League Start Updates: I have added some extra transition steps to the planner (Act 4, Early Maps, Red Maps and Alch & Go T15s) below so you can see my progress at each stage of endgame progression as I went through league start over the weekend. The Alch and Go setup is the one that I"m feeling quite confident in at the moment, my spreadsheet puts boss DPS at around 1million with a relatively cheap weapon plus 6 link skills without anything else that's expensive. Clearing is feeling great with attacks chain an additional time plus dominus grasp, defences feel good (though I do still die occasionally which is why we are only doing 4 mods at the moment).
League mechanics that feel good: Breach, Ritual
League mechanics that are hard: Delirium
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0.5 Updates: Yes poison duration has taken a hit on pathfinder but its not a big deal as it does not reduce poison dps, just total poison damage. We attack so fast that we still keep up all of our stacks.
Fragmentation Rounds has been buffed for this build, quality now give +2 fragments which is a big dps boost (effectively 20% more damage)
I have run the numbers in a spreadsheet and on average out total DPS with Fragmentation Rounds in 0.4 was 3.1million and our total DPS in 0.5 is 3.5million so overall the build has been buffed, that's before we factor in decay crafted gloves which increases the damage potential of the build even further. Poison duration goes from 2.29s to 1.76s. In real terms the total poison damage for 12 stacks goes from 4.8million to 4.4million but that only matters if we stop attacking which we don't.
We will need to find a new source of shock now that shock conduction is dead, I'll work it out at league start, maybe one of the new kalguuran skills will help.
I will be league starting this build and will do a build diary and a proper update once I get to endgame.
Some things to test in 0.5:
- Subterfuge Mask has been nerfed, deflect has been buffed and we are getting runic ward so I'm going to testing various defensive setups across EV, ES and deflect. This will change the passive tree pathing though won't make a huge different to intelligence requirements as we still want to use Despair for single target. It's not clear what the changes mean for EV/ES, with all the new deflect and faster recharge nodes in the hybrid part of the tree it may actually be even better.
- At the very high end of the build we will be able to scale power using a spirit reservation amulet (very expensive) and a Voices jewel (for more poison magnitude, the more sockets the more expensive this will be).
- We will also see if any of the unique extraction runes can help the build
- Rolling "Decay" modifiers will let us craft a very strong pair of gloves, rare gloves with attack speed and physical damage and socket effect were already better than Snakebite so at the very top end of the build we get another damage boost.
- Getting shocked ground by using Snipers Mark with Charged Mark, even with 5% crit this should go off fairly reliably given how fast we attack.
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This build leverages double poison stacks from pathfinder and the Riven debuff from High Velocity Rounds to melt pinnacle bosses in seconds. It uses Herald of Plague and Armour Piercing Rounds to take care of map clear for a real Run & Gun play style.
The build is mostly one button, using Armour Piercing Rounds for mapping and the full:
Armour Piercing Rounds > High Velocity Rounds > Fragmentation Rounds rotation for bosses.
You can scale this build as high as you want with the best lineage gems, new spirit reservation amulet and Voices, however, they are not needed for comfortable juiced T16 mapping and pinnacle bossing, you can do everything you want to do with the medium investment version of the build. At the lower end it does over a million dps which should be plenty to get you through all the questlines in the game at the least if not also through the farmable versions of the pinnacles.
The benefit of Pathfinder as you probably know by now is that you can run any map mod thanks to slow immunity and its fast thanks to running assault. Doubling poisons with Overwhelming Toxicity has minimal downside and is also a huge DPS boost and because we attack so fast we don't care about the short duration.
I like using Armour Piercing Rounds for poison stacking due to how fast it attacks, this means there is minimal ramp time for our damage which creates more safety than waiting for gas clouds to poison and kill the enemies and we get some stun in the deal as well.
Some key tech in this build:
- More poison stacks for single target from Snakebite and the Idol of Thruldana before we can craft a high end pair of socket effect gloves.
- Cospri's Will for Withering Presence and infinite curse duration
- Arakaali's Lust on High Velocity Rounds
- Lavianga's Spirits lets us use a couple of very efficient passive nodes that care about flasks being active.
- Rampart Raptor on weapon set 1 with Fragmentation Rounds with as much attack speed as we can get to take advantage of the Riven debuff. 9.5 attacks per second each dealing 60% of our High Velocity Rounds average damage. Which then applies 12 stacks of poison that each do ~120% of our High Velocity Rounds average damage.
The higher investment variants of this build have a lot of suffix pressure on gear due to needing high intelligence, dexterity and not having glove, chest or belt slots to meet these requirements, beyond the cost of well rolled uniques themselves you'll need to take this into account as you need good rolls on your jewellery, boots and helm to make up for it.
Your chance to poison doesn't need to be 100% with this build because both Armour Piercing Rounds and Fragmentation Rounds attack so fast that you'll easily keep full stacks up at all times. Hitting 100% will mostly help with landing a big poison when you apply Riven with High Velocity Rounds.
Check the leveling notes and the FAQ to understand when you can make the switch to this build, you cannot level it from the start of the campaign at league start, you will need to swap later on when you have the right weapon, Tier 8 spirit reservations and enough jewellers orbs and support gems.
FAQ
How does Riven Armour work?
High Velocity Rounds applies Riven armour when hitting an enemy with fully broken armour. This applies a debuff that adds 5% of the physical damage of High Velocity Rounds to every hit the enemy takes. Fragmentation Rounds has 10 fragments (12 with 20% quality), each of these fragments counts as 1 hit so at 20% quality each fragmentation shot does 60% of your High Velocity Rounds and cannot be scaled. No scaling means we cannot scale the damage up but also, more importantly, it is not affected by less damage modifiers so we can stack up all the bonuses from supports that have them without losing anything, such as streamlined rounds and deadly poison.
Why Rampart Raptor?
Rampart Raptor goes in weapon slot 1 and is used just for Fragmentation Rounds, because each hit count as 12 hits (@20% quality) for the riven debuff from High Velocity Rounds we only care about maximising how many shots we fire and not the damage of Fragmentation Rounds itself. So we try and get the biggest single hit we can with High Velocity Rounds on an armour broken target and then spam Fragmentation Rounds while riven is up.
When can I switch to using Poison/Herald of Plague in the Campaign?
After doing some testing in Standard SSF I will say that making the switch to poison is dependent on a few factors:
1) You have a good physical DPS weapon, I made the switch with a pretty sub-par Bombard Crossbow that had elemental damage on it and it was fine for late Act 3 but really started to struggle in Act 4 when I didn't find any upgrades. I would recommend not switching until you have at least a good physical Construct Crossbow or better. (VOD of me testing in standard SSF with a bad crossbow here)
2) You have enough support gems to make the swap. As you'll be using a fair number of Level 3 support gems when you switch make sure you have enough. You'll want:
in Armour Piercing Rounds:
Bursting Plague (Lv. 2), Poison II (Lv. 3), Longshot II (Lv3.) (You can do Close Combat I if you prefer here)
In Fragmentation Rounds:
Streamlined Rounds (Lv. 3), Rapid Attacks I (Lv.1), Ammo Conservation I (Lv. 2)
in High Velocity Rounds:
Deliberation (Lv. 3), Close Combat I (Lv. 3) -> If you have a 3rd lesser jewellers: Brutality II (Lv. 2) I know this turns off poison but you want a bigger hit for Riven.
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
高速弹药 High Velocity Rounds
碎裂弹药 Fragmentation Rounds
永冻弩箭 Permafrost Bolts
持久鏖战 Attrition
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
高速弹药 High Velocity Rounds
碎裂弹药 Fragmentation Rounds
永冻弩箭 Permafrost Bolts
持久鏖战 Attrition
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
高速弹药 High Velocity Rounds
碎裂弹药 Fragmentation Rounds
永冻弩箭 Permafrost Bolts
持久鏖战 Attrition
碎片回收 Shard Scavenger
寒冰之捷 Herald of IceTattoos - I recommend taking attributes for your tattoos.
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
迸发之疫Far CombatChanceto Poison
高速弹药 High Velocity Rounds
碎裂弹药 Fragmentation Rounds
持久鏖战 Attrition
荒芜之捷 Herald of Plague
战弩射击 Crossbow Shot
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
迸发之疫Damage Per Bolt Reloaded Recently
高速弹药 High Velocity Rounds
碎裂弹药 Fragmentation Rounds
迸发之疫Chanceto Poison
荒芜之捷 Herald of Plague
持久鏖战 Attrition
高速弹药 High Velocity Rounds
永恒狂怒 Eternal Rage
碎裂弹药 Fragmentation Rounds
荒芜之捷 Herald of Plague
持久鏖战 Attrition
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
迸发之疫Damage Per Bolt Reloaded Recently
高速弹药 High Velocity Rounds
永恒狂怒 Eternal Rage
碎裂弹药 Fragmentation Rounds
荒芜之捷 Herald of Plague
混沌专精
持久鏖战 Attrition
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
分叉附加重击(辅)
迸发之疫近战(辅)
高速弹药 High Velocity Rounds
永恒狂怒 Eternal Rage
碎裂弹药 Fragmentation Rounds
荒芜之捷 Herald of Plague
混沌专精
持久鏖战 Attrition
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
迸发之疫Lineage ArakaaliLineage Mercy
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
迸发之疫
高速弹药 High Velocity RoundsThis is the first threshold to aim for, solid defences with ~4.5k total health pool, 60% evasion and a ~700 dps crossbow with gain as phys.
荒芜之捷 Herald of Plague
混沌专精
持久鏖战 Attrition
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
迸发之疫附加重击(辅)Damage Per Bolt Reloaded RecentlyFaster Attack
高速弹药 High Velocity Rounds
风舞者 Wind Dancer
击退
瘫痪
碎裂弹药 Fragmentation Rounds
幽灵舞步 Ghost DanceThis is where I add in Cospri's Will, a well rolled pair of rare gloves with socket effect and Uul-Netol's Embrace for a big upgrade to our clear speed.
凋零姿态 Withering Presence
混沌专精
幽灵舞步 Ghost Dance
持久鏖战 Attrition
风舞者 Wind Dancer
击退
瘫痪
碎裂弹药 Fragmentation Rounds
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
迸发之疫Damage Per Bolt Reloaded RecentlyFaster Attack
绝望 Despair
高速弹药 High Velocity Rounds
荒芜之捷 Herald of Plague
混沌专精
战弩射击 Crossbow Shot
凋零姿态 Withering Presence
混沌专精
幽灵舞步 Ghost Dance
荒芜之捷 Herald of Plague
混沌专精Lineage Uhtred Standard
持久鏖战 Attrition
风舞者 Wind Dancer
击退
瘫痪
碎裂弹药 Fragmentation Rounds
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
迸发之疫附加重击(辅)乌乌涅托尔传承(辅)Damage Per Bolt Reloaded RecentlyFaster Attack
绝望 Despair
高速弹药 High Velocity Rounds
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
高速弹药 High Velocity Rounds
碎裂弹药 Fragmentation Rounds
永冻弩箭 Permafrost Bolts
持久鏖战 Attrition
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
高速弹药 High Velocity Rounds
碎裂弹药 Fragmentation Rounds
永冻弩箭 Permafrost Bolts
持久鏖战 Attrition
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
高速弹药 High Velocity Rounds
碎裂弹药 Fragmentation Rounds
永冻弩箭 Permafrost Bolts
持久鏖战 Attrition
碎片回收 Shard Scavenger
寒冰之捷 Herald of IceTattoos - I recommend taking attributes for your tattoos.
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
迸发之疫Far CombatChanceto Poison
高速弹药 High Velocity Rounds
碎裂弹药 Fragmentation Rounds
持久鏖战 Attrition
荒芜之捷 Herald of Plague
战弩射击 Crossbow Shot
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
迸发之疫Damage Per Bolt Reloaded Recently
高速弹药 High Velocity Rounds
碎裂弹药 Fragmentation Rounds
迸发之疫Chanceto Poison
荒芜之捷 Herald of Plague
持久鏖战 Attrition
高速弹药 High Velocity Rounds
永恒狂怒 Eternal Rage
碎裂弹药 Fragmentation Rounds
荒芜之捷 Herald of Plague
持久鏖战 Attrition
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
迸发之疫Damage Per Bolt Reloaded Recently
高速弹药 High Velocity Rounds
永恒狂怒 Eternal Rage
碎裂弹药 Fragmentation Rounds
荒芜之捷 Herald of Plague
混沌专精
持久鏖战 Attrition
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
分叉附加重击(辅)
迸发之疫近战(辅)
高速弹药 High Velocity Rounds
永恒狂怒 Eternal Rage
碎裂弹药 Fragmentation Rounds
荒芜之捷 Herald of Plague
混沌专精
持久鏖战 Attrition
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
迸发之疫Lineage ArakaaliLineage Mercy
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
迸发之疫
高速弹药 High Velocity RoundsThis is the first threshold to aim for, solid defences with ~4.5k total health pool, 60% evasion and a ~700 dps crossbow with gain as phys.
荒芜之捷 Herald of Plague
混沌专精
持久鏖战 Attrition
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
迸发之疫附加重击(辅)Damage Per Bolt Reloaded RecentlyFaster Attack
高速弹药 High Velocity Rounds
风舞者 Wind Dancer
击退
瘫痪
碎裂弹药 Fragmentation Rounds
幽灵舞步 Ghost DanceThis is where I add in Cospri's Will, a well rolled pair of rare gloves with socket effect and Uul-Netol's Embrace for a big upgrade to our clear speed.
凋零姿态 Withering Presence
混沌专精
幽灵舞步 Ghost Dance
持久鏖战 Attrition
风舞者 Wind Dancer
击退
瘫痪
碎裂弹药 Fragmentation Rounds
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
迸发之疫Damage Per Bolt Reloaded RecentlyFaster Attack
绝望 Despair
高速弹药 High Velocity Rounds
荒芜之捷 Herald of Plague
混沌专精
战弩射击 Crossbow Shot
凋零姿态 Withering Presence
混沌专精
幽灵舞步 Ghost Dance
荒芜之捷 Herald of Plague
混沌专精Lineage Uhtred Standard
持久鏖战 Attrition
风舞者 Wind Dancer
击退
瘫痪
碎裂弹药 Fragmentation Rounds
贯甲弹药 Armour Piercing Rounds
迸发之疫附加重击(辅)乌乌涅托尔传承(辅)Damage Per Bolt Reloaded RecentlyFaster Attack
绝望 Despair
高速弹药 High Velocity Rounds天赋树和点法详情请前往原贴查看,需科学上网。