[2.6] Whaitiri's Slivertongue Frenzy Bleeder - an off-meta Slayer Archer

This build is fully centered around pure physical damage and bleed.
I've had the idea for a while now, and the new Haemophilia gloves finally made it happen.

As the title suggests, our main skill is Frenzy. It's the highest single-hit damage bow skill without any implicit elemental conversion, just perfect for applying high bleeds.
We use two seperate instances of this skill - GMP Frenzy to blow up packs in combination with Haemophilia, and Frenzy Traps to bleed out rares and bosses.

I've tried a few different Ascendancies and Slayer is the clear winner. While this class doesn't provide the highest damage output, it comes with lots of other good stuff for this build.
Endless Hunger and Brutal Fervour coupled with over 7k life go well with the Hit & Run nature of this build, while Bane of Legends and Headsman add on the offensive side and allow us to run reflect maps. Even the small nodes aren't wasted, since bows count as Two Handed Weapons.

Gems are listed in order of importance!


We use this Frenzy setup for pack clearing. GMP and Pierce give us better coverage, while PPAD and Slower Proj increase damage enough to blow them up quickly.
Faster Proj as 6th link gives a bit more clearspeed, but it's not mandatory.



This is our bosskiller Frenzy setup. While the more multiplier won't double dip, Traps allow us to scale the biggest possible single hit to apply a huge bleed, and make it easier to stay in motion and lure the bosses for the extra 50% bleed damage while moving.
Point Blank range is calculated from the trap, and as such will always give the maximum damage boost.



Enduring Cry helps us with physical mitigation and gives some nice life regen. It's also helpful to taunt and drag around bosses if you play in parties.
Vaal Rain of Arrows for the exact opposite - pin down fast moving bosses, which are otherwise hard to hit with traps, or just bosses in general to make sure.
Inc Duration and AoE improve both skills a little, if you don't have enough int for the latter just drop it or use a lower level one.



This is mainly to push around bosses, especially helpful for immobile or pinned targets.
Knockback is considered as moving, and will let them take that extra bleed damage while moving.
Barrage gives the most hits in quick succession, and we further improve that with Faster Attacks.



Good to move over gaps, ledges or away from bosses and gives some distraction on top.
Blind is a nice defensive boost, GMP increases its coverage.

Required Uniques

Slivertongue: Comes with great maximum physical damage per hit for heavy bleeds, and also gives 100% chance to bleed which allows us to use a different skill than Puncture.

Gruthkul's Pelt: Just an insane chest, but with probably the biggest drawback in the game.
We get lots of flat life, 2% life regen, some resistance and most importantly, up to 100% physical damage which increases our initial hits, double dips on bleed and also boosts the Haemophilia explosions - and all that with a required level of 38!
The payoff is a hefty one - all spells are disabled means no auras, no curses, no Immortal Call and even less obvious stuff like no mines, since the detonation skill is considered a spell, or no Portal gem. But the biggest heresy is that we can't use Bear Trap with bear chest.

Haemophilia: These gloves allow us to blow up whole packs while already moving to the next pack, and only have a very minimal downside. Vulnerability on Hit would be the dream corruption on them, or Temporal Chains on hit to a lesser extent.
I've tried "..on hit" corruptions and yes, it works with Gruthkuls!

Drillneck: Gives us all the stats we need, plus a douple dipping modifier for our bleeds.
Don't waste your currency on +1 Arrow, we actually want the base implicit to reach 100% chance to pierce, and with that 100% chance to bleed with Slivertongue.


Optional Uniques

Redblade Tramplers: Really solid boots now that they have a life roll.
Also easier to get with +1 Frenzy Charge corruption than a decent pair of rares.

The Magnate: Another unique thats really decent in its buffed version. Gives us more damage, but less life than a comparable rare and could be easily obtained with +1 Endurance Charge corruption.

Carnage Heart: And yet another unique which got a sweet buff, and synergizes well with Slayer.
Same thing as with Magnate, more damage but less life than a rare, and easier to find with a +1 Frenzy Charge corruption.

Bloodgrip: Very decent amulet aswell, good flat damage and life, plus a nice buff to our life flask. And yet again, being a unique it's easier to get with +1 Frenzy Charge corruption.


Rares

Only helmet was bought and crafted, already had other stuff around in Standard!

Basically, get as much life, resistances and flat physical damage as possible, Chaos res and Strength are a nice bonus. Try to avoid int-based gear as it's harder to chrome, and you won't have the int to even equip it. Belt is ideally a Rustic Sash, Steel Rings are best but can be really costly with all desired stats.

Best helmet enchantment is "9% increased Frenzy Damage per Frenzy Charge", secondary would be "40% increased Frenzy Damage". For boots, best would be movement speed, followed by either attack speed, leech or regen ones if you can't get any with +1 Frenzy Charge corruption.
Not sure what's good on gloves, most likely any of the physical ones or consecrated ground.


Jewels

Each jewel should have max life and ideally double dipping modifiers, in our case Physical/Projectile/Trap/Regular damage. If you can't get that, opt with Damage over Time, Strength, Bow Physical Damage or any form of Attack Speed.


Flasks

Eternal Life Flask: Even though we have life regen and leech, it's still good to have one of these around. "Catalysed .. of Heat" is best in my opinion.
Optionally you can also use Blood of the Karui, buffed version is awesome for high life builds.

Witchfire Brew: Our only way to curse with Gruthkuls, unless you have the right corruption on gloves. Luckily it's also the best curse for us and even comes with added damage.

Vessel of Vinktar: Since we can't use Vaal Lightning Trap, we need this flask to shock for a huge damage boost. Ideally get flat damage added to attacks version, do not get the 20% conversion one as it will actually reduce our bleed damage.
Keep this as one of your last investments, it's not really needed for lower map tiers.

Basalt Flask: Huge survivability boost since we don't get much physical mitigation outside of Endurance Charges. I prefer "Chemist's .. of Grounding" here, the suffix is helpful even without Vinktar.

Quicksilver Flask: We need this for mobility, ideally with "Chemist's" or "Experimenter's" prefix and "of Adrenaline" suffix.

For most stuff, you simply need to shoot once into a pack and then move to the next while they bleed out and explode. Some mobs have fairly high physical mitigation or simply high life, in that case either pop Witchfire Brew or shoot 2-3 times.
Most rares usually die with the pack, you can also throw a trap at them just to go sure.

For bosses, there's two ways: If you can see them without triggering the fight, throw a few traps at them first - most will already die or get into cull range this way.
If you can't, simply trigger the fight, pin them down with Vaal Rain of Arrows, pop Witchfire + Vinktar, throw traps at them and then drop your Barrage totem.
Some bossfights with multiple bosses or dangerous ones in small arenas can be annoying, or downright impossible to safely kill. I'll leave it up to you to find out which you can handle.
Atziri and Uberlab are easy with a little practice, but you might want to disable nasty buffs on Uber Izaro. Haven't tested or succeeded with Uber Atziri, Guardians and Shaper yet.

Annoying mapmods are Chance to avoid Bleed, Temporal Chains, Enfeeble and Physical Damage Reduction. Physical Reflect is possible, just don't couple it with Vulnerability and don't shoot into huge packs. If your damage should be too high, equip a Sybil's Lament.
Only mapmod i recommend to avoid completely is No Leech, fortunately it's not common anyway.

GMP Frenzy w/ 7 Frenzy Charges


Frenzy Trap w/ 7 Frenzy Charges


Defenses w/ 3 Endurance Charges + Basalt Flask

‣ 10th April 2017: fixed typos, small wording changes
‣ 9th April 2017: Layout changed, Media section added
‣ 6th April 2017: Guide created