Have you ever wanted to watch endgame map bosses and pinnacle bosses like The Searing Exarch obliterated instantly in a fiery explosion? Then this Saboteur build utilizing the reworked Hexblast mine skill is the perfect way to cheese your way through all content!
As an experienced Path of Exile gamer and mine-builder from the past 3 leagues, I‘m excited to showcase this explosive playstyle and how it can enable players to destroy all of Path of Exile‘s toughest challenges.
In this definitive guide, I‘ll cover everything you need to know about abusing Hexblast‘s immense added damage mechanics to create screen-wide deadly minefields even the fastest bosses won‘t escape unscathed from!
What Makes Hexblast Mines So Powerful?
Hexblast stands out from other mine skills because it doesn‘t just focus all its damage in one big explosion. Instead, it applies a debuff when each mine is triggered, causing enemies to take increased damage of that mine‘s elemental damage type.
This means with enough mines placed, you can absolutely obliterate even the tankiest rare/unique enemies before they can even react!
The satisfaction of seeing health bars go from 100% to 0% in an instant thanks to meticulously crafted mine sequences is like no other playstyle in Path of Exile!
Combine this with the Saboteur Ascendancy‘s innate bonuses to mine placement speed, mine damage, recovery, blinding enemies, and much more – and you have an incredibly well-rounded character capable of trivializing the Atlas endgame.
Veteran PoE gamers may remember the glory days of Pyroclast Mines and Ball Lightning Mines dominating the damage charts. Well with Hexblast, I can assure you this powerful legacy still remains intact!
Leveling and Early Mapping Gameplan
The smoothness of leveling a mine character has dramatically improved over the past few leagues with more options for leveling uniques and new skill gems being introduced.
Here are my recommendations for quickly progressing from Act 1 to endgame maps as a Hexblast Saboteur:
- Level 1-12: Level with Freezing Pulse mines + added cold/lightning damage. Get all the mine passives behind Saboteur + Blast Cascade first.
- Level 12-28: Make the swap to Icicle Mines once you get the Minefield support gem. Much better clear & single target.
- Level 28-38: Pyroclast Mines comes online here. Hugely improved clear & damage!
- Level 38: Hexblast is ready! Link it with High-impact Mines, Minefield, Charged Mines, Added Lightning for leveling.
- Level 44: Use new Tempest Blast skill for more speed clearing acts/maps.
- Level 55: Equip Tremor Rod unique staff for BIG mine buffs if possible. Also get other uniques like Goldrim, Wanderlust boots to fill resists.
- Level 68-70: Craft life + resist rare gear in preparation for red maps. Get 5 link body armour setup ready.
I recommend taking really tanky leveling nodes on the passive tree first like Constitution, Deflection, Arsonist, etc. Get 170%+ life from tree total. Offense comes from gem levels and supports early!
The key is NOT to skip over investing into defense and utility layers even early on. Getting capped resists, good life pool from tree/gear, supplementing DPS through offensive auras & buffs will carry your damage far enough through early mapping.
Unique Synergies for Hexblast Mines
While rare gear makes up most your itemization for endgame, these uniques have such immense synergies they are staples in every build variation!
![[Hexblast-Mine-Uniques.png]]
Of course, the multiplicative damage boost against cursed enemies from Asenath‘s Chant helmet and additional curse from Whispers of Doom anoint are almost mandatory for endgame bosses.
Support Gem and Skill Optimization
Let‘s analyze some of the top support gem choices for both clearing maps quickly and destroying endgame boss life bars:
![[Hexblast-Mine-Supports.png]]
As you can see, optimizing your link setup based on situation is crucial to excelling with Hexblast Mines during all stages of your PoE journey!
While leveling, I recommend sticking with the tried and tested formula of:
Hexblast + High-Impact Mines + Minefield + Charged Mines + Added Lightning + Inspiration
This gives a great blend of damage, mine count, debuff duration, shock chance, and mana efficiency for smooth acts & early mapping progression.
Step-By-Step Gear Progression
Let‘s break down the key stats and upgrades to target on each gear slot when min-maxing your Saboteur build:
Weapon
- Prioritize high "increased critical strike chance for spells" and "increased spell damage" rolls
- Craft "trigger socketed spell when you use a skill" to automate Wave of Conviction exposure
- Target a 300+ pDPS Sceptre, Wand, Dagger, or Shield for endgame
- Alternative unique options: The Annihilating Light, Axiom Perpetuum
Body Armour
- Craft 20% quality for extra damage
- 6-link with Hexblast setup once possible
- Prioritize life and resistances on other stats
- Unique option: Cloak of Flame converts phys damage to fire
Helmet
- Key stats are life, resist all, mana reservation efficiency, % increased effect of curses on you
- Target 85+ life and 25% effect of curse rolls ideally
- Unique option: Asenath‘s Chant for curse on hit Temp Chains
Boots
- Move speed and resistances most important initially
- Later craft avoidance + life/mana recovery on kill/hit for quality of life
- Can swap in Kaom‘s Roots for stun immunity if struggling with bosses
Gloves
- Focus on life and resists first
- Once geared, get trigger socketed spell for offensive buffs
- Cavalry Charge notable buffs traps and mine throwing speed greatly
Amulet
- Prioritize max life and attributes here
- Target crit multi, crit chance for spells, and damage per power charge as luxury suffixes later
Rings
- Resists and attributes most needed while gearing initially
- Once capped resists, swap to assassin‘s mark on hit curse ring
- Also craft mana regen per level on one ring for sustain
Following these gearing steps and benchmarks will help you seamlessly progress from early red maps up to juiced T16 endgame mapping and pinnacle boss fights!
Defensive Layering
While Saboteur naturally has robust recovery and mitigation tools innately through the blind aura and life/mana regen, investing further into defense remains critical for juiced mapping.
Make sure to get:
- 6k+ Effective life pool
- 75% Attack & Spell Suppression chance
- 50% Evade attacks while blinded (Easy with Avatar of the Veil notable)
- Immune to Corrupted Blood (Craft on jewel)
- Stun Avoidance from the passive tree or Kaom‘s Roots unique boots
- Freezing immunity from "cannot be fully slowed" craft
- Additional defensive curses like Enfeeble via Blasphemy aura
With these defensive layers complete, you‘ll feel extremely tanky and able to facetank all but the very deadliest monster attacks. This builds additional confidence in aggressively positioning your mines!
Conquering Endgame Bosses & Challenges
Now for the fun part – utilizing your ultra-juiced Hexblast Saboteur to annihilate all the games hardest content with satisfying ease!
Before each major boss encounter make sure to pre-buff with:
- Wither totems applying their chaos damage taken debuff
- Wave of Conviction reducing enemy resistances
- Vaal Clarity sustaining high mana costs
- Any offensive temporary buffs like Berzerk or Vaal Righteous Fire
The key strategy is analyzing boss attack patterns during the first attempts and preemptively placing dense sequences of mines just as they transition between phases. This takes some practice but ultimately allows you to instantly skip their most dangerous abilities!
For example, on The Maven you want to place mines around her arena borders the second she flies up to do her slow moving lethal beam attack. If executed properly, she‘ll immediately trigger the mines as she comes down and get nuked before attacking.
While map bosses are typically trivialized outright from raw damage, endgame pinnacle encounters with Sirus, Uber Elder, The Feared, etc may take a few portal attempts while learning. But the satisfying payoff eliminating them in seconds once mastered is so rewarding!
And with the new reworked endgame featuring The Exarch, Eater of Worlds, and Uber Pinnacle bosses – you‘ll be grateful to be able to erase their exponentially more dangerous attacks!
So if you love carefully executing the perfect minefield ambushes, I highly recommend giving this Hexblast Saboteur a try in 3.22 Sentinel league! Let me know how you enjoy demolishing endgame with it below.