[3.15] Crimson Bow Gladiator, RoA + Puncture | Pure Bleed Build | All Content | In-depth

As someone who plays on Xbox where not only good rare items are hard to find, but also precision movement is difficult - would you recommend puncture or totem bleed build? I guess I was leaning towards a respec to totems with that in mind.

Unfortunately I can’t build another char, so caustic raider is off limits.

With all that said, I’m playing puncture so far and loving it!

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DankawSL wrote:

That's much more information i expected. Still very much appreciated.

Getting Lioneye's Fall early does make going left side more tempting, at least to try it out. How much you paid for your gear is not really important, i can see your gear and more or less guess budget.

My actual question with progression wasn't truly answered unfortunately. At least i know where you're at progression wise.

Based on quick calculations guardian fights should last roughly ~1 min or so, not 7 mins. I was killing guardians back in 3.0-3.3 leagues with CA+ED setup and maximum 230k dps quicker than that, and you have almost 4 times as much damage. Imo you doing the Maven arena with 2 deaths is really not bad at all.

About Thread of Hope cheese, it is doing it's job once you're fast enough or are against dense pack of enemies. However occupying important jewel slot (and they're incredibly efficient), passive points for another slot, lowering resistances, frenzy charge generation not being a problem (Blood Rage) and endurance charge being available through other means... It adds up. I don't like it, it's cheap alternative but not a good one in my book.

Frenzy charges are very easy to upkeep if you use my suggested passive tree. 15,4 second frenzy charge duration and easy generation through Blood Rage allows you to just zoom through map, have charges ready for boss, apply bleed and then just refresh charges. It is a problem in staged fights only (like Maven right now, but still possible if you use Ralakesh boots pre-fight). It could've been worse, really. Damage is totall worth it. It's 23,2% more damage (max 3 charges vs none), more than Malevolence gives you. I stop using Blood Rage during boss fights or once i have Farrul's, but it's still there if you want to use it. Degen is not bad if you have phys damage mitigation.

You can go ahead to make classic build with armour. Just be warned that low attack speed makes ballistas feel worse. At least there's one more extra ballista (or 2 if you're lucky). I don't like using Puncture that much either, which is why i tried hard to make classic Siege Ballista version work again. It's expensive but enjoyable to play for me.

Also gratz on dropping mirror. 5 years and still didn't get one.

Yeh, about progression - as i said it's hard to answer since for a long time i feel bad if i'm not on red maps at lvl 90, so it's just as ussual for me.

About minotaur fight - back in 3.0-3.3 guardians had less life and dmg mitigation. Plus it wasn't just minotaur fight - it was minotaur under Maven fight. And there was some def mod on map, i don't remember which but not reduced phys dmg taken.

About thread of hope - i'm 100% with you, it is bad (even tho i use it). I do allot of stuff that is bad (or bad in my opinion) just because i want to. For example i use split arrow, while i think that rain of arrows (who would have thought, right?) is better. To see how much RoA is better you can do those harbingers on valdo's. RoA has like 10 times dmg in that fight. But RoA just doesn't feel right for me. Not in terms of gameplay or as a skill, but... i don't know - i don't see this character using this skill. If it makes any sense. I have used RoA on HoA occultist and it felt just right. It's like you have that huge cannon which will kill anything and you are marking targets for it with RoA. That was a build where RoA felt just right not only from "what skills is the best" point of view, but also from that.. i don't know - role play point of view?

I don't know if that segment makes any sense, but the point is - i'm not kinda guy who does the best stuff. I felt like getting thread of hope, so i got it. It is bad, so be it. It's not even my final form anyway.

Abut frenzy charges - it's much easier to keep it on bosses for your build due to longer duration. 23.2% more dmg... 23.2! finally someone do the math right! It makes me happy. Yes it's good dmg but if you die every time you try to keep those charges up... Nah. That's what i meant by don't worth it. If you can - 100% go for it. But, for example on 4 guards Maven fight i wouldn't be able to use frenzy.

About mirror - thanks, and it's my 1st mirror drop and i'm here since beta, so how much is it - 8 years or so? So stay sane and it will drop for you one day.

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Jason074 wrote:

As someone who plays on Xbox where not only good rare items are hard to find, but also precision movement is difficult - would you recommend puncture or totem bleed build? I guess I was leaning towards a respec to totems with that in mind.

Unfortunately I can’t build another char, so caustic raider is off limits.

With all that said, I’m playing puncture so far and loving it!

I'm no expert on console gaming and i don't even know how POE look on it but if sounds like totems should be better. I guess the only way to know is to try it yourself or find another console gamer who tried it.

Also - i thought you can use mouse and keyboard on xbox. Or you can't? Or you can, but not in every game?

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agarwean wrote:

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Jason074 wrote:

As someone who plays on Xbox where not only good rare items are hard to find, but also precision movement is difficult - would you recommend puncture or totem bleed build? I guess I was leaning towards a respec to totems with that in mind.

Unfortunately I can’t build another char, so caustic raider is off limits.

With all that said, I’m playing puncture so far and loving it!

I'm no expert on console gaming and i don't even know how POE look on it but if sounds like totems should be better. I guess the only way to know is to try it yourself or find another console gamer who tried it.

Also - i thought you can use mouse and keyboard on xbox. Or you can't? Or you can, but not in every game?

Good point regarding totem. It’s only a slight switch on the tree. Is the damage drop off considerable?
It was decent with the one x, and actually really good on the series x.

You can use mouse and keyboard, but you don’t have a cursor in Poe as far as I’m aware

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Jason074 wrote:

Spoiler

As someone who plays on Xbox where not only good rare items are hard to find, but also precision movement is difficult - would you recommend puncture or totem bleed build? I guess I was leaning towards a respec to totems with that in mind.

Unfortunately I can’t build another char, so caustic raider is off limits.

With all that said, I’m playing puncture so far and loving it!

Absolutely classic build. However i heard in the past that everything is overpriced there and getting right uniques would be ridiculously hard. It's an end game build for a reason, because without specific uniques you can't really use it. Technically you can but your single target damage output will drop by half compared to just using Puncture. You can always level Siege Ballista in second weapon slot and switch with Puncture when you feel like testing it out.

However like i said, to deal damage similar to Puncture you need those specific uniques.

CA Raider is so cheap that you can always make one unless you have no time or character slots. The biggest problem is playstyle on console which is not ideal. Targetting and kiting might be a problem.

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agarwean wrote:

Spoiler

Yeh, about progression - as i said it's hard to answer since for a long time i feel bad if i'm not on red maps at lvl 90, so it's just as ussual for me.

About minotaur fight - back in 3.0-3.3 guardians had less life and dmg mitigation. Plus it wasn't just minotaur fight - it was minotaur under Maven fight. And there was some def mod on map, i don't remember which but not reduced phys dmg taken.

About thread of hope - i'm 100% with you, it is bad (even tho i use it). I do allot of stuff that is bad (or bad in my opinion) just because i want to. For example i use split arrow, while i think that rain of arrows (who would have thought, right?) is better. To see how much RoA is better you can do those harbingers on valdo's. RoA has like 10 times dmg in that fight. But RoA just doesn't feel right for me. Not in terms of gameplay or as a skill, but... i don't know - i don't see this character using this skill. If it makes any sense. I have used RoA on HoA occultist and it felt just right. It's like you have that huge cannon which will kill anything and you are marking targets for it with RoA. That was a build where RoA felt just right not only from "what skills is the best" point of view, but also from that.. i don't know - role play point of view?

I don't know if that segment makes any sense, but the point is - i'm not kinda guy who does the best stuff. I felt like getting thread of hope, so i got it. It is bad, so be it. It's not even my final form anyway.

Abut frenzy charges - it's much easier to keep it on bosses for your build due to longer duration. 23.2% more dmg... 23.2! finally someone do the math right! It makes me happy. Yes it's good dmg but if you die every time you try to keep those charges up... Nah. That's what i meant by don't worth it. If you can - 100% go for it. But, for example on 4 guards Maven fight i wouldn't be able to use frenzy.

About mirror - thanks, and it's my 1st mirror drop and i'm here since beta, so how much is it - 8 years or so? So stay sane and it will drop for you one day.

I don't remember when or if shaper guardians were buffed. Been so long and doesn't really matter at this point. Either way if you called Maven with a damage reduction mod... well, i can see fight taking forever. I'm dumb to not assume you made Maven watch the fight since you did fight 4 guardians at once.

If you plan on using classic build, then you better start levelling up RoA. If you won't, then you'll hate yourself 50% of the time during map clear. Or you'll have to disable Aspect of the Cat, lose all the goodies gained from it including charge generation from Farrul's Fur, during map clear.

If you want to roleplay, then think of yourself as Siege Commander. You rain down arrows on enemies as if trying to kill them from behind walls, you have 4 soldiers on front lines (Purity Sentinels) and for long time siege - ballistas. Makes it seem better theme-wise?

I don't die very often so problem of losing frenzy charges is not big of a deal... compared to losing whole character in the process since i usually play HC.

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Jason074 wrote:

Good point regarding totem. It’s only a slight switch on the tree. Is the damage drop off considerable?

To note here, you don't have to adjust your tree. I like it since it makes ballistas multiple time tankier so they can survive some hits.

There's funny story about it. Back in 3.4 and 3.5 patch i had issues with ballista survivability, especially during Uber Elder fight which made it significantly harder. I fixed it by spending 3 points on Ironwood cluster (now merged into this big totem cluster you see) which allowed ballistas to survive a single hit from Elder's ice spikes. Now the funny part - dev said (on Exilecon i believe? Neon?) that this cluster was never used. Not even when people complained very badly about RAT / Ballista survivability issues. But all it takes is to spend 4 points to make your totems 2 to 3 times tankier than they are.

hey is Point Blank good to have on your quiver for RoA/ Puncture or should i not bother? I dont really know the range where PB turns on/ off

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DankawSL wrote:

I played a bit in standard using version. I only got to 10 boss fight which i recorded. This is a character with extremely good harvest gear but not mirror tier level. Mid/high investment which is expensive but relatively easy to obtain should still give similar results with... ~30% less damage or something? Anyway you can judge it yourself:

https://youtu.be/WCbD69ngrQY

wow, this looks really nice. So just skip the Assailum and go for hit and run... Though I wonder how tanky one has to be for the new Maven Arena fights?

...the 4 ubers, the 4 breach lords... I wonder if one could get there to be viablo for those with a Bleed Glad. Whats your assumption?

@DankawSL
Thanks allot for that note on classic build! I have completely missed it. Even after reading it i was like "why it will be bad 50% of the time? I have RT, so no misses, what is going on?"

And then it struck me - not only my ballistas will have crimson dance, i will have it too!

If not that note from you i would have 100% fell in this trap.

How do you guys get endurance charges? Trying to find a good solution but I dont know, pretty new to the game, just got to lvl 92 and Im feeling that Im a bit too swuishy still with 6k hp, I need something else to work out +13-16 maps more efficient and less risky. I didnt die once mapping until lvl 91, and then when I got to t13-14 maps and Ive died 3-4 times before even reaching 92, and its all been one shot mechanics, and every time I dont understand what it was lol. To add, I never stand still, I always move, so thats why Im confused by the one shots :(

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jeb8d wrote:

hey is Point Blank good to have on your quiver for RoA/ Puncture or should i not bother? I dont really know the range where PB turns on/ off

Point Blank doesn't apply to ailment, it's useless. Only hits benefit (or not) from Point Blank.

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snietschie2 wrote:

wow, this looks really nice. So just skip the Assailum and go for hit and run... Though I wonder how tanky one has to be for the new Maven Arena fights?

...the 4 ubers, the 4 breach lords... I wonder if one could get there to be viablo for those with a Bleed Glad. Whats your assumption?

Ooops, somehow didn't include "Classic build" at the beginning of my last message.

I can't really tell you how tanky you have to be, but kiting and killing problematic bosses asap should do the trick. I might play more a bit later on standard to show more footage. It's tiring to grind all these maps tho. You need total 28 maps to get to 10 boss fight which does take some time even if you run through map asap.

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Nico89 wrote:

Spoiler

How do you guys get endurance charges? Trying to find a good solution but I dont know, pretty new to the game, just got to lvl 92 and Im feeling that Im a bit too swuishy still with 6k hp, I need something else to work out +13-16 maps more efficient and less risky. I didnt die once mapping until lvl 91, and then when I got to t13-14 maps and Ive died 3-4 times before even reaching 92, and its all been one shot mechanics, and every time I dont understand what it was lol. To add, I never stand still, I always move, so thats why Im confused by the one shots :(

Endurance charges can be gained from:
* +1 Minimum endurance charges craft on rings and amulet for permanent 22% phys dmg reduction.
* Replica Farrul's Fur
* 10% Endurance charge on kill boots/talisman, but only works for clear. You can combine it with "Gain 1 Endurance Charge every second if you've been Hit Recently" modifier on body armour. All mods are influenced obviously.
* Enduring Cry. It's pain in the ass during maps, but not bad against unique monsters.


If you die during map clear then you're doing something wrong, which is to be expected from new player since you don't know what to look out for. You should learn majority of enemy mechanics during campaign, before you reach atlas. This goes for good chunk of bosses as well, but not all of them.

The problem is that you'll have hard times finding a build that will allow you to learn boss mechanics. Most of them focus on high damage (including this build) which is opposite of what you need. My CA Raider should do the trick if you want to learn boss fights.

Other than that just practice and keep an eye out what's going on in the screen.