The way I have been playing bleed with crossbows is pretty viable right now. I use a 2 tree setup, one with bleed nodes for High velocity rounds and the other for grenades to power up Gas grenade. Gas grenade shreds armour through corrosion instantly and then you consume the broken armour with your bleed applier. The good thing is your main dmg scaler is through generic ailment like faster ailments on tree. It scales both the poison and bleed with the same stats and ends up doing really good dmg.
I've been playing Fragmentation Rounds since league start and have been enjoying it. Some corrections and additions: - FragRounds Explosion from hitting Frozen targets DOES scale from Area Damage and AoE on the Tree despite the gem not having the tag - About Witchbane it is crucial to mention that it only builds up from Hit damage so it doesn't work with damage over time builds. It is also kinda bad in party play because only your own damage contributes to Concentration break. However, if you do play hit based and solo then it can trivialize some fights like Jamanra. Source: I specced the concentration break node first in A2 and was wondering why everyone thought Jamanra was so hard to beat when I was dodging half as much while having half as many fire portals on field. - Sorcery Ward has a bug/feature where its cooldown recovery is interrupted if your evasion/armor changes so avoiding conditional modifiers like Armor on Low Life, Evasion if rolled Recently could be good idea with exception of Escape Strategy and Careful Consideration which cancel conditional parts of each other out. I was playing xbow/bow swap for long time but had to change to xbow/xbow for now because bows require too much dex for me atm. Your quarterstaff approach looks quite fun as well and from attribute pov it works bit better since quarterstaves are hybrid weapon.
Imagine the possibilities we will have when we get all 12 weapon types and associated skill sets. And then 24 more ascendancies. We are still in version 0.1.0f of the beta test. Future of PoE looks good imo.
You can run 2 crossbow skills and 2 crossbows. bind one to weapon swap 1 and the other to weapon swap 2. Then you can place both "crossbow bolts" on your bar. It will then act like a 2 button build without having to ever swap ammunition. Its also beneficial to do it like this because you can have a crossbow that works better with freezing etc. Edit: i just went a bit futher and you explained the 2 crossbow thing. I was running galvantic shot and shockburst rounds on the double croddbow setup and it was miles better. However if the freeze skills are not that good for crossbows, its probably doesnt matter then.
I did a similar thing to this for the first few acts. I used a quarterstaff with the skill Frozen Locus, the backflip that creates an ice crystal that does not scale with the quarterstaff damage (so I could use a trashy one). Fragmentation Rounds has a special condition that it always instantly explodes ice crystals. so I simply ran to a mob pack, used frozen locus, then shot the crystal to explode it and freeze everything, then shot again to get the payoff from the freeze. I figured I would replace it with Glacial Bolt later, but the bolt swapping issue you mentioned discouraged me too much. I have not tried using two crossbows yet
I was actually thinking of testing a similar build to this. But using Voltaic Grenade with Call of the Brotherhood to freeze instead. And I totally agree. Using two Ammo skills is a terrible experience. You would still need two different Crossbows though, but very doable in SSF. I've dropped two Call of the Brotherhood, so it does not seem so difficult in SSF either.
Witchhunter Weapon Master rabbit hole goes far, currently formulating an idea for Shield Wall + Incendiary Shot + Gas Grenade but the defenses might fall apart
So sad to hear that you think bleed is never the play. I was about to theory craft some stuff... but my fear, after looking into it briefly, is that it's just not scalable.
Bleed is more scalable than people think, you can scale it decently via bonestorm and infrequent, but hard hitting crits. It basically ends up being a way to further scale your big crits.
I have roughly the same build but it's boneshatter instead of wave of frost on gemling. The reason I like it is that you can customize your stun build up with frag rounds to keep forward momentum so you don't have that back step with wave. I do also have sunder and armour piercing for bosses and shield wall for a nice defensive measure with regen and rage in it to prepare for what's sprinting at me at mach 5. I also have cold infusion on the regular grenade and the freeze build up is quite good. Leapslam is also in there for an alternative way to build up stun. It feels really well rounded in the way I can approach any situation. Still only level 80 though so there's plenty of room for improvement.
Nice! I was just looking for a build for this. I tried freezing salvo instead of staff skill but didn’t get far yet. Freezing salvo does give more damage at least. It is also a shame that grenades don’t seem to great end game. Just saw your grenade build. Since you seem pretty good at theory crafting, any thoughts on Plasma Blast? From my perspective, PF plasma blast is nice because when it hits mobs, the poison mag is high and spreads, making mob clear not too bad. However, I fear about getting rushed in maps so I can barely fit in despair with temporal chain. The only other way I can see this build is deadeye and maybe get crit? Get power charges somehow for potential (30% more crit). Thoughts?
Are you sure that you get the 1145% against frozen targets for all bolts in the clip? I'm pretty sure it's only 1145% for 1 bolt which consumes the freeze and the other 9 bolts are normal damage?
Playing crossbows with a lot of ammo feels 10x better with a controller. Dunno what it is exactly but it just feels more intuitive to shoot with R1 and reload with any other button
Enemies chilled while Polcirkeln is equipped are not treated as frozen, but rather can be shattered when killed as though they are frozen. Herald of Ice cares about shattering, but Fragmentation Rounds specifically interacts with the Frozen ailment.
Fragmentation Rounds have the literal text "Cannot Freeze". So no. Add flat Cold Damage to it and it can apply chill though, Polcirkeln will work with that.
I've been meaning to test the ring but I doubt it would work since you arent actually freezing/consuming freeze. And in poe db fragmentation rounds have a line that says cannot freeze, however in game I don't think it does, so maybe if you can stack enough flat cold it might be possible? Needs testing.
@@ThatsRealNeato Frag Rounds has a Payoff tag, which says that it can't trigger the thing that it's using to do the payoff stuff. So Frag Rounds can't freeze since it consumes freeze, HoI can't freeze to trigger its shatters, HoT can't shock to continually trigger itself, etc.
This game is fking insane with how many combos you can do and there are so many classes and gems to come. It's actually scary. Like how are you supposed to have a social life with a game this good out lol.
About leech and mana: what i would really love is to remove goddamn mana costs. Leave it for utility and mana-themed skills only. Or make ULTIMATE skills that are powerfull, long cd and requires mana. Is there any person in the world who actually likes to manage mana issues? I understand the concept of limited resources, but honestly mana feels so old. It's been in gaming industry since birth and never felt good to deal with.
@@cichybob763 well you have to manage life problems then.. There are plenty of interesting things to think about when building your character, but managing consumable resources is definitely not the one for me.
The way I have been playing bleed with crossbows is pretty viable right now. I use a 2 tree setup, one with bleed nodes for High velocity rounds and the other for grenades to power up Gas grenade. Gas grenade shreds armour through corrosion instantly and then you consume the broken armour with your bleed applier. The good thing is your main dmg scaler is through generic ailment like faster ailments on tree. It scales both the poison and bleed with the same stats and ends up doing really good dmg.
That sounds interesting. Could you link your tree?
I've been playing Fragmentation Rounds since league start and have been enjoying it.
Some corrections and additions:
- FragRounds Explosion from hitting Frozen targets DOES scale from Area Damage and AoE on the Tree despite the gem not having the tag
- About Witchbane it is crucial to mention that it only builds up from Hit damage so it doesn't work with damage over time builds. It is also kinda bad in party play because only your own damage contributes to Concentration break. However, if you do play hit based and solo then it can trivialize some fights like Jamanra. Source: I specced the concentration break node first in A2 and was wondering why everyone thought Jamanra was so hard to beat when I was dodging half as much while having half as many fire portals on field.
- Sorcery Ward has a bug/feature where its cooldown recovery is interrupted if your evasion/armor changes so avoiding conditional modifiers like Armor on Low Life, Evasion if rolled Recently could be good idea with exception of Escape Strategy and Careful Consideration which cancel conditional parts of each other out.
I was playing xbow/bow swap for long time but had to change to xbow/xbow for now because bows require too much dex for me atm. Your quarterstaff approach looks quite fun as well and from attribute pov it works bit better since quarterstaves are hybrid weapon.
Imagine the possibilities we will have when we get all 12 weapon types and associated skill sets. And then 24 more ascendancies.
We are still in version 0.1.0f of the beta test. Future of PoE looks good imo.
poe 2 devs actually did make poe 1 believe it or not
You can run 2 crossbow skills and 2 crossbows. bind one to weapon swap 1 and the other to weapon swap 2. Then you can place both "crossbow bolts" on your bar. It will then act like a 2 button build without having to ever swap ammunition. Its also beneficial to do it like this because you can have a crossbow that works better with freezing etc.
Edit: i just went a bit futher and you explained the 2 crossbow thing. I was running galvantic shot and shockburst rounds on the double croddbow setup and it was miles better. However if the freeze skills are not that good for crossbows, its probably doesnt matter then.
yep I was gonna say the same then he said it lol
I did a similar thing to this for the first few acts. I used a quarterstaff with the skill Frozen Locus, the backflip that creates an ice crystal that does not scale with the quarterstaff damage (so I could use a trashy one). Fragmentation Rounds has a special condition that it always instantly explodes ice crystals. so I simply ran to a mob pack, used frozen locus, then shot the crystal to explode it and freeze everything, then shot again to get the payoff from the freeze. I figured I would replace it with Glacial Bolt later, but the bolt swapping issue you mentioned discouraged me too much. I have not tried using two crossbows yet
I was actually thinking of testing a similar build to this. But using Voltaic Grenade with Call of the Brotherhood to freeze instead. And I totally agree. Using two Ammo skills is a terrible experience.
You would still need two different Crossbows though, but very doable in SSF. I've dropped two Call of the Brotherhood, so it does not seem so difficult in SSF either.
Witchhunter Weapon Master rabbit hole goes far, currently formulating an idea for Shield Wall + Incendiary Shot + Gas Grenade but the defenses might fall apart
So sad to hear that you think bleed is never the play. I was about to theory craft some stuff... but my fear, after looking into it briefly, is that it's just not scalable.
Bone storm weapon swap with widowhail and snipe destroyed the endgame bosses for me on a budget.
@@minhocho5487 Got a build link?
Bleed is more scalable than people think, you can scale it decently via bonestorm and infrequent, but hard hitting crits.
It basically ends up being a way to further scale your big crits.
I have roughly the same build but it's boneshatter instead of wave of frost on gemling. The reason I like it is that you can customize your stun build up with frag rounds to keep forward momentum so you don't have that back step with wave. I do also have sunder and armour piercing for bosses and shield wall for a nice defensive measure with regen and rage in it to prepare for what's sprinting at me at mach 5. I also have cold infusion on the regular grenade and the freeze build up is quite good. Leapslam is also in there for an alternative way to build up stun. It feels really well rounded in the way I can approach any situation. Still only level 80 though so there's plenty of room for improvement.
Also I'm using the Fire to Cold gloves to max out freeze with the grenades and make herald of ice pop sometimes
Nice! I was just looking for a build for this. I tried freezing salvo instead of staff skill but didn’t get far yet. Freezing salvo does give more damage at least.
It is also a shame that grenades don’t seem to great end game. Just saw your grenade build.
Since you seem pretty good at theory crafting, any thoughts on Plasma Blast?
From my perspective, PF plasma blast is nice because when it hits mobs, the poison mag is high and spreads, making mob clear not too bad. However, I fear about getting rushed in maps so I can barely fit in despair with temporal chain.
The only other way I can see this build is deadeye and maybe get crit? Get power charges somehow for potential (30% more crit).
Thoughts?
Are you sure that you get the 1145% against frozen targets for all bolts in the clip? I'm pretty sure it's only 1145% for 1 bolt which consumes the freeze and the other 9 bolts are normal damage?
That's correct, 1145% damage once. Not sure if the other bolts even apply damage after consuming freeze (kinda feels like they don't).
Does this work with the ring that can chatter chilled enemies? I'm not thinking SSF.
Playing crossbows with a lot of ammo feels 10x better with a controller. Dunno what it is exactly but it just feels more intuitive to shoot with R1 and reload with any other button
Does the ice ring porkcinblablah work with fragmentation shot to make things count as frozen or consume a freeze does not work with it?
Enemies chilled while Polcirkeln is equipped are not treated as frozen, but rather can be shattered when killed as though they are frozen. Herald of Ice cares about shattering, but Fragmentation Rounds specifically interacts with the Frozen ailment.
Think it's possible to freeze with the fragmentation rounds themselves?
Also wonder if Polcirkeln ring works with fragmentation rounds?
Fragmentation Rounds have the literal text "Cannot Freeze". So no.
Add flat Cold Damage to it and it can apply chill though, Polcirkeln will work with that.
I've been meaning to test the ring but I doubt it would work since you arent actually freezing/consuming freeze. And in poe db fragmentation rounds have a line that says cannot freeze, however in game I don't think it does, so maybe if you can stack enough flat cold it might be possible? Needs testing.
@@ThatsRealNeato Frag Rounds has a Payoff tag, which says that it can't trigger the thing that it's using to do the payoff stuff. So Frag Rounds can't freeze since it consumes freeze, HoI can't freeze to trigger its shatters, HoT can't shock to continually trigger itself, etc.
This game is fking insane with how many combos you can do and there are so many classes and gems to come.
It's actually scary. Like how are you supposed to have a social life with a game this good out lol.
Because leech is broken and easily solves all recovery problems of ALL resource types
So leech has to be restricted
About leech and mana: what i would really love is to remove goddamn mana costs. Leave it for utility and mana-themed skills only. Or make ULTIMATE skills that are powerfull, long cd and requires mana. Is there any person in the world who actually likes to manage mana issues? I understand the concept of limited resources, but honestly mana feels so old. It's been in gaming industry since birth and never felt good to deal with.
It feels good when u solve this problem. Use blood magic if u dont want to manage mana.
thats true lhaha never thought how weird it is that that shooting a crossbow or hitting something with your stick consumes mana lmao
@@cichybob763 well you have to manage life problems then.. There are plenty of interesting things to think about when building your character, but managing consumable resources is definitely not the one for me.