[1.3]Super-budget Explosive Arrow Duelist. Do high level maps with "trash" uniques.

For a bit of proof to back up my claim, here's Lady Stormflay dead at my feet in a level 76 Precinct map -max and + monster damage. She hit pretty hard.



I've also successfully killed Megara and Jungle Valley boss with vuln mod. This is *without* just zerging the boss room. This build is very HC viable, but requires a very active play style. Due to the fact that EA doesn't constantly hit the enemy, you can't really rely on life leech or LGOH to keep your health up. This build uses blink arrow, durability from MoM keystone, Cloak of Flame, Arctic Armor, self-cast IC, a bit of life regen, and pure guts and tenacity to survive. This is *not* a build for you if you like to just sit and hit monsters.



Heatshiver is used to give +gems to Explosive arrow and all of its supports while still enabling the use of Quillrain for its extreme attack speed. Cloak of Flame + Arctic armor means that you take 20% less physical damage against all but the hardest attacks, then MoM on top of it is another 30% less damage as long as you have mana available. Because the build (as you will see) doesn't have EB, mana regen on gear is extremely important, another reason to use Heatshiver, despite its usual "vendor trash" status.

The build *can* run a 40% aura with clarity, but it's generally better to keep a large amount of unreserved mana. Atziri's foible is extremely useful while leveling, and also is a very good source of mana and regen. When I hit 90 and have a bit more mana from the tree I'll probably swap it for a rare with >60 mana and regen. It's possible to use Lightning Coil instead of CoF, but I didn't like the loss of mana from running PoL. The belt was just a very lucky corrupt. I was using another rare belt before I made this one.

The most expensive part of the build, and this is *key* to being able to run it on a 4l, is to have a decent quality Explosive Arrow and Increased Burning Damage. I think I picked up like a 14q EA and Increased Burn for about 5c each.

Cloak of Flame benefits the build in multiple ways. In addition to the above stated durability increase, it also gives +10% ignite and burn duration. These two qualities increase the clear speed of EA quite a bit, as proliferating circles on the ground will stick around a lot longer, and more of them will be created.

Skill Tree

Duelist is really the only efficient starting class for this build. The two frenzy nodes getting to MoM are essentially wasted points, as this build doesn't really leech or regenerate fast enough to make using blood rage viable, though the frenzy charges would be quite beneficial. Another option is to use blood dance, but I already lose enough life from using uniques so I just don't see it as being very beneficial. I might give them a try if I get my resists up from other gear.

RT is key. Being able to lay down *exactly* 4-5 explosive arrows and then blink arrow away is super important to surviving long enough for everything to melt. It also enables you to do away with accuracy on your gear and passive tree entirely. In addition it's required for the build to be "hardcore viable" because it prevents you from getting that "lucky" crit on a reflect mob that could one-shot your character. With AA and max fire res you are "reflect safe" but I think running a reflect map would be risky. I might have to try it though, as I think it could be possible with careful flask management.



That's the gist of it. For flasks I run one insta-heal, 2 hybrids, a granite and a quicksilver. I got super, super lucky and found a divination distillate on drop, but it's not required for the build by any means.

Says your video is private?

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PM5K wrote:

Says your video is private?

Fixed!

I'm not actively playing right now but this is just awesome to see.
I love cheap efficient builds like these, kudos!

Why not use geofri's crest? Or would that not be budget enough?

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Why not use geofri's crest? Or would that not be budget enough?

If you watch the gameplay videos you see that my mana actually takes a significant hit when I take damage. Honestly without EB you just need every drop of mana regen. Geofri's Crest doesn't have life anyways, the ES doesn't really do anything for me, and the only thing I'm missing out on is +1 empower, when I think that my 4l is pretty ideal anyways.

Plus, nobody uses heatshiver, and I like finding uses for weird shit.

Why not replace a quiver with a cold/lightning dmg one and spec into EE? That'll greatly improve clear speed for no cost, and EE also doesnt lose effectiveness against bosses, unlike curses. That Merveil fight would've been several times faster in the beyond necro vid.

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horse_with_3_mountains wrote:

Why not replace a quiver with a cold/lightning dmg one and spec into EE? That'll greatly improve clear speed for no cost, and EE also doesnt lose effectiveness against bosses, unlike curses. That Merveil fight would've been several times faster in the beyond necro vid.

I have a quiver with cold damage on it that I use for EE maps, but TBH it just helps with single-target.

For clear speed, if the initial explosion doesn't one-shot the group of mobs, then they take less burn damage, which means a lower prolif.

You have 3% chaos res, none of your listed equips/passive got chaos res and still most of your gear is verified? Did you change your boots or something else when you took that print? Nice build btw, pretty impressive to run MOA and high level AA without EB.