Intro & build description
It is a Bow character utilizing reach of the council, added chaos/chaos damage, poison mechanics to the extreme with superb aoe clear and single target damage.
For AoE clear, it uses Lightning arrow+pierce.
For single target it uses Barrage with applied poison through Snakebite for very good single target damage, enough to kill Uber Atziri, guardians and the Shaper !
Using Queen of the Forest (hence the name King, because Shadow/Marauder is male) and stacking movespeed on gear, the character gets most of its defense from super high evasion (over 20.000 possible with good gear) and moving at a very high rate.
This movespeed also provides an insane boost in clearspeed, as you are only limited by how fast you can move between packs once your damage is high enough.
This is one of the most versatile and powerful builds right now. It can farm all content, including Uber Atziri, Shaper, all Guardians, high level maps and Uber lab. One Build for everything !
Build Pros
- Very high life pool (over 6000 easily achievable)
- Tanky (20.000 evasion, acrobatics) - Porcupines are no danger for this build.
- Very high movespeed: over 90% possible without flasks, over 200% fully buffed.
- Superb aoe clear : oneshot packs with lightning arrow. pierce through the pack to oneshot even the next pack offscreen. The new unique Flask Dying Sun even puts the AoE clear to a new level.
- No reflect issues: most of the damage is chaos, so no reflect rare can kill you. easy solution for reflect maps.
- Excellent Uber Lab runner due to high life regen and high burst single target damage / decoy totem mechanics.
- Almost all mapmod viable/can basicly alc and go.
- Excellent Uber Atziri farmer.
- Shaper and all guardian viable with good gear.
- One of the highest non-whirling blades clearspeed.
- Very fun and satisfying to play.
- Good pvp character.
Build Cons
Passive tree(s) and Path of Building
Pasive Tree Crit versionBandits
Bandits Quest Choice |
Help Oak |
Ascendancy skill points
Labyrinths | Skill point choice |
---|---|
Labyrinth 1 | Crave the Slaughter |
Labyrinth 2 | Aspect of Carnage |
Labyrinth 3 | Rite of Ruin |
Endgame Labyrinth | Pain Reaver |

Skill gem setup
Helm
Vaal Haste
Immortal Call
Increased Duration Support
Cast when Damage Taken Support
Body Armor
Barrage
Pierce Support
Added Chaos Damage Support
Slower Projectiles Support
Void Manipulation Support
Faster Attacks Support
Gloves
Blood Rage
Blink Arrow
Frenzy
Faster Attacks Support
Boots
Decoy Totem
Summon Ice Golem
Grace
Arctic Armour
2h Weapon
Lightning Arrow
Added Chaos Damage Support
Pierce Support
Slower Projectiles Support
Void Manipulation Support
Faster Attacks Support
1h Weapon
None
Offhand weapon / shield
None
Build uniques / Example rare gear
Tip: Click on the item to view it on PoE Wiki or to view similar rare items in poe.trade2Hand Weapon
Reach of the CouncilQuiver
DrillneckHelmet
Devoto's DevotionBody Armour
Queen of the ForestGloves
SnakebiteBoots
Hydrascale BootsBelt
Leather BeltAmulet
Turquoise AmuletLeft Ring
Ruby RingRight Ring
Two-Stone RingIf you can’t afford Reach of the Council, you can start with a Lioneye’s Glare Bow, it costs 1 Chaos and will carry you all the way to T11 maps.
(If you cannot afford a Reach, you can buy a Death’s Opus ! It is almost as good as Reach if not better in some cases, and is alot cheaper.)
This gear is very close to being perfect. I am trying to push the limits with this build. You do by far means not need this level of gear to be strong. However every extra upgrade is worth it and scales the damage very well.
Gameplay
The goal of this build was to abuse “double dipping” Poison to the maximum:
When applied by a Projectile, “Projectile Damage” applies to the initial hit as well as to the Poison DoT damage, effectively “double dipping” in the total damage.
Using a bow skill with added chaos – slowerproj-pierce-void manipulation combined with Drillnecks Projectile damage, Projectile damage from the tree, Frenzy Charges, and Assassin’s “100% More Poison Damage with crits” now combine together to a huge doubledipping fest.
We get a free poison effect on all attacks at max. frenzy charges using snakebite. We only use 4 charges in total so that they are easy to get (use frenzy for bosses, bloodrage enough for maps) and to sustain. Getting more would be detrimental, because of snakebite’s 10%reduced duration per charge.
I chose Lightning arrow as a skill because of its supreme AoE coverage. You should definetely try and compare it for example with Tornado shot. Personally I feel LA is much better. Despite what other people claim, I still think it is one tier above Splitarrow/Tornado shot or whatever. Its too good and needs a nerf.
You might think its a bad idea to use it, since 50% of physical damage gets converted to lightning, right? Yes, but since we use added chaos damage and void manipulation, we dont really care about that. The physical damage is a great bonus, but chaos is the real deal. And with Crits, the Lightning part can also apply shock. While split arrow / Tornado do more damage against a single enemy, the AoE Lightning effect also applies poison, allowing several stacks through one attack if you hit a pack, which makes it so good.
Reach of the Council is the most OP unique Item GGG has released since Skyforth. It is GG BIS for this build. Why ? Because we dont need a GMP gem. The 26% LESS Damage modifier on it double dips as well, i.e. it reduces the inital hit damage by 26% AND the Poison damage by 26%. That was the reason why your DOT suffered so much from being applied by an AoE skill. With reach, you can use your single target skill now for pack clearing ! Balanced!!!!!11111 Even after the recent nerf, it is still insanely powerful !
As this build does mostly chaos/poison damage, we dont need any offensive auras. Yet Grace is very good, providing defense and Movespeed if you chose to use Queen of the forest. For the second aura you can use whatever you want. Blasphemy setup, Arctic armour, a Purity or a herald for styling bonus.
Once you reach the point of damage where you oneshot everything and your single target damage is great, all that limits your clearspeed is movementspeed as a bow character. This build also has a very high movespeed: 90% without any flasks or buffs possible ! Devotos devotion, 30% Movespeed on boots, and some from the tree, plus the bonus from queen of the forest all add up to alot. You can scale it to absurd amounts with a quicksilver, silver, Jade and Stibnite Flask, pumping your Evasion and therefore your Movespeed into insane levels.
On top of having insane damage, one of the highest movespeeds of any archers, this build now also gets a huge life pool on top. I am almost at 6500k life at lvl 93, and there is some life left ready to get in the tree. Using a rare helmet with life instead of devotos pushes me to over 7000 life. You can get even higher with a belly of the beast/Kaoms heart if you really want.
All these features combined make up for a very versatile, reliable and fun archer to play, so definetely not your average ratsnestmaligarocritbow4klife build!
Hi, thanks again for another great guide. One thing I’m confused about is that in the build title it has Crit listed, however in the passive tree it says to take the Resolute Technique node which means you never deal critical strikes? What am I missing here? Thanks in advance =)
Hi! Thank you for notifying us – there has been a mistake from our side, this is a non-crit version of the build and there were few wrong gems in the setup. Gem setup is fixed now and title as well, thank you again for noticing. 🙂
Hey, thanks for the quick reply & fix! Awesome! One last question as I’m using the non-crit Berserker; does all the info in the Intro/Build Pros/Gameplay sections still apply to the Berserker or is it only relevant for the crit Assassin version?
Thank again!
Yes, those apply to non-crit version as well!
Hi man, thanks again for the share!
Juste wanna know how you deal with mana issue?
Hi. An easy way to forget about mana problems is simply getting some mana on your gear for bigger mana pool and using mana Divine mana flask. Get one ring with high mana roll and you should be good 🙂
Why use Ice Golem with the non-crit build?
Ice Golem is for crit version, feel free to use Flame one.
What jewels are you recommending on the crit build?
Bow attack speed, projectile damage, increased maximum life, attack speed are good options.
Hi Great Build but I have a question about why immortal call is being used as this build doesn’t appear to use endurance charges.