[3.5] Saboteur Toxic Rain Mines

Quick Start guide (why say many word when few do trick):

Level as TR mines or arc mines/traps

All you need to start is a 6L +2 bow which you can self-craft for ~15c. I used a +2 bow both leagues until ~lv 90 when I had saved some currency to craft a real bow.

PoB links to my old characters for gear inspiration: Delve https://pastebin.com/DDNZmc3F Betrayal https://pastebin.com/BjdRyt9i

Just the tree: http://poeurl.com/cfpd Drop life if you're not level 99 :^)

Personal Ramblings:

During Delve I had wanted to try Toxic Rain (TR) as a poison build because of the double hitting and the many projectiles overlapping. When I learned that the DoT from each of the pods could stack I immediately changed my mind on how I thought the skill should be used.

The most obvious weapon to use was a +3 bow as additional levels would help to scale the base DoT significantly. Delve had also introduced fossil crafting which allowed the player to restrict all prefices for bows besides + level. However, when I ran the DPS calculations (manually as PoB still does not properly calculate TR DPS), I (and literally anyone else who even considered using the skill) found that the best bow to use would be Quill Rain. The overall DPS was much higher and it also provided the additional utility of high attack speed to avoid animation locking. Since I had already crafted a 6L +3 bow, I figured that the best way to use the bow would be to run the skill as a trap or a mine. Doing this would make local attack speed on the bow nearly irrelivant and would make my +3 bow BiS.

Mines are better than traps. Because you can detonate mines manually, you can have the 20% life regen from Saboteaur always up even if you're not hitting enemies. Mines autotarget enemies so you can focus mouse movements on evading enemies' attacks. And, perhaps the most important factor, because you can detonate mines yourself, you can prestack TR pods during boss pre-phases. This means that, unlike a poison build, TR can start boss fights at the full DPS of the skill.

I ran the build in Delve initially as a meme build, figuring that it would eventually fall off or begin to be too shit to run the mines effectively. In the end, I made it to level 98 and a respectible (but not incredible as I spent most of my sulphite farming sideways) depth of 366. The damage was enough to complete all content and the build was tankier than most builds I had run before. I ended the league with just over 8k life, 9k evasion, 50/56 dodge, and between 1.4m and 11.2m DPS depending on how many of my 8 pods per volley hit the enemy.

In the Betrayal release, GGG decided kindly to buff my build by introducing the Non-Ailment Chaos Damage Over Time Multiplier (henceforth: dot multi) stat. In addition, the inclusion of the Multi-Totem support gem allowed for faster wither stacking against tough enemies. I tried and failed to play a different build at the start. My character is currently level 96 with 7.3k life, 14k evasion, 50/55 dodge, and between 2.5m and 14.8m DPS depending on how many of my 6 pods per volley hit the enemy. I also still have room for upgrades, most notably a +2 arrow quiver with 12% mine laying speed crafted and a level 4 empower.

Gearing the build:

Each time I have played the build, levelling was very smooth. I ran explosive trap to level 12 when I could start using TR and then ran TR mines all the way to maps. I started with a bit of currency so I could buy a tabula but this is likely unnecessary, especially if you choose instead to level as arc mines.

To really start the build, all you need is a 6L +levels bow and good enough rares to cap your resistances and give you life. During Betrayal I purchased a 6L citadel bow for 9c and farmed the mines until I found 1 metallic, 1 corroded, and 1 jagged fossil. This combination restricts all prefices besides Paragon's (+1 gems), Fletcher's (+1 bow gems), and Sharpshooter's (+2 bow gems). You're aiming for +3 but this can take several tries; a +2 gems bow will take you easily into red maps. Additional modifiers you want on the bow are Vicious Projectiles (this cannot be rolled using the method above so just buy a bow if you want this prefix) or Dot multi prefix.

My second item pickup for this build is a Kaom's Heart. This provides a substantial increase to your life pool.

I like to use Atziri's step for boots for the spell dodge and the acceptable movement speed and life. Fairly cheap to get a well-rolled pair; enchant with 10% movespeed if you haven't been hit recently, or 2% regen if you have.

Your helmet, like all rares, needs life. Besides that you want a TR fires +1 arrow enchant. In addition, you would like to have the shaper mod socketed gems supported by minefield// Place an additional mine. This allows you to drop the minefield support and substatially increases your damage. Another good affix to have is the Aberant fossil suffix: enemies have -9 chaos res. Finally, mastercrafted 12% mine laying speed is a good boost.

Your amulet can either be chaos Impresence for a free blasphemy Despair, or a rare elder amulet with life, Aberant chaos damage prefix, dot multi suffix, and mastercrafted mine laying speed.

An ideal quiver has life, +2 arrows, master crafted 12% mine laying speed, onslaught on kill, movement speed, and maim on hit.

Rings, belt, and gloves should simply cover your resistances and stat needs.

For flasks, you want: An instant life flask, your favorite mana flask (I like divine because it looks nice), a quartz flask, and a quicksilver of adrenaline. You need anti-freeze and anti-curse on the mana flask and quartz flask. Your final flask can be a jade of reflexes if your destitute, or a Witchfire Brew. If you choose to use Impresence, your final flask should be Dying Sun. The quartz flask is vital as it allows you to run through enemies which helps with the playbility of this build.

You need 2x Spreading Rot jewels. You use either blight or Vaal blight to apply the hinder and make enemies take more damage. Cheap and non-negotiable. Rare jewels need: mine laying speed, dot multi, life, resistances, increased damage.

The tree:
http://poeurl.com/cfpd Drop some of the less efficient (% max life per point spent) life nodes if youre not level 99 yet.

The skill tree prioritizes the two "more" damage multipliers available: Duration and dot multi. I then grab up all the available life nodes, acro/phase acro, and damage where efficient.

I choose not to use Mind over matter as I think it doesn't work well as a Saboteaur miner. I get life regeneration from casting my skill. If I get hit hard enough for my mana to bottom out, I'm probably in danger of dying. However, because my mana has bottomed out, I would be unable to place and detonate mines to get more regeneration. Furthermore, I would need 3/7 of my life as available mana to have optimal efficency of MoM for preventing one-shots. With Kaom's and a large life pool that the build would need to heavily invest in mana nodes on the tree and mana on gear to get the 3.2k mana pool I would like to have. If I were able to do this then I wouldn't be able to run Grace which would reduce survivability.

Gems and links:

All gems are in order of importance.

Main skill, basic setup

Toxic Rain - Remote Mine - Minefield - Vicious Projectiles - Trap and Mine Damage - Void Manipulation/Empower 4

If you have a +1 mine hat:

Toxic Rain - Remote Mine - Vicious Projectiles - Trap and Mine Damage - Void Manipulation - Efficacy/Empower 4

If you have a VP bow:

Toxic Rain - Remote Mine - Minefield - Trap and Mine Damage - Void Manipulation - Efficacy/Empower 4

If you have both:

Toxic Rain - Remote Mine - Trap and Mine Damage - Void Manipulation - Efficacy - Empower 4

You also want:

CwDT - Immortal Call - Increased Duration - Vaal Blight

Wither - Spell totem - Multi totem

Blink arrow - (faster attacks if you can fit it)

Blasphemy - Despair (if using Impresence)

Grace

Dread Banner

Videos

Shaper Kill to show what DPS looks like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfuaXXmixys

Phoenix to show the sort of slows you can get. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn9RPwDngQY

Quick and dirty delve shows about the speed you can expect to clear. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ9qHxMl-8Q

What about Pantheon?

Doin this on HC and SC betrayal, This build is the sh*t... Havent really played since a league or two after bloodlines... Missed my poison bladefall miner... this literally replaced it and some.... <3 great build sir! will let u know the end game results. so far im lvl 4x HC and 6x SC

I really want to play this as a trapper instead of miner. Can anyone recommend the changes, my path of building work is awful.