[1.1] Davos Seaworth's Elemental Split Arrow Build - Solo every map with ease!

wrong thread

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dfscott wrote:

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DavosTheOnionKnight wrote:

Skill point progression has been updated for patch 11.2

Wow, quick work!

I noticed you now take Blood Magic much later. Is that personal preference or can you make it work earlier? I ask because my Duelist just respec'ed to blood magic right before the patch (he's level 37). So now I'm wondering if I should stick with it or respec back out now because I'll run into trouble later (I'm doing ok now).

That is due to feedback I've received about people saying they're having trouble sustaining the life cost. I personally didn't have any trouble going straight for BM myself, but this was my second character and I had a lot of good leveling gear, all of which had high amounts of life. And I was able to 4-link split arrow with Chain, WED and Life Leech (or LGOH; I can't recall which is better with Split + Chain at low-mid levels). So I revised it to allow for more life nodes before picking it up.

Though I think the better advice is simply "take it when you're ready". If you have life on all your gear I think you'll be ready to take it sooner. Also note however that BM comes near the very beginning of that 10-point section, I believe maybe 1 or 2 points in.

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nuppimperator wrote:

Hey I've been following your build and saw you had two linked Frenzys one for single-Target Damage and one for finishing with item quantity/Rarity and culling.

I've adopted this but then thought about using elemental hit instead of Frenzy for the single Target, as this should be more damage, and just use the finishing frenzy for charges.
Did you test something similar and abandon it, just wondering ;)

Been having a lot of fun thus far, thanks ;)

Oh yeah I've definitely considered Elemental Hit vs. Frenzy. EH is higher dps (though not by too much - maybe 10% or so) but Frenzy actually does some pretty solid dps.

Here's the difference between EH and Frenzy.

Frenzy (lvl 20 Q20 with 4 charges):

+92% attack speed for single target attacks (this number applies only to Frenzy itself)
+48% increased physical damage for single target attacks

Elemental Hit (lvl 20 no quality (crit chance doesn't help us))

+33–624 lightning damage OR 167–311 cold damage OR 204–380 fire damage.


Yes, that elemental damage is going to give you more dps than 92% attack speed and 48% physical damage since the phys dmg isn't really doing much if you're using a tri-ele bow. But having 4 frenzy charges increases your attack/cast speed by 20% for all skills. That attack speed boosts my Split Arrow dps by about 375. I personally feel that it's worth it to have lower single target damage if it means my AOE dps goes up that much. 375 doesn't like much, but with Chain it definitely is. It's about a 7% dps increase for Split Arrow. Also keep in mind it means faster casting for Enduring Cry, curses, totems, Detonate Dead, and whatever else you want to use. As well as faster Leap Slamming when you weapon swap.


As for your question about getting your charges from the culling/IIR/IIQ Frenzy, I don't think it would be reliable. I only use my secondary Frenzy on rare mobs, bosses, or magic golems in 75+ maps (or lower maps if the map has Elemental Equilibrium and/or Enfeeble) since they have so much life/resists and culling helps kill them quicker. Since I'm using it so infrequently, I would probably have less than 5% uptime on my frenzy charges. I try to aim for at least 90% uptime. To maximize your dps you should keep all 4 charges up at all times during combat. And never bother using culling strike on white mobs, that would slow your clear speed considerably. I suppose you could do it on certain magic mobs if you wanted, though not the small and abundant ones like monkeys and spiders. Just let Split Arrow do its work for them.

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DavosTheOnionKnight wrote:

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dfscott wrote:

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DavosTheOnionKnight wrote:

Skill point progression has been updated for patch 11.2

Wow, quick work!

I noticed you now take Blood Magic much later. Is that personal preference or can you make it work earlier? I ask because my Duelist just respec'ed to blood magic right before the patch (he's level 37). So now I'm wondering if I should stick with it or respec back out now because I'll run into trouble later (I'm doing ok now).

That is due to feedback I've received about people saying they're having trouble sustaining the life cost. I personally didn't have any trouble going straight for BM myself, but this was my second character and I had a lot of good leveling gear, all of which had high amounts of life. And I was able to 4-link split arrow with Chain, WED and Life Leech (or LGOH; I can't recall which is better with Split + Chain at low-mid levels). So I revised it to allow for more life nodes before picking it up.

Though I think the better advice is simply "take it when you're ready". If you have life on all your gear I think you'll be ready to take it sooner. Also note however that BM comes near the very beginning of that 10-point section, I believe maybe 1 or 2 points in.

Ok, thanks. I actually have a lot gear laying around from other chars, so maybe that's why. I'll just focus on life nodes for a while to give myself a nice buffer...

Hey Davos thx for the feedback ;)

I've decided to put back the buying of a quality frenzy for now and use elemental hit for single target. I'm level 59 right now and I'm just putting in the occasional shot from the Frenzy/Iiq/iir/cs link to keep frenzy up.

Also considering to take up the frenzy charge and the increased duration below leather and steel since I am using ar/ev gear like this:

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgQBmy0XHbe2jX7NmL6n3sbqYvqx_MVW-t1G_E5jp2egh3ZKfRjbQ5wOrSmldPGeuSFgQKAFLWBLeu907e9OMgkotWCIYVKfy1YEhmA6Ut-_DjwUcacwFCBQR0Gq-Ov3MnKpfNmsqlnzwBqQVaeEGjjsOFfiMol35QSz8B-iABRNKU-Cm-QiGmwZhSSqNunjap2upwi4kwx9EH_Gno9G0NDPZVXGFm-boWe97m8n7fPd7g4j9u_wWkhaGiyFtQTSTcAP1e1qk7ZBW6_dDQ==

In Addition to the Frenzy Charge this will make keeping Frenzy up less of a hassle and if I continue leveling from there I can take the four 6% lifenodes. But I will need 10 Int more on gear and maybe these nodes will be my undoing cause of not enough life in Maps still too early to tell ;)

Edit:

Bought a quality Frenzy after all and agree its much better. It doesn't feel like less damage and you don't have to juggle 3 skills all the time.

How do you deal with the new Blacksmith? I try to kill him offscreen but then he's suddenly on top of me and jumps me 4 times and I'm dead ;)

Hi Davos!

Been following your build till lvl 51 and very effective so far.

Just wondering a few questions:

1. for Onslaught, is it worth going blood magic instead getting mana leech?

2. Still worth getting IR after the recent patch?

3. If I only have one 5l should I use it in sa or frenzy?

Thanks for the great build!

Question for you -
I've followed the build for the most part, Im at act 3 cruel with max res and 1800 hp and still feel weak. Am I doing something wrong? I have SA with WED, Chain, LGoH. and frenzy with life leech and WED. My hp is still dropping like Im weak, and I've had other characters with worse gear cruising through act 3 without a problem. Whats the deal?

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hyperatis2 wrote:

Hi Davos!

Been following your build till lvl 51 and very effective so far.

Just wondering a few questions:

1. for Onslaught, is it worth going blood magic instead getting mana leech?

2. Still worth getting IR after the recent patch?

3. If I only have one 5l should I use it in sa or frenzy?

Thanks for the great build!

1. I've never tried mana leech, but most archer builds are incredibly mana intensive. My split Arrow (5-link) costs 111 mana per shot (138 mana if using 6L) and I attack about 3.5 times per second using a thicket bow without an attack speed mod. If I had a faster bow, I would be at about 4 attacks per second. So at present, I am spending 388 mana per second. You would need a ridiculous amount of mana and mana regen to pull that off. The only mana leech you can get for an elemental build is the mana leech gem, since the mana leech stat you find on gear only applies to physical damage. I just don't know if the mana leech gem could keep up with the amount of mana you're expending. If all 6 projectiles hit and chain, I feel confident that it could. But there are times when there are only a couple enemies to attack,

I really see no reason to use mana leech over blood magic. You'll need life gain on hit regardless if you want any chance of surviving difficult maps in onslaught. And mana leech is taking up a gem socket that you would otherwise use for faster attacks or added lightning damage.

2. Definitely. Some people are whining about the change, but in truth it's not that big of a deal. After the patch I changed a couple nodes and grabbed about an extra 20% in armor nodes. Post-patch, I have 300 less armor and 52 less life. Iron Reflexes is fine. The truth is that it was overpowered before the patch.

3. Definitely Split Arrow. Faster Attacks (socket #5 for split arrow) increases my dps by about 30-40% IIRC. But for Frenzy, socket #5 goes to added lightning damage, which isn't nearly as big as Faster Attacks. I am also of the opinion that AOE dps is far more important than single target dps.

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Techn9ne wrote:

Question for you -
I've followed the build for the most part, Im at act 3 cruel with max res and 1800 hp and still feel weak. Am I doing something wrong? I have SA with WED, Chain, LGoH. and frenzy with life leech and WED. My hp is still dropping like Im weak, and I've had other characters with worse gear cruising through act 3 without a problem. Whats the deal?

I'm not sure homie. Post a reply in this thread with your current gear and passive tree so I can take a look at it and tell you where the problem lies.

Just wanted to drop in some feedback to the author of the thread:

MY REVIEW:

I started this build at level 41 because I had a dormant Duelist that was doing a Rain of Arrows build when the full respec patch happened. I also have a couple of 75-81 characters and had a very decent starting point as far as gear, skill gems, and so on.

I went from 41 to what I am at now 67 with absolute ease. I don't think I've ever played a build that has been this ridiculously faceroll since I started. However, I have to say that you definitely need to stack up that life because the faster your bow, the faster you'll be shooting off HP but even so the second you start connecting hits with mobs you'll leech it back instantly. I was able to do Piety Merciless at level 65. I had a pretty hard time doing that on other characters in the past. With this character at 65 I started doing maps no problem. With just about 2700 hp after auras and currently max resists I'm able to decimate pretty much everything.

And it's not like I'm using the best bow in the world to do this, either...



So yea, GREAT BUILD!