Hi all,

This build started with /u/connerconverse (aka OneManaLeft) releasing this video for patch 0.3. His build was monstrously tanky, had great damage, and has sadly been the subject of several nerfs.

I will summarize his innovations and share my patch 0.4 tweaks below. I suspect that the new runes + extra suffix mod in 0.5 will power creep this build's damage and survivability quite a lot. The only difference between the 0.4 and 0.5 passive trees is that we take "Bond of the Cat" instead of "Deft Recovery". Nothing else has changed.

Conner's Innovations in Patch 0.3

• Optimal use of Stalking Panther (Evasion from body armour is halved, Evasion on boots, gloves, and helmet is doubled) The body armour slot is perfect for a high energy shield base, and there are several sources of increased % ES on just your body armour slot - see Ancient Aegis anoint, desecrated amulet mod, heart of the well mod. This makes 2000-3000 ES possible, and scales much better than for other classes using Subterfuge Mask and Spectral Ward. Meanwhile, most players are not looking for high Evasion helmets, gloves, and boots so you can get excellent pieces in these slots for relatively cheap.

• Projectile Acceleration III stacks with "Feathered Fletching" (Increased and Reductions to Projectile Speed also apply to Damage with Bows) This makes projectile speed a great way to scale damage. This also makes attacks feel instantaneous and ultraviolent.

• High evasion + High deflection + Ghost Shroud for extreme tankiness. This is not quite what it used to be, however it's not all bad. Ghost Shroud was nerfed in 0.4 to provide fewer charges and less recovery, and is nerfed again in 0.5 to no longer provide instant recovery. HOWEVER, Ghost Shroud will provide more total ES recovery per stack than it does currently. 0.4 recovery = 5% of Evasion, instantly. 0.5 recovery = 2% of Evasion per second for 4 seconds = 8% total. If you have 30,000 evasion, this is actually an improvement from 1500 total ES recovery in 0.4, to 2400 total ES recovery in 0.5.

A big thank you to /u/connerconverse , your build videos have been a place of inspiration for me for years.

My Innovations in Patch 0.4

• 63% more damage from Trinity and 24% increased skill speed. This does require you to pay attention to elemental damage modifier values on your weapon, rings, jewels, quiver, etc., and balance your output accordingly. A bit less damage in a dominant single element can result in more overall damage from Trinity. Note that a perfect 300 affinity is impossible since 3 points are removed from the lower two elements. 294 is the actual maximum, 270 is the minimum for 9 stacks of the 7% more damage bonus, and 250 is the minimum for the skill speed bonus.

• 50% more damage from permanent Rage. Eternal Rage + Berserk gives us +67% effect of 30% more damage --> 50% more damage, permanently. We offset the -3% life regen from Berserk using the bullet below.

• Lavianga's Flask + Azmeri Brew. I've taken a few passive nodes that give "#% increased Mana Recovery from Flasks", and it turns out this also benefits the Life Recovery from Mana Flasks! If our lifepool is ~1500, and the degen is 3% of life / sec, then we only need 50 healing / sec to offset the degen and get perma-50% more damage. Lavianga fixes this completely, and gives nice mana regen to boot...but it goes a lot further than that, as explain in the next bullet.

• Permanent flask effect bonuses from the passive tree. Our life is degenerating and recovering all the time which means we always have "during flask effect" on us (as if we were using a PoE1 Mageblood). Thus, the conditional nodes "Wellspring", "Stimulants", "Imbibed Power", and "Crystal Elixir" give us a combined 65% increased damage, 30% attack speed, and 30% increased recovery from Mana Flasks. These nodes would be considered overpowered were they not also conditional.

• Life Flask for Big Mana Recovery. To get the "100% increased Life Recovered" mod on a life flask, you must also take the downside "Removes 15% of Life Recovered from Mana when used". Normally this is a crap mod. The "Azmeri Brew" effect gives us >2200 Mana after losing the initial ~400. Thus, this build has zero mana issues even while using a Level 30 Lightning Arrow.

• Ignite, Freeze, and Shock everything. I'm using Herald of Thunder and Herald of Ice, which together ensure that there are explosions everywhere.

• "Herald Chaining". In 0.1 your Heralds could chain off of each other, and while that was removed for obvious reasons it still (kinda) works with Lightning Arrow. The trick is that if your LA chains deal enough damage to shock AND freeze AND kill they will do all of the chain herald proccing and auto-clearing for you! For a clear example, check the video demonstration below and jump to 2:48. You can see it chaining counter-clockwise around some trees.

• I have over 330 Spirit. This is where alarm bells are probably going off in your head. This character has a ton of auras going at the same time, and uses a nice high Evasion corrupted Alpha's Howl which gives nearly 130 spirit, a large amount of cold resistance, and 618 evasion which, remember, is doubled by Stalking Panther! Spirit comes from the helmet, body armour, and amulet.

• Balanced Elemental Damage. This took me a while to get exactly right for maximum Trinity affinity. Lightning Arrow has a bias toward Lightning (duh) so you'll need extra Fire and Cold to balance this out. Note that the PoBB Bow has T1 fire and cold, and T3 lightning. This is intentional! Weapon and Ring T1 flat fire damage modifiers scale higher than T1 flat cold, so I have extra flat cold damage on my quiver to compensate. I also have an Against the Darkness jewel giving 16% of damage as extra cold and lightning, hence my Heart of the Well jewel is giving 15% of damage as extra Fire. In the video, likewise, you will see that my Against the Darkness is giving 16% of damage as extra cold and fire, while my Heart of the Well gives 15% of damage as extra lightning. You can use the tricks I've outlined here to help your build achieve your Trinity balance :)

• Unusual Weapon Base? This is a non-crit build (smooth, consistent damage) so we actually want the fastest bow we can get our hands on for maximum DPS. Weapon physical damage has very little impact on our build, however high physical damage can create a bias toward lightning damage from Lightning Arrow + Lightning Rods; both of which convert physical damage to lightning. Ironwood Bows are great for this, and even a Snakewood Shortbow or a basic Shortbow would do the job. These are the only bow bases with 1.25 attack speed.

Additional Info

POBB.in Link <--- make sure you use weapon slot 2

Video Demonstration - items are not the same as in the PoBB

Guardian/Pinnacle Boss Hit DPS with Lightning Arrow = 1.16 million.

Guardian/Pinnacle Boss Hit DPS with 10x Light Rod + LA = 4.19 million.

Final Note: Not all of the mechanics I've described are automatically reflected in the current Path of Building. You'll notice I have added custom modifiers for a few broken things. For example, I set my Rage counter to 0 and put the 50% more damage multiplier in the Custom Modifiers field.