[Theorycraft]Critical Explosive Arrow Assassin

Hello guys,

Last HC Talisman I made a Critical Explosive Arrow (EA). It was very good and I had 57,75% of critical chance, with tree and gear dont complete, but I died on the level 79 (fuck Haku). With gear and tree complete my critical chance was estimated on around 67% critical chance.

I had around 400% critical multiplier. I was very strong. The estimated critical multiplier final was 500%.

This topic is about a build based on critical damage with explosive arrow and now with Assassin subclass.

Passive Tree
Critical Explosive Arrow

General considerations

- To EA you need generic critical chance, EA dont work with critical bow nodes;
- Power charges are mandatory;
- Flammability or Assassin Mark (prefere it in case of Marylene's Fallacy) must have to increased the damage;
- Dual curse is a option (I dont use);
- You'll use Death's Harp (to critical multiplier), Infernal Mantle (damage and critical chance) and Malacha's Mask (mana cost/blood magic, more points to invest on the passive tree and to cancel the bad mod of Infernal Mantle).
- Because of Assassin class and new critical chance gem (flat critical base) you can use Marylene's Fallacy.
- Your defense is a largue life pool (+5K), ES (+1K) and Phase Acrobatic.
- To increase your defenses have hybrid equipment EHP because even though Acrobatics (50% less ES) you can have a bit ES pool. Mandatory to hardcore.
- You'll need accuracy rating on the gloves and/or helmet to improve your accuracy.

Links
EA > GMP > Power Charges > Critical chance > Fire Pen
6L: + empower

Assassin notables
Unstable Infusion + Deadly Infusion, Ambush*.

Bandits
Oak, Kraytin, Alira

Mandatory uniques


ps.: sorry the Marylene's Fallacy showed to me is a shit legacy. The currency is:
Non-critical strikes deal 40% Damage
40% less Critical Strike Chance

Do you need have a reasonable quiver, like this:


And a ring or glove with a flat cold/lightning attack damage to work with Elemental Equilibrium.

Math to critical chance
11% of critical base (6 power charges + 6% EA base + 2% of critical chance gem)*(1 + 2,85[global critical chance] + 1,00[Infernal mantle] + 3,00[6 power charges] + 1,00[critical chance gem] + 1,00[average of all the rest - quiver, small nodes Assassin, etc])
11*10 = 110%. Capped to 95%.
With Marylene's Falacy (110*0,6) you'll have more critical damage, but your critical chance will fall to 66%, except with Ambush* (Assassin notable) your first hit on enemies on full HP will be 95%.

Math to critical multiplier
My build before in the HC talisman was estimated around 500% critical multiplier, now with Marylene's Fallacy (here considering 160%) and Assassin nodes will be around 803% of critical multiplier (Assassin give +63%).

With Ambush will be 843%.

With Assassin Mark level 20 will be 1180% critical multiplier. Here dont is counted Elemental Equilibrium, 50% less fire resistance (on other words, 50% more damage).

*Attention: I forgot that Ambush dont will work with the explosion, except if the enemie has life regen. If you want pick Toxic Delivery, it will increased your ignite damage.

I've been playing around with this idea myself and just came across this thread.

At the moment I have roughly 1000% increased ele damage and about 500% crit multi against full life targets. I think I have 48% ish crit chance with no power charges. i just respeccd more life and less power charges.

One arrow is enough to crit and prolif packs.

I estimated that it does 65k burn dps. I use dyadian dawn to avoid the initial hit damaging mobs and losing the crit chance. Seems like the crit is rolled for each mob hit so it reliably ignites packs.

For bosses I was using explosive arrow - trap - trap and mine damage - fire pen - conc effect. A level 16 EA gem was one shotting bosses in mid tier maps. With a level 20 gem i estimated it will do about 700-800k dps as a burn (if the initial hit doesnt kill them). The struggle at the moment is not having accuracy on gear or the trap being destroyed. Possibly would work much better as a mine( wiki says it doesnt work though). Bosses like izaro kinda sucks since I don't have my 7th/8th ascendancy points yet so I struggle to crit with the current set up when they are damaged/low life. Usually try for power charges then with pcoc and orb of storms.

If I had a 6L I'd use increased crits and remote mine support I think (though the wiki says it doesn't boost the damage, which seems a bit dumb. Doesn't mention if trap works or not but it seems to me like it does). Using added accuracy at the moment but with better gear I'd probably be ok. EA doesn't seem to do the additional accuracy roll for the crit.

Not atziri viable either since she can't be ignited.

Dunno how much more I'll play the character. Kinda bored of the league.

Mapping clear speed is pretty excellent. One shot fires 3 arrows and that's enough to clear packs. Less chance for ele status effects on maps is kinda annoying. Can't do ele reflect. Enfeeble and fire resistance on mobs combo slows the burn down pretty hard too. Imagine this work be an issue on red maps. So far map trap EA kills bosses fine.


If this does get boosted by mines then the strategy would be to drop 5 remote mines then trigger it to get 5 stacks and burn for 3.5M to 4M dps.


My dps is calculated on the understanding that trap support, trap and mine damage support and conc effect double dip to increase the burn damage on top of the 1000% ele damage boosting the initial hit and the burn as well. Crit multi applies once to the initial hit.

I'd try link some stuff from my char or screen shots of damage calcs but I dunno how.

I had completely forgotten about this topic. :P

Even maps with fire res more than one stack is not enough for easy clean?