In this guide, I’ll be sharing one of my favorite POE 3.24 League starter builds, Explosive Trap Trickster. In Necropolis League, I enhanced this build and added the features we needed most, namely leveling, gear progression, and crafting sections. This build is enough to help you destroy everything early in the league! Without further ado, let’s get started.

Main Skill

First, I’ll show you the skill, Explosive Trap. You will throw traps and these traps will explode many times. All explosions can hit the same enemy, which is where our DPS comes from and how many traps we have.

When you view POB, you can set the number of explosions that hit the target. As always, I set it to an average blast since most enemies have a small hit range.

Buffs

Now for the buffs of this build. We can automatically cast Warcry through Enduring Cry and the new Call to Arms Support. So we don’t have to press any extra buttons when mapping or fighting enemy bosses.

In addition, Enduring Cry will solve a big problem in the build, which is recovery. Warcry will give you a lot of life regen in a short period and will give you Endurance Charges. Because we are using Immortal Call as our guard skill. The uptime of the guard skill will be much greater than 1 second, which is an excellent combination.

Will The Nerf Have An Impact?

Some players may have noticed that in this patch, they removed the reduced mana cost mods from jewels. But this isn’t a big issue for me since we’re only using one mod, so I think this build will still be good.

Explosive Trap Of Shrapnel

I know everyone is talking about Explosive Trap of Shrapnel. This patch they increased gem damage to reduce the area of effect of the explosions. This reduces the overlap of explosions, meaning less damage than before.

From my testing so far, the base Explosive Trap and Explosive Trap of Shrapnel do almost the same damage if we talk about single target damage. However, I think it’s better to clear with Shrapnel, which you can use to kill map bosses. But when you want to challenge Ubers or harder content, you need the basic Explosive Trap.

There is also a personal issue with Explosive Trap of Shrapnel, namely that you have to farm the lab for it. I think this is not a good plan because it all depends on RNG and maybe you won’t see what you want for 3 hours. But of course, if you enjoy growing gems, then go for it!

Mana Issues And Physical Reduction

Also, there are two issues with this build. The first is mana. Our traps are very expensive in mana, so we’ll need to use Mana Flasks until the mana costs of our rings and amulets are reduced.

If you are lucky enough, or you have a little extra POE Currency, you can buy Praxis. It will easily solve your mana problem until you get the gear.

The second problem is that when you open POB, you will see that our build does not have any physical reduction. But it doesn’t matter, because we have more than 70% chance of avoiding enemy attacks, and we have enough energy shield and life pool to withstand bigger hits.

I played this build last league and completed my Atlas, defeating all endgame bosses without armor on my character. Keep in mind that you’ll get additional physical damage reduction from Endurance Charges thanks to the new support gem and Enduring Cry.

Passive Tree

Next, let’s walk through how to navigate in my version of Path of Building.

Passive trees are the most important to a good leveling experience. You can see at the bottom, click this button and get a drop-down menu and select the current level for the corresponding tree.

First, grab a Trap Wheel here in the level 22 tree instead of going to Written in Blood. In the next one, you can choose what to pick first, but I recommend going with Snowforged and Elemental Mastery here. This is also your first lab time.

When you do the second lab, on the level 55 tree. Most of the time, you get mastery because you get Polymath Ascendancy node. The different types of masteries you assign will do more damage. So that’s why I chose a lot of masteries this time. Here again is a single small node that will be counted on the next tree.

On level 69 of the tree, you will complete the third lab and complete the campaign. I want to draw your attention to the fact that there is a node here that gives +10 Strength. Besides, if you feel you’re lacking damage, you can also get extra Curse nodes and add a second Curse to the build.

Other Tips

You may also want to ask some FAQs, such as the pros and cons of this build, and learn more about Transfigured Gems, mana issues, and how to solve them.

Here, I would like to talk more about leveling. As you probably know, I don’t like using other skills to level up other than my main one, so that’s why I’m not using Rolling Magma or other methods to level up here. I know this isn’t the most efficient way to complete a campaign, but for me it’s a more enjoyable experience.

I also try to include weapon progression here, what gear you can use early on, or how I did it. Even in the early stages of the league, these weapons should be cheap. Of course, this is my personal preference, but if you have something better in your pocket, I wouldn’t stop you!

Another thing that is in outrageous demand is the crafting part. You can learn how to craft items with this build with a very high success rate. Don’t forget to always double or even triple check before embarking on expensive crafting methods.

Gem Setup

After this part is completed, only the gem part is left, which also contains the drop-down menu next to the skill set. Click on the appropriate level your character has and try using gems. Don’t worry if you can’t find the 4-link at the moment, you will find it later.

At level 38+, this is where Herald of Ash fits in. But you cannot use this Herald unless you have one of the reservation wheels found in the level 48 tree. So please keep this in mind.

Bandit And Pantheon

Maybe you’re curious about Bandit and Pantheon. For Bandit, Alira is a good choice. She’s great for the early and mid game because of her mana regen, resistance and crit multi.

When it comes to Pantheon, Soul of Solaris must not be missed. If you haven’t been hit recently, you can upgrade this to take 8% less elemental damage. Also, this will give you a bit of movement speed and physical damage reduction.

Conclusion

Overall, Explosive Trap Trickster is one of my favorite skill and Asdendancy combinations. Trickster Asdendancy is very flexible, so you can easily re-spec other skills if you wish. Regardless, I hope you’ll find this league starter useful.