[2.6] Explosive Arrow Pathfinder W/Videos -HC Endgame Mapping, Grandmasters, T16 Guardian Guides

-The additional arrow corruption is very useful. If you have it and Dying Sun (gets an additional projectile with %Flask effect) you get 5 arrows without GMP, which means that you can drop the AoE clear setup completely and use your single target setup for clear as well.

-5link for Aoe is sufficient while you want all the damage you can get for single target, so 6L single target. For the AoE use EA - GMP - Fire Pen - Less duration - Slower Proj.

Does elemental damage have as much effect as fire damage. Didn't know if there was an advantage of taking the ash frost and storm other than the reflect damage as I could take extra hp/explosive impact fire nodes in reach.

Question in regarding a 6L Quill Rain, at this point I have lots of good gear, high fire Kaoms, two 5L Quills, I rolled a fire and additional arrow Rearguard myself, Opal rings, 1 off perfect Tiki Amulet, GG Belt Gloves and Boots but I maybe have 1ex if I liquidate out some currency. I want a 6L Quill but the prices are really stupid 6ex currently, what's the cheaper alternative to making your own, is it fuses on one of my 5L with 6 sockets or is it buy a white Short Bow 6L and scour / chance it? They both seem cheaper and faster to me getting one or am I wrong?

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theoc86 wrote:

Does elemental damage have as much effect as fire damage. Didn't know if there was an advantage of taking the ash frost and storm other than the reflect damage as I could take extra hp/explosive impact fire nodes in reach.

There is no difference.

Explosion will inflict the same damage with Elemental or Fire damage (or area damage or projectile damage)

Fire/Elemental damage are better than projectile/area damage because of double dipping, so they effectively apply twice on burning damage.

I assume when double dipping will be fixed this build will not be as good as it is now. Maybe still playable but bosses will be harder to kill if they don't change their HP. Perhaps "Holy Fire" notable will become worth it.

Just a clarification: projectile and area damage double dip as well, not just fire damage. DoTs inherit the modifiers of the source, so if the source is a projectile that deals area damage those apply as well; same as with Totem or Trap/Mine damage. Explosive Arrow's secondary explosion is Fire/Projectile/area damage. Spell/Attack damage won't apply to it, and those two would not apply to the ignite in any case.

Hmm ok, when I tried to get data about this I found lots of topics on reddit and it was not very clear. And on the double dipping wiki page they give fireball example where spell damage won't double dip, so I assumed only damages which increase normal burning damage (ie: fire, elemental, DOT [of course not with EA], general damage) would double dip

/e : ignite wiki page is more clear on which damages apply, thanks for clarification

How important is armor for this build?

I'm assuming with Kaom's and decent gear, this build will have around 8-9k life. How important is armor and how often do you all switch flasks when doing endgame maps?

Is the formless inferno worth it? It'll give 6% physical damage mitigation, 130%ish increased armor, then combined with Rumi's + basalt of iron skin + flask effectiveness + the armor from Kaom's, Rearguard's, the helm itself, ect it's probably easy to hit quite a bit of armor and physical mitigation. But how useful is armor in general?

How do I become more death proof? Reflect isn't a problem right now, but I'm assuming it will be soon. If I can't get a ruby sun, should I just use a wise oak for 10% reduced reflect damage taken? As for big physical hits, how is that dealt with? Just basalt+Rumi's and hope for the best-- or avoid them completely? For uber Izaro, I'm assuming something to mitigate big physical hits would be useful, so would a formless inferno be worth it in that scenario?
Then lastly, the problem with added elemental damage maps and crits. With added elemental damage, just switch from topaz to ruby to sapphire flask every time? Or would a wise oak with all equal resistances do the job better? And for crits, would just enfeeble help enough?

The build also seems extremely late game map viable, but it seems on that t11 map my damage was beginning to get low. Is it because my EA wasn't 20, none of my gems were quality, and I didn't have a 6L quill?

And lastly, about the matter of diminishing returns, what's a good number around to stop getting attack speed, flat damage, life, ect on the tree?

So far, I've died 3 times with EA total in both breach and legacy.

1. Level 87 in breach with about 400c worth of gear, I played EXTREMELY drunk while doing an easy map, got hit, panicked, and bled out in half a second since I didn't have uber lab done yet and I misclicked my bleed flask.
2. Level 84 in LHC trying to do Poorjoy's aslyum with 5c worth of gear.
3. Level 87 in LHC with 50c of gear trying to do a corrupted t11 twin boss map with a ton of dangerous boss mods. Was pretty easy, but got cocky and went into melee range when I saw boss was almost dead and got hit by a lagslam. Got the atlas achievement due to ignite tho

So I'm wondering how to avoid the things that killed me before(not reacting to a bleed in time, fucking up badly and walking into a slam). But in general, the thing that tends to put me at extremely low health all the time is bleed and rapid bursts of physical damage.

Edit: And it seems like chaos damage does a ridiculous amount to me as well, but I've never died to it yet

Edit: With a basalt and flask effectiveness, it'll be about 26% physical damage reduction. Then let's say for a big boss hit, it'll be about 10k pure physical damage. So let's say 50k armor is enough to mitigate 33% of it, combining it with the basalt, it'll put the flask within a survivable realm. Unless it crits? Then maybe only a brass dome will save ya

Edit: Is it worth considering to take off Ele Equilibrium for Avatar of Fire? EE minuses 50% of enemy resistance, but it'll help rippy physical blows quite a bit.

Just wanna say Thanks for the build. I play at minimum around 3-8 builds per league and this is one of the best in terms of cost-performance. It scales good, great clear, great mobility, amazing single target and one of the tankiest non-leech build I've played so far. I also have to agree with the OP's argument. Taking anything other than Pathfinder for an EA build is silly. You don't need Ele's prolif after a certain point (in gear), and you certainly don't need the double golem and their buffs, you'll also lose so much mobility and utility it's not even funny. Not even gonna comment on Zerker, Scion, and Duelist version of this build. Pathfinder allows for more options and the best of all, allows a clear setup using single target links. Please correct me on this, since this is my first time playing EA.

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marixalijustice wrote:

How important is armor for this build?

I'm assuming with Kaom's and decent gear, this build will have around 8-9k life. How important is armor and how often do you all switch flasks when doing endgame maps?

Is the formless inferno worth it? It'll give 6% physical damage mitigation, 130%ish increased armor, then combined with Rumi's + basalt of iron skin + flask effectiveness + the armor from Kaom's, Rearguard's, the helm itself, ect it's probably easy to hit quite a bit of armor and physical mitigation. But how useful is armor in general?

How do I become more death proof? Reflect isn't a problem right now, but I'm assuming it will be soon. If I can't get a ruby sun, should I just use a wise oak for 10% reduced reflect damage taken? As for big physical hits, how is that dealt with? Just basalt+Rumi's and hope for the best-- or avoid them completely? For uber Izaro, I'm assuming something to mitigate big physical hits would be useful, so would a formless inferno be worth it in that scenario?
Then lastly, the problem with added elemental damage maps and crits. With added elemental damage, just switch from topaz to ruby to sapphire flask every time? Or would a wise oak with all equal resistances do the job better? And for crits, would just enfeeble help enough?

Can't comment on guardians and above. Haven't done them yet with this build. But my rough opinion is that you're already as tanky as it is. Infact, you're far tankier than most ranged attack builds out there even without armor stacking.

Aside from screen freezes due to lag and some ridiculous map mods with breach + beyond and me playing super recklessly, I don't remember ever dying with this build. I did Uber Lab just fine when I was 74, and as usual you don't aim on tanking Izaro when doing full key runs, since there are so few builds that's able to tank fully buffed Izaro without endurance charge stacking. You'd be moving so fast with this build that avoiding hits is about as easy as it gets.

Resistance flasks are also unnecessary, unless you're doing certain breach realm farming.

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marixalijustice wrote:

The build also seems extremely late game map viable, but it seems on that t11 map my damage was beginning to get low. Is it because my EA wasn't 20, none of my gems were quality, and I didn't have a 6L quill?

And lastly, about the matter of diminishing returns, what's a good number around to stop getting attack speed, flat damage, life, ect on the tree?

So far, I've died 3 times with EA total in both breach and legacy.

1. Level 87 in breach with about 400c worth of gear, I played EXTREMELY drunk while doing an easy map, got hit, panicked, and bled out in half a second since I didn't have uber lab done yet and I misclicked my bleed flask.
2. Level 84 in LHC trying to do Poorjoy's aslyum with 5c worth of gear.
3. Level 87 in LHC with 50c of gear trying to do a corrupted t11 twin boss map with a ton of dangerous boss mods. Was pretty easy, but got cocky and went into melee range when I saw boss was almost dead and got hit by a lagslam. Got the atlas achievement due to ignite tho

So I'm wondering how to avoid the things that killed me before(not reacting to a bleed in time, fucking up badly and walking into a slam). But in general, the thing that tends to put me at extremely low health all the time is bleed and rapid bursts of physical damage.

Edit: And it seems like chaos damage does a ridiculous amount to me as well, but I've never died to it yet

Edit: With a basalt and flask effectiveness, it'll be about 26% physical damage reduction. Then let's say for a big boss hit, it'll be about 10k pure physical damage. So let's say 50k armor is enough to mitigate 33% of it, combining it with the basalt, it'll put the flask within a survivable realm. Unless it crits? Then maybe only a brass dome will save ya

Edit: Is it worth considering to take off Ele Equilibrium for Avatar of Fire? EE minuses 50% of enemy resistance, but it'll help rippy physical blows quite a bit.

I haven't seen any scaling issues with this build. And as usual, the more investment you make the better the damage potential is. So it can be many factors, gem Q, 6L Quill (they're harder to get in HC usually, but still one of the cheapest endgame 6L around).

What cwdt setup do you guys like with this build? I'm assuming curses aren't ideal unless you spec +2 in the tree

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subiedude8 wrote:

What cwdt setup do you guys like with this build? I'm assuming curses aren't ideal unless you spec +2 in the tree

Dunno about others, but I'm using the standard setup of CWDT+IC+ID, and Vortex for the last one later on. Not a fan of linking decoy on CWDT, don't like having my character pooping stuff whenever something hit her.