[3.15] Ballista Tourista Build - Viable 14+ totem MoM Hierophant
 Intro : Updated 3.6 news :
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Well, I never ended up having time to finish the guide during 3.5, too many RL issues came up and hindered play time. I'm starting the adventure again for 3.6, as new possibilites for items are out with implicits, and tree was changed a little. Also some suggestions for multiple totems and bonechill were made. So I will take a look into all that, and update as soon as I can. I had a quite interesting thought and plan on trying it out ASAP : Investing into Spiritual Aid/Command and replacing starkonja with speaker's Wreath provides an absolutely massive damage and QoL increase (biggest pain in the ass is the initial set-up of the ballista, which is lessened by attack speed) while also lowering costs of getting the 4 links set-up. For those who enjoy this build and are still coming back to it : Thank you, and I'm glad this build serves someone else than me! My three ballista characters are BallistaTourista (3.2), TowahDefence (3.5) and DidSomeoneSayBallista (3.6) if you want to take a look. Updated 3.15 news :
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And I am once more back in 3.15 to give this another spin. I am fairly out of my league (Haha, get what I did there?) since the game has changed so much since, but I'm playing catch up and seem to have a fairly good version going for now. I'm going to try and flesh this one out a lot more, including more detailed levelling trees (It's really a tedious process if you don't have some currency to start off with. Hyrri's demise being the main initial pain point, as it's roughly half of the total DPS) The current version can easily be run for less than an exalt, and seems to be doing well so far, I'll need to update this as I get deeper into the atlas. I'm currently on red maps, going well so far barring a few mishaps where I didn't read mods and ended up playing like I was on a t1 in a t12 with some nasty mods. Bossing is going well, maps are as well. Only real problems I seem to run into are clearing doorways, and reading map mods. Atlas is at Awakened level 4, will update videos with Sirus level conquerors soon(ish) Current character is BallistaGoBRRRRRRR Have you ever felt the need to run along maps happily listening to the sound of currency falling while playing a tower defence? Well, wait no longer! I present to you the Ballista Tourista build. 12+ totems all outputting consequential damage and actually resulting in more resistance on your part due to the new hierophant ascendancies. Trees are being updated for 3.15 DISCLAIMER : It's fairly easy to hit 1400 dex without investing too much. Most of the guide will assume that that is what we are at. I have a PoB that asks for some fairly hefty investment (2 split personality and a cluster jewel) that can get to 2k+, which is 3 extra totems. I'm still in the process of updating the guide, but the PoB has some notes in it to help with levelling, and has all the necessary information to get going. Pro's & Con's : + Relatively safe to play + Good dps + 14+ Totems + Resistant with 6k Effective HP & Massive regen + Rapid totem summoning + Good Uber Lab Farmer (You need your enchant anyways) - Totem build (Some people don't like them) - Can be hard to gear up, costly early league, highly dependant on Hyrri's demise - Prone to one shots on higher end bosses - Elemental resistances are a pain to cap - Not a 10M dps build - All maps contain many totems Cleared Bosses (Videos) :  Defences : * 40% dodge / 30% spell dodge * 48% evade w/o blind (74 with) * 6k+ EHP (4k+ life, 2k+ mana) * 14%+ HP and 7%+ mana regen per second with Hierophant ascendancy alone Damage : * 14+ Totems pelting out destruction * 9 Totems placed per second * 254,000 * 14 = 3.5M dps on shaper/guardians without flasks * Did I say 14+ totems? Pastebin for the numbers, has notes and multiple trees for levelling Gear:
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Previously used Gear (Did up to mid/early high red maps with this) : Currently used Gear : For enchants, attack speed is the best for the extra QoL of the totems firing their first shot sooner. For boot enchants, either dodge or life regen seem like the best options to me Gear explanation :
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Iron Commander : Self explanatory, stack dex, build a wall of ballistas! Hyrri's Demise : Brings us closer to our required dex cap, and is the main source of dps of the build with all the flat added damage. Fractal thoughts : Increased dexterity, increased elemental damage per dexterity, and some life. Perfect for our needs. Garukhan's flight : This is essentially better Kaom's roots for us. Anywhere between 220 to 360 flat life. Which is a massive survivability boost. Hrimsorrow : Mainly the convert, because if i've learned one thing it's that if you don't have enough DPS, convert it an arbitrary number of times and you're in business. Wildwrap : 15% Increased Dexterity, that rings a bell. A consequential damage boost, with the amount of dex we reach endgame it ends up giving 70+% increased damage. And we move a bit faster which is always nice to clear and dodge. Astramentis : I think by this point the concept of stacking dex is understood, but since I must explain my choices : More dexterity. Cyclopean Coil : Immune to freeze and shock, dexterity, additional damage, and life. What else could you possibly need? (Resistances, I know, stop looking at me like that) Rings : Resistances, oh please resistances. At this point you're probably going to get steamrolled by anything with elemental damage if the rings don't stack some serious resistance. - Life - Dex - Elemental resistances (Priority on lightning/fire which are your lowest) - Elemental damage with attacks - Added flat cold damage Gloves (If rare) : Hunter influenced gloves with %inc dex and flat dex Flasks :
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Bubbling/Catalysed/Concentrated/Panicked are all technically viable. It really depends on your playstyle and how you feel comfortable. If you're not overly relying on manually dodging stuff, go the panicked route. At least anti-bleed, if possible anti-poison. I know I don't have them, do what I say, not what I do in this case :) Rotgut for an extra onslaught flask that can help us get ouf dodge quickly, and for general clearspeed. Quartz because I've learned the hard way that getting stuck by mobs is a surefire way to die. Added dodge chance also helps Silver for onslaught. Jewels :
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Free lesser multiple projectiles effectively giving us a 7link (6 and a half more like, but one does not look a gift horse in the mouth) Convert our strength to dex, self explanatory Same as above, but for Int For when the split personality is too expensive and once cluster is there. Also one of the cheaper options for corrupted blood implicit Flat life or mana, and more dex. Slot one near acrobatics, or two in the cluster jewel if you managed to get one. Gear Cost :
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A 6L IC is some 20 odd chaos Astramentis is cheap for a bad roll, divine it a bit, or buy a good one off the bat. Hyrri’s demise is 20c for a corrupted okayish one Cyclopean is another 10-15c Hrimsorrow is dirt cheap Wildwrap 5l set me back 20-30c IIRC Garukhans was another 15-20 for a decent roll Rings were a few chaos each Rain of splinters was another 10-15c Fluid Motions/careful planning I got for a few C each All in all, we’re talking about 1 ex for everything with decent to good rolls. That’s including a 6 link and a 5 link. Hard to do a lot more budget than that. It starts getting expensive past that point though. Upgrades are in the form of really good rings, split personalities, corruptions on bow/quiver, awakened gems, rare gloves & so on. Skill setup : TODO
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Main damage setup (6L) : Swap barrage for this when clearing Is a massive boost to damage Frenzy (5l) : Generates our frenzy charges and curses for more damage and knockback. Blind will give us more survivability, culling strike is culling strike. Inc crit for EO procs. As a last option, either chain/pierce or some other aoe type support, or a damage one. Movement skill & Curse (4l) : Ideally a faster attacks would be best option as 4th link here. Defensive CWDT (4l) : Holy relic is a good boost to survivability of our totems and us. Steelskin as an extra layer of EHP Golem for dps Offensive CWDT (4l) : Frostbomb is a free -15% cold res Creeping frost and bonechill gives us an occasional 10% damage taken on enemies [/spoiler] Pantheon :
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For major gods I view only one suitable option : Lunaris. One of your major problems as a totem build is mainly ranged attacks (unless you play like me and are somehow continuously running face forward into packs, in which case they’re still one of the bigger issues.), Lunaris allows us to have an extra layer of RNG defence (10% projectile avoidance), which turns out to be quite appreciated. It also adds some dodge when hit, and makes us immune to one of our other big problems : Getting slaughtered through a door for dropping totems in a room because you didn’t read the damn map mods and didn’t see the +2 chain. Also, a paltry amount of physical reduction, and, icing on the cake, a lil’ bit of movespeed for clearing. Which, I think we can all agree, is what we all want to a certain extent. As for minor gods, a few options are present : Ralakesh -> Some extra defence against bleed, blind immunity, and maim immunity, I don’t like walking slow. I don’t like bleed. This tends to be my personal choice. Shakari -> Your chaos res is -60%. If you can even smell chaos on a map/boss, or poison, this is a fair go-to. Ryslatha -> If you feel you need more flask sustain, go for it. Typically this is a good choice for non bleed non poison bosses that tend to last a while (Looking at you Shapey and friends. And tentacle overlords.) Levelling & Tree : (Outdated) PoB has some notes, and levelling trees
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Glad for feedback on this, personally levelled molten strike until lvl 40-50 due to loot. 78 points in tree Level 70 tree Level 80 tree Kill all bandits Ascendancy order : Pursuit of Faith -> Ritual of Awakening -> Conviction of Power -> Divine Guidance Path of Building lvl 91 With uniques ready/Some luck:
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As far as when you can actually play ballista, I personally did a swap once I had my second ascendancy, and the non-expensive uniques ready (Hyrri's bite, Iron Commander, Wildwrap) and it absolutely shredded through all the bosses past that point (deathless all levelling bosses, most dead in a matter of seconds, if not it's because of phases). Have gotten feedback, playing with IC+Ballistas is viable as early as 42 with hrimsorrow. Once you have iron commander and 4-5 totems, all you're doing is optimizing. I started mapping with all uniques listed in the build, but a 4l and uncapped resistances. Steamrolled through yellow maps, then got extremely lucky and 6l'd my bow, and recently vaal'd my hyrri for a +1 arrow for shits & giggles. It's dirt cheap to start off with (If you're not going for max dex on each item, the most expensive ones together are worth 60c total at this point), and optimizing it helps, but isn't a massive upgrade (110 or 116 astramentis isn't going to change much for example) Starter/Low Luck:
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Had a different experience during 3.6, sped through all the content, around 6-9 levels behind areas for most of the time and died way too often due to no gear/stats. My gear was utter garbage (had gray iron rings and magic amulet in a10) and the struggle was painful. In a situation like this, I'd recommend not pushing ballistas too early, and going for Toxic Rain/Arc/Bane/Molten Strike levelling paths depending on uniques/gear you've looted. Grind and catch up in Aqueduct (act4) - Tidal Island (act 6) - Concourses (act 8) - blood aqueduct (act 9) when/if you need to. As soon as uniques (Astramentis not included) can be acquired, you're good to go roll on everything up to yellow/red maps and grind more serious currency. Playstyle :
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Mapping : drop totem, walk around 1/2 - 1 screen away, drop totem.... Sustain your frenzy charges,  Credits : A huge thanks to Svarions23, who helped me to obtain many items during 3.5 and without who, I probably never would have decently updated the guide during Betrayal league. Cheers to c9q9md for his 2.4 10 totem meme ballista build which, coupled with a state of hilarity, and the release of 3.2 hierophant, lead to the thought process behind the build. Many thanks to Epi_Hermyn for the optimisation of the build and maturing it to a more dps viable candidate. (3.2) A pat on the back for Vixenize, who gave the cyclopean idea! Finally, thanks to eviL_Bison for providing guides on how to format a guide and make it more readable! Last edited by Roshgar on Sep 26, 2021, 8:21:08 AM Last bumped on Jul 14, 2019, 3:56:02 AM
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I'm playing a similar build... Might want to pick up The Nomad unique belt.
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Will test that out and see once I get the last few life nodes in my tree.
Going to update the build soon with red Elder/Guardians videos, or die, or both. Just need to get the last bit of 90. | |
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Hello I was wondering if you could post the minimum requirements to get this build up and running? (Actually using the Ballista Totems as a main skill). I'm very much interested in becoming a fellow tourist, but I'd like to know how much investment I'm gonna need.
Thanks for putting together such a fun playstyle! Last edited by Wreckson on Mar 14, 2018, 9:58:17 PM
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Super cool build!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Glad you are making it work and looks so fun to play!!!! Did you ever think to add the abyss jewels that taunt on hit with attacks. I think a taunting siege ballista would be a huge defensive boost especially with bosses. Also what about fending for the knockback (maybe not that useful just wondering)!!!! thanks for the build!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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The stun enchant isn't helping you much. You're not killing things, your totems are killing things.
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" The Cyclopean Coil is a whole lot cheaper and actually adds more DPS overall The tree looks great but the lack of life is a problem interested in seeing how this build evolves :) | |
" Fair point, but look at my helmet. Still do not have a ballista one so all my enchants are going down that path. " Added some more info about that in the levelling section, if you feel more info would be better, PM me and i'll add it. " As far as knockback, the knockback from projectile weakness is almost too much. Point blank in our tree makes sending them further not necessarily the best thing, but it's always nice to just trap a boss in a corner and watch him melt. Probably a question of preference and gameplay. As for the abyss jewel, i'll be honest, didn't play abyss league, no idea what happened during that whole period of time, quite possibly interesting, but the tree isn't exactly close to another free jewel IIRC " EDIT : Plan on adding this belt as soon as I can balance out the resistances, DPS and life gain is quite pleasant. To be fair, we are at 5k5 life due to the 40% MoM. If i sit there like an idiot, yes, I will get shredded. But then again it's not a facetank build. I'll be able to answer this one in more detail once I start trying the Red Elder Guardians and Elder. Last edited by Roshgar on Mar 17, 2018, 10:01:09 AM
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Wow, this is amazingly fun! I've been firing mah ballistae since level 42, after I picked up a Fluid Motion jewel and Hrimsorrow gloves. Destroyed Innocence/Izaro like a hot knife through butter and I imagine Kitava will be the same. I also got lucky with a Tabula Rasa though, so my dps is a few hundred higher than it should be.
Is there some uncommon reason to level Blink Arrow or Frenzy? I don't do any damage myself and the skills don't seem to gain anything other than damage and a higher mana cost from leveling up. Last edited by Wreckson on Mar 16, 2018, 4:43:59 AM
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" Not Really, you gain a bit of life on the blink arrow minion, that's it. I just like levelling my gems for no real reason other than having them all 20. Glad you like the build though! |
