[2.2 Ascendancy] Ballistae Army! Rule with an Iron Fist! IRON COMMANDER

First thing's first: You go Scion for one reason, and one reason alone: 60 Dexterity. Reasonably speaking, Ranger Deadeye is would provide the best bonuses, but the hardship in getting to 800 Dexterity would make it not worth it. Scion also has better access to Life and jewels and stuff.

Passive Tree


Early on, take the Projectile damage Scion path, grab Totemic Zeal, then go straight for Ranger, and move up to Ballistic Mastery. After that, go down to King of the Hill, then take the Dexterity across to the Frenzy charge and Golem's Blood, then up to Art of the Gladiator (Through all that sweet sweet projectile damage), then go back to get Herbalism, up from there to the Frenzy Charge and Deadly Draw (Heavy Draw won't be worth it until later). Keep going up until you get Blood Drinker and grab the last Frenzy Charge. When you get to about Act 3 Cruel, you should consider stopping wherever you are and getting the Scion Life Wheel Rectangle. Pretty straight forward from there.

Ascendancy

Ascendant paths that should be chosen are

1. Raider. Not Deadeye +1 Projectiles and 30% increased damage at max range are the only two properties that are worth anything, and they simply aren't as good as the permanent Onslaught and defensive bonuses that Raider gives you. With 5 totems you're not struggling to hit multiple enemies, so the +1 Projectiles isn't worth it. Unfortunately you can't make use of the Frenzy charge on kill from Raider, but it's still got fewer redundant bonuses than Deadeye.

In all honesty, Pathfinder is probably just as good as Raider (though, I have not tested it). But, I like running fast, so Raider was my clear choice.

and

2. Assassin. You're using a crit bow, you want to go crit. Maiming enemies is surprisingly good, too: With the lock-on aiming of Ballistae, it helps keep fast enemies in the line of fire of all the totems. Unfortunately, you often won't be the one hitting enemies while they're on full life, so you're unlikely to generate power charges with this, so Power Charge on Crit is a good option on your Frenzy, if you'd like more focus on Power Charges.


Items

My gear:


Something that is very important to mention: A rare amulet can get up to 107 Dexterity (my current one has 105), so going for Astramentis is a waste of currency. My current amulet doesn't have any, but ideally you would have 2 resistances on your amulet, and Astramentis is an overpriced way of cutting that potential from the build.

It will be difficult to find a Rare amulet that gives so much dex, but it's definitely worth it if you can get it.


The core items:

Iron Commander, obviously



You can't do this build without this Bow.


Drillneck.



It's a free 100% increased projectile damage. And in Perandus league it's so easy to acquire a good one, there's no reason not to.

Since you don't need any extra Pierce chance, corrupting to have +1 Arrows is best. Any successful corruption is going to be better than the useless implicit it has, so you don't have much to lose. Of course, don't corrupt if you don't have a spare, because you still might accidentally rarify it.


Devoto's Devotion.



This is certainly a luxury item, and if it doesn't have a maximum dexterity roll (65) it will almost definitely not be worth it compared to a Helmet like Rat's Nest. Like I said earlier, I like running fast, so this was a no-brainer for me, but Your Mileage May Vary, as it were.


Everything else should be rares with max Dex rolls. Other than that, just go for the normal stuff: Life, Elemental Resistances.


I went jewel based because, well, Scion lends itself to it, and it makes also it easier to get even more Dexterity (even though my current jewels suck, because of it). Best jewels would be Crimson Jewels with
pre Increased Life,
pre Bow Attack Speed,
suf +Dexterity,
suf +Dexterity and Strength.

If you're already at 800 Dex, you would want Attack Speed and Projectile damage suffixes instead.


Gems and Links
Siege Ballista:
1 Siege Ballista
2 Faster Attacks
3 Added Fire Damage
4 Slower Projectiles
(5) Physical Projectile Attack Damage
(6) Increased Critical Strikes
(I don't have a 5 or 6 link, so I don't know if these are actually the best gems)

Frenzy:
1 Frenzy
2 Faster Attacks
3 Greater Multiple Projectiles
4 Life Gain on Hit
(5) Power Charge on Critical Strike
(6) Life Leech

CWDT:
1 Cast When Damage Taken
2 Summon Flame Golem
3 Blind
4 Enfeeble

CWDT:
1 Cast When Damage Taken
2 Molten Shell
3 Immortal Call
4 Increased Duration

Unlinked:

Blink Arrow
Hatred
Herald of Ash
Searing Bond

Playstyle
When you encounter a pack that looks difficult, use Frenzy first. This gives you a chance to generate from Power Charges. Then place your totems all in one spot so you don't waste time moving your mouse around.

For most packs, you should be fine placing one or two totems and moving on, casually using frenzy to break pots and keep your charges up.


Where to go next

I have about 10k Tooltip DPS (with 7 Frenzy charges up) on each totem, with 5 totems, which is certainly not bad considering you can still hit and finish mobs off with Frenzy.

I'm sitting on about 820 Dexterity (5 totems in total), and I can get 10 more on Gloves, and about 80 more across both rings. Theoretically, you could get 1000 Dexterity, with more investment in Dexterity on the tree, but it's totally not worth it after 800.


Closing Thoughts

This build is far from complete: Feel free to leave feedback for improvement.

Did you try something similar?

Was it it better?

Were you as hyped for Iron Commander as I was when Ascendancy was first announced?


Thanks for reading!

Hi!
I'm currently running around with your build and I must say - it's suprisingly good. I'm comparing it with my friend's Iron Commander, which is build on ranger. Due to starting position, he has more dps on balistas, but well, doesnt really matter @lv45. Found out by occasion that good leveling skill is shrapnel shot, at least for me. With GMP it is just... rekting.
I have 2 questions:
1. Did you considered using Rain of Splinters jewel? 30% less dmg and free effect of LMP to balistas gives really nice clearing.
2. What rewards from bandits did you took? I plan going with HP, AS and Frenzy.

Cheers and keep up good work :)

is this HC viable?

Rain of Splinters! Yes! Of course, this is the most essential jewel ever needed for Siege Ballista.

I will update with more information about Bandits. Your choices are the same ones I took, though. It's a pretty natural decision.

I've also had some more thoughts about gem choices and decided that Weapon Elemental Damage is probably better than Physical Projectile Attack damage, so I'll include that in the next update too.


As for Hardcore viability: I would say a hesitant "Most likely."

I have died 20 times while playing this, but the majority of the time it was due to bad play or a situation that could be avoided. Taking bad risks, basically:

1 was to a Perandus box near the end of Cruel when I just wasn't paying attention to my health and forgot to walk out of the way of a pack of Evangelists' attacks.
1 was to Torchoak Grove because I ran past it to try and get to Kaom's Path, and I stood still at the entrance, then getting killed during the instance establishment time ("Entering Kaom's Path...")
3 of those deaths were to Merciless Kaom when I only had 30% Fire resistance (so really it was my bad)
1 was to Merciless Daresso because I was lagging terribly and couldn't react while a spinning blade spawned on top of me.
1 was to Maligaro, because I didn't conserve my flask charges properly
1 was to Shavronne, because I thought the totems in front of me could tank her Lightning Balls longer and I'd kill her by the time she killed me, but she had a sliver of HP left when she killed me.
11 of these deaths were to Merciless Malachai. Enough said, really. (Though, actually, this build is quite good at fighting Malachai with, because you can place totems on his traps, and you can continue kiting while still dealing a good amount of damage: Even to hearts because of the 100% piercing)
And the last death was at the start of the third Izaro fight, immediately getting hit by the Goddess' Bombardment attack. I'm much more careful about using a Basalt flask at the start of that fight, now.

Consider that only 2 of these deaths are not due to encounters after Deshret's Spirit, so if I hadn't gone further than that in A4M, my record would be much better.

It was my fault when I died, every time. Additionally, there is still about 40% increased life to be grabbed on the tree (The nodes I still don't have are the Evasion and Life nodes by the Ranger start, Thick Skin, and Profane Chemistry) that I didn't take in favour of more damage, so that should probably make you feel more safe, should you go for it.

If you're playing Hardcore, you're probably a better player than I am, anyway.

I would not consider it "tanky", though. It's not intended to be exactly easy to stay alive with this build, but I don't think it has any major lack in defenses.

I run astramentis and yeah you lose out on resists on that slot but the added bonus strength and int makes my gems happy.

Though I went full derp with abyssus and having 4 totems doing 30k is a thing of beauty.

I did go for deadeye and at the rate drillneck is I might try to corrupt one later in the game.

Nice to see the build !

I am a fan of Siege Ballista too :)

when you say " And in Perandus league it's so easy to acquire a good one, there's no reason not to."

How do you do it excatly ? just rerolling lvl 36 map util you found a Daresso selling one ?

Edit : is there a reason for not taking "point blank" ? for me now 80% of mobs are rushing the ballista

"

Inialla wrote:

How do you do it excatly ? just rerolling lvl 36 map util you found a Daresso selling one ?

No, you can just buy one. They're going low as 8 chaos on poe.trade

"

Edit : is there a reason for not taking "point blank" ? for me now 80% of mobs are rushing the ballista

Well, my name for them is "Off-screen totems." Basically, the advantage against closer enemies is not as great as being able to kill enemies further away faster. The totems can't tank everything, so it's better to deal damage from further away, and Point Blank makes the Totems weaker the more you spread them out (if you don't want them to die to AoE attacks constantly).

It's up you, really, but I find it better to hit enemies from further away.