Cooldown & Energy
This build revolves around one goal: 100% uptime on 
Death Trap, so you can infinitely cast it. To make this work, there are four non-negotiable breakpoints you need to hit:
- The Cooldown: You must reduce your Death Trap cooldown to 15 seconds or less through gear and tempering.
- The Energy Bank: You need a maximum energy level of at least 225.
- The Restoration: You need to be able to restore 225 energy back immediately.
- The Reduction: You need Trap Arm Time Reduction
Why 225 Energy? Because we use the 
Preparation Specialization alongside 
Beastfall Boots to fully reset that cooldown the moment we spend our energy.
Cooldown Reduction:
Greater Affix Cooldown Reduction on as many pieces as possible (e.g. Helmet, Gloves, Rings, and Amulet), and Greater Affix Cooldown Tempers on your Rings and Amulet. There is also Trap Cooldown Reduction on the 
Deadly Ambush Paragon Board.
Equal or more than 225 Maximum Energy:
You get this through +Maximum Resource on your Chest, +Maximum Resource on your Charms and the Unique Charm 
Sea Lord's Fine Gloves, providing you 30% more Energy once fully stacked.
Restoring 225 Energy:
To restore 225 Energy we utilize the 
Aspect of Aftermath on one of our Rings. To do that, you need 40 Ranks of Death Trap with a min-rolled or 25 Ranks with a max-rolled one. We get an additional 25 Energy restored by Beastfall Boots. Now how do we get that many Ranks of Death Trap? Simple, via 
Vehement Brawler's Aspect, Charms and our Amulet. Charms can get up to 4 ranks to Trap Skills each and our Amulet can roll Ranks to Trap or Ranks to All Skills. Get as many ranks as necessary to fulfill the requirement.
Trap Arm Time Reduction:
You need to temper it on your Gloves from the offensive category and get it in the Paragon on Deadly Ambush. This is necessary because there can only be a finite amount of Death Traps laid out before they are overwritten, unless they spring before that happens. Meaning, with maximum Trap Arm Time Reduction, they spring in 0.15 seconds.
Leveling
You can not level with this build. I would recommend you level with the Dance of Knives Leveling guide.
Runes
Cir
Vex is best in Slot due to granting Skill Ranks.- ZANGar is mandatory to get closer to 100% Critical Hit Chance.
Alternative Runewords:
- ZanJah can be used to go even faster.
- PocMot is a choice if you are lazy do not want to press
Dark Shroud manually. - CirLAC for more damage reduction.
- ZANQue for more consistent Barrier.
Masterworking and Greater Affix Priority
If you want to learn more about Masterworking and Tempering, check out our Masterworking and Tempering Guide.
Attack Speed Breakpoints
The optimal Attack Speed Breakpoints are different for each variant. Check the respective description in the variant you are using.
To avoid wasting Attack Speed, you can calculate the Attack Speed Breakpoints for your skills using THIS SHEET.
You might be wondering how frames translate into actual Cast Speed. Because the server runs at 60 frames per second the way we translate frames into Cast Speed is with the formula: 60 / Frames = Casts per Second.
Affix Choices
With Season 13 reworking the damage affixes on gear, for this build we have a simple priority:
Critical Strike Damage Multiplier > Vulnerable Damage Multiplier > Shadow / All Damage Multiplier. Note that Shadow and All Damage fall into the exact same damage category, so you always want to pick the higher of the two. These make a real difference in your build and can be very important to great damage output.
If you want to calculate your relative damage gains properly, use this sheet by Avarilyn.
Frequently Asked Questions
I can not spam Death Trap infinitely, what am I doing wrong?
Make sure to:
- Have your Death Trap below 15 seconds Cooldown.
- This requires a lot of Cooldown Reduction, Death Trap Skill Ranks and good Tempering rolls and Masterworks.
- Have means to restore 225 Energy.
- Actually have 225 Energy in the first place
- Get +Maximum Resource on your Chest and 2-3 Charms, supplement on Amulet if required.
- Sea Lord's Fine Gloves multiplies your Energy by up to 30%.
- So with at least 173 Energy in town, you get 173 * 1.3 = 224.9 Energy which is perfectly fine.
- Have Preparation as Specialization equipped.
- Have Trap Arm Time Reduction on your Gloves and in the Paragaon Board Deadly Ambush.
I feel very squishy, what to do?
- Eldritch Bounty got bug fixed and now correctly provides +25%[x] all resistance.
- A good way to get tankier is to upgrade your Gems in your Rings & Amulet.
- You can also swap Gar for Que and Vex for LAC.
- Once you have enough Damage for Torment 12, you can equip Pants with the
Aspect of Glynn's Anvil with +Maximum Resolve Temper (GA+MW) instead of 
Eyes in the Dark. This is a significant DPS loss, however, it also provides a ton of DR, but the best method if you really do not want to die. - You can also go back to
Harlequin Crest instead of 
Heir of Perdition at a hefty DPS loss. - Are there no good ways to boost tankyness without losing so much DPS?
- To be fair, not really, you can try to go for more defensive affixes on your Charms, prioritize Max-Life, invest more Paragon Points into Armor / All Resist / Max Life, but at the end of the Day, this build relies a lot on good positioning and using your Mobility to move out of harm's way.
- Once Eldritch Bounty is fixed, it will be much easier.
- Alternatively, use Endurant Faith as your Unique Charm instead of Sea Lord's Fine Gloves.
- That requires supplementing more Energy from your Set Charms though.
Where can I get 
Rustbitten Dirk?
- Rustbitten Dirk is a random drop from Lair Bosses, so no target farm. You can upgrade white Daggers in the Horadric Cube to Unique. If you do not have white Daggers, use the remove affix recipe on blue or yellow ones until they are white.
I can not get Shadow Step Cooldown below 3.25 seconds, what can I do?
- Make sure to get Mobility Cooldown Reduction tempered on your Beastfall Boots. Also, you need the Mobility CDR from Danse Macabre. Further you also require a Cooldown Reduction Seal.
- All of this, is on top of having Masterworked Greater Affix CDR everywhere.
- Harlequin Crest has to be used instead of Heir of Perdition if you do not have a CDR Seal.
- Infinite Step is very difficult to gear properly, so make sure you have everything required.
+Trap Ranks vs +Maximum Resource on Charms
- You need to balance these out so that you restore at least equal to the amount of Maximum Energy you have. There is no point in having more Maximum Energy if you can not restore it with every cast.
Rogue
Artifice Shadow Step without a Cooldown.
Sudden Death Death Trap and 
Explosive Trigger Death Trap are bugged and does not properly reset their Cooldown with Preparation equipped. However, this does not affect any of the choices in this guide.
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