Too Low DPS too low survivability? Feedback required

Any useful feedback will be greatly appreciated. Some context: I only play SSF and my own builds. This is the first character that let me go deeper into the mapping part of the game.

So I have made an elemental split arrow barrage raider, this character.

In PoB my character has 60k EHP, 800k dps with split arrow and another 470k dps from 6x siege ballistas. 80% phys reduction, 50% evasion, 75% elemental res, 4779hp. Please check my character for more gear/passives - FatOldSia in my character list.

I would have thought that this should be enough to clear most of the game, but I still get one shot by random stuff pretty often. I managed to kill some end game bosses, but still have trouble with others and with unique t16 bosses (and crucibles mobs take an eternity to kill and one shot pretty often).

I have over 1 mil dps (I know that this is really low compared to crazy builds people do). My thought was that this should be plenty enough, but some bosses takes forever to be killed and a lot of life regen mobs take way too long to be killed.

But even more frustrating is how easy I still die, the one shots are really making it hard for the poe mapping experience to be enjoyable.

So please give me any tips, they will be appreciated. Should I change something on my gear or on my talent tree or any other tips, thanks!

Hey there:

1) You want 100% spell suppression. Something that will help massively is switching Avatar of the Slaughter for Quartz Infusion until you get much better gear to cap spell suppress.

2) Why are you doing Split Arrow with Barrage Support? Why not just play Barrage?

3) Change your bow's benchcraft to to either Flat Fire or Flat Lightning damage. With this build, it isn't worth converting phys to an element (because you don't have a super busted bow for physical). Just ignore the physical part and focus on elemental. Add Trinity Support and drop Hatred. (I'm not even sure which auras you have on since PoB says you are WAY over on reservation).

If you have the currency, I would multi-mod the bow since the other 3 mods are pretty decent. For suffix, I would do chance for double damage (if you are keeping Precise Technique) or Crit chance + stats (if you are not).

4) The flame golem is pretty bad. Not worth a slot.

5) Cold Pen does not help your Sniper's Mark. Not sure if you are just leveling it.

6) You have REALLY bad flasks. You should never need more than 1 life flask in normal play (there are some very special edge cases where you would). Utility flasks that are rolled correctly give a LOT of power and 3 life flasks means you are basically down 2 utility flasks. You want the following flasks and use 4 Glassblowers each while they are white:

1 Life Flask
1 Jade Flask
1 Granite Flask
1 Quicksilver Flask

The last one is your choice. Plenty of good options here: Diamond if you are losing Precise Technique, Dying Sun is a good choice, Bottled Faith is a good choice, etc. (if you can get these)

For the magic utility flasks, you want Masochist's/Flagellant if you get hit a lot and Perpetual/Chemist/Experimenter's (in that order) if you do not. Use the bench to put "Use when full" on them. Note that you want each utility flask to be ilvl 84 minimum to roll T1 suffixes (85 if you want movement speed T1).

For suffixes on the magic flasks pick from the following depending on what you want: armour%, evasion%, movement speed, attack speed. Doesn't matter which suffix goes on which pot as long as you get one of each that you want (they don't stack).

For the life flask, get the prefix you prefer (I like Condensed/Catalysed on an Eternal but people have different preferences here) and a anti-bleed suffix.

7) Gladiator's Perseverance wheel is doing almost nothing for you because you are primarily elemental damage. Swap that and 1 other point for the Entrench wheel to help your spell suppress. You can get this other point by taking the Dex point to the right of the Herbalism wheel and cutting the dex point and the frenzy small node to the left of Fervour.

@TemjinGold

First, thanks for the very detailed tips!

1) I guess that 100% spell suppression is really that important for not getting one shot by random spells yeah? I can modify the talent tree around with your suggestion and get it.

2)I just noticed now thanks to you that i had to select all projectiles in PoB to see the full dps for Barrage (it was default on 1 projectile). Although I see that barrage + 1 extra support has almost the same total dps like split shot + barrage support. Is there some extra mechanic that would make barrage better than barrage support, since the damage is almost the same?

3)I want to do that, but i don't have the multi-mod recipe. I kept googling, but even now I'm not sure exactly where to get this really useful recipe.

4)I gave up today on golems and removed them.

5)I keep a cold pen around and I switch it sometimes instead of ice bite for my main skill, if the enemy boss is cold resistant and takes an eternity to die. Although I'm not really sure if it's a big dps increase and worth it?

6)I know, it's my weakest point in PoE, I'm not really sure how to manage flasks on any character I play. I see videos and streams of people having flasks automatically go off for them but I don't know how to set that up. Is this the "Use when full" you mentioned? Is that a crafting bench recipe and where can I get it?



I got an increased mana reservation for auras on my helm and I can fit a defiance banner aura with my other auras.
I used to run Hatred(for more dps) and Determination, but now I run Determination, Grace and Defiance. I'm at 90% evasion and 82% phys reduction. With spell suppression I should be pretty hard to kill I hope?

When I drop Gladiator Perseverance and Hatred, my total dps (without ballistas) drops to 550k. Wouldn't that be a little low to beat bosses?

Thanks for your time!

2) Split Arrow + Barrage support = 2 sockets. Barrage = 1 socket. So if the damage is similar, you have a whole extra socket to put in another support.

3) For any recipes you don't have, check your crafting bench. The bench tells you where the recipe is.

5) Use Path of Building to check. Ice Bite mostly adds flat damage and that MIGHT be better early on with bad gear. But as your character and gear get better (unless you are stacking TONS of frenzy charges), you'll find Cold Pen and other "more damage" multiplier supports to be vastly better.

6) Yes, "Use when full" means your flasks will automatically drink themselves whenever you are full on charges. Masochist/Flagellant is better if you get hit a lot because you gain a bunch of charges for each flask every time you get hit (even if you block). You should have this upon completing the campaign.

Percentwise you are getting a lot from Hatred (~20%) but you are getting very little in actual numbers because your damage is so low. If you can fit Grace/Determ/Defiance AND Hatred, feel free to keep it. But if you can't I would kick Hatred out. If your build was full physical then converted to cold, that's different.

Forgot to mention earlier: Trinity is only good if you get out of Precise Technique because it also has a lot of crit. Ultimately, if you want to get to the next level of damage, you need to get off Precise Technique (it's a crutch). There are some builds that do better with it (accuracy stackers mainly) but this isn't one of them.

I meant Split Arrow + Barrage support deals basically the same damage as Barrage + Greater Volley, so that doesnt matter that much.

I didnt know that flasks where so important, I checked the bench and saw the cast when full recipe. I'll try to work with it.

So you're saying that Precise Technique is actually cucking me. Right now I get a lot of damage from that talent, but I will try to check some other talents that replace it + the accuracy nodes.

Thanks for the info!

I would not use Greater Volley with Barrage as Greater Volley forces your arrows in a certain arrangement. If you are playing Barrage just play a different support for damage. If you mostly want damage with lots of arrows though, the skill you're really looking for is Tornado Shot.

Precise Technique is a huge amount of damage early on because your character has poor gear and it's hard to invest into Crit. So not being able to Crit with it isn't a huge deal. But with proper investment, Crit has a MUCH higher ceiling than what PT can give you (other than a few exceptions like Damage over Time builds, Crit is where the top dps is at the end).

Hence, most people use PT as a crutch in the campaign (because there's literally nothing better by a longshot) and ditch it once they can get decent gear. A side effect of PT is that you have to invest way more into accuracy than you normally would and this is investment you can also remove.

Investing into crit is pretty expensive tho I think? Potential is probably higher, but it's not easy to get there.

Depending a bit on where you start on the tree, accuracy is usually fairly easy to get, and precise technique gives 40% MORE damage, which is huge if you don't have considerable crit chance + multiplier. Usually the bigger challenge with PT builds is to keep accuracy above life once you start getting good life rolls on much of your gear. There are some very good accuracy wheels tho, so it's fairly easy, but it does ofc cost skill points. Always a "give and take" situation. You can always run a low-level Precision gem (so it doesn't take up much mana) and still get a lot of accuracy from it due to scaling.

Just some input from a relative noob (cry) after playing a Boneshatter Precise teq build in Ruthless and then a Lightning arrow PT build in normal Crucible.

40% MORE damage (multiplicative, while "increased" is additive) isn't easy to get with just a single skill point.

It doesn't take that much to outscale PT. OP has a bow with room to multi-mod local crit chance, can use a Diamond Flask, and has a decent number of crit clusters that work for bows in the ranger area. Trinity also helps a lot. There's no need for anything expensive, it's just a matter of grabbing those things and some of it can be "paid for" with the excess investment into accuracy.

I tried OP's current setup (split arrow + barrage support) in standard. lv.94 Raider, 27 passive skill points left, 2 free jewel slots

I guess it's basically a split arrow build that can switch to single target setup by swapping a support gem to barrage support ?
Generally speaking, we need to decide if we respec skill points into cluster jewels at some point before endgame.

We need to know more about his playstyle and preference to specify the issues further.

For now, can you try Tornado Shot + Greater Multiple Projectiles and share your feedback ?
**This does not solve issues all at once.

First and foremost, you need a fun and easy farming setup to unlock some fundamental features (more links and crafting tools).

Greed is virtue in PoE :P

Additional Notes 25/06/2023
Though we need at least +3 arrows (2 from passive, 1 from quiver and ideally +1~2 from bow), I found Tornado Shot (without multiple projectile supports) punchy and savage.

Split Shot + Barrage support felt cranky because of slower attack time (0.34 vs 0.22 with Barrage, Split Arrow or Tornado Shot) while there is no noticeable advantage on single target DPS.

I guess more Physical to Cold conversion is a viable and strong option in any circumstances unless you go pure elemental bows.

Physical to Cold damage conversion:

40% from passive Cold Mastery
25% from crafted Prefix on gloves (~35% by upgrading **expensive)
10% from Lesser Eater of World glove enchant (~25% by upgrading **expensive)

other options
Watcher's Eye Prismatic Jewel (25-40%)
Hrimsorrow Goathide Gloves (100% - not ideal as a real endgame setup because there is no upgrade)