[2.4] c9q9md's Reverse Knockback Ranged Attack Totems Build! (HC)

After alot of demand for me to make a guide, here it is :)


Introduction:

All you need to know:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll2sZ0Imd0o

...And a normal map clear

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKGtHjy4Jaw


Still confused as to what is going on? Let me explain!

Mechanics!




I will start off with the build enabling items. These gloves is the most important piece of gear for this build. Without these gloves, we cannot make this work.
The unique property "Knockback direction is reversed" is key. By gaining enough knockback from the knockback gem, and rolling jewels on tree, we can achieve 100% chance to knock back enemies on hit.
Note that jewels IS required in order to achieve this. Also note that over 90% is really all you need, getting to 100% is for perfectionists and those people who want absolute consistency.

Example jewels:



So now that we have reverse knockback, does that not sound dangerous?
That's where totems come in!

By using totems, we can stay at a safe distance while our totems take all the beating. Having our totems crowded with enemies means we can utilize the niché, but extremely powerful bow, Chin Sol.



The unique property "100% more bow damage at close range" is key here.
A good rolled Chin Sol can have over 250 Physical DPS. At close range this will effectively turn into 500 Physical dps, which is extremely good. We are not done yet though! The node "Point Blank" on the skill tree allows us to get an additional 50% more projectile damage at close range! This boosts our damage even further and allows us to wear down even the toughest of bosses.

The next build enabling uniques are directly related to totems.


Rain of splinters is an amazing jewel. It doesn't look much different from a LMP gem, but beeing "Reduced" damage instead of "less" is huge. It also saves up a socket on our main link, which is always welcome!



Skirmish is a new quiver introduced in 2.3 which is amazing for this build. it gives us some intelligence and mana regen, but most importantly, it allows us to place down an additional totem. We also want to grab the additional totem gained from Ancestral bond, so that we in total get 3 totems.

Remaining gear:


This build is very flexible. The rest of our gear can be all rares or you can try to fit in other gear types aswell. I was really lucky with my Cospri's Will, and managed to get a 6l. This item is not required at all to play this build. Until I had cospri's, I had a rare 6l ev/armour piece solely because of easy colouring. If you manage to get 4 off colours on Lioneye's vision, it would problably be best in slot as you get the free pierce.

Remaining gear:

You should prioritize stats in this order: Resists - Life - armour/EV- Physical Damage - attributes - anything else.

Note:
Strength can be really useful as we pick up Iron Grip. Since we also move alot on the left side of the tree, the bonus is quite nice. You should still focus on physical damage, as that is way better for our damage than a few points of strenght.

My current settup involves 3 curses. This is not necesary by any means, and even one curse should be more than enough. My intuitive leap jewel is also not a must, but rather quality of life.

Important: If you don't own a cospri's, do not spec into aura nodes. Run enfeeble in blasphemy and arctic armour + herald of ash.


Gem settups:

We want something that can hit alot of enemies. Tornado shot is in my opinion the best skill for this, as projecties will fly in every direction hitting alot of enemies, making them sucked in faster.

My current settup is: Ranged Attack Totem - Tornado Shot - Pierce - Physical Projectile Attack Damage - Faster attacks - knockback

For frenzy charge generation, we use frenzy - gmp. You can also add a curse here to curse enemies with an offensive curse while they are outside of your blasphemy radius.
My other gem settups can be seen on my gear display.

Ascendancy

We pick scion because of a variety of reasons. The two main resons can be found in the deadeye ascendancy. We get +1 projectiles, which means that our totems shoot one additional arrow. We also get 30% chance to pierce, which combined with our pierce gem puts us at 80% pierce. This is huge concidering the huge chunks of enemies we suck in with our totems. Hitting all of them means the ystay in place.

For my second ascendancy I picked chieftan. It increases our damage and gives us regen when we have a totem up. This helps since we want to be casting blood rage for even more attack speed. (alltough not necesary).

We also get 4 additional skill points, which is always nice.


Leveling



Leveling is very straight forward. We start off by taking the "harrier" node, to get some speed early game.
We then proceed either through the damage nodes into sentinel, or the life regen into Shaper. It is optional what you do.

I used bows to level with. Once you reach level 19, pick up a skirmish so you can have 2 totems at a time. Recomended leveling uniques are Storm cloud, doomfletch, and death's harp.

Other useful uniques: Meginord's girdle is amazing for packing some extra damage early on.

LEVEL 30 tree:



LEVEL 52 tree:



Pick up any attribute nodes or "Tireless" if you feel you have problems sustaining your mana. "Dynamo" is also great early on.
Skip alot of nodes so that we can get to point blank and pick up the knockback nodes as we reach level 62.
Level 62 is when we can start to use Chin Sol. You should not follow this tree religiously. Deviating from the tree might be necesary.


LEVEL 62 tree:



This is when we unlock chin sol, so preferably we want the knockback and point blank to be in place. If you cant reach both at level 62, aim for knockback first and keep using chin sol until you get the point blank node.

You want to equip empire's grasp and Chin sol at the same time.
After this, you can do what you want to. Pick up the remaining life nodes and some totem nodes, And do as you wish with the remaining points.

Bandits: Oak - Kill - Kraytin

Notes:
When I first played this build I transitioned into ancestral bond by act 4 Normal.
I grinded Cruel dried lake until I got level 62. For some this might not be necesary, but that's how I did it atleast.

Have fun leveling and I hope you enjoy my build. Stay safe! :)

If you like this build, you might like my other builds aswell! I have plenty of other hipster builds on my youtube channel, so feel free to check em' out!

Nice guide mate. I am giving it a try :-)

Could you add the final tree?

"

Bada_Bing wrote:

Could you add the final tree?

I have avoided to to that on purpose. The base i posted is all you need, and unless you happen to have a cospri's will laying around you shouldn't follow my tree.


Here is my tree if you still wan't to know how it looks like.

Very interesting build :)
Just a quick question, how far have you gotten in terms of map farming with this build? Have you tried Atziri?

what would you use as a 6l setup if you had a lioneye's ?

"

Kaminakun wrote:

Very interesting build :)
Just a quick question, how far have you gotten in terms of map farming with this build? Have you tried Atziri?

I play in hardcore and don't want to lose this character so I have not tried atziri. But it is easily atziri viable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8as79CUCa2I

This is from the original version I did back in 1.3 with split arrow chain totems. This version of the build deals about 5x the damage, and the defenses are better aswell. Not to mention I have 3 totems on this build, while I only had 2 on that build.

"

cremates wrote:

what would you use as a 6l setup if you had a lioneye's ?

Assuming your knockback chance is high enough, not a whole lot. You will lose some damage due to chin sol beeing amazing at close range, but I don't think it would be much of an issue. Lioneye's is a great bow if it is good rolled. You also save a point on not grabbing Resolute Tachnique. The high attack speed should really help you keep enemies in place too.

If what above fails to deal damage, I would problably recomend skipping out on the whole knockback thing and save the 5 points from taking point blank, and replacing knockback gem with slower projectiles. You will still do decent damage this way.

my bad i was asking about a 6l setup with lioneye's vision

"

cremates wrote:

my bad i was asking about a 6l setup with lioneye's vision

Ahh :P

Just take out the pierce gem and replace it with slower projectiles and you will deal more damage :)

Have you tried Projectile Weakness instead of vuln or something? That caps out your knockback and pierce without any jewels, and still has some damage.