Vaal ice shot (traditional). Deadeye build.

I just did uber elder and maven with this build. It clowns normal elder and shaper. Not much in the way of problems with my char, except for me not having enough chaos resist. Void (whatever) can kill me. If I misplay in harvest, I can die. If an expedition monster has ambush mod, I can die. If I put extra as chaos on the red altar, I can die in a legion encounter. If I get unlucky with fire spray in blight, I can die. Normally it's suppressed.

Key items are kaom's spirit, some form of life regen (I get it from a rare chest), a vengeant cascade amulet (I like hyrri's amulet, but yoke of suffering/bisco's or, even better, a good rare amulet does good), heatshiver (corrupted + enchanted good - GL with the enchant, it's 400:1 in rolls of 3 chances), and the taming. I use 2x the taming.

Getting enough intelligence and strength is hard. My stygian has 50+ str, and I still have trouble running a high berserk. You can put some on the tree if you need to. Intelligence can come from an enchantment on your shirt, boots (native or crafted), and bow (veiled chaos orb gives a nice stat with critical strike chance).

Before I messed up my bow trying to finish it I had around 66m max dps. It's higher with barrage support. I don't like posting my PoB with a bow as scuffed as this, but I'll do it. A damage setup is like 77m. I don't have 77m right now, as I messed up my bows trying to re-craft them into better shape.

Here's a video:

https://youtu.be/4Kuigs-y2dk

There's some changes to my setup since this video. First, I put 2x taming. I also put some movement speed. If you want to do no regen/no leech well, I think that you need to take mind drinker and take reservation on the mastery. My mana cost is a problem, since I don't have much cost reduction aside from inspiration gem.

I put some other vids up on my channel with PoBs that I did along the way. Here's the current PoB:

https://pobb.in/ZoONkk9xSPnA

I'll talk about what I'm doing in the PoB now. First thing, you want a divergent inspiration for your secondary manaforged arrows attack setup. There's not many alternate quality gems that you need to make this build work. I have an awakened added cold damage but I don't even use it. Now, putting attack speed won't make your manaforged trigger more. It triggers twice/second, no more. That's if the mana cost is proportionally high enough on your main skill relative to the manaforged skill. You can check your APS on your manaforged setups in PoB to make sure that things are working properly.

Heatshiver is mandatory for this build, as it gives like 45% of your DPS. Vs frozen enemy, it adds 100% of your cold as fire. So, it's strong. You want to either do huge cold damage to freeze (increased critical damage support, a sick bow) or use hypothermia and awakened cold pen, to try and maximize the freeze chance and duration also. Freeze duration means you don't need to stupidly kite all the time. It's tiresome and fatiguing to do that.

I use 2x taming because it's good damage. You should get some form of lightning damage, so you can run trinity support. The mana cost works out well, to where I get 2x manaforged arrows firing/second, and then 5 main bow attacks.

In terms of the bow, best is tyrannical+, flaring+, then added cold damage. Then you want something like crit multi, crit chance, attack speed. Very traditional bow, but hard to find. I would suggest playing with rog to try to get a crafting base, and then craft it yourself. I won't put directions, but I'll say that I like cheap methods over expensive and laborious ones.

Next best is something with high cold damage, then other damage. You want to cap your crit chance and crit multi must be strong.

For boots, hunter/redeemer is best. You want to try to get pierce, onslaught, elusive. It's not too hard to cap resists with this build, for me at least, I'm used to wearing lots of uniques and finding ways to fix my resists.

My gear is very normal. I changed to this build from a crit cleave impale ming's heart w. abyssus and haven't managed to sell any of my old gear. So, I've been putting this together on the fly. I think that the build can do 100m w. berserk and vaal ice shot easy. The build does everything that I've tried, with basically no problem. Sure, you can die, but if you get everything put together well I don't think that you should really die with this build. Chaos resistance is a big thing here. You want as much life as you can get via good items. If you're poor, well, this build might not be for you. You need to do things like buy bows for a few divine, link them, link maybe a hyrri's shirt, buy a corrupted heatshiver (power charge + aura gem is best imo), then work hard to put the build together.

List of alternate items:

-immortal flesh belt w. good rolls and catalyst/corruption
-hyrri's shirt
-queen of the forest shirt
-ashes of the stars amulet (inferior dps, but great utility)
-rare ring/mark of elder/shaped ring
-rare gloves w. high status ember for rage generation and also, getting pierce from gloves mod
-flame dash gem, no herald of ice, steelskin gem
-lethal pride for 2x+ chance at double, maybe some endurance charges would be good

Vengeant Cascade requires at least 1 pierce. More is better. You can put chain on the ascendancy if you want. Personally, I think it's unnecessary.

I don't recommend blight with this build, as multiple bosses can force you off the encounter. It's not like a facetanking dps char that can just blast through 2-3 bosses at once. You will be shooting and moving and won't have the time to kill multiple bosses, so you will fail the encounter. It's a bad idea to try to shotgun anything with this build - just log out via macro or abort encounters liberally as need be.

Don't use the threshold gem, it's trash. Any other gem is better in those slots. Don't use the increased AoE enchant for ice shot, it's trash (I have it, it's trash). You want increased ice shot damage. Exception might be if you have a sick # of arrows. Like, +2 from bow, +1 from quiver. This prevents there being big gaps in the firing spread. I only have 5 ice shot arrows. All come from tree or ascendancy.

//updated PoB. I managed to get a T2 fire and lightning bow w. tyrannical. I'm working on crafting it - it should be good with trinity support. I'm currently using a blood rage bow. DPS is around 78m with vaal ice shot archers and berserk up.

https://pobb.in/fHza5Q9_8o9x

//updated PoB. I dropped clever thief and put more elemental ailment effect and movement speed. I also made some incremental improvements which bring my DPS to around 83m. Bow is different also.

https://pobb.in/nOCliDhJNRF2

//updated PoB. 85m here. I put clever thief back. I think that it helps vs single target with no regen. I swapped bonus evasion from body armour for more movement speed if haven't been hit recently. I'm trying to stack a little more life, or take Elemental Focus - not sure which is better. Elemental focus helps to get a better chill/freeze effect, but more life can help with harvest (the little bubbles that you might step on accidentally; strongbox ice nova). I'm pretty sure that movespeed is better than evasion, as it helps you to micro your character.

https://pobb.in/6fU7zw7BlF26

//current pob, like 60m. Alot changed since patch.

https://pobb.in/MrzE5_2ULQqD

//Alot has changed with the new version of the game. I'll just put the PoB for how I adjusted. It's like 66.5m max dps. Feels pretty smooth and good. I lost spell suppression, but avatar of the veil makes up for it quite a bit. Good dps boost and ailment prevention. I'm running my legacy voidbringers, that give all pierce. This saves me from getting multiple pierce largely from the tree. Switched bandits to help alira. Helps with no leech maps and gives res and a good dps boost.

https://pobb.in/6bRTgO7whQsd

//Some recent adjustments. I was looking for better freeze effect and duration (hoping for permafreeze of things giving me problems). So, I went with awakened cold pen over damage on full life, and switched a ring. I put divergent herald of thunder, to try to get more DPS.

https://pobb.in/8pmsFIA0qzLP

//Fairly big update! I went for avatar of the veil flame/flesh. I put awakened cold pen back, because it completely nullifies all resists with avatar of the veil. This helps a lot vs dangerous rares. To try to get ailment immunity, I went with ancestral vision. I'm going to get a corrupting blood one. Better on it than a thread of hope. I'm looking to update my bow with something from temp league; figgur I'll need like 60-110 div for that. Dropped divergent herald of thunder (may need to put it back for shock). I get shock from my bow's damage. A more proper bow doesn't have lightning damage on it. DPS is like 52, but all of it goes in. Trinity support + avatar of the veil 20% + awakened cold pen + maybe something else iunno == complete elemental penetration. I built a little more defensively. Changed a lot of things. I can do 4 scarab fortune favors now, with max map mod effect. Mods I don't like are ailment immune, no leech, partial regen, extra energy shield; there are many mods I don't like.

https://pobb.in/7P-fpbHnWccq

//dropped ancestral vision. upgraded bow for 60 (major steal). got progenesis and a better watcher's. max dps 88. doing blue altars. they way better.

https://pobb.in/5kS1dir25S_f

//doing harby now. harby is great because of fracturing shards. farming pretty hard, doing things quite properly. don't remember what changes I made aside from eyes of greatwolf and using IIQ gem. does the content really well. 'destructive play' node is ok - if something really nasty spawns i can be in trouble. new patch didn't hurt my build much. it's about a 100m max dps build, but i'm farming. note that pob isn't showing my frenzy of onslaught and transfigured burning arrow gems. there's a minor mistake, in that I should be running awakened elemental damage with attacks over awakened cold damage. pretty big diff in dps. oh, and I bought the ring for 20. LOL.

https://pobb.in/lC_ghnH5XD6W

//some farming specific optimizations. i feel pen is good - don't need awakened cold pen.

https://pobb.in/TdirVGxDg-MY

//side-graded my boots, since I wanted rare boots with pierce. bought a pair of nice viridians - no forbidden flame/flesh. DPS is around 100 max. It's higher if you use OP hyrri's amulet. Not really farming all that hard; I need a scourged bow for that, I think. Cuz of lightning resist on the boots, I can use polaric ring again, which is also OP.

https://pobb.in/KIz9XA7zxo2B

//I just put some tattoos on here. 126m max dps.

https://pobb.in/GOs_MfP4iCW4

//got an onslaught tattoo for better movement during boss fights. Using a bismuth flask and legacy goldwyrms. dps is like 128. shirt is my upgraded rarity shirt, although I would have preferred life rolls. The veiled chaos orb just put flat eva and % evasion.

https://pobb.in/N7gy9YaahDlO

//167 max dps w. improved crucible bow. The bow pairs well w. goldwyrm.

https://pobb.in/F9BRUD4jdkgY

//I wasn't happy spending all these points on the onslaught tattoo, so I got a onslaught synth ring. It's about 194 max dps.

https://pobb.in/-3-2bo8JyyVe

//sorted out my links and got some traditional boots. 45% pen if I haven't killed recently and my trinity is processing well (which it should).

https://pobb.in/CtuUREtik4Io

//Here's what I'm doing in league. Heatshiver nerf is brutal. I have a hh, heatshiver, and shaper boots. Bow is about as good as you can make yourself. There's nothing to buy in this area. Point blank quiver is a great QoL upgrade, so you can just sit down and slay bosses and small harbys. Check out my atlas for CharmingBackpacker if you need a harby/betrayal/blue altar atlas. Build works well enough. I don't think I can really T11 wisp no matter what I do. Think I'll just grind harbs and altars w. boss rushing with the occasional betrayal encounter. I use a corrosive elements megalo - I think it's OP as it gives 18% pen with the mastery. Gonna incorporate this node into my standard league play, as I have only 35% presently on that char. Plan is to use my league char as my standard char w. legacy goldwyrms, IIQ support, and a greatwolf amulet. Cull will come from a taken jewel along with, hopefully, an added projectile. Then I'll work on getting a good point blank and proj quiver - shouldn't be too hard.

There is an alternate aura setup, which is hatred/haste/grace on mana w. lvl3 enlighten and reservation mastery/sovereignty and a aura reservation notable. Then you use a lvl4/5 enlighten w. herald of ice and precision on life reservation. I like to facetank things, so I don't run this setup, but you can. I think you need to give up the golem, but it can be done this way for smooth mapping of like legion and stuff. If you have a watcher's with like, grace speed and some haste mod and then cold pen while affected by hatred, it can be very cool, I think.

I like 7th gate harb, for the 70+ frac orb revenue/day. I think red altars are quite good this league. I do blue, but red is good for the great income from grand embers and the invitation sells very well also. It's also nice to have some unmakes and sextants and vaal orbs. Until you get a rare chest and a good bismuth flask, you can do red and profit well this league, imo.

https://pobb.in/OBLTbVlIAH16

//Update: kaom's spirit has been nerfed into obsolesence. I put legacy virtuosity on instead. Some adjusting, with having TWWT jewel. Here's updated POB:
https://pobb.in/nqij2hvHYD7R

DPS is a little lower now. Note the item quantity gem and goldwyrm boots. Losing 50 rage is a big deal; char is sorta slower and does less damage. With damage on full life support and good boots for elusive, it's around the same effectiveness. Pretty sure the char can do pretty much the same stuff it could before the glove nerf.

//pretty much finished the char (standard). Here's POB: https://pobb.in/zIvyWT-pQEb3

//refined some things. about 120m max dps. updated PoB: https://pobb.in/DciX7tc_6Yzz

//sorta more refinements. PoB: https://pobb.in/O5mnZXKOTuvw Replica Loreweave is a dope shirt, cuz it has life and more damage than a rare chest. I think 37% pen is sufficient, so I dropped Forces of Nature and adjusted my pathing along the top of Revenge of the Hunted (life/evasion nodes). I think grabbing Entrench is good, with the last points.

//LOL, nevermind. Replica Loreweave is trash. Updated with diff gear: https://pobb.in/6n2AYAHDXh_J

//some optimizations, adding spell suppression and removing grace for haste.
https://pobb.in/05ErvJRuKCkH

//further optimizations, putting grace back and removing some suppression and using avatar of the wilds and rare gloves.
https://pobb.in/SGdbHOz6w3HC

//sorta vastly superior massive thread of hope version: https://pobb.in/mePZvfJBW3V0

Hinekora's Lock dropped and I got 473 for it. Made some upgrades. Char is pretty finished now, except for a rofl GG amulet. POB: https://pobb.in/DNGn2mAq5T8n

Here are some thoughts on what I'm doing: spell suppress is godlike for fighting king harbies, because it just halves the damage taken from the spells. So, I'm nearly capped on suppression. Damage is important, and I have enough for T16 and maybe T17 also (I like fortress map, dislike silo). I think that Strand with Mesa or Burial Chambers scry'd onto it is the map to run. The blue altars are not ideal on Strand, but this is no longer a big part of your income. I'm doing Allie's harb 3.25 strategy (scarab farm using the rares spawned by king harbies). If I can get this rolling in T17 with bare IIQ gear, this should really produce. The build performs well. It's nearly 200m with damage gear. I have like, enough walking around and I can power spike with vaal ice shooters and this delete everything for 10 seconds button that I have in the flame/flesh jewel skill. Like, this is a strong build. I enjoy playing it a lot. 3.25 did not kill my build; it just made me get better gear to do similar damage.

Here's current farming setup for T16 harb/beyond:
https://pobb.in/hz3i-_YncAgk

Incidentally, I found a special unique that really explodes what I'm doing into the stratosphere. I don't want to say what the item is, but it only cost me 25 div and it makes it so I can just walk up to king harbs and explode them, even if there are 4 of them.
Last edited by sawseech on Oct 15, 2024, 6:25:17 AM
Last bumped on Jun 21, 2023, 3:08:10 PM

Report Forum Post

Report Account:

Report Type

Additional Info