Sustained Indigon with Manaforged Arrows Analysis: Potentially 5x to 12x More damage + 1100% to 3400% increased Attack Damage!

Some of you may recognize this build concept; for those of you who haven't seen it, check out my Guide to the Sustained Indigon Build Archetype for the full overview. But when I saw the new Manaforged Arrows gem, I knew I had to get into this and analyze what I could do with this new gem. Suffice to say, it has incredible potential, but at the same time, I have zero idea how to build bow characters, so I'll present all that I'm able to here and will let other skilled build creators use that as they will.

I will be using sustained Indigon mechanics here, which are all explained in the above link; as explained therein, my numbers here are not precise. The mana costs I'm giving are an upper bound, meaning it may converge less than that number. It shouldn't converge higher than it or diverge, since this build shouldn't have the tick rate problem which the Scorching Ray build had. Anyway, let's get into the details!

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Here is the build idea: mana/mana regeneration stacker + Indigon + Battlemage's Cry + Manaforged Arrows + two Bow attack skills -> scale bow attack mana cost for the Manaforged Arrows buff and Indigon increased spell damage, which Battlemage's Cry converts back into attack damage; Indigon ramps that mana cost higher, which ramps the spell damage increase and thus the Battlemage's Cry attack damage buff, while also increasing the Manaforged Arrows buff. The big requirement for this is getting the absurdly high mana regeneration required to sustain these.

I'll give two options: one a mid-level mana requirement, and one more maxed out.

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Option 1:

Our Manaforged Arrows skill:

Tornado Shot (Lv. 20 -> 10 mana) -> 130% (Elemental Damage with Attacks) -> 140% (Swift Affliction) -> 140% (Cruelty) -> 200% (Manaforged Arrows) -> 50 base mana cost

Our main Bow skill:

Burning Arrow (Lv. 21 -> 13 mana) -> 140% (Swift Affliction) -> 140% (Cruelty) -> 130% (Elemental Damage with Attacks) -> 130% (Burning Damage) -> 110% (Additional Accuracy) -> 47 base mana cost

6 Burning Arrow attacks per 4 seconds (triggering 2 Tornado Shots) -> 47*6 + 50*2 = 382 mana cost per 4 seconds

This converges approximately to 549 Mana, meaning total mana spent Recently is approximately 4392.

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Left axis: Mana cost; Bottom axis: number of casts

That gives us a 584 mana cost for our triggered Manaforged Arrows skill, which gives us a 584% More damage multiplier on Tornado Shot, which is reduced by 31% to 371% More damage (4.71x more damage).

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Let's try to converge higher.

Option 2:

Our Manaforged Arrows skill: Same Tornado shot setup as before.

Our main Bow skill: Rain of Arrows (lv. 20 -> 10 mana) -> 140% (Deadly Ailments) -> 140% (Cruelty) -> 140% (Swift Affliction) -> 130% (Elemental Damage with Attacks) -> 140% (Concentrated Effect)

6 Rain of Arrows attacks per 4 seconds (triggering 2 Tornado Shots) -> 49*6 + 50*2 = 394 mana cost per 4 seconds

This converges approximately to 1649 Mana, meaning total mana spent Recently is approximately 13192.

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Left axis: Mana cost; Bottom axis: number of casts

That gives us a 1701 mana cost of our Manaforged Arrows skill, which gives us a 1701% More damage multiplier on Tornado Shot, which is reduced by 31% to 1142% More damage (12.42x more damage).

As you can see from both of the above graphs, it does take some time to converge to those high numbers, so you would probably want to "warm up" with a mana ramping skill before mapping/bossing.

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Battlemage's Cry also gives us scaling Attack Damage from the increased Spell Damage given to us by Indigon.

Option 1: we're getting 525% increased Spell Damage, so depending on how much we invest into Battlemage's Cry warcry effect and power, we can get between 393% increased Attack Damage and 1100% increased Attack Damage.

Option 2: we're getting 1625% increased Spell Damage, so depending on how much we invest into Battlemage's Cry warcry effect and power, we can get between 1200% increased Attack Damage and 3400% increased Attack Damage.

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So the overview: the skill gems and supports can be swapped as desired, so long as several constants remain the same: the base mana cost and the attacks per second.

If it says "140%" for a support gem, any 140% support gem can go there - doesn't matter which. Same for "base cost" skill - could be Rain of Arrows lv. 20 or Lightning Arrow lv. 20 or anything with that same cost.

Option 1 for lower mana regen costs: requires 1098 Mana regenerated per second, but gains you 4.71x More damage for the Manaforged Arrows skill and 1100% increased Attack Damage for both bow skills.

Option 2 for maximum power at the expense of the highest mana regen costs: requires 3298 Mana regenerated per second, but gains you 12.42x More damage for the Manaforged Arrows skill and 3400% increased Attack Damage for both bow skills.

The above article linked gives a few basic PoBs for getting some high mana regen, but they're all left/top side. I do not know how you would sustain this mana on the right side of the tree, if it's even possible. But if it is possible, and you can scale your damage to a million before the above buffs—a base damage of 1 million scaled by 1100% More damage and 3400% increased Attack Damage would yield over 300 million damage, for comparison.

The potential of this, if the mana regen can be worked out, is incredible.

Hope this is useful for you all. Let me know if any of you get a build like this working—it'd make me happy to know the sustained Indigon guide yielded some fruit for someone.

If all you want is a PoB with the skills inside it, then I copied over one of the PoBs from the article and threw the gems into there. It's missing Manaforged Arrows, since it's not implemented yet, and the build was for Scorching Ray/left side, not a bow build. It's really not a useful PoB. But if you just want to see the skills in PoB with some mana regen built, here you go: https://pobb.in/Y2rE8IcvvjsO