[2.4 updates] Voltaxic Volley Fire Barrage Deadeye -- Well Barrage is now #1 Bow Skill
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[3.0 update] Double-dipping is officially gone in 3.0 so most of the calculations in this guide are no longer correct, and Voltaxic Rift is no longer recommended neither (barrage is still top bow skill for single target tho!) I decided to keep this guide to show how people abused double-dipping when it was still a thing :)
-------  (Source: Manga -- Berserk) Thank you Bex for bringing back BOTW and choosing this build! Totally unexpected! I'm so surprised XD Hi I'm Insobyr. I have been a super fan of barrage since the Volley Fire threshold jewel was first introduced in game. The skill has so many potential but is overlooked by many people. I managed to kill Core Malachai with this build in prophecy softcore so I decided to write a guide for it, mostly for volley fire barrage, my favorite bow skill. Update 2.4: Lightning Arrow + Frost Wall is completely DEAD in 2.4, it's finally safe to announce: Barrage is now the #1 Bow Skill! Basically nothing change but some new cool stuff added in 2.4, so this build will work just the same as in 2.3. I'm playing some other builds this league so probably I won't update much in this thread. I hope this post can inspire you in some way and help you build your even cooler character :) Special thanks to @Daidelos, his post <Voltaxic Poisonous Quills> (www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1531640) in Talisman league inspired me a lot, and helped me found my favorite bow skill in this game :) Video
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Note: All videos are from 2.3. T15 Core Map: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVn2PlZNRtQ T13 Village Ruins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHkRue1Oy3A Normal Atziri: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5mbgroFkU4 Pros & Cons
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Pros: 1. One main skill, with nice damage for both AOE and single target. 2. No reflect issue w/o Vaal Pact. Reflect maps are doable. 3. Fuck the frostwall meta. Cons: 1. Not new league starter friendly. (Droprate of volley fire was nerfed in 2.3) 2. Not super tanky. (Compared to like Juggernaut.) Why Barrage? (over Lightning Arrow)
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First off, Barrage has the highest base damage against single target among all bow skills because the multiple arrows in the one same cast can "shotgun" -- 61.4% * 4 = 245.6% at level 20. While Blast Rain, the well-known top tier bow skill for single target, only has 47.6%*4 = 190.4% at lv20. Secondly, volley fire jewels provide a FREE lmp/gmp or even greater multiple projectiles, which means it enables Barrage's ability of pack clearing with no downside. Volley Fire let Barrage fires the side arrows twice per cast, which means 61.4% * 2 = 122.8% in terms of AOE. As comparison, Split Arrow only has 109% at lv20. Thirdly, Barrage has one of the best enchantment among all skills -- 2 additional barrage projectiles -- which means 50% more damage against single target! (Look at those 40% increased damage of XXX skill LoL) Finally, Barrage is also the best bow skill to apply poison. Reason: 1. Pure physical. 2. Free multiple projectiles. Let's do some simple comparison with the meta poison bow builds: 1. Reach physical poison with LA ---- get fucked by the 50% damage conversion. 2. Reach AddedChaos poison with LA ---- get fucked by the damage conversion, but better than #1, but the addedChaos damage is still kinda low. 3. Non-reach poison with whatever not-barrage skill ---- get fucked by GMP's LESS double dipping. 4. Reach/Voltaxic poison with Barrage ---- Win. ----------- Some calculation of single-target damage comparison between Barrage and the frostwall & LA meta (which is already dead in 2.4, JFYI): Assumptions: 1. Non-Reach of Council. 2. Lightning Arrow with lv20 GMP 3. Barrage with +2 helm enchantment. (fires 6 arrows per cast) 4. Barrage with 30% more overall damage from the additional link. Then, Damage of single arrow of lightning arrow: 119% * 0.74% = 88.06% Damage of single arrow of Barrage: 61.4% * 1.3 = 79.82% Damage of Barrage per cast: 79.82% * 6 = 478.92%, which equals to 478.92% / 88.06% = 5.4 LA arrows overlapping. That's to say, without wasting time casting second skill, Barrage's single target DPS outperforms LA + with one frostwall! Time to save your time and save your socket! Why Voltaxic?
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Reason: 1. Far less vulnerable to reflect. (Compared to Reach of Council) 2. Far cheaper than Reach of Council in 2.3. 3. Poison provides a decent amount of "added elemental damage as chaos damage", which makes Voltaxic superior to other elemental bow option (like Windripper) Barrage & Volley Fire Mechanism
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Barrage is a very unique projectile skill, basically because the "additional projectiles/arrows" (From GMP/LMP, helm enchantment, quiver corrupted implicit, etc.) works totally different in this skill -- instead of adding additional projectiles simultaneously, it adds additional projectiles in a sequence -- which means they're "shotgun-able"! On the other hand, Volley fire works similarly to what GMP/LMP normally works on other projectile skills -- fires side arrows simultaneously. The graph below shows how Barrage works in one single cast & what description will show in the tooltip under different conditions:  Tree
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Basically, it's a typical ranger bow tree with several minus changes around Volley Fire. For the ascendancy passives, I give up "chain" because I go pierce (META, kappa); I give up the "additional arrow" because it doesn't have a good enough impact to a 6-7 arrows barrage. In addition, barrage can proc bleeding pretty well because of its high number of hits per cast, so the "additional crit against bleeding targets" node is pretty good here. 3 Volley Fire setups:
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   My current tree at Lv92: https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAICAQBeAdwFLQguDY0PqxEvE9oVQxa_GYoZjhvIIXYj0yP2JIsknST9JpUqCy5TMHEwfDH6NZI2PTfUOdQ6QjrhQzFHfkp9S3hM_02STeNOKlFHU89VS1uvXfJh4mJaYqxlTWlObIxtbG87b_JwUnTtdct293fjeA167311fyuExYTZhs6HdonTjAuMNo19jX6Nv49glwabjZu1naqgn6OKpHimV6lurcKv67EBtfK5fL02vqfAGsEzwdXDOsSizZjPXs_d02_TftQj2L3asdrB3aje-OOf51Tn6upi62PssO0_7YPuDu968Yr5M_zF_o_-uv_e Gem Setup
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Main Skill: Barrage + Added Lightning Damage + WED + Pierce + Inc Crit Dmg / Void Manipulation / Poison / Slower Projectile (the 5th and 6th link are flexible, based on what style you prefer) Auto-curse setup: Herald of Thunder + CoH + AssMark (enfeeble) + Projectile Weakness (temporal chains) Self-cast curse setup: Frenzy + GMP + CoH + AssMark (enfeeble) + Projectile Weakness (temporal chains) I used dual curse because I'm using Cospri's Will, and that's also why I don't link poison to my barrage. (But please note that poison is an extremely important component of our DPS, so finding a way to poison is a MUST!) I use two curse setup because it's more flexible, and it provides a better QoL. BTW, projectile weakness is very good to this build since it double-dip the poison. Gear
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I'm using Cospri's Will as my body armour, you can also use Kaom's Heart for better survivability since this build only require one 6-linked. Leveling
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1. Use whatever skill you like to level 12, grab Lightning arrow. 2. Grab Roth's Reach at lv 18, and link your main skill with AddedCold + AddedLightning + WED, this setup can walk you through merciless. (Here's a video to show how a Roth's Reach can do in T8 map: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYeNDjIPAlw) 3. You can also use the fated stormcloud bow. 4. Start using barrage as your main skill as soon as 2 volley fire are activated. 5. When you reach normal Act 2, grab Herald of Ice and Herald of Thunder. 6. When you reach normal Act 4, grab Stone Golem and start using Blood Rage to get frenzy charges. Bandits
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1. Oak (HP) 2. Attack Speed 3. Frenzy Charge (double dip poison) Some tooltip number
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with HoT, Wrath and Lightning Golem in hideout:  with 4 frenzy chareges, 3 power charages, blood rage and atziri flask up:  Last edited by insobyr#6496 on Aug 21, 2017, 7:22:43 PM Last bumped on Jun 7, 2018, 11:02:42 AM
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Guide is done. Please let me know if anything should be added :)
Hope you guys like it. |
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Seems like a nice build.
One thing u can save some skill points by alocating the extra stun avoidence or mana node in starting area to link with Ballistic mastery and remove the 3 points going to 2nd ranger start. This will save u 2 skill points. Last edited by Ulysses55#2996 on Jul 20, 2016, 4:04:27 AM
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" I got your point. But this pathing is intentional, to activate the volley fire threshold jewel. I explained the reason why pathing in this way in the [Tree] section. Last edited by insobyr#6496 on Jul 20, 2016, 4:33:51 AM
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Did you try an other bow like Lioneye's Glare?
I compared Lioneyes Glare with Voltaxic recently and Voltaxic had no scenario (gem combination) in what it would outperform Lioneyes Glare. Of course you would have to switch Added Lightning Damage with Added Chaos Damage and Weapon Elemental Damage with something like Slower Projectiles (since it double dips with poison). And yea, Voltaxic is a bit more reflect safe, but honestly, it's super difficult to die with a phys build to reflect (except your doing reflect maps, in what a Voltaxic will have a hard time, too (at least in ele ref). |
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" Voltaxic has way more flat damage with addedLightning and Wrath and HoT, and better base crit chance too. While physical poison bow doesn't seem to have many good options for mana reservation skills. WED has 59% more at lv20, it's not inferior to slower projectile even if you consider its double dipping. And WED doesn't have downside while SP is a hurt to QoL. (Personally I don't like the playstyle of this gem) And don't forget the shock from Voltaxic. Yes, the purple shock. I enjoy it so much haha. |
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" Good points but I'm still a bit confused. :D I tested Voltaxic with WED and Added Lightning vs. Lioneyes Glare with Added Chaos Damage and Slow Proj.. Lioneyes Glare had a lot more Damage (tested it with a crit Assassin). Now you say you're using Wrath.. okay in this case Voltaxic may be better (not sure, I may test it), but you arent saying anything about Wrath in your guide. That's what confusing me a bit. :P WED may be superior, if you use added lightning, wrath, hot and more ele dmg stuff. But basically it's just a 35% more double dipping dmg boost (if you would only do lightning dmg -> not the case), since voltaxic only converts 60% to chaos. But I don't doubt that it's the better choice for Voltaxic. And yea, phys bows have a difficult time to reserve mana in terms of dmg boost for poison, true. Question would be, if a dmg boost is necessary.. Due to the Power Creep, the dmg should be already high enough as it is to oneshot most stuff. :) So I can understand your decision for Voltaxic, even if I still think, that Lioneyes Glare is in most cases the better decision (except youre using Wrath). And btw, I'm pretty excited of Barrage.. never used it but may give it a go.. Sadly the jewels are pretty expensive e.e Last edited by Toaster404#7147 on Jul 20, 2016, 6:20:21 AM
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I think the best bows for this is voltaxic , reach , lioneye's glare and chinsol tier 2 maybe the opus lioneye's prism and the tempest for leveling.
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You probably know this but I wanted to clarify it for whoever doesn't, what you call "shotgunnable" (hence why it's inbetween air commas I imagine) is not shotgun cause they are different instances of an execution. They're not simultaneously therefore they can't shotgun since shotgun is multiple projectiles cast from 1 action hitting the same target. (Basic barrage is 1 "cast" but 4 different actions, aka 4 projectiles in a sequence)
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You've got guts playing with Voltaxic post-nerf :>
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