Hello exiles!
First time poster, so constructive feedback welcome! Can try to get video footage if interest is sufficient.
I'm wrapping up Affliction, which I (and many others) likely consider to be the most successful league I've experienced ever, and I have assembled a character that I'm proud of and believe may be of some interest (I've seen a number of posts asking for help using Tornado Shot in juiced maps).
This character is capable of any mapping setup, and I've used it to farm my first 2 raw mirrors, and several more in high end currency and liquid drops. Level 100 and all pinnacles down without carry. Deathless 12.8k wisp T16map (full altars), many 10k+ T16s.
Build Strengths:
- One button offensive playstyle (mark on hit, several manaforged arrow setups)
- Fast, comfortable mapper (leveled to 100 in juiced T16s with some MF included)
- Pinnacle Boss capable (all ubers cleared without carry, deathless uber shaper, uber uber elder, uber cortex)
- Capable of any individual map mods (there are a few combinations that are dangerous when combined with altars, and one mob I filter out for clearspeed)
- Ranged, good movement speed without quicksilver or haste
- Varied recovery profile (not bricked by any of the recovery or leech limiting mods)
- Reasonable starting cost (HH, Defiance + 50div would easily get you started)
- Reflect immune
- Not as reliant on HH buffs as many other TS builds - can restart maps if you need to leave to sell, etc...
- Functionally hit immune without petrified blood (more resilient against degens than most TS/petrified blood builds
- Many ways to scale damage (flat elemental, chaos dot multi/dot multi, projectiles, poison duration, etc...)
- Click any altar you like
- Ignore volatiles (corpse explosion) and basically any other hit-based effect.
- Can use Divination Distillate (with flask effect)
Build Cons:
- Doesn't run as much MF as some meta builds
- Merely acceptable single target damage for Big bossing
- Must mute or tolerate pathfinder voice lines (lots of "tennis" sounds)
OFFENSE
We scale offense through several broken mechanics, and in combination this provides plenty of damage to allow a lot of gear/passive tree resources to be given to defense and MF.
Offense Keynotes:
- Elemental Tornado Shot (all damage can poison via Tincture)
- high EDPS bow, ideally with extra arrows
- Quiver with Chaos DoT multi/DoT multi
- Poison damage not affected by reduced projectile damage from GMP - an amazing source of damage and coverage
- Headhunter (Bonus points for also running Malevolence for the buff duration)
- Poison Tincture (Utterly broken item)
- Poison Duration Mod (up to 100% poison duration via TWWT)
- Pathfinder Poison nodes
DEFENSE
Extra layers of defense are what sets this build apart from most TS setups, it devotes a lot of its power budget to a diverse profile of defensive mechanics that cover nearly every vulnerability. This build is almost fully hit immune (barring huge one-shot), but as an example, uber shapers Bullet hell projectiles actively heal you on hit, so 99% of hit-based damage is meaningless or ignorable.
- 4200+ Life
- Ranged
- 78/78/78/70 resistances
- Physical damage taken as elemental (Lightning Coil, Helmet mods, Taste of Hate w/flask effect)
- Defensive pantheons (damage over time and poison coverage - I swap to burning ground pantheon for maps with that mod)
- Grace and High evasion (not capped, but substantial)
- Ailment Immune (Purity of Elements)
- Crit immune (Poison mastery + high evasion)
- Corrupted Blood immunity (runs several medium cost unique jewels to find corrupted blood on)
- Full Suppression (96% before phasing mastery, phase run and high effective hit pool - functionally capped suppress)
- Defiance of Destiny
- Very high Curse resistance (perma flask uptime on a curse flask, extra flask effect via pathfinder)
- Bloodnotch + Immutable Force combo (with ES mastery)
- Significant life recoup
- Leech (also 25% life recoup if leech filled HP recently mastery)
- Flask effect with utility flasks/Progenesis
- Headhunter buffs (adds significantly to defense)
MAGICFIND
Can run more, but I elected to opt for more raw power in Gloves/Boots to facilitate more comfortable altar inclusion into mapping.
- 2x Ventor's Gamble
- Divination Distillate
- Rarity Helmet (not required, honestly)
- Culling Strike + Item Rarity manaforged setup
QUALITY OF LIFE
- Pierce (yes, Pierce on TS) - Chain is something intrinsic to deadeye, and on pathfinder this felt very good. Importantly, this league it lets you chip at Abyss spires by shooting about 1 screen distance away and letting pierce and poison proliferations work in after spire eruptions.
- Malevolence + HH Synergy (Buff duration)
- Grace MS mod + Chosen boot mod (MS out of combat) - speedy "cleaning" in wildwood.
- Near permanent phasing uptime
- Rare/unique monster radar via wildwood (excellent, especially in combination with HH)
- Manaforged Arrows setups for ailments/poison application and culling strike
- Mirage Archer!
POB: https://pobb.in/6HipHCWOgq71
Ninja Profile: https://poe.ninja/builds/affliction/character/iD_eNTiTy/WanderingCreamsicle
Feel free to post questions if you have them, and if you are interested in trying it out I'm happy to offer tips and tricks.
Happy Hunting!