PathofEvening's Pyroclast Mine Saboteur Build Guide (Poe Keepers of the Flame 3.27)

November 8th, 2025, 09:58

Introduction

Pyroclast Mine Saboteur is a simple, powerful league start build. It deals tons of boss damage on a low budget, and the playstyle is extremely easy: throw mines at monsters, the mines explode automatically, and the monsters die. That’s it.

Despite the incredible level of simplicity, this build is very strong. It uses several defensive layers to remain tanky, and it clears maps easily.

Video Guide

Here is a video guide going over the build in full detail:

What to Expect

🔸 Easy campaign clear ✔️
🔸 Huge boss damage on a low budget ✔️
🔸 Runs nearly all map mods ✔️
🔸 Reflect immune ✔️
🔸 Hybrid Evasion/Energy Shield builds can be squishy early in maps ❗
🔸 Tier 17 maps and uber bosses require investment ❌
🔸 Not the fastest mapper ❌

Pyroclast Mine

The primary skill in the build is Pyroclast Mine, which launches fiery projectiles at nearby enemies. The mines apply -15% Fire Resistance to nearby enemies. This effect does not stack if multiple mines are placed, but it can be scaled up by the mod “Increased Effect of Auras from Mines.” Saboteur gets an enormous amount of this bonus (150 percent!), granting the build a lot of elemental resistance penetration.

Playstyle

One of the main advantages that mines grant over other skill types is that you can stack a large number of them up before engaging with a boss. Once the boss activates, you can detonate all of the mines at once, giving yourself a huge opening burst of damage. Pyroclast Mine pushes this advantage harder than other mine skills by granting an extra projectile for every three mines in the detonation chain sequence. The skill fires three projectiles by default, so a detonation chain of 18 or more mines will deal triple damage by the end of the sequence.

This is important! To accomplish this level of burst damage, you have to deactivate the Automation linked to Detonate Mines prior to placing your big pool of mines, then manually cast Detonate Mines once you are ready to kill the boss. If you keep throwing more Pyroclast Mines down before the detonation chain has completed, they will be added into the chain and gain additional projectiles. Once the detonation chain is finished, you can reactivate Automation and go back to your normal style of play.

Build Overview

Pros & Cons

➕ Unethical boss damage
➕ Reflect immunity
➕ Several defensive layers

➖ Not the fastest mapper
➖ No Heralds — no monster on-death explosions
➖ Optimal gear can be expensive

Viability in Numbers

🔸 New Player Friendliness: ★★★★★
🔸 Playstyle: ★★★★★
🔸 Ease of Gearing: ★★★★☆
🔸 Easily Executable: ★★★★★

Map Modifiers to Avoid

Mine builds make great league starters because they can run nearly all map mods. Below is the complete list of map modifiers you will want to avoid with this build.

❗Players cannot Regenerate Life, Mana, or Energy Shield
❗Players have 60% less Recovery Rate of Life and Energy Shield

You can enter the following string (including the quotation marks) into search boxes within your stash to filter out any maps that have the above modifiers.
WARNING! When copy-pasting this regex into the game, your computer may add extra spaces at the beginning and end of the text. You must remove those spaces in order for the regex to work properly!

“!gen|s rec”

Defensive Layers

The Saboteur bonus Born in the Shadows blinds enemies, reducing their chance to hit. It also grants 15% damage reduction against blinded enemies. The build combines those bonuses with a large amount of Evasion and Ghost Dance to survive high-level maps and bosses. Below is a list of the defensive layers that make this build tanky.

🔸5000+ Combined Life and Energy Shield
🔸30000+ Evasion
🔸Enemies Are Blinded
🔸15% Damage Reduction Against Blinded Enemies
🔸Up to 10% Damage Reduction Against Enemies Near Your Mines
🔸Up to 12.5% of Maximum Life Regenerated per Second
🔸Ghost Dance
🔸100% Spell Suppression

Build Resources

Leveling

This build is a League Starter. It is capable of progressing from the very beginning of the game with absolutely no gear or currency, all the way through the entirety of the endgame. Be sure to follow along with the Path of Building we’re providing as you progress the character. We’re also including passive trees and skill gem recommendations to help you progress from the very beginning of Act 1 all the way through Tier 17 maps and uber bosses.

You can find a leveling loot filter for Pyroclast Mine Saboteur here.

You can find the Path of Building link on the Passive Tree Page.

League Start Regex

Copy the code below and paste it into Tarkleigh’s search bar in Lioneye’s Watch to highlight useful 3-link items and movement speed boots:

b-b-b|b-[bg]-g|g-[bg]-b|b-g-b|g-b-g|Runn|rint

Questions?

If you enjoy this build, check out our YouTube Channel. If you have any questions, ask us in our Discord.