Level 99 Hybrid Crit Explosive Trap Trickster^3.24

Notes

> UPSIDES/DOWNSIDES <
- Good damage that you can even prestack on certain bosses, but struggles a bit on clear
- Tanky in the endgame, but has problems getting physical mitigation early game
- Requires a mana flask early on
- Stun immune

> PLAYSTYLE <
Clearing with explosive trap won't feel amazing, but you can swap out swift assembly with cluster traps to make it feel a little better. Explosive Trap of Shrapnel should also make your clear feel a lot better.

For single target at a boss that's instantly targetable you throw your bear trap, curse the boss and then just keep throwing explosive traps until the boss is dead(this should be pretty fast).

If a boss is not targetable instantly(Shaper for example) you throw a bunch of explosive traps, then a bear trap and (if you chose to use it, see "skills" tab) 3 seismic traps.
If you timed this correctly(will take some getting used to) everything will hit the boss at once as soon as it becomes targetable, dealing huge burst damage. Try to apply your curses as soon as possible now and keep throwing explosive traps.

You can use the second strategy on bosses that you can offscreen as well. Sometimes a boss won't target you if it's on the edge of your screen, but you can still throw traps under it.

> LEVELING <
In act 1 we use the classic stormblast mine + orb of storms combo. Try to find a wand with flat added damage to spells but don't sweat it if you can't.
Remember the recipe to make a wand or sceptre with flat added damage to spells has been removed though!

When we reach level 12 we switch to lightning trap. Combined with Sniper's Mark this should be good for both your single target and your clear.
If you want to up your single target a bit you can add in Bear Trap and you could even swap out Pierce with Added Cold Damage support for bosses.
To make transitioning to Explosive Trap a bit easier we invest into crit relatively early on. If you're on trade league picking up an early Axiom Perpetuum can be great because of this!

At level 28 we add in Lightning Spire trap, this is to keep up on single target damage. Around this time we also start adding Charged Traps support, which will make the build feel a lot better.
By now you can also go to Solaris Level 2 and pick up the "added cold damage to spells" recipe for wands/sceptres. Crafting this on both your weapons will greatly increase your damage, do it if you're not using uniques!

We only transition to Explosive Trap in maps. This is purely because Explosive Trap gains a lot of radius with levels, and before maps it's just not great to play with.
If you feel like Lightning Trap clear is still fine at this point you're completely free to keep using Lightning Trap for clear.

> FAQ <
-- What about transfigured Explosive Trap? --
You might see some other guides use Explosive Trap of Shrapnel, since this was objectively the best version of Explosive Trap in 3.23.
In 3.24 Explosive Trap of Shrapnel got a pretty significant nerf. It might still be best for clear, but the nerf seems intended to nerf the single target.
It's very hard to tell before actually testing whether Shrapnel is better though, the higher base damage also causes your scorch and brittle to be higher, which means more damage.
In the past when overlaps got targetted by nerfs(Seismic Trap/Earthshatter) this heavily impacted single target, but that might not be the case this time.
Make sure you look at poe.ninja or test out yourself what the best version of Explosive Trap ends up being, as it's really hard to tell before the patch is live.

Explosive Trap of Magnitude doesn't really work well for how we build this type of Explosive Trap, since it lacks conversion.

-- What if I don't have an Alternating Sceptre? --
A viable alternative is using a Leadership's Price, you do have to balance your 2 highest attributes if you do this though which can be really annoying.

-- How do I solve mana issues? --
Early on you'll probably just have to use a mana flask, this is the main downside of this build.
Later you'll want to combine any of the following methods to get to the point where you sustain your mana:
- Craft -mana cost on every piece of jewellery
- Annoint reduced mana cost, like Tireless or Dreamer
- Get a little bit of mana or mana regen on gear
- A watcher's eye with -mana cost and run a lvl 1 clarity
- Help Alira

-- What's some good early uniques? --
What a coincidence you asked!
Restless Ward. This unique will be great for farming your Lightning Coil as it gives you a lot of movement speed.

-- How do I solve my squishyness vs big physical hits early on? --
Before you have a Lightning Coil(and to an extend Taste of Hate) your physical mitigation won't be great.
Even though we have basically no armour, with the amount of evasion we can get(combined with Ghost Dance) we don't have to worry about small hits.
- Try to get as mana sources of "physical damage taken as elemental" early on as possible
- Run Enduring Cry with Call to Arms Support
- Get the "10% less physical damage taken while on full energy shield" mastery
- Get small bits of armour where you don't give up on other stats(like the armour/evasion craft on your belt)
- If you feel like your damage is good enough you could run Herald of Ash + Arctic Armour instead of Hatred

-- How do I get some more life sustain? --
- Get Replenishing Remedies and just spam your life flask(s)
- Get the "Recover 30 life when your trap is triggered by an enemy" mastery
- Get Lethe Shade since it'll be mostly degens that probably even make you require life sustain
- Get strength on gear so you can level up your Enduring Cry more

-- Is Escape Artist really worth it in the midgame tree? --
It's nice if you have the gear for it, if you don't like it taking Heartstopper instead is completely ok too.

-- When do I go from the midgame tree to the endgame tree? --
We switch from the midgame to endgame tree once we have action speed on our boots implicit and we have some way of freeze immunity(most commonly: Brine King pantheon)

-- Can I save Alira instead of killing all bandits? --
Yes, especially early on, but be aware that this build really likes skillpoints. You might have to drop stun immunity for example which can be really painful.

> CRAFTS <
ALWAYS TRY WHAT YOU'RE DOING IN THE CRAFTOFEXILE EMULATOR FIRST!!!

-- Sceptre --
1. Get "+1 to all spell skill gems" isolated on a RARE sceptre. This can be done with alt rolling and then regal/annul.
2. Craft "can have multiple crafted modifiers", "prefixes cannot be changed" and "cannot roll attack mods"
3. Use the harvest modifier "add a physical modifier and remove a non-physical modifier". This should always add +1 to physical gems
4. Right now you could remove all crafted modifiers, craft a prefix and slam a redeemer orb hoping to get "Hatred effect" alternatively you can more deterministically do this:
5. If "prefixes cannot be changed" wasn't removed, skip to step 6. Else remove all crafted modifiers and craft "prefixes cannot be changed" again
6. Use the harvest modifier "add a critical modifier and remove a non-critical modifier". This will add some crit mod, we're looking for spell crit or crit mult.
7. If you're happy with the mod you got, remove all crafted modifiers and multimod to finish up the sceptre. If not recraft prefixes cannot be changed, scour and go back to step 5.

-- Shield --
If you have a good shield without influence with an open prefix(and no open suffix) a Hunter exalt will ALWAYS guarantee you add % life.

-- Helmet --
The 40% stun avoid is from a Deafening Essence of Scorn.