Explosive Arrow vs Toxic Rain
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Hello, I am considering EA and TR for a bow build, so I have been making a comparison between the two skills. What are your thought ?
TR: -: only stackable ground effect in the game -: scales with duration for "slightly less" flat damage than EA at +100% duration -: slightly more frontloaded damage than EA -: slows -: multi-hits more at base # of arrows -: ground targeting -: scales with damage over time multiplier -: accuracy is not that important EA: -: flat damage directly comparable to TR (1 second fuse <-> chaos dps). Numbers higher especially without skill duration -: no utility -: does weapon damage happens twice ? (one at arrow hit, one at explosion) -: great multi-hits with additionnal arrow stacking -: direction targeting (offscreening) -: can ignite -: only scales AoE with multiple fuse -: slightly more backloaded -: normal accuracy dependancy Now that we can use ensnare arrow for slowing, EA seems like a solid skill. I think I'll go EA for the "novelty" of it anyway. My readings for now: EA is more damage, but TR might be better in tight situations where you can't spare many actions. Last bumped on Dec 11, 2019, 4:25:44 PM
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toxic rain is proven, the new explosive arrow isn't.
if you wanna go a safe route, go TR. there are plenty of builds out there (though some clearly better than others). wait until a bit into league to look at what some others are doing with EA. or, if you like to theorycraft yourself and don't mind going into it a bit more blind then just start off with EA. the way EA looks now...its hard to say how it'll perform. it'll still be tough to gauge whats best, ignite or just the hit dmg. the damage does look solid though, for sure another thing to keep in mind is that toxic rain has a significant defense mechanic with it. since mobility is the best defense right now, this shouldn't be overlooked. this, in my opinion, is a variation of the best toxic rain build. it will play out very well with the ballista update. https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2304536 Last edited by xMustard#3403 on Dec 11, 2019, 1:41:52 AM
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Correctly if I'm wrong, but doesn't the new explosive arrow have damage effectiveness on it now? 50% if what I heard is correct. That's technically a damage nerf to the scaling of the explosions. Before there was plenty of projectile and elemental/fire damage nodes you could grab to boost damage, so the adding of bow damage to this isn't a huge deal. The 50% will cut everything in half now making it scale WORSE then before.
The only bonus now is you can have unlimited charges on an single enemy, which is only useful if they aren't standing next to a wall. Not to mention you have plant yourself in order to pump arrows in, and without quillrain it won't be as easy anymore. That and the max 5 charges wasn't that bad for some bosses as it gave you time to move without losing any DPS. |
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the new damage has some of weapon damage plus
" i also think its 50% weapon damage but that won't cut down the inherent damage added by the gem. so this is going to be a damage buff so long as you have some base damage. also you can stack as many arrows into a target before it explodes as you want. before it was capped at 5. so, depending on attack speed etc, this could be a huge buff. even more so, the explosion damage used to be secondary damage which is very hard to scale. now its generic bow damage so it will scale with everything. projectile, aoe, fire, bow. this means its actual damage will be able to be scaled, amounting this change to me an extreme damage buff overall |
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" You are correct the base damage on the game won't be touched but any modifiers to the damage will be halfed (it used to be 100% now 50%). The secondary damage used to scale with projectile, aoe, fire, elemental, and flat damage (that shadow passive) it wasn't hard to scale it was only un-intuitive to scale. The change to being attack damage really only adds the bow damage and weapon damage modifiers, which are also halfed meaning most of the nodes won't even get to the base 10% that most of the other nodes had. The only bonus is those elemental pen nodes will now effect it which is a small consolation. With the nerf to quillrain basically gutted explosion based builds as even with the 5 charge max you still wanted absurd attack speed (this was when they weren't even viable with the gotta go fast meta). Now it wouldn't matter as it's not 2ndary damage anymore, but the explosions will be weaker in general compared to the pre quill nerf version (which was ONLY strong during the early years of PoE). The only damage increase I see is single target vs bosses not standing next to a wall (because the stack count didn't matter if they were). In which case it is extremely rare to not have to move in the time it took to put 5 charges in the boss anyways, and that was with quillrain (reduced duration gem made them go off fast). I have very strong reservations with this skill, I was so happy they were addressing explosive arrow on this patch. Ever sense the quill rain nerf it hasn't been the same. Now I feel explosive arrow just got kicked in the balls again. |
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I understand your fears since you compare new EA to (very) old EA, but I don't think it's completely warranted.
We all know how powerful TR is, and new EA seems to hold it's ground when compared to it. The only issue I can see arise for now is that 1s fuse is both a blessing and a curse: A blessing because it no longer makes EA horribly backloaded. A curse because pumping a good amount of charge in 1s is tough, and without enough charge I am not sure the AoE will be worthwile. Regarding Quill Rain... the penalty is becoming 30% less damage. It's 50% more attack speed than the next fastest bow: stormcloud / the tempest. Meaning for damage they are roughly the same: 1.5 x 0.7 = 1.05 (more speed vs less damage) So Quill Rain is again better than the tempest. That's good. Now, for raw efficiency, no doubt a fast +3 bow will be better. But that's also acceptable. I wouldn't mind finding and using a Quill Rain for a while this league. |
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" hmm yeah you may be right. EA compared to pre nerf quill rain is still garbage in comparison, i think, but its still a buff from where it was (dumpster soggy garbage). i was thinking about this last night and i think the best way to get its damage off is to actually make the "fuses" last longer, maybe to 1.5 seconds or so, and stack the "fuses" for a massive ignite. but then i just keep thinking why - just play anything else and kill things faster. lol |
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" Yeah and the new burning arrow might just be better for ignites anyways. Last edited by Cantspel#1442 on Dec 11, 2019, 1:18:31 PM
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thats true. burning arrow almost certainly will be better for ignites. even just how ignites work, burning arrow gives you a reason to keep attacking while something is ignited, while EA (if ignite focused) wouldn't really have a point. you'd just refresh the ignite duration
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I think people should use burning arrow while levling then transition into Explosive arrow when they got enough attack speed to get enough stacks for the big booms :)
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