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

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VenatorPoE wrote:

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morsdraconis wrote:

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Kingrat wrote:

hmmm this is what confuses me, if it's better to use lightning arrow in the linked item, why does the OP say to use split arrow :S? I'm just sort of confused as to what skills I should have on my toolbar and such.

The OP is basically saying use SA until you can find a 4 link item that works for you. At that point, you switch to LA. The reason for SA at first is because, without Fork added to the mix, LA isn't nearly as powerful as SA is with just EH and and Faster Projectiles.

Fork is what makes LA the bees knees because it causes you to basically AOE a significantly larger group that just continues to get bigger as you fight more and more things at once.

Excuse me everyone for not being available lately; I'm on a trip and don't have standard internet access!

I wish to talk about 2 things here - DPS tooltip and picking the right AoE skill, aka the LA vs SA debate, and socketing best support gems.

DPS TOOLTIP!

Alright so you just hovered over your Elemental Hit, and it said 200 DPS, then you socketed an Ice Shot in its place, and it says 500 DPS. Whaaaat? Well, Elemental Hit does not count it's additive damage in the DPS tooltip, so it is a bit mind boggling without knowing the mechanic. Elemental Hit will end up doing crazy high damage despite the low DPS on tooltip.
Now you socketed up Lightning Arrow + Chain, and you see the DPS went into the ground. Really low. Whaaaat? Well, you have to count in for the mechanic of how your new skill combo will work. Lightning Arrow is not a single shot by itself, it branches around and hits additional enemies. Lets simplify and say that makes its DPS 3x higher actually. Now, when you add in Chain, it further expands the amount of branches LA will do, lets say now it becomes 10 branches, but at a cost of 50% less damage, so the effective comparison means it deals 5x more DPS than the tooltip says.
My explanations are not all that great here, but you can see that the DPS tooltip itself is not the key to understanding the actual DPS, you have to actually understand the skill mechanics to know what the actual damage output will be.

SA vs LA (plus support gem clarification!)

This purely depends on the amount of sockets; as pointed out by morsdraconis above. I wouldn't exactly recommend incorporating Chain into your skill before you get a 5L item. Simply because having a 5L item probably means your overall character development stage can take Chain and work well with it. Taking Chain too early hinders my kill speed usually.
One absolutely crucial support gem you have to run on Any gem combination is Weapon Elemental Damage. Just don't skip it, it is so, so, so good. Use it on whatever amount of links you have; be it 2L, 3L or 6L. Another thing worth mentioning is the Life Leech / Life Gain on Hit gem. It depends on the life regeneration you have, and potions you use, but generally, LoH/LL are not mandatory for less than 5L or 6L combinations, as you will easily regenerate more than you spend. LoH/LL truly shines later on when your attack speed and "mana" cost become much higher, and you want to protect yourself from reflect damage and what not.
Now the Split Arrow debate! If you take a moment and look at what you are trying to do with other skills (such as LA), you basically mimic the basic mechanic of Split Arrow by adding LMP or GMP. So using SA with a low amount of links ends up being more efficient; because you don't need to sacrifice a support gem to mimic it. On another note, you are still free to use whichever combination you want, so lets make an example with 3L, you may use LA+LMP+WED or SA+WED+FA, and both will work. Personal preference - I prefer SA+WED+FA!


I hope this post helped some of you! I'm contemplating changing the OP to reflect the fact that a lot of choices are not mandatory but personal preference of mine...