Build Diary #2 - Thunderburst/Windburst Deadeye

PoB - https://pobb.in/dU8wFELwznBd (includes both ideal gear in Default, and actual gear in Actual)

The PoB DPS is very misleading, because "full DPS" factors in attack speed, instead of the actual times an average projectile would hit. I also haven't figured out a good average number pierced.

TL;DR - Build is pretty strong and could keep scaling even more. But just super clunky to play. See this for explanation of the clunk

Step 1 - Concept

I wanted to make some sort of Windburst build after seeing this Hidden Blade Windburst build

Took a look at skills to trigger windburst and realised three key pieces of tech

1. Thunderburst scaled off exactly the same stuff (extra projectiles, projectile speed, increased duration)

2. There was a bow mastery that gives increased bow damage per projectile speed. And both bow and quiver could roll projectile speed.

3. There was a mastery that gave %inc dmg per enemy pierced (perfect for both skills, since they always pierce)

So that made it obvious - play bow, use thunderburst + windburst, stack extra projectiles, projectile speed, increased duration

Note - I did all of this on the assumption that it would be my 3.28 build. So I was discounting using the corrupted graft implicits.

Step 2 - Ascendancy

The obvious one by far was Deadeye. Extra projectiles was great. Far shot was great, since they will travel 70 units to hit max dps very quickly and then spend the rest of their life with max dmg multiplier. Sniper's Mark + Mark effect made more projectiles. Tailwind is just generally nice

Step 3 - Uniques

Fledgling seemed great, with (actual) Far Shot for 60% more. String of Servitude gave the highest %duration in the game, so that also seemed pretty obvious. FF Oath of Spring also felt pretty obvious because in theory the build would hit a million times and ramp up shock stacks very quickly.

Since I wanted projectile speed, I knew one option to get a lot was to use Supreme Ostentation and tattoo all the dex nodes into projectile speed nodes. Then I used Impossible Escape because I wanted to learn/put tech into practice

Lioneye's Fall I thought was some really neat tech, since it gave access to the dagger crit/crit multi nodes, as well as the generic cull on crit in the dagger mastery. Lots of DPS.

Legacy of Fury seemed like a decent source of DPS since it gave scorch.

Step 4 - Initial drafts

I went through a few different drafts, and because it seemed fun I refined them more than I normally would. It was also a little easier than normal because I had the video/PoB. If I had roughly the same average dmg, %inc duration and %proj speed, then I could be pretty certain it wouldn't be a complete dud.

1. First draft - Deadeye using Lioneye's Fall on the Dagger nodes. Main issue was that the life/max hits seems a little low, but otherwise seemed solid. 2m average hit, 16/28/25k max hit, capped suppress and decent ar/ev. Haven't yet figured out recovery - https://pobb.in/-HBWCDRtf7-O

2. Second draft - Seeing if Warden was any good - https://pobb.in/rEy9UWfqtlCO. In short, not better than Deadeye

3. Third draft - Back to Deadeye. Seeing if I could drop Purity of Elements and put in Anger by fitting in Stormshroud. Since there weren't any easy jewel sockets, testing to see if a Voices was worth it. No. https://pobb.in/z3NXnKPBcw7H

4. Fourth draft - Testing if using a rare jewel + spending points elsewhere was better than using Lioneye's Fall. Little bit tanker but significant drop in damage. https://pobb.in/qKNS-PHjWVtu

5. Fifth draft - More rejigging to see if I could get more tankiness without dropping too much damage. Not really. https://pobb.in/KY17CvPxgf1j

Step 5 - Final draft

I took a massive walk and had a think. So far it was looking like my very first draft was the best, but still had a few holes. Life looked low, I still needed to figure out how to get recovery and I was sure there was stuff I was missing. Spent way too much time looking at CoE for anything that had potential and spotted a bunch

• Biggest realisation - by stacking mark effect, I could get Sniper's Mark to scale from 3 splits to 6 splits. Used everything from chest implicit for 9% curse effect, glove implicit for 13% mark effect, Profane Ground for 10% mark effect etc.

• Bow - could roll %inc dmg per enemy pierced, as well as an extra projectile. Both of those would be pretty big dps multipliers

• Quiver - essence could make it roll 25% inc mark effect, which was half a split

• Boots - could also give %inc duration (as well as some stretch stats like onslaught/elusive)

• Amulet - Stranglegasp would let me anoint all the random %duration nodes that were too hard to reach before, as well as give even more mark effect and an extra curse

• Ring - influenced ring would give me LGOH, which would solve recovery. Veiled ring could also give endurance charge on kill, solving generation.

https://pobb.in/dU8wFELwznBd was the goal. It only had ~1.3m average dmg per hit, but had x4.89 proj speed, x4.125 duration, 11/7 base projectiles and 6 splits. Doing a bunch of math, it was like 60% more dmg, as well as solving miscellaneous problems like the low life pool and low recovery.

Step 6 - Playtesting

Played the build. Didn't quite get to finish it (too poor for a really good influenced bow or essenced quiver), but got far enough to know how it felt.

The notes that I had from my experience

• Through no fault of the build, it is just mega clunky. I figured out the optimal playstyle was to place a thunderstorm just ahead of me, walk into it, fire another one just ahead repeat. That gave the best DPS uptime but was not the zoomy build I wanted

• Because of the above, I took out pretty much all the sources of %inc ms. It just didn't do anything. Instead went with flasks to increase tankiness.

• I used Oath of Winter as a stepping stone until Oath of Spring. Oath of Winter + the massive LGOH made this build actually surprisingly tanky.

• Oath of Spring takes a long time to ramp. Maybe it would be better without Fledgling, and me intentionally placing Thunderstorms exactly on top of rares so that all the thunderbursts/windbursts get a hit in every explosion

• On the plus side, with time to set up, the build is really strong. Anything involving monsters coming at you in a small arena was pretty trivial, especially with Oath of Winter. Blight, Breach Defend/Hives, Ritual were all very easy. There's probably a way to make it good for ultimatum too.

• It also performs significantly better on maps like Toxic Sewers. Avoid maps like Dune.

Step 7 - Future Iterations

Biggest thing that would make me play this again is if Thunderstorm got a buff/transfigured gem which just made it less clunky to play. Ideally skip the Thunderstorm entirely and just create Thunderbursts. But even letting the Thunderstorm explode without you needing to move out of it again would be amazing. Alternatively, some way to direct the Thunderstorm would also make this great.

For the build itself, thoughts on the final iteration

• The build is surprisingly tanky, and the amount of LGOH made recovery pretty much instant as long as there were mobs around. The recovery without mobs around and damaging floor (e.g. burning/desecrated ground) kinda sucks though.

• Oath of Spring is not worth the investment. Just stick with Oath of Winter for perma freeze and stick with content like Blight.

• I think there is probably diminishing returns on mark effect. Stay at the 4-5 split breakpoint and don't invest anymore

• The average damage per hit is the priority focus for improvement in the future. Perhaps go back to the very first Lioneye's Fall iteration, swap Oath of Spring to Winter and add a LGOH ring into the mix would be a decent balance. Alternatively, could be solved by just throwing money at the problem. Is possible but just expensive (i.e. get the ideal gear).