[2.2] How to LA -- 75k LA GMP, 327k frenzy, 87% dodge/evade chance -- featuring Darkray Vectors

The basic idea powering the offensive side of the build isn't particularly original. Take some base physical damage and scale it, then convert a bunch of that damage into elemental damage and scale that again. Throw in a bunch of frenzy/power charges and crit. End result is lots of damage.



What differentiates my approach to the archer subtype is a particular focus on frenzy charges and the bonuses that can be exploited from them. Depending on the gear used, a character vaguely following this guide will have between 9 and 11 frenzy charges. On their own, each grants 4% increased attack speed and 4% MORE total damage. Which is pretty intense by itself and allows for massive damage values to be achieved.


But frenzy charges can be exploited defensively as well using the Darkray Vectors unique boots (you might have noticed them), which allow for 2% additional dodge chance per charge. The useful thing about dodge is that its values are additive, but its effects increase in effectiveness with each additional point invested. As an extreme example, consider a character with 0% base dodge, and a character with 99% base dodge (hypothetically). 1% additional dodge given to each character would have markedly different effects: it would be barely noticeable to the first character, but would eliminate 100% of all remaining attack damage directed at the second character.




This means that basically, the more dodge you stack, the more effective it becomes. Therefore by combining Darkray Vectors with Acrobatics, Hyrri's Ire, and the Quartz infusion passive, the dodge cap of 75% can be achieved for as long as frenzy charges are maintained. Combined with an evasion chance of ~50%, this means that only 12.5% of attacks on the player actually hit. Another way of thinking about this is that using all four dodge mechanisms of Acro, Darkrays, Hyrri's and Quartz infusion means that you'll take less than HALF the number of hits from attacks as using acrobatics alone. In other words, Darkrays + Hyrri's = 60% less damage taken from attacks compared to most nooby bow builds. This is at the cost of about 400 life compared to using a rare chest and boots. Sacrifice 7% of your life pool to more than halve incoming damage? I would take that. Darkrays OP.

95 points

114 points

Additional attribute nodes can be taken as necessary.

For Ascendency passives, I would consider Raider to be the optimal class, with Way of the Poacher and Avatar of Slaughter to be the two core passives you need to get thanks to their frenzy synergy. For the third, I would suggest Quartz infusion so that you can maintain a dodge cap of 75% at max charges for super OP defences. If you want to focus on damage/clear speed OR if you have a +1 frenzy corruption on both your boots and amulet, then Rapid Assault is the obvious alternative.

I won't go into a detailed levelling process since that's not really my area of interest. If you're looking for a good levelling guide, Neversink has a good section in his guide.

Bandits:
Normal - Oak
Cruel - Kraityn or Skill Point (personally I got the skill point with my current character)
Merciless - Kraityn

Most map mods are pretty trivial, I'll mention a few though:

-Reflect: both types can be dangerous. Physical reflect can be done by using Blackgleam quiver or by using PtL gem in the LA setup for full conversion (but don't use frenzy in the latter case).

Elemental reflect can kinda be done by turning off elemental auras and replacing WED and added fire with LGoH and some other filler gem, but damage is unsurprisingly nerfed hard and it's still quite dangerous so I often skip it. Don't worry about individual reflect rares though, single monsters won't kill you so long as you use LA rather than Frenzy to take them down.

-No leeching: Rare top tier mod so you won't come across it much but it is annoying. If you choose to run these you'll probably want to have an extra hybrid flask to be safe. You should be able to sustain LA mana with Spirit void, but single target could be an issue without a flask.

- -max resistances: dangerous for any build so be careful. You still won't 1shot yourself against ele reflect rares but obviously it's more dangerous so make sure you're not tanking packs at the same time. You can tank a large reflect hit or a large monster hit, but maybe not both simultaneously.

-Blood magic: Not a problem just turn off auras.

-No regen: annoying but perfectly doable. Just be careful not to get too low from blood rage degen.

-20/40/60% less mana/life recovery rate: similar to no regen, annoying but doable if you don't do anything stupid. For 60% and maybe 40% you might have mana problems for Frenzy, so you could bring a hybrid flask if you expect to use it much (high hp bosses etc)

Some of the harder bosses:

-Jungle Valley boss generally isn't difficult. You have a lot of AoE so can clear the room as soon as anything drops down.

-Terrace boss is dangerous without some chaos res so be careful. I would be wary of it with anything less than -15% or so.

-Torture chamber boss isn't hard if you know how she works. Just stay by a pillar. You may well kill her before she even uses the laser anyway.

-Orchard boss is dangerous but not difficult, its projectiles are easy to kite and you'll dodge/evade most of the non-explodey ones anyway. Damage is big though so depending on the map mods you might want to skip to be safe.

-Malformation boss is similar to Orchard: dangerous but not difficult if you know how she works. Game over if you get hit by the laser, otherwise pretty simple. Your call.

-Residence Dominus is fairly easy, just watch out for the ghost things and touch of god.

-Volcano boss can do some damage if you're not careful. Just run around a lot and you won't get hit. Run away and wait a few seconds if things start getting too congested and dangerous.

-Academy boss is easy if you stand behind one of the tables at the side of the room. You'll evade nearly all his books and the whirlwinds generally won't reach you.

-Crematorium boss is dangerous, probably wouldn't risk it at all with -max res. Trick is to run around a lot and never stay in the same place for more than 2 seconds. Offscreening her is a useful strategy as well.

-Village ruin boss is generally ok since you'll evade most of the chicken's projectiles and avoiding the dog isn't difficult. Just make sure you always kill the chicken first. Enraged dog is still completely avoidable, but enraged chicken's projectiles will 1shot you.

-Excavation boss is hard, I've still not worked out a consistent strategy to do them. I wouldn't attempt it if there are any serious damage mods on the map. The fire throwing guy is the most difficult and annoying of the 3.

-Wasteland boss is ok, just stay out of his way so he doesn't smash you. If you run away a lot he'll also keep moving and so won't be regenerated by his consecrated ground too much either.

-Conservatory boss is overrated, just stay out of vaal smash range and watch out for the laser. You'll generally be able to see it coming if you pay attention to his arms. It typically won't 1shot you anyway unless you're in a -max res map.

-Palace dominus is surprisingly easy so long as the mods aren't too difficult. First phase is the same as Residence, just don't try to tank him and you'll be fine. For the second form do the opposite: tank him. Unless the mods are horrific you'll be hit so infrequently that flasks and leech will be more than enough to cover any damage.

-Shrine piety is generally fine. Move around a lot when she's in human phase to avoid the lightning balls/storms. Her fire phase can generally be tanked easily enough, but just keeping moving will stop you getting hit if you want to be safe. Her ice phase can be tanked as well if the mods aren't scary, you generally won't even be hit by her arrows at all.

I haven't run any T15 maps with this character so can't comment with so much confidence on them. But if their merciless equivalents are anything to go by, Kaom is easy if you keep moving, same with Daresso. Doedre may be tankable, but I'm not sure how much damage she does in core. Maligaro is very dangerous without chaos res, Shavronne isn't too hard if you move. Malachai himself is dangerous, probably wouldn't want to do him on this character.

Note: all screenshots are from the 2.1 patch series. The new numbers are summarised at the top of this thread. I'll update the actual screenshots as well when I can be asked :P

Screenshots are taken in a typical fighting scenario using the gear listed above: 9 frenzy charges, 3 power charges, using the Hatred aura and with vaal haste, blood rage, and Taste of Hate activated.

(from 2.1 patch series. Should be even faster now)

2:13 Gorge speedrun (regular setup)
2:18 Gorge speedrun (regular setup)
2:20 Gorge speedrun (regular setup)
2:45 Gorge speedrun (Split Arrow setup) - This could have been slightly faster but I'm not optimised for Split Arrow atm
1:55 Gorge speedrun (racing setup) - using Haste, Herald of Fire, Rat's Nest, Maligaro's Virtuosity and a Diamond Flask in place of regular equipment. Not really viable for real usage, watch me almost 1shot myself to reflect!
1:56 Gorge speedrun (racing setup)

30k LA fully buffed is still pretty awesome :P

Once you're decently levelled, the most significant things to improve damage generally depend on buying expensive gear unfortunately. The biggest single-step improvements to damage that you'll get would be to
1) Upgrade your bow - 288 pdps will be perfectly fine for most things, but an upgrade to a 330+ bow with 8.5% crit chance will bring about BIG improvements to your damage. The crit chance is important too!
2) Get a 6L. a 6th gem will improve your damage by 25% or so.

Other damage improvements can come from stats on gear. Obviously there's a fine balancing act between defensive and offensive stats, and always prioritise the former, but if you can make room:

The amulet and quiver are the best DPS items other than the bow itself. Try to stack as much crit multi, WED, flat phys, crit chance and accuracy on them as possible, even if it means your other items having fewer offensive stats. Don't neglect life though.

Your rings both have flat phys and one has accuracy already, they're sufficiently offensive for now I think. Focus on improving them defensively before looking for more offensive stats, or swap one for a ring with purely life/high resists so you can get a more offensive amulet.

Your helmet is good defensively. I wouldn't prioritise this by any means, but if you can find a similar one with a high (300+) accuracy roll you'll see a not-insignificant tooltip improvement.

If you can, swap doryani's for a belt with decent life + resists, either on a rustic sash base or with a good WED roll. If you can get a rustic with a good WED roll you'll see a big damage increase.

Personally I'm not a fan of snakebite, at least in combination with darkrays... Surely your frenzy charges only last for like a second? xD If you can get a rare with decent flat phys and/or IAS and/or accuracy (and life + probably resists ofc) you should be able to make up for the damage lost in replacing them, and actually be able to keep charges up.

Lightning coil is good defensively but its absolutely rubbish resistances will hurt your dps in that you'll need to focus more on resists instead of damage on other gear. Personally I prefer Hyrri's in terms of defence, which is a small but existent improvements in terms of resists as well. Using a rare chest is also an option. LC is more of an end-endgame item once you've sorted the rest of your gear, I wouldn't use it if you think you're having problems elsewhere, but it's your call :p

Finally, level your gems to 20 and use the 20% quality recipe and level them all again! Quality on a single gem doesn't make a great deal of diffence. Quality on all of them does. I wouldn't buy them all though, that's effort :p

I concur that in the past, reflect would have been completely infeasible for a physical-conversion LA build to deal with effectively. But now that reflect is an implicit monster trait rather than an aura, it's far less deadly than it once was.

This particular spec is also far more defensive than most other crit bow builds seeing as we have almost twice as much dodge (and also arctic armour), which essentially means we avoid almost twice as much reflected damage. The fragmented nature of LA hits means that a single reflected shot is basically never going to kill you in normal circumstances, and thanks to the huge evade/dodge chance, one reflected shot is the most you're generally going to be hit by. And in any case, I think ANY evade chance is going to help you more against elemental reflect than armour :P

Also worth bearing in mind that elemental reflect is mitigated by player resistances, so having a high elemental to physical damage ratio is advantageous in coping with both reflects: if you're doing 75% elemental damage, physical reflect is still going to be more of a problem. In my current setup, elemental damage accounts for approximately 85% of damage fully buffed.

From actually playing the game, I honestly don't worry about shooting into reflect packs with LA. At all. Unless it's a -max resist map and I'm standing on shocked ground and the mobs have been pentacursed and there's an aurabot or something, but there are always going to be extreme cases. Just don't be dumb and you'll be fine :P (For the record, I still do -max resist maps. I don't die.)

In terms of reflect maps, phys reflect is trivial using blackgleam to convert remaining damage to elemental. PtL on LA can be used instead, but you probably shouldn't use frenzy in that case, and you'll need to recolour.

Even ele reflect is ok with some modification. Use haste instead of hatred, take out PtL/maybe AF for single target (or just don't use it..), and also take out WED for LGOH in LA. Surprisingly, that's all it takes generally, don't even need to take out added fire (though you could to be safe, especially at higher damage). It does kinda confuse me cus even my calculations show me taking more damage than I actually notice, but best not to complain.

I probably wouldn't risk certain evil combinations though, and often I don't bother with reflect in the first place cus nerfing damage isn't fun xD And there is just the extra danger, I won't deny that I have died in reflect maps where I wouldn't have normally. But very rarely, and in unlucky (or experimental) circumstances.