Siege Ballista

I was pretty excited to try a new totem, and I gotta say Siege Ballista is severely underwhelming, at least in these earlier levels.

1. Too slow - Normal bow skills like split/ice/LA/etc can kill everything before it even takes a 2nd shot.
2. Misses often - if mobs move, it misses.
3. LMP doesn't help - close mobs and it shoots in all direction, far away its too tight and somehow still ends up missing alot of mobs.

Just some early impressions, doesn't feel worth putting much thought into at this point.

He`s right. I want to make a ranged attack totem build forever but it was always subpar. Now with the Siege Ballista gem I`m trying again but its mechanic is sooooo bad.

First you cast it but it takes forever to even begin to shoot. Second it "aims" at the position of the next monster. When it finally fires, the monster is dead or on another position.

I`m really dissapointed.

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Skip511 wrote:

He`s right. I want to make a ranged attack totem build forever but it was always subpar. Now with the Siege Ballista gem I`m trying again but its mechanic is sooooo bad.

First you cast it but it takes forever to even begin to shoot. Second it "aims" at the position of the next monster. When it finally fires, the monster is dead or on another position.

I`m really dissapointed.

i'm agree with this guy , rly dissapointed mechanic

aiming is BIG Problem with this gem
second problem is speed %50 slow ? lol

Interesting skill.

the aiming issue is there, as others noted.
the 100% pierce does aid in its damage potential, but I also feel it would be more fun/interesting with fork or chain instead..

The main thing I think about with it is summoner ranger. I've wanted one for the longest time. with Tora, etc I thought animal based.. but, here we are.
seige ballista, mirror/blink arrows. we have the skills, but how well are they supported in the passive tree? most mirror/blink arrow builds are scion, and go up the int side of the passive tree for minion passives, using zombies as meat shields.

seige ballista is a green gem as well, which almost certainly will be used in the same way, Scion, and going up to ancestral bond for ballista, and zombies/clones. and probably double curses.

Blink/mirror are minions so they at least mesh with zombies, and gain from all minion nodes/items.

I like it being a green gem, but am not sure how its supported as such in any way. ranged attack totem is red. seems more likely to get used by a witch/templar/scion using an int>dex jewel.
A war commander/general Ranger/scion is a fun idea, though.

well see how it plays out. My first thoughts on it though.

Only 20 levels in with a Ballista Scion. Went straight for Totemic Zeal, Berserking, and Harrier. The attack speed is enough for the ballista to auto fast enough to track between targets, which increases
the hit rate. Will be experimenting on building around it.

I have been playing a Siege Ballista(SB) Ranger and she's up to lvl 54. I have to say that I like it a lot as a replacement for Range Attack Totem(RAT), which I always felt was underwhelming.

Preface: My primary skills are SB (with Phys to Lightning, Faster Attacks, and GMP/Slower Projectiles) and Blast Rain, with Frenzy sometimes if I want the charges. My tree is focused primarily on attack speed and projectile/bow dmg. Here is a link to my current tree:

I recently picked up Acrobatics which is helping with survivability at the end of Cruel. Since I'm doing SC I haven't picked up much Life.

Now, thoughts on SB. Having a totem/range attack all in one gem is a fantastic alternative to RAT. The only problems I have so far is that the piercing mechanic leaves some of the more exciting support gems on the wayside. That being said, however, I do like the tactical choices you have to make when placing the totem so that you get the most out of pierce. I think it's a good trade-off.

With a heavy focus on attack speed, along with using GMP, one totem clears packs very easily. When I am fighting a boss I switch out GMP for something like Added Cold or Slower Projectiles. As an example, my Frenzy tooltip dps is around 1400, and SB single target setup will get up to around 2400. That's not bad!

All in all I'm very happy with the skill as primary and I like playing a Totemic Ranger. Also, I feel like SB would be just fine unsupported as a distraction if my character were primarily a Tornado Shot build or something.

I like this skill a lot, and I feel it has good potential. The only problem I have with it is the tracking. If the ballista tracked enemies as it was charging its attack, it would hit far more often than it currently does. In its current iteration the ballista aims at a target, then begins charging its attack where the enemy currently is, after it's finished charging the attack it fires at that location, whether the enemy is there or not. With enemies that move a lot it can be very frustrating to hit them with it.

Other than that, I really like the skill and I'm excited to see what builds get made with it.

I really wish the Ballista would track its target.

They keep firing at nothing.

Please, do this one thing.

This skill gem is actually amazing. It works really well as a secondary/sub skill (similar to skeleton totem in the early days)

Pretty much carries early difficulties by itself with 3-4 links

Almost impossible to use it as a primary skill though lol!