Wanted to make an explosive arrow build

Just seemed like fun, and I am in desperate need of ways to make this game fun at the moment.



Skill setup would be explosive arrow + chance to ignite + increased burn damage + increased area of effect. Other options: fire penetration, concentrated effect, faster attacks, and LMP.

Curses used would be temp chains for survivability and ignite duration, and flammability for obvious reasons. Quill rain, of course.



How does the skill build look? Any reason not to go ahead with it?

bump

I have played countless HC build explosive arrow characters. They are ALOT of fun, but you will die to reflect one way or another :). Its impossible, if you are going to group, not to make one mistake here or there or to hit something off screen. Even with 80% fire resist and 3.3+ life I have died.

That being said, you have gotten to both blast radius and amplify which will help you in your initial explosion's dps but it really won't help you as much in your burning damage. If you want a strong initial explosion use Concentrated Effect. If you want more burning damage use Increased Burning Damage. You really need to choose one or the other to make your build strong and do decent dps doing one or the other... but not both.


If you are going to go burning damage I would recommend starting as a Templar or a Maurauder and going Blood Magic and grabbing the +30% duration node at the bottom of the tree. Take a look at this build and see if you like it:



Running 20% Quality EA with 20% Qual Increased Burning Damage you will have a 30% chance to ignite without the need for an added Chance to Ignite. Paired with Elemental Proliferation everything will catch on fire anyway.

For the other two links I'd recommend LoH or Life Leech and a LMP/GMP.

Hmm... yeah I didnt think of reflect. The reason I'd prefer to start as a witch is because the leveling will be more enjoyable since I get mana solutions much earlier.

For burn duration I am pretty sure that temp chains will be more than adequate.


As for chance to ignite, do you know whether the chance is rolled per explosion or per enemy hit? If it is per enemy hit, then yes elemental proliferation would be much better than chance to ignite.

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BRavich wrote:

Hmm... yeah I didnt think of reflect. The reason I'd prefer to start as a witch is because the leveling will be more enjoyable since I get mana solutions much earlier.

For burn duration I am pretty sure that temp chains will be more than adequate.


As for chance to ignite, do you know whether the chance is rolled per explosion or per enemy hit? If it is per enemy hit, then yes elemental proliferation would be much better than chance to ignite.

I believe it is per enemy hit with fire damage but it is the fire damage hit which determines the amount burnt. If you would limit the amount burnt to 0 on gear until explosions happen you will be much happier with the amount burnt than with any fire gear on your person.

Especially with EE, you do not want any + fire damage on anything you will equip.

If you truly want a witch to start with, than you should enjoy more alternative targets to employee than yourself. I would invest in zombies, skeles, and generally anything you can find to hit other than yourself. I still think Templar or Maurader is a stronger starting point, but Witch can be best at initial explosion damage do to both +area damage + Concentration damage nodes. That is the only advantage to a witch. You also must take that with the downside though which is less HP. To maximize benefits you need to work on summoning nodes, but I still recommend working with a Templar or Marauder as they give you more flexibility. If this is a SC build than do whatever you feel is best, but if this is a HC build you really cant get away from the + life nodes both alternatives offer.

Either way I wish you luck and hope that you enjoy the fun that is EA.

Cheers! Welcome and send me a tell in game: char name Haole

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haole wrote:

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BRavich wrote:

Hmm... yeah I didnt think of reflect. The reason I'd prefer to start as a witch is because the leveling will be more enjoyable since I get mana solutions much earlier.

For burn duration I am pretty sure that temp chains will be more than adequate.


As for chance to ignite, do you know whether the chance is rolled per explosion or per enemy hit? If it is per enemy hit, then yes elemental proliferation would be much better than chance to ignite.

I believe it is per enemy hit with fire damage but it is the fire damage hit which determines the amount burnt. If you would limit the amount burnt to 0 on gear until explosions happen you will be much happier with the amount burnt than with any fire gear on your person.

Especially with EE, you do not want any + fire damage on anything you will equip.

If you truly want a witch to start with, than you should enjoy more alternative targets to employee than yourself. I would invest in zombies, skeles, and generally anything you can find to hit other than yourself. I still think Templar or Maurader is a stronger starting point, but Witch can be best at initial explosion damage do to both +area damage + Concentration damage nodes. That is the only advantage to a witch. You also must take that with the downside though which is less HP. To maximize benefits you need to work on summoning nodes, but I still recommend working with a Templar or Marauder as they give you more flexibility. If this is a SC build than do whatever you feel is best, but if this is a HC build you really cant get away from the + life nodes both alternatives offer.

Either way I wish you luck and hope that you enjoy the fun that is EA.

Cheers! Welcome and send me a tell in game: char name Haole

Just to clarify... I believe the amount burnt is from the amount of initial damage that is taken... meaning if you have +1-3 fire damage with elemental proliferation you will see a lot of enemies on fire but not for a lot of damage. If you work EE with wrath and + cold damage that only take fire damage with EA, you will see a lot more pain from your burning damage. You should still reach for the +30% elemental damage length, but the rest of your build is ok. I'd still recommend Templar or Marauder just for the overall build.

Haole

It just occurred to me: couldnt ranged attack totem be used to get around elemental reflection? Hell, fire trap could help with that too, right?

I'll play around with the witch idea a bit more and see what I can do to play on strengths. PoE summoning just really bores me because it's just a contest of who can raise the most zombies and skeletons, which I dont find very appealing.

1. There are 3 (main) ways to use EA:
- Pure explosion AoE build -> LMP or GMP, both AoE support gems + IAS gem
- Burn build -> NO LMP/GMP! because it lowers your dmg significantly, concEffect, burn chance + burn dmg, IAS gem, EP (if you dont get a 6L you have to swap something for elemental profilearation - e.g. using quillrain to be able to remove IAS gem)
- explosion/arrow hybrid -> GMP, weapon ele dmg, added lightning dmg (or chain/fork), IAS gem (here we do more or less a "normal" ele build with focus on shocking and only use the explosion as "finisher"

-> Lifeleech isnt a good thing for EA because you dont leech constantly. For the whole time of stacking and the delay you leech almost nothing then there comes the big boom and you loose most of the leech because of the 20% cap.
Better put a LoH on the frenzy you use while the delay.

2. Imho Templar or Witch arent that effective for the start (I'd prefer witch over templar because you could start with a lot of mana and mana regen to be able to use quillrain and you can get to EB and some IAS at shadow tree pretty fast)
Marauder is the worst classes for that (no IAS, no mana, no dmg for at least 20-30 lvls).
-> If you dont get the IAS from shadow or duelist and some frenzy charges you have to use quillrain in lategame. (= sucks big time)
You want a +2-3 to skills thicket/imperial bow with IAS and maybe even some lightning dmg to also do some direct dmg and shocks

=> duelist is the best class for that:
- most IAS
- mana+mana regen + most reduced mana passives
- projectiles dmg (does boost the arrow dmg AND the explosion, so if you want to wear e.g. wake of destruction for some additional direct dmg and shocking, projectile dmg should be your first choice over fire dmg...)
- near to Iron Grip for even more projectile dmg


Oh yeah and you definately need a lot of defense (or something/someone as tank/crowd control)! While e.g. a LA ranger killes monsters before they get close, you dont do any dmg at all for at least 2 full seconds (stacking+1 sec delay)!!!


@BRavich:
a totem is a bad thing for burning because it reduces the dmg per hit a lot.
You only have 3 firetraps per gem. I dont think you will kill a boss with that if it doesnt crit...

Would it be a good idea to make a EA-build around

with lots of crit-nodes and fire-dmg+burning nodes?

i am also thinking about going witch with some skeletons and zombies as blockers...

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Edradour wrote:

Would it be a good idea to make a EA-build around

with lots of crit-nodes and fire-dmg+burning nodes?

i am also thinking about going witch with some skeletons and zombies as blockers...

Well back in CB I used skeletton totem and zombies too (took most of the minion life nodes). But most of the time the minions were not be able to tank everything (mostly AoE ele dmg)and if minions did die I was dead too. With the new ele resist support gem for totems and minions it could work much better.


I dont think the bow is good. I mean you get some free AoE without the dmg penalty, but you will need so much time to stack 5 charges and then also waiting the 1 sec delay.
Since IAS is the most impotant part of an EA build I'd say the bow is crap (without having tested this).

The best bow will be a Thicket bow with +2 bow skills +1 all skills 20+% IAS and lightning dmg...
But any thicket/imperial with +2 skills and IAS is better than anything else imho.