[1.0.6] †┼ Physical Split Arrow + CoC + EK with Acrobatics / Lightning Coil / Blood Dance

I decided I'm more than pleased with the outcome of this build and is one of the most fun characters to play so far. This build started in Nemesis and reached maps before getting bursted down by a rare blackguard charger (with desyncs help) in a ele-weakness map that I probably shouldn't have attempted anyway as my resulting resists were terrible.

As opposted to using a Quill Rain and a Voll's protector like other glasscannon cast-on-crit bow builds, I wanted to make a survivable build that is still good at clearing mobs. I'm in no way uber rich and would call all my gear sub-par, as well as not requiring any top-shelf uniques like Kaom's or Soul Taker. Most of my gems are level 15-18 and only Chain is 20%.


Lightning Coil is a very under-used item that synergizes great with acrobatics and evasion amazingly well. The hardest part of using it is getting that lightning resist maxed out. Another, maybe not required, but great unique to use is The Blood Dance boots, with allows sustaining blood rage with life (and -60% chaos resist) and/or keeping up frenzy charges just from killing things if blood rage isn't your thing.

Crystal Skin + Avoid Shock x2 gives 55% chance to avoid shocked, making Storm Herald a lot easier as well as managing continuous taken lightning damage. The life leech from Blood Rage paired with decent physical DPS helps with sustaining against reflect.


So far I've done double-reflect maps and minus max resist maps easily, with only slight tough parts. Physical reflect needs to be played with care, and I have gotten close to dying a few times with that first crit against very large zombie packs before immortal call proc'd. Might be more of a problem is more crit multiplier is used. Ondar's guile help with evading split arrow damage (which is low anyway), and phase acrobatics helps against EK damage.




Bandits
- Help Oak (Life)
- Help Oak (Phys Dmg, works with EK)
- Help Alira (Power charge)

Total power charges come out to 5 Frenzy and 5 Power.


Major benefits of the build are:
- Fast kill speed on any large mob packs.
- Very mobile and fun to play, always repositioning to hit more mobs.
- Relatively inexpensive like any CoC build, relying on EK gem level for damage.
- Feels much tankier than a IR most of the time.
- Decent bows will work just fine, OK dps but good crit % is usually overlooked.

The drawbacks:
- Need to stay real close for single target damage.
- Seldom streaks of no-crits making it seem weak and hard to kill tough rares / exiles.
- Evasion, always a chance the surrounding devourers will all roll a 98 and then all first strikes hit.
- Possibly a tough time leveling before CoC can be utilzied, might as well melee blender it.

How do you sustain mana?!

You have Aura Nodes...but with that nodes you cant run 2 auras i guess! ;) so just drop them!

You would need a Alphas howl

I have 4% mana leech from phys dmg, and having a decent enough damage bow gives all the leech needed. Cant sustain shooting SA into only 1 mob, but no problems with big packs.

Aura passives are good since I have 60% haste and 60% hatred on mana, along with reduced mana gem + aura passives gives enough leftover mana to cast things on. If using purity or purity of lightning instead of haste, can drop aura nodes probably.

you spec into frenzy but you dont use it.....no frenzy = now i know why you got no mana problems :)

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you spec into frenzy but you dont use it.....no frenzy = now i know why you got no mana problems :)

u are mistaken.. he using blood rage - every kill +1 frenzy charge

Use Frenzy for single target spell! Blood rage suxx!

Do a lvl75+ Map with mods in a party....i want to see how long you can sustain mana :)

Your mana is nearly empty on 3-4hits in the vid

get rid of barrage....very weak atm

You guys are missing the point, frenzy isn't even supported by a support, its there to occasionally refresh charges when only 1 mob remains. Charges are kept up with Blood Dance boots and blood rage kills, and the boots' 1% life regen per charge allows to sustain blood rage. The life leech from blood rage is utilized as well.

Barrage isn't used for damage, supporting with GMP to proc Fireball / Acrtic Breath. Yes mana is the biggest problem, but it sustains just fine. I dont see how a party will make mana more a problem, as long as SA is hitting mobs to leech its fine. Plus party will have a clarity aura anyway?

Deadb0lt, I run a fairly similar build except went for max crit and ES instead of Frenzy and Acrobatics. I actually use your secondary (elemental) set-up as my main attack for groups (still switching back and forth between SA and Barrage, depending on auras).

I found the best way to handle single targets is to pull CoC out completely. Puncture with added physical damage and crit multiplier 1-2 shots most rares and bosses. (Whites and blues, either they die instantly if it's a crit, or you can walk away and let them bleed out.)

Do you like SA better than Barrage for the speed? I've found Barrage procs more consistently but am still experimenting with them both.

I'll have to try using puncture with your supports, seems interesting, but I might not have enough phys % damage passives, but I can try it with a Lioneye's. I haven't experimented with barrage much except for my CoC setup, but I've seen a dual-wand CoC build with Chain supporting 2 EKs and it looked very good. SA has problems if there is only 1-2 mobs left and requires running up close range for the GMP barrage to do anything.

Here's my tree and character stats and stuff. We actually have fairly similar bow passives, and you seem to like auras nodes too. I'd be interested in what you think.

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/757499