[3.15] Crimson Bow Gladiator, RoA + Puncture | Pure Bleed Build | All Content | In-depth

"

Coolbeens54 a écrit :

I know most builds are, but is this hh compatible or is coil that important to the build?

Coil actually does add a huge amount of dmg, primarily due to the mechanics of bleed, but I haven't personally tested HH and the speed + dmg of this build probably could work well, your single target dps would likely suffer though as fishing for a high bleed is amplified so much by coil +48% top end dmg, although if you can afford HH, your gear is probably amazing anyway. definitely do not try HH with a poorly geared version of this build, its will be average at best. well geared, probably it would be somewhere between good and amazing

"

EscapeEnnui a écrit :

things

no worries, it is certainly a great build to play. i spent a lot of time tweaking and trying new things, mostly from the poe ninja leader boards too. a lot of the builds there were honestly quite sub-optimal for most gameplay lol maybe they chayula spammed to 100 idk but recreating a large number of them into pob i was continually frustrated with comparatively poor performance compared to what i had. I did check that the pob settings weren't breaking the builds either. most of them are just ultra tanky versions with 7-8k hp but a massive 40-60% less dmg, i can imagine them getting oneshot by bosses just as easily as I was considering that by dragging fights out you run the risk of running out of defensive flask uptime and charges. Although he needs to get on the farruls bandwagon, I consider this guy one of the best bleedbow builds ive come across so far Poe.ninja link although the crafted phys% on his nearly godlike bow is poor form, it would give 130k dps if rolled to 129. even 125+ would be worth a few ex to try.

I primarily focus on single target damage in the form of puncture bleed dps vs sirus in pob (i still run him on my carrion nec tho because why lose xp when you dont have to) but i will probably give him a go if feeling brave. uber elder was actually quite easy because of the huge damage, shaper goes down very fast and in its current state, I can survive half a second of the big death beam which is more than enough time to dash out.

survivability in the form of life/max resists/at least balanced chaos is my second priority, as this build doesn't have the highest lifepool yet i survive most big hits (UElder shaper beam comes to mind, have survived multiple times getting hit briefly when being greedy with puncture spam) outside of things which tend to kill you anyway if you let them hit you. As mentioned in another post, i have tried champ and ascendant with my same gear this league, but without the gladiator 10% bleedsplosion the build feels about as strong as a wet cabbage (crusader chest mod/haemophilia are 5%, the cluster notable devastation is both expensive and weak by comparison) replica farruls made this hugely easier. I hope it is reasonably obtainable next league without an absurd cost (but who knows it could become HH 2.0). In it's absence, without a similarly incredible replacement, i can't see myself playing this to max level in the next league. the difference when i got farrul was incredible, as im sure you know too.

I see you got similar HOTHT for vuln on hit as well, mine was about 25ex but thats half the cost of a good enough steel ring to do the same job, plus i realised with the farruls build essentially requiring the unset ring, i couldnt run double steel rings anyway. i am going to divine my gloves for 48% and better other rolls but im saving up 40-50 divines first because theres just too much that can go wrong with it for me to bother atm (non-maxed resists are an *enormous* problem for this build in high tier play)

the key to tweaking bleed bow is understanding bleed in the first place, it sounds obvious but it is very counter-intuitive at times to understand how modifiers affect bleed, if they even do at all. anything on HIT does nothing. phys resist reduction does nothing. understanding fishing for high dps bleeds is similarly key and why attackspeed needs to be factored in subjectively, as pob can't simulate the effect of faster high roll fishing as far as i have found.

I am also happy with the switch from assailum but i would certainly be seeking an assailum if my gear was significantly worse, particularly early in a league. with weaker gear the charge up for easy boss kills is invaluable at correcting what I believe is the biggest issue this build has, surviving bossfights, by making them end quickly. the lack of pathfinder and dependence on flasks for defence mean you really have to play quite well for tanky bosses or pushing relatively tough content in the earlier stages of a bleedbow build IMO.

clarity im still not 100% sure about because im currently killing everything so fast its hard to test. i have been running maps and juicing to t18 and 40-60% del + scarabs + sextants + influence and its mad but great fun. I can smash through most packs with 1-2 SA casts wrecking it all. some particularly tanky rares take a puncture to speed up their demise but SA + bleedsplosion typically leaves them looking quite lonely with 50-70% hp remaining. I should mention that an occasional death seems unavoidable, but that is largely my 2015 cpu being full potato and giving fps drops alongside kosis having impeccable timing and killing me from more than a screen away. When I push 98 ill probably do something safe (boring) like empowered beachheads/poorjoys like i did to 97, chayula is too expensive for the difference to these imo.

The -mana is kinda overkill as my only skill that actually costs mana is split arrow (6 mana), rest are 0, but this does mean that i have the dmg bonus up whenever not using split arrow and if a single cast SA takes more than ~300ms to hit something it will get the bonus because my mana will have filled. remember you do need at least 2 elreons or 1 elreons + watchers clarity IMO for the build to not feel restricted by mana, due to the mana reserved(even without clarity i still only have 80ish mana and 12/s base regen). the alternative is 20% damage on one ring prefix (and the loss of the clarity bonus a lot of the time which is the same 20% damage! (i dont consider any suffixes as real options because they are not good, just buy a better ring with well rolled resists)

mana cost TL;DR - I only lose less than 2% dps on split arrow, only if it hits a target in <1/3 of a second, for the convenience of entirely ignoring mana as a game mechanic.


I still reroll noregen maps but as i am typing this, i think i should give one a go next time i roll one. should be doable with 0 manacost like i have as well as any source of mana leech. could still do everything but blindly spam SA, and if you did that and oom'd yourself you could just puncture something to get your mana leech and get back to SA spamming.

about my watcher, it was a cheap one (few ex iirc), mainly for the maledict, but the clarity bonus turned out to be amazing. if i was rich i would be looking for a maledict DoTmulti + maledict dot duration but thats like 50ex last i checked and i closed that trade tab for a while.

if i got a crazy good neck with t1 pDoTmulti, high life, lapis/agate base + stat suffix for int, t1 flat phys AND maledict reservation reduc (double hunter, good luck rolling that, also potentially craftable by awakenering an elder with physDoTmult and a hunter with maledict but again, the investment required in this endeavour vs the chance of actually getting a usable item is just not realistic), i can drop enlighten, put clarity in its place, still have 40 mana and same mana costs, but a new free gem slot in helmet where clarity was.

side note: int on neck is huge, it saves a precious passive point! also malediction is just better than any other aura, mainly due to the playstyle of this build, 90% of the things i kill would not even touch a pride aura im running, let alone blood stance (i run sand for the survivability bonus most of the time anyway), i cannot emphasise this more for those running pride/blood aura and hugging mobs, i was dying way too often when i tried that and the damage difference is not even close to worth it.

the fake neck i created to sim it:
dps difference is less than 0.5% so only benefit is the extra gem slot. clarity is off in this SS but with it on, 15/s mana regen and 41 mana. given that a real neck with these hunter mods is unlikely to be godrolled, you will lose at least a few % bleed dps to drop the enlighten.

as a practical note for those starting/budget builds that still want a full defensive aura setup, if you have a neck with 25% maledict reduced reservation then you can use that instead of enlighten4

inspired learning is a big gain as dirty techniques gives 395k compared to the 210k dps a perfect rolled 4%dotmulti/7%life/20%bleeding jewel gives me. only really viable with farruls of course, but you save the point from the endurance duration which is completely wasted, and get 400k dps for no additional point cost, with the (recommended) option of the armour and guard boost skill, AND the option of easy access to cloth and chain for 12% ele resist on demand while tweaking resists on gear upgrades.

the other option for this slot is quite good if your resists can support it: thread of hope XL with the two charge notables. due to farruls, this gives a little over 400k dps, albeit at the cost of two passives, this works reasonably well without farruls too, as the minimum charges are great and glad builds frenzy easily. keeping max endurance won't be as easy though so this is quite an inferior option imo

minmax things you could do:
compound/wasting are insanely good dps, but i havent seen one under 13 ex for days now so keep that in mind. crafting them still isnt cost efficient either tbh.
corrupted well rolled ryslatha with malev effect implicit (3% more dps for me) +/- maimed lab enchant (yours is near perfect already though)

Thank you for the thorough response. Here are some comments based on my experience (which admittedly is much less than yours).

"

Sillabaa a écrit :

inspired learning is a big gain

I was enjoying following your choice to go with inspired learning. It has a really nice mix of damage (dirty tecniques) and defense (keeping the endurance and life nodes while refunding the connectors, adamant is awesome for molten shell/steel skin, and when I made the swap to maxing my flat chaos resist cloth and chain came in really handy for rebalancing everything else.) Overall, this seemed like a nice choice for well-rounded benefits.

"

Sillabaa a écrit :

the other option for this slot is quite good if your resists can support it: thread of hope XL with the two charge notables.

After seeing this post yesterday, I am now testing out this version. However, I believe that you were referring to the medium radius thread of hope to get disciple of the unyielding and discipline of slaughter. At 98, I am also able to keep the defensive house of cards intact and go for versatile stance like people usually do with this build. I mostly stay in sand stance. I'm trying to get a feel for swapping to blood to nuke bosses with the attack speed and damage bonus this notable provides. I am not sure how much benefit the sand stance area of effect province because I am not well versed in all the mechanics of PoE.
Mostly things die rather quickly with either jewel version from what I can tell.
Maybe this thread of hope version can get an advantage if you have farrul's and +frenzy charges on gloves like we do.

Also, I was able to finally slam +1 endurance charge on a nice pair of boots so that takes this path up 1 more notch.

I usually prefer to go super tanky and -at our condition- this build's damage is already pretty absurd so I may find myself leaning towards the inspired learning jewel and swapping out

for one with +bleed damage and attack speed but that would require much more savings and I'd rather just invest in pure chayulas for levels at this point.

"

Sillabaa a écrit :

phys resist reduction does nothing. )

Ah ok thank you! I was trying to find the answer to this but my internet searches turned up fruitless. That’s good to know.

"

Sillabaa a écrit :

minmax things you could do:
compound/wasting are insanely good dps, but i havent seen one under 13 ex for days now so keep that in mind. crafting them still isnt cost efficient either tbh.
corrupted well rolled ryslatha with malev effect implicit (3% more dps for me) +/- maimed lab enchant (yours is near perfect already though)

Yeah I think 1 compound will be good enough for me for now since I am relying on 3 student of decay/wasting affliction to hit chaos cap. I don't see any need to sacrifice that for whatever %damage increase it might provide. Unfortunately there are no malevolence ryslatha's around atm (even offline). On non-seasonal the price (excluding posts from 5+ months ago it is 20-30ex) seems a bit high for 3% more dps (assuming you get a well rolled one). If anything, the all resist corruption implicit seems like it could be solid if it allows us to get non resist passives/item mods elsewhere. Sadly there are only 2 offline posts for that in the season and the date makes it seem like they're not coming back. Even worse is that many of the versions on nonseasonal have the old range of 20/20 and the rest are outrageously priced. If anyone is seeking a well rolled corrupted ryslatha's they will probably have to take matters into their own hands and see how the gambling goes.
I noticed that with

I could maintain the max 90% phys reduction as long as I alternate my molten shell and enduring cry so I replaced the basalt flask with this

that I was lucky enough to have drop for me. Combining this with challenger charges seems to make the clear a bit faster. Since SA screen clears like a beast, the next area to improve seemed like move speed.
As far as the clarity choice goes, I am strongly learning towards keep longer duration in my helmet especially with this helm enchant.

Going that length to drop enlighten sounds like resources that could be better invested elsewhere.


I am curious if you think slamming this ring was a good choice since it was relatively easy to get (assuming you get lucky finding the right base) thanks to the increased chance to land it due to catalysts. The rest of the mods were perfect for what my setup needed and it seemed like a perfect way to finish it.
Thanks again for the information and feedback.

Sillabaa, have you considered doing Tunnels/Repository for exp? It has been cost efficient and safe enough at least for my evasion/dodge version of this build. No problems in any content besides in too much Delirium on that side of the tree either.

Video from Tunnels 83: https://streamable.com/uvppvu Didn't think I would level up during that exact run, others usually weren't as much exp.

My feedback:

1)Damage.

Playing puncture version with resolute technique. Have somewhat above average items - decent damage rolls on quiver, amu and gloves. No watchers eye. Malevolence, banner, herald and sand. Damage is NOT spectacular - 1.7-1.8 mill.
Alch and go on t15-16 in not a good idea, not to mention delirium. I run heists above monster lvl 80 white and they are rippy and the monsters feel tanky.

My bow (we are talking citadels with 60% dd bleed mod) is around 350 dps and cost me 15ex. 400 dps bows go for 40-50ex. 450 dps 100-150ex. 500dps - 400+ ex. Heist softcore.

I figure for smooth league mechanics t16 alch + vaal + sextant and go, ill need at least 2.5 m dps. For delirium orbing 3.5 m +. Ain't gonna happen.

2)Tankyness.

Got ele and corrupted blood ailment immunity. 6k life. 5 perma end charges. Couldn't fit chaos res. Practically perma 5 endurance immortal call and enduring cry. Feels good - there are one-shots but they are rare. I die much more often when i lose focus or press the wrong key - had different hotkeys on my other toon. HOWEVER i've only done up to t14 alch+vaal+sextant and go, and up to lvl 82 white heists.

3) Speed
Between flask, movement skill, onslaught and challenger charges, it's is faster than i'd like. Gotta pick up chromes and alts and feed the ocd.


4) Conclusion.
I hoped for more. I still hope i've done some obvious mistake and welcome advice.

"

Rubinjo a écrit :

Sillabaa, have you considered doing Tunnels/Repository for exp? It has been cost efficient and safe enough at least for my evasion/dodge version of this build. No problems in any content besides in too much Delirium on that side of the tree either.

Video from Tunnels 83: https://streamable.com/uvppvu Didn't think I would level up during that exact run, others usually weren't as much exp.

after starting on a carrion golem aurastack, heist just feels bad on anything else lol. there is next to zero chance of dying even with randomly alch'd 83 of any of the heist locations. i find i have a sweaty hand after doing one mansion as bleed but i guess doing specific locations could be fine.

"

EscapeEnnui a écrit :

Thank you for the thorough response. Here are some comments based on my experience (which admittedly is much less than yours).
inspired learning vs thread of hope

ah yes i cant remember what size it should have been but whatever gets the two charge notables which i think is medium. anyway, even with +1 gloves and all the frenzy stacks, the charge notables together give barely 5% more dps that dirty techinques alone from inspired learning gives, at the cost of two more passive points, so i am confident inspired learning is better. not to mention the -resist on thread limits build flexibility and potentially costs more passives.

"

EscapeEnnui a écrit :

I could maintain the max 90% phys reduction as long as I alternate my molten shell and enduring cry so I replaced the basalt flask with this

molten shell is quite meh these days by comparison to other forms of defense but the main reason i use it is the duration combined with the mild mitigation. i would recommend disabling VMS/MS when calculating defenses because personally, i dont die to things i see coming, its the ones i dont that i want to survive, hence i keep basalt to maintain the last ~11% phys reduction i need without VMS on. ofc its entirely redundant with VMS on but in that situation i have even more defenses. as you mentioned the damage is really impressive so i haven't been worrying about that side of things for a while now.

nice ring. i always put stuff in craftofexile to calculate slam possibilities. my biggest regret was being slightly intoxicated and slamming my bow, i had not realised i could have multicrafted it and made it even better.

"

teodar1987 a écrit :

My feedback:

4) Conclusion.
I hoped for more. I still hope i've done some obvious mistake and welcome advice.

your flasks need a lot of work btw. better life flask for one. then maybe drop move for more defenses if you are dying in t16s.

this build is fun at the early and late stages but not so much in the middle, your gear is kinda getting there but still a ways to go.

the way bleed works means your bow raw phys dmg is just so important, yours could be a lot better in the top end and honestly that is a huge part of this build reaching big numbers. it doesn't sim amazingly in pob simply due to bleed mechanics. if you develop even a basic understanding of these you will quickly realise that sure, you sim a few mil dps but in actuality you are doing 2-3x that much with a few hits as its quite rng dependent on the phys dmg roll that each attack gets. once you get a high roll, which is even your first attack sometimes, you just watch the boss hp zoom down to nothing.

Just hit 100 with the dodge/evasion build of this topic. One large cluster jewel tree. Same item/skill setup except Replica Farruls (obvious for Heist league) and Ensnaring Arrow in totem. Also the original had Blink Arrow instead of Dash?

Great clear, great bossing (with Assailum), good survivability (except some content).

No deaths when exping 98-100, only some Awakener etc. deaths in the beginning of the levels.

Will post more of my experiences with developing the build later.

Here is my Tunnels/Repository leveling setup, and was also using these before Assailum:






(Heist companion is always using Grace 15 for extra evasion and activating the Watcher's dodge)

Some nice gear for sure. I lucked upon some items, so now have about 30 ex +200c in change. Working on crafting a better bow. With corroded fossils trading around 22c/3-4 for 1ex, i have tried jagged fossils somewhat, as well as alt+regal, but not much luck yet. Current bow is okay, but i can definitely boost my dps a fair bit by getting a t1 phys+ roll.

After trying the various setups I think the tree Sillabaa posted feels the best with a combo of armor/evasion and wind dancer. I'm only at 4800 life, but only really die to BS heist one shots or bosses if I don't move around enough.
With Assassilum my puncture will be over 100million shaper dps, and none of my gear is really that crazy. The megalomanic is totally not necessary but it adds around 20 million dps so why not. Will probably switch it out for more life in the end.

This is the POB with my current gear plus 2 more levels for the jewel slot -

https://pastebin.com/w6KpKzER

Any advice on crafting this bow? Is the plus one arrow worth beast imprinting with the bleed more damage mod or just regal and hope for a good physical role? I have a decent bow already but wanted to play around with the base since it had the increased physical effect mod.

Fairly clean and quick Awakener 8 kill with Snipe and the dodge/evasion version: https://streamable.com/bw9w7g

So I would recommend this version for most content for anyone looking for good clear/bossing and survivability.

Build/gear was otherwise the same as in my previous post, but with Assailum and some related changes:

However, the content that version is NOT good for is 100% delirium and last phases of Simulacrum. The bleed from Rain of Arrows is not good enough for clearing the packs so there would be space to move around tougher enemies. Split Arrow or the better damage from the left side of the tree could work better. By specing to Crimson Dance for the duration of said content I was able to get those completed (of course without Snipe), but 100% T16 was slow and used too many portals. And it didn't even have beyond. The dodge/evasion still worked perfectly if you play safely. Kosis in the 100% T16 didn't feel dangerous once it was alone.

Might still gear up for the left side version before end of the league to be able to give some comparions.