[1.3][Hardcore] Poison Arrow build showcase and guide

Build Explanation:

This thread is meant to provide players with a build using poison arrow in hardcore leagues. The character showcased is my lvl 96 ranger playing in the Bloodlines league. The cost of the build to start is all in the 5-linked +3 to socketed bow gems bow and any additional costs will only improve survivability and while the damage on PA is linked to gem lvl and links only.

At it’s core the build plays out by shooting your PA while dodging mobs/attacks. Sidra's non-arrow PA build inspired me to try a similar build in the Bloodlines league while modifying the skill tree for more life/mana regen.

If you're an experienced player just skip to the skill tree/gear and the videos. If you're new to rangers/PA read through this thread and read through Sidra's levelling guide at:http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/806913

Why no trap PA? The trapper version suffers from the trap cooldown limiting map clear speed and it suffers from the trap throwing range while arrow PA can off-screen dangerous enemies and bosses while clearing the map faster and only suffering a little on the boss damage. To get high damage on arrow pa you need a 5L +3 bow and a Drillneck so it’s not a very low budget build.










Skill Tree:

Current tree at lvl 96: http://poeurl.com/zgrJReP

Tree with Influence and Revenge of the Hunted at lvl 96: http://poeurl.com/zgrJ9JH

Tree without Charisma or Influence and no Revenge of the Hunted at lvl 88: http://poeurl.com/zgrKtcf

Levelling tree without Charisma/Influence at lvl 82: http://poeurl.com/zgrLwUR

Levelling tree at lvl 62: http://poeurl.com/zgrLU13

Tree decision:

Whether you need the Charisma or Influence clusters depends on your health/mana pools and thus depends on your jewelry and es on gear/body armour choice. Take either or none or both but if you have no idea where you'll end up take the pathway going past Charisma since most characters with minimum map entry gear will need more reduced mana from tree to make MoM work.

Levelling:

Levelling guide: you can start with pa from the first few levels, link it to concentrated effect and increased AoE and slower projectiles/trap depending on your preference. A trap gem without any skill points invested into damage will still add more damage than slower projectiles. Take the projectile damage nodes around the ranger area then go towards the duelist area. Finish up health/dmg nodes and go towards EB.

Take the life nodes on the way or skip if you have decent levelling gear. Don’t take the MoM keystone until you’re able to get the EB keystone at the same time, after this you can take the skillpoint highway to the north, don’t take pierce until you have a decent levelled pierce gem and the Drillneck quiver.

Bandits: Oak - Skillpoint - Skillpoint

Gear:













Links in order of importance.

Damage setup: Poison Arrow – Concentrated Effect - Empower – Pierce – Increased AoE/Slower Projectiles/Faster Projectiles/Culling Strike.
The first 3 gems linked to PA are mandatory, they simply increase the damage by too much to be worth dropping. Your 5th link depends on the chest piece that you’re using, CoD/LC or rare evasion/es chest? Use Inc AoE. Carcass Jack? Use Slower/Faster Proj or Culling Strike. The cull at 10% component of Culling Strike does not work on the cloud dot but works on the arrow hit, use this for more damage that faste proj without the downside or slower proj.
Damage increase is Slower Projectiles > Culling Strike > Faster Projectiles/Enhance.

Added Enhance option for 6th link, lvl 3 in a +3 bow gives 24% increased AoE which is preferable over 20% increased dmg.

Auras:

Reduced mana with grace and clarity, clarity is needed for MoM and grace helps with survivability. You can take the Iron Reflexes keystone however it’s my opinion that the little armour you get (around 8000-9000) will be significantly worse than the 10.000+ evasion in most situations as evasion gives you a chance to evade the extra critical hit damage when being crit by attacks in addition to having the chance to evade in the first place. Currently I’m close to 50% evasion vs lvl 78 enemies but slightly under which will rarely allow for 2 consecutive hits and I rely on my ehp and physical damage taken to be converted to lightning and cold dmg to survive.

Skeleton totem:

Yes it’s a skeleton totem, with blind. PA on bow and only a pseudo-mandatory 4L cwdt setup gives you plenty of room for utility gem combinations, skeleton totems are a nice way to draw mobs around corners (Na’em, Bending Stone and Abaxoth, The End of All That Is most notably) without exposing yourself to their line of sights as well as blinding enemies that you need to tank (Shrine Piety fire form and Palace Dominus 2nd form).

Curse setup:

Vulnerability is a must, if you want you can fit in Enfeeble but I’ve never used it on the way to 96 (although I should’ve used it in a HC league and I have it socketed now). Support your curse(s) with faster casting, I don’t like curse on hit setups with skills like Split Arrow + Chain as I have the mana to sustain curses and a lvl 20 curse is (in my opinion) more reliable at cursing groups of mobs or around corners and this build doesn’t have a high enough attack speed to curse fast enough with CoH. Usually only sturdy magic packs/bosses are cursed.

Boss damage setup:

Try to fit in a Vaal Lightning Trap (or 2) combined with Increased Duration, it gives you ~7 seconds of shocked ground versus bosses that increased the dmg your poison cloud does against them. Use it smartly versus bosses that move: Piety after she teleport or when in fire mode, Vaal after he surfaces from the dark, Dominus only in his second form or after he teleports in Residence, courtyard trio is a bit tricky to force them to stay on the shocked ground but you can lure the cyloner on an “arm” of the shocked ground effect as it does extend far away from your trap. You can also use them against Union of Souls, Bearers of the Guardian or Congealed Blood bloodline packs if you want a faster kill.

Other links:

I use a Vaal Summon Skeletons to distract bosses in closed off rooms and give me enough time to deal with the magic pack inside these rooms, be careful with projectiles chaining off of your skeletons unto you when rolling those maps (I had an almost-rip with 3 Na’em arrows converging on my position from my skeletons around him). Blink Arrow is great because it doesn’t need any links but has a cooldown, don’t blink into chaos bond/other nasties or you’ll log/die. And last but not least Arctic Armour somewhere in there. Bone Offering is also good in dealing with Necrovigil packs.


Flasks:
I like to run a double seething divine flasks of staunching for recovering health after burst dmg, in the Bloodlines league I also run an amethyst and as we rely on moving rather than lightning warp or whirling blades a quicksilver is mandatory. Last flask can be a jade or a ruby if you fear Magnus or a Taste of Hate unique flask. Currently My amethyst removes freezing and my quicksilver removes shock stacks which can be applied via physical attacks due to LC.




I also decided to clear most unique maps and record them, as well as most twinned bosses (since this build has a "slow" boss kill speed) and a typical Courtyard clear, see it as a character showcase/proof that I was really bored after the level grind.



Thanks for reading so far, if you have questions or suggestion you can comment on this thread or pm me on the forum or in-game at PoisonFallout. I’m always open for discussion over the skill trees used or the links of PA/gear used.

What's your tooltip chaos dmg per second?

oh btw nice quality on your helmet.

Good job on finally posting this build, if your looking for an opie and cheap build, do this build, forget flameblast. Fb = wrist ache from dabbing.

I think this qualifies for the NiceBuild™ .. HVC where ya at?

I vote yes for Build of the Week.

-Fizzed

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Brian2one0 wrote:

What's your tooltip chaos dmg per second?

oh btw nice quality on your helmet.

Updated main post with tooltip screenshot + defenses screenshot, updated links to body armour options and added some information about pathing while levelling.
Had to break links on helm when making room for AA, fixed now.

hmm since you not going into ondars or acro maybe it is worth to put 1 point in iron reflexes and go with armor instead of eva? its just never seen an eva build not picking ondars ^^

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SambaBrazil wrote:

hmm since you not going into ondars or acro maybe it is worth to put 1 point in iron reflexes and go with armor instead of eva? its just never seen an eva build not picking ondars ^^

Evasion = 10175
That's 48% to evade enemy melee and ranged attacks in 78 maps (Source = Evasion google doc tables).
And 48% to evade the critical damage from melee and ranged attacks.

Armour with IR = 8704
Which is ~725 phys dmg mitigated per attack, it does stack with AA but is in my opinion too low of an armour value to outweigh evasion.

Ondar's costs 3 points which I'd have to take from life and damage, most evasion builds use it to evade their own reflected projectile damage or if they use the pathing next to it making it only 1 point. For me there's not enough dangerous ranged attack mobs to justify 3 points invested.

That's sick that your damage completely penetrates through energy shield. Does Igna Phoenix go pop?

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Daresso wrote:

That's sick that your damage completely penetrates through energy shield. Does Igna Phoenix go pop?

After a certain level (map lvl?) she wears Shavronne's Wrappings/Solaris Lorica.

would going crit work with this? i play torment and am very interested in it. really cool to see a PA build! nice work

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Aleehuk wrote:

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Daresso wrote:

That's sick that your damage completely penetrates through energy shield. Does Igna Phoenix go pop?

After a certain level (map lvl?) she wears Shavronne's Wrappings/Solaris Lorica.

Cheeky bitch!