[2.4][EHC] Tornado Shot Slayer | 6k+ HP | 40/46% Dodge/Spell Dodge | Crazy Clear Speed/Fun!

The build honestly started as kind of a joke, just wanting to play anything Slayer. It's by far and away my favorite Ascendancy mechanically. I played around with the idea of a Lightning Arrow Slayer in the Prophecy league, and it worked out pretty well. As it turns out, the minor Slayer nodes are worded as "Increased Damage with Two-Handed Weapons" meaning that since you hold a bow with TWO HANDS, yep. It works. So essentially, nothing is really wasted here with this ascendancy. By combining amazing evasion, dodge, spell dodge and some decent reflexes, you have a fast clearing, perma-onslaught, super tanky, bleed/stun-immune super leeching monster of a character.

Nothing insanely out of the ordinary here, lots of life, tons of leech/regen (for Slayer synergy), and more than enough damage to deal with nearly any map mods in any tier. What your straight crits can't deal with, Poison will.

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAQBAAHcBS0FtQZwDHAM8g2NES8UIBa_IXYj0yP2JP0mlSefKlsuUzBxMHwx-jWSNj051DpCOuE7tkMxQzZHfkp9S3hM_02STeNOKk6fUEdRR1LsVUtW-loaW69fOV8_YeJirGVNbIxvJ287b_JwUnTtdct1_Xb3d-N4DXloefZ6f38rhG-E2YWnhrSGzod2idOK8Iw2jX2Nfo2_j2Caapstnaqgn6U1pcumV6lusKuygLTFtUi18re2vTa-p8AawQTBM8LswzPEgtNv1CPUQtaK2L3awd2o45_nVOpi62PuDu8O8kX1YfzF_gr-j__e

Oak, Kraityn, Alira

Note: For Cruel, you can take either Oak or Kraityn, or the skillpoint for that matter, but I like the attack speed for stacking poison and feel it wins out over any other choice here.

This is by no means a required item, as I used Death's Opus until around level 82 or so, when I finally made enough currency to buy a Reach, but when you finally switch to Reach, your whole world will change. Poison damage goes through the roof since you get to drop a less modifier (GMP), and your clear speed will increase accordingly.
Required. Honestly. Nothing else even pales in comparison. The damage scaling is insane with a 100% pierce build. Just use it.
There are a couple options you could go with here. I guess a Lightning Coil would work well enough, or even a Kaom's Heart(Although in this case I think the loss of Evasion isn't worth it), but Kintsugi is truly a jewel for this build. Good life, decent resist, and the dodge entropy buff is absurdly strong for this build. Plus it looks completely badass.
A must have for poison. Poison is your single target damage. As stated with the Reach, you'll truly appreciate these when you get it and you can really see the poison damage at play. Trivializes most bosses.
Not required by any means, but a very nice defensive piece with the additional spell dodge. Great life, great movespeed. I was able to make the resists work and be completely elemental weakness capped for all tiers, so it was a no-brainer.

Your life leech will keep you topped off at all times, and it's actually an absurd amount of leech/leech rate. I can't remember the last time I actually used my life flask, and have considered dropping it altogether. Outside of 40% reduced recovery maps, nothing save a one-shot will ever make you need to hit a life flask. Additionally, while you're leeching (which is literally always), you'll never be stunned and never bleed, so you don't need staunching on flasks. Move from rare to rare, keeping up onslaught(the cull is insane of course, for bosses too), and every kill you make gives you 20% MORE damage, so this really encourages blitzing maps. Don't stop!

On bosses, all you've gotta do is drop your wither totem, ensure you maintain Frenzy charges(they're sort of short, around 11 second duration with my current build), and you'll completely melt bosses. The initial projectiles from Tornado Shot pierce, so I generally shoot THROUGH the boss, to ensure that extra stack of poison, as well as the stacks from the smaller projectiles from the tornados.

This is probably one of the easiest builds you'll ever level, even in a fresh league, and it's that much better with some twink gear such as Death's Harp.

Levels 1-32:
-Grab split arrow and whatever bow, doesn't really matter at this level. When you hit level 9, switch to Storm Cloud and toss in added lightning and maybe increased crit strikes(totally optional, but it's nice to level it at this point anyway).

-At level 18, throw on Roth's Reach for the free chainbang, and get comfy with it. You'll be using it until 32. At level 28, grab Tornado Shot and link it up with Increased Crit Strikes, GMP and Pierce as you get the levels for the support gems. When you hit 32, toss on a Death's Harp and watch your DPS skyrocket. This is the point you'll really start seeing things melt, and it only gets better from here. At 36 you can use Drillneck, which will be insane at that level, so grab that if you can afford it ASAP. Keep doing what you're doing until 44.

Level 44:
-Stop what you're doing at this point and buy a Death's Opus. Even if it completely breaks your bank, it's worth it. You can map with this bow. It is completely end-game viable with this build. You'll be using it until you can afford a Reach of the Council, so it may be worth trying to 5L it. Up to you.

Levels 44+
Just do your thing. If you get a 5L, throw in Phys Proj Attack Damage and that'll be your setup for a while. Just to clarify, until you get a reach of the council your main link will be (in order of importance): Tornado Shot-Inc Crit Strike-GMP-Pierce-Faster Attacks/PPAD. Your end goal here is to get a Reach, at which point you can drop GMP and replace it with Crit Damage or Slower Proj, however I personally felt that Slow Proj nerfed my clear speed more than it helped, which is why I went with Crit Damage.

Skill Tree around lvl 32:


Skill Tree around lvl 55:


Skill Tree around lvl 70:


Anything past this is up to your personal needs. You can see my skill tree at 90 above, so just fill in life/damage as you see fit.


Order of Ascendancy:



Hopefully this answers most of the leveling aspects of the build, but feel free to ask questions if you didn't find your answer here!


A fairly important note about Snakebites: You may notice that I opted not to take the ranger frenzy charge. This is due to the fact that you do not gain a duration node prior to getting it. Same with the merc bandits. If you get frenzy charges without the duration nodes, they will be extremely hard to sustain on bosses. Frustratingly so. I just didn't think it was worth the pain.