Explosive Trap Trickster was my starting build in the last league. We’ve even enhanced our early builds with new Gem Quality in the upcoming new league. Let’s take a look at Affliction League’s impact on the damage aspect of this build.

Skill Itself And Buff

Our skill of choice is Explosive Trap. This is a trap-throwing spell that creates multiple explosions when triggered. It converted physical damage it deals to fire damage.

We got buffs on this side as they removed enchantments from the game and put Explosive Trap Helmet Enchantment into Gem Quality. So our new Gem Quality will cause our Trap to cause 2 smaller explosions, which is a very nice buff.

All explosions can hit the same enemy, which is where our DPS and Trap numbers come from. When you view POB, you can set the number of explosions that hit the target. I set it to an average blast since most enemies have a small hit range.

Scaling The Damage

Builds can now use 2 curses due to the extra curse nodes on the tree. Assassin’s Mark increases your critical hit chance and critical hit damage, while Flammability reduces enemy fire resistance. We apply this to the single-button Arcanist Brand. If our enemy triggers Trap, we can easily generate Power and Frenzy Charges.

We also give Trickster an additional 2 max Frenzy Charges so we can have 5 Frenzy Charges. And we paired it with Charged Traps Support to make our trap throwing as fast as possible.

Also, because the mana cost of our Trap is very expensive, we will need to use Mana Flasks until the mana cost of our Rings and Amulet is reduced.

Which New Ascendancy To Choose?

With Affliction League, we get 3 new Ascendancies. Let’s start with beginner friendly.

Warden of the Maji is the first node worth considering. You can get this very early. It allows you to get Elemental Resistances easily. Because there is a mod: if there are no gems in your helmet, all elemental resistance +50%.

I think it might be worth taking before resistance gets capped later. It’s also worth considering boots without gems, as you’ll also move 30% faster.

Second, when you have better equipment, you can switch to Wildwood Primalist. With this, we can get additional inventory slots. This is very useful early in the game and even later in the game. You can also insert charms into your Ascendancy tree. Works just like Sanctum League’s Relic.

Of course, you won’t get rare items in the beginning, but it gets easy after that. This depends on the charms and rarity of the mod.

The third Warlock of the Mists. I think this wouldn’t be good for us since we already have 2 curses in the build so it would be difficult to accommodate another curse in our build. So I think overall this is useless for this build most of the time.

Defensives

On the defensive side, we use Grace Aura to increase Evasion rating so that monsters’ normal attacks or projectiles won’t kill us.

Because we use Grace, we can use Ghost Dance Keystone. When we take a hit, we regain 3% of our Evasion rating as Energy Shield, and we can do this 3 times in a row before the stack recharges.

When you open POB, you’ll see that we don’t have any physical reduction in the build, which is not a problem. Because we have more than a 70% chance of avoiding enemy attacks, and we have enough Energy Shield and Life pool to withstand larger blows.

I played this build last league and completed my Atlas, even beating all the endgame bosses without armor on my character.

Now we are nearly untouchable by physical attacks, and the only danger left to us is spell damage. But we have a solution, which is to use Spell Suppression on Trees. We have 84% suppression from the trees alone, so the remaining percentages are easily achievable.

At the beginning of a league, we rarely have enough POE Currency to emphasize items. Therefore, we chose Trickster. So we have access to a very interesting node, One Step Ahead, which slows down the enemy’s movement speed. If we’re paired with Summon Skitterbots, enemies will move at a snail’s pace, giving us plenty of time to react.

Items

Because the league has just started, we cannot get rare items on the first day of the league. Only one item is necessary for this build, Nycta’s Lantern. This is a very sturdy item. For its price, it’s pretty cheap, requiring only 5 Chaos Orbs, but it can take you to Red Maps and beyond.

Also worth mentioning is our flask. Since we have to use Mana Flasks, this is the easiest way to maintain our mana. Since Trickster doesn’t have high health regeneration like Saboteur, we can’t use Lifetap Support and retain all our mana.

You must install this mod on Mana Flasks. It does not remove the effect when unreserved mana fills up. You still gain mana when your mana bar fills up, and you can spam your traps without issue.

Passive Tree

The passive tree is being refined, but in the early levels your major goal is to distribute Assassination, Saboteur, Will of Blades, and Expeditious Munitions.

In addition, Snowforged node is not to be missed. It masters random elemental bonus damage with a 3% chance to deal 300% physical damage on hit. I think it’s really worth it. Because our traps also cause physical damage, and the traps will explode many times. So this is a big damage increase for us.

Ascendancy

We use Trickster as Ascendancy class.

• In the first lab: Use Swift Killer to add extra Frenzy Charges.
• In the second lab: One Step Ahead. This will increase your movement speed. So you’ll move faster and throw traps faster.
• In the third lab: Polymath. From this point on, we get more damage parts that others don’t apply to us.
• In the final lab: Heartstopper. This is our loop defense part.

Hopefully, this guide to build Explosive Trap Trickster will help you get off to a better start in Affliction League. Have a great day!

Welcome back to my POE build guide. Many players who follow me regularly know that Explosive Trap Trickster was my starting build in Crucible league. 

So I thought maybe I’d start with this build again in Trial of the Ancestors. Because the build process is really easy to put together, scales well in the late game, and it’s cheap too. So let’s take a look at how to maximize this build’s damage in POE 3.22.

Skill Itself

First, our skill of choice is Explosive Trap. These traps will explode 8 or 10 times, depending on whether you have Helmet Enchantments or not. All explosions can hit the same enemy, which is our source of DPS and trap count.

When you look at Path of Building, you can set the number of explosions to hit your target. And I set it to an average explosion, since most enemies have a small hit range.

How To Scale?

The build can now use 2 curses due to the extra curse node on the skill tree. Namely Assassin’s Mark and Flammability. Assassin’s Mark will increase the critical strike chance and critical strike damage of the target. And Flammability, which will reduce the fire resistance of the enemy.

We apply this to the single button Arcanist Brand. It can easily generate energy and frenzy charges if the enemy triggers the trap. We also give Trickster an extra 2 max frenzy charges so we can have 5 frenzy charges. And we can pair it with Charged Traps Support to make our trap throws as fast as possible.

For those who don’t like gem swapping, I have some bad news. Since we’re using Cluster Traps Support and adding Area of effect to clear, you’ll have to gem swap to defeat tougher bosses.

We still have one big problem, and that’s mana. Our traps have a very high mana cost. So we need to use the mana flask until the mana cost of our rings and amulets is reduced.

Defense

On the defense side, we use Grace Aura to increase the dodge rating so monsters’ normal attacks or projectiles can’t kill us. Also, we have access to Ghost Dance Keystone. When we take a hit, we restore 3% of our evasion rating as an energy shield. And we can do it 3 times in a row before the stack recharges.

We don’t need to use Determination. Because if you’re going to benefit from this Guard Skill like you did before the patch, you’ll need double the armor in your build. This is almost impossible with Trickster. So from now on we will use Immortal Call as our Guard Skill and cast it when taking damage.

The gameplay is still very comfortable without any physics reduction, as we have more than a 70% chance to dodge enemy attacks. Now we are almost untouchable by physical attacks. The only problem is spell damage. But we have a solution, using Spell Inhibition on the skill tree. We get 84% inhibition from the skill tree alone, so we easily capped the remaining percentages.

This reduces the enemy’s movement speed. If it paired us with Summon Skitterbots, the enemies would move like snails, giving us plenty of time to react.

It’s also worth mentioning that with Trickster, we get a circular defense layer. Every 5 seconds we take less hit damage, and another 5 seconds we take less damage.

Items

Because the league has just started, it is difficult for us to get any rare POE Items in the first few days. That’s why we’ll have very basic items on our list. There’s only one item worth mentioning, and that’s Nycta’s Lantern Crystal Sceptre. It’s a very solid item that can take you to the red map and beyond.

Another surprising thing is that we don’t use life mods on our body armor because we have a Life Mastery. If our body armor didn’t have a life mod, it would give us 15% of our max life. So we can use energy shield and evasion rating prefixes on our body armor.

Another big change to our skill tree is that we’re reverting Mana Reservation Mastery to Mana Mastery. That’s why we’re assigning Mind Drinker and taking Mana Mastery to improve the skill’s Mana Reservation efficiency.

It is also worth mentioning our flask. We have to use POE Currency to get enough mana flask in advance. Because it’s the easiest way to maintain our mana. Because Trickster can’t get high life regeneration like Saboteur. So we can’t use Lifetap Support and keep all our mana.

Passive Tree

I also want to highlight a few things about passive trees. In the early levels, your main objective is to assign Ambush and Assassinate, Will of Blades, and Expeditious Munitions. It is worth noting we must take Snowforged node and mastery, which has a 3% chance of dealing 300% physical damage.

As extra damage to the random element, I think it’s really worth it, since our traps also do physical damage, and the traps explode 8 times. So it’s a big damage increase for us. If you don’t have hit damage reduction, you can still tank most bosses in endgames with no problem.

That concludes this Explosive Trap Trickster build guide. Hope this guide helps you get off to a better start at the beginning of POE 3.22 season. The new season is coming soon, looking forward to seeing you in the game.