[3.2] No changes | Railway Bow - Slayer Edition | Shaper/U Atziri/U Lab Viable |

Hey guys, thanks for coming and welcome to my guide "Railway Bow - Slayer Edition". This is a Barrage i.e. "Railway rifle" guide where we'll use Lioneye's Glare bow to avoid accuracy problems. I'll be very detailed with explanations and try to be as fast as possible to help with your questions!

You can check my Stream to see how the build performs: https://www.twitch.tv/gepmah1

Table of the content
1. Abilities and Support gems
2. Attacks explanation
3. Utility and Buffs explanation
4. Passive tree/Ascendancy/Leveling tree
5. Bandits
6. Pantheon
7. Gear
8. Leveling Guide
9. My Character
10. FAQ
11. Videos

Path of Building Pastebin:
https://pastebin.com/P86DSkZW



1. Abilities and Support gems

Barrage + Greater Multiple Projectiles + Damage on Full Life + Increased Critical Strikes + Physical Projectile Attack Damage + Maim

Brief explanation


Tornado shot + Greater Multiple Projectiles + Pierce + Damage on Full Life + Increased Critical Strikes + Maim

Brief explanation


Lightning Arrow/Ice Shot + Greater Multiple Projectiles + Pierce + Elemental Damage with Attacks + Damage on Full Life + Increased Critical Strikes

Brief explanation


Cast When Damage Taken (level 1) + Blood Rage (level 7) + Enfeeble (level 5). Lightning Golem, Decoy totem

Brief explanation


Hatred, Herald of ice + Curse on hit + Assassin mark. (Arctic armor if you are wearing Perfect Form armor)

Brief Explanation


Blink arrow + Faster attacks

Brief explanation



2. Attacks explanation

What is Barrage?
Once used, it charges up and fires 4 projectiles in a line, each projectile can hit the same enemy (which is called Shotgun or Railway rifle). Due to the straight line trajectory, it's best for single target attacks and bad for clearing. The best way to increase its damage is adding More damage supports and increase number of projectiles fired at a time. Due to Point Blank Notable, place yourself as close to the bosses as possible and try to hit them in the direction of the walls, because each crit will knockback enemies (King of the Hill passive)

What is Tornado Shot?
This skill is good for both packs clearing and boss killing, but not surpasses Barrage damage potential. Projectiles travel to the point where your mouse is placed. You should target monsters for maximum efficiency. Upon reaching the targeted location, Tornado Shot's projectiles explodes and fires three secondary arrows in random directions destroying everything in seconds.
If you are running Elemental reflect map, use this skill.

What is Ice shot?
Fires an arrow that converts some physical damage to cold on its target and converts all physical damage to cold in a cone behind that target. Creates a patch of ground ice under the target. With piercing arrows, the cone will be created on every hit. Has mediocre clear speed, basically no single target.
This skill allows us to survive Physical reflect maps, because of the full Physical conversion to Cold.

What is Lightning arrow?
Fires a charged arrow at the target, causing them to be struck by a bolt of lightning which damages 3 nearby enemies per hit. This is a strong pack destroyer with high clear speed. Single target is the same as Ice shot.
You don't want to run Physical reflect maps with it because only portion of the Physical damage converted to the Elemental.

Support gems

Greater Multiple Projectiles - Great increase in clearing speed for Tornado shot, Ice Shot, and Lightning arrow. Adds 4 additional projectiles, which helps to cover most of the screen with a single click. On the other hand, grants 26% less projectile damage.
For Barrage mechanics, it's a huge damage boost early on. Once you get +1 additional arrow corrupted Quiver and Dying sun flask - drop it and grab Slower projectiles.

Damage on Full Life - Massive damage multiplier as long as you are on Full Life, and since you are going to be a Slayer you'll be pretty much constantly at full life (thanks to Endless hunger) It's important to notice that when you use Blood Rage your tooltip life will never be full, but you'll still be considered at full life so you'll be able to take advantage of this support gem

Increased Critical Strike - We want as high crit chance as possible. This gem grants extra flat crit chance of which all other increases are based upon which is huge.

Pierce - More damage multiplier and ability to pierce monsters with clearing skills.You can hit more monsters per attack which is great to clear packs faster.

Physical Projectile Attack Damage - Yet, another more multiplier for Barrage :)

Maim - More Physical damage multiplier + slow enemies down (which is good for ranged characters) + if an enemy is slowed, he receives increased Physical damage (which is counted as another More damage multiplier)

Elemental Damage With Attacks - Multiply elemental damage for Ice Shot or Lightning arrow

Other options
Slower Projectiles - Once you get +1 additional arrow Corrupted Quiver and Dying sun flask, switch Greater Multiple Projectiles in your Barrage set up for this. Instead of 26% less damage you'll get 29% more. It also reduces projectile speed by 49%, which account only for flying speed, and not projectile fire rate. With Barrage, you will be always close to the enemies, so it doesn't matter.

Mirage Archer - This gem is just great for leveling! Also, according to the numbers you can get a lot of damage with Barrage on high levels. Need testing.

3. Utility and Buffs explanation

Cast When Damage Taken (level 1) + Blood Rage (level 7) + Enfeeble (level 5)
Blood Rage is extremely good buff which increases your attack speed, life leech, and grants chance to gain frenzy charge on a kill. As a downside it degenerates 4% of your life while active, thankfully this is mitigated by the amount and speed of life leech this build has. The duration of Blood Rage is refreshed whenever you kill something.

Enfeeble is a defensive Curse which decreases enemies Accuracy, Crit chance, and Crit multi.

Cast When Damage Taken casts both Blood Rage and Enfeeble whenever our character receives enough damage. The best tactic is to keep CWDT at level 1, this way it'll proc on basically every hit, cursing enemies and buffing us.

Lightning Golem
Selfcast, distract some enemies and grants increased attack speed for his master :)

Decoy totem
This is one of the best things in the game! Decoy totem will taunt enemies, best use on bosses. Place it by the wall, boss will attack the totem while you can nail him to the wall :D Beware: Shaper is immune to taunt.

Hatred
Hatred is straight damage boost. Adds 36% of the Physical damage as Cold damage.

Herald of ice + Curse on hit + Assassin mark
Herald of Ice adds flat Cold damage to attacks and if you kill a Frozen enemy it will shatter and deal massive Cold damage to surrounding mobs. This shattering mechanic works wonders with Curse on Hit + Assassin mark cursing mobs around. Assassin mark grants extra Crit chance + grants Power charge on kill. This mechanic works only on packs of monsters. Bosses will be cursed only with Enfeeble.

Arctic Armor if you are wearing Perfect Form chest
One of the best defensive auras. Grants 8-13% Fire and Physical mitigation while stationary (when attack with Barrage for example). Drops chilling ground while moving which reduces monsters acting speed by 30%. And also chill monsters after they hit you.

Blink arrow + Faster attacks
Very nice movement skill, you can teleport yourself whenever you like if there are open space and no obstacles on your way. With Faster attacks, you'll teleport in shorter time.


4. Passive tree/Leveling tree/Ascendancy

Passive tree

IMPORTANT: Melee and Staff nodes on the tree because of the Lioneye's Fall jewel which converts them to Bow modifiers!
In a nutshell, we want to grab as much life as we can, life leech, crit chance, crit multi, some damage and jewel sockets.
Maximum Life - we will get 170% life on the tree (excluding jewels) which is OK for Softcore, with only Evasion gear I can achieve around 5500~ life (with decent gear). If you playing Hardcore, I would suggest grabbing more life in the Scion wheel.
Life leech - Vitality void with Hematophagy clusters will increase maximum life leech rate per second (which is awesome) and Vaal pact will double it! Your maximum life pool will be leeched back with 58% per second. Also, don't forget to grab this one tiny mana/life leech node, it'll keep your mana at maximum (we have only 25% of max mana due to auras)
I wanted to achieve high crit chance without Diamond flask to specifically fight with bosses. With clusters (Heartseeker, Lethality, King of the Hill, Disemboweling, and Counterweight) we can achieve very high base crit chance (around 50% without flasks/Power charges) Thankfully, Crit multi and damage nodes are always around the way :)
This build can have up to 5 jewel sockets. Good jewels are described in the Gear section. If you don't have a good jewel - it's better to take other passives until you actually have something that's worth it.
You can lack Intelligence or Dexterity early on, don't afraid to get some +30 Int/Dex and respec later once you covered it with the gear. Same goes to Elemental resistances, grab Diamond skin or Cloth and Chain and respec later.
For damage, we will get Iron grip and Point blank notables. Stay close to the mobs to take advantage of massive 50% more damage.
Acrobatics grants 30% dodge chance and decreases block chance and armor. (What Is Dead May Never Die :D)

Passive tree per 10 points



Ascendancy

Slayer is one of the best Ascendancies in my opinion and a Must for this particular build.
[+] Stun immunity
[+] Bleed immunity
[+] Unending leech (Addiction warning, you would never want to play without it)
[+] 20% cull
[+] Permanent onslaught/Increased damage while mapping
[+] VP + increased leech speed = half of your life leeched per second

Normal - Bane of Legends
Cruel - Endless Hunger
Merciless - Brutal Fervour
Uber - Headsman

5. Bandits

Kill all
2 passive skill points

Alira
5 Mana Regenerated per second, +20% to Global Critical Strike Multiplier, +15% to all Elemental Resistances

If you're struggling with the resistances early on, grab Alira and them reroll to Eramir for +2 Passive points.

6. Pantheon

The Pantheon is a system of divine powers that players can activate for themselves. These powers grant defensive bonuses and become available when players defeat certain gods in Acts 6 through 10.

There are twelve gods that each grant a power; four major gods and eight minor gods. A player can only have one major and one minor power activated at a time. The bonuses can be freely swapped with no extra cost, as long as the player is in a town or hideout.

Upgrading a god's power requires consuming a Divine Vessel and any map, with a boss that can upgrade a pantheon power, in the Map Device. Strengthening the Map Boss, killing it allows the retrieval of its Captured Soul from the Map Device. These are used when speaking to Sin to unlock the secondary powers.

Major Power
Soul of Lunaris - 5% dodge and spell dodge, 10% chance to avoid projectiles, up to 8% movement speed and Physical reduction. Perfect for us.

Minor power
Soul of Gruthkul - Extra 5% Physical reduction + 8% reduced attack speed for enemies if they hit you recently

Soul of Yugul - 25% reduced reflected damage taken. If you feel like Reflect maps killing you too much, switch for this one


7. Gear

Weapon
We'll be using Lioneye's Glare bow. It allows us to skip Accuracy stacking and get 100% hit chance. Try to get the best damage rolls.



Quiver

Maloney's Nightfall is a great quiver, it blinds enemies, has life, chaos res, damage, all the sweet stuff we need.
Rearguard and Whirling barrier node if you want to be more defensive.



Body Armor
There are a couple Armor options for grabs.
Perfect Form for decent life, Global evasion, 30% spell dodge, and free Arctic Armor aura. But you need to cover -30% cold resistance
Belly of the Beast is a decent choice due to the significant buff to your life, and on top of that, it gives some resistances.
Kaom's Heart is a great option with its huge boost to your life.



Helmet
Rat's Nest helmet - it will provide you with good amounts of increased attack speed, very nice increased critical strike chance, extra movement speed and some increased Rarity of Items found. Best damage boost.
Starkonja's Head - a unique helmet with increased critical strike chance, needed dexterity +100 life. Nice Health boost, but slower clear speed.
Also, you can grab Rare helmet with Intelligence/Dexterity, Life, and a lot of resistances.



Gloves
We will get Rare Gripped gloves with attack speed, flat physical damage, good life roll, and needed resistances.



Boots
Rare boots to fill needed resistances, get another chunk of life, and movement speed.



Belt
For the 3.1 Abyss league, Stygian vise is the best belt base, because you can insert Abyss jewel for extra life and damage. Otherwise, get Leather or Heavy belt base. You need as high resistances as possible + life.



Rings

Rare rings are the way to go. Fill the rest of resistances here and get Steel ring base if possible (very expensive) with life, flat physical damage and possibly attack speed.



Amulet

Rare amulet with life, Intelligence/Dexterity, Crit multiplier, and flat physical damage is the best!
You can use Carnage heart as a cheap option until can afford a good rare amulet.



Flasks
Dying sun - 2 additional projectiles! damage + clear speed (expensive)
Diamond flask - try to get Antifreeze, increased duration or extra charges. The "Your Critical Strike Chance is Lucky" (the game rolls twice for a critical strike and picks the better roll, i.e. first roll you don't crit, second roll you crit, outcome: you crit) property of the Diamond flask is extremely helpful
Sin's rebirth - unique flask, increase evasion rating, grants Unholy might (gain 35% of physical damage as Chaos damage) and removes burning
Basalt flask - try to get increased evasion rating and extra charges. Grants 15% physical damage reduction and reflect 20% of melee damage back to attackers
Quicksilver flask - gotta go fast! simply increase your movement speed. If you'll get extra move speed and extra charges would be great!



Jewels
You'll end up with 4 or 5 jewel slots (depends on your choice) Need to get 7% max life, critical multiplier 12%, and attack speed or attack speed for bows. Also, you can fill resistances or attributes (intelligence/dexterity)
Lioneye's Fall unique jewel is a MUST HAVE! The jewel should be inserted between Templar and Marauder areas. It transforms all Melee nodes into Bow!
You'll get next nodes:
Bone Breaker - damage
Disemboweling - crits
Smashing strikes - damage/Endurance charges
Counterweight - crits

Lioneye's fall placement


Enchantments

Helmet
+1 Additional Barrage projectile is the best! you can also go with with additional Tornado shot secondary projectiles.

Boots
There are two good enchantments boots: 16% increased Attack and Cast Speed if you've Killed Recently and 10% increased Movement Speed if you haven't been Hit Recently. Both would work.

Gloves
Do not enchant your gloves, because you want those 18% increased projectile damage on the Gripped base.

8. Leveling Guide

You have two roads here: start as a melee with Frost blades/Molten strike or play with the bow from the start. I'll cover only bow part. If you want to play melee, just grab whatever melee damage nodes you like around the pathing.

Start off with Shrapnel shot, it is a quest reward option from your very first quest (killing Hillock), it will allow you clear packs fast enough and it is the good starting skill. Use it from level 1 up to level 12. Link it to Maim support gem and Lesser multiple projectiles support gem.
Buy Lightning arrow and Barrage from the Nessa after killing Merveil. (I've heard that Mirage archer is a great tool for leveling)

When you reach level 18 include Elemental damage with attacks support gem to the Lightning arrow.

From level 16 start using Herald of Ash and Herald of Ice for the damage boost. (both are rewards from the "Intruders in Black" quest in Act 2 and you can also buy each of them from Yeena in act 2 after completing that quest) Start using Blood rage.

In the Act 3, buy Hatred aura, and turn off Herald of Ash.

Level until 38 (act 4) and switch Lesser Multiple projectiles with Greater multiple projectiles. Now you can change Lightning arrow with Tornado shot. Also, link your Herald of Ice with Curse on hit and Assassin mark. Cast when damage taken + Enfeeble + Blood rage.
At level 66 equip Lioneye's glare and kick ass!

Leveling gear

This isn't mandatory gear but will help you level faster.

At level 1 equip Silverbranch. It has nice attack speed to start with.
At level 32 grab Death Harp or the Tempest. A few flat elemental damage Abyss jewels will be very helpful with the Tempest bow.
Now, level until 66 with the Tempest or if you have currency, upgrade to Death Opus at lvl 44. Now you have Lioneye's glare - be happy)

Other cheap and helpful uniques
Wanderlust boots - no level requirements, freeze immunity and 20% increased movement speed
Meginord's Girdle belt - it requires only level 8, yet it provides quite a significant boost to both your damage and defenses
Belt of the Deceiver - enemies receive 10% increased damage, life, resistances, reduces damage from critical strikes.
Goldrim helmet - it gives A LOT of resistances for an item that requires only level 3
The Peregrine helmet - adds great amounts of accuracy, has mana leech and 10% increased movement speed. This item requires level 23
Tabula Rasa - 6link with 0 level requirement and white sockets! Must have)
The Ignomon - with the increased rarity, fire resistances, accuracy and added 12-24 fire damage this is the perfect starting amulet in my opinion. It requires only level 8
Wake of Destruction - at level 28, grants a lot of lightning damage, good combination with The Tempest bow.

Don't forget to beat the Labirinth :D

9. My Character

My Gear


My Passive tree


Defenses


Damage


10. FAQ

1) Is this build hardcore viable?
Have no idea, never played hardcore. You can try and tell me.

2) Can I kill the Guardians and the Shaper with this build?
Yes, you can farm them easily if you know Boss mechanics.

3) Is this build Atziri viable?
Yes, both normal and Uber Atziri are farmable if you know Boss fight.

4) Can I play this build without a 6-linked item?
Yes, 4 link can carry you pretty far. 5 link can kill Guardians.

5) Can I play without Lioneye's fall jewel?
Yes, to some extent. You'll need it eventually to cap your Crit, get more Crit multi/damage and Endurance charges on Crit!

6) Can I run maps with physical/elemental reflect mods?
Yes, for Physical reflect grab Ice shot + Elemental damage with attacks. For Elemental reflect grab Tornado shot + Main.
Get Yugul Pantheon power if needed.

7) Why there are Melee/Staff nodes on the tree?
I'm using Lioneye's fall Jewel, which converts all Melee type nodes in the range into Bow modifiers.

11. Videos

Elder and his Guardians (Yellow maps, first try)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc0R8_HKhHY&t=10s

Deathless Shaper
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI3MBAUIMA8&feature=youtu.be

My first ever Uber Atziri run and kill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGDNy6EXr3c&feature=youtu.be

Leveling tips??

"

zjona wrote:

Leveling tips??

Hi Zjona,

You can start off as ele bow (if you have some twink gear like Tabula, Goldrim, Tempest, etc.) or melee with Frost blades/Molten strike. Just follow same tree pathing and grab relevant melee nodes along the way. Once hit lvl 66, buy Lioneye's Glare and respec.

Ths is my League starter build, and I had a bit of trouble past act 6 due to lack of good gear at the start.

without the jewel for melee > bow nodes, is this build still good? or do i need another character to farm the jewel/the chaos to buy it?

"

Jeevanlive wrote:

without the jewel for melee > bow nodes, is this build still good? or do i need another character to farm the jewel/the chaos to buy it?

Without it your Crit chance and multi will be lower, it's not critical until you get into high tier maps.

I've started this league with this character, and got the jewel on the second day, so yes, you can farm needed chaos with it.

What flasks are u using?

"

PierKwadrat wrote:

What flasks are u using?

Diamond, Atziri promise, Quicksilver are cheap ones. Later one you can get Dying sun and Taste of hate

Good stuff, really fun to be able to facetank triple rare abyss. Only up to t9 maps right now but I'm drooling at the thought of when I get TOH+Dying Sun+Belly for tankiness. It's SO nice to be able to get "auto" endurance charges with a bow build too.

Question though, how much crit do you get from Oskarm? It seems kind of odd to use that over rare res/int gloves so that you can use rat's nest or devoto's and just get ass mark thru HOI/COH setup.

"

alexvsevil wrote:

Good stuff, really fun to be able to facetank triple rare abyss. Only up to t9 maps right now but I'm drooling at the thought of when I get TOH+Dying Sun+Belly for tankiness. It's SO nice to be able to get "auto" endurance charges with a bow build too.

Question though, how much crit do you get from Oskarm? It seems kind of odd to use that over rare res/int gloves so that you can use rat's nest or devoto's and just get ass mark thru HOI/COH setup.

Just checked with PoB, on normal mobs Oskarm grants around 30% more crit, on Shaper/Guardians it's 4%~ more. So yea, rare Gripped gloves with life, flat Phys, attack speed, res/stats is a better option.

Now, the Helmet question is:
Devoto - 20% move speed, 16% attack speed, -10% Phys damage (best clearing speed)
Rat's Nest - 10% move speed, 15% attack speed, Global crit 60-75% (best deeps, slightly slower clearing)
Starkonja - 100 life, 25% crit, 10% attack speed (best survivability, average clear speed/deeps)

Gems. The HoI + COH + Assassin mark is good, I would also add Enfeeble lvl5 to CWDT lvl1. Cuz we will not inflict Ass mark on bosses anyways. Enfeeble will proc pretty often granting, even more, evasion/damage reduction.

What way should you go first on the tree? Left or right?