Level 1 Saboteur^3.18

Notes

---Required Links---

	As soon as possible with 20 craft rune daggers:
			Whirling Blades (G) - Faster Attacks (G)
			Flame Dash (B) for gap/ledge traversal where you cannot use whirling

	Lvl 12 until Pierce on Tree:
			Lightning Trap (B) - Swift Assembly (G) - Pierce (G) - Any Reasonable Damage Link
		
	Pierce on Tree and Access to Lily:
			Lightning Trap (B) - Swift Assembly (G) - Any Reasonable Damage Link - Any Reasonable Damage Link.... Preference towards trap and mine damage and lightning penetration

	Auras and Utility:
			Skitterbots (B)
			Beat Trap (G)

Everything else you have flexibility on for additional reservations and supplemental DPS. Both tornado and lightning spire trap slot incredibly well into build and are obtainable as quest rewards.


---Flexible Links---
	
	Damage:
		Lightning Spire Trap (B) - Any reasonable damage gems - Any reasonable damage gem - Any reasonable damage gem..... with LST I will make the setup work with whatever colors I have available. It should be noted pre-Lily or Library, you only really
		have 1 red gem (cruelty) available as a damage support as all other red gems shadow has access to do not really apply.
		Tornado (G)
		OoS (B) - Any reasonable damage gems - Any reasonable damage gems... I usually drop OoS as I swap the OoS setup to Lightning Spire Trap 

	Curse:
		Conductivity (B) or Sniper's Mark (G). Conductivity will be better with lightning spire trap, but because I wanted to make this build primarily a lightnign trapper, I used sniper's mark instead.

	Reservations:
		Artic Armour (G) into Grace (G) once you have Grace Reservation Mastery. Extra defense via Arctic Armour is nice until grace given archnem rares/blues, however, this can easily be herald of ice instead for some extra flat ele dmg to spells.
		Clarity (B) - I like fitting a relatively low level Clarity in to help deal with how much of a mana hog traps are. What level I stop at depends on how much mana I have available

	Whenever you have free sockets:
		Add left-click steel skin
		Add golem of choice
		CWDT setup with steelskin or golem with preference towards golem for QoL.

---Notes on Gear---
Buy Leather Belt (Available at Lvl 9 from Vendor) after Brutus or after Fairgraves depending on currency if you have not dropped one. Swap to heavy belt if strength is needed, but that should not be an issue.  
Take Lapis Amulet from Ribbon Spool Quest in A3 as you will need the int from the lapis amulet. When trying to find magic wands for 8 craft at first vendor, I buy anything that has at least 2 links with preference towards 3 links or better colors
as trying to transmute both wands for the 8craft is extremely tight on currency. I will use any rune daggers I can find pretty much, but I wait until just before I do 20 crafts to commit to transmuting them incase I find better colors/links.
You have a fair amount of flexibility on 4L bases as you can make anything that has evasion on it work. You can also make pure ES bases work. Anything that has armour is a lot tougher as this build only really uses red gems as utility
through steelskin, stone golem or CWDT, and not a lot of applicable red damage gems are available to shadow until lily or library.


---Notable Pathing Order (lvl 60 - 79pts - Help Alira)---
(1) Elemental Path from Shadow Start (5pts - Lvl 6)
(2) Trickery (1pt - Lvl 7)
(3) Elemental Focus (2pts - Lvl 8 w/ Dweller Skill Point)
(4) Blood Siphon (2pts - Lvl 10)
(5) Cold Hearted Calculation (2pts - Lvl 11 w/ Fairgraves Skill Point)
(6) Saboteur (2pts - Lvl 13 [Trap Throwing Speed Path])
(7) Expeditious Munitions and Recover 30 Life Trap Mastery (5 pts - Lvl 18)
(8) Coordination (2pts - Lvl 19 w/ Way Forward Skill Point)
(9) Written in Blood (6pts - Lvl 24 w/ Busts Skill Point)
(10) Master Sapper and Skitterbots Reservation Mastery (7pts - Lvl 30 w/ Piety Skill Point)
(11) Revenge of the Hunter and Grace Reservation Mastery (5pts - Lvl 34 w/ Deshret Skill Point)
(12) Survivalist (5 pts - Lvl 39)
(13) Blood Drinker w/ 50 Life Mastery (5pts - Lvl 42 w/ Miasmeter and Torments Skill Points)
(14) Piercing Shots (3pts - Lvl 44 w/ Tukohama Skill Point)
(15) Charisma and 15% Mana Reservation Efficiency Mastery (5pts - Lvl 47 w/ Abberath and Ryslatha Skill Points)
(16) Ballistics (2pts - Lvl 49)
(17) Heart of Oak (2pts - Lvl 50 w/ Ralakesh Skill Point)
(18) Finesse (2pts - Lvl 50 w/ Gruthkul and Kishara's Star Skill Points)
(19) Clever Construction and 5% Chance to Throw Up To 4 Traps  (7pts - Lvl 55 w/ Tolman and Gemling Legion Skill Points)
(20) Unstable Munitions (2pts - Lvl 56 w/ Yugul Skill Point)
(21) Ghost Dance (1pt - Lvl 57)
(21) High Explosives (3pts - Lvl 58 w/ Shakari and Garukhan Skill Points)
(22) Assassination (2pts - Lvl 59 w/ Vilenta Skill Point)
(23) Remaining Health Node Near Blood Drinker (1pt - Lvl 60)
** Any additional points you can put in life nodes Revenge of Hunted or into the 30 point attribute nodes near Revenge
to fill out attributes as needed. If you have attribute issues at any point you can also place a point into one of the 30 attribute nodes
and respec later (Prowess or Thief's Craft)

---Gem Acquisition---
Please note that due to currency contraints, you may not be able to always buy the gems as listed here.

	Ranger Mule Hillock Reward:
		Take any green gem from Hillock quest and transfer it over along with burning arrow and pierce

	Main Character Hillock Reward:
		Take any green gem and vendor buy spark if muled ranger or stormblast mine if no mule

	Hailrake/Submerged Open Reward:
		Take Onslaught from Hailrake quest reward
		Take OoS from Submerged Quest Reward
		Take Frostblink from Submerged Quest Reward (if for some reason you dont have an open blue socket, take dash instead)
		If stormblasting buy frostbomb from Nessa

	Lower Prison Enter Reward:
		Take either added cold or added lightning depending on what links you have available for supporting OoS
		
	Brutus Kill Reward:
		Take flame dash
		Optional: buy clarity if you have extra transmute, otherwise clarity can be bought later or at Lily.

	Merveil's Caverns Enter Reward:
		Take lightning trap
		Buy swift assembly
		Buy bear trap

	Fidelitas/Baleful Gem Reward: 
		Take Skitterbots
		Buy Herald of Ice if you want damage or Arctic Armour if you want defense

	Weaver Kill Reward:
		Take Faster Attacks
		Optional: If you have giga alterations, you can buy some damage supports that are appropriate for build which you can slot in later when you have a 4L or to replace added cold/lightning on OoS. Typically, I would not do this optional buy here
		and wait until somepoint in A3/A4 to return once I had a 4L.

	Way Forward Skill Point Act 1 Retrun:
		Buy whirling blades
		Buy steelskin
		Optional: buy clarity, but only if you have your MAGIC rune daggers prepped already for 20 crafts. If you dont have rune daggers or they are not both magic, do not buy clarity here

	Clarissa/Tolman Quest:
		Take Conductivity
		Buy Grace
		Optional: Buy sniper's mark, I typically use conductivity until I can get lightning pen from Lily and then I will swap to sniper's mark. Consequently, by delaying sniper's mark until A6, you save an alt here and have better damage synergy with
		OoS and lightning spire trap.
			
	Gravicius Quest:
		Take Lightning Spire Trap

	Open Mines Quest:
			Option 1
				Take golem of choice (usually pick this up upon leaving A4 as I will not visit this area of town until then)
				Buy tornado (I will buy tornado here as I can get it from vendor without hiking all the way other to quest reward NPC)
			Option 2	
				If you do not have an extra chance orb, then just take tornado and pickup a golem later at Lily
	
	Open Belly Quest:
		Free choice.

	Lily in A6 Quest: 
		I use Lily to get whatever gems I still need. I will definitely buy a lightning penetration from her. Outside of that, it just depends on what I need for my build still.

---Bandit Choice---
Alira or Kill All. Alira provides the most QoL and because this build will eventually be a crit build in maps, you do not need to respec it at any point. Kill all is a decent option as well
just makes mana management and gearing more annoying without too much additional benefit for the 2 extra skill points. I would strongly, strongly recommend Alira on lightning trapper as 
everything it provides helps deal incredibly nicely with issues trappers have such as mana due to trap cost and also gives resists which is helpful because the shadow side of tree does not have
good access to resist nodes.

---Pantheons---
Major: Brine King or Lunaris, I typically prefer Brine King for campaign
Minor: Tukohama or Ryslatha, I typically prefer Tukohama

---Muling---
Muling a ranger for pierce to enable use of spark until lightning trap at 12 allows for great QoL as spark with pierce is a fantastic early skill. If you do not mule pierce, I would
use a skill outside of spark until you get pierce after Hailrake. Stormblast mine would work well as it has a fiar amount of overlap with how the lightning trap setup will work.

---Onslaught---
Because this build uses a fair amount of elemental pathing and has flat crafts, frost bomb can be used as a viable onslaught proc throughout run, 
so if you really want onslaught you can make a linked frost bomb setup work. However, doing so will somewhat interrupt gameplay flow of build.

---Whirling Blades vs Flame Dash---
Whirling blades will be significantly faster than flame dash even without large amount of attack speed investment especially in the second half of campaign. For that reason it is recommended that you try
to swap to rune daggers and 20 craft them with rare topaz rings. You must use a rune dagger base with the only available 20 or before being Carving Knife (Lvl 10) or Boot Knife (Lvl 20). The best way to get either is to
rely on drops or to buy from vendor. At vendor they cost a transmute. As a result, if you vendor buy, you will be super tight on transmutes as you will need to make the rune daggers magic for the 20 craft.

---Flat Ele Dmg to Spells Vendor Craft Recipe---
This build will use wands to do the initial lvl 8 crafts before swapping to rune daggers at 20 for the 20 crafts. 
Flat craft recipe will not work on non-rune dagger bases. It has to be a rune dagger.

Try for first lvl 8 wand craft pre-brutus (magic wand + normal resist ring + 1 orb of alteration) with preference for using a topaz ring. You can get a topaz ring by vendoring an iron ring + any greem gem. Because you want to do so many
flat lightning crafts for this build, you should save any gem you do not need such as viper strike for a potential topaz ring recipe. If you muled ranger for pierce, you will also have burning arrow and some green Hillock reward gem from ranger.
For the lvl 8 craft, only sapphire rings will be directly available as a drop or as a vendor purchase. Any other ring type must be obtained through the iron ring recipe. 
Try for second lvl 8 wand craft pre-Merveil after returning from Fairgraves quest (magic wand + normal resist ring + 1 orb of alteration) with preference for using a topaz ring. You can find both sapphire and topaz rings at vendor and as a drop
at this point (lvl 11 for directly from vendor for topaz ring, lvl 12 zone required for drop for topaz ring)

Double craft at Lvl 20 on rune daggers, either carving knife or boot knife base (magic rune dagger + rare resist ring + 1 orb of alteration) with heavy, heavy preference towards double lightning craft, but if you only have 1 rare topaz and
a rare resist ring of another type, you can do mixed crafts. If you only have one magic rune dagger ready to go, then you can swap to rune daggers and craft the second one at a later point.

---Exposure Source---
You can fit either WoC or hydrosphere in the build for exposure. During the run, I did not fit either into my link setups, however, I would recommend trying to do so with preference towards hydrosphere given it requires less maintenance than WoC.

---Library, Lily, Both or None---
Here I would recommend doing Lily only as getting access to a wide of variety gems including lightning pen or insipiration brings good value. It is perfectly okay to skip Lily if you are good with your damage setup. There is really no point to
doing library relative to the time investment required. If you want to do library, you can as it gives fantastic XP and a good support gem from reward, it justs not the optimal stragety for a speed level. The only time I would do library over lily 
is if my XP in Act 3 somehow got turbo messed up, ie I'm like 25 or low 26 after Piety kill.