[3.15] Crimson Bow Gladiator, RoA + Puncture | Pure Bleed Build | All Content | In-depth

Is this a bad bow to start?

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MrApell wrote:

Is this a bad bow to start? I can craft attack speed on one of them. which is better?

What's the difference between builds that post on poe.ninja with same skills and items? But they going to the left on passive tree. I bought almost everything, it remains to determine the passive tree.

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MrApell wrote:

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MrApell wrote:

Is this a bad bow to start? I can craft attack speed on one of them. which is better?

I already made another one

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MrApell wrote:

What's the difference between builds that post on poe.ninja with same skills and items? But they going to the left on passive tree. I bought almost everything, it remains to determine the passive tree.

Would like to know as well. Im debating on switching from left side

Having a quick look, im not sure. Looks like it needs a lioneye's jewel. Could plug it into PoB, see how damage compares.

What do you recommend craft on boots (prefix)?

@DankawSL, I don't know if you're still reading this thread but I hope you know how grateful I am for this detailed build guide. I had never managed to beat A5 Kitava in Hardcore before, but with this character I got to 72 in HCSSF, with two ascensions (you have NO IDEA how much I hate the lab), and I'm still going strong! The build is SO much fun to play, and I find it safer and more relaxing even than some SC builds I've played this far.

I don't know if I'll make it to maps, but even if I don't, this feels like a triumph for a derpy player like me. Thanks for walking us so patiently through the leveling, gem setup, and tree -- your detailed notes go above and beyond. You're a star!

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MrApell wrote:

What's the difference between builds that post on poe.ninja with same skills and items? But they going to the left on passive tree. I bought almost everything, it remains to determine the passive tree.

TL;DR- The left direction tree (I call it STR side) has higher consistent damage while the right direction (DEX side) requires accuracy but with crits it can get some huge numbers. The axe bleed node 'Cleaving' doesn't even get converted by lioneye's and is STILL one of the highest single point dps gains for bleed builds on the entire tree. My personal opinion is the DEX side is less consistent relying heavily on rng for survival, with not enough additional layers to prevent the random oneshots that tend to happen in crazy maps from time to time, while the STR side with more of an armour focus can more readily survive these.

I play a similar build that I started off on a random 3.11 bleed bow guide then just grew it myself with lots of theorycrafting and testing. Bleed bow is just so much fun, I can't recommend trying it out more, this RoA puncture guide is a great place to start. I'm planning on writing my own guide for my build but I am quite busy IRL right now.

I started off with left direction tree with 1 bow large cluster (tempered/fuel/heavy) and wasting/compound mediums which was huge dmg but survivability was a problem. Was using CWDT IC and Vaal MS quartz/granite/jade(reflexes)/silver. I recently changed my entire build to the passive tree of the build in this thread with some slight variations, and while it was only a 20% bleed dps loss for puncture, it just didnt have enough survivability to justify it to me.

I prefer split arrow to RoA because it feels a lot smoother when mapping, but the two skills are essentially interchangable. I prefer chain on SA but you can run pierce/fork if you prefer. divergent SA is best (+dmg)

I run anomalous puncture (pierce 2 targets) for QoL to ensure my punctures hit bosses and dont get blocked by swarms of adds or a random pot (or twin bosses!) which is very frustrating and happens to me often enough that I decided to change it, this is a 10% bleed dps loss but you barely feel it when you are geared to the teeth as puncture dmg is just so stupidly high.

I ran ensnaring arrow +GMP+FastAttack+MirageArcher for ages which was good qol but I got a maloney's quiver to test recently and that let me move my maim gem from split arrow to ensnaring, giving even more clearspeed through more split arrow dmg.

I used assailum for ages because the huge numbers and ability to basically oneshot bosses if you know when their phases start/end and can fully charge, but settled on rare life/resists after switching builds so many times.

Used a lvl 1 divergent clarity for ages but dont currently have a slot for it, also it doesn't work in pob yet and im not even sure it works ingame. technically if you hit full mana before the projectiles hit the enemies it should apply the bonus, which happens to me a lot while I map.

After doing a fair bit of research browsing top bleed bow glads on poeninja I put together a tankier version of the STR tree that runs two large/4med clusters and has very good survivability through the use of some silly expensive uniques (maloney's, replica farruls). I'm still tweaking the resists to get more chaos in but its a work in progress.

One of the big tricks in the STR tree is putting brute force solution with 20+ int and corrupted blood (costs 20-30c atm) in the slot between duelist and marauder start, which gives 60+ int and lets you run malevolence + empower 4, which is far better than pride imo. dont underestimate the utility of herald of purity too, I learned about it from this guide and it is now an essential part of my build.

my current pob - https://pastebin.com/mPamr8f4, its a little messy but has all my different build tree tests in the tree dropdown, V3 is what I am using atm, I simulated champion and ascendant (pathfinder/slayer) + tested ascendant ingame but gladiator is just too good. It is obviously still a work in progress with messy resist buffer on a jewel but I need more currency.
currently trying to craft a steel ring with life/flatphys/vuln32/resist

Appreciate the detail. Looking at your PoB, so many cluster jewels! Given the quiver is also like 5ex, how do you think this costs out overall? Is non-cluster version (or maybe limited to 1-2 jewels) on the armor/str side of the tree worth while?