3.9| DEADITOR |Elemental Hit w/ Ballista Totem Support| Use Any Gear! (Need a Big Investment Though)

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apachefx wrote:

Can you kill shaper with this build?

unlikely. this one is very squishy and very low on dps

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Swdan wrote:

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apachefx wrote:

Can you kill shaper with this build?

unlikely. this one is very squishy and very low on dps

at lvl 83 im struggling. this build does not work as advertised "From League Start 2 End", in fact the only end im about to experience is my joy. With almost 4k life and 5 socket totems with a 330 ele dps bow sadly I feel very weak and struggle on simple mid tier maps if they are even mildly challenging.

If the bosses do more than average damage the totems have very short uptime, making you a sitting duck or should I say aimlessly panicking duck, avoiding damage and trying to keep totems up. Far from the "stress-free" experience I was hoping for.

And before you say the totem gameplay just isn't for me, I've tried almost every totem build (ancestral warchief, spell totem etc) and I was excited for yet another one but big flop for me.

Ballista Support gem seems to be too weak..

40% less dmg & 50% less speed.... hard to cover the dps gap.

IMHO, GGG should redesign this gem.

I am trying to swap BS --》GMP for clearing map

I hope it's OK if I chime in again - for those who don't know, I got inspired by the old thread (non-ballista bow EH) and some uniques I had been wanting to try for a while, and I have stuck to that build.

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My progress report with (my version of) that build:
I have meanwhile made it through the Uber Lab (on the first attempt, yay!) and rearranged the skilltree to its final form. Level 87 and rebuilding my Atlas progression right now - the highest I tried before was Tier 8, and it was really stressfree.

Despite the slight nerf, EH "self-shot" seems to be pretty much as viable as before; I have definitely seen some increased freeze/shock/burn effects. Freezing bosses for even half a second can be very valuable, especially for an evasion-based character.

DPS calculation seems to have changed a lot, though. I have switched to Death's Harp for the time being - attacks a bit slower and displays slightly lower tooltip DPS than The Tempest, but feels better because the additional arrow helps with clear and the high crit chance (+ lower ailment threshold) is good against hard single enemies (map bosses, syndicate, etc), especially in combination with a crit flask.
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I decided to skip the ballista change because totems isn't really my preferred play style, but tbh I had some doubts as well.

Running a curse aura is fine when you get relatively close - for example if you play bow with Point Blank. However, with totems, doesn't it make more sense - figuratively speaking - to put a totem in the door and stand back, using a defensive aura (and maybe manual cursing) instead?

Besides, I think Assassin's Mark makes less sense when your totems do the work because the life/mana gain does not benefit you, or is it really enough to keep the totems up and prevent them from getting destroyed too soon? Especially since they attack rather slowly, thus not triggering the life/mana regain and chance to get a power charge all too often, or does that work better than I imagine?

Anyway, since those ballistas seem to be pretty weak, I also wonder whether it would make sense to use them as a utility rather than for DPS? For example, how about the following strategy:
- You use Burning Arrow ballistas to trigger EE and make enemies vulnerable to cold
- You add Curse on Hit to apply a Frostbite curse to enemies
- You add Blind Support to blind them
...and then you happily DPS yourself with Ice Shot against enemies that are blinded and extremely vulnerable to cold?
Something like that. Of course, that's no longer a 1-click build. :/ It could be tried out using largely the same skilltree, though - only a bow that does some good physical DPS might be better.


Myself, I'm currently pondering using the good old Siege Ballista instead. I noticed you can now put up several of these as well, and they do 100-145% of base damage, so that might help.

Hey :)

I'm using your build to test ballistas, what's your opinion about this node?




As feedback, the build feels slow (and squishy). I've been using rain of arrows and eventually scourge arrow to clear faster. Deadeye really helps, and ofc if you rush the ranger nodes you'll cover for it a bit but end up a bit more squishy. If you have good gear to level, it isn't that much of a problem... I was playing "kinda" ssf till maps, probably the worst decision of my life.

All that said, the build is okay, the totem was overnerfed considering mobs got a buff and it's not anybody's fault except GGG's (nice bow league, lulz)

Thanks!

I've played using this guide through this league, hit my wanted 24 challenge (and tier 13 maps, lev 87) now I'm done, a few words.
I swapped to ele hit after cruel lab as it was completely pointless before that, it was really fun to play afterwards, I melted everything till tier 10 maps, problems came after tier 10 bcuz metamorphs and bosses were dying way too slow. This build really falls off late game (or maybe it simply requires much more currency to shine, my gear was max 1.5 ex, didnt want to spend more). In my opinion ballista totem support gem is way too underpowered and it really need a buff, my ballistas also sometimes were destroyed faster than I can put them (way too low hp on ballistas), trash packs died instantly, bosses - not really tho I completely destroyed conquerors (at least till red tier where it was taking too long to my taste). I had like 5k hp 55% evasion 45% dodge 30% spell dodge + sand stance gem for blind and it was enough most of the time, otherwise I'd get one shot anyway ^^. Blood rage was useless as we do not leech, clarity not needed if we get like 50% mana regen on ring or smthing, assassins mark was questionable, we dont kill and dont rly get charges, my ele hit was at 74% crit chance anyway. Gameplay was mostly running clockwise around the boss putting ballistas, sometimes dying to metamorph ground dot. tldr overall fun, but don't think its reliable enough to carry into tier +16.
//if someone is struggling I recommend to try out self cast frost wall (it can block projectiles) and frost bomb (reduces monster hp regen, extremely useful for metamorphs and essence monsters).

Cwdt isn't linkable with summon ice golem nor blood rage...

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Katalaeia wrote:

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Aeris85 wrote:

Is the ingame DPS info that reliable though? I already read quite often that the ingame stat doesn't take aaaaall effects into account, and can thus skew the result.

I honestly don't know. It might be worth trying a bit with each weapon and seeing which feels better. If you're right and the stats don't count some things, I could be going about my own setup entirely wrong, so it's food for thought for me as well.

I've got a couple "crafting starter" bows in my stash but nothing with really great rolls yet. Next time I find a good one I'll swap it and see how it compares. In low tier Maps at least, my current bow still shreds trash packs easily. My hangup is bosses with their large HP buffs - they take forever and a day to go down, even with having a boatload of attack speed on my Ballistas.

Hey Katalaeia!

The ToolTip is kinda valuable for us, but not something to marry to. For example, the tooltip doesn't tell you which element it's hitting with, it doesn't take into account if the enemy is shocked, frozen, or burning...I wouldn't focus too much on it. Look for bows with crit chance and damage, attack speed, and elemental damage. If you have multiple bows that seem the same, prioritize Crits, then Attack Speed, then Elemental Damage.

Ya, this build doesn't hit bosses very hard. Survivability is good but bosses are tough. This build is dependant on a good weapon to kill bosses quickly. I'll be updating that info in the guide in time now that I've hit maps and am seeing what the build is like.

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Aeris85 wrote:

@Katalaeia: Kk, I see.
It's great to think out loud with you guys!

@all: Besides the Elemental Hit that is linked to Ballista Support, I also have a standalone Elemental Hit that I fire myself, and is JUST linked to Faster Attacks Support. Should it actually worry me that my own EH is sometimes as strong as the 4x Ballista version?

Every now and then, when there is just a pack of 4-5-6 enemies, I shoot with the EH on my own, and I insta kill all of them with 1 shot.
Shouldn't this be much weaker than the Ballista version that is buffed by EDWAS + Crit Chance + Crit Damage??

EDIT: 2 hours later: Forget what I said. It is true for said 4-5-6 enemies, but just normal ones. As soon as they are bosses or champions, my own EH doesn't get me anywhere, and only the Ballistas can take them down.

Hey Aeris85!

Don't worry, we're not the only ones who are unimpressed with EH and Ballista Totem Support's damage output on bosses. I expect a future league to improve this slightly, but GGG has also put a motion forward to make the game harder. I'm sure there will be a good balance in time. Until then, it just means that this build is quite dependant on a good bow until then.

I'll be sticking with Ballista's though as it makes aiming SOOOO easy for me. It is kinda lame that the build only deals more damage to a boss with 4 totems instead of 3 (compared to firing EH on our own).