Bringer of Ballistae: Bringer of Rain+Lioneye's Glare=3 Ballistae and 175k+ dps (HC build)

I have experimented with a bunch of different ways to use Siege Ballista since it came out and have run many of them well into the 80s or early 90s. (I personally play HC only) I've obsessed over this skill and have posted two previous guides. This is far and away the best build I have come up with yet, and no one appears to have posted about it up to this point. Fast leveling plan to 67 (discussed below), followed by 200M+/hour runs in dried lake for fast leveling to 79 when this build was originally posted. (See updated build in comments below to level 92) Bringer of Rain makes excellent use of the Scion-Hierophant ascendancy, which otherwise seemed rather a dud. I have confirmed that with Siege Ballista BOR effectively acts as a 5.5 Link. Using Scion Hierophant+Ancestral Bond, we get 3 ballistae and no weapon limitations or stat requirements. We can achieve better dps and much better character survivability than is usually offered by iron commander builds. We stay largely on the left side of the tree, making use of Iron Grip to complement the resulting high strength, and using our 7 jewel slots primarily as our damage nodes for efficiency. Everything is explained below

Attack
Number of Ballistae: 3
Ballista base tooltip dps: 13,152
With Hatred, Herald of ash, and Lightning Golem: 20,463
With above+5 frenzy charges: 28,271
With above+3 power charges: 29,980
With above+active Sulphur Flask 32,036
Multiply by 3 ballistae 96,108
Multiply by 1.42 for Curse on Hit Proj. Weakness 136,473

Defense
Life: 4163
ES: 243
Life regen: 204/sec
Ele res: all 75
Chaos res: -31%
phys mit: 43%
Evasion 5%

When considering defensive stats, appreciate that while build is complete offensively at lvl 79, it is now adjacent to 11 life nodes, 8 5% and 3 4%+armor that will boost life considerably as the build levels above 79. It is also possible to sacrifice some dps for additional life using some of the available jewel slots, to your individual taste. Current build has 0 life in 7 jewel slots.

Key Uniques:


Bringer of Rain: Build enabling. It allows us to make good use of the Scion-Hierophant Ascendancy that provides 1 extra totem for skills in helm, while still having an effective 5.5 links for our main skill. (I have compared identical gear set ups, subbing out BOR for an ordinary helm and using a 5L, and confirmed that 4L in BOR dps is approximately 1/2 a link superior)

Drillneck: BIS for siege ballista, given SB's 100% pierce chance

Brinerot Whalers: Excellent dps boost, appears to me to be BIS for this build

Lioneye's Glare: Best usually obtainable for version of build not focusing on crit. For SC variations, could consider a high end high crit bow instead, substitute a Lioneye's fall jewel on the leftmost jewel slot, and take the resulting nearbye crit nodes immediately to the right and above instead of additional life.

Rain of Splinters: Provides LMP without wasting a slot and with significantly less dps loss.

Meginord's Girdle: Appears to be BIS for the build, adding significant dps and 10% life bonus

My current Gear/Flasks/Jewels is as follows:


Priorities:
Gear: After capping rezzes, prioritize life defensively and flat damage/str offensively.

Jewels: Jewel slots provide much of your damage in this build. Look for jewels with either 3 positive damage/atk speed modifiers or jewels with 2 of those modifiers and a third that fixes rezzes or stats as needed. As of this writing, such jewels could be had in the 5-10c range each

Because we get no chest piece, gem set up must be very efficient:

Helm: Siege Ballista, Phys Proj Attack Dam, Slower Proj, Pierce

Note that every support gem has a "more" damage modifier. If you are playing in an area for which you are somewhat over-leveled (in Dried lake while leveling 67-79, past a certain point) you can substitute GMP for pierce. Clearing Dried lake with 3 ballista firing 7 projectiles each is an experience you will enjoy, and the xp/hr boost from clearing trash in this mode is significant. That said, when playing in higher maps, I find the build does better with the setup above.

Weapon: Frenzy, GMP, Curse on hit, Proj Weakness

The benefit of virtually always having 5 frenzy charges up and having every curseable
enemy that survives more than a split second taking 42% more damage cannot be
overstated.

Gloves: CWDT (lvl 1), Immortal Call (lvl 3), Enfeeble (lvl 5), Hatred

Having Enfeeble proc regularly is a significant defensive bonus,

Boots: Blink Arrow, Faster Attacks, Lightning Golem, Herald of Ash

Attack speed from lightning golem benefits SB more than other golems, imo

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAABAAHcA5YFLQagFCAYkRo4Gj4hYCHQJy8pLimlKhMuUzGeMgkyfjWSNug6UjsoPEtDMUSeR35KyE3jU7tXDVgXWK9Y5VnzWhpaK1pSXz9gQ2SEZU1mVGaeaFhoZWxGbj1uqm87cg9ybHKpdO108XXLdqx343gNeWh7bnvDfLiDCYTZhmCHKYnYjHaNfpBVlG-XIZtdoj6j8qSgpleomqlurKqtjbXytzG3tryfvTa-gL6nv9XAGsEEwXzDM89-02_Xlti92WHaweoY6mLvDvGs8i_yl_Ob9zL5vf6P

Normal: Oak
Cruel: Kraityn
Merc: Kraityn

Normal: 20 str/20 int (toward Templar) and 40 dex (toward Ranger
Cruel: Passive Point, Hierophant in Templar
Merc: Passive Point, Raider in Ranger

Hierophant is build enabling. Together with Ancestral Bond on the regular tree, it allows us 3 Siege Ballistae without restricting our weapon choice.

Raider provides us essentially permanent onslaught. +20% atk speed and +20% move speed improves overall clear speed dramatically.

Both have some nice incidental bonuses. Of particular note is Hierophant's 20% chance to generate a power charge on placing a totem. This means we will have 3 power charges up much of the time. The Lioneye Glare version of the build, which I am running doesn't make use of this except as an incidental bonus. I could conceive (more likely for sc than hc) a crit version of the build that would use a high end decent crit bow, substitute the left-most jewel slot for a Lioneye Fall, and then take the adjacent crit nodes both above (that used to be for staff) and to the right (for general melee) and the adjacent additional power charge. I suspect dps would go up significantly from here, but at a cost to survivability that an hc build will want more for higher lvl maps.

I very much enjoy the rapidity with which this build levels. I would be interested in your feedback on this issue, as I have only my own experience to compare to. My plan is as follows:

1-32 I like to level with split arrow, using roth's reach from 18-32.

32-62: Grab a cheap iron commander bow, a fluid motion jewel (converts str to dex with dex bonus) and a briskwrap armor (+15% dex). All of these are inexpensive and will be used for this section of leveling only. Place the fluid motion jewel in the jewel slot just below berserking. You should be able to achieve 400+ dex without much trouble with this set up. This will give you 3 siege ballistae and solid dps with iron commander. Add drillneck at lvl 36 and your overall dps should be 6-8k depending on other gear, improving somewhat as you level and take dps nodes. This set up levels quickly and comfortably to 62.

62-66: By now you should have Ancestral Bond and your Cruel Ascendancy, which allows you 3 ballista no matter what your weapon. You can either keep the set up above (which will have 5 ballista by now) or, if you are feeling indulgent, grab a Chin Sol and go down to 3 ballista but up significantly in dps. When you switch out Iron Commander, also switch out the fluid motion jewel.

66+: At 66 you can equip Lioneye's Glare, which will dramatically boost your dps. At 67 you can equip Bringer of Rain and all of the basic gear for the build will be in place.

Regarding tree order, I would prioritize as follows:

Step one: Proceed down proj. damage through to iron grip picking up berserking, totemic zeal, and 2 jewel slots along the way. These will be used for rain of splinters and a dps jewel of your choice

Step two: Proceed to Iron Reflexes, picking up all of the Duelist area nodes along the way

Step three: From just above Iron Grip, Proceed up the left side of the tree to Ancestral bond directly, without detouring. The three str nodes that are blank in my tree are deleted later when you come back and connect through the marauder start area.

Step four: Connect through Marauder Start area, delete 3 extra str nodes, and fill out the rest of the build as shown on tree

Step five: (where I am at currently) Pick up all remaining adjacent life nodes if hc OR consider going crit as discussed above if sc

This build is the culmination of a lot of experimenting with SB. I hope some of you enjoy it as much as I have. I welcome your feedback and am happy to answer any questions

Offensive stats:
Base dps per ballista: 17,970
With Hatred, Herald of Ash, Lightning Golem: 28,394
With above and 5 frenzy 38,781
With above and 3 power 41,111
x3 ballista= 123,333
x1.43 for Proj weakness on hit 176,366

Defensive Stats:
Life: 4872
ES: 221
Life Regen 238/sec
Armor: 6541/39% phys mit.
Ele Rezzes: Capped
Chaos Rez: -8%

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAABAAHcA5YFLQagFCAUTRiRGjgaPiFgIdAnLykuKaUqEy5TMZ4yCTJ-NZI26DpSOyg7OzxLPT5BckMxRJ5HfkrITeNQR1HmU7tXDVgXWK9Y5VnzWhpaK1pSXz9gQ2SEZU1mVGaeaFhoZWxGbj1uqm87cg9ybHKpdO108XXLdqx3U3fjeA15aHrve257w3y4gwmE2YZgidiNfpBVkn2TB5RvlyGbXZ7Foj6j8qSgpleomqlurKqtjbXyt7a5Q7yavJ-9Nr6Avqe_1cAawQTBfMMzyWfPftNv15bYvdlh2sHlz-oY6mLtRO8O8azyl_Ob9zL5vfxL_o8=