[3.9] Physical Conversion Bowyer | Wander [TS/LA/IS + Barrage] [KB + Power Siphon] [All Content]

Hey guys sorry haven't been keeping up with POE developments recently, been busy with IRL stuff. I plan on updating the guide for 3.9 but probably won't have any time to get up to date with all the upcoming changes for another week or two so there's nothing meaningful I can contribute to the discussion atm. Seems like it's going to be a tedious overhaul of the guide tho :S

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Escalune wrote:

Spoiler

Thanks again to all contributors for the bow version of the guide. I finally crafted gear and put my character together. The build performs well and all content (juiced T16 maps, Uber Elder, Delve ~500) dies nearly instantly. Clear speed and damage is higher than the TS Impale Champion I recently played, although this build is obviously much less tanky.

I made some adjustments to suit my preferences, prioritizing defenses and quality of life. For example, I opted for triple legacy RotC and a Rigwald's instead of Arborix and Voidfletcher. My experience was that everything died so fast, the Void Shots hit nothing outside of bosses and red Bestiary mobs. Combined with the huge visual clutter, I ended up going with Fork. Overall the most balanced compromise I could reach left me with ~5500 HP, 80 all res, curse/bleed immune, utilizing Frenzy/Power/Endurance/Inspiration charges, Acro and Phase Acro, ~180 move speed, and about 9 million Shaper DPS. I felt the single target damage was more than sufficient given I'm running a +2 TS helmet and also made sacrifices elsewhere.

The 2 major pain points when assembling the build were: 1) amulet annoint in Standard with price-gouged oils and 2) divining a reasonable Lethal Pride. The latter cost me an insane number exalts because I had outrageously bad RNG. I will probably try to take this build to around Delve 750 and just map for fun. With the Celestial Herald of Ice MTX, I'm still able to get the multi-screen rainbow explosions that made KB satisfying.

Appreciate any suggestions for improvement you might have.

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P.S. I guess my contribution to the thread can be a decent Lethal Pride seed. 12782 was the best I found in 30+ exalts of divine spam, focusing on the unique features of Timeless Jewels rather than just pure damage.

Heartseeker: 5% Phys as Fire (ignite for Cinderswallow damage buff)
King of the Hill: 4% life
Master Fletcher: 5% Endurance charge on Kill
Herbalism: 4% life
Winter Spirit: 10% Intimidate
Flash Freeze: 10% crit damage reduction

Thanks for playing the build and for your contributions too! I will keep everything you've mentioned in mind when overhauling the guide for 3.9

Yeah, I don't think any range based build can compare with a Champion bow version in terms of tankiness. I think delving won't really ever be the strong point of the build altho its really the only endgame nowadays. My playtester in league pushed to nearly 500ish without Headhunter, but it seemed beyond that point random one shots were going to happen too frequently for it to be a pleasant delving experience. In standard with HH and more layers of defense depth 750 might be achievable but I can imagine it would be a struggle.

I took a look at your setup and it's very well thought out and optimized :)

I wonder what 3.9 will have in store for this build; hopefully it still steamrolls all the new upcoming content.

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bluekitteh wrote:

I'm a noob so I don't know how to link my gear, but I just wanted to say another thank you for the build. I reached and beat Uber Elder for the first time ever this league, and I reached 36 challenges for the first time ever. Thanks so much for a fantastic build :)

No problem and glad you liked playing the build :) Good luck with future leagues!

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oMySunshine wrote:

Bow rework! The new support gems look sick, can't wait for the patch notes. Not sure how Barrage support will interact with either TS or RoA but we'll see. Also KB can be supported by Barrage, which means boom boom single target damn!

yea it will be very interesting can't wait :)

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NameMerken wrote:

Bow rework for 3.9 :). Gonna play this build as 2nd char.

Very nice :) Welcome back, I think you will find the phys conversion setup more improved overall compared to what you played with back in the day.

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lkenpachi wrote:

ok, now will be MUCH more rare encounter uber elder and with that the Voidfletcher will be much much more expensive. So for those who are considering using this build in the next league (3.9), here is something GOOD to consider.

Spoiler

Don't do it from start of league

good advice. While league starting with this build is possible, it won't be an enjoyable experience even for a veteran player, since all the required items aren't readily available at the very start (Loreweave, Dying Sun, Arborix, multimod delve bases + crafts. Without solid gear, phys conversion will perform badly, plus bows will definitely be meta, so costs will rise by a lot most likely (rip dying sun)

Hey Enahkra. You mentioned that this build won't be a strong deep delver. But what stops it from becoming the 3k+ deep delving scourge arrow meta build that you see crowding poe.ninja? Do the two builds differ so much that the concept cannot be shared by simply switching to hyrri chest + CI?

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illmtk wrote:

Hey Enahkra. You mentioned that this build won't be a strong deep delver. But what stops it from becoming the 3k+ deep delving scourge arrow meta build that you see crowding poe.ninja? Do the two builds differ so much that the concept cannot be shared by simply switching to hyrri chest + CI?

Not the guy you asked but my experience is that the build really starts to struggle deeper than ~500, though I've just been brute forcing past that and can see it going to ~750. From my perspective, here are the issues:

1) I think Scourge Arrow is just a better skill for the environment. TS and Barrage damage feels like it falls off hard relative to Delve scaling even with really strong gear. For example, I was fighting an Aul ~550 with moderately hard mods and holding down Barrage + Voidfletcher, I could barely see his health move. Scourge Arrow compensates for this by being numerically superior with the +150% more multiplier per stage.

2) This build isn't a glass cannon and actually invests in defense and health. When you go to 3K, you literally invest nothing there apart from mild Cold Res for Wise Oak effect (since everything one shots you even with 30K ES). Simply swapping gear and going CI will result in remnant defense investment that is wasted, so you might as well remove all that too. Then you have to ask whether it's still the same build philosophically (Theseus's paradox).

3) As I perceive it, he is advocating for Pathfinder for general play and I agree it's the best there. Raider is superior deep in Delve because your defense is literally "don't get hit 4head" due to everything 1-shotting you. Raider allows you to hit Evasion cap very easily with minimal investment, as you cannot commit any item space to defenses. You don't need flask uptime because you are not focused on killing anything along the way in deep Delve. You just make a mad sprint for the node and hide behind Frost Walls, praying you don't get clipped by a screamer.

Anyway, just my thoughts. I would not consider myself a "3K Delve expert" so if others disagree, would be happy to learn.

That was great to read. Thanks for the answer!

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illmtk wrote:

Hey Enahkra. You mentioned that this build won't be a strong deep delver. But what stops it from becoming the 3k+ deep delving scourge arrow meta build that you see crowding poe.ninja? Do the two builds differ so much that the concept cannot be shared by simply switching to hyrri chest + CI?

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Escalune wrote:

Spoiler

Not the guy you asked but my experience is that the build really starts to struggle deeper than ~500, though I've just been brute forcing past that and can see it going to ~750. From my perspective, here are the issues:

1) I think Scourge Arrow is just a better skill for the environment. TS and Barrage damage feels like it falls off hard relative to Delve scaling even with really strong gear. For example, I was fighting an Aul ~550 with moderately hard mods and holding down Barrage + Voidfletcher, I could barely see his health move. Scourge Arrow compensates for this by being numerically superior with the +150% more multiplier per stage.

2) This build isn't a glass cannon and actually invests in defense and health. When you go to 3K, you literally invest nothing there apart from mild Cold Res for Wise Oak effect (since everything one shots you even with 30K ES). Simply swapping gear and going CI will result in remnant defense investment that is wasted, so you might as well remove all that too. Then you have to ask whether it's still the same build philosophically (Theseus's paradox).

3) As I perceive it, he is advocating for Pathfinder for general play and I agree it's the best there. Raider is superior deep in Delve because your defense is literally "don't get hit 4head" due to everything 1-shotting you. Raider allows you to hit Evasion cap very easily with minimal investment, as you cannot commit any item space to defenses. You don't need flask uptime because you are not focused on killing anything along the way in deep Delve. You just make a mad sprint for the node and hide behind Frost Walls, praying you don't get clipped by a screamer.

Anyway, just my thoughts. I would not consider myself a "3K Delve expert" so if others disagree, would be happy to learn.

Escalune's post perfectly encapsulates a lot of my thoughts, and is worded much more eloquently than my original response too haha.

I have a few other thoughts I wanted to add about reasons for why Scourge Arrow wouldn't be feasible w/ this build.


My opinion is that a build should be capable of clearing all map device related content without much difficulty. I don't really try to maximize delve depth because you would need to completely restructure the build to be viable for deep delving and that makes the build incapable of doing any other content.


This is why I didn't include a deep delve farming version (for reasons Escalune mentioned above) although it's technically possible if you do what the 1 life, pure DPS w/ aurabot setups do. But this requires massive changes to the build. For example, you would need to focus on more general ele modifiers rather than modifiers favoring just cold, or else all the flat ele from your Aurabot is wasted. Even without aurabot, a phys conversion Raider that emphasizes maximum damage and no defenses can get you to depths greater than 1k+ but you won't be able to do anything else except delve, and it still wouldn't be able to reach as far as the scourge arrow guys you see on poe.ninja for reasons described below.


Skill gem conversion takes priority over conversion from both the tree and gear. Scourge Arrow gem has a built-in 60% phys to chaos conversion. This means that 60% of our flat damage cannot be scaled by ele modifiers, which as I mentioned earlier comprise most of the build's damage scaling. People who convert their phys source into multiple elements (ex: 50% cold + 50% fire), already violate the rules of optimization. To split our damage source between 60% chaos and 40% cold when they have very little in common with each other would be disastrous for overall dps since you would have to invest in two separate sets of modifiers that each scale roughly half your damage. Either way, if you only did a direct gem swap without changing anything else, 60% of your flat damage loses the ability to be scaled, and your damage plummets. So the only way for phys conversion to work effectively with Scourge Arrow is to focus on 100% phys to chaos conversion, which is incompatible with the guide.


The builds you see on poe.ninja don't have this problem because they're dex stacking/pure ele, so even though Scourge Arrow scales 60% of their phys to begin with, they don't really have much so it doesn't matter. 99.9% of their damage comes from flat cold and this isn't affected by Scourge Arrow's conversion rule so they can go full ele with the skill.

Hey there, have been trying to follow this build step by step, crafted all the gear but i just keep dieing and feeling weak speaking about dps, could you help me solve the problem my build has compared to yours? The PoB is : https://pastebin.com/tvNUYNrW
Tyvm, appreciated, hope it works!

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fcrc22 wrote:

Hey there, have been trying to follow this build step by step, crafted all the gear but i just keep dieing and feeling weak speaking about dps, could you help me solve the problem my build has compared to yours? The PoB is : https://pastebin.com/tvNUYNrW
Tyvm, appreciated, hope it works!

Based on the POB, your DPS should be fine. If you had just gotten a few more gem levels, you would be close to 5mil shaper dps. You should have leveled up Precision a bit more as well as other gems like Blood Rage. This dps calc doesn't include the curse + wave of conviction setup either which would've brought it up to ~6.5mil. I think you should have gone with Pathfinder instead of Deadeye. Deadeye is too rippy atm for doing high tier content. When I ran as Deadeye I ripped probably once per 2 guardian maps to the boss, but as Pathfinder it happened much less frequently like once per 10-15 maps. With Uber elder, as Deadeye it took maybe 3-4 ports per attempt, whereas for Pathfinder it was deathless 80% of the time and maybe 1-2 ports the other 20%.

The major issue with Deadeye is that you have no ailment immunity since you aren't using Cyclopean coil. So, you get shocked and frozen which leads to insta rip, on top of your low life pool all this leads to getting stun locked and inability to deal damage while stunned. Switching to PF would eliminate these issues as well as taking more life nodes/jewel slots on tree to boost life pool closer to 5k. I think the actual problem wasn't your DPS but getting stun locked w/ low life pool + no ailment immunity. If you don't use Pathfinder/Raider, a cyclopean coil is pretty much mandatory or else any sort of bossing would be very frustrating.

Also guys, have been looking at the upcoming updates for 3.9. Doesn't seem like wanders have really been affected considering Barrage will remain a single target skill. Given the limited amount of info we have, it seems Power Siphon will be better than barrage, although probably not by an absurd amount.

Here's what I see so far based on a back of the envelope calc w/ lots of assumptions. Power Siphon has a higher base damage (effectiveness = 151%) compared to Barrage (48% damage effectiveness). Barrage support has a 5% more attack time per proj modifier. A 21/20 Power Siphon gives 8 proj + 3 from the gem + 3 from Dying Sun + 2 from Helm enchant = 16 total = 80% more attack time. This is a ~45% less damage multiplier. On top of this the support gem has a whopping 69% less proj damage multiplier (since gem is only lvl 5, let's say it's ~60% less proj damage at lvl 20). This is understandable in order to cancel out the higher base damage of PS. If you factor both the less proj damage multiplier from Barrage support itself as well as the increase in attack time, Power Siphon sits at 33% "base damage" vs Barrage's 48%. But this is misleading, as the # of projectiles PS has is nearly double what Barrage has (16 vs. 9) so in that respect PS has a ~77% more multiplier. Taking this into account, we have PS at 58% and Barrage at 48%. Barrage support takes up a gem link which means losing out on another ~40% more damage multiplier. This adjustment puts PS at around ~41% "base damage" compared to Barrage's 48% so Barrage wins out by ~7%.

But then we have to include the other advantages PS brings to the table, such as 60+% crit chance, ~30+% crit multi, culling strike, and power charge generation. All these things combined should well overcompensate for the ~7% damage difference. Of course, we don't know the extent of GGG's numerical changes to wand skills for 3.9. I wouldn't be surprised if they nerfed Power Siphon somewhat, probably via the damage effectiveness.

Since there's a disincentive to stack too many proj, Atziri's Promise would probably surpass Dying Sun as the best DPS flask, but giving up Dying Sun would screw with KB clear, which means we probably have to go with Dying Sun eventually either way. Since 3.9 will be a bow meta, Dying Sun is likely to be multi exalt, so at least having Atziri's Promise as a strong alternative is a plus.

I haven't been keeping up constantly with the new info being revealed about 3.9 so there's a good chance I've missed something.

Thanks for putting some numbers forward with respect to the likely single target setup options for 3.9. When Barrage Support was announced, I know many people felt that it would supersede the actual Barrage skill as the go-to choice for boss DPS. But my intuition and bad napkin math (with lots of assumptions) makes me believe Barrage is still the best way to go. Part of that is the increased attack time per projectile locks you in place, leading to both a less fluid feeling play style and potentially dangerous bossing situations. Independent of the DPS considerations, those kind of kill it for me. The other part is that I'm using some legacy Barrage helmets and I'm way too lazy to acquire and craft Power Siphon helmets...

I know it's hard to tell without further information and formal patch notes, but do you envision any major changes to the bowyer version of the build apart from: 1) obviously switching any relevant Support Plus gems and 2) multi-modding around any overpowered new Conqueror influence mods? Seems like much of the core build will remain the same otherwise. I think I will play it some more to explore the new end-game content in Standard come 3.9 patch.

As a small addition to your previous Delve posts, I was able to take my bow character to depth 750 with minor difficulty in Standard. I decided not to use a HH or Voidfletcher, instead opting for a Stygian Vise and Rigwald's Quills. There was a lot of kiting with flares in the dark, off-screen TS spam, and certain nodes (especially the quadruple Essence fossil ones) were pretty much undoable. One thing I found helpful was to swap my Cinderswallow flask for an Alchemist Basalt Flask of the Order. That turned many 1-shots from rare mobs into 2-shots (along with Loreweave and legacy ToH), which ended up making a big difference in my ability to complete nodes. Apart from Aul, my damage felt fine around 750. But I feel I can't kill any bosses at this depth no matter what I swap around. Now I believe the build could probably go to depth 1000, especially if I make some changes to incorporate HH (prefer not to use mine since I think it makes the game ridiculous).

Looking forward to reading the discussion and comments for this build in 3.9.