3.9| DEADITOR |Elemental Hit w/ Ballista Totem Support| Use Any Gear! (Need a Big Investment Though)

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Saevan wrote:

Regarding the bow, I'm using a Quill Rain and I haven't found anything yet that beats it, based on the tool tip.

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SamothD wrote:

In any case, thank you very much for all your suggestions - I really appreciate your input. :-)

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Katalaeia wrote:

Spoiler

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Wrecker_of_Days wrote:

Ya, this build doesn't hit bosses very hard. Survivability is good but bosses are tough. This build is dependant on a good weapon to kill bosses quickly. I'll be updating that info in the guide in time now that I've hit maps and am seeing what the build is like.

I wound up rolling another character to try building something that doesn't feel so weak against bosses. This entire league is essentially a bossing league with the Metamorphs being such a heavy focus, and with how relatively weak Ballistas feel it might be the wrong league to try this build out.

If the weapon is such a major focus, maybe I just need a better explanation of what makes a good bow with regards to the EH skill? The build guide says "whatever bow you like" and that's obviously a way to [unintentionally!] severely restrict what your character can do, so it might be helpful to expand this section a bit.

I'm really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on progression as you work your way into maps and face more Metamorphs. It's entirely possible I'm missing something obvious in how I play the character, so I'm not writing it off quite yet.

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Spoiler

I was using lmp through majority of my playthrough, swapping to faster attacks only for conquerors, at tier 11 maps i swapped permamently to faster attacks to get a little more dmg, I've reached tier ~12 maps (2/3 watchstones for area) when I hit 24 challenges.
Was thinking about getting 6l thicket elder (or simply 6l thicket ilvl 86+ or harbinger bow) and fossil craft serrated+prismatic (or just prismatic) to get +1 to arrow on bow (or quiver, so lmp would be pointless) or +2 to bow gems/+1 to gems. Which made me wondering - why not using lv 4 empower as 6th link?
Also - ele reflects maps are possible, its just that ballistas die after 1 hit, but we put lots of them anyway.
I dont understand how you can run blood rage on that build. I cant imagine spamming life flasks just to sustain that skill.

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Aeris85 wrote:

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Katalaeia wrote:

If the weapon is such a major focus, maybe I just need a better explanation of what makes a good bow with regards to the EH skill? The build guide says "whatever bow you like" and that's obviously a way to [unintentionally!] severely restrict what your character can do, so it might be helpful to expand this section a bit.

I'm really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on progression as you work your way into maps and face more Metamorphs. It's entirely possible I'm missing something obvious in how I play the character, so I'm not writing it off quite yet.

On Page 8 or so, Wrecker of Days wrote that crit chance, attack speed + general damage is most important on the bow.
I think I did the mistake for example that I looked for + purchased a bow that has +x damage to fire + lightning + cold damage. While the flat damage is nice so the percentages yield more, it only boosts every 3rd attack. While general +damage, crit chance + attack speed would yield better results!

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Aeris85 wrote:

Spoiler

Oh yes, I'm totally on your side, the section about what gear to use could be much more precise!!

Different topic:
Shouldn't Ancestral Call Support work with Elemental Hit - instead of Ballista Totem Support?
I just tested it, it does NOT seem to attack +2 nearby enemies... though AC does require a melee strike skill, and Elemental Hit has melee + strike in its tags... ?? And the tooltip also says it should work.

My build before was a Frostblades Ranger, with a Claw. And with that, it was specifically very visible that you could even hit enemies behind you, because the +2 nearby enemies chosen by Ancestral Call could just stand behind you. And I don't see that with Elemental Hit when testing a few mob groups.

UPDATE:
I have changed the build now a little, or better: added sth else to it. I kept the Elemental Hit Totem the same.
But on top, I now have a 4L:

Elemental Hit - Mirage Archer Support - Ancestral Call Support - EDWAS

And this I shoot manually on my own. I thought I need more damage output, but why not the same just manually? And then I thought the Mirage Archer is nice anyway, because it also shoots on its own. And trying out the Ancestral Call as mentioned above...

I just don't use Arctic Armour anymore, because that would be too much Mana reserved. Placing the Totems + shooting the EH on my own costs that much Mana.

=> That all sounded super nice. But I don't feel that much of an improvement... I mean, I don't have the new gems leveled that high, okay. But still, I thought it would be 2x better right off the bat.
I am still dying pretty quickly, and I have only reached T3-4 Maps...

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kumere wrote:

Spoiler

my League starter trying this build reached T5 maps in SSF viable manner
playing since late 3.7 and came across your guide in 3.8

I am not complaining, but offering my take/ ideas for people having troubles

I had some Issues and still have..
Balistas are slow and have narrow range and my char is still squishy ( almost 4k now)
I changed EH - Ballista to a 3 link EDwEA to clean up the trash/ for safely progressing, the damage is sufficient to kill leftovers.

but my main damage source is my 6L bow EH- EDwEA- Lesser Multi Proj.- CritDmg - CritChance- Mirage Archer.

The attack speed and range are better clearing and bossing seem faster, even surface abyss and delve seem easier to me, there is some kind of control what goes down first and the totems and mirage grant some extra damage and safety

while coloring/ crafting i also tried to get MORE (Damage on Full Life support did not work well, but Inspiration felt pretty nice)

so I think its not wrong to say it is your 3.8 build with a 2nd button

I do know that my gear is a mess (why else would i craft 10 lightning res on my bow that already rolled +2 to bow skills 3 times in ~ 40 chaos and i had to ditch it..) and I Do know that I skipped Life nodes.
Still working on last trial too

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nbminh35595 wrote:

We have multiple Totems and each one will shot a different element, so how will it affect EE?

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DoJoMa wrote:

Noob here:


if i have added "elemnetal damage" to gear- Lets say Lightning damage- would Elemental Hit hit the target with Lightning AND the elemment it chooses?
(Or if i use Storm Cloud bow- which does lightning damage, would EH hit with it chosen element and my bow would do lighning damage, right?)

How does this affect elemental equilibrium? What element would EE choose to give minus resistance to if hit by 2 elements at the same time?
?

Hope you can understand what im asking. im a little confused.

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Maxtrux wrote:

Spoiler

Hello everyone, and happy new year.

This is my first post in this forum which is not of the kind "placeholder for Acquisition" or "thank you for carrying my sorry gameset and patethic excuse of a character in my way for achieving the 36th challenge before a 1-2 month vacation before next league". Admittedly, I've not experienced this feeling since 2008, and didn't expect to feel it again.

I wish to give some general suggestion both on equipment, support gems and extra skills that I feel have been skimmed for the sake of critting or for following the "1-button" theme. While they could not be the best course of action, I think could help a lad getting through in case of unfortunate socket colours. I'll try to help the tl:dr; nature of the post and put in spoiler a bit of history both of me and the character, which is secondary to the purpose of this post.

Equip

- Bow: since EH does not scale with bow, I'm a bit surprised to see no one has suggested Death's Harp/Opus so far. The 100% critMulti and 30-50% critChance comes pretty soon in game and should help until you get a Shaped- or Influenced- alternative.
- Quiver: Yes, Skirmish is rather good. More Ballistas = more damage sources = more DPS against bosses. However, even to my surprise, Hyrri's Demise came up as a good alternative, with the extra damage offered compensating the loss of a ballista. It made me think to what a Doomfletch's Prism could do for this build but, then again, the idea is having a skill that doesn't use the basic weapon damage to live on
- Helmet: I am currently exploring Flamesight as a way to get even more damage, both with the +x% eleDamage it offers and the Scorch. While there is a downside in sacrificing Ignition (do remember, though, that Scorch is an Elemental Ailment and will get the +10% moreDamage and 80% moreAoE from EH if a fire damage scorches a scorched enemy), I am intrigued to see what it could do for red-tiers.

Skills

- Frost Bomb. I don't know you, but metamorphs with Extra life, life regen and allies regen life regenerated more quickly than my DPS could chip off. Then this skill came, and they become way less godly. The skill also provides a Cold Exposition (thus easier to chill/freeze), and EE is not bothered too much from the cold damage of the skill
- Wave of Conviction. Rather than Blasphemy curse, I went for Skill-COH-Curse. Wave would provide both a proccer of ProjWeakness (+x% Damage taken > -% Resistance) AND an Exposure to Lighting and/or Fire, depending on the roll it. Combining it with Frost Bomb exposure, it's basically like having an (extra) eleWeakness on the opponent


Support
(for EH)

- Hypothermia: just because it doesn't affect tooltip doesn't mean it is useless. Our EH would most likely always chill the opponent (by nature or crit), thus the +40% MORE damage against these enemies would most likely always activate. Also combo well with +x% damage against Chilled enemies that Incursion gloves or Cameria enchantment could give. Furthermore, the "freeze-the-chilled" helps in blocking Rare in high tier and sometimes even freeze bosses in low-mid tier, depending on the damage

- Inspiration: good olde Reduced Mana was revamped with the Inspiration Charges mechanics. With this on, ballistas would cost around 15-30 mana per placing, and with the quick placement speed (0.3 base) of ballistas, it takes literally 2 seconds to get the 5 Charges on. In exchange we get 40% incCrit and, most important, 35% moreDamage in a Red gem

Spoiler

I'm around here since late Torment league, had my fun in Darkshrine, awed at Legacy, ditched the reason I joined the game in the first place at Talisman, and so on. My last "funny" build was a HS Juggernaut MartyrOfInnocence at Bestiary and was... less than optimal. This build popped after my last resort to "Follow the meta of the league before they cripple it in the next" failed and my Artillery Ballista Totem sought another way to carry on. Then this build came.

EH covers the proverbial gap between melee and mages as in it is the only skill that doesn't scale with Weapon Physical Damage, thus not forcing your char to get a T1 roll on %phys or, at least, get a decent Incursion weapon to get red. Thus, I liked it for its SSF-friendly traits and chose to give it a go with this build.

I've followed the main idea of the build, but changed my approach on the offensive. I usually don't focus too much on crit unless the build always crits (easier to do now even without a Trypanon) or is at least capable of getting Power Charges. Rather, I balance myself in a combination of crit chance and "More" damage. Major changes includes:
> Hierophant ascendancy rather than Inquisitor. This was done for the +1 totem and the little MoM it offers. The build does not focus on mana (1000 if we do not include Precision and clarity reserve), but focused with the 5.5k life pool it usually managed to save my grits from an occasional boss slam that me (or my 30MB connection) didn't manage to dodge
> Inquisitor over Shadow: sacrifices Crit in exchange of Life, generic elemental and totem damage.

I've run pretty much good with my 6-7 EH Ballistas, and feel the need of getting critty again only now at T14 and the stubborn Awakened Drox that doesn't want to die like it did the last 2 times. Until then, levelling was overall good until 80, got challenging progressively until 88, in which I followed my usual approach "Reach 60% experience in the T6-T10 comfort zone , then Delve until levelup". I am also considering lately to get back to Acrobatics rather than Iron Reflexes, unless I actually find some decent Evasion equipment on

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Maxtrux wrote:

Actually, I forgot to say one downside to use Scorch rather than Ignition. This guide had doubts about Blood Rage interaction with totem. Much has been discussed, but not about the Frenzy Charge on Kill.

I remembered now I levelled up with a Blood Dance, and sure enough sometimes I did gain some charges. It took me a while to realize, but apparently deaths by Ignite DoT are awarded as of being made by the player rather than the totem. So yes, technically speaking you could get the on-Kill bonus even with a totem build like this, but mostly it depends on how much you rely on the Fire part of EH. Of course, with Scorch this is no longer possibile.
Maybe an AoF version, or one that uses Combustion (which compensate EE bonus turning it in a +6% fireRes rather than a +25%) could work better, but AoF and EE are two different builds altogether.

I wonder if this onKill mechanic is still valid in case of Ancestral Bond. This is absolutely not my first totem build, but most of the time it was an Arc Totem, and didn't pay much attention during my Synthesis' Divine Ire Totem Elementalist Witch if it procced.