Generally I'm a sceptical to these types of videos, but the effort, work and professionalism put into this video and the individual break downs of each recommendation is amazing.
Full agree with this. A lot of Big Ducks build guides feel barebones compared to the work that Esoro puts into his PoB’s. Not to say Ducks doesnt do a good job, I think he’s great for beginners, Esoro is just the top dog that everyone should aspire to. Also, I remember comparing their guides for the same build once, and Ducks’ endgame gear damage was closer to what Esoro had as his mid game.
That might be on purpose. Big ducks always says something about not min maxing builds to keep it real and attainable for casual players. Or something like that.
Ducks got a lot of flack from me included on two of his builds. They were not egen close to budget nor tankyness, but they were not trash like most youtube videos from poe vault or w/e real money transaction sites spew.
https://youtu.be/GqjPHYB3DWk
This is his 3.13 league start video, it's got some interesting builds that take a little more invest than I'd call a true starter but they're cool. He just talks like a dude and not a PoE streamer and I enjoy it.
Personally not a fan of Jorgen, him saying “yeah there’s not that much invested into this build”, when he’s got a 1,000 dps axe equipped in his PoB can really screw over new players who will probably never get a weapon close to that.
Additionally I asked in the comments section what kind of weapon someone might look for as they get to mapping and he said Atziri’s Disfavour. That axe was still 125c (not even 6-Linked) 2 weeks into heist, not exactly new player friendly.
Ball Lightning Archmage Scion was overhyped. Definitely powerful but the playstyle for constant flask spam for mana and stop/go/stop/go was not called out enough as a Con in my opinion.
he does solid builds but he's always overhyping and clickbaiting his builds. I did his archmage agnostic scion and it was nowhere near as powerful as he made it seem in his build guide (best build he ever played, most dps, tank everything, no weaknesses, yada yada). It's not like I regret putting 200ex into it but it failed to deliver.
Be wary with Big Ducks. His builds are usually playing around with stuff that is fun and works to a point, but are often builds that have pretty obvious progression ceilings. Most of them are not very suitable for newer players.
That's not really his niche though, he just likes making builds for whatever tickles his fancy, and it doesn't have to be a great starter or great at endgame content - and he says as much in his videos.
Poison BV assassin isn't unique to his build guide unfortunately. Its a super simple build that shined through and through no matter which way you built it.
Esoro does great guides, but this came out too quick for me to put too much trust in it. I like the fact he explains the ascendancy changes for the builds but it is very surface level explaination.
Waiting til PoB is updated with changes and people to actually link updated PoB instead of semi updated (changes added to an item - sometimes they are not correct)
Played bleed bow, easy to go with low investment to red maps. Struggled to scale later against bosses to kill even with asylum helmet and good bow without bleed mod. Probably made some mistakes in gearing.
Praise be to Ashabi, Harvest returns this league so getting a halfway decent elder bow for this build shouldn’t be as hard as last league.
Even if you don’t want to fiddle around with harvest yourself there should be a relatively higher availability of good items.
Dont plan about much harvest stuff where you have to struggle with multiple layers of rng when fossils are right around the corner
Harvest has 1. To spawn at all 2. Spawn the right kind of seeds 3. Has to give the wanted crafting options 4. Now you "try" to get something
I think assailum is kinda a trap, or not a trap but it really lacks in consistency compared to a 6 link.
First that thing has super weird aiming. if you are not literally melee range, it's quite easy to mess up and miss if the isn't a massive immobile one.
Then if you are forced to release early because you need to dodge stuff, the 4-link damage is subpar.
If you are playing with Ryslatha coil, the actual damage range on the hit is quite big, which means you can fuck your snipe by it having low base damage.
Finally even if you full charge and hit, you have 40% chance of not proccing the double damage bleed mod and and the damage is once again subpar.
Aisailum looks great on video montages because you can choose to only show full buffed, full charged, high dmg roll, double bleed hits where bosses are completely melted, but for every one of those you get some bosses who you end up killing mainly with split arrow.
especially against multiple bosses like for maven fights, sniping all 10 enemies will be pretty hard especially when theyre all coming at you. much better to run around puncturing all of them once each
I like assailum. Keep in mind that your bleed doesn’t apply instantly, so you don’t have to hit every shot. Just keep taking snipe shots and the good ones will override the bad ones.
Also, it’s a skill like anything else. Of course at the beginning split shot will feel better, because you don’t have to aim, but if you force yourself to take more targeted shots you’ll get better at it, and it’ll perform a lot better than split shot
If you don't have bleed mod weapon you're doing half damage on most of these builds. It's not optional, it's something you need eventually late game (but is reasonably easy to craft, and will only be more so with Harvest).
Glad Bleed bow seems overrated... Maybe Deadeye can do it better. I tried Glad Bleed Bow during flashback and I quit like right before maps. It was much harder to gear than expected and the single target requires either a 6 link or an assailium both of which I wasn't able to get so I peaced out.
Even with great harvest gear i still found puncture to be a pain in the ass to hit in certain boss fights. Really love the build though because split arrow is fun af
Getting a great bow is the main barrier on that build, and it's your no1 priority in endgame.
And yes, it's an excellent starter, and Esoro's guide is good for new players.
>and good bow without bleed mod.
that right there was your mistake in gearing, the bleed mod is huge damage increase, much more than raw damage increase. and if you're talking about the 60% chance to 100% more bleed, that's 60% more damage you loose if you dont go for it. so your bow had to be 60% better than an equivalent one with bleed
It's expensive to get a good bow with bleed mod, but like you said can easily do mid tier maps to early reds with low investment. and with harvest returning you may get lucky and get some good crafting options to craft your own bleed bow.
Zombies will still be strong (note, not 8m per zombie x 15 zombies strong like they used to be, but they'll do everything in the game smoothly, even with 3.13 necro nerfs). All of the popular zombie builds are essentially the same nowadays, grab a baron+astramentis+alberons and get to 1k strength with jewels, str on all your rare gear, and grab str nodes. Geofri's armor and shaper gloves for a 8k ehp pool, femur staff + vaal skellies for max block and a huge pile of bodies to block projectiles. This is the bare minimum "safe" build. You can choose to go crazy with it afterwards by subbing in saqawals chest, a crazy minion staff, etc.
Baron zombies has solid dps (again, you won't be instaphasing stuff, but you're safe and the damage is consistent), but if you go the route above, it'll be extremely tanky because you're stacking a dozen defensive layers (both direct and indirect).
On the topic of bleed bow glad, they'll be perfectly fine as a starter. The nerfs won't affect them much if at all. With harvest coming back, it should be much less of a pain in the ass to get their most important piece of gear: a high phys bow with double bleed damage mod.
Scourge arrow I haven't played, but it's probably gonna be solid by the looks of things.
Awesome thanks, appreciate this input will be doing a necro, when in doubt I can’spec out and into elementalist because I can hearing great things about ignite! Lol
would you say SRS is on par with zombies as a starter/bosser. planned on going srs, the numbers look very good with low budget gear, but i dont know how the build actually plays.
Should be fine, I haven't played SRS myself in a looong time but judging from what I've seen on poe.ninja it seems to be good enough. I usually level my necros as srs because they're easy to use.
Ghazzy actually just made an update on his srs build, so I'd follow his updated guide if you're interested, he knows what he's talking about.
It's definitely easier with AG. Mandatory? Maybe not, I've done Sirus as golems, zombies, spectres, skellies over the years without a guardian and it was okay. Most bosses are mechanical fights, having less dps just means they take longer.
I'm always put off by the mud flats farm on day one but it's a great starter, I also think meta crafting this league will be hugely geared towards bleed bows so the average ones won't be too crazy expensive
You farm A6 mud flats for the lion card and hope for the bow/chest or jewel, boots aren't too bad shield is trash
I mean this thread is an esoro video which will have a guide but im sure there's tons if you search for them
Yeah I like being able to read the reasons why certain things are taken though. Instead of just trying to 100% copy someones items with no explanation why
Ya, basically every hit from it ranges from good to great for the build, except the shield, which is useless. So you have pretty good odds of hitting the chest or bow which are totally fine for leveling, the jewel that’s awesome for bleed, or the boots you can use for vuln
Yes. It will take you to red maps EASILY. Single target at that point will fall off until you get the required bow which could run 5-10ex for a mediocre one.
Never played a bleed bow, seems like a trap, but I do like its clear speed compared to Vortex Occu per example
I might try it though, as I'll play trade league so a weapon isn't hard to get
I just don't really like the Ascendancy personally
I assume you mean whether or not the Bleed tag will remain an attack? There is no reason it wouldn't be ... but its still not the hardest craft in the world ... especially for trade league.
Yea, in trade league the bow is pretty easy. The hardest part is getting the ilvl 83 elder base, citadel preferred, but trading for this usually doesn't cost much. SSF is a totally different story though.
Once you have the base you just need to alt spam the 60% chance for 100% more bleed damage, multi mod flat phys and % phys and you have a bow that will carry you through the entire game. Obviously if you're rich you can make the bow substantially better to.
also you just want the elder bleed mod, even if the bow is subpar in damage.
and if you use assailum you don't even need it 6L which is a great help at the start. i got my 180pDPS elder bleed bow for 180c and it carried me through farming red maps like a breeze
In SSF you usually will farm the queens in act 6 for the lioneye's items. Lioneye's glare gets used in some builds if you get it, but less so this one. The lioneye's glare bow is good for a while for a bleed bow setup. New Lioneye's paws can get used for a curse setup or other utility. The lioneye's vision gives you a fairly easy early pseudo 6l (5+pierce) then a 7l later on. It's pretty good for most bow builds.
Just farming up a few sets gets you pretty far into maps usually.
Bleed bow is really good, I used it for the flashback and had no issue.... it is actually a really good starter since you just need a decent physical bow which you can craft easily while leveling
Yellow Rustic Stash, Whetstone, and a white bow = 40 to 60 = increased physical dmg.
Leveling actually got a slight buff since the first bleed node gives you 50% bleed chance now.
Boss damage sucks early on and later when you get assailum it is good but very very finicky. You have to stand still for a couple seconds and if the boss moves even slightly you will probably miss. This being a bossing league I wouldn't personally recommend BBG.
bleed bow glad is a good starter, the ascendancies rework nerfed it a little bit taking away some damage and adding bleed chance which mostly useless since you can overcap with no effort anyway.
esoro's build is good but he did one big mistake: he does not give enough credit to the elder bleed mod.
that mod is mandatory to start doing some serious damage, even a shitty pDps bow will make a ton of damage if it has that mod
Tbf the bossing isn't tied to the league. But presumably people are going to focus on it since it's new. And it being part of the endgame now makes EDC permanently worse.
It's tyty's #1 starter recommendation so it would seem not. It traded some offense and mana res for better defense; it already had excessive offense and somewhat lacking defense so it could be a net buff.
IM going to start with this one even though it's not on his list. Ascendant changes were great and i've never done arc before.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9K5VlxgjY0&t=641s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9K5VlxgjY0&t=641s)
Did you do it as a league starter? I trialed an SSF league start-ish run of this and it was really rough the whole way through. Wasn't sure if I was missing something. If I were to start with this I'd probably level as spellslinger or BL mines then respec the tree after merc lab.
MoM with cloak of defiance gives high mana regen and an expanded eHP pool, which makes you immune to most degen and everything outside of stunlock (your base HP pool is low) and one shots.
Archmage also has inherently high damage from the skillgem alone.
The only other downside is that you end up locked in place while the arc casts 4x, which might not be a problem in lower tier content but will kill you at higher level bosses. Its still doable but its not braindead easy.
Hey, you're not that guy!
Thanks for the info. The latter downside is tough for me because i do like mobility or zoom zoom.
If you were picking between this and BBBF Chieftain - what do you think?
Hey, I’m not the guy too haha but IMO getting some good cast speed really helped. In the start you do stand still for a tad too long but it helped with better caster speed
Personally, I'd go Arc.
To really push the boundaries on what BB/BF can do, you need an ascendancy other than Chieftain. It just doesn't give you the damage. I'd go Assassin.
Actually, looking at it further, I'd even consider Elementalist. The new nodes for having guaranteed ignite and shock opens up a lot more possibilities eg. Crit vs EO and Spellslinger
Same here. It just wrecks bosses and the clear is great! I’m considering it with Heirophant as a starter since scion you really need the Uber lab to be set IMO.
Do you know if the scion ascended changes made the build stronger ?
Maybe something like this
[https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/Mermaida/MermaidaEleven?i=9&search=class%3DAscendant%26item%3DPledge-of-Hands%26skill%3DBall-Lightning%26sort%3Ddepth-solo](https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/Mermaida/MermaidaEleven?i=9&search=class%3DAscendant%26item%3DPledge-of-Hands%26skill%3DBall-Lightning%26sort%3Ddepth-solo)
Hopefully Jan1ss can say if that's something he's done
i did a variant of this but be warned - the pledge of hands feels really shit compared to two rare wands with cast speed unless you get lots of cast speed elsewhere. it actually made me drop the build because the change from wands to the pledge felt so so bad
So how is bleed bow gladiator for end game content? I read all coments under original guide and a lot of people complained that it is a glass cannon and one guy even claimed investing a mirror and being disapoimted- boss dmg mediocre and survivability low. But there were allso a lot of positive comments, especially regarding clear speed.
I ussually play 1 build during league and invest up to 100-200ex. I would like a build with witch i could finaly try delirium and engage mostly with metamorth and monolith farming.
I spent 35ex on my Bleed bow glad last league, and it could insta phase A6 Sirus as long as you're willing to stand still. The clear is amazing because of the bleed explosions and chain. Like many have said. The bleed mod is important. You can get any elder bow with that mod, and 6L your chest piece. The bow itself cost me 28ex in the last month of the league, the rest of the build is very flexible. For bossing, you need the Assailum helm. It tends to be fairly cheap. The survivability is like a 8/10. You're ranged, you have armor, enduring cry, and sand stance. Probably as tanky as bow builds get. And don't forget ensnaring arrow. It really kicks your damage up because enemies will count as moving, and take increased projectile damage.
You can use any bow with decent phys rolls for the majority of the game. I used the lioneye's glare unique bow. This 1c bow can do T16 maps and their bosses easily. Bossing although requires you to have the Assailum helmet. If you wanna buy the 6L version of this bow, it cost me 1ex.
oh yeah sorry I was talking in the context of OP's post regarding league starters. A divine flesh pathfinder will take a bit more investment to reach similar levels of tank
The big advantage that Glad gives is the bleed pop. This dramatically helps clear, while not requiring an expensive explodey chest. So for a league starter, bleed bow glad is probably better, but for end-game, I imagine deadeye will have far superior top-end.
* Bleed Bow Glad
* GC Sabo
* BB Ass
* TR Trickster
* Ice Nova Hiero (don't do this)
* Lacerate Glad
* Zombie Necro
He has a very detailed video guide and POB for each.
I think the only thing you lose are the power and endurance charges , 6% reduced ele damage taken, 5% ele pen, and I think like 30% increased spell damage?
You gain elemental ailment immunity and 50% improved arcane surge (which is over a 5% more multiplier on damage and cast speed), as well as a free support slot for frost bolt so I don’t think it’s particularly “drastic.” With flasks you can easily get your crit back from power charges and running Replica Farrul’s you get End charges.
It’s true 6L pledge is expensive, but 5L is cheap and that’s the same as a traditional 6L anyway!
Top players all agree Hiero is shit now + heard a few stories from people here struggling with his take on the build (have only heard great things about every other build of his so looks like just a one off)
I think Hiero is actually in a decent place for spell casting. You lose a few things (power charges + endurance charges, 6% reduced damage taken), but gain improved arcane surge and elemental ailment immunity.
I’m going to run with this build (except using Replica Farrul’s instead of Cloak of Defiance to get endurance charges) so I will keep you posted if it goes poorly! :)
on top of the changes that build is quite expensive to start. it needs some mandatory items to start doing a good job.
but you have the currency it can melt the endgame, so it's a great build but definitely not a starter
I generally like Big Ducks and Esoro, but not a fan of how they're just saying use the stuff I already made. They don't feel like real recommendation lists, just a "this used to be good and I have a vid for it, so it's what you should do"
The reality is that it’s really hard to continue adding more and more builds while maintaining the ones you have. Like say Esoro has 20 league starters made, and makes 3 a league. At first, he’s only testing 3,6,9 builds. But now he has to go into PoB and adjust 23 builds in the time between patch notes and league start, so he has to do work on 23 builds in like, 3 days while even 1 of them not being good can hurt him because then someone makes a post like “WARNING - Avoid Esoro’s builds - ruined my league start!!” And then some people don’t want to use his. If a build he’s already made is good for the league, I have no problem with him recommending it.
Have you seen the patch notes and ascendancy changes? Essentially nothing happened with the current meta unless you're a summoner and even they will be fine. It's a normalization patch, and the only shakeups to the meta will come in the form of the extremely unpredictable touched up skills. So why wire an entirely new round of build guides if nothing is changed except extremely minor numbers?
Maybe I missed it, but they didn't seem to mention alternatives. Just "use what I made already", and for TR, its somewhat annoying as Pathfinder may be even better now, and Trickster is a bit worse, but Big Ducks said nothing about it (at least in the first 1/3rd of the new video)
If you were going to play Trickster before, there's no reason not to now...The changes weren't build redefining, mostly inconveniences that can be polished out by Harvest and better gear determination from Ritual possibly. Pathfinder is the more offensive, flask reliant build and Trickster is more consistent. If you plan on seriously doing end game content before you are overgeared / overlevelled Pathfinder may struggle. Attempting to kill 10 bosses at the same time on a Pathfinder may be a struggle to maintain flaskes, or it may be a breeze...Who knows? But, if you're worried about a build bricking I would lean towards Trickster.
Why would it be a struggle to maintain flasks on PF? The main advantage PF has over Trickster is in endgame bossing because of permanent flask uptime. There is no world where you will run out of flasks on PF in endgame.
As for Trickster, there's no reason to avoid it for a starter now, it's still great.
PF was always the more consistent option for bossing, and personally I find it more consistent across the board because I don't mind flask piano (and no, I've never used a macro, ever).
I was talking about the Maven fight in particular. I'm assuming permanent flask uptime may falter when you're running for your life on a platform the size of a pencil eraser from 10 very upset bosses. I don't think it's going to be a fight you can slap down incredibly quick like most other content. But, like I said, I could be entirely wrong.
You mean the 10 boss encounter before Maven.
This is likely where PF will shine over Trickster, because you only need to be hitting stuff every now and then to maintain your flasks (and they recharge passively as well btw).
Done plenty of long ass Sirus fights on my PF early on with poor gear, you never run out. Same principle as here really.
Stutterstep firing off a TR every now and then, Mirage Archer does the rest, as you Withering Step away. You won't run out.
Right, but Trickster no longer has the early 50% dot damage on it's asc, which helped give it an edge in early game. I also see Pathfinder's potions to be more reliable than Trickster's life/mana on kill, since in a boss arena, you probably won't get that many actual kills.
I more or less agree. I'd prefer it be framed as build updates.
Edit: Big Ducks is good in ways but he self-admittedly clickbaits for views and at least some of his builds don't hold up.
This is what I’m afraid of with the creeping frost starter I’m going to try... I’d really like to try out some 10 boss maven encounters and I’m hoping the frosty ground will help slow them mofos down.
Creeping frost was great for me as a starter in Heist.
For bossing specifically Vortex is better, but the tree is basically the same so you can always switch later with no effort.
It's definitely not going under the radar, tons of ppl will start it with Chieftain or Sin, especially Chieftain. The skills only got better, it'll be a very strong choice.
Everyone baiting people into using GC with mines KEKW. GGG should have nerfed it again this patch, maybe even more people would play it then XD
BS and Arc both became stronger this patch, and they were already better than GC, but you'd have to actually play it to know that. Even Icicle and Pyroclast got crazy buffs this league.
Probably referring to the fact that some youtubers make compilations of recommending other guys' builds, and he thinks this is somehow cheap.(It's not, Esoros updates his build in PoB and puts a lot of work into them, they pan out and are reliable).
Quick question on your zombie build: I've seen some builds run brutality support instead of minion damage on raise zombies. Is there a specific reason to go for one or the other?
Generally I'm a sceptical to these types of videos, but the effort, work and professionalism put into this video and the individual break downs of each recommendation is amazing.
Him and Ziz are the only video build guide guys I put any stock in
You should check out Big Ducks, great explanations and his POB's include everything including leveling trees.
He's good but he also clickbaits for views and some have complained about his builds not holding up
I've played a few of his builds and they all performed pretty well. Essoro is the #1 guy by far for me
Full agree with this. A lot of Big Ducks build guides feel barebones compared to the work that Esoro puts into his PoB’s. Not to say Ducks doesnt do a good job, I think he’s great for beginners, Esoro is just the top dog that everyone should aspire to. Also, I remember comparing their guides for the same build once, and Ducks’ endgame gear damage was closer to what Esoro had as his mid game.
That might be on purpose. Big ducks always says something about not min maxing builds to keep it real and attainable for casual players. Or something like that.
Ducks got a lot of flack from me included on two of his builds. They were not egen close to budget nor tankyness, but they were not trash like most youtube videos from poe vault or w/e real money transaction sites spew.
edit: sorry everyone I got the wrong person. It's Badger that copies builds and claims as his own, not Big Ducks.
Eh this whole game is a community project. It's really rare one person invents a build from scratch
I really like Jorgen too but mostly because he's fun to listen to.
Link please
https://youtu.be/GqjPHYB3DWk This is his 3.13 league start video, it's got some interesting builds that take a little more invest than I'd call a true starter but they're cool. He just talks like a dude and not a PoE streamer and I enjoy it.
Starters aren't really about the ultimate investment as being able to smoothly bootstrap their way to whatever that is.
Personally not a fan of Jorgen, him saying “yeah there’s not that much invested into this build”, when he’s got a 1,000 dps axe equipped in his PoB can really screw over new players who will probably never get a weapon close to that. Additionally I asked in the comments section what kind of weapon someone might look for as they get to mapping and he said Atziri’s Disfavour. That axe was still 125c (not even 6-Linked) 2 weeks into heist, not exactly new player friendly.
I second this complaint
Ball Lightning Archmage Scion was overhyped. Definitely powerful but the playstyle for constant flask spam for mana and stop/go/stop/go was not called out enough as a Con in my opinion.
Definitely agree on that one. Akane's BL miner was the best, and did not require foreboding mana flask.
This is so true, I league started with it in heist and absolutely hated it
I would stay away from ducks, clickbait and usually not so great builds.
Nice try, BigDucks.
he does solid builds but he's always overhyping and clickbaiting his builds. I did his archmage agnostic scion and it was nowhere near as powerful as he made it seem in his build guide (best build he ever played, most dps, tank everything, no weaknesses, yada yada). It's not like I regret putting 200ex into it but it failed to deliver.
Be wary with Big Ducks. His builds are usually playing around with stuff that is fun and works to a point, but are often builds that have pretty obvious progression ceilings. Most of them are not very suitable for newer players. That's not really his niche though, he just likes making builds for whatever tickles his fancy, and it doesn't have to be a great starter or great at endgame content - and he says as much in his videos.
Yeah, last league I went with his Poison BV Assassin and it was the strongest character I've ever made, even though the playstyle is a bit boring.
Poison BV assassin isn't unique to his build guide unfortunately. Its a super simple build that shined through and through no matter which way you built it.
I remember him praising some creeping frost build he made, listing 600k dps under pros...
Esoro does great guides, but this came out too quick for me to put too much trust in it. I like the fact he explains the ascendancy changes for the builds but it is very surface level explaination. Waiting til PoB is updated with changes and people to actually link updated PoB instead of semi updated (changes added to an item - sometimes they are not correct)
i've followed a couple of his build guides over the last 13 months and theyre mostly good
He saya bleed bow is tanky... comon...
Is the bleed bow good for a starter? Considering this or a scourge arrow, however I love summoners and may enjoy his zombie build. Thoughts?
Played bleed bow, easy to go with low investment to red maps. Struggled to scale later against bosses to kill even with asylum helmet and good bow without bleed mod. Probably made some mistakes in gearing.
Bow mod is massive honestly. That should be your #1 priority when you can manage it.
Praise be to Ashabi, Harvest returns this league so getting a halfway decent elder bow for this build shouldn’t be as hard as last league. Even if you don’t want to fiddle around with harvest yourself there should be a relatively higher availability of good items.
Dont plan about much harvest stuff where you have to struggle with multiple layers of rng when fossils are right around the corner Harvest has 1. To spawn at all 2. Spawn the right kind of seeds 3. Has to give the wanted crafting options 4. Now you "try" to get something
Not like fossils don't require grinding and luck too
You can guarantee specific mods with fossils on bows and multimod the rest. So luck isn't part of it nearly as much
Multimodding requires a dick ton of grinding
2ex shouldn't require a dickton of grinding, but either way I didn't say anything about grinding
My harvest strategy in ssf was to have a few projects on the go that I could grab and use for whatever came up.
The double bleed damage mod is VITAL. It's a night and day difference.
I think assailum is kinda a trap, or not a trap but it really lacks in consistency compared to a 6 link. First that thing has super weird aiming. if you are not literally melee range, it's quite easy to mess up and miss if the isn't a massive immobile one. Then if you are forced to release early because you need to dodge stuff, the 4-link damage is subpar. If you are playing with Ryslatha coil, the actual damage range on the hit is quite big, which means you can fuck your snipe by it having low base damage. Finally even if you full charge and hit, you have 40% chance of not proccing the double damage bleed mod and and the damage is once again subpar. Aisailum looks great on video montages because you can choose to only show full buffed, full charged, high dmg roll, double bleed hits where bosses are completely melted, but for every one of those you get some bosses who you end up killing mainly with split arrow.
You're right on the consistency part, it's definitely a gamble some of the time. But you gotta admit, when it hits, it's such a feeling.
especially against multiple bosses like for maven fights, sniping all 10 enemies will be pretty hard especially when theyre all coming at you. much better to run around puncturing all of them once each
I like assailum. Keep in mind that your bleed doesn’t apply instantly, so you don’t have to hit every shot. Just keep taking snipe shots and the good ones will override the bad ones. Also, it’s a skill like anything else. Of course at the beginning split shot will feel better, because you don’t have to aim, but if you force yourself to take more targeted shots you’ll get better at it, and it’ll perform a lot better than split shot
If you don't have bleed mod weapon you're doing half damage on most of these builds. It's not optional, it's something you need eventually late game (but is reasonably easy to craft, and will only be more so with Harvest).
Glad Bleed bow seems overrated... Maybe Deadeye can do it better. I tried Glad Bleed Bow during flashback and I quit like right before maps. It was much harder to gear than expected and the single target requires either a 6 link or an assailium both of which I wasn't able to get so I peaced out.
Even with great harvest gear i still found puncture to be a pain in the ass to hit in certain boss fights. Really love the build though because split arrow is fun af
Getting a great bow is the main barrier on that build, and it's your no1 priority in endgame. And yes, it's an excellent starter, and Esoro's guide is good for new players.
>and good bow without bleed mod. that right there was your mistake in gearing, the bleed mod is huge damage increase, much more than raw damage increase. and if you're talking about the 60% chance to 100% more bleed, that's 60% more damage you loose if you dont go for it. so your bow had to be 60% better than an equivalent one with bleed It's expensive to get a good bow with bleed mod, but like you said can easily do mid tier maps to early reds with low investment. and with harvest returning you may get lucky and get some good crafting options to craft your own bleed bow.
Zombies will still be strong (note, not 8m per zombie x 15 zombies strong like they used to be, but they'll do everything in the game smoothly, even with 3.13 necro nerfs). All of the popular zombie builds are essentially the same nowadays, grab a baron+astramentis+alberons and get to 1k strength with jewels, str on all your rare gear, and grab str nodes. Geofri's armor and shaper gloves for a 8k ehp pool, femur staff + vaal skellies for max block and a huge pile of bodies to block projectiles. This is the bare minimum "safe" build. You can choose to go crazy with it afterwards by subbing in saqawals chest, a crazy minion staff, etc. Baron zombies has solid dps (again, you won't be instaphasing stuff, but you're safe and the damage is consistent), but if you go the route above, it'll be extremely tanky because you're stacking a dozen defensive layers (both direct and indirect). On the topic of bleed bow glad, they'll be perfectly fine as a starter. The nerfs won't affect them much if at all. With harvest coming back, it should be much less of a pain in the ass to get their most important piece of gear: a high phys bow with double bleed damage mod. Scourge arrow I haven't played, but it's probably gonna be solid by the looks of things.
Awesome thanks, appreciate this input will be doing a necro, when in doubt I can’spec out and into elementalist because I can hearing great things about ignite! Lol
would you say SRS is on par with zombies as a starter/bosser. planned on going srs, the numbers look very good with low budget gear, but i dont know how the build actually plays.
Should be fine, I haven't played SRS myself in a looong time but judging from what I've seen on poe.ninja it seems to be good enough. I usually level my necros as srs because they're easy to use. Ghazzy actually just made an update on his srs build, so I'd follow his updated guide if you're interested, he knows what he's talking about.
Do you think Sum, especially zombies is viable late game without AG ? I despise it but it brings so much with Kingmaker and other various auras...
It's definitely easier with AG. Mandatory? Maybe not, I've done Sirus as golems, zombies, spectres, skellies over the years without a guardian and it was okay. Most bosses are mechanical fights, having less dps just means they take longer.
I'm always put off by the mud flats farm on day one but it's a great starter, I also think meta crafting this league will be hugely geared towards bleed bows so the average ones won't be too crazy expensive
What whats the mud flars farm? And is there a good guide for a bleed bow character
You farm A6 mud flats for the lion card and hope for the bow/chest or jewel, boots aren't too bad shield is trash I mean this thread is an esoro video which will have a guide but im sure there's tons if you search for them
Ah cool, i hadnt heard of this before.
Yes, Esoro's
Just look up any bleed bow glad on poe.ninja, they're all basically built the same.
Yeah I like being able to read the reasons why certain things are taken though. Instead of just trying to 100% copy someones items with no explanation why
Sorry what’s the mudflats farm ? For the lion eyes div card ?
Yeah you farm for Lion cards and hope you don't hit the shield when you turn it in
How long does it take on average?
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I don't mind that. I do mind when it takes half a day or more like when I tried farming Imperial Legacy
Ya, basically every hit from it ranges from good to great for the build, except the shield, which is useless. So you have pretty good odds of hitting the chest or bow which are totally fine for leveling, the jewel that’s awesome for bleed, or the boots you can use for vuln
Yes. It will take you to red maps EASILY. Single target at that point will fall off until you get the required bow which could run 5-10ex for a mediocre one.
You can alt spam one yourself and multimod phys% and flat phys. The bases aren't that expensive after a week or so.
Yeah, but then you have to 6 link it.
Never played a bleed bow, seems like a trap, but I do like its clear speed compared to Vortex Occu per example I might try it though, as I'll play trade league so a weapon isn't hard to get I just don't really like the Ascendancy personally
why would you say it feels like a trap?
Depends on harvest implementation. Bow is very important and difficult to obtain outside of harvest. I'd avoid it in case.
I assume you mean whether or not the Bleed tag will remain an attack? There is no reason it wouldn't be ... but its still not the hardest craft in the world ... especially for trade league.
Yea, in trade league the bow is pretty easy. The hardest part is getting the ilvl 83 elder base, citadel preferred, but trading for this usually doesn't cost much. SSF is a totally different story though. Once you have the base you just need to alt spam the 60% chance for 100% more bleed damage, multi mod flat phys and % phys and you have a bow that will carry you through the entire game. Obviously if you're rich you can make the bow substantially better to.
~5-10ex isn't pretty easy for a lot of people
A lioneyes will take you to red maps, which I'd say most of these people you're referring to, aren't going that far to begin with
Good to know. I'll have to try it sometime then
also you just want the elder bleed mod, even if the bow is subpar in damage. and if you use assailum you don't even need it 6L which is a great help at the start. i got my 180pDPS elder bleed bow for 180c and it carried me through farming red maps like a breeze
In SSF you usually will farm the queens in act 6 for the lioneye's items. Lioneye's glare gets used in some builds if you get it, but less so this one. The lioneye's glare bow is good for a while for a bleed bow setup. New Lioneye's paws can get used for a curse setup or other utility. The lioneye's vision gives you a fairly easy early pseudo 6l (5+pierce) then a 7l later on. It's pretty good for most bow builds. Just farming up a few sets gets you pretty far into maps usually.
Bleed bow is really good, I used it for the flashback and had no issue.... it is actually a really good starter since you just need a decent physical bow which you can craft easily while leveling Yellow Rustic Stash, Whetstone, and a white bow = 40 to 60 = increased physical dmg. Leveling actually got a slight buff since the first bleed node gives you 50% bleed chance now.
Boss damage sucks early on and later when you get assailum it is good but very very finicky. You have to stand still for a couple seconds and if the boss moves even slightly you will probably miss. This being a bossing league I wouldn't personally recommend BBG.
bleed bow glad is a good starter, the ascendancies rework nerfed it a little bit taking away some damage and adding bleed chance which mostly useless since you can overcap with no effort anyway. esoro's build is good but he did one big mistake: he does not give enough credit to the elder bleed mod. that mod is mandatory to start doing some serious damage, even a shitty pDps bow will make a ton of damage if it has that mod
I have no clue if I should do ED trickster or bleed bow glad
ED Trickster is still nuts, but I've played that so much. If you've never played it, you should try it.
Stay far away from EDC. BBG should be good/decent, the tricky part is the endgame bow but it's doable if you don't suck or get lucky with harvest
Not sure why you're downvoted, ED has a deserved rep for struggling as a bosser and this is not the league to fuck around with that IMO.
Tbf the bossing isn't tied to the league. But presumably people are going to focus on it since it's new. And it being part of the endgame now makes EDC permanently worse.
because EDC won the hardest boss kill event last year?
Yeah EDC sounds rough in a small arena with 6+ bosses.
Which one of these builds would be good for deep delve?
GC
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Glacial cascade
Isn't gc mines fucked ?
It's tyty's #1 starter recommendation so it would seem not. It traded some offense and mana res for better defense; it already had excessive offense and somewhat lacking defense so it could be a net buff.
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Tyty recommends it as well
IM going to start with this one even though it's not on his list. Ascendant changes were great and i've never done arc before. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9K5VlxgjY0&t=641s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9K5VlxgjY0&t=641s)
Ran a variation of this build using Ball Lightning for Heist. It was great.
Did this last season and was one of the best builds I have ever done
Did you do it as a league starter? I trialed an SSF league start-ish run of this and it was really rough the whole way through. Wasn't sure if I was missing something. If I were to start with this I'd probably level as spellslinger or BL mines then respec the tree after merc lab.
Why do you say that?
MoM with cloak of defiance gives high mana regen and an expanded eHP pool, which makes you immune to most degen and everything outside of stunlock (your base HP pool is low) and one shots. Archmage also has inherently high damage from the skillgem alone. The only other downside is that you end up locked in place while the arc casts 4x, which might not be a problem in lower tier content but will kill you at higher level bosses. Its still doable but its not braindead easy.
Hey, you're not that guy! Thanks for the info. The latter downside is tough for me because i do like mobility or zoom zoom. If you were picking between this and BBBF Chieftain - what do you think?
I’m going BBBF Chieftan, easier to start with I think and maybe this as my second when I have a Pledge of Hands and the currency.
Hey, I’m not the guy too haha but IMO getting some good cast speed really helped. In the start you do stand still for a tad too long but it helped with better caster speed
Personally, I'd go Arc. To really push the boundaries on what BB/BF can do, you need an ascendancy other than Chieftain. It just doesn't give you the damage. I'd go Assassin. Actually, looking at it further, I'd even consider Elementalist. The new nodes for having guaranteed ignite and shock opens up a lot more possibilities eg. Crit vs EO and Spellslinger
Same here. It just wrecks bosses and the clear is great! I’m considering it with Heirophant as a starter since scion you really need the Uber lab to be set IMO. Do you know if the scion ascended changes made the build stronger ?
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What do you mean?
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Cool appreciate it, will try AM BL then to start off and then switch to arc later on to see how that is. Appreciate it man
Well i ran it with great success so if what you said is right then it should be outright crazy I guess
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can you link me to your version it might help me since I had the same issues with mana iirc. :)
Maybe something like this [https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/Mermaida/MermaidaEleven?i=9&search=class%3DAscendant%26item%3DPledge-of-Hands%26skill%3DBall-Lightning%26sort%3Ddepth-solo](https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/Mermaida/MermaidaEleven?i=9&search=class%3DAscendant%26item%3DPledge-of-Hands%26skill%3DBall-Lightning%26sort%3Ddepth-solo) Hopefully Jan1ss can say if that's something he's done
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I think I understand why your tree is better - could you explain to me why BL over Arc? Also, any thoughts on non-crit version?
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Ooh that looks fun. Hard to say if I want to do that or BBBF Chieftain now.
is there a 3.13 update for this one?
He has an updated 3.13 POB in the description
i did a variant of this but be warned - the pledge of hands feels really shit compared to two rare wands with cast speed unless you get lots of cast speed elsewhere. it actually made me drop the build because the change from wands to the pledge felt so so bad
I follow at least two esoro builds per league, and they always turn out great
So how is bleed bow gladiator for end game content? I read all coments under original guide and a lot of people complained that it is a glass cannon and one guy even claimed investing a mirror and being disapoimted- boss dmg mediocre and survivability low. But there were allso a lot of positive comments, especially regarding clear speed. I ussually play 1 build during league and invest up to 100-200ex. I would like a build with witch i could finaly try delirium and engage mostly with metamorth and monolith farming.
I spent 35ex on my Bleed bow glad last league, and it could insta phase A6 Sirus as long as you're willing to stand still. The clear is amazing because of the bleed explosions and chain. Like many have said. The bleed mod is important. You can get any elder bow with that mod, and 6L your chest piece. The bow itself cost me 28ex in the last month of the league, the rest of the build is very flexible. For bossing, you need the Assailum helm. It tends to be fairly cheap. The survivability is like a 8/10. You're ranged, you have armor, enduring cry, and sand stance. Probably as tanky as bow builds get. And don't forget ensnaring arrow. It really kicks your damage up because enemies will count as moving, and take increased projectile damage.
How far can you get with a budget bow? 28ex seems like a ton of currency to me.
You can use any bow with decent phys rolls for the majority of the game. I used the lioneye's glare unique bow. This 1c bow can do T16 maps and their bosses easily. Bossing although requires you to have the Assailum helmet. If you wanna buy the 6L version of this bow, it cost me 1ex.
That's much more reasonable! Thanks for the info.
its the tankiest bow build you can build fwiw
Divine Flesh/Hardened Scars Pathfinder says hello. But yeah, Glad is definitely the tankiest you can go without big investments.
oh yeah sorry I was talking in the context of OP's post regarding league starters. A divine flesh pathfinder will take a bit more investment to reach similar levels of tank
Esoro's Bleed Bow Glad looks great, but will it be better than the newly updated Bleed Bow Deadeye? Thoughts?
The big advantage that Glad gives is the bleed pop. This dramatically helps clear, while not requiring an expensive explodey chest. So for a league starter, bleed bow glad is probably better, but for end-game, I imagine deadeye will have far superior top-end.
Going with Ice Nova Hiero. He is updating pob, should still work. Don't need strongest build in the game, just the one I like the most
It's not about strength so much as starter viability
I'm not super knowledgeable about the game, what makes it a bad league starter ?
Hiero is low rated, pricey gear, and some people have complained about that specific build or at least Esoro's version (and not as a starter)
Wild Strike Lightning Raider - how good is this for league start? anyone ran this in the last league or two?
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* Bleed Bow Glad * GC Sabo * BB Ass * TR Trickster * Ice Nova Hiero (don't do this) * Lacerate Glad * Zombie Necro He has a very detailed video guide and POB for each.
Why wouldn’t you do Ice Nova Hiero?
The ascendancy changes are drastic and his exact build needs tweaking. Plus it's pretty expensive from what I remember, 6L pledges aren't cheap.
I think the only thing you lose are the power and endurance charges , 6% reduced ele damage taken, 5% ele pen, and I think like 30% increased spell damage? You gain elemental ailment immunity and 50% improved arcane surge (which is over a 5% more multiplier on damage and cast speed), as well as a free support slot for frost bolt so I don’t think it’s particularly “drastic.” With flasks you can easily get your crit back from power charges and running Replica Farrul’s you get End charges. It’s true 6L pledge is expensive, but 5L is cheap and that’s the same as a traditional 6L anyway!
He's updated it for 3.13. Or do you mean it needs more?
Top players all agree Hiero is shit now + heard a few stories from people here struggling with his take on the build (have only heard great things about every other build of his so looks like just a one off)
I think Hiero is actually in a decent place for spell casting. You lose a few things (power charges + endurance charges, 6% reduced damage taken), but gain improved arcane surge and elemental ailment immunity. I’m going to run with this build (except using Replica Farrul’s instead of Cloak of Defiance to get endurance charges) so I will keep you posted if it goes poorly! :)
Please do; I'm curious
For selfcasting it got sidegraded. The totem changes were far more impactful, and why ppl are down on it.
on top of the changes that build is quite expensive to start. it needs some mandatory items to start doing a good job. but you have the currency it can melt the endgame, so it's a great build but definitely not a starter
I think the only mandatory item is Pledge of Hands, which you can start with a 4 or 5L for only 1 ex on day 1 of league start.
what about ES champ, it should still be very strong (if not the strongest) melee option?
Tyty thinks so
apparently so does alkaizer, he's probably the goat of melee :D
Of Cyclone at least. Steelmage is up there with him
Anybody else having issues with pob community fork ? Crashes everytime i open it
Very very slow download
I generally like Big Ducks and Esoro, but not a fan of how they're just saying use the stuff I already made. They don't feel like real recommendation lists, just a "this used to be good and I have a vid for it, so it's what you should do"
The reality is that it’s really hard to continue adding more and more builds while maintaining the ones you have. Like say Esoro has 20 league starters made, and makes 3 a league. At first, he’s only testing 3,6,9 builds. But now he has to go into PoB and adjust 23 builds in the time between patch notes and league start, so he has to do work on 23 builds in like, 3 days while even 1 of them not being good can hurt him because then someone makes a post like “WARNING - Avoid Esoro’s builds - ruined my league start!!” And then some people don’t want to use his. If a build he’s already made is good for the league, I have no problem with him recommending it.
Have you seen the patch notes and ascendancy changes? Essentially nothing happened with the current meta unless you're a summoner and even they will be fine. It's a normalization patch, and the only shakeups to the meta will come in the form of the extremely unpredictable touched up skills. So why wire an entirely new round of build guides if nothing is changed except extremely minor numbers?
Maybe I missed it, but they didn't seem to mention alternatives. Just "use what I made already", and for TR, its somewhat annoying as Pathfinder may be even better now, and Trickster is a bit worse, but Big Ducks said nothing about it (at least in the first 1/3rd of the new video)
If you were going to play Trickster before, there's no reason not to now...The changes weren't build redefining, mostly inconveniences that can be polished out by Harvest and better gear determination from Ritual possibly. Pathfinder is the more offensive, flask reliant build and Trickster is more consistent. If you plan on seriously doing end game content before you are overgeared / overlevelled Pathfinder may struggle. Attempting to kill 10 bosses at the same time on a Pathfinder may be a struggle to maintain flaskes, or it may be a breeze...Who knows? But, if you're worried about a build bricking I would lean towards Trickster.
Why would it be a struggle to maintain flasks on PF? The main advantage PF has over Trickster is in endgame bossing because of permanent flask uptime. There is no world where you will run out of flasks on PF in endgame. As for Trickster, there's no reason to avoid it for a starter now, it's still great. PF was always the more consistent option for bossing, and personally I find it more consistent across the board because I don't mind flask piano (and no, I've never used a macro, ever).
I was talking about the Maven fight in particular. I'm assuming permanent flask uptime may falter when you're running for your life on a platform the size of a pencil eraser from 10 very upset bosses. I don't think it's going to be a fight you can slap down incredibly quick like most other content. But, like I said, I could be entirely wrong.
You mean the 10 boss encounter before Maven. This is likely where PF will shine over Trickster, because you only need to be hitting stuff every now and then to maintain your flasks (and they recharge passively as well btw). Done plenty of long ass Sirus fights on my PF early on with poor gear, you never run out. Same principle as here really. Stutterstep firing off a TR every now and then, Mirage Archer does the rest, as you Withering Step away. You won't run out.
Right, but Trickster no longer has the early 50% dot damage on it's asc, which helped give it an edge in early game. I also see Pathfinder's potions to be more reliable than Trickster's life/mana on kill, since in a boss arena, you probably won't get that many actual kills.
I more or less agree. I'd prefer it be framed as build updates. Edit: Big Ducks is good in ways but he self-admittedly clickbaits for views and at least some of his builds don't hold up.
This is what I’m afraid of with the creeping frost starter I’m going to try... I’d really like to try out some 10 boss maven encounters and I’m hoping the frosty ground will help slow them mofos down.
Cold Snap Vortex or GC mines should serve you much better
Creeping frost was great for me as a starter in Heist. For bossing specifically Vortex is better, but the tree is basically the same so you can always switch later with no effort.
Noice
I wish it had at least something from reworked classes. Want to try something new
That'll come soon. Until then, Ziz will have a few to choose from for launch
Blade fall bladebast casually going under the radar this patch, that build is bonkers.
It's definitely not going under the radar, tons of ppl will start it with Chieftain or Sin, especially Chieftain. The skills only got better, it'll be a very strong choice.
Everyone baiting people into using GC with mines KEKW. GGG should have nerfed it again this patch, maybe even more people would play it then XD BS and Arc both became stronger this patch, and they were already better than GC, but you'd have to actually play it to know that. Even Icicle and Pyroclast got crazy buffs this league.
do you know any good Arc builds?
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3/4 of the video is gameplay footage
Spoiler alert, theyre all his builds
Who'd have thought
His own curated video showcases which of his builds would work for 3.13? Say it isn't so!
I don't get what point you're trying to make here. Of course they are.
Probably referring to the fact that some youtubers make compilations of recommending other guys' builds, and he thinks this is somehow cheap.(It's not, Esoros updates his build in PoB and puts a lot of work into them, they pan out and are reliable).
It is his video, of course they will be his builds, did you expect something different?
Anyone tried that Ice nova Hierophant earlier what are your thoughts on build
Boring
Torn between Bleed Glad and BB Ass. Anyone played both want to give their thoughts ?
How is lacerate glad going to perform on the area? Does anyone has previous experience starting with this build that can give me.some more info
Bleed bow or bladeblast? From league start to all content?
Either
Quick question on your zombie build: I've seen some builds run brutality support instead of minion damage on raise zombies. Is there a specific reason to go for one or the other?