[2.1] Ele Crit Split Arrow/Blast Rain

CanWeSplitIt https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Carlovski/characters

Currently at lvl 81 in softcore Talisman, so a bit of a way to go yet, and I haven't played any maps over tier 8 yet, but I'm sure she will do fine.
Sat at 4k life, with a few more life nodes to go yet, and 40% evade, 50% dodge and 40% spell dodge, so a bit sturdier than some similar builds

Pros
- Clear speed is insane. Make sure you have nice clear drop sounds set up in your filter as you will be killing things from screens away.
- Makes a great currency speedrunner - especially with a windripper
- Don't need blood magic or leech gems any more. So we can really push damage, or get away with less links
- Single target is good too with blast rain. You won't melt things like with a voltaxic build but you can normally kill bosses quick enough.
- Can get a decent amount of life and mitigation.
- As we have to find alternative resists, dropping in some MF gear is easy.
- Can level with your skills - no need to flame totem.
- Don't need 6 links (But it is nice!)
- Did I mention the clear speed?

Cons

- Plays fine while levelling, but doesn't really come together until late 60/70s
- Capping res is difficult without compromising on gear. Either need very good jewellery or you will be taking a lot of res nodes and resistance jewels.
- Getting enought intelligence to run Wrath and Herald of Thunder is tricky.
- Does need manual dodging/kiting still - prone to getting one shot
- Some map mods are a real pain, enfeeble, elemental resistance, blood magic, ele equilibrium all kill our DPS.

Thematically, maybe if that's important to you, and in terms of pure DPS it might win out, but what Scion gives you access too is more flexibility, and access to more life. If you want more damage she gets access to the 3 crit multi nodes too, not hugely efficient, but multi is hard to get.
Until you get really good gear the access to jewel sockets and some ok resist nodes helps too.

The ranger start nodes aren't quite as good any more either.
After Ascendancy this may not be the best choice, but who knows what will happen then anyway.

Split Arrow - I've always liked the skill, especially with chain. Tornado shot might be a better allround skill, but with a dedicated single target skill as support, nothing kills trash as quick. No targeting issues either. Lightning Arrow might be more flavour of the month (And probably is best for a voltaxic build) but I still like good old SA.

Blast Rain - I was unsure about this at first. Frenzy would let us build charges without curse support and feels more like a proper single target bow skill. Burning arrow and/or vaal burning arrow would probably let us burn down bosses quickly, and blast rain does feel a bit odd to use, it's basically closer to playing a spellcaster than a bow build.

But - the damage pretty much makes up for all the downsides. It's too hard to give up. The mechanics of the hits mean our MVP mana on hit jewel works overtime too (More on this later). Knockback is a pain though sometimes - you will drive some enemies back half the map.

Blood Rage - Attack speed and frenzy charge generation is great. Using this with Vaal pact and no mitigation is horrible. But, unfortunately no way around it. Just keep an eye on your health, pot when needed (I'd run a slow life pot, but don't really have space) and especially watch out for chaos/burn degen - double degen can empty your life globe in an instant.

https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwABA5YFLQ2ND6sWvxmKGo8hdiPTI_YkiyT9JpUqOC5TMHEwfDH6NZI31DnUOkI7KEMxSn1KyEt4TP9Nkk4qUUdVS1uvX7BgQ2HiZU1uPW5pbqpvJ2-ecFJ07XXLdvd3B3vDfXV_K4MJhMWGzocTh3aJ04qvjDaNfY1-jb-PYJARlwabXZu1nKSgn6OKqJq18re2u-O9Nr6AvqfBM8M6xKLKStNv037UI9X42L3awd2o45_nVOpi7T_uDu968kXyl_ba-wn8xf4K_rr_3g==

Mostly a standard ele crit kind of tree, with the addition of taking extra life from the scion start. Couple of non standard bits though

Resists and jewel socket below Scion - some awkward looking pathing here. but I currently need them to cap resists. If taking these lets you equip crit gear over resistance gear, you get a lot more out of them than taking 6% projectile damage nodes.

Charisma - I like running both heralds. If running on mana you need reduced reservation, so I took it here. If/when I level up enlighten I might be able to drop this, but for now it's vital.

Mana Flows - This sorts out a few issues for us, we need more base mana, we need int and regen helps when we miss a few shots and go OOM. For 2 points its a fine investment.

Spirit/Vitality void. I took spirit void earlier, before I got a mana on hit jewel, but you do not nee it later, the 0.4% hybrid leech node gives us plenty in conjunction with mana on hit. Vitality void I think we probably do need so I am taking it next (I might play with dropping it completely though)

Acrobatics/Phase Acro - I like dodge, it suits my playstyle. The choice of taking these is very much down to your gear though. I'm using Hyrri's Ire so it's a no-brainer to make the most out of it.

Bow - A GG rolled tri elemental with attack speed and crit (Or dual ele + WED) would probably beat out windripper. But that is likely to be considerably more expensive if you can even find one. My ripper cost me 1.2ex for a low roll. I was insanely lucky and managed to 6s in 3 jewellers and then 6 linked it in 5 fuses. But you don't need a 6l - 5 is fine and you will do fine with a 4 until you hit late maps.


Chest - I inherited the 6l Hyrri's Irefrom my previous character. I think it is a good choice for the build, but Daresso's Defiance or a good evasion rare are fine choices. Rare would massively help with gearing issues too. You really want at least a 5l here - I used a tabula until lvl 78, and would have carried on if I didn't have the Hyrri's available.

Gloves- Few options here. In isolation, Maligaro's Virtuosity seems the obvious best choice (I'm not even going to consider Acuities - maybe back in standard...). But they are expensive, and difficult to fit in with the rest of the unique gear. I'm currently using a cheap pair of facebreakers for the crit multiplier.
Best choice may be a good pair of rare gloves though with Life, cold/lightning damage, attack speed/accuracy and a good resist. That might be expensive though so a compromise is probably more realistic. Even just a defensive pair of gloves frees up options on jewellery for DPS mods though.

Helm - Rat's Nest. Only real option here, if it's a choice between Maligaros or this, go for the Rat's Nest. Even if it's less DPS, the evasion, attack speed and move speed add up to better QoL - plus the IIR is a nice bonus. As a budget option, Starkonja's head acts like a mini Rat's nest.
The only other real option is Alpha's Howl. The reduced reservation saves us some points, and more levels on Wrath is nice, but I'd rather scale the crit and attack speed. If you have one in the stash could be worth trying though.

Quiver - Standard crit chance/multi/WED ideally with life. You might want/need to have a resist in here too. Managed to find mine fairly cheap and it perfectly capped my last resist.No uniques really fit here, Rigwald quiver could be fun to try, but it becomes a bit of a different build then.

Belt - Life and as much res as you can get. WED is good but a but of a bonus/luxury (Don't forget you can craft this with Tora though). I probably need to upgrade mine.

Amulet - Important piece for us. Probably need to find some stats on here and you really want crit multi and crit chance (Look for crit multi first, harder to get elsewhere plus can craft a good chance roll cheaply with elreon). Icing on the cake would be a high cold/lightning damage roll or WED. You might have to give up on a life roll here to get something affordable.
Talismans are potentially BIS here, but the right one would be incredibly rare and expensive. I probably could have got a more alround good 'normal' amulet for less but I jumped on this when I saw it for an ex


Nice crit rolls, OK life, intelligence, bit of resists and even the flat mana helps.

Rings - Ideally you want diamond rings here, with Life, WED, accuracy and resists. Getting ones good enough to cap resists is difficult though, so again, you are probably looking at a compromise of one diamond ring and a two-stone/prismatic ring. Unless you got a lot of int on your amulet, at least one will need an int roll.
I'd given up on getting a decent diamond ring on my budget until I spotted this for 15c - bargain if you ask me. Might even exalt it eventually.