Whats the Best single target bow skill (without the aid of special items)

So without the aid of special uniques or gems, just purely with rares, passives and support gems, how do the bow skill rank amongst each other when it comes to single target damage potential?

I know many say burning arrow, but in some simple quick PoB builds ive seen even skills like Ice Shot show higher or similar damage in the tool. (and I dont think ive seen Ice shot ever being recommended for single target dps).

who would ever suggest burning arrow being the highest single target bow skill? people who read dmg per ignite as dps?
never even heard of this

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jewdas12 wrote:

who would ever suggest burning arrow being the highest single target bow skill? people who read dmg per ignite as dps?
never even heard of this

Im in no way saying its accurate, its just what Ive seen when googling for answers.

What do you suggest is top dps then when it comes to bow skills?

I think you need to specify whether you mean top dps at any cost, or most dps per exalt, and whether you are just counting investment for the dps, or total investment for the build.

I haven't played bow in a bit, but most Deadeyes used to play IceShot for the clear with Barrage for single. That still seems to be pretty popular but I wouldn't recommend a Deadeye unless you are experienced and feeling very comfortable with a high skillcap glass cannon build that will be quite expensive.

For Pathfinder, TR looks like it's still popular. Scourge Arrow is also an option. Neither of those will do as much dps as a maxed out Deadeye, but they will be much more robust (forgiving) defensively, clear pretty fast, and do enough single target damage on a reasonable budget to handle most end content.

Good luck

You can sort by DPS in poe.ninja without having to select one specific skill. It will ranked every character based on their main skill DPS (any skill with over 4 links).

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jewdas12 wrote:

who would ever suggest burning arrow being the highest single target bow skill? people who read dmg per ignite as dps?
never even heard of this

Burning Arrow has highest damage effectiveness out of all non-vaal projectile attacks, which is what some people look for. But it has no added flat damage like some other skills and the secondary damage through debuff and ignite is meh unless you specifically scale it.

Ice Shot is probably the best pure "primary" damage bow skill. But Puncture, used in conjunction with Ensnaring Arrow, can deliver massive bleeding damage, and Tornado Shot and Toxic Rain can "shotgun" targets, potentially multiplying the damage dealt.

My intuition would be that puncture + ensnaring arrow bleed build would be best single target, though of course would likely be awful for regular mapping/etc where aoe is important.

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ExiledSarin wrote:

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jewdas12 wrote:

who would ever suggest burning arrow being the highest single target bow skill? people who read dmg per ignite as dps?
never even heard of this

Burning Arrow has highest damage effectiveness out of all non-vaal projectile attacks, which is what some people look for. But it has no added flat damage like some other skills and the secondary damage through debuff and ignite is meh unless you specifically scale it.

Ice Shot is probably the best pure "primary" damage bow skill. But Puncture, used in conjunction with Ensnaring Arrow, can deliver massive bleeding damage, and Tornado Shot and Toxic Rain can "shotgun" targets, potentially multiplying the damage dealt.

oh i didnt know about burning arrow having the highest dmg effectiveness. maybe burning arrow + barrage could unload some huge dmg on a hit based build.

also good to bring up toxic rain. you can quite comfortably reach 6 overlaps on the explosions, which totals up to 7 hits if you include one of the initial non aoe arrows falling, which should be falling on the target location. with 70% dmg effectiveness that adds up to an "effective" dmg effectiveness of 490%, which is quite insane for a skill that also clears very well. now it doesnt have any added dmg on its own, and half of the base phys is converted to chaos, but just elemental dmg stacking on toxic rain can deal some insane damage. the problem is that it is delayed dmg

elemental hit with arrow stacking and barrage looks quite insane tho, as is evident from the 100 million dps raiders on poe ninja. now these are poe ninja dps heros and it is not quite accurate, but that is insane dmg

just using regular barrage can reach upwards of 100 million dps with the correct setup and borderline unreal gear

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kaijyuu2 wrote:

My intuition would be that puncture + ensnaring arrow bleed build would be best single target, though of course would likely be awful for regular mapping/etc where aoe is important.

It's typically used with split arrow for clear. Works a treat.