[0.10.4b] Bow Marauder (The Shocker (tm)) [**TO BE UPDATED SOON 1.0.0**]

Resists make a HUGE difference as you get closer to the cap. IE, if you go from 65% resistance (taking 35% of all elemental damage) to 80% resistance (taking 20%), you just cut down the amount of elemental damage you take by 42%. This is very important when fighting mobs with reflect elemental damage or any caster mob. The reason you didn't notice much is because it sounds like you went from -40 to -25, which means you are still taking 125% of the base damage. If you suddenly went from -25% resist to the cap at 80%, an attack that deals 100 damage would go from doing 125 damage to doing 20, pretty easy to see the big difference. what you really need to do is take those nodes and adjust your equip to get closer to 75/80% :p


Anyway, so I finally managed to upgrade my bow and it ended up being a 5L (giving me 2 5L items). Originally I was going to put my totem in it and go RaT/IS/WED/LMP/FA in it, but due to some recent drops I have a couple other ideas I am toying with, and since some of them require a different color setup I figured I would get some thoughts before blowing Chromes to try everything out lol. Keep in mind that for all the setups below that use a quality added lighting (I found an 11% one :p) I also have the option of added chaos (also found), but I am like 99% sure the light would be better, because of all my ele multipliers that don't apply to chaos even though it has a higher base...

Option one
EH+FA+WED+LL+Added Lightning
leveled added lightning adds an average of around 40 BASE lightning damage, and with quality adds 5% chance to shock (which would bring it up to about 40% chance to shock with conductivity and nodes)

RaT+IS+WED+FA+LMP
Original idea, just adding FA to RaT to add a good chunk of second source DPS :p. LMP+IS gives pretty good AoE damage, and between the fact it hits hard enough to stun things (when solo) and leaves ice patches, pretty good CC too.

New Idea that I am mos considering an option...
RaT+IS+WED+FA+added lightning
While dropping LMP does hurt its AoE capabilities, it will still have some since IS is a natural AoE, and replacing LMP with added lightning should be a pretty massive net + dps, so its single target damage should effectively go WAY up, plus 40% chance to shock on hit. Hopefully the extra attack speed from gaining FA should help mitigate the CC lost by no longer having LMP. It will still be less total Arrows/sec, but FA will help.

Could also do this but drop FA instead of LMP to make room for added Lightning, but I think it winds up strictly worse. FA will have a 5% lower chance to shock (35% vs 40%), but it will have a higher APS that more than covers the difference and adds more DPS too I think.

And of course open to suggestions from anyone else.

Side note on a mechanics question... Added lightning damage is +0.5% chance to shock on hit/% quality. I have 11% quality. It lists on the gem as 5% shock on hit. Is it really doing 5.5%, or can it only function in whole numbers and rounds down? If that is the case I could probably scrounge one up a GCP to kick it to 12% to go from 5%->6%, but I not sure that is really worth it. Definitely not worth it to go from 5.5%->6%.


And on a different note entirely. I had read on the boards that the inner force effect buffs the self damage of Blood rage, which would explain why my last two builds are not comfortable running it while my first build was, even though my current build has almost identical HP as my first build. For now I am just using frenzy on W to occasionally get charges, but I thought I should give a heads up to anyone else planning on running blood rage. I do think if I grab the 1% regen node in the templar starting area, and get to between -20% and 0% chaos res I should still be able to run it comfortably (at 0% chaos res I would take 3.8*1.3(inner force)-4.4% regen=0.54% degen), but at -60% chaos its a little crazy (3.8*1.3*1.6-4.4=3.5% degen).

Got to play with my equipment a bit, but my new bow covers my weakest (non-chaos) resist, so all I realy need in a helmet is +life and 4 unlinked sockets (Enfeeble/Conductivity/Molten Shell/Frenzy atm), and I have found a couple of helms for sale with 25->30% chaos res and +life (-2% degen, might be manageable), so I might be able to shuffle some stuff around to get to 40 or 50% chaos res.

lucky to be you ;D i have hard times fiding 4l items...


thx for infos about resists, yeah i died so many times on merci ledge to reflect mob that i was hitting offscreen that i would be at least level higher :P

are there any particular uniques that works well with this build? i know about kaoms but anything else?

Its not really luck (well partially :p).

I bought a 5L armor for 1 exa like first week in OB before anyone knew what anything was worth (spent like 2 weeks after worried I had screwed myself and blown all my money lol).

Upgraded bow cost me like 70% of all the currency I had in my stash >.<

Luck comes from the fact that right after I bought the bow (before actual trade, but after I had set out what I was paying for it) I had a run on Krole where he dropped an exalt and a Rime Gaze (that I sold for 2 more). That will never happen again lol. Im hoping to sell my old bow for 1.5 or 2 exa so I still have some walking around money lol.

Anyway, one o the nice things about this build is that it doesn't really need any particular unique, though there are some nice ones:

1) Geofri's Crest (the helm). Good resist all (inc chaos), and you can put your auras in it because the +1 level will give a nice boost to Wrath and Anger (and your DPS :P). Downside is no +life

2) Windscreams. Second curse utility is nice, res all (though lowish), move speed (though lowish), but once again, no +life.

2a) that ring with that has a second curse is okay, but the rest of its stats are crap, and a ring is a great place for lots of +ele damage mods, so I don't really like it.

3) If you get a really good physical damage bow, blackgleam quiver may allow you to use that over an ele bow for similar or better damage. if you do go this way, probably worth adjusting things to get IG (but it needs to be a good physical bow). Blackgleam is also a good general quiver since it has IAS, and the conversion is effectively a +flat fire damage mod. Problem with it as a general use is that a good rare can do those things better, and while leveling you will almost certainly be using a light quiver for the +dex.

4) Lions Glare. A physical bow good enough to trigger previous point :p


I'd say Kaoms is really a semi mixed thing for the normal player. On the one hand, yes +1000HP is just crazy. On the other hand, chest is really the best place for the average player to get their 5L/6L. Yes we use a weapon that is capable of 5L/6L, but if you can only get 1 5L/6L, chest is the far superior option. With a chest, as long as it has Life and res, the other stats don't really matter so much, so you can get 1 good chest, use it basically forever, on a ton of different characters (slot color and a CI build being the only real limits on just using 1 armor on everything), where as the weapon is much harder to pass around, and you will constantly be looking for an upgrade.

I use a level 54 5L armor that has okay armor/eva, 64 life, some str, and some fire res. My level 50ish bow is a highborn with 4-50 light/5-10 cold/20-30 fire (or something in that area). One of those two items is usable at level 80, one is pretty bad at level 80, so I know which one I want to be my 5L :p


Long story short, in all honesty, if I was dirt poor, had crap equipment, and suddenly found a Koam's heart, I would probably sell it and buy tons B+ end game gear (armor/helm/boots first since they are easiest to share among builds, and a good weapon for my main character), rather than keep a single semi-specialty SS+ armor

and at that point I have probably met my rambling quota for now so I'll just trail off lol

I'm using a 220 dps 1.75attack speed bow. I just side graded to 260dps bow, 1.55attack speed. Without auras 260 dps outperformers my 220dps bow by 20% which makes perfect sense.

With auras on, my 220dps 1.75 is actually exactly the same as the 260 dps. Which makes sense if you think about it, since auras contribute roughly 40% of my char's dps.




Just a public anouncement for anyone wondering how to best spend their money. That's a 3gcp bow or so performing as well as a 12 gcp or so bow.

ASP is really important , partly because of shock stacking.

may i ask you how do you count weap dps? i didnt see any stat in game about it

atm im using that one (hard times trying to 4l it for ranged EH totem...)

"

zawish wrote:

may i ask you how do you count weap dps? i didnt see any stat in game about it

atm im using that one (hard times trying to 4l it for ranged EH totem...)

add all the dmg together then divide by 2 then multiple by aps

ie: (30+89+21+43+7+98)/2 * 1.55 = 223 dps

causticX,

great tip!

i learned the hard way.
My grove bow was 90dps
my highborn was 205dps

i was expecting more than double my dps on frenzy + LA. i had dreams of mowing down merciless act1 rhoas with ease.

yet the game says my frenzy + LA dps only increased by like 25%.
took a while to understand that auras + other gear (amulets/gloves/quiver/etc) account for alot of your total dmg.


btw- u paid 12gcp for your 3s 2L bow?!

"

Pi314 wrote:

causticX,

great tip!

i learned the hard way.
My grove bow was 90dps
my highborn was 205dps

i was expecting more than double my dps on frenzy + LA. i had dreams of mowing down merciless act1 rhoas with ease.

yet the game says my frenzy + LA dps only increased by like 25%.
took a while to understand that auras + other gear (amulets/gloves/quiver/etc) account for alot of your total dmg.


btw- u paid 12gcp for your 3s 2L bow?!

It's a thicket bow. The sockets/links aren't the primary concern.

"

silent wrote:

"

Pi314 wrote:

causticX,

great tip!

i learned the hard way.
My grove bow was 90dps
my highborn was 205dps

i was expecting more than double my dps on frenzy + LA. i had dreams of mowing down merciless act1 rhoas with ease.

yet the game says my frenzy + LA dps only increased by like 25%.
took a while to understand that auras + other gear (amulets/gloves/quiver/etc) account for alot of your total dmg.


btw- u paid 12gcp for your 3s 2L bow?!

It's a thicket bow. The sockets/links aren't the primary concern.

Agreed, Go for big ele damage and ias and ignore the sockets.