Ondar's Guile keystone: need some help with math

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Starxsword wrote:

You have 100% hit chance with Resolute Technique. Reflected shots do take your accuracy into consideration. I am pretty sure you will always hit yourself with reflected damage if you have Resolute Technique.

If you plan to go bows, it is generally best to go Crit route as that scales the best.

Unfortunate, if so. Still worth a try to check it, just to be sure. Fortunately, it's just 7 points of respec back and forth to/from resolute technique for this build.

As for crit route - sure, crits scale nice. And that's how many "good" bow builds kill themselves with reflected damage i guess? Few crits in a row being reflected - can make quite a massive spike eh, and worst thing is, it's unpredictable when it happens. See i'm trying to invent sumthing to avoid it, as best i can... :)

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vargorn wrote:

It seems that you got me wrong but i appreciate the fact that you took so much time writing all that down to correct what you saw as my mistakes - and i don't mean that in a sarcastic way ;) ...

Spoiler

I only commented on the damage and accuracy part of the DPS calculation since that was the part mostly lacking and your attack speed increase is decent in that build. If you look at my build again, you will also realize that i have a third multiplier on top in form of a high increase of critical strike chance and -damage so taking your example, its damage output wouldn't be 7000 but rather around 15000 at 50% critchance and slightly below 340% critical strike multiplier (don't remember the exact value and cannot log in right now to check).
It is obvious that you will reach the highest theoretical damage output if you simply stack on multipliers and increase them all in a similar fashion but that kind of thinking leaves out a lot of other factors. You will, for example, have a better mana efficiency with slower, bigger hits and can apply status ailments better on high hp mobs and bosses since each hit has to be over a certain threshold in terms of damage/monster_hp. Since your damage is also delivered in discrete portions (unless you use damage over time skills obviously), it is more efficient to "frontload" your damage a bit because most mobs will die in just a few hits. This means that adding a bit extra damage can often bring you over the threshold of needing just 1-2 instead of 2-3 hits per mob but that is something you will have to test for your specific build.
A faster attack speed, on the other hand, makes effects like life gain on hit and adding flat damage from jewellery etc. more efficient. The numbers i used in my other post are merely suggestions on what will work based on my own experience.

The 120% max life increase i suggested would be considered way too low by most other build makers. Even if you are gods gift to gaming, have a good connection, a beast of a computer and are confident that you can manually evade every single bigger attack, you will still be hit eventually - and if it is because of server/client desynchronization. The result is quite simple: if you have less than a certain amount of life, you will get one-shot more or less frequently, which will slow down your leveling progress quite a bit.
The amount of life you need depends on your playstyle but for a ranged evasion char i would suggest aiming for at least around 800 for the end of Normal, 1400 end Cruel, 2000 end Merciless and 3000+ for lvl 75+ maps. Much less than that and you will have a hard time progressing since you loose exp when dieing in higher difficulties.

By the way: If you get very good gear, you can obviously achieve the same with less life increase from passives. The 120% are just my personal rule of thumb since i play mostly without trading and therefore usually don't have access to the really good stuff.
This is not about being tanky as a 'tanky' build is usually one with 4500+ life and stacked secondary defenses, it is about being able to survive a single big hit that you cannot evade. I killed Atziri with the build i linked above at exactly 3301 life, which everybody told me would be impossible. I managed to evade almost all of her spells manually and when i eventually got hit and managed to use the right elemental flask (short time 85% fire/lightning resistance), i would only loose 90-95% of my life from a single hit so i had a very low ~200 life buffer between survival and instant death from any of her attacks/spells.

I am not trying to push my own build ideas onto you but merely warn you about making the most common beginner mistake of thinking you could progress without a decent amount of maximum life. I made the same mistake on my first build and over the past two years i have seen countless threads in this forum secion that usually go something like: "i have this super strong build and was killing things with easy but then i got to point XY in the game and now i die all the time."

The lvl 87 build you posted should work although you could optimize some pathing there and it would be a bit short on damage for my personal taste. I personally really enjoy making glass cannon builds but only if the "cannon" part also applies but if you have a very specific idea for your build: go for it!

No, why, i think i got you right. And yes, sure, it's indeed a specific idea, this build.

By the way, your link to your ranger doesn't work for me - it opens an empty skill tree (0 points spent). No idea why.

Argument about crit adding to DPS is of course solid - my build doesn't have any +crit. However, crits do have random nature. Means you lose quite much DPS when you don't have crits happening for several shots in a row - despite spent passives for better crits, sometimes they don't happen. Random is random. On the other hand, you also lose some of your DPS whenever big crits happen much/mostly as overkill - say, mob has 1k life remaining, and you crit it for 5k, 4k of this damage is simply useless. Those arguments, plus above mentioned assumption that crit "combos" vs reflecting mobs tend to be bad for one's health - are to be considered as well as your arguments in favor of crit-heavy build, i think. And, of course, in my opinion when there is not so many passive points to do one's damage with - plain +damage% above +100% and attack speed above +40% take definite priority. Because under/at +100% damage bonus works the best, as obvious from my example above, and because attack speed provides not just DPS boost - it's also a safety measure. Slow firing archer is more vulnerable - stopping (to make a shot in intense fight) for 2/3 of a second is definitely more risky than stopping for less than 1/2 of a second. Once again, this is true for PoE, D2, D3 or whatever else "alike" game we are talking about.

And what this build aims to master - is in fact _time_. Lots of faster run, lots of faster attack, cold damage as end-game big hitter (=chills), temporal chains on hit. SLowing everything around, while accelerating oneself. This, in my opinion, should not be underestumated. It allows to run less % of the gameplay time, and do DPS instead. It's control of the battlefield, which can't be expressed in pure DPS numbers, but nonetheless is a big DPS boost in its own way in practice.

Mana efficiency - should not be a big problem, i recon. End-game equipment, even mere 2% mana steal should make one able to spam ultra fast ice shots all night long without touching a blue flask, i hope. Plus Poacher's Mark has mana on hit already. ;)

Next, please don't get me wrong: i do not doubt that i _need_ certain amount of life - and your Atziri example is very detailed, and precise, and helpful. Thank you for it! 3300, check. Thing is, what i was talking about before - was not total life of the character, but it's +life% from passives specifically. Which is NOT the same as total life of the character. See, i tend to use things most players go by. By the time i am end-game, i will most likely have masters providing extra +life on gear where possible via crafting, i will have most (all possible) items equipped providing +life simply by giving preference to such gear pieces, etc. You listed numbers of total life present on character at the end of each difficulty. So far i only completed normal with my 1st ranger. You recommend having 800 life at this point. My ranger has 720 life there (and 59 energy shield), which is "almost there" - and naturally, i wasn't doing her any "seriously", she was just the toon to clean every map entirely with, to see the basics of the game (which i did). And obviously she doesn't have any gear to be twinked with - none whatsoever. Plus, i didn't trade _at all_, and played whole normal difficulty solo. Yet, how much +life% she has in her passives, with that so far? I'll tell you: zero. :)

Last but not least - sure thing, i know what you mean. Even "glass" cannons need to have certain minimum amount of life, simply to be able to die rarely enough to be able to progress with levels. If i'll find out that most effective way to get required life pool will be via relatively many +life% passives (over 100% total) - then sure thing, i'll do it. I just hope i won't need to - i hope i'll get it more via other means and less via +life% from the tree.

PoE features pretty much the same experience penalty on higher difficulties (at least, similar) as D2, i know. One of things about this build which i have in mind here - is its ability to take quite much of +life%, if need be. Like that +120% which i linked above. You can be sure at least some of those nodes - most effective, - i'll surely have end-game. For example, one has to be a clinic idiot for not spending just 2 passive points to get +5% and +16% life nodes, available to this build of mine because of Vaal Pact taken. The 1st link i gave was made with such "passive goodies" in mind, that's for sure. :)

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Fins_FinsT wrote:

By the way, your link to your ranger doesn't work for me - it opens an empty skill tree (0 points spent). No idea why.

Sorry about that. I made the build in Rampage when the skilltree was slightly different and linked the non-updated version by accident. This is the version updated for the 1.3 skilltree at lvl 86.
It focuses on high critical damage and uses a few aura nodes so it can run Grace, Hatred and Herald of Ash at the same time. HoA makes great use of overkill damage so if you hit a 1k hp mob for 10k damage, nearby enemies will burn for an amount relative to the 9k overkill damage. Reflect wasn't an issue since i used three different main skills optimized for different situations and always carried a leveled Ice Shot to switch in for Split Arrow against physical reflect.
The build was 100% self designed and great fun to play but i rarely use it any more since a) it is now in Standard and i want to focus on the new leagues and b) it made any endgame content too trivial for my taste.

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vargorn wrote:

Sorry about that. I made the build in Rampage when the skilltree was slightly different and linked the non-updated version by accident. This is the version updated for the 1.3 skilltree at lvl 86.
It focuses on high critical damage and uses a few aura nodes so it can run Grace, Hatred and Herald of Ash at the same time. HoA makes great use of overkill damage so if you hit a 1k hp mob for 10k damage, nearby enemies will burn for an amount relative to the 9k overkill damage. Reflect wasn't an issue since i used three different main skills optimized for different situations and always carried a leveled Ice Shot to switch in for Split Arrow against physical reflect.
The build was 100% self designed and great fun to play but i rarely use it any more since a) it is now in Standard and i want to focus on the new leagues and b) it made any endgame content too trivial for my taste.

Happens, no worry. :)

Yeah, i can see it's pretty similar to one of officially "top" bow ranger builds out there, similarities start at very 1st nodes taken - that lone +8% attack speed then going through +% life, etc. Self-designed, one more indication that common wisdom is, indeed, common.

Excellent point about HoA benefitting crit build well. Indeed, this cancels one of my earlier arguments. Well done!

Ice shot still has large physical component in its initial hit, i believe. One thing i can't find anywhere (could be i am bad at searching?) - is whether it is possible to have _both_ physical and elemental reflect in the same time in some situations (map/boss combos?). If "yes", then all the evasion of what i am planning to do will definitely be handy.

As for "too trivial" - sure, happens sooner or later to end-game toons, kinda unavoidable. But then still fun in parties. I remember, i once built one amazing telesorc in D2 hell hardcore, pure fire with the most "boom" game was allowing for. Fire immune mobs were, of course, laughing at her; but everything else was dying in _large_ packs in one mouse click. And there were some end-game maps, such as some levels before the last boss (baal) where random often rolled no fire immune mobs. And i remember playing in parties and entering some maps, and killing _everything_ on the map before any other guy could do a single point of damage - i.e., it took me less time to kill everything on the map than it took any of them to run through it. 3 screens of teleport per second and indeed excessive _fire_power tend to do that. Was it "trivial"? Extremely. But was it not fun? Nope. Quite the opposite. Was quite a sport to pull this off, enjoyed it every darn time (and there were many, since baal farming runs was a staple of end-game D2 hardcore play). You know, when people say "hey Fins, come on, let us kill something already" - it's quite a laughter. :D

Your D2 Fire Sorceress sounds a little bit like my newest project in PoE. My main problem is that i have way too many build ideas to try them all out since many need a semi high level until all the different aspects come together to form the finished build. Due to that i often only play my chars to the mid lvl 80's, make a new char once the old concept has proven to work well and decide later in the league which one i make my main :).

Regarding reflect: Reflect can appear as an aura on rare mobs starting from early Cruel (Act 2 if i remember correctly). Each rare can only have one of these auras but it is possible to run into a physical and elemental reflect aura rare close to each other so they and all mobs around them will reflect all damage types besides chaos.
Endgame maps can also have either or even both reflect types as a mod rolled onto them, although you could then simply roll the affixes again. This means that you could theoretically encounter a large monster pack with double reflect and roughly twice the amount reflected if you are extremely unlucky (rare monster aura reflect is 14% and map reflect 18% if i remember right).
Skills with damage conversion like Ice Shot are generally very good against reflect since you will still take some damage from either physical or elemental reflect but the damage is much more manageable.

Thanks for info!

And yeah, _usually_ mixed damage skills are more manageable vs reflect - means, when there is only one type of it. And while i decided for PoE that i ain't playing hardcore (connection is stable, but few times a year, still drops - and it took me quite a few big drawbacks back in D2 hardcore), - my habits are still old hardcorish ones, and so i plan ahead for _worst_ cases. Which is _both_ reflect types present. Which means mixed damage skills like ice shot make no difference.

I am aware that some damage types, notably chaos, bleeding, HoF after-death burning damage, etc - are not reflected. But my overall feeling is: if one plans to deal bulk of his DPS with one of those, then he limits his build too much. Too many things are based on "base" physical and/or elemental damage.

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vargorn wrote:

... This is the version updated for the 1.3 skilltree at lvl 86. ...

One more thing. If to talk "generic archer" without any special ideas, then perhaps it could be interesting for you to consider this variation of it, this can be built from Ranger, Scion or even Duelist (hehe) start. Here's the summary:

- way less crit capability, but still some;
- somewhat lower accuracy, but it seems that in practice it'd be worth some ~-3% effective hit chance only, considering hit chance formula in wiki - assuming mobs rarely have over 3k evasion, if ever. In the same time, this helps massively vs reflected damage in compare to your build, especially since this one is loaded with evasion;
- a bit less +life%, but partially compensated with extra flat +life;
- nearly same total base stat increases, but more balanced in terms of str/int gain;
- same mana reserve cost reduction;
- same life and mana leech;
- very similar total +damage for the bow (totals +274% vs 276% iirc);
- added Vall Pact keystone, allowing instant life leech, which with high attack speed means comparable life leech when doing strictly single-target werk, and times higher leech when doing packs (which helps vs reflect);
- a bit higher attack speed total;
- massively higher movement speed - 42% higher (not 38%, but 42%, because of that notable which negates movement penalty from body armor - and i read dex-based body armor brings 4% movement penalty);
- much higher evasion and significant armor boost as well, allowing for easier mitigation of reflected damage (Ondar's Guile included of course) at _all_ times, even when there are both types of reflect present.

I'd say, offense can be made very sufficient with itemization, without relying on crits heavily for general end-game play. Which allows this build to bring in very solid defenses in its evasion and armor gains, especially vs projectiles (Ondar's synergy with +evasion nodes is obvious). The key feature though is its movement speed. +42% on top of your build (51% total, 47% from +movement speed and +4% from negating armor penalty) - is simply like having +movement flask active all the time. Easy to imagine, right? Yet obviously, flask makes this toon even faster whenever used, resulting (with good movement boots) in over +100% movement speed total. Means, you can outrun things you normally never would outrun. You can get back to hitting instead of being forced to keep running TIMES sooner. And faster movement works everywhere and for any reason: in casual PvP, in towns (saving your time), in parties whenever you want to outrun those slowpokes for any reason, whenever you run through cleared parts of the map, allows you to dodge hits which would otherwise land on ya, is generally more "forgiving" for any lags or your own mistakes in movement - you name it. ;)

One may even say: "hit and run" tactic is as old as warfare is, - it was working thousands years ago for barbarians IRL, it works in any diablo-like games to this day; but to get most of "hit and run", one must be most capable in both things: not just in hitting, but also in running. Only then this old as history itself concept really shines, opening possibilities and victories completely unavailable otherwise.

Cheers!

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As for crit route - sure, crits scale nice. And that's how many "good" bow builds kill themselves with reflected damage i guess?

I have no issues with reflect at the moment with my Crit Bow Ranger. But then again my Bow is not all that great.

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Reflect can appear as an aura on rare mobs starting from early Cruel (Act 2 if i remember correctly).

I believe Elemental Reflect appears as soon as Act 1 Cruel. I don't believe I seen Physical Reflect appear that early (Act 1 Cruel).

theres no such thing as pure phys though in practice i find, physical builds tend to run at least hatred aura, which gives nearly 40% of physical damage as extra cold damage, you probably have elemental buffing somewhere which increased that, sometimes added fire is used for another close to 40% of phys added as fire, herald of ash, flat elemental damage on gear... so usually a physical based build has between 30-50% of its damage being elemental. A build that uses a 50% elemental conversion like Ice Shot and then a wed gem for 40% more elemental damage is probably also running hated and maybe even added fire too, its likely that 75%+ of your damage will be elemental. At that point physical damage reflect will probably be virtually unnoticeable while elemental reflect will be the one that you need to be careful with.

About elemental reflect - it has the benefit of large mitigation through resist, though (assuming the player runs 75% to his main elemental damage type, in this case - cold).

And i've seen it - elemental reflect - in normal, twice. Both times in "corrupted" side maps, iirc.

Physical reflect can't be mitigated through resist that much; its "resist" - armour, - can't be even 50% mitigation i suppose, probably even waaay lower than that will be the case end-game even with some +armor passives (if present) and most/all armor pieces being armour+evasion (which is, i guess, unlikely). That's how even for a build which deals 75% of its damage as elemental, remaining 25% of physical still pose large threat, when reflected.

Furthermore, physical damage is obviously desirable thing due to leech. Which works with physical damage only. Typically, at least. That's why archers in PoE in fact want to avoid various "converted to elemental" things, if at all possible - this reduces physical damage and, in turn, reduces leech. Obviously when it's something present on build-forming ability (for example, the case of ice shot) - this is "unavoidable undesirable"; but in most other cases physical damage should not be "converted" to elemental, means it will still be high DPS physical damage. Things which _add_ elemental damage are obviously OK, though, since those don't reduce leech. End result being, considering +physical damage passives, available supports which boost physical damage, high-DPS bow (at least relatively) - physical reflect can still be a killer if the player don't take steps to mitigate it.

IMHO.