Level 95 Explosive Arrow Totem Champion^3.23

Notes

> 3.23 CHANGES <
- We lost 20% chance to ignite and 20% skill effect duration, but gained +2 maximum fuses. This is a buff if we can compensate for these losses.
- We compensate for the chance to ignite by dropping "One with Nature" and picking up "Holy Dominion" instead. This brings us to 90% chance to ignite. For the last 10% check out the "getting chance to ignite" section of this guide.
- We solve duration by getting a little bit more attack speed if we can, but mostly by running Malevolence instead of Grace for any bosses. Grace is mostly useful while mapping, but even without it we have 10k evasion with a Jade flask up, so it's fine to swap out for bosses.
- We get access to a wildwood ascendency, for more on that choice see the "wildwood ascendency" section of this guide
- We get access to transfigured gems, but since not much is known about them yet as of writing this guide(and probably won't be until launch) this guide doesn't plan around them. If you start this build make sure to check out others playing this build for transfigured gem inspiration!
- A level 21/20 Explosive Arrow will be harder to get with the removal of the "gem flip for 20% quality" recipe. A 20/20 EA is better than a 21/0 EA though, so prioritize quality over level 21.
- Added a gearset for an Ashes of the Stars version of the build, this gets to 25 fuses in the enemy which should be much more dps.

> PLAYSTYLE <
> Clear <
For clear you just place down ballistas and run.

> Bossing <
You can start a fight by having all your totems up and ready, then as soon as the boss is targetable use your infernal cry and press focus(if you need focus on your build).
During the fight you want to keep to your totem limit all the time. You also want to use your frenzy setup to keep frenzy charges up.
Only when you have time for it you want to cast your Arcanist Brand, this is the lowest priority since it lingers on the boss for a bit anyway.

BONUS TRICK: On bosses where there are no attacks you care about evading(like Uber Shaper, the slam can't be evaded) consider running Malevolence instead of Grace

> LEVELING <
We start out with spectral throw, and we swap between volley and faster attacks support based on whether we're doing single target or we're clearing.
Get an iron ring or two, and a rustic sash. For weapon we use a 2-handed sword or axe. If you get an essence you can throw it on your weapon to get a good upgrade, probably wait until you have a Woodsplitter(ilvl 13+) or better before you do this though.
If you have enough accuracy you can take Precise Technique for that nice 40% damage boost. Really try to get this, run precision if you have to or take Weathered Hunter on the tree.

At level 28 we switch to Explosive Arrow, keep Precise Technique on the tree, even though this does not apply to ignites we're still largely hit-based at this point.
Use a bow that's as fast as possible(Short Bow is nice!) since we want many stacks of Explosive Arrow. Quill Rain is absolutely insane combined with the Projectile Speed Bow Mastery!
If you pick up Elemental Equilibrium make sure to have at least 1 lightning or/and cold damage to attacks somewhere on your gear, AND NO FIRE DAMAGE TO ATTACKS.
If you found a Gemcutter's Prism you can use it on a Rain of Arrows gem and vendor it with a rare onyx amulet, normal Sharktooth Arrow Quiver and a chance orb to receive a Hyrri's Bite, which is pretty nice this early on.

From here on out the leveling will be pretty straight forward, just follow the trees in the guide, just make sure to spec out of Precise Technique once your reach Elemental Overload or it'll never proc!
Also remember to run a leveled Precision gem over Skitterbots until you have your uber lab

> WILDWOOD ASCENDANCY <
For our Wildwood Ascendancy we pick the Wildwood Primalist, this allows us to build our own ascendancy. While full info on what this can roll is not known yet, these are some ascendancy nodes to potentially look out for:
- Any ailment immunity nodes(including "movement speed cannot be modified below base value")
- Chieftain's resistance nodes for more tankyness
- Extra armour from Juggernaut
- Aura effect from Champion
- Straight up damage from multiple options(Slayer, Elementalist, Trickster etc.)
- Onslaught or Supress from Raider
- Flask charge generation from Pathfinder
- Totem stuff from Hierophant

Potentially Warden of the Maji can be strong. If you get a good Tincture replace your Jade flask with it. If you go for this take the path to "Nature's Concoction" and "Lesson of the Seasons".
Since too little is known about this before the league starts it's not recommended in this guide, but since respeccing your wildwood ascendendancy seems pretty easy feel free to experiment, and as always: keep an eye on other people playing EA.

> GETTING CHANCE TO IGNITE <
With our tree and support gems and WITHOUT counting Flammability we currently get 90% chance to ignite.
While this is mostly fine(you'll curse bosses anyway) this does mean you can get unlucky while clearing though and not ignite a pack very well.
To get the last 10% we have several options, listed from easiest to hardest:
- 10% chance to ignite with Eater of Worlds currency on your helmet. You give up on reservation here, but this is solveable with a lvl 3 enlighten anyway.
- 2 jewels with 5% chance to ignite each
- Getting ignite chance from your wildwood ascendancy somehow(if this exists it's probably on one of the elementalist nodes, or on a tincture if you go with Warden of the Maji)
- Redeemer helmet, this also removes your eater/exarch implicits, but gives you 15% faster ignites on top when elevated which more than compensates for it.
- A unique like Eye of Innocence or Gang's Momentum. While tempting these mean you lose out on suppress, life and/or damage, so these are usually not worth it.

> WHY NOT ELEMENTALIST? <
While Elementalist is the highest damage ascendancy for this build, it lacks defenses and starts at a pretty awkward position on the tree to get more defenses.
One of the reasons Elementalist is strong is also because of stuff like Blizzard Crown and high flat elemental damage on a +3 bow which will be relatively hard to get in a SSF environment(it scales much more with gear in general).
Elementalist is definitely a valid option too, and if you want to maximize damage you should look into it, but generally people that are struggling with bosses will find Champion to be much easier to play.

> WHAT IF I DON'T HAVE RAIN OF SPLINTERS? <
Rain of Splinters is really good for clear, but it's not absolutely required.
If you feel like your clear is really bad without it you can consider using Lesser or Greater Multiple Projectiles for clear and swapping it with Hypothermia on bosses(replace Elemental Damage With Attacks or Ignite Prolif(if you have prolif gloves)).

> GETTING BOW COLORS <
--> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8260_VEVhw <--

Ideally we need 5 off-colors on the bow. Bows are dex based so this is pretty hard.
To fix this we use a Short Bow, this only has a dex requirement of 26, which helps a lot. But even then it'll still take well over 300 chromes to hit your desired colors.
Here are some tips to make it easier to hit:
- Vorici in Research will turn 1-3 sockets white(1-6 if he's level 4 in the Mastermind's Lair), this can help if you get lucky
- If you couldn't get a 6L Short Bow, or are having a lot of trouble coloring, you can replace "Elemental Damage With Attacks" with Sadism or Hypothermia. If really desperate you can replace Ignite Prolif with one of these gems too, but this will require you to roll Ignite Prolif on your gloves.

> ELEMENTAL EQUILIBRIUM <
The way Elemental Equilibrium(EE from now on) works with Explosive Arrow is that the arrow part of Explosive Arrow has no fire damage by default.
So if you get any cold or lightning damage to attacks anywhere on your gear, this means the arrows your ballistas shoot will apply EE(reducing fire res), 
then the explosion will apply EE as well(removing the fire res reduction), but shortly after an arrow will hit again(reducing fire res).
Just make very sure the arrow portion of your skill doesn't apply fire damage.

> CRAFTING GEAR <
> BOW <
--> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8260_VEVhw <--

1. Turn in a set of The Porcupine to get a 6L ilvl 50 Short Bow. If for some reason that Divination Card got nerfed(you never know with GGG): farm a set of Imperial Legacy, but this will make coloring REALLY HARD. Alternatively add high ilvl Short Bows and Grove Bows to your filter and link it yourself.
2. Spam Shrieking Essences of Dread until you hit your desired attack speed roll(T1 preferably)
3. Use annulment orbs or whatever other tools you have available to get the bow to 2(or less) prefixes and 2 suffixes, while retaining the +2 to bow gems and attack speed roll
4. Craft "Cannot Roll Attack Mods" on your bow
5. Slam the item with a new mod(Exalted Orb), this always hits +1 to socketed gems
6. Recraft the crafted mod to Minion Attack/Cast Speed
7. Check out the "Getting Bow Colors" section of this guide
8. Done!

> JEWEL <
1. Pick up some Viridian Jewels
2. Use Harvest "Reforge Speed" and "Reforge Life" on it
3. Pray you hit life and attack speed
4. Done

> COMMON MISTAKES <
- Make sure you have no flat fire damage anyway, this breaks your Elemental Equilibrium
- If it looks like all your arrows are missing and you see no explosions: make sure you have no pierce anywhere
- Make sure you have 100% chance to ignite. If you don't have this yet look at the "getting chance to ignite" section of these notes. Going from 90 to 100% chance to ignite is at least 11% more damage.
- Make sure you have enough accuracy before Uber lab, without accuracy EA will feel really bad. You can drop skitterbots and run a leveled Precision gem to fix this early on.

> ATTACK RATE BREAKPOINTS <

First of all: don't try to focus on breakpoints too much, they usually assume an ideal situation which won't happen in the real game

We want to reach 20 stacks on Explosive Arrow to get as big an ignite as possible, there's 3 ways to achieve this:
- Attack rate
- Totem count
- Fuse duration

Getting more fuse duration will mean your clear will feel worse, so I would recommend this only as your last resort.

You can calculate approximately how many fuses you'll get using the following formula(the "+ 1" at the end is cause the fuse timer only starts once you hit your first fuse):

(attack rate x totem count x fuse duration) + 1 = fuse count