[2.4] Ballistopheles : 5 Poison Siege Ballistae Iron Commander [Atziri + Uzaro Farm + Guardians]
 Hi everyone ! I want to present you Ballistopheles, my current (and only) build in Essence League, using Siege Ballista skill. Like many other Siege Ballistae build, I use Iron Commander for a total of 5 ballistae (which is more than enough I think). I try to cumulate as much Projectile and Totem damage as possible for double dipping my poison which is already greatly improved by Assassin class, with crits. It is a bit like Kenzorz's build but with real Poison damage.
Pro/con
Pro: -Cheap (at least for the minimal req) -Fun as hell to play if you love totems -Very decent clean speed -Very good dps -Can do all mods Con: -Sometimes the ballistae dont shoot at bosses when the arena is very crowded
Ascendancy, Passive tree and bandits
I chosed Assassin for the crits and improving my poison damage + free culling. You want to get Noxious Strike and Toxic delivery first and then go for Ambush and Assassinate. My passive tree is here: Ballistopheles The idea is to go for Totemic Mastery, Totemic Zeal, King of the Hill and Lethaly and getting as much life and projectile damage as possible, also the socket for jewels are a good choice (you can get +16% totem damage, +12% proj damage and +7% life or add some caract or resistances). Since I play Evasion, I took Acrobatics for free dodge. You want to get 800 dex for 5 Ballistae, so you should pick up node with dex too. Dont fall in the trap by taking Fatal Toxin or Toxic Delivery, it's not worth it since it does not double dip ! For the bandits, I took Life, Passive and Passive.
Gems
The main skill is Siege ballista. You put them ahead of you and they kill everything in sight(and not in sight). For bosses, you just have to kite them putting ballistae around them. The setup is: Siege Ballista + Slower Projectile + Added Chaos + Faster Attack + Poison + Inc. Crit For 5L, I would suggest to get rid of Inc. Crit but a 6L armor can be buy "easily" (got mine for 120c). Sometimes you want mana, so I use (on my Iron Commander): Frenzy + Mana leech + GMP + Inc. Crit + Power charge on crit For some bosses, it is more efficient to use only 4 ballistae but place a Wither Spell Totem for debuff: Wither + Spell Totem + Faster Casting Together with a Projectile Weakness (increase damage taken that double dip multiplicatively with our more damage and increase damages wow !). I also use Grace for more ev and for high damage melee bosses an Enfeeble with Blasphemy. For more survivability, I use Frost Wall (the ballistae can fire through the wall). Finally, Blink Arrow + Faster Attack do the trick for movement.
Gear
You only need 3 uniques items for the build, the rest is up to you but you want to get life, cap res and got a lot of dex (you want 800 dex in total and you should aim for 5.5K life for minotaur. 4.5 is enough for Atziri (or just dont get touch by pizza blast). I have no idea for Uzaro since I never got touched by him). Iron Commander : You want one with 7.5% crit chances. You can get a bad one for the beginning but for end game you want a quasi-perfect roll for sure. Drillneck: With the initial 100% pierce chance of Siege Ballista, this is 100% inc proj damage which double dip ! Rain of splinters, this is free LMP. You should try to get one with 30-35 decrease damage and no more, but it can be a bit costly. For the Helmet, I find Starkonja real good and it's cheap. An enchant like mine is very good but not needed. Rare Gripped Gloves is very good too. I crafted mine using Essences. In Here is the remaining of my gears: Astramentis can be good, but I prefer a rare amulet for more damage and life and its cheaper if you are a bit lucky.
Leveling
Buy an Iron commander as soon as possible when you have the level req and use LMP until you can afford a Rain of Splinters. Then buy Drillneck. You can do everything with Siege Ballista from the begining. When you are rich enough, you should buy a 6L armor.
Maps
Almost all maps are trivial, except for some very difficult like Core with bad mods (twinned, shoked ground,...). Mineral Pool T14 Twinned Abyss T15
Atziri, Uber lab and other bosses
Atziri is really easy, as you can see: Video here (go to 5 min for Atziri) I have no idea for uber Atziri, never tried. Uber Izaro and uber lab is on farm too. I use a Devoto for max speed. You should be able to do 4 keys per run and Uzaro never touch you. I killed all 4 guardians (Phoenix is quick and trivial, Chimera you need to get a lot of flask and switch poison for Phys Proj Damage, Minotaur need to be a bit careful not to get one shot and Hydra is the most difficult one). Deathless Minotaur Hydra Last edited by Gregouar on Oct 26, 2016, 2:44:46 PM Last bumped on Apr 28, 2017, 6:47:36 AM
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" I think you mean faster attack. I just respec an older character to give it a go. I always wanted to try out siege ballista, your is the first that looks interesting to me. Let you know how it goes. Question, in your bow you have socketed a PPAD support gem, is it for bosses, and what does it replace? Thanks. |
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Same this looks good to me might try it out once it get all the 3 unique needed for this build
you need add more videos to attract more players What do you think of using Tabula temporarily [no budget] or should go 5link envasion chest? or a 5/6link Queen of forest? same as 6link high envasion How did you manage to get 800 dex? wow Last edited by popotm12 on Oct 22, 2016, 2:56:05 AM
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" Yeah Faster Attack, thanks ! I use it only for guardians immune to poison: Chimera and Hydra. " Ok I'll do that. I'll put some T15 when I'll got some. Sure Tabula is good until end game but you sure want to get some dex, life and res. Evasion is cool too. Queen of the forest isnt that good since it does not give dex. As you can see, I have dex in all my stuff (except for one ring but I managed to get my 800 dex anyway). You should aim for at least 35 dex in all slot to begin with. Then if you manage to keep 800 dex with jewel or other stuff, it's good. As a matter of fact, getting 800 dex isnt that difficult if you make some compromises. Some builds use 1200 dex and 7ballistae or more. But I prefer to have fewer ballistae that does more damage. Last edited by Gregouar on Oct 22, 2016, 3:47:51 PM
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Not sure I'm missing something but with drillneck shouldn't you take the pierce cluster?
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" Ballista always pierces the target by its own mechanics, you don't need the pierce nodes. | |
" Oooh, I was under the impression it would just further increase the damage! |
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I just added Twinned Abyss T15.
" Siege Ballista has 100% pierce chance and pierce chances are capped at 100%, so you cannot gain more damages with that. | |
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Deathless Minotaur Hydra But I failed the Shaper... I was too slow to clear the map after he teleported me and the arena began a vortex nightmare. I'll try again later when I'll have a new frag set. | |
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Can you tell us what the dps on the tooltip should be ?
And what auras can we use to increase the dps in case we don't want to run grace/arctic armor. Btw how in the hell can we craft an amulet like yours. Also if you can do a Math overview of the total dps that would be fun please <3. The Hardest thing I faced with this build is I don't know how to force the totems to attack a specific target and ignore the rest Ex : Malachi Hearts, Piety in Malachi fight ..etc I hope you can do that. Last edited by TheOnIyOne on Nov 6, 2016, 12:38:26 PM
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