[Top 5] Path of Exile Best Trap Builds (3.20.2)

Updated:

24 Apr 2023

This one comes with a full disclaimer, because traps, and Saboteur in general, has been gutted as the de-facto trap Ascendancy, and thus most of the builds lost significant power and will need re-adjusting post 3.21!

5 – Seismic Trap

Though Saboteur has been nerfed heavily, and this would be a risky maneuver, it’s impossible to deny this skill’s durability and capacity to stay relevant, nerf after nerf. The Poison variant of Seismic may be gone. Still, because this skill is physical, it has more than one way of scaling, and perhaps cold damage would be the way to go.

What Seismic Trap Excels in:

Melting map bosses.
It’s super budget-friendly and can do all content without an issue, despite several nerfs in the past.
Enjoyable playstyle where you get to run around and dodge instead of face-tanking.

Pick Seismic Trap if you Like:

Being able to farm Pinnacle and Uber Bosses before anyone else, without good gear.
Learning Boss mechanics for new and difficult fights.
Screen Wide explosions.
Having more damage than knowing what to do with it.

Seismic Trap full details:

A few of the biggest nerfs to Saboteur are the removal of easy access to cooldown for traps and the mana cost reduction. A way to circumvent that is by increasing duration and ignoring most of that cost with EB.
Because of how poison duration was nerfed by about half in the passive tree, going for Poison Seismic wouldn’t be a good idea. Thus, going Cold Conversion would be the best for this fabulous and hard-hitting skill.
As usual, you’d scale your damage through gem levels to get as much flat phys as possible and convert your Phys, initially with Hrimsorrow. Later on, you’d go with Hatred WEs, and a good pair of 60% phys to cold gloves, allowing you full elemental damage.

For more information, check here: https://poe.ninja/sanctum/builds/char/Failbear/Failbear_InnerSanctum?time-machine=week-13&i=7&search=time-machine%3Dweek-13%26skill%3DSeismic-Trap%26sort%3Ddps%26seismic-trap-support%3D!Unbound-Ailments-Support

4 – Righteous Fire/Fire Trap Juggernaut

After the nerfs to Inquisitor, though still a strong choice for RF and Fire Trap, Juggernaut gained massive popularity thanks to Pohx, especially if you enjoy being immortal and still killing enemies by attrition, this build is for you!

What the RF/Fire Trap Jugg Excels in:

Safe Bossing
Insanely Tanky
Can clear quite quickly with Maven Boots
League Starter, HC, SSF Viable

Pick Righteous Fire/Fire Trap if you Like:

Cruise through maps without a care in the world, and nothing hurt you
Ignore all downsides and survivability issues most people suffer with degens and ground dots
Clear as quickly as you Shield Charge, with everything exploding around you.

RF/Fire Trap full details:

RF works by dealing damage based on our ES and Life pool. We scale as much HP as possible to increase the base value, which in turn gets increased by our supports. We aim to use a Pseudo 6/7-Link helmet, with Concentrated AoE, Burning Damage, and 30% more elemental multiplier from Essence of Horror. Which is absurdly expensive to craft, but it’s BiS.
Our defenses come from Brass Dome, which grants us a whopping 5% max all res, scaling max res in the passive tree as well as using a Saffel’s for another +4%, to reach 88% max fire res and 87% cold and lightning resistance.
As a secondary source of damage, we use Fire Trap. You can either slot it in the 6L Brass Dome (look for good corruptions, like +2 Duration or +1 all), or in the helmet, with the Pseudo 6~7 Link.

For more information, check here: https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/OG_IMMORTAL/OG_RF?time-machine=week-3&i=0&search=time-machine%3Dweek-3%26class%3DJuggernaut%26skill%3DRighteous-Fire%26sort%3Ddps

3 – Hexblast Saboteur

This funky build uses some weird mechanics to get as much life as possible, while also getting damage scaled off of that life. It can reach some impressive damage; for those who enjoy it, it’s downright OP.

What Hexblast Excels in:

Fairly Tanky
Insane single-target damage
Scaling life and getting damage out of it
Can do all content
Quite the budget option if you need it to be

Pick Hexblast if you Like:

Pre-laying all your damage and instantly exploding your enemies with a single detonation
Smart use of niche mechanics to scale your damage
Traps playstyle

Hexblast Mines full details:

We scale as much life as possible because Rathpith Globe, after the buffs to it in 3.19, started scaling our Spell Damage and Crit Chance for Spells in a 1:20 ratio. With a single item, you can get over 320% increased Spell Damage and Critical Strike Chance for Spells. It does come with the downside of making your mines cost life.
To circumvent that and increase the amount of life we have, we use Dissolution of Flesh, a unique Jewel from Searing Exarch that grants up to a 30% MORE multiplier to our life, and makes it so all damage we take become reserved instead.
This enables a different playstyle that might suffer from DoTs but is great at taking single big one-shot hits, and not dying.
Hexblast itself works by consuming a curse when it triggers, and with over 20 traps on the ground, you need a quick way of applying said curses. Thus, Profane Proxy. It makes it so the curse you put in is applied constantly by the Skitterbot of your choosing and makes it so all triggers of your mines have 100% more multiplier damage.

For more information, check here: https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/t%EC%97%86e%EB%A7%91%EC%9D%80i/%EC%84%9C%EC%9C%A8%EC%89%90%EB%8F%84%EC%9A%B0?i=4&search=class%3DSaboteur%26skill%3DHexblast%26sort%3Ddps

2 – Explosive Trap Saboteur

This is a funky build, though very much strong, despite the massive nerfs to Saboteur. Besides Ice Trap, this would be my top recommendation if you want to play a trap build, because of how easy it is to start with. It does lack in some departments (all traps do), but it can achieve insanely high numbers.

What Explosive Trap Excels in:

Very off-meta, thus cheaper
Somewhat tanky despite low life numbers
Insane DPS
Perfect for bossing

Pick Explosive Trap if you Like:

Pre-laying all your traps to create a nuclear explosion at the boss’ feet
Uniquely scaling traps
Trap playstyle

Explosive Trap full details:

Explosive Trap is a physical trap and spell, that converts its damage into Fire. As such, you can take liberties and get a ton of “gain Physical as X Element” in order to massively scale the damage, as the base damage of the skill is physical and can be converted and added by all elements.
A fantastic way of doing that is by scaling Herald of Ash, which at baseline grants you 15% of Phys added as Fire, but with buff effect and Circles of Anguish, that number almost doubles. Another good way is through Ashes, which converts the remaining % of Phys (Explosive Trap converts only 50% to Fire) to Cold, and by using Ashes of the Stars, this goes up to 100%. But because of how conversion works, the original conversion takes precedence.
You then convert 50% of Physical to Fire and 50% to Cold. You also add this beautiful gem, Cold to Fire Support to the skill links. Then suddenly, all that Cold damage gets converted again to Fire and gains a massive boost by adding over 30% of Cold damage as Extra Fire. It can be quite confusing, but all this adds up to insane levels of damage!

For more information, check here: https://poe.ninja/sanctum/builds/char/chu89/%E7%A9%BA%E4%B9%9F%E4%B8%8A%E4%BA%BA?time-machine=week-13&i=4&search=time-machine%3Dweek-13%26skill%3DDivergent-Explosive-Trap%26sort%3Ddps

1 – K2Gaming’s Ice Trap Saboteur

One of my favourite builds of all time, having played multiple variations of it to mixed and great success, I had the joy of playing a variation I made following almost the exact same core tenets of this build, just a lot tankier and using a Mageblood (you don’t need it, I just love MB).

This build relies on stacking as many maximum Power Charges (and Endurance!!) in order to make the best out of Badge of the Brotherhood, and by being a supremely strong skill, and using the absolutely busted reworked Heatshiver, it gains up to 130% Cold damage as Fire. With a single item!

What Ice Trap Saboteur Excels in:

Absolutely insane amounts of single-target damage (over 300 million!!!!!)
Good enough clearing, though this is straight-up a bossing character.
Surprisingly cheap to get it together (less than 40 divines).
Can league start with a tankier and more mapping-oriented character and transition to Uber Bossing.

Pick Ice Trap Saboteur if you Like:

Pre-laying your traps to instantly phase all bosses (yes, all, even Ubers)
Dealing so much damage that your traps freeze not only the bosses but your screen as well.
Trap playstyle
Pretty flowers (MTX)

Ice Trap Saboteur Full Details:

As mentioned before, this build uses the beyond-broken and unbalanced reworked unique Heatshiver, which grants your chill as fire damage. Since we easily hit 30% chill on any mob, we gain 30% Cold Damage Added as Fire (which is a LOT), but it has a second line that says that we gain 100% Cold Damage Added as Fire if the enemy is frozen! And we do freeze Ubers. Searing Exarch and Eater of Worlds are very often instantly deleted and killed with this build.
It also makes amazing use of several synergistic uniques, like Badge of the Brotherhood, Void Battery, Ralakesh’s Impatience and Malachai’s Loop, as well as ‘stealing’ Assassin’s node Unstable Infusion, granting us yet another Maximum Power Charge. This means we reach 13 Power Charges and because of Badge of the Brotherhood, 13 Frenzy Charges as well!
But the best thing is that with Ralakesh, we don’t need to care about generating those charges, as they’re always up when we are standing still, and we are always standing still when throwing traps. This pair of boots circumvents all the negatives of both Militant’s Faith keystone Inner Conviction, which grants 3% more Spell Damage per Frenzy Charge, at the cost of removing any form of generation of said charge, as well as Malachai’s Loop downside, of losing all Power Charges when we reach maximum charges.

For more information, check here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFUPqmDNW80