Why no one use explosive arrow with something else than a quill Rain?

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/351836

I was thinking of this kind of bow with high physical roll, attack speed and bow gem lvl.
Just by spending some point in attack speed in the tree you can reach a decent AS, and with some mana leech on gear use the physical damage to compensate the mana cost of the skill.

But people just prefer to spend a lot to buy 5/6L quill rain which are far more expensive than this kind of bow.

Explosive arrow damage do not depend on your bow damage, only on EA gem level. Only Attack/Projectle speed matters for it. And Quill Rain is the best Attack/Projectle speed bow in the game, 2 times better for EA build that any other bow. +2 level of gem is roughly +25% dps. double attack speed is +100% dps.

+3 level to bow skills bow should easily beat quillrain though :)

No +3 level will give you around 40% more dps
double attack speed from quill rain still gives you 100% more dps.

The only thing that could give Quill Rain a run for its money would be a +3 thicket with a high aspd suffix, and even then you'd probably want Quill Rain since it makes disengaging from fights much easier and it's about 1/100th the cost of a +3 thicket with a high aspd suffix.

If your build focuses on burn damage, however, by taking Pyromaniac, running dual curse, and possibly wearing a Cloak of Flames, any old +2 bow will outclass Quill Rain handily.

If anybody is wondering, a +3 gem level bow will give you around 45% more base damage but increases your cost.

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double attack speed is +100% dps.

Well, not really, since a large portion of the dps come from a well proliferate burn and you will always have the 1 s explosion delay.

3 attack/s mean 1.66s to land 5 fuses + 1s for them to explode so roughtly 2.66s
2 attack/s mean 2.5s to land 5 fuses +1s -> 3.5s

overall 31% faster. But as you say +2 bow gems means roughtly 25% more damage which will affect the burn.

But for me the most important is that you can get something else than the fast attack speed of the quill rain on your bow, for exemple physical damage which, even if it doesnt affect the explosion, will affect the initial hit, and for exemple could help you leech mana on physical damage. Also it give you the possibility to use other bow skill against highly resistant mobs.

Well, i guess i underestimate a lot the projectile speed of the Quill Rain.

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Xavyer a écrit :

No +3 level will give you around 40% more dps
double attack speed from quill rain still gives you 100% more dps.

I don't know how you make your math, but explosive arrow work with stacks, once you put your 5 stacks to get the biggest radius, you are up for a wait. You use quill rain because it's super easy to put your 5 stack and run away, and it's safer, it's not to boost your dps at all. Your dps in an explo arrow build is super limited both by the very few nodes in the tree and little mods on gear. +3 on gem would be a really nice boost, i'm not sure it is worth dropping the easy 5 stack with a quill rain though, you would need to test it with a high attack speed and +3 gem bow, should be interesting.

Ps without even tested it i'm pretty sure a +3 gem would give you far better dps, but that need to be tested

But as it was mentioned the physical damage imo isn't even something to consider.

ofc a +2/+3 bow gives a huge dps boost, on paper.

In a real game situation tho, getting to 5 fuses faster is safer - less time you stand still.

Probably still more dps, since you can stack fuses faster, leading to better clearing speed.

If the weapon swich wouldn't be way to unresponsive in moments you really need it, applying the first fuse with a +3 bow, adding 4 more with a quill rain would be great.

I consider a +3 bow in the second slot for boss fights tho (map vaal, piety etc, real bosses)

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Balguez a écrit :

ofc a +2/+3 bow gives a huge dps boost, on paper.

In a real game situation tho, getting to 5 fuses faster is safer - less time you stand still.

Probably still more dps, since you can stack fuses faster, leading to better clearing speed.

If the weapon swich wouldn't be way to unresponsive in moments you really need it, applying the first fuse with a +3 bow, adding 4 more with a quill rain would be great.

I consider a +3 bow in the second slot for boss fights tho (map vaal, piety etc, real bosses)

A 1.8 APS bow can offload 5 stacks within a second and still get +1/+2. Honestly, if you can get a +3/1.8, go with that. Otherwise its more cost-efficient to just get a Quill Rain.