[2.0] Hidden Potential Poison Arrow (100% magic gear!)

This build is a Hidden Potential jewel build.



"(20 to 25)% increased Damage for each Magic Item you have equipped"

This is a fairly simple mechanic. Wear blue gear, get some damage.

That might seem like a bad trade-off at first. Harder to resist cap, near impossible to gain a lot of EV/ES/AR, no room for stats like crit/added damage, etc.

And yes, all that is quite rough on most builds. But for a select few, you can get away with a life roll + resist roll blue item and still be just as effective. Except now you have up to 200-250% increased damage.

Poison Arrow is one of those skills. The things that scale it (chaos, projectile, area, damage over time, trap or mine damage (if you trap or mine it) and - of course - flat increased) are not the most bountiful on the tree or gear. Sp since it's basically impossible to scale it through rare gear, this jewel give us the chance to get a massive damage boost while giving up relatively little.

Ok! So what do we do with all that increased damage?

We add more damage!

• Linked to Slower Projectiles for more damage!
• Linked to Concentrated Effect for more damage!
• Linked to Trap for more damage!
• Linked to Trap & Mine Damage for more damage!
• Curse with Vulnerability for more damage!
• Generate Frenzy charges for more damage!

Because "more" multipliers are calculated after all your "increased" damage, you get a whole lot of extra bang for your buck from the 200-250% increase through Hidden Potential.

As for the defense...

Because there is no room for rolling % or flat Armour, Evasion or Energy Shield on your gear, the most effective way to go about getting some defense is through Auras and Keystones. Mainly Grace, Purity of Elements, Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics.

With Grace + some high level evasion gear I can manage roughly 50% chance to evade. Added to 40% chance to dodge and top tier life rolls in every slot, you actually have a fighting chance! Purity is there to help you cap without rare items.

To keep your life up, there is +70% life from flasks on the tree. Some well rolled flasks will do wonders and paired with your chance to not actually get hit, they will keep you nice and...alive.

...

And that's the basics of the build! :)

110 Point Tree:

https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwABAO4DHgW1BiMIZwzyD6sVIBW4Fr8ZtB9BIuIi6iP2JIsmlSpNKlss6S2DMHEwfDWSN9Q6QjrhPs8_J0MxRwZHfkfiSRNKyEt4TZJN406bUUdRTFKvUuxVS1oaWlJfsGHiYqxlTWf8bAhsjG5pbqpwUXXLdm97w31bfrCCXoTFhrOJ4I19jX6Nv5MfljKbXZu1naqkOaXLpleomqxHtMW18re2u029Nr3mvqfC7MMzwzrIW8pKy73Q0NQj1fjYVNi92eDb591f3ajmWOaB6NbqYu0_8YryRfKX_gr-jw==

A taste of what you get:

• 143% life
• 70% increased life from flasks
• Acro/Phase Acro
• 12% increased area of effect
• 30% pierce chance
• +3 frenzy charges
• +5 jewel sockets

Gearing for this build is a little different than usual.

First off, you - of course - need a Hidden Potential. Don't try and get too far without one, as it is key!

While leveling, all you need is whatever magic gear you find along the way. Just chuck on whatever you find that has life/resists/movespeed etc. on it and go! Check vendors often, as they sell pre-ID magic gear that may be useful for you. Make use of the cheap resist master crafting options on Haku and Elreon as you go.

Once you are nearing end-game, the gearing process is quite easy.

For jewels...

• Look for jewels with at least two of the following:
• Chaos Damage
• Trap Damage
• Damage Over Time
• Area Damage
• You will need four of these jewels end game. Any extras you get on them, such as %life, are icing on the cake.

For all your magic slots...

Personally, I would recommend the following.

• Quiver: Penetrating Arrow base. (LIFE + TRAP&MINE DAMAGE -or- RESIST)
• Chest: High Level EV base, Already linked. (LIFE + RESIST)
• Helm: High Level EV base. (LIFE + RESIST)
• Gloves: High Level EV base. (LIFE + RESIST)
• Boots: High Level EV base. (MOVESPEED + RESIST)
• Ring x2: Prismatic Ring base x2. (LIFE + RESIST)
• Amulet: Amber base. (LIFE + RESIST)
• Belt: Heavy base. (LIFE + TRAP&MINE DAMAGE -or- RESIST)

(Personally, I use EV/ES boots for easy chroming of my one 4L set-up, but this is not required and I would probably just go EV if I did it again. The Amber/Heavy are to get the Str I need for gems, and the Penetrating caps out my pierce chance on Frenzy.)

For each slot, you will most likely be alteration spamming to find what you need. So before you do so, use poeaffix.net to check what item level you need for the best tiers. These tiers are different for each slot.

For example, Primastic Ring can roll its best life tier 'Virile' (70-79) at IL 44. For resists, you have IL 84 that gives you 46-48% but you may want to just use IL 72 for 42-45%. This is up to you.

Once you have a white or magic base with the right type and right item level, you can get to work. What I did was alt spam till I had either a T1/T2 life, a T1/T2/T3 resist, OR a combo of both. If I had a combo of both, I kept it. If I landed on just a high resist, I would augment it to try for a T1/T2 life. If I landed on just a high life, I saved it for master crafting.

Two exceptions: Ideally, you will roll your boots for 30% movespeed + resist or 30% movespeed then master craft. With quiver/belt, ideally you want a good life roll and then master craft on trap&mine damage off Tora - this is optional and if you need more resistance you can go ahead and add that.

After you've done this to all your gear, you will probably have a mix of gear with Life+Resist and just Life. This is where you put it all on and see where your resists are at (make sure to do this WITH Purity of Elements on!). Hopefully, you are close to capping all three and can master craft whatever extra you need onto the pieces with just life. If you got too many pieces with the same resist roll (ex: a lot of life+fire res) you may need to try and alt spam some of that gear again to re-balance yourself.

Tip: You can use "The Carrion Crow" cards to get random magic gear with just a life roll on it. The item level of the gear you receive is based on your level. Just don't expect to get great stuff every time.



For your bow...

Your bow is a the most important slot for this build..

End game, you will want a 6L rare bow with +1 to gems, +2 to bow gems and a Damage over Time craft from Leo

Until this point, you can easily craft yourself a nice magic bow for a fraction of the cost and still do very strong, respectable damage. Do not feel like you *need* that GG bow; it's a late game goal to reach for, not a mandatory piece.

So in the meanwhile, get any 5L white or magic bow with IL 64+. This should not cost you much at all. Then you just alt spam it for +2 to level of bow gems. Ideally, you want a resist as your other stat on the bow. You can craft this on yourself if you roll just the +2 to bows. If you roll +2 to bows plus another non-resist stat, you can choose to keep rolling or just leave it.

If you want, you can take medium steps towards the end-game bow, such as a rare +3 bow, a magic 6L bow, etc.

If you obtain a second bow and level a second set of gems, you can have one in your off-slot for a Conc Effect set-up while your main bow has Inc AoE.

5/6L (Bow)
Poison Arrow + Trap + Trap&Mine Damage + Slower Projectiles + Inc AoE / Conc Effect [+ Empower]

* For trash, I use Increased AoE - clearing maps with Conc and no Inc is a pain, and the extra damage is not required. Conc is swapped in for tougher content, like bosses, for the huge damage boost.

* For those not inclined to swap out gems, you can level a second set of gems and get a second bow. Stick that in your off-slot with Conc and simply weapon swap to toss out some power traps!

5/6L (Chest)
Frenzy (lvl 1) + GMP + Pierce + Curse on Hit + Vulnerability [+ Blind]

* This set-up is absolutely wonderful. You get your frenzy charges and curse the enemies at the same time - even blinding them if you have a 6L. It does not cost much mana, either.

4L
Purity of Elements + Grace + Blink Arrow (lvl 1) + Decoy Totem

* All the spare parts go here. Decoy by itself is a wonderful tool for grouping mobs in your poison. Keep Blink at lvl 1 for mana cost reasons.

4L
Cast When Damage Taken (lvl 14)+ Temp Chains (lvl 17) + Arctic Breath (lvl 17) + GMP

* This is my preferred CWDT set-up. It goes off at around 2000 damage taken. The chilled ground and slow from temp stack to not only let you get away, but keeps them in your poison, too.

4L (EV/ES boots)
Fire Golem + Minion Life + Item Rarity + Culling Strike

* This 4L is not required and can be easily changed out. I decided to use it to give my little flame buddy some more life and have him cull bosses for me.

• Normal: Life -or- Point - or- Res
• Cruel: Point
• Merciless: Frenzy Charge

Normal is the only time you will have to make a hard choice. Since it can be hard to res cap, the 10% all res can be clutch in certain cases, but I would generally avoid it (you can cap without it). The point is nice, as always, and is a good all around choice. Life is probably best, but for Standard leagues you can easily go without.

Since the Hidden Potential damage is general increased, you can level however you please. Spell, attack, whatever you feel like.

Personally, I leveled the entire way with Poison Arrow + Decoy totem. I used a 3L of PA + Conc + Slower Proj for the most part. It went decently fast apart from bosses, but it wasn't the fastest either. I didn't use a +1 bow, but it would have helped quite a bit.

For the early parts, I would recommend either picking up a strong Unique 2H and using an attack skill like Sweep -or- with something like Flame Totem + AoE spell.

Once you get a 5L +2 bow, you should definitely switch over to Poison Arrow. Make sure to level all your PA related gems as you go!

Current level: 86

Offense

• Poison Arrow (lvl 19): 23,652
• (5l link magic +2 bow, 7 frenzy charges, not counting conc effect)

Defense

• Life: 4,451
• Evasion (w/ grace, frenzy charges): 11,845 (50%)
• Evasion (w/ grace, frenzy charges, flask): 26,334 (65%)
• Change to Dodge Attacks : 40%
• Chance to Dodge Spells: 30%

Overview + 73 Strand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBW_zo-3srw

Current (2.0)



Out-dated (Pre 2.0)