A generic physical crit bow archer guide

Personally, I do more damage with WED than with PPAD without even any aura, but that may be because I have a bit of lightning damage on my bow.

Some numbers:
my regular setup (LA, GMP, Pierce, WED, LgoH) in lab, with hatred: 4137 dps
LA, GMP, PPAD, AFD: 4830 dps, but I lose the pierce (or chain), and that's a huge loss to clear packs.
LA, PPAD: 6490
LA, WED: 6980
LA, PPAD, AFD: 8231
LA, PPAD, WED: 9125
LA, AFD, WED: 9082
=> WED is really a great support for Lightning Arrow. It's always better than AFD. Its drawback is its high mana multiplier.

Regarding Fork, I've used it myself during my leveling back in domination, together with LMP. But from what I can see right now on my new archer (see 2nd post), Split Arrow is just much more effective as a leveling tool. Later when you reach lvl 60+, I think LA becomes more manageable mana wise.

By using neither Chain/Fork nor Pierce, you give up a lot of clear speed. I agree with PCoC, less with ICS. I'd rather use Quality Increased Accuracy which will increase the chance to pass the 2nd accuracy check. And anyway I won't use any of the two :p.

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- A rare amulet with 4%+ Life Leech should be worn to avoid giving up a gem slot to Life Gain on Hit (which also has a very high mana multiplier - 150%) Examples:...

True, but rather to avoid the life leech gem on frenzy. I don't see myself giving up on the instant life recovery from LgoH, it's just too useful to manage reflect. As for mana leech, I get it from the tree. I won't bother looking for a specific piece of gear with it before long. There are much more important things to find on gear before that.

I'll put the acronyms list in sticky thread, good idea :)

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Skywalkerfx wrote:

I would say for end game chain can be better when damage reaches a certain level. Beginners I don't think benefit from using chain on a 4L or 5L. Plus giving away a gem slot to BM at low damage levels makes no sense.

All bow skills clear mobs fast at higher levels if enough damage is thrown behind them.

So I think we both have valid points.

And that's why I've mentioned that the mana cost is heavy, and there's an alternative which is GMP/Pierce which also has good clear speed for 75% of the cost of LMP/Chain.

Thanks as well for commenting. There's fortunately no unique solution in this game.

Small updates here and there. Most notable one: hard cast Enduring Cry/Spell Echo combo which bypass the cry cooldown and grants charges twice, which is just great.
Thanks to Gellig for it :).

From what I know currently, it looks more like a nerf, because of the huge loss of life.

Here's a copy/paste from a topic Asidra made earlier today:

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Panini_aux_olives wrote:

Same here. Going from 1.1 tree to this 1.2 tree.

Gear

Spoiler

life on gear: 464
strength on gear: 57
lvl 90

strength on gear: 57
strength on 1.1 tree: 104, on 1.2 tree: 84
intelligence on 1.1 tree: 124, on 1.2 tree: 74
% life on 1.1 tree: 258%, on 1.2 tree: 152%


life in 1.1: 4867 (with 8% res as bandit reward...)
life in 1.2:
from tree according to poebuilder: 3039
from gear: (464 + 57/2) * 2.52: 1239
total: 4278

That is 13% hp loss. And to get that amount I had to pass on almost all of the nice stuff the new tree give us, like Quickstep, and it's certainly still short in stats because of the massive loss of strength from life notables. I have kept 3 spare points, which should normally be in piercing shot, to fix this if needed.
And my damages are not even better than in 1.1.

Nothing set in stone though. We'll need to test with real data to confirm the life problem at end game.

A little variation which is probably better: trade Ballistic Mastery and Heartseeker for Snipper and Harrier.

-10 proj speed
-12 bow damage
-25 crit multi
+21 proj damage
+6 attack, cast & move speed

lvl 86 tree

Overall we may lose damage but the gameplay is better thanks to Harrier.