[3.4] Apathae's Scourge Arrow Elementalist

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Intro
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Yo

This will be a bit more concise compared to the other builds I've posted in the past so any veteran player can just check out the PoB link and get the gist of what this build entails. For everyone else I'll try to give a bit of explanation about item choices and interactions.

POB LINK: https://pastebin.com/WgtFdTwg

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I don't really have a nicely packaged gameplay video at the moment but in the mean time you can check out a VOD from my twitch stream portraying a full throttle mediocre softcore experience.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/307808175

And here's the Atziri fight clipped from the previous VOD

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/308931100

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So you're probably asking "Why on earth are you using scourge arrow? That's a chaos skill, it has no synergy with elementalist whatsoever!"

Well that's almost entirely true except for one thing. Scourge arrow grants 150% more damage with ailments per stage that the the arrow is channeled up to five. This equates to 750% more ailment damage at full draw.

But what about the conversion? Well, conversion on a skill like that applies to physical damage; in this build we're utilizing Hopeshredder which does predominantly cold damage and therefore ignores the conversion allowing us to ignite using the interaction with Hrimburn gloves or during the appropriate conflux.


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Skill Tree
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The skill tree utilizes the new changes this patch that allows us to use minion damage scaling in conjunction with traditional fire and in this case cold/lit scaling to further boost the ignite.

The CAREFUL PLANNING jewel grants us the appropriate amount of dexterity to use the bow without relying heavily on specific rare items.

The FIREBORN jewel in the Witch area allows us to scale fire damage from the lightning damage wheel and more importantly also scale our shock effect. Elementalist ascendancy makes the application of shock apply at a baseline of 20% and any effect will scale off of that thereby making our ignite more powerful. Any source of shock effect or effect of non damage ailments are more than welcome as a mere 10% in our chase will grants use an additional 2% damage taken.

The tree is somewhat flexible given the nature of the minion nodes and having them apply to you. The extra socket can be filled with a jewel of your choice and there are a lot of modifiers you can search for that would affect the build be it minion damage/attack speed, bow attack speed, fire damage, cold damage, burning damage, added cold to bows etc. There are also a few sockets within 3 points if one would prefer to go that route; in some cases a powerful jewel can outweigh some basic passive scaling the tree provides; but they're not always easily obtainable.

One could also modify the build to utilize mind over matter if it's preferred over the setup I've provided, simply take a few more mana passives and forego running grace to free up your mana pool.

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Keystones
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Elemental Overload - Fairly straightforward; if you score a critical strike your elemental damage is boosted by 40%. Our crit chance isn't great but scourge arrow hits a lot of enemies and the uptime in my experience has been pretty good.

Elemental Equilibrium - For ignite; resistance reduction is preferred over resistance penetration. The bow does cold damage thereby reducing fire resistance; thereby making the ignite better.

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Itemization
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- Weapon - Hopeshredder

This weapon has a bit of history of being difficult to use due to the drawback it has. This patch it was recently buffed with the added attack speed and reduced penalty. As far as unique cold damage bows go this weapon is unrivaled. Nuro's harp is an option but does less damage and is much slower to use. While attack speed may not scale the ignite; the draw speed is pure quality of life and makes mapping feel much better.

In regards to frenzy scaling; this build does not take any additional frenzy charges; you could in theory corrupt the Hrimburns for an additional charge to boost the build but be prepared to endure an additional 50 cold damage while moving (at 75% cold resistance). I can attest that at 3 charges even while running blood rage; the degen is barely noticeable and stops as soon as you stop to draw an arrow anyway.

- Quiver - Drillneck

So I've just been using a Drillneck; it grants 50% ailment damage to pierced targets which scourge arrow does very well. POB claims a Voidfletcher is strong contender due to the large amount of added cold damage but I have not tried it personally. Alternatively if you need to make up resistance or get more life; a rare quiver would definitely fit the bill.

- Chest Armor - Belly of the Beast / Kaom's Heart / Rare

The usual suspects are here; the more life the better; if your bow is 6 linked then Kaom's heart is ideal, but belly can be good too and grants some resistances.

(Regarding Inpulsa's Broken Heart)

Inpulsa's; like headhunter is a fun unique but comes with the stigma of being a crutch item that makes bad builds look better.

Can you use it? Yes... it's an elementalist build; the main selling point being the additional shock effect. Bear in mind though that a full charge shot from this build ignites and kills enemies upwards of a screen and a half away. The on death effect isn't necessary at all.

- Gloves - Hrimburn

Hrimburn are the upgrated version of Hrimsorrow; they convert half of your physical damage to cold damage but more importantly allow cold damage to be used in the calculation for igniting enemies.

- Helmet - Starkonja's Head / Rare

Starkonja's, like a belly is just an all around solid unique providing life, a bit of attack speed and decent evasion. In our case the dexterity is important for allowing us to equip our bow. A well rolled rare with a dex roll albeit the helm or even in another slot could potentially allow you to replace this but for something good with far less hassle; this helmet is hard to beat.

- Boots - Rare with movespeed, life, resistances

Use this slot to help fill out your resistances and improve your life total. Movespeed is a very coveted stat in this game for making map clearing feel better.

- Belt - Dyadian Dawn

This belt is amazing. Grants two high resistances; an life roll and causes enemies to burn faster which is effectively an ignite multiplier. The no physical damage mod doesn't affect us as we don't do any physical damage anyway.

- Amulet - Xoph's Heart / Rare

For my current character I'm using a basic rare amulet with life and resistances. In Delve league currently; Xoph's heart is a very expensive item. While not required to make the build work the ash proc will boost your ignite damage. So those who get a lucky drop or can afford it can utilize it. I want to emphasize you want Xoph's HEART not Xoph's BLOOD (as in the not upgraded version) as xoph's blood grants your character avatar of fire which would cripple this build.

- Rings - Emberwake / Rare

Emberwake while slowing the ignite down by a percentage allows us to apply two of them which under ideal conditions is more damage overall. Generally I've had pretty good success utilizing this ring by you may consider trying the build with and without it to see what works for you.

As for your other ring slot. Any good rare with life, resistances, (I think you get the idea).

- Unique Jewels - Careful Planning / Fireborn

As noted in the skill tree seciton; this build utilizes careful planning to grant us enough dexterity to equip our bow; and the fireborn allows us to scale the lightning damage wheel in witch's area to provide fire damage in conjunction with increased shock effect.

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Gameplay
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Run around; fire a charge shot into a pack; watch the entire screen light on fire. Use frenzy to curse heavier targets or to refresh your frenzy charges if blood rage if slacking off.

For bosses, use your scorching ray totem and hit him/her with charge shots.

With the changes to Flame Dash, the range is really good and I prefer it over blink arrow as you can use it multiple times as apposed to one blink arrow followed by a cooldown.

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Leveling
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For leveling; I just used fireball and swapped to incinerate when I got it. You can travel out through the spell damage nodes initially and just spec out of them later. Grab life, and fire damage scaling as it becomes necessary. Grab Elemental Overload as soon as possible and forego Elemental Equilibrium until you transition to the bow spec.

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The End
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If I think of more information or have some response to some questions I can try to add them. In retrospect; I guess this wasn't as concise as I planned at the start.

If you decide to try the build out; hopefully you enjoy it!

I always reserve the first reply on these threads and never have any real reason to do so. So here's going with tradition.

hi Mate,

I am going on something similar , but with a SCion ,

I wanted to known how is going your build ???

Thanks

Can we get a screen on your tooltip, or screen from PoB full config (shaper, shocked etc...)