Explosive Arrow Slayer PoB, Passive Skill Tree & Gems

Out Of Date

March 5th, 2023, 15:44

IMPORTANT PoB NOTES

The PoB community fork created by Localidentity is the only version being kept up to date, so make sure you have the correct version: PoB Community Fork.

END GAME PoB & PASSIVE SKILL TREE

Budget / League Starter Path Of Building – Here is the endgame Path Of Building capable of defeating the majority of content in the game, it can still be scaled further however the total budget required to begin your journey is extremely low.

For scaling the build beyond this PoB with the Thicket Bow setup, possible Watcher’s Eyes and other alternative gearing, be sure to check out Tenkiei’s YouTube video which can be found on the Main Page.

LEVELING PROGRESSION

Depending on if you’re playing Hardcore or Softcore, you will have to adjust your routing based on how good the gear you find is. An example is that if you have lots of Life & Resistance from drops you get during the Acts, you can focus on taking the damage-providing nodes over the defensive ones and vice versa. The links below are trees that should fit in almost any situation no matter the drop RNG.

As well as this, the tree used may heavily depending on whether you have access to the quill rain and a 4l in order to start using the Ballistas, when levelling with Steel skills, it is recommended to pick up the generic pathing nodes on the tree, speccing into Sword & Projectile nodes that are readily available in the vicinity. Pathing through to Point Blank & the Panopticon Totem Wheel sooner rather than later is recommended if you are levelling with ballistas

MASTERIES

A lot of the masteries available comes down to a matter of personal preference but some are more or less mandatory.

Life Mastery : +50 to Maximum life – a huge chunk of life that is almost a gear slot’s worth. It is tough to not pick this up on any build

*Spell Suppression Mastery: Critical Strike Chance is increased by chance to suppress spell damage – This is effectively 100% increased critical strike chance, as we aim to cap our spell suppression completely.
*Elemental Mastery: +15% to all elemental resistances – This node is huge for capping your elemental resistances early, and can be kept to ease gear struggle when trying to cap both spell suppression and Chaos Resistance.
*Reservation Mastery: 15% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of skills – This mastery alongside Charisma will easily carry all of our mana reservation needs for auras.
*Mark Mastery: 10% chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on hit when hitting Marked Enemy – this mastery allows us to easily sustain 4 Frenzy charges on bosses, giving us over 16% more dmg total.
*Totem Mastery: 5% of damage from hits is taken from your nearest totem’s life before you – an easy 5% defensive boost that redirects your damage taken to totems.
*Bow Mastery: Increases and Reductions to projectile speed also apply to damage with bows – Quill Rain has a sizable chunk of Projectile speed that this node allows us to utilize beyond making projectiles fly quickly.
*Totem Mastery: Totems Taunt Enemies around them for 1 second when Summoned – Yet another defensive layer enabling us to kite more efficiently.
*Totem Mastery: Totems’ Action Speed cannot be slowed below base value – Extremely useful for avoiding any chilling ground effects or freeze on your totems, it ensures that they’re always firing away at your enemies.

LEVELING GEMS & LINKS

We level with 2h swords, using Splitting Steel until we acquire Shattering Steel at level 12, once you can get a Quill Rain you can start using your ballistas to destroy enemies.

For early mapping, it may be worth switching out Summon Skitterbots for Grace Grace to help with defence.

4L Splitting Steel & Shattering Steel

Splitting Steel / Shattering Steel
Vicious Projectiles Support At lvl 18 from Act 2 – The Weaver’s Chamber
Impale Support – Act 3 Library quest
Brutality Support At lvl 38 from The Eternal Nightmare quest in Act 4 – must purchase on duelist.

Quill Rain links – 2× 4L

Explosive Arrow from Gravicius at level 28.
Ballista Totem Support from The Caged Brute in act 1.
Elemental Damage with Attacks Support acquired at lvl 18 from the Weaver’s Chamber.
Barrage Support acquired at lvl 38 from The Eternal Nightmare in act 4.

Explosive Arrow from Gravicius at level 28.
Mirage Archer Support acquired at lvl 4 from the Tidal Island.
Elemental Damage with Attacks Support acquired at lvl 18 from the Weaver’s Chamber.
Inspiration Support acquired in the Library.

In terms of Auras & Reservations, we will be using Precision from act 1, Defiance Banner & Summon Skitterbots from act 2 Fidelitas, Determination from act 3.

AMULET ANOINTMENT

An extremely cheap anointment to pick up is Divine Judgement, which can be acquired with 1x Sepia Oil, 1x Teal Oil, and 1x Black Oil. Later on you may pick up Lava Lash, Heart Of Flame, or Shaman’s Dominion.

END GAME GEM LINKS

6-Link Explosive Arrow Ballistas

It doesn’t matter whether we have this in the bow or the body armour, unless we intend to run a +3 bow, in which case it needs to be in the bow.

6-Link Mirage Archer Explosive Arrow

2-Link Mark on Hit

Generic trigger set-up to automate Assassin’s Mark.

4-Link Mobility & Utility CWDT

Simple 4 sockets being thrown together lacking any sort of beneficial gain from being put elsewhere. Since Dash is not a spell, it can be linked to Cast When Damage Taken without casting itself, you can just keep it as a 3L and 1 socket remaining for the Dash

Auras

Generic auras that do not need to be linked or socketed together, and can be placed anywhere in your gear.

Determination
Precision
Summon Skitterbots
Defiance Banner
Grace – We will only use Grace for its Vaal counterpart, sustaining Grace itself is impossible without heavy investment into aura reservation, and as such is not worth it.

Main Page / TL;DR