The Herald of Ash : A Physical Bow Build

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgYAAx4FtQYjBx4OSBGWFr8ZihqPH0Ei6iP2JP0mlSoLKlswcTB8MfoyATKUNj051DpCQzZFfElRSn1LV0t4TZJRR1LsVUtW-l5FYeJh62KsZ6BsjG1sb55wUnGhdoJ293cHd9d59npTfwJ_K4cTh3aMNo19jb-PT5LzlQWVLpeXmyabtZyknaqgn6LZpuCnNLDYsTCyGbQ4tNG1CLVIwJzA48LswzrIDMpKz3rUI9aK2cbdqOOE5RnnVOd06NbrFPDV8bPz6vba-uv7Cfv1_MX_3g==

I have respecced back into the piercing nodes and I am using a poorly-crafted Harbinger Bow. I can now run Grace and I no longer need my Hybrid flask because I can leech via Mind Drinker.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgYAsNhFfKLZl5f79bQ45RmMNlVLYeImlRa_Ax4fQQYjtUhtbPPq53Q2PSoL6NbjhJ2q7LBwUiLqmyYFtXaCYqxsjIwLsTCbtTIBjb_UI7TRuXy1CMM6shlRRzBxyAxxocpKz3owfN2oj09vnmHrfytLeJyk8bN6U9aKd9c6QocTS1c51HcHwON29zH6oJ-NfSP2TZJW-vzFZ6CHdkp93Q1bryF2hs7BM5UF2cYylH8CpuAOSBGWBx6VLvDVSVEZivsJ9toajw==

When leveling, I made use of Fire Trap and focused on the elemental and DoT nodes to increase clear speed. At level 24 you can begin to make use of Herald of Ash and Proliferation, but unless you have a really good bow at this stage, you are much better off with Fire Trap and a Searing Bond totem. These skills don't require any special damage gear, so focus entirely on life and resistances at this point.

At 31 you will have some levels on your Proliferation and you can now link it up with Increased AoE and Increased Burning Damage. This will still not be very useful until your next level. At level 32 you can finally use the Death's Harp unique bow. Take a few chaos and buy the highest damage one you can manage to. This bow will carry you all the way until level 53 when you gain access to the Infractem. Because of the +100% critical damage multiplier on this bow and the possibility of up to 7.5% critical strike chance wit ha high roll on this bow, I strongly urge you to grab increased critical strike nodes when looking for higher damage numbers.

You will one-shot any dense pack of mobs immediately with the Death's Harp. If you manage a critical hit with your Puncture on Dominus in Normal (with Increased Critical Damage support), you may well one-shot him if you can get him walking. Ledge runs in Cruel/Merciless took an average of 3 minutes if you there was no corrupted area or master quest to complete.

You might also consider running a decoy totem for fighting high hp rogue exiles or rares. Once punctured, you can make them commit suicide by walking over to your decoy totem.

4 - Link : Herald of Ash + Elemental Proliferation + Increased AoE + Increased Burning Damage

-The above will reserve 63% of your mana. Unless you want to use one of your 5-Links to
reduce it, you won't be running any auras other than a resistance aura.

4 - Link : Ice Shot + Added Fire + Physical Projectile Damage + Weapon Elemental
Damage

5 - Link : add Concentrated Effect
6 - Link : add Increased Critical Strikes or Increased Critical Damage

-What?! No LMP? No Chain? No GMP? I don't understand!

4 - Link : Puncture + Physical Projectile Damage + Increased Critical Damage +
Increased Critical Strike Chance
or

4 - Link : Puncture + Physical Projectile Damage + Curse on Hit + Vulnerability

-Use the top one if you want sick damage, use the bottom if you are lazy/don't have the mana
to manually curse

-Your evasion, Ondar's Guile, and Acrobatics will do a lot of work here to help out, but you should play it safe. Use a Jade Flask with +% evasion and Puncture that rare mob down first
-Never, ever use Vaal Burning Arrow on a reflect pack, the reflected damage will also be unevadable

You combination of Ice Shot exploding through every pierced mob and the massive AoE ignites can cause instance servers to overload and boot you back to log-in. Keep the following in mind and you'll be alright:

-Never use Ice Shot in a fracturing map with dense packs
-Never aim Ice Shot in the center of strongbox mob spawns in areas with dense pack sizes like sea witches with +%pack size

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmQxt3mXXDM

Me at level 80

I landed two very lucky drops over the last week and now I am using Alpha's Howl and a Drillneck quiver. I rolled a sidegrade for the Infractem bow, dealing roughly the same damage, but with the ability to leech now. Because of this my tree now includes Mind Drinker. With the Alpha's Howl and the reduced reservation nodes, I can easily run Grace and my Herald of Ash setup. The extra evasion produces an enormous amount of reflect protection.

Q: How do you deal with mana?
A: A single Hallowed Hybrid flask was more than enough for all my mana needs playing solo. If you play in a party and no one is running Clarity, find a new party to run with.

Q: How do you deal with no leech?
A: Flasks. Stop tanking hits. This build revolves around taking one shot and then moving into position for another. I can, and have, killed bosses like Shrine Piety and Graveyard Merveil with only flasks for healing use the Infractem. I also run an Ample Jade Flask of Reflexes.

Q: What about Chin Sol?
A: If you would like to use a Chin Sol, I strongly suggest removing all nodes which increase your critical strike chance and multiplier. Spend those points on more Life and Evasion which you will need to survive melee range. The critical strike chance on Chin Sol is very bad so you should focus on flat physical damage jewelry as well.

My current build has removed he Point Blank keystone in order to increase survivability and to improve the odds of killing packs 2-3 screens away from me (a common occurrence in maps with long, straight corridors).

Q: What about Lioneye's Glare?
A: DO NOT USE THIS BOW FOR THIS BUILD! The "hits cannot be evaded" mod applies to reflected damage from your attacks. This means that you will go from a roughly 3% chance of hitting yourself with reflected damage to a 60% (You still have acrobatics).

Q: How will this build work against Atziri?
A: Odds are that it won't. This build is at it's strongest in high-pack-density areas. I doubt that it will have the life pool necessary to handle Atziri unless you run it so skillfully that you never get hit. I made it for running high-level maps and that is what it does.

Someone else made a great build alternative for melting Atziri. You can find it here: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1034503/

Q: How is the damage in parties/high-level maps?
A: The damage is still great in parties and at higher levels. The biggest difference between level 70 maps and level 75 maps is that many packs take two shots to kill in level 75 areas.

In parties, you have to aim for low-life monsters to maximize overkill damage. This will irritate your group's culler to no end. If you run a full group, chances are that the addition of curses and proliferated shock will allow you to handle most of the area damage for your group. If you find it too difficult to last-hit enemies, replace Concentrated Effect on your Ice Shot with Increased Area of Effect to increase the shotgunning spread.

Q: Why do you use Three Dragons?
A: The initial build was put together with the aim of creating a build which costs less than 10 chaos to make. Three Dragons provides important resists and a huge source of damage multiplication via shocking. I currently run an Alpha's Howl since my damage has increased substantially since starting the build and I need the survivability that running Grace gives me.

I explained it up above in the build guide but I somehow get this question constantly.