[2.1] Armoured Dual Crit Punch Ballistae [2x117k dps Point Blank with 5L]

The Armoured Dual Crit Punch Ballistae is a simple heavily armoured critical physical/chaos siege ballista build with ludicrous amounts of knockback I made to take advantage of some of the nicer synergies possible in 2.1.

* Knockback on crit from both the dual siege ballistae and the non-damaging bow attack.
* Invest nothing in totem defense nodes because enemies keep getting knocked back.
* Use Point Blank keystone to take advantage of being able to safely deploy siege ballistae close to non-ranged enemies most of the time.
* Doubledip projectile damage modifiers with poison.
* Take advantage of Siege Ballista ignoring projectile speed.
* Build Frenzy, Power, and Endurance charges and curse enemies with Assassin's Mark by using the non-damaging bow attack. (Note – most enemies will die before they get cursed)
* Rapid regeneration of mana via Clarity and Mana Flows to allow constant charge building/cursing and rapid replacement of totems when they die to ranged and AOE attacks. (Or playing physical reflect maps.)
* Use Iron Reflexes, Grace, and Arctic Armour to be somewhat sturdy despite only picking up 124% life from the passive tree + life% on up to 5 jewels. (Frenzy charges also increase armour via evasion rating.)
* Use CWDT – Immortal Call to increase survivability, with the option of using Enduring cry to support the generation of Endurance charges from shooting.

Using 5L for my siege ballista and overall decent gear including several low-roll crit uniques, when including the poison damage I ended up with 58.9k dps per ballista at level 90 on targets unaffected by Assassin's Mark and 78.3k dps on affected targets before Point Blank was considered, thus reaching a maximum of 117.5k dps Point Blank per ballista on cursed enemies under ideal circumstances. Somebody with great crit gear or a 6L (or both!) would end up doing much more damage.

It turned out to be remarkably effective and safe, but I do occasionally die due to inattention so I cannot recommend this for hardcore without modifying the skill tree to increase maximum life at the cost of damage.

Leveling was done with Siege Ballista as main skill.



Requirements:

A scion; templar, duelist, and ranger should also be able to use this with only minor modifications.

You need either a decent physical damage critical hit bow (preferred) or Chin Sol.

To put it in perspective, with a decent critical hit bow like mine of around 300 physical dps and 9.2% crit:
* Chin Sol does about 130% of the crit bow point blank and about 65% at longer ranges.
* Chin Sol knocks back every time point blank but only about 2/3rd as often at range as the crit bow.

So Chin Sol is absolutely viable for this, but a decent or good rare crit bow is better – and much more expensive.

You need the Lioneye's Fall and Rain of Splinters jewels:


The Lioneye's Fall goes in the left-most jewel slot in the tree allowing it to cover both Smashing Strikes and Disemboweling. The Rain of Splinters goes in any of the remaining jewel slots.


Current skill tree:

110 pts (lvl 90): Click me.


Current Offense:

Basic:


With 6 frenzy charges, 3 power charges, and the Ice Golem:




This breaks down to: 18350.3 physical dps, 9548.7 chaos dps, 2694.1 cold dps, plus some 28298.5 chaos poison dps that is only relevant on targets that aren't shot to pieces in short order by the rapid-firing ballistae, for a total for a total of 58891.6 dps per ballista... on enemies that are not cursed with Assassin's Mark. The mathematics of the chaos poison is explained in a later section.

For enemies that are affected by Assassin's Mark, the damage is approximately 33% higher with my gear (see later section for mathematics), for a total of ~78.3k dps per ballista when including the poison and 40.7k when only looking at the direct damage.

This is modified by the Point Blank keystone; up to 50% MORE damage at close range and down to 50% LESS damage at long range. So when you are shooting point blank at something with enough hitpoints not to be erased in the blink of an eye, it deals up to 117.5k dps per ballista until the target is dead.

This can be significantly increased by using Hatred and Herald of Ash auras rather than the defensive Grace and Arctic Armour, but.. really, what would be the point? This is already overkill.

If I had a 6 link for 39% MORE chaos damage from Void Manipulation, it would be even more absurdawesome.


Current Defense:

Basic – just aura and arctic armour:


With 3 endurance charges, 6 frenzy charges, molten shell, and the jade flask of iron skin:



Current gear:





The flasks aren't optimal and the rings and amulet could easily be better (crit%, physical damage etc.) but it works well enough. I replace the 5th flask depending on circumstances. The ideal defensive flask is a Surgeon's Jade Flask of Reflexes with a high increased evasion rating% roll, but I haven't managed to roll such one yet and the Surgeon's Jade Flask of Iron Skin does well enough.

(The cold damage prefix enchant on one of the rings is suboptimal; I use it because I am not willing to pay the 13 chaos price for the better chaos damage prefix enchant as I'm not exactly lacking in damage. I'd rather save the currency and save it for a better ring.)


Skill gems:

The Siege Ballista link is:

Siege Ballista – Faster Attacks - Slower Projectiles – Poison – Added Chaos Damage (5) – Void Manipulation (6)

If you have a 5+ link for the bow attack,

Frenzy – Greater Multiple Projectiles – Power Charge on Crit – Curse on Hit – Assassin's Mark – Chain or Life Gain on Hit (6)

Otherwise you have two options. Either you go with automatic cursing and don't get power charges:
Frenzy – Greater Multiple Projectiles – Curse on Hit – Assassin's Mark

or you go with manual cursing (recommended) and power charges:
Frenzy – Greater Multiple Projectiles – Power Charge on Crit – Chain or Life Gain on Hit (4)

The remaining gems are:

Cast When Damage Taken (3) – Immortal Call (4) – Increased Duration (max)

Cast When Damage Taken (max) – Ice Golem (max) – Molten Shell (max) – Blind (max)

(I can never be bothered to cast golems manually; this CWDT ensures that if I'm facing any dangerous content so I occasionally take damage, the golem will soon be be present, and if I'm not facing dangerous content I don't need it anyhow.)

Clarity, level 7; Level 6-8 gives you enough to keep on shooting and frequently replace totems, and while it would be nice to have a higher Clarity, there just isn't that much free mana to play with.

Arctic Armour, Grace, Enduring Cry, Blink Arrow; All as high a level as possible.


My Keybindings:
LMB - Mirror Arrow
RMB - Frenzy
Q – Siege Ballista
W – Enduring Cry
E – Clarity
R – Grace
T – Arctic Armour

and spacebar set to 'attack in place' in the options.


Stats to look for on gear:
* 21 intelligence; You need 111 intelligence for a level 20 Added Chaos Damage and the build only provides 90, so you must acquire the missing 21 from items or by spending a skill point on one of the 30 INT passives.
* High evasion or armour.
* Resistances.
* Accuracy; Ideally 400+ total on rings, amulets, and head. The more the better.
* Attack speed.
* Critical hit multiplier on amulet.
* Critical hit chance and physical damage on ring

Recommended items:

While good rare items suitable for a physical damage crit build in all slots works well (and was how I leveled up the first many levels), the following uniques are recommended if available as they individually significantly increase the strength of the build.

Drillneck quiver, because Siege Ballista always pierces, so this grants +100% projectile damage. The single greatest upgrade available. (And sometimes cheaply available with bad corruptions; That's how I got mine.)

Maligaro's Virtuosity gloves for critical hit goodness and attack speed.

Either Starkonja's Head (good) or Rat's Nest (better) for increased critical hit and attack speed.




Poison calculations:

Skip this if you aren't interested in how much damage the poison support gem adds. Most monsters are shot to pieces so quickly it doesn't matter anyhow. As some people are allergic to mathematics, I've hidden it in a spoiler.


Assassin's Mark calculations:

For those who like mathematics.



Bandits:
Normal: Oak for 40 life.
Cruel: Kraityn for 8% attack speed.
Merciless: Kraityn for Frenzy charge.


Skill Tree Development:

29 pts: Getting Berserking, Ancestral Bond, two jewel slots, and using Rain of Splinters.

49 pts: Getting two jewel slots, crit, life, and using Lioneye's Fall.

80 pts: Pick up core offense and defense (Art of the Gladiator and environs first) and one jewel slot.

102 pts (lvl82): Complete defenses, drop Berserking for Deadly Draw.
At this point the core build is complete, and I recommend picking up some of the great offensive passives I bypassed because the build was already doing way more damage than was needed leveling to 80.

110 pts (lvl90): OFFENSE! 2 extra jewels, 2 extra frenzy charges...

After level 90, do whatever you like. Is it time to pick up some of the many life nodes skipped? Want some of those delicious 10% crit multipliers lying around. You have plenty of options.

Frenzy charges also affect Poison DPS. Thus your damage is even higher.

"

CantripN wrote:

Frenzy charges also affect Poison DPS. Thus your damage is even higher.

So the 24% MORE damage applies there as well? I didn't know that, but I guess it makes sense. It is treated as a new damage source, after all. I'll have to update the post.

EDIT: Updated, and thank you.

Nice to see an alternative version to the shrapnel shot crit knockback totems I posted yesterday :D

"

Ellerean wrote:

Nice to see an alternative version to the shrapnel shot crit knockback totems I posted yesterday :D

You wouldn't happen to have a link to it so I can check it for inspiration? ;)

EDIT: Ah, found it.

Thanks for the guide, looks awesome!

My pleasure, Caliginosus. It sure is fun to play.

Now just waiting to see whether Scion's Ascendancy class will bring something useful for the build or whether I should migrate it to one of the other characters' subclasses - there are several that would suit it well.