3.9| DEADITOR |Elemental Hit w/ Ballista Totem Support| Use Any Gear! (Need a Big Investment Though)
"Hey corrinmana! Totems are actually considered allies as they do not have the minion tag on the gem. They are unique in the way that they deal damage. They are taking your stats and are attacking for you. If you highlight an enemy with this build, you'll see that every time a totem hits the enemy with EE, their resists change. When you're safe fighting a boss, highlight them and check it out. It's fun to watch it work. https://www.ForeverExiled.com/: Forever Exiled, A Path of Exile Podcast
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Thank you Everyone!
I want to say THANK YOU to everyone helping each other out and being so kind to each other. I love seeing how people modify these guides, what they're thinking, and what their goals are. Thanks for all your kindness. https://www.ForeverExiled.com/: Forever Exiled, A Path of Exile Podcast
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" No, I actually did not look at the video, until now. Hmm, the only difference in play style I see is that you are placing totems with a distance to each other, whereas I placed them always on "one spot". You only do that 2-3 times in that gameplay video. => Is that such a difference? And yeah, well you have almost 5k Life, I have only 4.2k. Although I of course don't know all your other stats. Am I gearing sth substantially wrong? I must say I abandoned my "ScionistaRanger" last week because I was disappointed. Can you maybe look into her? My characters should be public - and see if I'm doing anything so wrong? Summarized, my latest state was: dying rather quickly on T3-T4 bosses, not really killing bosses in a decent time. (I switched to a Freezing Pulse Totem Templar, and everything is much smoother and safer, sorry :/ ) |
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" Hi Wrecker. Thank you for answering and for holiday's kind words. There isn't much to say that was not in that spoiler, but I will try to get some more details. I started following this build's concept around level 80, until then I was using Artillery/Siege with Rain of Arrow as curse proccer and occasional extra DPS. I managed to reach level 88 carefully, then went even more careful until 90. Since I didn't get the Watchstone mechanics, I levelled up only on white-tier until 88. I was blessed with a +140/+8% maxLife early ingame, so I reached 5500 life somewhat easily. The fact I keep dying at level 90 is mostly because of 2 reasons: * Severe weakness to physical damage. Deadeye keeps most of the bleeding's brunt away, but blood bombs and physical spells are still lethal. I tried Iron Reflex, but my equip is not quite prone to eva/armour, so I might return to acrobatics if I can't get luckier with more apt equipment. * Sometimes there is a voice in my head, when a boss slams or a pack coordinates for an attack, that tells me to let them do their job and let the char just die like that. I expect the average PoE Player to be more... lively than that. At level 90 with Inspiration, I have 6 ballistas with 18k DPS. Absolutely not enough for the Big Bosses, but enough far ordinary mapping, all metamorphs include. Still looking for other ways to deal damage or make the opponents more vulnerabile to them. I was lucky to get a Xoph amulet from one of his breaches, might consider chance to an AoF EH, though I would prefer to keep this build's theme. If there is something more specific you wish to inquire, ask away. I'll try yo help as much as I can |
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" Hey, #7 could be me. Even without HoAg it was a nice build. Problem was the Drox Fight. I spent ~30min to not get him down. I've no idea on how to target the invul. banners with totems (or minions). An additional self cast EH may work, but I was too lazy and just started another character... I'll try again with better gear (and a 6-link) soon. |
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" While minions now have the chance to change their targeting system with the "aggressive/defensive" perks, or even create a "pet attack" with Deathmark, Totems are still bound to the same old rules: they choose the most near opponent and target it for their attacks until death, unless it is an AoE totem (es: Shockwave totem, Shock Nova Totem, Decoy Totem NOT Rain of Arrow Ballista), in that case it start spamming its skill until there is at least an enemy in his trigger radius. So the only way you have to try to tell a totem to hit a specific opponent is to cast them right under its nose. Which... pretty much makes Far Shot mechanic worthless, but that's what ProjWeakness is made for. Knockback enemy, gain some extra damage, keep attacking for maximum distance " Ah, Drox. I've never seen attempts to understand a PoE boss fight with philosophy before. From what I've managed to gather from the 6-7 failed attempts against him before the game understood I could barely make a T10 one, is as follows: * Philosophers were right: the number of banners makes Drox gain more of those... purple-blue charges around here (look closely) which supposedly give him -x% less damage taken as long he is under a banner's influence (notice how, when he enters one, he gets a light-blue aura on him for a moment, perhaps gaining a charge). They try to explain it as "a Warlord gaining influence on the grounds he conquered" or something. The bubble-phase is meant to give a character some time for destroy those banners before he start spamming them again. Note the "as long he is under a banner's influence". * Drox's "Force of Arms" bubble-phase is somewhat similiar to Innocence's "I Am the Emperor" bubble-phase. However, while Innocence is invulnerable in this phase, Drox isn't. It's just obscenely resistant. Instead of running around, killing mobs and asking why the heck that phase lasts so long, the main idea would be "Get under Drox, start attacking him and eventually kill his minions if they start swarming too much" * EH and Wild Strike users may have some difficulty with taking Drox down because of his above-average elemental resistance. EE + Frost bomb? Still with "Resist Elemental Damage" on. I guess using a ElementalWeakness might have at least given him "Vulnerability to cold" but, then again, bosses have a natural -80% less curse effect - that's why exposure works better. I honestly hope 1-element builds (like AoF EH, winter orb or Arc) can have a better way with him * I've read around a glitch about Drox minion's AI: standing in the exact center of the crossroad (where the 4 central banners overlap) makes the "go apeshit". I've personally not seen them acting erratically while doing it but, then again, there were different target other than me (ballistas and golem) so that might explain it. * When on lowLife, Drox start spamming his banners more often, making the last 30% life harder than the other 70%. A good idea would be luring him at one of the four edges, running/dashing away while distracted by your ballistas and, clock-wise, destroying as much banner as possible without stepping on the center. Eventually, Drox will notice you and spam 4-5 more banners, but at that point he might have lost enough charges for your attack to actually give in. Addictionally, by fighting him in one of the edges prompts him to use the "By my authority" rock-slam, which is slow enough to dodge and last long enough to give you time to squeeze in some extra damage Bright side? Drox is one of the longest conqueror battle. Even other builds have stated they take 5 minutes with him while the other three takes about 30 seconds. My build could have trouble in taking down a T10 Drox but can gulp a T15 literally-any-other-conqueror quite easily and without much of a hassle. So no shame in taking 30 minutes to kill him - he's just special. |
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" Ah, thanks. I didn't relalize that "most near" thing yet. Linking Deathmark to an utility HoAg won't work, really. " Thanks for the Drox fight explanations. Now I also understand why Drox was quite easy with Burning Arrow. Those banners die almost incidentally if hit by the (pierce BA) DoT. It may be possible to focus a bit more on EH ignite and DoT? |
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" Huh? Deathmark should support all skills that creates minion, and HoAg has Minion tag. Even if not supported, shouldn't a Deathmark skill at least tell the Crawler to... ... oh. Right, sorry, my bad. I didn't understand: your HoAg is an "utility" one, you don't rely on it to deliver a lot of damage. Ok, got it now. " Of course. Since you go Fire, you might wish to try an Avatar of Fire EH, which was quite the rage back at Synthesis when EH was reworked and Combat Focus weren't Nerfed. You might wish also to swap Crusader with Chieftain ascendancy: the Cover on Ash will give you another way to lower your opponent's FireRes, if you are not so lucky (or wealthy) to get a Xoph's Blood yourself. That is not exactly this guide's aim, though, and I am sure there are already some guides about that kind of build. If, however, you still wish to have the Fire part of EH more prominent without losing the EE perks, you might wish to try some other support for your EH (Covered in Ash would still be a good choice, but you will have to rely only for Chieftain ascendancy and not on Xoph): * Combustion: Even under EE it would gain very little fireRes (+6% against +25% expected), and the More Fire damage is a very useful plus * Cold to Fire: Sacrifice a good portion of your cold damage to greatly increase your fire damage. If you feel the so-weakened cold hits are not even useful to proc Chill, consider using a Combat Focus in order to not select Cold (you must still select Lightning). In doing so, remember you will lose a 10% moreDamage that you would get when hitting a chilled enemy, unless you manage to make that chill come from other sources (utility Arctic Breath, Frost bomb...) This would mean, however, EH - Ballista - EDwA - CtF - Combustion. If you get a 6L, you will have to choose between Increased Critical Strike/Inspiration or Deadly Ailment/Increased Burning Damage, depending on how much you want your Ignite to actually spread (it would be better to use Increased Burning Damage, since Deadly Ailment will make your banner last even lesser). However, might I suggest, in case when you actually want Ignite DoT to spread like a Essence Drain/Contagion, to use a Burning Arrow instead? * Makes Ignitions from that skill more damaging * Vaal version is even deadlier * With Sudden Ignition you can get 2 Ignition instead of 1. And I am not exactly sure if, like The Taming did, you would get a +10% moreDamage from EH since the opponent has 2 ailments (as in, 2 ignition) instead of just 1 * Would allow you to fully concentrate your EH in dealing damage with hits Furthermore, you might want to use a Xoph's Nurture rather than a Quill Rain or Death's Harp: half its physDamage (and it's the bow with the highest inc% physDamage) is added as fire, and would give you a 7L with IgniteProliferation - also, while mapping, you can count on the life recovery on ignition ... you know, it does sound pretty convenient. Might try to go for something like this, I don't really have much to put in the remaining 5L/6L |
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By Jove...
Update on build: Trying the lead I've said above, I've bought myself a Frostferno (prophetized Heatshiver). Usually, when thinking about EH or Wild Strike, one may try to exploit the fact the skill is tagged as Fire, Cold and Lightning at the same time, meaning some uniques may be strong as, if not even more, a +3 Rare bow. In this, Realmshaper (and Realm Ender), as well as Heatshiver (and Frostferno), comes as useful as a Lv4 Empower, since their bonus to fire and cold gem cumulates with the two skills. Frostferno, however, also gives an extra link with a lv30 CtF (39% cold fire added as fire damage, rather than 29%). This makes Frostferno a cheap 6L (managed to get one for 16c and throw 2 Divine at it that were just taking space, otherwise I managed to get one by myself back at Bestiary), whose only problem relies on the base item: Leather Hood means a lot of green, which might be less than optimal for things like Glacial Cascade or other Cold-To-Fire builds. EH, being a Dex gem, fits in quite good... ... or at least, it would if it was self-cast. Since we are going to use at least 2 red (Ballista - EDwA), it only takes some Chromatics to play a bit. Myself, I used 120 Chroma, got a three-red and went EH-Ballist-EDwA-Inspiration Good news: * DPS went from 18k to 30k, thanks to the (now) lv24 EH, and swapping from a Flamesight (Thus considering the +30% eleDamge from the helmet) * Cold damage is still enough to make T14 general mobs chill. Since this league makes me forced to go Frost Bomb, might even dare to say swapping Inspiration with Hypothermia would be not so horrible in outcome and only takes 25 Chromatics to do * Being an Evasion helmet, it fit the Iron Reflex and, in general, should fit even Acrobatics build Bad news: * With so much fire damage, Scorch would have been more useful than occasional ignite, but, well... either Frostferno or Flamesight, I guess * I am now permanently stuck to 5.3k Life from the 5.6k I had with a +100 Fencer Helmet I had since lv50, but T15 metamorphs and bosses still oneshot me even then, so no big deal Last edited by Maxtrux#0762 on Jan 5, 2020, 10:03:20 AM
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" Many thanks for all the tips. I've read a lot of EH guides, most of them rely on Combat Focus jewels, which is not an option when playing SSF. About "not this guide's aim", you are right. There's nothing left for Scions when thinking about fire/ignite/dot. I'd just go for Marauder/Chieftain instead. Btw, I don't think EE is as strong as expected (or shown in the linked PoB). EE works 100% with one EH source, but "It tries not to pick the same element twice in a row" cannot work with 3 to 6 ballista totems, unless they are fireing at different targets. Also, the addional projectile from Deadeye seems to use the same element, and afaik they cannot hit at the same time. The new barrage support won't help, then it's four cold hits, four fire hits, ... |
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