Been playing around with various builds as of late. I wanted to try both a Mjonir cyclone build and some form of an elementalist. I ended up settling on both but focused on elementalist as a Xoph’s Inception had dropped for me, which motivated me to give this build a try. While the Mjonir build is on hold, the elementalist build has been going full force.
I’ve done a few elementalist builds but not using them with the recent updates where golems were buffed as buffs. Combined with the improved Burning Arrow, I decided to give it a try since the other bow builds have been pretty disappointing. Man, this build is pretty damn fun.
Early leveling started off slow mostly because Burning Arrow by itself is not the greatest skill. However, once you start adding Ignite chance, the skill starts to take off. A few key things along the way were acquiring a Lioneye’s Paws and Xoph’s Inception.
Lioneye’s Paws was the real maker in this build from level 30 because of how it acts as a trigger using a level 5 Rain of Arrows. Up until that point, single target and clearing had been miserable. While the guide I’ve been following suggest using a curse, I wasn’t there yet and decided to just add various support gems to make Rain of Arrows a complimentary offensive skill.
Xoph’s Inception was the other big piece. I applied a prophecy to make it an easy 5 link and put my golems inside once I hit level 34. Along with that, I bought the Primordial Chain so that I could wield a few golems for buffs (mainly Stone Golem for the life regeneration and Ice Golem to buff my accuracy and critical hit chance). At that point, leveling felt a little better except that my golems would die early on. Eventually, I pathed on the tree to use Sacrifice to give them a little life regeneration and boosted life until I can acquire Primordial Harmonies.
Once I ascended and took Liege of the Primordial, I could have a little army. I went immediately for Golem Commander for an additional life boost to my golems and the +1 golem. For the most part, that became my main leveling spec up until level 64 where I switched to Xoph’s Nurture. I tried 6-linking my (I have 26% quality from a Hillock) but so far I only managed a 5-link. It’s fine as I moved my Burning Arrow support to my bow and put my golems on my Belly of the Beast chest piece which has a 6-link.
The main juggling piece though is dexterity in this build because of Xoph’s Nurture. You require quite a bit and need to invest in a few key dexterity nodes. I’m using the Agility passive for now but may consider the unique jewel that converts intelligence nodes into dexterity.
At the moment, I’m finding that the build has come together and finally is shaping up in terms of DPS. Some of the harder decisions will be to eventually remove the Lioneye’s Paws as it’s a really great QoL type of item that compliments my setup. However, I think that with Xoph’s Nurture and my basic golem setup, I really won’t be needing that item any longer and probably should fall back to better rare boots so I can gain better defensive stats (movement, resistance and life).
One thing I am excited about is lab and trials believe it or not. I’ve been demotivated when it comes to trials just because of how annoying they end up being. And I’ve been wanting a decent character who can survive so that I don’t use my necromancer for those things (totally can but just not interested). I was making a Juggernaut Sweep character and have the gear to do it. But that character just doesn’t feel great, especially for the current content.
At any rate, I am very pleased with Burning Arrow. The single target is quite impressive and at the moment the Vaal portion is quite brutal in wiping out bosses. I think once I get more jewel slots opened up, I’ll invest heavily into Primordial Harmonies which should just make my golems permanently up for the majority of the time and make this build feel excellent. Overall, this build ended up being quite fun to play and I am looking forward to getting this character into maps soon.