Piercing bow build with varying attack possibilities!!

This is my first attempt at writing a build guide, so any constructive criticism is appreciated.

I thought up this build while playing standard, and it worked fairly well. Now with the release of the Drillneck unique quiver, it shines more than I thought it would. Bear in mind that this is NOT a new player friendly build, as it REQUIRES some fairly expensive gear just to be on par with other ranged builds. The end-game goal of this build is a fair amount of solo ability with the ability to also hold it's own in parties, and while I have yet to test it against Atziri, with better gear than I currently have, then it should be possible to kill her. With that out of the way, let's get to the actual build portion of this thread.



About gearing for this spec - This build can be done with 2 4L, but to really shine, it needs at least 1 6L for either your 1v1 or your AoE and 1 5L for the other. Also, getting tons of evade rating on gear helps immensely with the survivability aspect of this build. The only real required gear is the Drillneck quiver.

Gems - Another beautiful thing about this particular build is that it can use almost any bow gems that you want, which makes swapping gems easy for varying your attacks due to map mods, making you extremely versatile for parties. Gems used will vary depending on the player and preferences. The only exception is the Pierce gem, which is a cornerstone of the build. Other than that, the only thing I can suggest is to play around with the gems that are recommended in other ranged builds in accordance with your preference.

Leveling - I found that the easiest way to level through early game is just to use split arrow and a decent bow. I personally used a Silverbranch until about level 10, then used the vendor recipe for IPD% on weapons until I started finding rare bows with better dps. Information about vendor recipes can be found here

Choosing your class - You have 4 starting points available to you. The Scion gets you out the gate with more survivability at the start, and has the least amount of traveling nodes but the build actually gets to within 2 points of the start of the Duelist, Shadow, and Ranger trees as well, so it's really up to what you want to play as. The benefits of starting as the Scion are that you dont have to spend the 3 points through the Scion evasion wheel to connect the right side of the tree with the bottom side of the tree, and you also dont get the first 2 nodes from the start of the Ranger, Shadow, or Duelist trees, allowing you to get more HP% nodes for even more survivability. Trees for all 4 classes are posted below up to 100 points at 20 point increments.



The reason that you pretty much ignore the physical bow damage nodes is because they only focus on the PHYSICAL portion of the attack, whereas the projectile damage nodes focus on EVERY DAMAGE ASPECT OF THE ATTACK. Yes you read that right, projectile nodes are the double dipping nodes of the bow world, not only do they increase the physical portion of the attack, but they also increase the elemental portion from all sources as well, making each 8% node essentially a 8% physical damage and a 8% elemental damage node. I'm not quite sure if the physical portion is applied before the damage conversion of any of the elemental bow attacks or not, but if so, then it's even more impressive, because its amplifying the converted damage TWICE, as well as the damage of any auras you may be running as well as the damage from any and all gear.

Bandits - The bandits you either help or kill is a choice you'll have to make on your own, but my recommendations are
Normal - Oak
Cruel - Oak
Merciless - Passive

EDIT: This build is still viable, but with some new information I found, it is behind in DPS to other builds that I have been tinkering around with. As such, I have scrapped this build personally, but hope that those of you that stumble across this thread can learn a few things you might not have known.

Amazing! :D Easy guide, simple, but full of info. <3

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I'm not quite sure if the physical portion is applied before the damage conversion of any of the elemental bow attacks or not

Double dipping doesn't apply. See wiki page for damage conversion.

Good to see pierce still working out - have you tried iceshot? that thing is insane with pierce.

It would be nice to see some stats and maybe videos about it