1.2.0 Crit Bow Trapper Impression

Hello!

I wanted to share an impression of the build i started the new league with. Allthough a few things didnt come out as planned, i am more than pleased with the damage it can deal (especially to single targets) considering the minimal equipment used.

Since i am more of a casual player, the character is curently lvl 66 in rampage league.


Here is a video of it killing piety in merciless (7 secs)

If anyone is interested, i can post some more informations about the character as well as planned things and experiences i had building it.


Update:

To be honest, the character i made is not really HC viable. I currently dont use a cdwt immortal call setup yet. Neither do i use any piece of armor or lightning coil action. My current life is about 2.6k at lvl 67. So phys damage hurts a lot.
My primary goal was to see the damage potential with low gear investments thanks to point blank traps.

I can post some suggestions with a bit more life nodes in trade of for damage.





Gear and gems:



For leveling i used split arrow chain for AoE. I luckily corrupted a +1 arrow quiver at clvl ~64. That allowed me to swich to lightning arrow and also do some experiments with ice shots.

My current gem setup:


Planned Endgame Gem Setup


My current gear (lvl67 char):

updated, any thoughts?

Can you explain to me the benefits of using a bow/quiver for crit trapping over a dagger/shield or staff set up. I am currently trying to build a crit ice trapper with ice nova and cold snap on traps while using ball lightning to shock and curse. I am thinking about trying to dual curse so am looking to to use 5links in a bow/staff to run the gems. TY

Really liking the passive tree for shadow... specced a similar build myself, but your tree is optimized for fewer skill points than mine, so I think I'll switch sometime soon. Good stuff.

"

patricklightsmith wrote:

Can you explain to me the benefits of using a bow/quiver for crit trapping over a dagger/shield or staff set up. I am currently trying to build a crit ice trapper with ice nova and cold snap on traps while using ball lightning to shock and curse. I am thinking about trying to dual curse so am looking to to use 5links in a bow/staff to run the gems. TY

because im using bow skills linked to the trap support gem. No traditional traps or spell traps like you plan on doing.
In conjunction with the point blank keystone, the attacks hit the mobs always at point blank range resulting in a nice damage boost (not appearing in tooltip).

hint: for an easy 5l use the deerstalker boots im using.

"

hypernegus wrote:

Really liking the passive tree for shadow... specced a similar build myself, but your tree is optimized for fewer skill points than mine, so I think I'll switch sometime soon. Good stuff.

Ty, although i dont like the squishiness so far. trying to get a 5 or 6l lightning coil and dropping clarity for purity lightning.
With the curse on hit attack linked to culling strike, the mana gained on kill from assasins mark should be sufficient to keep up the mana. Right now im experimentening with inc duration - vaal clarity plus a hybrid flask and it works quite okay without non-vaal clarity running.

"

poe_volka wrote:

Ty, although i dont like the squishiness so far. trying to get a 5 or 6l lightning coil and dropping clarity for purity lightning.
With the curse on hit attack linked to culling strike, the mana gained on kill from assasins mark should be sufficient to keep up the mana. Right now im experimentening with inc duration - vaal clarity plus a hybrid flask and it works quite okay without non-vaal clarity running.

I'm playing on standard, so I probably have more freedom to try out different pieces of gear than you do. I made a guide somewhere on these shadow forums for my current spec (http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1033865) if you'd like to check it out.

You might want to consider dropping the 5L chest for a high eva chestplate. I'm using Queen of the Forest on my build, and with Grace I don't usually die from anything short of a boss. I even decided to swap out grace for hatred on low level maps. I'm running all 4L's and using rain of arrows without trap as a sustained dps skill.

I highly suggest you check out Chin Sol if you can get a hold of one, and taking point blank is a great way to increase your trap damage for a two point investment (as trap projectiles always get full point blank bonus). The 100% more damage at close range from Chin Sol and 50% from point blank will give you 300% more damage straight up on your traps.

"

hypernegus wrote:

"

poe_volka wrote:

Ty, although i dont like the squishiness so far. trying to get a 5 or 6l lightning coil and dropping clarity for purity lightning.
With the curse on hit attack linked to culling strike, the mana gained on kill from assasins mark should be sufficient to keep up the mana. Right now im experimentening with inc duration - vaal clarity plus a hybrid flask and it works quite okay without non-vaal clarity running.

I'm playing on standard, so I probably have more freedom to try out different pieces of gear than you do. I made a guide somewhere on these shadow forums for my current spec (http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1033865) if you'd like to check it out.

You might want to consider dropping the 5L chest for a high eva chestplate. I'm using Queen of the Forest on my build, and with Grace I don't usually die from anything short of a boss. I even decided to swap out grace for hatred on low level maps. I'm running all 4L's and using rain of arrows without trap as a sustained dps skill.

I highly suggest you check out Chin Sol if you can get a hold of one, and taking point blank is a great way to increase your trap damage for a two point investment (as trap projectiles always get full point blank bonus). The 100% more damage at close range from Chin Sol and 50% from point blank will give you 300% more damage straight up on your traps.

Im playing Rampage (so sc too) because i didnt know where the build would lead and wanted some freedom to experiment.

About Point Blank: of course! it is one of the core things in this build, i somehow forgot to spec into it in the posted link. But it was one of the first things i skilled when transitioning into using traps.

I was thinking about chin sol as well, but ultimately decided against it because i planned on going for a full crit build. I suppose a chin sol would be nice for a non crit build to add a free more multiplier to the traps.

For the armor: it was actually a 5l i got as a drop, so i used it. I have a 6s lightning coil in stash waiting to get 5/6l to replace my current armor. I also thought about swiching grace for hatred in easier maps for killspeed, but as of now, with my current gear i feel like its too important to drop.

Sustained DPS skill:
My lightning arrow chain curse on hit setup actually deals decent damage, even though the main burst comes from the trap LA/ice shot. Once i got it 6l with culling strike, ill manage to get more kills from the selfshot LA, thus getting more constant life/mana/power charge on kill from assasins mark.

My gameplay stlye usually goes like this:
place 2x LA/ice shot traps, shoot one curse on hit LA before traps go off, drop more traps. Use puncture on high life blues/rares/bosses. Generally the kill speed is very good considering my current gear, and bosses just melt from a crit puncture (see the 7sec piety video at clvl66)


EDIT:
After a quick look on your guide, the main difference between us seems to be that your main dps comes from selfshooting RoA.
My initial thought was to use exclusively traps, in order to factor out attack speed completely from the damage calculation as well as being immune to reflect thus getting all in on crit. When i found out that attacks linked to trap cant leverage on hit/on kill effects i decided to use one utlility attack without trap support. Initialy split/chain, but later LA/chain with +1 arrow quiver since it hits about as many targets as split chain with its AoE part plus not as many arrows travel as far as with split arrow -> higher synergy effect with Point Blank. With the high crit chance, it also adds a high chance to shock.

You might add multitrap to your ice shot/lightning arrow that will boost ur deeps by alot