☆ [Outdated] Sarang's TS/LA/Barrage Archer | Pathfinder | Crit Bow | Videos | Budget Version ☆

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Enki91 wrote:

This is a great resource for everyone who wants to get into bows, thanks for taking your time and doing this!

I've learned alot about archers, a part of the game i was rather inexperienced with, by randomly stumbling across and reading your posts in the past, and it's good to see there's now a place to find all this knowledge compiled.

I totally agree with you about the tooltip whoring, millions of tooltip DPS under thousands of conditional buffs you can't keep up when it matters the most are really meaningless when the build simply feels bad to play.

To anyone looking for a good starter bow build that will progress with moderate investment and last you up into the toughest of content, look no further. This guy right here knows what he's talking about.

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bordillo wrote:

So Phys to Light is better than Added Lightning?

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Nephalim wrote:

I'm kind of lost, are you planning on taking VP endgame?

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SunL4D2 wrote:

Why don't increase attack speed as well? Wouldn't firing more arrows per second mean more critical strikes per second -> faster clear speed overall? Or by your experience it is pointless and crit alone is enough?

Because of Kaom's Heart build loses so much. Golem with 30% crit and 30% acc, Vaal Haste/Grace and some other great supporting skills, can't make Blink Arrow faster with support gems, as well as something like Arctic Armour which is great as well. 500 hp worth it? Specially considering that now there is Kintsugi to help squishy EV builds. Hinekora, and passives for dodge as well.

About cursing methods. Herald of ice curses enemies after you hit them with something, right? Not when they enter certain distance to character. Isn't it kind of not so great?

Poacher's Mark is most useful for flasks dependent (more or less all builds depend on flasks but I mean ones that not invest much into them and can handle everything without them) builds, right? Because I love my Projectile Weakness and it's multiplicative more damage modifer along with extra pierce chance. Can't substitute Assassin's Mark with anything though.

Pathfinder drug/flask addict rules yeah!

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I do not. This was more of a comfort thing for me, and now with the way defenses are layered I won't be heading for it. When I was first progressing, I actually had VP. A couple of things steered me away from it, Uber Lab being a main driver. It's incredibly miserable to try to progress through Uber Lab with VP. I want this character to do as much content as it can, and so far, there are only certain parts of content I cannot do. With VP this made Lab gameplay fairly uncomfortable, as Blood Rage/Frenzy charges are more unreliable, and traps are a huge setback if you cannot regen in between parts of the gauntlet.

This character also started off the new league by climbing maps, so VP/Blood Rage is more clunky when you're having to run maps like Cells or Malformation instead of Canyon or Gorge, especially with Vulnerability mod. I talked to a friend about this and after picking up Extractor along with Acro/Arrow Dancing, this has been no problem. As a character that needs to (global) map reflect mods anyways, the only thing you're really afraid of is the one reflect mob. These defenses answer that quite well.

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Nephalim wrote:

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I do not. This was more of a comfort thing for me, and now with the way defenses are layered I won't be heading for it. When I was first progressing, I actually had VP. A couple of things steered me away from it, Uber Lab being a main driver. It's incredibly miserable to try to progress through Uber Lab with VP. I want this character to do as much content as it can, and so far, there are only certain parts of content I cannot do. With VP this made Lab gameplay fairly uncomfortable, as Blood Rage/Frenzy charges are more unreliable, and traps are a huge setback if you cannot regen in between parts of the gauntlet.

This character also started off the new league by climbing maps, so VP/Blood Rage is more clunky when you're having to run maps like Cells or Malformation instead of Canyon or Gorge, especially with Vulnerability mod. I talked to a friend about this and after picking up Extractor along with Acro/Arrow Dancing, this has been no problem. As a character that needs to (global) map reflect mods anyways, the only thing you're really afraid of is the one reflect mob. These defenses answer that quite well.

If so, you can save 3 points on your passive tree by connecting the life cluster to nullification rather than taking 5 points to connect ranger to shadow. Nothing else on that path is really worthwhile unless you for some reason need the aura cluster for HoA.

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Saranghaeyo_ wrote:

Current tree I actually pathed out to Harrier, so that does happen to be the best route to get to that point. I didn't include it because it's definitely not necessary, but very good in terms of quality of life.

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Saranghaeyo_ wrote:

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Nephalim wrote:

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I do not. This was more of a comfort thing for me, and now with the way defenses are layered I won't be heading for it. When I was first progressing, I actually had VP. A couple of things steered me away from it, Uber Lab being a main driver. It's incredibly miserable to try to progress through Uber Lab with VP. I want this character to do as much content as it can, and so far, there are only certain parts of content I cannot do. With VP this made Lab gameplay fairly uncomfortable, as Blood Rage/Frenzy charges are more unreliable, and traps are a huge setback if you cannot regen in between parts of the gauntlet.

This character also started off the new league by climbing maps, so VP/Blood Rage is more clunky when you're having to run maps like Cells or Malformation instead of Canyon or Gorge, especially with Vulnerability mod. I talked to a friend about this and after picking up Extractor along with Acro/Arrow Dancing, this has been no problem. As a character that needs to (global) map reflect mods anyways, the only thing you're really afraid of is the one reflect mob. These defenses answer that quite well.

If so, you can save 3 points on your passive tree by connecting the life cluster to nullification rather than taking 5 points to connect ranger to shadow. Nothing else on that path is really worthwhile unless you for some reason need the aura cluster for HoA.

Actually I'll edit the alternative path through Nullification in.

Current tree I actually pathed out to Harrier, so that does happen to be the best route to get to that point. I didn't include it because it's definitely not necessary, but very good in terms of quality of life.

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Saranghaeyo_ wrote:

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Enki91 wrote:

This is a great resource for everyone who wants to get into bows, thanks for taking your time and doing this!

I've learned alot about archers, a part of the game i was rather inexperienced with, by randomly stumbling across and reading your posts in the past, and it's good to see there's now a place to find all this knowledge compiled.

I totally agree with you about the tooltip whoring, millions of tooltip DPS under thousands of conditional buffs you can't keep up when it matters the most are really meaningless when the build simply feels bad to play.

To anyone looking for a good starter bow build that will progress with moderate investment and last you up into the toughest of content, look no further. This guy right here knows what he's talking about.

Thanks Enki. Glad you enjoyed the LA Inquisitor this league. Hoping 2.4 brings something else fun I can share.

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bordillo wrote:

So Phys to Light is better than Added Lightning?

Context important. In a Physical Bow, under the majority of circumstances you can expect a higher damage output with Physical to Lightning. If it's a starter bow or has low Physical Damage, Added Lightning Damage is probably stronger.

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Nephalim wrote:

I'm kind of lost, are you planning on taking VP endgame?

I do not. This was more of a comfort thing for me, and now with the way defenses are layered I won't be heading for it. When I was first progressing, I actually had VP. A couple of things steered me away from it, Uber Lab being a main driver. It's incredibly miserable to try to progress through Uber Lab with VP. I want this character to do as much content as it can, and so far, there are only certain parts of content I cannot do. With VP this made Lab gameplay fairly uncomfortable, as Blood Rage/Frenzy charges are more unreliable, and traps are a huge setback if you cannot regen in between parts of the gauntlet.

This character also started off the new league by climbing maps, so VP/Blood Rage is more clunky when you're having to run maps like Cells or Malformation instead of Canyon or Gorge, especially with Vulnerability mod. I talked to a friend about this and after picking up Extractor along with Acro/Arrow Dancing, this has been no problem. As a character that needs to avoid (global) map reflect mods anyways, the only thing you're really afraid of is the one reflect mob. These defenses answer that quite well.

"

SunL4D2 wrote:

Why don't increase attack speed as well? Wouldn't firing more arrows per second mean more critical strikes per second -> faster clear speed overall? Or by your experience it is pointless and crit alone is enough?

Because of Kaom's Heart build loses so much. Golem with 30% crit and 30% acc, Vaal Haste/Grace and some other great supporting skills, can't make Blink Arrow faster with support gems, as well as something like Arctic Armour which is great as well. 500 hp worth it? Specially considering that now there is Kintsugi to help squishy EV builds. Hinekora, and passives for dodge as well.

About cursing methods. Herald of ice curses enemies after you hit them with something, right? Not when they enter certain distance to character. Isn't it kind of not so great?

Poacher's Mark is most useful for flasks dependent (more or less all builds depend on flasks but I mean ones that not invest much into them and can handle everything without them) builds, right? Because I love my Projectile Weakness and it's multiplicative more damage modifer along with extra pierce chance. Can't substitute Assassin's Mark with anything though.

Pathfinder drug/flask addict rules yeah!

Faster Attack is fine, but with bows like Reach it's not really needed (good base AS, plus you have Blood Rage, potentially Cruel Kraityn, Jewels, Rat's Nest, etc). At peak performance, Lightning Arrow into a mob under a Critical Strike is instant clear. If this is the case, you're more worried about movement speed, so that is the other piece of the puzzle in terms of clear speed. This is also why I prefer Raider/Pathfinder over Deadeye (which I played in 2.2).

Kaom's for me is the armor of choice. My trees over time have been as high as 200%+ (featuring Scion Life Rectangle) to ~170% at the moment, so a Kaom's Heart will add at the minimum around 1.3K life to the pool. That's huge. Do I miss things like Ice Golem and Vaal Haste? Sure, but Ice Golem is pretty mediocre come Red Maps imo, and I'm not really a fan of adding even more links like Minion Life to help it stay alive. With LA you also want to draw mobs towards positional advantages so you can use Frost Wall, so keep in mind Ice Golem drawing them away is not awesome either. Vaal Haste is probably the gem I do miss, although the higher I push I always want to swap out to Vaal Grace. There is ofc a trade-off, but 1.3K to 1.5K Life is a trade-off I'm willing to accept.

About pushing Evasion, there is a diminishing returns when going for the highest amount. I stopped playing as much when I hit 40/40 this league, so I never bothered to upgrade much. But at the moment I have about 6K Evasion, so again we talk about trade-offs, do I want to push to 10K Evasion or higher? Dodge is a little different since it's a compliment to Evasion, so yes, if I could mess around with gear to make Hinekora's work, I probably would.

Curse on Hit > HOI thoughts. This is a snowball effect. Fire into one mob. The first monster dies (Crit, so it shatters, triggering Herald of Ice). All monsters around it get hit by Herald's explosion, cursing them. Then they die, cursing what is around them. In fact, in more dense maps with higher packsize, you can actually see the effect take place if you have a corridor or they are in a long line. Since we have 100% Pierce with LA, the AOE clears rapidly, and applies curses rapidly. It's not uncommon for the first mob in a map to instantly grant you full Power/Frenzy charges, which of course begins the snowball. High movement speed augments this even further, basically moving from pack-to-pack and blowing them up.

About Poacher's, the biggest perk of course is the flask charges, but also in my opinion sustain with the Life/Mana on hit. Makes No Regen maps a breeze, and since it's On Hit, it's instant sustain. I also prefer Poacher's because of Vessel of Vinktar, and combined with Passive Tree + Ascendancy + Poacher's Mark, this is basically the same feel as the Legacy version, which is incredibly strong. Projectile Weakness is strong and actually would be my 3rd choice, but sadly I don't see the build adding another Curse any time soon. It is doable however, the tree just gets stupid. Like, really stupid. Still working on that.

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djnat wrote:

In a physical bow version, probably I'd prefer going for the Aspect of the Eagle + Aspect of the Lynx combo if I had the points. Vaal Pact and Harrier force us to take a lot of useless travel nodes, which I really don't love. 60 extra dexterity really feel like a waste when we absolutely don't need it.

Also, in the Pathfinder tree, I'd consider Druidic Rite kind of "too good to pass". With The Retch (which I consider BiS for the endgame), Druidic Rite and ascendancy points, we basically get double flask duration, which is a fantastic QoL upgrade.

BTW, amazing resource overall. I love threads like this. The PoE bow community has some amazing players and theorycrafters.

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Nephalim wrote:

Harrier effectively costs 8 nodes to reach. There is no quality of life or point to that. For the cost of 2 points you can get quickstep for 8% ias and 6% movespeed. Harrier is 9% ias and 5% movespeed.

There is never ever a reason why any conventional bow build should ever go out of its way to get harrier even if its VP based and take thes jewel socket next to it because its sub optimal to spend 4 points for 9ias and 5 movespeed.

Not to sound overly critical but you can not call something a template when it is so sub optimal.