[3.0] NeverSink's ♣ INDEPTH Tornado&Archer Guide ♣ Beginner friendly ♣ Rapid clear ♣ All bosses

"

lophius wrote:

Just a small question:
Why isn't assassin totally overpowered for a bow build?

You take Unstable Infusion, Deadly Infusion, Toxic Delivery and Noxious Strike. The damage buff you get from deadly infusion is quite good, but i feel f.e. on a phys damage tornado shot you get insane value out of the bleed and posion. I made this tree http://goo.gl/ONRYqJ and the defenses are okayish but with the synergie of between toxic delivery and noxius strike it feels like the damage will be way too high.

For main gem setup i like
TS - GMP - PPAD - ICSM - poison(!)
If you use a poison support you are very likely to get the full synergy between the above mentioned ascendencys going, so the enemys will be maimed, you get more chaos damage, skill effect duration and your dots do 100% more damage. Because you have 190% projectile damage and some other % damage too it feels like this build should be way too strong damage wise.

I have an alt I'm leveling with this idea.

Issue I've had with Shadow is that Life Nodes are not that favorable to path to, IE, you can't get easy access to Scion Life Wheel unless you make some big sacrifices. For example your tree has:

- 146% increased maximum Life

That's already pretty damn scary imo, most of the builds I have are pushing at least 180% and I'd always want more %Life. More damage in my philosophy is always meh, you deal 0 DPS when you are dead/get one shot, and the stakes get higher as you do more damage since Life Leech only does so much against Reflect.

"

Frankenberry wrote:

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1648334 - from my own guide:

"A) I find Increased Critical Strikes + Added Fire vastly superior compared to Physical to Lightning + Weapon elemental damage.
Yes PTL + WED gives you a slightly higher tooltip dps. However there are huge drawbacks - especially in endgame top tier maps. You are even more susceptible to elemental equilibrium and high enemy elemental resistances. Physical damage is in most circumstances a better damage source.
Also the ICS gem makes sure our crit chance is even higher which also increased our survivability with Acuity equipped. Also this setup is safer vs. reflect since we split our damage equally between physical and elemental - this is especially important if you do not have acuity yet."

Now keep in mind - my build and the quote above is aimed towards endgame content. That means T14-15 maps and Uber Atziri - content in which elemental resistance is usually very high and thus elemental damage becomes worse. If you are just running T7-10 maps it really does not matter much - elemental dmg will usually work just fine. You should of course disregard the part about instant leech if you do not have acuity :)

However I almost always use (even without Acuity) AFD + ICS - imo it better in most circumstances - including map mods such as elemental equilibrium and elemental resistance.

Thank you for your answer :) I will try it.

"

I have an alt I'm leveling with this idea.

Issue I've had with Shadow is that Life Nodes are not that favorable to path to, IE, you can't get easy access to Scion Life Wheel unless you make some big sacrifices. For example your tree has:

- 146% increased maximum Life

That's already pretty damn scary imo, most of the builds I have are pushing at least 180% and I'd always want more %Life. More damage in my philosophy is always meh, you deal 0 DPS when you are dead/get one shot, and the stakes get higher as you do more damage since Life Leech only does so much against Reflect.

You are right and i have already adapted the build. My new tree is http://goo.gl/6E63aF
It has 178% increased max life and 160% increased evasion, so base defense stats are quite acceptable for a bow build. I'm planning on using atziri's step and my new new gems setup is
TS - GMP - PPAD - pierce - poison

Some things to think of are using frenzy instead of tornado shot and maybe use drillneck/snakebite. Overall getting damage shouldn't be a problem.
For auras i would take purity of cold and arctic armour, for flasks taste of hate, basalt and maybe atziris promise. I'm thinking about using the chaos golem.

With these auras and stuff you should have enough physical damage reduction and elemental resi even if you use either snakebite or drillneck. If you use both and rats nest you might have a chance to get max resi with purity of elements instead of arctic armour.

As a chest i'm thinking about a 5 linked queen of the forest for a long time.

What's best ascendancy class in 2.3 for Windripper TS?

"

lophius wrote:

"

I have an alt I'm leveling with this idea.

Issue I've had with Shadow is that Life Nodes are not that favorable to path to, IE, you can't get easy access to Scion Life Wheel unless you make some big sacrifices. For example your tree has:

- 146% increased maximum Life

That's already pretty damn scary imo, most of the builds I have are pushing at least 180% and I'd always want more %Life. More damage in my philosophy is always meh, you deal 0 DPS when you are dead/get one shot, and the stakes get higher as you do more damage since Life Leech only does so much against Reflect.

You are right and i have already adapted the build. My new tree is http://goo.gl/6E63aF
It has 178% increased max life and 160% increased evasion, so base defense stats are quite acceptable for a bow build. I'm planning on using atziri's step and my new new gems setup is
TS - GMP - PPAD - pierce - poison

Some things to think of are using frenzy instead of tornado shot and maybe use drillneck/snakebite. Overall getting damage shouldn't be a problem.
For auras i would take purity of cold and arctic armour, for flasks taste of hate, basalt and maybe atziris promise. I'm thinking about using the chaos golem.

With these auras and stuff you should have enough physical damage reduction and elemental resi even if you use either snakebite or drillneck. If you use both and rats nest you might have a chance to get max resi with purity of elements instead of arctic armour.

As a chest i'm thinking about a 5 linked queen of the forest for a long time.

Snakebites are so good for your build. I actually did corrupt Vulnerability Snakebites and I should have kept them, but they sold instantly when listed. If you wanna scale only physical damage then very possible to go Grace/AA and just scale Puncture damage from flat physical damage from tree.

Grace would be nice of course, but i think i will get a problem with elemental resistance and have a lot of evasion from gear. Also i like the synergy between taste of hate and purity of ice.

Why should i use puncture? I only need to apply bleed once to have the benefit for 6 seconds. Base damage doesn't seem to high, either. I would always take frenzy over puncture...

"

lophius wrote:

Grace would be nice of course, but i think i will get a problem with elemental resistance and have a lot of evasion from gear. Also i like the synergy between taste of hate and purity of ice.

Why should i use puncture? I only need to apply bleed once to have the benefit for 6 seconds. Base damage doesn't seem to high, either. I would always take frenzy over puncture...

If you are Assasin with pure physical dmg it is not even a contest. Puncture is just flat out better for everything except generating frenzy charges. As a boss Killer the bleeding effect is amazing.

Maimed targets will receive 100% more (not increased) dmg from bleeding and you are doing pure phys dmg, which means 100% of your puncture dmg will be part of the bleed effect.

Frenzy is only really worth it if you are raider with 10 frenzy charges and even then it feels kind of weak tbh.

Also I don't get why you would use Atziri's Boots if they are the reason you cannot use Grace instead of purity of Ice.

So if you calculate opportunity cost vs. a pair of rares they give you
-2100 flat evasion rating (since you cannot take grace and we asume there is some evasion rating on your rare boots as well. This is before taking into account your %increased evasion).
-40% fire res
-40% fire res
cold res break even
+4% max cold resist
-10-15 flat life depending on rare roll.
movement speed - break even
+16% spell dodge

Above stats are with a good rare boot pair but even a bad pair > Atziri's Step

Also a small thing from your passive tree - make sure not go for attack speed in the shadow beginning. 10% physical dmg / 10% chaos dmg nodes > 4% attack speed :)

"

If you are Assasin with pure physical dmg it is not even a contest. Puncture is just flat out better for everything except generating frenzy charges. As a boss Killer the bleeding effect is amazing.

Maimed targets will receive 100% more (not increased) dmg from bleeding and you are doing pure phys dmg, which means 100% of your puncture dmg will be part of the bleed effect.

Frenzy is only really worth it if you are raider with 10 frenzy charges and even then it feels kind of weak tbh.

Am i missing something? With frenzy i have 30% to cause bleeding on hit(ascendancy), so after 3-4 hits they will have a bleeding effect on them(With tornado shot after 1 attack). Bleed lasts for 6 seconds, so after it is applied once there will always be a bleed effect on the enemy, so then the damage depends only on the initial hit.
Also poison works very similarly to bleed, but it does stack with itself. I will have 100% chance to poison and it scales completly with the on hit dps i got. Frenzy has way more on hit dps than puncture.

"

Also I don't get why you would use Atziri's Boots if they are the reason you cannot use Grace instead of purity of Ice.

I'm not completly sure, but i think the potencial value is definitly higher. I get a lot of evasion due to 160% increased from passives, every unique i want has evasion and i want to use enfeeble, so there will be harsh diminishing returns. Also max cold resistance is very nice with taste of hate, as during flask effect they reduce damage taken form physical hits too.
The boots you used in your breakdown are nearly perfect rare and sell in standard for 90 ex. I want to get this char in the new league and can't aford to pay more than 1 exalted for quite a while. Finally i am a big fan of spell dodge as i will use vaal grace and get maximum spell dodge during vaal grace effect, but of course it is nice to have at all times. Nevermind also said they are the ultimate lategame upgrade and i don't need damage auras. Arctic armour is very nice and i defintly want that instead of another purity with finished items, but until i get there i consider using 2 puritys.

"

10% physical dmg / 10% chaos dmg nodes > 4% attack speed :)

I'm absolutly not certain what i like more. I'm tending towards damage, but in my mind they are equally good.

"

lophius wrote:

"

If you are Assasin with pure physical dmg it is not even a contest. Puncture is just flat out better for everything except generating frenzy charges. As a boss Killer the bleeding effect is amazing.

Maimed targets will receive 100% more (not increased) dmg from bleeding and you are doing pure phys dmg, which means 100% of your puncture dmg will be part of the bleed effect.

Frenzy is only really worth it if you are raider with 10 frenzy charges and even then it feels kind of weak tbh.

Am i missing something? With frenzy i have 30% to cause bleeding on hit(ascendancy), so after 3-4 hits they will have a bleeding effect on them(With tornado shot after 1 attack). Bleed lasts for 6 seconds, so after it is applied once there will always be a bleed effect on the enemy, so then the damage depends only on the initial hit.
Also poison works very similarly to bleed, but it does stack with itself. I will have 100% chance to poison and it scales completly with the on hit dps i got. Frenzy has way more on hit dps than puncture.

"

Also I don't get why you would use Atziri's Boots if they are the reason you cannot use Grace instead of purity of Ice.

I'm not completly sure, but i think the potencial value is definitly higher. I get a lot of evasion due to 160% increased from passives, every unique i want has evasion and i want to use enfeeble, so there will be harsh diminishing returns. Also max cold resistance is very nice with taste of hate, as during flask effect they reduce damage taken form physical hits too.
The boots you used in your breakdown are nearly perfect rare and sell in standard for 90 ex. I want to get this char in the new league and can't aford to pay more than 1 exalted for quite a while. Finally i am a big fan of spell dodge as i will use vaal grace and get maximum spell dodge during vaal grace effect, but of course it is nice to have at all times. Nevermind also said they are the ultimate lategame upgrade and i don't need damage auras. Arctic armour is very nice and i defintly want that instead of another purity with finished items, but until i get there i consider using 2 puritys.

"

10% physical dmg / 10% chaos dmg nodes > 4% attack speed :)

I'm absolutly not certain what i like more. I'm tending towards damage, but in my mind they are equally good.

First of all it is always nice to see someone trying out something that isn't "cookie cutter" :D

A) Puncture vs. Frenzy. Yup you are right. I guess my knowledge on that field is outdated with the new Ascendancy points. Last season there was a nice puncture build but he used puncture as main attack. For single target you are totally right.

B) About Atziri's Step. They are kind of bad for archers. The opportunity cost on resist ensures you have to either go defensive in other item slots (miss out on Rat's Nest for instance or Snakebite).

Just did a search on Standard league for boots with 30% movement speed, 110% + elemental resist and 70+ max life. There is a pair for 40C :) Some others are 5-10 ex. Also this might sound crazy but crafting a really good pair of boots is not that hard - there aren't that many different rolls boots can hit. Chaos spamming ftw :)

Also I want to point out I always end up with boots of that quality.
From last two leagues:


Also as I pointed out in my post even a pair much worse than those I just linked or listed would still be a superior choice compared to Atziri's Step :(

Also 4% max cold res and taste of hate really isn't that big a deal. Say you have a legacy taste of hate. You get hit for 1000 dmg. 300 of those is converted into cold dmg. Without purity of ice you will absorb 225 of those 300. With a lvl 20 purity of cold you will absorb 237. 12 dmg difference on a 1k hit.
Now everything counts but Grace would be superior in most circumstances since you would get hit fever times and fewer hits would be confirmed critical hits (scaling even better with your enfeeble!).

All in all - I highly recommend not using Atziri's Step (on almost any Archer build unless you have an extremely well rolled rare evasion chest or you are building towards spell dodge) or go for Atziri's Step but make sure you are also using Grace + being overcapped for elemental weakness through other items such defensively rolled rings and jewels.

C) 10% phys / 10% chaos is still double dipping on your poison. If you make use of chaos dmg (which you are) those nodes are kind of insane - they should be nerfed to be honest... but they aren't :D So you can be a gentleman about it and not abuse the nodes or you can be a scoundrel and make use of them ;)

Edit:
D) About diminishing returns on evasion. Your increased evasion rating is somewhere around 230-250% (remember to include dex and armour / evasion nodes). That is quite solid. Not insanely high but solid.

Let us assume you get a rare pair of boots with 150 evasion rating but you put on Grace. That is a net gain of 2083 flat evasion. With your increased modifiers that's somewhere between 6874 - 7290 extra evasion rating.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kCeAy43G3LiL0NMFVEgrLy0Uf1DXMjuyx_-7hRq47y4/edit#gid=19
Even with a good evasion rating (say... 10k-14k) those extra 7k evasion rating is really solid - especially combined with enfeeble :)

I just wanted to throw a quick thank you to NeverSink for this build. I used it as my end game character for the last league with a lot of success!