[3.3] Death from the Skies | Rain of Arrows & Blast Rain Ranged Totems | TRI Curse | All content

INTRODUCTION

So, after toying with arc traps and testing TRI Herald Witch... I wanted to give a go to an old project of mine, Rain of Arrows and Blast Rain runner!
I thought it was the time after reading the last changes on RoA mechanics, and here we go!
Build is still in progress, looking for more burst damage, although it is nearly ended as it is.

PROS & CONS

- Great speed and decent map clearing
- Very easy gameplay
- Not hard to level at all
- TONS OF ARROWS!! want to see your screen explode green?
- Can do ANY type of map, no matter what mod (Broken builds in Hall of Grandmasters can be a real PITA tho)
- Decent tankiness, 5.6k EHP, ACRO with MoM and Tri Curse
- Not very expensive
- IT'S FUN!
- Harcore Viable.

x Lacks burst damage on a timed schedule; proves hard to clear high level incursions (tier 13+) with heavy map mods
x Not a tank, so need to move a lot
x Not Meta... so it's slow VS meta builds.

VIDEOS

T14 Palace Map
T13 Caldera Map(long)

Old machine friendly!(stutter is scary lol, that's why I choose a T10 map):
Siege Map on an old laptop

T14 Acid Lakes
T15 Carcass boss
Xoph's Run

HOW THE BUILD WORKS

We let our ranged totems do the work for us, we can summon up to 4 totems, so we just plant them where the mobs cannot reach and let them mow through them! Usually with just RoA totems all packs just die, but if you are mapping and got resistant monsters, use a few Blast Rain totems and you should be set.

When you face a rare mob or boss, plant three or four Blast Rain Totems to dps hard on them, and resummon as needed, whilst popping a RoA totem to keep them blinded.
On specially hard Bosses, you have two choices, swapping your CwdT Elemental Weakness lvl 10/20 for Enfeeble lvl 10/20 OR put there a lvl 20/20 Ele Weakness/Enfeeble to cast them manually.
With Shaper/Guardians I recommend manually cast curses for highest effect, Ele Weakness will make your life easier, as you really don't want to get hit from those and you should run and avoid all you can.

Additionaly, you want to use Frenzy to generate frenzy charges, as they will up your dps quite a bit.

DPS APPROXIMATION

For clearing purposes, it's difficult to calculate RoA dps, but if you want an average dps aginst stacks of mobs, it could something like this:

At level 20 RoA fires 22 arrows, and each arrow inflicts 32k damage (this is in my setup, and without Vaal Haste running; with it, it ends up doing 38k each arrow), this means that each totem does 32.000 x 22 = 704.000 on it's area of effect (wich is smaller as it has Concentrated effect).
You can place 4 of them so they would do, summed up, 704.000 x 4 = 2.8160.000 dps. The zones of each totem can overlap, but only half of the arrows will have a fixed target, and the other half will fall randomly.
This is that 1.408.000 dps is assured, and the other 1.408.000 has a chance to hit on the ground instead in a monster; as the area it falls down is narrowed byt Conc Effect, those random arrows have a higher chance of hitting a monster, as the totems will always aim against a target. Giving a chance of 40% of those random arrows to hit (wich I think it's higher ) would give a dps of 844.800, summed up with the fixed one gives us a dps of 2.252.800 on average if you have four Rain of Arrows placed down. This is spread amongst the stacks, so it does not concentrate on a single mob, and you have to divide it amongst all mobs. If you have an average of 20 mobs in you stacks, then you do 112.500 to each mob per average while clearing.

The concentrated fire of Blast Rain, if we place all 4 totems, and taking into account that each one does between 350.00 and 400.000 dps (with a 6L, if you swap out Added Cold Damage on a 5L that would be around 260.000 dps each) will be around 1.500.000 dps and a bit less on bosses.

Then if we fight a map Boss or Shaper/Elder, the damage decreases to around 758.480 (667000-700.000 without Vaal Haste) with all four totems. The good thing is that it's all concentrated on them normally, so it's good to kill them down, just not the uber boss killer like other meta builds, but they go down :)

After some upgrades both in gear and tree, blast rain totems end up doing around 450k each, so it is 1.800.000 dps, so guardian/elder/shaper dps ends up being around 900.000 dps.


GEAR

Spoiler


As a general rule, on non-unique items, aim for Life, Resists and Mana, then added damage, mana regeneration and any other you can grab. You will find +Dexterity is needed while levelling.

Weapon:

When levelling, any bow works, just get the one that gives you more dps, but we aim to get our hands on a Lioneye's Glare, as perfect as you can, but with max attack speed:


If you are rich, you can also use a high dps rare bow with 400+ phys dps, shaped beeing a plus, but such bow would cost multiple exalts probably.

Quiver:
Skirmish. Needed. Period.
If you get a nice corruption mini aura, the better.

But the best corruption for this build is a good rolled added damage, no matter wich type:


this last one is not that expensive to get, in the end I crafted one, bought 5 nice rolled Skirmish (the more mana and mana regen the better) and threw a feew vaals, got it eventually on the 4th try.
Additional arrow Corruption does not add much to this buld btw, so don't waste the currency on one ;).


Chest:

For the chest, Carcass Jack is probably one of the best options, but other options could work too, Cospri's Will is a solid option, frees you of getting a corrupted amulet; a shaped rare with high life, resists and damage reduction a Queen of the Forest... there are many options



BUT after doing some tweaking, found out that a Shroud of the Lightless is a better option for this build, both DPS-wise and defensively too:


It adds more life and mana, has lvl 20 elemental penetration (37% fire,cold and lightning penetration) as 6th link, and a 20% chance to proc Shade Form when you cast your Blast Rain totem (50% reduced visibility to enemies, 3 secs duration), and scales life and mana based on abysal jewels you have. Just magnificent.

Gloves:
You want a shaped pair of gloves, with both Slower Projectiles (gives you increased Projectile damage) and Blind:

There are many out there, and the mid tier ones are not that expensive.

Boots:
Windscream/Windshriek, fated version not needed but recommendable to spend on it. 10% more movement and 60% increased AoE of your curses make them worth.


Helm:
Many options here... I just love Rat's Nest, as it is well rounded; but you are also looking for an increased Blast Rain damage enchant, and that's hard to get on the helm you like most. Just look the helms with the enchant wich suit you best.


You could use Lightpoacher


and profit with two searching eye abyss jewels, but you won't get the spirit charges benefit and loose two gem slots.
In the end would be more dps, but you loose utility, I prefer Rat's Nest still over this option. In my setup, I would gain around 50k each totem, so around 200k dps in total, but loosing two gems, beeing either blink arrow/frenzy and enduring cry. Any of the three are too usefull to give up imo, so I rather give up some dps.


Amulet:
You want to get your hands on a corrupted +1 curses ammy, but this is expensive. Until then, you want life, resists, mana and added damage to attacks:


Rings:
Essence Worm, you need this to work with Wrath + MoM


Any ring with life, resists, mana and added damage


If you want to follow the Frenzy approach, then you want an Unset Ring to socket Frenzy into like any of those:


BELT

Any rare one with life and resists to max them. Any flask mod is also a plus, also increased elemental damage with attacks:



If you manage to get the same on a Stygian Vise, the better, as you will add to life and mana either the abyss jewel. Those ain’t cheap though.
JEWELS

Here you are looking for a main stat: Increased attack speed with bows, as we will lack it from the tree; the rest are listed in order of importance:

- Increased attack speed with bows (7-8%)
- Increased totem damage (14-16%)
- Increased physical damage with bows (14-16%)
- Increased prjectile damage (10-12%)
- Increased area damage (10-12%)
- Increased life (5-7%)

Examples:


Alternatively, you could make good use of one or two Searching Eye jewels instead; those add quite a lot of dps if you manage to get one with at least three added damages; for example:



FLASKS

You are a pathfinder... so you will try to get allways a flask up, it will greatly boost your dps!
You gain also 3 charges every 3 seconds on all flasks, so don't fear to use them!

I found this flasks to better suit my playstile... Silver Flask and Atziri's both boost your damage the most:



have tried other flasks... like Taste of Hate, Vinktar's, Sin's Rebirth and Diamond flask, but those seem the best dps wise.
With the flask durarion passives, and the extra duration roll, my Silver Flask lasts 10 seconds, which means you get onslaught nearly constantly if you remember to click on it.



GEMS LINKS

Single Target damage setup, Blast Rain, in order of importance:

- Blast Rain > Ranged Attack Totem > Elemental Focus > Elemental Damage with Attacks > Concentrated Effect > Added Cold Damage

Pack Clearance (on shaped gloves with Slower Projectiles and Blind as support mods)

- Rain of Arrows > Ranged Attack Totem > Concentrated Effect > Added Cold Damage

4L where you can fit it, first CwdT setup with Vaal Haste:

Fit in Enduring Cry and Blink Arrow in any left links

Use Frenzy level 1/20 on it's own to generate frenzy charges, socket it into an unset ring as you will lack sockets in the end. While leveling socket wherever you can.

AURAS AND HERALDS:

We will use Wrath aura on Essence Worm, and choose between Herald of Ice / Arctic Armour depending on mods.

CwdT SETUPS:

We will have 3 setups :


CwdT lvl 20 - Increased Duration lvl 20 - Temporal Chains lvl 20/20 (you will want as a 4th link Vaal Haste/Vaal Grace to benefit from Increased Duration)

CwdT lvl 7 - Immortall Call lvl 9 - Molten Shell lvl 13 - Elemental Weakness lvl 10/20 (Enfeeble lvl 10/20 for HC)

CwdT lvl 7 - Projectile Weakness lvl 10/20


GOLEM:

You want Lightning Golem for 10% attack speed; his aura comes in handy when he casts it.

MOVEMENT SKILL:

Blink Arrow... awesome movement skill, you'll love it, specially in lab.


PASSIVE TREE and POB

Pastebin level 97
With frenzy charges
https://pastebin.com/9QnmcKJJ

Pastebin level 95
https://pastebin.com/rsTftQ56



POE site, level 89
POE TREE

Recommended levelling trees with Path of Building:

Level 35: https://pastebin.com/SaQ4L9Pj
> we grab here life, totem passives, Ancestral Bond and some dps nodes

Level 50: https://pastebin.com/V705VWMN
> get more life, MoM one more jewel and dps

Level 75: https://pastebin.com/Dbsai783
> Time to get Uber Lab (Merciless around level 60, depending on your skills/items), start with Ranger area, Arrow Dancing, Acrobatics and Elemental Overload

Level 85: https://pastebin.com/7HTiVYkw
> We grab here Celestial Judgement for ele penetration and Aspect of the Eagle for dps and start Heading to Primeval Force

As last nodes, you could get Berserking or Totemic Zeal, as you will profit the most from attack speed now, or just get more life nodes to have a higher life buffer, as you see safer for you.

For a more dps focused approach, you want to tweak just a bit the tree; get one more frenzy charge, get one Totem attack speed node, Projectile damage at Ranger's start and the next Projectile damage+ attack speed and Berserking; this still ends up with 6000 EHP, wich is decent for a mobile build.

Level 97 goal
https://pastebin.com/p3sBW6gD

Recommended for HC (6800 EHP with all 5 jewels with 7% life):

Level 95: https://pastebin.com/R9d0Vnmi


ASCENDANCIES

You want to get them in this order:

Ranger Ascendancy / Pathfinder > Path of the Ranger > Templar Ascendancy / Hierophant

You need to get Path of the Ranger as soon as possible, and start that part of the tree as we lack dexterity on the way to the Templar area. You will need to grab +30 dexterity nodes or on gear to start with. Templar ascendancy will be easy to get once you are able to attempt it.

PANTHEON
Soul of Lunaris and Soul of Gruthkull are my personal choices, both of them are defensive.

Together with Arrow Dancing, Soul of Lunaris makes you very hard to hit with projectiles (physical or spell) and an extra 5% dodge on top of Acrobatics; you will likely be hit (and you want it for CwdT to work), so those will be up frecuently.

Sould of Gruthkull adds another defensive tier of 5% phys damage reduction, and 8% attack speed reduction on foes that hit you, wich adds nicely with Temporal Chains when it triggers.

I would stick with Soul of Lunaris; about Gruthkull, you could use Ralakesh if you like it more, as it offers also less bleed damage taken and Blind and Maim immunity, or Shakari if you want poison immunity and find chaos damage giving you a hard life

BANDITS

My favourite choice is two passives here... although Kraitin can be good choice too.
> Kill All; self explanatory, could come handy to get an extra jewel slot, or more life.
> Help Kraitin, 6% increased attack speed, extra 3% to dodge attacks and 6% movement add well to this build

A BIT MORE EXPLANATIONS


LEVELLING

At earlier levels, the gameplay is not that important, as monsters don't hit for much, but as you level up, get used to placing your totems between packs and you and don't go near monsters, use Blink Arrow to escape if you get mobbed.

For levelling, you can use Burning Arrow as single target skill until you can get Blast Rain in Act 3 as reward, and Rain of Arrows you will get it as soon as in Act 1 and is quite good for pack clearing.
Once you get Ranged Attack Totem, grab two and level them assap, you can test them with Rain of Arrows to get used to the game play (in a 3L or 4L with faster attacks and added cold damage or fire damage will work for the levelling procecss) and use Burning Arrow without totem for bosses for some time.
Use faster attacks until you can get hold of a few jewels (at least two) with "increased attack speed with bows" and you can get PAth of the Ranger ascendancy and start from Ranger starting point and grab some attack speed nodes, at that time, you will be near level 72, needed to use Lioneye's Glare, wich will give you 17-20% attack speed (20% is your aim).

At around level 30ish (can't recall the level you reach Act 3 with atm) you get Blast Rain as a reward, so you can start using it then, and use it with Concentrated Effect, wich you could get it in Act 2.
In Act 4 you can get Increased Area of Effect, wich is nice for RoA until you can use 4 totems later in the game.

As for items, just grab the best bow you find until you can use Lioneye's Glare; any with attack speed, physical damage and some added damage will do the trick.
The quiver Skirmish is usable from level 19 on, and you can benefit from it with RoA totem asap.
For the chest, any rare with a 4L or 5L will do until you can get hold of a Carcass Jack at level 70 or Shroud of the Lightless at level 71 if you can afford it, a Tabula Rasa is a great levellin option too for the single target damage.
The rest items, use whatever you get to top you resists while getting life, and slowly try to get your hands on the recommended ones, specially the shaped Gloves and Windshriek/Windscream.

As for the levelling tree, on your path to the templar area, grab asap Profane Chemistry and Arcane Chemistry to help with your potions.
Your first aim is to reach Ancestral Bond then Amplify in templar area, and then go to Shamanistic Fury and Quick Recovery; once you do that, it's time to put your single damage attack on the second Ranged Attack Totem.
You then will be near Mind Over Matter, wich you can get later on where hits begin to hurt more (you do not really need MoM on early acts, as you will probably have a low mana pool anyways), and Elemental Overload, wich I would take later in the game when you have grabbed some more crit on ranger area, before that it wont trigger much.
Once you can start to grab nodes in the Ranger area, Primal Spirit and Druidic Rite asap, and then slowly get the rest; Arrow Dancing and Acrobatics will ease your life a lot, so get them soonish. Your potion managemente will be a big source of damage and survivability, now that you grabbed Pathfinder ascendancy.
During the process, grab as many jewel slots as you can to use your jewels, they are each worth a few notables if you manage to grab the recommended affixes

The last step, for when you do Uber Lab to grab your last ascendancy, will get you the fourth Totem; before that, it is recommendable to have take MoM already, with Wrath in Essence Worm and Arctic Armor helping with Uber Izaro's hits. I did him at level 70, with a 5L on Carcass Jack I had reserved for the moment, and it was quite straightforward.
Editado por útlima vez por Aalzien en 8 ago. 2018 5:26:42
Reflotado por última vez en 5 ago. 2018 6:59:36
Added a few videos
what do you suggest leveling with?
"
WarriorX10 escribió:
what do you suggest leveling with?


Added a levelling guide, will try to put a few more info when I can :)
Added levelling trees with Paste of Building. Also added Pantheons of choice.
Editado por útlima vez por Aalzien en 30 jul. 2018 6:42:02
Added an aproximate dps calculation of both Rain of Arrows and Blast Rain totems.
Added a new video on an old potato laptop... it works!
Added T15 Carcass boss on same potato laptop... easy ^^
Added T14 Acid Lakes too.
Editado por útlima vez por Aalzien en 3 ago. 2018 18:45:09
Added a Xoph's run
Tweaked gear a bit to add Frenzy to generate frenzy charges... how could I have forgotten it? (oh shame)

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