Non-CoC, Crit Bow Theory Crafting

Yeah, I was experimenting with SA + Chain + CoC + EK using a high crit, high phys damage build. The physical damage from SA and EK would be converted to cold damage using gear like Hrimsorrow and/or a corrupted quiver. Hopefully, the amount of converted damage would be enough to consistently freeze enemies.

It seemed interesting on paper but in execution I found out a couple things:

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1.
Most of the efficient life/mana leech comes from physical attacks meaning EK wasn't getting me any leech and the converted cold damage wasn't getting me any leech. The only way to get around this would be include a Life Leech or Mana Leech gem in my skill links. If I stick to physical damage I can benefit from global leech from gear or the skill tree.

2.
While critical strikes and CoC provide lots of damage it make my damage output "choppy" if that makes any sense. I don't like how sometimes I'll be doing massive amounts of damage but doing pretty insignificant amounts of damage at other times.
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I realize this "choppiness" will go away once a sufficient amount of crit chance is achieved via passives and/or gear (Windripper, Maligaro's, etc.). I assume this method is very effective given the popularity and plethora of crit-based builds on the forums. However, I've never gotten there since good crit gear is often expensive (like Windripper).

I suppose I could just save up or pursue budget alternatives but I decided to come up with something else instead. I decided on a build where I deal consistent physical damage using gear which I could afford. I've included the build I've come up with in the spoiler below.


At first glace my tree probably seems rather silly. I've skipped all the global crit chance nodes as well as the Power Charge node. I focused on physical bow damage and Frenzy Charge nodes. I also picked up a few evasion nodes and a the life nodes I considered to be the most efficient. Aside from the exclusion of crit nodes, I believe this is all fairly standard stuff for physical bow users.

What's not standard (I think) is my trek over to the Duelist starting area to pick up life regen nodes like Golem's Blood and the Endurance Charge node. The reason I did this is because I plan to use Blood Rage to generate and maintain Frenzy Charges and Daresso's Defiance as my chest armor. The life regen will help counter the Chaos degen from Blood Rage while the extra Endurance charge will give me another second of Onslaught (and Immortal Call as well).

One of the nice things about the tree being so spread out is that there are life nodes everywhere that I can pick up if I so choose. There are also a few passives I'm thinking about picking up near the Duelist start area, primarily Leather and Steel.

(I'll post more when I have time)

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feyith wrote:

Interesting build. :)

Thanks! It took me quite a while to come up with something I liked.

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Agreed. That's why I tend to go so heavily on the physical damage for builds that don't have a 6-link for mana/life leech. What about Hatred for just the added damage/freezing instead of any conversions? You don't lose out on any physical this way.

I was using Hatred in addition to the conversion for maximum cold damage. In order to maximize cold damage I considered using Ice Shot combined with the Point Blank passive. I bought a 5-L Chin Sol to test out my idea. It was fun for a while until I realized I was basically playing a melee character.

With my current build it's a bit a of a toss up between Hatred and Haste for my offensive aura. (Edit: Faster Attacks gives a lot more attack speed than Haste so I'll be going with Hatred.)

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Crit chance makes all the difference in the world. Usually 70% with a Harbinger or 50% with a Lioneye's is when the damage goes to being consistent instead of so bursty.

If I wanted to reach 50% chance to crit for my attacks then I need a total of 1000% increased chance to crit from passives, charges, and gear. Please bear with me as I explore this option.

Starting from the tree I posted, if I focus solely on taking crit chance nodes for the next 20 levels I can reach 490% increased crit chance from passives. If I take the Power Charge passive, and help Alira in Merciless, and find a way to sustain 5 Power Charges, I get 250% increased crit chance. This leaves me with 260% increased crit chance that needs to come from equipment which is doable but would require me to purchase more crit gear... (>.>)

There are also other ways I could spend those 20+ passive points. For example, I could take Vaal Pact and the Leadership and Charisma aura clusters after ditching the life regen nodes. This would allow me to run three 60% auras like Mathil does with his crit Scion. If I did do this I would most likely run Grace, Haste, and Hatred.

Other options are taking more life nodes to get beefier and/or taking more physical damage nodes like the Deadly Draw cluster.

(Edit: I decided to get Vaal Pact run just 2 auras. Other passive points will go to life, armor/evasion and phys damage.)

On the topic of charges I would be trading an Endurance Charge (from Bandits Quest) for a Power Charge meaning less Onslaught time, less "Immortality" time, and less damage reduction.

Long story short, I think I'm going to stick to my plan of going low-crit.

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I like the concept. Are you doing DoT damage as well? If not, I think you might get more regen by putting those 3 nodes into increasing your life pool?

I plan on using two sources of DoT damage: Puncture and the Snakebite unique gloves.

Puncture won't be as strong without crits but the the bleed damage will still be nice since it provides a constant source of life leech. Puncture also lets me shoot a dangerous mob once and run away which I've found to be super useful against mobs with the Physical Reflect and Corrupting Blood mods.

Snakebite seems like a good idea since I plan to use Blood Rage. Getting 7% increased attack speed per Frenzy Charge is nice but the ability to poison is what really got my attention. The wiki tells me that I'm going to be doing an additional 20% damage over 2 seconds when I'm on full Frenzy Charges. (I think this is a big deal.)

The degen from Blood Rage is a percentage of my maximum life so nodes like Growth and Decay should help combat it nicely. The extra DoT damage is just icing on top since DoT is not the focus of my build. As an aside, one of my friends told me I can remove Blood Rage manually by placing the gem in my weapon and quick-switching. If this works I may not need the life regen nodes and make taking Vaal Pact less scary.

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I definitely considered using these boots to go along with all the Frenzy Charges and to counter the Blood Rage degen. However, I decided against them because I don't like how it decreases the attack speed bonus of the Frenzy Charges. Moreover, the life regen won't mean anything if I decide to take Vaal Pact. Lastly, I want to get resists on my boots to allow for flexibility when it comes to choosing my other gear.

Now for gems. I'm going to stick with two 5-links since that's all I can afford. This is what I'm thinking currently:

Split Arrow: SA + Chain + Phys. Projectile + Faster Attacks + Added Fire
Puncture: Puncture + Phys. Projectile + Increased Duration + Culling Strike + Added Fire
If I'm feeling more defensive I'll swap the Added Fire gems for Life Leech

I plan to eventually get Vaal Pact and run two auras (Grace and Hatred) on mana.

Thanks for reading all of this! I'm sorry for hijacking your crit-based thread with my low-crit shenanigans. If you want I can move my blabbing somewhere else.

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feyith wrote:

By all means, keep the babbling here. It's fun to theory craft.

Thanks. ^_^ I'll be posting something about my plan for defenses soon.

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Actually, my first thought after reading your post was: "So why the heck am I not using Blood Rage?" And now I'm reworking my path to see if I can fit more Frenzy charges into my build.

I'll be interested to see how your final setup works out.

Yeah, Blood Rage kinda blew my socks off the first time I tried using it. I kinda knew it cost life to use but I didn't realize it granted Frenzy Charges AND Life Leech. I thought it just gave you attack speed...

Also,

Someone somewhere must have been thinking the same thing as me in terms of phys to cold conversion. If someone managed to corrupt this with a 20% phys to cold implicit and using Hrimsorrow, that would be a whopping 65% conversion. Too bad there's only one (uncorrupted) item I can think of that gives cold leech. If I ever see one of these corrupted with phys to cold, I'll probably buy it and see how things go. You never know...

Also, also, I had saved up around 10 exalts while trying to save up for a Windripper. I decided to get these instead:

The combined cost was all 10 exalts but I have to say I'm really happy with them.