Ice shot vs Lightning arrow
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Okay I know this was asked a lot times in the past, but even the freshest thing I found about this was discussed like 1 year ago.
So basically for a nocrit phys build they are pretty much the same. Ice shot has higher tooltip, but the additional chain effect of LA kind of balances that out. Since I don't play crit builds (way too expensive), I can't test them on them, which one would be the better for those? And btw I checked a few build guides where they basically did not pick up any accuracy nodes, but in the demonstration they still destroyed any pack in a few shot with LA. So: do you need to hit the initial target to trigger the chain effect or not? Also, if you were to use a pierce build, which one whould you pick? Last edited by krenderke#3861 on Dec 16, 2015, 11:17:51 PM
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100% pierce user here: LA, just LA
GMP + LA + 100% pierce beats chain + LA mainly due to 'controlled' nature of damage spread. Chain is random and it is easy to leave mob there, there and there just because chain decided to hit perfectly around it. 'pierced' damage is always directed and good placement and aiming produces very reliable results with no stragglers and annoyance caused by having to waste time on single mobs for me the only advantage Ice Shot over LA is the chilled ground granting additional layer of defense. other than that i find the 'cone behind the target' less reliable than '3 zaps around the target' for multi-proj setups (applies to both chained and pierced setups) |
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I have a bow build that uses Ice Shot, and with pierce, it is devastating in the sense with the chill ground, it pretty much slows down everything in front of me and kills them too.
I have another bow build that is mostly crit, and with Lightning Arrow, it packs a lot of punch with its natural chaining. Since I use Chin Sol as my bow, it feels crazing at point blank range taking into account with crit and decent crit multiplier. Though, it is understandable if pierce is a very attractive option for Lightning Arrow. Sometimes you can take the game out of the garage but you can't take the garage out of the game. - raics, 06.08.2016 Last edited by JohnNamikaze#6516 on Dec 17, 2015, 1:31:56 AM
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I prefer Ice Shot, since IMO it's better to freeze than to shock, chilled ground is also nice. Currently using it with pierce + WED + cold pen, it wipes out packs even without LMP/GMP, just gotta pay attention to your positioning.
The reason those builds didn't take any accuracy nodes may be that they got several pieces of gear with 300+ acc on em', which makes gearing a bit harder (I would just pick some %acc nodes from the tree, there's a nice cluster with +crit chance near shadow area for example). |
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" For a phys build you shock AND freeze with LA due to Hatred so there is no freezing advantage. Same applies to hypothermia. The only advantage is the chilled ground that slows everything equaly. Ive tested pretty much all setups with a 6link Infractem bow and LA gave the best results by far shortly followed by tornado shot. Ice shot left tooooo many single mobs there and there to be comfortable (tests were up to current tier 12 maps). Ice shot main dissadvantage in piercing is the fact that first row of mobs will get hit by one arrow at most. LA can 'zap' backwards ensuring complete destruction. Same for mobs to the side of proj travel path. LA handles these no problem. Chain is random. It is ofc very strong in open maps with dense packs. But what isnt. Most maps are not wide open and then a well aimed piercing voley fares far better. Where clear speed is concerned the backtracking for loot is irritating with chain as the mobs die all ober the place while with pierce you just run forwards. I cannot imagine using chain setup after experiencing the benefits 100% pierce gives. Note: does chain chains from shattered mobs? At time it did not |
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" I would argue that LA doesn't freeze as well, due to 50% (is it 50%?) lightning conversion. My setup with a pretty mediocre self-found gear on a 4-link semi-reliably freezes rares/exiles for 2-3 sec. Whites and blues usually die on a crit anyway, so for them freeze/shock is irrelevant. I will agree that LA is better for the whole rapid pack clearing, due to zapping backwards, it also work better with LMP/GMP, because it shotguns on walls. Ice Shot is my personal favourite still, it just feels better, less spammy, more chunky etc. min/max doesn't really come into this. |
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Thanks for the answers, I think I will do a little testing with pierce, but just because of drillneck it looks to be more viable for lategame than chain. (no less modifier but instead some increased one)
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drillneck is a good quiver but it is more for builds that need to raise the 'base' damage. phys bow builds already have large enough base that another 50 or 100% increased damage means little. instead try to look for multipliers like crit/critMulti or quivers with special perks like corrupted +arrow or good resist/leech.
in the same price range you can aim for stuff like this: or vaal spam unique quiver and you might get lucky ofc +1 arrow drillneck is great but this is very expensive stuff |
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I play with resolute technique, and I need that dmg, since I do not have much %dmg from the tree.
But well yeah if I was a crit build, I would probably go for a crit quiver instead. Last edited by krenderke#3861 on Dec 17, 2015, 3:03:13 PM
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To be fair on Bows I usually go with crit because it is actually the one crit-based playstyle that is not expensive.
If we are just looking at the damage there are a lot of options that provide nice damage and are affordable. Harbinger Bows offer a fair base crit chance to build upon and if you can't afford Maligaros just use Facebreaker which has a hefty boost in Crit-Mult. It is easy to reach over 30% Critchance without Powercharges and there are ways to get them as well. The only issue I have with Crit builds is that if you stay in the ranger/shadow area you are limited in terms of actual HP-nodes avaible to you and it is hard to get to comfortable amounts of HP. |
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