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

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limevan wrote:

Before looking at your POB, can you tell us what your issues or goals are? More tankiness? Damage?

To start, thank you for your reply! Your comments are so well-written and concise. Seems like trying to work in Malevolence is the next goal.

Up to this point, I've mostly been running alc/corrupted T16s for currency with eldritch altars...trying not to die but have been struggling with that a bit and it's definitely slowed down leveling (hopefully going to hit 95 today). Beyond maps, I'd like to really just beat as much of the boss content as possible. I'm not going for all of the challenges or anything like that. Tankiness may be my first focus, assuming that helps with bossing.

(former) Silent reader here, amazing build, great to play with a controller (rip hand tendons).

After crushing pinacle bosses, been min maxing, and realized that my survivability on rippy juiced maps and simulacrums sucked, so I started to look more into that (after only caring about DPS).

Question: Is there a measure to check your survivability in POB?

I've been loking at the "Effective Hit Pool" (calling it EHP) in POB and realized that Armour gives waaaay more EHP than Evasion. This is interesting looking into flasks (till now i've been using Jade Flasks and "Increase Evasion" modifiers instead of armour ones) since these give similar flat amounts of Armour or Evasion. Aditionally, the Iron Reflexes Keystone gives me a HUGE boost into the EHP in POB.

Question: Is the "Effective Hit Pool" stat in POB so important?

I also been considering fitting "Purity of Elements" aura for mapping (for the elemental ailments inmunity).

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VigorDracul wrote:

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Yeap, got it.

How much aspd do you guys get?

I got 2.5 and I dont think I can get much more than that.

You only have one attack speed mod on your quiver (should/could be two), you dont have attack speed on your helmet (need blizzard crown or alike), you dont have attack speed on your watchers eye and low rolls on your other jewels. You could put attack speed as second mod on one of your utility flasks.

All in all I have 3.02 atm. https://pastebin.com/FaxBt4r3

With "Attack speed if you killed recently" (boot enchant) it goes up to 3.13. Another option is the sanctified relic. With my current +14% AS its up to 3.26 AS (+15% AS would be max)

"action speed" implicit on boots doesnt seem to be recognized by PoB (or I am too stupid to find it)

Actually I have ASPD in helmet, EA lab enchant +15%.

I feel like I would loose a lot of mitigation if I invest too much in ASPD, I already feel squishy now.

Whats is your EHP ?

My new today craft for max dmg EA BOW (3x OP dmg implicit)... easy boss killer :)

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Zuuule wrote:

This has been the most complicated build I've played when it comes to calculating damage.
I found the following youtube video that has a link to a google doc that claims to be super accurate in calculating EA damage...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaI7AK2tc_Y

Have you seen this? The guy in the video explains how he came up with it. It may be helpful to those of us using POB and have problems getting the damage correct.

Don't over complicate it. That video drastically overcomplicates things.

DPS is simple... Use POB and simply enter in your total fuses.

Fuses is simply calculated as:
AttackRate * number of Totems * Hitchance * increased duration

Eg 2.5 * 6 * 100% * 1.35 = 20 fuses

Regarding th ignite cap of 36million DPS, note that the cap is different on tj level of boss. So for example, a historical DPS of 180million shaper DPS is roughly the equivalent of a 36million Pinnacle Shaper DPS.

Always make sure you have Pinnacle Boss selected in your POB to ensure you are REALLY at the cap.

i've been running a variant that:
> focuses on ignite capping monsters
> attacks very rapidly (2.92 before boots enchant) and compensates for fidgety monsters (quick projectiles, multiple projectiles)
> has low reliance on skill effect duration (no need to wait for >1.5s for explosions)

the purpose of this variant is to speed through maps and sanctums extremely quickly, while still having a bunch of buffs to tackle stronger content.


backup skills that are i haven't included here:
> convergence
> flammability
> flame surge

with these backup resources available, this is a potent bosser as well. in fact, farming "the feared" invitations is much faster with the 250%+ movement speed (esp. shaper's 4-way miniboss and mob run).


the toughness is plenty sufficient (though chaos res is at a negative 30%):
> 3.9k life
> 32k armour, 56k evasion, 100% suppress, 76% ele res


i've started the league trying to make a tanky character, but i realised that most of the content that stretches our eHP (super juiced farming, simulacra, etc.) isn't that lucrative at all. a bunch of such content calls for extensive trading and lucky drops to compensate (but i'm sure a lot of us enjoy such playstyles as well).

in my case, i started putting more time into speed mapping and sanctum runs. this turned out to be a real moneymaker -- sanctums were just pooping out raw currency. i thought i'd invest some of the returns back into the build and got a mageblood early so i can spam even more sanctums quickly. this turned out well, since the added movement speed lets me do a lot more in the short sessions i get to play.


to further streamline the build, i have prioritised attack speed and quick kills (no time for brands, traps) while working on getting all ignites to be close to the DoT cap. working in Rain of Splinters means that even when guards dodge and roll, they are still likely to get clipped by the spray of explosive arrows, especially with this attack rate. same thing extends to boss invitations too -- dashing and teleporting bosses in the feared still get carpeted.


this is my vision of a balance of damage, utility and toughness -- going nuts with 100M ignite DPS isn't helpful when it's capped at 35M, unless all you do is Uber Pinnacle Boss farming. also, having 75% chaos res is great, but being able to quickly dispatch monsters that pack a big punch of chaos damage is an alternative. running this variant while focusing on the low-prep, low-trade, solo playstyle of mapping+sanctum has been the most profitable method i've done.

POB: https://pastebin.com/ZqCdFeir (add relic for ancestral bond, and 11% mana reservation). i'm always open to questions, suggestions for improvements, or more PMs to play together.

With minimal investment you can go far with this build. Its very good and I'm surprised at just how far I've gone with a few decent bases and ess spams.

But its time to upgrade. I've only got 5 div so not much and have a LOT to change. Just need to make the right choice and don't want to overlook something that would cause a massive issue for future upgrades. I did that last time I played this build lol. Thanks in advance.

https://pastebin.com/NLFJbzD2

I fell so bad :C im 1 shoot for everyone.

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MacGyver85EL wrote:

Up to this point, I've mostly been running alc/corrupted T16s for currency with eldritch altars...trying not to die but have been struggling with that a bit and it's definitely slowed down leveling (hopefully going to hit 95 today). Beyond maps, I'd like to really just beat as much of the boss content as possible. I'm not going for all of the challenges or anything like that. Tankiness may be my first focus, assuming that helps with bossing.

Congrats on hitting 95! I noticed that you're now rocking a +1 amulet with 20% DoT multi. This will probably last you through the league. It looks like you've got enough tankiness to handle all content at this point -- you've got good life (4,550), decent evasion and armour, 100% suppression, capped res and positive chaos res. Depending on how high you want to get (levels, not intoxication), you can keep mapping with your current gear very comfortably. To avoid unexpected 1-shots, avoid "phys as extra element" on both map mods and altar. I did this to get to 100 with similar gear.

As for bossing, you have got enough in the toughness department, but damage is equally important here. Phasing bosses quickly is better than being able to jump through a few hoops alive but needing to flask a lot. We'll work on your damage in a bit.

You're leaving freeze immunity to your quicksilver flask, which is fine if you haven't been facing issues so far. However, if there's content that taxes you such that you don't get kills quickly enough to recharge your flasks, then there's a chance to get frozen. A couple of ways to look at this -- you can move over to Brine King for complete immunity, but lose out on a lot of great benefits of Arakaali (she's amazing against chaos and phys DoTs); or just get a little more damage to make sure everything falls over fast enough to keep your flasks permanently up.

Based on POB, you're currently on 17 fuses and when fully buffed, your ignite DPS is just south of 10M. Let's try to get both of these numbers up. I'll try to keep in mind that you're on PS and so there are limited trade options.

Burning Damage support. Is "Awakened Burning Damage support" available and affordable? Most awakened gems on PC are much cheaper than last time because there are crafts to switch gems and increase their levels now. At level 5, this gives you a free EA level.

Ignite Prolif. You're getting prolif on support gem, and I suppose it's because you value the attack speed implicit on gloves. Not a bad choice at this point since the support gem also gives 25% more damage, but once you have currency for an empower, you should look into replacing this and compromising on the implicit on gloves with prolif. If you have some gemcutters, get this to 20% qual for more damage.

Helmet Enchant. EA attack speed, EA damage, any aura reservation efficiency, flammability effect. Quite a large pool if you feel like running some labs (but not today's 9-room nightmare).

Shaper of Storms. When you feel like it, swap over to get shocks active. With Elemental Mastery passive, this is an instant >20% more damage.

Malevolence. You know this is coming. When you have enough currency to switch to a 6L chest plus at least enlighten3 and a cluster with Mortifying Aspect, you can incorporate this. It allows for 20 fuses since it extents your EA to 1.452s (starting to get quite sluggish, but ensures good DPS on bosses). Of course, the 20% more DoT is awesome as well. With Shaper of Storms and Malevolence, your DPS is nearly double that of your current.

Watcher's Eye. This is now a good option since you have both Precision and Malevolence active, but is more of a long shot since good ones can be costly. However, if you have a trade search active, you can keep an eye out on:
> (10-15)% increased Attack Speed while affected by Precision
> +(18-22)% to Damage over Time Multiplier while affected by Malevolence
> Damaging Ailments you inflict deal Damage (10-15)% faster while affected by Malevolence
Bleed and Poison immunities are also available, but they're probably not something we should waste on when it comes to watcher's eyes.

Lethal Pride. You've got a jewel sitting on Lethal Pride's spot. I'm not sure how common 5-way runs are in PS; but for PC, a lot of Lethal Prides get dumped into the market because of these. You can try for an affordable one (under 1d) with a bunch of burning damage and life. Those with faster ignites will cost more.

Flask orbs. You've got "Used when you Use a Guard skill" on Granite and Jade flasks, but these should be on all the time and hopefully before you need to tap your vMS. The convention is to go for "Used when Charges reach full", but if this setup is working fine for you, keep it.

Hey all,

Fairly new to POE and completely new to EA Ballista Elementalist. I'm having issues with Elemental Equilibrium not proccing. I feel like I've read every POE forum, reddit thread and watched every video. I still can't understand why EE isn't working or at least I think it isn't.

Why I don't feel like it's working:

1) I don't see a debuff icon on enemies at all. No exposure of any element. Am I supposed to be seeing a debuff on the enemies? Understand it may be flipping back and forth quickly, but I would think I would see a consistent debuff of some kind.

2) Went into the same "normal" map and dropped totems to test the time to kill. It was 14 seconds without added fire damage to attacks and 15 seconds with it. I feel like there would be a larger difference if I was missing exposure.

3) Removed all gear except my bow and a ring with added lightning damage to attacks and enemies were not debuffed with exposure.

4) Tried removing "Ancestral Bond" to see if I could trigger the exposure with "Frenzy" attacks that have added elemental damage and enemies were not debuffed with exposure.

This game is complex and I'm positive that I'm missing something simple, but I've been reading through threads and watching videos to no avail. Hoping I can get some help. I believe my profile is public, but happy to message/talk on discord if anybody is willing.