I've been thinking about how support gems could be optimized even further. Some math for Barrage's support gem options:
Spoiler
GMP: +4 projectiles, 26% less
LMP/Volley: +2 projectiles, 16% less
Slower Projectiles: 29% more
Mirage Archer: attacks separately with 60% less speed and 11% less damage
PPAD: 49% more, 10% less speed
Pierce: 19% more, +4 pierces
Added Fire: 44% phys added as fire
Elemental Damage with Attacks (EDWA): 54% more elemental
Brutality: 59% more, no non-phys damage
Damage on Full Life: 49% more
Maim: 30% more, target takes 14% increased damage
Increased Critical Strikes (21/20 for easier numbers): +2.0% base crit, +110% crit chance
Increased Critical Damage (21/20 for easier numbers): +120% crit multi
Assuming +1 arrow from gear, 36% phys added as cold from Hatred, 195% increased crit chance from Rat's Nest and 3 power charges, lucky crits from a Diamond Flask, and Assassin's Mark. Herald of Ice's flat cold damage and any other flat elemental damage from gear are assumed to be a negligible damage boost and thus can be ignored when calculating the effects of each possible support gem, although that only affects PPAD, Added Fire, EDWA, Brutality, and Maim. I haven't considered the effects of other gear beyond the Rat's Nest, although I'm estimating the increased elemental damage with attacks implicit on Lioneye's Glare to be worth about 4.5% more elemental damage when I consider it at all.
GMP: +33.2%, down to +23.3% with +2 arrows
LMP/Volley: +17.6%, down to +12% with +2 arrows
Slower Projectiles: +29%
Mirage Archer: +35.6%, plus damage while moving
PPAD: +34.1%
Pierce: +19%
Added Fire: +32.4%, actually more like +33.5% once you consider the implicit increased elemental damage with attacks on the bow
EDWA: +14.3%, or +24% with Added Fire, and actually slightly better than that once you consider the implicit increased elemental damage with attacks on the bow
Brutality: +17%, plus can do something else instead of Hatred aura and HoI, but need a replacement curse setup like Blasphemy
Damage on Full Life: +49%
Maim: +43.4%, actually very slightly less once you consider the implicit increased elemental damage with attacks on the bow
Increased Critical Strikes: +21.5%, +24% with no power charges or Assassin's Mark
Increased Critical Damage: +32.2%, +29.3% with no power charges or Assassin's Mark
Increased Critical Strikes together with Increased Critical Damage together: +64.2% (effectively +28% per link), +66.2% (effectively +29% per link) with no power charges or Assassin's Mark
This suggests the following order of support gems, from most to least important: Damage on Full Life, Maim, Mirage Archer, PPAD, and either GMP, Added Fire, or increased Critical Damage.
Edit: Level 20 Hatred is actually 37% phys added as cold, not 36%, due to the 3% aura effect from the Devotion notable. It barely affects the math so I'm certainly not recalculating Added Fire, EDWA, Maim, and Brutality.
In addition to switching out gems one-for-one, we can also combine synergies between our two 6-link skills to develop greater benefits.
For example, something to consider is having Mirage Archer and Maim on one of your two 6-links only. Let's say you're using Barrage + Tornado Shot. Mirage Archer + Maim on Tornado Shot gives you 35.6% of your Tornado Shot DPS in exchange for replacing one Barrage with a Tornado Shot roughly every 4 seconds. The mirage Tornado Shot would keep up the Maim debuff (and its 14% increased physical damage taken), so you could swap out that gem on Barrage for something more effective than 30% more physical damage. Barrage's links would be Damage on Full Life, PPAD, GMP, Added Fire, and Increased Critical Damage. Maim is still minutely better than Slower Projectiles once you get your second extra arrow and you drop GMP, but it would require recoloring a green socket to red.
Going even further, we could put in a Poison support on Tornado Shot, which opens up the possibility of Vile Toxins on Barrage (up to 45% more damage, or 50% at level 21), since the mirage will maintain poison stacks like it would Maim. Then you can run Damage on Full Life, Vile Toxins, PPAD, Added Fire, and Increased Critical Damage on Barrage (conveniently the same socket colors as your existing links).
Thanks for your input.
First of all, the initial point of my build was to reduce any situational modifiers while fighting Shaper level of bosses and still have adequate damage level against them (so any poison stacking or flasks are not accounted)
Volley adds simultaneous projectiles which deal 0 damage when connected to Barrage.
Added fire is very ineffective against Shaper without any Fire penetration.
Increased Critical Damage is less effective than Increased Critical Strikes. Without ICS we have 30%~ crit chance which is low against Shaper. (considering no flasks scenario)
Of course, if you want to play with numbers, just go to the Path of Building and test it out.
If I would add Vile toxins to my Barrage right now, Shaper must have 9 poison stacks in order to have barely any benefit! In my opinion it's very tedious to keep them up due to a lot of things you already need to do during the fight.
Mirage Archer + Maim + Tornado shot can work out, but need testing as always, and I don't have time right now to do so. But if you can, test it and tell the results.
First of all, the initial point of my build was to reduce any situational modifiers while fighting Shaper level of bosses and still have adequate damage level against them (so any poison stacking or flasks are not accounted)
Volley adds simultaneous projectiles which deal 0 damage when connected to Barrage.
Added fire is very ineffective against Shaper without any Fire penetration.
Increased Critical Damage is less effective than Increased Critical Strikes. Without ICS we have 30%~ crit chance which is low against Shaper. (considering no flasks scenario)
Of course, if you want to play with numbers, just go to the Path of Building and test it out.
If I would add Vile toxins to my Barrage right now, Shaper must have 9 poison stacks in order to have barely any benefit! In my opinion it's very tedious to keep them up due to a lot of things you already need to do during the fight.
Mirage Archer + Maim + Tornado shot can work out, but need testing as always, and I don't have time right now to do so. But if you can, test it and tell the results.
With no charges, curse, or flask, and against Shaper's 40% elemental resistances, Critical Strikes does rise up above Critical Damage, while Added Fire drops significantly. Interestingly, Brutality rises up above all three of them, since the loss of Hatred is a lesser concern, although I'm still doing napkin math that ignores Herald of Ice, which may tip the balance. Even without Brutality, though, neither of the crit support gems make it into the top 5 options unless you eliminate GMP (+2 arrows on gear) and Mirage Archer (mirage on another skill) as well. Also note that I was running the numbers for 21/20% versions of the crit gems, but only 20/0 versions for the others, so the numbers are even worse for them once corruption's +1 level and 20% quality are equalized.
Spoiler
Damage on Full Life: +49%
Maim: +44.9%, +30% if the maim debuff is already applied
Mirage Archer: +35.6%, plus damage while moving
PPAD: +34.1%
GMP: +33.2%, down to +23.3% with +2 arrows
Brutality: +30.1%, plus can do something else instead of Hatred aura and HoI, but need a replacement curse setup like Blasphemy
Slower Projectiles: +29%
Increased Critical Strikes together with Increased Critical Damage together: +63.51% (effectively +27.9% per link)
Increased Critical Strikes: +26.76%, +33.58% if Increased Critical Damage is already present
Increased Critical Damage: +22.41%, +28.99% if Increased Critical Strikes is already present
Added Fire: +21.6%
Pierce: +19%
LMP/Volley: +17.6%, down to +12% with +2 arrows
EDWA: +9.81%, or +17.7% with Added Fire
Volley doesn't add simultaneous projectiles like the Volley Fire jewel does. It works just like LMP when it comes to adding +2 projectiles, which with Barrage are fired sequentially and can deal damage to the same target. However, Volley's effect upon how multiple simultaneous projectiles are fired does apply to the simultaneous side arrows granted on the first and last Barrage shots by the Volley Fire threshold jewel, causing them to fire in parallel from points beside you instead of spreading in a cone.
I'm not familiar enough with the mechanics involved to actually figure out if Mirage Archer Tornado Shot is viable for stacking poison. In particular, I don't know how to calculate the average number of secondary projectiles that'll hit a single target. Napkin math says it would need an average of about 5 total projectiles to hit with each attack in order to keep up 9 poison stacks with a 60% poison chance from the Poison support gem alone. Obviously not viable with Tornado Shot. You could do it with Barrage instead (two 6-linked Barrages on the same character at once), but that leads into other problems.
On another note, I was reminded of the Harbinger-league max leech Slayer build that got me interested in Slayers in the first place. It used Soul of Arakaali's 50% increased life/ES recovery rate (along with The Flow Untethered, which isn't available in Abyss) to boost an already massive life leech regeneration. You've already got the same trigger mechanism for stopping taking damage over time (Blood Rage + CWDT Immortal Call), so it wouldn't even require changing the build. Going from 58% life/sec leeched to 87% makes that a very interesting alternative for the major pantheon power.
First of all, the initial point of my build was to reduce any situational modifiers while fighting Shaper level of bosses and still have adequate damage level against them (so any poison stacking or flasks are not accounted)
Volley adds simultaneous projectiles which deal 0 damage when connected to Barrage.
Added fire is very ineffective against Shaper without any Fire penetration.
Increased Critical Damage is less effective than Increased Critical Strikes. Without ICS we have 30%~ crit chance which is low against Shaper. (considering no flasks scenario)
Of course, if you want to play with numbers, just go to the Path of Building and test it out.
If I would add Vile toxins to my Barrage right now, Shaper must have 9 poison stacks in order to have barely any benefit! In my opinion it's very tedious to keep them up due to a lot of things you already need to do during the fight.
Mirage Archer + Maim + Tornado shot can work out, but need testing as always, and I don't have time right now to do so. But if you can, test it and tell the results.
With no charges, curse, or flask, and against Shaper's 40% elemental resistances, Critical Strikes does rise up above Critical Damage, while Added Fire drops significantly. Interestingly, Brutality rises up above all three of them, since the loss of Hatred is a lesser concern, although I'm still doing napkin math that ignores Herald of Ice, which may tip the balance. Even without Brutality, though, neither of the crit support gems make it into the top 5 options unless you eliminate GMP (+2 arrows on gear) and Mirage Archer (mirage on another skill) as well. Also note that I was running the numbers for 21/20% versions of the crit gems, but only 20/0 versions for the others, so the numbers are even worse for them once corruption's +1 level and 20% quality are equalized.
Spoiler
Damage on Full Life: +49%
Maim: +44.9%, +30% if the maim debuff is already applied
Mirage Archer: +35.6%, plus damage while moving
PPAD: +34.1%
GMP: +33.2%, down to +23.3% with +2 arrows
Brutality: +30.1%, plus can do something else instead of Hatred aura and HoI, but need a replacement curse setup like Blasphemy
Slower Projectiles: +29%
Increased Critical Strikes together with Increased Critical Damage together: +63.51% (effectively +27.9% per link)
Increased Critical Strikes: +26.76%, +33.58% if Increased Critical Damage is already present
Increased Critical Damage: +22.41%, +28.99% if Increased Critical Strikes is already present
Added Fire: +21.6%
Pierce: +19%
LMP/Volley: +17.6%, down to +12% with +2 arrows
EDWA: +9.81%, or +17.7% with Added Fire
Volley doesn't add simultaneous projectiles like the Volley Fire jewel does. It works just like LMP when it comes to adding +2 projectiles, which with Barrage are fired sequentially and can deal damage to the same target. However, Volley's effect upon how multiple simultaneous projectiles are fired does apply to the simultaneous side arrows granted on the first and last Barrage shots by the Volley Fire threshold jewel, causing them to fire in parallel from points beside you instead of spreading in a cone.
I'm not familiar enough with the mechanics involved to actually figure out if Mirage Archer Tornado Shot is viable for stacking poison. In particular, I don't know how to calculate the average number of secondary projectiles that'll hit a single target. Napkin math says it would need an average of about 5 total projectiles to hit with each attack in order to keep up 9 poison stacks with a 60% poison chance from the Poison support gem alone. Obviously not viable with Tornado Shot. You could do it with Barrage instead (two 6-linked Barrages on the same character at once), but that leads into other problems.
On another note, I was reminded of the Harbinger-league max leech Slayer build that got me interested in Slayers in the first place. It used Soul of Arakaali's 50% increased life/ES recovery rate (along with The Flow Untethered, which isn't available in Abyss) to boost an already massive life leech regeneration. You've already got the same trigger mechanism for stopping taking damage over time (Blood Rage + CWDT Immortal Call), so it wouldn't even require changing the build. Going from 58% life/sec leeched to 87% makes that a very interesting alternative for the major pantheon power.
Life recovery can be rolled on Shaper or Elder belts right now (don't remember which one) Soul of Arakaali is pretty good for life recovery, BUT! We are gaining Endurance charge on crit, and Immortal call will eat them all. This is why I stopped using it. Plus my life recovery at 58% feels enough right now.
Of course, as another option you can level CWDT higher, thus allowing it to proc a bit rarely. But your phys reduction will suffer a great loss in the middle of the fight (8% from Lunaris and 12% from End charges)
Really nice guide man! Just wondering how and when you get 40k dps in ho?
Playing Hc league and im lvl 87 atm with all the gear you have, can it be the quality of you gems?
Only got tornado shot quality 20, my dps in ho now is 20,708.
Really nice guide man! Just wondering how and when you get 40k dps in ho?
Playing Hc league and im lvl 87 atm with all the gear you have, can it be the quality of you gems?
Only got tornado shot quality 20, my dps in ho now is 20,708.
Still pretty new to this game.
40k Barrage DPS in Hideout includes Hatred, Herald of Ice, and Lightning golem. (42k with bloodrage)
Yup, lvl of the gems matter a lot. You can check my gems in the "My Gear" section, it has my current in-game gear (Abyss Soft Core) Also I've tried to min-max my gear. (you can also open up your character list for me to check)
Really nice guide man! Just wondering how and when you get 40k dps in ho?
Playing Hc league and im lvl 87 atm with all the gear you have, can it be the quality of you gems?
Only got tornado shot quality 20, my dps in ho now is 20,708.
Still pretty new to this game.
40k Barrage DPS in Hideout includes Hatred, Herald of Ice, and Lightning golem. (42k with bloodrage)
Yup, lvl of the gems matter a lot. You can check my gems in the "My Gear" section, it has my current in-game gear (Abyss Soft Core) Also I've tried to min-max my gear. (you can also open up your character list for me to check)
Here is a screenshot
yeah it is when i´ve got hatred, herald of ice and lightning golem on! Think I made my charachter list open now!
Really nice guide man! Just wondering how and when you get 40k dps in ho?
Playing Hc league and im lvl 87 atm with all the gear you have, can it be the quality of you gems?
Only got tornado shot quality 20, my dps in ho now is 20,708.
Still pretty new to this game.
40k Barrage DPS in Hideout includes Hatred, Herald of Ice, and Lightning golem. (42k with bloodrage)
Yup, lvl of the gems matter a lot. You can check my gems in the "My Gear" section, it has my current in-game gear (Abyss Soft Core) Also I've tried to min-max my gear. (you can also open up your character list for me to check)
Here is a screenshot
yeah it is when i´ve got hatred, herald of ice and lightning golem on! Think I made my charachter list open now!
Ok, aside from the gem level and quality, you need to squeeze flat Phys on your jewelry, and attack speed/flat Phys on gloves. Next goal is better Jewels (with crit multi) and of course Unique flasks.
- Does this Build work with Windripper, too?
I play it with two Ventor's Gamble Rings and the Clearspeed is still crazy;
and i think if it works with Windripper, too, my MF Bonus will be crazy, too.
- Does this Build work with Windripper, too?
I play it with two Ventor's Gamble Rings and the Clearspeed is still crazy;
and i think if it works with Windripper, too, my MF Bonus will be crazy, too.
Thanks man!
- should i remove Vaal pact for Uberlab runs? - no, its very easy to do uber lab runs, kill a couple of mobs and run through the traps. easy-peasy
- Does this Build work with Windripper, too? - well, with 2 ventors and windripper you'll lose around 2/3 damage. It still should be enough for clearing, but not boss killing. Just put your TS into armor and you're done.
Awesome build. Got my second shaper kill ever with this. It clears really good, is tanky, the leech makes uber lab so easy. Boss damage is really good, I love it!
Tried Uber Atziri for the first time this week and managed to get to Atziri herself on the first try. Died some stupid deaths on the way so I didnt get the kill that time. Hopefully next time, since I got another barrage enchant on a nearly perfect Rat's nest to sell, and buy some flasks since I dont have any expensive flasks at the moment.
My gear for the interested. I had a 6-link belly from my raider I have used. Might try with Perfect form when I sell the Rat's. My gear is good but as you see there is a lot of upgrades to do and still it performs amazingly well. Thanks for posting this build.
Btw, I liked your old pastebin more which showed 170k shaper dps, no buffs or flask activated. Was cool seeing your progress =)
