Fire a cluster arrow that explodes for 650% weapon damage as Fire into a series of 4 additional grenades that each explode for 250% weapon damage as Fire.
Maelstrom
Instead of releasing grenades, release up to 3 rockets at nearby enemies that each deal 450% weapon damage as Cold. You gain 2% Life per enemy hit.
Damage you deal is increased by 4% for every 10 yards between you and the enemy hit. Maximum 20% increase at 50 yards.
Stats are debatable, but I would like to share with you my key points in why am I choosing these stats.
First of all, this build is based in 2 things. DPH, resource cost reduction and sustained damage over time.
Lets get to the basics.
DPH (Damage per hit)
The reason why you want to use a crossbow is because of its average damage per hit. Using this sort of weapon will deliver much more damage once you have depleted your hatred rather than a standard bow or 1-hand crossbow. The etrayu is the sole exception as the 20% cold damage compensates for this. Keep in mind that if you achieve 60% cold damage, the additional 20% turns out as 12.5% effective damage.
Attack speed will only help you regenerate hatred faster, but it does not translate into more damage necessarily. If we want to get technical, your APS in combination with your hatred regeneration and RCR will determine how many times will you need to use evasive before firing your cluster again.
Resource Cost Reduction
RCR is key, as it grants you the ability to shoot more cluster arrows before running low on resource AND the ability of using more smokescreen in combat. RCR is important up to 50% more or less. You shouldn't aim for RCR in your weapon and quiver since RCR is not additive in your gear and you would need several pieces with RCR if you would like to fire 1 more cluster arrow. Therefore, for these items I suggest Elite Damage. 50% of RCR should be enough to end up firing 1 evasive fire and 1 cluster arrow by the time you run out of hatred.
Cooldown Reduction
Very valuable but personally, not my preference. That means, I would stack CDR from your paragon, your gem in your helmet, your shoulders and that's it. CDR helps you plant sentries faster and spam companion and punishment more often. You would expect these to translate into more damage over time. Nonetheless, this is very hard and poorly accurate to measure.
Sustained Damage over time
In the long run, 40% of the time you will be fighting elites, champion packs of the Rift Guardian. This is the reason why you want Elite damage and Elite damage reduction on your gear. Now, let's get to a very technical aspect. Once you have your 5 sentries planted and your Pride's Fall bonus on. The way to maximize DPS will be trying to squeeze cluster arrows and evasive fire as much as possible and absolutely avoiding "normals" (when you fire that weak transparent arrow...). Let me give you a pro tip here, if you want to fire evasive and cluster while maintaining your hatred flat, then you want exactly 1.397 APS (assuming 20% off hand and 7% RORG), 50% RCR (43% true RCR), and 6 hatred per second (you need the templar). This will allow you to fire 2 evasives and 1 cluster permanently once you have run out of hatred. Understanding this is key, as you could improve your RG kill times by several seconds if you don't miss a single arrow, firing a standard "attack" could cost you 1 or 2 seconds in your run.
Optional Items
You want to use BotP but a lvl 50 Taeguk is equally strong. Do not use Enforcer as 45% of your damage comes from your sentries. I would recommend using a hellfire with an SOJ, your fifth passive should be Steady Aim. The Endless Walk set is equally comparable to the aforementioned combination.
A blackthorne combo is also decent if you can't roll a decent WH.
As for %skill in gear, go for sentries in Shoulders and Chest, Cluster in boots, helmet and quiver.
Paragon Priorities
Core
Movement Speed
Maximum Resource
Primary Stat
Vitality
Offense
Cooldown Reduction
Critical Hit Damage
Critical Hit Chance
Attack Speed
Defense
Resist All
Life
Armor
Life Regeneration
Utility
Resource Cost Reduction
Area Damage
Life on Hit
Gold Find
As for core, you want to start with 15% movement speed so that you can add it up with the M6 bonus and get the 25%. I would recommend allocating MS in your paragon since AR will help you out in the mid tier rifts (35-40). Next, go for hatred, as this will bump 1 more cluster when achieving enough cost reduction.
Offense is a no brainer, just go for what gives you the most DPS and never add attack speed since it is pointless. Just do it once you have reached P600.
Defense should be AR, Life and Armor as this combination gives you the most EHP in time (in that order).
Utility, you want to go for RCR first then Area Damage. LOH is kinda pointless along with gold find, but still, this should be the order.
Build Guide
Very simple build for greater rifts. You want to start every map by planting as many sentries as possible (3 in this case). This will instantly give you 300% additional damage of your skills at any point in the map, even if the sentries are yards away.
You want to use cold instead of physical for 2 reasons. The first one is the health regeneration for the cold missiles, and the second one is because 60% of you time will be spent killing trash mobs. Cold has better AOE, but physical has better single target damage. In the end, it's all within how long you spend killing stuff that determines which build should be more effective.
Ramp up
Anyhow, let's get back to this build. You plant your 5 sentries at half screen from monsters so that you maximize your Zei bonus. You will aim at stronger mobs always and shoot to packs instead of single targets in order take advantage of the explosion of your cluster arrow. (55% of your damage comes for you instead of your sentries).
Combat
Once you've got your sentries planted I would recommend kiting and pulling your pets in front of the line of fire so that they work as meat shield against ranged enemies.
First, fire a couple of clusters (3 rounds), then use companion, deplete your hatred, then use punishment, then enter low resource mode (2 evasive, 1 cluster). Wait for cooldowns, rinse and repeat.
Time your companion and punishment since the latter has a 10 second gap. It's best that you use both together since spaming companion only gives you 50 hatred and not timing it with punishment will result in a waste of "wolf companion".
if you get hit you lose 30% cost reduction for 5 seconds. Best way to time it is by firing evasive 7 times. Do not spam abilities if you don't have Pride's Fall buff.
Against instant damage
You can play it safe by hiding in corners and shooting close to the elite (you can't shoot it directly because that would mean you are in his line of fire too). Let your missiles hit the elite rather than the cluster arrow itself.
If you want to play it riskier, maintain 1 screen distance for jailers, frozen and thunderstorm. Time your Smokescreens, elites usually take like 5 to 10 seconds to use their abilities so you could do some guessing.
Champion packs are very dangerous because each one can 1 shoot you. You will have to play cat and mouse with them...
It's just my personal preference, but with smoke screen you're able to get a bit closer when dealing against instant damage elites. You can also cross across mob packs before killing them and gain a bit of seconds ahead.
My main issue with vault is that I easily get hit with it and I lose Pride's Fall buff.
I have the same build basically and then I saw this and made a few adjustments and got pass Grift 38.
Curious why you mentioned Buriza and Etayu over the Arcane Barb as the weapon. I can't find a decent version of those two that you recommended, but what properties makes those good with this build?
well.. i got a well rolled ancient buriza ( 3160 dps + proyectiles pierces 2 adittional times) and im using HUNGERING ARROW (devouring arrow rune 70% more damage each pierce) instead EVASIVE FIRE cause i saw hungering arrow doing more damage and triggering so fast the charges of gogok rune / Taeguk gems (cause each pierces trigger 1 charge more)
Only with a well rolled buriza can do this i guess...
The Buriza has a up to a 10% freeze chance which comes in handy, out of all 2h crossbows, this one provides a bit more help. The Arcane Barb is easier to roll since its crafted, in fact you can roll freeze chance as a secondary as well.
As for the Etrayu I still have some doubts and also doing some research. It appears that the 20% cold damage only turns out to be an effective 12.5% increase in damage with high end gear an perfectly rolled elemental damage. Thus, the lack of base damage from the bow might not be offset by that 12.5%. But then again, if it were the case that the damage was even, the you cold have faster hatred regeneration.
Quote from Retzuke well.. i got a well rolled ancient buriza ( 3160 dps + proyectiles pierces 2 adittional times) and im using HUNGERING ARROW (devouring arrow rune 70% more damage each pierce) instead EVASIVE FIRE cause i saw hungering arrow doing more damage and triggering so fast the charges of gogok rune / Taeguk gems (cause each pierces trigger 1 charge more)
Only with a well rolled buriza can do this i guess...
Im Doing well or maybe im wrong ?
Srry for my english btw.. Waiting for commentsQuote from Retzuke well.. i got a well rolled ancient buriza ( 3160 dps + proyectiles pierces 2 adittional times) and im using HUNGERING ARROW (devouring arrow rune 70% more damage each pierce) instead EVASIVE FIRE cause i saw hungering arrow doing more damage and triggering so fast the charges of gogok rune / Taeguk gems (cause each pierces trigger 1 charge more)
Only with a well rolled buriza can do this i guess...
Im Doing well or maybe im wrong ?
Srry for my english btw.. Waiting for comments
If you change evasive for hungering you lose 1 hatred per shot at the cost of higher single damage with your generator. I wasn't aware that the pierced proc'ed taeguk since cluster was the spender. I will try that out and see the results.
Let's make a quick comparison between 3 gems: enforcer, taeguk and bane of the powerful, each one of them at lvl 50. The first one gives 30% pet damage which translates to 13.5% effective damage permanently. Taeguk at that level hold 70 stacks which is 35%, but sustaining those stacks is hard when using a 2h crossbow. And the last one which is bane of the powerful, gives 15% elite damage plus 20% base damage after your first elite kill. Enough time to sustain it until the next elite fight, the drawback however is if you get killed. In this case this gem underperforms against all others.
Tried this build out last Night and it's very well thought out and effective. The Hellfire amulet option had the greatest impact.I also subbed out my weapon to a calamity, as I don't yet have an ancient buriza.
Hi i have both an ancient kridershot and ancient arcane barb i cant decide which one is better. Can anyone here assist me (decide to type out as i do not have any image hosting site) I am intending to use my ramandhli gift to socket the better bow. Thank you
Cold Cluster + Polar station build.
Hi i have both an ancient kridershot and ancient arcane barb i cant decide which one is better. Can anyone here assist me (decide to type out as i do not have any image hosting site) I am intending to use my ramandhli gift to socket the better bow. Thank you Cold Cluster + Polar station build.
Kridleshot : 3088.1dps 1661-2751 damage 1367-1688 holy dmg 10%dmg(rolled) 883dex 840 vit generate 4 hatred EA no socket
The big factor is if you are using m6 its a substantial damage increase using krider since you are now using a primary skill to generate hate while your sentries are also casting it since its still considered a hatred spender regardless of the modifier.
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My main issue with vault is that I easily get hit with it and I lose Pride's Fall buff.
Curious why you mentioned Buriza and Etayu over the Arcane Barb as the weapon. I can't find a decent version of those two that you recommended, but what properties makes those good with this build?
Only with a well rolled buriza can do this i guess...
Im Doing well or maybe im wrong ?
Srry for my english btw..
Waiting for comments
The Buriza has a up to a 10% freeze chance which comes in handy, out of all 2h crossbows, this one provides a bit more help. The Arcane Barb is easier to roll since its crafted, in fact you can roll freeze chance as a secondary as well.
As for the Etrayu I still have some doubts and also doing some research. It appears that the 20% cold damage only turns out to be an effective 12.5% increase in damage with high end gear an perfectly rolled elemental damage. Thus, the lack of base damage from the bow might not be offset by that 12.5%. But then again, if it were the case that the damage was even, the you cold have faster hatred regeneration.
Quote from Retzuke
well.. i got a well rolled ancient buriza ( 3160 dps + proyectiles pierces 2 adittional times) and im using HUNGERING ARROW (devouring arrow rune 70% more damage each pierce) instead EVASIVE FIRE cause i saw hungering arrow doing more damage and triggering so fast the charges of gogok rune / Taeguk gems (cause each pierces trigger 1 charge more)
Only with a well rolled buriza can do this i guess...
Im Doing well or maybe im wrong ?
Srry for my english btw..
Waiting for commentsQuote from Retzuke
well.. i got a well rolled ancient buriza ( 3160 dps + proyectiles pierces 2 adittional times) and im using HUNGERING ARROW (devouring arrow rune 70% more damage each pierce) instead EVASIVE FIRE cause i saw hungering arrow doing more damage and triggering so fast the charges of gogok rune / Taeguk gems (cause each pierces trigger 1 charge more)
Only with a well rolled buriza can do this i guess...
Im Doing well or maybe im wrong ?
Srry for my english btw..
Waiting for comments
If you change evasive for hungering you lose 1 hatred per shot at the cost of higher single damage with your generator. I wasn't aware that the pierced proc'ed taeguk since cluster was the spender. I will try that out and see the results.
Let's make a quick comparison between 3 gems: enforcer, taeguk and bane of the powerful, each one of them at lvl 50. The first one gives 30% pet damage which translates to 13.5% effective damage permanently. Taeguk at that level hold 70 stacks which is 35%, but sustaining those stacks is hard when using a 2h crossbow. And the last one which is bane of the powerful, gives 15% elite damage plus 20% base damage after your first elite kill. Enough time to sustain it until the next elite fight, the drawback however is if you get killed. In this case this gem underperforms against all others.
This is the reason why I choose BotP.
Tried this build out last Night and it's very well thought out and effective. The Hellfire amulet option had the greatest impact.I also subbed out my weapon to a calamity, as I don't yet have an ancient buriza.
Cold Cluster + Polar station build.
Arcane barb :
3261.9 dps
2476-3066 damage
1493-1868 Arcane Damge
9%dmg (rolled)
944dex
ias 7%
no socket
Kridleshot :
3088.1dps
1661-2751 damage
1367-1688 holy dmg
10%dmg(rolled)
883dex
840 vit
generate 4 hatred EA
no socket
The big factor is if you are using m6 its a substantial damage increase using krider since you are now using a primary skill to generate hate while your sentries are also casting it since its still considered a hatred spender regardless of the modifier.