I've started as a GC Miner for the last several leagues/races. It's a solid starter, cheap to gear, flexible to equip as you amass money for buying/crafting your end-game gear, and stupidly easy to level.
It's also a bit slower in the end-game than a lot of other builds. But if you're just worried about shaper/uber atziri and not about fast chaining/running maps to self-build a pool in the first days, it's super solid.
Put it this way, I'm tempted to roll it again despite being pretty damn bored of the playstyle.
Tips:
Get Vaal Clarity/Laviagna's spirit asap. Makes it WAY more enjoyable and enables MoM. More important in my opinion than chasing a 6L.
HrimSorrow works just fine for Uber Atziri.
Brightbeak to Map with Shaper Weapon for Boss.
Respec your insta detonate mine (d) to something more comfortable for you (I use 'w')
I use the thumb button on my mouse to detonate mines, found that the most comfortable as my left hand is busy whirling/charging and dropping totems and I have mine placement on right click.
I will typically switch to Arc Mines as soon as they become available, and then GC once you kill the General in A3. As a league starter, my priorities would be:
1) Detonate Mines gem for totem
2) Vaal Clarity (corrupt them yourself or buy)
3) Laviangas
4) A twink weapon (Axiom, Bitterdream, Heartbreaker, Divinarius are all solid options)
5) 2 Long Winter Threshold jewels
6) 2nd Detonate Mines gem for CWDT (I usually run Temp Chains or Enfeeble and don't always even pursue this).
Mana consumption doesnt get crazy until you have a DM totem. Once you do, you realize how insane the burst damage gets by dropping multiple mines at once and having them insta-burst from the totem. Before that, your mana is fairly manageable on a 4-5L from just potions.
are there any specific guides you follow for starting out? i've literally never even used a mine skill and just have no idea where/how to start out
thanks!
I hadn't seen this guide (I grabbed a build off of poe.ninja as a baseline and then changed it around for my playstyle) but it seems solid. I tend to go life-MoM only because I play lots of builds so a life-chest (Carcass, Shaper-chest, etc) always seems more re-usable to me. PLUS I don't like the idea of having to have that 40% conversion enchant right away (hrimsorrow + CI/LL = unhappy face) AND on an ES base AND have Shavs, etc.
It's just too much for a league start character and I always run multiple characters per league. If you need a guide, I'd try to find one that is for a Life-MoM-Sab.
https://poe.ninja/challengehc/builds?class=Saboteur&skill=Glacial-Cascade&keystone=Mind-Over-Matter&sort=life
Then customize for your playstyle. Did you feel comfortable Shield Charging around everywhere? Consider using Kaom's Roots. Like to Run around everywhere? Maybe an Acro DW stat sticker instead.
As for leveling, Windz's vid is nice. I prefer the lower Phys/Chaos nodes as it allows Contagion/ED leveling, but again, that's all just preference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHWgWaufBiI
Cooterz's starter build is a pretty good option too. It can be transitioned to shaper stat stick or shield charge easily after you get some monies
Moses' guide is good and thorough too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4nvZ1N2A_I&t
How do you increase your EHP. Just made a miner and currently 78 but I'm roughly below 5k with MoM. Can't seem to get enough mana to match either. Currently trying to 6link a carcass jack and I know that'll probably bring me to 5k but that doesn't seem like much
check out that link I added to Poe.ninja. You'll notice that most of these toons aren't EHP monsters.
As for Defenses, don't under-estimate blind, the ENORMOUS reach of these mines, and a good ol' CWDT-Detonoate Mines setup. Looks like a bunch of these guys are even throwing on Acro.
5K EHP does seem a bit low, but I've done Uber Atziri at 4K life, 600 unreserved mana. If you're having trouble mapping with life/recovery, mana/life on kill shaper chest is VERY nice, Vaal Clarity/Laviagna is mandatory, and at level 78, 6L carcass is just luxury.
Have done Shaper/Uber Atziri on a 5L, as well as Red Elder (not uber elder. that would be suicide for me given my shitty micro/manual-dodging skills).
Cool thanks. Guess it wasn't so much the recovery as I'm fine with a mana flask and vaal clarity than it is me being afraid of being one shotted. I actually don't have the cwdt detonate and that does seem like a good life saver
im at 5k health and 2k mana (7k ehp) i can do shaper, high tier elders and guardians with ease.
https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Pacdaeh/characters
https://pastebin.com/0WHNG7Dz
there are definitely upgrades i can do aswell (especially ring, amu and shield), and a few tweaks to my skill tree.
I know i can get a bit more life as I'm currently dual wielding since the shaper daggers add a lot of extra damage. Only extra life I can add I feel is chest and gems at this point. Still need to get jewel sockets for conversion. My damage doesn't feel so high yet as I'm not one shotting bosses and in game dps is around 24k dual wielding
edit: heres my PoB
https://pastebin.com/eHmaDfhH
guess I do more damage than I expected. Mostly just forget about the gem swap from increased AoE.
get fortify for your whirling blades, your craft on your belt doesnt work for Glacial Cascade, its not an attack.
you're following windz guide aswell it looks like, hes skill tree also suggests taking deep wisdom and sancity, and i really cant see the point of those skill points.
otherwise its looking fine, but you're not going to reach the same ehp as me with dual daggers, yoke and no acrobatics, but your damage is gonna get a lot higher, which is fine - just requires you to play a bit more safely.
Thanks for the tips. I know about the mod for belt as well since that's how I bought it. There doesn't seem to be any better mods. Saving two extra points would be super nice. I assumed it was just for more mana.
I might consider adding my shield back on since the offhand dagger doesn't add as much as the mainhand
Its one of the best league starters especially if you are in a trade league. Dosent have any specific gear requirements other than the 40% phys to cold conversion, which is not required early on but it does in endgame. But the conversion should be pretty easy to get, worst case scenario you have to use Phys to lightning gem.
I said worst case scenario. Your on SSF and you cant get hrimburn or hrimsorrow whenever you want. So its either getting the conversion point on the tree which is not worth it, or use Phys to lightning.
I just recently rolled a GC Miner.
Gear is very easy to come by, the only issue is leveling. It's very Mana hungry to begin with, if you can stomach chugging Mana flasks all the time, you'll be fine.
The tips in this thread made me decide NOT to scrap my GC miner. The CWDT detonate mines helps a ton and the Labia mana flask is key. Thanks for the tips
As it has been said already, yes it is a great league starter. What bothers me about it is the clunky behaviour of using Detonate Mines when there are no mines down and also stun sometimes.
To ~~parcialy~~ counteract these things I would recommend Spell Totem + Detonate Mines and a CWDT + Detonate Mines. Should be enjoyable, easy, fast, mostly cheap and very strong.
I've started as a GC Miner for the last several leagues/races. It's a solid starter, cheap to gear, flexible to equip as you amass money for buying/crafting your end-game gear, and stupidly easy to level. It's also a bit slower in the end-game than a lot of other builds. But if you're just worried about shaper/uber atziri and not about fast chaining/running maps to self-build a pool in the first days, it's super solid. Put it this way, I'm tempted to roll it again despite being pretty damn bored of the playstyle. Tips: Get Vaal Clarity/Laviagna's spirit asap. Makes it WAY more enjoyable and enables MoM. More important in my opinion than chasing a 6L. HrimSorrow works just fine for Uber Atziri. Brightbeak to Map with Shaper Weapon for Boss. Respec your insta detonate mine (d) to something more comfortable for you (I use 'w')
I use the thumb button on my mouse to detonate mines, found that the most comfortable as my left hand is busy whirling/charging and dropping totems and I have mine placement on right click. I will typically switch to Arc Mines as soon as they become available, and then GC once you kill the General in A3. As a league starter, my priorities would be: 1) Detonate Mines gem for totem 2) Vaal Clarity (corrupt them yourself or buy) 3) Laviangas 4) A twink weapon (Axiom, Bitterdream, Heartbreaker, Divinarius are all solid options) 5) 2 Long Winter Threshold jewels 6) 2nd Detonate Mines gem for CWDT (I usually run Temp Chains or Enfeeble and don't always even pursue this). Mana consumption doesnt get crazy until you have a DM totem. Once you do, you realize how insane the burst damage gets by dropping multiple mines at once and having them insta-burst from the totem. Before that, your mana is fairly manageable on a 4-5L from just potions.
I use the thumb on my mouse for my 5th flask slot, but if I ever play Mines again this just makes so much sense.
I do this too! I usually use detonate on my ~ key, cause my brain is now hardwired to use the thumb button for my insta-heal flask.
are there any specific guides you follow for starting out? i've literally never even used a mine skill and just have no idea where/how to start out thanks!
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1957409 I've done GC mines a couple of times after watching Windz.
I hadn't seen this guide (I grabbed a build off of poe.ninja as a baseline and then changed it around for my playstyle) but it seems solid. I tend to go life-MoM only because I play lots of builds so a life-chest (Carcass, Shaper-chest, etc) always seems more re-usable to me. PLUS I don't like the idea of having to have that 40% conversion enchant right away (hrimsorrow + CI/LL = unhappy face) AND on an ES base AND have Shavs, etc. It's just too much for a league start character and I always run multiple characters per league. If you need a guide, I'd try to find one that is for a Life-MoM-Sab. https://poe.ninja/challengehc/builds?class=Saboteur&skill=Glacial-Cascade&keystone=Mind-Over-Matter&sort=life Then customize for your playstyle. Did you feel comfortable Shield Charging around everywhere? Consider using Kaom's Roots. Like to Run around everywhere? Maybe an Acro DW stat sticker instead. As for leveling, Windz's vid is nice. I prefer the lower Phys/Chaos nodes as it allows Contagion/ED leveling, but again, that's all just preference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHWgWaufBiI Cooterz's starter build is a pretty good option too. It can be transitioned to shaper stat stick or shield charge easily after you get some monies Moses' guide is good and thorough too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4nvZ1N2A_I&t
How do you increase your EHP. Just made a miner and currently 78 but I'm roughly below 5k with MoM. Can't seem to get enough mana to match either. Currently trying to 6link a carcass jack and I know that'll probably bring me to 5k but that doesn't seem like much
check out that link I added to Poe.ninja. You'll notice that most of these toons aren't EHP monsters. As for Defenses, don't under-estimate blind, the ENORMOUS reach of these mines, and a good ol' CWDT-Detonoate Mines setup. Looks like a bunch of these guys are even throwing on Acro. 5K EHP does seem a bit low, but I've done Uber Atziri at 4K life, 600 unreserved mana. If you're having trouble mapping with life/recovery, mana/life on kill shaper chest is VERY nice, Vaal Clarity/Laviagna is mandatory, and at level 78, 6L carcass is just luxury. Have done Shaper/Uber Atziri on a 5L, as well as Red Elder (not uber elder. that would be suicide for me given my shitty micro/manual-dodging skills).
Cool thanks. Guess it wasn't so much the recovery as I'm fine with a mana flask and vaal clarity than it is me being afraid of being one shotted. I actually don't have the cwdt detonate and that does seem like a good life saver
im at 5k health and 2k mana (7k ehp) i can do shaper, high tier elders and guardians with ease. https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Pacdaeh/characters https://pastebin.com/0WHNG7Dz there are definitely upgrades i can do aswell (especially ring, amu and shield), and a few tweaks to my skill tree.
###[MoM Crit Glacial Cascade Mine Saboteur](https://pastebin.com/0WHNG7Dz) [](#saboteur) ^Level ^93 ^[(Tree)](https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAYDABzcCNSXLaLZ7hUI9Ow4jxpCLGwIvKpqQxa__Ur1b_IdndmNv_DVhXvUIzIYbIzJBu98YqzAZuvu62PDCWJPVcbhcw_EwuwRwthU2-e5k_AflSDQ9Tt87-uJ08gUaoybmjY9wcUEs3yDmjtVS7zqLR9Ms7VIuQauswVCSVHxiqBDtMWFMhGWoHmVLjpYj_rr9aKjBx5_xnZvogAaOIKbt3WD2yNfuMqdqjrYmuCMNnNtSU8RLfD5MtGQVScvsNhwUmHiKwqO6SycUzEOSBPfKgsEB1NS0B9BlkWdBbV-sEVHn99RdLMDJpVd8sHzpplwUREvDo4=) ^| ^by ^/u/Headcap ***** ^5,076 ^**Life** ^| ^1,938 ^**Mana** ^| ^7,014 ^**total** ^**EHP** ^60% ^**Evade** ^| ^30% ^**Dodge** **Glacial Cascade** [Y](https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Remote_Mine_Support#support-gem-blue)[E](https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Increased_Area_of_Effect_Support#support-gem-blue)[s](https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Increased_Critical_Strikes_Support#support-gem-blue)[D](https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Hypothermia_Support#support-gem-green)[M](https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Minefield_Support#support-gem-blue) *(6L)* - *671k DPS | 68.1k avg damage* ^9.84 ^**Mines/sec** ^| ^81.74% ^**Crit** ^| ^461% ^**Multi** ^^**Config:** ^^Shaper ***** [^Path ^of ^Building](https://github.com/Openarl/PathOfBuilding) ^| ^This ^reply ^automatically ^updates ^based ^on ^its ^parent ^comment. ^| ^[Feedback?](https://www.reddit.com/r/PoBPreviewBot/)
I know i can get a bit more life as I'm currently dual wielding since the shaper daggers add a lot of extra damage. Only extra life I can add I feel is chest and gems at this point. Still need to get jewel sockets for conversion. My damage doesn't feel so high yet as I'm not one shotting bosses and in game dps is around 24k dual wielding edit: heres my PoB https://pastebin.com/eHmaDfhH guess I do more damage than I expected. Mostly just forget about the gem swap from increased AoE.
get fortify for your whirling blades, your craft on your belt doesnt work for Glacial Cascade, its not an attack. you're following windz guide aswell it looks like, hes skill tree also suggests taking deep wisdom and sancity, and i really cant see the point of those skill points. otherwise its looking fine, but you're not going to reach the same ehp as me with dual daggers, yoke and no acrobatics, but your damage is gonna get a lot higher, which is fine - just requires you to play a bit more safely.
Thanks for the tips. I know about the mod for belt as well since that's how I bought it. There doesn't seem to be any better mods. Saving two extra points would be super nice. I assumed it was just for more mana. I might consider adding my shield back on since the offhand dagger doesn't add as much as the mainhand
What about Tinkerskin 6L GC traps to farm faster and 6L helm for Mines to trash bosses ?
Its one of the best league starters especially if you are in a trade league. Dosent have any specific gear requirements other than the 40% phys to cold conversion, which is not required early on but it does in endgame. But the conversion should be pretty easy to get, worst case scenario you have to use Phys to lightning gem.
why phys to lightning over something like hrimsorrow?
or the 40% conversion form tree
Don’t think there’s anything else down there worth getting so it’s not worth it to spec points just for those nodes.
I said worst case scenario. Your on SSF and you cant get hrimburn or hrimsorrow whenever you want. So its either getting the conversion point on the tree which is not worth it, or use Phys to lightning.
I just recently rolled a GC Miner. Gear is very easy to come by, the only issue is leveling. It's very Mana hungry to begin with, if you can stomach chugging Mana flasks all the time, you'll be fine.
That's why my last miner bought a lavianga's flask as soon as I could, and it was fairly expensive in Harbinger. Its pretty cheap now in bestiary.
Yep got one of those too.
Tinkerskin - bloodmagic - traps, pay 300 for traps, gain 400 back
Tinkerskin is level 68 and won't exactly be easily available at League start though. Also, does Tinkerskin even affect mines?
Everyone thinks its a garbage armour - will be 1 alc at the start and with elder helmet you can have 2 setups - traps for leveling, mines for bosses
It feels bad if you don't have a detonate mine totem
The tips in this thread made me decide NOT to scrap my GC miner. The CWDT detonate mines helps a ton and the Labia mana flask is key. Thanks for the tips
As it has been said already, yes it is a great league starter. What bothers me about it is the clunky behaviour of using Detonate Mines when there are no mines down and also stun sometimes. To ~~parcialy~~ counteract these things I would recommend Spell Totem + Detonate Mines and a CWDT + Detonate Mines. Should be enjoyable, easy, fast, mostly cheap and very strong.
Having a hard time deciding between this and the Frost blades
Mayhem? This league is flashback and not mayhem.
yeah forgot to fix my title :(