[0.10.4b] Bow Marauder (The Shocker (tm)) [**TO BE UPDATED SOON 1.0.0**]

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tribeca76 wrote:

hi guys,

I just want to say that while this build is great it does not have to followed to a key to work. What VenatorPoE has provided us with is a great template to help create a elemental bow marauder. I can't thank VenatorPoE enough for that fact cause I have made fail build after fail build. Now I have something to work off of which has so far been not only my most fun character, but most successful.

Also I can't thank those who have offered insight into the build as well cause it truly has been a fun ride. Keep up the good work guys and the addition of ideas to this thread, as I feel this will be one of the go to builds for not only the vets out there but new players as well.

And I can't thank you enough for fully understanding what I am doing here!

Can you elaborate on why you chose to skip Chain/Fork? I was under the impression that's what makes the whole thing op in the first place (and my experience confirmed it).

Feel free to point me into the right direction (i.e. page number), if said elaboration is somewhere to be found in this thread already.

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Unimatrix wrote:

Can you elaborate on why you chose to skip Chain/Fork? I was under the impression that's what makes the whole thing op in the first place (and my experience confirmed it).

Feel free to point me into the right direction (i.e. page number), if said elaboration is somewhere to be found in this thread already.

Mmmm, I would rather elaborate fully for you; I don't think I can simply point you over to any post and say "that's it!". The whole conclusion is drawn from several sources and several players who reached a very high level (one guy I can refer to is MrPetrov himself; and damn I love his style). I personally tried using Chain, and the difference in clear speed I got was not enough to keep using it. Fork is less effective than Chain in general, so no need to mention it here.

In an ideal mathematical environment, where Chain reaches its peak power, you assume that every single projectile always hits a target, and has enough targets around it to chain to or deal AoE damage.

1 arrow = 100% damage
LMP addition (+2 projectiles, 30% less damage) = 100% * 3 * 0.7 = 210% damage
Chain addition (+2 projectiles, 30% less damage, 2 additional hits from Chain, 30% less damage LMP, 50% less damage Chain) = 100% * 3 * 3 * 0.7 * 0.5 = 315% damage

The other gems you would use in a 6L setup would be WED, Leech, FAttacks, each giving a straight out advantage to every arrow which scales without drawback, so they do not need to be included in the calculation. Would just create a mess.

However when you look at the actual mechanics of the game at work here... LA has an inbuilt chain function, and every arrow ends up dealing 400% of the tooltip DPS (dealing 100% damage to 4 close targets). With a high elemental damage build, if you want to control the damage output, Chain does not help. Shooting a Chained multiple projectile LA into an Elemental Reflect pack is often pure pain. So you intentionally drop the potential (notice the wording, Potential) 105% DPS increase, to get Purity, and reduce 20% more of the incoming damage. What this also means is that your initial multiple projectile LA will deal 100% instead of 50% damage per hit, so your clear speed will not really be as affected as it seems to be (especially at the high attack speed and pierce chance this build offers). Considering the pack size variety, dropping Chain still works effectively, and adds an additional layer of protection. Next, when you reach endgame, you cannot use Projectile Weakness with Chain - a projectile which pierces an enemy cannot Chain. Projectile Weakness is largely superior to any other curse in the endgame, both defensively and offensively, as already stated (58% pierce chance effectively increases damage on big packs, further lowering the difference between using Chain or not, 24% knockback chance as a defensive measure, and a 34% damage Multiplier, which is more consistent than Elemental Weakness). So what you end up doing in the ideal 6L item is replacing Chain with Blood Magic, then picking up Purity. It is truly a much better HC option, and it works better in endgame SC as well, as far as I can tell or hear.

I kinda got taken away with random thoughts and lost the main point here... Dysfunctional brain here, nice to meet you!

One more thing to note, if you use Purity as your endgame aura (which is incredibly powerful and probably the best choice you can make), you have to use Blood Magic on your LA, which effectively leaves 1 less slot to socket a support gem in. On a 5L, you are best off sacrificing Chain, because its efficiency is the smallest. On a 6L, you can pick between Chain and Faster Attacks; so you do not Have to drop Chain if you do not want to, however Faster Attacks will multiply your damage by nearly 50% on Every hit, including the ones which do not have ideal chaining conditions, and FA will also make the Pierce effect from Projectile Weakness more potent.

Don't crucify me for such a long, badly composed post, please.

Thanks for your quick response.

Don't worry, I love reading and it's way better to work with your thought-process instead of just a random thrown out line ;)

You do make a lot of sense. The only thing you didn't cover is the number of hits. I was under the impression, that a lot of this build's (or similar one's) power comes from hitting mobs a plethora of times and thereby giving static blows more chances to apply the shocked effect.

But maybe that is old news, I spent my OB times with playing summoners and EK builds thus far :P

cant agree with you.

chain makes la to the maybe most powerfull aoe attack ingame and u end up killing mobs a lot fatser than without chain

also with all ele resistances on max, u dont have to care about ele reflect

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Unimatrix wrote:

The only thing you didn't cover is the number of hits. I was under the impression, that a lot of this build's (or similar one's) power comes from hitting mobs a plethora of times and thereby giving static blows more chances to apply the shocked effect

No problem!

About shock stacking, with the attack speed and sheer chaining mechanic of LA, you will easily shock stack the mobs regardless of the lack of Chain. That is not a worry at all here.

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Kuroyukihime wrote:

cant agree with you.

chain makes la to the maybe most powerfull aoe attack ingame and u end up killing mobs a lot fatser than without chain

also with all ele resistances on max, u dont have to care about ele reflect

I hope we agree to disagree in that case!

LA is the most powerful bow AoE attack in the game regardless of Chain.

Elemental Reflect is always a problem, you cannot ignore it. As your character scales up in power, you want to control the relation between your damage intake capacity and damage output capacity to achieve the smoothest results. Dropping Chain helps this.

If you still want to use Chain, you can do it with this build (the higher level variants), but it requires a 6L. A bit of a pain, but that's why I call it "the endgame build".

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VenatorPoE wrote:

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Kuroyukihime wrote:

cant agree with you.

chain makes la to the maybe most powerfull aoe attack ingame and u end up killing mobs a lot fatser than without chain

also with all ele resistances on max, u dont have to care about ele reflect

I hope we agree to disagree in that case!

LA is the most powerful bow AoE attack in the game regardless of Chain.

Elemental Reflect is always a problem, you cannot ignore it. As your character scales up in power, you want to control the relation between your damage intake capacity and damage output capacity to achieve the smoothest results. Dropping Chain helps this.

If you still want to use Chain, you can do it with this build (the higher level variants), but it requires a 6L. A bit of a pain, but that's why I call it "the endgame build".

well i can play ele reflect maps without being scared to die. if u cap ur resitance, u dont have to care even with high damage. u gain more life from lifeleech/hit than u lose cause of reflect.

also i do not use that 6/7 aura build, just sticked to bm.

but for my character (posted passive some posts earlier) chain helps alot to clear maps fatser/do more damage.

i cant say how it works for the aura build, but for the old one, chain is definitly a must have gem.

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VenatorPoE wrote:

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Carnavas wrote:

Just so you know, for your Hardcore build there's two 12% nodes down the bottom left of the tree which you could be taking instead of some of the 8%'s you've gone for.

The cost of those 2 HP nodes is 3 points, because you have to take a 10 STR node to get to them. 12 + 12 = 24. 24 / 3 = 8. So I get 8% HP per node. I rather keep it clean and simple and take more readily available nodes. Those are available if you just want more HP and took every other available node, though...

Actually, I'd highly recommend you did take that str + 12% nodes in this case. Yes, it's a little bit more clunky, but that str gives 5 more base HP, which gets further multiplied out ending with more total HP than just 8% nodes.

If trying to maximize efficiency, you want that 12%.


Also, this is what I ended up with if I extrapolated your build to Lvl 100 with Oak, SP, Frenzy Charge for Bandit.

Grabbed the more damage nodes around duelist, adding 14% atk spd, 30% projectile damage, 30 Dex, and 8% physical bow damage as well as the 12% HP nodes I was talking about.


Though now I have another question. The nodes that say 8% increased bow physical. Is that before or after conversion? Will those give a total 8% damage boost to LA or just boost the physical?

If it does boost the over all, then you could shuffle 2 dex nodes by ranger into physical bow damage and have less wasted points.

Heck, even if it doesn't, you probably should anyways since it's 8% more damage (if no conversion boost) for 20 Dex.

That indeed would be a good way to finish the SC variant of the endgame build. It is not good for HC though.

I kept my build down at lvl85, since that is something realistic, even though most of the players around here won't reach it. At a certain point this game just makes you like something else and you keep going with the flow, playing around with another one of the trillion aspects...

EDIT: the physical nodes only buff the initial physical damage before conversion!