



Hi. Please call me Bull if you have any question. I am sorry in advance for any mistakes in English. This is also the first time I make a build guide and I am just a casual guy who loves PoE and explosion not an inventor of something new. I also recommend you to check out 21g's crit EA build as he has a different but interesting approach to crit EA.



Disclaimer: This build is not optimized for HC. For a HC EA build, please look up for Quill Rain Non Crit Build.



Why EA? Pros and Cons



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Why would you ditch the shield, thus tons of potencial defense, and go for a skill that deal dps after 1s instead of going for Fireball/Fire Trap?



Pros

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The trade off for the lack of defense is worthy. Some comparison between this skill:



- Fire trap: Radius 15, base crit chance of 5% and damage 380-571 (avg. 475,5) and static DoT of 295,5. DPS scales from Fire/Ele/Trap/AoE stats.

- Fireball: Radius 8, base crit chance of 6%, base cast speed of 1.17 and damage 393–590 (avg. 491,5). DPS scales from Fire/Ele/Spell/AoE/Cast speed stats.

- EA: Base Radius 15 (+2 after each fuses), base crit chance of 6%, attack speed based on the weapon (max can be 3 from quill rain but a thicket with good as roll is also very fast) and damage of 523–785 (avg. 654). DPS scales from Fire/Ele/Projectile/AoE/Elemental Equilibrium stats although ias and accuracy also play important roles in actually dealing the dps. This is the perfect skill to go with EE since the damage type of the fuse is independent to the explosion damage type (fire).



To sum up, damage of EA is 1.33 times more than of Fireball and 1.37 times more than of Firetrap, thus more effectively penetrate fireres and more burning dps. Another factor is that EA users can deal dps to enemy from a very safe distance if there is enough space. <a ref="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h78YEaCqseg">Watch this</a>



Gearing for EA can be extremely cheap and you can improve your gear while leveling.



EA is also known for the ability of solo mf very effectively with a relatively cheap gears and friendly in party for using Elemental Equilibrium (reducing ele resist of mobs)







Cons

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- Reflect. The dps of Explosive Arrow can be scaled extremely high and you need some trick and controll to reliably counter reflect. Read the last part of the guide for some counters against reflect.

- Unreliably leech if not impossible to rely on leech for survivability since the deeps is only dealt after 1s.

- Not reliable and require aiming. You cannot be sure if the stacks with delivered will crit or not and low accuracy can be a pain sometimes.

- DPS is too high and sometimes you can accidentally blow up the boss before culling

Spoiler

- Reflect. The dps of Explosive Arrow can be scaled extremely high and you need some trick and controll to reliably counter reflect. Read the last part of the guide for some counters against reflect.- Unreliably leech if not impossible to rely on leech for survivability since the deeps is only dealt after 1s.- Not reliable and require aiming. You cannot be sure if the stacks with delivered will crit or not and low accuracy can be a pain sometimes.- DPS is too high and sometimes you can accidentally blow up the boss before culling

Why would you ditch the shield, thus tons of potencial defense, and go for a skill that deal dps after 1s instead of going for Fireball/Fire Trap?



How do you deal you reflect?

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In the current state, the ways to deal with reflect is either you have a strong resist to fire or you go vaal pact life leech. I decided to go with the first choice since I want to go full dps and imo going for vaal pact, sacrifice skill points, 1 gem slot and 1 curse (warlord's mark) just for reflect is too much.



So it leaves me with the choice to boost my fire resistance to a high level to migitate almost all the reflect damage. The first step is getting 5% fire res from PoF to get 80% fire res and a high level AA gem as well as ruby flask (10% max) to migitate 90% of the reflect dps. The 10% left can be still be lethal but there are ways to get more fireres:

- Simple way is use a Divination Distilate to boost your max fire res to 96% with ruby and DD up. You can even drop Whisper of Doom for flasks nodes to go for a 98%. the 3 % left will most likely not be lethal to you.

- Rise of the Phoenix weapon swap: Adding a flat 8% from RoTP and couple it with ruby flask you will have 98% fire res. 100% fire res can be achieved with flasks nodes if you really feel to.





Gameplay

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I played almost solo and build my map pool on my own until lvling 85ish and I chose to play with some friends for more fun and I can totally play solo effectively.



The things you need to avoid is blood magic maps, - max res, ele reflect map. Just remember to bring ruby flask and use Inc. Burning Damage instead of Empower until you have a high level AA. Reflect mobs from maps deal less dps to you and you can avoid death to reflect playing smartly. RoTP swap trick can be used for 98% fireres (75% + 5% PoF + 10% flask + 8from RoTP) if you still want to use Empower. Just feel the damage you deal (meaning rip a few times to reflect) and you will know what to do.



In solo play, I always stack only 1 time and use Rain of Arrows to apply double curse to them and most of the time everything just melt no matter what map level.



In party, try to find someone who use cold damage and not using anger since it can mess up with EE. Temporal Chain need to be avoided since it prolong the time the fuse takes to explode.





Bandit Choices

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Oak-Kill-Alira (my choice)

or Oak-Kraityn-Alira for more ias





Passive Tree lvl 92

Spoiler http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgYAAx4EBwceCPQMfQ18DkgQfxGWFr8YahzcHaofQSaVJ6ko-ioLKlMqjS0fNZI2PTbYOlg9X0GHRXxFnUZxSRtJUUyzUDBSU1NSVUtVxlfJWAdd8l8qYeJilWKsY0NqQ2yMbRltbG-ecFJw1XcHeC985X5Zf8aCHoLHgwmD24cTidOMC4w2kyeVIJUul5WXl5f0mK2a4JuhnKSdY52qoqOksaXErJiycLQMtDi3Prl8vOrAVMHzxp7YvdsL4YjjhOUZ5Y7quuvk6-7sVeyw8NXxbPJF8-r31_no-_X-Cg==



Gear Choice and Explaination

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My gear

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Break down:

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It depends on your preference for gearing but I feel the gear I am using has a good balance between survivability and dps. I can min-max life on gears to push up to 5k5 hp but I also needed strength and dex for the big requirement of Kaom's Heart (190 str) and the Thicket Bow (197 dex)



- Helm: Rat's Nest is perfect choice since we benefit from most of its stats: ias, global crit chance, movement speed.

- Chest: I got lucky and found a Soul Taker in the first week of the league and traded for Kaom's Heart. I strongly think that Kaom's is the best choice for this setup since the hp gained from it can substitute for the lack of hp in helm, belt and potentially gloves. However, a 5l Carcass Jack is also extremely helpful for its hp, all res, AoE and the gem slots which can be used for Curse on Hit setup.

- Bow: A perfect bow would be a fast Thicket with ias roll, crit dps, +3 lvl to bow gem and accuracy but I am quite satisfied with my bow. You can do fine with a 5l and in fact I just 6l my bow on the last day I played PoE and the 6th link is Power Charge on Crit, which can be used manually in gloves.

- Gloves: Life+Resist+Accuracy is the best choice. IAS can substitute for accuracy if you like but i find accuracy more important in this type of crit build.

- Rings: Life+Resist+Mana reg>Accuracy>Ias> Crit chance. Fire dps is good too if you think you have enough resist.

- Ammy: Crit chance + Crit dps + Life + Mana Reg + Dex and Str. Other stats is not very important

- Belt: Doryani's Invitation is the best choice for the massive dps boost for EA and the Strength to wear Kaom's Heart as well as resist it provides. The life leech is minor but still a good stat.

- Quiver: I have 2 quiver for PvE and for Atziri. For PvE a quiver with corrupted implicit "Add an additional Arrow" can massively increase our dps and clear speed but for boss it is very annoying since you need to adjust the mouse cursor at the right point or the arrow will shot on the sides of the target. Apart from that, Dex+Life>Accuracy> Crit chance> Crit multi.

- Boots: A fast rare boots with life and resist is needed for the lack of resists on other gears.



- 2nd weapon set: Either Rise of the Phoenix and Doryani's Catalyst for dps and survivability. Stick the fuses onto the enemy and switch to this to have more migitation against reflect







Gem Setup

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- Bow: a 4L can clear maps very quick with EA-Empower (Inc. Burning damage)-Elemental Prolif-Fire Pen

For 5L add Conc. Effect and 6L Power Charge on Crit. Note that the color can be extremely hard to roll according to BBRRG. The remaining slot can be whatever color depends on what you roll. If it is Red: Inc. Burning DPS or Reduced Durarion. If it is Green: Added Accuracy, Slower Projectiles or even just AA for the bonus lvl

- Chest: If you have a Kaom's Heart then obviously no slot. If u have a 4L setup you can use Rain of Arrow-CoH-Flamability (Ele Weakness)-Assasin's Mark. for 5L u can add Power Charge on Crit and free 1 slot in the bow. While leveling, I also find the Cloak of Flame an amazing items for its ignite buffs and the "mini Lightning Coil" roll.

- Gloves: 2 options: First is BBBG for Ice Spear-GMP-Faster Cast-PCoC to generate/keep the power charges up or

Second RRRG for CwDT-IC-Empower-AA. Prefered gloves to be corrupted to "+1 for lvl of gems in this item" for even more lvl of AA.

- Boots: RRBB for Reduced mana-Purity of Fire-Discipline-Clarity

- Helm: I used CoH in my rat's nest although it requires 3 off color of BBBG. With Vorici chrome is can easily be forced. Gems are: Rain of Arrows-CoH-Flamability (Ele weakness or Enfeeble in party)-Assasin's Mark.

- Bow: a 4L can clear maps very quick with EA-Empower (Inc. Burning damage)-Elemental Prolif-Fire PenFor 5L add Conc. Effect and 6L Power Charge on Crit. Note that the color can be extremely hard to roll according to this calculator but I managed to roll 4 or 5 off colors on 2 bows for much less than it should cost me. I found the method of Vorici Chrome with 1 blue and 1 red option helps a lot with rolling the desire basic colors:. The remaining slot can be whatever color depends on what you roll. If it is Red: Inc. Burning DPS or Reduced Durarion. If it is Green: Added Accuracy, Slower Projectiles or even just AA for the bonus lvl- Chest: If you have a Kaom's Heart then obviously no slot. If u have a 4L setup you can use Rain of Arrow-CoH-Flamability (Ele Weakness)-Assasin's Mark. for 5L u can add Power Charge on Crit and free 1 slot in the bow. While leveling, I also find the Cloak of Flame an amazing items for its ignite buffs and the "mini Lightning Coil" roll.- Gloves: 2 options: First isfor Ice Spear-GMP-Faster Cast-PCoC to generate/keep the power charges up orSecondfor CwDT-IC-Empower-AA. Prefered gloves to be corrupted to "+1 for lvl of gems in this item" for even more lvl of AA.- Boots:for Reduced mana-Purity of Fire-Discipline-Clarity- Helm: I used CoH in my rat's nest although it requires 3 off color of. With Vorici chrome is can easily be forced. Gems are: Rain of Arrows-CoH-Flamability (Ele weakness or Enfeeble in party)-Assasin's Mark.



Leveling

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- For the passive tree, it is pretty straight forward. Just take the dps and life nodes in the beginning and later add projectile dps, crits and aura nodes.

- Leveling with either EA straight up or use Fire Trap/Flameblast. A 4L setup is Fire Trap-Inc. Ignite chance - Fire Pen - Ele Prolif.

- Some niches items for leveling: , Mokou's Embrace, Silverbranch.

- For the passive tree, it is pretty straight forward. Just take the dps and life nodes in the beginning and later add projectile dps, crits and aura nodes.- Leveling with either EA straight up or use Fire Trap/Flameblast. A 4L setup is Fire Trap-Inc. Ignite chance - Fire Pen - Ele Prolif.- Some niches items for leveling:, Mokou's Embrace, Silverbranch.



Videos

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I am sorry for the lack of music and a bit low quality. I planned to edit and even make a trailer myself but I ended up too busy for the project so I will just uploaded it raw. All of the records are at the time when I did not have a 6l bow and a CwDT setup.



77 Shrine Piety with some damage mods

My sucked trailer but I post it anyway

Atziri run with 1 death. I was inexperienced and now I am pretty confident that I can do deathless runs

78 Palace with Twined Dom and some other mods. Forgot to swap gems for inc. crit dps and quiver



I am sorry for the lack of music and a bit low quality. I planned to edit and even make a trailer myself but I ended up too busy for the project so I will just uploaded it raw. All of the records are at the time when I did not have a 6l bow and a CwDT setup.



Feedbacks and Ideas

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I have been playing EA for a long time and it haven't been changed for quite a long time. There is some known bugs since CB and it is still there but it doesn't affect gameplay too much. Here are some opinions/feedbacks I have when playing

- Interaction with Frost Wall: The second arrow from corrupted quiver sometimes pierce throught the wall and hit the target behind the wall. One of the arrow will always stick on the wall but frozen and never explode. If GGG can fix this bug, frost wall can be a nice combo with EA if arrow can be fire onto the wall and explode, dealing damage to the target. If the arrow pierce the wall and hit the target behind, we can use frost wall as a defensive skill.

- Totem can fire 10 fuses onto a target and the explosion will never happen even though after 1s or if the totem dies.

- Reflect mitigation: Use a offhand with Rise of the Phoenix and Doryani's Catalyst and runs lvl 25 AA couple with flasks nodes and you have great migitation against reflect. I will still recommend to controll the arrow you fire and never apply fuses to high density packs e.g. zombies, crabs, etc. Anyway, you will have 1s to react if you know that you have chance to be blown up by reflect.

-Potential of many linked EA: only the first fuses account for the dps of the whole stack you apply on a target, meaning the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, arrows can be lvl 1 with CoH LGoH setting and the explosion damage from the stack is still the same as when you hit the target with high level EA. Ofc this need a lot of time to deliver the dps but it can be done with Quill Rain because of its high as.





FAQ

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Q: What changes can be made for the build to be usable in HC?

A: For now, there are weaknesses I feel that can be improved in HC. a AA MoM EB setting will provide you more eHP and you can squeeze out IR if you drop double curse and the gears are right (sub Kaom's for CoD) and have enough es to drop Discipline to go for Grace.



Q: Is this build Uber possible?

A: The damage of the build can do any content of the game. The most important thing is the defense (esp. against Vaal and Uber Spear). Go for PoL, IR, learn to controll the damage and how to dodge things in Uber as well as some gears swap can be opted if you want to push for it.



Q: Im I quitting PoE?

A: Yes, I would say I will take a long break from PoE to focus on more things in my life. To me, PoE is still the best ARPG game I ever played.





Special Thanks

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I want to thank you anyone who have mapped and share their experience with me. We had a lot of fun and if not for you, I have left the game much sooner. I hope to see you in Wreaclast again someday.

Hi. Please call me Bull if you have any question. I am sorry in advance for any mistakes in English. This is also the first time I make a build guide and I am just a casual guy who loves PoE and explosion not an inventor of something new. I also recommend you to check outas he has a different but interesting approach to crit EA.This build is not optimized for HC. For a HC EA build, please look up for Quill Rain Non Crit Build. Bull's PoE Build compilation: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1639201 Last edited by F4F_Lucifer on Oct 19, 2014, 3:01:05 PM