Explosive Arrow Marauder (Updated for Release)

quick question, how usefull is the armour? im thinking about just throwing away iron reflex + all armour mods and going for more life and use a cloak of flame (until i find a kaom) , the 16% flat phy reduction is quite good, + more burn and ease of getting the right sockets.

Iron Reflexes is tremendously good, especially with Kaom's (because you lose over 1k base armor that you would have with a good chest), and also because you don't have Determination. You need all the armor that you can get, mobs on maps (even white mobs) hit extremely hard. I wouldn't recommend Cloak of Flame for a hardcore build, it's not defensive enough. If anything, before using Kaom's, I would suggest the new area damage chest (which I hear goes for something like 5 exalted or less--but don't quote me on that). I would use an armor/es hybrid or armor/evasion hybrid baring either of the two, since it's easy enough to roll the sockets you need on either one of them.

My 2cents on EA (based on my 76 EA witch), is that all the dmg buff gems (conc effect/ele prolif etc) are kind of unnecessary, I've never felt lacking in dmg without them; LMP, IIR, IQ and Mana leech for me owns most things.

Also the Projectile weakness curse is boss used with EA (I think), 30% *more* projectile dmg; downside being the pierce ~ crappy for single target great for mobs.

Also Ele Equilibrium is good, I use a split arrow/chain/blind totem (lasts a long time with the everything near perma blind, plus sweet knockback with the proj weakness) with a wrath aura to proc the res +/- constantly.

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Icholas wrote:

My 2cents on EA (based on my 76 EA witch), is that all the dmg buff gems (conc effect/ele prolif etc) are kind of unnecessary, I've never felt lacking in dmg without them; LMP, IIR, IQ and Mana leech for me owns most things.

Also the Projectile weakness curse is boss used with EA (I think), 30% *more* projectile dmg; downside being the pierce ~ crappy for single target great for mobs.

Also Ele Equilibrium is good, I use a split arrow/chain/blind totem (lasts a long time with the everything near perma blind, plus sweet knockback with the proj weakness) with a wrath aura to proc the res +/- constantly.

Haha a good use of range attack totem? Don't knw such a thing existed t b love flame totem with gmp FCC and chance to flee or fp

It is. I just never found it necessary as the debuff length is already 5 seconds from EE. Plus, I like using chance to flee on it, meaning that I would need an extra 5L to have ranged attack totem attached as well.

Also, the reason I don't like Flame Totem is that it procs EE, meaning mobs would have a constant fire debuff, so it would really screw up the EA explosion. But yea, if I wasn't using EE, I would definitely be using a flame totem, seeing as the extra projectile speed from Quill Rain makes it hilariously effective (at least in terms of range).

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Pastromy wrote:

It is. I just never found it necessary as the debuff length is already 5 seconds from EE. Plus, I like using chance to flee on it, meaning that I would need an extra 5L to have ranged attack totem attached as well.

Also, the reason I don't like Flame Totem is that it procs EE, meaning mobs would have a constant fire debuff, so it would really screw up the EA explosion. But yea, if I wasn't using EE, I would definitely be using a flame totem, seeing as the extra projectile speed from Quill Rain makes it hilariously effective (at least in terms of range).

more so made myself a 5L searing touch and for a few respecs namely drop beserking/rt/and ee it makes for a very smooth transition to a double flame totem witch haha or maura

For those curious about Cloak of Flame:

The 16% damage reduction is nice, but it's not enough to rely on for the long-term, I find. I'm still going to stick with it for a while because it's really good armor for how cheap it is and my next project is getting 5-6 link items.

I'd say the advantages to Cloak of Flames (aside from the obvious offensive advantages) are that it's dirt cheap for the effect you get, and you don't need to bother with stacking other forms of defenses (I have ES/EV, AR/EV, and AR/ES items in my other slots). Not something to keep forever, but it's definitely low on my list of things to replace.

Hello fellow EA'ers!

I'm currently lvl 86, which (I believe) makes me the highest level EA marauder on HC. This is my second EA marauder, first one died to the most ridiculous reflect situation at level 81 (went over it on page 16 in this thread). Figured I'd post my stats and build for comparision.

Gear:


Passives:


As you can see, my gear is far from perfect. I'd like a 6L QuillRain, Kaoms, fire damage on rings, more chaos resist, armour and obviously, more HP. Still, this build is so gear-independent, this gear (and the worse gear I've had before) has taken me to level 86 on HC with no close calls, I don't think I've ever been below 20% HP. My stats with grace active is 5785 HP (5572 effective with grace reserving 213), 9026 armour and 80/80/80/7 resists (maintaining 75/80/80/7 with ele weakness, need to work on that fire res). My gear, passives and gems gives me 24+17+36+10=87% increased fire damage, which is why I don't feel the need for conc effect, and also why the ruby flask of warding is so important for reflect packs.

As for my choice of skill gems, I prefer faster attacks over anything else because of the nimbleness it gives you. I feel that being very agile is the most important factor when it comes to your survivability with this build (hence why I'm also using decoy totem with faster casting). In a 6 link, I might try conc effect but I don't really see the need for that, as I'm already oneshotting almost everything and doing too much damage makes reflect dangerous. There's a lot of free skill slots, which I'm filling up with lightning warp for comfort, and split arrow/culling strike/IIQ/IIR for harvesting some additional loot.



This build is very flexible and allows you to toy around with gear, passives and even skill choice, depending on the situation. As Pastromy pointed out in his guide @ exilepro, the main weakness of the EA/EE build is that it doesn't really work in some group compositions. If someone in your group is running an Anger aura, your dps will be shit. If someone is running a Wrath or Hatred aura, you will most likely gimp the dps of others. Therefore you will have to work around this, depending on your group composition.

If you're running with for example an FP build, you will have to make sure you don't have any cold damage on gear. Similarly, if you're running with a spark build, skip the lightning damage on gear and switch out LA for split arrow (using cold damage on gear). If you're running with larger groups, and/or someone using elemental auras, you will have to spec out of EE entirely.

To avoid this hassle, I'm mostly doing maps solo, which is the real strength of this build. With decoy totem, high mobility and the ridiculous life on hit provided by quill rain+LA+chain+GMP I can solo any map with any mod quite easily. The only real dangerous combination of mods is elemental reflect/minus max resist, where you will have to be very careful and kill mobs by single-stacking EA. In half/no regen maps, I like to switch out fire pen for life leech, this isn't required but I feel it's safer.

Anyway, if you have any questions, or see something suboptimal in my build/gear, let me know!

-

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marbor84 wrote:

Real stellar post, this! Found it really interesting to see how you've decided to optimize. That's the beauty of this build, isn't it? The flexibility.

I'm only in my early 70s - having a blast so far. I'll definately be adopting the culling strike and item rarity/quantity too. Thinking about running dual andivarus rings as well, since resists are easy enough to max on the rest of the gear. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, the dual andivarus (andivarius? meh...) rings in the late 80's...

Also, are you planning to replace the Hrimnor's? 24% fire dmg is quite a lot though...

Thanks, glad someone found it useful :)

About the dual Andvarius (believe that's the spelling), well...you do need some quite amazing gear to cap out on the rest of your gear, counting the -40 to all they would give. I'd never use them in higher level maps, since you sacrifice a shitload of HP not counting the resists. It would also become a problem in ele weakness maps, you would find it very hard to stay capped with ele weakness if using Andvarius. Tho you can just switch rings for those maps, or reroll them. All in all, unless you got some VERY good gear, don't use them unless you feel COMPLETELY safe (as in doing 66 maps at 85+). If I wanted high IIR, I'd probably go classic defensive HP/res rings with a rarity roll, though using just one Andvarius might be possible. If you play on default, though, then hell yeah go for it.

I'm quite comfortable with Hrimnor's right now, if I'd happen to find a really amazing helm I'd replace it, though. In fact I keep another helm with high HP in my stash that I switch to when I feel I need some extra health, putting me at just over 6.3k. If I were to 6link my quill rain and use conc effect, I would definitly replace it.