,you need to use a Hypnotic Abyss Jewel with fire damage to spells.Check gear section for details.If you are playing with Anger aura instead of Zealotry,you already have that fire damage to spells so you don't need an abyss jewel at all.And one last thing,do not level up your WoC,leave it at lvl 1.

1. Life flask with staunching(to clear bleeding).Divine life flask is better for instant recovery and instant recovery saves you from low life situations.Eternal life is better for overall healing.
2. Diamond flask with freeze or curse immunity.Put the other immunity to 5th flask slot.

3. Quicksilver flask with increased movement speed during effect mod for more speed.If you use one of the high budget flasks,then you have to change that movement speed into freeze or curse immunity.

4. The Wise Oak or Atziri’s Promise
Make sure you have all your overcapped resistances balanced means you will have something like %85(just an example) written in the parantheses for all your resistances except chaos.If you can’t balance your resistances make sure you have fire resistance highest so you get the penetration.
If you aren’t planning on doing guardians,shaper and uber elder,you can pass wise oak and use Atziri’s Promise.Chaos resist is better for mapping because of Syndicate members and incursion temples.
5. Basalt Flask/Quartz Flask/Jade Flask (You can use basalt because we need physical mitigation.We already have lots of dodge.)

Expensive

You can use a Cinderswallow Urn instead of your 5th flask.This means you have to put your freeze or curse immunity to your Quicksilver flask.You'll lose some movement speed but you can get a Cinderswallow with (12%movement speed) & (%50 chance to avoid being stunned) if you want.If you want more dps,get one with (60-80%) crit chance.Cinderswallow is a silver flask so it gives us Onslaught buff which also gives movement,attack and cast speed.
The actual reason to use a Cinderswallow Urn is that it has the mod "Ignited enemies take 10% increased damage" so this is actually a very good dps flask.Unfortunetly,all the other mods on this flask doesn't work for trappers/miners/totem builds.If you want that extra dps,go for it.


This is the ultimate BIS for almost all of the builds in the game.If you can afford Bottled Faith,don't bother with Cinderswallow Urn and just use this instead.Note that i don't use Bottled Faith because this is a low-medium budget build.

I kill all bandits these days.2 passive points are very valuable.
For pantheons,just use whatever you want.I'll list some of the good ones below.
Major
Soul of Brine King->If you can’t position yourself well enough and get hit a lot,this might save you because we aren’t stun immune.
Soul of Lunaris->This is the one i used for everything.
Soul of Solaris->Mainly for bossing purposes and maps with critical chance mod.

Minor
Soul of Garukhan->Upgrade gives 6% movement speed increase.
Soul of Abberath->Immunity against burning ground.
Soul of Yugul->Upgraded version can be used for uber elder.
Soul of Shakari->This got nerfed so hard,i don't recommend it anymore.

Normal lab:Perfect crime
Cruel lab:Chain reaction
Merciless lab:Pyromaniac
Uber lab:Born in the shadows

You can take pyromaniac at normal lab to get that early healing and regret those points after you do cruel lab.Pyromaniac is very important for trap builds so don't forget that.
If you stopped leveling or don't care about dying anymore,use Explosive Expert instead of Born in the Shadows.Or replace Chain reaction(this might cause trigger problems with fire traps so i haven't tried it).Explosive Expert gives a lot of dps thanks to Summon Skitterbots.

Gloves:I don’t think any of the enchants worth your time so i don’t use any.If you know something useful,go for it.
Boots and helmet enchants were explained in gear section already.

SHADOW

I recently(3.8 blight) updated path of building so it has now leveling tree and also leveling gems to help new players to know when to get gems that is required for the build etc. To see the leveling trees, once you are in path of building and pasted my build's link,click tree from left,then click the box on the left of reset button(bottom of your screen).

For skills start with explosive trap and get fire trap as soon as it is available.Shadow has access to all trap gems so you don’t need to trade with other people.You don’t have to use flamethrower trap while leveling because it may be hard to link it somewhere especially at league start.Fire trap has enough damage to finish all the quests and prepares you to maps.

For unique items you can use wanderlust boots,doedre’s tenure gloves,lifesprig wands then into axiom perpetuum,goldrim helmet,praxis rings with “- mana cost to skills”,le heup of all.Replace boots and gloves after level 40-50 and get rare ones with life and resist.

Mana cost might be a problem especially at league start so don’t try to use every buff while leveling.Just pick anger or herald of ash and use mana flask.Once you get slavedriver’s hands you can activate the rest of the buffs.

-Is this build SSF viable?
Yes it is.The only thing you will probably miss is Slavedriver's Hand.If you don't have it,don't reserve all your mana and maybe use a mana flask if you don't have enough mana regen.You'll probably need to play with a bow+quiver because you can't find void batteries in SSF.You can farm Porcupine cards for 6-link bow then craft it like i explained in gear section.Other items are just rares anyway.

-Which map modes should i avoid?
If you are playing softcore and aren’t pushing beyond level 95 or so,these don’t matter much.But if you are a player like me who don’t want to die a lot and also push high levels,then these are the mods to avoid.Btw don't bother rolling these at low levels or low tier maps.Just avoid these at tier 14-15-16 maps.(that's where the farm happens)

!!! Deadliest mods !!!

-Monsters have attack/cast/movement speed->Once you upgrade your atlas to lvl 8,this mod gives like %50 to those values and it is probably a trapper's worst nightmare.Mobs move so fast that you can't even target them sometimes.You should avoid this at all costs at higher tier maps(t14+)
-Monster damage->This is the highest damage multiplier the monsters can get so avoid at all costs.
-Minus max player resists->Again same stuff.This makes you get 1-shotted from something that you can normally survive.(volatile flameblood,strongbox ice nova etc.)

Other mods;
-More than 2 damage mods together(extra fire,light,cold)
-Monsters have crit chance/crit multi
-No regen->Traps are free to cast but you can't use your mobility skill in these maps.Also you will lose your life regen so flask will be the only thing that heals you.Pretty dangerous actually.

-Can i kill T16 Guardians,Conquerers,Shaper,Sirus etc. with 5-link?
Yes you can.

Why is my boss killing slower than yours?
-Make sure you've leveled your gems(also 20 quality) and always throw a fire trap before throwing flamethrowers because you need to burn the target for extra damage.

I played this in 3.9 Metamorph league.Nothing has changed so you can do the same without an issue.
All videos were recorded deathless except AL8 Sirus,the awakener(1 death).Scion has more survivalability so she is very powerful against new content where you can make some mistakes.

Sirus,the Awakener (AL8 / 1 death)
Sirus,the Awakener (AL4)
Veritania,the Redeemer(T11)
Veritania,the Redeemer(T14)
Drox,the Warlord(T13)
Baran,the Crusader (T13)
Al Hezmin,the Hunter (T12)
Elder(83 monster lvl)
Mastermind (83 monster lvl)
Shaper's Realm (now has x4 life compared to before)

+ She is faster and tankier compared to life based Shadow.
+ %100 flask uptime even on bosses.
+ Good amount of attack and spell dodge.
+ Heals herself very fast and it is automatically.(Agnostic keystone - I will explain later)
+ %40 of damage taken goes from mana.(Can be higher if you have good Watcher's Eye jewel)
- Uses lots of uniques so you need some time to gear up.
- Gets stunned a lot until you get the flask mod.

My gear


WEAPONS

HELM

BODY ARMOUR

GLOVES

BOOTS

RINGS

AMULET

BELT

JEWELS

We are using Mind over Matter keystone so we can't reserve all our mana.Using Essence worm ring with Anger in it to get fire damage to spells.Also using a clarity to get mana regen.This will get reserved from our mana but no big deal.
Important Note: If you achieved 4000+ mana you can use Flesh and Stone(sand stance) while mapping to blind nearby enemies and also get damage mitigation from range attacks.But this will reserve a lot of mana! So consider turning it off and on at some points.

Some gems are Awakened but these are for high budget so you need to play with regular ones until you get these.

Fire trap
6-Link body armour

Fire Trap - Trap and Mine Damage - Cluster Traps - Combustion - Awakened Fire Penetration - Controlled Destruction
Once you geared up your character and also leveled those gems, use Charged Traps instead of Trap and Mine Damage for mapping.It will increase your trap throw speed a LOT!

Flamethrower trap
Helmet

Flamethrower Trap - Trap and Mine Damage - Awakened Elemental Focus - Awakened Fire Penetration
If you crafted your Shaper/Elder influenced helm,gem setup can change a little depending on what you get.
Put Concentrated Effect if you have Shaper helm with Trap and Mine Damage already.

Mobility

Flame Dash - Faster Casting - Arcane Surge
Make sure your Arcane Surge is low level so it gets activated every time you use Flame Dash.

Trigger gems in weapon

Put these in your weapon that has "Trigger socketed gems when you use a skill"
Wave of Conviction - Culling Strike - Gem of your choice
Final gem is a curse(Flammability for more damage, Enfeeble for survivalability) or any other spell that you think is useful.

CWDT and Bear Trap

Cast When Damage Taken - Steelskin - Increased Duration - Bear Trap

My CWDT is lvl 12,Steelskin is lvl 15.You can go higher or lower if you want.You can level up increased duration and bear trap.Make sure your bear trap doesn't stuck on cwdt.You need to cast it manually on phased monsters/bosses where you can prepare your traps.(Shaper/Sirus/Essence monsters etc.) Bear trap also slows the monster a lot so it is very useful on fights like Guardian of the Phoenix.

Buffs&Auras

Put Clarity in somewhere. Anger goes into Essence Worm unique ring.

Other gems

You will have a couple of slots left.The rest is up to you.You can level gems or use anything you want.Portal is a QoL improvement.You may also consider using Vaal Righteous Fire-Increased Duration for that damage boost.

Alternate quality gems

I already listed similar gems with Shadow to shadow->gem links so don't forget to check that out,too.I will list the different ones that Scion uses here.

Clarity:You and nearby Allies have 10% increased Mana Recovery from Flasks
Wave of Conviction:20% increased Skill Effect Duration
Arcane Surge Support:Arcane Surge lasts 2 seconds.(This is probably +2 seconds,there should be a typo in patch notes)

TIP:Beastcrafting helps a lot with flask crafting.

-Life flask with staunching mod for bleeding immunity.
-Eternal Mana flask: The first thing you want on your mana flask is "Flask effect is not removed at full mana" This basically makes your mana flask unending.Also put Freeze/Curse immunity.
-Quicksilver Flask with Adrenaline mod for more movement speed.Also try getting Increase duration or Increased Effect/Less Duration.
-Diamond Flask with Freeze or Curse Immunity.Put whichever you didn't put on your Mana flask.
-Unique Flask of your choice
Bottled Faith: Very expensive.Gives the most damage.
Atziri's Promise: Cheap.Some chaos resistance and elemental as extra chaos damage.
Wise Oak: Hard to maximize.You need to balance all your resistances(not chaos) to get benefit from both penetration and damage reduction.If you can't balance them,at least make your fire resistance highest so you get penetration for that damage increase.

!!! Important Note !!!
If you have access to flask mod "% chance to avoid stun" Put it on your mana/diamond flask and craft a boots with freeze/chill immunity.You still need Curse immunity on your other flask.

Help alira for easier resist cap and critical multiplier.
For pantheons i don’t think there is only one option of each category.
Major
Soul of Brine King->If you can’t position yourself well enough and get hit a lot,this might save you because we aren’t stun immune.If you have stun flask,don't use this.
Soul of Lunaris->This is the one i used for everything.
Soul of Solaris->Mainly for bossing purposes and maps with critical chance mod.

Minor
Soul of Gruthkul->Some physical mitigation for mapping.
Soul of Yugul->Upgraded version can be used for uber elder.
Soul of Shakari->Causes poisons on you to have 50% less duration, and prevents you from being poisoned while there are at least 5 poisons on you.

Shakari is my choice even after the nerf(it used to make you poison immune all the time) because you won't have good chaos resist unless you min-max your gear.So it will help a lot with poison.

Normal lab: Make your way to Shadow Ascendancy.Pick dex/int and skill point.
Cruel lab: Get Saboteur.Other point goes to 40dex.
Merciless lab: Get skill point and Pathfinder.
Uber lab: Get Path of the shadow and now you can delete any unnecessary points that you used to connect Scion-Shadow on your tree.

Gloves: I don't recommend any because they are all useless.Also if you enchant your gloves, you can't do reflect maps.Because most gloves enchants shoot something every now and then.Normally trap builds can do reflect because we aren't attacking actually.

Boots
“x% increased critical chance if you haven’t crit recently” This is active all the time because we aren’t hitting with anything and traps don’t count.
“Damage penetrates x% of enemy elemental resistances if you haven’t killed recently”Good for Guardians,Shaper,Uber Elder,Sirus.

Helmet
“Flamethrower trap has 2 additional traps.”This increases the damage of flamethrowers a lot.Increases the number of flames from 4 to 6.

Scion / Fire & Flamethrower

I'm using LocalIdentity's Community Path of Building so make sure you use that otherwise some stuff might not be visible to you.Normal path of building misses so much stuff anyways so this is the one you are suppose to use these days.