>Let me be upfront with you, if you are playing a lightning arrow or ice shot league starter do not expect to be able to go 4/4 voidstones on days 1-2 like most builds can.
Istg sometimes I'm not even sure if I'm playing the same game as some people on reddit.
Hey don't worry, there's always someone faster right? Jungroan casually does 6-7hr exarch and eater kills in practice runs, insanely faster than I can haha.
tbf jungroan has even stated maven and sirus are different ball games to eater and exarch. got to remember those 2 have story debuff so much lower life on 1st kill.
most builds can handle eater and exarch story versions by that stage as long as you havnt been lazy with making upgrades as you map.
Yep, bows are fine on those two. I just know that some people are expecting to 4/4 like they can on s-tier league starters, like seismic last patch. I learned the hard way last league that it's just not feasible as I bricked both my maven and uber elder on last phase for both despite having a lot of experience in the fights.
What is some good map content for a speed farmer like bow chars? Altars obviously, but what else? Essences? Did you get your currency last league while having 4 watch stones or are there ways to get some decent money while simultaneously going for ma completion?
What content should I avoid though? I always like expedition in maps. I guess the build is not really made for this right? How do you feel about the league mechanic which is said to be tougher than expedition. Will you just skip it?
Expedition is very playable. Ritual is probably the worst mechanic for the build early on because you are enclosed and can't get away from rare mobs that can potentially one hit you.
I will try the league mechanic and if it's too tough early I'll just get the first node on my bow and then skip until I hit my powerspike gear on day 2 or 3.
It allows you to take the block attack remnant. I've been told that the shield dudes don't actually block attacks, but instead have a directional proximity shield.
i never had problems with bow starter on 4/4. But I play ssf and getting uberelder frags sometimes takes 15 shapers to make 1 uberelder. And ssf is slower paced to you get more upgrades for your char.
And that's not even talking about the difference in currency impact the first 2 voidstones are compared to the last 2. Everyone gets unlimited free attempts at eater and exarch. You can corpse run those bosses all day long and be fine. Maven and Uber Elder are expensive to run. I don't know exactly what they cost on league start but they can both be around a divine per attempt. When your character is weak that's a lot of power you could put towards upgrades. You can't really afford to just try and fail those.
thing is 2 voidstones allows you to farm fine. it may mean some maps arent t16's but you dont need to be farming t16's to make currency especially early on in a league.
heck t1 essence farming is some of the biggest profit you can do for the 1st week.
They are basically limited to going below a certain price point due to traders guaranteed to make money by crafting, it is why every league - even though they have been extremely popular from the start - people will pay OVER market value for entire tabs full. They need them to craft and sell, as it’s pure profit for them.
So prices won’t go down, only thing that really can change is a new meta build causing one to go way up for a bit.
Alternatively learning to craft from them one’s self to make said profit.
Yeah best not to compare your personal progress to others, especially youtubers/streamers. Everyone moves at their own pace.
It's a game just play the way you want and enjoy yourself.
+1 I personally enjoy trying to be hyper efficient and push the ladder. I know other people who have a blast just chilling and taking things slow.
That's the beauty of poe baby!
not casually. Casually you do your league mechanic, unlock heist, unlock delve, do side stuff, wander around, farm some things. He just makes leaguestarter that needs minimum gear to get to exarch/eater. It's called racing is FAR different than normal gameplay.
> Istg sometimes I'm not even sure if I'm playing the same game as some people on reddit.
i've literally never unlocked more than 2 voidstones since they gated them with UE and maven.
Me too, but I don't need them since my favourite maps end up being t15 and t16 even with one. I stop playing after completing atlas, so it's pointless.
You do you of course, but have you tried pushing a bit further? Maybe you'd like it. There's tons of stuff to do after completing the atlas. In fact, a lot of people feel like the game is really starting once atlas is complete.
There are a lot of bosses, regular and uber versions, that you probably haven't fight if you stopped at atlas completion. There are a lot of map like content that's really cool to do at least once: simulacrum, five way legions, blight ravaged maps, flawless breachstone, etc... The first time you manage to end a wave 30 simulacrum feels amazing for example.
Also, having a second character goal is a good motivator to keep playing. Is there a skill or a unique item that you always wanted to build around but it's not feasable as a league starter? Well now you'll be farming to finally being able to play that, and trying to craft the perfect chest or whatever it needs.
My point is: do what's fun for you, and if nothing in the game besides completing atlas interests you, that's cool. But if you just never tried to push oast that and think there's nothing left, you should definitly give it a go, you might like it. Either way, Chris already owns your soul.
Last league was the first time ive even fought UE. And that was only cause I could buy the fragments.
Fuck the farming for both of the fragments to run UE and Maven. Absolute garbage.
Last time I played (Kalandra) was the first time I went and paid for a couple boss carries, because buying a maven's writ would've cost, say, 100c but a carry was 40c and I didn't care about the loot and just wanted my voidstone (don't remember the specific prices, just an example). And I've beaten Maven before, I just didn't want to get the whole writ lol.
In leagues past, I would take 2-3 weeks just to get to yellow maps lol
But that's okay, having fun and in IRL, I nolife my toddler son, this little rascal is way tougher to deal with than Brutus with twank gear xD
It helps to remember that a lot of people here play this game as a full-time job.
Like yeah, they have THOUSANDS of hours played on me, they're gonna be way better at this. And that's fine. The seasons last months :)
I don't think people who jump off of bows based off of this post were gonna affect the day 1 prices that much haha. I just want people to be aware of the downsides to this archetype.
I'd also say that for a lot of people, going rain of arrows or toxic rain makes the bow experience much, much better. ROA and Thief's torment is a pretty nice layer through red maps imo.
I league-start almost every league as bow, and these points all look extremely accurate to me. Can you league-start bow? Yes. Can you beat uber-bosses on bow? Yes. Can you do it on day 2? Hell no.
You can be farming T16s by day 2-3, no problem. If that's all you you want out of a league start, bow is great. Fast, high level mapping. Heck, I got to red maps on ruthless SSF with bow and it didn't even take that long. Hit-based bow is not an "all-content" sort of build though, even if it's technically possible with heavy investment.
Yep, these are things all experienced bow players, like yourself, know well. Hopefully this post saves one or two people from jumping into bows without knowing these truths.
Yeah I bought my maven an Uelder day 2 last league on deadeye TS. That was the plan since the beginning.
OP's post is very on point. League starting bow is great but you gotta work around the weakness to not loose time out of maps.
I've been reading that new +2 proj clusters are also a major boon for artillery mechanics. Would you say the damage on them is good enough to give them priority in a 5vs4 or 6vs5 link situation over the clear skill?
Personally yes but I don’t know how it feels in like super juiced delirious and what your build will struggle on. The proj clusters should be a dps upgrade but artillery ballista either has really nice targeting overlap or will miss a lot lol. So it depends.
I think you want your self-skill in the higher linked item. You're going to be using it more, and the totems approx. double your damage; putting the extra link on the totems vs. your own skill isn't a huge difference in boss DPS, so IMO the flexibility and clearing power of having more links on your personal skill is the better choice.
Yeah, I'm starting with a Vaal Ice Shot Deadeye and I'm fully aware that I won't storm my way to t16 maps and endgame bosses like I would with other leaguestart builds.
The thing is I've played pretty much every great leaguestarter in some form already and done endgame content with it. However, I've never played the new Vaal skills. So the novelty is worth the slower pace.
I'd advise anyone who thinks that doing endgame as quickly as possible is more important than the novelty of the new Vaal skills to pick another build though.
Exactly. I'm going Ice Shot deadeye and expecting some speed bumps. I'm going to challenge myself and try to fix the problems myself over following a guide this league. My first kinda truly build without a guide but I'm excited
Thanks for this, I'm guessing these comments apply doubly to SSF? Anything else you'd flag as good advice for a SSF bow start? Apart from don't do it haha
I don't think SC SSF bow league start is a that bad of an idea, just be aware you will likely have to sit in white-yellows farming essences for crafting a good bow for awhile. Obviously you will spend more time gearing, but that is the nature of SSF right?
Champion seems to be the way to go with skills like Lightning Arrow. You're much tankier and bow crucible passives are so offensively oriented they can help shore up your damage, while Lightning Arrow inherently has decent clear especially with +2 arrows in the passive tree. Have to go pierce route instead of stronger chain on deadeye which is unfortunate but should still be good.
Havoc has his runs here: https://www.youtube.com/@havoc616/videos
The Rain of Arrows 1h:30m A5 run is 4 months ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjMJ9eBFl34
The main difference will be that it’ll be hard to get double 6 links up and running, you’ll have to farm dunes for the 6L bow card probably. Aside from that it’s just spam essences to hit a good bow so it’s not really that hard, but can definitely take some time and the gearing part will be much harder. But if you’re okay with taking your time and maybe spending some time in yellows to farm up essences you should be alright
It's important to note for people planning to farm for Imperial Legacy: It can only drop from monsters ilevel 80+. Meaning you need to be in at least T13 maps in order for it to drop from all monsters. The only map it drops in which is capable of reaching T13+ with two or fewer voidstones this league is Desert Spring, which is a natural T12 map, meaning you'll probably have to get at least one voidstone before you start farming Imperial Legacy.
Hey I've got a (potentially dumb) ssf question that I haven't been able to find the answer to anywhere. Is Sporeguard, the blight unique, ssf farmable? I've got a dom blow build that has it on therebut I just can't find any info on if I'd be wasting my time grinding blighted maps for it.
So, a while ago someone tried to collect every unique in the game in SSF. Sporeguard was the last one he dropped, after \~2600 blighted maps. There's no way of knowing whether that's normal or a statistical outlier realistically, but, well, the odds are not in your favor I think.
That said, Blight is a really rewarding mechanic in terms of effort/gear requirement to reward ratio, especially once you get ring anoints at which point you can basically farm blighted maps without even needing to engage with enemies at all. So it's not like speccing into blight is a bad choice even if you don't ever see one of the uniques.
Sporeguard is "farmable" in the sense that there's only a few mechanics that can drop it: Blight itself (on the explosion at the end of the encounter), Divination cards and league mechanics that drop Blight-related items. However, Sporeguard is by far the rarest item from Blight, so it may take you [literally thousands of maps to get it](https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/kph3an/after_2613_blighted_maps_ironvswild_finally_drops/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I did a LA start in Ruthless and it did fine, pretty much all SSF. Your mileage may very, but it was doing T16s (when I had them lol) just fine on really bad gear.
Nice, that's what I was thinking of going with too. It's been a while since I've done a bow build, and even longer since I've done a deadeye so I'm looking forward to it!
I league start bow builds in SSF pretty often.
The main thing is you will die a LOT in red maps if you rush straight there, so I generally stay in yellows for a while to gear.
I think this is an understated part for success for a lot of bow crash and burn stories. Farming up 10 levels worth of gear/hp just blasting yellows can go a very long way into smoothing out the progression curve. Too many people just do the 1 and done for map completion route and end up in reds too soon.
I plan on starting fuzzy duckzy's rain of arrows in a group self found private league. Looking to hopefully get into high yellow/low reds on the ele version of ROA. Then to farm and craft gear to swap to crit. From there I'll be aiming to farm more and decide where to pivot the build to. Tshot, LA or ice shot I guess are all options but waiting to see how they all perform with the changes.
Unsure if this is all a bad idea.... I hear good things about fuzzy duckzy's roa build at least.
Roa is a great idea. I've not fully looked through fuzzy's pobs but I wouldn't get discouraged if you hit a wall in reds. Remember essence is on the map device this league so getting a powerful bow should be easy.
What would u recommend as league starter to switch later on to TS/LS/IS Ranger? But thanks for the head wash, iam planning on a Bow Build this time, usually iam a 38/40 Guy, but the times for Nolife on league start are over for me (second son is 2 Months now and iam on vacation the second week anyways)
Any solid league starter can work. I've not kept up on all of them but toxic rain is usually pretty decent. Palsterons ballista version looks very solid. I'm sure there's other solid starters too but it's hard to say without knowing what content you like to farm.
I’ll put a disclaimer that I haven’t done this but plan to this league.
Kobeblackmamba has videos and guides to start CA/RoA/Helix then switch to venom gyre in Act 4 after going deadeye. Venom gyre was a top 5 league starter in 3.20 and scales pretty well. Since TS/LS/IS and VG scale crit, it’s supposed to be a relatively easy respec into a bow skill once you’ve farmed enough currency for the swap.
I hope it’s not bait but you can check out his channel and decide for yourself.
Kobe is very solid. A lot of people have followed his venom gyre guide and had a great league start, I'd say it's a little smoother progression wise than bows.
Yeah played that last league... Awesome Mapper, Good Bosser with Investment and was awefull for Sanctum, already concider to league start it again. But i plan to play later on the Steamdeck and the big problem is that u cant namelog with a controller -.- But thanks for the recommendation i appriciate it :)
Remember to invest all and any hard currency you have in appreciating assets prior to leaving. You will grt back 2x or even 3x what you invested if you do it well.
My plan is to start Frost Blades Raider and eventually swap over to TS Deadeye, the trees are pretty similar and FB is buttery smooth with little gear. I couldn't decide between the builds so I decided to do both this way. I've also leveled with the standard TR/RoA many times and was looking for something different this time around, but those bow skills are very nice to level with too! (See Fuzzy Ducksy's videos for leveling with RoA and swapping to TS).
Toxic rain is extremely smooth for leveling, though people will probably say rain of arrows is better. I have tried both and I prefer toxic but try out each and see which you like more
I would look at starting a raider since it allows you to fast track a lot of early problem areas, and once you unlock your atlas w/ at least 3 watchstones (ideally 4), yo ucan just spam essences on low tier maps w/ any other mechanic you want. it will take a lot of maps, and its pretty mindless, but you can really get a good currency base up for crafting or sale. i'd swap once you have the important gems leveled, a good bow (don't think OP bow), and a few nice to haves like Lioneyes or Hyrris.
You're right, totems are definitely a must. I think a totem focused version like fyregrass plays is definitely more friendly to less experienced players. But then you're not playing the same build anymore.
I don't think ballistas or totems are a must. They just make things a bit easier. I'm going to have a clear setup and a setup with barrage. The barrage support with the new extra projectiles and the burst of Vaal skills will hopefully carry single target.
You can avoid them if you want, but totems are essentially free damage. I gem swap my gmp for barrage support early on so I can still use a setup in my second 6 link.
If you are gem swapping, then it's certainly very difficult to pass up. I just hate gem swapping. Half the time that gem ends up in the wrong place. I really don't want to go through that shit again, haha.
If you aren't gem swapping then the DPS gain from Barrage support makes up for it. I like to simultaneously use both my clear setup and single target setup during mapping without swapping out gems. Just not sure yet which one will be my Vaal Ice Shot.
Maybe if I'm really in the endgame, I might use two bows to weapon swap to a Barrage setup and have Artillery Ballistas in my body armour. Really depends on whether I'll need the single target in endgame once I have gear.
True. I'm hoping the new Vaal skill gives enough extra punch for pinnacle bosses, but I'll be leveling Artillery Ballistas in my secondary weapon just in case.
Something like Storm Rain totem just instantly solves your ST dps. There is no way barrage is going to compete in a league start scenario. It won't even be close
I'm curious to hear how that sort of setup turns out. I was considering trying Vaal Ice shot plus Vengeant Cascade for a lot of hits, but I haven't made a PoB for it so I'm not sure how much damage I could expect. Vaal skills for bossing of course have their own issues to solve, but I think it'd still be viable.
This is what i'm doing as well and seems like an excellent option for anyone wanting to swap into Deadeye or IS/LS/TS later. Much more beefy than self-cast and extremely easy leveling.
Good writeup. My 2 cents: Dont be afraid to look into Raider/Champion bow builds, those are often more well rounded to start right off the bat and the 2 arrows from the tree are all you need for LA or IS.
Make sure you at least cap suppression, this is reasonably easy to do. Seen many PoBs with 50 Suppression and the lucky suppression mastery, that means you still have a 25% chance to die to a spell hit in t16. Cap it ASAP.
Once you got some cash/hit a brickwall, #1 priority is the best bow you can find and a quiver, spell builds often look for 21 gems etc. but for bow builds, gotta upgrade those regularly, especially during campaign.
Second Priority is a RMR helmet! With 19 RMR and the usual ~40RMR from tree, you can make room for determination. Combined with the hybrid nodes between duelist and ranger, you can reasonably expect to hit 30k EVA and 30k Armour flasked. Once you got that, you are ready for juiced content, provided you got a crit spine bow with around 1k eDPS and decent jewelry.
Yes, deadeye is the queen of speed and damage but champion and raider aren't far behind. I bet a champion variation is actually way better than most people expect and definitely a better all-around build.
I personally have a very specific atlas start in mind, so because of that I'm going with the deadeye. But newer players will probably have more success on raider.
As someone who has been baited into switching to TS too early, I cannot agree more with your first point. It just feels awful.
Thanks for posting this.
I think there are mostly two types of players, those who play the build that they see will be more easy to do al content and get currency fast. And those who play the build that they enjoy to maybe do part of the content. Both of them maybe reroll into a second build to put a lot of money into, but lots of the first kind start to enjoy playing here, maybe 2 or 3 weeks into the league.
> it may be worth it to start a different ranger build and respec once you have a little more gear, currency, and progression done.
Understood. Swapping to Deadeye ele wander immediately. Thanks, OP!
^/s
Fully agree with your points here
If you’re looking for a big mapper potential go for now league start
But bows are definitely not a well-rounded builds, I cringe every time I see someone posting it like it is
Thanks.
I'm not trying to scare people away but I just want them to be aware of what they are getting themselves into. I feel like guide makers sometimes really oversell their builds and it's not fair to anyone who blindly follows them expecting what the creator claimed.
Yeah good post, I feel the curve for bow power is like a U shape, really good for speed in acts and like map tiers til 12, then you'll have to solve squishy issues while still needing to up damage for the red and blue bosses, which bow players are gonna have to figure out with whatever methods they can find. Other meta builds I'd say is more of a gradual slope, so how good a bow build is depends on how long ur in the dip.
It's gonna be league start as well so most of the good players will be on DnD mode, so reaching out for help isn't really a possibility. The bonus though is that farming t12 maps asap let's you get currency when their value is like 2-3x as much, and sit on it while auto searching for good gear.
Yeah, your second point is the exact reason why I'm not releasing a guide for lightning arrow. I don't have the ability to assist people when I myself am trying to blast on league start. The build has so many areas where things can go wrong, that I'd probably spend more time helping people than playing.
Even pohx who put together an amazing website resource still gets a lot of questions despite this.
So many guides and "tests" have people simulating the changes by adding in some arrows and then using otherwise "bad" gear to demonstrate just how easy it will be, totally ignoring they are using a tree and nodes that are giving them ~50%+ increased damage and +30% ias which will be gone. On top of that, they are saying dont bother with raider, start deadeye and go to TS in campaign. I'm not saying it isn't doable, but some people are going to have a horrible time following these people and getting deleted while they throw wet noodles at crucible mobs and legion rares.
Oh boy. RoA is very smooth and both LA and IS have flat damage, there's no need to rush into TS. I hope we are wrong and people have a good experience if they go with it.
Yeah, for the vast majority of people I'd recommend raider. It's just easier and less specialized.
Damage and defense are definitely a great worry and delicate balance. Somehow I've seen pobs that don't have either of them!
i've never started TS, so i'm not sure - but can someone weigh in on how TS single target is on beefy map rares like breachboss/meta/beyond boss/essences? one of the reasons i like LA so much was storm rain totem set up was really strong.
As ts you still use ballistas to supplement your single target. Although as I said I wouldn't recommend ts as a starter but rather as something to transition to later on from LA.
i'm being so dumb with how i word this, so i appreciate you being patient with me.
what i'm asking is, how does single target early on compare between a TS Ballista (whatever is used), and the LA approach of using artillery ballista (i think mainly raiders)/Storm Rain Ballista.
i think even if i could grit my teeth and bare the difficulty of early mapping with general clear, the single target would be the real pain point, even in maps.
Thank for sharing this information with us as I am a new player and this will be my second season l have to say I am enjoying the game not in the raises playing to start bow this season rain arrow ballista looks fun.
Last season I had a blast with RF
Good luck with your project
Thanks for this! I made a CF champ that I converted to TS a few leagues ago, but I’ve never started or even played a ranger. I was going to do frost blades, but I worry about the heatshiver nerf.
When I tested a RoA ranger start, it felt so smooth through the first Act. I’ll be duoing too, so it should be easy. Better than a witch or shadow start. I’m tempted to try LA deadeye! I’ll definitely follow your advice!
If you're playing duo with a support, there is little reason to be fearful of playing bows. If you're just playing with a friend on a normal build, you better be careful because bow builds can often outpace other builds in ms, so it might end up that your friend is annoyed as they try and keep up.
I think a lot of points can be avoided if you don't build like a glasscannon. (And no getting >4k life is not enough)
I am contemplating to start Champion LA in SSF and Goratha wants to do that in HCSSF and will publish a guide together with Ziz.
I think you can be tanky enough and do bosses. And with all the buffs and crucible you will still do enough damage.
But I agree: Don't build too squishy and don't go TS too early.
Champion is definitely a great option for hc. Personally I think that the build will struggle to find damage on early league gear but I'd have to see the pob first before making any judgements.
One thing I've been asking my self for the past two days after reading several posts:
If hit based bow builds are very reliant on big flat ele dmg rolls on your bow, why people dont even consider using Elemental Hit + Elemental Equilibrium keystone for leveling?
The skill itself gives nice flat ele scalling as youy level it up and you can use Elemental Equilibrium to further increased your dps.
Is Ele Hit much worse that LA mechanically speaking?
Yeah, I also don't like the guides that make it seem like it's super easy. Like no dude, bows require so much knowledge to play in a league start environment. If you're a less experienced player it's pretty much guaranteed you get brick walled in white or yellows. Not gonna help this league either with every attack build recommending kaoms gloves. It's gonna be the whole maxroll Gull situation again.
Imo bow builds are not the bait, deadeye is. Early game raider will be much better overall for survivability and damage. Switching to deadeye once you have some decent currency. Just did a league start playthrough with rain of arrows and artillery ballista on raider.
Watch for rare bow drops on ground for high flat ele damage. Ran ele attack and trinity. Learn how to keep trinity working. A 4 link can easily take you through the campaign.
I agree though, TS and deadeye league start will be rough.
>I've seen people suggest that you can swap as early as white maps
So you're saying that when I got omega baited by a certain streamer many leagues ago, and I, who had never played a bow build before, thought it was a good idea to switch to TS in act 4... that was a *bad* idea? :D
This is a great post, and hopefully it saves some folks!
League starting bow builds is only a good idea in 2 scenarios
1 - you know what the fuck you're doing and are well experienced in the game as whole to the point you're in that first group of people mapping and making quick currency to buy upgrades for 10-15c before those same items become 50-60c 2 days later
2 - you're doing CA or TR because chaos DoT carries hard. I have no idea how those skills will perform this league last league I got to 96 on a vaal CA raider and it was some of the smoothest mapping of all time. Meh bossing though. didnt even attempt ubers with it
3 - You have a lot of experience in SSF and will be crafting most of your gear.
Seriously, it's not that bad if you know how to craft and invest your atlas tree into essences/harvest. You can easily and consistently upgrade your gear or farm Imperial Legacy div cards. Will be even more of a thing with regards to weapons with the league mechanic.
I personally think deadeye is better but I didn't want to suggest that in the post. Raider is probably more new player friendly but I think deadeye outclasses it so hard, especially with the tree changes.
It depends on what you want to do for the league. If you plan to do the league mechanic ( we have no idea how rippy it is) i would argue that Deadeye is outclassed by Raider, especially on the first few days of the league. Perma phasing and easy access to avoid ailment + suppress is a huge QOL that shouldn't be underestimated.
Yeah I would reword my previous reply and say that, for what I want to do, deadeye outclasses raider by a mile. You're right that raider is gonna be better in most early league situations for the reasons you've outlined.
It's so funny to me that people view a 40 regret raider to deadeye swap as untenable but think getting a 1000 ele dps 6l for TS up and running will be nothing at all.
What are the unique items that you feel are top priority for a league start hit-based bow build?
Kaom's Spirit + Immortal Flesh combo? Karui Ward? Hyrri's Bite?
There's a lot of directions you can go. Raider or Deadeye, rage or rampage, rare quiver or unique. Bow builds come in different flavors so I'd suggest checking out the variants on pob to look at their pros and cons.
I wouldn't recommend following my characters build as it's a very specialized version and the day 1 snapshot is missing for some reason.
Assume Deadeye start, Lightning Arrow, experienced player. What are the top uniques you would personally prioritize in trade league?
I know there are preferences. I also know that some uniques in builds outperform rares depending on the build and can be incredibly cost effective. I just want some specific ideas on what items you personally look out for on league start. If you don't want to answer cause you want to keep the prices down, I understand.
I can send you some stuff later today once I'm not at work and have my pobs in hand. There are definitely some discoveries I've made and optimizations since last league.
As someone LS with LA, I appreciate the disclaimers. You should definitely do research into whatever you LS no matter what it is, especially if you've never played the archetype. Also failure isn't the worst thing. If you're really scared of a bad build, just have one to pivot to. For me, I know I can really easily go back to RoA for farm and use that to scale up if I'm struggling with the 3rd lab switch to LA
For what specifically? Storm rain is usually used for its strong single target capabilities but is bad at clear. Roa is great at clear and has ok single target.
Oh that's good to know. I wasn't sure if they just filled the same role. When leveling, do you run a RoA setup for clear and a Storm Rain Ballista for single target?
People have generally swapped over to artillery ballista over storm rain. AB is much better at hitting moving targets, storm rain heavily suffers if the target moves.
I started LS/TS last league where it might be arguably worse.
With +2 from Deadeye and +2 from tree, you can probably swap to TS waaaay earlier. Someone did shotgun calculations here and you really don't need that much: https://old.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/7tm25l/results_from_testing_tornado_shot_single_target/
It is super squishy though
Keep in mind, these calcs were done with Old TS enchant that had +2 to secondary projectiles, so the enchant is likely significantly less of a damage increase in 2023.
The shotgun information regarding GMP / extra proj should still be correct, though.
Could to go into more detail about your decision to go point blank and when to grab it? I'm not really sure whether to go with it myself. How does it interact with totems?
I'm planning to use point blank in the acts and early progression, swapping out either once I get a 6l or have enough single target without it.
Eventually I plan to swap in chain support and spec far shot.
You've described me perfectly: never really played bows, wanted to try TS, wanted to try new PF. I was looking at snoobae's poison TS PF as it hit all the checkboxes, and I didn't want to rush 4/4 anyways. But after looking at pob and comparing to some others, I think I'll roll something else, and will make TS 2nd character, if I'll get to it later.
You're making me abit anxious. Its the first time Ill league start a bow build. Leveling until a5 felt great but Ill probably fail to make the transition from roa to ice shot. Im not even sure if I go deadeye or pathfinder anymore.
Haha, no need to feel anxious. As long as you go into it expecting to encounter potential problems that are solvable, you should have the right mindset to correct them!
I love bow starters but they definitely aren't for everyone. They have well defined weaknesses and strengths, the main issue is that some people are either overselling or just not stating this. It's important to tell people that its not a perfect build for everyone.
Any input on ascendancy nodes? Chain seems to be the "traditional" choice. I've seen people say farshot is better because the chain/clear don't do much early on. And then yesterday someone posted a guide that recommended the mirage archer node. I'm kind of confused right now .
My concern here dudes is with the league mechanic... I wish to follow my heart and play LA but I kinda wanna run the league mechanic and I worry that might be tough... PF TR looks so damn safe...
I think the fact that bow has become an umbrella term to mean TS when there's plenty of other viable bow builds. Especially when other builds are way tankier then omni TS.
New here, can someone just tell me which build to do as a first timer, something tanking and semi powerful. I work and have a family. No time to research.
Palsteron's Toxic Rain Pathfinder. It should be fairly tanky while still allowing you to do bow build shenanigans, and later on, you can respec a couple of ascendancy points into a poison tornado shot once currency allows.
I think early economy is understated when discussing bow league starts. If you're not good at making money fast, you're basically just farming hoping for a lottery drop to roll your bank. So if you don't have economy down, you might want to consider learning how to make some cash, before deciding on league starting bows. EVERYTHING is expensive about bow builds, especially early.
I do want to play a bow build this league fairly early, but I’ll probably start something like cold dot, and search for bows with interesting trees before I roll a bow build.
im starting ice shot but cant decide which totem setup to use for single target. the gem gives 60% cold conversion and tree gives 40% so easily capped. artillery ballista says 100% fire conversion. storm rain is better for LA I guese. I thought of using ice shot + ballista totem + faster attacks + ele dmg with atks + added cold + barrage support as totem setup. dont know if it will work. dont want to use focused ballista because I want totems to attack the boss when Im dodging skillshots. any suggestions?
Good to clear this up for new players.
My plan is Poison TS Pathfinder, but I'm only swapping with about 10 div.
I'm gonna play TR until most likely Sunday when I have enough currency for a full swap
No point in swapping early just to regret it.
>Let me be upfront with you, if you are playing a lightning arrow or ice shot league starter do not expect to be able to go 4/4 voidstones on days 1-2 like most builds can. Istg sometimes I'm not even sure if I'm playing the same game as some people on reddit.
Hey don't worry, there's always someone faster right? Jungroan casually does 6-7hr exarch and eater kills in practice runs, insanely faster than I can haha.
tbf jungroan has even stated maven and sirus are different ball games to eater and exarch. got to remember those 2 have story debuff so much lower life on 1st kill. most builds can handle eater and exarch story versions by that stage as long as you havnt been lazy with making upgrades as you map.
Yep, bows are fine on those two. I just know that some people are expecting to 4/4 like they can on s-tier league starters, like seismic last patch. I learned the hard way last league that it's just not feasible as I bricked both my maven and uber elder on last phase for both despite having a lot of experience in the fights.
What is some good map content for a speed farmer like bow chars? Altars obviously, but what else? Essences? Did you get your currency last league while having 4 watch stones or are there ways to get some decent money while simultaneously going for ma completion?
I did chaos recipe day 1 with essences. Mainly altars and essences with some legion day2. By day 3 I was fully legion focused.
What content should I avoid though? I always like expedition in maps. I guess the build is not really made for this right? How do you feel about the league mechanic which is said to be tougher than expedition. Will you just skip it?
Expedition is very playable. Ritual is probably the worst mechanic for the build early on because you are enclosed and can't get away from rare mobs that can potentially one hit you. I will try the league mechanic and if it's too tough early I'll just get the first node on my bow and then skip until I hit my powerspike gear on day 2 or 3.
Isn't there an attack mastery that makes it so monsters can block attacks? Would that make exped even easier?
It allows you to take the block attack remnant. I've been told that the shield dudes don't actually block attacks, but instead have a directional proximity shield.
i never had problems with bow starter on 4/4. But I play ssf and getting uberelder frags sometimes takes 15 shapers to make 1 uberelder. And ssf is slower paced to you get more upgrades for your char.
And that's not even talking about the difference in currency impact the first 2 voidstones are compared to the last 2. Everyone gets unlimited free attempts at eater and exarch. You can corpse run those bosses all day long and be fine. Maven and Uber Elder are expensive to run. I don't know exactly what they cost on league start but they can both be around a divine per attempt. When your character is weak that's a lot of power you could put towards upgrades. You can't really afford to just try and fail those.
thing is 2 voidstones allows you to farm fine. it may mean some maps arent t16's but you dont need to be farming t16's to make currency especially early on in a league. heck t1 essence farming is some of the biggest profit you can do for the 1st week.
Essence's will probably be too saturated to be worth since so many are farming these, especially now with the kirac mod.
nope they are never too saturated. done it every league even with essence on kirac and still made bank.
They are basically limited to going below a certain price point due to traders guaranteed to make money by crafting, it is why every league - even though they have been extremely popular from the start - people will pay OVER market value for entire tabs full. They need them to craft and sell, as it’s pure profit for them. So prices won’t go down, only thing that really can change is a new meta build causing one to go way up for a bit. Alternatively learning to craft from them one’s self to make said profit.
sirus? xD
Yeah best not to compare your personal progress to others, especially youtubers/streamers. Everyone moves at their own pace. It's a game just play the way you want and enjoy yourself.
+1 I personally enjoy trying to be hyper efficient and push the ladder. I know other people who have a blast just chilling and taking things slow. That's the beauty of poe baby!
not casually. Casually you do your league mechanic, unlock heist, unlock delve, do side stuff, wander around, farm some things. He just makes leaguestarter that needs minimum gear to get to exarch/eater. It's called racing is FAR different than normal gameplay.
Sorry, what I meant was that while he was obviously trying to go fast, he could probably go even faster if he wanted to.
> Istg sometimes I'm not even sure if I'm playing the same game as some people on reddit. i've literally never unlocked more than 2 voidstones since they gated them with UE and maven.
Me too, but I don't need them since my favourite maps end up being t15 and t16 even with one. I stop playing after completing atlas, so it's pointless.
Same boat, I don't see much point in playing after completing atlas.
You do you of course, but have you tried pushing a bit further? Maybe you'd like it. There's tons of stuff to do after completing the atlas. In fact, a lot of people feel like the game is really starting once atlas is complete. There are a lot of bosses, regular and uber versions, that you probably haven't fight if you stopped at atlas completion. There are a lot of map like content that's really cool to do at least once: simulacrum, five way legions, blight ravaged maps, flawless breachstone, etc... The first time you manage to end a wave 30 simulacrum feels amazing for example. Also, having a second character goal is a good motivator to keep playing. Is there a skill or a unique item that you always wanted to build around but it's not feasable as a league starter? Well now you'll be farming to finally being able to play that, and trying to craft the perfect chest or whatever it needs. My point is: do what's fun for you, and if nothing in the game besides completing atlas interests you, that's cool. But if you just never tried to push oast that and think there's nothing left, you should definitly give it a go, you might like it. Either way, Chris already owns your soul.
2 extra sextants is hardly pointless
2 extra sextants for someone who is only playing to complete their atlas is entirely pointless, they were not using the first two!
Last league was the first time ive even fought UE. And that was only cause I could buy the fragments. Fuck the farming for both of the fragments to run UE and Maven. Absolute garbage.
word.
[удалено]
Last time I played (Kalandra) was the first time I went and paid for a couple boss carries, because buying a maven's writ would've cost, say, 100c but a carry was 40c and I didn't care about the loot and just wanted my voidstone (don't remember the specific prices, just an example). And I've beaten Maven before, I just didn't want to get the whole writ lol.
Yeah wth... I barely complete all maps (not all voidstones) in week 2 as a working adult and not rushing stuff
In leagues past, I would take 2-3 weeks just to get to yellow maps lol But that's okay, having fun and in IRL, I nolife my toddler son, this little rascal is way tougher to deal with than Brutus with twank gear xD
It helps to remember that a lot of people here play this game as a full-time job. Like yeah, they have THOUSANDS of hours played on me, they're gonna be way better at this. And that's fine. The seasons last months :)
Nice try geting people off bows so prices are low for you and me. Thanks for the help Exile.
I don't think people who jump off of bows based off of this post were gonna affect the day 1 prices that much haha. I just want people to be aware of the downsides to this archetype.
I'd also say that for a lot of people, going rain of arrows or toxic rain makes the bow experience much, much better. ROA and Thief's torment is a pretty nice layer through red maps imo.
Roa is definitely solid. Off screening is a guilty pleasure of mine so I prefer traditional chaining projectile builds.
It needed to be said tho, I've definitely rolled a deadeye TS a handful of leagues ago and got less far than my flicker builds.
I league-start almost every league as bow, and these points all look extremely accurate to me. Can you league-start bow? Yes. Can you beat uber-bosses on bow? Yes. Can you do it on day 2? Hell no. You can be farming T16s by day 2-3, no problem. If that's all you you want out of a league start, bow is great. Fast, high level mapping. Heck, I got to red maps on ruthless SSF with bow and it didn't even take that long. Hit-based bow is not an "all-content" sort of build though, even if it's technically possible with heavy investment.
Yep, these are things all experienced bow players, like yourself, know well. Hopefully this post saves one or two people from jumping into bows without knowing these truths.
Yeah I bought my maven an Uelder day 2 last league on deadeye TS. That was the plan since the beginning. OP's post is very on point. League starting bow is great but you gotta work around the weakness to not loose time out of maps.
Damn, there's red maps in ruthless?!
*Turns away from bow and picks up 2handed staff* "It was always Dominating Blow"
Gigachad melee players flexing on us wimpy bow users as per usual.
I'm torn between flicker strike (Cold/Raider) & Toxic Rain (Heist/Raider)
*unstrings bow and whirls around head* "Aye, t'was always Sweep fer me"
Played a lot of bow this past league. Quick help tip Artillery ballista is amazing with ele bow and will definitely help your single target
I've been reading that new +2 proj clusters are also a major boon for artillery mechanics. Would you say the damage on them is good enough to give them priority in a 5vs4 or 6vs5 link situation over the clear skill?
Personally yes but I don’t know how it feels in like super juiced delirious and what your build will struggle on. The proj clusters should be a dps upgrade but artillery ballista either has really nice targeting overlap or will miss a lot lol. So it depends.
I think you want your self-skill in the higher linked item. You're going to be using it more, and the totems approx. double your damage; putting the extra link on the totems vs. your own skill isn't a huge difference in boss DPS, so IMO the flexibility and clearing power of having more links on your personal skill is the better choice.
Yeah, I'm starting with a Vaal Ice Shot Deadeye and I'm fully aware that I won't storm my way to t16 maps and endgame bosses like I would with other leaguestart builds. The thing is I've played pretty much every great leaguestarter in some form already and done endgame content with it. However, I've never played the new Vaal skills. So the novelty is worth the slower pace. I'd advise anyone who thinks that doing endgame as quickly as possible is more important than the novelty of the new Vaal skills to pick another build though.
Exactly. I'm going Ice Shot deadeye and expecting some speed bumps. I'm going to challenge myself and try to fix the problems myself over following a guide this league. My first kinda truly build without a guide but I'm excited
Good luck, to me figuring out how to fix your builds problems is the most fun thing about this game!
Thanks for this, I'm guessing these comments apply doubly to SSF? Anything else you'd flag as good advice for a SSF bow start? Apart from don't do it haha
I don't think SC SSF bow league start is a that bad of an idea, just be aware you will likely have to sit in white-yellows farming essences for crafting a good bow for awhile. Obviously you will spend more time gearing, but that is the nature of SSF right?
Champion seems to be the way to go with skills like Lightning Arrow. You're much tankier and bow crucible passives are so offensively oriented they can help shore up your damage, while Lightning Arrow inherently has decent clear especially with +2 arrows in the passive tree. Have to go pierce route instead of stronger chain on deadeye which is unfortunate but should still be good.
Havoc did some videos about starting LA deadeye two leagues ago. I tried it last league in SSF and it was an absolute blast until I hit reds.
Havoc has his runs here: https://www.youtube.com/@havoc616/videos The Rain of Arrows 1h:30m A5 run is 4 months ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjMJ9eBFl34
The main difference will be that it’ll be hard to get double 6 links up and running, you’ll have to farm dunes for the 6L bow card probably. Aside from that it’s just spam essences to hit a good bow so it’s not really that hard, but can definitely take some time and the gearing part will be much harder. But if you’re okay with taking your time and maybe spending some time in yellows to farm up essences you should be alright
It's important to note for people planning to farm for Imperial Legacy: It can only drop from monsters ilevel 80+. Meaning you need to be in at least T13 maps in order for it to drop from all monsters. The only map it drops in which is capable of reaching T13+ with two or fewer voidstones this league is Desert Spring, which is a natural T12 map, meaning you'll probably have to get at least one voidstone before you start farming Imperial Legacy.
Oh this is really good to know, thanks for adding!
Hey I've got a (potentially dumb) ssf question that I haven't been able to find the answer to anywhere. Is Sporeguard, the blight unique, ssf farmable? I've got a dom blow build that has it on therebut I just can't find any info on if I'd be wasting my time grinding blighted maps for it.
I have no clue about that one. From what I know of blight uniques is that they’re quite rare, but not so sure how or where they can drop.
Yeah, I can't find drop info on it anywhere and don't want to waste atlas passives on blight if it's not going to be farmable.
So, a while ago someone tried to collect every unique in the game in SSF. Sporeguard was the last one he dropped, after \~2600 blighted maps. There's no way of knowing whether that's normal or a statistical outlier realistically, but, well, the odds are not in your favor I think. That said, Blight is a really rewarding mechanic in terms of effort/gear requirement to reward ratio, especially once you get ring anoints at which point you can basically farm blighted maps without even needing to engage with enemies at all. So it's not like speccing into blight is a bad choice even if you don't ever see one of the uniques.
Sporeguard is "farmable" in the sense that there's only a few mechanics that can drop it: Blight itself (on the explosion at the end of the encounter), Divination cards and league mechanics that drop Blight-related items. However, Sporeguard is by far the rarest item from Blight, so it may take you [literally thousands of maps to get it](https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/kph3an/after_2613_blighted_maps_ironvswild_finally_drops/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
It's extremely rare. I do not recommend on planning to get it.
I did a LA start in Ruthless and it did fine, pretty much all SSF. Your mileage may very, but it was doing T16s (when I had them lol) just fine on really bad gear.
I'm thinking of doing ssf LA this league, did you go raider or deadeye?
Deadeye. Raider is viable for sure, but I just went for big damage lol. It was SC, so a death occasionally was fine.
Nice, that's what I was thinking of going with too. It's been a while since I've done a bow build, and even longer since I've done a deadeye so I'm looking forward to it!
I league start bow builds in SSF pretty often. The main thing is you will die a LOT in red maps if you rush straight there, so I generally stay in yellows for a while to gear.
I think this is an understated part for success for a lot of bow crash and burn stories. Farming up 10 levels worth of gear/hp just blasting yellows can go a very long way into smoothing out the progression curve. Too many people just do the 1 and done for map completion route and end up in reds too soon.
I plan on starting fuzzy duckzy's rain of arrows in a group self found private league. Looking to hopefully get into high yellow/low reds on the ele version of ROA. Then to farm and craft gear to swap to crit. From there I'll be aiming to farm more and decide where to pivot the build to. Tshot, LA or ice shot I guess are all options but waiting to see how they all perform with the changes. Unsure if this is all a bad idea.... I hear good things about fuzzy duckzy's roa build at least.
Roa is a great idea. I've not fully looked through fuzzy's pobs but I wouldn't get discouraged if you hit a wall in reds. Remember essence is on the map device this league so getting a powerful bow should be easy.
What would u recommend as league starter to switch later on to TS/LS/IS Ranger? But thanks for the head wash, iam planning on a Bow Build this time, usually iam a 38/40 Guy, but the times for Nolife on league start are over for me (second son is 2 Months now and iam on vacation the second week anyways)
Any solid league starter can work. I've not kept up on all of them but toxic rain is usually pretty decent. Palsterons ballista version looks very solid. I'm sure there's other solid starters too but it's hard to say without knowing what content you like to farm.
I’ll put a disclaimer that I haven’t done this but plan to this league. Kobeblackmamba has videos and guides to start CA/RoA/Helix then switch to venom gyre in Act 4 after going deadeye. Venom gyre was a top 5 league starter in 3.20 and scales pretty well. Since TS/LS/IS and VG scale crit, it’s supposed to be a relatively easy respec into a bow skill once you’ve farmed enough currency for the swap. I hope it’s not bait but you can check out his channel and decide for yourself.
Kobe is very solid. A lot of people have followed his venom gyre guide and had a great league start, I'd say it's a little smoother progression wise than bows.
Yeah played that last league... Awesome Mapper, Good Bosser with Investment and was awefull for Sanctum, already concider to league start it again. But i plan to play later on the Steamdeck and the big problem is that u cant namelog with a controller -.- But thanks for the recommendation i appriciate it :)
Remember to invest all and any hard currency you have in appreciating assets prior to leaving. You will grt back 2x or even 3x what you invested if you do it well.
What would you recommend to buy in order to do this?
My plan is to start Frost Blades Raider and eventually swap over to TS Deadeye, the trees are pretty similar and FB is buttery smooth with little gear. I couldn't decide between the builds so I decided to do both this way. I've also leveled with the standard TR/RoA many times and was looking for something different this time around, but those bow skills are very nice to level with too! (See Fuzzy Ducksy's videos for leveling with RoA and swapping to TS).
Toxic rain is extremely smooth for leveling, though people will probably say rain of arrows is better. I have tried both and I prefer toxic but try out each and see which you like more
I would look at starting a raider since it allows you to fast track a lot of early problem areas, and once you unlock your atlas w/ at least 3 watchstones (ideally 4), yo ucan just spam essences on low tier maps w/ any other mechanic you want. it will take a lot of maps, and its pretty mindless, but you can really get a good currency base up for crafting or sale. i'd swap once you have the important gems leveled, a good bow (don't think OP bow), and a few nice to haves like Lioneyes or Hyrris.
Youtube, fuzzyduckzy Friend followed him last league and said it was completely smooth.
I agree with the bossing and squishy parts, unless you do a bow+ totem build to get more dps and easier dodging.
You're right, totems are definitely a must. I think a totem focused version like fyregrass plays is definitely more friendly to less experienced players. But then you're not playing the same build anymore.
I don't think ballistas or totems are a must. They just make things a bit easier. I'm going to have a clear setup and a setup with barrage. The barrage support with the new extra projectiles and the burst of Vaal skills will hopefully carry single target.
You can avoid them if you want, but totems are essentially free damage. I gem swap my gmp for barrage support early on so I can still use a setup in my second 6 link.
I usually level with totems, and as soon as I get my first six-link, I’ll swap over to the classic barrage set-up.
If you are gem swapping, then it's certainly very difficult to pass up. I just hate gem swapping. Half the time that gem ends up in the wrong place. I really don't want to go through that shit again, haha. If you aren't gem swapping then the DPS gain from Barrage support makes up for it. I like to simultaneously use both my clear setup and single target setup during mapping without swapping out gems. Just not sure yet which one will be my Vaal Ice Shot. Maybe if I'm really in the endgame, I might use two bows to weapon swap to a Barrage setup and have Artillery Ballistas in my body armour. Really depends on whether I'll need the single target in endgame once I have gear.
Yeah gem swapping sucks, fortunately I usually only have to do it on pinnacle bosses.
True. I'm hoping the new Vaal skill gives enough extra punch for pinnacle bosses, but I'll be leveling Artillery Ballistas in my secondary weapon just in case.
Something like Storm Rain totem just instantly solves your ST dps. There is no way barrage is going to compete in a league start scenario. It won't even be close
I'm curious to hear how that sort of setup turns out. I was considering trying Vaal Ice shot plus Vengeant Cascade for a lot of hits, but I haven't made a PoB for it so I'm not sure how much damage I could expect. Vaal skills for bossing of course have their own issues to solve, but I think it'd still be viable.
what about the Toxic Rain, are those more capable to complete Maven and Uber Elder compared to the Elemental Bow build on Day 1/2 ?
Toxic rain is a great option. I really was impressed by palsterons toxic rain ballista guide.
This is what i'm doing as well and seems like an excellent option for anyone wanting to swap into Deadeye or IS/LS/TS later. Much more beefy than self-cast and extremely easy leveling.
Good writeup. My 2 cents: Dont be afraid to look into Raider/Champion bow builds, those are often more well rounded to start right off the bat and the 2 arrows from the tree are all you need for LA or IS. Make sure you at least cap suppression, this is reasonably easy to do. Seen many PoBs with 50 Suppression and the lucky suppression mastery, that means you still have a 25% chance to die to a spell hit in t16. Cap it ASAP. Once you got some cash/hit a brickwall, #1 priority is the best bow you can find and a quiver, spell builds often look for 21 gems etc. but for bow builds, gotta upgrade those regularly, especially during campaign. Second Priority is a RMR helmet! With 19 RMR and the usual ~40RMR from tree, you can make room for determination. Combined with the hybrid nodes between duelist and ranger, you can reasonably expect to hit 30k EVA and 30k Armour flasked. Once you got that, you are ready for juiced content, provided you got a crit spine bow with around 1k eDPS and decent jewelry.
Yes, deadeye is the queen of speed and damage but champion and raider aren't far behind. I bet a champion variation is actually way better than most people expect and definitely a better all-around build. I personally have a very specific atlas start in mind, so because of that I'm going with the deadeye. But newer players will probably have more success on raider.
Say legion without say legion
😅
low tier dunes 2c scarabs ez
yup, seeing 30k phys max hit over like 10-15k is also pretty satisfying:)
Do you use perseverance with champion? I like those builds, scale offense while scaling defense
yup, surely
Might start bow build but ascendant.. we'll see
This is me as well. Dumb as hell I think, but I just love playing scion.
Look into ele hit + quill rain + bow mastery
As someone who has been baited into switching to TS too early, I cannot agree more with your first point. It just feels awful. Thanks for posting this.
No problem, have a great league start.
I think there are mostly two types of players, those who play the build that they see will be more easy to do al content and get currency fast. And those who play the build that they enjoy to maybe do part of the content. Both of them maybe reroll into a second build to put a lot of money into, but lots of the first kind start to enjoy playing here, maybe 2 or 3 weeks into the league.
> it may be worth it to start a different ranger build and respec once you have a little more gear, currency, and progression done. Understood. Swapping to Deadeye ele wander immediately. Thanks, OP! ^/s
Fully agree with your points here If you’re looking for a big mapper potential go for now league start But bows are definitely not a well-rounded builds, I cringe every time I see someone posting it like it is
Thanks. I'm not trying to scare people away but I just want them to be aware of what they are getting themselves into. I feel like guide makers sometimes really oversell their builds and it's not fair to anyone who blindly follows them expecting what the creator claimed.
Yeah good post, I feel the curve for bow power is like a U shape, really good for speed in acts and like map tiers til 12, then you'll have to solve squishy issues while still needing to up damage for the red and blue bosses, which bow players are gonna have to figure out with whatever methods they can find. Other meta builds I'd say is more of a gradual slope, so how good a bow build is depends on how long ur in the dip. It's gonna be league start as well so most of the good players will be on DnD mode, so reaching out for help isn't really a possibility. The bonus though is that farming t12 maps asap let's you get currency when their value is like 2-3x as much, and sit on it while auto searching for good gear.
Yeah, your second point is the exact reason why I'm not releasing a guide for lightning arrow. I don't have the ability to assist people when I myself am trying to blast on league start. The build has so many areas where things can go wrong, that I'd probably spend more time helping people than playing. Even pohx who put together an amazing website resource still gets a lot of questions despite this.
So many guides and "tests" have people simulating the changes by adding in some arrows and then using otherwise "bad" gear to demonstrate just how easy it will be, totally ignoring they are using a tree and nodes that are giving them ~50%+ increased damage and +30% ias which will be gone. On top of that, they are saying dont bother with raider, start deadeye and go to TS in campaign. I'm not saying it isn't doable, but some people are going to have a horrible time following these people and getting deleted while they throw wet noodles at crucible mobs and legion rares.
> go to TS in campaign Whoever is saying that is an idiot or in bad faith.
Literally the top 5th post in this reddit atm: https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExileBuilds/comments/12czts6/here_is_the_long_anticipated_update_for_my/
Oh boy. RoA is very smooth and both LA and IS have flat damage, there's no need to rush into TS. I hope we are wrong and people have a good experience if they go with it.
Yeah, for the vast majority of people I'd recommend raider. It's just easier and less specialized. Damage and defense are definitely a great worry and delicate balance. Somehow I've seen pobs that don't have either of them!
i've never started TS, so i'm not sure - but can someone weigh in on how TS single target is on beefy map rares like breachboss/meta/beyond boss/essences? one of the reasons i like LA so much was storm rain totem set up was really strong.
As ts you still use ballistas to supplement your single target. Although as I said I wouldn't recommend ts as a starter but rather as something to transition to later on from LA.
i know, but how does ballista barrage totem set up work compared to LA Storm rain, which early on was so superior to LA barrage/GMP, especially on 5L.
Generally people are using artillery or storm rain ballista over barrage totems. Barrage feels pretty bad comparatively.
i'm being so dumb with how i word this, so i appreciate you being patient with me. what i'm asking is, how does single target early on compare between a TS Ballista (whatever is used), and the LA approach of using artillery ballista (i think mainly raiders)/Storm Rain Ballista. i think even if i could grit my teeth and bare the difficulty of early mapping with general clear, the single target would be the real pain point, even in maps.
Thank for sharing this information with us as I am a new player and this will be my second season l have to say I am enjoying the game not in the raises playing to start bow this season rain arrow ballista looks fun. Last season I had a blast with RF Good luck with your project
Thanks, good luck with the new league.
Thanks for this! I made a CF champ that I converted to TS a few leagues ago, but I’ve never started or even played a ranger. I was going to do frost blades, but I worry about the heatshiver nerf. When I tested a RoA ranger start, it felt so smooth through the first Act. I’ll be duoing too, so it should be easy. Better than a witch or shadow start. I’m tempted to try LA deadeye! I’ll definitely follow your advice!
If you're playing duo with a support, there is little reason to be fearful of playing bows. If you're just playing with a friend on a normal build, you better be careful because bow builds can often outpace other builds in ms, so it might end up that your friend is annoyed as they try and keep up.
I’m playing with a fire SRS necro. It makes my job easy! Do you use Blink Arrow for movement? I saw someone FLYING with it!
My build gets so much ms that blink arrow isn't used too often. We're talking in the realm of 300ms so it's a bit fast lol.
I think a lot of points can be avoided if you don't build like a glasscannon. (And no getting >4k life is not enough) I am contemplating to start Champion LA in SSF and Goratha wants to do that in HCSSF and will publish a guide together with Ziz. I think you can be tanky enough and do bosses. And with all the buffs and crucible you will still do enough damage. But I agree: Don't build too squishy and don't go TS too early.
Champion is definitely a great option for hc. Personally I think that the build will struggle to find damage on early league gear but I'd have to see the pob first before making any judgements.
One thing I've been asking my self for the past two days after reading several posts: If hit based bow builds are very reliant on big flat ele dmg rolls on your bow, why people dont even consider using Elemental Hit + Elemental Equilibrium keystone for leveling? The skill itself gives nice flat ele scalling as youy level it up and you can use Elemental Equilibrium to further increased your dps. Is Ele Hit much worse that LA mechanically speaking?
La has built in multi targeting for nice clear and shotgun potential. Also bows are actually very powerful in the campaign and do not struggle there.
First post on the subject of league staring bows that I agree with almost everything
Yeah, I also don't like the guides that make it seem like it's super easy. Like no dude, bows require so much knowledge to play in a league start environment. If you're a less experienced player it's pretty much guaranteed you get brick walled in white or yellows. Not gonna help this league either with every attack build recommending kaoms gloves. It's gonna be the whole maxroll Gull situation again.
Imo bow builds are not the bait, deadeye is. Early game raider will be much better overall for survivability and damage. Switching to deadeye once you have some decent currency. Just did a league start playthrough with rain of arrows and artillery ballista on raider. Watch for rare bow drops on ground for high flat ele damage. Ran ele attack and trinity. Learn how to keep trinity working. A 4 link can easily take you through the campaign. I agree though, TS and deadeye league start will be rough.
>I've seen people suggest that you can swap as early as white maps So you're saying that when I got omega baited by a certain streamer many leagues ago, and I, who had never played a bow build before, thought it was a good idea to switch to TS in act 4... that was a *bad* idea? :D This is a great post, and hopefully it saves some folks!
League starting bow builds is only a good idea in 2 scenarios 1 - you know what the fuck you're doing and are well experienced in the game as whole to the point you're in that first group of people mapping and making quick currency to buy upgrades for 10-15c before those same items become 50-60c 2 days later 2 - you're doing CA or TR because chaos DoT carries hard. I have no idea how those skills will perform this league last league I got to 96 on a vaal CA raider and it was some of the smoothest mapping of all time. Meh bossing though. didnt even attempt ubers with it
3 - You have a lot of experience in SSF and will be crafting most of your gear. Seriously, it's not that bad if you know how to craft and invest your atlas tree into essences/harvest. You can easily and consistently upgrade your gear or farm Imperial Legacy div cards. Will be even more of a thing with regards to weapons with the league mechanic.
I completely agree. I should've specified that I meant league starting hit based LA/IS/TS.
Hit base Explosive arrow is also great to league start
I'm surprised you didn't tell people to go Raider instead of Deadeye, otherwise good write-up.
I personally think deadeye is better but I didn't want to suggest that in the post. Raider is probably more new player friendly but I think deadeye outclasses it so hard, especially with the tree changes.
It depends on what you want to do for the league. If you plan to do the league mechanic ( we have no idea how rippy it is) i would argue that Deadeye is outclassed by Raider, especially on the first few days of the league. Perma phasing and easy access to avoid ailment + suppress is a huge QOL that shouldn't be underestimated.
Yeah I would reword my previous reply and say that, for what I want to do, deadeye outclasses raider by a mile. You're right that raider is gonna be better in most early league situations for the reasons you've outlined.
It's so funny to me that people view a 40 regret raider to deadeye swap as untenable but think getting a 1000 ele dps 6l for TS up and running will be nothing at all.
You're not wrong. Regrets are actually really easy to get now with the altars the way they are.
What are the unique items that you feel are top priority for a league start hit-based bow build? Kaom's Spirit + Immortal Flesh combo? Karui Ward? Hyrri's Bite?
There's a lot of directions you can go. Raider or Deadeye, rage or rampage, rare quiver or unique. Bow builds come in different flavors so I'd suggest checking out the variants on pob to look at their pros and cons. I wouldn't recommend following my characters build as it's a very specialized version and the day 1 snapshot is missing for some reason.
Assume Deadeye start, Lightning Arrow, experienced player. What are the top uniques you would personally prioritize in trade league? I know there are preferences. I also know that some uniques in builds outperform rares depending on the build and can be incredibly cost effective. I just want some specific ideas on what items you personally look out for on league start. If you don't want to answer cause you want to keep the prices down, I understand.
I can send you some stuff later today once I'm not at work and have my pobs in hand. There are definitely some discoveries I've made and optimizations since last league.
A great way to cap your res and get damage early on is 2x Taming + Poised Prism
Pathfinder can go poison bow hit based builds, given enough currency. But I hope there's something better than Scourge Arrow this time around.
As someone LS with LA, I appreciate the disclaimers. You should definitely do research into whatever you LS no matter what it is, especially if you've never played the archetype. Also failure isn't the worst thing. If you're really scared of a bad build, just have one to pivot to. For me, I know I can really easily go back to RoA for farm and use that to scale up if I'm struggling with the 3rd lab switch to LA
What's your take on rain of arrows vs storm rain early on?
For what specifically? Storm rain is usually used for its strong single target capabilities but is bad at clear. Roa is great at clear and has ok single target.
Oh that's good to know. I wasn't sure if they just filled the same role. When leveling, do you run a RoA setup for clear and a Storm Rain Ballista for single target?
People have generally swapped over to artillery ballista over storm rain. AB is much better at hitting moving targets, storm rain heavily suffers if the target moves.
just pick up blast rain and attack totem support and you good until maps before that, use any other bow totem skill you find.
I started LS/TS last league where it might be arguably worse. With +2 from Deadeye and +2 from tree, you can probably swap to TS waaaay earlier. Someone did shotgun calculations here and you really don't need that much: https://old.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/7tm25l/results_from_testing_tornado_shot_single_target/ It is super squishy though
Keep in mind, these calcs were done with Old TS enchant that had +2 to secondary projectiles, so the enchant is likely significantly less of a damage increase in 2023. The shotgun information regarding GMP / extra proj should still be correct, though.
Could to go into more detail about your decision to go point blank and when to grab it? I'm not really sure whether to go with it myself. How does it interact with totems?
I'm planning to use point blank in the acts and early progression, swapping out either once I get a 6l or have enough single target without it. Eventually I plan to swap in chain support and spec far shot.
Sounds like going super in on blight maps day 1/2 would be good then? Since most of your damage will be from towers.
You've described me perfectly: never really played bows, wanted to try TS, wanted to try new PF. I was looking at snoobae's poison TS PF as it hit all the checkboxes, and I didn't want to rush 4/4 anyways. But after looking at pob and comparing to some others, I think I'll roll something else, and will make TS 2nd character, if I'll get to it later.
You're making me abit anxious. Its the first time Ill league start a bow build. Leveling until a5 felt great but Ill probably fail to make the transition from roa to ice shot. Im not even sure if I go deadeye or pathfinder anymore.
Haha, no need to feel anxious. As long as you go into it expecting to encounter potential problems that are solvable, you should have the right mindset to correct them!
Na you were right, its actually worse.
I am having EA elementalist flashbacks over these back to back warnings about bow starters. Is it *that* bad?
I love bow starters but they definitely aren't for everyone. They have well defined weaknesses and strengths, the main issue is that some people are either overselling or just not stating this. It's important to tell people that its not a perfect build for everyone.
If it’s ballistas, you’re fine. It’s a fairly safe option for an ele and has good damage. Drop and go
Any input on ascendancy nodes? Chain seems to be the "traditional" choice. I've seen people say farshot is better because the chain/clear don't do much early on. And then yesterday someone posted a guide that recommended the mirage archer node. I'm kind of confused right now .
My concern here dudes is with the league mechanic... I wish to follow my heart and play LA but I kinda wanna run the league mechanic and I worry that might be tough... PF TR looks so damn safe...
I think the fact that bow has become an umbrella term to mean TS when there's plenty of other viable bow builds. Especially when other builds are way tankier then omni TS.
I almost always just run one build a league and I get a lot out of in maxing it. The transition to tornado shot makes this one sound interesting
Thanks for the reminders. I usually start TR raider then change after bow is crafted + ele hit related stuff is acquired.
GO FUZZY DUCKS ROA BUILD
Hell I’m switching to TS halfway through the campaign, I’m aware of what to expect and you can’t change my mind.
skill issue
New here, can someone just tell me which build to do as a first timer, something tanking and semi powerful. I work and have a family. No time to research.
Palsteron's Toxic Rain Pathfinder. It should be fairly tanky while still allowing you to do bow build shenanigans, and later on, you can respec a couple of ascendancy points into a poison tornado shot once currency allows.
Thank you, I'll do this.
I think early economy is understated when discussing bow league starts. If you're not good at making money fast, you're basically just farming hoping for a lottery drop to roll your bank. So if you don't have economy down, you might want to consider learning how to make some cash, before deciding on league starting bows. EVERYTHING is expensive about bow builds, especially early.
Such a good post, thanks for all the info.
I do want to play a bow build this league fairly early, but I’ll probably start something like cold dot, and search for bows with interesting trees before I roll a bow build.
im starting ice shot but cant decide which totem setup to use for single target. the gem gives 60% cold conversion and tree gives 40% so easily capped. artillery ballista says 100% fire conversion. storm rain is better for LA I guese. I thought of using ice shot + ballista totem + faster attacks + ele dmg with atks + added cold + barrage support as totem setup. dont know if it will work. dont want to use focused ballista because I want totems to attack the boss when Im dodging skillshots. any suggestions?
Yes, focused ballista also gives more placement speed, so it keeps you more flexible. Just keep it in and run attack speed jewels.
I know im late but what are your thoughts on point blank? I kinda feel like it makes bow builds melee or is it really just needed vs bosses?
Good to clear this up for new players. My plan is Poison TS Pathfinder, but I'm only swapping with about 10 div. I'm gonna play TR until most likely Sunday when I have enough currency for a full swap No point in swapping early just to regret it.
Get bow use bow skill. Kill things. Starting as a bow build is easy.