[2.3] Burning Arrow Elementalist || Insane Clear Speed, Solid Defenses and Budget (Atziri Viable)

INTRODUCTION

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Hey guys, this is my build guide for my Burning Arrow Elementalist in the Perandus League, I made this account only 6 days ago, so all the gear in this thread is relatively budget (my main account is here).

My original intent was to create a budget build that could rival the clear speed of Voltaxic LA, which this build accomplishes and much more.

The build is based around completely scaling burning damage as much as possible and then proliferating that burn to surrounding monsters. To scale this burning damage exponentially, we double-dip on fire, elemental and projectile damage as much as possible.

This build destroys map content and possesses pretty insane clear speed (reaching 268 million exp per hour at dried lake). Defensively, we use the Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics keystones, combined with a large life pool from Kaom's Heart and some defensive CWDT setups.


VIDEO

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVS_CkyXOnA




OVERVIEW

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Pros:

+ Insane clear speed
+ Defensive
+ Budget
+ Very Fun
+ Offscreen clear

Cons:

- Needs Fast Gameplay to maintain Elemental Conflux
- Can't Run Elemental Reflect maps.


SKILL TREE

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Witch

Passive Tree (For level 90)

Ascendancy Points: Shaper of Desolation, Beacon of Ruin, Liege of the Primordial, Pendulum of Destruction.

Bandits: +Life, +Attack Speed, +Frenzy


LEVELING TREES

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SKILL TREE EXPLANATION

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Generally on our skill tree, we take as many efficient fire, elemental and projectile damage nodes as possible. We also take a moderate amount of life. We also get some increased area of effect from the tree and this provides a nice AoE boost to the radius of 'Beacon of Ruin' to enhance our clear speed.

For our Keystones we use Avatar of Fire to convert all our damage to Fire damage. This allows us to get the maximum benefit from scaling fire and elemental damage. We also grab Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics for a great defensive boost.


JEWELS

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Jewels are a very important component of our build. Getting high life on our jewels is a huge priority, afterwards we search for damage mods such as increased fire damage, projectile damage, damage, burning damage, attack speed, attack speed with bows. Life jewels are generally quite expensive, but they are definitely worth the investment.



Another jewel I recommend using is Mantra of Flames, which provides a huge DPS boost for our build, since we run up to 5 buffs with elemental conflux up.



SCREENSHOTS

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Burning Arrow DPS (Charges Only)




Single-Target Burning Arrow DPS (Charges Only)



Note that these stats are with Fire Penetration and a 5L Lioneye's Glare.


DEFENSE




GEAR

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GEAR EXPLANATION

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LINKS AND GEMS

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Burning Arrow AoE Setup



For Burning Arrow, the links are shown above. I use GMP for the large area coverage, WED and Fire Penetration for its large damage boost, and pierce because it synergises really well with Drillneck. I also recommend getting quality on Burning Arrow if possible as the increased ignite duration boosts our DPS by a lot.

For the 6th link there are a variety of choices, I would recommend Slower Projectiles or Life Leech.

Burning Arrow Single-Target Setup



This is for your weapon swap if you decide to use one. The only difference to the setup shown above is Slower projectiles is used instead of GMP. I tested out Blast Rain, but Burning Arrow worked out the best.

CWDT Setup



I like using Temporal Chains for its great defensive bonus, and it also increases ignite duration on enemies. I also use Immortal Call and Increased duration because it allows me to deal with porcupines better (they are quite annoying).

Mobility Setup



This is the main mobility setup which involves using Blink arrow linked with faster projectiles. This allows us to path through cliffs and is also good for lock-boxes or when you get blocked in by monsters. Generally though, we will be running around for this build.

Aura Setup



This is our Aura setup and we use Herald of Ash, Anger and Clarity. We use a level 5-10 clarity for sustaining our mana, and it is generally enough for our build (since burning arrow has a very low mana cost compared to other bow builds). Anger provides a massive DPS boost for our build and Herald of Ash also gives us some nice bonus damage and overkill ignite.

Golem



We use an Flame Golem for the bonus to damage. With liege of the primordial from our Ascendancy, our Flame golem provides us with a whopping 80% increased fire damage which is huge. Try linking it with minion life so that the golem stays alive longer.

With 2.3, we are allowed to also have another golem, so I would recommend also running a stone golem.


LEVELING

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Generally, just use Firestorm to level, using cheap leveling uniques to do so. You can also use some skill points on spell damage at the start of the witch area. Path into the Templar area first and then path into the Ranger area afterwards.



When you get to level 53, try to get 'Shaper of Desolation' and 'Beacon of Ruin'. Then get an Infractem and a 5-link armour, and that should carry you to level 66 when you can equip your lioneye's glare. Then get a Kaom's Heart for a massive boost to life at level 68.



NOTES

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Thanks for reading guys. There are a few variations you can explore of this build. Some involve traps, some involve Hybrid instead of Life. One of my readers, MinstrelShadrak has also come up with an Armour + high life version, and has provided a nice written description of his experiences with it.



THE END

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Check out my other Ascendancy builds if you are interested:

Explosive Cleave
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1609862

Poison Spectral Throw
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1590929

reserved

Looks interesting and i also like the formatting nice to read, informative.
I wish all build posts would be like this.

For leveling. Do you go into templar of shadow area first? Or a mix of both?

EDIT:nvm you answered it in your guide

@Zealotlol

Thanks! I try to make my guides neat and easy to read.


@ij0rthegreat

First path to the Templar area and then move towards the shadow area afterwards.

Before Ascendancy release, I was thinking so much of whether this build is viable or not, and finally someone put this on test! Thanks OP, that looks really great, I might try this one in future!

Got a quick question - have you considered going crit rather than non crit?

@AwakeningTheChaos

Hey, that's a good question. Yeah I thought about going crit, but I eventually decided to go non-crit.

By going non-crit, we can take more elemental, fire and projectile damage nodes which double-dip for our burning damage. So our overall burning damage would be a lot higher.

Also, non-crit builds offer more consistency. Since we are one-shotting most packs, if we are a crit build and we miss or don't land a crit, we have to shoot again which reduces our clear speed.

No elemental overload?

So my question is... how's reflect? Do you think this build could go HC? Ofcourse you would need more health and all, but... reflect is what i am worried about, maybe you can even drop herald of ash and run purity of fire? or is it not worth it?

I've played some burning arrow in the passed, how do you
see the radius of herald of ash vs beacon of ruin?
It must be overlapping most of the time?

edit:
* Single player reflect, you can get away with a ruby flask, but in full parties (upping monster life), especially when you convert their aura's with avatar to more fire dmg it's a problem for sure.

* Since you start out with so much ES around as witch, might as well go hybrid/CI?

Goodluck with the build! it's looking nice.