arctic armour, auras, bow - which main attack?

Hi,

Could someone advise me what main bow attack to use? It's an experimental / 'lets see where it takes me' sort of build.

The general idea:
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I wanted to make a build which has arctic armour on most of the time and use a bow. I figured I need a lot of mana regen, so I went for a big aura pool with eldritch battery. It works well although not geared properly yet and lightning warp helps me to save mana (also movement is much quicker after recently rebalancing the skill). To put all that mana into good use I went for a lot of auras and inner force cluster to milk them. It looks good thus far but really I'm not sure what to get as my main skill(s) (never run a bow-build before). I went for the duelist since he has some nice attack speed increases, good mana regen and was close to iron reflexes (to make up for poor defences from hybrid armours with eldritch battery) and I may go for unvewering stance (although with flat damage reduction from AA I'm not really stunned that often). I also have only 1916 hp, but my plan was to build up life later on so I have life nodes all over my tree (can go over 200% easily). Again, AA reduces so much damage I don't need that much life before I start doing maps. With purity, elemental adaptation and inner force I'll end up with capped 84% ele resits!


Trees:
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My tree and my possible future tree (100, 120).

I got iron grip and a few proj damage nodes also some attack increase, besides that I kept my option open and decided to see what works best as I go along. To be honest, I'm not sure what to use (fast attack speed and auras in one way, but it sounds like ranged version of ele cleave duelist which I don't want to end up :P).


Current main attacks:
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The best dps bow I own has increased phys and ele damage so I went for lightning arrow (ele dmg inc, LMP, chain) for AoE because it's effective without any point investment and with just 2 more points I can get 20% chance to shock with static blows, which would make it even more effective. As I reach to templar start next I can increase my ele dmg output by 50% also, which will make the damage even better.

I also use poison arrow as a support to my AoE (always hit a mob with that first) and started to use it as my single-target. Mana is not an issue for me and it deals really nice damage as single-target skill, I might put it in a 4 link with faster attack, added chaos and maybe life leech in case I need it later on. It's also super cool to see everything poisoned and keeps on killing those mobs when I need to dash for safety.


Other skills considered:
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I also considered puncture and frenzy but don't have a good bow or charges for it (and much phys increase besides iron grip). Burning arrow and ice arrow sounds fun, but require much more point/gear investment, which I would rather invest in life. I also don't want to go for pure ele damage due to elemental reflect. Going for LA + static blows might be fun since I might drop skellies with minion instability which I rarely use and would rather not to (prefer to dodge/lightning warp from danger than just snipe stuff killing my skellies) and could go for a spark/fork/faster casting totem to help with applying shocks (it also got the cool-synergy-factor of LA, spork totem and lightning warp! :D).

EDIT: just read somewhere that poison arrow's DoT is increased by shock... nice synergy speaking in favour of lightning dmg and PA :)


Anyways, any ideas about which attacks would work best with this build and what should I prioritise / change?

Gear and skills (all self-found, work in progress :D)
Spoiler

Hatred will be soon replaced with purity when I get some end-game gear and work on those skill slots, I might add Determination/Vitality too if I can squeeze it in. If I stick to LA I will use conductivity and if I stick to poison arrow vs bosses I would take vulnerability too for 40% DoT.
IGN: AlCohonez, GhengizCohen
Last edited by piotras on May 19, 2013, 12:39:15 PM

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