3.23 EXPLOSIVE ARROW BALLISTA ELEMENTALIST - League-Start to End-Game. Easy mode.

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Headtourist wrote:

Hello.

POB is your juggernaut btw.

Glanced at your elementalist.

Fire res : 65%
Lightning res : 67%

Start with capping these two (and try to get some more chaos res too i suppose)

This + the fact you have no evasion must mean frequent deaths indeed, as the game is balanced around having 75%+ elem res.

(i'm really not sure about the allocated iron reflexes node, you can't evade anything)

Thank you, I corrected the link. I'm not sure why POB is showing that, in-game shows 73% fire and 75% lightning. I did not think 2% fire resist would make much of a difference, but I will get that maxed. My chaos is at 55% with my flask but good point, that is probably part of my problem.

The iron reflexes node bumped my armor from 9k (60% phys dmg reduction) to 27k (82% phys dmg reduction). I was thinking that the 22% phys dmg reduction would help my survivability more than a 56% evade chance, but please let me know if I'm mistaken.

Are you full suppress ?

He is.

We chatted a bit ingame yesterday, he's gonna try some things. We'll see.

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Headtourist wrote:

Quiver : i think i kinda followed that guide : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8MoV4v8y58

Unfortunately that guide only covers how to craft a quiver with one Dot Suffix. Seems crafting both suffixes alone will on average cost about 15d if you want both at T1.

In the meantime I was furtunate to find a Broadhead for 5d that had both Dot Suffixes at max roll T1, and a free third suffix. (Also had fire damage to attacks as prefix which was probably why it was so cheap). I manages to fix the prefixes with some currency investment. Fortunately 'Cannot roll Attack Modifiers' metacraft is golden here.

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Headtourist wrote:

(also, maybe make your characters public on poe website so we can look at your char without the need for you to share a pob link, btw)

Weird, my characters should be public.

Either way, here is my PoB code: https://pobb.in/qhwoZyaBs6sI

Managed to craft a nice bow and a helmet as well in the meantime. The helmet suffix truly sucks, but on the plus side both orbs of dominance hit on the first try so it was not too expensive.

So according to PoB I have hit the Ignite cap now (barely). What are my next steps?

It scares me a little that in total I am overcapping my elemental resistances by maybe 10 points. For any farming strategy involving altars I will probably need an alternate ring with a lot of resistances on it. It might also be a good idea to get the jewel socket south of the Scion starter with the remaining three points I get after five-waying my way to level 100. Gives another 16% lightning and cold resistance, and jewel sockets are always nice, yes?

P.S: How does the ignite cap interact with the -70% uber pinnacle boss damage penalty. Is DPS against them capped at 0.3 * 35M = 10.5M, or can we (theoretically) also reach 35M against an uber pinnacle boss?

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Quiver : i think i kinda followed that guide : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8MoV4v8y58

Unfortunately that guide only covers how to craft a quiver with one Dot Suffix. Seems crafting both suffixes alone will on average cost about 15d if you want both at T1.

In the meantime I was furtunate to find a Broadhead for 5d that had both Dot Suffixes at max roll T1, and a free third suffix. (Also had fire damage to attacks as prefix which was probably why it was so cheap). I manages to fix the prefixes with some currency investment. Fortunately 'Cannot roll Attack Modifiers' metacraft is golden here.

Then this may have been this short video : https://youtu.be/bLj1cakMy4U
If you look at the end he taks about fire dot and manually crafting attack speed, looks more like what i did.
But your quiver looks perfect to me. In fact it has better dps than mine :]

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(also, maybe make your characters public on poe website so we can look at your char without the need for you to share a pob link, btw)
Weird, my characters should be public.

MB, your chars are indeed available ^^

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So according to PoB I have hit the Ignite cap now (barely). What are my next steps?

P.S: How does the ignite cap interact with the -70% uber pinnacle boss damage penalty. Is DPS against them capped at 0.3 * 35M = 10.5M, or can we (theoretically) also reach 35M against an uber pinnacle boss?

Calculations are correct, you currently reach 10.5M uber dps. And yes you can still improve your character to reach uber dot dps cap. You should set POB configuration to uber pinnacle boss now so you can effectively see how further modifications to the build will improve your uber dps.

From this point either you know what to upgrade, or you should take a look at some POBs.
In case, here's mine : https://pobb.in/w2ACnThvgP9s
You can also take a look at poeninja, but be careful with the dps values, as people abuse the way the site calculates thing just to have the biggest number...
I'm uber dot capped and only have 1.5M there.

There are several ways of building so i suppose you'll have make some choices.

You could buy your level 100 in 5 ways to get your 3 last points, there's also improvements to make in your tree.
Probably changes in your skills/sockets too, like 6L your chest, maybe going full lifetap since you have a lifetap bow so you can reserve all your mana, also upgrade enlighten to 4 if that can help... Drop determination and get malevolence aura (i know it seems i'm on a crusade against armor/determination but i find it's not "that" useful imho...). Empower 4 too.
Then it's items, like making/getting a +2 amulet i suppose. Jewels also.

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It scares me a little that in total I am overcapping my elemental resistances by maybe 10 points. For any farming strategy involving altars I will probably need an alternate ring with a lot of resistances on it. It might also be a good idea to get the jewel socket south of the Scion starter with the remaining three points I get after five-waying my way to level 100. Gives another 16% lightning and cold resistance, and jewel sockets are always nice, yes?

If you're going for exarch altars, I find that the most deadly thing is the burning ground, gotta be cautious. I have another pair of boots I sometimes use for mapping when i'm lazy and don't wanna be careful, with burning ground immunity on them :




If you want another ring with lots of resistances you could also use the taming for mapping.

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Headtourist wrote:

Drop determination and get malevolence aura (i know it seems i'm on a crusade against armor/determination but i find it's not "that" useful imho...). Empower 4 too.

On the flip side I am curious why everyone runs Purity of Elements. Elemental Ailment Immunity can be gotten with the right pair of boots and Ancestral Visions. 35% resist all sure is nice, but is it worth 50% mana reservation?

Determination for me roughly cuts the physical damage I am receiving in half.

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Headtourist wrote:

Then it's items, like making/getting a +2 amulet i suppose. Jewels also.

Probably the biggest obstacle for the switch to a +2 amulet right now is that my current amulet carries my accuracy rating. Would have to find some other source for it first. Maybe gloves like you did, but that cuts into resistances again.

Also good catch on the belt enchant, I definitely should get that one.

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Headtourist wrote:

If you're going for exarch altars, I find that the most deadly thing is the burning ground, gotta be cautious. I have another pair of boots I sometimes use for mapping when i'm lazy and don't wanna be careful, with burning ground immunity on them :

I am thinking of switching to Harvest farming, and for that blue altars seem better.
But if burning ground is your concern, can't this be easily fixed via a minor pantheon?

P.S: On your helmet, did you get randomly lucky with that elemental damage to lightning, or did you manually craft it? If the latter, how?

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On the flip side I am curious why everyone runs Purity of Elements. Elemental Ailment Immunity can be gotten with the right pair of boots and Ancestral Visions. 35% resist all sure is nice, but is it worth 50% mana reservation?

Determination for me roughly cuts the physical damage I am receiving in half.

About Purity of Elements, i'm not that sure many run it. I do because I'm lazy, and also didn't try to get ailment immunity elsewhere. I have played a long time with lots of overcap on resistances due to that (then i started dropping lots of resistances everywhere). I would tend to think that people would not use purity of elements but wrath instead for more damage (malevolence+wrath auras)

Regarding determination, I have pretty much never used it on my character, so i'm biased, it doesnt seem mandatory to me. But if you dont use purity of elements etc, you could just keep the same aura setup and add malevolence (with enlighten 4 and reworking gems/links i suppose.

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Probably the biggest obstacle for the switch to a +2 amulet right now is that my current amulet carries my accuracy rating. Would have to find some other source for it first. Maybe gloves like you did, but that cuts into resistances again.
Also good catch on the belt enchant, I definitely should get that one.

I probably just followed Brunowa's guide on this, as the pob had accuracy on gloves. I didn't even think of mentionning the belt enchant before but yes it's a nice addition to accuracy indeed.

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I am thinking of switching to Harvest farming, and for that blue altars seem better.
But if burning ground is your concern, can't this be easily fixed via a minor pantheon?

That may be. I really dislike eater altars so I wouldn't know :D Although they dont seem that rippy to me, only annoying thing is the projectiles are fired in random directions, gotta read everything just to avoid bricking the map due to that.
You're totally right about pantheons, I keep forgetting it.

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P.S: On your helmet, did you get randomly lucky with that elemental damage to lightning, or did you manually craft it? If the latter, how?

I'm pretty sure i forced cold modifier there. My best guess is i was lucky enough to have [suffix +] prefixes open and i did something like :
[3 crafted mod (suffix)]
into suffixes cannot be changed (prefix)
into reforge cold for guaranteed phys taken as cold
and then was lucky to get t1 instead of t2.

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Headtourist wrote:

I didn't even think of mentionning the belt enchant before but yes it's a nice addition to accuracy indeed.

Did you rent a lab runner to get that, or run lab yourself? If the latter - ugh, 1/15 chance - what other belts should I take along (just some ilvl 85 Stygian Vises?) to try and make a little profit off runs that miss?

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Headtourist wrote:

I really dislike eater altars so I wouldn't know :D Although they dont seem that rippy to me, only annoying thing is the projectiles are fired in random directions, gotta read everything just to avoid bricking the map due to that.

Oh yes, random projectile directions ...
The rippy thing about eater altars is that 40%-60% reduced cold and lightning resistance, but at least for that you can prepare via overcapping.

What seems to make eater more popular for harvest farming is that the item quantity altars give 50% more item quantity if specced for it. Not sure how that compares to exarch altars having a higher chance to offer item quantity (because of that double boon thing).

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Did you rent a lab runner to get that, or run lab yourself? If the latter - ugh, 1/15 chance - what other belts should I take along (just some ilvl 85 Stygian Vises?) to try and make a little profit off runs that miss?

Nope, bought it for something like 1 divine. I almost never run labs (except for my gloves/boots enchantments from time to time).

Regarding farming, can't help, I'm not a great currency farmer :D

What cluster jewels are most efficient for EA totem?
The Bow one or fire damage or something else?

Also why are nobody using replica emberwake?
I know it cuts skill duration by 90% but 58% faster ignite damage seem tempting.
New arrows is shoot constantly so maybe the duration reduction can be not so much of an issue.
I have one, maybe i try it and see if it is doable.