[Explosive Legerdemain]

or that [Mirage] build that keeps nuking the whole map!!

Synopsis

This build abuses the Augment [Explosive Legerdemain] with
High Ability Strength
High Range
and Good Efficiency.

[Explosive Legerdemain] transforms dropped loot by killed enemies into persistent landmines. After a decent amount of enemies are killed in the first wave, casting Sleight of Hand will (ideally) change all the loot in the map into mines, exploding when new enemies spawn ontop of them, causing a damage cascade.

Loot > Mines > Death > Loot > More Mines

Pros

• Great at Defense/Survival maps.
• Great at Sanctuary Onslaught/Elite Sanctuary Onslaught
• Decent survival due to the use of 2 Umbral mods
• Very easy to use, just spam your second ability
• Synergizes well with Resource Drop Boosts (Nekro's Despoil, Khora's Pilfering Strangledome, Hydroid's Pilfering Swarm, etc.)

Cons

• Needs initial loot drop to start damage cascade.
• Damage falloff after the introduction of Self-Damage removal.
• Useful only in static maps (not great with Exterminate, Capture, Open World)
• Consumes pickups, thus making you self-reliant in energy, health and ammo restoration.

Forma Path

[Explosive Legerdemain]

This mod can be acquired from the Arbiters of Hexis or from Cephalon Suda for 25,000 Reputation points.

Key points to know about Explosive Legerdemain are:

• Converts Ammo, Affinity Orbs, Energy Orbs, and Health Orbs into proximity mines.
• Proximity mines will detonate when an enemy steps on the mine or when the mine's duration expires.
• Damage is affected by Ability Strength, whereas status chance is not.
• Explosion radius is affected by Ability Range.
• However, explosion triggering radius is not affected by Ability Range.
• The range shown in ability section is the explosion damage radius.
• Conversion range is same as Sleight Of Hand's trap radius (40m at max ability rank) and centered on your Mirage's position.
• Conversion range is affected by Ability Range.
• Duration is not affected by Ability Duration.
• Affected pickups are destroyed in the process and cannot be picked up by Mirage. Ally players' client-side pickups are unaffected.

Ability Strength

We're packing a full kit of Ability Strength in this build to deal as much damage as possible with our Legerdemain mines.
With all 4 mods maxed out, we should see our Ability Strength hit 264%, which nets us about 1320 Base Damage per mine.

Please note that this is per mine, and that a single unit may trigger multiple mines when they step on or spawn upon a cluster.

Ability Efficiency

[Blind Rage] chunks out our Efficiency heavily, but we'll be getting it back with Fleeting Expertise, sacrificing Duration (which is a great trade-off, as Legerdemain mines are not affected by Ability Duration). Adding more Ability Efficiency by using [Streamline] allows us to cast Slight of Hand at 35 energy.

Considering that we will probably be starved of Energy Orb drops (since we'll be transforming them into mines), Ability Efficiency becomes more essential.

Ability Range

We are sacrificing from our massive pool of Ability Strength to increase Ability Range here. Note that, not only will Ability Range increase Conversion Range (how far out you can change loot into mines), but will also increase the blast radius of your mines.

Health

[Mirage Prime] is a squishy frame. Adding a bit of heft to her with [Umbral Vitality] not only gets her health to a reasonable range (640 HP at Level 30), stacking [Umbral Vitality] with [Umbral Intensify] also increases the Ability Strength it nets you by 11%

Mod Replacements

[Cunning Drift] for [Power Drift]

Range vs Strength is debatable with [Explosive Legerdemain]. Some Range proponents argue that increasing the range allows the mine explosion to stack on other targets, causing another tick of damage that is greater than just flatly increasing the Ability Strength. Strength proponents on the other hand argue that, due to damage falloff and diminishing status effects, upfront damage is more ideal.

Consider both and pray to DE for Exilus Forma.

[Stretch] for [Streamline]

Sacrificing a bit of Efficiency for more Range, if you are able to maintain your stack of mines without running out of energy (or by supplementing it with Energy Restore consumables) consider running [Stretch] instead.

Arcanes

Arcane Energize

Provides a chance to gain additional energy for you and nearby allies whenever you pick up an Energy Orb.

Considering that you will be transforming all energy orbs into traps, the ones that you do get will be a precious commodity.

Arcane [Guardian]

Provides a chance whenever the player receives damage to increase the Warframe's armor for 20 seconds.

With a decent chunk of your survivability afforded to you by [Umbral Vitality], supplementing it with Armor is very helpful. Consider using Arcane Grace as an upgrade.