[3.23] Life/Strength stacking Explosive Trap of Shrapnel Ascendant | All content viable

Overview of the build: https://youtu.be/w0wAJHEAq34
All ubers: https://youtu.be/uxkudQgGuFo
POB: https://pobb.in/bPjlyFHCjhmQ

Budget for current version is ~200-250 divines, including Mageblood. See notes on budget below.

Pros:
* ~100+ million dps melts most if not all content in the game. Done all challenges in Affliction with this build
* Quite tanky with 11k life, can take some big hits
* Can do any map mods
Cons:
* Dissolution playstyle takes some getting used to
* Mageblood reliant build. Doable without one (check budget discussion), but much better with one.
* Lots of screen clutter from the explosions which can make boss abilities hard to see. Regular explosive trap is a good alternative.

Core of the build


Rathpith Globe gives us 5% increased spell damage and spell critical strike chance per 100 maximum life. At 11,000 life, this is 550% spell damage and crit. The downside is that using or triggering a spell skill makes us sacrifice 10% of our life. How do we use this without constantly dying due to having low life?



Dissolution of the Flesh gives us a hefty 30% more maximum life, and changes the way we lose life from taking damage. Instead of the actual life value being affected, damage taken instead reserves life and is unreserved all at once after no damage is taken for 2 seconds.
We combine this with the Eternal Youth Keystone which makes energy shield recharge instead apply to life. This never* falls off because we technically never take damage to life, which lets us sustain skill life costs and the Rathpith sacrifice. This means that even though we are quite tanky, it's a different kind of tank from a leech or regen based build. We can't stand still and facetank stuff, at least not for too long. You've got to keep on your toes and be able to find those 2 second windows to not take damage and let your life unreserve. I quite like this playstyle and it's generally very safe, the proof is that this build was my first character to level 100.

*If the Dissolution reservation cuts into our current life value, this will stop the recharge. However, if you take some big hits you're going to be running away anyway. The reservation goes away after 2 seconds, and recharge restarts after 4. In practice, it's not super noticeable.


Skill explanation and other offence

Explosive Trap of Shrapnel is a transfigured version of explosive trap. It causes a number of explosions in a secondary area centered around the trigger location which can overlap. The transfigured version has larger base damage and damage effectiveness, and larger explosions. It also has a larger secondary area, which leads to less overlaps than normal explosive trap. PoB calculations are currently wrong saying 100% overlap chance, it's actually around 40% depending on your area. (Thanks to FearlessDumb0 for explaining the proper overlap calculations to me).

Because of this, the single target dps is a little lower than normal explosive trap. However, if the enemy is against a wall you can force more overlaps as explosions can't spawn inside of a wall. The transfigured version also has much better clear thanks to the larger area, so I roll with it all the time.


In 3.23, many skills got their base quality changed due to the removal of alternate qualities. Explosive trap and it's transfigured versions got +2 secondary explosions at 20% quality. This is a big single-target scalar for the skill, so we use Ashes of the Stars for another 30% quality. In total our Explosive Trap causes 15 smaller explosions.


From here the only big "holes" remaining in our offence are crit multi and trap throwing speed, which also just makes the build feel smooth to play. We use Slavedriver's Hand to make cast speed also apply to trap throwing speed and get cast speed from various sources.
We are also using the new unique jewel The Adorned, which lets us use corrupted magic jewels and increases their effect. We have 9 corrupted magic jewels which give a bunch of increased life, trap throwing speed, and crit multi.

Ascendancy choice and passive tree

We are choosing Ascendant's Chieftain and Elementalist nodes. Chieftain lets us cover enemies in ash, making them take 20% increased fire damage. It also gives us 10% increased Strength which helps us stack Strength and Unaffected by Ignite which is very important for Dissolution. Elementalist gives us an extra -20% exposure effect as well Path of the Witch for access to that part of the tree.

Our passive tree is mostly pathing for life, strength (for +1 maximum life per 2 strength), and the plentiful jewel sockets that Scion has access to. We take Avatar of Fire for easy full fire conversion, Iron Will for a good chunk of damage from our 1000 strength, Unwavering Stance for stun immunity, and Pain Attunement for another big chunk of damage. We also path to the Shadow area for some trap damage/utility nodes.

Defences

Since Dissolution means our actual life value isn't important, we can use Petrified Blood to be on Low Life with no downside. This lets us take Pain Attunement for a free 30% more damage. Additionally, Petrified Blood's "When taking Damage from Hits, 40% of Life loss below half Life is Prevented, then (100-81)% of Life loss prevented this way is lost over 4 seconds" synergizes with Dissolution. We are always on Low Life, so we always benefit from the 40% damage reduction. But the Dissolution reservation starts from the top of our life pool. With no other life reservations, this gives us effectively 1.5 health bars.
The life loss over time from Petrified Blood is theoretically counteracted from the Eternal Youth recharge. However, if we're constantly throwing out traps the Rathpith sacrifice keeps us low enough that the degen can actually kill us. To offset this, simply spec some recoup.

You can read more about the Dissolution + Petrified Blood interaction here

One thing you absolutely have to solve on a Dissolution build is damaging ailments and damage over time. Even a tiny single stack of poison can get you killed by preventing your life from unreserving. We get:
* Bleed and Corrupting blood immunity from a flask suffix
* Cannot be Poisoned from boot suffix
* Unaffected by Ignite from Ascendant Chieftan
* Unaffected by Burning Ground from upgraded Abberath Pantheon

The only remaining common degen is Desecrated Ground, which is generally avoidable by not rolling it on your maps. Even then it's doable, just annoying.


Wildwood Ascendancy

We are a Primalist. The charms give us some extra strength, exposure effect, and crit chance if you haven't crit recently. This is always up because it's technically the traps that are critting, not you. Our Flame Dash can still crit but when linked with Controlled Destruction it's not an issue.

The Adrenaline charm requires some tech to use. Petrified Blood means we are always on Low Life and cannot go above it, so we never actually reach low life. But there's a key line on Petrified Blood: "Life Recovery other than Flasks cannot Recover Life to above Low Life". Since we are using a Mageblood with no great option for a 5th unique flask, we can simply use a life flask every once in a while to recover life above Low Life, then continue throwing traps to proc Adrenaline. This can be thought of as a utility flask that gives Adrenaline (100% increased damage, 25% increased Attack, Cast, and Movement Speed, and 10% PDR). Very strong when you think of it that way.


Gear + how to craft


Gems
Main 6link:
Explosive Trap - Charged Traps - Awakened Elemental Focus - Empower - Awakened Added Fire Damage - Awakened Fire Penetration

Curses and damage:
Assassin's Mark - Flammability - Bear Trap - Lifetap

Reservations:
Herald of Ash - Summon Skitterbots - Petrified Blood

Utility:
Immortal Call - Cast when Damage Taken - Lifetap
Shield Charge - Faster Attacks
Flame Dash - Controlled Destruction

Budget discussion
High roll Adorned jewels get quite expensive, and absolutely not necessary. I was using a cheap 108% roll for the majority of my time on this character.
Mageblood is really hard to give up, but it's probably doable with a Brutal Restraint for the Traitor keystone and using a bismuth flask to cap res. If enough people are interested I'll make a budget pob and maybe some levelling tips.

Thanks for reading!

Looks pretty cool, currently leveling a scion to try it out, about what level would you recommend swapping over to the build from a twink leveling setup?

Edit: Currently level 94, feels great. I just did a twink leveling setup until level 72 and swapped to the build with no issues at all. Overall leveling from then on has been pretty smooth besides me just diving into packs like an idiot lol.