[3.7] Twilli's Impale Bow Champion / Vaal Rain of Arrows / 50% Attack & Spell dodge / League starter

1. Reliable 145.6% MORE damage multiplier with Master of Metal
2. High Dread Banner up time with inspirational
3. High fortify up time as a ranged character with unstoppable hero
4. Adrenaline at low life with 25% HP healing and status removal
5. Roughly 50% attack and spell dodge and high evasion
6. No accuracy problems despite crit scaling
7. Vaal ROA allows high burst for tanky enemies
8. Herald of purity goons blocks shit for you

1. Low life pool probably 6.5-7k at best
2. Placing and picking up banners takes getting used to
3. ROA is very dependant on having arrows landing where you want them
4. Not status immune (aherm pathfinders...)
5. No visual/auditory feedback on how well impale is working
6. No HoI explosions unless haemophillia gloves
7. Chaos DOT from Vaal legion makes you cry
8. DPS looks horrible on POB due to poor calculation of impale and ROA

POB of my current character:
https://pastebin.com/N2YkMtQt

Past this point its just about collecting nearby jewel sockets and shoving 7% maximum life jewels into them (preferably with attack speed, crit multi, ele resistances). The Berzerking node near the Scion life wheel is good too.

Damage calculations
POB estimations for impale and rain of arrows is pretty poor and produces horrible values which is likely to turn people away from this build. Here are my best calculations under shaper/elder conditions, full flasks, frenzy and power charges with the POB above.

Single arrow DPS in ROA: 31,072
Impale effect increases: 0.56 (impale support) + 0.20 (talent wheel) + 0.08 (minor ascendancy) + 0.18*1.15 (Dread banner + inspirational) = 1.047 = 104.7% Increased impale effect
Damage increase per impale stack = 10% x (1+1.047) = 20.47%
7 stacks of impale = 143.29 (effectively a MORE damage multiplier after 7 hits)
Single arrows DPS with impale = 31,072 x 243.29% = 75,595
To be continued...

Champions are able to hit the highest number of impale stacks and gain flat physical damage per impale stack which is not to be underestimated. In the past, players go champion to abuse the pseudo Lycosidae effect from worthy foe to ignore accuracy and scale crit. In 3.7, 100% hit rate is stupidly easy to achieve with the accuracy changes. This provides room to couple the high dread banner up time with inspirational to provide fortify that is improved with Unstoppable hero. First to strike, last to fall gives a free get-out-of-jail card when your defensive layers fall.

To achieve 7 impale stacks within a reasonable amount of time, a fast attack with high projectile count is needed. The contenders to Rain of arrows (ROA) are Barrage and Tornado shot (TS). Barrage is likely to have higher single target DPS with point blank but is troublesome for clearing without its threshold jewel which could be better spent on life/crit multiplier jewels. TS is likely to be better in endgame with the lab helmet enchant and dying sun but i'm not rich enough for that yet. ROA is projectile count independent, has good baseline clear and store 2 Vaal ROA charges which you can unload on bosses/rares/legion sponges.

Impale is a purely physical scaling effect. Furthermore, Bows with high physical DPS (pDPS) and high attack speed are largely off-meta. Most other bow builds go elemental DPS with high attack speed or blade vortex bow + signal fire characters don't scale attack speed at all. Lastly, physical damage is less resisted by bosses than elemental damage. Huge (read: 1337) elemental tooltip dps is often cut in half against the toughest bosses without good elemental penetration. Physical damage works more consistently against both mobs and bosses.

Map Clearing:Bind ROA to right click and L>R>L>R>L>R... into mobs while piano-ing your speed flasks and pretending to be a pathfinder. You'll zone out into the rhythm of mobs dying. Launch the occasional vaal ROA into tougher mobs, the charges come back quickly anyway.

Rares/Legion/Bosses: Stick that banner down and stand your ground for 3 seconds. Pick your banner up once fortify runs out and start kiting like a bitch. Rinse and repeat. Remember, you get 40% (20/50) of the banner charge when you pick it up. Vaal ROA is your best friend and is really good on THICC bosses or if you crit knockback the boss/rare into a corner.

Weapon
Currently:

I am using a 340 pDPS bow I got for 8 chaos about 2 days into the league. Thicket bows as a base are awesome due to their high AS. Your priorities early are to find the highest pDPS bow you can afford with greater than 1.50 AS. Other rolls to look out for are crit chance/multiplier, chance for double damage.

BIS:
I am holding on to a high ilvl 6-link thicket bow which i plan to multi-craft after doing pale court with all the mods above. This is my end goal for this league.

Alternative:
The Crimson Storm is a good unique bow to use in early levels coupled with the Haemophilia unique gloves for bleed-splosions. You do not need to actively talent for bleed chance as it is merely a means to an end.

Quiver
Currently:

Broadhead arrow quivers gives flat physical damage to bows which may look puny compared to elemental counterparts but is actually very significant. Look for additional physical damage to attacks and crit multiplier. This is also a good place to look for 100+ life and some resistances for defence.

BIS:
Basically better numbers for the stats above. A +1 arrow quiver may allow good transition to barrage or TS.

Alternative:
Drillneck is a very good quiver for barrage/TS variants due to its high flat physical damage and innate pierce, allowing us to forgo the pierce gem in the link.

Body Armour
Currently:

Belly of the Beast provides around 500 life and a good amount of resistances to an otherwise unique heavy build. The increase life flask recovery is a nice addition. Not much to say about this item other than that you will be competing with melee meta-slaves for this one.

BIS:
Daresso's Defiance with high life roll is likely to be the most fun addition to this build with the free onslaught mechanics which opens up a flask slot. Prioritise this after getting a BIS bow.

Alternative:
A rare evasion chest with good life and resistance rolls could function as well or better than a belly of the best especially with dodge rolled into the shaper versions. I'm lazy so i went belly.

Amulet
Currently:

Hinekora's sight is cheap accuracy and attack/spell dodge and is probably the easiest to get at any point in the league. the +1000 accuracy combines well with our gloves to provide crit and removes the need for Worthy Foe ascendency.

BIS:
A rare amulet with high life, resistances, crit multiplier, AS, accurazy is likely to be better than the dodge/accuracy provided by Hinekora's sight. Go for a rare amulet if you're pursuing the Crimson Storm and haemophilia variant.

Alternative:
An Essence worm socketed with Pride may allows us to run an additional aura like Precision.

Rings
Currently:

Cheap 2-4 chaos rings with life and resistances to tide over early game. Search for 70+ life and 70+ total resistances on poe.trade and you're gucci. Look for 4 suffix rings and you can craft flat physical damage on them for 2 chaos.

BIS:
Steel rings with flat physical damage, high life, resistances, crit multiplier, AS. Basically every melee meta-slave's (and our) wet dream...

Belt
Currently:

Get as much life and resistances as possible to tide the early game. Search for 80+ life and 80+ total resistances on poe.trade and you're good.

BIS:
MOAR LIFE AND RESISTANCES. Cannot stress how important these are in a unique heavy build.

Alternative:
Stygian Vise with good life/flat phys damage jewel may outscale traditional belts hard.

Helmet
Currently:

Starkonja's head with 95+ life roll is the way to go. Good helm with attack speed and evasion. Also good to farm lab head enchants on. I dream of the ROA lab enchant on this one.

Alternative:
Rat's nest if you want movement speed and full DPS while sacrificing life. Will not recommend but its worth keeping note.

Gloves
Currently:

Oskarn provides accuracy, crit (with hinekora's sight) and free assassin's park on hit which saves us having to do a curse on hit setup. The added spell dodge is great as well.

Alternative:
Haemophilia unique gloves allows bleed explosions to aid clearing or early mapping. the 25% bleed chances with the 50% bleed chance on crit on the crimson storm should be more than sufficient.

Boots
Currently:

Rare boots with movement speed. This is where i get the rest of my life and resistances.

Alternative:
Atziri's step provides even more spell dodge, life and movement speed. If you are able to cap resistances with rings/belt/quiver or opt for rare body/amulet then these are the boots for you!

1. Eternal life flask
2. Diamond flask
3. Silver flask
4. Choices...
5. More Choices...

For flasks 4 and 5 you can chose from Atziri's promise, Sin's rebirth, Quartz flask, Taste of hate, or simply a quicksilver flask to go fast.

For flask effects, look for staunching (anti-bleed) and heat (anti-freeze). Roll Adrenaline on silver flask to drop quicksilver. Atziri's and sin's rebirth go well together to provide chaos damage leech. Quartz + quicksilver is an all round good starter set and for speedy lab running. Uber elder would probably require taste of hate with aquamarine flask.

Arranged in order of importance:
6-Link (Bow/Body) GGG-B-RR
Vaal ROA - Mirage archer - Impale support - Concentrate effect - Maim Support - Vicious projectiles

Opted out of Brutality support due to potential for chaos damage scaling in this phys build. Replace Maim support if your version is purely physical. Impale support should be the priority to reach 20% quality.

4-Link (Movement/Aura) GG-RR
Pride - Herald of Purity - Blink arrow - Faster attacks

Pride 20% quality increase AOE and is actually beneficial compared to other auras. Faster attacks can be replaced with faster projectiles based on your preference since our attack speed is already 3+ per second.

4-Link (CWDT setup) GG-RR
CWDT Level 16 - Steelskin Level 18 - Bloodrage Level 17 - Ice Golem Level 17

Generic CWDT setup. GGG decided immortal call was too good for us mere mortals and nerfed the mitigation percentages without endurance charges. Could consider IC when using Daresso's Defiance chest.

4-Link (Impale banner) RRR-B
Dread Banner - Empower - Increased duration - Increased AOE

Maximising levels on dread banner to increase impale effect. Duration for fortify effect when planting the banner. Increased AOE as placeholder.

6-Link (Bow/Body)
We have an additional unused 6-link which means one of two things. Firstly, we can run kaom's heart. Secondly, we can run additional DPS setups below.

First idea: I am currently using a Totem ROA setup, mimicking toxic rain totems from my synthesis league build.

Second Idea: 6-link barrage setup for single target DPS on bosses could be placed here.

Third Idea: Those not running Oskarn should put their curse on hit set-up here using storm brand - CoH - Mark of whatever - Chain - Blind - ???

Alira for crit multiplier and resists
Kill all if you have good jewels to socket

Major: Lunaris
Minor: Rysthlatha

1. Master of metal
2. Inspirational
3. First to strike, Last to fall
4. Unstoppable hero

1-16: Perforate with blood (bossing) & sand (mobbing)
16+: Realise you hate being melee, buy toxic rain and quill rain
55+: Consider switching to vaal ROA after normal/cruel lab and getting 100% impale with banner.
68: Kitava is easy because he/she/it (don't assume) is FAT and ROA melts THICC enemies.

Talent tree:
1. Path towards ranger tree to get bow damage/AS nodes early (skip crit).
2. Mana leech minor node on bottom right is really good.
3. Path upwards towards acrobatics and phase acrobatics.
4. Get Impale wheel (swift skewering) when you finish normal lab.
5. Get bow crit and generic nodes as you transition to ROA
6. Path towards scion life wheel before getting other nearby life nodes (duelist golem's blood and ranger's herbalism) as necessary
7. Sockets, Sockets, Sockets

Gearing before mapping:
1. Hinekora's sight and Oskarn are cheap and can be bought first
2. Belt with life (80+) and resistance (80+)
3. Rings with life (70+) and resistance (70+), craft with flat phys for 2C

Gearing during mapping:
4. Good physical bow with high AS you can afford
5. Quiver for life roll mainly and flat phys damage.
6. Boots with move speed, life and cap out resists

When you can afford
7. Belly of the beast. I got mine for 30C 3 days into the league but managed up to tier 10s without it. Good life rolls are hard to find, low life rolls are also hard to get a response from sellers so GLHF!

As mentioned above, it is difficult to ascertain the true dps of this build given that POB is crap at producing numbers for both ROA and Impale. Leave your suggestions below on what you think would be good estimates.

In general:
1. ROA depends on the number of arrows which hit the enemies, which is in turn dependant on the THICCNESS of the enemy, the AOE of the skill, the AOE of each arrow, and RNGesus decided how many arrows appear on the enemy.
2. Vaal ROA gives additional concurrent casts of rain of arrows. When launching 2 stacks in succession, you will have 3 concurrent ROA hitting the enemy which also provides slows while ramping up impale stacks quickly
3. Impale can be estimated to be a roughly 150 MORE multiplier AFTER 7 hits on the enemies. Note that with a 3+ attack speed and multiple arrows on ROA hitting an enemies, 7 hits is ezpz. Additionally, you get 42-84 flat physical damage on hits from master of metal which is insane.

Rough guide on impale mechanics:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/bxf4vk/impale_is_actually_insane_now/