[3.4] Rain of Arrow poison assasin- Very high damage- League Starter - End game viable
 Image from Deviant Art This is my first build guide. The build has worked very well for me. It gets me straight to level 91 currently with no problem, so I want to share it with the community Update: 7/9/2018 Changed the name of the thread to a better one. Cleared maps upto tier 14 with the build, no major problem so far, unless the mods are too rippy. Killed Normal elder deathless, I haven't met Uber Elder and Shaper yet. Restructured the guide and finalize it, as I don't plan on to upgrade my gear much from now on. 5/9/2018 I changed the major pantheon and added some recommendation for gear to target for. Fixed some typos tl;dr:
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https://pastebin.com/1EdhpSe0 Pros and Cons
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Pros:
-Can reach 1 million shaper dps with garbage gear. -High clear speed with +173% movement speed while mapping, good aoe from Rain of arrow. -Cheap, around 1 exalt in total, but of course we can gradually build it up. -1700 Life leech/s. 43% Evasion, 30% Spell Dodge, 5k life, 50% reduced curse effect, overcapped resist for elemental weakness, plenty of evasion, artic armour, pantheons. -Don't care about map mods. Cons: -Damage over time build, mobs don’t instantly die, no fancy Herald effect, no instant safety from that. The feelsgood factor from mobs instanly dying should also be considered. Build Concept:
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-The high damage of the build comes from the Noxious Strike node of the Assassin ascendancy. We have increased poison duration per poison stack. Therefore with enough attack speed, the damage stacks up very fast and it becomes an insane damage multiplier.
-The new Herald of Agony provides a new source of damage for poison builds. Poison builds before don’t use many auras anyway so this is a very good buff. -Since the Ascendancy gives us so much damage, we can focus on defense, which Assassin sorely lack. We therefore take all the life node in the Scion wheel to have 158% Increased Maximum Life from the tree, take all the dodge chance we can ( 43% Attack Dodge and 30% Spell Dodge), and utility node to increase clear speed like movement speed node. -My idea is to make you tanky enough to stand still and apply poisons without worrying about dying too much. We utilize Artic Armour, which gives us 10% Phys reduction and 8% Fire reduction, combined with the Pantheon which gives us additional 8% Phys reduction while stationary. -The last thing is sustainability. To solve that problem, I use Thief’s torment which gives us a huge amount of Life gain on Hit, combined with hit rate from Barrage, this gives us pseudo Vaal Pact. Playstyle:
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Can facetank bosses up to red map, in which we try to stand a bit far away and rely on the knock back on crit to push the boss back.
Central Unique:
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-Thief’s Torment : This is the only form of sustainability we have. Without it, you need it to hit your life flasks much often. -Lioneye's Glare: Good phys DPS bow, no worry about accuracy. Gems:
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Listed in order of importance.
Single target: Barrage-Added Chaos Damage-Greater Multiple Projectiles-Withering Touch-Deadly Ailment-Vicious Projectile Note: I use Withering Touch because I’m too lazy to drop withering totem. Besides, many bosses jump around too much. The guaranteed stacks from Withering Touch are enough to make up for the damage loss. Clear: Rain of Arrows- Added Chaos Damage- Mirage Archer – Deadly Ailments- Vicious Projectile- (Vile Toxins) Note: Toxic rain is a viable alternative, but it is a bit slow to apply life gain on hit part, which can be dangerous in some situation. Actually you don't need a 6 link Rain of Arrow to kill trash mobs, 5 links is fine. Herald of Agony setup: HoAg – Minion Damage- Vicious Projectile- Faster Attack Note: No greater multiple projectile, the mana multiplier is just too much. Cast on Damage Taken : CoDT – Immortal Call – Enfeeble – Chaos Golem Utility setup: Phase run – Blink Arrow- Arctic Armour- Whatever you like (Decoy Totem?) My current gear:
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Note: I don't want to to spend fusings on 5 linking the bow and the glove is quite good besides so the gem setup is a bit different. Gear:
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Bow: Lioneye's Glare. Explanation above. A common alternative is Quillrain, it indeed can get you to maps. But the Lioneye's glare is still beter because we really don't need that much attack speed. Quiver: Maloney's nightfall : Blind, Life, and damage. Very good and cheap unique. You can corrupt it for an extra 1 additional arrow. Body Armour: Rare Armour with life and resist. Evasion based for chroming. Don’t use Dendrobate because we don’t need the duration and it is just 10% more damage increase with no life and resist. You can get an easy 6 link body armour by searching for a 6 linked non-corrupted white body armour item level 72 min for 30-40 chaos. Buy some Screaming Essence of Greed and try to roll some resist on it. If you can also master craft resist on it if it has open suffix. Very cheap overall I don't recommend any uniques though, as it can be very hard to 6 link it. Belt: Stygian Vise with life and resist. Flask charge duration mod is a good bonus. Amulet: Impresence chaos version is best in slot. Budget: Rare amulet with life, resist, and Intelligence (you need 111 Intel to equip Added Chaos gem) Boots: Bubonic Trail is best in slot, even with 1 jewel socket. We don't need another 4 link anyway so let's utilize that. Budget: This Bubonic Trail boot is 1 chaos at the moment Helmet: A Helmet with +to level of Socketed Minion gems, life and resist. Evasion based. Glove: Rare Glove with life and resist, +% attack speed is good. You can use The embalmer is an easy 5 link for Barrage early. Ring: Thief’s Torment. Look for High life gain on hit and quantity. Other stats to look for if you have the money: Crit chance and crit multiplier, any stats that you see fit. Flasks:
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Budget version:
1 Instant Life Recovery Flask- Quicksilver Flask-Diamond Flask-Jade Flask- Basalt Flask The other flasks must have: Bleed Immunity, Freeze Immunity, Increased Movement speed during flask effect. Other helpful mods: Increased Duration (So you don’t have to flask jamming that often), Shock Immunity Final version: Remove Basalt and Jade Flask for Dying Sun and Witchfire Brew/Sin's Rebirth Note: I don’t use Coralito's Signature because we don’t need the duration. You can get easy 20% quality flask with Glass Bubble when it’s white and then transmute. I prefer Sin's rebirth since it has one more use per flask cycle. Atziri's Promise is a 9% more damage multiplier, with +700 Life gain on hit currently. It is nice and you can swap out basalt/jade to use it, and swap out diamond flask for final version. But remember you still have to have bleed immunity, freeze immunity, shock immune in other flasks, and it can be very hard to roll. So it is personal choice. Jewel:
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All jewels have to have life, and are abyss jewel. ( We really need + flat life because we have enough +% life from the tree) 2 Jewels with mod +>5% chance to Onslaught. (Enough to sustain while mapping) Best dps mod for jewels: +% attack speed if crit recently That is the general guideline, any other mods you can find is a bonus. You can use Fertile mind to compensate for intelligence early on if needed. Bandit:
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Kraityn gives the most dps and utility.
Pantheon:
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I don't use Brine King anymore because I find that I don't get stunned that often. Major god: Soul of Lunaris (Really good in Delve, all effects are helpful) Minor god: Soul of Tukuhama (For more facetanking potential, it's equivalent to several thousands of armor) Try to upgrade the pantheons as soon as you can, it helps. If you don't know how, look up poe wiki. Ascendancy:
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Noxious Strike>Toxic>Delivery>Opportunistic>Unstable Infusion.
We don’t take Deadly Infusion because the damage is increase is similar to Opportunistic (It is bit higher and more consistent, but we lose the added survivability of the opportunistic node and 20% ms), and the added ms and defense from Opportunity is too good to pass Tree: Example tree at level 91:
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 Leveling:
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Use caustic arrow for leveling till you complete normal lab. After completing normal lab, respec to have at least 80% chance to poison (Use some chance to poison nodes from the tree, don’t use the gem, then respec after you have over 100% chance to poison). By then switch to toxic rain/ rain of arrow, and have barrage as single target, get Herald of Agony ( you have 60% chance to poison from Ascendancy and the herald alone, fill out the other 40% from the tree). 4 links work just fine to maps. Remember to buy the gems and level it when possible. Don’t take any crit nodes early on. Take the jewel node only if you have good jewel. You can get +30 intelligence from the tree and then respec if needed. Try to collect all the damage overtime node/poison node and then only life afterwords. Pick Acrobatic and Phase Acrobatics as soon as possible. If you don’t have Thief’s Torment and don’t want spamming mana flask early on, get the Essence Sap node. The Cast On damage Taken setup helps quite a lot, get it early if you have the links. Milestones: 1k hp for normal lab, 2k hp for Cruel Lab, 3k hp for Merciless Lab. For Uberlab, 4k2 hp works fine. Swap out the jade flask for an extra life flask. Switch the pantheon to Soul of Solaris. If you have Quillrain and Thief’s torment early on, then leveling is a breeze. Video:
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Tier 11 Promenade: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L8eeXvkA_Y&feature=youtu.be My computer doesn't have the power to record the video properly without lag, sorry about that. If you have feedback, feel free to post here. I'm very open to critics. Last edited by xpmrz on Oct 3, 2018, 2:46:14 PM Last bumped on Oct 3, 2018, 2:39:33 PM
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Reserved.
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Hey, nice stuff, was looking for a poison ROA build. Levelling a toxic rain - quill rain right now and it feels very good. I was planning to go MoM. What do you think would be better AA or MoM? Mb with new herald, AA is a better option then MoM, when you also have the possibility to upgrade to Fenums' Weaves.
I like the fact that you do not go full attack speed like many others do, especially when the hardest bosses often do have phases anyway. Also vaal ROA looks like very good for bosses. Will look for updates ;) Edit: have you considered a blind in the barrage setup? an atziri flask? Starkonja's head? Last edited by bars92 on Sep 4, 2018, 8:41:20 AM
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" You simply don't have the mana for Mind Over Matter with the new Herald Of Agony. With my current link, it eats up 44% of your already panthetic mana ( cause you are dexterity based). It leaves me with around 400 mana currently. I expect to have around 5k life, as you can see I can still massively improve my gear, which demands around 1500 unreserved mana to utilize MoM to its fulliest. I dont believe I can go from 400 mana to 1500 without significant investment and thus damage loss, unless of course you ditch Herald Of Agony, which feels kind of against the idea of this league, doesn't it ? ;). I use Artic Armour because I find that I scare getting one shot too much and ends up running around avoid the boss, wasting a lot of time. Therefore I stack up damage reduction everywhere possible so I can at least tank the boss for a few seconds to quickly charge up my poison stack and melt them. As for the attack speed, I realize that stacking so much aps for poison duration is kind of nonsense. Yes you have insane dps in path of building, but it takes too much time to ramp up anyway, so it kind of defeats the purpose of high DPS for faster boss killing. I will update more if I have time. Usually I stop playing and create a new char around level 85 because I dont like the grind for currency to get that 6 link and that expansive item to have enough damage for bosses, but this char exceeds my expectation in such a short time so I still have energy to play it much longer ;) Last edited by xpmrz on Sep 4, 2018, 8:49:08 AM
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" I already have blind covered with the quiver. The smoke cloud effect makes monster standing on it blind. Atziri flask is a nice flask too, forgot about it :D. It gives you around 9% more damage, it is still less damage than the diamond flask though, about 4% less, but with added 700 life gain on hit. And since you already have 2 unique flasks in your final setup, it is hard to roll the bleed, freeze, shock and movementspeed in the other flasks. I like increased duration on flasks too so I can minimize flask jamming. It's up to you then. Starkonja head gives you 6% more damage, +2% evade chance, at the cost of losing +2 minion gems. At the moment I have no idea how to calculate the dps of the Agony minion, so I don't know if it out weight the cost. I only know that it scales quite well with level. So I go the safe option to reduce the ele resist pressure. Last edited by xpmrz on Sep 4, 2018, 9:33:36 AM
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Ok, thank you.
I did a few testings on PoB and going MoM is ~30% dmg loss. But is fairly easy to reach 1600 mana. Aside from the damage loss, i guess AA is a better defensive option anyway, while also allows more life nodes on tree. Guess i'll go that way. Quill rain still seems good to me as in 8 seconds of fight the damage should be a little bit higher, and it works a little better with thief's torment ring for more defense. However, I think it's more of a personal choice. I level slower then you, but i'll post updates on that also later. Also Coralito's signature adds quite a bunch of damage. Edit: i will surely try Lioneye’s Glare too. Last edited by bars92 on Sep 4, 2018, 10:46:46 AM
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Mind the fact that you will occasionally suffer from "I don't have mana to do that yet" from big hits and damage over time if you go MoM. And the 1600 is the unreserved mana, the total required mana should be 1600/0,56. But sure, if you prefer, choose MoM.
I initially go quill rain too but the math doesn't seem to work out, unless with 6 link quillrain. I may also switch to quillrain if I have that. Coralito damage comes from increased poison duration, which increases the total ramp up time, which can be deceiving in term of total DPS in PoB. I prefer more upfront damage (Higher damage per poison, lower duration). Last edited by xpmrz on Sep 4, 2018, 1:56:27 PM
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" Yeah, in fact i probably will not do MoM, i will go AA probably. Coralito also gives you Perfect Agony, which makes 30% of crit multi apply to poison damage. | |
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So I am also building something quite similar, but going the quill rain route (got lucky with links). I was thinking of going non Mom route and reserving for HoA-GMP-MD-vile toxins and AA (have not done the math... Hopefully there is enough bar for that =X) any idea how many rare slots I would need to get a say 5k + ehp?
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" You don't have the mana for GMP in HoA, it leaves you with 77 unreserved mana with my current tree. Besides you don't need the clear from the minion, it often gets stuck behind a wall or fires into a wall, doing nothing. Your main damage skill just melt everything, I will post an updated clip of the build without temporal chain because it is really fast. You need the mininon for bosses, because its attack is insane. Dexterity doesn't provide life. So to have around 5k hp , you need to have life on every equipment and jewel, with tier 3 and above. Even with that much increased life from the tree I'm now sitting at 4850 hp at level 89. I can squeeze to 5k1 with more investment. (I currently just look for item with 5 chaos max , then sort them by max life.) Last edited by xpmrz on Sep 5, 2018, 1:42:03 AM
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