Vyvanne's 9 Link Explosive Arrow Build - EE, BM, Dual Curse. [Tempest]

-Can run almost any map mod except ele reflect and no regen (technically doable, but very dangerous)
-Very tanky (almost 250% life by lvl 90, decently armored + endurance charges)
-High mobility
-Can be played on a budget quite easily

-Requires precise skill application
-Minor restrictions on jewelry (can't have fire dmg)
-Early leveling can be a pain, pre 38
-Requires +1 arrow quiver and a 5L to truly shine
-Curse immune maps are doable but annoying

An short and excellent video guide by Markusaz.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TDkU1gj310

Normally when you fire off a salvo of Explosive Arrows, you stack it to five, wait one second, then it explodes, doing damage. What we are going to do is take advantage of the fact that only the first arrow that is fired into a monster really counts when it comes to damage, and you can fire off 4x lvl 1 EAs and it'll be the same result. Thus, by having a second EA setup in a 4L with different support gems, we have effectively up to a 9 link.

113 skill points, lvl 91.
http://poeurl.com/zw5ut9B

Current skill tree, 100 points, lvl 79. Picking up the two endurance charge nodes and then finishing off the rest of the life nodes.
http://poeurl.com/zw9fZE8

36 points.
http://poeurl.com/zw9gMDe

53 points.
http://poeurl.com/zw9hsAB

75 points.
http://poeurl.com/zw9hSS0
At this point you can start to fill in any missing nodes based on your gear, if you need more resists, more armor, etc. You can take the nodes running up to Whispers of Doom if you wish, boosting your int and curses but not Whispers itself until you can get a 6L. You can use a Tabula or get a corrupted 6L for pretty cheap. This build uses GGRRBB, and those colors are pretty common in corrupted 6Ls.

Oak, skill point, Oak/skill point

Primary EA


I highly recommend quality on your EA as it will help greatly with single target damage. Fire Pen, Life Leech, and Inc Aoe will be your 4L, adding Slower Projectiles and Conc Effect as your 5th and 6th links. I keep a Chance to Ignite in my weapon swap and switch out Inc Aoe for act/map boss fights.


Secondary EA


Since our secondary EA is only there to stack fuses, we don't need to level it up and increase the mana cost. Since we're using the Blood Magic keystone, less life used is a good thing! Before you get a +1 arrow quiver, you can use Lesser Multiple Projectiles in place of Blind. Less Duration helps with blowing up the fuses faster, which means a lot more dps.


Curse on Hit setup


Contrary to most builds, our first 5L will actually be our curse setup, not the actual main ability! The reason for this is because LGOH adds an -incredible- amount of survivability to the build. Even without a +1 arrow quiver, Ice Shot and Chain allows for excellent coverage of mobs, and with Quill Rain's increased projectile speed, it fires extremely quickly, dumping ice everywhere and cursing enemies. I can fire into a pack of mobs and literally get 2-4k life back instantly in a few shots. Highly recommend quality LGOH, as the quality bonus is excellent.

Our 4L will be Ice Shot, Curse on Hit, Chain, Flammability. We add LGOH as our fifth link, and then upon obtaining a 6L, we add in Warlord's Mark for extra survivability and near permanent Endurance Charges.


CWDT setup


CWDT setups can be quite versatile, I like maxing out CWDT and Immortal Call. With dual curse and Warlord's Mark, I will almost always have the endurance charges available for several seconds of physical damage immunity. Vaal Grace is for additional survivability. Softcore players can add Vaal Haste here.


Utility setup


Final links are for utility skills, standard stuff. Blink Arrow, Enduring Cry (for manual casting vs bosses), and Chaos Golem linked with minion/totem resistances, occasionally swapping it out for Minion Life in my offhand depending on the map.

The biggest thing you're going to be hurting for is Dex, and to a lesser extent, Int (until later in the tree). The tree has two 30 dex nodes that can be accessed, albeit one isn't going to be until a fair bit later, the Agility node that's near Whispers of Doom. The good news is that apart from the weapon, every other piece can be very easily played on a budget. You don't need offensive stats on any piece of gear, so just plain rares with life, dex, and resists are 100% fine for this build.

Early leveling is also going to be a bit of a pain, as EA does take some time to get to decent levels of damage, especially single target. I highly recommend leveling with either Flame Totem, dual wield Cleave (tons of low level unique swords/axes to choose from), or Lightning Arrow. Once you hit lvl 38, you can equip GMP and use EA, and it gets a fair bit easier.

Because you're using two EA setups, it does take a bit of practice to get the pattern down. What you want to do is fire your primary EA once, then your secondary EA 4x, then fire Ice Shot. I have my primary EA as my right click, secondary as A, and ice shot as S. I right click once, hold down the A key and count four attacks, then hit S. With a little practice this becomes second nature with every mob, and if you can get Conc Effect in your main EA setup, you can sometimes blow up mobs with just one primary EA and one secondary EA!

How do you deal with reflect?
Short answer- you don't. It's best to avoid reflect maps since EA's damage, even with just a few passives, is extremely high. Even with a Ruby Flask to get 86% fire resistance, I still will deal 3-4k damage to myself with a 5 stacks EA if I fire into a small mob. It's doable if you purposely don't curse on hit and let EE buff monster fire resistance a bit to help reduce the reflect damage, and you only stack your fuses 1-3 times on a monster pack, but still very dangerous. This build has an advantage to most conventional EA builds with GMP because you're not covering the entire room in arrows, potentially erasing yourself no matter what your defenses are.

My single target dps sucks!
EA does have its weaknesses in the early game before you get your links, the life regen to sustain Blood Magic, etc. Single target dps can also be a bit of a problem. I recommend weapon swapping to trade in Chance to Ignite to really help with getting a guaranteed burn on a target for bosses. Making sure that you're also immediately firing Ice Shot after you fire off Explosive Arrow is also key. The burn damage from your exploding EAs will not trigger EE, but the explosion will, so you want to make sure you always fire off another Ice Shot after firing a barrage of EAs to reset the EE to have fire vulnerability.