"Strimtom's Acid Arrow", Maximum Bow DPS, F2P/new player Friendly

[LrdSlvrhnd]

1. How much spellpower is that bringing you to?

2. Right now Ive got Boots of Propulsion on my toon. I have read some to say that Rock boots are the best for this build due to the acid dmg buff? True? I would assume this would also apply to the Boots of Corrosion or their epic version?

502 acid spellpower, or 487 force spellpower, depending on the gloves. I suspect others can get their totals higher, but I haven't been able to farm 5-piece LGS or slavers sets lol (and I most likely wouldn't even if I could.)

The Rock Boots are definitely competitive with CC corrosion (even better, actually), if you can find striding/speed elsewhere. Using striding augs (or crafted striding) really isn't advisable until 20 when you hit max striding, considering how far behind the curve both systems run from lootgen speed. Boots of Corrosion are also not bad, but they'd quickly fall behind (the heroic boots have Corrosion +48 at ML5; CC has 47 at ML3 and 59 at ML5, and the gap just gets wider from there; Epics are +90, which you can craft at ML14, while crafted ML20 is Corrosion +111... and again, the gap quickly widens.) If you have the ings to craft at least T1 Rock Boots at every level (and preferably T2 at L11) *and* have a way to competitively boost your runspeed, Rock Boots are definitely extremely viable when doing acid arrows (won't do a thing for force arrows, of course).

And having logged on and looked at my enhancements... I took out Dispelling Shot, Banishing Arrows, Smiting Arrows, Awareness, & Mystical Archer, as well as Favored Defense & Extra Enemy from DWS, and put the points into Head Shot, Stealthy (for the sneak attack die), Increased/Versatile Empathy (2 points in each, for the Positive spellpower), and also only 2 points in Favored Hunter), & Horizon Shot. Extra points went towards Harper (Agent of Good/Enchantment) and Dwarven Toughness/Constitution (to even myself out). Oh, and Shatermantle Shot, mostly for the +3[W] but the SR reduction is nice.

[Broughden]

So it would appear everyone is saying Corrosive or Potency spell power boosts stack?
But Im getting an in game message that they do NOT stack.

So is it an error? Or am I trying to stack corrosion buffs in the wrong slots? Or what? I have corrosion on the gloves, necklace, armor, and a longbow (as well as a red ruby corrosive gym).

[unbongwah]

Standard Potency and Corrosive gear are equipment bonuses and therefore don't stack. You might be confusing Potency with Implement bonuses, which is a different type and therefore stack with an equipment bonus. Then there's Insightful, Quality, Alchemical...seriously, there's 10 different types of Spellpower bonuses you can get just from gear or temp buffs like potions, it's kinda ridiculous, IMO. EDIT: don't forget your Spellcraft skill as well.

http://ddowiki.com/page/Spellpower#Standard_magic_items

[LrdSlvrhnd]

Potency & Corrosion absolutely do not stack. As Unbongwah said, Insightful/Quality/Exceptional/etc. Potency would stack with Corrosion... but it wouldn't stack with Insightful/Quality/Exceptional/etc. Corrosion (I mean, Insightful Potency would stack with Quality Corrosion. But the same type of bonus wouldn't.) Also, if you have Corrosion on your gloves, necklace, armor, and longbow, then you're pretty much wasting four slots covering the same thing. Corrosion +90 & Corrosion +80 doesn't equal Corrosion +170, it equals Corrosion +90 (as the highest slotted effect). The *only* time they would stack is if they are explicitly different bonus types.

The only reason to have Corrosion & Potency would be to have a high acid spellpower for your imbue, and also have a boosted spellpower for other effects - when you switch to Force Arrows, or for your Cures/Cocoon, or if you take Concecration or Ruin, etc.

[Broughden]

Standard Potency and Corrosive gear are equipment bonuses and therefore don't stack. You might be confusing Potency with Implement bonuses, which is a different type and therefore stack with an equipment bonus. Then there's Insightful, Quality, Alchemical...seriously, there's 10 different types of Spellpower bonuses you can get just from gear or temp buffs like potions, it's kinda ridiculous, IMO. EDIT: don't forget your Spellcraft skill as well.

http://ddowiki.com/page/Spellpower#Standard_magic_items

Great so Im wasting a 4 equipment slots currently, plus the crafting mats I used to make a corrosive bow with a corrosive ruby in it.
*sigh*
Okay so if I have ONE potency item and ONE corrosion item (since those are two standard but different buffs) would the general spell power of potency add to the acid specific spell power of the corrosion?
Or do those two not even stack together on their own?
As far as I know Im not confusing "potency" with anything. Im refering to the prefix "potency" that adds +x to ALL spell power (ie fire, acid, ice, etc)

Okay so what is a definitive list of corrosion or potency (general spell power) items (ie prefixes or suffuxes) I can acquire via random loot, vendors or crafting? That will STACK with each other and increase?
What can be acquired prior to my epic levels and what will need to wait until post 20?

Lrdslvrhnd you seemed to imply in your previous post that I could craft all this stuff but Im not seeing any shard that adds to acid spell power under cannith crafting other than the actual corrosive shard, which is what I used on my bow and which now doesnt stack with my gloves, or necklace or anything else. Did you mean something other than cannith crafting? Should I stop leveling cannith crafting?

Please keep in mind I havent played in 7 or so years and for me this is becoming incredibly frustrating to keep straight and understand, especially since the Wiki doesnt seem to do a good job in explaining all this.

But I do appreciate you taking your time to try to explain it all to me.

So starting to try to figure this out on my own...
Alchemical bonuses only come from clickies or pots. But the best clickes only give 12 and the pots 25, so thats maybe +37 if those two things can stack.
Implement bonuses are all small. On a +5 item Im only going to get an additional 10 to spell power.
Insightful only seems to be a stat bonus according to the wiki so no acid or potency spell power there..... unless the wiki is wrong?
Exceptional bonus on the wiki also lists only stats.
And the quality bonus wiki article is basically empty.

So yeah back to square one on how best to gear my acid ranger, and how to get to such high numbers in acid spell power.

[Hobgoblin]

Great so Im wasting a 4 equipment slots currently, plus the crafting mats I used to make a corrosive bow with a corrosive ruby in it.
*sigh*
Okay so if I have ONE potency item and ONE corrosion item (since those are two standard but different buffs) would the general spell power of potency add to the acid specific spell power of the corrosion?
Or do those two not even stack together on their own?
As far as I know Im not confusing "potency" with anything. Im refering to the prefix "potency" that adds +x to ALL spell power (ie fire, acid, ice, etc)



Lrdslvrhnd you seemed to imply in your previous post that I could craft all this stuff but Im not seeing any shard that adds to acid spell power under cannith crafting other than the actual corrosive shard, which is what I used on my bow and which now doesnt stack with my gloves, or necklace or anything else. Did you mean something other than cannith crafting? Should I stop leveling cannith crafting?

.

potency does not stack with corrosion

something you may want to look at getting though is panasophic circlet

it has insightful potency which will stack

basically look for - corrosion
- spellpower
- equipment bonus (the ruby on your bow should help with that)
- insightful corrosion
these all stack for higher acid damage

but dont neglect your physical damage either
such as deadly seeker etc

and cannith crafting is well worth it, even though it seems like a pain now

you can craft insightful corrosion

http://ccplanner.byethost14.com/?i=2%00%00%00

[Broughden]

potency does not stack with corrosion

something you may want to look at getting though is panasophic circlet

it has insightful potency which will stack

basically look for - corrosion
- spellpower
- equipment bonus (the ruby on your bow should help with that)
- insightful corrosion
these all stack for higher acid damage

but dont neglect your physical damage either
such as deadly seeker etc

and cannith crafting is well worth it, even though it seems like a pain now

you can craft insightful corrosion

http://ccplanner.byethost14.com/?i=2%00%00%00

Okay but thats 4 prefixes how is that going to add up to an additional 500+ in acid spell power? Will they be 100+ each by the time I hit 20?
Some one should look at making a "best in slot" guide for this build or something similar as a guide. There seems to be way to many confusing prefixes, suffixes, some that stack, some that dont....gah.

[unbongwah]

CThru's thread has a breakout of gear and how they contribute to his spellpower. But it can be a little hard to read so let me see if I can extract the salient bits.

Armor: Leathers of the Celestial Sage (fort159/dodge15/quality potency27/insight saves14/sheltering38/concealment20/deathblock/insightful spell focus2/green slotted Draconic Soul Gem/blue slotted armored agility2)
Neck: heal21 (soothing)/magnetism156/insightful con7
Ring swap: Strange Tidings (dex12/deception/sneak attack to hit8/sneak attack damage16/UMD7/diversion20/blue slotted spellcraft15/green slotted spooky wis2)
Gloves: dex15 (nimble)/deadly10/insightful electric spell power77

Electric Spell Power:
27 quality potency
156 item
77 insightful
15 slotted

Note that his Implement bonus (42) comes from the AA core enhancement: "All bows are treated as Implements in your hands, granting Spell Power."

Also, "Potency" just means it's a bonus to universal spellpower; vs Corrosion, Magnetism, etc. which indicates it boosts only a single type of spellpower. You also have to pay attention to the type of bonus it provides, because same-type bonuses don't stack. So a Potency equipment bonus won't stack with a Magnetism equipment bonus; but a Potency quality bonus will stack with a Magnetism equipment bonus, which is what CThru used.

[Broughden]

CThru's thread has a breakout of gear and how they contribute to his spellpower. But it can be a little hard to read so let me see if I can extra the salient bits.

Note that his Implement bonus (42) comes from the AA core enhancement: "All bows are treated as Implements in your hands, granting Spell Power."

Also, "Potency" just means it's a bonus to universal spellpower; vs Corrosion, Magnetism, etc. which indicates it boosts only a single type of spellpower. You also have to pay attention to the type of bonus it provides, because same-type bonuses don't stack. So a Potency equipment bonus won't stack with a Magnetism equipment bonus; but a Potency quality bonus will stack with a Magnetism equipment bonus, which is what CThru used.

Thank you! So in all it appears he really isnt getting that much from his gear in comparison to the AA skills, and other skills/enhancements/etc.
Such as.....
11 ranks
10 epic
60 epic universal spell power
20 epic spell power electric
40 scion of the plane of air
5 interrogation
3 tome
14 int38
20 arcane archer
1 harper agent of good

I assume the same holds true for acid rather than electric.
So now I just need to start figuring out how to go about acquiring some of this: Leathers of the Celestial Sage, Epic Sapphire Sting, Epic Quiver of Alacrity

When I logged back in for the first time in 7 or so years last year I had two Sapphire Stings (edit- Nevermind I actually have something called Pinion Cloudpiercer not Sapphire Sting) in my inventory from some box, no idea what they were for and no idea what to do with them. I imagine there must be some crafting/upgrade quest line similar to the old green steel items to turn this all into epic quality gear and select the bonuses on the items?

Anyway looks like I have a LOT of work to do on some of the gear.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

Also, "Potency" just means it's a bonus to universal spellpower; vs Corrosion, Magnetism, etc. which indicates it boosts only a single type of spellpower. You also have to pay attention to the type of bonus it provides, because same-type bonuses don't stack. So a Potency equipment bonus won't stack with a Magnetism equipment bonus; but a Potency quality bonus will stack with a Magnetism equipment bonus, which is what CThru used.

Potency actually now reads as giving a bonus to *each* spellpower, as Universal Spellpower is another beast altogether. USP mostly (maybe exclusively?) comes from enhancements and feats, but it's fully and completely stacking.

Corrosive shards = acid spellpower. Once you get high enough, you can also craft Insightful Corrosion, which is an insightful bonus that stacks with regular corrosion. Spellsight & Insightful Spellsight, and Intelligence & Insightful Intelligence can all also be crafted, and indirectly boost your acid spellpower (actually, they boost all your spellpowers except healing, sonic, and negative... not that you particularly have to worry about the latter two). At cap (ML30/treasure level 34 crafted gear) I'm getting:

159 - Corrosion
79 - Insightful Corrosion
48 - Spell Implement (+13 Enhancement Bonus, +2 from Arborea, +1 from Harper Enchantment = +16, multiplied by 3 because it uses the old-school Spell Implement calculations)
20 - Universal Spell Power from Corrosive Arrows & Elemental Damage x3
1 - USP from Harper Agent: Agent of Good
20 - Epic Spellpower: Acid
20 - USP from Scion of Arborea
60 - USP from Epic Power x10
2 - from Inherenet Spell Power (Mysterious Remnant tomes)
65 - Spellcraft (11 ranks, 22 gear, 3 tome, 14 from INT (10 base, +4 tome, 15 item, 7 Insightful item, 2 ship buff = INT 38 for +14 modifier), +3 from Forbidden Library, +2 Good Luck, +10 Epic Skills

This is 474; I'm at 501, so I'm not sure where the remaining 27 points are coming from, but I do believe rounding errors may be involved - when I remove my Corrosion/Insightful Corrosion item, I lose 240 spellpower, not 238, for instance, so that means it's actually up to 476 and I only need to find 25 missing points.

I could increase this by adding Quality Potency or Quality Corrosion (the latter is only found on one item); Insightful Spellsight; Mythic Boost (Weapon, Belt, Gloves, Goggles, Ring, and Trinket - each would stack); or Reaper Boost. However, only one of my rings is non-crafted, so I'd have to find a really good (and otherwise useful) item with a mythic/reaper boost to get me to regear. I could also increase this with Slave Lords crafting (Higher Corrosion, higher INT, Quality INT & Spellcraft, and Artifact INT & Corrosion with a 3/5 set bonus)... but I'd have to be *extremely* careful how I regeared myself, and I'm not entirely positive I wouldn't actually end up losing more (in other fields) than I'd gain.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

So now I just need to start figuring out how to go about acquiring some of this: Leathers of the Celestial Sage, Epic Sapphire Sting, Epic Quiver of Alacrity

When I logged back in for the first time in 7 or so years last year I had two Sapphire Stings (edit- Nevermind I actually have something called Pinion Cloudpiercer not Sapphire Sting) in my inventory from some box, no idea what they were for and no idea what to do with them. I imagine there must be some crafting/upgrade quest line similar to the old green steel items to turn this all into epic quality gear and select the bonuses on the items?

Anyway looks like I have a LOT of work to do on some of the gear.

For the Sapphire Stings, you would need to run Epic Temple of Elemental Evil until you acquired one. Pinion is a *very* good bow, however, and will serve you in good stead in the meantime. You may be able to acquire the Thunder-Forged Dwarven Ingots & Shadow Dragon or Fire Dragon Scales on the AH to craft a T2 Thunder-forged Bow, which would also be quite good; most popular version to build would be 1st-Degree Burns (for Vulnerability) & Paralyzing Fear (for 5% chance to paralyze, with no save), which would require 100 Shadow scales (along with the Dwarven Ingots, and Commendations of Valor).

Leathers of the Celestial Sage come from Legendary Tempest's Spine & Legendary Hound of Xoriat. They either drop in the end chest of both raids (with a possible Mythic boost), or you can turn in 1,250 Tempest Runes (acquired from LTS) or 1,000 Xoriat Runes (acquired from LHoX).

Epic Quiver of Alacrity comes from Mark of Death.

Of the three items, I'd concentrate on the Leathers. LTS runs are fairly common, and LHoX runs aren't too infrequent, while EToEE and MoD are all but non-existent. The Leathers also cover Ranged Alacrity (though you should get the feat Blinding Speed which provides +22% ranged alacrity) and Stealth Strike, and you can get 8% Doubleshot with ML27 Cannith Crafting (or 9% if you can craft 31 shards or higher) which really just leaves the Sneak Attack bonus. Which, while nice, I'm not sure is worth the farm lol

Epic Sapphire Sting and the TS/Xorian Runes are all BtA; Leathers & EQoA are BtC.

The Legendary Ring of Prowess comes from Good Intentions, and LFMs for those aren't terribly uncommon; a group that knows what it's doing can hit that for decent XP/min, so some people include it on their daily XP runs.

[Talonas1971]

Im a new player. Followed your guide to the T, with the exception of going human. The issue I'm having is at level 3 I cant activate acid arrow because I only have 12 spellpoints. I have a starting wisdom of 12. It still wasn't enough. You may want to mention that.

[hombokai]

If the Discarded Ring (+10sp) from The Collaborator in Korthos won't do the trick you can take a point of Energy of the Wild early.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

Im a new player. Followed your guide to the T, with the exception of going human. The issue I'm having is at level 3 I cant activate acid arrow because I only have 12 spellpoints. I have a starting wisdom of 12. It still wasn't enough. You may want to mention that.

Any spellpoint (potency, wizardry) item should do the trick. And remember that you don't have to be in-quest; you can turn it on as soon as you log in, so even if you find an item where you have something better you can toggle it on and then switch items. Force Arrows stays toggled on when you log; I'm not sure why Elemental Arrows doesn't.

[Sarzor]

I've been running a ranger based around this build and a few noticeable changes for those running reaper I found helpful:
- I spent points into AA first, got the first tier force arrows (for ghost touch) and grabbed an impulse item.
- I actually picked up two tiers of elemental arrows on top of force arrows before getting improved finesse. This means your arrows actually do reasonable force damage in reaper. If your to-hit is too low, you can get finesse first, however I found the difference between 0-2 force damage, and 10-12 to be quite important in reaper. I guess with a lower to-hit you'd come out ahead with more hitting
- I still did acid arrows outside of reaper
- Kite. OMG, kite in reaper. This build is not built to take big hits, especially from carnage reapers.
- Get a shield clickie/scroll. The reaper magic missiles will mess you up.
- I didn't have the problem you're describing with Ram's might, so dunno about that

All in all, it's a fun build in reaper, but as with many, it benefits greatly from having a party to keep all the mobs off you. With the new aggro, when you shoot something from across a dungeon, the whole dungeon comes for you. And in the newer dungeons, that's 30+ mobs, which in reaper this build can't support the damage for.

A few modifications as I got into upper heroics and epic levels, and maintained doing reapers:
- I went back to full-on acid arrows, and equipped a ghostly item. Initially the cloak of invisibility at level 9, and then when I hit level 16+, a Cloak of night. The Treads of Falling Shadow are decent too, if you're a dex build.
- I find Fury of the Wild to be the best for this. Turn on manyshot and the epic moment, and you obliterate bosses. Most other mobs are not the challenge as you can kite, but you can't kite bosses easily, usually because they're in small rooms, and have obscene HP.

[Rhysem]

I'm also running this. Having fun so far and looking forward to level 6 and my pre-patch silver longbow.

FYI you can bind it with the stone of change without it getting upgraded to the new level 8 version. I assumed that was true but hadn't been able to find confirmation of that via the googs.

[Rhysem]

A few modifications as I got into upper heroics and epic levels, and maintained doing reapers:
- I went back to full-on acid arrows, and equipped a ghostly item. Initially the cloak of invisibility at level 9, and then when I hit level 16+, a Cloak of night. The Treads of Falling Shadow are decent too, if you're a dex build.
- I find Fury of the Wild to be the best for this. Turn on manyshot and the epic moment, and you obliterate bosses. Most other mobs are not the challenge as you can kite, but you can't kite bosses easily, usually because they're in small rooms, and have obscene HP.

Huh. I was looking at it and going, "I should have crafted force spellpower and just ignored the acid" when thinking about reapers. I guess my problem is most of the existing ghostly items offer so very little (including the cloak of night), other than ghost touch/ethereal that it sucks to dedicate a slot to it.

[SerPounce]

Huh. I was looking at it and going, "I should have crafted force spellpower and just ignored the acid" when thinking about reapers. I guess my problem is most of the existing ghostly items offer so very little (including the cloak of night), other than ghost touch/ethereal that it sucks to dedicate a slot to it.

10% staking miss chance and ghost touched weapons is pretty good for a slot IMO. If you don't care about the incorporeal miss chance then starting at lvl 15 the ring of the stalker (cannith challenges) has ethereal and some other pretty solid effects (vorpal on humanoids, seeker, sneak attack).

The difference in DPS between elemental arrows and force arrows is pretty significant. I wouldn't want to go full time force.

[Rhysem]

Doesn't stack with displacement, although I don't know that I'll *have* displacement, so I guess there is that to consider. My last few lives had.

Good to know that there is a big damage difference. It didn't look like there should be -- 1d6 + bonus die + on crit isn't that different than 1d8 + bonus die on paper.

[unbongwah]

Doesn't stack with displacement

If you're referring to Ghostly items: yes, it does stack, as Blur/Displacement are concealment bonuses, while Ghostly is an Incorporeal bonus.