Physical Split Arrow Questions

When running a full physical damage, crit, split arrow archer, with Faster attacks, power charge on critical, and pierce gems... and only a 5l on my chest... with no other elemental bonuses...

would using added fire, or Physical Projectile Attack Damage support gem be more damage? I dont currently own a Physical Projectile Attack Damage gem so I havent been able to try it out.

Thanks for the responses ahead of time.

"

Zachywak wrote:

When running a full physical damage, crit, split arrow archer, with Faster attacks, power charge on critical, and pierce gems... and only a 5l on my chest... with no other elemental bonuses...

would using added fire, or Physical Projectile Attack Damage support gem be more damage? I dont currently own a Physical Projectile Attack Damage gem so I havent been able to try it out.

Thanks for the responses ahead of time.

Physical Projectile Damage will do more.

Projectile damage is awesome. A few things to consider though.

Power charge on critical is much better with chain, compared to pierce since you get more hits, and thus more crits. At least in most cases.

If we asume your links were Split Arrow, Chain (or pierce for that matter), faster attack, Increased critical multiplier, power charge on critical and either added fire damage OR physical projectile damage it worth taking into account that added fire damage is a red gem slot, which in many cases is a nice bonus, since you can swap it out with life leech or weapon elemental damage (in this case you use lightning arrow + lmp).

The reason for the swapping is versatility. You will find yourself switching gems, depending on the map you are going into. You should not reroll physical reflect maps. You should switch to lightning arrow or clear them. If you do not have this versatility you find yourself running out of chaos orbs pretty fast, once you get to higher level maps.

The alternativ is to have 2 x 6L armors with a different gem setup xD...

Sorry for the late reply to your answers.

Alot of information here and I am going to test it out tomorrow morning. Been so fun lately since I've been getting into this game more... but it's time to switch out my gems and start theory crafting. I hit level 76 on my Physical Split arrow Scion today.

I feel like I can be pushing some more DPS than I am now, and I have some currency now so I should be able to find some upgrades... it's just alot to take on browsing the forums and trying to find something good. Even when using poe.xyz.is. So overwhelming, but so informative at the same time. Everytime I try and look for gear, I find myself more confused... but also feel like I've learned more.

haha

Thanks again guys

The other thing to consider with Physical Projectile damage versus added fire is that you get life or mana leech from gear from it. This is especially important with Chain. Chain is superior assuming you can handle the much higher mana output. I leveled to my low 80s with Pierce before I switched to Chain.

SA > Chain > Faster Attacks > Proj Damage > LgOH
SA > Pierce > Faster Attacks > Proj Damage > Added Fire (or life leech)

That is how I would run those. PCOC or Increased Critical Damage probably would't be added until the 6th link. Keep in mind also that the Pierce node on the tree plus use of Projectile Weakness Curse frees up the Pierce Gem slot as well.

Few more questions now.

Chain vs Pierce...

With chain, it allows each arrow to chain once to another mob, but with pierce, I have 92% chance to pierce through ALL enemies...

With knowing that, wouldn't pierce be more effective due to the fact that I have the potential to hit MORE enemies? Allowing more Crits, life leech and Mana leech?

I may be missing something but to my knowledge right now pierce seems like the better option.

I have played extensively with both Pierce and Chain on Split Arrow. Chain is far more powerful. With Chain, you just shoot in the general directions and things die. Each "Chain" is like a heat seeking missile. It can go around corners, you can shoot a mob in front of you and hit one behind you. In addition, when shooting into packs mobs get hit multiples times as the chains bounce off each other.

Pierce - each mob only gets hit max once, and only when lined up the right way. You end up shooting more often to clear stuff, repositioning to line them back up etc.

The downside to Chain is it's mana cost. But if you can handle it, it's much better when used on Split Arrow than pierce is. But if you can't handle the mana, Pierce certainly isn't a bad skill at all as a Plan B.

I keep a pierce on me for half regen maps.

Thanks for the info, I will test it out today!

Also, If I am specced into the passive %35 pierce on the skill tree, and I end up liking chain more, would the 35% pierce be a waste? since chain is a targeted ability that goes directly to a mob after it procs from split arrow... like, after it chains it doesnt get bonus from pierce right?


sorry for all the questions

The game checks for Pierce first. It will be hard to even test chain with that node taken - since 35% of the time your arrow will pierce and not chain. It might be ok, just realize when it goes through it would have chained instead. You'll be testing chain with 35% less chaining - and it's still probably better than pierce.

Edit: lol I am watching your stream - you can keep the rest of that circle it's good damage, only needed to drop the 1 pierce node.

Here's my 91 crit split arrow spec.

Build

Next level is a power charge.

Oh shit, yeah thanks dude, I will keep testing it out with pierce or not.


looking at your build now