LA Templar hit Act 2 Cruel Brick Wall

Hello,

So I made THE Bow Templar and everything was fine until Act 2 Cruel.

I can't even survive Chamber of Sins.
No chance for Broken Bridge or Western Forest, meaning I die within 5 min in the area.

My Passive Skill Tree
It is quite basic.

I think my damage, armor and attack speed is too low.
Level: 46
Attack speed 1.21 (bow attack speed, no increase from gear/passives)
DPS LA: ~500
HP: 800-900, being ranged thought that it's enough for now
Armor: 500
Resists: ~70% except cold which is 7%, no chaos resist
Auras: Discipline, Clarity, Wrath, Anger/Purity


I usually get destroyed by melee: 2-3 hits.

Gear


You will probably say why don't I have LMP linked to LA.
It's simple, I have 1 additional arrow from bow which doesn't lower my DPS. More arrow that lower my DPS doesn't help since the hits will not overlap. I have sufficient AoE.

Attack speed is really a problem. I can get 1-2 hits then I run, but since I have movement penalty from gear my run speed is low and I can't outrun the mobs. When I stop and shoot (low AS) I get hit by melee and die.

My boots are bad but are the only boots I have with 20% movement speed.

All my wealth could sum up in 1 exalted and 4 gcps.
Any item I wish to buy costs by default 2 gcps. So I never bought an upgrade. All gear is self found except for the Goldrim which was really cheap. (got the bow using orb of chance).

Cruel Ledge seems low to farm, I could do that. But I can't farm any area in Act 2 Cruel.

Please advise.

Swap out weapon elemental with Life on Hit and grab a Chain gem.

"

taehyunn wrote:

Swap out weapon elemental with Life on Hit and grab a Chain gem.

Did you read my entire post?
Chain cost 2 gcps minimum, can't afford it.
It will lower my already low damage so I will die even faster.
If I take out WED then my DPS will go to ~200-300. You think I can survive with that DPS in Cruel?

Do you think that lowering the DPS will increase survivability... ?

Hey,

1. You linked Lesser Multiple Projectiles with Conductivity
2. You need way more LoH/LL

"

industrial_sala wrote:

Hey,

1. You linked Lesser Multiple Projectiles with Conductivity
2. You need way more LoH/LL

1. I put it there just to level until I get a better bow and use LMP
2. You're right, as I don't have LL I would like LoH but I don't have RRG linked on my gear.

I try to use Armor/ES gear to get the most out of Eldritch Battery.
Should use Armor based armor? That would lower my mana pool.
I don't see any way to increase my armor which is very low, maybe using molten shell...

why do you even use eldrich armor in the first place? 9 wasted skill points... respec them and get divine toughness and fitness then go to marauder start
then get a better bow and use gmp with la ll and blood magic
this dude came till 60HC without any problems ( exept for desync which where his doom)
https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgUAAdwEswVbDH0QfxNbFE0ZLho4HRQn7TKJNuk8BTwtPQ9G11XGVdZX4livWfNhIWTnZp5nvXC7cql07XfleA16uHrvfNl99YM4hO-LjI9GkFWboZ_fogCnCKeEqW6sqq6TtfK3PriTud2-isAaxPbGnsauz2XQ0NSP2t3hc-Lq42rsOO0g7m_vDu988i_z3fba-tI=
was planing on going for iron reflexes next than a lot of life


-edit-
if you want a chain gem ask me ingame i have 3 in my stash and no use for them...

1 exalt 4 gcp's and you can't spend 2 gcp on chain?

You know gear upgrades for you would only got 1-2 chaos each. They would last for a while as well. I think your problem is just you're hoarding currency and letting your character suffer.

You have a lot more currency then others at your level. spend it, you'll make it back when you advance to higher levels.

Also you're saying you can't farm Act 2 Cruel Fellshrine? Your damage is more than enough for that.

Looking at your gear I really feel like you have very little to no armor, and that's why you're dying to melee. Either get more armor or maybe even start using decoy totem to not get hit. And if you're still getting destroyed, grab 2 enduring cries and keep 3 charges up all the time.

Edit: Above still stand but wow 800 life. My Bow templar had like 1200 life by the time I killed Piety. You need more armor and life, sacrifice damage if you have to .

"

nebunelux wrote:

"

taehyunn wrote:

Swap out weapon elemental with Life on Hit and grab a Chain gem.

Did you read my entire post?
Chain cost 2 gcps minimum, can't afford it.
It will lower my already low damage so I will die even faster.
If I take out WED then my DPS will go to ~200-300. You think I can survive with that DPS in Cruel?

Do you think that lowering the DPS will increase survivability... ?

i assumed total worth = 1 exalt 4gcps

play the trading game and get a chain. fork if it's still too expensive (shouldn't be, 2 gcps is chump change if ledge is farmable.)

and you are missing the point of a lightning arrow archer. by using a fork / chain with multiple projectiles more life is leeched than lost (mob of 3-4 will outheal any damage taken.) taking an extra second to kill a mob is worth being able to facetank groups (though i'd argue that chain and fork will do way more damage even if it replaces weapon elemental damage.)

on paper DPS doesn't matter much when LA starts hitting 14+ times instead of 9 on a group of 3+

"

nebunelux wrote:

So I made THE Bow Templar and everything was fine until Act 2 Cruel.

It's pretty interesting to contrast your experience with my recent successful tackling of the same situation on my bow duelist. So I feel compelled to post about it. :)

Basically I got through Merveil quite handily and arrived in cruel act 2 a bit underleveled (38?). I felt there was a step up in difficulty in River Crossing and Crossroads. I farmed a little first in The Forest and then at Fellshrine (to 44 even?). I got some important skill points to reach the current shape of my passive tree, geared up with low 40s items, toyed around with my gems and then happily progressed my story some.

The bow duelist is now a little overleveled at 47, has killed Alira and will only kill Kraityn before heading for Oak and then soon Vaal.

Skill tree and short description: Iron Reflexes, Iron Grip (Taken after I reached 200 str), elemental adaptation (wasn't really necessary yet tbh), Resolute Technique. 1% life regen and +132% max life.

I have 1797 life, 73-80% elemental resists (Higher than necessary atm but will be nice in pyramid. Would like to get Purity and reconfigure gear I think), -20% chaos res (A little care and manual dodging with high life is enough), 1355 armor in town and 1870 with Determination. Granite flasks available from my Fellshrine farming.

My gearing up was basically:
- Rolling up new ilvl 40 (lvl 38 req) boots with +25% movement speed. The other stat, resist, is slightly higher than your boots as well. But their evasion is double the armor of your boots because they aren't outdated - or weren't. These boots helped my gameplay with bow a lot considering I had played most of the way until now without any bonus movement speed.
- Sinking 4 armourer scraps into those boots beforehand and even putting 20 into my rare lvl 39 4L wyrmscale doublet that I will try to get a lot of use out of. I got slight level-appropriate upgrades for gloves and helmet I think but didn't find them worth qualifying.
- Got a rare Sniper Bow that was a slight dps upgrade to my rare Grove Bow. The slower attacks are interfering with my kiting routine a bit so wouldn't really consider this an upgrade for my solo play atm. I don't use totems or summons so the shoot-step-shoot routine is a big deal for me.
- Balance life, resists and some damage around the above items using my stash of magical (blue) rings, amulets, belts and quivers that I've been building up since normal act 3.
- Despite all the crafting, note all I've used on gear is 1 alch and total couple stacks of chance/alts/augs/trans. Even that feels too much at lvl 40 but it seemed necessary. I've spent a few alchs on gems from players.

Skill-wise, I had been using mainly Hatred, Burning Arrow + Added Fire Damage, Poison Arrow, Fire Trap and Bear Trap until cruel act 2. I've been now experimenting with the 4-link by using Blood Magic (the support gem), Life Gain on Hit (tried Life Leech first but Life Gain will be better for many levels seems) and Faster Attacks together with Burning Arrow or Split Arrow or Lightning Arrow. Had to level up the gems in Fellshrine for a bit to make the setup fairly stable with my 1% life regen - note I leave the actual bow attack gems at lowest mana cost possible, for now. The LA version still hogs some extra life but I'll probably use the Split Arrow for a bit - finally at this level I can make it worth using!

The blood magic left me to reserve nearly all my mana for auras so I've played with Determination, Hatred and lvl 1 Wrath. I might replace Hatred with Grace. I'd like to swap something to Purity and get Reduced Mana but need another 4L piece... (or even 3L, I've focused on stats over sockets/links because gear is changing too often) But I must upgrade from the chest soonish too. /cry

Goal with auras is to leave barely enough mana to use some Poison Arrow or LA/BA along with my life based spam. Not enough for traps sadly. I may return to my old setup though and leave the blood magic until later.

All along, my dps hasn't been amazing or anything. I've been willing to give up damage stats from accessories and armour all along. 200-300 single target dps for normal act 3 and cruel act 1. Current setup can do 200+ multi-target (per target) and 300 single, or 350+ single and sub-200 multi. Not counting possible degen from poison or any trapping. And this is fine, might even give up a little more damage for that Grace or Purity.

Ok, super long post already... I think it's pure info for this specific situation from a fairly similar character though.

Recommendations:
- You'll easily roll better boots starting from item level 40+ white boots, as high lvl req as you can use. 4 armor scraps, then transmutation and alts until you get 20% or 25% movement speed. Augment if needed, consider if you want to reroll until 2nd mod is useful too.
- Your helmet is getting old for you. If you can get decent resists without it, look for replacement. It is the armour slot with second highest base defenses after chest.
- The belt isn't as good for you as you probably think. 62 life is the only important stat on it for you right this moment. Any chance you could find similar life with some resist, slapped on a leather belt or at least high base stat heavy belt?
- If you farm a while and check merchants, it shouldn't be hard to transmute/chance enough white quivers to get one with life and another good stat (resist or dmg). Although you might be only limited to the dex quivers as bow templar.
- I'm sorry but the rings and amulet probably need to go. They're easier to swap than more level-specific items with gem sockets/links. Rare hp ring is giving you dmg when you need defense and its rolls are getting bad for your level. The accuracy was very nice in its time but now you have reached Resolute Technique and made it invalid. The resist ring should be 30% base AND a 25-30% resist mod or preferably 10-12% all prismatic + resist roll. Try to find some white prismatics to roll with transmutations/chances I think. You probably know the amulet is bad. Try rolling 18-20 all stats onyx amulets (white to blue). There's a vendor recipe for them that is any amulet and any 3 red/green/blue gems. Note item level is same as previous amulet and changing gems can give different base stat on it.
- Basically I think the parts where you think your dps is lacking in addition to armor can be fixed by having a little more ability to keep shooting between kiting, and more error margin. Which will be obtained via better defenses despite actually lowering the offense a bit. I'm playing in Hardcore btw in case you feel I've overemphasized life. :p

There, hopefully the long text was worth it to show you how I arrived at the recommendations. I'm not suggesting you touch your orbs of chaos or better at all for mere lvl 40+ gear. I've traded some of my excessive chromatics (from vendoring RGB items) for trans and alts when I ran low on those.

Edit: You should probably obtain another Lightning Arrow (from a new temp character perhaps?) and leave it at lvl 5 for lower mana cost. Or experiment with other abilities that start at lower costs: Burning Arrow, Iceshot, Split Arrow. Also consider whether you want to keep leveling those auras with scaling mana costs or Conductivity since the mana costs might make them burdensome to use.