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

Your total lightning damage does still matter for shock. While static blows allows you to shock on a normal hit, the duration of the shock debuff still follows the normal formula.

Shock: 276ms per 1% max life dealt as lightning (ignored if under 300ms, but you probably wouldn't notice it at that point anyway :P)

As far as Grace/IR goes...
Its probably un-necessary, but there are some pros:

1) With IR you can grab Unwavering without penalty which is useful for getting away
2)While GRace+IR won't save you from massive 1 shots like Krole, it will actually make a pretty significant difference vs trash mobs. In theory they never hit you and who cares, but in reality it is nice to have a buffer
3) We have taken pretty much all the non element specific +Elemental and +Weapon elemental damage from static blows down to blood magic, and all the +projectile damage is in the Lower right sector anyway... right by IR.

there are a couple directions you could go other than IR. I have toyed with Doom whispers, but I kill stuff so quick that casting a second curse might not really save time vs trash mobs lol. To be fair, given an infinite budget, I would probably replace my boots with 4L windscreams. Could you have doom whispers AND windscreams? Of course, but casting Conductivity/Elemental Weakness/Projectile weakness is such stupid overkill in like 95% of all situations that its silly.

One option is to go to the middle, and yes, grab Iron grip. If you really dig around in the middle you could get Iron Grip, 30% weapon elemental, and 15% AS. Problem with this, while it doesn't use up all the nodes you will reasonably have, it does use up enough that you will now be pretty much out of standout nodes that you are adjacent too, but not enough to really branch out to anywhere. You could probably do this and get Doom whispers.

[EDIT]
Just took another look, I guess you could do something where you go to the middle, grab that stuff, and then cut down to duelist and basically trade souther road to IR to duelist for a Northern road to IG and down to duelist, probably a pretty similar number of nodes overall, but keep in mind berserking is 1 node by itself that is 15% ias, which takes 4 nodes to get in the middle, so it really might just be trading IG for some of the utility bubbles along the southern road. I might check later, something might be interesting if it goes to IG, then out to the nodes between Shadow and ranger to grab all the projectile damage and acceleration

Also keep in mind, that while IR seems way out in the middle of no where (I think its like 12 stat only nodes from BM), besides ending near a bunch of good nodes in ranger/duelist starting area, the path to IR is LITTERED with good clusters an single points. From BM to IR we have Unwavering Stance, Berserking, armour master, Golems blood hp cluster, a diamond skin, a frenzy node should you chose to use those, and celerity. Thats really not terrible for 12 stat point nodes, especially since they are almost all dex nodes, and its nice to not NEED dex on your equipment to function.


Keep in mind I am NOT saying this is 100% the best way to build and everyone else is can screw themselves. I am simply posting my thought process that lead to this build. If someone has a good argument for something else, and it makes sense, I am fully capable of admitting someone else improved it :p.

Right off the bat, I will even admit, I think a crit based version MIGHT be better. As I mentioned earlier (but due to length I am sure not everyone saw), I had no closed beta experience, and steered towards this build after being told the crit version wouldn't work cause it would 1 shot itself on reflect mobs. I am now fairly confident that is BS. If I have some time I might try throwing together a Ranger/Shadow/Duelist version that doesn't use RT. Kinda would need help with that though, because this is my only high level char, so I don't really know how much acc I would need to include.

You would also see if you look at my original notes for this build (which you of course don't have) I originally not only took IR+grace, I also took the steel skin cluster by unwavering, the +armour nodes by mara start, and debated cutting all the way through duelist to get that steel skin (something like +150% armour), so clearly I have already made some concessions to the fact that tons of armour isn't super helpful.

Another little hit to show that I really am open to adjustments on a large scale... remember a couple pages back where I showed my Bow progression? Well lets just say the reason I still have my old bows... and an extra un-leveled chain I found... is in case I ever discover I need to reroll to fix a big mistake lol. Now if only I had an extra EH I could do it at the drop of a hat...

Also, one last thing to keep in mind, after you get some key stuff, mainly the elemental damage near templar, Static blows (if you get RT), blood magic with LoH support, and a some health (from anywhere) it really becomes more of an equipment game than a passive tree game. I am 90% sure you give me decent equipment and a pair of 4Ls (though 1 5L wouldn't hurt), and I could have stopped spending skill points 20 levels ago without really hurting my ability to do endgame stuff >.<



[EDIT2]
This is really REALLY rough, and going to duelist might be better than ranger/shadow cause getting there is more efficient, but kinda back of the envelope "Northern" road build


[edit3] ignore this edit, just testing the forum clock to make sure my clock is properly in sync...

Guys what do u think, is it worth taking iron grip (7 Skillpionts) over the 31% Projectile damage (on the ranger side 8 Skillpoints).... i have about 300 strength right now so it would be 60% increased phisical damage with a decent bow with high phisical damage... but i dont know if 31% projectile damage would give me more dps or iron grip would give me more.

From what i understand the 31% projectile damage also applies to elemental damage and not only to phisical damage so i guess that it would be better then the 60% phisical damage i whould get from iron grip or am i wrong?

Taken from the OP:

"

VenatorPoE wrote:

Iron Grip explanation:

Spoiler

Ok so what does Iron Grip do? "The increase to Physical Damage from Strength applies to Projectile attacks as well as Melee attacks." As you can see, I underlined the important part of its explanation. It only boosts the tiny amount of physical damage you do, it does not work like "Projectile damage" nodes in the Ranger section, for example. Since this build is all about elemental damage, you really won't get a high physical base to increase with Physical damage buffs. If your skill tooltip says it deals 50 Physical, 300 Lightning, 200 Fire and 150 Ice damage, the Iron Grip keystone will only buff the 50 Physical. So considering the amount of points you pay to get there, it is not worth it at all! There are other specific builds which utilize Iron Grip much better.

If you're using LA, go with the 31% projectile damage.

"

Napster4 wrote:

Guys what do u think, is it worth taking iron grip (7 Skillpionts) over the 31% Projectile damage (on the ranger side 8 Skillpoints).... i have about 300 strength right now so it would be 60% increased phisical damage with a decent bow with high phisical damage... but i dont know if 31% projectile damage would give me more dps or iron grip would give me more.

From what i understand the 31% projectile damage also applies to elemental damage and not only to phisical damage so i guess that it would be better then the 60% phisical damage i whould get from iron grip or am i wrong?

I'm not too sure. I'm going to assume to not get Iron Grip because I believe OP explained why. I'm not that into math so I can't give you actual comparisons. The projectile bonuses might be better as it seems. I think they could apply to lightning strike as well.

I tried to do a quick test of FA vs Chain in a 5 link LA based on a suggestion from Berkobob, but I think the results I am getting are fairly inconclusive... Which I guess is good news for anyone that thought Chain might be out of their price range (though 5 links are probably more expensive lol).


Problems with the test: The only "free" FA I have is currently being used by my EH, so when I put that into my LA link, my single target DPS drops a lot, this obviously slows me down. That combined with randomized maps makes trying to do timed run comparisons hard.

In theory, chain is more DPS
LA+WE+Chain+LMP+LoH listed damage= 1287.7
3 arrows + 2 bounces*3 arrows=9 arrows*4 hits an arrow (1 inital +3 AoE)=36 hits
36*1287.7=46.36k

LA+WE+FA+LMP+LoH listed damage=3022
3 arrows*4 hits/arrow=12 hits total
12*3022=36.2k

In practice, they feel pretty much the same (probably too much overkill vs trash mobs, and thats all I use LA for since EH is my single target attack), though I think part of FA's "speed" might be a visual trick due to the rapid fire visual (0.3 sec/attack vs 0.39 sec/attack).

[edit] almost forgot, the other reason FA is probably slightly better than the numbers is that Chain has a higher tendency to spread its damage out, and single hits can branch out to nearby packs and do damage that isn't actively eliminating threats, while the FA build will be more focused a lot of the time. If stuff is tightly clustered, all the explosion damage from the FA version will hit, but some of the chain bounces might bounce to a different, more spread out pack, thus wasting some damage on whiffed AoE splash

and of course, there are other pros and cons, like with Chain and LoH, your instant burst heal is often higher since it does more "Hits"

another q, whats your dps like with this build?

im lvl 73 and never went the top route to get static blows

went the down route instead to get the +30% more projectile damage

don't know what i'm missing but i clear maps so fast already, don't know how much of a diff it makes

"

Basement wrote:

another q, whats your dps like with this build?

DPS is really hard to measure with this build because the listed values are either flat out wrong (EH), or don't really capture the effects of the support gems (LA)

My EH is listed at about 4500, but it doesnt actually calculate in the damage that EH adds b/c it can't handle the 3 different options. If I do some manual calcs I get an EH single target damage of about 7000.

My LA is now listed at "only" 1317 dps... but keep in mind that each time it is fired, due to chain and lmp, it can deal that its damage up to 36 times (max of 9 hits to one target), and with static blows each of those hits has a 20% chance to shock (40% damage increase per shock stack, up to a max of 3 stacks). I also use conductivity (when I feel like it lol) which makes it a 33% chance to shock and lowers Light res by 43% (my damage is probably around 60-75% light damage, not in game to really nail down). SO I don't know what you really want to count it as. I can safely say from experience that its more than enough :p

Another thing that no one really talks about, is that this build doesn't really require a whole lot of slots, leaving you some freedom to mess around. You need a 4 Link for EH, you need a 4 or 5 Link for LA, and you want a 4L for your armor. Then maybe a 2 misc slots for decoy totem and the curse of your choice. basically the slots in my weapon and gloves are almost entirely up for whatever I feel like that day, leaving you some decent options to increase it further, from Spell/Ranged attack totems, to traps or whatever.

"

ShadowyDream wrote:

"

Basement wrote:

another q, whats your dps like with this build?

DPS is really hard to measure with this build because the listed values are either flat out wrong (EH), or don't really capture the effects of the support gems (LA)

My EH is listed at about 4500, but it doesnt actually calculate in the damage that EH adds b/c it can't handle the 3 different options. If I do some manual calcs I get an EH single target damage of about 7000.

My LA is now listed at "only" 1317 dps... but keep in mind that each time it is fired, due to chain and lmp, it can deal that its damage up to 36 times (max of 9 hits to one target), and with static blows each of those hits has a 20% chance to shock (40% damage increase per shock stack, up to a max of 3 stacks). I also use conductivity (when I feel like it lol) which makes it a 33% chance to shock and lowers Light res by 43% (my damage is probably around 60-75% light damage, not in game to really nail down). SO I don't know what you really want to count it as. I can safely say from experience that its more than enough :p

Another thing that no one really talks about, is that this build doesn't really require a whole lot of slots, leaving you some freedom to mess around. You need a 4 Link for EH, you need a 4 or 5 Link for LA, and you want a 4L for your armor. Then maybe a 2 misc slots for decoy totem and the curse of your choice. basically the slots in my weapon and gloves are almost entirely up for whatever I feel like that day, leaving you some decent options to increase it further, from Spell/Ranged attack totems, to traps or whatever.

using this, i chaosd that bow like 100 times and no luck so just stuck with that >.>

That is some godly armour.

On another note, I've been rocking
for 25 levels now. So difficult to find a comparable and affordable Thicket bow...

Also, is it worth exalting with the hopes of getting some life/resists?