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

Nah true, had to try with the new chaos jewel to see how good it could scale. But it'll be tough to acquire :P

Clear speed is decent as of now, drillneck would rock!

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This is not a build for a league start. The prerequisites are too high.

Can confirm in 2.0 that this is not true. It's easy enough to craft and roll your own +2 bow. The change to slower projectiles partially offsets the damage you miss out on from the extra +1.

Even without Drillneck in a 5L, I was hitting 8400 tooltip with a level 19 poison arrow in a +3 bow with empower 2 (effectively empower 3), slower proj, aoe, conc effect. Then I corrupted my empower and it deleveled =D

I picked up Drillneck yesterday though and with Empower 1 (currently) in a +3 bow with 19 PA, I'm back up to 8600 tooltip. I anticipate with PA 20 and Empower 2 I'll more than likely break 11,000 tooltip in a 5L. Toss in Pierce in the 6L and this probably will go above 14,000. Too lazy to do the math, just doing rough estimates based on increases I've seen from other nodes.

In other words, this build stands to see at least a 30% improvement in damage in the current state of the beta.

Although it's important to note I'm using a unique jewel (forget the name offhand atm) that adds 15% pierce chance and 10% projectile damage, and there is some damage missing from the tooltip from a 12% AoE damage jewel I'm also running.

Also, this is *without* factoring in the five frenzy charges, which currently put me up to 10,388.

[CB]

PA (20) - Conc - AoE - Slower Proj - Empower (2) --- 5L setup (no 6L)

11,545 dps (without charges, with Flame Golem up)
13,872 dps (with 5 frenzy charges + Flame Golem)

Estimate no-charge dps will be about 13,000 with Empower 3, 14,500 with PA 21 + Empower 3, not sure what the 6L would add with pierce in. I'm going to try to 6L the bow before the next wipe to provide numbers.

Drastic improvement for this build in 2.0.

[CB]

6th link would add increased aoe, usually I'd run inc aoe + enhance lvl 3/4 before the beta.
Damage is improved, MoM is eliminated most likely as the aura cost increases (with no reduced mana) and total mana decreases with the new EB notable. It should be fine, build I linked earlier has 171% max life with jewels. Difference between lower and higher budget versions of the build is lowered as you wont be able to run coil + eb/mom with 5 ex+ eb jewelry, AA can still be run with some medium jewelry but we're waiting on the AA changes.

Blood rage might get an overhaul so frenzy charges arent "free", duration of charges with Darkray Vectors for 8 charges is about 9-10 seconds on a split arrow build I did. Think blood dance/darkrays are the boots for this build or just hp boots + blood rage.

[cb] I'm currently running the build without blood dance and an adjusted tree that grabs Golem's Blood, ranger regen, and then that melee/1% regen node in duelist that you grab in 1.3. Barely any degen even without blood dance, can flask out of most situations but for safety sake yeah, Blood Dance for sure. At least with the current state of Blood Rage / frenzy charges. Throw in some more chaos resistance (I have none) and you can use rare boots.

[cb] Blood rage does physical dmg in the beta, can only be mitigated by endurance charges + immortal call.

Ah yeah, forgot that change.

So, updated CB damage (got the 6L), with 20% slower proj, aoe, conc, empower 2, level 20 pa, and pierce:

12,275.4 without charges
14,749.6 with 5 frenzy charges

Throw in approximately 1400-1500 per level re: level 21 PA and Empower 3, looking at an estimated 15k (no charges) and 18k (charges) finished build dps.

Dat buff.

And we'll be one of the very very few builds that can run the new AA and benefit compared to the old one. Can probably break the 20k tooltip easily with 7 frenzy charges (+3 from tree) or 8 with +1 on boots.

I also entertained the idea of CoD after the patch and them moving MoM, but coil + AA aura will do the same if not better and give you more health. I dont count ele/chaos dmg as being dangerous end-game, only phys.

I might play around with Restless Ward to be honest. 30 second frenzy charges for easier sustainability, and less spam for enduring cry as well.

Don't forget you can +frenzy charges on amulets too. Would require more work to finesse the rolls before corrupting, but doable.