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

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brunowa wrote:

1) Not sure. The POBs were posted near the start of the league so haven't touched them. I have since made some updates to my 40+mill DPS version but most of it is personal preference so I have just left the POBs as they are.

Your POB Links are for the passive tree Patch 3.16 and it changed in 3.16. Masteries changed and other stuff, so its best you post a 3.17 POB link.

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brunowa wrote:

2) Ashes of the stars is a great option, but it does lack life and resistances which are pretty fundamental. Also, it is lower DPS compared with a regular DOT ammy with life, res, and + skill gem(s). But it's a good alternative if you want the quality on gems for whatever reason you are using that quality for.

The 30% quality gives alot things and it is worth it. You should take a closer look, how it affects alle gems and ALT gem versions.

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brunowa wrote:

3) Yes, this is one of those updates I have personally made, but again, it's personal preference. I did mention it in the thread at the time of change but didn't update the guide. I can add it into gems as an alternate way to generate frenzy, which is my preference now for my setup.

That is your opinion. Blood rage adds to much attack speed, so it should be in the build. You still need Frenzy Skill for bosses.

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brunowa wrote:

6) I'd be interested to hear any thoughts. It's pretty optimised. But if you have any suggestions, fire away. If you're talking about the Hired Killer area, I have opted to not go there because I can get better DPS elsewhere (as you can see I am focused more on DPS now).

Sure, then it is your choice. In Builds with alot DPS, you have room for things like hired killer. You get alot one more jewel slot, if you go to hired killer. Lethal Pride timeless jewel at jewel slot near Golem's Blood gives good DPS.

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brunowa wrote:

7) Yes, my jewels are intended. Why wouldn't they be? hehe

Because Prefix: 8% attack speed with bows and suffix 20% inc burning damage is better.

Sure, i get it, if you play standard as your main league and if you dont care about dying, then you can go your dps route.

I prefer well rounded characters, which die less in softcore and with all the defense changes in 3.16 you can make this possible.

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Kharadas wrote:

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brunowa wrote:

2) Ashes of the stars is a great option, but it does lack life and resistances which are pretty fundamental. Also, it is lower DPS compared with a regular DOT ammy with life, res, and + skill gem(s). But it's a good alternative if you want the quality on gems for whatever reason you are using that quality for.

The 30% quality gives alot things and it is worth it. You should take a closer look, how it affects alle gems and ALT gem versions.

No.

I have taken a look at it and ultimately, it is not as good as a rare with Life + Resistances + Damage over Time + Skill Gems. Ashes of the Stars can't beat it, UNLESS you are wanting to play a particular playstyle, such as using Divergent Explosive Arrow and you want to minimise duration time etc.

But as I mentioned before, Ashes of the Stars is a great alternative if you don't have a rare. But ultimately, a rare outperforms it at end-game.

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Kharadas wrote:

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brunowa wrote:

3) Yes, this is one of those updates I have personally made, but again, it's personal preference. I did mention it in the thread at the time of change but didn't update the guide. I can add it into gems as an alternate way to generate frenzy, which is my preference now for my setup.

That is your opinion. Blood rage adds to much attack speed, so it should be in the build. You still need Frenzy Skill for bosses.

I actually use Blood Rage INSTEAD of frenzy, as personally I don't need the frenzies for bosses when I already have 20% on bosses. It's not in the guide because frenzies is better for the vast majority of players due to no degen.

I am not going to add every single alternative and option to the build guide. If I did that, the guide itself would be 100 pages long. When people reach end-game, they can play around with their own preference and playstyle and mix things up. This is exactly what this thread is for, for people sharing those kind of ideas and Blood Rage vs Frenzies has been discussed before.

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Kharadas wrote:

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brunowa wrote:

6) I'd be interested to hear any thoughts. It's pretty optimised. But if you have any suggestions, fire away. If you're talking about the Hired Killer area, I have opted to not go there because I can get better DPS elsewhere (as you can see I am focused more on DPS now).

Sure, then it is your choice. In Builds with alot DPS, you have room for things like hired killer. You get alot one more jewel slot, if you go to hired killer. Lethal Pride timeless jewel at jewel slot near Golem's Blood gives good DPS.

I could do that, but again, why? I already do all content with ease and I don't need any extra defence and am quite comfortable. A Lethal Pride is a good option and many players run with one. I personally don't, because again, I don't need to.

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Kharadas wrote:

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brunowa wrote:

7) Yes, my jewels are intended. Why wouldn't they be? hehe

Because Prefix: 8% attack speed with bows and suffix 20% inc burning damage is better.

Sure, i get it, if you play standard as your main league and if you dont care about dying, then you can go your dps route.

I prefer well rounded characters, which die less in softcore and with all the defense changes in 3.16 you can make this possible.

Like I said, I am very comfortable with my defences and I do not die often, enabling me to invest more into DPS. This is also the exact reason I have provided 2 POBS - one that is well-rounded, and one for those players interested in maximising DPS.

There is absolutely no need for me to spend further $$ min-maxing. What benefit would I get? I could spend 100ex min-maxing my gear to shave off 0.5secs off a boss kill. Or, I could spend that 100ex on a new build. The latter is my preference on how I play POE.

The Arcanist Brand setup takes several gem slots compared to just linking Culling Strike to Lightning Spire trap. Does the brand add an appreciable amount of dps or are there other reasons to prefer it?

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fnurt wrote:

The Arcanist Brand setup takes several gem slots compared to just linking Culling Strike to Lightning Spire trap. Does the brand add an appreciable amount of dps or are there other reasons to prefer it?

Linking it with Lightning Spire trap is fine. It's what I am actually running with currently in league. The Arcanist Brand + Flame Surge does provide a nice DPS boost.

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I Khabat I wrote:

If you could show me the calculation to the 19 fuses that you calculated I will be forever grateful. When I count I get 25,6 fuses

He just ran the calculation on the numbers from the POB you posted.

Attack Speed * Hit Chance * Duration Mod * Totems
2.32 * 1 * 1.4 * 6 = 19.488

Your POB, however, was unconfigured. So you had not checked Frenzy charges, or lifetap, or turned on all your flasks. Your actual numbers are:

2.58 * 1 * 1.4 * 6 = 21.672

In my opinion, that's pretty much perfect.

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fnurt wrote:

The Arcanist Brand setup takes several gem slots compared to just linking Culling Strike to Lightning Spire trap. Does the brand add an appreciable amount of dps or are there other reasons to prefer it?

Lightning Spire Trap requires the boss to not move and has other problems, while a brand sticks to the boss.

You need Arcanist Brand for the Flame Surge(read how flame surge works on the wiki. It adds alot damage) and culling strike, if you need it, then on the frenzy setup. Molten Shell can also be added into the Arcanist Brand Setup.

Finally kind of min-maxed my gears for comprehensive in both offensive and defensive end.

With mage blood, i got almost immune to curse, 90% physical reduction, 85% evade chance, 100% spell suppression. At defensive end, all resist (including chaos) reach 75. With vitality, got about 410 hp regen per second at around 3.9K HP. Offensive end still have around 30M DPS! I can run 6 aura with this setup, super tanky!

If i run bloodrage, attack speed is able to reach 3/sec, maybe I will buy divergent EA for the next step.



pastebin: https://pastebin.com/ehni90k2

thank you for showing me how to callculate fuses. Is it good or bad to have durration? if i quality explosive arrow it will have 20% more durration.

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cloudmonkeyz wrote:

Finally kind of min-maxed my gears for comprehensive in both offensive and defensive end.

Nice to see a mageblood setup in here. Looking quite good!


Also kinda finished with my def-focused setup for now. Farming mostly Simulacrum with it.

Wave30 Simulacrum Setup:

https://pastebin.com/AjtGtabF


No super expensive stuff in there, but can easily take Wave30 deathless.
And gear can be switched quite liberally.


Def Highlights:
-5,5k HP
-56k Armor
-64k effective maximum hit Taken / 328k effective Hitpool
-200% Movespeed (Needed for Reward maxing. Phaserun+Smokemine)

Off:
3 ApS (20fuses after around 1,15s)
44M Ignite

Misc:
-Still using "The Gull"
-Annointed "Blood Drinker" for the QoL of 2% life on Kill
-+2Arrows on Bow for QoL Clearspeed. (preferable to raw DPS for mapping imho)



For Bossing / PoB-DPS:
Switch in:
Elevated-Blizzard Crown (+22%more DPS)
Offensive Watcher's Eye (+12% more)
Annoint "Dirty Technique" instead (+10% more)



If you are considering Min/Maxing you could really look into double corrupted (+4lvl) Body Armors and socket your EA there.
This opens up the use MAX +Ele Dmg on Bows, and the DPS potential of Using Both (+lvl and Ele-DPS) is staggering.

This let's you take up sooo much more Def potential elsewhere. Or Push to 100M ignite Glasscannon, if you really want to.

I'm quite happy with the stats atm, and I'm not even using Polaric Devastation or an expensive +Skill Amulet. Aside from the BodyArmor (8ex) the Rest is rather cheap-ish and/or just self-crafted.

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cloudmonkeyz wrote:

Finally kind of min-maxed my gears for comprehensive in both offensive and defensive end.

With mage blood, i got almost immune to curse, 90% physical reduction, 85% evade chance, 100% spell suppression. At defensive end, all resist (including chaos) reach 75. With vitality, got about 410 hp regen per second at around 3.9K HP. Offensive end still have around 30M DPS! I can run 6 aura with this setup, super tanky!

If i run bloodrage, attack speed is able to reach 3/sec, maybe I will buy divergent EA for the next step.

A nice setup with Mageblood you have here.

If you can afford a mageblood, then you can afford the Alterations to roll the reduced effect of curses on your stibnite flask to Tier 1 and get curse immun. No excuses here allowed :)

You are going strong for evasion with all the pieces and flasks.

I am pointing out a few ideas/suggestions(This is also with nerfs for 3.18 in mind, where we might need more damage !):

1. Armour + Molten Shell is more important and better. So get 60% increased armour instead of 60% increased evasion on the flask.

This video explains alot in detail about armour and evasion and it is not only for simulacrum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B4Djvi6fVA

Take the time to watch the whole video and let me know, what you think.

2. You dont need the stibnite flask(check 1.) and attack speed as suffix on flask(check 8.) and can use some offensive flask or chaos resist flask as example.

3. Just pointing out: Your hit chance with explosive arrow is only 95%, so should aim for 100%.

4. Your Quiver has not even one dot multiplier.

5. You sacrifice alot damage on gear and the passive tree to get vitality and malevolence into the build and have also only 3900 life with this setup in general.

Just my opinion( and also some hardcore players). You dont need grace aura for bosses and can do fine mapping with all this damage without malevolence.

So just swap grace for malevolence for sirus, shaper,... all problems solved easy. Just think about this, but its your choice sure.

6. You dont the hextouch setup. Arcanist Brand - Flammability - Flame Surge is better and gives more damage(bosses), where you need it.

7. You should consider using a watcher's eye(with mageblood, you can afford this too). There are lot nice mods for grace, determination, precision.

8. Your cobalt jewel has no attack speed. A viridian jewel with 8% attack speed with bows, +20% inc burning damage and 1-2 other mods(fire dot multi,...) is alot stronger.


I hope this helps you in some way and this are just some suggestions/ideas for you to improve.

Since you like building tanky. I show you my body armour. It is not perfect for the suffixes as i wanted, but good enough.