[3.25] Int Stacking Bow Trickster - Tank (almost) anything, easy ubers, T17s, etc.

PoB: https://pobb.in/atuOTXdL8x2e

Want off-meta? Want to use something reliant on weapon enchantments that will probably be never available again? Want to be tanky AF? Here's a build for you, and the one I'm currently playing as I finish up my goals for the league.

This build scales high amounts of Int and Energy Shield, and converts those into flat damage via a bow synth implicit and the "Adds 5% of your maximum Energy Shield as Cold Damage" enchantment. The current cost for my build is ~1 mirror, and it's easily capable of clearing everything in the game. It face tanks things like uber bosses, 8 mod juiced Ultimatums, T17 juiced map bosses, and Wave 15 Simulacrum.

I'd like to acknowledge that this is similar to CaptainLance's bow trickster, but it's MUCH cheaper (you can make this entire build for the cost of his Sublime Vision). I don't follow streamer builds at all mid-league and developed this independently, only realizing later that he did almost the same thing. Hah. Well it's not too difficult of a leap to make when you see an option to scale damage via increasing your ES.

Note that the DPS of this build is extremely difficult to PoB accurately, I've done my best to configure for an average boss encounter. In reality you will often be higher. Scourge Arrow of Menace can potentially hit 10 times per shot on a single target (1 initial hit, 9 spore pods) versus the 4 configured. Storm Rain can hit ??? times. (If you haven't played with Storm Rain - it can potentially hit 5 times per arrow x 4 arrows per trigger x mirage archer extra shots, but it's impossible to calculate accurately how many of those will hit your target). But this build feels like somewhere around 20M DPS against bosses.

If you'd like to try a different bow skill or combination of skills, you absolutely can. Any other skill can be substituted in at no cost EXCEPT that I'd recommend spending the 3 passive points for +3 pierce if you want to use a skill like Lightning Arrow or Tornado Shot. Scourge Arrow of Menace has infinite pierce built into the skill so I don't take them.

And here's a brief video showing off the build in a few situations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV9QCSXIvGM

Pros of the build

• Very tanky. 34k physical max hit, 128k/141k/141k ele max hits, and effectively infinite recovery rate via instant leech, life/mana on hit, and recovery on kill.
• Fast clearspeed. 188% move speed and Scourge Arrow will hit most of the screen. Swap out arrow nova and put in returning projectiles if you want even faster clear, since arrow nova takes a second to land.
• Hold right click to clear final wave Simulacrum or Ultimatums without moving character or mouse.
• Can do all map mods.
• Can click all Exarch altars worry-free.

Cons of the build

• Damage is mid, around 20M? This is still plenty enough to do all uber bosses, but you won't be insta-killing anything.
• Not cheap, is built around a weapon enchantment that costs 50div to apply.

A quick breakdown of the defensive layers of the build:

• 18k ES
• 37k Evasion
• 77/84/84 ele res (86/84/84 if needed for Valdo maps/pinnacle content, just drop Quicksilver for Ruby)
• 100% Suppression
• Extremely high recovery rate via leech, life/mana on hit, and recovery on kill.
• Immune to chaos damage, corrupting blood, all elemental ailments, curses, and reduced action speed

A note about some map mods:

• No leech can still be run when mapping because Polymath gives us back 12% of our maximum ES every time we kill anything. That's 2,000 ES on kill. I would not try to kill juiced T17 bosses with this mod, but everything else is fine.
• No regen is fine, we get plenty of mana recovery through other methods and we can't regen ES anyway. Worst case scenario you have to autoattack something once or twice to get mana back for your next cast.
• No recovery is fine, turns off our Trickster overleech but doesn't affect anything else.
• Ele reflect is fine, just take out the manaforged arrow gem from frenzy/ensnaring arrow setup so you don't kill yourself triggering them.
• All the T17 exclusive map mods are doable but "remove X% of es on hit" and "X% less defences" are scary. Monster block chance is free, we use a mastery point to nullify that.

If you have any questions about any choices I've made, feel free to ask! Or if you have suggestions let me know.