3.23 EXPLOSIVE ARROW BALLISTA ELEMENTALIST - League-Start to End-Game. Easy mode.

"

Zuuule wrote:

Spoiler

"

Sanctified Relic! rolls 8 - 12% mana reservation efficiency, and i've added Ancestral Bond via invocation to it. with this, i could drop the small cluster of mana reservation with Mortifying Aspect (malevolence reservation efficiency), and that means free passives plus a jewel socket.

[edit] in case it's more illustrative, here's the breakdown on POB:

I see now, and that sanctified relic is account bound so I would have to find one myself. Fat chance of that happening.
I'm thinking of saving up for an Impossible Escape Jewel (precise technique) but man they are expensive.
Anointing watchtowers does seem like a better move and just path to hired killer, so I'm thinking of doing that as well.
Empower instead of ignite prolif seems way better (way more expensive as well) as well, just need to get the glove implicit.

without efficiency on relic, you can get the same by running a small 2-passive malevolence cluster, and you can drop grace efficiency instead. i was just greedy for the free socket so i can get a jewel in.

the price of precise technique impossible escape has been decreasing. it was 20d around 10 days ago? you can probably wait for a couple more days while upgrading other items to see if it drops to 10d.

if you have an hour to test something, try playing without pathing to hired killer and see if you find it comfortable. 4 passive points (with 2 points going into 10 dex each) feels quite wasteful. initially i thought this QoL was too good to pass up (it was recommended on maxroll), but after i dropped it, i barely felt any difference and the extra passives went a long way instead.

"

limevan wrote:

"

Zuuule wrote:

Spoiler

"

Sanctified Relic! rolls 8 - 12% mana reservation efficiency, and i've added Ancestral Bond via invocation to it. with this, i could drop the small cluster of mana reservation with Mortifying Aspect (malevolence reservation efficiency), and that means free passives plus a jewel socket.

[edit] in case it's more illustrative, here's the breakdown on POB:

I see now, and that sanctified relic is account bound so I would have to find one myself. Fat chance of that happening.
I'm thinking of saving up for an Impossible Escape Jewel (precise technique) but man they are expensive.
Anointing watchtowers does seem like a better move and just path to hired killer, so I'm thinking of doing that as well.
Empower instead of ignite prolif seems way better (way more expensive as well) as well, just need to get the glove implicit.

without efficiency on relic, you can get the same by running a small 2-passive malevolence cluster, and you can drop grace efficiency instead. i was just greedy for the free socket so i can get a jewel in.

the price of precise technique impossible escape has been decreasing. it was 20d around 10 days ago? you can probably wait for a couple more days while upgrading other items to see if it drops to 10d.

if you have an hour to test something, try playing without pathing to hired killer and see if you find it comfortable. 4 passive points (with 2 points going into 10 dex each) feels quite wasteful. initially i thought this QoL was too good to pass up (it was recommended on maxroll), but after i dropped it, i barely felt any difference and the extra passives went a long way instead.

I'm for sure going to do that. I hope you don't mind but i looked up your character on poeninja and snagged the POB. I'm currently playing around with my own PoB based on some of the tree pathing you have. If I get that small cluster jewel with malevolence reservation I can drop all the mods on my gear that pertain to that and focus on others.
My next step will be to reanoint my amulet with Watchtowers and see how mapping feels without hired killer.
I also hate to lose BoE for Shaper of storms simply because of the immunity to ele reflect. Its nice not having to worry about that map mod at all.

my pob changes all the time because i like testing different loadouts, so just be aware of that ^ . ^

for example, a lot of my pathing on the duelist wheel is based on lethal prides that i'm using. looks like there're quite a few to mess around with, but the current one i'm trying is with 2 x ignite faster, 2 x burning and 1 x max life.

regarding bastion of elements, the only thing that hurts is losing the elemental aegis. my thinking was the same as you at first, and i thought it won't be sustainable without reflect immunity. with ancestral bond, we can't even hurt ourselves with reflect even if we wanted. as for the totems, they are fine tanking their own damage from arrows (fuses), but they seem to die from the explosion when the fuse triggers after stacking. this is totally fine, since we're usually done and ready to move off after popping each pack. this is one of the things i love about this build, it really doesn't care about map mods (unless you stack wandering path with monsters avoid ele ailment, then that's just asking for it).

again, id' say that it's something you can try out if you want to see you like it. free damage from being able to shock is great, and it gives us an extra mod (increase effect of non-damaging ailments) to look for when it comes to DPS. getting 35% increased damage taken is almost like wearing 2 more polaric devastation's ash effect.



[edit] this calculation is before applying flammability, which adds 39 reduction to the base resistances, and the whole thing gets multiplied by shock, surveillance and ash. i don't add flammability or flame surge to my ignite dps calculations because i hardly get the time to have the arcanist brand attach and cast their payload. this is my simulation of how guards take damage in sanctums. if you're doing content with tougher mobs, then shock gets even more mileage because it multiplies to a bigger "base resistance".

Thanks for all the great information. I did see that much of the pathing you have at the bottom of the tree is due to the timeless jewel. My big takeaway was how to get the 5 auras without having to rely on gear. The small cluster solves all that. And since I'm going to have extra points to spend once i anoint watchtowers it should be easy peasy

best unique flask for the build? bottled faith? cinderswallow? dying sun? or none of them are very useful? on poeninja not many of the top builds have a unique flask

"

Lyutsifer665 wrote:

best unique flask for the build? bottled faith? cinderswallow? dying sun? or none of them are very useful? on poeninja not many of the top builds have a unique flask

sorting by descending popularity from a small filtered poeninja search:

Atziri's Promise (10c for 8% roll): great base with 35% chaos res. here, the "Gain (5-8)% of Elemental Damage as Extra Chaos Damage" is great since all our damage is elemental. slightly weaker than Bottled Faith when it comes to overall damage output, but a good balance if we're looking for value-for-money and to improve chaos res.

Starlight Chalice: useless base. exposure isn't really useful since we're applying it ourselves, and while the "30% Effect of Non-Damaging Ailments you inflict" helps improve shock, it doesn't seem to be able to pull its weight hogging a flask slot. based on poeninja, this was used by a lot of players a couple of weeks ago, and there's still more than a quarter of the players using it now. i'm probably missing the point of why they were using it.

Cinderswallow Urn: probably great for ignite builds where the player does the igniting, since it's got "Enemies Ignited by you during Effect take (7-10)% increased Damage". our totems do the igniting, so we can't benefit from this. we don't have any way of consuming corpses (unless devouring diadem, cwdt+offering?) so flask refill mod doesn't work for us either. onslaught base isn't great too, since we're permanently getting onslaught from cluster jewels. the only useful part of this is how we can get the "Hired Killer" effect from "Recover (1-3)% of Life when you Kill an Enemy during Effect". None of the veiled mods are particularly useful.

Bottled Faith (~3d for 10% roll): usually used by crit-based builds so in our case, the only really useful stat is the "(7-10)% increased Damage taken", and it goes in the same pool as other sources of "increased Damage taken". the flask's base 40% increased damage is nice, and so are the effects of consecrated ground for us (life regen, curse effect).

Dying Sun: +2 projectiles works like rain of splinters, but without the reduced totem damage. less fire damage taken can be useful when paired with phys taken as fire (helm mod, watcher's eye with purity of elements). pretty good choice and inexpensive.

Progenesis: good chaos res base. the petrified blood effect is nifty for toughness and can be scaled with other recoups like in stasis prison.

Oriath's End: our ignite prolif is pretty strong by itself, so the explode loses a lot of value. the flask base isn't too useful given how we're mostly res capped at if we're considering unique flasks.


i suppose a lot of focus on damage output in on our gear, and in this case, flasks are mainly to supplement our toughness. this could be why not a lot of players opt for unique flasks.

thanks for the detailed explanation. i went for atziris promise for now.

OK, I've finally got my mana in shape that I can run a 4th aura (been using precision, grace and determination). I added defiance banner, to boost my survivability. However, for some reason, it seems to make no difference to my armor or evasion. It's supposed to be 20% increase, but the defense numbers don't seem to change. What am I doing wrong?

If it helps, my pob: https://pastebin.com/4fVEky08

Any advice on improving survivability would be great. I know I need to add some life to my gear, but all other suggestions appreciated.

Hello :)

Sorry to make this reply but I had a question.

Already I am a rather novice player.

I'm currently doing the Explosing arrow ballista build as an elementalist and I'm level 84 and my name is BowSheny and I really enjoy this gameplay.

I currently have a small problem, I'm level 84 and I have very little drop of currency (the equivalent of 1 divine I would say and some chaos) and I'm having a lot of trouble tanking above the t10-t11 maps.

If you have any advice on how to better stuff me or how to tank better, I'm all ears!

I'm currently following this pob: https://pastebin.com/Hjx7gy5V (sorry if you can't click on the links) this is the build with a watcher's eye, unnatural instinct and with lots of equipment that is quite expensive. so i tried to find gear for cheap but i have a tank and mana problem. If you could enlighten me that would be really cool! (and I have an enlighten level 2 20% with 96% mana)

Sorry for my English but I only learned the basics in class ^^.

Thank you again for directing me on what I could do! thank you !

My character : https://poe-profile.info/profile/trashpacore/BowSheny?realm=pc

"

Averil62 wrote:

OK, I've finally got my mana in shape that I can run a 4th aura (been using precision, grace and determination). I added defiance banner, to boost my survivability. However, for some reason, it seems to make no difference to my armor or evasion. It's supposed to be 20% increase, but the defense numbers don't seem to change. What am I doing wrong?

If it helps, my pob: https://pastebin.com/4fVEky08

Any advice on improving survivability would be great. I know I need to add some life to my gear, but all other suggestions appreciated.

the pob you've given has another set of auras in a 6-link that is stronger than the lvl 18 defiance banner that you're checking against, so there won't be any increase if you enabled the latter. i assume you imported that elsewhere, so i went to fetch your current POB instead.



this is what you get if you enabled the lvl 18 DB that you're currently equipped with.