[1.1.x] Party-Friendly, Multi-Purpose, Bow Crit (Physical CoC/Puncture/Lightning Arrow) Guide

What kind of defense stats should I look for? Armor/ES, Evasion/ES, or pure ES?

If you party, get a good mix of Evasion and ES.

If you solo, stack more Evasion and Life.

You'll need a 4-link with at least 1 armor on it for your CwDT or it will murder your chromatic stash. Usually the boot slot is a good place for this.

Some awesome things coming next patch that may allow me to take back Ghost Reaver! :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HcOPNNc4ps

How can you call this newb friendly when this setup takes a bag of exalts to buy ?

This is my first character. I got to maps on about 5 Chaos worth of trades.


1 Chaos.


1 Chaos.


1 Chaos each + self-linked. Gave away to newbies for free.


Self-crafted: 1 Alchemy + 4 Blacksmith Whetstones each.


Self-crafted: 1 Alchemy each.


Self-found: 3 pairs while leveling this character.

Yeah, if you go for Windripper and "best" unique items in every slot, it's going to be expensive, but try thinking outside of the box. That's what this whole game is about.

You forgot to add bandit rewards mate?

Updated bandits section to be a little bit more clear. Thanks for the message, Kulinaro.

Why do you have points in frenzy charges on a life build and you dont actually use frenzy or blood rage in your vids?

Also dont understand why you use infernal mantle when you could have 2k+ evasion armour instead. I know the infernal mantle crit is nice and all but your char is a paper cannon (to say, worst than a glass cannon), and only ~2.8k hp which is a guaranteed one shot in a 78 map party.. why dont you go with ES instead? With discipline and good boots I believe you could reach 4.5~5k ES or approximately.. which would allow you to be CI and play with blood rage

Curious too how you survive reflect without vaal pact. Is your damage split enough between phys/elemental that it just isnt a problem?

Also.. that 95% crit cap you are reaching.. you achieve that with all those missing crit nodes in the tree? (looking at the "lvl 85 tree")

Hi and thanks for the comments.

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Why do you have points in frenzy charges on a life build and you dont actually use frenzy or blood rage in your vids?

I use both on occasion but switch it out depending on the situation.

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Also dont understand why you use infernal mantle when you could have 2k+ evasion armour instead. I know the infernal mantle crit is nice and all but your char is a paper cannon (to say, worst than a glass cannon), and only ~2.8k hp which is a guaranteed one shot in a 78 map party.. why dont you go with ES instead? With discipline and good boots I believe you could reach 4.5~5k ES or approximately.. which would allow you to be CI and play with blood rage

I run a hybrid build. Evasion armor would not be as good for me since dodging more often with a lower hit pool is counter productive. Infernal Mantle + party buffs in my mapping gear gives me 3K-4K life + 2K-3K ES (almost 5K ES in a pinch with Vaal Discipline), which is better than 5K of only one or the other for me in most situations. I wouldn't recommend CI just because crit ES gear is hard to stack and the Shadow/Ranger area has so many great hybrid life/damage nodes. Also, Infernal Mantle = more damage = my main form of survivability is killing things as quickly as possible.

Also, this thread and videos haven't been updated in a very long time. Most vids are of build tests and soloing at around level 70. But you can see from my party video (I think I was level 78 in a 73 map?) that my ES rarely ever drops below half and my life pool usually stays topped off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQlQy7Ao96I

I haven't found any 78 maps yet but duo 76 just fine and most of Apex content (got all the way up to Atziri herself on our second try and just haven't farmed any Midnight since then). The only downside to this build is if you gear around someone else and they die, you have to play a lot more cautiously for the rest of the map.

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Curious too how you survive reflect without vaal pact. Is your damage split enough between phys/elemental that it just isnt a problem?

It's pretty evenly split, but I also make sure I watch for the mob's auras and single target attack; I weapon switch if it's a vulnerability or weakness map. You can't autopilot, if that's what you're asking.

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Also.. that 95% crit cap you are reaching.. you achieve that with all those missing crit nodes in the tree? (looking at the "lvl 85 tree")

Yep! That's why Infernal Mantle. :) Again, I wouldn't recommend my setup unless you have a good party that you have built around. I just posted it because people ask. There's alternates recommended in the main post. Hope that helps.

Ok that clarifies some things. Appreciate the time you take replying.

Yeah, after spending 2 hours messing with the tree, i think your setup is just about the only way to play this hybrid physical dmg/CoC bow and even then all you have is im guessing about ~40% evade chance from gear, you have no armour, no dodge, no block, no chance to avoid spells and you're also taking +100% spell dmg when on low mana which looks to be 100% of the time if you're running 2 auras.. this is very dangerous.. I know that you're running in party all the time and im sure if you play carefully, stay behind others, you can stay alive.. but what if you get leaped, charged, jumped by 5 blue tree mobs that each deal like 3k melee dmg, or their ridiculous projectiles, or Atziri's flameblast, or jungle valley boss EK that cant be dodged..and so on.. the list of one-shot mobs is long..

I was trying to go for MoM+Iron Reflexes+Arctic Armour but then i'd have to drop a bunch of other nodes just to reach a half decent mana pool and if i want to achieve this below level 95 i'd have to drop life nodes as well which is just counter-productive, and i'd need more crit passives to reach anything near your crit..

Iron reflexes on its own is just not good enough because you lose all evade, and the dodge+phase acrobatics, all this for roughly 35-45% physical dmg reduction with insane evasion gear + grace

I think im just gonna go with a wander crit+EB+MoM+AA. Sad though, i really like the aoe and single target dmg of this build. I never thought puncture could reach such high damage

edit: im thinking maybe with a high evasion+ES chest piece i could make this tree work Passive skill tree build