[3.9] Rain of Steel (Impale Rain of Arrows) Slayer | Endgame | All-Content | Who needs tower?

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eggzvan wrote:

awesome!

would you have any idea of life gain options for a champion build?

Life leech and Vaal Pact. Soul Tether also an option, but you lose a some damage and elemental resistances.


3.9 Update Breakdown

Rain of Arrows
- Now deals 48% of base damage at gem level 1 (from 40%), up to 60% at gem level 20 (from 50%).

Monster Armour and Life
- Monsters throughout the game now have more armour, from 33% at level 1 up to 2762% at level 84. According to some calculation on reddit the highest number seems to be about 28k.
- The life of all unique monsters in the game has been increased by 10%. On top of this, map Boss life has been greatly increased at the highest tier of maps.

Impale
- Impale is significantly affected by the higher armour values because of how its damage is dealt in many small hits.
- Some Impale passives and the Impale Support will cause impales applied to give monsters -x% to Total Physical Damage Reduction against Impale.

Point Blank
- The Point Blank keystone now causes projectiles to deal 30% more damage to very close enemies (from 50%), dealing up to 30% less damage based on the distance the projectile travels before it hits (from 50% less).

Mirage Archer
- The Mirage Archer now deals 40% less Damage with Supported Skills at gem level 1 (from 30%), up to 31% less at gem level 20 (from 11%). Its targeting distance has been lowered to 70 units (from 105).

In summary, this build is nerfed. In my opinion the changes to Mirage Archer hurt this build the most, together with other changes listed above it makes the nerf even worse.

I would not recommend you this build for 3.9, not because of the nerf but because it will be alot more expensive to build this on bow league. If you want to play it anyway, I'd recommend go with Champion and replace Mirage Archer with Faster Attack or Concentrated Effect.

Personally If I am to play Rain of Arrows in 3.9, I'd probably go with Assassin and build around elemental and critical. With Herald of Ice explosion to help clearing and high crit damage for endgame bosses.

This doesn't mean the build is dead however, I will keep it updated as long I play the game. It may get buffed in the future, or maybe you can revisit for some info or inspiration for other build.

To update the POB tree, simply convert to 3.9 at the bottom. Good luck.

Yeah fair enough. Quite a lot of little nerfs but may still do this build using champion. I see the potential for high boss damage and seeing as this league bosses is the new focus, it should be good

Regarding elemental RoA ghat you suggested, do you have a link that demonstrates this?

Thanks for all your help thus far.

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eggzvan wrote:

Regarding elemental RoA ghat you suggested, do you have a link that demonstrates this?

Unfortunately I don't, it was merely just a thought, a "what if" when I was writing the 3.9 update.

Fair enough

I like the look of the artillery ballista and shrapnel ballista, thinking of how i could integrate it in this build somehow.

if you have any thoughts on that or other skill gems/new items etc. i'd love to hear!

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eggzvan wrote:

Fair enough

I like the look of the artillery ballista and shrapnel ballista, thinking of how i could integrate it in this build somehow.

if you have any thoughts on that or other skill gems/new items etc. i'd love to hear!

I too like the new ballista! They looks so much better than dildo totem. Will definitely try to play it at some point. To integrate it in this build you have to drop some gems from utility setup.

I think the best setup for this;


If you go with Champion (which I believe is definitely the better choice here), drop Inspirational after you can afford Enlighten 3 and take Conqueror. With ballistas shooting down bosses this taunts them allowing you to kite and position your character while having the enemies damage reduced.

First to Strike, Last to Fall is also viable for Intimidate on Hit (now that Watcher's Eye will be rarer) and serve as auto trigger "oh shit!" button that heals you (recover 25% life and ailment removal) while also give fuckton damage boost to kill quicker when you reach low life (20 sec cd).

sucks to hear that it got hit hard, was my league starter, i probably still go for it, is the pob updated with champion etc?

Just keep in mind that, although mirage archer and point blank were nerfed, impale support + impale skill tree passives + other physical passive have been buffed to include -X% to TOTAL phys reduction. Therefore, impales will be far more effective and powerful than ever before even considering the buffs that mobs and bosses have received.

Most likely, a Champion impale ROA char will do just fine or better than expected.

Pure phys and pure lightning builds will, by far, be doing the most DPS this league due to the changes to impale and phys nodes granting -% total phys reduction as well as the awakened lightning pen gem + the changes to SHOCK, making it far easier to shock bosses and to shock them for a higher amount (more effectiveness).

Is flesh and stone (sand stance) important or can I run herald of ash instead? Because I like the fire explosions :D

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saikazi wrote:

Is flesh and stone (sand stance) important or can I run herald of ash instead? Because I like the fire explosions :D

You can, but with Brutality support on both setup you don't get the extra fire damage; only overkill damage -which I don't think worth 25% mana reserve.

damn i really like the idea behind the build but...

GOD DAMN, thats a lot of mandatory VERY expensive uniques. What a shame, what a shame.

If only this build could work with only 1 or 2 uniques would make it really awesome