[0.4] Fire archer | Pathfinder

Hi everyone.

After a bit more than a month of struggling, farming, testing, theorycrafting and so on, I am finally came up with working results I am not ashamed to share with.

A little disclaimer at first

I’ve made this build cause of my love for the bows as a weapon archetype and fire as a damage archetype. And in every game I am always try to put them both together if it possible. I am well aware that if I want to “shoot fire” there is an entire crossbow archetype that was developed for exactly this purposes. I know that. But still, I would prefer a bow. And I share this to anyone who will do it as well.

TL;DR
Both links on youtube and poeninja are right below.

Youtube link: https://youtu.be/A7epH5g9jBQ?si=GRRnxiiI46MC0dVj
Poeninja page link: https://poe.ninja/poe2/builds/vaal/character/ZCr-5613/Fireworks_manufacture?i=0&search=class%3DPathfinder%26keypassives%3DAvatar%2Bof%2BFire

This build is not to compete the map clearing builds, or boss deleting builds. But it still work and you can close every content in the game. At least all T1-T2 pinnacle content you can handle with it.

Now, I would like to breakdown some staff I used. There are a lot of text approaching so brace yourself.

It all begins with fire...
…the Avatar of Fire. This keystone is mandatory to this build for several reasons.
First of it – we bring everything to a single damage type – fire. Now we don’t need to worry about how armored mobs are, or keep in mind which resistances they has. It’s all equal now. The only trouble is bypassing the fire res which is significantly easier and will be covered below.
The second reason – this keystone drastically boosts our result damage including flammability magnitude for much easier applying ignition. This is important for us, but again, it will be covered later.

Avatar of Fire give us a great power, and how it’s been said - “With great power comes...more greater restrictions”...yeah. Now we can’t apply..*deeply inhales*...pin, chill, freeze, shock...poison, bleed, armor break, chaos DoTs, electrocute, life leaching...literally anything that aren’t related to fire.
We need none of this anymore, anyway. But about it later.

Now, about skills we will be using. With the main skill…
...default Bow Shot...yeah. Since the very beginning (since 12.06.24) bows has a single pure fire skill which was made as a manual detonator for the toxic cloud (which is completely ridiculous and personally pisses me off ‘cause no one ever using toxic cloud this way). So there is no much left choices but to put physical skills to use.

More closer now.
– Bow Shot – main skill we will be using constantly. And we’ll use primarily to set everything on fire with Ignite III support gem, which drastically boosts flammability magnitude of each hits. For spreading ignite deeper into enemy lines we use the Fork gem. Numerous tests shown that it is the most solid choice. The biggest advantage of default bow shot – you don’t need to worry about “mana issue”...you simply don’t spend one.

Cause you can’t build a “build” with a single skill we would need to mobilize more of them.
– Rain of Arrows – this one is our heavy artillery...(heh...artillery...with a bow, heh).
Due to how this skill works it is bad for applying ignite. But, this doesn't mean that it can’t be good at dealing fire damage in general.
With the Immolate support gem we add an extra 30% damage as fire to any already ignited foes. Given that Immolate prevent supported skill to apply ignite we can freely add the Elemental focus support gem as well to get additional +25 more elemental damage. And to solidify success we put the Concentration Area gem to get even more +30 more area damage.

At this point we made first and main combo: rapidly apply ignition on foes with bow shot and then rain them with...well, yeah...rain of arrows.

The last but not least in this list is the…
... – Detonating Arrow – usually, this is a garbage skill no one care about, but not today.
Today this is an annoying rares killing skill. By it’s own mechanic Detonation Arrow must be channeled to it’s max stage for deal maximum damage. With each stage it will gain extra %120 fire damage. For total 600% non-shred by Avatar of Fire extra damage and tricks we used on Rain of Arrows it delete any rares with guaranty. For bosses it doesn’t has enough...fire power...but can heavily damaging them for sure.

So that’s it. Our three damaging skills.
But not all of the skills.

– Barrage – will add two additional projectile to the next attack. Even if damage of these additions will be cut in half – it is still +2 additional projectiles.
– Oil grenade – extremely simple to use and good for lowering fps elemental resistances even lower.
– Temporal Chains – abysses rares was never feeling themselves more vulnerable. Plus we use it for some weird stuff, about it later.


As for the buffs.
– Eternal Rage and Trinity – two prime sources of damage boost. Without them this build probably would never be.
– Herald of Ash – helps to spread fire and clear faster. Despite all cons, tests shown that it is better with it, rather without.
– War Banner – the first argument in every boss fights...you've came here to not joking around. The final argument in every nasty situation with rares.

What about gear?...
...nothing fancy

Cause I am a poor guy...all gear are corresponding. Here I can at max share some knowledge of mine based on my experience.

Bow/rings – main source of damage.
For bow it will be good to start with 450-500 total dps. For the less damage falloff during conversion I would recommend to seek a flat fire damage modifier. T3 minimum. Bow skills – +3 minimum (from essence). Attack speed – is mandatory. Some of you, who plays with bows, might disagree here, but this is my build and for me speed is everything.
For rings – Breach ring. +Flat fire, +increased fire, +fire resistance. And +chaos res, at least +15%. If you are lucky (as I am, honestly) or too rich, you may also looking for an attribute (dex or str), cause attribute requirements will be huge. To succeed you need just one of such rings, then you mirrored it with Kalandra's Touch.

Quiver – with this one there is one controversial. During numerous tests where always was two choices. You can pick a regular rare quiver. Or. Or, you can pick the Cadiro's Gambit, unique quiver. The difference is, from on hand you will have significantly more damage from hit in general, from the other hand – much deeper projectile penetration through hoard of mobs. First one helps beating bosses faster, second one – helps with breaches and delirium.

Uniques

Leopold's Applause – I can’t afford myself the Rakiata’s Flow. So I found another way to bypass resistance. This gloves allows to penetrate damage to -50%. Simply it means that any mobs without fire res will be treated as having up to 50% weakness to fire. Obviously, the more resistance a mob has – the less our damage will be. So it only needs to stack at least 75-80% penetration. Which is not a big deal.

Alpha’s Howl – spirit. It’s all for more spirit. More spirit - more high cost buff like Trinity, or Eternal Rage.

Jewels – +10% fire penetration, and it is not discussed. Or where no be much profit from the Leopold’s gloves.
You may seek also for +flammability magnitude and any +damage (attack/fire/elemental – this all the same modifier)

Additionally, I’ve put to use two unique jewels
From Nothing (Vaal Pact) – as I has already mentioned – speed is everything. Momentum + Light on your Feet notable passives.
Megalomaniac (Deterioration) – considering how absurdly expensive this stuff is I wouldn’t recommended it. But. But, the notable passive it’s gives has it own use which is good to have. About it later.

The rest of the gear – defence.
As much as you can afford. I personally choose ES because objectively it is the best way to scale tankiness.

Some smaller tricks and mechanics that is using.

I’ve already cover skill combo with additional damage to ignited enemies and resistance bypassing with unique gloves. There are some few more things in there.

Traveller’s Wisdom – the new Pathfinder ascendancy passive. This passive grants us an additional choice in Attribute passives. One of this - +5% increased defences. Because we run with helmet which doesn’t have ES we lose around 35% of ES in total. This is bad. So, in order to balance staff we are using these new notes.

Self ignition – by far, this is my personal favorite one. With Self Immolation notable passive each time we set someone on fire we will also be ignited as well. Why? For more increased damage. +50% increased fire damage as long as we are ignited. Additionally – +2% to max fire res, not a big deal, but it came in one pack so good to have.
Plus! Plus, we are remotely allocate Deterioration notable via Megalomaniac gem. This notable gives us a quite interesting buff – we can’t be afflicted by any damaging ailments if we already have one. SO...technically…technically...as long as we are ignite ourselves...we have an immunity to bleeding and poison.

Self cursing...or sort of – another weird way to seek power. With the help of the Atziri’s Allure lineage support each time we curse enemies with the Temporal Chains it will be reflected on us as well. Why? Well, in two words: Pathfinder is immune to the slow debuff, and what is left is the 25% slower expiring of all effects on us. Which includes ignite, and all the buff you would have. For me, particularly, the Onslaught buff from the bow.
Plus, possibly it’s not accurate, it slows the energy downfall from Trinity and Banner of War. (but again, it’s not accurate)…
...Might be...if Atziri’s Allure wasn’t bugged. Currently this gem is broken and reflects nothing. I am sure someday this will be fixed and all would be good.

Now
Pros

1. This build is working - against all the odds. I’ve expected significantly worse results back then when I started. But I did it anyway. And the result exceeds all my expectations.
2. Cost – this build is...relatively cheap (excluding the Megalomaniac gem, it is not mandatory anyway). The result cost is around 13-15 divs, with the bow being the most expensive item (4 div). Ring (this was pure luck) and amulet both cost 2 divs, including augmentations. The rest of items cost rather 1 div, or less.
3. Versatility – you not need a Pathfinder to make it work. I put this build on six other ascendancies. The results was pretty much the same. Somewhere was bigger damage, somewhere – defence, some ascendancy be in the middle. And literally everyone has something from their own unique to add to this build.

I don’t know what else can be added here to make the list not so miserable, so let it be…
...4. Balance – you definitely can beat all of the content in the game with this one.

It would be a craftiness if I say nothing about cons, so...
...Cons

1. Fire damage wasn’t developed for bows – I must admit it. All the effort just to put together two things that are never intended to be together. Some twisted Frankenstein’s build.

Because of this...
...2. Lack of fire related skills – where is Fire Mark, William? You can manage to one-shot rares with the Bow Shot, but you can’t manage it deal with a hoard of mobs. Using an existing bow skills is not an option either. These skills do not intended to deal fire damage. They are just won’t work anymore. It’s all be just the same skill but with a different VFX. Plus, you’ll have the “mana issue” problem.
3. Fire is relatively harder to spread – the way of how Herald of Ash works forced me to seek another sources of AoE. The Ash herald triggers only from overkill, and ignition it applies on mobs do not overkilling at all. So, you can’t do these beautiful clearing chains as you would with the Herald of Plague.
4. Hoards of mobs – the Achilles' heel of the entire build. You’ll always had to position yourself so the mobs always be in straight line posible. You will succeed as long as you have at least one side there you can retreat.

A few final words from me.

I am glad I did it. At least one gestalt has been closed.
I know that with each next league there will be only improvements.
I suspect that Tactician...could perform better. But I leave this one for next league.

And for today...that’s it. Thanks for your attention.